So, check this out: I got car jacked. Or rather, I should say that I was cab jacked, right here in sweet little Portland. You know, I spent my whole life in and around New York City, and I never had a whit of trouble. No, I have to go 3000 miles to be a crime victim. Actually, it’s the second time I’ve been so unfortunate. When I was eighteen, I was almost raped. Not while jogging in Central Park, not while staggering down Avenue B pie-eyed at four in the morning. No, it was when I was 3000 miles away, at that time in a small town in northern England, in a churchyard, no less. What saved me then was my purse. I clocked the asshole across his temple, with the metal-trim of my clutch bag (popular mid-eighties accessory and weapon of choice for defenseless young women). I was lucky, I escaped relatively unscathed and only needed a couple of months of therapy to get over it. Eleven unvictimized years later, bravado intact, I start driving a cab, something I’d always wanted to try, but never dared in the Big, Bad Apple. I figured cabbying in Portland couldn’t be too bad, since everyone here is pretty goddamn nice, maybe passive-aggressive, at worst. Jeez, I guess I figured wrong, huh?

Up until the cab-jacking, I was really enjoying myself behind the wheel. I thought I’d found the perfect crappy job. Minimal responsibility, no boss, just sit on my ass and talk to people all night. The money wasn’t all that, but it’s not like I ever broke a sweat, either. I liked most of my customers. The kids who’d tip me with buds, the little old ladies who gave me cookies for lugging their groceries in, the cute boys who asked me out, the sweet lushy queer couple who were my favorite regular customers (At least twice a weekend I’d get their call: “HELLO HONEY! We’re at Pattysh, canya comengettush? We love you, baby! We trusht you. Wanna shmoke some potty with ush? Ahh, we jusht love you. Yewl pull over if I need to pee, wontcha? Yer a good girl...”). I felt good about my job, that I was doing a good service. I didn’t bilk the drunks out of their money, I didn’t pass by fares because of their color or their neighborhood, I didn’t yak incessantly or give off any offensive odors. All in all, I enjoyed being a mostly model cab driver. And I was treated with respect by most customers.

There was one time that I did get pretty creeped out, though. I was called to pick up a man, “Mr York”, at one of those 24-hour XXX video parlors. My hackles went up immediately, but I decided to go through with the ride, anyway, after some quick internal debate. I promised myself that if the guy in anyway resembled a rutting gorilla, that I was out of there, and I armed myself with my lethal Lysol can, just in case. Much to my surprise, I arrived to find Mr York was a seventy-something blind man with a walker, well past his rutting days. So I load him in the back seat, and we take off toward his home. After a few minutes of embarrassed silence, he broke the ice with the usual “Never had a female driver, before...”, and we chatted a bit. Of course, I can’t help but wonder what a blind man is going to get out of a dirty movie, then it occurs to me that he probably gets off on the aural component. And just about that time I get my own aural component, that is, I hear the unmistakably revolting sound of slapping skin, and almost puked. I guess my dulcet tones were doing it for him, but luckily, I spied a short cut to his house that just happened to be through a spine jarring, crater-filled, unpaved parking lot. The revenge was sweet, but I couldn’t shake the disgustipated feeling I had, so headed back to the cabby corral straight away.

So, aside from that yuck fest, the cab thing was treating me right. Then I got car-jacked. Here was something I never expected to happen. I mean, who the hell is going to steal a cab? I thought you had to be a mother of three, leaving the mall in your brand new Grand Cherokee to get car-jacked. Robbing the cab driver, sure I’d heard of that, and never carried more than twenty bucks on me as a precaution. You couldn’t even fence the crappy parts on those deathtraps for more than twelve dollars, so what’s the point of car jacking a cab? So, what kind of idiot steals a cab out from under it’s driver? Let me tell you all about him.

First of all, he seemed like a nice guy, about my age, not visibly intoxicated and he was actually a pleasant fare until the last five minutes. I picked him up near La Luna, and he had me drive him out to near Gresham, a ride of about twenty minutes. We talked about the soothing qualities of jazz, which was playing on the radio, and about moms and grandmas and the big Easter dinner he’d just shared with his. Completely innocuous conversation to say the least. Just before we got to his destination, he’d politely asked if he could use my phone, and he made a quick call. A few minutes later we were at the apartment building he’d directed me to. He asked if I could break a hundred, and I said no, so he asked me to wait while he got a twenty off of his brother.

So, I’m waiting outside for a few minutes, and the next thing I know he’s flying out the door hollering at me to drive. Like I said, he’d been perfectly amiable and pleasant and I do as he says to get us both out of the harm’s way that I assume he unexpectedly encountered in there. Well, as you know, one should never assume, because five blocks later he’s forcing his way into the front seat, yelling “GET OUT OF THE CAB YOU FUCKING BITCH!” Now, I don’t need too much prodding on this point, and I sort of pull over and manage to grab my cell phone as he’s slamming me out the door. He takes off with the door still open, jumping the cab over the median and fishtailing it onto a side street, in a very Starsky and Hutch kind of maneuver.

I immediately phone 911 and the best looking boy in blue I’ve ever seen in my life is there in a few jumpy heartbeats. I get into the squad car, point Officer Handsome in the direction of the loser and we take off after him. As I’m giving my account of the incident, my cell phone rings. I answer and there’s this guy screaming, “WHERE IS THAT MOTHERFUCKING SCRATCH? I’M GONNA KILL THAT MOTHERFUCKER. MOTHERFUCKER TOOK ALL MY MONEY AND MY DOPE! MOTHERFUCKER’S BLOOD’S GONNA SPILL!!” I tell him what happened and that I’m with a cop and the cop gets on and starts talking to him, asking what happened on his end, etc. The cop’s just going on and on with him and I keep saying “Get the guy’s name. What’s Scratch’s name?”, over and over again. Officer Cutiepie gets the phoner’s name, address, date of birth, blood type, the names of his kids, everything but anything about “Scratch”. Then he hands the phone back to me, like I need to say goodbye to my pal, or something. When I ask, “So what’s Scratch’s real name?”, Officer Hotpants exclaims “Good thinking!” and applauds my crack detective work. Turns out the miscreant’s name is--get this-- “DaJuan Marcellus Mayo” (“Spelled like mayonnaise?” I say. “Yeah, yeah, like Miracle Whip, you got it!”) I sign off with my phone buddy and I’m later able to pick Mr. Mayo’s most recent mug shot out of a photo line-up. The next day, they find the cab, with my personal stuff in it, intact, in front of Grandpa Mayo’s house. Within a week they caught Mr. Mayo himself, breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s house. And now he’s in jail, and since he was on parole and on his third strike, he should be off the streets and out of cabs for some time to come.

As for me, I was shaken up, but not really hurt beyond a large bruise on my shoulder. But I don’t feel comfortable in the cab any longer, mainly because I can feel myself slipping into the paranoia that I’d often chided my fellow cabbies for. Driving the cab was supposed to be a fun part-time job for just a few months, anyway. I’m getting out of the hack biz, and returning to my metier, bartending. Because even though my assailant’s in jail, I’ll feel safer when I’m behind bars, too.