My nickname is “Load Warrior.” Sitting astride my messenger bike, I cycle past the corner of 12th and K Street NW. We bike messengers all ride cheap $200 aluminum road bikes with brand names like Z-Trip, Ultra and Zowee. Made in China. You don’t park a bike worth more than $200 on the streets of Washington DC. Not even for five minutes, while you deliver a package.
I pass a 20-something black man dressed like a homeless person. You know the type: Named Rufus, raised by his mom, no father in his childhood, lived his whole life on Euclid Street, went to Cardozo High School, never had a chance. Unshaven, in a seedy black winter coat, he is stationed in front of Chico’s Café, the artisanal coffee shop. Armed with a hammer and chisel, he is banging away at the metal lock on the newspaper box. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Millennials in multi-colored high end sneakers, three-tone Nike windbreakers and designer jeans pass him by. Going into Chico’s to get a latte— or coming out— none of them tells Rufus nothin’. In Washington DC, it’s best to avoid eye contact.
Being a bike messenger, I am one of a dwindling breed in this electronic age. Everything today is sent by email and text. People seem to think that we bike messengers spring up readymade from the ground, but we’re just like everyone else, the grandchildren and great grandchildren of immigrants. America was always hard on my grandpa. Even though he owned and ran his own tobacco farm in Maryland, his heart was always in Lithuania.
Chico’s Café is the brainchild of two white dudes from Minneapolis, Minnesota: Sean Stout and Will Price. Wharton School of Business, Class of 2015. Sean’s older brother Ray is in the Air Force and has flown a lot in South America. According to Ray, the coffee growers in the Andes say that Starbucks buys the cheapest beans in the crop and then masks the decidedly shady quality by over-roasting. Says Ray. Not knowing any better, we Americans drink our lattes dark and bitter. According to Ray. This is enough to prod Sean and Will into deciding that they will make artisanal coffee with a decidedly smooth flavor— light roast— and market it in a city with no coffee tradition. What the residents of Washington DC do have is a lot of opinions about what constitutes status. In the nation’s capital, it’s not money, it’s the type of coffee you drink. It’s waiting in line to eat in an artisanal Asian Fusion restaurant that refuses to book reservations. People take selfies standing in front of the restaurant and post them on Instagram to prove they actually ate there. These things are important. This is status.
Sean Stout and Will Price named their coffee shop Chico’s Café, because it sounds vaguely South American. And they think the name is chic.
Bike messengers are a seasonal thing. The office is closed when it rains. No one wants soggy deliveries. Cold weather, on the other hand, doesn’t deter us. Our reason for being is the concept that a delivery man on a bike can scoot through traffic faster than a driver caught behind the wheel in the perpetual gridlock of downtown. Most drivers hate us. They think we are daredevils, weaving amidst the traffic at risk of life and limb. Nothing could be farther from the truth! We are weaving through traffic risking life and limb in order to deliver the package ASAP. It’s part of the concept: fast— really fast— delivery. Otherwise our customers start using Uber.
As I scoot by Chico’s, a young millennial in thick glasses and sandy hair has finally decided to confront Rufus, who is still banging away at the newspaper box with his hammer and chisel. Bang! Bang! Bang!
It’s against company policy, but I pull to the curb to watch.
“Hey, man, if you want a newspaper, go, like, inside the coffee shop!” bleats the dude helpfully. “People have left discarded newspapers, like, on every friggin’ table.”
Rufus looks at him like he’s crazy. “You talkin’ to me?” he asks, his voice a deep growl. To judge by his expression, he cannot believe this pipsqueak is gettin’ in his face.
“Uh, I just mean you don’t have to do it the hard way,” suggests the young man. Probably a college student. G.W. Class of 2020. He’s got the nose ring and tongue bead. Out of state, from the accent. If he’s from Pennsylvania, why isn’t he going to Carnegie Mellon?
