Liberating Richard

The part of my life I miss the most is when I was fearless. Not necessarily intelligent or insightful, just fearless. To be righteously fearless one must have a cause, and mine was the mountain dulcimer. My partner Sally and I wrote Life Is Like A Mountain Dulcimer while squatting in a hikers’ cabin in Squamish, British Columbia. Under the dim but warm glow of an oil lamp we scratched out forty arrangements in crayon and colored pencil. A few weeks after finishing my first draft, I was deported from Canada for working without a visa. Ten days later my little blue Volkswagen bug threw a rod in Winnemucca, Nevada. But I was not one to be stopped by legalities and expired automobiles, for I had a folio full of mountain dulcimer arrangements, and I was going to New York to get it published. I had no doubt that I would succeed.

The publishing industry in my hometown did not greet me as I’d expected. My first three rejections were a sobering experience, and my financial conditions dictated that I obtain some form of work. So I did as many unemployed actors, poets, musicians did—I drove a cab. And I soon concocted a plan to use the cab to help me find a publisher.

A few nights a week I’d put my dulcimer in a case and take it to work with me. I’d then sit the case up on the front seat. On any given night I’d have between 25 and 40 fares, which meant as many as 240 fares in a six-day week. During a given evening many folks in the back seat would ask, “Hey, what’s in the case?” And I’d reply, “ It’s a dulcimer, and I’ve just written a book for this instrument, would you know a publisher who might be looking for a dulcimer book?”

Sometime during my third month of rolling up and down New York in a checker, an attorney who specialized in books gave me a number to call. Within two weeks I signed my first contract with the Richmond Organization for my aptly named book Life Is Like A Mountain Dulcimer. I was now part of the little remembered dulcimer “boom” of the midseventies, which was sparked by the album Blue by songwriter Joni Mitchell.

I was fearless and confident, which basically made me into a mountain dulcimer zealot. And like any inspired zealot I had to keep creating. While driving a cab and living upstairs in my parents’ house in Brooklyn, I decided to write a book of arrangements based on my dulcimer hero, Richard Fariña. This project would be both my homage to the departed bard and a big money-making idea. Who wouldn’t (I thought) want to own a book of Fariña’s dulcimer arrangement and his poetry?

Richard George Fariña was born in 1937 and brought up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on Linden Boulevard less then a mile from my parents’ house. His father, Liborio Ricardo, was from Cuba, and his mother, Theresa Crozier, was from Northern Ireland. He went to high school at Brooklyn Tech and won a regent scholarship to Cornell University.

While at Cornell he quickly changed his major from engineering to English and began writing poems and stories for the college literary magazine, The Cornell Writer. The junior editor for the magazine was Thomas Pynchon. Fariña and Pynchon soon became close friends and drinking buddies and influenced each other’s work. In time Fariña would dedicate his instrumental composition V to Pynchon, and Pynchon would dedicate his novel Gravity’s Rainbow to Fariña. In 1959 Fariña dropped out of Cornell, went to New York, and worked for a short time in advertising, but he was soon drawn into the folk scene happening in Lower Manhattan.

One evening he saw the Kentucky folk singer Jean Ritchie perform at folk club in Greenwich Village and became smitten by the mountain dulcimer. This, he decided, would be the perfect vehicle for his poetry. He soon married and toured with Carolyn Hester, but the relationship proved a disaster and ended in 1962. Folk legend has it that Carolyn pulled a gun on Richard in their Paris apartment shortly after he flirted with a young girl in a café. There are many stories like that surrounding the short life of Richard Fariña, all of which only added to his mystique.

In the spring of 1962 while still in Paris he met a sixteen-year-old dancer named Mimi Baez, and within a year they were married. The Baez family was skeptical of Richard at first, but in time his charm and wit won them over. Mimi and Richard composed music together on guitar and dulcimer, and by 1964 they were becoming a well-known folk duo. They recorded two wonderfully inspired and well-produced recordings for Vanguard Records—Celebrations for A Gray Day (April 1965) and Reflections in a Crystal Wind (December 1965). Their music consisted of Richard’s songs of political and social commentary as well as instrumentals he created for the mountain dulcimer. Mimi added her soprano harmony and played guitar and autoharp. They reached their peak at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, where even a massive thunderstorm could not keep the crowds from dancing to their music, all in various forms of undress.

Shortly after the Newport Festival Fariña completed his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, which was published by Random House. In just four years Fariña became a recording artist and a published author with a cabin in Big Sur, and was touring the folk scene with his beautiful young wife, Mimi. Fariña was a contemporary of Bob Dylan, who was living just down the road with Mimi’s sister, Joan.

