Well, that’s one more place on my cabbie blacklist. Certain addresses I just won’t touch. Homes where the residents call multiple cab companies, taking the first one that shows up. Homes of people who have been abusive. Clubs with lax security enforcement.

It was past half-time. Half-time for me comes after the Perth flight at 2230. There’s one more Virgin flight – an hour later – before the airport closes for the night, but I’ve found that passengers on the low-cost carrier aren’t as likely to take a cab, and if there are more cabs than required, likely I’ll have wasted a long wait and the two dollar boomgate fee to get out of the airport cabyard.

I got a nice long fare off the Perth flight, down to Oxley, Chet Baker singing and playing his trumpet all the way. “That’s the best cab ride I’ve ever had,” she said, and I agreed with her. Driving a night cab along the deserted motorways of a well-planned city, soft jazz playing love songs, it’s no hardship at all.

I worked out of Kingston for the rest of the night. Kingston is tricky because the rank is out of direct view of the bars on Green Square, and unscrupulous cabbies will often cruise slowly along, or worse, park with their light on, snapping up passengers before they get to the cab rank where the honest cabbies are waiting. And waiting.

I got a long fare about half past twelve. Kingston to Cook with a wait for cigarettes at the Belconnen Shell servo. That put me over budget and, contemplating the remainder of a quiet night, I gave up, heading off for Braddon, a top-up, a “taxi wash”, vacuum and home to bed.

I was almost onto Belconnen Way when I got a radio job. Not fifty metres from the Belco servo, as it happened. And not a familiar address. Oh well. I turned left for adventure and profit instead of right for home and comfort.

Nobody waiting at the servo, and the street was a quiet little lane, serving the back entrances of various shops and repair yards. Not a regular place for taxi passengers. I hunted up the short lane, turned at the top and paused, scanning for human life.

A few cars moved out of a carpark, so there were people around. I realised this was the back entrance to the Pot Belly, a pleasant little bar often featuring live music. Probably locking-up time and a staff member needed a lift home. Probably a nice long fare, otherwise one of the others would give him or her a lift. Maybe even back into town, which would be nice.

Two figures approached, and one slid into the back seat. A young lady about middle age, looking like she’d had a few too many. I greeted her, asked her to buckle up, and prepared to move off, once I’d been given a destination.

Uh-oh. Instead of fastening her seat belt, she pushed her handbag into the front seat and climbed after it, sitting beside me.

“Uh, where are we going?”

“Home.”

“Where’s home?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Not good. Drunk passenger, no destination. I was also wondering if she’d fall asleep on me. Or throw up. Or have money to pay.

It emerged that getting home wasn’t a high priority. She eventually named a suburb, but when I pressed for more details, all I got was “we could find a park and neck.”

Hmmm. While I’m not averse to necking with middle-aged women, the authorities – meaning my wife – might not approve. Besides, I was thinking of getting her home safely and me home and to bed. I did my best to ignore her occasional touches.

I told her that the police station was just around the corner, and unless she gave me a destination address, I’d have no alternative but to leave her there. And, realistically, that was my only other option. I could hardly leave her seriously intoxicated all alone on the street, nor could I sit and chat with her all night. If “chat” was the word for what was on her mind.

Of course, one hears stories of female passengers offering themselves to cabbies, sometimes in exchange for a ride, sometimes on top of the fare, but apart from a bloke or two laying his hand on my knee, and a very rare peck on the cheek from a happy young woman, none of this had ever come my way.

Nor am I in a position to take advantage. I see my cab as a way of getting people home, not as a mobile love nest. Well, not for me, anyway – sometimes there’s some serious romance going on in the back seat.

We moved away from the now closed bar and around the corner to the police station. This didn’t have the hoped-for effect of demonstrating that I was serious.

Now, I’ll go to almost any lengths to help a person in distress, but if they won’t let me take them to where they need to be, then there’s not much I can do.

When I’d exhausted my options, I called up base, asking them to alert the Belconnen police. Within a few minutes, five burley coppers were assisting the lady from the cab. She couldn’t give them an address, either, but the sting came when she accused me of making advances towards her. I think the cops registered the look of outrage on my face, because they told me I could leave.

I hope they were gentle to her, either giving her a room for the night or working out where she lived.

I’m sorry it worked out that way, but I must reserve any blame for the people who continued to serve alcohol to an intoxicated person, and then pushed her into a cab as a way of getting rid of her.

And this is why the Pot Belly is now on my blacklist. If I get any late night calls there, I shall refuse to answer them.

Harley was having himself a good Tuesday in his taxi. Of course, every day spent driving around Canberra was a good day, and he gave heartfelt thanks that he was not a cabbie in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane, where the traffic was fierce and the drivers more so.

