Taxi Driver. by davistrell@aol.com
All the animals come out at night, queens, fairies, junkies; someday a real rain's gonna fall....." Travis Bickle.
Me, I got an umbrella......
The lights flash, the gearshift moves as if an extension, and the car turns the corner, and the old lady escapes with her life, and I brake, and look over my knuckles, white, gripping the steering wheel. There's a soundtrack, its the beat of the city. And the City beats.
There's one funky ass kid I pick up on a semi-regular basis. he uses my cab as a sort of private booth. Johnny. He gives me ten bucks a trick, if I turn my head, not watch, just drive he says, but I do, I've seen that little cocksucker ply his trade with great glee, with vigor, as if he actually likes it. I think he's turned nineteen and he blows at least that many men a week in the back of my taxicab, on the streets of San Francisco, my home town, a blot on the California coast, just up from the bigger blot down South.
Fucking puke kid, and somehow I cast myself as his whiteknight on a fucking beat-up roadster. He never fails to give me the finger with a smile, as he says goodbye to me and hello to his new uncle, who currently is promising jewelry, but in twenty minutes will be crying, swearing with a spent dick, and a gideon bible and promises of not telling no one what occurred, for which promise is added another twenty bucks, but he tells me anyway, and like, I don't want to hear anyways. But its me that takes him from trick to trick, gentlemen to gentle men, some sadistic, and some much worse.
I work for Abbatoir Cabs: use us, if you're in the City. Wave me down, and I'll take you anywhere, for the price of a ride.
So the lamebrain kid who I want to big-brother-smother, calls me on my cellular, that I use for private jobs, and if I'm close by, I head off and pick him up, with his customer, and we follow the routine. I say I know a hotel where they can go get discreet, tell the John to give me a ten for the info, take the long way round, so the trick gets his dick sucked, I get a extra meter fare and get tipped again by the stranger who's easy with his wallet. He's gotten empty headed in proportion to his libido. The hotel is shabby, and where its not shabby, its seedy. No one sleeps, except the bedbugs, who bite, but most don't complain, but its good for the local economy.
The kid's name is Johnny Hunger, looks like hustler. Is a hustler. A waif, a stray with the ways of an alley cat. Flatnosed, pie-faced, narrow but thick lips, eyes big and bright, if not a little sleepy, and a hairstyle that's shorn, like a shaved sheep, which helps the sheepish look that men like, and is worth cold hard cash. Always dressed in ripped black jeans, buys them that way, from a Punkstore on the Haight, they're tight, shows off his ass, black low-cut T-shirt, leather jacket.
But the life's not good to him, I gotta get him off the streets, have him move in with me. Get him an education. We'll only watch PBS.
I gotta get a bigger place. Move out, move on. I'm gonna have to do some crimes. Finance this shit.
I keep an automatic in the glove compartment, I even have a license. For my personal protection, what else? Lot of ex-cops drive taxis. Crime comes with the territory, if you drive the yellow line.
Money may come, I were to be up for, say, sticking up that Liquor store, with the Iranian clerk, Abidad; he'll fold like a lamb kebob when I stick a gun in his face.# There's little money in these parts, it gets sucked in by the liquor stores; lottery tickets and alcholol; they breed like rabbits.
When it's over, usually takes an hour, I pick up Johnny and his trick. Lose the freak and Johnny tells me all. I don't wanna even hear. But I want him to rest, stay in the back, rest at least, watch him with the chewing gum, looking at him in the mirror.
"Damn cocksucking faggot!" I yell to the idiot driver in front, who swerves left with no signal, and I curl a right.
"He said he was Mediterranean, from somewhere called Neece, in Franss. Smelled of garlic. Hairy all over, even on his shoulders, his belly fell in mounds, and such a tiny cock, it kept fallin' outta my mouth even even after when he got it hard."
He laughs at the memory, snickering like a schoolboy telling a dirty joke, but he's way older. This ain't no comic-book stuff. Older man sucks life out of youth. Fucking all of them, vampires.
I listen to the disgusting story, get given the play-by-play, as I hear after had his ass licked dry, by a salesman from a Napa winery, that sell the fortified stuff to the winos, that litter the streets. but, he cheerfully tells how the old man stuck his dick in, and joked he was trying to put the cork back into a champagne bottle.
"It took me quite a while to make him cum, he seemed more interested in jackin' me off.But I gave him his money's worth and he gave me a fifty."
He snapped the crisp bill and cracked it open. Giving it to me.
"Hold on to it, I don't wanna get rolled, with the next one."