As with most brilliant souls Fariña had his demons as well. One of them took hold of him on April 30 1966. Shortly after signing books at the Thunderbird Bookstore in Carmel Valley, he jumped on the back of a Harley motorcycle driven by his friend Willie Hinds. Somewhere on Carmel Valley Road Hinds lost control of the bike, and Fariña died instantly while the driver survived. Fariña hadn’t lived to see thirty.

He took the dulcimer out of the Appalachians and made it accessible to city kids like me. To anyone over forty who plays the dulcimer, Richard Fariña has earned patriarchal status. The publisher of my first book was not interested in my Fariña idea, nor was any other music publisher in New York. Being the eager fan that I was I decided to publish the book myself. In order to do so I had to license the rights from Warner Brothers. I can still remember the man at WB smirking the entire time we discussed, or rather he dictated the terms to me. He asked me a number of times why I didn’t want to license someone like Joni Mitchell or Neil Young as it would be the same price. “No,” I would reply, “I’ll pay the 12.5 percent per book for the music of Richard Fariña since I have a handle on the dulcimer world.”

“Suit yourself, kid,” he replied as I signed off on the deal and handed over $750 in advance. I then borrowed $1,000 from my folks and threw in $2,000 from my cab-driving career. I had an artist friend (Jude Brae) from Vancouver do all the illustrations, which were based on Fariña’s liner notes from his recordings.

After having the music engraved, Sally and I took all the music and illustrations over to Faculty Press in Brooklyn. They were an old New York socialist printer who printed Sing Out, The Pete Seeger Banjo Book, and a number of other political journals. The staff at Faculty Press appreciated the fact that we were putting out a book on Richard and Mimi’s music and treated us like kindred spirits. They never charged us for all the prepress work they did. I’m sure it was due to the fact that so many of the songs in the book were political. I printed up 5,000 copies and quickly became aware of how little I knew about book distribution. I soon realized that most dulcimer players were not interested in Fariña. When I left New York City I loaded up all the books and took them back to Canada. Two years latter I loaded them up again for my migration to Santa Cruz.

Shortly after moving to Santa Cruz I made an appointment with Mimi Fariña and drove up to Mill Valley to present her with a copy of the book. As she scanned through the work, I noticed she stopped on the page that had an illustration of a woman in a cabin in Big Sur cooking on an old wood stove. As this image was based on Richard’s liner notes I realized it was she.

Mimi stared at the picture for minute and I could tell she was moved by it. She thanked me for producing the book but told me it was really all his music. “I was nineteen when we recorded these albums, it seems like a different life ago,” she said as we shook hands before I left her office.

By 1997 I still had over 3,000 of my inspired creation living under my bed and in various closets around my home. Then a few small miracles happened.

Shorty after hearing a Richard and Mimi recording of “Reno Nevada,” Douglass Cooke (yet another Brooklyn native) created a Mimi & Richard Fariña web page and a book on his life. Positively Fourth Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña by David Hajdu was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In December 2009, I sold my last copy.

We were both from Brooklyn, and we ended up in the same area of California playing the dulcimer. We also both broke down in Winnemucca, Nevada. What better zealot is there than I to digitally give to the world some of the classic arrangements of Richard Fariña, which will include “Another Country,” “Bold Marauder,” “One Way Ticket,” “Tuileries,” “A Swallow Song,” “Chrysanthemum,” “Raven Girl,” and “Joy Round My Brain”?

This book is available on my Square Site for $4.95 (digital only). The same price it was when we first produced the work in 1973.

New Year's Eve

New Years Eve

Sometime around 2,000 BC a group of intuitive and fun loving Babylonians decided to create a holiday to celebrate the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox. This celebration of the coming of spring was also a logical time to bring in a New Year. The long dark days of winter had passed; and life was renewing itself all around them. The Babylonians then spent the next two weeks dancing, feasting and planting new crops. They had chosen the perfect season to celebrate a New Year, one that we still acknowledge as the first day of spring.

Nineteen hundred years latter the Romans, and their incestuous, wicked Emperors began to do nasty and nefarious things with the calendar. They tampered with it so much that in 46 BC Julius Caesar decided something very radical needed to be done in order to bring the calendar back in synch the sun. So Mr. Caesar decreed that the previous year go on for 445 days and he then named the first month of the New Year after Janus, the Roman deity who was able to look forwards and backwards at the same time.

