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Manuel Messaging: Cycling Through the Life of a Callous City
By Jeff Ertz
November 2003 | V.1 N. 4
http://www.binformedmag.com
Beneath the towering spurs of green-glass skyscrapers on the corner of 16th
and JFK, half a dozen or so bike messengers hang like flickering shadows,
dancing off the incredulous glow of the interminably moving city. Some break
for a quick breath, a coffee, or a smoke, while others unwind against the
wall with food or conversation. A couriers’ pit stop from the variant racetrack,
affectionately referred to as “the station,” sits as a languid crevice between
a blue and gray plywood wall adorned with stickers and light graffiti, and
the glass siding of a 7-11 – a routine position open to the diction of the
sky in the segue of chance, within the cacophony of the precarious.
The clear skies breathe warm air, and the couriers await calls from dispatch
on this relatively slow day within their hangar. Indiscriminately touring
the surrounding streets without many prescribed deliveries, their presence
simultaneously waxes and wanes beneath the cover of shadow and smoke.
“It’s a shitty job. Every day is insane…the daily trying to stay alive,”
remarks Juliet with a stiff smirk – an elucidation not nearly as clear and
bright as her orange shirt. Clipped to her messenger bag’s diagonal strap,
the radio calls static randomly, bored it seems without much broadcast instruction.
But it isn’t orders that compel the messengers to recurrence; it’s the ride.
As a messenger for a year and a half, Juliet entered the business because
she loves to cycle. “It’s all about obsession with bikes and riding.” Fueled
from adrenaline, cutting and weaving through slow and frantic traffic is an
undeniable thrill, and the cyclists are the freest travelers on the clogged
streets. Motorists seem to envy that freedom or, at the very least, despise
it.
“Someone smacked my friend on the head,” while passing her on the road,
mentioned a briefly stopped messenger. This occurs somewhat frequently, but
cars hit messengers all the time – “about once a week,” remarks Aaron, a
retired messenger dressed in a light blue t-shirt and paint-spackled jeans.
He holds his track bike with a tattooed arm and speaks undauntedly through
his dark lenses. “Everybody gets hit,” he says facing hordes of passing cars.
“Got hit badly about twenty times. Some people try to hit us.”
Aaron retains the courier status as a pseudonym, united with the station
and its transient grazers as if he awaits a call from dispatch, loosely postured
over a seven-year knee brace. With all the damage the job caused him, he still
assertively distains the motorized vehicle and its lethargic operators. He’s
always willing to “take this lane” from a manic and impatient driver. Undoubtedly,
I thought, a cause for injury. But after traversing a few blocks to the second
but less popular courier pit stop along the outskirts of Rittenhouse Square,
I felt that maybe Aaron just wasn’t as lucky as the rest – maybe stayed in
it for too long.
Preferring the pavement to the grass, two messengers lean against a corner
building, dressed unlike their coworkers at the station – bearing clip-in
shoes and yellow, sponsor-covered shirts. As we approach them, I overhear
John talking about a recent incident involving him and a car door. He’s a
skinny, two-year long courier who is an aspiring photographer and image collage
artist. He mimics an off-balance dance, a recollection of his response to
the event, and laughs with his companion.
Drew, a three-year messenger who carries an anthropology degree and hails
from the Southwest, says he hasn’t “been hit, knock on wood, since I went
through a windshield”. He escaped with only glass in his pinky. “The first
thing that I did, the first thing that all messengers do whenever they get
hit, if they’re not unconscious, is they go check their bike out.” His was
ruined.
With a mangled bike, a messenger will be out of work for about two weeks,
and if the accident is the motorist’s fault, the likelihood that the driver
won’t have insurance is all too promising. “It’s dangerous,” said Juliet.
“And you’re working your ass off to get paid because it’s all commission”
– no workers comp either.
Four years ago, messengers were getting 40-50 jobs a day, and now they’re
lucky to get 20-30. The economy’s decline is a pertinent factor, but as an
under-appreciated business – from the passersby’s unacquainted stare to the
raucous contempt of the pestering guard, the irate motorist to the unconcerned
client’s tiny elevator – the industry as a whole is fading.
In the late nineties, the top courier companies like Time Cycle only hired
intermediate and professional bikers, usually those who raced, and delivered
packages as far as Lancaster. Messengers would wait years compiling experience
before a leading company would put them on a waiting list. Today, companies
like Time Cycle hire rookies, while lesser companies over-hire to ensure that
there are enough couriers to deliver all the packages promptly. There are
rarely any deliveries outside of Center City.
