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Johnson  |
FROM LONDON |
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and the Art of the Ten-Minute Monologue |
 The London taxi may be the root of British civilization |
You can collect great tales
by talking to cab drivers
By MICHAEL JOHNSON
of TheColumnists.com
No offense intended for New York, Los Angeles and Paris, but after 20 years here I am prepared to assert that London is the last big city in the world that works. Navigating across town is no problem, and the streets are so safe that an ordinary mugging makes a major news story.
Most of the police are unarmed. Even the Underground is safe. Yes, there was a stabbing at Euston Station last week, but the shock and horror in the media over it only proves my point. Violence is truly an exceptional occurrence.
But nothing in London matches the fantastic taxi system--certainly the most impressive service London has to offer. Imagine a taxi driver who is English-speaking, clean, cultivated, amusing, well-dressed, and also knows every tiny back alley in London.
He has to. His license is granted only when he passes a rigorous oral examination called The Knowledge. Examiners sit him down and begin the interrogation: “You have picked up a passenger at Paddington Station who wants to go to Old Queen Street. What is the most direct route?” One wrong turn and he fails.
These men--for they are nearly all men--have made an art of the 10-minute monologue, usually colorful stories with a beginning, a middle and an end. Their cabs are even equipped with microphones and speakers to make it easier to communicate with you in the back seat.
I think it’s the temporary intimacy of the short ride in a closed vehicle that makes passengers and driver connect so easily. Drivers tell me that they often hear the passenger pour his heart out like a patient to his therapist before disappearing at the end of the ride, never to be seen again. I know. I’ve done it myself many times.
I have been collecting cab drivers’ stories for several years. The best yet came from a driver the other day as he weaved his way through the traffic en route to my home in St. John’s Wood. It concerned two Korean gentlemen who had ordered a Heathrow pickup at 6 a.m. one day a week earlier.
The driver told his story more or less in these words:
I was dispatched to Heathrow for my first journey of the day to meet a flight coming in from Seoul. I had been doing this for years, and I know the Asian traveling type. Usually they are smartly dressed international businessmen who run some of the world’s most powerful high-tech companies. They come here to buy our electronic parts or sometimes to grab entire companies.
The flight arrived on time and I watched 300 people stumble off and wander into the bright lights of the Terminal 3. I held up my sign with the names of my fares inked in on it. Several well-heeled blokes passed me by. Finally two 4-foot-10 bronze-skinned characters who looked more like monkeys than men, wearing baseball caps and navy blue windbreakers, emerged from the crowd and approached me. I assumed they needed the men’s room but no, they insisted they were my fares. Their English was very basic.
“Atrantic Hotel preeze,” one of them eventually mumbled, struggling with his English.
I shrugged, took their carry-ons, and we headed for my cab. They had no other luggage. The Atlantic was a seedy place on Gloucester Road, very much aimed at the low-end visitor. These men didn’t look ready for international travel. I wondered what kind of trouble they might get up to in swinging London. Were they criminals? Terrorists? Killers probably, here for a hit. I really didn’t care. I had seen worse in my 25 years in this racket.
Ten minutes into the journey, one of them tapped the plexiglas separator behind my head and, screwing up his courage, asked:
"Where you find birds in England?"
Oh, marvelous, I thought. That didn’t take long. I get this several times a day from men who are in town without their wives. Some of my fellow cabbies keep lists of addresses and phone numbers handy for such occasions but I don’t want to be part of the hooker scene. I gave them a scowl in the rear-view mirror.
“Sorry guv, can’t help you. You’ll have to ask your hotel to find you a girl.” I was sure the Atlantic had a stable of rough and ready talent, probably under the same roof.
The Koreans looked embarrassed, and held a short conference in their native language. I listened on the intercom as they jabbered away. Ten minutes passed, and finally one of them tapped again on the plexiglass.
"No, not girls ... real birds," he said.
Now this was a first. I have been asked for boys, girls, women and men. I was even asked for a goat once, but never birds. These Orientals do have strange ways.
“I have no idea,” I said, disgusted.
Arriving at the Atlantic Hotel I softened up and told them they could probably get their birds at Harrods, which has a good pet shop, or so I hear. Still blushing, they scurried off to hotel reception. That’s the last I saw of them and good riddance.
I had a pretty busy morning, and was sent back to Heathrow before lunch for another pickup, where I quickly made contact with my next incoming, a smart New York gent named Howie. He explained on the ride into town that he was coming to London “to win the World Bartender Competition,” as he put it. Howie was staying at the Hilton on Park Lane. This was more like it.
He was bloody great company, red-faced, jovial and open. He said he was planning a real London pubcrawl before returning to New York. I could just imagine him behind the bar making chitchat with the drunks. I would have loved to share a pint with him.
Howie was absolutely certain
he would take away the first prize trophy. He said he had already
survived the American eliminations, and couldn’t imagine
bloody foreigners shaking and stirring better than him. “Hey
we invented all the drinks,” he reminded me. “I’ll
show this lot how to mix them with real New York style.”
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certain he would take away the first place trophy. |
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He was a good tipper, too. Must of got the idea from his own customers. Anyway we got on so well that I agreed to fetch him on Saturday morning after the competition and take him back to Heathrow.
A few days passed, and on Saturday morning I turn up at the Hilton. Howie looked like he had been dragged through a hedge backwards. He climbs into the cab and sits in silence. I guessed that it was my turn to make conversation.
“Right, Howie, now let’s see that trophy,” I said through the intercom.
“Oh Christ,” he growled. “You won’t believe what happened. Everything was going like clockwork and I had it in the bag. The other guys were amateurs compared to me. I was next-to-last in the lineup. So I came out in my tux, I juggled a couple of bottles, cracked a joke, poured my bourbon and my mixer, did a little soft shoe, and served the drinks without a spilling a drop. Everyone loved it. Huge applause. Just one more act, then I could take a bow and accept the trophy. I even had my thankyous down pat. ”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem was two idiots from Korea who came out grinning at the judges, hopped around the bar, shook their mix and poured, then popped the cap off their shaker and ... to everyone’s amazement, including mine .. . two baby white doves flew out of their shaker into the crowd. Nobody could top that. They brought the house down. I was dead in the water. They’re going back to Seoul this morning carrying my goddamned trophy!”
The story came to an end just seconds before the cab rolled up to my front door. Ten minutes flat. I tipped a little heavier than usual.
© 2002 by Michael
Johnson. The illustrations are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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