At the taxi stands, drivers were urged to look out for each other and to be leery of customers who hailed them from the streets. Many of the drivers decided to stop working the night shift and switched to mornings. Of course, the owners of the cars hiked the rental fees for morning shifts. The Carnival was still on and some taxis refused to take people with masks on. Those who did made sure to look at the skin colour of the passenger’s hands before unlocking the doors. A gay couple who were dressed in matching cowboy suits and hats were refused entry to a cab because of the plastic guns that rested at the sides of their exposed hips. When they complained to the commission, the driver stated that he had also refused them for hygienic reasons: one of the cowboys wore leather pants that left his ass completely bare in the middle.
Headlines such as Are Taxi Drivers Racists? flashed across the news. “The Newcomers Who Discriminate,” a special report, was repeatedly aired on various radio stations. “Should We Tolerate Those Who Don’t?” was another variation on the same theme. The only woman taxi driver in the city, a butch named Baby, was pursued by three different producers to be interviewed.
Is taxi driving dangerous for a woman? she was asked on air.
Not if the doll is riding with me, honey, Baby answered, and laughed.
And then a young graduate from the creative writing department of the local university, who had driven a taxi for two years, was contracted by a publishing house to gather taxi stories. The book was to appear in the fall, in time for the national awards season. The title of the book was Taxi Stories.
INDEED THE TAXI killer, as he was called in the news, triggered a new interest in the romantic and dangerous side of the taxi profession. Journalists and producers would hire a taxi for a whole day for a flat fee, or simply let the meter run while they asked the driver questions or rode with him through so-called dangerous neighbourhoods. Taxi drivers were ushered into the labyrinths of the TV stations for interviews. They were offered cups of water from the cooler and called by their last names, which were mispronounced by secretaries and producers alike. The anchors would often come out of their glass rooms and shake the drivers’ hands, and they would ask them the correct pronunciation of their names, repeating it to themselves many times on their way back to their high chairs and microphones. In many sound studios, wires were passed underneath the drivers’ jackets, all the way up their necks, and down inside their ears. Sudden voices saying things like Can you hear me, sir? elicited fierce head shakes by some South Asian drivers, which made it hard for the technicians to detect the meaning of the answer as a yes or a no. Makeup was applied to the drivers’ foreheads and below their eyes to cut the flare and shine. Some drivers, though, refused to wear makeup, stating that it was a woman’s affair.
Nearly overnight a reality TV producer introduced a new show, The Longest Ride, which consisted of celebrities driving taxis equipped with hidden cameras. The show was almost cancelled after a passenger attempted to mug a celebrity driver at gunpoint. The television crew that was following the taxi in a separate car saw the gun in the kid’s hand and alerted the police. It could well have escalated into a hostage-taking situation if the celebrity hadn’t informed the mugger that he was without cash because, he said, This is The Longest Ride! The mugger, who happened to be an admirer of the show, was ecstatic to discover that he was on television, and he agreed to sign a modelling contract before he surrendered to the police.
CRIMES (AGAIN)
MORNING. AFTER THE burial of the latest victim of the taxi killings, a psychiatrist was slain inside his clinic as he was about to leave his office. The doctor’s coat was found hanging behind the door. According to the police report, the patterns of blood on the coat suggested that the killer had worn it while he slashed the doctor’s throat.
Many of the patients who were being treated by the psychiatrist got sick reading the news. A computer was missing, as well as a radio, two hundred dollars, and a box of Cuban cigarillos, but the rest of the place was untouched except for the blood that had splattered all over the room. The police confiscated all the doctor’s files as part of the investigation. Patients and privacy advocates protested, stating that the police were violating citizens’ rights to privacy.
A PROMINENT CEO was found shot next to his car, in the parking lot of the gym where he worked out three times a week.
The CEO was the head of a large mining company. A few years before, the company had been involved in arming rebels in an African country in order to overthrow a left-leaning regime that had demanded the nationalization of the mining company. After the scandal, the then-CEO resigned and a younger CEO, by the name of Edward Stain III (in certain disco circles known as Eddie), was promoted to the job. The young CEO’s first proposal to the shareholders was to hire a PR company to conduct a campaign that would highlight the company’s social responsibility programs, including job creation for third-world workers and new, advanced environmental technologies to foster better and more environmentally conscious mining practices. The “step technique,” one of the new techniques was called, since the excavation and stripping were to be done in a series of steps that would allow future plants and new vegetation to eventually cover the sites. The CEO invited environmental groups to discuss the new procedures.
At the funeral of Mr. Stain III, many honourable guests were in attendance, and the populist mayor promised to henceforth be even tougher on crime. The late CEO had left behind two beautiful daughters and a wife.
THE NEXT DAY a professor of political science at the local university was found, with his wife, mutilated and burned in the woods outside the city. The camping equipment and clothing of the victims had all been stolen. The couple, it was determined after forensic analysis, had been chained together and stabbed. In a gruesome statement, the police revealed that acts of cannibalism had been performed. Some of the limbs had been barbecued on the spot, and traces of human saliva were detected on the victims’ arms and thighs. The car of Edward Stain III, the young CEO, was found parked in the woods close to the scene. It was clear that the killer or killers must have switched cars. He, she, or they had arrived in the first victim’s car and left in the second. Both crimes appeared to have taken place on the same day.
The news about cannibalism caused renewed panic and debate all over the city. It even made the international news. Experts on cannibalism and satanic rituals were seen on every channel. A panellist who said that the act of cannibalism was justified in times of famine was condemned by the religious establishment, and the news channel was inundated with complaints and threats. The expert later stated that he had merely been referring to human history, and that cannibalism was an undeniable part of our past. He stated that there was proof of cannibalism by First World War soldiers, not to mention incidents as recent as the Vietnam War and after certain plane crashes. Journalists expanded on the topic, chairing panels on devil worshippers, Masonic lodges, and the demonization of Jews in Europe through false accusations by the Church and the Nazis alike.
In a lengthy obituary in one of the local newspapers, the professor was remembered for many of the conservative policies he had helped introduce through the current government. He had been, behind the scenes, an effective adviser on such policies as the abolishment of the gun registry, the dismantling of the census, and other deep cuts to the governmental bureaucracy. The life and work of the victim stirred another debate over the role of academia in the government, and vice versa. Political talk shows on radio and on television suddenly began to question politicians’ competence. Is the prime minister a mere front for ideologues and think tanks? Who are the brains that run this country? What is the role of academics and policy-makers in the forming of our values?