“What makes you think I want a newspaper?” asks Rufus, letting his arms dangle. He twirls his tools with his fingers, seriously perplexed.
“Oh, oh… Oh! I get it,” replies the kid. “You want the money.”
“Hello! Damn right I want the money!” swears Rufus. “This box is full of quarters! What didja think I wanted, a goddam newspaper?”
Now a third party comes out to the sidewalk and enters the discussion. He wears a moustache, a green apron and a silly white paper hat. The badge on his apron would seem to indicate that this is Mr. Sean Stout, Esquire. Anyway, it says “Sean” on his badge. “Now look here!” he kinda protests, hands on hips, shuffling his feet like Yankee Doodle Dandy.
“Yeah???” snarls Rufus, swinging those tools of his in ever greater arcs. “Didja call the police on me, you honkey turd blossom?”
“No, I haven’t called the police,” insists Sean. After all, no shop owner wants to get a brick thrown through his plate glass window at 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning. “If you stop hanging around in front of my café, I’ll give you an $8 latte. Whatever flavor you choose.”
“Which size is that?” asks the college kid. “Small, medium or large?”
“Dude!” replies Sean. “You are not helping.”
“You want me to leave?” demands Rufus. “How’s about you sweeten the pot wid ten dollars.”
“You want ten dollars?” asks Sean, a hopeful look on his face.
“Damn straight, fucker!”
Quick as a wink, Sean charges through the glass door of his emporium and returns holding aloft an only slightly crumpled $10 bill. “Overheads,” he breathes, smiling tightly, handing Rufus the cash. “Please! My pleasure.”
Rufus is smelling… yes, he has the bill pressed against his nose and he is smelling it. “Okay,” he grunts. “Easy money. Y’all have a good ’un.”
“Yeah, well… Have a nice day,” declares Sean as Rufus shambles away down the sidewalk. Turning to face the college kid, Sean hisses, “What do you want?”
“I’m leaving,” answers the kid, holding aloft his latte.
“Fine! Goodbye!” declares Sean and goes back inside his shop, hunched over and angry as a hornet.
Kicking off the curb, dodging traffic, I head across town to the Cannon House Office Building. I have a package addressed to Congressman Humpback of North Carolina.
An apparition comes gliding out of a cross street, a Halloween cutie atop a black mountain bike. She is something else: Shiny black ankle boots, black ski pants, a silver padded jacket, gold earings, eyes painted to resemble a raccoon, a purple bike helmet atop her jet black hair. I am… smitten! Irises like gun barrels, she stares at me from across the road, wrinkles her pretty little nose and… laughs! Gaily. Provocatively. Invitingly.
Head held high, she pedals madly off toward 16th Street. Enthralled, I go cycling after her. Who wouldn’t??? Before I know it, we are headed north in a mad dash through Rock Creek Park. Chasing her, rounding a corner, I almost wreck my bike, veering helplessly onto the grass verge of the bike path. Up on a knoll, her bike thrown carelessly aside, sits my fallen angel, demure as a kitten. Staring with those enormous eyes of hers.
“W-What the fuck!” I stammer. Parking my bike on the grass, I slowly approach her. Hey, I’m not stupid, I know that at any moment, she can pull out her cell phone and snap my picture, put it online and identify me as a sexual predator. Such is the world we live in.
The closer I get, the younger she appears. Bummer. I don’t know, 17 years old? What? “Wow, how old are you?” I ask.
The only answer I get is a huge grin. “Hey, mister,” she lisps playfully, wrinkling that pretty, amazing nose of hers and laughing full in my face. “Ya got any money?”
“W-What?” I gasp.
“Money. You know,” she chirps in a sing-song voice, waving her pretty little hands in my direction. Blood red nails. “The stuff that makes the world go ’round.”
If the Fed raises the interest rate, will that slow down an economy on steroids?
“Yeah. Yes. Sure, I’ve got money. But… I mean, are you panhandling? Or what?” I ask her.
