The Legend Among Us in a Taxi Company

Good yarn about an old rogue, a work mate who was defined by his job in the taxi industry.

One quiet winters Monday evening in Invercargill, New Zealand's southern most city, all us taxi drivers are parked up at our depot. There being no work its pointless to be out in the car parked on a rank in the cold. No one desires a taxi at that time of night in a city with barely 50,000 people.

I’m not unhappy about it though, I’m kinda enjoying myself. I’m one of half a dozen men sipping from a coffee cup, sitting around in the small room that is the taxi dispatchers office. We’re all listening to a middle aged man tell amusingly rude yarns of past taxi drivers that did time behind the wheel for our taxi firm.

A man we will name Allan for the purposes of this article. A wiry man in his fifties with a slight paunch straining the lower buttons of a neat white office shirt. Clean shaven with wire framed glasses, the rest of his clothing attire hasn’t moved on much from the seventies, even though its now at least twenty five years on. Slightly bell bottom type dress trousers and brown leather shoes.

He has us all in stitches, telling his stories. He’s a walking encyclopedia for anything amusing or exciting that has happened with the taxis in his time as a dispatcher. Having dispatched the taxis for well over 30 years, he’s basically part of the furniture by this time at the taxi company.

It must be said it was a pretty male dominated environment back then, not the sort of workplace that worried about having any sort of human resources or political correctness. I remember listening to the ribald humor and bad language and thought that there wouldn’t be many other companies that would allow their staff to talk that way. I’m just warning you that the content of this article isn’t for anyone easily offended. Its about (mostly) men with an average age of 60 that probably hadn’t ventured far from southern New Zealand over their lives.

Anyway Allan’s recounting a story about another driver from years ago, one of many.

“I remember when I’d been here for about 10 years, we had a driver that drove Cab 37 I think. He was a huge bloke… Pacific Islander. Name was Charlie. Shit he was a laugh. A rogue that one. He walked in here one day and swung his leg over the back of the chair and was right behind me while I was answering the phone. I looked round at him, wondering what the hell he was doing and he goes. “I FEEL LIKE A WHITE BOY FOR A CHANGE!”
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We all laughed and Allan continued about this man.

“Another time old Jim that drove for Paul was asleep in that chair in the corner. Old Jim was fast asleep, snoring his head off with the newspaper. Big Charlie was in here. He goes up to Old Jim. “He needs black scud!” He pulls his knob out and proceeds to push it into Jim’s ear! Jim wakes up yelling, horrified! Batting at him with the newspaper.”

This would be an example of one of the colourful stories that would Allan tell in our depot. Getting us all roaring with laughter, waiting for the phone to ring. As I said not particularly PC but from a different time when people didn’t worry so much about offending one another.

Allan had lots of stories stored away for quiet nights when the work for the cabs dried up and there was nothing to do but tell jokes and reminisce.

When I started driving the taxis one of the first training requirements for the job was to do an afternoon sitting in the depot with one of the taxi companies dispatchers. The taxi company I worked for was well behind with technology even then, being 2005. So no computer systems dispatching to the fleet of about 50 taxis. It was all done with 30 year old Radio Telephone equipment and a magnetic board with buttons with the taxi cab numbers sticking to it. Like an old portable checkers game board. Except with this the buttons where moved around the board as drivers radioed in their location upon dropping off a customer. The board had different squares on it to signify whereabouts each taxi in the fleet was located in the city, be it at the airport, a particular taxi stand or a suburb.

Allan was one of the first staff members I met when I started work as a taxi driver. I remember he was pretty good to a nervous green horn on their first day. When I graduated to my first days actually driving around in the taxi he was reasonably patient. Because he had been in the job a long while he new every situation and circumstance related to what taxi drivers can go through at all hours of the day and night. He was efficient in his role at sending cars around the city, usually at night. It made the long hours of night shift taxi work bearable hearing Allan’s voice calmly and steadily giving out addresses and pick-up directions. Especially if you had a difficult, usually drunk customer that had payment of the taxi fare furthest from their mind. If things got bad enough that you needed police assistance in dealing with some idiot scumbag, it was the dispatchers job to call the police and liaise with you until the cops go to your location. In these often stressful moments you knew Allan had your back.

