1972 - Pick-Up

A cold night... a warm body... but not just any... body.

1972 – Pick-Up

The headlights of the taxi rode up her long, thin legs as I pulled into the empty parking lot. She leaned against the wall in a position that told me she had put a few away this night. She would be lucky not to fall off of her tall spiked heels… the kind of shoes Oprah calls “kiss-me pumps.” Long blonde hair revealing dark roots covered her face as her head hung down, one arm crooked at the elbow pushed against the wall holding her upright. The mini-skirt came to mid-thigh revealing the thin line of a garter strap in silhouette, the top of the stocking clipped securely. I imagined that when she had left her house that evening she had probably looked young and vital where now she just looked drunk. I gave a short toot on the horn. She looked up. The shadows made lines of worry appear to cross her face as she looked up. At 2:45 AM the bar had been closed for at least 45 minutes and she looked abandoned. We were in the middle of nowhere, a couple of miles outside downtown with only a few other business about – all long shuttered. Her arm came off the wall and she held her hand up. Her body began to topple loosely toward the brick facing. A look of confusion slid onto her face as she realized she was now off balance. She continued to hold her limp-wristed hand in the air as she twisted her rear-end toward the rough siding to take the impact. Instead her skirt caught the rough brick and swept up her thighs as her body slid toward the ground revealing the other leg with her hose torn from just above her knee to halfway up her thigh. A single garter fastened to the rear of the stocking held it tight enough to clearly display the tear and the headlights displayed the accompanying dirty, soiled knee on the torn side. She sat down heavy on the dirt, headlights now barely highlighting white panties and the remaining straps of the bright red garter belt. Dark holes where her hooded eyes would be were suddenly lit-up although shockingly offset by smeared makeup. She looked up with eyes askance, appearing slightly out of focus. The bright red lipstick that covered her lips seemed to extend off the right side of her mouth ending in a red slash that crossed her cheek. Could she be hurt? I jumped from the cab and ran to her side.

She grimaced and looked up as I grabbed her arm. “Are you ok?” I asked. I looked again. Whoa! The grimace was a smile. The red slash an obvious miss from the last refreshment of her makeup. She evidently hadn’t realized she had left such an obvious mark of carelessness. Lines of worry turned into lines of age as she looked up. She was 40-45 if a day and perhaps as much as 50. She was obviously aged before her time and her exact age would be hard to pin down… it definitely was not less than 40. At my tender age of 22 she appeared really, REALLY old to me and a somewhat disjointed and discomforting picture of a much younger woman. Close in I could see the lines of worry were actually the lines that a rough life had etched into her face. I could see a lifetime of alcohol, cigarettes, late nights and cheap dates. At one time she was probably lovely… now she was simply a scary caricature of herself. I bent to help her up.

“Thanks, honey.” A voice like gravel seemed to fit her appearance and her breath confirmed years of cigarettes, cheap gin and more. “You’re a life-saver, sweetie.” She coughed twice and spat the results into the dirt. “Gimme a hand here… thanks.” She leaned heavily against me as we headed for the cab. Her right arm snaked around my waist and I felt her pinch my ass as she pressed her body against me. Her right breast was pushed into my side and, I noticed halfheartedly, she was not being subtitle at all now as she held my arm and ground her half-revealed boobs against it, "accidently" sweeping both back and forth in an obvious effort to be desirable. It was not working. She giggled like a little girl but it turned into another cough and her step paused as she finished with a leathery laugh that was anything but girlish. She looked up at me with a glassy stare and growled in her sweetest voice, “I think it’s time to get me to bed.” *hic*

“Uhh, Yeah.” I opened the door to the right left side of the cab halfway before she pushed it away with her left. She grabbed my hand as I reached back out to retrieve the closing panel.

“Let it go, honey.” She whispered like a road grader. “All the other drivers always let me sit up front.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m a pretty new driver and I was told to never let anyone sit up front.”

“Oh come on! All the drivers know me. I’m safe. Besides, when I sit in back I get car sick… you should probably let me sit up here,” she pulled the handle to the front passenger door, “or you might have to cleanup after me." She threw what would have to pass for a smile over her shoulder, "Then I’d be awful embarrassed… you wouldn’t want to do that would you, sugar?” She climbed in without awaiting an answer. Nonplussed, I stood impotent as she settled into the right side of the bench seat. I paused a beat and closed the door.

Climbing in the driver’s side of the Black & White Checker Cab I grabbed the mic and radioed the pick-up into dispatch. I turned the meter on and looked at my passenger who sat with eyes closed leaning against the closed door, her head against the window in search of a cool surface for her forehead. She rolled the window down a couple of inches and the car filled with a chilly breeze. I was glad there was no snow tonight but, although it had been an unseasonably warm day, the nights in February remained winter cold so the draft cut right through my shirtsleeves and thin jacket. I was glad I had taken to wearing my woolen navy watch cap and pulled it tighter to my head remembering to keep it stylishly cocked-low over my eyebrows in a desperate attempt to look both cool & tough.