Jesus Christ! She drags me all the way out here to Rock Creek Park to hustle me? I mean, I get it: The economy may be booming, but economic inequality has never been greater.
At least that’s what I’ve been reading in The Washington Post.
This is crazy. I turn to go.
“What’s your name, silly?” she demands in the weirdest, most syrupy voice I’ve ever heard.
Turning to tell her to go take a hike, I find myself staring into her eyes as she pouts, then laughs, then waves her fingers at me again. Jesus! Those red lacquered nails. Blood red. For Halloween, I assume. She seems so ridiculously young, so wide-eyed, such a lass.
“Pull out your wallet and give me your cash,” she exclaims, pouting like an 8-year-old.
President Trump’s strategy has been to sow division within the electorate.
Of course, there’s no way I am going to—
“You can if you want to!” she assures me, shaking her head up and down like a Jack in the Box. Up and down, eyes rolling. Her head bobbing up and down. Up and down.
“I want to!” I howl, struck dumb over what to do.
It’s hard to vote Democratic when all they shout is “Send money!”
“Just pull out your wallet,” suggests my little troublemaker in a tiny voice. “I won’t hurt you.”
Still not sure what is going on or what the hell I am doing, I do pull out my wallet. This I admit.
First Trump accuses Mexicans of being rapists and gang members. Then he sides with white supremacists in Charlottesville. What else? He suggests his political opponents should be thrown in jail. He starts a trade war with China, Mexico and Canada, putting tariffs on foreign goods entering the USA. He calls the working press “the enemy of the people.” And labels himself a nationalist. He calls the Democrats evil and claims they’ll allow an invasion on our southern border. After which President Trump calls upon all Americans to unite amidst the resultant carnage.
“Take out your cash,” chuckles my little friend luxuriously, stretching out on the grass and smiling like a Cheshire cat.
Birds tweet in the trees. Trump tweets from the Oval Office. “Birdbrains of a feather flock together. In the White House,” I suggest.
“Laughing out loud!” she declares, making a face. Gad! She’s so darn cute! The sunlight glints off her silver jacket and her golden earings. “Miiiissssterrrrrrr…” she drawls, “you can if you want to! You can do anything you want. Yes, you can!”
That was an Obama slogan, “Yes We Can.”
Dumbly, I take out my cash.
“Gimme!”
I hand over my dollar bills, a twenty, a ten, a five, a slew of singles. Totally turned on, erect and hard as a rock, I can’t believe this is happening. I don’t even want to be here. Who is this vixen and what is she doing to me?
“Okay-y-y,” she smirks, leaning back provocatively, shoulders thrown back, her tiny breasts only hinted at beneath her silver padded jacket. “Five star! You can go if you want to. Or stay and hang out with me. Either way, I won’t tell anybody.”
“I’m a bike messenger. I gotta make a delivery!” I wail, which at least is the truth.
“Gimme your phone number,” she suggests. “Who knows, I might even call you later and we can hook up.”
Shit! I write down my cell number. I hand her the slip of paper. Waves of sadness wash over me.
“Go!” she says, sniveling, a little tear running down her cheek.
I sit down next to her— to console her— and watch as her little hand with its blood red nails inches across the grass and latches on to mine. Her fingers are so slender! She’s such a little kid.
“You love to hang out with me, don’t you?” she asks, staring at my swollen crotch. “Look at you! You’re on fire!”
“I… love…you,” I admit, although I’m not sure what good that will do.
“I thought so,” she replies with that little girl smile of hers. “Boys are always falling in love with me. They can’t help themselves. You can’t either, mister!” she exclaims, cackling wildly. Like a witch. Grinning. Winning. Throwing her bike helmet in the air.
“Jesus!” I groan. What a dog and pony show. Talk about getting the cart before the horse. “What’s your name?” I finally remember to ask.
“Ginny,” she says with a kind of giggling snort. “Pull down your pants and show me what you’ve got hiding in there, mister! C’mon! You know you want to!”
