It was one of the cold snaps they write about for years afterward, the ones that kill people on the streets and in unheated apartments. This was the Bronx, the city was broke, President Ford was flipping it the bird. It was all but dead. And as the night drew on I felt like I was close myself. 

But I knew better.

Bankruptcy is contagious, I said out loud with a bitter laugh as I plowed through the streets in my cab on a hopeless search for desperate passengers. I owed my ex a month’s child support, I was still twenty dollars short, my last fare had brought me to Riverdale, and I was wandering the Arctic urban landscape with no hope of deliverance. So my decision to stop for the shadowy guy at 145th St. makes some rational sense. In retrospect I can say it was a practical move, though part of me wants to think I did it because I took pity on someone, that there’s still  soul softness in me somewhere. 

I can still love, I know, outside of my daughter, because I love my cab. I’m proud of it, it’s proud of me. We’d been in battle together for three years by that January, me and my tank, plowing through the five boroughs in twelve-hour shifts. On that frozen night I figured I wasn’t living the dream or the nightmare but I was living.  Somewhere in that fact there was hope, and my cab was a gift from God. You can’t expect more, I reminded myself every day, especially with the city collapsing, and life proceeding on the edge of a knife. In all that desolation each moment lived was a little birth.  Perhaps I was growing up. At almost thirty. Just in time. My daughter deserved that much.

Still I wondered, and still do, when I let myself, how it came to this, life as an endless journey with only the vaguest idea of a beginning. When I slink back to my basement room at night, with a beer and a Kojak episode and the clank wheeze of the ancient heater for background music, stabs of memory sometimes cut through the numbness, scenes of what went wrong, like some mad exploitation movie. There’s a vague notion of a Dad, faceless and evanescent, and a Mom, surrounded by her charcoal drawings in that grim industrial space that doubled as a home, lost in her sketches, sometimes melting into them entirely and disappearing,  emerging here and there to give me Oreos and tea.   One day my aunt came and took me away.   The next times I saw Mom at her hospital I brought the Oreos to her, until my aunt stopped taking me altogether.

Around in a loop go my Dostoevsky days at Brooklyn College, quoting The Idiot in between—or sometimes during—multiple acid trips; the draft, stalking me after I flunked out, nabbing everyone I knew, shipping them to Saigon while my number never came up and I impregnated my accommodating little girlfriend and made her my wife and gained yet another excuse to avoid fate.   All those cloudy days after fuse together, years of them, baby crying, wife pleading, baby puking, me puking, wife crying, and especially the smoke. 

My only talent was blowing elaborate rings, and I was a master. My designs were transcendent, they were art, alive for seconds of ecstatic insight. Sometimes I cried when they disappeared, I thought I’d never see another thing so beautiful. But I kept trying.  Two packs, then three a day, blowing intersecting loops that became figures of frogs and mermaids and rainbows.  They were real, and living, and then gone, dissolving, leaving nothing but butts.  Hundreds. Like dead albino bugs in every corner of the apartment. Even my wife stopped trying to pick them up.  She’d grown accustomed to helplessness by the time she kicked me out. She’s not helpless anymore. 

       So I owed her a check, and I didn’t have quite enough.   That’s the excuse I have now for why I stopped the cab that night. I was almost done with my shift, the cold outside was epic.  If you had heat you stayed in. I could almost feel the couch springs on my butt, taste the Budweiser, hear the sound of Savalas’ voice. Sure I needed money but I could muddle through by hustling the check cashing service down the street. So it probably wasn’t about that. It’s like I had to prove something, make my eyes redder, my legs more cramped. Self-flagellation, that’s what they said about the monks, it’s what they did when they failed God. Me, I drove. Me and my cab, against the New York hellscape. Faster, farther, running from failure that sometimes seemed to pace me in the breakdown lane. I’d been running this race for a long time now, and sometimes I felt like I was escaping, just one more fare, another welt from a hair shirt and I’d get into the promised land of self-respect, where everyone left you alone. I could have turned on 91st  St. and headed back to Queens, just another metal-encased crustacean looking for a rock to hide under from octopi. But that’s not what I did. 

