The news playing on the radio of Adrian Brocks's taxicab is almost always drowned out by his constant talking to, confiding in and baiting of passengers about everything.
Weather, lap dances and movies. Sports of any kind — women's or men's, college or pro. He'll tell any passenger that his doctor calls him "morbidly obese" or that he married and divorced the same woman twice. What really gets him going is good gab about politics, particularly the shortcomings of President Bush, whom he refers to as Little Caesar.
Politics as sport
Those who share his views are the most chatty. But nothing brightens his day like a good verbal bout with a conservative — if that passenger doesn't ask to be let out of the cab. Brocks was ecstatic on a recent afternoon when a middle-aged passenger on his way to Union Station announced that he was a fan of Fox News.
"We got us a Bush man," Brocks announced, beaming, before he launched into a tirade against one of the station's anchors. "Brit Hume is so biased, he ought to be working as a spokesman for the White House."
The rider disagreed but soon was trading jokes and debating the relative importance of Bill Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky and Ronald Reagan's involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal. When it was over, Brocks got a $10 bill (for a $5.50 fare) and this compliment: "Keep the change. That's a nice ride home."
Brocks said later, "They tip good to soothe their conservative ill thinking."
This is the world of Adrian D. Brocks, 57, a news junkie who wears his politics on his sleeve and uses his taxicab as a rolling confessional and pulpit. His travels outside the country are limited to the Caribbean, and he almost never ventures away from the coziness of downtown Washington.
'Offend, offend, offend'
But through the customers he meets from all around the world and the information he soaks up from television, newspapers and radio, Brocks makes broad pronouncements about the world — and America's standing in it — with the authority of a seasoned traveler.
"I feel like I can have an intelligent conversation with anyone about anything," he said.
The Crown Victoria he drives has 204,000 miles on the odometer. On the front seat is a clipboard to log his trips, a bag of snacks to get him through the day and a bottle of water in the cup holder. A pack of cigarettes is above the front passenger visor.
From about 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, the slightest twitch of the arm by someone on the far sidewalk, and he will whip into an illegal U-turn to get the fare first. On the job, as in life, few sins are worse than being a shrinking violet who tries to avoid stepping on toes.
"I love people who aren't politically bleeping correct," said Brocks, who grew up in housing projects east of the Anacostia River and rents an apartment at 15th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW. "I say, offend, offend, offend."
It's that attitude that kept him from making it in the corporate world. He attended Howard University, and when he graduated in January 1971, he became a salesman for Campbell Soup. In that job, and later at several local marketing companies, Brocks said, he didn't take orders well from bosses he didn't respect.
"In the corporate world, you have to suck lip and compromise," Brocks said. "I had trouble biting my lip. I burned a lot of bridges. I'm not driving this cab by accident."
Observing the signs
Although he professes to be a rule breaker at heart, Brocks can veer into being a stickler. When a Virginia cab — which is not allowed to pick up fares in the District — stopped for two men with suitcases on K Street, Brocks went into citizen-arrest mode, following the car and gesturing for the driver to roll down the window. All the while, he yelled to the passengers: "You're participating in an illegal act.
"They're taking money out of my pocket," he said after writing down the offender's license plate and vowing to file a report.
Brocks said he accepts that many passengers are "oblivious to cab drivers," but he does his best to find out what makes people tick. Some riders talk on cell phones or bury their heads in newspapers, showing him no interest.
He pounces on those who do show interest, though, such as the man from Norway and the woman from Canada on their way to the Ronald Reagan Building.
"You should have been here a couple of weeks ago when they anointed Little Caesar again," he told the riders, who seemed a little confused. "I mean President Bush."
After a lengthy discussion with the three in agreement that the world generally has a negative view of the Bush administration, the man said: "It's a good thing we weren't Republicans." Brocks's response: "I was hoping that you were."
Life as an open book
He isn't always so forthcoming. He spotted two men near Foggy Bottom hailing a cab and recognized one as former defense secretary Robert S. McNamara. McNamara didn't hop in, but his lunch companion — a man who said he was 91 — did and soon he and Brocks were discussing how to fix Social Security. As soon as the man got out and shut the door to the cab, Brocks said disparagingly that he would recognize McNamara anywhere.
Brocks tells passengers he has been through bankruptcy, divorce, problems with the Internal Revenue Service and drug use that he says kept him from spending as much time as he should have with his three children, one of whom was gunned down two years ago in the streets.
And he readily confides, although he's not proud of it, that after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he was among the masses who took to the streets. "I was out there stealing suits," he said.
What he seldom discusses is hometown politics because, Brocks said, it "totally disgusts" him. He leaves those matters to one of his brothers who is intimately involved with labor issues and elections for council and mayor.
Otherwise, he said, his life is an open book. When he's not watching sports and news on television, he's spending time with his family.
He's particularly proud that he has a son named Adrian D. Brocks Jr. and a grandson named Adrian III. He often boasts to passengers that the kings of Prussia were a line of Adrians. He'd read that somewhere.
On a recent day, a rider who said he had majored in history in college chimed in. "Actually, they were dukes," the man said, before launching into a lesson about why Prussia, a former German state, didn't call its leaders kings.
Sufficiently convinced, Brocks said, "I guess I'll have to start pushing dukes then. They were still the leaders."
Both were wrong. The Adrians were popes.
Brocks has no illusions that the job — despite the freedom it allows him — will make him rich. So he spends $7 a day on lottery tickets. "We who dwell in the house of fool's gold cannot be denied," he explains with a smile.
