|
Step
aside for banzai brigade
|
|
By Joseph A. Gambardello
Philadelphia Inquirer, September 24, 2006
It is 6 p.m. Monday, and Scotty Yelity is hunched over a small gas
camper's grill, cooking burgers in front of Bob & Barbara's on
South Street.
Inside the bar, his colleagues are unwinding with the house special, a
can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and shot of Jim Beam for $3.
Lean and tall, with a white chef's hat, dreads, and a blue-and-yellow
bicyclist shirt, Scotty enters with a plate of cooked burgers,
distributes them, then returns to grill more.
Welcome to cocktail hour, bike-messenger style.
Love them or hate them - and it seems they are more hated than loved -
bike messengers are a visible presence in Philadelphia, a hard-living
bunch on whom law firms, architects, ad agencies, and a host of other
businesses depend for the timely delivery of documents, blueprints,
proofs and mail. And sometimes, you'll hear, a live rabbit, a frozen
fish, a body part, or a new frying pan for Stephen Starr.
Many messengers come here for the job.
Suffice it to say the general public often looks upon them as dirty and
menacing, demons on two wheels with pedestrians in their crosshairs.
But they have their admirers, and their fashion style - tattoos,
piercings and biker caps - is imitated by others who would be hard put
to cycle 40 or 50 miles a day in Center City traffic in all types of
weather. And art students have adopted their messenger bags, leading
couriers to gripe that they are being blamed for the bad cycling of
others.
To understand them may not be easy, but it is clear they are
insufficiently risk-averse to be called slackers.
Consider their bike of choice: the stripped-down, low-maintenance,
fixed-gear variety used by racers in velodromes. Fixed-gear means you
have to pedal to move the rear wheel. No pedal, no go. And they have no
brakes. Stopping takes practice and skill.
They are wary, constantly on the lookout for opening car doors, sudden
shifts by vehicles, and changing traffic lights. Yes, they admit, there
are times they are at fault when they hit pedestrians, but they counter
that pedestrians are more often to blame for walking into traffic,
between vehicles, against the light, or without looking. Each has an
accident or injury story to tell, and, as the saying goes, there are
two sides to every story.
Bike messengers - there are fewer than 100 in the city - are mostly
independent contractors who are paid a commission for each job, so the
more pickups and deliveries they make, the more money they make. They
can average $400 to $500 a week - or even more than $1,000, depending
on how many hours they put in and jobs they take on.
"If you want to make money, you have to work your ass off," said Jeff
O'Neill, 23, of Kensington, who calls himself one of the few
Philly-born and -bred couriers in the city.
In their off time, they drink and smoke and compete in formal races -
local, national and international - and informal Alley Cat challenges,
in which pickups and deliveries play a role. Entry fees often are used
for emergency funds to help injured riders. Or to cover the cost of the
beer.
They do not have benefits like health insurance, and they often live
together, sharing rent and utilities. A messenger from another city can
expect to be given a place to stay should he or she - there are a fair
number of female riders - show up at another courier's door.
Twenty-eight-year-old Kevin Stewart - or Stewy, as he is known on the
street - used to be a line cook in Pittsburgh. Suddenly out of work, he
became a messenger and worked there for six years before moving to
Philadelphia two years ago.
Stewy, like other messengers, has had a love affair with bicycles since
he was a boy, and to him, that's what it's all about. That and a
footloose life.
"This job allows me to be semi-transient," he said. "A lot of guys
travel from city to city every few years and meet new people, make new
friends, and then kind of move on."
"The freedom is definitely nice... and I get a paycheck for riding my
bike."
He said his family kept asking when he would get a "real job."
"I don't want a real job," Stewy said. "Most of them sat in an office
most of their lives, and they're not happy about it."
"I feel like I'm doing great," he said. "In another 10 years, I might
be singing another song when my knees don't feel so great, and my back
hurts a little bit..."
Stewy said that the "money" trips were deliveries to Camden, one of
which he had that day, and that the most dangerous were runs to the
airport, particularly via the Platt Bridge.
The Internet and e-mail have cut into the business for messengers, and
their numbers have declined. Now they talk of the 1980s and early 1990s
as the golden era for bike couriers.
Eric Nordberg was riding back in the day, before the mystique evolved
into a lifestyle. Now he runs TimeCycle, one of the biggest messenger
services in the city.
"I was into biking," he said. "I wasn't into anything else."
Nordberg is not certain about the origins of the messenger subculture,
but he said it had fostered a camaraderie that is reflected in the
banter on the open radio channel used by couriers.
"Some people actually come here to messenger," he said.
The average stay, he said, is two years, although he knows some
couriers who have been riding since the late 1980s.
Cassandra Castillo, 23, is a newcomer to Philadelphia. They call her
Cassandra from Portland, although she grew up in California, the
daughter of a history professor and a librarian.
In Portland, she trained to be a bike mechanic and fell into
messengering after filling in part time to make money.
She had been thinking of coming to Philadelphia for some time and did
so in June.
"A lot of kids call Philadelphia the Portland of the East Coast," she
said, explaining that just as the Oregon city is cheaper than San
Francisco, Philly is a better bargain than New York.
There's one big difference from a courier's point of view: Philadelphia
is bigger and has "way more traffic."
"I've never had to squeeze through traffic like I do here," said
Cassandra, who publishes a personal 'zine called "2,500 miles" in which
she writes about "bikes, boys, and punk rock - more or less."
Both Cassandra and Stewy said messengering - and the friendships made
from it - had become the focus of their lives.
"I never aspired to be a bike messenger," she said. "But after being
involved in it, life is pretty much bikes and the messenger life."
Said Stewy: "I have a feeling that if I quit being a messenger
tomorrow, who would I talk to and what would I say to these people?"
Pedal Power
"Gotta catch the greens."
That was the advice Stewy gave as we set off for a 17-block run from
1818 Market St. to 134 Market to deliver a package.
Stewy must have caught the green lights. I didn't.
The ride took me 10 minutes - twice his time.
For a recreational cyclist of modest abilities, keeping pace with a
seasoned courier is no easy task.
The ability to bob and weave through traffic, navigating tight spots
and anticipating red lights, is a product of skill and daring.
Any bicyclists reluctant to get between a growling bus and a taxi - and
they include me - should not consider becoming a bike messenger. If
they do, they should settle for a smaller paycheck.
Fortunately, no messenger has been killed in a traffic accident in the
city since 1991, although it is hard to find any who has not suffered
an injury or a damaged bike.
And if one rider's experience is any indicator, pedestrians are indeed
a menace.
Three near hits in an hour with people who were jaywalking or crossing
against the light had me cursing under my breath.
So if you're a pedestrian, remember that getting hit by cyclists is as
much in your power as it is in theirs.
You might want to keep that in mind especially on Oct. 9, Messenger Appreciation Day.
|
|