The guy that hailed me was hiding something, that I could tell. His eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed, making him look old, though he was probably within a decade of me. His mouth curled down with the sullen contempt that marked him as a Nuyorican public housing dweller, working in construction or maintenance, with a wife and kids ages fourteen to one, crammed into a two bedroom apartment. No doubt he went to our Lady of Carmel down the street and hung out in front of Hidalgo’s bodega in the summer. It was a good bet that he’d come to the country to play baseball, and had been pretty good, almost good enough, inches within greatness, before it all unraveled with a dislocated shoulder at twenty one. He was big, and he might have been handsome once. Now waste and disappointment were his calling cards, with a touch of sinister cunning. 

Maybe my stopping had something to do with kindness or empathy. But I don’t know. I like to think that, when I look back. Those things don’t pay, but they’re worthy. They say something about you. But this was going to have consequences. I knew that right off. 

At first I thought it was his own bulk, but as I slowed I saw the guy wasn’t alone. There were two or three women and a kid, who all seemed folded into him. At a sign from him they broke apart and rushed forward. That’s when I saw the old woman in the wheelchair, pushed along by one of her indistinguishable daughters or in-laws. Fool you are, I said to myself, as they swarmed the car, collapsed the wheelchair, and piled in, all of them speaking at once, moving at once, doors shut, crushed in. My cab was uneasy, I could hear it in the low protest whine in its gut. Right off, the people sucked air out of the interior of the cab, and the temperature rose by ten degrees. Sweat broke out under my parka. Already the ice and snow and fresh air just inches outside looked seductive. 

“Arias House,” the gravelly voice of the man commanded. “204 Dyckman.”

I set the meter and glanced in the mirror. The guy stared back at me, eyes wide now, hard and dead. The group around him fell quiet at his command, and for a split second I saw the old woman, face struggling to emerge from among them, panicked, throwing me a pleading look before she disappeared behind someone’s heavy arm. Her expression chilled me. She was terrified and helpless. For two or three seconds, not more, she explored every inch of my face in the mirror, sallow skin, stubble, acne scars, asymmetric nose, wiry eyebrows, emerging bags under gray eyes set in deep sockets. She examined it like a map, looking for comprehension, kindness, conscience, some back road to escape.

I’m sure I looked away first, not from her, but from myself. This is not my problem. Avert your eyes. But I couldn’t avoid it, I knew she kept looking at that mirror, searching for traits, qualities that were lost and expunged long before. Lady, I’m not your man. That sensitive seeker, searching for innocence, moved by meekness, compelled by truth, don’t look for him here. How many fallen angels she must have seen in her life, it occurred to me.  How often has she let desperation turn to misguided hope, and why does she look for it now in me? Whatever she wants I can’t give. I just drive. 

Then it happened. They started to smoke. All of them except the old woman and the kid. Behind me I could hear the strike of the matches, and the smoke was on me, around me, in me. The windows were sealed shut, it was freezing out, there was no way I could open them. At least the destination was close. Maybe I could hold my breath. 

It had been five years by then. The proudest accomplishment of my sorry life. There in my room at the Y, the night my wife threw me out, jobless, friendless, pointless, I looked at my pack of Marlboros and spoke to them. I’m not your man anymore, I said. No more Marlboro man for me. From the age of fourteen it was like they owned me, always tempting me, calling me, burying me. The smoke rings were part of the spell, the manipulation. And out of nowhere, during my first, quasi-suicidal night at the Y, I denied them. My life was in ruins on every level, but there in the white and red foil pack was an enemy I could recognize at last, and engage. Instead of throwing my own sorry ass out the window, I had a choice. Out they went. I watched them blow with what seemed like a stunned cry all the way down to 106th  St. and 3rd Ave and land in a tiny pile of garbage behind a wall, unremarked even by the desperate homeless guy nearby. You’re dead, I thought. You’re dead to me. 

