By Todd Kliman
Washington Post Sunday Magazine, November 1, 1992
Nine o'clock on a muggy Washington morning. Along New York Avenue, headingsouthwest into the city, they're backed up for blocks. It's been stop-and-gofor the last five minutes, and the exhaust is hovering over traffic likea thick and dirty fog, making it feel even more oppressively hot than italready is. Horns are blaring every few seconds, it seems, and togetherwith the sounds of a jackhammer from the construction site a couple blocksdown, the noise is positively headache inducing.
For the commuters sitting behind their wheels sweating, this is theworst kind of rush-hour nightmare. For Alec Armbrister, it's street theater.It's made-to-order excitement. The exhaust isn't dirty and disgusting,it's atmospheric, a mood enhancer, like that smoke that comes up from underthe stage in all his favorite head-banging music videos. And the hornsand the jackhammers? They're the soundtrack to his morning adventure; ifyou watch him in action there's really no other word for it, although thelast thing a road-weary commuter sitting behind his wheel and sweatingis going to appreciate, the last thing he wants to see, is some bike messengeron a banana-colored Nishiki Manitoba weaving playfully in and out of thechain of cars, as if to mock every last one of them because he can moveand they can't.
Look at him -- he's smiling! It's one of those broad, ever-ready smilesthat, coupled with his close-cropped, surfer-blond hair and untroubledblue eyes, leads you at first to assume he's a purebred Californian, thoughit probably has more to do with the fact he's never held anything remotelyapproaching a desk job in his life. He's actually smiling in the midstof this rush-hour madness! And the commuters, and the cabdrivers, who don'tmuch like couriers to begin with, who are sitting by idly and sweating,they're all glaring at him, and it's not hard to know what they're thinking:another one. Another one of them. No regard for the rules of the road.No respect. Just like the others, descending on traffic at the worst timesof the day like a swarm of insects. If only they stood still long enoughto be swatted . . .
But Armbrister just keeps smiling. And why not? To a boy dispatchedby his mother on an errand, after all, it's the mischief along the waythat counts -- how much he can get himself into, and out of -- far morethan the thing itself for which he was sent.
The thing itself, in this case, happens to be a key document from thelaw firm of Silverstein and Mullens at 1776 K St. NW, and the dispatcherhappens to be R&S Couriers of Bethesda, the company that employs Armbristeras one of its 15 independent contractors. And the errand just happens tobe one of those very important transactions that occur every day in themost important city in the most important country in the world. But doesthat mean it's got to be carried out with the sobriety of a secret mission?Not to Armbrister's way of thinking, it doesn't. If it did, then he'd haveprobably given this up long ago. Couriering -- or "currying,"as he calls it, typically slurring his words, as if his mind, and not justhis arms and legs, were trained to think ahead to the next destination-- is all he's ever done. It's all he's ever wanted to do, really. He's28 years old. Not that he particularly likes making deliveries.
Actually, making deliveries is the least of it. Every morning he getsto throw on a ratty pair of Reeboks, a torn pair of gray shorts, a rippedblue "Jodie Foster's Army" T-shirt, and get out on his bike,free of supervision, free of any demands or expectations except his own,and spend the day, in his words, "playing in traffic."
ALONG NEW YORK AVENUE, THE CONGESTION is easing now. Cars are movingmore freely. And with just the tiniest of openings, Armbrister makes aquick move and shoots in front of the pack. He's zipping through trafficlights and stop signs, riding happily, without incident, when out of thecorner of his eye he sees a Metrobus barreling down 14th Street, approachingthe intersection at New York where he is about to make a left turn.
All of a sudden his shoulders hunch for- ward and his eyes narrow, likea linebacker smoking out a sack. But he doesn't flinch. Or blink.
In fact, he speeds up.
He speeds up, lifting off the Manitoba Nishiki for more leverage, hislegs doing double time on the pedals. He wants this -- excitement, confrontation,it's what he lives for. He doesn't even think twice about what might verywell happen. Why should he? It's just a Metrobus, after all. And, to Armbrister,as a courier, what you can see can't hurt you. It's what you can't seethat you have to worry about -- an unexpected swing of a car door, forexample. Like the time two years ago, hurtling down K Street in rush-hourtraffic, he got upended by a car door and went flying 20 feet in the air.
But this is different, a chance to have some fun. All those hours ofmaking runs across town, picking up documents for lobbyists, deliveringdocuments to other lobbyists, riding elevators all over the city, enduringsummer's heat and humidity -- a moment like this is worth all of that puttogether. There's no one to watch over him -- no boss, no supervisor tellinghim what to do, what not to do. He can do whatever he wants. Who can stophim? Right now, it's not a job, even. It's adventure. Freedom. Possibility.Just him, and his bike, and the city as his playground.
