Kevin Keefe
Washington DC, d.8.January.2024
Kevin Keefe was a much loved veteran Washington DC bike messenger.
He "was a Vietnam War veteran who was studying physics while working
on satellite projects for NASA. But he did a little tuning out when
he hopped on a bike — and the adrenaline rush was irresistible."
Kevin worked on the streets for over 25 years and was an important
fixture in the DC community.
Kevin once told me that he was sure he
would see the end of times in his lifetime. Rest in paradise my
friend - April Sauerwine
My sympathies to his family. One of the most stand up kind of people
and he marched by his own drum. RIP my friend and biking brother -
Akheem Akhi-Gbade
This recent snowfall reminded me of the time Kevin was the only
quick messenger with his radio on after a big snowfall, and when he
got assigned the package, he strapped on his cross country skis, and
delivered it. Just an epic messenger story about a great guy -
- Bryce Hedin
This is so sad. I don't know anyone with a smile as genuine as his.
- Lyndsey Pheister
Hail the traveler. I love that man. - Dayna Heater
Kevin was a great guy. A real loss to the world. Real down to earth
genuinely friendly guy. Back in the late 90's he was one of the most
understanding bike messengers, and he hung with the rest of us as we
would do back then. I would see him time to time making deliveries
since then. I will miss Kevin, he was a good man. - Alexandros
Varvounis
we were just talking about Kevin the other day in Walker Pierce
Park...this is a lesson to appreciate our friends while they are
here and to reach out to them when we can - Joel Gwadz
One of a kind - he will be greatly missed. RIP Kevin. - Elliott
Caldwell
Rip Kevin, safe journeys - Chariot Browne
Man was ONE OF OUR BEST....ez. An excellent person, rider &
worker. Must have had a barrell of laughs with that man. He was a
content-type Courier. True-Cyclist. Gave energy. Cool. May All
Beings Be Free - . - Michael Drago
Ride on, Kevin! You were one of the finest and best examples. It is
obvious from the comments and love you are receiving here. I hope
you were aware of the love while you were amongst the living. -
Kelly Dwyer
Sad news hearing about this. He was one of the friendliest and
nicest people I ever knew. He will be missed. - Bradley Saaks
Oh that hurts me so bad Kevin was the best guy that I ever known in
a bag of chameleon oh man I'm going to miss him so much everybody
keep me in contact with his with his funeral arrangements and
everything and condolences to his family he's going to be a mess boy
his favorite words chipper - Eric Barnes
I walked by the computer and saw this post. Didn't read it at first,
but it brought back some great memories. Then I got up close and
read it. Made me very sad. He's one of the good ones. He'll be
missed, for sure. The last bike camping trip I took in D.C. was with
Kevin and Beaver. They are riding together now. - Wally Haynes
Having witnessed bike courier business’s evolution, an old-timer
signs off
Washington Post, May 12, 2011
By Petula Dvorak
Let me tell you a funny thing about the sinewy, Spandex-wearing
speed demons who skitter past downtown gridlock like water bugs and
treat the bicycle delivery of each legal brief with the urgency of
an action hero ferrying secret nuclear codes to save the world from
annihilation. A lot of them are pretty gray. Their bones hurt, and
their joints flare up.
“Arthritis in my thumbs,” says Kevin Keefe, wiggling both his thumbs
at me.
Of course they hurt. He has been leaning on them for 25 years.
“It’s just finally time to stop, I think,” Keefe said. “The business
isn’t what it used to be.”
Keefe will make his final delivery Friday, then he’ll retire from
his informal post as dean of the dwindling corps of D.C. bike
messengers, just before he turns 59.
“He’s the oldest, right?” I asked a messenger resting at one
of their perches on L Street NW.
“Ah, no. Scrooge has gotta be 60, 61? I’m 57,” the guy told
me, pointing to his gray beard and rolling his eyes a bit. “A lot of
us are old-timers out here.” And soon enough they’ll be joining
Keefe in retirement.
The twilight of the city’s once booming courier business is
ironic and a little sad, because it comes amid a huge bicycle
renaissance. Bikes are everywhere in the District, zooming
along those new bike lanes, being shared and locked in cool racks.
They are carrying not just messengers and weekend warriors in neon
Lycra, but also women in dresses and men in suits who put their
briefcases in the front basket in a very European way, casual and
matter of fact. It’s not sport; it’s simply locomotion.
“I can see it every time gas prices go up. The gas goes up,
the bikes come out. You can really see it this time,” said Keefe,
also known by his messenger number, 86. “I just hope some of them
stay on those bikes after the gas comes back down.”
A lot of the messengers confess to being annoyed by the newbie
bicyclists who clog the bike lanes. Even Keefe, who rarely loses his
temper on his bike, admits to laughing at their cluelessness. Still,
he says, “better to be morons on bikes than morons in cars.”
Keefe joined the bike messenger scrum in its pre-fax, pre-e-mail
glory days, when there were about 400 of them downtown, and they
could easily pull down $100 for a couple of hours’ work. (Today,
they might not even break $75 in a 10-hour day.) Back then,
Keefe was a Vietnam War veteran who was studying physics while
working on satellite projects for NASA. But he did a little tuning
out when he hopped on a bike — and the adrenaline rush was
irresistible.
“I just couldn’t see myself sitting behind a desk or at a
computer the rest of my life,” he told me.
In some ways, he’s a classic Washington wonk — the kind of guy
who can say “Oman’s really changed since the last couple times I
passed through,” or comment on laser technology in between bites of
his veggie pizza. But he doesn’t own an iPod, smartphone, computer,
car or house, and he doesn’t have kids. When you talk to most
bike messengers, there are always a few blanks they don’t fill in.
They have street names like Scrooge, Fo, Gadget, Hood Ornament and
Suave (pronounced “swah-vay,” the messenger tells me). Their
legends are retold on the benches of Farragut Park or outside
Frankie’s Pizza on Vermont Avenue. Remember the header Tony pulled
into a windshield at 14th and I? Or the time 86 slammed his new
V-brake and went right over the handlebars, face-first into a panel
truck?
They sneered at the guys wrapped in their suits going into the
buildings they were skipping out of. Then came the
advent of e-mail and the dawn of the post-9/11 super-security age.
Almost overnight, the demand for the derring-do of bike couriers
evaporated. Most of the dabblers, the hustlers and the
students stripped off their Lycra and pads and handed in their
walkie-talkies. The ones who remained were the hard cores, like
Keefe. And for them, the work has grown less heroic. Fewer FEC
filings and legal briefs to be raced through three miles of gridlock
to make a 5 p.m. deadline. More laundry, shoes and cellphones
someone forgot in a meeting across town.
“Lunches, I hate delivering lunches,” said Peter Fernandez, a.k.a.
Suave, 41, who also once delivered a giant turkey from a law firm to
a homeless shelter.
Anthony Jones, 51, whose back is covered in scars from a windshield
collision, will never forget the set of golf clubs he had to balance
on his nimble little road bike.
“A huge bag of soccer balls,” another guy told me.
“An ice cream cake. On a really hot summer day,” Keefe said.
These are the stinkers that bring them down. Less messenger, more
gopher. Despite such humiliations, piled atop a quarter-century of
veering drivers, crazy U-turns and car doors being opened at the
wrong time, Keefe has extended his middle finger only three times.
Once he signs off as Quick Messenger Service’s number 86 for good,
he’s not going to put the bike away.
Nah, he’s going to get on it and ride, ride, ride. Nova Scotia?
Baja, perhaps? He’s going to go all over the place, he said. Only,
no ice cream cake this time.
Photo by Joel Gwadz
