Lots of Taxi driver characters show up in this section. I subscribe to the theory that Travis is autistic, if anyone wants to check me on that. Iris is here and, if you haven't seen the film, she is a very young sex worker - we see her on the street but she is canvassing for clients. Sport also shows up and he is very gross and the worst and is going to talk overtly about Iris's sexuality. Basically no actual underage stuff is happening on screen but lots of very grim underage stuff is happening just off screen. Stay safe.
For some reason, Freddy's surprised to find out that a cab company headquarters is basically a garage with an office attached. He sticks his head through the gaping hole in the side of the building and skips around cars heading out for the morning as he makes his way to the desk at the back.
"'Scuse me." Freddy looks down at the balding, fat Jewish guy wearing a jacket that makes him look twice as wide as he is. "You Josh?"
"Who's asking?" The guy doesn't look up from the morning papers. He's sucking on a cigarette like it's mother's milk.
"Name's Freddy Newandyke. Holdaway sent me."
"So you're the kid who's gonna help us out while Jeannie recovers from her accident."
"I guess."
"You guess?" Josh laughs and squints up at Freddy from behind thick rimmed glasses. "Jesus, how old are you?"
"Old enough."
"You got any experience with a switchboard?"
"No." Freddy replies before he can think to lie. He scrambles to catch himself. "But it's not like it's hard, right?"
Josh shrugs, closing the paper and slamming down an empty coffee mug on the corners to stop it from blowing away. "Can't be if Jeannie Spelling was any good at it. C'mon, I'll show you the ropes."
Operating a switchboard turns out to be boring as shit but not so mind numbing that he can switch off. The customers get shirty if he's anything less than saccharine with them and the drivers are surly no matter how he talks. He has to contend with the revving of the cars in the main hall, drivers shouting at each other like they think hey can't be heard, and all of that set on the backdrop of the noise outside. After twelve hours, he's about ready to fall down on the floor and call it a night.
A better night than the last. Freddy squashes that thought before it can morph into memory and hands his headset over to the girl who's working the graveyard shift till he comes back in.
Picking up his wages for the day, Freddy glances round the room like he expects to see someone he recognises and is met with a blank sea of yellow punctuated by what might as well be the same ruddy face, passed around and shared between the drivers for lack of a distinct identity.
He almost makes it home free. So far he hasn't had to talk to any of the drivers face to face but that changes pretty quickly as he turns out of the garage and runs right into Travis Bickley.
"Woah, watch where you're going." Travis says in a soft voice that doesn't match the intensity of his scowl. Only a few days in New York and Freddy can already tell that his accent is out of place. Not that this city ain't full to bursting with out of towners.
Freddy apologises and tries to brush past him but Travis slips into the space he's trying to occupy a moment too soon. he tries again and the same thing happens. When they meet eyes, Travis is smiling and it makes Freddy want to be sick.
It makes Freddy want to curl up on the floor of his bedroom because it's easier than trying to make a case for the bed. No. Wrong. Not thinking about that.
"Travis, leave the kid alone, would'ya?"
Travis says nothing, but he does step aside to create free passage for Freddy.
When he looks back over his shoulder to get a better look at is rescuer, Freddy sees a straight back, wide shoulders, hair slicked back off the guy's face. "Hey, you drove me up to Harlem the other night."
The cab driver cocks his head in acquiescence. "Guess I did. How you getting on? You got a job?"
"Yeah, I'm running your switch boards." Freddy breaks into a grin seeing the radio stickers on the bumper of one of the cars pulling out of the lot.
The cab driver laughs, and resolutely pays no attention to Travis who's staring him down with an incredulity that feels out of place. Freddy wishes he would leave.
"No shit." The cab driver laughs. "You're Freddy then? Call me Larry, and this creepy sonovabitch is Travis."
Freddy shakes Larry's hand and decides he's not going to offer Travis the same courtesy. Travis doesn't mind, he doesn't even move. The lights from the board over the cab company seem to glance right off him, refracting back onto Larry in a glorious bid to soften all his features.
"Nice to meet you, Larry. Guess I'll be seeing you around."
"Yeah, I guess so." Freddy would be hard pressed to articulate why it feels so comfortable to be caught up in Larry's attention and so uncomfortable to be caught up in Travis's. Or Shaundra's.