Huck Finn on wheels.
He makes a wedge of his body, and then makes his move. He's immersedin his performance. The muscles in his neck and arms and calves are straining.The sweat is running down his body. He slices between a taxi and a Hondaand emerges from the pack of traffic, face to face, mano a mano, with theMetrobus itself.
You are slow and sluggish and big and ungraceful, he seems to say. Iam quick and lyrical and free. He draws within 15 feet of the bus and raiseshis arm high for all to see, a gesture meant to freeze the bus in the middleof traffic. It works. He goes flying across the intersection, swervingonto 14th Street, grinning like any kid who's just gotten away with something.
He locks up the bike against a parking sign, takes the document outof his backpack, pushes through the double glass doors.
The delivery itself seems almost anticlimactic.
PLAYING CHICKEN WITH A BUS, RISKING LIFE AND limb, creating a potentialaccident at a major intersection -- all in the name of delivering a parcel?Is he crazy?
Well, yes and no. Aren't they all crazy? Couriers? Collectively, thereputation isn't exactly the sort you'd call solid or upstanding: Theyblatantly disregard stop signs, stoplights and general laws of traffic;they run over squirrels to make a delivery; barrel down sidewalks at topspeeds and strike fear in the hearts of unsuspecting pedestrians (who frequentlyfind themselves doubling as human pylons); and by and large treat the cityas if it were a giant obstacle course for their crazed pursuits. And that'sjust on the streets. Inside the corridors of the city's offices, they'renotorious for their deskside manner, which, depending on whom you ask,is rude or arrogant, or often both. That's the stereotype, anyway. As withmost stereotypes, there's more than a kernel of truth to it.
You'd like Armbrister, though. At least off his bike you'd like him.He's so easygoing and sweet-natured, it'd be hard not to. Remember theguy in high school everyone got along with? The one the girls all wantedto date, and the guys all wanted to be like? That's Armbrister. Somehow,he makes you want to like him. Hey, how ya doin'? All right, man! In conversation,over pizza and spring water at Vesuvios at Dupont Circle, he comes acrossas conscientious, sensitive -- gracious, even. He takes great pains toprove he's not one of those couriers. He'll tell you how important it isthat all parcels are handled promptly and professionally, that a clientis fully satisfied and that a good, courteous impression is made -- allthat. He'll tell you how much it bothers him that couriers are held insuch low regard throughout the city -- that it's a shame the majority ofhard workers should be undercut by a handful of irresponsible screw-ups.He'll tell you how proud he is that, in a business where many messengerslast only a year or two, and the ones who do last often hop from companyto company, he's been with R&S from the very start, seven years now.He'll tell you how much it means to him that, among the roughly 400 peoplein the city who do what he does, he's established himself as one of thebest, typically taking home between $400 and $700 a week for handling about30 deliveries a day, paid according to the distance and time required.
He'll tell you all about the arduous preparation he puts into this.Rising early each morning for his ritual start-up: a little bit of stretching,followed by a workout of sit-ups and push-ups to get his body loose forthe day ahead -- performed to the strains of "Jumpin' Jack Flash,"which, he'll be sure to mention, he politely keeps to a decibel level thatis merely thundering, in deference to his next-door neighbor, the Rev.Price. Exercise is immediately followed by two cups of coffee. Then intothe purposely ragged gloves he wears on his hands -- the fingers cut offto give him better friction on his handlebars -- and into the spiked dogcollar, which Armbrister says puts him in the mood for work. Finally, toget his mind going, to get himself psyched as he bolts from the top floorof his Mount Pleasant group house, a little bit of humming -- the jinglefrom the Gatorade commercial, "If I Could Be Like Mike," invokinghis idol, Michael Jordan.
"I like to think of myself," he'll tell you, "as theMichael Jordan of couriers."
IT'S ALL VERY WINNING, THIS EARNESTNESS OF HIS -- maybe a little toowinning.
Think of a schoolboy with a troublemaker's reputation being called intoconference, trying his darnedest to convince his teacher and parents ofhis study habits, when everyone knows as soon as he leaves their sighthe'll be getting into something.
Think of Eddie Haskell in front of Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver.
Take away Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver, of course, and what you have is thereal Eddie Haskell -- Eddie unleashed, grinning, mischief-making, devil-may-care.
Armbrister takes a final swig of spring water and lunch is over. He'shalfway out the door when a crackle comes over his two-way radio:
"R&S base to Unit 100!"
