People who live in a city, especially those who live there 24 hours a day often refer to it as having a heartbeat.  You can actually feel it and if you take it pulse you can tell if the city is doing well or not by the way it's heart is beating.

There are certain places where the cities pulse is exposed . . . the bus station . . . the hospital emergency room . . . main street . . . and the street where the vice plays cat and mouse with the vice squad.  Go to any city at night and you will find taxis standing by where the city's pulse is the strongest.  In Fort Worth in 1981 the street where the vice played cat and mouse with the vice squad was Lancaster Avenue.

About a month before I had made a down payment on a legend.  Two years earlier Cab #51 had been used in the filming of Honeysuckle Rose with Willie Nelson and Diane Cannon.  That was 200,000 miles ago and today it was a rolling piece of junk.  My $80 down payment at least got me into a taxi I could call my own and not have to turn in at the end of a shift and get a different taxi the next time I was ready to check one out . . . hoping it had enough gas in it to make it to the nearest station.  Perhaps more important was the fact I now had a sustained identity.  I was now "five-one".

It also meant that now I was committed to what amounted to about a $45 daily nut 7 days a week plus operating costs.  I was committed to the city 24 - 7.  Surviving meant paying attention and keeping my finger on the city's pulse.

I had just returned from the airport where I dropped off a fare that had me up about ten dollars for the day.  Lots of night left.  This could be a good day if I didn't hit a slick spot. (Slang for a period of several hours when nothing happens) I cruised downtown . . . the taxi stand at the bus station was full.  Once up and down main street and nothing was happening downtown.  I headed out Lancaster Avenue to see what the vice had to offer.

Trips in the vice usually didn't pay a lot, but they were fairly plentiful.  Nightclub fares from one place to another . . .  drinkers who didn't want to get hassled by police.Sometimes you would pickup someone and they would want to go to an address they simply didn't want to drive their car to.  Who knows why?  You didn't ask.  You drove.  That is what you were paid to do.  When you worked in the vice you drove . . . and kept your rear view mirror on the passenger's eyes in the back seat.

As I neared Oakland street I smiled.  I saw a friend of mine up ahead.  She was someone I had met about a month before on the day I bought #51.  I called her "Little Red".  She had never told me her real name.  I had never asked.  Little Red seemed to work for her and she always called me Shuga, the Shabby Cabbie.  I knew she meant Sugar, but not one time had I ever heard her put an "r" on it.  It was always, Shuga.

I called her Little Red because the night I met her she had on these little red hot pants that left no room for doubt in my mind or anyone else's what her intent was as she walked up and down Lancaster Avenue.  I had been sitting at a closed down service station waiting for a radio dispatch when she walked up to my cab and asked me if she could sit in my cab for a few minutes because there were  vice cops all over the place and if she didn't get off the street for a few minutes she feared she was going downtown.  I let her get in, but told her I was next up in that zone and might get a call any minute.  She understood.

"You're new, aren't you Shuga?"  she inquired. 

I told her she was correct.

"I know a lot of the drivers and I have never seen you before."

I explained how I had just made a down payment on cab #51 and how I had moved there after 3 years on the road trucking..

I soon learned she was from California and she and her husband were just passing through when he got arrested a few months before and was serving a sentence in the Tarrant County jail.  She told me the story of how she had been stranded on the streets of Ft Worth without a penny to her name and how she has been making it all by her self since his arrest and was just waiting until he got out so they could get out of town and never come back.

I looked at her arms and saw no indication of needle marks.  "Are you a user?" I had asked her.

"Smoke a little weed," she said. "Occasionally a line of blow, but I've never mainlined anything.  Out here on the streets I get plenty of chances but I know I have to maintain so I will be there for my ole man when he gets out.".

About that time the radio dispatcher called out "five one".  I answered and he had a fare for me. 

She was already getting out and said "Good bye Shuga.  Thanks for letting me sit here for a while."

Over the next month I had probably talked to her at least ten times . . . usually under similar circumstances.

Tonight she was walking openly down Lancaster.  That is a good indicator for the pulse of the city.  It means the vice squad is not out and it usually means the taxi business will be good.  As I approached Little Red I honked.  She looked back thinking it might be a trick and then when she saw it was me., her face lit up in a smile and she started saying "Shuga, Shuga, pull over. 

I pulled over and she came running up to the cab and opened the door.  She started telling me how her husband was getting out of jail in a few days and they were leaving town and if she didn't see me again she wanted to tell me bye. 

"We'll let's celebrate"  I said.  I looked ahead and the Mexican Inn was on the right.  I asked "Have you ever ate there?"  She shook her head no.  "Good.  Let's go"

"You're going to take me in there?" she said in amazement.

One minute later a shabby cabbie and a street walker were proudly walking into one of Fort Worth's nicer Mexican food establishments with our heads held high and we sat down and enjoyed a meal together.  Occasionally I noticed glares coming from people seated around us and so did she.  We would laughingly acknowledge them to each other and keep on talking.  When we were finished we got up and left.

Outside I ask her if she needed me to take her anywhere and she said no that she would just stay there.

I told her that if I didn't see her again (and I never did) that I wished her and her husband the best and that the quicker they got out of Texas the better off they both would be.

In parting she looked at me and said "I want you to know something.  What you did tonight was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me in my life, David.  Thank you."  She turned and walked down the street.

As she walked away I thought about how in the eyes of most people she was a piece of trash, but I saw her as a survivor who had just made it through an ordeal that many people would never have made it through.

And most of all I saw her as a friend who had just called me David.