like at first site
So, I walk out the door assuring my father that I have plans with friends and will not be going out alone. A lie. But then again...
I like to think that I've mastered the art of hailing a taxi. I think I have so mastered the art, that now I have begun to hail Lincoln Town cars instead. So, a young Pakastani man says he'll take me to East Village for 12 bucks. A fair price. When we arrive to St. Marks and 3rd, he asks if I like Indian food. Says that he'll take me to just the place. Just the place on 6th street. We park and walk down a street lined in restaurants with beautiful mulit-colored lights dangling from the ceiling and exotic swarthy swami types in turbans and white beards sitting in the bay windows patting little drums and fingering sitars. So, I have dinner with the driver.
YOU ASKED FOR IT.....(drrrrum rrrrrrrolll please)
An interview with a New York Pakastani Limo Driver goes something like this:
So, how long have you lived in New York?
For ten years. I love New York
And is the car your car?
Yes, I purchased the car for 15-20 thousand and the radio inside cost me 15 thousand dollars besides.
Wow the radio alone? So when do you work?
I work from about 4 o'clock in the afternoon until whenever... midnight
And do you always pick people up on the side of the street, or do you mainly pick up people that have called in?
Mainly I pick up people with companies that have contracts with us, and then sometimes people I see on the street. They each have special fares with their contracts. I drive them usually long distances...sometimes Connecticut, New Hampshire,.....
--
We eat. He tells me about the dinky village he lived in, his family, his college, his time in New York. He insults the waiter by telling him the food has gone downhill in just a matter of weeks. The manager even comes out to find out first where my dinner friend is from and then what might have happened to the food, as he is anxious to protect the zagut surveys proudly displayed in the window. The driver offers up no clue, only that it is not as "tasty as it had been. The chicken not as....
--
From there he offers to take me on a tour of the city. Wants to get ice cream. To Soho so I can shop. He drives me everywhere I want to go free of charge. He holds the umbrella, he waits while I try on clothes. Offers suggestions of skimpy tank tops made entirely of feathers (I have no where to wear such a thing I explain. Just around the house, he says. For what? To dust?)
So does this computer here have GPS
You mean for maps? No not yet, we're working on that
So this thing, they know that you're active and waiting to work?
Yes, but they don't know where I am unless I tell them. See, here it says the Zone. Right now in the financial district we are in zone 1. The airport, that is zone 17.
Can we pick up someone right now?
No, it's a rule that we can't have people in the car when we pick up rides.
Have you ever picked up anyone famous?
I don't care much about famous people. But I did pick up Madonnas sister once from the airport once. She was nice, but not very pretty.
So, what the craziest story you have.
Lots of crazy stories
But the craziest...
Once I picked up a girl, very pretty very skinny. Wanted to go to the Bronx. She said "how do I look" and I said, you look good. She said 'No, how do I look?' ...she insisted that I really turn around and look, and when I did, she had taken her shirt off.
He takes me to the warf where he tries to hold my hand, tries to put his hands around my waist. Key words here: try. He gets ice cream, I get hot coffee. We go back to the car.
This is the portion of my trip where the Pakastani limo driver tells me he's crazy about me. Wants me to move to New York. Offers to find me a job even. No? He'll move to Dallas then, where we can be together. I'm so nice, so pretty, it was like at first sighte. He read my palm when he picked me up on the corner, and I quite clearly did not have a boyfriend. Boyfriends make lines appear on your hands instantly I ask. No, there's a secret he said, and he can't tell me other wise I'd make a fortune telling fortunes off of his little trick.
So the bullshit gets heavier from there. I'm embarassed for the muck. I take the lid off of my coffee for quick dumping, tell him he's making me nervous, and then to take me back to the hotel. Which he does. But he's very offended at my rejection.
He tells me romantic eastern stories of thirsty men that give up kingdoms for peasant girls with troughs of water. And that just about changes everything....about my coffee.
Safe again.
Whew.
I'm in love with this bellhop guy though.
Not ready to go home now...
Mario.
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