Don't Call Me a Cab! Call Me a Therapist!

By W.R. Mertens

"Dont Call Me A Cab! Call Me A Therapist! is certainly not an Oprah Book Club winner, but it doesnt pretend to be..Mertens aims to entertain and he certainly succeeds" - Meghan Stephens - Lake Central Scout Newspaper Book Review, IN (5-02-02)

"Dont Call Me A Cab! Call Me A Therapist! explores a mans bizarre relationships formed with others" - Larry McCarthy, The Times Newspapers Book Review, IN (5-27-01)

"In most books, main characters usually have names, not in W.R. Mertens book....refreshing change" - Herald-News Book Review, IL (6-15-01)

"The man has neighbors who host teenage parties with scantily clad - sexy girl dancers as entertainment - a great book!" - C. Claessens, Chicago, IL

Following in the style of the late Erma Bombeck, his book, outling the sometimes serious, sometimes very humourous trip by a young man to his therapists couch, spouts off about various problems, relatives, friends and best of all, his employment at a community college. The main character, who is never named in the book, nor is the therapist, tells his "doctor" whats troubling him. He goes on to talk about everything from having relatives which he really cant deal with, but trys to. His aunt and grandmother are among some of the more humourous characters in the first section of the book, where the aunt is akin to Adolph Hitler and the grandmother wears cooked spaghetti in meat sauce ever so attractively on her head during a visit from her parish priest. Other characters abound in this delightful book of wisdom and insight into what could possibly be a normal, dysfunctional family, but its not. The parish priest is a loony, grandmothers housekeeper is to be believed, and the mans employer/supervisors are either drunken fools, openly gay or just out and out related to the mob in a mixed web of corruption. "A delightfully enjoyable book, funny but sad at the same time" - E. Kallay of IN.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 7, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462815708

Book preview

DON’T CALL ME A CAB!

CALL ME A THERAPIST!

W.R. Mertens

Copyright © 2000 by W.R. Mertens.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

INTRODUCTION

TALES FROM UNDER A CAB

CINCINNATI, PLEASE

WITH LOONS.

HOLD THE MAYO!

WHEN YOU HAVE NO

GROUND TO STAND ON,

WATCH YOUR FAITH!

COMMUNITY IN-SECURITY,

PUBLIC VOYEURISM

AND CAMPUS-GATE!

CONCLUSION

To Cheryl, my devoted, my one and only.

To Tim Hungler, D. Div., for whom,

convinced me that I should talk and not bottle it up inside,

expression is good for the soul.

INTRODUCTION

Some people say that a mind is supposed to be a terrible thing to waste. I agree! some people worry nearly to death that they have to think about things from their past, personal and very deep things, even some things that are just so personal that they assume forget about altogether.

But not me. I prefer to recall things. Happy, sad, personal or very personal so that I can get in touch with my past. There are things in our pasts that come back to haunt us in our present, sometimes to the brink of panic. Where did we find this before? Where did we know this person or place before? Were we ever there for a visit or did we know this person froma chance meeting years ago or just by a casual meeting just yesterday? These questions can haunt our minds and our minds sometimes provide shadows into what has been and maybe can offer an answer to the questions that keep plaguing us.

I am always asking myself, why? In the pages that follow, you will discover something about myself and you very well should. I discovered that I lived through some very trying experiences, although sometimes not pleasant and happy, but certainly they were the best times. Times that helped me to grow, both spiritually and emotionally. Learning Experiences. Shadows of the past help build the present and may offer shadows to the future.

TALES FROM UNDER A CAB

The problems all started back when I was growing up in the small town of Lanes Island, Illinois. You can’t call Lanes Island a tiny, one horse town because it had everything, every other town had, except people who lacked common sense.

Let me begin when I was just a small kid in grade school. I can remember living in what was basically a very old, two story building, in the rear of what was the family business—a taxi service. The business was around since, well before my time and it had most assuredly seen its peak, when it came to popularity. Unfortunately, now you have other forms of public transportation owing to the formation of regional transit agencies, namely operating as commuter trains and busses, but at the very other end of the spectrum of things still remains the taxi business.

Yes it was a taxi service allright! Complete with cabs and cab drivers. Each with personalities that ranged from those who could be your best friend to those who could be out on parole from prison and still wanted for murder someplace. This meant that you didn’t turn your back for a moment or you would have a knife in it. In most instances, my parents hired drivers off the street to run this 24/7 operation located on the main thoroughfare of Lanes Island.

Two taxi drivers that are classic examples of who not to hire in this day and age or drug and criminal background checks, and classic examples of bad element were Bill Bolimer and Johnny Davis.

Bill was basically a good person on the outside, but I would remember my parents freaking out when they could not raise him on the radio to send him on a call to pick up a customer. Base to Lane One, Base to Lane One, the dispatcher said without any type of clarity in her voice. Base to Lane One, over. Still no response. Base to Lane One, come in, the dispatchers voice now changing, this time with growing concern. The other drivers in the dispatch room just continued on with their usual business of sitting and doing nothing until the dispatcher just stopped very abruptly to tell one of the drivers nearest her that she couldn’t raise Bill on the radio again. The other drivers started to laugh in amazement that it took Bill one hour from the time he signed on for the day to get drunk. This may have been his best record yet. It often took him two, sometimes three hours to pull into the local bar if the taxicab business that day was very busy.

Where’s he at, snapped the dispatcher again. Don’t tell me that lush is out doing the bar scene again? The newest driver to be hired said in a shrugging voice, He’s probably at Little Matt’s again, or at least that’s where he was found by the guys, the last time this happened or so I’ve been told. Later on, it was discovered (and proven) that you would find him either in the Lanes Island motel sleeping off a drunken binder or in the Little Matt’s Bar and Grill trying to begin one. It was quite a standing joke among most of the other employees as I remember it. There were times when he would be the only cab driver on the street at a given monent and then he would be no where to be found.

Johnny, on the other hand, could be considered the poster child for disfunctional liability insurance fraud cases. One night about three in the morning in the dead of night, the front doorbell rang wildly. The dispatcher is frantically trying to get my parents attention. My father gets up and goes running to the door.

What the hells going on?, he asks. The dispatcher tells them that Johnny had an accident with one of the cabs and is in the hospital someplace, and that my father will have to go and get him and have the wreck towed back to the office.

My father ran back to get my mother out of bed. Hey, wake up, he said to her in a shrill, panic stricken tone. What’s the matter, hon? Is the building on fire? Are the kids sick? Who died? He answered back still panic stricken, Nobody, at least not yet! That good for nothing Johnny just totalled my best cab, you know the brand new one we just purchased a month ago. No, you just bought it and practically bankrupted the business to get it too, as she reached for a cigarette. What happened! Tell Me!

"Well, first I need you to get dressed and call my parents and have them come over and stay with the kids because we have to go to the fourty eighth precinct to get the cab out of impound and then get to Northside Community General to see if Johnny is going to be all right and I hope to God he