Manehattan
Interview with a Cab Driver
Admiral Biscuit
“Spuds” Terkel—stuck with that moniker from the moment a pair of potatoes appeared on his fat flank—took one quick look around his Manehattan hotel room, pushed his glasses up on his muzzle, and turned into the hallway. He gave the bellhop a curt nod, and headed down the corridor.
Checking out was a brief formality, and by the time he'd handed over his bits and room key, the bellhop had already loaded his bags into the waiting cab.
Spuds passed him and the doorpony a bit coin each, stepped into the cab, and stretched out luxuriously on the upholstered seat. Without even looking up, he shouted “train station,” and put his head down. He was completely exhausted—the weekend meet-and-greet had been laid on at the last minute, his train to Manehattan had been late getting in, and the reception the night before had run far too long. He'd only had a few hours of sleep before he had to get ready for a charity breakfast, and that hadn't left him enough time to pack.
Breakfast and his stomach had finally made an uneasy truce, at least, so there was that small blessing.
He yawned and was about to close his eyes—figuring that if he drifted off, the cabby would wake him when they got to the train station, when his head jerked back up.
How did I not notice when I got in the cab? He mentally reviewed his journey out of the hotel lobby—he'd looked the bellhop in the eye, passed him a bit, looked the doorpony in the eye and passed him a bit—but he’d not looked at the cabby. Not directly, anyway. His mind had already been on the train, riding back home, waiting for his body to catch up.
“You're losing your touch, Spuds,” he told himself, and sat upright in the seat. He reached back into his saddlebags and nosed through until he found a pencil and his journal—thank heavens he kept those with him at all times. Then he whistled to get the cabby’s attention.
“What's your name, son?”
One of the cabby's ears flicked back. “Golden Agate.”
“Pleased to meet you. I'm Spuds Terkel.” His voice was as smooth as any Shakesponian actor, honed by years of storytelling—but they weren’t his stories; they were the stories of the common ponies. It was they who made Equestria great, yet were never in the news unless he put them there.
“You're a crystal pony.” It was not a question or an accusation, but a simple statement of fact. Golden Agate had heard the topic brought up in every way conceivable so far—he thought—but Spuds made it sound like an honor to have been born such.
“I am,” he said proudly.
“Why Manehattan?” Spuds ducked back to his journal.
“Well.” Golden Agate considered this. “You're going to think I'm a foal.”
“No I won't.” He said this with the same certainty he would use to give his own name, or state the name of the ruler of Equestria.
“Because . . . because of King Sombra. In case he comes back.” The cabby fell silent for a moment. Spuds didn't say anything.
“I just got to thinking after the Equestria Games—maybe if we'd let other ponies who weren't crystal ponies into our Kingdom before, maybe they would have done something. But we were told that the three tribes were always fighting and we were better off without them.
“Nopony acted like that during the games, and I wondered if—if maybe it wasn't true, so I came to Manehattan.”
Spuds waited.
“Maybe if they see us, they'll remember us, if we need them again.”
“Were you always a cab driver? Back in the Crystal Empire?”
“No—up in the Crystal Kingdom, I grew berries. I brought some seeds with me, but they don't grow well here. I don't know why.” He sighed. “I miss crystal berry jam.”
“How about your family?”
“They're still up there. Mom said I was a foal to leave. She said nopony here would like me, because I was different than them.
“My oldest sister works in the Palace. I write her postcards sometimes. She says she shows them to my little sister. I want—“ Golden Agate stopped speaking.
“Go ahead," Terkel prompted.
“Nothing.” His ears turned back forward. Spuds waited politely as they navigated another busy intersection. He took the time to circle Golden Agate's cut-off sentence. There was something there, but he'd have to tease it out. Change the subject, try for a different attack.
“Do you like it here? In Manehattan?”
“It's not bad.” Golden Agate turned his head back for a moment to regard Spuds. “There are a lot of ponies, more than I can believe . . . and the buildings all look kind of the same. They're big, but they seem . . . colder than a crystal home. It took a while to get used to pegasi, to having to look up for ponies.
“But there are so many neat gadgets—clever little machines we never had nor dreamed of. I bought a record player and some records with my first paycheck, and if I had more bits. . . .”
“How long have you been here?”
“Almost two years.” He sighed. “There aren't many crystal ponies here, but I've met a few. One of them sells Crystalberry Gin to a local public house, can you imagine? When he saw me, he gave me a free bottle.”
“Where do you live?”
“I have a third-floor walkup on the north side of the city. It's awfully crowded. I share it with two other cabbies and my marefriend. I don't know what we'll do once the foal is born.”
Spuds leaned forward. This was an interesting tidbit—was it what he'd almost said earlier? “Foal?”
“It . . . it was kind of an accident, but we're really happy. The doctor's curious, because he hasn't seen any journal articles about what kind of foal it might be.”
“Because your marefriend isn't a crystal pony.”
“She's a unicorn. Works in the typing pool at Silver Barrel.”
“Are you happy?”
