After the robbery of Leon Bath (cf. Ep. 6), it is revealed the cabdrivers have been targeted by a Local Drug Gang. It is also revealed that this gang has been getting robbed by an unknown third party, which is what provokes the taxi robberies. This scene immediately follows with our heroes ditching work to […]
Business as Usual
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Business as Usual: Tire cutter blues
Wednesday night is a slow hell. Downtown chokes with dozens of unneeded cabs, each company representing like a corner gang squaring against the other cliques. Unable to find standing anywhere, I realize each of these little operations, like pebbles in the crow’s pitcher, has squeezed us out. I feel like a foreigner in my own […]
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Business as Usual: Partytown U.S.A.
Over the summer, some witch ran the drum circle out of the Ped Mall. Now every Football Saturday I laugh my ass off at her, trapped in her tower. I wonder if that’s not her giant alabaster face staring down on where the party throbs on like a forgotten Cold War beacon, and taxicabs, like […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Business As Usual: The Stranger
Taxi Driver Vic Pasternak is back with another episode of “Business as Usual,” a 12-part storytelling series. This edition is an excerpt from ‘All the Help You Need,’ coming soon from Slow Collision Press. Captain Jerry Nicodemus leans on the helm looking at the slow clock, and I hang around the taxi shack looking to […]
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Business as Usual: The one about the blow job lady
I’m stepped out taking a whiz at one of Coralville’s dozen gas stations. Next I make the rounds for water, fresh coffee, smokes. Four hours to go and then I’m out of town for six weeks, maybe longer. I’ve salted away my ducats and am taking my first vacation in years. The counter kid asks, […]
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Business as Usual: All hell breaks loose at the taxi shack
Paulie Floyd is fucking pissed. The phone rings and he snatches it up. “Good luck getting home,” he singsongs before slamming it on the cradle, shouting, “Cocksucker!” Our dispatcher hammers a fist on his desk when the phone rings anew. “God, fuck,” he curses and then answers, “Good luck getting home!” Again he slams the […]
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Business as Usual: The trouble with Leon
When I get to the taxi shack, everybody’s freaking the fuck out. My dispatcher Paulie Floyd is in the parking yard smoking grass and has three cigarettes burning, two of them wedged in the downspout outside his office door. Our rookie, #12, also wears a long face like he’s going to bust out crying. “Fuck’s […]
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Business as Usual: It’s all part of the job for cabbie Vic Pasternak
Cabbie Vic Pasternak returns with part five of his 12-part storytelling series. Misadventure, mayhem and meltdowns — Pasternak sees it all in a single shift…
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Business as Usual: Vic takes a strange late-night ride
Sundays blow gentler breezes around the taxi shack, the pace slow and steady, our money for easy work. People don’t much fuck around on Sundays, like it’s a rule. With his back to me, Captain Jerry Nicodemus mans the dispatch helm as if bent to an organ. At his left, our two main phone lines […]
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Business as Usual: Dr. Bob’s tale of two felons
We’re nine hours deep in a dead Thursday when I hit the shack for a leak and a smoke. When I come out of the can, #12 is blowing around the yard, pissed off. “This guy,” he whines, “He was drunk and pushy. He was like, ‘Turn right, turn left,’ having me drive him in […]
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Business as Usual: Vic’s cab gets taken for a ride
Our taxi shack is south of town and across the river—back where the county used to weigh its trucks. I’ve rolled out of bed late and race into thunderheads all the way there. Paulie Floyd is scheduled to dispatch, but when I get to the shop I find him atop the garage at the peak […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Business As Usual: Iowa City’s favorite cabbie is back with the first of another 12-part series
It’s Wednesday after shift change and relief runs late for our dispatcher, Captain Jerry Nicodemus. The big clock turns meanwhile as phones ring electric and the old…
