Of Airports and Drugs

When I first started driving a cab, Laura had told her good friend, Suzie Wratten what I was doing and she had exclaimed, 

“With Chris?” 

Unbeknownst to us, her husband was part owner in a taxi company in the next town of Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach was more of a taxi-using city so when I saw that I couldn’t make enough in Chesapeake, I looked into moving my taxi driving career over there.

I started working at Yellow Cab of Virginia Beach. In Virginia Beach, instead of being employees, you just rented the cab and were self-employed. They provided the fares, which you paid a small amount for but it was a little more competitive.

In Virginia Beach, regular airport runs were the best fares. They either came from the oceanfront resort area or a couple of military bases, both of which were at the other end of the city from the airport. But to get those fares, you had to be on the stands at the outer edge of the city where there wasn’t a lot of regular business.

It was a toss up whether to stay where you got more fares or wait for the longer, more lucrative ones. Sometimes you could time it right when there was a conference ending at the resort area, when you hoped people were leaving for the airport or when military personal were shipping out. But there were always so many variables. One of the best fares I ever had was when I got a fare to the airport and when we got there he realized that he had forgotten his wallet. We went back to his house and then back to the airport so I got paid three ways.

We were not allowed to pick up at the airport. As a Virginia Beach company, we could only pick up in our city and the airport is in Norfolk. Airport taxi drivers also pay extra to be able to pick up there where they wait in line. So if we scoop up a customer there, it’s double trouble. 

Sometimes when you dropped off at the airport, people who were just coming out of arrivals would ask us for a ride but we’d have to direct them to the Norfolk cab stand. Every once in a while someone would just jump in. It was a risk, because there were people watching and there were usually cops who could fine you. But rather than kick the people back out, I just took off, hoping nobody noticed.

How and where your day will take you is always a meandering affair. After you drop off a fare you have to decide where to go next. Do you use the gas to drive to a busier, more lucrative stand or just go to the nearest one, hoping to catch a fare out of there back to where you think it will be better? You face those decisions all day long as you wend your way here and there.

The nearest stand to the airport was in a poorer zone. Most of the fares were not very long. It was also the closest to Norfolk and the neighborhoods where people got drugs. Whenever you picked up at the cheap hotels near the stand, you were suspicious.

It wasn’t completely out in the open but you got to know what neighborhoods were what. When someone asked to go there, you suspected. I didn’t approve of drugs and didn’t want to facilitate anyone getting them but since I wasn’t completely positive, there wasn’t much I could do about it. There was also the aspect of danger. I didn’t want to jeopardize my safety by refusing, even if I knew for sure.

One time a few people got in at one of the cheap hotels and directed me to a tell-tale neighborhood. They asked me to stop at one location and wait while they went into a house. They came back out and asked me to go to another. What should I do? I was pretty sure it was a drug thing but I had no concrete evidence and if I just left, I’d lose the fare. I just did what they wanted, hoping I wouldn’t get shot or something. They finally finished whatever they were doing and asked to be dropped at one last location. As they were paying, one of them said, 

“Thanks, you’ve been really cool” and left me a good tip.


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