I must acknowledge at the outset the many wonderful passengers I've been privileged to transport on my pedicab over the past couple of months: Passengers who have tipped me generously. Passengers who have said all kinds of complimentary things about my calves. Passengers who have graciously forgiven me when I hit a pothole at full speed and made them spill their hurricanes all over themselves. There are dozens of riders who richly deserve special recognition and would have been a credit to this evening's prize. I regret that my time with each of these beautiful, captivating, and kind people has been so brief -- not to mention that my back was turned to them for almost all of that time.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for this year's runner-up: Mr. Justin Chambers. I must confess that as the sole member of the nominating committee and the jury, I was sure after meeting Mr. Chambers that he would take this year's prize. (Those of you who follow the adventures of the Crescent City Pedicabbie online will be familiar with the story of JC's historic ride.) If not for a truly extraordinary occurrence just two days later, Mr. Chambers would undoubtedly have walked away tonight as the richly deserving recipient of the 2011 Rickie. Congratulations, Mr. Chambers, and one more round of applause!
And now the moment you've all been waiting for: The Golden Rickshaw Rider for the most amazing, wonderful, kind, and generous passengers of 2011. Once you hear the story, I think you'll agree that if there was a Nobel for niceness, this couple would win it hands down.
And the winner is... Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I must confess that I don't know their names, nor even where they're from. They had that certain glow that makes me inclined to believe that they were newlyweds, but I can't say for certain. All those details must have come up in our conversation, but the memories were undoubtedly flushed from my mind by that afternoon's powerful surge of adrenaline. Nevertheless, their story must be told, even if they are to remain nameless.
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It was a quarter to 4 in the afternoon, and I was sitting at my daytime sweet spot on the corner of Decatur and Toulouse in the French Quarter when this lovely young couple approached me. The man showed me a slip of paper with the name and address of a rum distillery. Could I get them there in time for a 4 o' clock tour?
I glanced at the paper. Frenchmen Street. Yes, of course, I told them. For us New Orleans pedicabbies the path between the French Quarter and Frenchmen Street is our bread and butter. I've pedaled this route so many times that I could probably give my pedicab its head, and it would take me there without my having to steer.
Looking back, I was vaguely uneasy that as many times as I had traversed Frenchmen Street, I had never noticed any rum distillery; but I put my doubts aside and started pedaling. We caught a couple of red lights along the way, but even so, we made it to Frenchmen in five minutes flat. I asked to see the address again in order to pinpoint the location of the distillery.
2815 Frenchmen St.
2815?
Did Frenchmen really have 28 blocks?
I knew every club and cafe in the 400, 500, and 600 blocks. I knew the exact spot on the sidewalk where "the burrito man", an aging hippie whose rent is always due the next day, sets up every night at 11:30 to peddle his burritos for $5 each. (They're really good, by the way.). I knew every pothole in the road for those three blocks. Theoretically, I should have known that the street kept going past the point where I always turned off. But I had honestly never really thought about there being a 700 block of Frenchmen -- much less a 2800 block.
It was ten minutes till four. My passengers needed to be there at four. We were twenty-two blocks away.
It was at this point that I made a very poor decision. I should have helped them get a taxi. I mean the type of taxi with four wheels and an engine. That would have been the right thing to do in this situation. But I didn't do the right thing. Instead I announced: "I can get you there by four," and I started pedaling again.
The next few blocks were nice. I was pushing too hard to truly appreciate the scenery, but I overheard my riders remarking at the beauty of the leafy streets and old homes and congratulating themselves on having chosen the most pleasant mode of transport. Basking in their pleasure, I found the strength to pick up the pace just a little.
I believe it was at St. Claude Avenue that the change occurred. I don't remember showing anyone my passport, but we must have crossed into another country. Jared Allen recently remarked that New Orleans looked like some bombed-out, third world country. Considering Katrina, the comment was certainly insensitive; considering neighborhoods like this one, it wasn't in the least inaccurate.
People sitting on the steps of ramshackle houses hooted at us as we passed by. Apparently, we were quite the spectacle. I mentioned the sense of having crossed into a foreign country; all of the words that were shouted at us as we flew down the street were totally incomprehensible to me. Once I even asked my riders, "What did that guy just say?", but they hadn't understood either. There was no mistaking the mood though. It was a strange mix of amusement and hostility, equal in their intensity. My passengers weren't singing the praise of the pedicab as a means of transport any more; but I no longer needed their encouragement to keep up the blistering pace.
I was drenched in sweat by now. I glanced down at my watch and up at the addresses of the houses we were passing.
"Seventeen blocks to go!" There was an audible gasp from the passenger seat. "Don't worry! We're going to make it on time," I promised them.
More sweat. More catcalls. Block after block of graffiti-scarred, Katrina-devastated urban wasteland. "Don't worry. I'll get you there!" I called out from time to time -- as much to reassure myself as my riders.
At precisely 3:59 PM we reached the end of the 2700 block and realized with deep dismay that Frenchmen street came to an abrupt end here at Florida Avenue. There were railroad tracks in front of us and just beyond the tracks we could see our destination: The Old New Orleans Rum Distillery, 2815 Frenchmen St. There it was, tantalizingly close and totally inaccessible. Apparently, Frenchmen Street resumed on the other side of the tracks.
