Passengers shall only be solicited by a taxicab chauffeur while he is behind the wheel of his vehicle, and the chauffeur may only use the words: "Taxicab," "Taxi" or "Cab."

City of Chicago, Department of Consumer Services, Public Vehicle Operations Division

The neighborhood kids woke me on their way home from school. I lay there in bed listening to their laughter and fighting, and fragments of the night flickered through my mind. Relita. The cops. The sweetness of my daughter's voice followed by the nightmare voice of my ex: I thought you were dead for sure. And now she knew I wasn't. Was that good or bad?

I looked out the window. Irv, my dayman, had quit early. The cab was parked at the curb.

I showered and shaved, and went out to another grey day.

My first load was a nurse on her way to Weiss Hospital. $2.80 on the meter; she gave me three and told me to keep the change.

I went south, heading for the business down in the Loop. Two short hops and I was on Michigan Avenue where a woman with a tiny shopping bag waved.

"Thank you so much," she said climbing in. "Union Station, the Adams entrance, please."

I worked my way through the Loop, through early rush hour traffic. Thousands of trench coats were heading the same direction we were, to the commuter railroad stations just west of the river.

There was $4.40 on the meter when I pulled up with a swarm of other cabs. The woman handed me five dollars. "Keep it," she said.

A young black guy hurried over and opened the passenger door. He was clean and healthy looking, wearing a navy pea coat and sporting a thin goatee.

The woman started out, then stopped. "Driver, I'm sorry. Could you let me have one quarter, please."

I handed her a quarter and she dropped it into the guy's waiting hand. "Thank you," he said, and he closed the door behind her and held the same hand out to me. "Help the poor?"

"Whose quarter you think that was?"

I started away but then the black guy slapped the side of the car. "Got one for you," he shouted.

"Do you go south?"

It was an older black woman. She was lugging an old suitcase, one that looked like an oversized doctor's bag.

I waved her towards the cab, and the guy grabbed her suitcase and started around for the trunk.

"Put it in here." I reached back and opened the door.

The woman slid into the back seat. The guy slid the suitcase in behind her. "Thank you so much," she said, and she handed him a dollar.

She gave me an address on South Aberdeen and I pulled away trying to calculate what the guy might make on a good day. If you could make a buck and a quarter every thirty seconds for an hour...

"Where you coming from?" I asked, once we were on the highway heading south.

"Mississippi," she said.

"Good trip?"

"A funeral."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Long time coming," she said.

The address was in the heart of Englewood. But most of the neighborhood-like so many other neighborhoods on the South and West Sides-was pretty much gone. Half the buildings had disappeared. There were drug dealers and gangbangers on the corners. But the old woman lived in the middle of the block, in a well-kept six-flat, with a sturdy looking gate out front.

Ten dollars on the meter. She gave me thirteen.

"Thanks very much," I said, and started to open my door. "Let me help with your bag."

"No. No. You stay right there." She got out, then reached back for the bag. "Don't pick anybody up out here," she whispered. "Lock your doors. Go straight back to the highway."

I locked the doors, waited until she was through the gate, then I followed the rest of her advice.

I got stuck in a traffic jam on the way back to the Loop, then wandered around for a while, trying to stay away from the worst of the traff

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