For some reason, my cab ride to work has always been a place where I'm visited by inspiration. Sitting in meditation and sitting on the toilet are fail-safe as well but of the three, the cab delivers in the most surprising ways.

Over the years, whether it's work related or life related, which for me often ends up being work related, the evidence of these lessons are profound and plentiful. When I was finishing editing Fall ten years ago, I was, as always, having a hard time deciding on the ending. The very ending. The last few frames even.

Should the girl come back to him in the end or shouldn't she.

I had written and shot it that she does. It was a beautiful scene. I had cut it down to its essence. I had cut most all the dialogue, it was just a series of looks and two lines at the very end but I still felt like it could all be cut and the ending left ambiguous. But I loved this scene. It was wrought and romantic. How could I possible cut it? That would be crazy! NOT have her come back to him in the end? I had gone back and forth on the decision for days. Literally, three ten hour days spent with my editor trying to decide on this scene. I was at my deadline and had to make a choice.

Kill your babies

That Oscar Wilde quote has always been one of my mottos in work. Kill your babies. It's preposterous. Bizarre. Dastardly and always perfect. Somehow the margin of your art's brilliance lies in being willing to let your most precious and brilliant ideas die. Even worse, be the executioner yourself. Murder your own coveted first born. But this child I could not behead. It was too too dear to me. This ending. She had to come back to him. They had to end up together.

I woke up on that final day, prayed and meditated on what to do and was still conflicted. I decided I would know from my cab ride to work. It was a place where I had gotten many ideas for how to edit the film and I was very happy with the way it had turned out so I was sure that the answer would come there.

I hailed a cab on the corner of 79th and Columbus. The cab pulled over. I opened the door and got in.

"50th and Broadway please" I told the driver and we took off. I sat back and noticed a book sitting on the seat. It was so odd. I had found umbrellas and cell phones, paper, trash, orphaned gloves and even money in the back of cabs but never in all my life had I found a book.

I picked it up. It was a book of baby's names. I couldn't believe it. I got chills. I knew it was my answer but what did it mean? I closed my eyes and asked God.

"Read it," was the response. It's never in God's voice, always in my own; a still, assured answer always. I opened the book and started leafing through it. It was just pages and pages of names. Daniel, Denise, Dick, ... Fran, Frank, Fred... Sarah, Stan, Sven. Still I was confused as to what it meant. I closed my eyes again and listened.

"There are so many babies' names. So many babies. You can cut one. There will be plenty more." That was the answer. "Thank you," I said out loud as I always do and felt at peace. I walked into the editing room, told my editor the story and wide eyed he said, "Wow," and we cut the scene out of the movie. As we did I was struck with a cool idea for a deux nui ma that would satiate my hunger for a hopeful ending but not sacrifice the loveliness of the heartbreak as it ended now, without the two lovers finding love with each other. If you watch the movie through the entire credits it's revealed. I won't ruin it for you in case you haven't seen it yet and might.

Yesterday, I hailed my morning cab for my ride to work. A small, young, jolly, round, prematurely balding Pakistani man picked me up.

"It's your lucky day my friend. Riverdale please. You can take the West Side Highway." It was a fast and long trip, free of traffic and worth 30 bucks to him and he'd be back in the city in 15 minutes. Most cab drivers shoot to take in 35 bucks an hour, (they don't get to keep most of it since they have to pay to rent the cab and pay gas) if they can do that they'll have a chance of making 100 bucks in a shift for themselves after expenses. He would almost have his hourly nut in less than half the time.

"Thank you, Sir," he said and we were off. We passed West End Avenue and were about to get on the highway. I left a message for my mother telling her we were on for Tuesday night and American Idol as long as Bill, my step father, wasn't too judgmental of Sanjaya which upsets me. I shut off my Blackberry. I like to just enjoy the ride along the Hudson and it was a sparkly day... and it was my inspirational cab ride to work.

"This Sunday is Easter, right?" The driver asked.

"Yes it is."