It's as if lightning has just struck nearby. Armbrister begins bouncingnervously on the balls of his feet. His eyes contract into these intentlittle slits, and a kind of fierceness seems to come over him, as if hewere subconsciously preparing himself for battle.
"Hundredman, go!" he shouts.
It comes out: Hunterman.
It's a conscious slurring. Simply by eliding a couple of letters, he'sturned a simple "handle" into, not just a nickname, but somethinggreater still. He's made himself over into every school kid's fantasy --a comic book hero.
Hunterman! Stalking through the city! Tracking down packages! Makingrush deliveries in half an hour!
"Hunterman off!" he says to himself, as he boards his bikeand pushes into the street.
When he was little, he dreamed of being an astronaut, and whenever peoplewould ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up -- which they inevitablydid, given the sort of circles in which his writer-father Trevor Armbristertraveled -- that's what he'd tell them, and they would smile at him indulgently.
Now, whenever he's with his father's friends -- or any other so-called"real" adults, as he calls them -- and he happens to bring upwhat he does, he just gets these looks. Oh. Well.
He's almost 30, after all. It's not so cute anymore, playing at life.
"All these expectations people have," he says. "All thesenotions."
Everything has changed, he says. Everything is different. He hasn'tchanged, that's for sure. He's not different. He's still the same old AlecArmbrister. And all that he ever imagined being an astronaut was like,being a courier is really the same sort of thing, isn't it? Not the partabout years and years of study and preparation needed just to be able tobe sent into orbit. He never really thought about that part. But the partabout floating around in space all day, blasting off to faraway galaxies,the boyish fantasy part -- that part he thought about and that part hefinds on his bike.
"I just can't describe the feeling I get from it, the high,"he says. "It's a high, it is, it's like: You get on that bike, andyou start going, and there's nobody else, nobody else but you and yourbike, and you got the whole city in front of you, and anything can happen,that's the really great thing about it. Anything can happen."
He wishes his father would understand, because he really thinks allthe cool, crazy stuff he does -- the way he thinks up all those maneuversto break through rush-hour gridlock -- he somehow owes to him, to his father'screativity. Really. He wishes his father would see that.
It's not easy between them, to say the least -- although they have madeprogress over the years, enough that Trevor Armbrister can now say of hisson, "Whatever makes him happy," even if he does throw in: "Itwouldn't make me happy."
In the past, "whenever people would ask me what my son did, I'dalways say, 'He's a messenger -- and he's a musician.' I don't do thatanymore," says Trevor, 58, a senior editor at Reader's Digest andthe author of several books, among them President Ford's memoirs, A Timeto Heal, and A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair.Now, he says, he's come to a kind of acceptance of his son's way of earninga living. "He's not going to set the fields on fire in medicine orlaw or journalism. He hears his own message."
He's eager to add, "I'm extraordinarily proud of him."
Nevertheless, the philosophical battle between the two of them rages,quietly.
It's just that, well, Trevor Armbrister would like Alec to find something-- he won't push -- a little more stable, steady, with a benefits packageperhaps, and some insurance for the future. He can't ride around on a bikeforever.
Responsibility. It comes up in their talks all the time. Growing up,settling down.
Trevor: The fax is spreading throughout this industry like a cancer,putting couriers out of business. And look, one wild turn by a cabdrivercould spell the end of everything -- not just your job, but your life .. .
Alec: Yeah, Dad, you've got some good points, I'll think about it.
Trevor: The handwriting's clear on the wall.
Alec: Dad.
Just the other night, Trevor tried to pass along a phone number, a contactfor a "steady job."
Alec, as usual, politely but firmly declined. "Gee, thanks, Dad.No."
Lately they talk a lot about school.
"You really should think about going back," Trevor told Alec.School could help to lay a foundation for the future, a steppingstone towardsomething substantial.
School? Alec thinks. Him? All that structure, all those rules? One ofthe happiest days of his life was graduating from Bethesda-Chevy Chaseand leaving immediately for California, because California seemed to himto be nothing so much as complete freedom.
It was on "a whim pretty much" that he hitchhiked around SantaCruz and San Luis Obispo, and finally turned up, broke and free, in SanFrancisco. He couldn't get a job, so he bought a secondhand set of congasand started playing for money at Fisherman's Wharf. Sometimes he made enoughmoney that after a couple of days, he could get a motel room. Usually hejust slept in any back yard he could find. He did this for about six months.In Berkeley, he met a guy named Mack who, he says, taught him "moreabout life" than 12 years of school ever did. Through sheer forceof personality, or maybe it was just guile, Mack every month inveigleda sizable disability check, though he was fully capable of working, andthe two of them roomed together for several months -- "smoked a lotof weed, hung out: lived life," as Armbrister says.
