Cabbies

I don't take cabs often, but tonight I took two. After spending some time with my um-friend, I took a cab from midtown to the upper east side to meet up with a couple I know for dinner.

When we got to my prescribed intersection, the cabbies started asking me about my personal life. Was I having a good night ? No parties? No? God husband? We spent five minutes talking about the nature of the man I have been dating for a few weeks, before I quietly extricated myself from the conversation.

Later, on the way home, my hack, and older Indian man, had a conversation with a car service cabbie he had once worked with. He later explained that - this is Harlem, mind you - when he first moved to the US, he worked in car service, and the black people taught him all the highways and roads. When he moved on to being a yellow cab driver, he felt very loyal to them, and would not pick up fares in Harlem.

The way he explained it, the car service cabs augmented their income by picking up street fares, which while strictly speaking is against regulation, is generally not prosecuted except in the business districts.

The thing is, knowing that African Americans (well, black people) complaining about not being able to get a cab - maybe that doesn't apply here. Certainly, one of the big changes for me moving to Harlem was having car service cabs honk to pick me up. The way this hack described it, the yellow cabs let them do the work up here, since they are usually in Harlem only to drop off.