I stop at the intersection of Kingsway and First and wait for the signal to change. Pressing back in my seat to let the glow from a streetlight fall across my lap, I flick through my wad of cash, counting $240. I started late, so that's not bad. The light turns green and I pull left around the corner into the all-nighter parking lot. There are three other taxis, and a pickup with the driver passed out behind the wheel. Head back, mouth open, his foot must be resting on the brake pedal, because the truck's rear lights illuminate the wet sidewalk. A crow watching from the overhead wire ruffles its feathers and stretches its wings. It caws three times, lifts off, circles round to settle on the peak of the restaurant.

I walk quickly across the parking lot, avoiding puddles. I pull open the heavy glass door into the foyer and wipe my shoes on the already soaked mat. There's a cigarette burning on the ledge below the telephone and its long grey ash hangs in the air like a magic trick. The place reeks of burnt coffee, stale smoke and sweat. A nurse in a blue uniform sits alone at the coffee counter. Three cabbies lounge in a booth by the front window. I recognize their faces and could recite their car numbers. But I'm bad with names. Passing close to the nurse, I notice a stain on her sleeve -- brownish-red like dried blood, about the size and shape of a penny. I nod. She stares right through me.

I sit in the far corner booth and gaze through the grungy window. There, across the intersection, is the Royal Alexandra Hospital, where the nurse probably works. If I had a heart attack, they'd probably take me there. Forty-five years and hundreds of thousands of miles to arrive one block from where I was born. After my night of careening around town like a billiard ball, I feel all drawn out and thin-spirited. I touch the wad of cash folded in my breast pocket. I've already counted it twice. My long-shift weekend is almost over. Maybe I'll take a trip or two to pad the wad.

Two cabbies leave laughing, but the third stays to chat with the nurse. I'm sitting too far away to hear, but she obviously doesn't want to talk. He points to the blood stain and she shakes her head, visibly upset. He says something under his breath and walks away stiff as a rooster. The waitress delivers my breakfast. And, all the while I'm eating, my mind returns again and again to the stain on the nurse's sleeve. How did it happen? Why did she leave the hospital with it? Don't they wash and change? Maybe it's not a blood stain at all?

The digital clock above the cook's window blinks 4:50. The nurse leaves and I follow, passing her at the telephone between the entrance doors. I walk through the heavy drizzle to my car and sit for a bit before switching on the two-way radio. I back from the parking space, pull into the street, and grab the microphone from under my clipboard.

"Back in the office," I say. "Just leaving Sizzles."

There's a long silence and then a loud click. "Lucky you, 566," says Donny, the dispatcher. "You're first up. And, what's this comin' down the belt. My, my, 566, you really are lucky. Return from whence you came."

My fare turns out to be the nurse, waiting outside under her umbrella. I reach across to open the passenger-side front door, but she opens the back door instead. She closes her umbrella and gets in, tells me her address, then doesn't say another word. Which is just fine by me. Every so often I catch her eyes watching me in the rear view mirror.

We reach the traffic circle at 118th Avenue. The rain stops and a pinkish-blue light fringes the low clouds. A breeze rushes through my open window, chill and rain-fresh. The nurse says nothing. At 127th Avenue the sun hits the uppermost edge of a high rise apartment, and, as if on command, block by block up 97th Street, the streetlights flicker off. I phase out for a long moment while waiting for a traffic signal. When I snap back, the nurse is looking hard at me in the mirror. This, I decide, is my last trip.

"Long night" I excuse myself.

"You've got that right," she says, adjusting her glasses and running a hand through her bobbed, slightly greying hair.

"Welfare weekend," I offer.

"That's for damn sure," she snaps. And I know I've touched a nerve. It won't be long before she says something more. Something personal.

I turn left at 137th Avenue. Morning traffic trickles out from the residential side streets. A couple of bob-tailing trucks dawdle side by side in front of us. One finally turns right and the other left. Both drivers sound their air horns. I can hear the nurse fidgeting in the back seat. Suddenly, her umbrella pops out half-spread. "Sorry," she says, gathering it back. A couple seconds later she's leaning forward over the front seat. "Did you hear? A taxi driver got robbed last night."

"Must have been another company," I say, vaguely recalling some talk on the radio about a Frankie. But I was working flags with the speaker turned low.

"The cops caught the guy," she says, still hanging over the front seat. "Don't know what happened. He was bashed up pretty bad. Came in by ambulance. I was working the desk. Christ. You haven't heard?"

I shake my head and mutter, "No."

We pull into the parking lot at her condo complex, scattering several crows from a torn bag of garbage. I stop in front of her address and flip the meter flag.