Since all couriers are independent contractors, a mainstay freedom that
allows them to be their “own bosses,” they are fraught with a yearly fee.
With a declining income, the contractor’s fee, and the cost of health insurance
– a fiscal encumbrance, covered by almost all the manual labor professions,
that their umbrella companies won’t take responsibility for because of the
independent contractor title – messengers put forth more effort than they
are compensated for. And they rarely receive their weight in respect. It’s
like a rain that hits in the early morning and resides in their fabric throughout
the workday, where “you know you’re going to be wet all day.”
But even if they don’t get hit today and are able to make all their bulky
payments, every messenger will attest, “It’s hard work.” Al, a messenger for
one-and-a-half years, speaks with a solemn confidence, shrouded in black sweats
and sporting an empty black bag. “You go home and you hurt. Your legs, your
knees, your back; but it’s worth it because you feel like your doing something.”
And as with many other laborious professions, the feeling of reaching the
end of the day makes up for the hard day itself, harvesting an impervious
camaraderie that extends beyond the workday.
When the vigor of adrenaline fades around 5, 5:30 in the evening, most messengers
meet up at the station. They either sit against the wall with 40 oz bottles,
or regroup before going to nearby bars. “It’s kinda stupid,” said Juliet,
gesturing at the station. “This is the subculture – it’s like a bunch of kids
hangin’ out, but it’s really fun, and that’s why people do it.”
It’s not just the physical exertion and liquor that goads the couriers,
but also the prodding thrill of the race. A few years ago, Pap’s Blue Ribbon
sponsored a drunken courier race through Philadelphian streets. The track
comprised of six beer-chugging spots en route to the finish line. Major races
are held each year (without the booze), usually alternating between Europe
and North America – others occur in parts of Asia. In 2000, Philadelphia hosted;
last year it was Seattle. These races bring messengers together from around
the world, where couriers of all nations compete or watch in solidarity. But
not all messengers are devoted to the organized race.
Both Drew and John regard couriering as just a job, and they both plan to
work only a little while longer. Neither of them frequents the station and
they abstain from racing because they “do enough riding during the day.”
They both usually deliver legal papers or engineering blueprints, but the
occasional oddity comes up: two bottles of vodka, artificial heart valves,
bodily tissue, and body parts. “Some guy had to deliver breast implants on
the fly,” says Drew, whose most counted moment was delivering a turtle to
a boy at school.
“I’ve carried tubes, boxes…had to carry three boxes at a time.” With no
rack, “you just work it out,” said Al, commenting on a strange satisfaction
that arises with large and “unfeasible” loads.
“I just enjoy seeing the city move,” says John. “It sounds corny, but it’s
a beautiful way to live.” One of John’s more humorous “beautiful” incidents
occurred when he picked up advertising money for a weekly paper from a “massage”
parlor. He was met at the door with a masseuse fresh out of the shower, rapped
in a towel. She invited him inside and, while he waited, she proceeded to
towel off in front of him. “It made me nervous,” he said, while adjusting
his Reload courier bag.
Reload Baggage, a retailer of handmade courier bags in Old City, houses
a gallery of photographs and luggage amidst the smell of entrepreneurial
progress. Roland, the store’s proprietor who was a messenger for five years
before he burnt out, recounts his days flying through the streets fueled
with adrenaline. He has since moved past the mindset, attesting to the transience
of the industry. The average messenger works a year or two, “then they’re
gone.”
Downstairs from the showroom, scraps of colors litter the floor around the
sewing machines. In the back, tubes of color shine in yellow lights. A plywood
desk that holds piles of paper, CD’s, and a computer, is draped in images
and memorabilia of the bike culture. Although no longer a messenger, even
riding differently than he did, Roland still lives deep within the culture.
To a certain extent, he misses the life – feeling fit, coveting to carry
as many heavy and cumbersome things as possible, squeezing through car bumpers
– but still interacts with the couriers every day. Roland has since moved
inside, away from the biting winters when most warm stores forbid couriers
inside, or when it’s “an August day and its 105 degrees, 98 percent humidity,
and you look at your watch and it’s only 1 o‘clock.” His spirit is still out
there with the couriers, and he still rides his bike everywhere. And he has
brought inside his store while distributing in the streets, both the warm
and cold colors of the city.
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