DEATH CAB FOR UGLY

Whenever I leave the office an hour or more past the normal close of business, I treat myself to a taxi ride home. But I wouldn't exactly call tonight's ride a "treat."

The first bad sign was that the cabbie — a late middle-aged white dude (as in every other major U.S. city, cab drivers are almost exclusively African-American or foreign) with stubbly hair and thick rim glasses — kept chit-chatting after we pulled out into traffic, even though I had a stack of papers I was obviously keen to keep reading.

Heading across the Key Bridge, he inquired about my destination. Columbia Heights, how is that neighborhood these days? (Arlington cabbies are apparently unaware of the neighborhood's resurgence.) I told him, and that seemed to settle it.

But as we drove into Foggy Bottom on the Whitehurst, he mentioned how much he loved Foggy Bottom, having gone to school at GW in the 1950s, so I volunteered that I'd worked at the Watergate. We agreed that it was somewhat overrated. So he asked me what I did. I said, formerly journalism, now PR/marketing with a focus in political strategy. Democrats or Republicans, he asked? Both, I said. I jokingly called myself a mercenary. He concurred — and wanted to keep pursuing it.

How could anbody represent Tom DeLay, he asked? I didn't answer; I'm not a fan of DeLay, but I wouldn't ask the same question. Or Karl Rove? he continued. For my part, I tried to get back to reading my favorite Karl Rove apologist. I offered that everyone deserves a defense, like an attorney. He pointed out, correctly enough, that no one is legally obligated to a spinmeister. He advised me to get out of this line of work. "It'll eat your soul." I said thanks, making sure my tone said drop it. He added that he was a Buddhist.

Fortunately, I was allowed to keep reading my printouts most of the way up Rock Creek Parkway. I'd already decided he wasn't going to get much of a tip out of me, and I was debating telling him: Don't assume you know my politics, or that you have any place lecturing me on ethics.

But as we pulled up toward Mount Pleasant, he asked what I'd like to do. As long as we were off politics, I could relent. I said journalism, he asked what kind, I said magazine journalism, he asked what kind, I said politics for sure, but my interests were wide, I'm interested in technology as well. He volunteered that he wanted to go into journalism himself — was I interested in bioethics? I allowed that it was an important field these days. He listed his advanced degrees in the sciences, plus a year of med school. Despite the fact that he was getting on in years and was now driving a cab, I replied that his skills could be useful, because the problem with journalists is that they don't know much about anything except how to report.

And he knew about technology, too — he was learning how to troubleshoot his PC. He whipped a PDA out of his breast pocket for me to admire. I supplied the socially obligated utterances of approval. He added that he was using different versions of Linux on his machines now, too. I didn't recognize the names of the variants he mentioned, but managed to sound somewhat knowledgable by asking if he was knowledgable about Ubuntu. Apparently he was. I didn't know much more.

And then as we finally made it to Columbia Heights he asked: "So where have all the blacks gone?" A reasonable question, but impolitic phrasing. They're still here, I said, in fact there's a big Hispanic population in the neighborhood. Columbia Heights is still majority minority, and overwhelmingly so. I made the (apparent) mistake of using the word "gentrification," which he objected to. He didn't like the racial connotation, and preferred "remodeling." But isn't that how you describe a house? I suggested "upgrading," which sounded awful the moment it passed my lips, but he assented — a better word indeed, he thought.

But not that he hates whites, he said, the blacks are assholes, too. And as we pulled toward my corner, he added: But hey, there are some good ones, too. Sidney Poitier, for example. Sammy Davis, too. He named a few others, none of them born after 1930. Fumbling with cash — I ended up kicking him about a buck, to be polite not make waves — I volunteered Tiger Woods, and felt stupider still for contibuting. No, he didn't like Tiger Woods. He wasn't very nice to Jack Nicholson. Of course, he meant Jack Nicklaus, but I wasn't about to correct him. As I got out and closed the door, he was still mumbling to himself.

A racist, Linux-loving Buddhist cabbie? Now that's a subculture the New York Times should look into.

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posted by WWB at 7:27 PM |