You’re 15 minutes away and the meeting is starting. You’re the only one waiting and step closer to the sidewalk. You hold your hand towards heaven. Make eye contact with the next cab driver staring in your direction-a few years older, bearded like you, slightly fairer skin. You nod your head and smile.
You feel the edges of your lips curl down as he drives by without slowing.
You turn and start walking. You wipe the sweat trickles from your face with the napkin from this morning’s business mixer. You ignore the idea that there are probably people watching from the nearby restaurants. Sipping their cool drinks and watching as your pride spills out over the hot pavement.
You are a black man in a suit having a hard time catching a cab. You are the performer and the problem. The cliche but not the customer.
And you’re about to be late for a very important goddamned meeting -enough work for the rest of the year. Enough to go back east for a minute, see the fam and shoot some cash to your goddaughter who’s starting school soon.
You remember why you hate taking taxis, but don’t think about that time visiting a friend in Hell’s Kitchen. How she stepped into the street-116 pounds of white womanhood-after seeing you fail to hail 3 empty cabs. Her hand stuck out in the air, fingers slightly apart, mimicking yours in every way except pigment. “I got it” she said, “you just gotta know how to do it right.”
The asshole cabbie that passed you is slowing, stopping at a red light a few feet down the road with no one approaching. The “In Service” light is still on. You could make it if you ran.
“Fuck him.”
You could just walk the 15 blocks, but the sun is bright above your head and hotter than a preacher’s daughter. Look at the cab and at your phone. Pick up a slight jog, draping your suit jacket over your arm. You catch the door handle while the light is still red but half expect this driver to pull off anyway as you grab the handle like a life preserver and slide into the back seat.
You give the address with a please but no eye contact. You lean back in the seat and try to calm down. You take deep breaths.
You don’t make a big deal when you see the cab driver watching through the rearview and tense when you reach into your bag. You ignore the way his shoulders settle when all you pull out is a large water bottle.
You notice the cleanliness of the cab and the air heavy with car freshener. You think how your grandfather would probably like this man. How he’d drilled into each of his children the importance of presentation.
You’re calmer now but the sour question still simmers in your mouth.
“Yo, dude. Excuse me.”
He looks up into the rearview, turns the radio down slightly.
You ask him why he didn’t stop.
The driver is turning into heavy traffic and this allows him a few seconds of silent concentration. The air between you is vast and empty of answers. He steadies the car and doesn’t look back again.
“Eh, I’m sorry my friend. I usually don’t pick up black guys.”
You both let that sit for a moment. A fart of a statement that fouls up the small space.
“I was robbed by two black guy” he says. “They had guns. A lot of drivers get robbed.”
The driver is middle eastern. Pakistani, or Palestinian. Arabian or maybe Yemeni. You feel slightly guilty for not being able to tell the difference.
You wonder which one of you has been stopped more at airports. You consider how you’ve been misidentified in virtually every country you’ve ever visited.
“You Ethiopian?”
“You Eritrean?”
“You South African?”
“You black American!!!” The Moroccan guys had asked that one time in Barcelona, your backpack heavy with guidebooks and research from Biblioteca de Catalunya.
“You thug, yeah? Show me your gat!”
You turn and look out the window at the Financial District’s grey army, most wearing shades of your same absurd uniform. You think about how the lives we lead are shaped largely by the ways that we move through them and you wish you had a soundtrack for this moment. Some blues to score to this awkward dialogue. You sink deeper into the soft back seat.
“Yeah, I understand dude.”
You’re a block away from the office now. You look at the fair and the time on the dashboard. You’re less than 10 minutes late. You calculate the tip. You slide your fingers to the leather bulge in your right pocket and pull out a twenty and a ten, stop for a second, then count out another five twenty dollar bills. You roll the wad up with the 10 facing out.
You gather your bag and suit jacket on one arm, slide the money over the seat and tell the man you’ll get out here, thanks.
You open the door onto the curb just as the driver finishes counting the money and turns back to you with an open mouth and a question.
You shut the door. You don’t look back. You keep walking north towards the tall building. You walk quickly, as if your life depended on it.
