Cab Stand

“They never take nobody,” he said, glancing toward the beige taxi van in front of us. Through the foggy window I could see the driver eating the last bites of a paper-wrapped sandwich.

“He’s on his lunch break or something,” I say. “He’s been eating that sandwich for ten minutes now.”

“No,” says my new companion, “I’m here every day and they never take nobody from the street. Always waitin’ for them folks at the hotel.”

Silence hung like a cloud between us until, judging the moment right, he jumped from out of the large window opening in which the two of us had taken shelter and walked away in the rain. This was my second day in the city of New Orleans, and I had already learned an important lesson: bring an umbrella, always. I had left that afternoon from our apartment in Bywater and biked two miles down Royal Street to the end of the French Quarter where there was a branch of my bank. Though it was clear when I arrived, the afternoon downpour had begun in full force by the time I left.

For a while I sat in the bank, but feeling out of place, I went outside and stood under the best shelter I could find: a first floor window in the Hotel Monteleone. Tourists were congregating under the iron balcony of the building on the other corner while businesspeople with umbrellas trod through the flooded sidewalks. Directly across from me a covered trash receptacle was collecting a three-story waterfall pouring from a broken drain-pipe of the building above. I was just wondering whether or not that pipe was broken before the hurricane when another temporary tenant wandered into my window shelter.

She was a dark-haired, middle aged woman who looked as if she had been hopping from balcony to balcony down Royal Street. “That’s a bad rain,” she said, taking stock of her wet belongings: a purse and a shopping bag.

“Yes but I think it’s already clearing over Canal Street.”

“No it’s gonna rain like this for a while, darlin’.”

She had been eyeing the taxi van across from us since she came to the window; with a farewell glance she ran toward the taxi in the rain. I tried to warn her with no luck. She exchanged words with the driver, who had reluctantly cracked his window and shook his head. I watched her run desperately into the street to chase down a passing taxi car. By the time she got in her clothes and possessions were soaked.

Alone again, I noticed the waterfall slacking and the light shining more clearly over the CBD. I glanced at my bicycle, chained with others to the iron-encircled trees at the far end of the hotel entrance. In five minutes, I told myself, the rain would let up enough for me to leave.

After retrieving my bicycle, one of the hotel doormen called me over. He cordially told me to park my bicycle to the iron horses across the street; that the hotel management likes to keep bikes off their trees. I smiled and told him I’m new to town. His toothy grin widened: “Welcome to New Orleans,” he said as the rain dripped off my helmet.

Leaving for home I passed the window where I had spent the last twenty minutes. Another doorman, with his long white overcoat and umbrella, approached the beige taxi van. “Two guests to the airport?” he asked. The driver rolled up his window and nodded his head.

-Jason Richards