Taxi girl

On December 21, 1973, Tania Wildman sat across the desk from her boss in his office at Pottawatomie Publishing.

     ​“Mr. Worman, are you saying if I don’t have sex with you, you’re gonna fire me?”

     Tania’s boss averted his eyes, pulled down the sides of the Santa Claus cap he was wearing and took a swig of Dewar’s from a Merry Christmas paper cup.

     “I wouldn’t put it like that,” he said.

     “How would you put it?” she asked.

     Tania thought, I’m twenty-seven; you’re pushing sixty, fat, bald and married. I don’t even like you; why would I have sex with you?

     ​“Look. Ten years ago, my wife had a nervous breakdown; she hasn’t been the same since.” Worman got up, stood behind Tania’s chair and put his hands on her shoulders. He inched them down her chest.

     “Don’t you see? You could help me feel like a man again.” 

     ​“I do see,” said Tania. She backed her chair into his groin, got up and walked out the office door. 

Tania passed through a drunken crowd of office-party revelers on her way to the exit. She spotted Johnny, the fifty-three-year-old Black man who’d worked at Pottawatomie for thirty-six years and was referred to as “the mailroom boy.” He was dipping a shrimp in cocktail sauce. Tania grabbed the mistletoe that Mary, the receptionist, was holding over Frank the salesman’s head and went over to Johnny. She raised the mistletoe in the air, kissed him on the cheek and whispered in his ear.

     ​“You act like the shit you put up with here doesn’t bother you, but I know it does.”

     ​Johnny said nothing. Tania returned the mistletoe to Mary. Johnny dipped another shrimp, and Tania took an elevator to the ground floor. 

Snow was falling on Wabash Avenue as Tania exited the office building; she walked north to Congress. Tears and flurries splattered her cheeks. She hailed a cab; the taxi pulled up to the curb, and Tania got in. 

     ​“Sedgwick and Wisconsin, please.”

     ​“Merrrrry Christmas to me,” said the driver. “It’s quitting time, and you wanna go six blocks from where I wanna go.”

     ​“You’re a woman!”

     ​“Last time I looked,” said the driver. She turned onto Lake Shore Drive.

     ​“Howdja get this job?” asked Tania.

     ​“I walked into the main office of Windy City Cab and filled out an application. They’ve got about ten gals driving for them. I’ll answer your next question before you ask it; it’s as safe as you make it. I only drive in the daytime. I take people to work and bring them home.

​     “What made you decide to do it?”

     ​“Four kids, no husband and I didn’t want to work for somebody who was dumber than me.”

At 7:17 a.m. on December 27, Tania walked from her apartment on Sedgwick to the Windy City Cab barn on North Park wearing woolen sailor pants she’d made into knickers, a peacoat, a knit newsboy cap, knee socks and black Converse high-tops. She pulled a piece of scratch paper from the pocket of her peacoat and read aloud.

     “From the intersection of Madison and State, the street numbers go up one hundred per block in every direction.”

     Tania turned into the garage and got in line with the other cabbies at the dispatch window. A fellow driver in a snorkel parka stood behind her.

     ​“You can relax; everybody here is harmless,” he murmured.

Tania got behind the wheel of taxi 4281. She set a cigar box, her manila trips envelope and a street guide on the front seat next to her; she put her temporary chauffeur’s license in a plastic holder on the dashboard. Then she drove out of the barn and headed east to LaSalle.

At Ohio, three businessmen whistled and waved her down. Tania made a left and pulled up to the curb in front of the Heart of Downtown Hotel. She lowered her window.

     “Need a lift?”

     ​The men got into the back seat.

     ​“You’re our first lady cab driver,” said one of them.

     ​“You’re my first passengers,” said Tania. “Where to?”

     ​“The Sears Tower.”

     ​“Do you know where that is?” asked another.

​     “Of course I do.” She lowered the flag on the meter.

“I’m a licensed chauffeur; getting you where you wanna go is my raison d’être.”

     ​“Your what?” asked the third.

     ​“My reason to be.” Tania took off.

     ​This is so much fun! It’s like Daddy gave me a car, and people are paying me to drive them around in it.