The walk back up to the hotel is mercifully dry, but it's damn near ten when he finally comes through the door. Yolanda's mum is on duty tonight, and the main hall echoes with the tinny little television she's brought in to see her through the night.
Freddy separates twenty two dollars from his wages and pays up for the night. When he gets into his room, he finds it empty and sickening and he wishes he could be anywhere else but here.
-
Two weeks of work means two weeks of work. Freddy's not just covering for Jeannie, he's giving the girl who picks up her days off a break as well. He could complain about how his eyes haven't stopped stinging in days and his back aches from hunching over the controls, but he keeps bringing himself up short when he thinks about all the things he would be doing if he weren't working this job.
He would be at the movies, burying himself in a mountain of comics, buying himself a bike and giving himself a day or two to see all the big tourist sites that he swears he's going to be too local to appreciate in a month. Only he wouldn't be doing any of that shit, because it all costs money he wouldn't have if he weren't working.
He's got just shy of ten extra bucks a day once he's paid for the room, call it seven once he's eaten. They usually give him something he doesn't have to worry about paying for at the station. He's not gonna be in a good position once all this is said and done but he's not gonna be dead on his feet either.
Doing the walk between the hotel and fifty seventh feet twice a day he starts to get a sense of how New York fits together. The little details, like who's on the move when, who's talking to who, who's running late. Some people are always in a rush and some never seem to have any place to be. The girls that line street corners at night are rarely there at eight am but he can see their outlines coming up a mile off. Back home, everyone moved through the world safe in the knowledge that everyone was trying to get up in their business. Bakersfield isn't even a super small town but still, people notice each other. Here though, you can move with assured anonymity, and guilt colours the edges of Freddy's observations when he resolutely recognises people from across the street who he's never properly spoken to.
He's always been good at faces. Recognising someone is the first step to building their trust.
He doesn't recognise the boys on the street corners though. There aren't many of them, and Freddy's not sure if that makes it worse. He does recognise the girl who looks like she went through puberty five fucking minutes ago who hangs out by the tenements down on ninety second that he should probably stop passing every evening if he knows what's good for him.
"Watch it mister!" She barks when he loses track of his surroundings and nearly crashes straight into her on the way home one evening. She's not particularly angry, she just wants him at a distance.
"Sorry." Freddy mumbles, and before he can stop himself he's looking at her. Really looking, not just clocking identifying details and letting them assemble themselves into something that looks like a real person. All of a sudden he can't breathe.
She snorts at him. "Technically, staring's s'posed to be free but I'm pretty sure Sport'll take you for five dollars if you don't screw your eyes back in your head."
Freddy blinks, shakes his head. "What?"
"If you want some of this, you're gonna have to pay."
She doesn't have anything he wants. The sob Freddy lets out gets read as a laugh and oh, she thinks he's so naiive.
"What are you doing out here?" He asks.
The girl shrugs. "What are any of us doing out here?"
Freddy is highly aware that he's far more uncomfortable than she is, in her high rise short shorts, crop top, and ridiculous hat that looks ripe to get washed down the drain just as soon as the next lot of rain rolls in. "I mean...don't you wanna...not be here?"
"I got no place else to be. Unless you feel like paying, that is."
"No. I don't want that. You should be home with your parents."
"God." The girl groans. "You're such a fucking square. Get out of here, before I call Sport."
"I'm serious." Freddy reaches for her hand and she pulls herself away from him like he's toxic.
She's also serious, as it transpires. "Sport!"
A stocky man with long hair, ripcord muscles and a glint in his eye looks up from his spot in the doorway of one of the tenements. He's got one of those jolly faces that you just know serves as a mask more than an advertisement. Freddy has heard exactly zero good stories about pimps, and he's rushing away to the end of the block with the little girl's laughter in his ears.
He's going to have to steer clear of ninety second street for a while.
-
Back at the hotel, Freddy collapses on his bed with the lone Fantastic Four chapter he's found time to buy since he arrived in New York and a hot dog from a place across the way. He starts to read, but is quickly distracted by the chattering of Yolanda and a new guest out in the hall.
He should have known his ears weren't likely to prick for anyone he wasn't already familiar with, but Freddy eavesdrops all the same. He recognises the other voice as Shaundra and immediately wants to burn his bead sheets.
