BONE-CHILLING CAB RIDE (1988). A story about my mother and me in the wilds of New York City--ironies came into play!

Excerpted from "TWELVE DEAD FROGS AND OTHER STORIES––A Filmmaker's Memoir," by Rick Schmidt. <https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/9783745008708/>

BONE-CHILLING CAB RIDE (1988)

About a year before she died, my mother and I joined up in New York City while I was back east on a film tour for my latest movie, Morgan's Cake. She loved visiting art galleries and museums, enjoyed the big city life that seemed to free her up, give her back her independence. She sparkled with an inner beauty, drive, and sense of purpose I rarely saw under other circumstances.

On this particular fall morning we had enjoyed a nice breakfast together at some eatery near the Armory, her woman’s club hotel directly across the street; talked about my life, my latest film project and about her life in California. Then we had strolled together leisurely for a few blocks, taking in the air and smells of New York, enjoying the sun peaking out from around corners, and watching the locals going about their business.

When it came time to part, we discussed how we would meet again later that afternoon. I was to return at around 4:30 PM. Standing about one hundred feet from the green awning that stretched from the hotel door to the curb, we kissed and said goodbye. After watching her spin on her high heels and begin walking toward her hotel, I turned away and in a matter of seconds was around the corner, hiking down the busy two-way street, trying to wave down a cab among hundreds speeding downtown. As I’ve often felt in New York, every moment in that city seemed exceedingly precious, with never enough time to get everything done before returning to JFK airport and jetting back west.

After about two minutes of waving hands in the air, shouting the word “cab,” a Yellow pulled to a halt in front of me and I got in. I told the driver my destination, and we quickly pulled out into the crunch of late morning traffic. We had barely traveled to the other end of the long block on which my mother’s hotel was located, when suddenly the door to the back seat across from where I was sitting burst open and a sweating, panting, shaking, totally scared- looking white guy probably in his mid-twenties, jumped in, slamming the the door shut after him. He was sufficiently well-dressed, in corduroy slacks, tan shirt and new windbreaker, but his entire face was twitching, his eyes darting as he twisted his neck first right and then left to look behind the cab, terror exuding from every pore. My mind was racing, wondering what on earth could make a person as scared as this guy obviously was. I had never seen anyone outside of a character in a movie acting so scared. He was more frightened than that couple being chased by Terminator when he came back to life as half a robot, still determined to rub them out. This guy was afraid for his life. He seemed certain that if the cab didn’t get moving immediately, someone would catch him and do him serious damage.

“MOVE THE CAB! COM’ON! JUST DROP ME A FEW BLOCKS UP AND I’LL GET OUT,” he said loudly, obviously trying to relocate himself far enough away from that corner to be safe from whatever real or imagined harm was sure to come to him there.

These first few seconds of having an intruder pop so suddenly into my life – having a deranged, sweating stranger sitting less than two feet away – put me in a kind of shock, as if I were in the middle of some weird dream or surreal movie scene. I knew it was important to try and stay focused, prepare to defend myself if necessary. And the cab driver seemed equally shaken, but quickly recovered his New York moxie, dragging a long length of heavy link chain out from under his seat and threatening the guy with it, telling him to “get out” or he’d slam him senseless.

“Wake up brain,” I pleaded with myself. It would soon be time to either duck a twenty-pound chain, or punch and kick a person out the door. Focused on wanting the stranger to just disappear back out of my life, I tried to control the next few moments. After all, I was the paying customer! I firmly explained to the cab driver that as far as I was concerned he could do exactly what the stranger asked, drive the two blocks down and drop him.

The traffic seemed to loosen up just as I spouted my backseat directive and within a few seconds we had skirted two blocks. The door busted open and the guy leaped out, running and quickly disappearing around a corner. End of bad dream, so I thought.

At the next light, as we came to an abrupt stop at the crosswalk, my mind suddenly snapped over into a “what if” anxiety attack. I could feel my face heating up to a bright red, my stomach turning over hard and upset. I began to replay the event, my mind trying to fill in the blanks. Just how far would that guy have had to run at his top speed to get as out of breath as he appeared when he first entered the cab? Answer: just a couple of blocks. How much time had elapsed between me dropping my mother off (the moment she left my sight) and when the guy jumped into my cab? Maybe two minutes, tops. How long would it have taken my mother to walk that last hundred feet alone to the front of her hotel? Thirty or forty seconds. Was there a doorman? I hadn’t seen one.

