two by two: taxi

robert deniro in "taxi driver" still has the monopoloy on the quintessential new yorker, the humble engineer of human transport in this teeming city of millions. he embodies the madness, the insomnia, the wonderland-esque quality of the city that is crazy by day and crazier by night. we taxi drivers are all a bit like this - all mad hatters in a city that only makes sense for us according to the snapshots we get of it during our respective shifts. we know more truth about this city than most new yorkers can get in a lifetime of living here. you could say we are the city. only difference being we drivers are all just too fucked up to ever be taken seriously.


take me for instance: i live life like an amnesiac, bouncing from place to place, leaving nothing and no one behind except for maybe a few fucks and some cigarette butts. i have no attachments, no family to send money home to. i'm not your typical taxi driver - not your singh with his turban or your slightly-sinister looking bangladeshi/pakistani/indian (there is a huge difference between the three - you learn this the hard way when you hang out with the south asians) or your slightly high jamaican. i'm white (oft-mistaken for a hard up former eastern bloc comrade), my taxi is clean to the point of sterility, and i am not doing this for the money. i do this for the stories other people tell without saying anything at all.


right now, there are two people i've picked up from battery park, on their way to jfk - a man and a woman. they are both speaking german, which i understand from my two-year stint in berlin. the woman is lithe and exotic - she has warm brown skin and wide brown eyes that look like almonds, and speaks her german with a hint of an accent that sounds south american. she's sitting on the side of my cab not visible to me through my rearview (damn it), while the man is sitting squarely in my line of vision. he has those typical german looks - chiseled, sharp, defined, without being harsh. nazi germany left a myth that all "typical" germans are blond-haired and blue-eyed, but in fact, they look like this guy: clothes worn with nonchalance, but worn well, khakis with a black oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up, brown suede loafers, tall and lean with the slightest hint of athletic muscle, no six-pack abs slaved over at some gym where the men primp like they're women. dark hair, cut smartly, dark brown eyes, whiter than his companion but not pasty. he's leaning back into one corner of the taxi, one arm draped lightly out the open window of my cab, the warm early summer air ruffling his hair ever-so-slightly, other arm on the seat back, close enough to the woman to seem intimate, far enough that it does not seem possessive. everything about him is effortless, unconscious.


they don't have any luggage, and they're talking, in short, sporadic spurts. they are different from my usual, i am curious, and the ride is long. i turn the radio down. there's an art to this, as a taxi driver: turn it down enough so you can hear the conversation in the back, taking into account noise from the outside when your windows are down, but not so low that there are uncomfortable silences and slightly-creepy pockets of stillness.


as it turns out, they're not the ones leaving. they are driving to the airport to pick up a friend, and i hear the name "sebastian." all the while, i try to figure out the relationship between these two. there is a familiarity that is obvious, but not the intimacy that comes with sex. new york in the summer is full of people like this - two people, constantly on the verge, close to a tippping point, a palpable waiting. it fills the air and wraps itself around couples walking beneath the world trade center buildings/brooklyn bridge/in battery park city/on the waterfront/at the south street seaport/through the village/through washington square, arm in arm or trying to hard to remain at arms length, fingers brushing accidentally every now and again, electric touches under setting sun and rising city lights. they all look like that music video, the one of a city at night, with the singers standing still while high exposure lights and human bodies swirl around them in constant blurs - these people are standing still, in their own pocket of the city, waiting on the cusp of something without knowing what it is, while the world and the city twirl madly about them.


1999 seems more wildly tense than most years: it's nearly the end of a decade, nearly the end of a millenium, diverging points in time, with us tiny people at the center of it. i see more and more of these types of people with their slightly ambiguous relationships. i listen more closely.


they are not arguing, but she is clearly not comfortable with some aspect of "sebastian's" impending arrival.


"i don't see why he has to stay with us," she says in german.


"lotte's out of town," he says, looking out the window with eyes that seem thoughtful. "there's space, and she's ok with him staying in her room for a week or two. when she comes back," here he shrugs and turns to grin at her, lopsided, charming, "maybe the same arrangements we used to have at university."


she laughs at this, but there is the slightest false note, detected only by ears prepared for nuance in what can't be seen.