She asks about him, about what he's doing, if he's still here. Yolanda, the stupid little bitch, has the nerve to go and tell her where he's working. Half the hot dog sits, uneaten in Freddy's lap and he's very much regretting spending a dollar twenty five on something he knows he's not going to wind up finishing.
Five minutes later, he hasn't moved a muscle and there's a knock at the door. Freddy holds his breath, trying to stay quiet as far as possible.
After the third knock, she gives up with a low chuckle. "I know you're in there, sugar. If you didn't wanna see me, all you had to do was say."
He has four more days at the cab company. Four more days, then he can find a stable job and an apartment a long way from this part of town, somewhere where Shaundra can't find him and the movie theatre down the road has something more to offer than nude girls.
-
Freddy takes pains to avoid the ninety second street tenements in the morning, even knowing that there's rarely any action going down at that time of day. Just to be safe. A heady mist hangs in the air, painting the streets in pretty shades of blue and pink and below the chemical ocean spray and the smog from the cars, you can just about smell the sun trying to come through and burn it all off.
To get from ninety eighth street to fifty seventh street you have to cross ninety second street, one way or another. Freddy takes third as opposed to his usual fifth, hoping that that's going to be enough but accounting for the fact that he's probably going to have to go further out of his way that evening.
He doesn't notice Sport, leaning up against the wall of a rather run down looking accountant's, until he's practically on the guy.
For the love of all that is good and holy, Freddy freezes up on seeing the guy. Stupid. Nothing to attract attention to yourself like making it really fucking clear you've just seen someone you had no plans to make small talk with that day.
He's smoking a spliff the size of a cigar and though the morning is chill, his arms are bared in his singlet, showing off the ware withal to land a pretty decent punch. He sees Freddy and looks so genuinely happy to see him it's disarming.
"Yo! I see you there. Come over here, my friend, we have much to discuss."
Freddy gives up all pretense that he hasn't seen Sport and stares him down, dumbly. Like fucking Travis with his weird, inability to communicate at the same pace as regular folks. That's what Freddy must look like.
"Hey, man, come on. There's no bad blood between us. I get it! You stopped to take a look at Iris last night, you ain't the first. I just figure we maybe oughta establish some ground rules before you come snooping around her again, you know what I mean? That way you and I can stay friends and Iris won't have to worry that you maybe have some kinda design on her that ain't in the handbook." Sport is animated, throwing his arms around and moving his face too fast for Freddy to keep track of. He's wearing a string of pearls wrapped tight around his neck and the way they roll and strain as he talks is deeply distracting.
Freddy shakes his head. "I don't wanna use any of your whores, sir. If you don't mind, I gotta get to work."
"Hey! Shh! C'mon, man." Sport holds out his hands, spliff still in his mouth, creating a cloud of green smoke over his head. "No need for that kind of language in the streets, ya dig? I'm just trying to let you know what's what."
"How did you find me?"
"Find you? How did I find you?" Sport laughs and points for an imagined crowd. "How did I find you? I didn't find nobody. I was just winding down for the night, and you walk right up on me. Question is, how did you find me?"
The time he's wasting is going to be harder to make up. "I gotta get to work." Freddy says again, moving past Sport to continue on his way.
He doesn't get very far. Sport's hand on his upper arm is vice like and Freddy is so unsure whether the edge he's getting off the guy is a genuine threat or the drugs talking that he flubs the landing and fails to modulate his response.
"Just sos ya know, if you're ever in the area again and something tells me you will be, Iris is fifteen dollars for fifteen minutes or twenty five for half an hour."
And the first thing that crosses Freddy's mind is that a nap on the floor and twenty two dollars was a monumental undersell on his part. Then he recoils from the thought and tries to pull himself free from Sport. "She's just a kid..."
"And you're what, seventeen at a push? Iris's age don't matter, she's got the tightest pussy in all New York, baby. Twelve and a half years old, even the Chinese don't got any younger than her right now."
"That's fucking illegal, man." Is the stupidest possible thing Freddy could say at that moment. The first thing you learn about New York is that the police don't shit unless you got money or the Mayor is riding them hard about a particular case.
Twelve years old. Twelve fucking years old. He could get her out of here, he could pay to see her and use that time to promise her that he'll get her away from all this. And she could laugh at him and tell him to stop being such a pussy.
