Nothing is Everything

Nothing is Everything

  by Steven Hager

  copyright 1977 by Steven Hager

  Originally published in a slightly different form in the Daily Illini February 18, 1978 under the title On the Road to Nowhere.

  EPUB ISBN 9781301275151

  Bugsy’s room was so small that if he stretched out both arms he could almost touch parallel walls. At 6:30 AM on a cold November morning he was late for work and having trouble finding his last pair of clean socks. Bugsy shared the first floor of a large white house with a paraplegic fine arts major, a Mexican-American who worked at a nearby McDonald’s, a recent drop-out from the English department, and two Japanese girls who never spoke to anyone. His room was one-third of what had once been a living room and it was barely big enough for his television set, mattress and desk. He looked under yesterday’s sports section and found several books including his favorite, Anna Karenina, but no socks. He settled for a dirty pair and went into the communal kitchen to pack his lunch.

  It was already dawn when Bugsy crossed the dew-soaked lawn and got into a battered Volkswagen Bug with makeshift wooden bumpers. Across the street was Harmon Hall, a massive 14-story dormitory that clashed with its suburban surroundings. Eight years ago Bugsy had lived in Harmon as a freshman. Now he lived in the house across the street. Everyone used to complain about the long walk to campus. Now they had buses.

  No one else in the house would be up for another two hours, thought Bugsy as he started the engine and waited well over five minutes for the Bug to slowly warm up. Cars lasted a lot longer when they are treated right, thought Bugsy. Most people just turn over and go—murder on the gaskets. Going to college had been such an easy life it was tempting to go back, only the next time in something practical — like engineering. Bugsy had spent four years studying art and when it was over he didn't know what to do next. He’d felt exhausted, like a long-distance runner who’d collapsed at the finish line. Some nights instead of going to the campus bars he would visit the Harmon Hall TV lounge and see if it'd changed much. Bugsy had practically lived in that room as a freshman. He turned on the radio. Maybe it would rain today. Maybe he would do all right.

  The building was covered in a layer of soot, grease and dirt. Many people drive by it every day and still don’t know what the hell it is because the tiny, faded orange sign is so easy to miss. Everywhere you looked, white paint was peeling off the bricks.

  The price on the four gas pumps in the breezeway is 34 cents, exactly half what everyone else charges for a gallon, which makes sure all cabs fill up at the company store. On the right was the mechanics garage. Two mechanics worked around the clock trying to keep 50-odd disintegrating piles of loose nuts and bolts together.

  Once inside, the first thing you notice is a large, plate-glass window, behind which sits the dispatcher, flanked on both sides by women answering telephones. The dispatcher sits in front of a map of the city divided into numbered zones. He controls a marker for each cab on duty and like a general playing war games, moves the markers from one zone to the next, following the actual movements of his fleet. Messages were plastered on the walls, including a series of animal posters. “Please don’t take unnecessary chances,” says Peter Panda. Other notes were scrawled in crude and painful longhand. “Each driver to clean inside of cab before parking so it is ready for next driver,” said one.

  On the wall were several tax charts, used every day by every driver to tally up his fees. The charts indicated that if you made between $22.14 and $22.31, you must pay $1.30 in Social Security tax, $3.75 in Federal Income Tax and 53 cents in State Income Tax.

  Next to the tax chart was a clipboard used to write messages to the mechanics.

  “No. 29 only gets 7 miles to the gallon; shocks no good.”

  “No. 62 left front window won’t roll down.”

  “No. 12 won’t start.”

  “No. 27 breaks metal and check trans.”

  “No. 67 idles much too fast, accelerator sticks, transmission slips, something not right.”

  Every morning between 6 and 7 AM, in a cloud of dirty exhaust fumes, the taxi cabs roll out of the garage.