“I guess?” The cab jerked to a stop, and Golden Agate began looking from side-to-side, waiting for a break in the traffic. “I mean, I’m happy that we’re having a foal, but I’m not sure what it’s going to look like, and I’m not sure what I’ll tell my sisters about it, or how her family will react. They don’t know . . . they haven’t met me. She’s told them I’m busy all the time—and I am!—but they’ll know when they see our foal. I hope she isn’t crystally. It would be easier that way—easier for us, and easier for her.” He spotted a break in the traffic and trotted across the intersection.
“Well, here we are.” The cabbie announced as he pulled into the line of carriages in front of the train station. A porter dashed over to the cab and put out a step for Spuds, before opening the trunk on the back of the wagon and transferring his luggage to a cart. “It's four bits seven.”
Spuds stuffed his writing materials back in his bag and got out of the cab. He gave the cabbie a ten bit coin. “It's been a pleasure riding with you, Golden Agate.”
*************
Spuds leaned back on the couch in his compartment. All his exhaustion from before had completely faded away, and as the train pulled out of the station, he leaned over his journal and began to write.
Today, I met one of the most interesting stallions in Manehattan. He isn't the Mayor, or the head of a company, but a common pony just like you or I, working an invisible job in a big city, the kind of stallion you could look at and forget from one breath to the next perhaps. He is a cab driver, and this is his story.
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frist?
Also, backgrounded background ponies are the best!
Keep going!
Great little diddy, if you ask me. Two people just... interacting. The best kind of oneshot.
It's nice to see the nameless get their stories told from time to time.
Have a thumb up and a gold star.
This is probably the most obscure reference I have ever understood. On that note, this is a really sweet little fic, and your interview captures a lot of the style Terkel actually used in his books.
5138287 ha, now that you mention it.... (Googles name)....!!! I see what you did there...
5138214
Thanks!
5138240
Sometimes they have the most interesting stories.
5138287
The funny thing is that I haven't actually read any of his books yet, but the passage at the end seemed just like what he would have done.
5138293
Very great story. I see a "spin-off" story about Golden Agate, wonder what his foal will look like.
The so called commoner can have the strangest stories. The guy in the UK who won the lotto twice, and lost it all. The guy in Japan who was visiting relatives in Hiroshima. then went home. To Nagasaki.
To those silent servants. Those who only stand and wait.
You might wanna put some clarity into that to let the reader know that the Crystal Pony hesitated to speak any further.
5141904
Not a bad idea.
5141935
np
Don't mind me or all the notifications, just catching up on stuff I missed.
5357100
That's cool. Rinnaul did reviews of all the stories, if you want to get an idea what you're getting into before you read it.
I'll admit, after reading this line I assumed that Golden Agate was afraid of Sombra's return.
The next paragraph made me mildly ashamed, as I should have been for what I'd thought.
A solid, nicely written slice of life.
Why does this story not have more views?
It deserves so much more.
~Leonzilla
6883074
I agree with you 100%.
Do listen to AShadowOfCygnus' reading; he gets Golden Agate's voice perfect.
6883210 I did
It took me until the story was over to realize his name was not actually Spuds. >.<
6959021
lol.
I don't think I ever said what his actual name was.
Sometimes I wonder if it's obnoxious, the way I force everyone to get on the NITPICK TRAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!
what
Perhaps the most jarring tense changes come in the middle of sentences.
In other news, this is a nice story.
6987186
Corrections made, thank you!
Again, thank you!
Aw this, more of this Biscuit.
9024378
Maybe one day.
At least we now know more about his daughter than we did before.
I suspect that the foal will be ordinary:
When the Mane 6 used the CrystalkHeart to defeat Sombre, it temporarily made them Crystally. It is probable the magic of the CrystalHeart which makes the CrystalPonies Crystally.
11241709
Nope she turned out to be crystally, read Field Notes from Equestria XD
11242039
So the CrystalHeart causes EpiGenetic Changes:
¿Are you aware of phenotypic variability? Basically if 1 identical twin exercises and the other is a couchpotato, the exercizer ends up with bigger muscles. Some types of phenotypic variability are encoded in the regulatory mechanisms of DNA, thus giving the next generation without changing the underlying DNA. Epigenetic changes decay back to baseline and are overwritten by new epigenetic changes, so last about 5-to-10 generations, on average.
The foals of Flurry Heart might be crystally. The foals of CrystalPonies living outside of the CrystalEmpire might stay crystally for several generations.
11241709
We don’t know the range of the thing. When it’s active, it could keep crystal ponies crystally anywhere on
EarthEquestria.Maybe it’s the lack of it which does; maybe the normal state of crystal ponies is crystally.
I think it would depend on who she hooked up with (and I suppose the Crystal Heart Magic)--she’s the daughter of at least one non-crystal pony (Shining) and the other probably isn’t either (Cadance, don’t know her full origin story in show canon; I think in supplemental canon she was a pegasus who ascended).
Golden Agate’s pure Crystal Pony. His marefriend isn’t, but thanks to the magic of dominant and recessive genes, their foal is crystally. And has a gait most normal ponies don’t. And she’s a unicorn, which don’t exist in the Crystal Empire.
And I don’t recall if she was ever named.