The life of a cabbie is one of always being in motion. People come and go, but the road never ends as they search for the next fare and big tip. In Madison, taxi cabs congregate around State Street like bees to the hive, and on the Friday night of Halloween weekend, everything is swarming and alive.
I rode along with Igor Kaun, a Badger Cab driver and fellow UW student for a few hours to gain a different perspective of the taxi business than my usual drunken view from the back seat.
Igor picks me up in front of a friend's house near Laundry 101 on Gilman Street, and after I take shotgun, we drive off in search of a fare. He is a stout man with a smooth, bald head and wears hipster eye glasses. He speaks with a slight lisp, and I immediately detect an Eastern European accent on his otherwise faultless English. Igor tells me he is from Russia, and when I press harder, I find out he was originally born in Siberia and then moved to Belarus with his family before settling here.
\I came to the United States five years ago, for a better life, I guess,"" he says.
He is in his fifth year here at UW-Madison and is scheduled to graduate this summer with a degree in finance. Along with classes and cab driving, he also holds down a second job in Middleton working for an accounting firm.?? Igor is a permanent resident because he's married to an American citizen.
As we cruise up State Street, for what will be the first of many times that night, I notice Igor's cab is relatively clean and sparse. A dispatcher continuously squawks from a radio resting in the vacated hole where the stereo should be. Some cab drivers bring their own music along, but Igor is more interested in the voice projecting out of his CB.
""You gotta listen to that guy, otherwise you're not making any money,"" he says.
Our first fare is a young blond woman who flags us down at the intersection of the Capitol Square and State Street. We drive her to the Sheraton Hotel on South Park Street, and I ask Igor for some tips on how to make the big bucks.
""It's all up to you.??You hustle around and make money,"" he says.?? ""Downtown is definitely the hot spot.""
Igor also tells me other things he's learned in the year and half since he's been driving for Badger Cab, though he admits most of the job simply requires using common sense. He doesn't pick up incredibly intoxicated people, and there's an $80 charge for puking in the cab. He's always wary when picking someone up late at night, especially when all his riders sit in back, since it's easier then to run away without paying.?? A few times he's had to grab a passenger in front when the rest have fled in order to receive payment.?? I wonder how he'll handle things with my butt clogging up the front passenger seat if anything goes down, but it is only 9:30 p.m., relatively early in the night.
Luckily for Igor, our second fare is right across the street at the Clarion Hotel. The Badger Cab assignment system works in his favor this time, as the dispatcher puts out a fare's location over the airwaves, and the cabbies all bid on it, reporting in their positions on their handheld portion of their CB radio.??Each cabbie can only hear the dispatcher's voice coming over the airwaves.?? He repeatedly asks, ""Who else?"" throughout the night, calculating positions and divvying out assignments. Igor is closest, so he gets the call. Waiting at the Clarion is a dude in sunglasses who wants to go to Witte Hall.?? Igor races back into campus and drops the kid off. Students are everywhere around the dormitory, most in costume.?? It's a warm night, so female apparel is especially noticeable, and many are wearing next to nothing.?? Sexy cops, sexy nurses, sexy hookers.
""That's a nice costume,"" Igor says, nodding towards a fairy as she walks past the car on the sidewalk.
Pulling out to cross the intersection while the light is still yellow, a biker cuts off his escape route.?? The light turns red, and we must wait.??
Igor taps nervously on the wheel.
""The traffic sucks. That's what kills you the most,"" he says.??""That's why I like to drive at night.""
I ask him what he plans to do when they shut down Gorham Avenue later that night for the Halloween festivities.?? He laughs and tells me, ""Drive different roads.""
For our third fare, we drive down the road to the La Ville apartment complex. Waiting for us there are a girl in a cat suit and two guys in street clothes. We pull in and block the drive next to the building, and the three get in the car. A drunken girl in skimpy clothing standing next to Igor's window stares dumbly at us and tells us what we're doing is illegal.
""Don't call the cops!"" my driver shouts back and we're off. A little smile appears on his face, and he cranks the wheel to take us around the bend in the road.
""I like this job,"" he says. ""It's fun.""
We take the three to a party near the stadium, then bid on a fare at Lathrop Street.?? The dispatcher calls out, ""Who else?"" several times before Igor wins it, and we pick up six tipsy girls standing in front of a house.?? They pile in and chat us up. When I inquire about their costumes, I find out that half are dressed as Moulin Rouge girls and the other half as fairies.??Igor is quiet.
We take the girls to the Palisades, and Igor lets four of them run up to get money in order to pay him, while the other two remain in the cab.
As we wait, he tells me why he likes his job.
""You set your own hours,"" he says. ""It's not doing the same thing over and over again.""
The girls come back with some cash and we speed off into the night.?? We start driving east on Johnson Street, but when a call comes over the radio for a fare on Old University Avenue, Igor turns the cab around and reports in his position. On our way, I ask him to compare the differences between Russian life with his new one in the United States.
""I wouldn't be able to tell you one difference,"" he says. ""Everything.""
He says he doesn't know if he'll head back after he graduates. It all depends on the type of job he gets.
""I can live a good life here; I can live a good life there.""
We are the first to reach the apartment complex on Old University Avenue, but the others get there quickly.?? Soon there are five cabs waiting, and a large group of dudes wearing too much cologne pile into different cars.?? After we drop them off at Johnny O's, Igor says the night is over for me.?? He's going to need my seat as it gets later, especially after bar time.?? The digital clock on his dashboard says it's 11 p.m. and he's ready to make the big bucks.
