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Chicago's bike messengers slow down and
catch up
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At Cal's, a
50-year-old bar in the financial district, Chicago's bike messengers
slow down and catch up
by Darryl Swint
Medill Reports Chicago, November 06, 2007
The well-worn road and track bikes locked to, leaned against and
stacked near the sturdy, U-shaped bike racks at Van Buren and Wells
streets are as weathered and colorful as the language their owners use
inside Cal’s Bar and Cal's Liquors.
From about 3 p.m. every Friday, Chicago’s bike messengers roll in from
all parts of the city to Cal's. Their adopted, week-ending hangout,
Cal’s is a place to relax, exchange stories and most of all, make sure
everyone is safe. After 50 years in business, Cal's Bar and liquor
store has embraced its counterculture clientele for more than a decade.
On a recent Friday inside the smoky, dimly-lit bar lined with old
photos, neon Pabst Blue Ribbon signs and large Coltrane and Dylan
posters, 40 to 50 messengers of different races greet each other with
soul handshakes, hugs, shout-outs and rounds of $2 PBRs.
They catch up and swap stories and laughter over beer and cigarettes.
If someone is away or out of town, another messenger usually knows.
This weekly convergence means more these days.
In August, the group lost one of its own. While riding the wrong way
down a one-way street, Ryan Boudreau, 27, was struck and killed by a
truck. He was running a personal errand before returning to work.
“If this job takes one of our lives, then we all come together,” said
Anthony Fleming, 29, who works as a messenger when he isn't acting on
stage or screen. The Albany Park resident portrayed the character
“Trumpets” in Fox's “Prison Break” series and has worked in theatre in
Chicago for 10 years.
“We all ride together," he said, "to the wake, to the funeral … We all
raise money for that person if they’ve got a family or kids. We set up
a fund for that person. That’s family. For some of these guys out here,
it’s the only family they’ve got.”
If the messengers are a family, Gina Depcik, owner of a Reggie's pizza
truck usually stationed in Chicago's financial district, is their mom.
Sitting on a corner stool at Cal’s, having a drink with her husband
Rick, Depcik, 55, says messengers look out for her as much as she looks
out for them. They often stop by her truck for slices, to talk or to
leave messages for each other.
“People discriminate against them and look at them as not good,” Depcik
said. “So that’s why I’m always on their side. They’re a bunch of good
kids. They would do anything for anyone and they work very hard, but
people don’t look at it that way."
Fred Feirstein and his brother Cal, the bar's namesake, co-own the
bar and celebrated its 50th anniversary on Nov. 1.
“You try and attract a niche client,'' said Feirstein, "but it doesn’t
always work.” Now in his 70s, he is proud of his diverse clientele. The
bar still closes early on weekdays, around 7 p.m., but a few
years ago, Fred’s forty-something son Mike began booking live music on
the weekends. Bands play on a tiny stage with no sound system, and
Cal’s has became a haven for the punk scene.
“You have to please the public or you won’t be successful,” Feirstein
said. His regulars — a mix of incomes and careers including messengers,
futures traders and other Loop workers--coexist pretty well.
“They don’t tell what they do sometimes because it is a stigma,”
Feirstein said.
Feirstein enjoys the bar’s long run and appreciates the perspective it
has given him. “You can’t see things when your nose is pressed against
the glass,” he said. “But its only when you step back that you see the
changes.”
After helping another customer, Feirstein offered words of wisdom that
would make his punk patrons proud.
“You can’t eat the money and you can’t make love to the money. But you
can use it as toilet paper,” he said, laughing.
Mitch “Mad Max” Goldstein and Gerald “G” Edwards unwind over beers at
the bar. Max, 46, began working as a messenger in 1998. “G, ” now 36,
had his first assignment in 1990 and was enticed into the job by his
first commission paycheck, $300. Both have been coming to Cal’s for
about four years.
A former messenger started bartending at Cal’s year’s ago, said Max.
Once the word got out, Cal’s became an after-work hangout. for
increasing numbers of messengers.
“Friday you get off and everybody groups up and then they say we’re all
going to Cal’s,” said "G." “At first, we were the only ones there, but
as people saw us out there, more people started to come.”
Jeff Perkins, 24, and a messenger for two-and-a-half years, said he
learned of Cal’s from another messenger.In the warm summer months, the
group gathered outside.
“It was just like a nice weather joint,” the Fort Dodge, Iowa native
said. “You go there on Fridays after everyone gets their paycheck and
just spend until we all get kicked out.”
Perkins, a Chicagoan for almost seven years, said the bar's business
hours are flexible.
"They close when they feel like closing,” he said. "Sometimes they
close at seven, but when they have shows, they close around midnight.”
Aside from catching up and toasting another week of safe and sound
deliveries, Fleming said the feeling of acceptance from Cal’s owners
and staff won the messengers' loyalty.
“There aren’t a lot of places where messengers can gather without
raising a lot of flags and a lot of eyebrows,” he said. The tight-knit
group knows it may not be welcome everywhere, but Cal’s Bar is a place
of comfort.
“You know we can come in here funky, dirty, tired, cursing and it’s
okay," said Fleming. "This is a good place for us to congregate and
make sure everyone is all right and just hang with each other and
pow-wow a little bit.”
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