Cab Drivers Tell All: From Drunken Students to Rich, Famous Passengers

When recounting their most memorable incident or passenger, Harvard Square cab drivers inevitably describe a Harvard student returning from a night of alcohol and debauchery who vomits the contents of a wild night on the backseat floor.

While the drivers do not actually use the words "alcohol" and "debauchery," the words "drinking" and "drunk" come up incessantly.

Raphael Bougy, a friendly and talkative cab driver, says that "once in a while" late on Friday and Saturday nights, as students return to campus from clubs or parties, he faces the drunken student. Bougy recalls with disgust cleaning up the vomit in the wee hours of the morning.

"You have to know how to deal with people [and] have a sense to humor [to deal with] sick, crazy and drunken people," he says.

But a fellow cab driver, who requests anonymity, offers nothing but praise for the University.

"Harvard students are nice on the whole [and] usually tip well," he says with great pleasure.

Although the anonymous cab driver admits that he has been annoyed by drunken students returning home on Friday and Saturday nights, he says this pales in comparison to the time he was nearly beaten up in Boston's Roxbury-Dorchester area by a passenger who refused to pay his fare.

"My passenger was drunk and tried to beat me," he recalls. "But luckily, a fellow cab driver was there and he helped me out."

Cabbie Lawrence Prift has even more unusual stories. He claims he has driven celebrities from "Faye Dunaway to Harvard professors to the president of IBM."

But he says his strangest passenger to date has been a "cross-dresser who changed into a dress in the back seat and asked to be driven to a private residence late at night."

Far from condemning any sort of behavior, Prift says he has even served as a sort of impromptu therapist, as passengers wax eloquently upon their problems in the 15- to 20-minute span of a typical cab ride.

"A large part of this job is response to customers," he says. "If they want to talk, we talk; if they don't, we don't."

According to Prift, axiom number one for cab drivers is that the customer is king. But he says cab drivers must also follow other rules.

"You have to be awake the whole time," Prift adds.

Although some cab drivers fear the drunken students of the weekends, they say that if it weren't for the students, their business would decrease significantly.

"When school closes, business does too," says Bougy. "If there were no Harvard University, we would have no business."

Prift concurs, saying that most of his business throughout the week comes from students going into Boston or its surrounding environs.

But when vacation time comes, "everyone rushes to the airport," he says.

Doing the Job

Each cab driver offers a different reason for choosing his career.

Bougy says that the money is "not that good, but [he has] nothing else [better] to do."

Prift aspires to be a graphic designer for environmental or health issues and attends the Massachusetts College of the Arts. As a cabbie, he is honing his "public relations skills."

But it is the anonymous cab driver who gives the altruistic answer.

When asked why he remains a cab driver, he simply says, "To help man.

Prift aspires to be a graphic designer for environmental or health issues and attends the Massachusetts College of the Arts. As a cabbie, he is honing his "public relations skills."

But it is the anonymous cab driver who gives the altruistic answer.

When asked why he remains a cab driver, he simply says, "To help man.