Diary of a Taxi Driver

May 10th. Thank God for the rain, which has helped wash the garbage and the trash off the sidewalks. I'm workin' long hours now, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle, but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week, sometimes even more if I do it off the meter

All the animals come out at night. Buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies. Sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come that will wash all the scum off the streets

I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem, I don't care. Don't make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won't even take spooks. Don't make no difference to me. Each night when I return the cab to the garage, I have to clean the backseat. Some nights I clean off the blood. Twelve hours at work and I still can't sleep. Damn. Days go on and on. It don't end. All my life, meaning was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention. I believe that someone should become a person like other people

Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars. Sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man

June 8th. Life has taken another turn again. The days move on with regularity, over and over. Then suddenly, there is change

June 29th. I gotta get in shape. From now on, I'm gonna do 50 push-ups every morning. Fifty pull-ups. From now on, it'll be total organization. Every muscle must be tight. The idea had been growing in my brain for some time. True force. All the king's men could not put it back together again

You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here. Who do you think you're talkin' to? Oh, yeah? Huh

Listen you screwheads, here's a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the dogs, the filth. Someone who stood up

Now I see it clearly. My whole life has pointed in one direction. I see that now. There never has been any choice for me