Bike messengering in NYC...

I stepped out of Madison Square Garden Subway onto the busy streets of a Friday night in New York City. My eyes widened at the sight of the huge buildings surrounding me on every side, reaching to the sky. What seemed like thousands of people crowded the streets each walking to a different destination. Street lights and neon signs glowed everywhere and I suddenly felt overwhelmed at the sight of it all. I looked around, regaining my senses and realizing what a tourist I must have looked like. I had heard that New York City could be a rough place, and when I pictured someone getting mugged, this town always seemed like the perfect backdrop to the story.

I put on a more rough face and walked to the nearest pay phone. I flipped through my phonebook and punched in Tika's number. Three rings later I was greeted by her familiar voice. "Hey! Welcome to New York," she said happily. "Ya ready to work tonight?"

Forty-eight hours earlier, I found myself bored off my ass in Baltimore, and decided to give her a call. I had met Tika the summer before when the two of us had traveled together for a short time in the midwest. We had a blast in that short week we had together, and I had made it a point to keep in contact with her, hoping we could meet again someday. During the conversation she mentioned the bike messenger business she owned, and that she was going north to visit some family for christmas. "Hey..." she said slyly, "How soon could you get up here?"

"Well," I said, entertaining the idea. "I suppose I could hop a train out tomorrow and be there by the next day..." I didn't have to ask why. I knew what she was going to ask.

"Well, I really need someone to fill in for me while I'm gone. It's an easy job and the pay is good. Would you be interested in coming up to New York for a couple of weeks?"

"You want me to come up there and deliver packages for you?" I asked.

"Yeah," she replied, "but I can't give you a place to stay cause I still don't have a place yet. I'm still crashing with my girlfriend."

In a fraction of a second the decision was made. "Sure, I'll be there on Friday." Hanging up the phone, I realized how half baked my idea was. I was going to travel to the biggest city in the world in the middle of December, which made it one of the coldest places I could be during the winter, and I had no place to stay. I didn't know anyone there besides Tika, and I left Baltimore with only the hope that I'd be able to find somewhere in NYC to sleep and not freeze to death.

I jumped off the freight train in Philly after enduring a cold four hour ride from Baltimore. After picking up an old ten speed bike I had stashed away in a squat near the tracks, I rode to the 30th St train station and caught the passenger train to Manhattan Island. A few hours later I found myself in lower manhattan giving Tika the biggest hug my tired, cold body could muster, wondering if I had made the right decision coming up here.

Tika gave me a tour by bike of manhattan, helping me familiarize myself with the area I would be working. She was leaving that day, and before I knew it, she was gone, leaving me alone in the biggest city I had ever been in. It was the loneliest I had ever felt in my life. I rode my bike to the lower east side, to the only place I thought I might be able to stay, a red five story building on C and 10th ave.

The building was hard to find at first, because in reality all it was was a black door hidden in in the shadows of a short porch that stepped out onto the sidewalk. On the fire escape above was a small white sign that said, "This land is ours. See Squat. Not for sale." Seeing the sign made me more hopeful that there would be some punks here that would be willing to let me crash for a while, but when I approached the three people hanging around the door I was greeted only with scowls and angry questions. "How do you know about this place!?" and "Go sleep at the amphitheater with the other street kids," were the only responses as I tried to explain my situation. Their response was so laced with venom that I didn't know how to react. I was picking up my bike to leave when a tall slender woman popped out the door. After name-dropping a few people I knew in Philly, she agreed to let me stay in the apartment she was taking care of for a friend who was out of town. I was thankful for her kindness and slept on the couch in her apartment for the next few days.

C squat, unlike other squats I was used to was a cramped apartment complex with a main staircase climbing it's way through the center to the top of the building. It felt like such a sad place. No one hung out anywhere, as the only thing that resembled a common area was the huge half-pipe on the first floor that no one skated on anyways. Everyone stayed in their rooms, and even when I was introduced to people I was either ignored or bored to tears because my life didn't revolve around drinking malt liquor and snorting angle dust. It was a place where no one seemed to care about anyone but themselves, and politics were the last things on their mind. I slept huddled in my sleeping bag thinking about how these were the type of people that had ruined my squat in Philly. Some of the same people that now lived at 1503 in Philly had once lived at C squat as well, and I realized this was the wrong place to be if I wanted to meet anyone in New York besides scumbags. The next morning I woke up to a random resident screaming in my face demanding why I was here and telling me I was a "fucking narc". I grabbed my bike and bid a silent farewell to the squat nazis of C squat.

