Читать книгу Confessions of a New York Taxi Driver - Eugene Salomon - Страница 27

I was cruising up 8^th Avenue one night in February, 1982, when I was hailed by two men on the street. One was a normal-looking, forty-something fellow and the other turned out to be a dark-haired, raving motormouth who spoke to his traveling companion in a semi-hysterical rant without giving him a chance to get a word in edgewise. We continued up 8^th Avenue to Central Park West until we reached 65^th Street, where the man with the obsessive outflow got out of the cab, leaving the other passenger with me. I turned right onto transverse and we proceeded across the park to the East Side.

‘That was Abbie Hoffman,’ the man said. ‘I’m his parole officer.’

Abbie Hoffman, if you’re too young to remember him, was an iconic counter-culture figure from the ’60s. He founded the Youth International Party (the “Yippies”) and received vast amounts of publicity by engineering stunts and demonstrations which mocked some of the dubious values of American society. He had been convicted of dealing cocaine in 1973 and became a fugitive until 1980, when he re-emerged and served a brief prison term.

It was a surprise and something of a revelation to be able to be a ‘fly on the wall’ during this ride. A surprise because Abbie Hoffman had seemed to me to be something of a folk legend, more like a Johnny Appleseed or a Paul Bunyon than a real person. Yet there he was.

And a revelation to observe the condition he was actually in. I was saddened but not altogether surprised several years later to learn that he had committed suicide.

However, it is another iconic personage from the ’60s (and beyond) who is the answer to this frequently asked question: ‘Of all the celebrities you’ve had in your cab, which one is your favorite?’