Andrew McGill - Unexpected Gifts

 

 

Thank you. Hey, everybody. 

 

Audience: [00:01:37] Hey. 

 

So, growing up, the best way I could describe my mom was like LeBron James in his 2006 season in the Cavaliers. Literally, the MVP for my brother, my sister, myself. She did everything. Whereas my dad was like the rest of the Cavaliers team that year. [audience laughter] Wasn't really around, wasn't really present. And just like LeBron left the Cavs, my mom left my dad, but she took the kids with her. 

 

So, I never really had my dad growing up in the house. He was always this mysterious enigma to me, this mysterious figure. I remember asking my sister, what was one memory she has of our dad in the house? And she said, “He told her not to get involved in credit cards.” She was 12, y'all. She was 12. [audience laughter] But she said she has impeccable credit now. So, I don't know, something might have stuck. 

 

My dad was this mysterious guy, but I really only knew two things about him. One, was that he was a New York City taxi driver and he drove a yellow taxi cab. And two, was that anytime he would show up, he would always have a gift. Now, my brother and sister were a little older, so they didn't really mess around with him too much, so that meant I automatically got the gift. The visits would always be the same. He'd call the house, say, “I'm on my way,” and then we'd hear him honking his horn from the fourth floor of our apartment. 

 

I would run downstairs, go into the front seat of his taxi. It always smell like whatever food he was eating in his cologne, and he would give me the gift. The gifts were always different. Sometime it'd be shoes that didn't really fit too well. Sometime he gave me a fedora. [audience laughter] I love fedoras. Another time, he gave me a Star David necklace. I don't practice, but it was cool. [audience laughter] It was cool. But the best gift he gave me was a PS2 with this game, Batman: Vengeance. From that day, I was like, “Yo, my dad can do no wrong.” 

 

In our house, he had a lot of names. My brother and sister said he was crazy. My mom said he was a deadbeat. But I was like, “No, he's the dude that gave me the PS2. That's my guy. That's my dude.” I would defend him at home, but I would also defend him at school when kids are talking crap. And kids would be like, “Yo, my dad is faster than your dad.” And I'm like, “Not on the streets of Brooklyn, he's not. My dad be moving through those streets in his car, man. He knows how to make that left turn.” [audience laughter] And he's like, “Yo, my dad will beat up your dad.” And I'm like, “Yeah, but my dad knows where the nearest hospital is, so he'll get medical attention faster [audience laughter] than your dad.” 

 

And then, my friend said this one thing that really got me. He's like, “At least, my dad is around. I've never seen your dad. He's not at the PTA meetings. He don't pick you up. Where is he?” I went home that day, and I felt weird, and I called my dad up and I was like, “Hey, what do you have? You got anything for me?” And he's like, “Yeah, I got something.” And he pulls up, and he comes, we hear the honking, I go down, sit in the front. I want to ask him. I want to say, hey, man, where have you been? Why aren't you there to pick me up for PTA meetings? Where are you? But I didn't say any of that. And he says, “Hey, I got this for you.” He hands me this gift, and he says, “You good?” And I say, yeah, I'm good. I walk out the car. 

 

I like to examine the gifts to see if they're cool. I look at this and it says brown wallet. I'm looking at it, and I open it up and there's someone else's money, ID, credit card. [audience laughter] I look back at the car and I wave him down, he lowers the window, I was like, “Hey, I think this is someone else's wallet.” And he's like, “Nah, that's for you. That's yours.” And I was like, “Okay. Cool.” [audience laughter] And he drives off. I'm making my way back upstairs, and I'm like, “Has my dad been giving me things that people have left in the back of his cab as gifts?” [audience laughter] I get back in the house, and I get to my room and I start looking at all the things that he's given me. 

 

He's made me an accessory to all of his crimes? [audience laughter] I was like, “I'm going to go to jail.” Look at all this stuff. And I was like, “Oh, man, what am I going to do? I can't go to prison now. Too young.” So, I do what I always do when I get overwhelmed. I just took a nap. [audience laughter] As I'm taking a nap, I have this dream where I'm at the front of this line, I'm about to pay for something, and I pull out the wallet and someone behind me is like, “Yo, that's my wallet.” [audience laughter] 

 

We have a scuffle over the wallet, and I wake up and I'm like, “I got to get rid of all this stuff.” So, I take all the contents in the wallet, I put it in an envelope and I was like, “I'm just going to mail this away.” I take the shoes, the fedora, all the random things that he gave me. I wish I could tell y'all that I threw away that PS2, but [audience laughter] I did feel bad every time I turned it on. I did feel bad every time I played Batman. It was tough. It was tough for me. And I didn't talk to my dad for a long time. 

 

I was planning to go on this trip. It was one of those trips where you have everything planned, where you're going, you have the itinerary of like, “Oh, I'm going to eat here. I'm going to do this.” But something fell through with my ride going to the airport. I was telling my mom this, and she's like, “Yo, just call your dad.” And I was like, “Nah, I'm good. I'll figure it out.” Before I could know, she has him on the phone. And then, a couple minutes later, I hear the honking and I'm like, “Ah, I guess I'm going to take this ride.” I go downstairs. But instead of sitting in the front of the taxi, I sit in the back. The back was different than the front. Didn't smell like his food. It didn't smell like his cologne. It smelled like a night out, like drinking and smoking cigarettes. 

 

We take off. He's listening to his music. It's silent. I feel like it's silent and I'm like, “I got to say something. I got to break this tension.” I don't know if it was curiosity or fear, but I was like, “Hey, man, did you always want to be a taxi driver?” I thought he would just ignore the question and keep listening to his music. But to my surprise, he lowers the music and he's like, “No, I didn't want to be a taxi driver. I wanted to be a musician.” And I was like, “What? What music do you like?” He turns up the music a little more, and it's like this Haitian compa music, and it's these beautiful drums and these guitars. And I was like, “Were you good?” And he's like, “No, I was terrible.” [chuckles] I was like, “What?” He's like, “Yeah, I wanted--” He proceeds to tell me this story about how his dad was a chicken farmer, and he didn't want to be a chicken farmer. 

 

So, once him and my mom got married, he moved to Berlin, pursued music. He failed at that and he was like, “I'm just going to become a tailor.” And then, when they came to the States, because they were looking for new opportunities, he couldn't find a job as a tailor, so he started working as a taxi driver. He's been doing that ever since for about 35 years. And he turned back the music up. And for the first time, I could actually see my father. I didn't see him as my dad, I didn't see him as the son of a chicken farmer, I didn't see him as a failed musician, but I saw him as a person. 

 

I started to think about those gifts that he gave me or the things that he gave me from the back of the cab. And I was like, “He could have just kept all those things, but he gave them to me.” I realized that maybe it was his way of saying, “Hey, I don't have a lot, but this is what I have for you.” I thought maybe it was his way of saying, “Hey, I'm sorry that I wasn't around.” Maybe it was his way of saying, “Hey, I love you.” So, we pull up to the airport, and I take my stuff out and I'm walking into the terminal. And then, I hear him honk his horn. He pulls down his window. He's like, “Hey, you want these headphones?” [audience laughter] And I take them. Thank you.