"No problem," my riders said recovering their cheerfulness after the momentary shock. "We'll just hop off here and cross the tracks on foot. Thank you so much! You actually got us here right on time. You did it!"
I wasn't really comfortable with this arrangement, but I didn't see that we had much choice if they were going to make it in time for the tour. "Are you sure you're OK with that?" I asked, still panting from the wild ride.
"Yes, we're sure. Look, it's just right there! All we have to do is cross the tracks."
As I pulled up to the edge of the road to let them off, we got another nasty shock. Running alongside the railroad tracks was a canal, which we hadn't seen heretofore. It was deep and wide and had steep concrete sides; without a bridge or a boat there was no way across it.
Not knowing what else to do, I pedaled up Florida to the next intersection looking for a way across the canal. No luck. We sat there in the middle of the deserted street for a minute trying to decide on our next move. By now four o' clock had come and gone. Darkness would be closing in soon.
A car approached, slammed to a stop next to us, and the window went down. "What are you doing here?" the driver demanded. She was a middle-aged African-American lady, probably from that neighborhood. "This is no place for you to be sitting in the middle of the street!" she said. "Please, get out of here. Now!" I looked at her face and saw raw fear. Up to that point I had been a bit anxious, but suddenly I was shaken. Seeing how frightened this complete stranger was for us, I realized that we had reason to be really scared.
There wasn't any more question about what to do. We had to get back where we had come from -- but not by the way we had come. Even apart from the safety issue, Frenchmen is a one-way street, so there was literally no going back that way.
We found our way to Elysian Fields Avenue and began the trek toward familiar territory. Elysian Fields is a bigger, busier street, so it felt a little bit safer, but not much. Exhausted from the race to the end of the road and weighed down by fear and failure, it was all I could do to keep the pedals turning. Somehow I also found the spare breath to apologize to my passengers. "I'm so sorry," I said. "I can't believe I wasted your time. And made you miss your tour. And risked your lives. I'm so sorry."
They would have none of it. "No way," they said. "It wasn't a waste of time. It was an adventure. And anyway, if it's anybody's fault, it's ours. We should have known how to get there before we set out."
This was pure nonsense. When a tourist gets in a taxi, the taxi driver is the one with the obligation to know how to get there, not the tourist. But nonsense or not, it sure was nice! I've been called names to foul to print in the dictionary for offenses of a much lesser magnitude. If they had chosen to give me a good cussing out, what could I have done but say, "Guilty as charged, your honor"?
These guys were going out of their way to show me grace when we all knew how badly I had blown it. And they just kept piling on more and more niceness. Sensing my exhaustion, they actually offered to take a turn pedaling for me! (It was a beautiful gesture, but as long as I was conscious I wasn't going to surrender the handlebars.)
At some point along the way I began to wonder whether I had gotten myself turned around somehow during the traumatic return trip. I've always had a poor sense of direction. Why was it taking so much longer to get back than it had taken to get there? Was it possible that with every turn of the pedals, I was actually taking us further away from the French Quarter? I voiced my concern, and the young man behind me spoke reassuringly: "No, I'm sure that this is the right way." Still, I wasn't fully convinced until I finally caught sight of the skyline of the Central Business District ahead of us in the distance.
Knowing that at least we were going the right way was a relief, but it was nothing compared to that sweet feeling that flooded over me when we finally crossed St. Claude Avenue. We still had some distance to cover, but the dangerous part was behind us. Oddly enough it was this moment of relief rather than the terror preceding it that triggered a vivid flashback to one of the scariest situations that my family and I had faced during our years in the Balkans.
It was early autumn 1999, about three months after the end of the Kosovo War. On an outing in western Kosovo we had unwittingly wandered across the Montenegrin border and deep into a dangerous situation, the details of which I will not take the time to recount here. Fleeing back toward home in a battered Land Rover, we slid around a switchback on the dusty road and came upon an Italian military checkpoint -- the symbol of safety that we had been desperately hoping for.
As we crossed St. Claude Avenue on the rickshaw I instantly recognized the same emotions that I had experienced twelve years earlier crossing that remote checkpoint in Kosovo's Accursed Mountains. But even the relief, intense as it was, did nothing to relieve my shame at having let my riders down. I offered another round of apologies, and once again this couple responded with their sweet assurances that it really wasn't my fault and that everything was fine now anyway.
When we came to the end of the ride, I had no intention of taking money from them. I really didn't. I tried to tell them that. Oh, I deserved payment alright, but not that kind. They could have reported me to the Taxicab Bureau, and they would have been well within their rights. Causing them to miss their tour, exposing them to mortal danger and all-around ruining their vacation might even have been grounds for a lawsuit. If any money was going to change hands, it should have been from my hand to theirs.
But when it came down to it, they got off the bike, and they thanked me; (They actually thanked me!) and the young man held out his hand to me with some bills in it; and I said, "No way!"; and he, still smiling, pressed the money into my hand; and they walked away holding hands; and I looked down at the money in my hand and realized that they had just given me the biggest tip of my career.
During the course of the ride, I mentioned to them that I had a blog, and they acted interested. So I'm hopeful that they will read this and know how much I appreciated their kindness. I actually hope that I get to see them again some day. Not that I could ever make it up to them, but I would really love another chance to give them a nice, relaxing, romantic -- and uneventful ride. This one for free, of course. But if they would prefer never to get on another pedicab, I wouldn't blame them at all.
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