So I’m running late, because I forgot to leave money for the nanny, and I have to double back. So on Lexington and 79th I see a taxi, and I grab it. “Lafayette and Ninth,” I tell the cabbie as I slide in. I’m waiting for the usual response-- “Eh, my friend, what is ‘Lafayette?’”-- when instead he offers me a studied opinion. “I’m thinking, be fastest if we take the drive all the way down.”

Damn. Not only is he sure where Lafayette is, but he knows how to get there from here, the best way possible. You’d think that would be par for the course. But you’d be very wrong.

So we move out along 79th Street, turn onto East End, and seamlessly merge onto the FDR Drive. It’s a little after nine, so the traffic on the Drive is moving (unlike, say, the traffic on Lexington), so we cruise briskly downtown along the water. He signals into the 25th Street exit, and we peel off the Drive and onto the access road… then a tentative move right... and in an instant, we are angling in toward an intersection... 25th Street is on our right, the access road is on our left… and suddenly… we’re… just… hanging there. On both streets, but on neither... It is a Gretzky moment, a Larry Bird moment. We have slipped out of time, things are unfolding around us in slow motion, we have all the time in the world. Just a little bit further into the intersection, and my cabbie cranes his neck down 25th Street. Jammed. At the last possible second he moves his hands to the wheel, nudges it to the left, guides the vehicle gently back onto the access road... even though... we'd never really left it. We slide down the road along the Drive to 14th Street.

When we get to 14th Street, he speaks. “Always got to look,” he says, shaking his head as we make the turn. “If I’d taken 25th Street, we’d still be there.”

“I know it,” I say. But then I don't want to seem like a know-it-all, so I lean forward. “Look man, I’ll tell you what. I take this ride a lot... and I’ve made every mistake there is.”

He thinks about that as I sit back in my seat. “Exactly,” he says.

A block later we’re off 14th Street, cruising down to Ninth Street on Avenue A. Avenue A! Ballsy, but retro. Avenue A to Ninth, then across. We come to a stop at the near right corner of Lafayette. As I exit, I repeat for a second time: “You, sir, are the finest cabbie in New York!” He smiles and nods, says thanks, and as I dash across the street to Starbucks I see him rolling into a yellow light, then making the right onto Lafayette, following his cabbie nose back uptown, then slowing for a fair halfway up the block.

******

In a coda of sorts, I bop into Starbucks at Cooper Union. Hit the shorter line off to the side (why do Americans see a long line and immediately think, “I’d best get on that!”?) Barista is slinging drinks like a mofo; I’m still two people away from the register when he asks me what I want. I look him dead in the eye. “Iced quad vente skim latte.” That’s a big-ass iced coffee drink with 4 shots of espresso. Usually they come back at me like Scotty on Star Trek; “Cap’n, she won’ TAKE 4 shots!!” Not this guy. Nuh-uh. He says it back to me exactly, nods once, and I hand the kid at the register my Starbucks card (thus avoiding that awkward moment involving a hand full of money, a tip jar, and a sad puppy-eyed kid in a green apron.) Kid cheerfully swipes the card, gives it back. I turn automatically to the left, and the barista has my drink waiting.

Good coffee...