One More Night

I like airport jobs. In Canberra the airport is eleven minutes from Civic, there’s no need to worry about finding the best route; after years driving a cab it’s muscle memory, and there’s always the chance to talk about travel to distant places with a happy passenger off to see the world.

They hopped in near the Legislative Assembly. Three big guys in suits. Carry on bags only, which meant that they’d flown in this morning and were heading back to Melbourne or Sydney. A thousand bucks each plus expenses — business seats and the cab fares at each end — and the promise of more work to come.

They were heavies in the union organisation; left their mates behind on the wharves and mines and building sites and now did their work with texts and phonecalls and lobbyist trips, battling for the rights of the worker.

I liked that. Good to have someone standing up for the working man, making sure they weren’t screwed over.

They chatted on the trip out to the airport as we sped past the lake and the river, traffic picking up as the work day ended. Two heavies in the back on my leather seats and the heaviest in front. They’d obviously had a working lunch with a good result and were expansive.

Perhaps a little too expansive. There was a low rumble from the back that wasn’t the exhaust. Well not the cab’s exhaust, anyway.

“Forty bucks an hour, and six weeks holiday with loading,” one of them said. “Can’t say better than that.”

“Look good in the union newsletter,” another said. “We’ve got elections coming up and every little bit helps.”

Leave loading. It was weird. You got paid more on holiday than when you were actually at work. One more perk of the union.

The airport came up. “Qantas or Virgin?” I asked — there were only two choices and the doors were about five metres apart, but when a passenger is struggling with a heavy suitcase and a couple of toddlers these things make a difference.

I knew the answer, of course. Qantas with the plush lounge and the frequent flyer perks. I’d spotted the gold and platinum tags on their bags when loading them in to the boot. Still, it didn’t hurt to ask. These guys probably like to think they might be mistaken for the sort of folks who would fly Virgin on the cheap fares.

Qantas it was. “Try out the new lounge, eh?” the big guy said to his comrades behind.

He pulled out a corporate credit card to pay the fare and insisted on the receipt. One of his mates held the door open for him and the cab settled back onto an even keel. I held up my hand to wave goodbye to their departing backs and contemplated my next move.

All departures this time of the day. If I headed back into town I’d likely get more airport runs. Quick and easy work. Later on there would be arrivals as Canberrans came back from their own day trips, but for now there was no point hanging around in the airport cab yard.

Not that there was a cabbie union. If it was three hundred dollars for the twelve hour shift it was a good night. And the cab owner got half of that.

Burger King

You get to know the patterns of the city as a cabbie. Where people are going at the different times of day, what the traffic is like, what the traffic light cycles are and which lane is the better one. Every speed bump, every public toilet, every little dark spot where a tired man can grab a nap around one in the morning.

That’s one thing about being a cabbie. The average worker lives out in the suburbs, they know how to drive to work, to the school, to the shopping centre, and they are good on their regular routes, but they never go anywhere else.

A cabbie like me, a twelve hour night shift could see me going anywhere. Pick two random points in the city and I’d have to find the best route between them.

The daylight faded and I moved away from Civic. Parliament was sitting and though the parliamentarians had their own limousines, their staffers were given Cabcharge cards with unlimited miles. Parliament House to Manuka for dinner, Manuka to some motel in Forrest or Deakin, and in the morning they would be up early to hotfoot back to Parliament House before their boss got in.

Not that I saw that part of the day. My shift would finish at three in the morning and I’d run the taxi through the car wash, fill the gas tank, and drop it off for Frank, the day driver, before climbing into my elderly Nissan to get home for whatever sleep I could manage.

Here was a job. Pick up at the Senate, that meant either a staffer or a journalist. Sometimes I’d collect a media star; Michelle Grattan was a regular, a real sweetie who could tell you tales of the old days. She’d been editor of the Canberra Times and had kicked around town for ever; she knew where the bodies were buried.

Nope. A chubby staffer swinging a briefcase. He directed me to the Bentley Suites, a bloody short fare. He could have walked it, but of course he had a government card in his pocket.

“Could we swing past the drivethru on the way?”

Maccas in Manuka. This guy was king of the big spenders. Staffers got a hundred dollars a day travel allowance on top of their accommodation expenses, and he’d be having a Big Mac and fries, with the savings going towards the Porsche he had his eye on back home. The smell of hot fat would fill my cab up and get me thinking about my own dinner.

