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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Cezar attended After graduating, he worked
as a marine surveyor on the Cezar now works in retail,
and is working on a new non-fiction work that he’s very excited about. He says,
“So long as there is life, there is much to write about.” Cezar’s father, George, is
now semi-retired, and lives in INTRODUCTION It would be fair to say that I have kept a diary ever
since I can remember. Some might say, why? The reason is simply so that it would
help me remember moments in my life that I would normally forget, and which I
would like to relive or at least read through again. In this diary, I have
recorded a span of a few years in my life as a professional taxi driver,
highlights containing my most memorable moments on the road with my passengers:
people I have met and who have shared their most intimate secrets, fantasies,
aspirations and personal problems. In
this diary, you will meet average Australians. You will find out what they
think, what they fear and what they want. You will also meet famous Australians
and you will find out some things you never knew about them! Whatever the case,
these stories are not written to accuse, embarrass or attack anyone. They are
simply as they happened and I am just the driver who happened to be there at the
time and who wrote these moments in his diary.
Perhaps one of the people I met is you – you never know! Or you might recognise
your neighbour, your friend or someone in your family. The good thing about this
diary is that you are bound to associate with someone out of all the stories I
have carefully selected and shared with you. So, if you are opening this diary and thinking you will find outrageous stories or the kind of things you would find in a fiction novel, you will not be disappointed. The only difference between this diary and a novel is that it’s all true. All the stories are genuine and as they happened. Enjoy reading through the days of my life!
CHAPTER 1 How it all began: George becomes a
cab driver So now that we have been introduced, how do you begin
to write all your memoirs into a book? I have decided to start with how I began
to look for work as a cab driver. As a political refugee from the former
communist This
was the first test I passed, and with growing confidence, I began to make phone
calls to the abundant number of places advertised in
The Courier Mail. At the time, the
Brisbane Expo ’88 was on, and there were a lot of vacancies for cab drivers. I
was a fresh Australian then and I remember I had been job hunting for some time.
Wherever I called, all I could say was: ‘Hello. I am George. Saw newspaper – you
need taxi driver – I work – you job – for me?’ What
I would have wanted to say was: ‘Hello. My name is George and I read your
advertisement in the newspaper. I’ve just got my taxi licence and I was
wondering if you have a job for me.’ However, as soon as I said what I knew from
reading the dictionary, the person on the other end
of the line always found some excuse and
said they had their regular drivers, they had
already found someone else, or they wanted a driver with experience. Anyway, all
I understood because they spoke so fast was, ‘Sorry, mate.’ One
day, I was reading the paper and I decided to call a man whose name was John
Smallsman. He had advertised with the eye-catching phrase:
No experience necessary. Start now! So
I told him the same thing and he said I should come and see him to arrange when
I could start driving. I was overjoyed. I told my wife about it and
she sighed with relief. The next day, I went to see the man who would be
my boss for the rest of my driving career. When
he first saw me, he didn’t think much of me. He could tell
my English was not very good and what’s more, I didn’t have any
experience in driving a cab, but he decided to give me a chance. He was never a
man of many words. All he said was, ‘Start next Monday morning. Then we’ll see.’ I
thanked him and the next Monday, I was early at work, ready to start at half
past four in the morning. I had my dictionary with me and all I knew was:
‘Please show me the way’, and I also knew when someone told me to go left,
right, straight ahead or stop. I also knew how to say ‘Thank you’ and ‘Goodbye’. Back
then, there were no computer cabs. All bookings were dispatched through the
two-way radio and I was not very familiar with how to use it; you had to speak
English well, anyway. It was also dark outside and I didn’t know where to go. I
didn’t know I could have gone straight to the airport feeder, or the Expo rank
on
Meanwhile, the sun came up and other cabs parked behind me. The operator would
call and they would answer via the two-way radio and leave after short periods
of time, while I remained where I was, not knowing what to do.
Finally, to my great relief, I saw an elderly lady approach the cab and get in. ‘ ‘Do
you know the best way to
‘Yes, I can show you.’ When
we got there, I stopped the meter and it read exactly six dollars. The woman
searched in her purse and she took out some coins, including one and two cent
coins, which in total added to just three dollars.