The entire concept of having a New Year start in the middle of winter is in essence a very incongruous and distorted idea. Yet by 1600 or so it stuck, and most of the occupants of the earth soon adopted the concept of starting a New Year when absolutely nothing new was happening.

However if there were one place on earth to celebrate an incongruous and distorted idea created by the decadent old Emperors of Rome, it would certainly be New York City, The Big Apple, and my hometown.

In keeping with perhaps some of the original Babylonian celebrations I rode the roads of Gotham in my own special chariot. Instead of horses and wheels I commanded a moving yellow vehicle which rolled along on four hard circular pieces of rubber and was propelled by an engine, one which consumed a magic liquid composed of ancient pieces of giant monsters which once roamed the earth long before the Babylonians discovered Spring or the Romans conquered Carthage.

I loved to drive on New Years Eve for this was the night all the residents joyfully reached back into their collective ancestral memories and remembered some of their primal reasons for being on the Earth. Especially the ones that included alcohol, pot, various controlled substances, dancing, laughing, being loud, and enjoying food and sex though not in any particular order.

This was the one night of the year that the entire city seemed to let its collective hair and allow party angel of Gotham to sprinkle them all with urban pixie party dust. Which to a man behind the wheel of a Taxi meant that the clientele was constant and the tips were great. I’d get invited to a dozen or so parties but I would never desert my cab. For my goal was to return home with at least $200.00 in cash in my pocket and if that meant staying out until 3 AM well so be it.

This New Years the Gods of weather were not being favorable to the residents of the great steel canyon. New York had a week of some incredibly harsh ice storms and by 2 AM the streets were deserted. By 2:30 I found myself uptown with only $160.00 on the clock and made the decision to beat the retreat and call it a night. I rolled down Second Avenue hoping to get that last magic fare back to Brooklyn. Just above 60^th street a very shivering older couple were waving their collective arms in a frenzied and very bird like fashion to hail me/

The man stumbled up to my window, and as he was approaching the cab I realized he had enough alcohol in his system to pickle each of his organs in a most generous fashion. He smiled a very frozen and potted smile and said “hey listen, you take a nice Greek man and his wife to Queens and I give you thirty bucks, hey you don’t throw the clock just make it for yourself, that’s good eh, that’s good. I’m Nicky and this is Sophia, we’ve just come from great Greek party but we very cold and have to go home now.”

“I smiled at Nicky and replied “that sounds great but I know where your going and it’s miles from Northern Boulevard and your neighborhood is going to be one giant sheet of ice and I’d really like to get back to Brooklyn one piece.”

He tilts his head and says “oh come take Nicky and Sophia to Steinway Street, were three blocks from the B.Q.E, you drop us off and boom you be back in the city or in Brooklyn in no time, hey I still have a half a bottle of Ouzo we could sip it all they way there, thirty dollars we give you thirty dollars that’s good…no”?

He then dips his inebriated head into my cab and looks at my hack license and say’s “hey you nice Jewish boy you know I’m Greek you know we have connection, you know, Jews and Greeks love music and food and dancing, yes I am right yes?”

Visions of Yahweh and Apollo playing shuffleboard were dancing through my mind as I dipped into my history major background to honestly try to remember some great Greco-Judaic connection and indeed I found one. In 1492 when Spain expelled all their Jews, it was the Greeks that offered them sanctuary, many Jews did indeed settle in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. So as loaded, as Nicky was, his inebriated historical pitch did indeed have a whiff of some historical accuracy. Anyhow, they were about to freeze to death and $30.00 for what really is a $7.00 ride sounded just too tempting to me. The other benefit was that $30.00 would make it almost a $200.00 night. I could drop them off, head back in to the city get two more rides and my night would be golden.

“Ok Nicky it’s a deal” I replied with confidence and as much enthusiasm as one could muster at 2:30 am. He once again stuck his head into my cab and tried to kiss me on the cheek. I leaned hard to the right to avoid his Athenian advances but assured him that his friendship was well appreciated. With his head still inside of the cab he said, “ok I go kiss Sofia instead.”

I crossed over the 59^th Bridge and traveled up Northern Boulevard. Nicky and Sophia were laughing and drinking the last of the Ouzo and then commenced to enjoy what only can be described as some colorful and creative form of mating behavior. At this point in the evening I was extremely thankful that they only Greek I knew was Spanakopita, Moussaka and the names of a few islands of the coast of Greece.

