After twenty five years of driving a taxi through the streets of New York City, Sam Garrety has had enough. Fed up with the accumulation of abuses from passengers, city traffic, and the bureaucratic Taxi Commission, he's ready to quit. The loss of his cat, Dupree, a rescue from the street, and the only family he has, begins a day of unfortunate events that leaves him at the end of his night shift parked across the street from the Lincoln Tunnel. He shuts off the engine to Mellow Yellow, his '72 Checker cab with over 300,000 miles on her. There, he sits, staring up the street, an avenue that will take him uptown toward his one room flat and the same, every-day, mundane lifestyle. Here before him, as well, is a crossroad, a life altering decision that suddenly comes to mind in the form of two directions that otherwise would have been two insignificant patches of asphalt. Well-traveled and diseased with the trappings of countless, congested rush hours and their mayhem, the intersection held no more appeal other than that of its intended use--a way to someplace else. For Sam, the Lincoln Tunnel is a way out, not a way back in. He starts the engine, turns the wheel left and drives west. With $8000 in the taxi's safe, he doesn't stop until he reaches the Navaho Reservation in Arizona. There he's greeted with the allure of the desert, the endearing love of D'Ozilgaii Sanderson, and unfortunately for him, the wrath of three troublesome teenagers. He's thrown into the trunk of his taxi and taken into no man's land deep within Monument Valley. Left there to walk out of the desert on his own, Sam searches within himself for survival and a way back to civilization.
About the Author: I was 10 months and my brother 2 years old when my mother, due to extreme poverty, signed us over to a Catholic Charities Institution immediately after W.W. 11. Three years later we were moved to the first of two foster homes. Those were not the best years of our lives. Discipline was harsh back then, while nurturing and affection, unfortunately, was absent. Eight years later, my father was finally allowed custody and brought us home. At the time, he owned a house in downtown Brooklyn, and fortunately for us, it was filled with family members. That second half of my childhood was totally different from the first. I did well in school and stayed out of trouble, despite the wayward behavior of many of my peers. They say you should write about something you know. In this novel, my third, I decided to do just that. At one time I owned an "Individual" New York City Taxi. Most of the incidences that happen to my lead character, Sam Garrety, while driving his cab in New York City, actually happened to me. After selling the taxi, I traveled all around the American West in an RV, with a special love for Monument Valley. It was the perfect place to serve as a back drop for a good part of this novel.