Chauffeuring The Blind

by Philip Vassallo

A middle-aged, overweight, blind couple stood
With their teenage daughter in Washington Heights,
Saint Nicholas Avenue and One eighty-first,
Hailing my taxi, suitcases in hand.

Unlike most hackmen, I pulled to the curb
Polite as I could, thinking this a good deed.
I offered a greeting, lifted the trunk
And loaded their luggage then opened their door.

The girl hugged her parents and then said to me,
“LaGuardia Airport, American Air.”
She walked from us toward her apartment building
As Mom and Dad entered the back of the cab.

The moment I pulled from the curb with my fare
The man in the voice of a New Yorker said,
“Take the Harlem River Drive to the Triboro Bridge
To the Grand Central Parkway. We know where we’re going,

Don’t let the blindness fool you. We can feel the right way.”
The wife added, “And we’re paying nine bucks is all.”
I didn’t know where to begin my defense
Of my honor to such presumptuous creeps

Who’d insist I’m a rip-off with no way of knowing.
I said, “I won’t let the blindness fool me
If you won’t let the work I do fool you.
I can feel the right way to behave with my fares.”

Then silence. Through One Eighty First, the ramp,
On down to the Harlem, the tollbooth, and bridge,
Through traffic, through honking, through stopping, through swerving,
All I could see was their heads in the mirror,

Their paleness, their stillness, expressionless stare
They were staring at me. They could feel through their coldness,
These fraudulent, cold-hearted, ill-mannered folks?
All I could think was two things: to get them

There fast from my cab to their flight as far
As away as they will. And Itchy the Dispatcher
Who said just that morning if my bookings stay low
I need not check in for a cab one more day.

A thousand days, a quarter million miles,
Forty thousand asses, hardly a living,
Walking past hackmen off-shift in the office,
The cups of stale coffee, the cigarette smoke,

Their poker games, OTB, and broken homes,
The low-lifes escaping from paying their fare,
The high-powered businessmen showing contempt,
The harlots, the homeless, the fifteen-cent tips,

And now this? This distrusting, arrogant couple
Defying all that mother had taught me: to respect
The blind for God anointed them with His very hand
For at birth they had captured His image and never

Needed to see anything again after their unbearable
Encounter. But this couple did need to see
Past their blindness. I pulled next to American
And looked at the meter reading ten bucks,

And I told them, “Sorry, it’s more than you expected.
”He handed me a ten saying, “Very well, but you must have
Gone the wrong way.” And she said, “We’ll tell Mary
Not to let this one take us again.”

I shot back, “You won’t have to worry about that,”
As I unloaded their luggage for the baggage handler,
The man asked him, “Are there three pieces? Don’t pull
A fast one.” “Yes sir,” he said, hauling the luggage

And escorting them to the terminal. Stiffed of a tip
I drove off in my cab, now seeing what I hadn’t
When the couple was with me. Their blindness precluded
My humanity. I put my life second to making

Ends meet, I sacrifice decency for pride,
I disregard the anointed in favor of being
Who I try to be. I could have asked,
I could have looked in the mirror returning their stare

And asked if they remembered, if they really knew
The specter of God, if He too let His wisdom
Betray His love the moment they saw Him,
The moment that none of us saw. Amen.

Back