Well, I thought this is indeed in keeping with the original Babylonian celebration of the New Year. I was very thankful that they were far too drunk to take their clothes off as my cab wobbled and skidded its way through the icy streets. I made sure the partition was closed and I turned up my radio, but I could still hear an unusual form of Hellenistic cooing from the rear seat of my now rolling chariot of love. A feeling of relief came over me as we arrived at their requested destination. I turn my radio down and said in a somewhat high volume, “It’s time for Nicky and Sophia to go to their little castle in Queens.” My request was met with silence.

I then rapped my fist hard on the partition a few times and eventually there was some grunting and movement in the back seat. Nicky stumbled his way out of the back of the cab and shut the door. He weaved his way to my window and shoved $30.00 in my breast pocket and lifted the empty bottle of Ouzo over his head and started to sing a song in his native tongue. He danced and sang loudly out of tune but I was sure Nicky was greatly enjoying himself as he carried on.

Observing Nicky chanting and dancing in the frozen early morning darkness made me wonder if he was truly part of the same culture that created democracy, modern science, the Olympics, philosophy, fooled the Trojans with a wooden horse and bravely defeated the Persian fleet at Thermopylae in the fifth century BC.

I smiled and nodded, rolled up my window, waved goodbye and ever so carefully started my way back through the icy streets of Queens, Nicky smiled as well and waved goodbye to me with an empty bottle of Ouzo.

It’s now starting to sleet, I could barely see out my window but I knew in just a few more blocks I’d be back on Northern Boulevard and then the bridge and soon I’d be rolling back into midtown.

Three bocks latter as I was stopped for a light I heard a voice one that seemed to be coming from the darkened street in back of my cab. I looked through the rear view and noticed that someone was trying to hail me. I quickly turned on my off duty light as I did not want to venture through any more ice covered back roads in one of New York City’s lesser boroughs.

He didn’t give up hailing me. He’s began to run and as he ran he was shouting and waving his arms up and down like some one drowning in the sea. He then began to scream: “stop, you stop, you stop now.” He was starting to catch up to me. Oh God I thought, he’s not slowing down. He’s probably on speed or cocaine and he doesn’t feel a thing. I ran a few red lights but had to keep my speed down to prevent a skid.

There was a full moon that night and as he ran he cast this giant a forbidding shadow on the many red brick apartment buildings that lined Steinway Street. I couldn’t see his face but my in mind all I kept hoping for was that he was unarmed and basically just some loony running around the streets on New Years Eve.

Just three more blocks (I thought) to Northern Boulevard and it’s a straight shot to the bridge. He was just thirty feet behind me when he took the fall. Although relieved I did feel a small sense of remorse when his head hit the ice. I actually thought of stopping my cab and at least drag him off the street. My compassionate side voted for that but my survival side just kept pushing down on that gas pedal and heading for Northern Boulevard.

Ten minutes and on bridge latter I was cruising down Second Avenue looking for that last fare to make my $200 night. There he was pointing downtown, yes he was going to the west village an easy $5.00 fare, and my $200 night was about to be consummated. He opened the door and freezes. With his eyes wide open he yells “there’s a women’s body in your back seat, there’s a women’s body in your back seat.”

Funny it all made sense as I thought that voice screaming behind me sounded a little like Nicky’s. Yes (I thought) Nicky stumbled out of the cab, and closed the door so the sleet storm wouldn’t hit his highly inebriated and now sleeping wife. He then stood there in his own private comatose as I took off. Though this was a somewhat challenging situation I knew I could deal with it.

“Hey listen man” I said to my fare “just jump in the front seat, I’ll take care of her latter.” With a wind chill factor of 10 below zero and no other cabs in sight he saw no other option but to obey my request and hopped in the front seat. All the way downtown he kept turning around and staring at her saying: “maybe she’s dead, do you think she’s dead? What are you going to do with her?”

“No” I replied, “her name is Sophia and she’s just taking a little nap due to her consumption of too much Ouzo, I promise you won’t hear a peep out of her, this I can say with unbridled confidence.”

Being in a playful mood I then said: “when we get to the village help me lift her out of the cab and we can put her on one of those heating grates. You know the ones you see on the sidewalks where smoke seems to be coming out of nowhere. That’ll keep her warm until the Sun comes up and perhaps a nice NYC policeman can help her out. My passenger was shocked at this suggestion.

“Well what if she freezes to death, how would you feel then?”

“Hey listen man” I replied, it’s not my fault her husband and her drank a bottle of booze and now she’s all forgotten in the back seat, hey what would you do?” I was just kidding but apparently failed to see the humor in my statement. He paid his $5.00 gave me a small tip and disappeared into the icy darkness of Horatio Street.