"It happened so fast," she says. "One cop came over to me. The other? I don't know. Staring at Hazel or something. Why wasn't the guy strapped down? Shit. He rolled right off that stretcher and ran at the cop in front of me. Screaming blue murder. The guy must've been high. Really whacked out."

I lean sideways against my door to face her. She crumples back in her seat, clasps her hands on her lap, lowers her head. When she slowly raises her face, I see the scared look in her eyes. "The cop in front of me," she says. "He spun around. But the guy missed him and hit the counter. Crashed up over it. Knocked me against the shelves. His eyes popping right out of his head, choking. Shit. He had me by the arm. I didn't know what to do. So I just fell down. Both cops were on him, pulling at his arms and neck. He started spitting blood. Died right there. His eyes. Fuck. I was the last thing he saw. Died staring at me. Blood and crap coming out of his mouth and nose."

She looks straight in my eyes for a second and then breaks down sobbing. I sit trying not to watch. I look at the seat and toy with the button on my microphone, noticing the way the cord twists up from the radio like a snake. Dispatch is busy, crackling with ribald greetings and fares for the morning shift. The nurse wipes her eyes and stops sobbing. She reaches into her purse. But I say, "The ride's on me." She stares for long moment, then gets out without saying another word. I watch as she walks to the door of her condo. She doesn't look back. I don't know? Maybe she lives alone? Maybe she needs someone to hold or something? Maybe it would do us both good? But I just drive off into the wet morning.

Dispatch asks where I am. Donny's about ready to go off shift and probably has a good trip for me. But I switch off and head across town for home. Traffic is sparse and the streets are still wet. The clouds have broke apart and spread across the sky. I speed with my window wide open, letting fresh air fill the car. The tires slap through rain-filled troughs in the uneven pavement and I accelerate, changing lanes back and forth, watching in the mirror as the spray kicks up behind. I make green lights all the way to downtown. High glass towers dapple morning sunlight everywhere into the shadows, a slight mist hovers over the canyon streets. I'm the only car in sight. Moments like this, almost surreal, I feel like I'm hovering above the city. Not really on four wheels.

The light turns and I race down into the river valley, over the Low Level Bridge and up to the South Side. I'm wide awake and wired, my mouth feels like a toxic dump. My tongue searches the gap where my front tooth is missing. I remember the two waitresses who said I was cute. One asked if she could check my teeth. I made a joke of it and neighed like a horse, asking if she'd rather check my flanks. Then I watched close through the rear view mirror. One laughed but the other stared suspiciously back at me. I smiled wide in the mirror, revealing the gap between my teeth. I could have it fixed, but, why bother? It's a black hole that stops faint hearts cold. Get over it, I think, pretty is for people who plan never to have bad luck. Or get old. Join me one night and I'll show you what I mean. Now I'm rambling, as if there's some kind of all-hearing audience. One day I'll just snap.

I pull into the Mohawk on the Calgary Trail and gas up. Then enter the mechanized wash bay. I crank the stereo loud -- a Moby Grape song called Motorcycle Irene -- and watch as big red brushes sweep down on the windshield. After the wash-bay chain jerks to a stop, I drive slow to the coin vacuum, get out and open all the doors. The back seat is littered with newspaper pages, blown around during my ride from the North Side. I gather the pages and fold them. Rummaging further, I find two empty cigarette packages and some cellophane under the front seat, the remnants of a butter tart, and an empty chocolate milk container. I huck it all into the nearby garbage bin. I vacuum the floor, front and back, down the crevices between the seats. I find $2.57 in coins.

I get a clean cloth and the Armor-all from the trunk, wipe the dash and instrument panel, the red leather seats and head rests, the steering wheel and dials on the two-way. Finally, the door panels. I get the Windex and vinegar mixture and wash the windows from the inside. While wiping the rear view mirror, I catch a glimpse of my right eye, like the quick gaze of a stranger. I sit to adjust the mirror, thinking how it contains a world different from the one over the sloping hood, or through the side windows. What's behind is brought forward, nuances of traffic, headlight shapes, always on the lookout for predators. Nine years without a ticket, or being robbed. Instinct and control. Always watch your back. I've watched thousands of eyes through this rearview mirror.

I walk around the car and close all the doors, check the tire pressures and wipe some smudges from the back bumper. Lastly, I pick a few tiny red strands from the wash brushes that got snagged under the metal bracket holding the top light in place. I jiggle the plastic cover over the light -- tight enough -- and run a hand over the raised number. 566. Say it fast. Fisisix. My coded entry into the labyrinth, a real-life pinball game. Bing. Bong. Bing. Time to take these tired balls home.

