Bike Courier - Entry 3

I know it's march technically (but really, who's counting?), but I want to finish this. I did the pre-writing for all seven entries and I might as well wrap everything up. I'll try to do just that by Sunday (March 8).

DISCLAIMER: I don't know how accepting everyone here is of explicit language, and there is a bit of that in this entry. If you're not into that so much, maybe skip this post. Otherwise, read away!

Anyways...

A Glimpse of a Tuesday Afternoon

April 24 2007

at the corner of 47^th and 9^th. It's two blocks west of Times Square and in the heart of the theatre district. I'm sweating, in spite of the cold wind that nips bare skin and stings the nostrils. I'm making my way to some stage, carrying a first draft of the next Broadway hit. But that's just what the pretentious playwright screamed, shrill and metallic, as I left his smugly cluttered office on the 25^th floor of 357 Madison. A guy in a suit and overcoat is pushing through the throng and pinches me against the backside of magazine vendor. Jesus, man. You're not that important. You'd have a limo and driver if someone thought you were. Weaving between taxis, sneaking through pedestrians. Why the hell is it so busy? A parked car opens its door maybe five feet ahead, I push it close. My legs are whirling around and around and around but I don't think I'm getting anywhere. I swear to God I've seen that seedy deli three times now. How many of those shitholes are in this town? A clock. It's 2:13. Where is the goddamn theatre? A bus is next to me, revving its diesel. I'm pushing 30mph, adrenaline is coursing through my muscles and heightening my senses so why is he trying to push past? Bus squeezes in front of me like a fat man eying the dwindling buffet. You dumb fuck. Just run me over next time and make it easier for both of us. “Get out...of...my...way,” I yell at no one and no thing in particular. There. That's the theatre I want. Shit. I missed it. Quick left into the alley. Slip onto the sidewalk. I'm a foot taller than anyone atop the bike. Dismount. Lock the bike. Inside. I have to use the fucking freight elevator. A script is freight. It's a goddamn envelope. Script on the desk. Sign the manifest. First floor. Outside. Free the bike. Remount. I call in the drop to dispatch and hop the curb, merging smoothly with traffic. Then this shithead in a Silverado makes

*Literary device courtesy Bret Easton Ellis (well, that's who inspired it, anyway).

Bike Courier - Entry 2

March 24, 2007

Ever since the human race abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and formed sustainable communities, every action the race takes is nothing more than an emphatic statement that we are not animals. We look to the Heavens for mercy, promising a slaughtered sheep in return. We dress extravagantly and live in preposterous shelters. Trails are paved to be comfortable underfoot. We scar and abuse the earth, turning her into our bitch rather than a mother of providence. The human race is arrogant.

This is a cynical perspective, I know, but spend any significant time in the city and one would be hard pressed to find evidence to the contrary. The Concrete Jungle is so called not because of its assiduity, but the heterogeneity therein.

A bicycle immured in traffic should look like a suckerfish picking clean a shark. Instead, it is a potent example of aposymbiosis where car and bicycle spar like ancient Roman gladiators. Here the aristocracy has released venomous steel behemoths in lieu of ferocious tigers or vengeful silverbacks.

Two days I saw society's Ceaser turn its thumb down at another cyclist. I was cruising a mostly empty street and he rode a quarter mile up the road. He was a commuter; perhaps heading back to the office after lunch or heading home after a short day. His helmet was strapped tightly to his head and his right pant leg was carefully rolled to barely avoid the reach of a chainring's teeth. I laughed inwardly at the site of his street stained backpack and penny-loafers clutched by toe clips. He pedaled, undaunted, in the middle of the road, faster than I could have predicted.

A flash of light caught my eye and I saw the glint of the freshly washed grill on an Escalade. It was blinding under sunlight. I watched that same grill slip between parked cars and into the street far too quickly. The cyclist I laughed at moments before, now a perfect contour of the SUV's front side. The Escalade's tires squealed and skidded to halt. The rider was hurled onto the asphalt and slid across the far lane; stopping abruptly at the curb, a disjointed pile of wheels, bike, legs and elbows.

The runt in the SUV gripped the steering wheel tightly, with two hands. I watched him look up and down the street anxiously, then take off like the scumbag that he is. I grit my teeth and jumped on the pedals. Today I played vigilante. He might run from the police, run from the law, but he couldn't run from justice. Surely he saw me, panting in his rear-view mirror. He turned left and right at random. He sped through lights burning yellow. I trailed and parried every maneuver he could play. Together we danced a deadly promenade. Block after block I stuck to his path, until the bastard found an on-ramp.

I locked my pedals, skidding to a stop. I dismounted, cursing and punching the demons that clouded my vision. I was the lion that lost its gazelle. In a triumph of foresight, I memorized his license plate and scribbled it in my manifest. I dialed 911 and reported the accident.

I should take comfort in the fact that the man will have a warrant out for his arrest, but I don't. Often these kinds of accidents go unpunished. They likely won't look for him. They don't care that a commuter is bleeding in a storm drain. He shouldn't have been there in the first place, right?

On Monday I will roll back into the city and nothing will be different. Life will be moving at the same breakneck pace it always does. People will continue to roam unawares and new tracks will be beaten down where old memories lay. The teeming, chaotic mass of humanity will ever consume itself.

Keep your eyes open, kid. It's a jungle out there.

Bike Courier Day 1

March 19, 2007

I have made a huge mistake.

Those words encompassed my thoughts this morning; presently I disagree. I am amazed how a full day and three hours of crippled sleep can change a mind. I will try to make sense of today's tempest, but I am not sure I can.

I start the day at Washington Square Park in New York's lower east side with a dozen or more couriers, all of us waiting for the first call from dispatch (a 'tag,' I'm told). The scene is eclectic to any one of the thousands of drones scurrying amidst cubical farms but orthodox for the tribe. Some of the couriers are dragging on cigarettes, others suck down coffee. Still more are stuffing bagels plunged in cream cheese down their throats. A few are squatting on their top-tubes shooting the breeze. I can't help but feel a belonging here. I am one of the warriors of the financial district. I am that imprudent rider zipping past car doors and pedestrians (aka meat pylons). Couriers are kings on the fringes of society; scarred with tattoos and piercings, all garish and grudge, they swagger and speak in exaggerations.

My first tag comes in at 9:07. It's a pickup at 224 W 21^st. On my way, I get three more tags: 319 E 35^th; 754 W 24^th; 832 E 55^th. Oh, and I get drops for all the tags. I spend most of my time scrutinizing Google Maps on my iPhone and scribbling addresses in my manifest. At 1:30pm I'm done and told to “clean up.” Lunch time. I get 27 minutes before a tag grates from the radio. The afternoon is a rehashing of the morning's furor, but when I'm told to clean up at 5:13, I have realized only three drops. Dispatch told me seven drops is a good first day. Most greenwheels scarcely make five. I spun home and jumped in bed.

I awoke with arthritic joints and smarting muscles. I limped to the kitchen and devoured a pot of chili like a lion on a gazelle. I certainly had doubts about this new gig riding home. I traded a steady paycheck, benefits, and a parking spot with my name on it for a job and paycheck as unpredictable as the doors on a taxi. What did I expect find out here? Am I trying to prove something? To whom? I am seeing now that those thoughts are natural fallout from a crazy day from which I was still reeling.

The allure of a bicycle courier was not lost on me on my first day. I partook in the reckless abandonment the streets inspire and their stoical manifest quelled my preconceptions. I feel like I have suffered eight and a half weeks of basic training in eight and a half hours. And I get to do it all again tomorrow.