I just sat there for a minute and thought. It was very quiet in the cab though I could hear Sophia snoring in Greek in the back seat. My major ethical question confronting me was whether I should throw the clock again for the ride back to Queens. Figuring that Nicky might not be in the best of moods after his headfirst bounce on the frozen streets of Queens I decided Sophia’s ride back home would be on me.

As I journeyed back over the 59^th Street Bridge I felt a sense of elation and purpose for I was bringing Sophia back to the loving arms of her Nicolas I soon found myself humming the theme from Black Orpheus as I was once again navigated the icy streets of Steinway Avenue.

I was fortunate, that I had the presence of mind to write their address down on my log sheet before I started my first journey to Queens. However, upon my arrival there was bit of a logistical problem. There were at least four large red brick apartment houses at this corner and I had no idea which one was hers.

Then I heard him; it was the voice of a post bump on the head Nicky. He runs up to the cab weeping and shouting, “oh thank you God you have brought her back,” and quickly heads for the passenger door.

Sensing her lover’s arrival Sophia awakens from her dance with Morpheus as Nicky ambles helps her out of the cab. They start kissing and hugging and it’s now four AM and I’m witnessing this intense reunion in a wind chill of -30 degrees. Nicky puts another twenty in my pocket, I hug them both, jumped back in my cab and started my way back home to Brooklyn.

As I traveled along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway I reflected. I wondered if there was some old Babylonian New Year’s myth about two lovers renewing their vows and drinking from the sweet nectar while they made love. And suddenly for no reason the trickster Gods separated theses two sweet hearts. Morpheus enchanted the woman to sleep and to dream while her lover was held captive by Dionysus and was forced to dance and sing.

Sensing this injustice the Goddess Aphrodite looked into a golden apple and found her hero. She conjured the heart of a young mortal with long yellow hair and a scruffy beard who traveled the roads of the Metropolis in a golden-checkered vehicle Our hero soon found himself crossing frozen roads and bridges in his yellow chariot to deliver the lost maiden to her lover.

Truly I whispered to myself as I rolled down Flatbush Avenue, tonight I was part of a grand drama, one of both mythical and historical proportions.

Christmas Eve

Idlewild—such a mysterious and enchanting name, one that invokes a place where enormous birds touch down to land. Idlewild Airport had its grand opening when I was only 108 days old. Fifteen years and one assassinated president later it was renamed John F. Kennedy Airport. However, for me it will always be Idlewild, the place where great steel birds glide in, stay a little while, and then glide out once again.

However, on this evening, Christmas Eve at 10:00, there were no birds landing and there was a wind chill factor of minus twenty. I sat alone in my cab hoping to escape from JFK with a living, breathing passenger and avoid a boring and unprofitable forty-minute “dead head” trip back to the city.

I always drove a cab on holidays. Business was great, tips were generous, and folks were really happy to see me. People said things like, “Gosh, you could be home with your family, but here you are rolling around the streets of New York helping others connect with loved ones to share their holiday cheer.” Or my favorite, which was usually said in a voice a little above a whisper by older women who lived on the Upper East Side, “You and Santa working together on Christmas Eve—you’re a great pair.”

Yes, that was me, motoring around a place the Dutch called New Amsterdam in a checkered yellow vehicle, escorting various citizens of the Big Apple to their desired holiday locations. The mother on her way to see her new grandson, the lover on his way to meet his sweetheart, the poor fool who had to work the night shift, the two gay lovers necking in the back seat, and the actress on her way to the theater would all enter and depart my vehicle during this festive night.

On holidays it was always best to work Midtown and stay away from the airports. In Manhattan on Christmas Eve people fought over you. Folks would see you pulling over to let someone out, and the race would be on. I was a rolling people magnet, and one that could possibly return home to Brooklyn with $250 cash in his pocket—a tidy sum for 1975.

The day had started off promising. As I was departing the company garage on Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues, I immediately picked up a fare going out to JFK. That I could get from Flatbush Avenue to the airport in less than twenty-five minutes always amazed my customers. To them I was like a great Sherpa in Tibet who guided travelers through the Himalayas. Instead of snow-capped mountains pointing their peaks toward the heavens there was Linden Boulevard, Bushwick Avenue, and my knowledge of a back entrance to JFK that only a few of the cabbie illuminati were aware of.

Best of all, at this south entrance there was a granite marker with the fading but still visible words “Welcome to Idlewild Airport” written upon it. I dropped my fare off at United at 3:15 and then zipped over to American to catch the 3:20 coming in from Houston. I had a little book of my favorite arrivals that I always kept on the front seat. The key to success at the airport was being aware of both where the plane arrived from and at what time of day. For instance, the 3:20 arriving from Houston on a Wednesday afternoon would have some young executives going into Midtown Manhattan, probably to the Hyatt or the Sheraton on 57th Street. On a later flight I might pick up someone in management going to one of the more upscale hotels such as the Pierre or the Royalton.