While I was exploring lower manhattan that day, I found myself wandering down a staircase near Rivington and Clinton that had caught my eye. It led its way under a large apartment building and through an underground walkway leading to a small hole in the wall just large enough for me to sleep in. What it's former purpose was, I couldn't tell, but I was sure it would keep me out of the wind so I slept there that night, and even though it was cramped, the space kept me warm enough to sleep, and no one bothered me.

The next morning I walked up the staircase and out on to the busy street. I was feeling a lot better about being in New York, and I took off on my bike to Tompkins square to catch some breakfast. Apparently Tompkins square used to be a big deal back in the day. Squatters, travelers and activists alike used to hang out there, but it was winter and the only people I saw there were homeless people pushing carts and the upper middle class walking their dogs. Occasionally various religious groups came to the square to feed the homeless, and that was really the only thing I went there for.

After lunch I wandered the city looking for a coffee shop I could sit in and write while I waited for my shift to come up. A place in the Brooklin area was the only place in New York state I could find that offered free refills, and I made it my home base every day before my six to eleven shift.

My belt vibrated and I glanced up from my notebook to look at the clock on the wall behind the coffee counter. Six o' five. I unclipped the pager from my belt as I got up, and walked to the pay phone outside. After a few seconds I had an address and was off on my first delivery. I was kinda nervous the first few deliveries, unsure what kind of characters I would be walking into the homes of. But everyone I met was extremely friendly at the least, and most invited me to stay and hang out for a bit. "I'd like to, but I have another delivery to make," I'd always say, and it was the truth. It was a friday night, and my pager was vibrating so often I wanted to throw it against a wall. I rode as fast and hard as I could that night, darting back and forth across the city, and the squeaky brakes of my bike announced my arrival at each destination. I was surprised it could handle this much abuse. It must have had over ten years of rust on it, only one of the brakes worked, and I was replacing the tubes in it at least once a week.

I collapsed into my hole in the wall back in manhattan around midnight, sore as hell, but almost two hundred dollars richer. Not too bad for a single nights work, I thought. I dozed quietly as the night club next door rocked into the night. I woke up the next morning and realized it was christmas. It was a lonely day when I realized I had no one to spend it with, and it was the first time I had went to see a movie by myself. I spent the rest of the day reading the comic book, "From Hell" and drank away my misery in the bars, because I knew there would be no work for me that night. For me, at least, it was a Bukowski christmas.

I woke, curled up in my hole, feeling much better about my situation and thinking about how a lonely christmas like that would be why many people would never wake up in this city today. Work made me happy, riding my bike all day, and meeting cool people all over the city made me feel like one of the most popular people in town.

I was making bank, so much in fact that I couldn't spend it fast enough. My profits began to double when I met one of my co-workers Chris, a lazy stoner if I ever met one, and he was giving me two or more days a week of his shift, mostly because he didn't feel like leaving the house. We did go out to the local dance clubs quite often, and we hung out a lot before and after work. Eventually I started crashing there, and I was thankful to finally have a warm house to sleep in.

I couldn't crash there every night though, so on one slow night during my shift I stopped by a large obviously abandoned building that looked a lot like c squat. Of course, most apartment buildings in New York look the same, and the boarded up windows were the only thing that distinguished it from all the others on that block. I chained up my bike to the fence in front to take a closer look.

I walked up to one of the boarded up windows when the front door of the place suddenly swung open, and an older man stepped out onto the porch and turned towards me. I could barely make out the silouette of the tattered army jacket and green army hat he wore and he looked like he could very well be one of those deranged army vets you always hear about. Hearing something flick open, my attention was drawn to his hand and I could see the light of the street lamp overhead glinting off a curved blade.

I thought I was going to shit my pants. "Uh-I-um-uh..."

"You're gonna get out of here now!" he said.

"I'm sorry man, I'm just looking for a place to sleep," I said, forcing myself to remain calm, and hoping the statement would make him realize I was just a harmless street kid.

"I don't give a fuck what you're doing, you're going to leave now!" he returned. I felt a cold chill run down my spine. There was something about this guy that felt dangerous, almost evil in fact, and I knew this guy wasn't fucking around.

"Okay man," I said, backing away from him, and slowly turned towards my bike. "I'm just gonna unlock my bike and---"

"You're not gonna do shit!" he yelled. Taking a step forward he continued, "You're gonna leave before I kill you!"

