Cabbies

I was leaving for home the other night. Leaving a club in Kensington with $1.43 in my pocket.

2AM. It was cold at the streetcar stop on College. A black man and a white man was trying to catch a cab. There were plenty of empty ones but none would stop for them. The black man had on a toque in Jamaician colours. The white man was bald with a single earring. He had on a navy blue bomber jacket -- the same one the skinheads in American History X wore.

All the empty cabs kept speeding past them. They were walking and laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.

I crossed over to their side of the street and asked them if they were trying to hail a cab. They were apprehensive, but told me yes. I looked at them and smiled. I waved them away from the curb; closer to the side of the building and out of the light.

I had on a khaki-coloured London Fog jacket and and conservative-looking messenger bag swung to one-side. I looked like a visiting American businessman.

I stuck my arm out of the sidewalk and a cab sped down -- it swerved almost off the roadway -- and stopped pin-perfect in front of me, in spite of the rain.

I looked into the side-window to the driver, openned the rear-door. Quickly I waved the two men inside. As they got in, one of them thanked me. I said goodbye, slammed the door, and walked back to the streetcar stop. It was wet and I stared down the road west towards Little Italy. Still no streetcar was coming.