Michael Jastrow (59:00)
I'd been living in New York for a few years, and my acting career was not off to the start that I had hoped. Specifically, the extent of my theatrical experience was originating the role of nightclub patron number three in the off off Broadway debut of Sex and the City. The play. And nightclub patron number three was actually a pretty perfect metaphor for my life in New York to that point, because this was the entirety of the part. Nightclub patron number three arrives at exclusive club. Nightclub patron number three sees beautiful woman. Nightclub patron number three tries to approach beautiful woman, but before he can say anything, she smacks him in the face and says, get out. On top of all of this, I was living in one of those apartments that a lot of people have lived in in New York City, which was basically a drywall tunnel with bedrooms that were sort of sub tunnels off of the main tunnel. And I had this job at a hotel where I worked the overnight shift. And my bed was so small that my head touched one wall and my feet touched the other one. And I would wake up in the morning. Well, I would wake up in my morning, which was dusk for everyone else, because I had slept all through the day. And I knew things were getting really, really bad because I started putting the blinds apart with my fingers and saying, the light is waning. It was obviously time to make a change. So my first thought was, I should go to grad school. But I thought grad school would involve taking everything that has brought me to this place point and doubling down on it. So my second thought was, what if I became a cab driver? Because as an actor, the lesson I had learned from the movie Taxi Driver was, boy, Robert De Niro really connected with that role. The actual lesson of taxi Driver is the city that you have chosen to live in. And the profession that you're interested in combined to make an already fragile man go completely insane. But I became a cab driver anyway. And I found a garage that was run by this guy named Sonny. And he broke things down for me very simply. He said to me, my friend, just drive good. You drive good. You make money. I make money. Everything is fine. We have no problems. Just drive good. And all of a sudden, something clicked for me. Because instead of waking up every day and trying to negotiate this weird quest for fame by maybe getting cast in something that would attract an agent who would come see me and maybe let me freelance for a while and be in a toothpaste commercial and then somehow parlay that into a small role in an indie movie and then get to be in a Marvel movie. All I had to think was, just drive good. Lo and behold, it turned out I was actually kind of a good cab driver. And it was a little bit bumpy at first, but over time, I started to feel like I could do this job really well. And instead of feeling like an outsider in New York, I felt like people in New York need to get around. They come out on the street, they stick their arm in the air, and a cab shows up. And I'm one of those guys. I take them wherever they need to go. And I remember one night in particular, I was driving home along the Grand Central Parkway. And there's this one part where you can look out across the river and you can see the skyline of New York City. And I had just had a really good day of cab driving. Where I had gotten everybody where they needed to go. Didn't get lost, didn't accidentally take people to Ozone park instead of LaGuardia Airport. And there was all this purple and orange kind of reflecting off the buildings on the skyline of New York. And I felt so good. And I rolled down the window, even though it was a really cold February day. And there was all this wind, wind blowing through the window. And I screamed, do you see that, New York? I do belong here. And the idea that I could be happy doing something besides acting hit me really hard. Then a few months later, I was driving along, and I was struck by something else. A Jeep Wrangler. It happened very suddenly. The first moment I was cruising along 79th Street. And it was just like that part in Taxi Driver where you think Travis Bickle might actually get to be with Cybill Shepherd. And then the very next minute, a Jeep Wrangler T boned me. And I spun around and everything was blurry outside the windows. I had no idea what was happening. And all of a sudden, I came to a stop, and I looked up, and there was this very serene policeman's face in the window. And he said, son, everything's okay. Nobody's been hurt. Why don't you step out of the car? So I walk over to the sidewalk, and it turned out that the woman who had hit me had been driving with no seat belt and a baby on her lap. And she was screaming, and the baby was screaming, and the cop was saying, don't worry about her. Don't worry about her. This was her fault. Just fill out this report. So I start filling up the police report, but she comes up to me and she says, excuse me. Excuse me, please. Before you do that, would you just talk to my husband, please? And she handed me her cell phone, and I said, okay, okay, sure, sure. So I took the cell phone and I put it up to my ear, and I said, hello. And then I heard this voice, and the voice said, hey, my friend, I understand we had a little bit of an incident. And I said, yeah, we did. And he was like, well, you know, my wife, she doesn't have a driver's license, so my insurance company, they're not gonna like this too much. You know what I mean? And I did know what he meant, because it was exactly what he was saying. So he said, look, I want to make you a deal. Maybe we don't worry about the insurance companies or nothing. I run this kind of independent body shop up in the Bronx. Why don't you bring the cab up here, I'll tow you $75, we'll fix up the cab. Nobody needs to know nothing, huh? What do you say? So I thought about it for a second, and I looked out at the cab, and I realized that if I took this mangled taxi back to Sonny's garage, he wasn't going to care how the whole thing happened. He was just going to fire me. He had given me very