Cabbie

Sunday, April 14, 1996, 6:30 am I finally make it to the passenger drop-off at Union Station in Chicago following the directions of a hotel doorman who pointed me down a one street going the wrong way. Street blockades protect recent road work with the inflexibility of the usherette protecting the stage door at the Royal George theater. To get here, I glued the front end of my rental car to the rear end of a purposefully driven cement truck, trusting the driver knew what he was doing. He did.
I drop off my sister who is heading East and tell her to ask the cab driver letting off a fare in front of me for directions to 90 West.
"As if he'll tell me, " she says.
But the cab driver bounces out of his cab over to my car window and in lilting English asks me for a piece of paper so he can write down directions for me. I hand him my Hertz rental agreement and he scribbles down street names, crosses them out, scribbles some more and then says,
"I have a better idea, just follow me."
We wind through the palisade in the street and twist and turn for an interminable time. I'm thinking,
"He forgot I'm following him. He's on his way to pick up another fare."
"He's leading me down to the river! They'll find my body floating past the Navy Pier before noon!"
Shaking off those thoughts, I consider,
"What a guy. This fellow is burning time and gas to help me, even though he knows there is no way I can pay him for the mileage he's running up on the meter."
Suddenly he leads me onto the freeway entrance and herds me over to the left, in the direction of O'Hare. I pass him and mouth a heartfelt "thank you!" He waves, veers right off the freeway and disappears.
Thank God for the cabbies in our lives, who take time to point us in the right direction.