Taxi Riding
In a moment of personal crisis, how much help can you expect from a New York taxi driver? I began studying this question after watching the “Taxicab Confessions,” a series of documentaries in which hidden cameras record the secrets of unsuspecting taxi riders. I found the results varied.
One morning I got into three different taxis and announced: “Well, it’s my first day back in New York in seven years. I’ve been in prison.” Not a single driver replied, so I tried again. “Yeah, I shot a man in Reno,” I explained, hoping the driver would ask me why, so I could say casually, “Just to watch him die.” But nobody asked. The only response came from a Ghanaian driver: “Reno? That is in Nevada?”
Taxi drivers were uniformly sympathetic when I said I'd just been fired. “This is America,” a Haitain driver said. “One door is closed. Another is open.” He argued against my plan to burn down my boss’s house: “If you do something silly and they put you away, you cannot look for another job.” A Pakistani driver even turned down a chance to profit from my loss of hope: he refused to take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge, a $20 trip. “Why you want to go there? Go home and relax. Don’t worry. Take a new job.”
One very hot weekday in July, while wearing a red ski mask and holding a stuffed pillowcase with the word “BANK” on it, I tried hailing a taxi five times outside different banks. The driver picked me up every time. My ride with Guy-Caaude Thevenain, a Haitian driver, was typical of the superb assistance I received.
“Is anyone following us?”
“No,” said the driver, looking in his rearview mirror at traffic and me.
“Let's go across the park,” I said. “I just robbed the bank there. I got $2, 5000.”
“$25, 000?” he asked.
“Yeah, you think it was wrong to take it?”
“No, man. I work 8 hours and I don’t make almost $70. If I can do that, I do it too.”
As we approached 86th and Lexington, I pointed to the Chemical Bank.
“Hey, there’s another bank,” I said, “could you wait here a minute while I go inside?”
“No, I can’t wait. Pay me now.” His reluctance may have had something to do with money—taxi drivers think the rate for waiting time is too low—but I think he wanted me to learn that even a bank robber can't expect unconditional support.
1. Form the Ghanaian driver’s response, we can infer that
A. he was indifferent to the killing.
B. he was afraid of the author.
C. he looked down upon the author.
D. he thought the author was crazy.
2. Why did the Pakistani driver refuse to take the author to the middle of the George Washington Bridge?
A. Because he didn't want to help the author get over his career crisis.
B. Because he wanted to go home and relax.
C. Because it was far away from his home.
D. Because he suspected that the author was going to commit suicide.
3. What is the author’s interpretation of the driver’s reluctance “to wait outside the Chemical bank” ?
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