This statement gave me a start, but I repeated, "I'm just going to unlock my bike, and I'll be out of your hair, okay?" I sure as hell wasn't going to leave without my bike, and I continued to unlock the chain, moving slowly, ignoring him until it was free.

I got on my bike and slowly rode away looking back at him. "I don't ever want to see your face around here again, you hear me?" He yelled back.

I rode back to one of my favorite bars, and quickly ordered a stiff drink. I had calmly handled incidents like this before, but there was just something about the way this guy carried himself that gave me the willies! It felt like something dark and heavy was laid over my heart for the next few hours, something deeply disturbing about him that I just couldn't explain...

I had almost forgotten about him a few days later, wrapped up in the fury of pre-new year's eve deliveries. It had been nearly two weeks since I started, and I was feeling like a pro. Every delivery felt like another opportunity to challenge myself. I flew back and forth across the city, the adrenaline rush of speed and dangerous traffic pumping through my veins, trying to see how fast I could complete each delivery.

I knew this was probably the healthiest I had ever been in my life. I estimated that I was riding around fifteen miles a day, and my veracious appetite was supplemented with low carbohydrate, high vegetable content fine cuisine from all the medeterarian(sp?) restaurants in the area. I was losing weight fast, and overall, I felt like a million bucks.

After a long shift one night, I dragged my tired body into a small Taco Bell in lower manhattan. I sat at a table to myself with my bike next to me, eating a bean burrito when two cops walked in. I had seen them well before they came in, my eyes now trained well enough to see a cop coming a mile away. I watched them as they ordered their meals and sat down at the table next to mine. I was far from panic though. I had gotten over the paranoia of someone discovering the contents of my shoulder bag days ago. It was secured with luggage locks on the zippers to keep the curious out, and the cops hadn't even given me a glance.

Suddenly, there was an explosion. What sounded like a single gunshot ringed throughout the restaurant. Everyone present jumped in their seats, and questioning looks were exchanged between the two police officers. I was suddenly very nervous and I watched the restaurant employees look for the source of the sound. After several minutes, I looked down at my bike tire as one of the employees did the same. My tire was flat, and I realized that I was the source of the sound. My bike tire had exploded. I flushed red as the employee announced his findings, and everyone relaxed with a bit of a laugh. The two cops sat back down, turning their attention back to their food. I threw out the rest of my burrito, and quickly left with my bike in tow.

I walked down one of the avenues thinking about the incident. "What are the odds?" I thought to myself. I didn't even know it was possible for a bike tire to explode. Especially when I wasn't on the bike. The fact that there were two cops sitting right next to me when I'm carrying nearly---I stopped. My shoulder was bare, the weight I was used to was gone. I screamed.

An image flashed into my head of the blue shoulder bag sitting on the floor of that Taco Bell, containing 4,500 dollars worth of marijiana, less than two feet away from a pair of on-duty cops.

Tika had given me everything I needed to deliver all at once, because she had no other choice. Now it was sitting next to two cops in a Taco Bell that I was running back to so fast I probably could have qualified to compete in the olympics. You'd be surprised the kind of speed boost you'd get from a combination of sheer panic and adrenaline.

I finally made it the seven city blocks back to the Taco Bell, certain the cops would have the bag sitting in their possession, and I would be owing Tika 4,500 dollars. Looking through the window I breathed a sigh of relief when I discovered my bag was still lying on the floor where I had left it. I walked in, trying to remain calm, as the two cops turned to look at me. I put on the best smile I could, and they turned back to their food again as I bent over to pick up my shoulder bag. I slung it over my shoulder and left. Relief doesn't even begin to explain it. I was convinced the incident took a few years off my life.

Chris and I joined up with a few of his friends new year's eve night. We were in the biggest party town in the country on the biggest party day of the year and we were ready to hit the town. The drinks flowed freely, and I danced uninhibited in a way I had never been before. I was having the time of my life and we hopped from party to party all across new york. I drank free booze and danced the night way with more women than I could count. I stepped outside as the last party ended and squinted in the morning sun. I couldn't remember the last time I had partied till dawn. I wasn't even tired yet, and I felt more alive at that moment than I had in quite a while.

Tika got back to New York a few days later, and it was time for me to relinquish the best job I had ever had. Although I was disappointed that I couldn't keep this kind of life going, I thought about how it wasn't my own life, but really one I was borrowing from a friend for a while. I was thankful for the experience, and on the train back to Philly I counted all the cash left over after three weeks of booze, parties and drugs. I smiled. I still had 1200 bucks.