However while Allan did his best to keep a relatively stellar reputation during work hours he was not adverse to letting rip on his day off. Often working six long night shifts of a week as a taxi dispatcher and being a life long bachelor he liked to let the Irish larrikin come out and have free reign on a Sunday evening.

Never having a drivers license or even learning how to drive a car, he relied on the very taxis he dispatched fares to during his working week to get around on his down time.

He liked to begin his Sunday reverie at a rough suburban pub or two for a few pints of beer before moving into town to an Irish pub called Waxy O’Shea’s. There Allan would get comfortable at the bar. Drinking whisky. In for the long haul. Happily swallowing a third of his weeks pay, one glass at a time. Genially yarning to anyone else in the bar but waiting blissfully until the barman told him it was closing time. Upon that hour Allan would stagger out into the street with the blood alcohol level that would make Charlie Sheen proud (I’m sure Allan would consider himself to have tigers blood too).

I remember the first time I drove our dispatcher in my taxi after one of his evenings unwinding. I was parked first on the rank, with about three cabs behind mine. I was reading my book. Mildly bored from being parked up with no fares for ages. The common occurrence for taxi drivers, especially in a quiet New Zealand town. Suddenly I’m interrupted from reading by a raucous medley of starting engines and squealing tires as all three vehicles pull away and roar off into the night. Bewildered, I haven’t worked out the reason for their departure before my front passenger door is yanked open and Allan throws himself into the passengers seat. The old buggers parked behind me can’t be bothered with our work colleague when he’s as pissed as a parrot.

During my time working there I was probably only one of two cab drivers there that would be prepared to tolerate Allan after his weekly bender. It was a bit of fun to me on a boring night and the first time I didn’t feel I could refuse our taxi companies senior dispatcher.

Most Sunday evenings it was my duty to transport Allan to Stage 2 of his evenings entertainment. The taxi metres on and its off to the nearest MacDonald’s drive thru for an alcohol soaking feed. Parked at the speaker box I’m trying to order a combo meal for him as he’s gurgling to me about some ancient British battle centuries ago, involving the Irish fighting the “English bastards!” The whisky having awoken his Irish ancestral patriotism. (Even though he’s kiwi born and raised) I’m trying to negotiate the order as I ask him again what drink he wants. He finally stops the history lecture to inform me that he doesn’t want a coke just a couple of sausages. They don’t do sausages here I tell him.

Feed finally collected we pull back onto the main street. “Off home?” I ask. “Nah take me down to Just Babes, Andrew.” Announces Allan, mouth full of fries, wanting dropped off at the nearest brothel in the city. “I thought you didn’t like that place?” I ask. He shakes his head ignoring my question. “The barmaids at Waxy’s don’t appreciate an old bull like me.” He laments mournfully, then changing his mind, he demands. “Can you take me to get a newspaper?”

So with the fare on the metre accruing dollars nicely and newspaper collected we eventually pull up Allan’s driveway to his small one bedroom flat. This is one trip of many and he generously tells me to keep the metre running. “You know I’m like Paddy with the rent.” He slurs as he leads the way into his home, plunging abruptly down some stairs into his small kitchen. I scour the classifieds at a the back of the newspaper for a suitable “lady of the night” for him while he weaves over to the jug to make a coffee, attempting to sober up slightly for the next phase of his evenings entertainment.

