The Other Side of Midnight (5 page)

When I started driving in the early ‘60s, gas was 59 cents a gallon, and it was only $8 to fill up your tank. You could go from here to Gander and back—I've done it, gone out to central and back again in a taxi—and when I got back to the Crossroads the tank took $8.13. The meters had a big handle on them you had to wind. When you turned it up the meter was on. When you turned it down you were stopped. There was none of this waiting time, like when you're stopped at a red light. It was based on distance. The first half-mile was 70 cents, and every quarter mile after that you got 10 cents. You could go downtown for $1. You could go down over Barter's Hill to Woolworth's on Water Street and there would be $1.10 on the meter. People would get out on New Gower Street and walk over so they'd only have to pay the dollar.

If you went to Harbour Grace it was only $30, and that was a good run. Harbour Grace is now $146. It's $200 to go to Argentia, where it used to be $35. There used to be that much crushed stone on the Argentia Access Road that it took an hour and a half just to get down from the Trans-Canada Highway.

You'd make $100 a day. We were busy. It was steady go—steady belt. But that's when a dollar was worth a dollar. You went at it as fast as you could be at it because there was only one stand in the west end. There were no big stands like City Wide Taxi and Jiffy Cabs. City Wide only started up in the 1990s. Peter Gulliver's grandfather, Pearce Gulliver, had a place over on Queen Street. His son, Dave, went out on his own then and called it Dave Gulliver's Cabs because his father had the name Gulliver's Cabs. They had ‘69 Ramblers, twelve Rambler Rebels, and one Ambassador. Jiffy Taxi started in 1955. They only had five or six cars. I can remember that; I was ten years old. Then they closed up for years and years until Tom Hollett took it over.

You had a lot of taxi companies because not many had radios. Radio Taxi didn't even have a radio. You had to go back to the stand and wait for a job off the phone. If the phone rang ten after seven, they'd say, “That's missus so-and-so. She's going to bingo tonight.”

You knew everybody you drove. You knew who it was before you picked them up. It was all regulars. We didn't have much of a tourism industry. The tourism industry only came here a few years ago. We had the people who came in on the flights and left and went out on the same night, or stayed overnight and went out the next day. We didn't have any tourists. Now you hardly see the same people.

I worked at other jobs, but they were seasonal. I worked the longshore for a couple of months every year when they were busy, and I worked for Molson driving the beer truck at Christmastime. But I would always go back taxiing because that's where the money was. There was instant money. It was a good life because you always had money. There was no such thing as having to wait until Friday to get paid. If you started a job today, they'd hold back the first two weeks' pay. You got to go a month before you get a check. What would you do in a month? A month is a long time when you got no money. Even if they held back a week, that's still a long time to go with no money. But at this here you always got cash money. That's never changed.

I raised three boys. I never wanted for nothing. If I needed money, I'd go to work. Some people say taxi drivers are like fishermen, poor fishermen. But that's not true. That's definitely not true. Why would anyone be at it if they weren't making a dollar?

The Best Taxi Driver in St. John's

Theodore, driving for thirty-eight years

Jimmy Stone used to be a popular name in the taxi business. When he was at it, he was probably the best taxi driver in St. John's. I saw him one time driving this older lady up to Sobeys on Ropewalk Lane. He got her walker out and helped her in. He sat her on the bench and told her to wait there while he parked the car.

I was out by the door with the wife. I said, “Jimmy, what are you at?”

“I'm going in to help her buy her groceries.”

When he came out, he put the bags in the trunk, took her home and put her groceries away for her in her cupboards. Jimmy used to do that, and with some guys you can't even get them to open a door for the customer. They wouldn't care if you were 100 years old, they wouldn't get out and help you with nothing. Jimmy was a taxi driver, buddy, I guarantee you. He was a gentleman.