By 3:20 it was already down to ten degrees, and the wind was whipping. It was hold-on-to-your-hat time out at JFK. Fortunately for me, the airport was “stripped and working,” meaning very few cabs and a great number of frozen life forms all desiring a warm ride into the city as soon as possible.

There were hoards of them all shivering in front of the arrival terminal, like lost children begging to be taken home. When I saw a line of folks and no cabs, I pulled up, and before anyone could get in my cab, I yelled out, “I can take a few parties to Midtown.” Three folks who had never met before got in my cab. At that time it was a $15 to $17 tab into the city.

After they settled in and felt how nice and warm it was inside, I said, “Welcome, pilgrims, it’s $20 each, tip included, to get you into Manhattan today.” This statement was met with some resistance at first.

“Oh no,” one of them said, “can’t we just split the clock and give you a bigger tip?”

“Not on the day of Christmas Eve,” I replied. “It’s ten degrees and getting colder, so if you’d like to wait for another cab, be my guest.” I started to open my door to let them out.

One of them said, with a bit of an edge in his voice, “OK, fine, just get us into the city.” I then turned around and collected my twenties before engaging the gas pedal.

They also noticed that I didn’t throw the flag down, and the meter showed all zeros. When they were so bold as to ask why, I simply said that I was putting all the money in my pocket and that was that. Just to make sure the deal was closed I turned around and lifted my hands, palms up. “Is there a problem?” I asked. They then bowed their heads and grimaced as if I were the devil himself.

I attempted to crack a few jokes, but my passengers seemed content to stay in a somewhat subdued state. It was a quiet ride into the city. I dropped them all off by 4:10 and then I continued to roll. From the Sheraton to the Village, and then up to 86th Street and through the park to the West Side, I was magic. It was one in, one out, and everyone wanted to ride with me.

I was sailing, and by 7:30 I had over $120 on the clock and $70 in my pocket. The cabbies and the company split the clock fifty-fifty, so I was on my way to at least a $250 night.

I was staying away from the hotels, as a trip to the airport now would not be in my best interest. There was an ice situation happening, flights were being canceled, JFK would be a tomb, and dead heading back when the city was working would not be the right choice. I also knew that during an ice storm some of the roads around JKF became impossible, and slipping around the wilds of Queens was simply not on my dance card.

Traveling north on Park Avenue I was hailed by a doorman. It was 7:30. Probably some well-to-dos out for a night at the theater, rushing to make an 8:00 curtain. “Open the trunk, please.” Words of doom, I could feel it. Oh God, a late night airport call. Before I could make an excuse, two elderly women slid into the back seat. As they did the one with the large hat said, “We need to make a 9:00 at Air France, we’re taking the red eye to Paris. Get us there in time, and we’ll give you a $10 tip.” I thought of just refusing, but I could tell they were seasoned New Yorkers, and they could probably talk a leopard out of its spots, so I opened the trunk, put the baggage in, and headed out.

I then began to ponder my current situation. I could get them to JFK by 8:20 and grab the 9:00 United flight coming in from Miami. That would ensure me of taking a nice little Jewish man with a great tan to an apartment in Brooklyn. That was acceptable; as the ride would roll me out of the airport, and I could then work the discos in Bay Ridge, pocket some more dough and, I hoped, catch a fare back into Midtown.

I delivered my Park Avenue fare to Air France in plenty of time, and as promised they happily handed me a ten for the tip. The wind was really picking up, and it was starting to hail. The 9:00 from Miami couldn’t land, and many planes were now being diverted up to Connecticut. It was either dead head it back to the city or take my chances at another terminal. There were cabs everywhere, all the lines were sucked up, little yellow vehicles as far as my eyes could see.

It was time to cut my losses. I’d work the shorty line, where I’d humbly take a local call, usually $6 to $8 to Forest Hills or Brooklyn. I’d been fortunate all night—why should it stop now? My little radio told me that many streets in Queens were becoming caked with ice, so I’d take that short fare out of the airport, stay on the main boulevards, and make my way back into the city.

I noticed there were at least seven cabs on this line. When there was a fare going only a small distance, the dispatcher came out, blew a whistle, and extended his arms over his head about a foot apart, thus denoting a local or a short call. However, on this night he kept blowing his whistle. No one seemed to want the fare, and as each cab pulled up, the driver took one long look, shook his head, and took off.

