Ghost Story

 I arrived in Seattle at about 11 A.M. on Easter Sunday, 1989. When I got to the connection to I - 5 from I - 90,  I  saw the city of Seattle, Elliot Bay, and the reason that it was known as The Emerald City. It was beautiful. I fell in love with it and realized that I was home. All of my travels and roaming led to this. This is where I was supposed to be.

It had rained in the earlier morning, and everything gleamed and smelt of fresh growth. I also noticed it was the cleanest American city I had ever seen. Wow. I took the nearest exit, Madison St., to start my new adventure. There weren't many people around; it was an Easter Sunday, so most folks were probably doing their Easter thing.

Seattle, at that time, had a population of about 550,000. So it was a big beautiful place with not many people. It was paradise.

Within a few blocks of getting off the highway, I saw a hotdog restaurant similar to Orange Julius, so I stopped to get lunch and a paper and tried to find a place to live. The first one I called happened to be just a few blocks from where I landed, and it turned out to be perfect. It was an SRO ( sleeping room only, shared bathroom down the hall ), and the rent was cheaper than any I'd paid in Ann Arbor. Not only that, but the manager and I became friends right away.

After I settled in, he came by, and we got high together. I had a couple of joints that my friend Andy had given me " for the ride, " and we smoked them up. Then he turned me on to what the west coasters smoked. Sticky, stinky, gooey stuff that really got you high. Woof.

I had a roof over my head, but now I needed a job. So the next day, I went to the Yellow Cab company on Dexter Avenue. I had been a hack back in Michigan and have a natural sense of direction, so I figured that was the best place to start.

 Yellow Cab of Ann Arbor was a very organized and relatively clean business. Still, Yellow Cab of Seattle resembled something similar to the cab lots in the movies Repo Man or D.C. Cab and even the show Taxi. Wonderful.

I go into the office building, and the first thing I notice is that I am obviously in the driver's room. There's a big round table with some guys playing cards, a few video games in the corner, and not much else. I probably looked confused and a bit out of place. Finally, one of the men playing cards said, " Can I help you ?" I told him I was looking for a job, had just gotten into town, and had driven a cab in my hometown.

We talked briefly, and he told me he owned a few cabs and was looking for drivers. So I asked what the process was so that I could get started. First, I had to get a Washington license and then go to the city hall and get a cab license. I knew this, of course, but I had no idea where to do these things. He told me. He also told me that to get a Washington license, you had to retake the driver's tests, including the road test you could only do with a car that would pass inspection, which my car, having a damaged headlight, would not.

He then looked at me and asked if I could be trusted. I assured him that I could, not knowing where he was going with this, and he threw me his keys and told me to take his car to the DMV on Jefferson street, take the test, and get back to him. A stranger, a man I had just met, lent me his car. Like I said, paradise.

I went to the DMV and passed all the tests, but it took longer than expected. Duh. The DMV, like most government offices, is notoriously slow. On the way back, I wondered whether that guy was starting to wonder about what he did, and I was right. But we were happy to see each other and knew everything would work just fine.

So I became a cab driver in Seattle. They had me training with a guy named Rolf for a few days. We drove around with me as a co-pilot, and he showed me the ropes, which were no different than anything I knew. Finally, on our third day together, the dispatcher told Rolf to bring me back to the lot, and I would get my own cab.

My cab was a station wagon called high 84 by the dispatchers. High meant that it was just 84. If it were 184, the prefix would be Blue, if memory serves. My first official job was to pick up a driver called Mumbles at a nearby restaurant named Wright's at the corner of Denny and Aurora. Nice place, great pie, but gone now.

Mumbles was drunk and had a minor accident, and they wanted to get him out of there. So my first official job was to help a fellow ( now ) driver to escape the police. Welcome to the big city. Hilarious.

I knew how to drive a cab and deal with customers, but I didn't know the city. That was the difficult part. In addition, a cab driver had to have a Tri-county Thomas guide, a large and cumbersome book but necessary. I only used it to figure out where I was after I dropped the people off, though. Then, when people got in, I would ask them the best way to get where they were going. Apparently, that was unusual and pleased them more than I expected.

After I dropped people off, I would explore the neighborhood to learn more about the city and where things were. One night, or early morning, I happened to end up at the Denny's in lower lake Union long gone ), commonly known as the Cascade district. At that time, it was a primarily quiet industrial and isolated area.

After a treat of decent coffee and banana cream pie, I pulled out and was flagged by a young woman that I assumed was a waitress that had just gotten off work. When asked, she told me that she didn't work at that Denny's but used to work at Denny's at Highland and Aurora, also now long gone, and that she was going to Westlake avenue, not far from where we were.

 Westlake, at that time, was an odd street. There were many nooks and crannies that were unusual to a newcomer. So on the way there, I asked her about herself. She told me that one night she got off work, and some guy grabbed her and threw her in his car. Then, he took her to a nearby spot and raped her. Multiple times.

I was devastated. I had no idea how to respond. I took the woman's hand, told her I was sorry for her suffering and asked what happened next. As we pulled into the area she wanted, she said only that she " got away. " I didn't understand, but I told her there was no charge. It was the least I could do. She thanked me and got out.

After she exited, I was too shaken up to pull out, so I got out of the vehicle to smoke a cigarette. When I did, I realized that I was in one of those weird pockets of nothing on that street and that she was gone. Disappeared. In a place where no one should be able to disappear.

Seattle had a reputation for being where many serial killers and rapists went years before getting discovered for their crimes. I think she had been through that and finally found someone to tell her story to and care. I'm glad that I could give her that. I hope it helped.