The Taxi Inspector

Darryl, driving and dispatching for twenty-five years

It was five bucks for your taxi licence and twenty-five to register the car. The city would give you a big card that used to go in the window and a separate card for your pocket. You got one every year. You had to go down to the Horseshoe Tavern and get the taxi inspector. That was in the 1960s before City Hall was built. City Hall wasn't built until the 1970s. He would spend all day into the Horseshoe Tavern drinking beer. Beer was only 33 cents a bottle. You could buy three for $1 and get a penny back.

There was no paper record of you getting your licence because he spent the $5 on beer. But then computers started to come into it and there was a record kept of everything.

The Knight Riders

Edward, driving for thirty-eight years

What got me into this headache? My father was poisoned with me going to him for money. “This is what you're going to do,” he said. “You're going to get a taxi licence.”

The Mounties took me out for my driving test. I drove around Pleasantville and parked between two cars. But when I went to back her out, I forgot she was still in reverse and struck the pole. The Mountie said, “Don't worry, it was my fault. I distracted you.”

Frank Upshaw was doing the hiring for Gulliver's. “See Bill Grouchy at City Hall. Tell him you want your taxi licence.”

I showed Bill my driver's licence, and he wrote out a card and stuck a little silver dash on it. “Go to work,” he said.

That was in 1974. I've been at it ever since.

For my first job, I drove some buddy out to Mount Pearl, and he stuck me for the fare. At least, he tried to stick me for the fare. He got out and walked up to his apartment. I can still see him as plain as day. He said, looking down, “What are you waiting for? You're not getting paid.”

“Say that to my face,” I said.

He ran down over the stairs and hauled out a wad of cash and started waving it in my face.

I was sitting in the front seat, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and took the money and shoved it in my mouth. “You're not getting that,” I said. “Thank you.”

I ended up giving him a good knocking. But, man, he was as tough as nails—as tough as nails. When I got back into the car, he was getting up, and grabbed me by the jean jacket. He ripped the back right off, the square piece on the back of the jacket.

When I pulled out, he chased me with the piece of my jacket in his hand: “I'm going to kill you.
I'm going to fucking kill you!
”

I still got my money, though.

You look back on those kinds of things and kind of laugh.

When I started driving, I never had any kids, and I wasn't married. I had lots of time on my hands and cash in my front pocket. I was meeting all kinds of different people and getting paid for it. I was happy to get behind the wheel of a taxi and drive someone to work, pick them up and bring them home, or drive them to the supermarket, the hospital. It wasn't like working in an office where you got to stick inside all day. You could come and go when you pleased. You could go home when you wanted, go pick up a bucket of chicken, or grab a beer if you wanted. Drivers weren't under as much pressure and stress as they are now, either. At the end of the day, I can't wait to get out of the car. It gets to you because you know you got to be out and there's nothing else for you but taxiing.

There was a television at the stand where you could watch a bit of the news while you waited for a job. You could go in and watch television, relax, and have a cigarette and a coffee. All the drivers got along because there weren't a lot of cabs on the road, and everyone was getting their fair share of work. There was no Jiffy. There was no Co-Op. ABC was on the go over on Southside Road, but they had maybe only fifteen or twenty cars. Courtesy Taxi only had five cars, and so did Golden Cabs. It was easy to make money because everyone worked a particular area. Golden Cabs had Churchill Square. Bugden's had the east end. There were only ten cars down to Gulliver's, whereas now they got close to ninety. You were working with a good bunch of guys who would take the shirt right off their back and give it to you. There was no job robbing, no fussing.

Johnny Dunn, the little midget, is dead now. But when he was dispatching, if a job was given to you on the stand to pick someone up, but there was already a car in the area, Johnny would say, “What do you want to do?” You would pass the job onto that driver. That was common. There was no robbing jobs on other drivers, and there was a very slim chance of getting a water haul—going to a house and no one comes out. There was none of this calling up two or three different companies on a Friday or Saturday night and taking the first one that got there.

