The Legend of the Cabbie Prince.

T. Butler Gelber © All rights reserved 1/11/06

A shiny yellow checker cab slowly rolled to the curb and stopped.  The passenger handed the driver a twenty and a ten and asked “Let me have five back” With only nineteen dollars on the meter the driver was pleased but, did not over-thank his customer.

Although the passenger had been in the taxi for almost twenty minutes, he did not get a glimpse of the drivers face. His license was not in the frame as it should be. The passenger was not worried. He could see he was a tall man, probably thin. He wore a denim jacket and what he believed were glasses with a cord that fit behind his large ears.

What he found most unusual was the cab. It was an old checker car. The back seat was big enough for an off Broadway play, with two jump seats. The straps were in place at both doors for the passengers to hoist themselves in and out of the car. There were bright white doilies on the head rests, and the cab was very clean. Not just clean, but almost new. ‘How unusual the man thought’. He hadn’t seen a checker cab for many years.

The passenger, a man in his mid, to late thirties exited the cab, and walked into the vestibule of his building. The driver saw the man fumble with his key ring, and move toward the mail boxes.

Content to have delivered the passenger, the driver eased off the break. The cab began to roll. Turning his attention toward the road in front of him, from the corner of his eye the driver noticed a shadow on the wall of the dimly lit vestibule. He didn’t think much of it other than to notice it. He assumed it was the passenger moving from the mail box to the inner door. The cab driver felt unchallenged as he began planning his trip back to Manhattan.

The flash in his minds eye was less than a full thought, but more than a passing dream. He realized that the shadow could not have been the passenger because it moved toward the back of the vestibule into the interior entrance. The passenger was half way to the back already, so the shadow would have been ahead of him not behind him.

In a world where legends and myths are needed to help explain coincidence, what took place will be forever hard to explain.

Stepping out of the taxi, the driver, dressed in denim and black thick heeled motor-cycle boots, took giant steps toward the building. As he had suspected, in the vestibule was a man, wearing a ski mask, pointing a gun at his former passenger, who was kneeling on the vestibule floor with hands raised.

The robber, yelling commands at the man on his knees, looked up at the sound of something tapping on the glass door. There, to his surprise was a man dressed in denim wearing a Zorro mask.

The robber felt his stomach turn sour, as his body produced even more adrenalin than the act of robbery. ‘Was he now about to be robbed’? He thought to himself. He pointed the gun at the window and fired, but the man in the Zorro mask disappeared before the glass shattered into a thousand pieces on the sidewalk. 

The robber slowly stepped toward the door, gun in hand. As he peered out into the street a silver Billy Club, coming toward him, was visible for a millisecond, and then he was unconscious. The passenger quickly got to his feet but not without cutting his hands on shattered glass. He looked out the window and saw nothing. Then a sound of an engine broke the silence and far off, down the street, he could see an old checker cab gleaming under the street lamp as it moved farther and farther away. 

Was it the same taxi that he had been in? He may never know. As he explained what happened to the police, the hardened law enforcement professionals listened quietly. They were sure the victim was a crazy man, or a wise guy, but there was an unconscious masked man on the ground with a broken nose, gun still in hand. 

When the robber regained consciousness he was asked what happened. As he wiped blood from his chin all he could say was “A guy in a mask, a guy in a mask”. A haggard police detective asked “What kinda mask jerk-off? Halloween? Ski mask? Or was it Zorro?”  The robber looked at the cop in astonishment“ That’s it. It was a Zorro mask” The old detective gave a belly laugh and walked away. 

As he walked through the doorway of the vestibule he saw something on the ground. It was a business card.  It had one name in bold print. “Cabbie Prince”. Under the name was a logo of sorts. “My blood runs yellow”. 

“What is it asked a patrolman?” “ “Nothing” the detective replied. Pointing to the robber he said “Take this guy in”.