And so it was. Cold turkey. I wonder who coined that phrase. Someone who’s experienced starvation. Because that’s what it was.  But still I was puzzled.  Cold turkey is surely better than no turkey.   And anything was better than this, the unending appetite, the minute by minute obsession.  Dead, rotted, turkey, shoved in your face when you wake up each morning, is preferable. 

Every morning with my black coffee, circling the want ads, avoiding the suspicious looks of the Y manager to whom I perpetually owed a couple of days rent, thoughts of nicotine   ate away at me, the fusion of oxygen, smoke and blood in my chest, the radiation, the sheer, total relaxation coursing into every molecule of my being. And my evanescent smoky masterpieces. Oh God. 

Hours went by, and I couldn’t take it anymore.   I went to the bodega to get some, but they’d gone up to $1.50, and I only had a dollar. And so went one day. And another. And I thought I would die, as the weather got colder and my soon-to-be ex got demanding about child support, and I couldn’t find a gig to save my life. 

Nights were the worst. Everything black and white and frigid. Just one, please God just one.   I’d plead out loud, and then breathe, and think of Lola, my little one, three years old then, and how she looked at me when I walked out the door for the last time, and how I wanted to feel her lips on my cheek and breathe in her innocent baby scent without pollution in my nose. I hadn’t seen her in two months by then. My ex wouldn’t let me, not yet. I thought Lola might not recognize me. I hoped she wouldn’t. 

And then, right before I’d see her again for the first time in so long, it passed. The thoughts just stopped, the cravings, they seemed ridiculous. And I got a job busing tables. Perfect for a comp lit major. By mid-winter the city air felt fresh and clean to me, angles were sharper, I walked with the snap of a man my age. I thought about Marlboros almost never, almost overnight. And when Lola saw me, she hugged me tight, and said “Daddy, you smell so good!” “Like what?” “Ring Dings!” 

And so a new life began. A longer one, hopefully. A neutral one, maybe, where not much happened. But one in which I could point to one thing, and say I did that. A tiny, priceless jewel of pride. I did it for you, sweetheart. God it was hard. But your Daddy did good. He did it for you. And now he has a cab, and he loves it, and it will bring him home to you. 

I don’t speak Spanish, but children’s voices are universal, so I understood the one in the back seat: “Don’t worry, grandma, I’ll come see you so much! I’ll bring you candy!” 

I also know the cadences, the high-pitched tones of prayer. “Dias, Dias,” the old woman almost sang. 

“Delores,” said another, “you will like it at Arias! You will make friends there …”

“No,” came the whimper. “Mi casa, Quiero ir a casa …”

“Vamos a venir a visitar, Mama,” said someone else. 

“Ha! Sure we will. Soon.” 

“Stop it, Elena, I’m just trying to calm her down.”

“Delores,” said the first woman. “estamos haciendo esto por ti.”

“Like hell you’re doing it for me!” The woman shrieked, in the purest English I’d ever heard. “You’re sending me to die!” 

And then the worst thing happened. They laughed. All at once. All except the kid, high pitched cackles of women and the grudging chuckles of the patriarch. The smoke was thicker, now, but I caught one last glimpse of the old woman’s face in the mirror as she sank back among them, sucking it in like a drowning person wanting to make it quick. 

One last silent cry she threw me with her eyes, which told the story of her life, of the agony of childbirth, the hope for some glimpse of beauty, just over that hill, so close, if she only put one foot after another, a sunrise, a rainbow, the shade of a palm tree on the island of her birth. Paradise, reward for her toil, her faith, the wearisome days and nights of crying children and drunken men. In the last glance I saw she knew, that it was a lie, God would not save her. And that man in the front seat wouldn’t either. What remained for her was the stench of urine and Clorox, the contempt of orderlies, the moans of the damned in the dead of night, calling for mothers, daughters, angels, who never answered. 

The smoke obscured her reflection now, all of them were restless shadows, and I couldn’t see myself. The mirror itself was bathed in a shroud of smoke. Maybe I felt emboldened by this, not being observed. The address wasn’t more than two blocks away. Just another minute and they’d be gone, the smoke sucked out of my little world along with them, and I could drive away, my cab would belch a little with relief, and the old woman and her story would fade by morning. 

