CONGRATULATIONS, MR. BENISTE

You don’t know Mr. Senat Beniste. I myself met him only yesterday evening. But in some way his story struck me as iconic, and it cheered me immensely—so I’ll pass it along.

My wife and I were struggling with an armload of bundles last evening on our way home from shopping at Zabar’s, Manhattan’s famous Upper West Side food store. The winter light had disappeared altogether from the sky and a blustery north wind stung our cheeks and made us hunch over as we waited for the traffic light upstream of us to release the next wave of cars and taxis. When the light turned green a shiny yellow cab stopped to pick us up and we fumbled our way aboard. As soon as I managed to close the door I knew that I was in a new car. It had that wonderful, slightly chemical leatherette smell that is unique to brand new American cars. It made me smile and I remarked on the newness as soon as I told the driver, whose license photo identified him as Senat Beniste, where we were going. The newness cheered me, I suppose, because of its associations with hope and the promise of things to come: new beginnings, like a new baby.

“Look,” I said to my wife, “the sticker prices are still stuck to the window. How long have you had the car?” I asked Mr. Beniste.

“Today,” he said with a broad smile. “I picked it up from the dealer today.” He patted the steering wheel and demonstrated with pride how the air-conditioner in the back seat could be controlled by the passengers, and the large amount of leg-room they had back there.

“Is it yours?” I asked foolishly. As though the pleasure he was taking in the new baby could be explained by anything but private ownership. His smile turned shy.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. His days of driving for a big taxi company were over. Now he would be able to keep all the profits himself. He would drive for twelve hours a day and he would hire another guy to drive the other twelve hours so that even while he was home with his family the new cab would be producing income. Even though it was the same life for him, I could see that it was a whole new ballgame too.

He spoke accented English so I asked him where he was from. Haiti, he answered. How long? Fourteen years. He had two kids. Did he like it here? Oh, yeah, he said, with a sweet smile. Clearly, he was planning to stay.

“How much did you have to pay for the taxi medallion,” I asked, knowing that cab ownership in New York City was complicated by the fact that, like New York Stock Exchange seats, there were only a finite number of taxi licenses—about twelve thousand—available for legal taxis and so there was a small market in the transfer and sale of these medallions.

“Oh, a lot. A lot. Two twenty.” Meaning two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The medallion will vary in price, like the value of real estate, with economics, and so represents an investment in a real asset which comes with risks as well as rewards.

“Wow,” I said, “It’s gone up quite a bit since I last heard. Can you get a loan for it from the bank?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said with a tinge of pride in his voice, “Just like a mortgage.” He took pleasure in the fact that he did serious business with a bank.

Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars meant that he had to come up with at least fifty thousand in cash.

“That must have been a lot of hard work,” my wife said in rusty French, “how long did it take?”

“Oh, man, was it hard.” He half turned in the driver’s seat for emphasis. “Fourteen years,” he answered in English, “It took fourteen years. Man, it was hard,” he said with satisfaction.

By this time we’d arrived home and he helped us with our packages as we heaved ourselves out of his cab. The meter said $3.50, but I felt happy and wanted to play a small part in his achievement so I handed him ten bucks and said “Keep it. Good luck and success with your new cab.” He thanked me with an affable smile and we waved to each other as he got into and drove off in his shiny new yellow Ford cab.

As I stood watching him drive off I realized that he didn’t need me to wish for his success, he had already achieved it. It wasn’t the new cab, it was Mr. Beniste, he was the success. My wife and I had witnessed a profoundly important economic event. We had seen a worker transformed into an entrepreneur. The system was working its magic right before our eyes.

This was what all that silly patriotic stuff was all about, wasn’t it? What the war we are about to fight is all about. What the astronauts are all about—trying desperately, like Prometheus, to steal fire from the Gods. So that Mr. Beniste and thousands of guys like him don’t have to die stealing fire. They can just borrow it from the bank so they can lift themselves up, and lift their kids even higher.

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