Cabbing in Canberra was a delight. There were morning and afternoon peaks, of course, but rarely did they last more than half an hour, and if you spent five minutes in stop-start motoring, it was usually because of something extraordinary, such as roadworks or an accident.

And in the evenings, when Harley preferred to work, the roads were all but empty. Just set the cruise control and drive, Nat King Cole telling you where he got his kicks.

Public servants coming home late from work, paying with a Cabcharge voucher. When the new government had taken over, there was a lot of midnight oil burning, and Harley had had more than one mid-level manager fall asleep in the passenger seat. Two years on, and the government had decided that it didn’t need a press release prepared for every possible contingency, and those late night jobs dried up.

People going to and from dinner. These were always nice. They paid in cash, they were well-behaved and after a bottle or two and a pleasant cab ride home, there was the chance of a good tip.

Airport work. Sure, there were a million cabs lined up on the feeder rank – unless three flights came in together, in which case there were none – but it was guaranteed work and for every passenger who said “Campbell” (a short fare) there was one who said “Banks” or “Dunlop” and that was an easy fifty dollars, empty motorway cruising there and back.

And then there were the drunks coming home from nightclubs in Civic. After late-week midnights the city centre changed its character, becoming more colourful and rowdier when the young folk came in to enjoy themselves and hunt up partners. But by three in the morning, all the sensible drunks had gone home, and those left were getting ratty, with every chance of throwing up in the cab or running off without paying because they had spent all their money on alcohol. Harley didn’t work that late unless he was desperate.

Harley got the call about eight, a quiet spot in a cabbie’s night. He pulled up at the shops, and soon Sharkey came walking briskly from the direction of Erstwhile Garden.

They headed off, down Blamey, left past Russell Offices and the front gate of Duntroon, before turning right at the roundabout for the Monaro Highway across Dairy Flats, Fyshwick ahead. They were caught by the lights at the Ipswich Street corner.  Harley stared at the grey bulk of The Canberra Times building ahead. Something running through his mind.

Bloody traffic lights. He inched forward, hoping to trip the road sensor again, give it a hurry-up.

“Must be the red light district,” he said without thinking.

Sharkey gave him a look. “Sex on the brain, mate. Was there much in X-Wing when you were there?”

The lights changed and Harley took off smoothly, taking the slip lane into Gladstone Street.

“The only screws I ever heard about were wearing blue uniforms,” he said, remembering the prison officers and their petty corruptions. “If there was any action, it was kept bloody quiet. Mind you mate, I didn’t think that way when I first came in. Thought I was going to be gang-banged stupid, and I was real careful about not dropping the soap in the showers.”

“Yeah. Everyone reckons that. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I wouldn’t take you the wrong way. You ain’t no oil painting.”

“That’s why I’m a cabbie,” Harley smiled.

“There was one bloke that I took advantage of,” Sharkey said. “I forget what I was in for. Nothing bad, just a short one. Six months and most of that in minimum. There was a young jockey came in near the end. He’d been in some race-fixing rort and he was about the only bastard who wasn’t guilty, so of course he wore it. He’d been watching too much television – like you, Harley – and he was scared shitless. He was young and small and quiet.”

They had arrived, and Harley turned the meter off, but Sharkey kept talking.

“He kept a low profile the first days, and when I saw him taking a shower after lunch, all by himself, I knew what was what. So I went in, stripped off, and stood there facing him when he came out to get changed. Cute little thing, he was, and there might have been a few old lags who’d of been tempted.

“He stopped and looked at me, and he bloody near shat himself. ‘Sonnie,’ I said, ‘there’s men on this wing, hard men, who would root you ragged. And give you to their mates. But if they think you’re spoken for, you’ll be safe. I don’t swing that way, but I do like me coffee.’”

Harley grinned. “And you did okay for coffee after that, I bet!”

“I had the lot. Coffee, bananas, half his weekly buy-up went on chocolate for me. Ice cream slices, yoghurts. He couldn’t give me enough.”

Each inmate had had a ration of five coffee sachets a week in Harley’s wing. They were an unofficial currency. The really rich inmates had been able to buy jars of instant coffee, but with prison wages running at ten dollars a week and everyone smoking rollies, who could afford coffee? Let alone chocolate.

“Right-oh,” said Sharkey, handing Harley a twenty. “I’ll be done here in about an hour. You’ll be right to give me a lift home?”

“Too right!” Harley agreed. He was enjoying the old coot’s yarns. Better an old crim than a young drunk in his cab. And, to tell the truth, he was wondering where Sharkey got his energy.

Copyright © 2009 Peter Mackay