My heart skipped a beat when I saw a jail run pop up on my taxi's computer screen, but not for the reason most would guess. I'd lay even-money that most would think that a female cabdriver getting called to a jail late at night would be afraid, or, at the very least, hesitant about taking the fare. Not me. I was excited. A little known fact about jail and prison runs: they are often both fascinating and lucrative, especially the ones in the outer suburbs. Are they risky? A little, but I find that the payoff far outweighs the risks. Besides, people getting out of jail aren't typically in a hurry to go back, so the biggest risk is getting there and the fare is gone, robbing me of gas, time, and a potentially great story, but what fun is life without gambling now and again?
When I arrived at the Washington County Jail, I saw an elderly woman shuffling out of the shadows, her walker scraping across the pavement. My thoughts began to swirl: why was she in jail? DUI? Domestic assault? As she struggled into my cab, she directed me to Willernie, a small, less-than-affluent community in the underarm of Mahtomedi. A thirty-dollar fare at best-- not what I was hoping for.
Having been around the block a few times (I am allowed one cabbie cliché), I asked to be paid up front, wary of being stiffed. When she told me that her husband was waiting for her with "a duffle bag full of cash" to pay for the ride, my imagination started working overtime. Elderly woman. Walker. Jail. Willernie. Duffle bag full of cash. Maybe she was an up and coming meth cook molding herself in the image of Walter White? Or maybe she was just a crazy old lady who was trying to scam me. I didn't know which option to prefer. The more I thought about it, I came to realize that the likelihood of an elderly woman with a walker opening the door and sprinting from my cab before she paid her fare seemed to be far-fetched. Funny, but far-fetched. That's not to say I haven't been scammed by elderly folks. It happens more often that you would think. Shady knows no age restrictions.
Despite my hesitation, the thought of a duffel bag full of cash had piqued my curiosity. The promised bag of cash (that I imagined with spray painted with dollar signs on the outside) had so captured my imagination that I decided to take a chance. I shifted my cab into gear and began driving towards Mahtomedi.
The ride was, in and of itself, uneventful. I learned within the first few miles that my customer was slightly crazy—which I have to admit was not even a little surprising, but the questions about what a woman her age was doing in jail and how she came to possess duffle bag full of cash kept swirling in my mind.
We rolled to a stop in front of a house that could be more accurately described as a shack, or perhaps a shanty, happy to be one step closer to collecting my fare and writing this story. Much to no one's surprise, the door was locked and she did not have a key. Motioning to her walker, she told me to walk around the house and bang on all the windows to wake her husband up. For those of you who think that cabbies do nothing but sit on our ass all day long—think again. Unless you know a cabdriver personally, you don't know a tenth of what we actually do.
Focused on getting my fare, I began walking through the overgrown yard, trying to avoid the trash, old tires, and scrap metal that was strewn about as if to add to the trailer park ambiance. After a couple of minutes of banging on windows and trying to remember when I had my last tetanus shot, I heard the muffled sounds of someone grumbling, swearing, and stumbling towards the front door.
The moment of truth—would I get paid, or would I be left to hope that an attractively single police officer would arrive to file my complaint?
