Caught and Released

Jun 4, 2010

The meeting in New Jersey finished up by about 2:30 in the afternoon, and after stopping at the Manhattan office to tidy up a few things, I was released until Saturday night. I have a midnight call time on Saturday night for a run-through of the show at the venue. Everything will look a lot different projected onto a sculptural set in Alice Tully Hall than it does projected onto a makeshift screen in a New Jersey warehouse with giant sky lights, so there are bound to be changes. Why midnight? Because the set has to be built first.

In any case, Yesterday I was finished for the day by 4 in the afternoon and headed home to relax. I rode the L train to Bedford Avenue, where I waited to catch the bus. As anyone who takes the bus will tell you, the posted schedule is for entertainment purposes only. It's impossible to predict when the bus will arrive, or how crowded it will be when it finally does and taxicabs often exploit the situation by trolling the bus route for impatient riders. As I stood at the bus stop, a yellow cab honked at me, and the driver asked if I needed a ride. I waved him off. It's a free transfer, after all, so why pay seven bucks for a cab when my bus fare was already paid for?

"Where you goin'?" said the cabbie, undeterred. "I can take you as far as South 11th Street for two bucks."

"I'm going further than that," I said, and told him my destination, which was at least twice as far as South 11th Street.

"We can do that," he said. "Hop in."

I wasn't in any rush, but New York often makes you feel like you are, or at least that you should be, so I did.

The guy was upbeat and talkative and wasted no time handing me his business card. "I'm in this neighborhood all the time," he said, "If you need a ride, call me and if I'm around, I'll pick you up and take you where you need to go."

I looked the the card:

Rolling For Jesus

Philip Fabrosilo

Preaching

Counseling

Taped Messages

Christian Music

Clothes Collection

Always A Blessing

Never A Charge

Oh boy, here we go, I muttered, bracing myself for the hard sell.

His cab was decorated with photographs-- letter-sized inkjet prints housed in plastic sleeves that were taped to every available space. I looked at the meter, which wasn't running, but looked legit, and I scoped out his license, which also appeared to be on the up and up. Faded Jesus statues on the dash, plastic flowers hanging here and there, and assorted papers everywhere. Although it was missing the usual half-inch-thick plexiglass partition between the front seat and the back, that didn't strike me as odd. What struck me as unusual was his friendly, positive attitude and sense of humor. Unusual for preachers and cabbies alike.

As we passed a group of Hasidic men waiting for a bus, he told me how hard it was to get them to ride with him, though not impossible. "Sometimes they're in a hurry," he said.

While stopped at a light, he pulled a piece of paper from an envelope attached to his dashboard -- it was a photocopy of an article from TimeOut NY magazine. "I blew it up big like that. The original article wasn't a full page or anything. It was just a small blurb in the corner of the magazine, but I was lucky, it was printed on the same page as an article about Fiona Apple, and she was really big that year, so a lot of people saw it. I got a lot of attention from that article."

As we drove, he explained his route, which seemed only slightly out of the way. "Trust me, this is the best way," he said. "I've lived here my whole life. I know Brooklyn like a worm. Especially at this time of day, otherwise you get stuck behind the Hasidic school buses. They make a million stops and you never get there."

I skimmed through the article, trying to get a crash course in this guy's schtick, looking for an angle. It mentioned he was a fisherman, fishing in the East River and often keeping his catch in the trunk of his cab. I realized what I'd assumed was just a run-of-the-mill cab-stench might be fish. "Any fish in the trunk?" I asked.

"Not right now. I release most of what I catch," he said. "But I keep some of it. I feed it to the homeless."

"Really?"

"Sure. I eat the fish myself, too, of course. I would never give anyone something to eat that I wouldn't eat myself. The East River is full of pollutants, obviously, so you can't eat the fish more than once a month, but otherwise, it's fine. I've been eating the fish I catch for years, and I'm totally healthy." He stopped and laughed. "Though some people wonder about that."

He told me about a documentary he appeared in called "Gotham Fish Tales,” about the people who fish the waters around New York City. "If you go on the computer and do a search for my name, you'll find all kinds of things about me. Search for my name, no dot com or anything, just my name. You can search 'Rolling For Jesus', but too many other people use that phrase, so just search my name. If you find anything that interests you, let me know and we can rap about it."

He mentioned his ministry, but the hard sell I was expecting never materialized. He talked about collecting clothes for the homeless, about giving away free pizza to people in the parks. "Sometimes I give testimony," he said, "But it all depends. Last week, there weren't too many people there, and I wasn't feeling it, so I didn't preach or anything, I just told a few jokes and we ate pizza."

He invited me to Washington Square Park and gave me a slip of paper with a time and date on it. "Food, Fun, Faith," it said.

"We're there from 8 till 10, but come at like 8:30, 8:45, that way we'll all be there and you can find us easier. Just look for the pizza."

We arrived at the corner near my apartment. "Does this work for you?"

"Perfect," I said and handed him a ten. "Just give me a five back."

"You sure? Can you afford that, bro?"

"No problem."

"Bless you, brother."

I shook his hand, wished him well, and then got out of the cab and headed down the street. Caught and released.

Bless you, too, Brother Phil.