Tania picked up another fare at the Sears Tower. That passenger wanted to go to the Allerton Hotel on Michigan and Huron. From there, she took a lady to Marshall Field’s. One trip led to another, and by 5:30 p.m., she’d given thirty rides. Tania deadheaded to the taxi barn and turned in her trips envelope; her fares were logged on the front, and cash was sealed inside.  

Tania walked up North Park; a 1973 red Corvette pulled over to the curb. The driver lowered the passenger window and leaned across the front seat.

     ​“Want a ride?”

It was the cabbie with the snorkel parka.

     ​“No thanks, but thanks for offering.” She crossed the street at Eugenie, entered St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and headed downstairs to Lee Enright’s acting class.

Fifteen minutes later, Tania charged onto the performance space in the church’s basement. Tommy, her scene partner, was snoring in an easy chair.

    ​“Wake up, George. Do you want to be a bum, or do you want to be president?” shouted Tania. “You can bet John Adams isn’t snoozing; you don’t want to be vice  president, do you, George?” She sat down at a table, scribbled on a piece of lined paper and pulled the page out of a spiral notebook. She read from the sheet.

     ​“Abigail Adams is a bitch. Her husband’s an asshole. Vote for George Washington.” Tania handed the paper to Tommy. 

“Run this broadside over to the blacksmith; tell ’im to put it in his window and give the town crier a mutton leg so he’ll say your name in between the headlines. Here, I’ll demonstrate.” Tania stood up and cupped her hand over the side of her mouth.

     “HEAR YE, HEAR YE,” she called out, then muttered,“george washington. NEW YORK FINALLY RATIFIES THE CONSTITUTION. george washington. WILLIAM BRODIE IS HANGED. george washington.” Tania tapped her right temple with the tip of her index finger.

     “Your name will go into people’s brains without their knowing it; I’m calling it advertising that functions below the level of consciousness.”  

     ​Tommy got up.

     ​“Don’t forget to wear your teeth,” said Tania.

​     He left the space.

     ​“I’m the one who should be running for president,” she said. “Shit, I can’t even vote.”

On New Year’s Eve, Tania left the cab barn and headed home around 5:30 p.m. An inch of snow was on the ground, and more was coming down. The red Corvette stopped alongside her, and the cabbie in the funnel parka called out.

​     “Want a lift?”

     ​“Who are you, anyway?” asked Tania.

     ​“I’m a lonely college student in town for the holidays; my name’s Dan. Oh yeah, my father owns the cab company.”

     ​“Well, I’m not going to fuck you to advance my career, Dan, but you can drive me home.” Tania opened the passenger door and got inside. 

     ​“What are you studying?” she asked. “Taxi—dermy?”

     ​“No, sociology.”

     ​“Well then, you must have read my book, Cultural Lag: Fact or Fiction?”

     ​“I did; you wrote that?”

     ​Tania laughed  

“Not the whole book, just the back cover.”

Dan pulled up to Tania’s apartment building.

     ​“When are you going back to school?”

     ​“The day after tomorrow.”

     ​“That’s perfect.” Tania unzipped his pants and gave him a blow job.

     ​“Happy New Year, lonely college student.” She got out of the car, went up to her apartment and smoked a joint.

Tania came downstairs, headed up the block to the Six Sixpence Pub and sat at the bar.

     ​“Two shots of Southern Comfort, please.” She downed them both and went home.

A little after midnight, Tania’s phone rang.

     ​“Happy New Year to you too. Are you drunk? You sound drunk,” she said into the receiver. She lit a Virginia Slim with a Rivo pocket lighter her father got her on a business trip to Switzerland.

     “I wasn’t there because I quit the textbook business for a better job . . .  in transportation.” Tania took a drag from the cigarette. 

     “Yes, I’m still doing my theater thing, and it’s not improv. It’s surrealistic comedy. There’s a big difference. Why am I having this conversation? I’m hanging up, Tate.” Tania flicked an ash into an Inger Waage cereal bowl from a set of dishes her parents had given her and Tate as a wedding gift.

     “Stop crying . . . stop saying you’re going to kill yourself. You’ve been saying that for two years.” She took another drag.

     “Listen, if being together was as much fun as you say it was, we’d still be married.” She crushed out the cigarette.

     “Happy New Year, Tate. Goodbye.”

Tania returned to the cab barn on January 2, 1974, and got behind the wheel of taxi 4281. It had been outfitted with a dispatch radio and safety belts.