"I'll see you round, mister manners!" Sport calls after him. Freddy hunches his shoulders against the cold, and he can still hear the laughter following behind him from three blocks away.
Re: Sport/Orange - shady skeevey stuff - 2/?
----------------------------------------------------------
For some reason, Freddy's surprised to find out that a cab company headquarters is basically a garage with an office attached. He sticks his head through the gaping hole in the side of the building and skips around cars heading out for the morning as he makes his way to the desk at the back.
"'Scuse me." Freddy looks down at the balding, fat Jewish guy wearing a jacket that makes him look twice as wide as he is. "You Josh?"
"Who's asking?" The guy doesn't look up from the morning papers. He's sucking on a cigarette like it's mother's milk.
"Name's Freddy Newandyke. Holdaway sent me."
"So you're the kid who's gonna help us out while Jeannie recovers from her accident."
"I guess."
"You guess?" Josh laughs and squints up at Freddy from behind thick rimmed glasses. "Jesus, how old are you?"
"Old enough."
"You got any experience with a switchboard?"
"No." Freddy replies before he can think to lie. He scrambles to catch himself. "But it's not like it's hard, right?"
Josh shrugs, closing the paper and slamming down an empty coffee mug on the corners to stop it from blowing away. "Can't be if Jeannie Spelling was any good at it. C'mon, I'll show you the ropes."
Operating a switchboard turns out to be boring as shit but not so mind numbing that he can switch off. The customers get shirty if he's anything less than saccharine with them and the drivers are surly no matter how he talks. He has to contend with the revving of the cars in the main hall, drivers shouting at each other like they think hey can't be heard, and all of that set on the backdrop of the noise outside. After twelve hours, he's about ready to fall down on the floor and call it a night.
A better night than the last. Freddy squashes that thought before it can morph into memory and hands his headset over to the girl who's working the graveyard shift till he comes back in.
Picking up his wages for the day, Freddy glances round the room like he expects to see someone he recognises and is met with a blank sea of yellow punctuated by what might as well be the same ruddy face, passed around and shared between the drivers for lack of a distinct identity.
He almost makes it home free. So far he hasn't had to talk to any of the drivers face to face but that changes pretty quickly as he turns out of the garage and runs right into Travis Bickley.
"Woah, watch where you're going." Travis says in a soft voice that doesn't match the intensity of his scowl. Only a few days in New York and Freddy can already tell that his accent is out of place. Not that this city ain't full to bursting with out of towners.
Freddy apologises and tries to brush past him but Travis slips into the space he's trying to occupy a moment too soon. he tries again and the same thing happens. When they meet eyes, Travis is smiling and it makes Freddy want to be sick.
It makes Freddy want to curl up on the floor of his bedroom because it's easier than trying to make a case for the bed. No. Wrong. Not thinking about that.
"Travis, leave the kid alone, would'ya?"
Travis says nothing, but he does step aside to create free passage for Freddy.
When he looks back over his shoulder to get a better look at is rescuer, Freddy sees a straight back, wide shoulders, hair slicked back off the guy's face. "Hey, you drove me up to Harlem the other night."
The cab driver cocks his head in acquiescence. "Guess I did. How you getting on? You got a job?"
"Yeah, I'm running your switch boards." Freddy breaks into a grin seeing the radio stickers on the bumper of one of the cars pulling out of the lot.
The cab driver laughs, and resolutely pays no attention to Travis who's staring him down with an incredulity that feels out of place. Freddy wishes he would leave.
"No shit." The cab driver laughs. "You're Freddy then? Call me Larry, and this creepy sonovabitch is Travis."
Freddy shakes Larry's hand and decides he's not going to offer Travis the same courtesy. Travis doesn't mind, he doesn't even move. The lights from the board over the cab company seem to glance right off him, refracting back onto Larry in a glorious bid to soften all his features.
"Nice to meet you, Larry. Guess I'll be seeing you around."
"Yeah, I guess so." Freddy would be hard pressed to articulate why it feels so comfortable to be caught up in Larry's attention and so uncomfortable to be caught up in Travis's. Or Shaundra's.
The walk back up to the hotel is mercifully dry, but it's damn near ten when he finally comes through the door. Yolanda's mum is on duty tonight, and the main hall echoes with the tinny little television she's brought in to see her through the night.
