prologue fixed gear #2
“Fucking hell.” I pick myself up from the concrete, stretching my spine until the vertebrae pop, a xylophone rumba of cartilage
and bone. “Gotta go.”
“All the way down to Shockoe Bottom?” Lys scoffs. “Good luck.”
“What?” I sense a challenge. “You don’t think I can do it?”
Freel huffs. “Thirty minutes or less? All the faith, bro.”
“Five bucks says I’m there in twenty.”
“Make it ten bucks.”
“You’re on.”
“Anybody else want in?” I ask. “Easy money . . .”
“I’m out,” Lys says.
“Why not?” Deak says.
“I don’t want to take the man’s hard-earned money.” She grins like a son of a bitch.
“Taking candy from a baby,” I say. “I’ll collect my winnings when we clock out.”
I turn to the café window and stop just for a sec, spotting Jenn behind the counter. She glances out. Finds me. Her expression
doesn’t change. She’s still pissed. Fair enough.
I nod, anyway. Just a lift in my chin. Give her the slightest edge of a smile.
One for the road.
Maybe we’ll make up. Maybe she’ll forgive me again. Maybe she’ll take me back. Again. That’s a whole lotta maybes. I’ll take
those odds.
Most jobs, you’re stranded behind a desk. Not us. The city is our office. These streets are where we work. No suit and tie.
No briefcase. No office politics. I ride and get paid for it.
This is my life.
Was, anyway.
All we need is our bike. Our over-the-shoulder satchel. Our radio receiver connecting us to Dispatch, the disembodied voice
of God that crackles out from the void, telling us where to go, what to pick up, where to drop off. A to B. In and out. Ride, ride, ride . . .
You need lust. I’m talking a downright rabid love for this job. That’s my sin. It’s not just a profession. It’s a pilgrimage.
Ride hard. We tap into the very energy that is this town.
I know Richmond so intimately, inside and out. Its pulses, its rhythms. The seconds between red and green traffic lights. The flow of traffic.
My record is about 75 tags in one day. I’ve heard some guys go up to a hundred, but I think they’re just bragging. I spend
just as much of my day in the elevator, going up, going down, dealing with receptionists’ BS, bringing along my bike into
these startups whenever there’s no time to lock it, getting from A to B to C to D all the way to Z and beyond in a day.
Not that you’ll hear me complain. Honestly? I don’t know what else I’m good for. Just riding. Grinding. Speeding through these
streets. That’s all I’ve got. All I am.
Just a good ol’ red-blooded speed demon.
I did a stint in one of those shipping companies, working in a warehouse all day, packing up toiletries, toothpaste, and shampoo,
delivered directly to your front door. I nearly lost my mind. I couldn’t stand still for eight hours. I needed to be out here,
in the streets.
Welcome to my office.
Shall we?
My bike: Fixed gear. Double-butted 4130 chromoly steel tubing. Matte black. TIG welded wishbone rear. 38X700c tires. Horizontal
dropouts with integrated chain-tensioners. Sealed hubs. Equipped with all-road gravel drops, laced with a sealed-bearing flip-flop
hub. Perfect for taking on this city.
I saddle up. Slide my satchel back over my shoulder. Foot on the pedal, lift, shift the weight down, lift the other foot off
the ground, find my balance, recalibrate my weight, then push off and enter the mainline, a fucking jolt of electricity injected
into the vein of this city.
Let’s hit the streets.
Traffic has already begun to clot around Boulevard.
Two lanes of standstill heading in both directions make that street a no-go.
I can cut across Robinson and make my way through the Fan, which is all residential.
Less cholesterol on these streets. Makes for easy drifting.
I’ve got my Walkman strapped down, headphones in, music on.
It’s a cassette player. None of that Discman bullshit.
CDs skip way too much. I’ve got hose.got.cable’s new demo in and it’s giving this city the soundtrack I need.
A big no-no, I know-know. You got to keep your ears open for all the horns honking, but some mornings you just need the extra adrenaline to get you going.
Couriers are creatures of these streets, animals that ebb and flow around the lumbering beasts of buses and trucks. The laws
of the road don’t apply to us.
Here’s the thing: Everyone honks at us. Everybody else on the road hates us. That’s because we’re free, fucking free, unbound by the traffic patterns everyone else follows. We find a flow, entering the jet stream of traffic that has absolutely
fuck-all to do with painted lines and traffic lights and everything, everything to do with intuition. With instinct.
I’m abandoning my sadness. Keeping my depression in the rearview. I can outride my own mind, sometimes, racing so fast through
Richmond, faster than the speed of dysthymia, until I’m no longer lost in my thoughts. The sorrow can’t catch up to me now.