How bad could it be? As I desperately needed to move out of this frozen tundra, I made the move and rolled up to the dispatcher.

I pulled my sock hat down over my ears, threw on my gloves, and placed myself in front of the man with the whistle. “They’re going to Inwood, Long Island,” he said. “You got to help these people out, they’re about to freeze to death.” Inwood, Long Island, the worse possible address from the airport. Inwood was east of JFK, in other words away from the city. To make it worse, it was not an O.T. An O.T. means out of town, and you could double the clock, but Inwood was the last town within the city limits, an $8 fare at best, and you had a fifty-five-minute drive back to the city with no chance of picking up a passenger. I knew the area—the streets would be frozen solid. He noticed my hesitation, and then gazed at me with a death stare and yelled, “For God’s sake, it’s Christmas Eve, they’re both crippled, and they’ve been sitting out in front of the terminal for half an hour shivering in their wheelchairs. The terminal is going to shut down in ten minutes—you have a heart beating in there, pal?” He poked his frozen finger into my wet and icy pea coat. Sure, I thought, I have heart, but on nights like this I just like to give it a little time off. The dispatcher looked dragon like with all the foggy breath coming out of his mouth as he repeated, “You want these poor cripples to sit here all night and freeze to death?”

I looked at the couple; and their helpless faces looked back at me. Two forlorn and frigid bodies staring intently at the same individual who recently hustled three businessmen from Houston, Texas. However, they didn’t see that part of me; they saw deliverance, they saw warmth, they saw home.

“OK, fine, I’ll do it. Can you help with the wheelchairs?” I asked.

“Sorry, pal, I got a job to do here, it’s your gig now,” and he walked away into the frigid night. I wheeled the woman to the cab. I helped her up and into the back seat. The man was really large, maybe three hundred pounds and approaching fifty or so years old. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and literally dumped him beside his wife who was somewhat younger and at least one hundred pounds lighter. I opened the trunk and just managed to stuff the two wheelchairs in. I had to remove my gloves to work the catch, and as I did I could feel my flesh start to stick to the metal. The night was now turning extremely cold and very unprofitable.

Seven dollars and fifty cents later I pulled up in front of Dave and Blanche’s house. The roads were slippery, the street was dark, but with a little luck I could help these folks into their home, jump back in the cab, hop onto the Long Island Expressway, and be back in action.

As I shut the clock off, Dave handed me the keys and asked if I could unlock the door first to minimize the time they spent in minus-twenty-degree weather. His request sounded reasonable; however, as I approached their gate, I realized that my sojourn in Inwood, Long Island, was just beginning. The walk to their door was a good fifty feet, and it was covered in at least two feet of snow with six inches of frozen sleet on top.

I jumped back in the cab. “How long have you been away?” My blue lips quivered.

“Oh, two weeks. We were down in the Virgin Islands, we had a great time.”

And as Blanche was about to give me a description of her tropical vacation, I held up my hands and said, “Why didn’t you hire a neighborhood kid to shovel your walk when you were away?”

“Well, it wasn’t snowing when we left,” Dave replied, with a late-night, post-vacation, jet-lagged grin.

“Is there a shovel around?” I asked.

“Yes, there’s one in the house,” Dave said.

I had already shut the clock off; this was now my time we were working on. I could have been in the city raking in the cash, and instead I was stuck in Inwood, Long Island, in a cab with two people and two wheelchairs and a dead-end street with one flickering street light.

I closed my eyes and tried to conjure all the available intelligence that I could muster on a snowbound Christmas Eve in the middle of nowhere. I then asked Dave, “How well do you know your neighbors? Perhaps one of them might have a shovel and help us out.”

“Folks on this block are really not too friendly,” Dave replied. I looked at Dave’s and Blanche’s anxious faces, and I realized that no matter what happened I had to get these people back into their home. It was now pushing 10:30, and I suddenly felt a surge of confidence. I was just one friendly neighbor with an available shovel away from rescuing Blanche and Dave. I left the cab running with the heat on, and started on my journey down Christina Street with a frozen nose and a hopeful heart.

Halfway down the block I saw lights on and a Christmas tree flickering. As there was no bell I knocked, and a suspicious face soon peered through a glass window. I smiled and said, “Look, I’ve got two folks in my cab and they’re in wheelchairs, they’re crippled, you know, and I need to borrow a shovel so I can get them inside. Can you help us out?”

He shook his head and said, “I don’t know you or those people, go away or I’ll call the police.”