As my mind focused in on every detail of that last 100th-of-a-second image of my mother, with her elegant white linen suit coat and slacks, beige leather overcoat, leather designer handbag, those red leather spiked heels, her slow sauntering walk, I shuddered.

“TAKE ME BACK TO WHERE YOU PICKED ME UP!” I loudly told the cabdriver. I just knew in my heart that I had been sitting next to, and abiding, the guy who had slugged my mother, knocked her to the ground, stolen her purse, run around the other side of the block and leapt into my cab. I had helped my mother’s attacker (maybe murderer!) get away.

It seemed like an eternity before we got back uptown, even though it was probably less than five minutes. My mind was racing out of control at that point, thoughts going a hundred times faster than any reckless cab I’d ever ridden in over potholes in Manhattan. Finally, I just told the driver to stop, crammed a five dollar bill through the pay slot, jumped out and started running. Now I was the loony!

As I ran along the sidewalk, I felt a sweat instantly break out all over my body, while I continued to berate myself for the terribly reckless mistake I had made in not seeing my 72-year-old mother safely to her door. It had all been my fault and, if what I thought happened did happen, then I deserved to burn in hell.

At that instant of finally rounding her corner, I fully expected to see either an ambulance and police cars, or at least a few lingering bystanders who would explain about the mugging, describe how a well- dressed old lady had been knocked unconscious, or...or worse. But my first sight of the green awning and hotel frontage revealed what seemed to be a completely normal and peaceful scene. Still, I wasn’t put off by this deception for even an instant, because I KNEW the awful truth: that my mother was in transit, being sped through the streets toward a nearby hospital, her broken body tied to a gurney, and that the mess on the sidewalk had already been cleaned up. I covered the last fifty feet to the awning in a few leaps. Rushing into the lobby I looked around but couldn’t find anyone, no doorman, no one to explain what had happened. When an old woman and her younger companion (probably her daughter) emerged from the elevator I inquired about the mugging.

“Didn’t see one,” said the mother from under her red felt hat. Was a woman hurt? “Don’t think so, but you might ask the doorman when he returns from his lunch break.” What doorman? I’m sure I repeated each question to the answers they had already given. They were just too stupid to know the score, I thought. I let them get away, escape my interrogation. At the hotel entrance, they glanced back at me for a second. I had now become the sweating, unstable, disheveled intruder in their life. But who cared? I knew for sure that my mother had been harmed, beaten, robbed, and that I was the worst son that ever lived.

In my distraught state I somehow got the bright idea to buzz my mother’s room, just to confirm that she wasn’t there. How could she answer when she was in the hospital? And there wasn’t an answer. No answer. I buzzed again. Still no answer. That proved it. That was the solid proof that the accident had taken place. Those stupid lobby people just hadn’t noticed the disturbance. God, were they dumb!

I spun around on my heels a few times like a top, not ready to go in any particular direction. The lobby was now empty. Do you call this security? Now I was breathless. Defeated. I tried the buzzer to my mother’s room again, not knowing what else to do in my stricken state. An older woman’s voice came on.

“Hello?” It sounded like some cleaning lady. I meekly repeated, “Hello,” just to be polite. I was shocked to hear any human voice. And the woman in room 301 responded again.

“Rick?”

I froze.

“Are you still here?” asked my mother.

“Oh,” I said, slowing down my breathing,

“Just going now.

“Wanted...to say, I’ll see you at...4:30 PM.

“Like we planned.”

“OK, Dear, that’s fine. Getting back in the tub now. See you then.” And, click.

The sunshine felt so sweet as I left that hotel that I rejoiced in its blinding reflections, beams of white light bouncing into my eyes from the shiny parked cars. At the corner, my corner, I looked back at my mother’s hotel, viewing the exact same image I had scrutinized just minutes earlier, a snapshot of the scene of my near-crime. But my mother was OK, safe in her locked hotel room, floating in hot, sudsy water, probably wondering why her son had nothing better to do in a city as exciting as New York than to hang around her hotel lobby.

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