When he returned home, he knew it was time to face the real world, buthe also knew he didn't want to be tied down all day, to be subjected tostructure. And so, when along came the chance to be a courier -- ScottForeman, the owner of R&S, had been a friend of his family's, his motherhad dropped a few hints, a few strings were pulled -- Armbrister jumped.He realized almost instantly, he says, that he'd found his calling.
THREE O'CLOCK, DUPONT CIRCLE Park -- "the Loop," as the courierscall it. It's their unofficial home base, a place to confer and shoot thebreeze, and as Armbrister pedals in, the sweat pouring off him, two orthree dozen bikers are already gathered in their usual state of blissed-outdefiance. Resting, taking a break, some drinking beers from paper bags,some smoking cigarettes. Bikes are everywhere, strewn around the grassand sidewalk like a child's toys around the living room at playtime.
"Hey, Al."
"Hey, man, how you doin'?"
"I'm cool, I'm cool, how you doin'?"
"Doin' all right. Twenty-one deliveries, man. I'm hittin'."
In this playground atmosphere, all braggadocio and extended teasing,Armbrister is clearly in his element playing the popular, preening athleteon the courts at recess. Everyone likes him, and he likes everyone. It'sadolescence all over again.
"That's Scrooge over there," says Armbrister, as if this werethe first day of the school year. "Hey, Scrooge, man. How you doin'?All right!"
More couriers come streaming in. Armbrister seems to know them all.
"There's Bill," he says, pointing. "Hey, Bill, what'sup? How you doin'?"
It's a tightknit, insular world, the world of the Loop. Outsiders arelooked at suspiciously. Buttons and bumper-sticker philosophies abound,often with obscene references to authority figures. A few years ago, theinfamous "Meese Is a Pig" T-shirts -- the product of one courier'sfancy -- were all over the place. The conversations are rife with sneeringtalk of "suits" (professionals in pin stripes) and "rookies"(young college kids who come in for the summer and try their hand at couriering).At times, the alienation is so thick you could cut it with a bicycle chain.
At other times, sometimes at the very same time, the Loop is one bigparty. Anything goes. Just look around. Just look at the hair. There aretangled masses of hair, purple hair, pink hair, braided hair, dreadlockedhair, or else no hair at all. Or look at the clothes. Ripped clothes, foundclothes, borrowed clothes, infrequently washed clothes, clothes that makea political statement. Anything goes. Because the whole idea of the Loopis: everyone expressing himself, herself. Everyone just being. One courierhas called it "Woodstock II." Another courier, trying to puthis finger on it, has gone so far as to call the whole scene here a comingtogether of "all the sons and daughters who never went to college."Which is not exactly true, this last remark. A fair number of couriershave gone to college -- in fact, a friend of Alec's, a courier, is a graduateof MIT -- though a fair number of them have also dropped out. The pointis, no one talks much about matters of status.
It's all very egalitarian here. Everyone supports everyone else, whateverthe situation. A bit like a family, but without that sense of obligationand responsibility that families traditionally try to impose on their members.No one here tries to burden anyone else with pressures or expectations.Or with incessant talk of the future. Nothing like that.
"It's home," Armbrister says. "You can be yourself here,whatever you want."
If things are going badly, Armbrister says, he knows he can always comeinto the Loop. All he could ever want or need, he can find right here,right now. A beer, a smoke. A couple of dollars on loan from another bikerwhen money's short. Someone to complain with. What more could anyone askfor? What more could anyone want from life?
"Everyone looks out for each other here," he says. "Wetake care of each other."
He looks across the park and spots his good friend, Mike Latterell ofFalcon Express, pulling his little no-frills blue bike into the Loop.
"Mike, man," he calls out, "how you doin'?"
He waves for Latterell to come over.
"Talk about crazy," he says, laughing, "this guy's crazy."
By all rights, Latterell shouldn't even be on his feet right now, muchless zipping around town on a bike. A week and a half ago, he was flyingdown Massachusetts Avenue, doing about 30, when a cab came to a dead stopto collect a fare. The next thing Latterell knew, he was sailing headfirstthrough the back window.
He spent a day in the hospital, then asked to be released. He told themhe was fine.
The truth is, he's got no insurance. Like many couriers, he's an independentcontractor, so he's got to pay his own bills. Which means he's got to keepon riding, despite the pains.
For Armbrister's benefit, or maybe just for effect, he pulls up hissecondhand Notre Dame T-shirt to reveal the extent of his injuries.