We really had to work the hours, but that's never changed. I had to put in ten, twelve, fifteen hours a day, just to stay on top. I ate, slept and breathed in the car. There was none of this airport stuff, hooking jobs to Clarenville, Gander, or Bay Roberts—a big score. You were tickled pink to drive a parcel up over the hill for $3. Right now, the meter starts at $3.25, but gas is more expensive. It used to be $5 for a half-tank of gas, and insurance was dirt cheap. I think I was paying $500 a year when I first put my taxi on the stand—probably less.

Rather than wait for a job from the dispatcher, I'd cruise. He would write you down on a piece of paper and if you didn't get a job off Water Street he'd give you a house job. But Water Street was always flat out. Woolworth's was the busiest department store in the city. Then there was The Arcade and Bon Marche. Those stores were open for years, long before I was born.

George Street was nothing, a ghost town. There was a supermarket and a scrap metal shop, and that's about it.

Water Street was the thing for taxi drivers.

When I got put on nights, it was like a whole other world. I was used to picking up people at Woolworth's and The Arcade. When the supermarket was on Parade Street, I would pick up customers with a load of groceries. I had never experienced night driving. I said to myself,
This is wicked!

Fact was, you're making more money and you're into the downtown scene.

I learned pretty quickly that part of driving the night shift was hustling to make a dollar off the meter. I often had prostitutes in the car. Sometimes I'd drive them over to Confederation Building, and they'd take buddy with them and go lie down in the field for fifty bucks. They weren't up there with those fancy girls, the call girls, or whatever it is you call them. They were at the bottom of the ladder—they were desperate. There was a whole load of them around Bulger's Lane. The Portuguese and Japanese fishermen would come off the boats and they would give you fifty bucks for lining them up with a prostitute. Every driver knew where they were to, them and the bootleggers. If those same fishermen wanted a bottle of rum after eleven o'clock, you would bring them up to Shea Heights. If they wanted a woman and a bottle of rum, you'd take them up to Shea Heights and then back to Bulger's Lane. Then he's got his bottle of rum and his woman.

For me, how I remember it, Water Street in the summertime was like Hollywood Boulevard. People would be lined up on the sidewalks waiting to get into the clubs. I'd have the windows down, the music going, waiting for a lady to stick out her leg, some beautiful blonde with a frame on her like a model. That's the one you watched out for. You're looking out the window, doing probably seven miles-an-hour because the traffic is bumper to bumper, and then out she steps with the red dress and the high heels and all done up to the nines.

That's when I had long hair and a full mouth of teeth. I would pick young women up down around The Stetson, some woman who has had a fight with her husband or her boyfriend. They would stand around and have a cigarette and look for meat and watch you cruise by. You'd probably go past her three times and she would still be on the sidewalk, watching. As soon as they got in the cab, first thing, they would ask how old I was. They would ask if I was mar- ried, or if I had a girlfriend. Then they would want to know if I was interested in coming in for a drink. Picking up a woman was something I had never experienced.

As a matter of fact, I picked up a crew at the airport, an Air Canada crew. There were three women. They were talking back and forth in French, and one of them said, “Listen cabbie, I'm sure you must know where to get some special stuff.”

“What do you mean, special stuff?” I asked.

“You know what I mean. The good stuff.”

“Yes, I know where to get it.”

“I'll tell you what,” she said. “You drop these ladies off at the hotel and we're going to go party. Don't worry about the fare. I got that covered.”

“Go on,” I said. “Fine and dandy.”

The first place I hit was the Corner Tavern on Hayward Avenue. Dry. I went to Gower Street. Dry. I went to Froude Avenue. Dry.

“I don't know what to tell you, missus. This doesn't happen very often. I usually know where to get a few draws.”

I got hold of Baker on the stand. We used to talk in this lingo where nobody could pick up on what we were saying. “Baker, where can I get a bit of ice cream, or cotton candy?”

“Go up to Empire Avenue and wait on the corner.”

I went up and parked with her for five or ten minutes and three guys walked out from behind a house. I blew the horn to call them over, and she bought $100 worth of gear from them, which was a good bit of dope for that kind of money.

“We got to sample this,” she said. “Let's go somewhere.”