I idle up behind some traffic waiting at a red light: a minibus full of kids followed by a nun in a rusted Gremlin; a convoy of mud-encrusted crew cabs and a rig-testing truck (most everyone asleep, probably the drivers too); and a mostly empty city bus. I glance over at the Convention Inn. There's a flight crew waiting at the lobby doors. Damn. Maybe they haven't see me. But the captain is already waving his cap. What the hell. I don't have much choice. We've had complaints about empty cars driving past. People have even reported numbers. I switch on the two-way and announce myself. "566."

"Hey, stranger," says Donny. "Pulled a vanishing act, did we?"

"Anyone got the crew 608?"

"You, I guess. No one else is close for 15 minutes. And you know what those flyboys are like."

"I'll try to stay awake."

"Good idea."

I reverse a quarter-block to the parking lot entrance. The sun hits my windshield like a searchlight. I pull to the lobby doors, put the shifter in park, and take a deep breath. These people you get out in quick time, open all the doors, lay their luggage carefully in the trunk.

"Can I smoke?" asks the pilot, already lighting his cigarette.

"No problem," I answer.

The flight crew is spanking-clean. They make me feel threadbare. But I'm a piece of the night. Nothing can clean the darkness from this car. It's fifteen miles to the airport for twenty-five bucks and maybe a trip back. Crews are easy. They talk to each other and you listen. But I'm always listening. Driving hack is like reading an endless anthology. And the stories are better at night, the mind is loose and people entertain all manner of obsession and fantasy. Night is a playground, a funhouse, revealing and distorting at the same time. Often as not nights start out innocent: a school run or two, a grocery trip, people going to bingo or dinner. But the pulse quickens and people get anxious, as if there isn't enough time to get it all done. Some stranger is always looking for something: booze after hours, a lady, a joint, someone to talk to.

I'm almost to the airport and it surprises me. I must have phased out again. It always scares me, the miles I can't recall. I drop the crew at the upper departure doors and drive the roundabout back down to the que. Only five cars ahead and two planes landing in the next fifteen minutes. Reg is sitting on the hood of 314, reading a pocket book. He closes it and waves. "Hey, bro'," he calls. "Let's grab a coffee."

The terminal is clean and ghostly quiet. Hardly anyone waiting for arrivals on the early flights. Reg and I are a sight, relics from the night shift. Our worn uniform jackets and greasy hair make us look like cabbies from a third world airport. Still, this is Reg's stand. Has been for years. He's probably been hanging at the airport since before sunrise. He likes to play cards with the other drivers.

"You heard?" asks Reg, as we get on the elevator leading up to the coffee shop.

"What?" I lean against the railing.

"Primo got robbed last night," Reg leans opposite. "Got stuck in his trunk."

"I thought I heard someone call a Frankie. But I was working flags."

"You haven't heard?"

"Sort of." And then I tell him about the nurse. He listens like I'm giving him directions to some treasure.

"Holy fuck, man," he says. "Does Primo know?"

If Primo doesn't, he soon will. Reg is the company archivist. He works the airport, drops fares in town, then deadheads back. Sometimes he stops at the track for an hour. He says he's pretty close to figuring an infallible system. Reg used to work the streets. Christ, if you ever wanted anything, he was the one to talk to. But it caught up with him. His wife kicked him out after he gave her the clap when she was pregnant with their fourth child. She took a baseball bat to his face, rearranged his nose and broke all his front teeth. He still chews his words. He hasn't seen his kids in five years. Hasn't a clue where they live. Everyone knows he got what he deserved. But Reg is okay. He made a bad mistake and paid for it. He started working the airport when he had the jaw brace and couldn't use a microphone.

We grab coffees and head back down to our cars, just in time to hear the first flight being announced. Reg gets a short trip to the Airporter Hotel. I luck out and get a double, a couple of businessmen who probably met on the plane. They sit together in back. One guy is marketing a new fruity cooler. "Can you bloody well believe it," he says? "Fifty thousand labels. And they spell Arctic with only one 'c'." He gets out downtown at the Holiday Inn, then I take the other one home to a bungalow in the west end. For all we have in common, they might as well be aliens.

I loop across the freeway and stop at the Grandview Esso to top the gas tank. The attendant is a bright-eyed teenager with more energy than I can fathom. I feel insubstantial. Sucked dry. "Skip the windows," I say. "I just washed the car."

It's 8:30. Clouds have rolled over and everything is grey. A crow settles on the station yard light, stretches its wings and caws three times. I've always felt a special kinship with crows. Messengers, graveyard birds, like portions of every midnight that's ever occurred. "Hey," they seem to say. "Don't get too comfortable."

My wife Esther thinks she can talk to crows. We had that in common. She used to answer phones at the dispatch office, before our daughter Angie was born. Then Esther decided to be a stay-at-home mom. I had to work extra hard, six nights a week. It wasn't long before she began worrying. "You're getting weird," she said. "It scares me." But I wasn't the one who had changed.