simple instructions. Drive good. And I had driven horribly. And if I got fired, it meant that I was going to lose the only shred of connection that I had to my entire life. So I heard myself say into the phone, okay, man, that sounds good. I'll be right there. And then I hung up the phone and I handed it back to his wife, who was as shocked as I should have been that I had accepted this deal. So I turned to the police officer and I said, you know what, man? We're not going to worry about this one. And I folded up the police report. I put it in my pocket, I exchanged phone numbers with the woman, and I confidently marched back to my cab. I thought, no problem. I'm just going to drive this up to the Bronx, and this guy's going to fix it, and everybody, everything's going to be fine. So I started up the car, and I tried to drive it, but the steering column had been so mangled in the collision that in order to make it go in a straight line, you had to turn the wheel all the way to the left. So I thought, no problem. We're on cab driver rules right now. I know how this goes. I just have to remember that left means straight. But I had also never had a fair to the Bronx before, and I was getting kind of stressed out about that. So as I was trying to negotiate all of this, suddenly I found myself lurching into the oncoming traffic lane. And I looked up just in time to see a truck with the words Manhattan Mousetraps printed on it. And as I read these words and I think, really? Manhattan Mousetraps. I hear, ah. And I shut my eyes and I think, this is it. This is where I die. But then I open my eyes, and I looked in the rearview mirror, and I saw the Manhattan Mousetraps truck kind of careening down the street. And I realized that I had cheated death a second time in that day. And I sat there panting, and I thought, this doesn't happen a third time. It's not a good idea for me to drive this cab up to the anonymous Bronx body shop. So I called Sonny's tow truck and I told him to come pick me up. And the tow truck took me back up to Sonny's garage. And I hung my head and I walked into Sonny's office. And Sonny saw the tow truck bringing the destroyed taxi in. And he said, my friend, what the fuck is this? I said, sonny, I'm really sorry. I got in a crash. Here's the police report. And I hand him the police report, and he breaks into this huge grin. He says, my friend, you have police report. This is wonderful news. We are going to nail this motherfucker. You have done a very good thing today. Here, take new keys, go back out. You keep working. I take care of everything. And just like that, I was back out in the street. Like I was not a person who had wrecked a taxi that day. So I'm driving along and I'm thinking to myself, man, maybe my luck is turning around. Things were a little dodgy there for a second, but I got this, and my phone starts ringing. And I think to myself, I'm not going to answer that, because that would not be safe. But I bet I know who's calling me. I bet it's the casting director from the Public Theater. It wasn't. It was the husband of the woman who had hit me. And he was not pleased about my decision to turn him over to the insurance company. This is the voicemail that he left me. You motherfucker. You think you're gonna get away with this bullshit? I got your phone number, asshole. I got your medallion number. I'm gonna find you, and you're going fucking down. I got this voicemail on 41st street in the worst traffic jam that I have ever been in my entire life. And if you've never been to New York City, there's a particular place, part of 41st street between Broadway and 7th Avenue that's about as long as this stage. And in midday traffic, it can take you 40 minutes to get from one side to the other. And all the cars are right on top of you, and you can't see out, and everything feels like it's bearing down on you. And just as I hung up my phone after receiving this voicemail, a Coach USA bus decided this was the perfect moment to merge into my lane. And it smashed into the side of my cab, and I just lost it. I completely snapped. I started pounding on the steering wheel, and I said, what the fuck is wrong with this stupid city? I thought I was gonna come here and be happy. I'm not gonna be happy. I'm gonna fucking die, and my entire life is gonna have been worth nothing. I was so upset that I forgot I had a passenger in the backseat. And because this is New York City, her response to her cab driver having a psychotic break was to go like this. Oh, God. So somehow I made it to the end of the day, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go home because I thought the garage guy might be waiting for me. So I remembered my friend was having a birthday party. So I went to the birthday party, and I drank a lot, and I was telling the story of the day to my friend, and I said, isn't that crazy? I'm probably going to die. And she was like, sam, that is crazy. You're probably going to die. And I was like, I know, and there's nothing I can do about it. She was like, idiot. There is plenty you can do about it. Look, my company is hiring an administrative assistant. We need someone to sit at a desk and answer a phone. Can you handle that? I was like, I don't know. Maybe. She was like, I think you can handle it. When you get home tonight, send me your resume. Okay? So I went home that night, and I sent her my resume. And three days later, I had a job as an administrative assistant. And I never got back in the driver's seat of another taxi ever again. And for the last six years, I have sat at a desk, I have answered a phone, I have booked international flight itineraries, I have shown new employees where their desks are. And I have never again been in as much danger as I was that day on 79th Street. But I've also never been as happy as I was that night on the Grand Central Parkway. Thanks. I was raised up believing I was somehow unique, Like a snowflake, distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see. And now, after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery, serving something beyond. But I don't.
