My friend the escaped mental patient

Bad Choices Make Good Stories: Going to New York, Chapter 7

"Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy."

Nora Ephron

After a few weeks of pretending to be a freelance artist, I had to admit to myself that I wasn't actually making any money. I really shouldn't have quit my day job as art director at that newspaper. So I needed to find a new job. Not that easy.

Donna's brother's father-in-law Lou owned a limousine service. Well, that's what he called it, but it was really just a bunch of guys driving their own shitty cars. There were no actual limos. It was a typical New York ghetto cab service. 

There are two different types of taxis in New York City. The yellow cabs that everyone knows don't have radios, but the drivers are allowed to pick up people on the street. Limousines are not yellow, and the drivers have two way radios to communicate with a dispatcher, but they are not allowed to pick up people on the street.

Lou was always looking for drivers, so if I had a car, I could start working for him right away. But I didn't have a car.

Donna's uncle Rick had an old junk car rotting in his backyard. He said I could have it for free. He was probably happy to finally get rid of that wreck. The transmission was slipping, the seats were ripped, the ceiling in the car looked like it had cancer, and the body was so eaten up by rust, that there were holes in the floor in front of the backseat. 

People sitting on the backseat could look down and see the asphalt through the holes between their feet. It was an old red Dodge. Rick jokingly called it the Red Baron. I called it the Flintstone mobile, because I felt if I kick down hard enough, my feet would be on the street, and then I could use my feet to move the car, just like Fred Flintstone. 

As an added bonus, the muffler was broken. So the exhaust fumes were coming through the holes in the floor. The car was basically a rolling gas chamber. I inhaled so much carbon monoxide, I'm sure I lost quite a few brain cells, while driving around in that death trap. 

If I remember correctly, I was a New York cab driver for about two years. Maybe a little less. I drew cartoons during the day and drove at night, from 6 pm until 2 am.

A lot of crazy stuff happened during those two years.