My cab pulls up, he gets out on the orange-green night street, and resumes his place on the corner. He folds his arms. Leans against the wall, half turns to show his assets. There are four more. The man with the brief-case seems to have made friends with Gigo, a mutual friend. Popular, but no Johnny.
The radio squawks and Rita, with the voice like a dentist's drill tells me of a fare, and I leave. An airport run, hopefully.
"Tell her you got a fare already, with ready money..." The sultry voice says through the passenger window. The transvestite gets in the back with her new-found friend, a portly man, in grey.
She calls himself Lita Lo, and she thinks that's funny. Tad older than Lolita, if you missed it. Black as Peet's coffee, skinny guy full of estrogen. He gets into the back of the cab with an Elmer Fudd lookalike. Only in real life, ain't cute.
The business man looks like pondscum, must be a lawyer, getting his jollies blown by a woman, that's more of a man than he is.
Soon that ebon snake will emerge, and the white yellow-livered lawyer, will find out, which side of life he comes down on, butterside up, or butterside down. But the black bombshell, if she had more sequins, if there were more dress, takes her lipstick mouth, enmeshes that little cumfaucet the lawyer guy calls a dick and is treated to the best blowjob money can buy, same as a rainbow trout gives, masticating on the brains of a fly. I spend a fortune on Pledge, for cleaning the seats. I go to Costco; I got a room full a Pledge.
Shit, that Merc came out of nowhere, yeh fuck you and yer rich passenger, why'dnt you just stop the car and blow yer boss's cock, and save the pretence you can drive! Asshole!
Mr Lawyer's eyes buggin' like a budweiser frog, caught the truck, and his head and shoulders bobbing like a toyride outside a supermarket. Ain't he cum yet, Miss Lota Li, whaddaya thinking, bring the fucker off, I gotta get back for Johnny.
She raps on the window.
"The Black Rose, I think I'm gonna marry me a lawyer..."
Dream on guy. But I'm wrong. I drop 'em outside the TV bar, in the tenderloin, and they go in together like they do down the carpet, to the bedroom, that isn't such a wonderful idea in the morning. Lita wants to see his friends, and someone has to pay for the crack.
I pass and see some of the life, that passes for life round here. Johnny don't need this, he should get a job, what a real job? Yeh a real job. Like taxidriving? Shit. How'm I gonna talk him into it? He can draw, I've seen his stuff. If he drew things without dicks in them, maybe he could get an art career. I'll buy him a computer.
Then I feel down and the rock hard gun, I got stuck in my belt, will take care of it. I'll take the liquor-store, take the money, out of there, in two minutes. Flat. If there isn't a line.
Nearly missed that drunk, on the corner there. I'm slipping. Then I look at my watch, and know, Johnny being good at his job, is ass-fucking the Greek, American style, right now. So I take the call, this time, up Market, where the fake cable-car goes now, and turn into the Castro, and hey, its pretty. Incandescent. The lights gleam from the Castro Movie theater, best in town. Must've been a showing tonite. Good crowd, must've been a dog, or a sleeper that Hollywood failed to overlook.Two guys looking the worse for wear, open the door.
"Handsome Cabs? Whist, I only called seconds ago.."
"Handsome is as handsome does, " I said, as I flashed my pearly whites to maybe a movie producer, as he acts the type as he tucks his pert boytoy inside the back. If I suck my gut in I look like Robert DeNiro, if I let it out, more like Tom Hanks, kinda gut.
He's a limey, I can tell of course; he has the accent. He's, what, fifty, hair a silver white, tied in a ponytail, in a black Versace suit, and he's grizzled, and a suntan, but sounds more scottish, as there is that burr of a purr, in his voice.
"Where you goin' Mack?"
"Och take yer time, we've no decided, show us, maybe this fine city, its mah furst time."
Maybe his, but not the boytoy who acts all bored. First time in a tuxedo, though, he's uncomfortable, and started to loosen his clothing. He's got a swimmer's body, you can tell by his build. But he's out of his depth here, with this old geezer. Looks like he's stared at mountains. Always searching, never finding.
We do the trip up Lombard street, and he doesn't notice that it's the wrong way, but I tested, he did not flinch. It is his first time in the city. So we take Geary instead of Market. Via Sutter.
The youngsters call it Frisco now. I know, but you have to accept change, when you hit my age.I know this shit. But once I tried to take Johnny to Alcatraz, its so romantic, two guys stuck in a cage, and only one toilet, things are bound to get intimate, but Johnny didn't want to go, though I pleaded. And only women plead.
I look in the mirror, and he's slapping the boytoy, beautiful, but drunk. He likes his lovers shaken, not slurred. He pulls over, to the window, and asks me.