‘Yes, but …’ I started. ‘Six dollars, please,’ I said extending my hand. She
looked at me and shook her head, talking slowly for me to understand. ‘No. I
showed you the way to With
that, she got out and despite my protests, I could do nothing to retrieve the
rest. Sighing, I went to the To
my relief, another customer got in my cab and I immediately recognised him as an
Aboriginal, because I had seen these people on TV before.
‘Hello,’ I smiled to him. ‘I’m
going to ‘Can
you show me the best way?’ I asked.
‘What? You’re the fuckin’ cab driver. You should know where ‘But
…’ I mumbled.
‘Straight ahead!’ he said, pointing. On
the way, he was very rude and he asked me where I was from and why I was here
and so on, and he was generally very unfriendly. When we got there, the meter
read $7.20. ‘Ah,
your meter is very expensive. Here!’ he said, shoving five dollars in my hand.
‘That’s all you’re getting!’ and he left. My
day went pretty much the same as it started: it went very bad and by the end of
the day at quarter to four in the afternoon when I had to bring the car in, I
had made a total of $48. At the time, $48 was ridiculous. What was I to do? I
turned my meter on and let it run by itself until it read a total of $72. I paid
the difference out of my own pocket. So on that day, I actually paid my way into
keeping my job to encourage my boss to give me another shift. Soon
my boss came out and he asked me how much I’d made. I told him how much and he
shook his head. ‘I believed you when you said
you’re a new driver, but $72 is very little. Still,’ he sighed, ‘you can come
back next Monday.’ I
was delighted I had saved my job. When I got home, my wife was waiting for me
with a cooked dinner and a smile on her face. ‘How
did you go?’ she asked. What
could I say? I told her I had started out fairly well and that I had actually
made $42 for myself. She was happy, but I did not sleep that night. For the next
few days until Monday when I had to go back to work, I began to frantically
study the Brisbane Refidex, trying to learn all the places and main roads in the
inner-city suburbs. On
the following Monday, I turned up for work again at four in the morning and I
got into car 988. At the time, car 988 was an old car that was soon due to be
replaced, as it had done over six hundred thousand kilometres and was very run
down, which made it less attractive to potential customers to get into. To clean
it, I brought along with me a cloth and some methylated spirits and I wiped the
grease off the wheel and everything else inside. This made it more pleasant to
drive and easier to handle the steering wheel, which had been greasy from fish
and chips.
Once
I had cleaned it, I was ready to try my luck again on the road. I knew at least
that whatever would happen, my second day in my new career as a taxi driver
could not go worse than it had on the first day. It would be fair to say that I
did not stop at the same rank I had stopped at the week before and instead I
went into the city where I got a job from the Hilton to the airport. At the
international airport, I waited for two and a half hours for my turn to come,
and I got a fare to the Expo. When we arrived, there were people everywhere and
there were all nationalities of tourists. I must have heard every language on
Earth except my own. When people came up to me, they would ask me if I knew
where this or that hotel is and I would be honest and say no, so they would go
to the next cab. In
any case, that day I made a total of $56. Again, I left the meter running and I
increased the amount. Afraid I would lose my job if I didn’t, I told my boss I
had earned $86. He
waved his hand and said, ‘Ok, not very good, but it’s better. You can work
tomorrow too.’ I
smiled. The next day, the same thing happened and every day I would increase the
amount of the total I had made for a period of eight working days until I
finally began to bring money home for a change. Therefore, in this time, I
actually worked for my boss without bringing any money home. At the end of the
eight working days until I got some experience, I knew where the airport was and
where there were people to find. It
was my dream to have a job, to be able to go shopping and buy a chocolate bar
for my children and afford a luxury such as a magazine for my wife. It was an
obsession for me to survive in this new country and not sit on my backside
waiting for the fortnightly payments which were never enough to feed and clothe
my family. This
is how I started taxi driving. In the following pages, I have recorded some of
my most memorable conversations with my passengers and their marvellous and
sometimes outrageous stories. Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
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