But I turned left, and headed south. It wasn’t even a desperate gesture, it was involuntary, epileptic. I guess I was trying to save her. But that thought never really came into my mind. There was no choice. I couldn’t see failure gunning up next to me and passing me in the right lane. But I knew it was there, lurking, biding its time. 

What I did wasn’t noble, it was flight response, it was my escape, really, not hers. Yet I allowed myself to hope, that if they all stayed distracted, chortling, cackling over the poor woman’s prone body, if I drove fast, I could go far, they’d never even know until I was over the Queensborough  Bridge. 

And then the thought was there as if it had been all along. I could take her with me, take her in. I could care for her. Just pull up to my curb, park, and tell them I’d take her off of their hands. That she could live with me. It’s not much, my basement, Madre, but it’s warm, it’s safe, no one will hurt you there. You can rest, and dream. In all the coming mornings of your life, you will wake me. I will make you tea, and eggs, and you will contemplate the day, the books you will read and the walks you will take, and the people you will meet. On my days off, I will take you to the store, and the hairdresser, and the park. And when I’m gone and driving you can dream of San Pedro, of the journey there, of the smell of driftwood fires on the beach, the sweet juice of coconuts, and the delighted cries of children jumping off the dock into the sunset. And I will tell you that one day we will go there. Hope is not lost. You will see a beautiful world again. 

You will meet Lola, and you will love her.

My breaths became shorter, and I stifled a cough. The cab was excited, it was galloping. Another ten blocks and I’d see the signs for the Queensborough Bridge. What protest could they make? The smoke blocked everything, they wouldn’t know where we were at all, not until we pulled right to the apartment. I had to drive faster. But I couldn’t reveal myself to them. I strained to observe them in the back, to see the old woman’s face one more time, to signal to her that deliverance was just at hand. Five more blocks. Three. The spectral outline of the bridge came into vision, and the lights pointed the way, to jailbreak, to the new morning. 

“Chico, where you goin’?” the man said as I pulled up to the last block.  “Yo, this is not the way.” He spoke in a monotone. Just facts. Not angry. Bemused. In control. The smoke parted for a second, and his eyes bored into me in the rearview mirror. They smiled, they were amused. This guy, they said, me, trying to pull something. He saw me quake, saw my face collapse, my defiance fall away, eyes deflected in deference, supplication. 

“Thought this was a shortcut,” I said with a weak, apologetic smile. 

“It’s not, chico,” said the man. “Turn around. Go the other way. Turn the meter back. No cheating, okay?” 

And that was it. I did what he told me to do. I don’t know, I won’t ever know, if the old woman saw her fate played out between evil and cowardice. She was quiet now, maybe asleep, maybe just catatonic. The child next to her was singing a little lullaby. The women around her were silent, in thrall to their despot’s power. I’d become one of them in that moment. I drove straight up the East River Drive and over to the Arias House without another word, another thought. The cab whispered to me, don’t worry, it said, it will all be over soon, and you had no choice about any of this. 

Before I got to my apartment I went to the bodega and bought a pack of cigarettes. In my basement I lay back, popped a beer, and turned on Kojak. But I wasn’t paying attention. That first smoke overwhelmed me, that defeat, that betrayal. It was sweet, this long denied transgression, and I thought of opium, and oblivion, and wondered if part of me was Chinese, in the 19th century. I lay back, delirious, amnesiac. This was forgetting. 

After the third or fourth puff I tensed the muscles in my cheeks, invoking the old magic. Out came the smoke, and I tried to form a rose, then a star, then a simple triangle. But the clouds hung there, limp and shapeless. I tried again. And again. Through the whole pack. I thought for a moment that I’d made a moon. But I hadn’t, it was random, wishful thinking. And so it went through a sleepless night, one pack, and then another, and another. And so it goes today. 

Forgive me, Madre. Forgive me, Lola.