Road Kill, Issue #3, June 1995
Kicked In the Nuts
It happened in the garment district. I delivered an envelope to a-big client. The security guard on the ninth floor looks at it, then writes in his logbook, ignoring my delivery manifest sitting on his desk next to the envelope. I waited and watched to see if there was anything he needed from me (like my name or my messenger service). But no, he entered who the envelope came from and who it was addressed to, and, after what seemed like forever, signed my manifest.
Ordinarily I can deal with this kind of behavior, but I had other rushes in my bag, plus I had dealt with this guy before, and he'd always pulled the same stunt.
Since he made me wait around for no apparent reason, I felt I should say something. When I got to the elevator I turned back and said, "You had to take an I.Q. test to get this job?" The security guard jumps up from his desk (the guy is twice my size), sprints down the hallway, and gets right in my face to ask me, "What did you say?' (The guy now looks like he's three times my size) "You had to take an IQ. test to get this job? I repeat.
The muscle head shoves me. I shove back. He punches me. I punch him back. And then we fall to the floor, rolling around like we're with the World Wrestling Federation. All the office workers come out from their cubicles to gawk at us, but no one breaks up the fight (they probably think I'm some psycho).
The brawl finally ends when the security guard kicks me in the nuts. Stunned and in a great deal of pain, I was then thrown out by the guard (who ripped my gortex jacket) and banned from ever returning.
To add insult to injury, my company blamed me for starting the fight, and I ended up losing out on runs because I was branded a ‘hot head. But victory is mine. I stole the client when I moved to another company. Hot Head
Working for a Quarter
I cross Park and head down the hill on 40th, bunnyhopping from the street to the sidewalk to the street, just playing around. I bunnyhop past a guy in a suit. As I'm about to lock up at Lexington, the guy comes up to me and says, You better work hard for that quarter. What did you say? You better work hard for that quarter.
Listen man, I'm having a good day, don't give me any shit. But he gets all loud trying to embarrass me. I get pissed. And when you're a messenger, you get really pissed. He’s about twenty feet away from me, repeating, "You better work hard for that quarter.
So I get on my bike and pop a wheelie, knocking him in the chest with my front tire. I yell at him while he’s lying on the ground, Now sue me for a quarter. The guy is screaming for the cops, so I book around the corner and drop off my package later. The moral of the story: If you're gonna talk shit, be prepared to take the consequences.
- Mad Max
Working Man's Redemption
You've got me blocked son; from day to day outcome and income. Cause in I come... Roaring through plastic wastelands void of all but wasted heads. Provocateur of ill content (my pen bleeds) I am not. The creator of discontent among the so-called melting pot is you. The one fronting on the run, but barely a crawl at all. Cold sleeping while on your feet square in my street. So this do-or-die, from Bed Stuy bike riding guy is gonna put your ass to sleep. "Boo!" Lights out.
- Radix, Vitesse Couriers
To Protect and To Serve
Of all the lousy drivers on the road, cops might just be the most dangerous. Cop cars crash almost ten times more often than civilian cars in NYC, according to police statistics. On-duty NYPD cars had 3,343 accidents in 1993 nine a day. One out of every 57 vehicles in a NYC motor vehicle accident was a cop car. Police cars account for only one out of every 542 miles driven in the city. Per mile driven, police cars crash 9 1/2 times as often as other motor vehicles.
Is it too much sugar in t he jelly donuts? Is police work that dangerous? Or is it because cops have such bad hangovers from those wild out of town parties?
If a police car almost runs you down, however, it isn't wise to complain. You could end up dead. In May 1991, Haitian-born Grady Aiexis was strolling in Greenwich Village when two jeeps veered around a corner, missing him by inches. When Grady talked back to the drivers, one of them, an off-duty cop and a trained boxer, slugged him. Grady struck his head on the pavement and died in the street as both drivers drove off. The cop, facing public outrage, resigned from the force but was never charged.
After several police officers crashed and died on duty last fall, chief Bratton ordered all officers to wear seat belts and get driver training. Bratton dangled these incentives: every cop who goes 3 years with no crashes gets a discount on his car insurance; precincts with the fewest accidents get new Radio Motor Patrol cars.
Spring fever
Tearing through the streets like flailing birds of prey on the hunt, hounding for tiny packaged morsels of corporate paperwork and secretarial signed, cum stained copies of projects, projects, projects, teaming down lanes swamped with tiny-minded mites with poor motor skills, literally WAKING UP their sorry Pabst-soaked, tobacco-stained, inbred existences to the cosmic wheel- shod genius that is the BIKE MESSENGER.
Sunny day and I've got to GO, got to fly through the downtown airstrip like a demon, light speed destiny on a hot day, papers and packages getting tossed in silly secretary's manicured hands, elevator confrontations with overweight flirtatious office queens and stupid self-important yuppie scum-shits with big power ties and small dicks.
But it's a living. It's actually kind of nice, when it's not pouring down sweaty streams of cold, cold rain and tiny hail explosions. Today is grand, though, so wonderfully warm and sweet breeze-blowing good that I'm tickled by it. Beautiful pieces of flesh float by. Life-giving rockets in a sheath loving every caressing breeze and sideway glance on a fertile spring afternoon. Baby's got it goin' on, born-anew like the butterfly, magnificent buried treasures dug-up and displayed for all the universe to behold, like Sun-stroked gold glittering in the sand or in a lusty pirate's eye. Thank God for spring!
- from The Bike Messenger Manifesto
Special Thanks to Anne Gant and Charlie Kormanoff
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