"Can you tell me the story of Easter, please," he blurted out as if I was his older brother and not his passenger.

"Tell you the story of Easter?"

"Yes. I'm Muslim so I don't know it," he said in his thick accent.

"Okay. I wasn't raised that religion but I'll do my best."

"Thank you, Sir."

I started to think about the sequence of events, figuring even though I wasn't raised Catholic I must have picked up the story over the years, I mean, I'm not an idiot. I'm not a mathematician by trade but I still know how to count. I could certainly muddle through the story behind Easter for Christ's sake. I wouldn't be like those scary people Jay Leno interviews on Santa Monica Boulevard who don't know who our vice president is.

"Okay. I'm pretty sure Jesus was crucified on ash Wednesday, which is the Wednesday before Easter Sunday. You know ash Wednesday?"

"Yes."

"When all the people put the black crosses on their forehead? That's... the ashes from... his body. His dead body ashes I'm pretty sure." I was vamping already. I might be fucked.

"You've seen them, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Ash Wednesday."

"Yes, Sir."

"Say it with me. Ash Wednesday." I needed as much time as I could get to figure out the rest of the story.

"Ash Wednesday," he said.

"Good. So then they put his dead body in a cave and rolled a boulder in front of it and a few days later, on Easter Sunday, they went to the cave and he was gone. He was resurrected."

"That means he live again? Resoorested"

"Resurrected. Right. Say it with me. ResssssssureCTed"

"RessureCTed"

"Perfect. Now I can't remember actually whether or not he was just not in the cave or if he actually came out of the cave and walked around and showed everyone he was alive again. That I'm not sure about. But he was definitely alive again for sure. Either disappeared or walking around."

"They went to the cave and he was not there anymore," he tried to confirm.

"Right."

"But he was alive and went back to God."

"Right. Or he walked around and showed them he was alive. That part I can't remember. I think that's pretty much it. So Easter is celebrating that Jesus was resurrected. I'm sorry I don't know if I'm entirely right."

"Thank you, Sir."

"And so you guys follow Mohammad right?"

"Yes."

"And you don't believe in Jesus?"

"We believe he was a prophet."

"Like the Jews. They believe he existed but not that he was the Son of God." Fuck, living on the Upper West side my entire life, though not Jewish, I know more about that faith than my Mother's. I can almost sing that draddle song and I know what a mitzvah is and I don't even know what the fuck ask Wednesday is. I'm an idiot. I am just like those people Leno interviews. If America saw me coming up clueless on this Easter story I'd look as stupid as the people who think Colon Powell is a basketball player.

"Yes. We believe Jesus was a prophet but not the son of God."

"Do you believe Mohammad is the son of God?"

"No. He is just a prophet. Like Jesus. But Mohammad was the final prophet. The one God told the Koran to."

"Oh right. The Koran."

"So who's the son of God then?"

"No one. He doesn't have no son or daughter. He made man in his image."

"Why, Because he was lonely?"

"Yes." Then it sank in. "NO! God is not lonely."

"You don't think? The whole universe and just himself?"

"No. He is God. He doesn't have human emotions."

"Then why did he make man?"

"Because he... wants... to..." Ahhhh, now who's gonna be laughed at on Leno! Huh?! Not so easy, this God and man stuff.

"Because he what?"

"Because he wants to... have man in his image."

"It sounds a little unclear."

"No. It's not unclear."

"Okay, it's a little sketchy but I'll let you slide on that one. So Mohammad wrote the Koran?"

"Yes. But it was told from God."

"How?"

"What you mean?"

"I mean how did God tell Mohammad? Just a voice in his head or..."

"No. Mohammad went up to the mountain and God told him there."

"Did God tell him to go up to the mountain?"

"No. Mohammed goes to the mountain to talk to God before."

"Oh, so Mohammed always would go up to this mountain when he needed to talk to God."

"Yes."

"But this particular time God told him the Koran."

"Yes."

"And did Mohamed actually write it down there or did he remember it and write it later or did he dictate it to his friends...?"