You better believe I’ll take it. I’ll get out of my skull any chance I can get.
Some days, I swear I hear whispers just over my shoulder. Voices at my back, calling for me. Pulling on me. Dragging me down.
I have to outrun them, so I pedal faster. Harder.
Never let them catch me.
Consume me.
The package is waiting for pickup in Highland Park. Clock’s ticking. Twenty-seven minutes to go. Nineteen, if I’m winning
that bet.
Gotta go
go
go
The brownstones pack in so tightly down here in the Fan, looking like wooden teeth to me.
George Washington’s crooked grin, all splintered.
There’s a cover of trees that turn yellow this time of year.
They’re starting to fall, paving the street in a slippery organic mat.
No lawns down here. Nothing but sidewalks, so those leaves cover everything.
Make it a hazard if you need to brake quick.
Best to avoid these blocks as much as possible in a rush.
The music’s getting me across Robinson. I got Chris Wade’s guitars grinding in my ears when I pass World Cup, catching a whiff
of their roasted coffee beans, fueling me for a few more blocks.
There’s a lot of construction on Broad, so rush hour is an aneurysm around here. Best to avoid it. I hook a left on Broad
for barely a block, then it’s left onto a back road. Gravel and glass. I don’t know if this street even has a name. No time
to look at the signs.
Gotta go
go
go
An intern’s standing outside his office park, pacing like he’s the last motherfucker left on the Titanic, basted in a thin layer of sweat. Here it is, not even eight o’ ten and this kid is downright perspiring. The sun won’t reach
its peak for another few hours, but the humidity’s getting thick around here. This poor guy’s about to have a coronary at
twenty.
“Please,” he begs. “My boss is going to kill me if it’s not there in the next—” He checks his watch, blanches, eyes so wide.
“Shit. Seventeen minutes.”
“All good, all good,” I try to console him. “Just sign here and I’ll be on my way.”
“Can you make it?”
“I’ll make it.” I grab the package, testing its weight in my hands. Lighter than air.
“Please,” he insists. “Just hurry.”
“Don’t give yourself a heart attack, okay?” I offer my calmest possible voice, hoping to soothe this poor soul. “Whatever’s
in here, it’s just not worth dying over.”
This kid’s expression sours. I must’ve struck a nerve. “Some of us work for a fucking living,” he mutters. “You do your job and get this where it needs to go, on time, or I’ll make sure your ass gets canned before the end of the day. You understand me? Are we clear?”
“Pleasure doing business with you,” I say, pushing off. “Have yourself a blessed day.”
I’d drag my heels if it weren’t for this bet. This dripping intern doesn’t deserve my sweat. Still—a bet is a bet is a bet,
and you better believe I don’t want to be down twenty bucks.
Back on Broad. It’s the largest artery I’ve got, but it’s all blocked up. Traffic is at an absolute standstill at this hour.
Commuters make their way to their offices. I’m zipping through the logjam for as long as I can, weaving in and out without
taking anyone down.
I catch a break with a stretch of green lights, going as far as Grace Street.
Fifteen minutes. Make that fourteen.
Gotta go
go
go
Grinders have an innate sixth sense for these streets. Over time, your intuition kicks in. You see the flow of traffic, how
it moves, even before it happens. You sense when a car is about to turn even before they flip their signal. It’s the only
way to survive out here. Between me and my fifteen-pound bike against a three-thousand-pound car, sorry, even I’m betting
against myself. So we’ve evolved. Adapted. Our survival instincts keep us alive out here.
Watch out for some driver opening their door.
Watch out for side mirrors.
Watch out for—
“Hey,” some asshole crossing at Grace and Franklin shouts before the light turns.
“Watch where you’re going!” Pedestrians are worse than cars.
Always on their flip phones. Every businessman’s got their own Blackberry now, it kills me.
Everyone’s glancing down, zoned out on their Nokias, not looking where they’re walking anymore.
They don’t see you, so you’ve got to see them.
Shoot me if I ever get a cell phone, okay? You have my permission. Nobody needs to find me that badly. I’m not nearly important
enough to have a phone-line connected to my skull. My radio is fine. The voice of God sitting at Dispatch is all I need.
“How we doing out there?” My receiver crackles, right on cue. “We gonna make it?”
“You doubt me?” I radio back. “Ye of little faith.”
“I’ve already gotten two calls on this one . . .”
“I’ll make it, I’ll make it . . .”
RCU has pretty much cancered all of Grace, its campus expanding, metastasizing in the Fan and spreading itself out even further
into the surrounding neighborhoods. College means kids means morning classes means a lot of freshman pedestrians crossing