August 13 - poof

Last day.
For ten years I've worked as a messenger.

On a bike this job gave me balls and a physique.
I took pride in what I did.
Then I lost all of those things in the van.
I fell into a safety of misery.

I let this job give me stress and madness.
I chose to fight a daily battle against inferiority, classist building policies, and an asteroid field of hateful motorists.
Sometimes they were downright cruel, throwing change and garbage at me, swerving toward me on purpose, running me off the road.
Using their lemons as weapons.
Eventually I would become one of those miserable motorists, but I never once took it out on the ole two-wheeled vermin.

There are too many memories.
Mostly from my biking days.
The wet cement on Orleans that ate my bike and flipped me onto its hard pavement.
The box truck that nudged me onto a Volkswagen, leaving a scar on my right hand.
The road rage guy that pulled a knife on me in The Loop.
The CTA bus mirror I shattered with my U-lock.

I didn't think about any of these moments today.
I was more concerned with rest.
My boss paged me at 8am to do the weekly mail run for a logistics company.
This morning I went to sleep around 4am after manning the door at the bar last night.
I asked him if someone else could do it.
Someone else did it.
Around 10am he summoned me for a van job downtown.
Another trip to the bowels of River North, choked by vapors of horse shit.
I watched the Blue Angels goof off in the sky while Yoko Ono's "Coffin Car" blared on the stereo.
Then it was off to Waukegan up there by Wisconsin for a pick up worth close to nothing.
I ate an Italian sausage and got heavy tired in the relentless heat and traffic.
Fatigue became sadness on the way down to the city.
I tried to take a different route back, thinking it would add variety to my dull, bored pain.
It only made things longer and more frustrating.
Yoko Ono's screeching and wailing did what I wanted to do, punishing all within earshot.
I dropped off that last package sometime around 5.
The woman signed it and we didn't say much.
Just like every delivery I had done for the last ten years.
It was over I guess.
The pager stayed silent.
I trudged home in a sleep-deprived, depraved mood.
Driving recklessly over speed lumps and completely blowing side street stop signs.
You want there to be this big moment of closure after you've chosen to devote a decade of your life to something.
But there is nothing.
It's just empty.

So I made tacos and watched Slapshot on my laptop.
I was surprised at how it held up.
I drank.

Lauren got home around 11.
Earlier in the day she went out to see Eat, Pray, Love.
The book had struck a chord with her a few years ago.
The movie did not.
She was disappointed by it.
"Have you ever seen Slapshot?" I slurred.
She laughed at me.

And that was my last day of my life as a messenger.

poof

Verdict: Loss

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