DanLord Flyer for a cancelled event.

Rides are solitary moments of meditation and focus interrupted by uninvited human contact.

Last week.

I was preparing mentally and physically to go into the trails between a tennis court and a bathroom but paused when I heard coughing. An old head popped out of the trailhead and coughed again. He had a surgical mask pulled down to his chin and something in his hand.

“Hey man you go in these trails how far do they go?”

The thing in his hand is a knife and he’s swinging it around while he talks. I had one fit clipped in and the other one planted on the ground with my hands on my phone. This old dude is going try to rob me. I put the phone in my jersey pocket.

“yeah man they go all the way to Parkside.”

“Oh that’s all.”

He starts coughing again, like hacking and he’s still got the knife out. I cut a line towards the trailhead keeping a few feet distance from him and said peace.

Ride was super good.

A couple days before that

I took a left off my block and watched a guy drive his car diagonal across the next intersection and purposefully crash head on into another car. Both drivers jumped out and ran at each other. I thought they were going to start bucking shots so I and I switched routes.

Ride was super good.

walls are closing in on me, i don’t know what to do

-benskeone ———>

-b.ske

John Smith

Mat T

Zo

Meditation of a middle aged messenger- I will be forever searching for the feeling of satisfaction, relief and conclusion i used to feel at the end of a day working as a messenger. It was so long ago but i can close my eyes and take myself there. Strategically listening to the radio chatter on 3 pound Motorola walkie talkie strapped to my chest for my turn to hold the button down and speak, “84, clean.” I was given number 84 at my first job and was able to hold onto it as i bounced to different companies. So many elements clustered together to make that feeling magical. Here are a few: a)the physical relief of not having to carry a heavy bag on your back and smash around on a bike after 9 hours of doing so.
b) the mental relief of knowing that all the things that happened today are 100% finished.  Messengers dont talk about packages delivered on prior occasions. They talk about what happened at the bar and what the best kind of weed is. I think the splendor of being a messenger is intertwined the simplicity of the occupation and the dynamic environment it is conducted in.
c) the peace of knowing what is to come. Every day after work as a messenger i did the same thing. I got wasted on whatever i could get my hands on. Say what you want about substance abuse, alcoholics and junkies have an incontrovertible predictability in their lives that I find myself missing for split seconds at a time.

I dont have any of those things anymore. When will i ever be able to call in, “84, clean” again? When the mortgage is paid? When im a grandfather? When i retire from my present career?

Upon reflection i have come to believe that i will never be able to have that feeling again. Its ok. I have exchanged it for other benefits. I suppose that is what makes something special, that it is gone forever.

oakland andrew