I try a few different phone numbers from the newspaper while glancing into the kitchen to make sure he’s not giving himself third degree burns making his coffee. I have a promising Asian lady on the phone as Allan staggers around with the cup of coffee, most of it being flung erratically up the wall. He manages to make his way to the table spilling coffee over the newspaper before hoarsely instructing me what to say over the phone. “Respectable elderly gentleman, Andrew!” The irony’s not lost on me as I look over to see coffee dripping off the kitchen cupboards.

The details worked out its back to the taxi to transport Allan to his prostitute. I’m at the top of the stairs as I turn to see him get halfway up before losing balance four stairs up, arms wind-milling, he falls over backwards to narrowly miss smashing the back of his head open on the sharp corner of a four-mica table. Almost ruining his evening, coming close to needing the hospital instead.

Anyway Allan safely delivered I head back to the taxi depot, only to be requested an hour later to pick him up. His Sunday blow out finally over. Beaming in the taxi on the way home he happily tells me he’s in love.

Dropping him off, back at his flat. He hands me a wad of notes for the taxi fare before looking me in the eye. “Discretion Andrew” he reminds me. “Yeah sure. See ya Monday mate.” I drive off.

Answering the phone to elderly ladies on a Tuesday afternoon, booking their taxis for hairdresser appointments the next day, you’d never guess the mischief he would get up to in the weekend.

Allan told me once there was a girl from his younger years he probably should have married. But he was always the black sheep of his family and never liked to live life conventionally and play by the rules. Outside of work he liked to play up in bars and live fast and loose.

Aside from that he was a stalwart for our company in the dispatching office. Good with a joke and a story and the odd witty remark over the RT to make time go just a little bit quicker. I would pull up in the taxi outside our depot at the traffic lights. Allan would spot me through the office window from his view behind the desk and comment dryly on the radio. “You look like an old villain Andrew.”

The years went on and I got married and had kids and by this time I would be at home on my dinner break of a Sunday evening when Allan would turn up at the back door, eyes blazing with whisky. Wanting me to take him on his usual Sunday routine. He would tell my wife that I had to take him on an important trip to see an old friend out of town. You know, making the reason for his sudden arrival seem legit.

However some of us drivers noticed at work that Allan started developing a rough phlegmy sounding cough at work doing his taxi dispatch duties but then the computer dispatch systems arrived and we didn’t hear his dulcet tones in the cabs anymore. That and his cough was put down to a lifetime of smoking and the Southland climate.

There was no immediate alarm therefore when one weekday afternoon the time of 2 pm came and went with no appearance of our senior taxi dispatcher, who had almost certainly never been late to his work once in thirty years. The person who was worried the most was our companies secretary Christine who convinced one of the senior drivers to drive her round to Allan’s flat, to see if he was alright. No answer from their calls and door knocking they had to kick in the door to find him in his bedroom lying on top of his tidily made up bed, dressed ready for work, but dead. Ready for yet another shift at the dispatchers desk he would never make.

It turned out I think, that Allan had had terminal lung cancer for about six months and known about it but not told anyone. The old rogue deciding to go out on his own terms.

His funeral was a large one with a surprising amount of people attending. It seemed that Allan new a lot of people in town. Both from the other end of a phone line in our taxi depot, to the inside of a smoky old Irish bar. Everybody agreeing on what a great bloke he was, as you’d expect after a funeral I guess but in Allan’s case it was the truth.

His absence was felt most at work, at our little taxi firm. It seemed it was the end of era after his passing. The industry changed and technology took over more with supposed computer efficiency manning the dispatch centre for the taxis instead. The efficiency might have increased but the connection with fellow work mates and colleagues decreased and I quit the taxis a couple of years later.

I remember Allan not only for his telling of a good yarn on a cold winters evening in the taxi depot and the occasional escapade outside of work but he often managed to impart some good advice. Two years into my taxi career I was intending leave to travel to the UK and London for the traditional Kiwi OE (overseas experience). Carl told me that if I don’t enjoy it over there, I only have myself to blame. Meaning I should adopt an upbeat attitude and make the most of it. He was right off course.