She lit a cigarette. She took a single long drag and tossed it out the slit of a window and put her forhead against the cold glass. After a few moments her head lolled loosely on her shoulders as we proceeded to our destination.

“Pull in here, honey.” Accidently whispering her best sleepy imitation of Wolfman Jack. I wasn’t aware she was awake but felt somewhat relieved at knowing I wouldn’t have to spend 10-minutes trying to wake a passed-out drunk or necessitate the never-used option of carrying her onto her porch or calling the police. Pulling in the driveway my lights lit up the darkened little house. It was one of several small dilapidated 2-3 room cabins in a part of town in which I had never before found myself.

“Here we are! That’s 8-90,” I said reading the dollars and cents off the meter. It cost $2.50 to get into the cab and .20 every ¼ mile thereafter. A $2.90 fare was the most profitable as the most cash was made the first ¼ mile. At 8-miles of driving through town and again into the outskirts, I was too far out to expect my next fare to be anywhere near me.

I was initially taken back a bit to see her reach into her neckline and begin fumbling around inside her bra. She mumbled something like “…it’s here somewhere…” and continued mumbling intelligible consonants sweetened by an occasional vowel until she whipped out a $10 & a $5. “Here you go, hon... keep the change,” she said and held her hand out. As I reached out she grabbed my right wrist with her left hand. “Would you like to come in for a while? Would you like a beer… or anything.” The pause in her sentence said volumes. I felt a shiver rush up my spine. She leaned forward giving her shoulders just enough of a little shake to move the liberal contents of her now very loose blouse. The view was undeniably irresistible… until I looked into her red-rimmed eyes and got a whiff from something that smelled like an overflowing ashtray from an O’Hare Airport waiting room.

“No, thanks,” I said, “I’ve got to get back to work!” I tried to stay chipper and upbeat as I ignored her come on.

“Come on, baby. You won’t be sorry.” She looked at me with what I’m sure she thought was an irresistible tilt of head that simply made her look vaguely like a marionette with a cocked and misglued head. Her hair stood out in unpredictable curls, bunches and wads of tangled bleached-blonde straw. “Come on in, hon. I don’t want to be alone tonight.” I felt her hand grope my upper thigh performing an obvious search for what she knew had to be there, “I can make it worth your while.” I’m sure a puzzled look crossed my kisser at that comment. Working from 7 at night to 7 in the AM had made well acquainted with hookers in my short time on the job, although in a purely unprofessional way. As there are very few bars open at 7 AM, when I got off work, anyone desiring a drink after a hard days night would frequent the same joints. Hookers, night-shift managers, pool-sharks, musicians and cab-drivers could be found almost every morning at the foot of Genesee where a single bar, 100’ outside Waukegan city-limits, stayed open all night, every night. I had had a couple of come-ons’ before I was better known among our crowd but I had never been offered compensation for MY services. I was pretty sure the only times one of the ladies I knew talked money she was collecting and not paying. “How much will you make tonight? I bet I can match it.” She twisted her body around trying to get her right leg up and over her left and, perhaps, over my own. She slipped towards the floor in a loose limbed thrashing as she caught the back of the seat and stopped her slide. Wedged between the dash and the seat she struggled to re-purchase her seat. I used the opportunity to break her grip on my arm and deftly remove the 2-bills from her loose fingers. I quickly open my door and stepped out beyond her reach. I opened the passenger door and offered her a hand which I transferred quickly to the door sill as I realized she was making another attempt to latch on to me. I held the door as she struggled to her feet, keeping it between the two of us.

As she stepped around the passenger door I headed around the front of the car trying to look natural as I desperately kept distance and the barrier of the taxi between her and me. “You could just come in for a couple of minutes if you want to. I’m sure we could find something to do for just a few minutes.” Her pleas were getting more desperate and a bit louder. She stood in front of her little wooden porch and its 2-step stairway staring back, blinded, into the lights of the taxi-cab. She shouted, “It wouldn’t take very long!” I got into the car and closed the door. “You don’t know what you’re missing!” She shouted in my general direction.

As I drove away and informed the dispatcher of my availability I received a call for a cab that was less than 2-miles away and was unexpectedly close. As I pulled out of the driveway that had lead to the little cabins I ruminated to myself, “Maybe I don’t know what I’m missing,” I glanced in the rear-view mirror to see my last fare still waiting at the bottom of her stairs as I held a quiet conversation with myself, “But I’m pretty sure this time I don’t want to know.”