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ALEX BEAM

The kinder, gentler Donald Trump

Real estate magnate Donald Trump and his girlfriend, Marla Maples, at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, N.J.Associated Press/File 1991

I remember it as if it was . . . 1991, which in fact it was. I had just hopped in a taxicab (Uber Release 1.0, for younger readers) on Post Office Square when I spotted Donald Trump on the west side of Congress Street. He and a confederate were trying to hail a cab. (Younger readers, see previous.)

Donald Trump was pretty famous in 1991, partly because Spy magazine had been ragging on him (“short-fingered vulgarian”) for years, and partly because everything he touched seemed to turn to red ink. His first wife, Ivana, had just decamped with a nice settlement, and the Trump Taj Mahal casino had sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

What can I say? I felt sorry for the guy. In a blazing flash of sycophancy, I offered him my taxi. He accepted. Naturally, Trump was hell-bent to get back to New York to generate some more shrieking headlines (e.g., “BEST SEX I EVER HAD,” a possibly spurious quote attributed to his then-girlfriend and future ex-wife Marla Maples) for the Gotham dailies.

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Donald seemed like a one-hand-washes-the-other kind of fellow, so a few months later, I phoned his office. I’m the guy who gave Mr. Trump a cab in his moment of need, I explained. How about an interview?

And so I was ushered into a vast office in Trump Tower, overlooking the Plaza Hotel, which Donald owned at the time. If there was a general theme to our conversation, it might have been plucked from that great song in Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Follies” — “I’m Still Here.”

Sure, he was on the hook for millions of dollars in outstanding bank loans, but you know how rich people think: That’s the bank’s problem, not theirs. “The banks will get their money back,” Trump told me, pausing for effect. “But it will take a period of time.” Trump seemed to be channeling Miss Adelaide’s famous line from “Take Back Your Mink” in “Guys and Dolls”: “I may be down, but I’m not flat as all that.”

Did I discern that I was in the company of the future leader of the so-called Free World? No. Trump at the time seemed apolitical, and his presidential itch remained unscratched. “I’m very disappointed by President Bush, whom I like personally," Trump said. (Younger readers, please note: This was President Bush Release 1.0, not his son George W. Bush, whom you probably don’t remember either.)

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Trump opined that Bush One should have shaken down the Kuwaiti sheiks for 50 percent of their oil revenues in return for saving their bacon in Operation Desert Storm (Iraq War, Release 1.0). He didn’t have much use for Bush’s rhetoric, either. “ ‘Kinder and gentler’ — that phrase has always bothered me,” Trump said. “If this country gets any kinder and gentler, we’re going to be pushed off the map. And ‘a thousand points of light.’ I wish someone could explain to me what that meant.”

Our colloquy took place in early 1992, and like most of America, Trump thought Bush One would be reelected. The Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, was suffering the first of many “bimbo eruptions” (younger readers: this would take too long to explain), in the form of some racy tape recordings from a woman named Gennifer Flowers.

She “is not a good woman,” Trump told me, adding: “Those tapes are pretty unfortunate.”

Having just lost a pile of cash to divorce, The Donald offered this piece of advice to American men: “If you ever have any doubts, stay married.” To which one can only say: Consider the source.

I’m not sure I will be able to parlay a long-ago cab ride into an invitation to a state dinner, but — in the unlikely event — I am going to try.

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Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.