Taxi Driver Scene 8 Summary

  • We see Travis enter a corner store to get some snacks. While he's there, a guy tries to rob the store. Travis sneaks up behind the robber and says "Hey." When the robber turns, Travis shoots him.
  • Travis says he doesn't have a permit for the gun, so the store owner tells him to leave it and says he'll take care of it. The store owner beats the at least temporarily still-living body of the robber with a pipe.
  • Holding a gun, Travis watches American Bandstand on TV—on the show, a pair of empty shoes sits in the middle of the dance floor, as a Jackson Browne song plays.
  • At a Palantine rally, Palantine is speaking, saying that the people have suffered over and over again—in Vietnam, from unemployment, etc. Travis listens from his cab.
  • Travis sends an anniversary card to his parents—reading his message on the voiceover. He claims he works for the government and that he's been dating Betsy for several months.
  • Holding a gun again, Travis is watching a soap opera. He starts pushing on the table that supports the TV, using his foot, until it finally tips and the TV breaks. Travis holds his head and mutters curses to himself.
  • In his cab, Travis watches the young prostitute from earlier as she walks down the street. He gets out and talks to her, and she directs him to her pimp.
  • The pimp thinks Travis is a cop who wants to bust him for drugs and for being a pimp. Travis denies it. The pimp says all the things the young girl (about twelve and a half years old) will do for him, obscenely. Travis agrees to pay.
  • Travis goes inside the hotel where the pimp and prostitutes conduct business. When he meets the girl, he asks her her name—it's Iris—and says he doesn't actually want to have sex. Her pimp's name is revealed as Matthew, nicknamed Sport.
  • He tries to convince her not to lead this kind of life. Iris denies wanting to leave her pimp, but eventually, she agrees to meet with Travis for breakfast. She doesn't actually seem happy with being a prostitute.
  • As he leaves, Travis gives the hotel clerk the same crinkled twenty that Sport gave him earlier.