TAXI GIRL
Chapter Thirteen
Tania peeked out from behind the auditorium door at 9:58 a.m. The lobby was filled with kids, parents and gray-haired ladies wearing octagon-shaped eyeglasses.
Oh, shit . . . a full house.
“Miss Tania,” called out James De Minure. “It’s almost ten o’clock; can my grandma pee before the show starts?”
“Sure. Let her go; I’ll be right back.”
“Mwahahahaha, you said, ‘Let her go.’”
Tania gave him the STOP hand.
“Hold it,” she said.
“But I don’t have to go; do you?”
“No; I mean yes. I’ll be right back.” Tania closed the door.
In the auditorium, Dan was fiddling with the TC-353.
“Is it working?” asked Tania.
“Nope.”
“Well, there’s an assload of people out there; we’re gonna have to run the film without the sound.”
“No, we won’t.”
Tania opened the auditorium door. The crowd filed in and took their seats. She stood in front of Billy Miller’s movie screen.
“Thanks so much for coming; your kids did a great job. Enjoy the show.”
Dan switched off the houselights. Tania turned on the projector, and Dan started the audio tape on the TC-353. The title A Space Saga appeared. Dan synced the sound to the film by rotating the reels on the tape deck with his index fingers. Sweat beads formed on his forehead.
After three minutes and eleven seconds, THE END came on the screen, followed by the kids’ Polaroid headshots attached to the costumes they’d drawn at the first workshop session. The crowd cheered each child’s photo.
Tania whispered to Dan, “You’re my hero.”
Dan responded, “Do you have a handkerchief? I’m sweating like a pig.”
Tania gave him a stack of paper napkins. James DeMinure raised his hand.
“Yes, James,” said Tania.
“Can we see it again?”
“Again, again!” echoed the kids. Their families took up the chant. Dan and Tania complied.
After the second showing, everyone went into the lobby for cookies and juice. After that, the crowd began to disperse. James approached Tania on his way out the door.
“I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused. I hope there’s no hard feelings.” He extended his hand.
Tania thought, See, you never know how things are gonna turn out. She pressed his palm and was zapped by the hand buzzer he had attached to his ring finger.
“Mwahahaha, pretty funny, eh?” said James.
You little fucker, thought Tania.
“That was hilarious,” she said.
James’ father approached her.
“You know he’s in love with you, right?”
James ran out of the building.
The next day, Dan and Tania rode to the Maxwell Street Market on a used bicycle he’d bought through an ad in Chicago Classifieds.
“This is a far cry from the red Corvette,” said Tania.
“It’s better; I paid for it myself.”
Dan peddled while Tania sat sidesaddle on the crossbar. He turned west on North Avenue and then south onto Kingsbury.
“How’d you find the ice cream cart?” she asked.
“I figured since I found the bike in the for sale section of the paper, maybe someone with a cart would find me in the wanted ads . . . and they did.”
Dan and Tania crossed the Kinzie Street Bridge and took Clinton to West Maxwell. The pair walked the bike past racks of jackets, bolts of fabric, a truckload of bananas, a Creole-looking man with a live chicken on his head, photographs of Jack and Jackie, piles of tire rims, a Vienna Red Hot stand, pictures of Jesus on the cross and a large Black woman sitting on an overturned bucket playing blues guitar. They entered a four-story furniture store with PASE UD SU CREDITO ES BUENO written over the doorway. A raspy-voiced man in a white short-sleeved shirt with a clear plastic pocket protector holding three ballpoint pens greeted them.
“What can I do for you folks?”
“I’m looking for Manny,” said Dan.
“I’m Manny,” answered the man.
Manny, Dan, Tania and Manny’s bodyguard took a freight elevator to a storeroom on the top floor of the building. There were mobile hot dog stands, wheeled popcorn machines and several ice cream tricycle carts. Only one of them had bells on the handlebars and a banana seat over the back wheel.
“Get that one,” whispered Tania to Dan.
“How much for the one with the bells?” he asked.
“One-fifty,” said Manny.
The bodyguard folded his arms.
“How ’bout one-twenty-five?” asked Dan.
“Don’t try to Jew down a Jew, kid,” said Manny. “It’s one-fifty; take it or leave it.”
The bodyguard smirked.
“I don’t know, Manny,” said Dan. He looked around the storeroom. “I don’t see any folks in line to buy up this inventory. How ’bout we split the difference, and I give you one-thirty-seven-fifty?”
“Half now and half when you pick it up.”
