Robert Eades wakes up every morning to make up for the time he’s lost and the damage he has done. Before the sun rises he’s out the door, behind the wheel of his taxi and looking for his first fare. Before his head hits the pillow, well after the sun rises, he’ll drive hundreds of miles, give rides to two dozen people, give advice to 10 kids, speak with politicians, go through two tanks of gas and stroll around the only neighborhood he has ever known.
He’s a believer in karma, and this is his penance, a way of repaying his debt to society beyond the time he spent in prison.
It wasn’t prison that changed him, he said, it was people he never intended to hurt who did. There was that little girl with the filthy diaper and the nappiest hair possible standing on his front porch, begging for a peanut butter sandwich; that morning he sold her mother drugs. And there were the 10 inmates in his jail. He knew their mothers when they were still in the womb, and they knew him as they grew up; he was the big guy with the thick wad of cash and gold rings on his fingers who had a running tab with the ice cream man. They wanted to be like him. Now, behind bars, they were.
When he learned what his actions did, he wanted to atone, he said. He made a deal with God. He promised that if his appetite for fast money, love of hustling and the joy he received by outsmarting the cops disappeared, he would work with kids and show them that the big guy with the in with the Good Humor Man could live a straight life – and they could too.
He got an honest job; the drug dealer became a taxi driver. “This car puts me in a position that I can do some help, that I can do some good, or at least I think i’m doing some good from trying to talk to some people,” he said.
And it has made new friendships too.
“He’s caring about people and I think he probably has good intuition about people and those are really good for anything dealing with the public and I think he genuinely wants to give to people,” said Nas Afi, a regular passenger.
Eades, 53, doesn’t have much more than a middle school education, but he’s more insightful than one would think and more curious, said Roger Zerne, another regular fare.
“We just have a nice conversation and things come up. We have spokes about ancient history and we’ve spoken about the Bible and how people treat each other,” Zerne said.
Taxies are a good fit for him,Eades said, it lets him do two things he likes: driving and talking all day. He started his own company with one car, gradually growing. Today he has six vehicles.
“It’s not a whole lot. It pays the mortgage. It takes care of the young kids… I forgot to put the meter on, I’m running my mouth,” he said.
The taxi business pays the bills but his mouth has always been what keeps him out of trouble. Once, while he was still in prison, his outspokenness ended problems for other inmates. While locked up, Eades noticed that black prisoners were passed over for the best work release jobs in favor of white inmates. He wrote letters, sent them to some well-placed people with influence and launched a state investigation.
“I don’t believe in keeping my mouth closed. If you did something wrong in my house, even if you were going to get a beating, my mother would allow you to say what you had to say, whatever story you wanted to give for why you did whatever. She’d turn around and still whip your ass, but we were always allowed the freedom to express ourselves. And now I can’t shut up,” he said.
He’s still working to keep his promise with God too, he said. He founded the Neet ‘N” Kleen Boys and Girls Club, borrowing the name of his taxi company and putting it onto his youth group. He has around two dozen kids involved and they meet wherever they can find space, sometimes on his row house’s narrow porch. He teaches them about black history, or makes sure they are keeping up with school, planning for college or learning trade.
His neighborhood, nearly all black and poor residents, many in public housing, is like a garden, Eades said. You can plant seeds, water it and dote on it and one day have a huge harvest. Or you can forget about it, let weeds grow and trash collect. You’ll still have vegetation, but not anything anybody would want.
“She will produce. What she produces is up to us, it’s up to the gardener. I just consider myself a gardner in my community, trying to put good seeds in the ground. Trying to be a modern day Johnny Appleseed, you know what I mean man?” he said.
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