"The wee'un's tight as a drum, I mean a dram... the film was terrible..waste of flammable celluloid..."
"What's it called?" I ask innocently.
"Mighty Joe Kong.....Willis O'Brien, music by the ClubFoot Orchestra, all Shostakovitch and no violin, though the timpani player was a braw wee man."
"I'll wait for it on video. Where to, bub?"
"Sokee Hall Street, Glasgow."
"How about the Edinburgh Castle? They got beer and guys in skirts, er, kilts playing the bagpipes, and they serve fish 'n chips, which they get from the Chinese restaurant, six doors down."
The kid lurched, and I couldn't see, as I was driving. But I guess, getting them drunk is the only way.
"Tha's kidding, right? Tha's a wee imp! Ye look the type..."
Probably the voice-over in commercials make him sound familiar, and he is quite persuasive. But he looks down at his drunk pal.
"No, we got to get the little bugger home, I promised his mother." He looks as if he cares, and he looks kinda distinguished. Looks like a bit of a movie star. But I don't remember who. The drunk kid is lolling now, his tongue hanging out. Asleep.
"Let's lug the guts to the nether room." I say quoting a bit of Hamlet, the only shakespeare that's brushed on.
"Och, you're a clever wee fart." he says to me, as he adjusts his pal, into a comatose posture. BarfTime apparently. More Pledge.
Then he starts to quote back, so I accelerate up Geary.
"The wee thistle needs putting to bed..."
"Why dont't we just drop him off on Polk Street..."
"Whist mon, that's a canny wee sense of humour you have there."
He pats the kids cheeks, gently, but the kid's lights is out.
We pull up in front, of a small apartment, I'm not about to give up the address, its like the confessional, between customer and taxi-driver.Close to Turk and Divisadero, but my lips is sealed. We carry Boy Gorgeous, lion maned. shirt open, and top fly. I got him between his thighs, taking the weight, holding up his buttocks, elbows pinning his calves, while Mr Scotsman has him by the the shoulders, under the armpits, as we mount the stairs, as he doesn't want to use the elevator. It's like a dance, and the grizzled Scot with his white hair, and that silly ponytail, exerts as we move up, one stair at a time, him leading, as Sleeping Beauty, gets dragged upstairs.
I'll charge him only double, and wait for a good tip. He's loaded. In all senses of the word.
"Tommorrow, and Tommorrow, and Tommorrow, creeps up this stair at a paltry pace..."
I hope we don't get to meet to visit with Lady Macbeth.
"His mom expects us?"
"Oh, not till tommorrow. This is the studio's wee apartment; its a rental. Mine for tonight. I'll stick yon foxy moron on a Muni in the morn."
Kid is waking up, and as he slides down on my belly, and I nearly drop him, he pukes.
"Hawthorn Lane restaurant, he's had too much radicchio."
Johnny boy, your on your own, I got business. He'll understand.
Maybe he'll wait. And Peacocks are loathsome beasts.
How we got into the apartment only the Great Taxi-Cab Company Chief Executive knows, but in we got him, dumped on the sofa, I sort of chucked him, and Mr Scott sorta dropped him, but paternally.
"You care for a dram, wee man?"
"Yeh, but just a shot, I gotta drive. You in movies, mister?"
"You no recognize me?"
"I thought you was Hollywood Hogan, when you leapt in the cab."
"Och, that's that wee sense of humour that ye have."
"Used to work in radio."
"Very useful in the movies."
He poured two thimble size glasses with whiskey. It wasn't vodka, it was tea-colored. Jagermeister. Cough-medicine with a hangover. He knocked his down. His neck snaked back like a cobra. He looked at me again, still smiling. But the smile, broad, but thin. And the grimace when the booze hit. He snarled, then smiled again.
He poured himself another. He leant his shoulder forward, and we did a whiskey glass arm lock, and he gleamed as I swallowed mine down, sheepishly.
"You serious dinna recognize me? I'm Manly Stackedwright, ye ken, the pornstar. Long Dong Silver, Big John Holmes,..and me."
"You was big in the seventies..."
"Always been big, ye silly wee man..."
"Couldn't we wake up the kid?" I said sheepishly.
"Och, ye do have a sense of humour; if ye must go wake up young Dickon, be welcome, I'll take ye both before breakfast"
"But my cab..."
"Ye'll get a thousand dollars for tonight's rumpity, money is naught but smegma cheese to me."
I slapped the kid, who looked as if he was on prom night, then got beaten up by the prom queen's lesbian lover.
"Wake up, you piece of piss," I whispered, nuturingly.