Dan put out his hand.
“Deal.”
At 11:07 a.m. Monday, Tania drove her cab east in the left turning lane on Washington Boulevard. She came to a stop when the light at Michigan Avenue turned red. When it changed to green, she moved forward. A man raced in front of her cab. Tania jammed on the brakes. A left-turning 147 Outer Drive Express bus to her right knocked the man onto the hood of Tania’s taxi. After a second, the man slid off the taxi, waved to the bus driver, crossed in front of the bus and boarded the motor coach. Horns blared. Tania steered her cab left onto Michigan and drove to the taxi barn. She parked the cab in its assigned spot, gathered her belongings, walked up to the dispatcher’s window and handed in her trips envelope.
“I don’t want to do this anymore; I could kill somebody . . . but thank you . . . I’ve had a nice time up till now.”
Tania called Dan from a pay phone at the back of the Conestoga Restaurant on Wells, but there was no answer. She rang the doorbell for John and Larry’s apartment, but no one was home. The owner of the head shop below their building came onto the sidewalk.
Tania shouted, “You! You’re the last person I want to see.”
She headed south on Wells.
Where the hell am I going?
She turned east on Burton. A guy came out of a brownstone at the end of the block on the other side of the street.
Is that Charlie from the theater? Oh, shit, he’s got a girl with him!
The pair got into a white Eldorado; the driver put down the top. Tania crossed the street. The driver pulled out of the parking spot and drove away.
“HE’S GONNA ASK YOU IF HIS DICK’S TOO SMALL!” screamed Tania.
I need to go home, she thought. I’m falling apart.
Tania turned left onto LaSalle and took another left at North Avenue. When she got to the light at Wells Street, she searched her shoulder bag for a cigarette. She heard bells and someone calling her name. It was Dan on the ice cream cart.
“God, am I glad to see you,” said Tania.
“Hop on the back; I’ll drive you home.”
Tania sat sidesaddle on the banana seat and put her arms around Dan’s waist.
“This is better than the Corvette,” she said.
When the couple got to Tania’s apartment building, she jumped off the seat.
“A bus bumped a man onto the hood of my cab this morning.”
“Was he badly hurt?”
“No. In fact, he got on the same 147 that nearly killed him.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, it made me think.”
“I bet.”
“I told the dispatcher I didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Drive a taxi; I quit.”
“You’re unemployed?”
“Yup.”
“What a coincidence! A company I run is hiring.”
“What company?”
“Windy City Yogurt.”
“How do I apply?” she asked.
“It’s like the mafia. I say the word, and you’re in.”
Tania got back on the banana seat, and Dan peddled to a garage he’d rented on Burling near Armitage for forty-five dollars a month.
“I’m giving you ninety-one twenty-five; that’s half of what you paid for the cart plus half of this month’s rent for the garage,” said Tania.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to be your business partner, not your employee.”
“Okay, partner, what color do you want to paint the cart?”
At 9:35 the next morning, Tania and Dan went to Musselman’s Hardware. They bought yellow paint for the cart and red for the signage. They also got four thick wooden dowels, bolts and a drill. Then they headed to Woolworths where they picked up three yards of a blue, yellow and red floral print material plus six yards of red cotton tassel fringe trim.
The pair went back to the garage, laid free newspapers on the floor and started painting the cart.
“It looks like shit,” said Tania.
“You can say that again.”
“It looks like shit.”
They went back to Musselman’s, then returned to the garage with paint remover, wire brushes, primer and more yellow paint.
Over the next week, Tania and Dan stripped, wire brushed and primed the cart. While the undercoat was drying, they went to Hensler’s Market and asked the man behind the meat counter if they could see the owner.
“I’m the owner, Herman H. Hensler.”
“Mr. Hensler,” said Dan.
“Call me Herman.”
“Herman, would you be interested in selling us ten cases of mixed flavored yogurt every week for the next four months?”
“Jawohl, I would, and I’ll give you a discount.”
The couple left Hensler’s with a string of blood sausage, eggs and a bottle of Riesling. They went to Tania’s apartment, and she fried the sausage in Billy Miller’s cast iron pan. Dan opened the wine and poured them each a glass. He raised a toast.
“To us,” he said.
Tania toasted him back.
“To us.”
They sipped the wine; Tania turned the sausages. Dan took a drag off a joint and handed it to Tania; she took a toke.
“I think we should live together,” he said.
Tania gagged, coughed uncontrollably, then gasped for air.
