By John Kelly
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
It was Christmas Eve, and the Gambler's luck had run out. He'd been placing his bets at the MGM Grand Casino in Detroit, but fate had been unkind, the way fate often is. The Gambler went to the train station to catch the Amtrak back to Washington. And there Lady Luck slapped him in the face once again: The rails were an icy mess, and the trains were canceled.
Five hundred miles from home on Christmas Eve. How would he get to his family?
He would take a taxi.
The Cabdiver's phone rang while he was finishing some last-minute Christmas shopping. It was his friend, a Jamaican cabbie named Erroll Paisley. Erroll had a proposition: A man wanted a lift from Detroit to Washington, and he was willing to pay $1,600 for it. Half of it would be the Cabdriver's if he'd split the driving. Of course I'll do it, said the Cabdriver, James Mathenia.
"Some days you may make $20. Some days you may owe," James told me yesterday. "You lease a cab for $75. You pay for your own gas. Anything over that is yours."
Sometimes there's not much over that. Ten trips to the laundromat at four bucks a pop doesn't add up to much. But a big fare -- the thing all cabbies dream of -- that's a different story.
"It's a game of chance; it's a game of luck," James said. ". . . If you break even, you're fine. If you bring home $800, you're right, especially on Christmas Eve."
On a big fare, you make sure you get paid ahead of time. That's what James had always done, on trips to Columbus and Cincinnati and Chicago. There was just one problem: The Gambler didn't have $1,600 on him.
He said he was good for it, though. He owned a restaurant and would collect the money once in Washington. James felt uneasy, but Erroll didn't want to mess up the deal, so he didn't push it. Plus, the Gambler's luggage was in the trunk, a bit of collateral.
Checker Cab No. 3662 left Detroit about 6 p.m., James at the wheel of the Crown Victoria dressed in three layers of long underwear. Erroll was next to him, and the Gambler was in the back with James's wife, Sylvia, also a Cabdriver.
James hit it off with his fare. A Hmong Vietnamese, the Gambler talked about how his father had been in a POW camp. James, who teaches media production at a charter school in Detroit and raps under the name D.J. Heaven, talked about the Hmong students he had had in his classes, how shy they had been at first but how he had drawn them out by sticking them in front of a TV camera.
And the Gambler talked about gambling. It was his only outlet, he said, the thing that kept him sane. In fact, the plan was for him to return to Detroit after replenishing his funds in Washington. "I want to go back and get the money I lost," James said he told them. James thought to himself: "You may get some money, but you won't get that money."
James drove through the night. Sylvia wondered whether they should stop for snacks. No need, said the Gambler, I'll make you a feast when we get to my restaurant.
They reached the Beltway about 2:30 Christmas morning. Suddenly, the Gambler started shouting that James had missed his exit. James was more concerned with his bladder, which was about to burst. He got off 495 and pulled into a gas station on River Road in Bethesda.
"I go around the side to use the bathroom, and I hear my friend say, 'He's got out of the car! He's running!' "
There went the Gambler, sprinting into the night.
James gave chase as hard as he could but didn't feel well. He dialed 911, and Montgomery County police were there in five minutes. "You don't get that kind of response in Detroit," James said.
Fittingly, the Gambler had escaped into a dead end. He was apprehended.
Montgomery County officers aren't sure of the Gambler's real name. He had one ID under the name Anthony T. Nguyen, which matches a 36-year-old man wanted on theft charges in two other states, including Pennsylvania.
Yesterday, sheriff's deputies from Delaware County, Pa., took Nguyen into custody to face theft, forgery and fraud charges. Montgomery County has a year to decide whether to file its own felony theft charges against the suspect, but there's some question about where the alleged crime took place: Michigan or Maryland.
James drove again on the dispiriting journey back to Motown. Erroll was too despondent. He kept saying that he would be the laughingstock of the Detroit cabbie community. They got home about 1 a.m. Friday.
"My son brung a plate from my mother's house, where they had a big turkey dinner," Sylvia said. "We had some Christmas."
Things got worse when James realized that the sweatiness and shortness of breath he experienced after running after the Gambler, and again during the drive home, were signs of a heart attack. When I spoke to him on the phone yesterday, he was in Botsford Hospital awaiting triple bypass surgery.
I asked James whether there was a moral to the story. Yes, he said. The world needs good Samaritans more than ever. The three Detroit cabbies were trying to help a man get home for Christmas, and even if things didn't turn out as planned, well, that's still a laudable act.
Then there was Mark Gribble, one of the Montgomery County police officers who responded to the call. Realizing that the cabbies were broke, Officer Gribble gave them $22 from his wallet, then drove to a 7-Eleven and told three Cabdrivers there about James's plight. "I asked them in consideration of a fellow taxicab man from Detroit, Michigan, if they had any money to spare."
They donated $30, and Officer Gribble went to the ATM for another 40 bucks. Said Officer Gribble, a 15-year veteran: "They're leaving their home on Christmas Eve to help somebody else out, and they needed to get home, too. I just thought it was the right thing to do."
Said James: "I thought he was definitely a good Samaritan. I don't know any police officer in my city or any other that would do that. Give that man a commendation."
And who knows if James would have learned that he needed bypass surgery if he hadn't had an impromptu stress test at a River Road gas station.
Of course, there was one other lesson: "Get your money up front," James said.
Children's HospitalHere's a way to be a good Samaritan: Make a tax-deductible gift to Children's National Medical Center. To donate, write a check or money order payable to "Children's Hospital" and mail it to Washington Post Campaign, P.O. Box 17390, Baltimore, Md. 21297-1390.
To donate online using a credit card, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/childrenshospital.
To contribute by phone using Visa or MasterCard, call 202-334-5100.
My e-mail: kellyj@washpost.com. My blog: voices.washingtonpost.com/commons.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.