"Ow, is that you, Uncle Sean? I feel a a bit funny...."
Throttling didn't seem to be reviving him. Then from under me the kids pants peeled off, like a banana, pair of bananas, then a smaller banana, and no way in proportion to mine own.
"We'll get the little kipper's knickers off first. "
A thousand dollars. Just what I need to get Johnny out of the life.
We got young Dickon Bulging, off the sofa, and I could see why he probably has a career in the porn business. His dick was like an extra forearm, and the big-end, a fist. We got him into the sunken bed and he started to wobble, sway, undulate. A pornstar without a waterbed is like a raven is without a writing desk.
And the old guy, buff, with gray barbwire all over his body went down, like the Titanic, on the kid's dick, and you wondered how he could hold all that meat in a human head. The kid seemed to like it.
I got entranced showing what thirty years of cock sucking skills can do. I slipped down my pants, leaped fell, landed, bounced, bounced again on the bed.The waterbed protested, and we surfed the wave.
"Move over over, rover, let Jimmy take over."
We weren't too different from the waist down except for the size of this kid's erection.
Uncle Sean, you wee beast, took both cocks, and me and the kid had to hug each other, as the man, sixty if a day, bounced that bed, so much, that I expected the kid to puke again. He did. Didn't faze the guy who treated us like bagpipes. I could feel my cock, rubbed up, against the kid' cock, both succumbing as the cheeks blew out for air, then clamped, lips like a vice, and rode the rollercoaster, lips like a fist gripping and rubbing us up and down, that is possible in a movie, but not in real life. And the kid started kissing me. His tongue insisted its way, forcing my jaws opened, the sucked in, and our tongues joined like they do to lamp-posts in a Minnesota winter.
The kid ejaculated first, and as his cock pulsed,and it's throbs, did the final on me, and we both came. And Uncle Sean, wiped away cum from his grizzled lips.
"That was braw. Ye want another dram?"
Kid wouldn't let go, his cock was bleaching my skin, and he was imploring.
"Hug me, hug me..."
A big hand held three glasses. I passed one over to the kid.
"You drink it for me...and then fuck me....."
I looked away up, at a silhouette of a granite block merged within the meager light.
"It's awright with me, wee lad. The kids too tight for this 'n."
And he showed me why he was number three pornsuperstar.
"Ye never saw any of me films? Boning the BadBoy? Baste me in Chicken juice? The Sublimity of ChoirBoys, too Artsy-fartsy, I thought, but I got a Whang at the award ceremony. Ach weel, bonnie lad, its your loss."
"Do me man, I've been a very bad boy, needs fucking..." Prince Gorgeous, so fine, looking at me like I knew what to do.
"I gotta go back to my cab. I got responsibilities, its not all money," I said. I lied.
"Whist no boy, you don't get the thousand bucks, less you oblige an old man. "
I tell this story to Johnny and he'll kick my ass to Marin. Like he would earn two thousand he'll tell me. I won't top him.
"Get down, wee braveheart, twixt, Dickon's legs, use a little spit, though trust me, he'll feel no pain. I'll lather ye up, as yizz gets adjusted."
I leant over the kid, easily nineteen, I said to myself, and he looks up at me like as a kid who's thrown up, over me, over the bed, and the smell of sick, isn't so unattractive. He's got eyes, as brilliant as oysters, the pupil's black pearls, and his long locks, shoulder length, dirty ends, but that's the style, burnt, like fish is served nowadays. My penis bulb butts up against his ass-hole.
I push in, I have to push, but I'm hard and I feel him sucking in all his breath, and he's so open, its easy as I slide in, its delicious, and I'm in, as if in darkness, in a tunnel with oily walls as his sphincter gropes, like a virgin giving her first hand-job.
He lets me in pulls me in as his hands reach round to the small of my back. And my balls crush without breaking as they lie between my thighs and his wide open legs, like a bicycling excersise, till he's comfortable, as he easily takes me in, and helps my hips, do the rocking motion, and I start to like it. This is easy. Money fer nothin. I get it. You swing your hips that drives my cock into and out of his ass and I adopt the natural motion, that homosapiens, uses in intercourses with his fellow man.
I've forgotten about the venerable Scot, behind us, as this could go for awhile, back forth, in out, and the kid's breathing unnaturally, and pulls in more. Used to bigger things. Faster seems to please him. But if I keep it up I'll come. Duh. Finally I get it.
A cold wetness hits my ass, makes me stop in mid-stroke.