Freddy separates twenty two dollars from his wages and pays up for the night. When he gets into his room, he finds it empty and sickening and he wishes he could be anywhere else but here.
-
Two weeks of work means two weeks of work. Freddy's not just covering for Jeannie, he's giving the girl who picks up her days off a break as well. He could complain about how his eyes haven't stopped stinging in days and his back aches from hunching over the controls, but he keeps bringing himself up short when he thinks about all the things he would be doing if he weren't working this job.
He would be at the movies, burying himself in a mountain of comics, buying himself a bike and giving himself a day or two to see all the big tourist sites that he swears he's going to be too local to appreciate in a month. Only he wouldn't be doing any of that shit, because it all costs money he wouldn't have if he weren't working.
He's got just shy of ten extra bucks a day once he's paid for the room, call it seven once he's eaten. They usually give him something he doesn't have to worry about paying for at the station. He's not gonna be in a good position once all this is said and done but he's not gonna be dead on his feet either.
Doing the walk between the hotel and fifty seventh feet twice a day he starts to get a sense of how New York fits together. The little details, like who's on the move when, who's talking to who, who's running late. Some people are always in a rush and some never seem to have any place to be. The girls that line street corners at night are rarely there at eight am but he can see their outlines coming up a mile off. Back home, everyone moved through the world safe in the knowledge that everyone was trying to get up in their business. Bakersfield isn't even a super small town but still, people notice each other. Here though, you can move with assured anonymity, and guilt colours the edges of Freddy's observations when he resolutely recognises people from across the street who he's never properly spoken to.
He's always been good at faces. Recognising someone is the first step to building their trust.
He doesn't recognise the boys on the street corners though. There aren't many of them, and Freddy's not sure if that makes it worse. He does recognise the girl who looks like she went through puberty five fucking minutes ago who hangs out by the tenements down on ninety second that he should probably stop passing every evening if he knows what's good for him.
"Watch it mister!" She barks when he loses track of his surroundings and nearly crashes straight into her on the way home one evening. She's not particularly angry, she just wants him at a distance.
"Sorry." Freddy mumbles, and before he can stop himself he's looking at her. Really looking, not just clocking identifying details and letting them assemble themselves into something that looks like a real person. All of a sudden he can't breathe.
She snorts at him. "Technically, staring's s'posed to be free but I'm pretty sure Sport'll take you for five dollars if you don't screw your eyes back in your head."
Freddy blinks, shakes his head. "What?"
"If you want some of this, you're gonna have to pay."
She doesn't have anything he wants. The sob Freddy lets out gets read as a laugh and oh, she thinks he's so naiive.
"What are you doing out here?" He asks.
The girl shrugs. "What are any of us doing out here?"
Freddy is highly aware that he's far more uncomfortable than she is, in her high rise short shorts, crop top, and ridiculous hat that looks ripe to get washed down the drain just as soon as the next lot of rain rolls in. "I mean...don't you wanna...not be here?"
"I got no place else to be. Unless you feel like paying, that is."
"No. I don't want that. You should be home with your parents."
"God." The girl groans. "You're such a fucking square. Get out of here, before I call Sport."
"I'm serious." Freddy reaches for her hand and she pulls herself away from him like he's toxic.
She's also serious, as it transpires. "Sport!"
A stocky man with long hair, ripcord muscles and a glint in his eye looks up from his spot in the doorway of one of the tenements. He's got one of those jolly faces that you just know serves as a mask more than an advertisement. Freddy has heard exactly zero good stories about pimps, and he's rushing away to the end of the block with the little girl's laughter in his ears.
He's going to have to steer clear of ninety second street for a while.
-
Back at the hotel, Freddy collapses on his bed with the lone Fantastic Four chapter he's found time to buy since he arrived in New York and a hot dog from a place across the way. He starts to read, but is quickly distracted by the chattering of Yolanda and a new guest out in the hall.
He should have known his ears weren't likely to prick for anyone he wasn't already familiar with, but Freddy eavesdrops all the same. He recognises the other voice as Shaundra and immediately wants to burn his bead sheets.
She asks about him, about what he's doing, if he's still here. Yolanda, the stupid little bitch, has the nerve to go and tell her where he's working. Half the hot dog sits, uneaten in Freddy's lap and he's very much regretting spending a dollar twenty five on something he knows he's not going to wind up finishing.