"Damn, man, look at you," says Armbrister, incredulous. Heleans forward for a better look.
Latterell's entire right side is bruised and scarred and looks likea multicolored Rorschach test. Along with his skull-and-crossbones tattoothere are now deep, red gashes all over his arms too. And his neck. Andhis cheeks. He's 22, but you wouldn't know it -- he looks much, much older.
"Hey, Al."
Armbrister hears the voice and turns around. "Hey, Cali, man, what'sup? How you doin', man?"
He's spoken without thinking, because behind him here comes Cali limpingbadly along the row of benches in the park -- the result of a run-in witha motorist a couple of weeks ago. Like Latterell, he's got no insurance.And like Latterell, he's still riding.
Armbrister just looks at him. Then back at Latterell. He doesn't sayanything.
This little parade of the walking wounded has suddenly stilled him --which, given his usual glibness, is all the more remarkable. It's as if,watching them as they hobble around gritting their teeth, he were projectinghimself into their place, the way middle-aged people do when they visitretirement homes.
He knows he could be one of them. He knows he could get out there onhis bike right now, and in a matter of minutes be upended by some car door,just like them. And that would be that.
He knows it, he sees it.
But when the two-way crackles again a moment later with news of anotherdelivery, a drop at Video Monitoring Service on 14th Street, not even oneof those long runs that's going to bring in a lot of money, Armbristerhops on his bike and, in a flash, he's out of the Loop and into the street,as if he can't leave fast enough.
FIVE O'CLOCK, DEEP IN THE HEART OF the K Street corridor. "Crazyhour," Armbrister calls it. The law firms are finishing up last-minutebusiness for the day, and the two-way radio is sending him somewhere everyfew minutes, it seems. His manifest is rapidly filling up. He's headedfor a 30-plus-delivery day, which is about as good as you can expect.
"Just the way I like it," Armbrister says. "The adrenaline'spumping, and you're flying all over the city, going here, going there,and you're just so into it, and after a while you just hit this zone, youknow? And when you're in that zone, you can do anything. It's almost likeyou're invincible. Nothing can touch you. It's incredible.
"And that's what you want, that's what you live for: You want tobe constantly busy and running around so that you can get into your zone.You don't like to have too much time to be thinking."
It's that way for him off the bike too.
"Life is simple," he says. "People keep trying to makeit all complicated."
As he says, couriering isn't just a job, it's a freewheeling way oflife. Thinking too much only interferes with things.
His father worries, other people worry. "The handwriting's clearon the wall." He knows it, he sees it. How could you not see it? Butwhy worry constantly about it?
So the fax is putting a hurt on the courier industry -- business isdown, by nearly all estimates, by approximately 20 percent, and expectedto fall even further over the next couple of years, especially now thatgovernment is rapidly becoming more automated. So the forecast is bleak-- as Joe Ganum of Choice, the city's largest courier company, says, wemay well see a bicycle messenger-less city -- or at the least a city inwhich bicycle messengers exist in only a token capacity, reduced to perhapsa tenth of their current strength. So it's already happened in Manhattan,where there are virtually no more bicycle messengers, just a lot of walkerswho skillfully negotiate an efficient and extensive subway system.
So?
So he's not getting any younger either. He comes home at night now,he's got to soak his body for a good 30 minutes before he can feel looseand easy again, he's that sore. He's been in this business a long time.So, after all that, there's nothing really to fall back on, should a cardoor catch him the wrong way -- no insurance, no college education, andnothing squirreled away for the future.
So? he seems to say, gliding down Connecticut Avenue now, with his handsbehind his head and his legs doing all the work, savoring the moment ofhis last delivery of the day -- his 32nd, a drop at HQ International Square.
Why worry? he seems to say.
All he needs is the present, the great uncomplicated, untroubled RightNow.
Let everyone else pay the insurance premiums and mortgages and loans.Let everyone else punch 9-to-5 and push papers and plan for their lives.
In a little while he'll be back in the Loop again, among friends, drinkinga beer, and everything will be all right.
His eyes are blue and bright and unconcerned. He's riding his bike andhe's loving life.
What could be better than this, right here, right now? he seems to say.
Suddenly his eyes narrow. Up ahead, to the left, a Metrobus is comingdown Rhode Island Avenue, ready to intersect Connecticut. Oh, sure, theday's work is done, at least as far as R&S is concerned -- there areno more parcels to pick up, no more parcels to drop off, but what's hegot to do that's better than this, right here, right now?
He speeds up, leans forward . . .
Todd Kliman is a freelance writer whose previous Magazine articlewas on punk rock in Washington.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at messvilleto@yahoo.com