No gas. No money. That Nesbit was a sheep's mother's intestun.

I caught a ride wid a cabby deadheadin back to Mudcatville and da answers to da questions. Told him I would buy him beer at JOE'S BAR and strung him along like a mooseturd necklace by sayin I wanted to become a cab-driver myself.

He replied,Well, cab drivers are scum bags. Now I know you're a scum bag. Worse. You're a whore. A pimp and a whore under one roof. And you're a fucking little sociopath. These credentials are impressive, but won't necessarily make you a good cabby. You do look the part, if you weren't so goddamn cute. A few more years of drink and drugs will take care of that.

Anyway.

Cab drivers are scum bags. They lust only for whores and gambling. They like to fight. They like to kick jerks out of their cab. They are jerks. They're not nice to women and children, even if they are women and children. Arty types don't make the grade. They're sheep in cab driver clothing. A real cab driver is a full time son of a bitch. He may or may not know how to speak English, but you can bet he's a talking asshole in any language. The son of a bitches will never grow up. They don't want real jobs. They're eternal boys, which is to say your average American fellah, except they do it for a living.

Cabbies take the worse shit a man can take and get paid for it. Mercenary killers are higher on the ladder. So are whores when it comes to selling your ass. A cabby is a legal criminal. Something like a lawyer, same branch of pedestrianism. Know what they call a cabby without a hangover? A nonsequitur. No such animal. You'd fit in there pretty well. Drugs too. You gotta take lots of drugs to be a cabby. But know how to handle them. Combine them like an alchemist. The best cabbies can shoot a goofball in their neck going sixty in heavy traffic and the passengers won't even notice. You'd do alright there too.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. The most important part - and I don't know if you fill the bill here. We'll see - a cabby's gotta know how to push a hack. If you can't pass a hack through the eye of a needle, you ain't no cabby. The cab's gotta be an integral part of you. It has to fit like a glove, hang like a genital, bounce like a tit, shit like an eagle, fly like a demon, burrow through the city like a rat in a garbage heap and come out shining. You gotta be able to sneak up on a fare like a pickpocket. You gotta squeeze through double parked cars like toothpaste. There can't be more than the distance between the hem of a whore's skirt and her snatch between you and sleepwalking pedestrians. You gotta have nerves of steel and the patience of a toad. Otherwise you'll crack up. You'll get fired or end up in a fireball on the freeway. Cab driving is magic and you gotta master the automatic pilot. If you're the type of pedestrian who bumps into other people on the street, probably you won't make a cabby.

Got it? Get out! I'll be back for my beer.

We got out, da broad and I. We were standin' in front of JOE'S BAR like some sort B.S. Hay-Seeds fresh from the dung pile.