Five minutes later, he hasn't moved a muscle and there's a knock at the door. Freddy holds his breath, trying to stay quiet as far as possible.
After the third knock, she gives up with a low chuckle. "I know you're in there, sugar. If you didn't wanna see me, all you had to do was say."
He has four more days at the cab company. Four more days, then he can find a stable job and an apartment a long way from this part of town, somewhere where Shaundra can't find him and the movie theatre down the road has something more to offer than nude girls.
-
Freddy takes pains to avoid the ninety second street tenements in the morning, even knowing that there's rarely any action going down at that time of day. Just to be safe. A heady mist hangs in the air, painting the streets in pretty shades of blue and pink and below the chemical ocean spray and the smog from the cars, you can just about smell the sun trying to come through and burn it all off.
To get from ninety eighth street to fifty seventh street you have to cross ninety second street, one way or another. Freddy takes third as opposed to his usual fifth, hoping that that's going to be enough but accounting for the fact that he's probably going to have to go further out of his way that evening.
He doesn't notice Sport, leaning up against the wall of a rather run down looking accountant's, until he's practically on the guy.
For the love of all that is good and holy, Freddy freezes up on seeing the guy. Stupid. Nothing to attract attention to yourself like making it really fucking clear you've just seen someone you had no plans to make small talk with that day.
He's smoking a spliff the size of a cigar and though the morning is chill, his arms are bared in his singlet, showing off the ware withal to land a pretty decent punch. He sees Freddy and looks so genuinely happy to see him it's disarming.
"Yo! I see you there. Come over here, my friend, we have much to discuss."
Freddy gives up all pretense that he hasn't seen Sport and stares him down, dumbly. Like fucking Travis with his weird, inability to communicate at the same pace as regular folks. That's what Freddy must look like.
"Hey, man, come on. There's no bad blood between us. I get it! You stopped to take a look at Iris last night, you ain't the first. I just figure we maybe oughta establish some ground rules before you come snooping around her again, you know what I mean? That way you and I can stay friends and Iris won't have to worry that you maybe have some kinda design on her that ain't in the handbook." Sport is animated, throwing his arms around and moving his face too fast for Freddy to keep track of. He's wearing a string of pearls wrapped tight around his neck and the way they roll and strain as he talks is deeply distracting.
Freddy shakes his head. "I don't wanna use any of your whores, sir. If you don't mind, I gotta get to work."
"Hey! Shh! C'mon, man." Sport holds out his hands, spliff still in his mouth, creating a cloud of green smoke over his head. "No need for that kind of language in the streets, ya dig? I'm just trying to let you know what's what."
"How did you find me?"
"Find you? How did I find you?" Sport laughs and points for an imagined crowd. "How did I find you? I didn't find nobody. I was just winding down for the night, and you walk right up on me. Question is, how did you find me?"
The time he's wasting is going to be harder to make up. "I gotta get to work." Freddy says again, moving past Sport to continue on his way.
He doesn't get very far. Sport's hand on his upper arm is vice like and Freddy is so unsure whether the edge he's getting off the guy is a genuine threat or the drugs talking that he flubs the landing and fails to modulate his response.
"Just sos ya know, if you're ever in the area again and something tells me you will be, Iris is fifteen dollars for fifteen minutes or twenty five for half an hour."
And the first thing that crosses Freddy's mind is that a nap on the floor and twenty two dollars was a monumental undersell on his part. Then he recoils from the thought and tries to pull himself free from Sport. "She's just a kid..."
"And you're what, seventeen at a push? Iris's age don't matter, she's got the tightest pussy in all New York, baby. Twelve and a half years old, even the Chinese don't got any younger than her right now."
"That's fucking illegal, man." Is the stupidest possible thing Freddy could say at that moment. The first thing you learn about New York is that the police don't shit unless you got money or the Mayor is riding them hard about a particular case.
Twelve years old. Twelve fucking years old. He could get her out of here, he could pay to see her and use that time to promise her that he'll get her away from all this. And she could laugh at him and tell him to stop being such a pussy.
"I'll see you round, mister manners!" Sport calls after him. Freddy hunches his shoulders against the cold, and he can still hear the laughter following behind him from three blocks away.