By Jon Anderson,
Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1997
"Ever see that part in `The Wild One' where Brando is asked, `Whateryarebelling against, Johnny?' And he fires back, `Whatcha got?' " CaptainJack was asking at Bike Messenger Night, a weekly gathering in Bucktown.
"Some people see me like that," he said, over the roar ofa band at Phyllis' Musical Inn, at 1800 W. Division St., and it is "partlytrue.""
But "not fully," he quickly countered, steering a visitortoward a better understanding of these modern hummingbirds of the urbantraffic mix..
"A lot of people don't realize, or wouldn't expect, that two-thirdsof the messengers they see riding around are completely in control, ascrazy and dangerous as it looks," he said, a thought seconded by anotherbike messenger, a 14-year veteran known to colleagues as Super Dave.
"You gotta have eyes all around your head," Dave said. "You'reshooting through traffic, see a pedestrian, go to avoid him, miss a cardoor that just jumped out, or swerve around a car pulling out from thecurb..
"Some people say it's like surfing."
To outsiders, bike messengers often seem to combine the lesser qualitiesof anarchists, Hell's Angels and the troops of Attila the Hun..
In big cities, amid people whose nerves are already a-jangle, they dartamong pedestrians, cars, cabs, buses and, these days, Rollerbladers. Theymove in their own whirl of rush, where scrapes, bruises, broken limbs,even an occasional roll under a bus, are among the daily job hazards.
But to the sinewy men, and not a few women, who perform what they seeas an essential service--speedy delivery of small packages, mostly documents,from Point A to Point B--the art form combines skill, pluck and sport.
And, as they were saying at the musical inn the other night, at an eveningsponsored by the Windy City Bike Messengers Association, a support groupdedicated to "Courier Pride," they just love to ride bikes..
Few insurance brokers, for example, would consider spending a weekendcoming into an office to run through, for fun, a simulated underwriting.
But last Memorial Day, some 30 bike messengers, egged on by cheeringcrowds of relatives and friends, roared around deserted downtown streetsin a competition that involved dropping off envelopes and getting signaturesat sites ranging from a Loop doughnut shop to an adult bookstore inn OldTown..
The winner, known as Bobcat, hit all six checkpoints in 26 minutes.
"Anybody can do it, as long as you like to ride a bike," saidJohn Greenfield, co-leader of WCBMA, talking shop before going onstageto play in one of the evening's three bands, all featuring one or moremessengers..
Being a bike messenger, he said, is a "good day job," withflexible hours and per-piece pay from $2.50 a package to $8 or more forlong hauls. One friend of his, he noted, recently rode from theLoop toKenilworth.
Typically, they rush materials too precise for faxing, such as legaldocuments or advertising copy, a niche service largely unaffected by therecent strike of United Parcel Service employees who ride around in trucks..
On the down side, you can fall and hurt your strumming hand.
For bike messengers in Chicago--and there are 600, compared with 1,000in New York and 400 in San Francisco--bad spills are part of the game.
"I've been in three different wrecks. Hit by a BMW. Went througha guy's windshield. Hit a car door," said one messenger, noting thathe now wears shoulder pads.
"I was a good messenger," added Kristen Diehl, coming in toparty with buddies. But she quit after 18 months "because I got hittoo much." Her final straw came when "a cab driver looked mein the eye, stepped on the gas and ran me down, right in front of the DaleyCenter."
Well, allowed Captain Jack, "everybody has to get knocked downa couple of times--to learn." To survive, as he explained to a visitor,"you don't stick your arm out to brace yourself. You clear yourselffrom the bike, get your shoulder out, check what's around you--and roll."
His own worst experience, he said, came several years ago just westof the Loop. A turning bus, failing to signal, squeezed him. "I lostcontrol, rolled all the way under the bus and came out the other side,"he said..
He was unhurt. His bike was totaled.
What it takes to be a bike messenger, as others in the crowded bar noted,is a combination of riding fast, being efficient and knowing shortcuts.
For example, in a profession where seconds count, good messengers knowthat, at 2 North LaSallee St., if they duck through the Federal Expressoffice instead of using the main door, they can avoid guards who, as onesaid, "will force me to sign in, leave an ID--and my messenger bag."
He did that once, he recalled, and "from my bag, right under theguard's nose, my two-way radio got stolen," a loss to his companyof $750.
"I've slid on anti-freeze. Saw it. Couldn't avoid it," reportedone messenger, recalling common hazards. Others mentioned bridge gratingsand drain openings. But to most messengers, the call of the open street,even when fume-filled, traffic-clogged and weather-beaten, is a siren song.
"I love dancing around traffic in the Loop," said CaptainJack, waxing eloquent. "I relish strong rains and wind. It's violentlybeautiful. When I'm out there on the bike, I feel like a small dinghy ona tossing sea. I just love that feeling. I roar and I bellow out, `YEAH!!!'"
As he admits, he often startles pedestrians.
"They're pretty nice guys," said Clem Jaskot, manager of Phyllis',a family operation, once a hangout for writer Nelson Algren, which wasstarted in 1954 by his mother, Phyllis, an accordion player.
"This is a place for them to meet every week. Some play the drums.Some recite poetry. " said Jaskot, a former bike messenger himselfwho remembers his cycling times, 50 miles a day, for "the best shapeI was ever in."
Nor do bike messengers necessarily have to get up all that earrly.
"I like living around here," said one messenger, at the bar."I can roll out of bed at 8:15, zip down Milwaukee and be at workby 8:30."
A job that sweaty, he allowed, pretty much rules out a pre-work shower
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