Hmm, that was not the response I was seeking. I tried another house. “Please, I’m in a desperate situation here. I’ve got to help Dave and Blanche get into their home,” I said with the most humble expression I could muster.

He looked me over and replied, “OK, I’ve got a shovel, but I want a $20 deposit.”

“OK, fine.” I pulled off my gloves with my teeth and removed a cold and crisp twenty from my wallet and put it in his hand. Without making any eye contact at all he folded the bill in two, slipped it in his pocket and quickly shut the door. As I walked back down the street I comforted myself with the thought that my mission had taken a positive turn.

I stood in front of the cab and held the shovel up, and Dave and Blanche applauded and gave me the thumbs up sign. I headed toward the walk. Dave rolled down his window and asked if I could jump back into the cab and find something pleasant for them to listen to on the radio. I agreed and twisted the dial until we found a lovely version of the “Hallelujah Chorus.” I turned around and asked if the music of Handel was to their liking, and Blanche said, “You are just the nicest cabbie we have ever had. Both Dave and I think you should get some kind of recognition for how much you’re helping us and on Christmas Eve as well. And if you don’t mind me saying this, you know you do look a bit like Jesus with your long hair and beard and all. I hope you don’t mind but, you know, you really do.”

They both laughed as I exited the cab with shovel in hand and commenced to dig. After twenty minutes or so there was frost inside my nose, and my fingertips and earlobes were numb. I thought that as far as mitzvahs go, this was a big one, a really big one. I did wonder if seeking a reward from the almighty for my good deed was really in the spirit of a mitzvah, but at that time my brain started to freeze, and thus my internal spiritual discourse was suspended. I shoveled the snow off the three steps and made it to the door. However, as I was taking their keys out of my pocket, I noticed that there was a three-inch sheet of ice on the landing in front of the door and it was rock hard. It was now 11:30. Where would I ever find an ice pick?

As I walked back to the cab I could barely feel my feet. High-top Converse sneakers and three feet of snow are not symbiotic. Dave and Blanche were looking through the frosty windows with hope. They smiled at me and I smiled back at them and held up one finger so they would know it was almost done.

I stood in back of the cab hoping for either an inspiration or better yet a divine intervention. I looked to the sky and the sky just looked back. I lowered my head and almost started to pray when I realized the answer was right in front of me. Yes, the lug wrench from the car jack. With a new burst of enthusiasm I quickly open the trunk. As I removed the wheelchairs, the metal was so cold it sent a shiver up my arm and down through my back.

Hallelujah, I found the lug wrench, closed the trunk, and started walking toward the house. As I was passing the cab in a hunched-over, frozen stagger, I must have looked like an enchanted fairy as my beard, hair, and eyebrows were all glistening with ice. I proceeded to repeatedly bang the sharp part of my lug wrench on the doorstep.

After a few minutes of chopping I stopped to rest, and as I did I glanced back at the cab. Dave and Blanch were kissing, and their hands were touching each other’s cheeks. They had large heads, which bobbed up and down in a little dance as they embraced. A smile spread across my face, and I made a small but humble bow in the direction of the lovers canoodling in the rear seat of my cab.

My restored faith coupled with a new sense of purpose enabled me to crack through the remaining ice and open the door. I held the lug wrench up to the sky and cried out, “Home, sweet home!” I returned to the cab and shut off the engine. I lifted Blanche into her chair; I wheeled her up three steps and into the living room. I returned to the cab; I lifted Dave up and wheeled him into the house as well. I found the thermostat, and in a few minutes glorious heat was pouring through the home of Dave and Blanche.

Dave opened a bottle of scotch and mixed it with hot water, and we all defrosted together. I explained about the deposit on the shovel. “No problem,” Dave replied “Here’s the $20 for that. We’ll return it tomorrow. Oh, and this is for you,” he said as he handed me a fifty. The impact of the large tip and the scotch hit at the same time. Yes, I thought, I’m back on it! I looked at the clock. It was midnight. I could return to the city by 12:30, work until 2:00, and make my $250 night. I said my farewell to Dave and Blanche. “Oh please,” they said, “take a load off, and have another scotch.” I told them both that duty called and I must roll on. As Dave shook my hand he said, “Well, this is a Christmas Eve I won’t soon forget.”

To which I easily replied, with the last gulp of scotch sliding down my throat, “Neither will I.”

I stepped back out into the chill, walked down the now accessible path, hopped back into my cab, skidded down a few side streets, and then happily entered the Long Island Expressway. As New York’s illuminated skyline came into view, I turned up the radio, laid into the gas pedal, and headed into Gotham one more time.