  "You’re late," said the dispatcher when he walked in. Bugsy didn't bother answering. He picked up the last set of keys available and walked into the garage. Nobody was ever fired from this job. The ad stayed in the paper 365 days a year: "Part-time or full-time taxi driver. Must be 21, clean-shaven and clean-cut. Apply in person." Many drivers came back after years of not working, just showed up around 7 AM and asked for a set of keys. No one was ever turned down it seemed, unless, of course, you got caught skimming, something every driver did, but nobody talked about. Provided you skimmed ten or twenty dollars a day, you could actually survive.

  Bugsy got into his cab turned on the radio.

  "Twenty-nine," he said into the mic.

  "Go ahead, twenty-nine," said the dispatcher.

  "On one," said Bugsy.

  "Check," said the dispatcher.

  Bugsy backed out of the garage.

  At 7:15 AM Bugsy pulled up at the train station. There were three cabs in line ahead of him. He opened his thermos and drank a cup of coffee. He waited for 20 minutes and then ate one of the bologna sandwiches he’d packed for lunch.

  "Twenty-nine," said dispatcher.

  "Twenty-nine," said Bugsy.

  "Snyder Hall."

  "Check."

  Bugsy wheeled his cab around in a u-turn. It was just his luck to get a call now after waiting for so long in front of the train station. In another 10 minutes the morning train would have arrived, and Bugsy was first in line. Instead, however, he had to drive back to the University. And students were lousy tippers. The absolute worst tippers, in fact.

  The fare turned out to be a girl wanting to go the bus station. Bugsy had to go inside the dorm and carry out her bags. When he got to the bus station he looked over at the meter. A dollar-thirty. Bugsy got her suitcases out of the trunk and put them by the door.

  "Dollar-fifty," he said.

  "Dollar-fifty?" said the girl. "But the meter says a dollar-thirty."

  "I'm supposed to charge a dime for each suitcase I carry."

  The girl handed him two dollars and waited for the change. Bugsy went back to the cab and got her change out of the cigar box. No tip. He called the dispatcher and reported a dollar-twenty. He’d been working for over an hour now and he'd made less than 70 cents.

  At 4:20 PM Bugsy pulled his cab into the taxi stand at the downtown mall. Two drivers were already there. They were old-timers and Bugsy didn't get along with them. Drivers over 40 all looked the same: unshaven, bleary-eyed and potbellied. They also drove brand new Checkers while Bugsy was always stuck with one of the gas guzzling wrecks of the fleet. He noticed a sticker had recently been applied to one of their bumpers. It was a picture of a squirrel with the slogan "nobody likes an nutty driver." He hated the old-timers because he knew he could end up looking like them. Not that he planned to keep this job for more than a year but he’d weighed 150 pounds when he was a senior in high school and now he looked down at his lap and saw a roll of fat bulging over his belt buckle. Bugsy sucked in his stomach and straightened his spine. It destroyed you to sit in a cab for 12 hours a day. Another reason he hated those old-timers was because they were always yelling. It was partially the tension of fighting traffic and partially to degradation of having to depend on the gratitude of strangers. He felt that degradation at first, but not so much anymore. He used to worry about wasting his life until the day he was sitting in the cab and everything started moving towards him as if he was the drain and everything around him was the dirty water in his bathtub. It was part of a realization he was having. He was realizing that everything he cared about had been pro
grammed into him. None of it really mattered or meant anything once you looked at the big picture. And if Bugsy had lived in a different society in a different country, he’d have a completely different program. It was very simple. Everything was everything. And nothing was everything. After that realization, life got a lot easier.

  "Twenty-nine," said the dispatcher.

  "Twenty-nine."

  "Union. Front entrance."

  "Check."

  On the way over Bugsy wondered why he got the call so fast. He’d just cleared this zone and there should have been other drivers in line in front of him. But when he pulled into the circle drive at the Union and saw a black woman standing out front he knew why. It was already getting dark and no one else wanted to drive her where she wanted to go. The dispatcher knew Bugsy wouldn't care. He was the only driver who still took calls