I tried a day job. Bought a pickup and delivered auto parts for almost three years. But it made me numb and I lost my edge. Started drinking. That's why I let the lady drive into the side of my truck. I saw her pulling out from the parking lot, she didn't even once look my way. I let the accident happen. That's how I got the cash for my new Pontiac. "Look," said Esther. "If you buy that car and start driving nights again, I'm leaving." But I went down the very next day and bought it anyway. Esther stayed a month, until, one morning, I came home with a black eye. Some drunk who didn't want to pay his fare punched me, so I beat the hell out of him and tore the leather jacket off his back. I left him laying in a mud puddle.

Maybe I should call Esther? But I phoned less than three months ago. Nothing has changed. At least Angie still remembers my voice. She cried and cried until Esther took the phone away and told me it would be best if I didn't call for awhile. Better I should forget about them. They're never coming back.

I pay the kid and pull into the street. There's hardly any traffic. I notice the crow three more times. Once at a red light, right on the signal. Then it lands on top of a church belltower. Finally, it settles on the streetlight across from my house. Or am I imagining it? There's probably more than one crow. I step from the car and the crow drops toward me. It dips low, then banks up over the house and disappears.

I sit on the front steps. It's Sunday morning. Not a soul in sight, up or down the block. No kids, no dogs. I look at 566 -- a new Pontiac, company colors, black and yellow, mostly black. Red leather interior, best stereo money can buy, handles like a dream. How many hacks did it take to get to this? I remember the first car I rented, a huge Polaris with ripped upholstery, smelled like the day driver. On good days it had two gears. I was a shy twenty year old. It was snowing big lazy flakes and the Polaris drifted like a boat over the fresh white. I gripped the microphone as if the whole world was waiting. Finally, I called my number, shaking so bad I had to pull to the curb to write the address on my trip sheet. Then I nosed the boat down into the river valley, no other tracks before me, trailing a plume of snow. I felt special. But it didn't last long. My first trip was Marta, a paraplegic with a bad attitude. And who could blame her? That was twenty five years ago. Marta died last month. Drove her wheelchair into rush hour traffic. Drunk as a skunk.

I often count the blocks before a fare tells me something personal, something I have no right to know. I see the same people on the street, in a mall or a restaurant, and they don't remember me. But I remember them. Somehow, while we're driving between where they're coming from and where they're going, time isn't the same for them as it is for me. They have a particular destination, an ending point in their short journey. For me, the streets of the city are like the veins of some larger animal. I ride the pulse. And the pulse is different at night. You can't really know a place unless you stay awake all night. Sometimes, driving through a neighborhood of sleepy bungalows, I'm overwhelmed by the sense of how fragile it all is.

I scan the trip-sheet attached to the clipboard laying on my lap. A scrawl of addresses with notes jotted in the margins to remind myself of where I've been. The woman and the dwarf-man off to some party, her rings and beaded necklaces, a pink jump suit, his paisley sports jacket and crisp fedora, both laughing at some private joke; the banker out to the airport with his worldly talk about the Babylonian woe and some book he'd just read (I told him I only dealt in cash and he asked what if cash were lead, eh, ever think of that, and then how would you carry it?); the early hooker who visited three motels before ten o'clock; the couples, every imaginable twisting, turning relationship, trying to iron out their complexities in my back seat; an Indian with no money who bolted out the back door and down an alley, as I just watched (nobody needs his kind of trouble); and then the parties and the off-shift staff; a rough-looking righand in the suburbs who said he crawled out a window to slip away from a husband home early ("the bitch"); the transvestite wearing orange, battery-operated earrings and a sequined gown, going to the Cock's Roost at 4 AM. Every soul hauling its own load of flesh and blood and memory.

And then I remember the nurse with the blood stain on her sleeve. It's all connected somehow: the blood, the streets, this life. But if there's a plan, it's lost on me. One thing is certain, you can't trust anyone who says they've got the answers. Strange what it takes to get me contemplating things. Most often I drive night after night just watching, barely thinking at all. Then I notice something like the blood stain. Now I can't get the nurse off my mind. Maybe I should have talked to her? We might have made some kind of connection? We both knew it could have been me who got robbed and stuck in my trunk. I should have admitted that, at least.

I look toward 566 parked at the curb, clean and motionless under the overcast sky. I feel a certain fondness for the car, as if it's alive -- like a church, or a home, or someone's favorite pub. The sight of it comforts me.

The crow is back on the streetlight making a racket. This time I'll leave first. I'll sleep the day away and dream dreams I never remember.

"Fisisix, fisisix, fisisix," I call out. The crow cocks its head and regards me through one eye. I wonder what it sees?