MY CAB GUY

What do people - who are not taxi drivers - say about taxi drivers? That they are a bunch of bad-mouthed semi-illiterate (mostly illiterate) vagabonds with rickety cars and a wrong sense of entitlement. Truth be told, some have said worse. Personally, I see them as people who transport me from one place to the other on road (textbook definition). But because of my distrust for them, I rather them swerve me of more money and get me to my destination safety than the otherwise unthinkable.

            My perspective has forever been changed because of one taxi driver. I know it is difficult, even impossible, for a good egg to turn all the other rotten eggs into good ones but this guy gave me hope.

            On this fateful day, I was going home after a mentally inducing and inherently stressful three-hour exercise and I just wanted to go home and eat and sleep and rest. The garage was filled with all kinds of people and noises. I approached the next ‘turn’ (the next outgoing taxicab) and peeped inside. Two women were seated at the back and a huge sweaty man was standing just outside the door. I sat in front, disappointed and afraid that my seat partner might not be on the thin side of life. The taxi driver was nowhere to be found.

            My patience was moderate – although I wanted to reach home as fast as I could, I was happy I was at least seated in a means of transportation. Well, my tolerance was not shared by the other passengers. The two women behind me started murmuring but mostly to themselves. Something about how taxi drivers waste people time and how stupid they can be sometimes. “Why don’t you own your own cars”, I wanted to ask them because I was already getting irritated by their nags. I remembered I saw a lady-like woman and another old one when I checked the other time. “Or you can marry a rich man” “and you, why don’t you marry off your daughter or something to that same rich man?” I was already screaming in my head at the complainers.

            As I was internally venting my anger at those two seating behind me, the male passenger standing outside the taxi started shouting in Yoruba, “where is this man? Does he know people need to get somewhere?” nobody seemed to flinch in his direction. This ignorance of his presence seemed to have hurt his ego because two minutes later, he was wailing again. This time, however, he went to meet someone I presumed was our cab driver and didn’t spare him any sweat, scream or saliva as he finally got the attention he needed from the whole garage. The taxi driver looked up at him and explained as calmly as possible that he had already told the huge man (now the reaper), and the two female passengers (that was before I came) that he wanted to see the ECO or the EFO (I didn’t really get that) and when he was coming to meet us, the taxi just before ours was have loading problems and he decided to help his colleagues tie all the load well into the booth. I was pleasantly surprised with his response and even the naggers behind me had to just shut up.

            The huge male passenger was having none of it. He ranted on and on about how the taxi driver was wasting his time. Suddenly, the cab guy raised his own voice and without censoring his speech, told the man pointblank that if he was in so much in a hurry, he should enter the next turn. The hulk of the male passenger just increased his own volume as if it was contest whose winner will be the first to burst his windpipe.

            Meanwhile, the women behind me had started nagging again. This time, though, they were grumbling about how impatient people can get. I sat there smiling and thinking how two-faced and two-mouthed some citizens can be.

            Everyone in the garage joined in the argument. The commuter was implored to take another taxi while the driver was cajoled to drive his cab away from the park. The taxi driver stated that he would drive out on one condition: the male passenger was not following his taxi. The cab guy started approaching us. I became happy because we were finally going and because I was the only one seating in front and if I’m lucky, could be the only one till I highlighted. My joy was short-lived when that same passenger entered the cab and put his sack load between his legs. The taxi driver turned his neck and told the man hat he couldn’t and wouldn’t carry him. The man stubbornly refused to get down. The taxi driver, as gently as he could, told us - the remaining occupants of his taxi – that since this man would not get down, he (the taxi guy) was going nowhere. In short, we should get another taxi.

            We all got out of the taxi but there was this awkward feeling among us: we all felt and looked like fools being chased out of a taxi by its driver just because we couldn’t pay. And the cause was the impatient passenger (what I would like to call him is highly offensive).

            I got into another cab –with the help of that taxi driver who must have felt sorry for us – where I had to share the front seat with another person.

            Throughout the journey home, my mind was fixated on the scenery at the garage. There was only one winner: the taxi driver who stood up for himself. People, like the huge sweaty man, are those that continue to speak ill of these cab guys not realizing they have their own suppressed illness of looking down on these taxi drivers.

            If all taxi drives can fight for their rights and self-esteem from unruly people of larger size (as in the above case), it would not be long before people that thinking of them as human beings who are making ends meet by being taxi drivers, not that they were born to do so.