The Other Side of Midnight by Mike Heffernan

licence ownership were given top priority. Council considered a number of changes: returning the taxicab inspector to a full-time position, beefing up its role as a regulator and starting to test taxicab drivers’ skills and knowledge of the city and safety. After two months, The Evening Telegram reported that only one recommendation had been implemented. The city continued to drag its feet, and little was ever accomplished.
    For decades, St. John’s taxicab drivers have been pushed to the fringes of the working poor and alienated from other working class professions. They are financially marginalized by what the Commission of Inquiry defined as “economic servitude,” employment uncertainty and poor working conditions. Their wages remain static while gasoline and insurance prices continue to rise with inflation. Although there have been attempts at reform, little has changed since the late 1970s when brokers became the dominating force in the industry. During his mid-twenties, one informant drove a taxicab while he attended trade school. He said, “I got tired of sitting in the car for hours on end making next to nothing.” It’s a common theme. Amongst the drivers interviewed, long hours are a necessary part of a job that more often than not pays less than minimum wage. The problem is “dead time,” the tiresome minutes and hours between jobs. If a driver starts his shift at six in the morning, it’s not uncommon to have had only three or four customers by noon, which amounts to less than $100.
    Sacrifices
    Jacob, driving for two years
    In the overflow parking lot at the St. John’s International Airport, upwards of thirty cab drivers wait their turn to head down and park in front of the entrance. Only three cars are allowed there at any given time. They all hope for the “big score,” a run that will take them out of the city and onto the highway. A sheet is provided to them by their employer and held to the sun visor with elastic, or stuffed in the glove compartment, which lists prices corresponding to communities. One driver brought a passenger to Corner Brook through a snowstorm for more than $1,000. But those kinds of jobs are a rarity—one in a million.
    Driving a taxicab is not all that glamorous. Jesus Christ, in eight hours, I’ve made $63. At the end of my shift, after I gas up, I get half of what’s left over. Do the math on that. I’ll get about twenty-seven bucks for twelve hours work. For me, it passes the time. I’m a people person; I like people. When I went to university, my psychology course, which I passed, opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking. I like driving. It gives you something to do. It beats going to jail. It beats breaking the law.
    The only people who are making any kind of money driving taxicabs are the guys who own their own cars. Guys like me who work for the company, the only person we’re making rich is the man who owns the company. That’s why they can have ninety cars on the road. If you’re content to come out and pass away some time and bring home forty or fifty bucks on a good day, then that’s okay. But it can be very depressing, this business, especially with all the cars out on the back lot here now. There’s nothing on the set. There’s no one phoning in. You might as well sit here and wait for a job that’s going to Gander. I’ve been out eight hours, and I’ve got $23 on the meter, plus two twenties. Like I said, sixty-three bucks. I’ll get down to the front of the airport, and the customer will probably say, “I’m heading to the Comfort Inn.” You sat for three hours, and he wants to go to the Comfort Inn, which is right there, for ten bucks. And then they bitch about the price. If the radio is going, there’s no sense even being at the airport. You’ve been sitting in my cab for ten minutes. The radio is working, and you haven’t heard