Memoirs of a Geezer!
Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth
to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!
This Episode: The Cab that Followed a Play... or,
A PUZZLING PAIR OF MORAL QUESTIONS!
Our “geezer feet” were screaming to be elevated as we trudged along State Street heading north. We were two miles from our hotel following what would eventually be an eight-mile trek that included a tour of Chicago’s Chinatown and its outstanding Cultural Museum. We had planned an evening walk to the Steppenwolf Theatre, but our exhausted, aching feet would carry us no further than the Red Line Subway headed north to Clybourn and North Avenues near Halsted. We dined at Vinci, a fine restaurant a block from the theatre, prior to a much-anticipated evening of live theatre, all part of our 40th Anniversary celebratory weekend.
As its central theme, the play, Russian Transport, offers a complex and ponderous moral dilemma. Intriguingly interrelated, our transportation from theatre to hotel presented yet another moral question, this from a cab driver propelled into a kind of self-imposed exile.
The “first drama,” Russian Transport by playwright Erika Sheffer is currently running at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, the company’s name inspired by the Hermann Hesse novel that one of its co-founders was reading at the time of the theatre’s founding and inaugural production.
At the conclusion of the two-and-a-half-hour Russian Transport, we were no more than a few heartbeats out the doors when a taxi cab practically hailed us, beginning an almost karmic coincidence. We jumped in for the relatively brief trip back to our hotel, and immediately began a spirited discussion of our impressions of the play. The cab driver joined our conversation without hesitation, or invitation. “What did you see? What was the play about?”
My wife, Mary, began to describe its theme of a struggling Russian-American family living in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, NY. “The family, particularly the mother... well, I guess, to be accurate three of its members, were conflicted over the question of what we, in this country, will do to earn money, how we justify our means of earning income and what we’re willing to do to that end.”
The cabbie asked in reply, “What do you mean specifically, and what did you conclude?”
Mary said, “Well, I think it’s easy for those of us who lead relatively privileged lives to pass judgement on people, especially those from different social and economic circumstances, such as the people in this play. The father operates a barely surviving business. The family matriarch’s brother, Boris, arrives from Russia as the family’s ‘star boarder.’ He’s engaged in an illegal but very profitable business. The mother is willing to allow her young son to be lured into Boris’s illicit business, while imposing polar opposite, strict rules of behavior on her teenage daughter.” Mary went on to provide added details to describe the play’s narrative and central theme.
“In this country,” the cabbie responded, “I think Americans should be more judgmental. We should question motives; we should hold certain people to account for the harmful and destructive ways they employ to earn money, particularly those who use highly questionable or unlawful means to generate their fortunes.” He cited what he termed a real example of a New York and Chicago-based business that, he said, exploited political influence and used nefarious means toward attainment of significant wealth.
The discussion continued, serve and volley, as we rode into the night. Eventually, he pulled to the curb to let us out at our requested stop. Over the course of another half an hour or so, the driver told his story. “I’m originally from Karachi, Pakistan,” he began. “I’m in this country on a fellowship. I’m a cardiac surgeon, but I need the income from driving a taxi cab to earn a living during the fellowship period. It is difficult to listen to a constant stream of racist remarks and insults, but I feel I have to endure until the (fellowship) process is concluded, and I can return to being a working doctor and surgeon.”
“I’ll bet you collect a great many stories through the conversations you hear,” I said; then added jokingly, “You could probably even achieve a secondary specialty in psychology.”
His brief laugh was joyless, and then he said simply, “No. That’s of no importance.” He went on, “I left my country following a disagreement with my mother and family over a marriage arrangement. My mother is a very strong and forceful woman, and so I left under difficult circumstances, abandoning my home, family and religion. I could not accept my family’s demands or its particular ethos, one with which I could not agree. But, because of all that I’ve seen, all that I’ve witnessed, I’m disheartened and distressed. I fear for the future, and not just for this country. I’m considering a return to religion...”
Our conversation was fascinating, if all too brief to acquire any deeper sense of the man’s own moral and intellectual dilemmas and how they’d be resolved, if at all. We exited his cab on State Street near Lake and walked a short distance to an all-night market.
As we walked, I thought about this unusual “doctor / cabbie,” his nocturnal wanderings through the often frenzied streets of Chicago after dark, even as my wife and I thought about the fate of Russian Transport’s tormented characters. When we left them, as the theatre lights dimmed finally consuming them in utter darkness, we were left to contemplate their uncertain futures, the profound difficulties and challenges imposed upon them by a thoughtful, unflinching playwright, gratified that at least we didn’t have to endure a “Hollywood ending.” As we ambled from the market back to our hotel, our aging feet reminding us anew of the day’s adventures, I thought again about the play, the taxi driver, 40-plus years of marriage, my most cherished friendship, joys yet to come, puzzles yet to solve.
Humbly Submitted, 05-11-14... Joel K.
Another pithy observation, Geezer, filled with pathos and bathos, and flavored with a rich sauce of humanityl
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