My sister gave me a book to read. She said I would enjoy it because it was about a bike messenger in Chicago. I was curious how she came about reading a book about messengering. She read it for the social justice spin in the book. I wasn’t all that excited about reading a social justice book but hey it was about a bike messenger, so I picked it up recently and dove in.
Culley isn’t some down on his luck (even though he was) poor runaway (although he was) vagabond that ended up on a bike to buy his next beer or joint. No, Culley is a guy with a college degree working in the Arts at an entry level job. We all know the Arts don’t pay and entry level is abysmal. He was close to being evicted and out on the streets when he showed up at a messengering place and applied for a job. He wasn’t a runaway in the sense that he got mad at his folks and took off, but he was running from himself and like most folks that run – he found more than he bargained for, himself and his voice included.
The book gives very detailed descriptions of bike runs. At times you find yourself leaning to avoid the obstacles coming at you. Sometimes you realize you are holding your breath and are exhausted at the end of a paragraph because you felt like you were on the bike with him. When he talks about running more drops in a day than anyone else you can feel the crazy and might even hallucinate with him. Make sure you have a drink near by when reading because you will feel dehydrated and parched. The descriptions of the bikes and the people who ride them were my kinda language, I really enjoyed how he talked about the bikes as beings, part of the team and not just a tool.
The world of bike messengers is not known. I would even bet that most folks reading this didn’t realize messengers were still around. They are and even here in Atlanta. I know a messenger and his personality and physique are so much like what I was reading that often I would smile and think of Dean. I could hear Dean saying or doing the things in the book. I respect Dean for what he does on a bike, I am often offended by Dean by what he wears and says, and I am a little afraid of Dean because of his reckless abandon for life. He truly is a bike messenger.
Messengers do a difficult and dirty job that is necessary even in a world of faxes, emails, and overnight express. There are items that must be an original, a hard copy, or tool that would stop a business in its tracks if they did not have it. Legal offices and travel agencies use messengers a lot. The things they carry are highly valued even if they have no actual monetary value. Messengers get it from point A to point B in a fast efficient manner putting life and limb on the line to meet quotas and deadlines. The more drops you make in a day, the more money you make and if you are good then you can make really good money but it comes at a price.
Mechanical issues are constant, injuries are ever present, insults are incessant, harassment is expected. Even the businesses that rely on their service treat the messenger as a second class citizen. Roads were initially paved for bicycles but over time they have become the domain of the automobile. Cars and trucks believe they own the road they occupy and dislike anything or anyone that comes into their space. Motorcycle drivers experience this same bias against them but not as vehenomately as the cyclist.
I am a recreational cyclist and I experience the hatred, the insults, the indignant comments and rude behaviors. I am a law abiding citizen that rides according to the rules of the road and I get cut off, swerved into, and things thrown at me. I am not deterred by these things because ignorance on your part will not stop me from enjoying an activity I love and have every right to do. There are cyclists that are not so law abiding and give other cyclists a bad rap, but there are just as many non-law abiding car drivers on the road. It irritates me when folks question me on cyclists’ behavior or question my right to ride because they got mad at someone else on the road. For every cyclist they saw run a stop sign I encountered just as many cars making an illegal turn. Just as many drivers don’t know the rules of the road as cyclists, actually it is probably more car drivers than cyclists because bike riders learn the rules because it is a matter of life and death to know them even if you choose to disobey them.
I appreciate the work effort of the messenger. I know the pain and the suffering that goes into the number of miles they ride. I understand their mindset and why they ride the way they do – I do not condone it. Messengers give cyclist a bad name in the worst way possible. Cars see what they are doing and judge them and other cyclists on what they believe to be unsafe behavior. Yes, it is illegal behavior but for a professional messenger it is far from unsafe. They know the roads and they know cars like no one else out there. Just like professional delivery drivers can anticipate traffic patterns and behaviors better than the casual driver a messenger can read pedestrians, obstacles, cars, and trucks better than the casual citizen. They react before a reaction is needed and they squeeze by and narrowly miss on a consistent basis not because they are reckless but because they know the timing and flow of the city they ride everyday.
If cars would obey the rules of the road every one of them every time they got behind the wheel and messengers obeyed the rules of the road every one of them every time they mounted up then extreme behaviors would not be necessary. The thing is – Americans are selfish, self-centered people who believe their mission is more important than anyone else’s therefore they do not have to abide by the rules although they believe everyone else should. It only takes one person to disobey to make it unsafe for everyone. When you get everyone disobeying at least one law if not multiple laws then you get extreme behavior to counter-act it. You get messengers riding like vigilantes.
The other side of this book is the one where you see this messenger trying to make a difference in his city for himself, for his friends, and for his fellow Chicagoans. He is an advocate for cyclists of all kinds: recreational, commuters, and professionals. He works within the system and sometimes outside the system to bring awareness. To know someone is there is to not ignore them and maybe to embrace them. When you have forgotten and overlooked populations among you, you have outcasts and vagrants that you fear and therefore they become what you believe them to be because you have provided no other choice for them, no other options. If the messenger had the option to ride safely on the roadways – they most certainly would choose that one, but they don’t always have that option.
This is a great book whether you ride a bike or not. It talks about social injustice not just for messengers and bike riders all over but for social classes and all forgotten people. The invisible among us. Maybe in reading this book you will notice someone you haven’t seen before but that was in front of your face the whole time.
Two excerpts from the book I really liked:
“A few years back I heard about a study of the energy efficiency of all means of transportation. In the company of cars and airplanes, in the company of flies and frogs, in the company of eels, alligators, cheetahs, and eagles, the bicycle, as ridden by a professional, was deemed the most energy-efficient means of transportation.”
“I named it the Grinch, and on it my body understood optimum efficiency. I saw clearly that, even at the height of our present technological savvy, the bicycle could never be buried; it could only be misunderstood and unappreciated.”