With the Trump administration deregulating the banking industry, the banks are up to their old tricks again, repackaging questionable debt.
But pull down my pants??? “It’s a public park, Ginny!” I exclaim, looking around us wildly. Although I have to admit that in spite of the roar of traffic, there is no one else in sight.
“Just show it to me,” Ginny says, kind of going up on all fours on the grass. “Just show me, silly! I won’t touch it or anything. Show me! Show me! Show…me!”
Taking a last frantic look around, I pull down my pants and expose myself.
“Oh. My. God!” cackles my playmate richly. “Now I know you really do love me!” Wrinkling her nose, she points a single red fingernail right at my face and scratches me on the schnozz. Zip! She doesn’t even blink. Ouch! That hurts like hell.
Desperately pulling up my pants, I jump to my feet, hop on my bike and ride the hell out of there, her hilarious laughter ringing in my ears.
When I finally arrive at the Cannon House Office Building, the guard in front of the building is dressed in black leather boots and a full field uniform. In black. 9/11 upped security in the District a thousand fold. Once you leave the Mall, you can’t even find a public toilet. The guard cradles a deadly-looking automatic rifle in his arms. Many sights and gizmos has this rifle.
My dad tells a story about when the first fully automatic camera came on the market in the 1970’s. “Fully automatic?” he asked his friends. “Does that mean I can sit at home and watch TV while the camera goes out and takes the pictures?” he asked hopefully.
Fully automatic rifle.
The guard registers my presence with a flick of his head. These dudes have seen us bike messengers a hundred times. They may not know our names — or they very well may! — but they can recognize us from fifty feet away without using facial recognition software. I roll by him on my bike.
Using an $85 Kryptonite 1090 Evolution Series 4 lock, I chain my $200 bike to a lamppost in front of the building. Hey, my bike is my livelihood. I can’t afford to have it get stolen in the middle of my working day.
Approaching the front of the building, I tug theatrically on the wooden doors to the lobby. Both locked. Entering the code for Suite 406 on the brass intercom, I get an androgynist voice asking “Yes-s-s-s-s???”
“P-P-Package for Representative H-H-Humpback of North Carolina,” I stutter, playing the fool. These people are such idiots!
“He’s not here. Congress is in recess. He’s at home in North Carolina,” squawks the voice over the intercom.
“So let me deliver the package to you!”
“What’s in it?” asks this person from the congressman’s office. By now I am ready to throttle him or her.
“The usual suspicious items,” I exclaim reassuringly. “Papers, a Meerschaum pipe, a pipe bomb, a Dear John letter from the congressman’s mistress, a ransom note and several packs of Japanese candy. It says ‘Super Juicy’ in English on the candy wrappers.”
The staffer buzzes me into the building. Marching up to the receptionist desk, I am confronted by a Moroccan boy in the blue uniform of the Hakenkreuz Company. A private security firm that has been contracted to protect government buildings ever since the administration of Ronald Reagan. “Whaddya want?” drawls the guard threateningly, his face screwed tight.
“Delivery for Suite 406. Congressman Humpback’s office,” I calmly reply.
“Are they expecting you?” he snarls. Who shoved a bee up his rear end?
“I just talked with them on the intercom,” I explain.
“Yes, but you didn’t talk with me on the intercom,” insists the guard. “You people come flouncing in here like you own the place and pay absolutely no attention to the rules.”
“Which are…?” I deadpan.
“Simple. ‘Obey the guard.’ What else would we instruct you to do? How come your nose is scratched?”
“Can I deliver the package?”
“Hell, no! Leave it here with me.”
“No can do. His office has to sign for it.”
We go back and forth like this for many minutes, until it finally dawns on me that there is a simple, straight-forward solution: baksheesh. Taking my last $10 bill from the secret pocket in my wallet, I fold it carefully and slide it surreptitiously across the marble counter top. A minute later, dead broke, I am in the elevator, headed for the fourth floor.