“Hungry Jacks in Fyshwick; the burgers are better there. And cheaper.”

Another fifteen minutes out there and back. This was shaping up to be a nice little earner. We went past the Manuka Mcdonalds and the Fyshwick Mcdonalds and three roundabouts further on was the Hungry Jacks.

He ate his meal in the car on the way back. I hate that, but there’s nothing I can do about it. No point arguing and like as not get an angry customer storming off without paying the fare. That’d come out of my own pocket. I get half the meter amount, but I still have to give the owner his half, and if the customer doesn’t pay, the meter still clocks up the kilometres.

I drove round the corner after I dropped him off. There was a park nearby and I pulled the wrappers out of the door pocket, picked up the shreds of lettuce and onion from my floormats, mopped the seat clean of the grease where he’d wiped his fingers, dumped the trash in a bin, and left the window down to clear out the smell while I drove to the Manuka rank.

Shorties

More short jobs getting the staffers back to their motels, but I don’t mind that. String the short jobs together, it works out better than one long fare because you get the same four dollar flagfall each time whether it’s two blocks or two hours.

And often a tip as well because the passenger feels guilty about it only being a short fare.

Started to rain while I moved up on the rank; steady drizzle by the time I reached the front. The lights of the cafes and restaurants sparkled in the dusk and I wondered which cheerful set of staffers I’d collect, full of a restaurant meal and a bottle of wine split between three. They’d share the cab ride, of course, and often there’d be two get out at one destination, like as not another short fare an hour later as the lucky girl made her way back to her motel.

Here was my passenger in the side mirror. Trudging along in the rain, four grocery bags weighing her down.

Not all journos and parliamentarians. Manuka has some low-cost housing nearby and the supermarket stays open late. I jumped out to lift up the boot and take the bags from her.

She looked done in. Well into her fifties, long day at work, get the week’s groceries on the way home.

I held the cab door open for her and pulled out the seatbelt as she sank gratefully into the leather seat. A little damp but hey who has a spare hand for an umbrella?

“Not often I get to drive a princess,” I said. “Where’s the palace?”

She smiled at that. Her princess days were long over, we both knew that, but inside every grandmother is a little girl with big dreams.

She named a nearby government development. “Only a short fare, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, can’t have you trudging home in the rain and the dark.”

We waited at the lights. I was watching the rain streak the windscreen with red jewels, but when I glanced at the passenger, she was watching the meter.

I reached over and paused it. It ticks over for time as well as distance, and it wasn’t her fault that I’d caught the light.

She smiled back. “Frank does that as well. He’s a good bloke.”

“Oh, you know Frank? My day driver?” She nodded and smiled.

Frank’s a lovely man. Been driving forever, knows every person in Canberra, every street, every speed bump. He gets to see them coming in the daylight; I discover them in the dark, by surprise.

She pointed at Routebear, my co-driver perched on the dashboard. “He doesn’t have a teddy bear, though.”

“He does every shift with me,” I said. “Keeps me company and watches out for kangaroos.”

“No kangaroos tonight,” she said.

“Not when it’s wet. They stay home. Bloody sensible creatures, they are.”

She laughed at that. Kangaroos are not noted for good sense, especially when crossing the road.

We pulled up at her house. Little government place, what they call monocrete: fibro sheeting sprayed with cement and bloody freezing in the Canberra winters.

She paid the fare with cash — first for the night — and offered five dollars as a tip. “Only a short fare,” she said again.

I waved it away. “I get paid more than enough from all the government workers. Rolling in it. Hey, why don’t you do something nice for the next stranger you meet? I’d like that more than a few bucks.”

Always leave them smiling. I jumped out and carried her bags to the porch. Can’t go past the front door, but I could do that little thing for her.

She waved goodbye as I backed down her driveway, flashing the headlights as I went. In the last of the light, she bent to retrieve the key from under the doormat; you’d be amazed how often I see that.

I drove back to Manuka, parked on the tail of the second rank, and hit up the Starbucks for a coffee before they closed for the night. They had some mellow CDs on the racks, and I bought one of those to help me and Routebear get through the night. Hot coffee and cool jazz. The money’s not great, but I wouldn’t swap my job for the world.