A Taxi Driver's Halloween

There are nights of the year when a sensible man of experience in the business deigns to opt out. New Year's Eve tops the list for me, with its amateur drunkards expelling the slightly fermented contents of their festering fin-de-siecle guts all over the backseat of my cab, forcing me to pay to have the thing thoroughly cleaned, an expense I don't need and an olfactory ordeal I'd rather live without. I haven't gone out on St. Patrick's Day in 16 years. The Puerto Rican Day parade is probably the worst.

There are other nights when driving a yellow cab in New York City puts you at the center of many quiet and meaningful moments in other people's lives: cruising the cemeteries on Christmas or Mother's Day works very well for me, and the tips are splendid. Thanksgiving is always a good night. Thanksgiving is a very low-pressure holiday. People are well-fed and conversational, open.

I like Halloween the best. Everybody's just a little goofy, in a good-natured way. It's a child's holiday, all about fantasy and play. I picked up a family of devils by Lincoln Center at about 5. They were going to the parade. Mommy Devil, Daddy Devil and two Devil Children, a girl and a boy. The children had their bags, not yet completely stuffed, and we made our way down the West Side Hwy. listening to Saint-Saen's Danse Macabre on the radio. I like all kinds of music, but notated music is the best for driving in town, especially when the traffic is bad.

A sweet and graceful elderly lady from Paris hailed me on Lafayette, outside the Public. She spoke of her eagerness to return home as I shuttled her up Park Ave. to the Waldorf. She said that New York has changed too much for her over the years. "New York was charming to me when it was merely belligerent," she opined. "Now it seems that even the upper crust has become thuggish. The men are afraid to be courteous. It is as if courtesy has become a sign of weakness."

The Mephisto Waltz was tinkling and pounding away on the radio as I ran two Teletubbies down to the Limelight. I'm not sure which Teletubbies they were, but they were having a very animated conversation about the cost of ecstasy and the hazards of GHB, so it seems probable that at least one of them was the notorious "Tinky Winky," catamite icon and emblem of contemporary toddler depravity. I picked up a Wookie and a vampire priest on 5th Ave. and ran them over to the Life Cafe on Tompkins Square.

The most popular costumes were the old-fashioned striped convict uniforms and pimps 'n' hos. There were pimps 'n' hos everywhere this Halloween. Interestingly, there were no visible presidential candidates. I saw three Nixons, but no Gore, no Bush, no Nader, not even a Pat Buchanan. I'd given brief consideration to driving as Pat, in bib overalls with a plastic pitchfork at my side, but I couldn't find a Buchanan mask, and driving while wearing a mask has to be some kind of fairly serious TLC violation.

I took a carload of pimps out to Williamsburg and got a fare back to the East Village, a charming Irish girl from County Mayo with a soft and alluring lilt to her speech. We flirted a bit as the radio played the Devil's Trill and skeletons and ghosts cavorted up Suffolk St. An L.L. Bean-clad middle-aged guy bearing a striking resemblance to Robert Redford got in on the Hells Angels' block of 3rd St. with two little girls dressed as flowers, bright face paint and flannel PJs with great soft petals extending from their shoulders. They had their little sacks of candy, quite full, and they were chattering away about chocolate and apples as I drove them up to Yorkville.

I picked up a carload of George Romero ghouls outside NY Hospital at 69th and York. They were pretty drunk, and they wanted some rock 'n' roll. I switched the radio over to WSOU, 89.5, and gave them just a little more than they asked for as we hit the FDR to get them down to a party in Brooklyn Heights. They asked if they could smoke a joint, and I said, "Sure, just keep it low, keep the windows down and don't puke in my car." I took it as an excuse to light a cigarette.

Henry St. was quiet, a few stragglers in costume and a scattering of parents carrying their tired goblins and witches and princesses home. I dropped the ghouls off at a raucous brownstone on Montague. The dead leaves of autumn blew up the street in a gentle breeze as I pulled over for a break. An elderly couple made their way up the street behind St. Ann's, holding hands like teenagers. He was dressed as a clown, wearing a tattered tuxedo, spats and white gloves. She was dressed as a princess, tiara and gown covered in spangles and glitter. The leaves rustled beneath our feet as we passed each other on the sidewalk, and I heard her smile softly, "I love you as much as the day we met, Murray." Halloween is that kind of night, never what you expect, oddly sweet: a kid's night out, however old the kid.