"Auntie Merriweather's lineament, as we call it in the sex-shops of Edinburgh. I bring it wi' me, a suitcase-full each time. Feels gooey at first," he says as his hand starts rubbing the goop up my asshole, then his finger probes where fingers haven't probed before.
"Aw, thee's a braw one, tha'll take the thick member, nay doot."
I feel the heat of his breath, on my neck, while Dickon below wonders why we've stopped, and bites my arm, to get me doing him again. Maybe fucking the kid'll numb the surprise.
A plumber's tool, usually for unstopping drains, presses up against my anus. I start fucking the kid harder, and the waves in the bed rise, as MobyDick enters Jonah's ass.
The kid kisses me all better, after its over, cause I've been crying. But I got a thousand dollars in my hand. And the kid is nice and sweet, kisses me a lot, especially the brave little tailor as he calls my burnt cock. My ass to sore even for good toilet paper.
The time! I have a taxicab to run. I make my apologies and limp out. I get to my cab. Fucking Ticket!
Usually, Johnny's customers don't all need the taxi and hotel combo, he's an independent operator. I haven't heard from him, but it don't mean he hasn't been busy. I cruised by Polk and Geary, but his corner's empty. I stop, pull up, get out, walk up Polk, by Sutter, the chinese fruit & veg, and buy cigarettes, check out the till as it opens, but it wouldn't be worth it in this flea bit shop, and the cowboy, chinese with the eyes, looks at me suspiciously. I see a dark limo down the street, a driver's head sticks out. A word, a cigarette is exchanged and a ragged youth gets in the back. My hand goes to my pants front, and my hand touches the handle of my automatic. But it's not Johnny. But the gun is loaded.
The Chinese is still staring at me.
"You lookin' at ME! You lookin' at ME!" I bellow, and storm off angry. He put my change in the penny jar, nonchalantly.
I get back in the car. I look in the back. Dumb tourists allus leavin' shit.
Johnny's in there. Sitting fetal, smoking a cigarette.
He hands over a wad of money.
"Had me a good night." he says, proudly.
"I ain't your pimp!" and I throw the wad, back over at him. The key in the ignition nearly gets broke, as I fire up the auto. I drive like a loon, and the squeal of tire rubber sounds like a scream.
"Hey,hey! What's up,man! I only want you to hold it for me.I'll give you what's right, later, when I'm done."
"You fuckin' whore!"
I'm ignoring lights, and two cars behind almost cream each other as I race through.
"Jeezuz, man! Be cool, what the fuck's going on."
"Shut the fuck up."
"Aww,man..."
He braces back in the seat, retrieves the spilt bills, forms a bundle, looks back out the window. Rita calls, and I turn off the radio. Slow down somewhat, but if a cop woke up, I'd be nailed.
He leans forward, so he can yell to me.
"Had me a lawyer, tonite, man. Gray worsted suit, the works. Took me to a bar, you know, the Tonga Room, with the waterfall and shit and buys me screwdrivers and makes me stick my hand in his pants, give his cock a rubbing, while pretending to talk about movies. Then he gets close, forces my head under the table, gets me to get it in my mouth as he cums, and tosses down his drink, and no-one in the place notices."
He's laughing as he tells me. I don't respond. He gets back to pressing back in his seat. Sulking.
"Where the fuck we goin', man..."
I pull up on Pine Street, the part where the sun don't shine, 'cause the fog is allus rolled in.
"We're here."
I pull him out the car, protesting. I drag him up the stoop, into my building, up the flight of stairs, open the door. I throw him inside.
"You fuck, whassup,..."
Then I think he gets it. He laughs.
"Oh, Jeez, all yuh hadda do wuz to ask...."
He takes off the ragged leather jacket.
I pounce on him, hands everywhere, pulling him close.I lick his neck and his nearly-ready-to-shave jaw.
We roll, fall into the Busvans for Bargains sofa. I'm everywhere, and he's giggling.
"Didn't know you cared..." he says, sarcastic.
His hands undo his belt he unbuttons his front.
"Suck it man..."
My face is in his crotch, swallowing his erection. My lips grab his meat, like I'd fall off the edge of the world if I let go. He pulls off my shirt, and runs his hands over my back and arms, and presses his fingers into my hair, as my head goes up and down like an out of control elevator. I'm gasping like asthmatic as his cock boils inside my mouth.
"Lemme do you too," and reaches for my belt, and the fucking gun goes off.
"You fucking idiot," he says. We clinch together, as I bleed on him.
"You fucking idiot....." and he hugs me, while we hear the ambulance wail.
He stays by my bed, visits every day regular.
"You fucking idiot, " he smiles, as he says, as I get well.
Authors note: I had a Scorsese to settle.