Taxi Hell

When my girlfriend Therese had trouble getting home last night by taxi, it reminded me of one of the craziest experiences I ever had with a taxi. Every New Yorker has at least one of these stories, and here's mine.

It was the night of my firm's Christmas party. The party had been a great one, probably the most fun party I've ever attended put on by a place that I worked. Part of what made it fun was that I genuinely enjoyed spending time with the people I worked with. I had many friends at that firm - in fact, I'm still friends with some of these people.

As the party started winding down, a handful of us started talking about going somewhere else for a drink or two to finish off the night. One guy, P (I'll just use initials to protect people's identity), knew of a great club in the meatpacking district - it was hard to get in, but he knew someone who worked there, so if we went with him, we would get in. In total, there were 5 of us who wanted to go, so we had to split up and go in 2 cabs: P and a lady in the first cab, me and A and E, two other young ladies, in the second cab.

Our party was at a restaurant in Battery Park City, not that far from the club in the meatpacking district, so it seemed like no big deal. So away we went. Our cabby decided to take the westside highway - he thought it would be quicker than taking side streets or whatever. Cool.

Well, we are on the Westside Highway, when a tractor trailer sideswipes our cab on the left side. We hardly felt it, but the cabby was enraged. As the tractor trailer pulled ahead of us, the cabby was cursing and trying to catch up with him so he could get the trailer to stop and give him satisfaction. The exit that would take us to our club went flying by. We yelled at the cabby but he was oblivious to us. He was focussed on catching the trailer.

We kept yelling at him to drop us off, but he was convinced that his chance at catching the trailer was dependant on not stopping for any reason. By now the 3 of us were yelling at him constantly to let us off and he was yelling back in broken English (I believe he was Indian or Pakistani). Meanwhile, there was another drama developing in the cab. A's boyfriend had been annoyed that she was going to the Christmas party rather than spending the evening with him, so he had gone out with his friends. A had told him she would call him after the party to meet up with him somewhere and then go home together. She had been calling him over and over again, but he had not answered. She was convinced that he was angry with her and ignoring her calls. E and I were trying to convince her that he was probably having a great time with his friends and had turned his phone off or left it somewhere where he could not hear it ringing. Our efforts to calm her were unsuccessful. A was on the verge of bursting into tears.

And our taxi kept speeding north, now miles away from where P and his passenger were probably already enjoying a drink and wondering where we were. Finally, when we reached midtown, the cabdriver got in touch with his dispatcher, who told him to stop chasing the tractor trailer. OK, we thought, now we can get the driver to turn around and drive us back to the club. But no. The second thing the dispatcher said was to park the cab and wait for a towtruck to come get the taxi. We couldn't believe it. On top of driving us miles and miles out of our way, this taxi was now going to just leave us on the side of the highway? Couldn't he at least take us to a main street where we could more likely get another taxi. No, he could not.

This was more than we could bear. We told the taxi driver we wouldn't pay him. He yelled and cursed at us. We yelled and cursed at him. Finally, we gave him half of what we owed him. He yelled and cursed at us some more. We yelled and cursed at him. My throat was now sore from all the yelling I was doing. He threatened to attack one of the ladies, and the three of us assured him that if he laid a hand on any of us, all three of us would beat him senseless. In fact, we told him, as mad as we were, he better just get back in his taxi before we lost control and started beating on him!

Finally, we walked away and started looking for another cab. Luckily, it didn't take long for us to find one. By now, it was more than an hour since we had left the Christmas party. We were sure P had given up on us. Our taxi roared down the side streets, pulled up in front of the club, and of course P was nowhere to be seen, the person he had told us to ask for wasn't working at the club that night, so we couldn't get in. It didn't matter anyway, really, since by now A was bawling - she had called her boyfriend another 20 times and he hadn't answered her calls, and she was convinced that he was breaking up with her. E said they would drop me off and then she would take A home. A short time later they dropped me off in front of one of my favorite bars, where I had a couple of beers to wash out of my mind the images of the worst taxi experience of my life.