taxi cab confessions.

At one o’clock in the morning after a long night at Smith and Mills, half-drunk on Jameson’s in the back of a cab speeding up the West Side Highway, one of the last things I expected to have to deal with was a meaningful conversation with someone…especially not the driver of my cab.

"Gray’s Papaya," he said.

I think we were out of Tribeca at this point and nearing the 20’s, but I was barely paying attention. I was looking out the window at the city flying by, already trying to figure out how I was going to make it to the office in the morning.

"I’m sorry?" I asked.
"Gray’s Papaya, you know, the hotdog place on 6th?"
"Yeah I know it. What about it?"
"I got a ticket there today. Picked up a passenger while stopped in the crosswalk and the cop gave me a ticket, can you believe that?"

He sounded baffled.

"Is that illegal?" I asked.
"Well…yeah," he said. "But that’s not the point. You know those coppers got nothing better to do on a Wednesday night than write me up picking up someone by the curb."
"Yeah. Really ridiculous," I said. It didn’t sound like much of an outrage to me, but he seemed terribly upset.
"Of course it is!" he shouted.
"Well it’s near the end of the month, you know how those cops are…" I said cringing.

What was I even saying? I don’t how those cops "are," but it felt like the right thing to say.

"Oh I know it," he said. "And I should have known that woman was going to be trouble when I saw her standing there. Should never have picked her up."

We were quiet for a while and I wondered if maybe I was supposed to say something else, like about how women are trouble and that I was sorry he’d had had such a bad night.

"You know what I really want to do?" he asked, and I had a feeling he was going to tell me regardless.
"What’s that?"
"Be a doorman."

I nodded in the backseat but I don’t think he could see me.

"And not just any doorman, not an apartment building doorman, a hotel doorman. That’s where the good money is. Good money."
"That sounds like a great idea," I said thinking it over. "Why haven’t you done it?"
He was quiet for a moment before he spoke.
"I don’t know, actually," he said and it sounded like he surprised himself.
"That doesn’t really sound like a good enough reason to me," I said.
"I know," he said shaking his head. "I don’t know what I’m doing, why I keep putting it off…"
"Listen," I said, taking my A-1 professional tone. "What you need to do is make a list of the top ten hotels in the city you think you’d like to work for, and then call them. Get your resume ready and just show up, talk to their HR departments, whatever it takes."
"I know," he said, and he sounded like he really knew. "I know you’re right. I mean there’s the Sheraton, The Marriott, the Hilton…"
"All good places," I said channeling my best Dr. Phil. "But you need to actually do it, talking about it won’t actually get you the job."
"But…what if I’m not qualified?"
"You’re qualified. Of course you’re qualified. Look, you must be pretty prompt, I mean you’ve got to get in this car every day don’t you? And you’re a people person, right? I mean you’re in here all day talking to customers. What more could a doorman need to do?"
"You’re right," he said, nodding his head now. "I know you’re right. I don’t know what I’m so scared about."
"I don’t know either. This is New York," I said. "You can be anything you want as long as you try hard enough."

When we reached my corner I felt in that moment a great love for this city surge up in my chest.
Why in the world would anyone ever want to live anywhere else?

"You’re right. I’m really going to do it. I am. Thanks so much for your advice," he said and then turned back and smiled at me through the hole in the partition. "You owe me nineteen bucks."