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You Talkin'
To Me? BY MAC MONTANDON |
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If he were driving south on I-5, James West would be in San Francisco by now. Had he split east from the Interstate at Red Bluff, he'd be close enough to Reno to see its neon halo. As it is, it's 1:42 am, and after spending 11 hours behind the wheel, West is right back where he started: at a taxi garage in Northwest Portland. West, 24, began driving a cab in late October. Earning between $100 and $150 a night, he can make his rent on three or four shifts a week, leaving him enough time for his real work as a painter. At first, West might seem an unlikely cabbie. While most cab drivers swerve and speed to get on to the next fare, West drives languidly, as though on his way to pick up a gallon of milk. Lanky and easygoing, he is so mild mannered it's difficult to imagine him contending with the often questionable road tactics of amateur drivers. But the simple truth is he likes driving, needs the money and can get along with almost anyone. This last quality is evident in West's trademark greeting, a loud, friendly "What's going on?" Soon after taking a hired driver position with Radio Cab, West produced two of his most accomplished pieces. While he says there is no tangible connection between his work as a cabbie and his work as an artist, the particular stimulation of West's job is not lost on him. "So far, it's about 50-50, fluids to people," West says a couple hours into a recent Sunday shift. Since going on the clock at 3 pm, he has picked up a cardboard box full of pints of blood at the downtown Greyhound station and taken it to a Red Cross center on North Vancouver Avenue; he has also transported a urine sample from Providence Urgent Care on Southeast 82nd Drive to Providence Milwaukie Hospital. West explains that many hospitals and labs have accounts with cab companies; a typical night sees him delivering cases of blood like a Domino's driver in a city of vampires. Mostly, though, his fares have bones, joints and organs. Most have stories, as well. Just before 6 pm, the voice of West's favorite dispatcher, Lorraine, crackles through the radio. "If you get lost or don't know where you're going, she never gives you a hard time," he says of Lorraine. "And at the end of your shift, she says, 'Hope it was a good night for you, sweetie.' She is just so nice." Lorraine tells West of a fare at the Kingston on West Burnside Street, then she sends the address and the fare's name to his pager. West can anticipate a fare's personality depending on the address and time of day. "[During the football season] the guys you pick up at 5 or 6 are a lot more drunk than the ones at 1 or 2 in the morning," West says of fares at bars like the Kingston. Rick plops down on the back seat after a long day at the bar. He's certainly been drinking--the smallness of the car helps make that plain--but if he's drunk, he holds his liquor well. His shaggy, dark hair flows from under a baseball hat. Rick's had a good day in his football betting pool, and his face is flushed from a few hours of watching closely contested games. Of the 38 initial wagerers in his betting pool, Rick is one of 15 remaining. If he finishes the year on top, he'll have made $740 off the $20 he put down. "A nice chunk of change," Rick says. Soon after letting Rick off at the North Portland house he's lived in for 23 of his 28 years, West gets a page for a fare at a tattoo and piercing parlor in Southeast. He angles the Chevy Caprice for what will be one of the night's many trips across the Willamette River. Jennifer is just getting off work. She is waiting in front of the parlor when we pull up. "So where we headed tonight?" West asks her, as she eases onto the back seat. Jennifer usually walks home, about two miles, but tonight she needs to do some grocery shopping. A 21-year-old junior at Portland State, Jennifer has worked as a body piercer for almost two years. She has the platinum-blond looks of a 1930s star--Jean Harlow with 13 pierces and three tattoos. Jennifer likes meeting unusual people on the job, gaining their trust, having them confide in her. She also likes getting pierced for free, one of the perks of her job. "If I had to pay for piercings, I definitely wouldn't have so many," she says. "They're way overpriced." One of the things that keeps her job interesting is seeing a "wide range of genitals," she says. A regular customer of hers has 82 genital piercings. "He's going for 100," she announces, as though discussing a golf score. As soon as Jennifer steps out at Safeway, another fare climbs in, carrying a new broom. "I always have to justify getting a cab, so I bought this broom," Ashley says. "I was going to get a mop, too, because I need one, but then I wouldn't have had enough for the cab." It's a short ride to her apartment on Southwest Broadway, but Ashley has time to explain why she moved from a small town southwest of New Orleans to Portland three months ago to study fashion at the Art Institutes International. "I was hanging out at a friend's house over the summer and we were outside," Ashley says. "We don't usually go outside much in the summer because it's so hot. This dog comes up and I started playing with it, and we were playing for a while, but then it goes away. Well, it comes back about an hour later and it has some paper bunched up in its mouth. I take it out, and it's a brochure for the Art Institute, and I've always wanted to study fashion." West, looking forever forward through a wet window, remembers his fares more by their stories, sounds and smells than by what they look like: Two Greek men who arrived in Portland on a cargo ship from North Korea, muttering and splitting chocolate; the coffee of an English woman on her way to a deputy sheriff graveyard shift at the jailhouse; the boozy breath of several older male passengers. A little past 1 am West lets his last fare off on Northeast Fremont Street. Then he takes his taxi through the company car wash as he does at the end of every shift. Tonight was just another night, and now it's time to go home. "I've seen some weird things, definitely," he says. "But so far nothing too disturbing."
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