"What you mean?" I know I was asking a lot of questions but I wanted to be damn straight on this Muslim business so if asked by Leno at least I wouldn't be a complete fuck up.

"I mean did he have paper up there on the mountain or some stone he etched it into with..."

"No. He tells his disciples the story and they write it down. You know disciples? Like Jesus had?"

"Yes. I know disciples. So the disciples wrote it down when Mohammed told them what to write."

"Exactly."

We sat in silence for a moment. I was taking in my new found knowledge as we passed the glistening GW bridge. And then, just when the soft sunlight dappling off the warm river water was lulling me into a safe meditative malaise, my world came crashing down.

"Who wrote the bible?"

"What?"

"Who wrote the bible? The bible. You know the bible, right."

"Yes. Of course. The bible."

"Yes. Who wrote it?"

Oh my fucking God! The penultimate Leno question. This was so much worse than an ink sleeved raver on Melrose looking at a picture of Rumsfeld with his mouth agape and replying in a special K induced giggle, "Uhhh, my uncle George?"

I was staring that ultimate spiritual truth directly in the face. Whatever I see... is me. I would never, ever laugh or grimace again at someone who didn't know something, anything. Even the smallest most obvious thing. If I asked an MTA employee what a train was and they didn't know. If I asked a cop what the law was and he said he had never heard that term before, if I asked my mother if I was a boy or a girl and she just couldn't come up with the answer. Nothing. I would never ever judge anyone ever again for being stupid.

"Uhhhhh, that's a good question. Who wrote the bible.... You know Sir, I have no idea."

He was sympathetic.

"I know who wrote the Koran, though! HA! Mohammad!"

"Ha, ha, ha." He laughed genuinely. He was sympathetic. He hadn't known the story of Easter.

I tipped him an extra 5 bucks. A tithing I think they call it. I remember that from the television preacher I used to love to watch late at night years ago who used to break out the tongues? He was mesmerizing. What was his name? Tilton maybe? I don't know. Southern, mid-50s. Robert Tilton I think. He was like Jimmy Carter on speed and then when he really felt moved by the spirit he would speak in tongues. And then back in English really slowly.

"When you give a gift to God, A tiiiiiiiiiiithing. God gives you back 10 fold whatever it is you need. Umbata bata biblio pookaka infantimumbata." He would take calls from people and then pray over the slip of paper confirming their "tithing" had been phoned in and extracted from their credit card. It made God get them money to pay their bills or for the bicycle they wanted to buy for their son or my first feature film... you know, things like that.

"Thank you very much," the cab river said. I felt the tithing was the least I could do for having given me the gift of brotherhood. I felt a surge of love wave through me and felt bad for all the racial profiling I do as a result of September eleventh. I recently had an Iranian cab driver who got fired from his job as an air traffic controller the on September 12th. He's been living in this country for 27 years. I don't know, I might have had to give him a pink slip on that one too. I mean, I'm sorry, but it's just too close to call. A fucking air traffic controller? Life's rough and unfair sometimes. Don't I certainly know it. Sarah Silverman talks about deboning babies to get the jewels that live in their tail bones and she's called a comic genius, I use the same over-the-top satire in a joke about bashing women's heads in and vomiting into their dead skulls when they hurt my feelings on a date and I get called the Antichrist. But we'll get into that next time. I have some more thoughts on that and you'll all help me understand what I'm missing. I love Sarah to death and do think she's a comic genius but I have a whole theory on some things and think she's a good example and will get into it.

But for now, the fired Iranian would get a new job other than driving a cab if he really put his mind to it and have compassion for our fears around his being an air traffic controller, my Koran teacher would now be able to pass along a half wrong story about Easter (I called up my best friend who happens to be a lesbian priest and she gave me the real scoop. Obviously I got Ash Wednesday all wrong but I was pretty close on the dead Jesus in the cave part) and I would feel closer to loving everyone, especially your perceived enemies, all the time. Kind of like what Easter is all about so I'm told.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 6:57 AM

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