Arriving at the door to the congressman’s office, I sense that something is strangely amiss. Firstly, the door is wide open and a very upset dude in a great-looking charcoal grey pinstripe suit and brown wingtips stands glowering at me, flexing and unflexing his fists. I mean, that’s for starters. We messengers rarely meet anyone higher up than the receptionist. You say hello, she signs for the documents and U R outta there. As soon as you start changing the routine, you are asking for trouble.
“Uh, hello!” I say.
“All right,” the dude grumbles angrily, not even bothering to shake my hand. “My name is Richard Schmidt and I work for Congressman Humpback. Who the hell are you?” His North Carolina accent makes him sound like he just walked off the 1st North Carolina Artillery Battery at Gettysburg.
“I’m Kwik ‘N’ Eazy Messenger Service,” I tell him. You would think the bike shoes, the bike clips, wool socks, sweatpants, hoodie, FootJoy WinterSof golf gloves, bike helmet and heavy-duty black and white polymer shoulder bag might clue him in, but no.
“All right, let’s have a look at these goddam documents,” he seethes.
“Uh, you gotta sign for ’em first,” I suggest, kind of leaning in, offering my metal frame document holder and a pen.
“Fuck you!” says Mr. Schmidt, his face all red and blotchy with anger. I haven’t seen anyone this upset since the nomination hearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
“I suppose you like beer?” I ask. None too subtle. I could kick myself! Sometimes I’m an idiot. Usually when confronted with the unexpected. Hey, bike messengers— like acrobats— aren’t exactly known for their social skills, right?
“You know that your nose is scratched?” he grouses. Snatching the tan manila envelope from my hand, Mr. Richard Schmidt marches to a desk, pops open a drawer and pulls out a letter opener that could do service as a sword. He slits open the envelope, pulls out the enclosed paperwork and starts reading. Increasingly upset, a complete and total look of incredulity fills his face. “You son of a bitch!” he shouts, looking up, his eyes wild and panicky.
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t kill the messenger!” I plead.
“Do you know what these are?”
“Trump’s tax returns?” I guess.
“These are an economic summary of the Saudi arms deal, you cretin! We don’t want this information, we are not privy to this information and, just as I suspected, someone is trying to set up my boss!”
“Hey, I just picked up the envelope at the office of a law firm. More than that, I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I can guess what kind of law firm,” hisses Mr. Schmidt. “Lobbyists for the Saudi government! Do you know how much of America’s defense industry is located in North Carolina?”
“No, but I can google it,” I suggest, offering my phone. Which— just my luck— starts beeping uncomfortably.
“Put that thing away or I’ll call security!” rants Mr. Schmidt, reaching for the phone on his desk.
“Jesus, would you at least sign for the papers so I can get paid?” I ask.
Stuffing the paperwork back into the tan envelope, Schmidt rams it in my face and howls, “Take this shit and get the hell out of my office!”
Sometimes— due to circumstances beyond the messenger’s control— documents cannot successfully be delivered.
As they say in the Chinese laundry business, “Shirt happens.”
Miserable, I take the creased manila envelope and shove it back into my satchel. I gather up my things and turn to leave. “I love the president’s new windblown hairstyle,” I add, my parting shot. Maybe I can get a signature out of him if I—
“What’s the matter with you? What are you talking about?” Schmidt squeals, definitely the cry of a Congressional staffer.
Not so good.
Back outside on the pavement, I pull out my cell phone and check for messages. It’s what’s her face, Ginny the genie, and she wants to get together for coffee. I get a hard-on just thinking about her. Of course I call her back! I know she is going to be a black hole economically and my credit card will take a hit, but I am madly in love with her. Jailbait and all. The whole package. Hey, this is America, worse things happen.
The life blood of the city, Rufus and Ginny and I were all here in DC long before the New Yawker with his fancy hotel, orange hair and big mouth moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’ll be here long after he is gone.
Happy Halloween!
yustyoking 
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