I'm going to play with third person again.
Only nine more days.
Our Hero would retire in nine days.
He had nothing lined up, but he knew he couldn't afford to messenger anymore.
He drove down Blue Island Avenue in Chicago. When the pager awoke him around 8am, he had misread the delivery address as being in the city of Blue Island, some thirty miles away. Thinking he had to hurry, he skipped breakfast and headed directly into rush hour traffic. While scribbling the information onto his manifest between bumper-to-bumper lulls, Our Hero realized it was a local run, and could have had breakfast back at home.
At least it's overcast, he thought.
While he considered quick and cheap breakfast options, the public radio station waxed nostalgic about the punk rock shithole bowling alley from his second adolescence. Back when he first started bike messengering at age 25. Now at 35, he was trying to graduate from his fourth adolescence.
Low-paying busy-runs prevented him from accomplishing breakfast. In lieu of an unhealthy Dunkin McGravy Bacon City Slather Platter (Now with Super-Organtic Sea Salt!), a $7 delivery of two heavy bankers boxes took him to the Magnificent Mile.
By this time the sun had come out again. It taunted him and his van's lack of air conditioning.
He hated the fucking heat. It made him sweaty, bitchy, and unproductive. He didn't understand why people liked summer. He grumbled a list of reasons to everybody but also nobody.
"Sitting in your own sweat, like piss, can't sleep, everyone's a fucking asshole..."
It seemed he had declared war on summer, and he was losing.
Every loading zone in the gridlocked radius of 645 N Michigan was taken and therefore stupid. He decided to double park in the alley of the building. An older man knocked on the passenger window.
"There's a big truck coming. You have to get out of here."
Our Amazing Hero didn't like the news, or the way it was presented to him.
"Well, I'm delivering to the same building and there's nowhere to park."
"That's not my problem," and the older man walked away.
Our Awesome Hero moved the van seven feet further, turned off the ignition, and began unloading.
"I suppose that big truck coming is your problem," he said loudly and laconically. His faded red, entry level two-wheeler hit the pavement with a sharp echo.
The older man placed his hands on the hips of his polo shirt.
"I'm shaking in my boots."
Our Rad Hero threw down the worthless bankers boxes onto the two-wheeler.
"You're a cocksucker!" he shouted.
Actually, he sang the word "cocksucker".
The older man chose not to respond.
Our Sexiest Hero enjoyed a few brief fantasies involving pummeling, choking, and inducing comas.
Sometimes he wondered if prison would give him more free time.
Upstairs he dropped the boxes into the tiny cluttered office inhabited by the lump of a lady with a large heavy metal haircut.
"Thank you very much," he mumbled as she signed for the boxes.
"You sound like Elvis." She continued, "My boyfriend that died used to do voices."
The loading dock of the hospital was now home to a large industrial grease trap. To enter the building, he had to step over several greasy puddles and stains. Later, while approaching a red light, his lard-kissed sneaker slipped off of the brake pedal. He didn't collide with the car in front of him, but she almost hit him when she blindly backed up to accommodate a turning cement truck. Our Hero did a lot of yelling.
"I need to eat," he said to the van.
Not yet.
Around noon, an escort was dispatched at 1 North Wacker to oversee Our #1 Hero's retrieval of a couple of boxes. While waiting for the freight elevator he surprised himself by initiating a conversation.
"So do you do anything outside of this?"
"Yes," said the escort.
"...What do you do?" he followed up.
"Clou," he said.
"Cla..?"
"Clou!" he emphasized.
"I'm sorry, Clu..?"
"CLOWN!" he shouted, and Our Hero noticed he was missing his bottom front teeth.
This week, he hadn't had the opportunity to purchase groceries or make a lunch. So around 1pm he went hunting for Taco Bells. The nearest one on Madison and Ashland had become vacant, painted a drab grey that gave it the look of a WWII bunker. Eventually he found a living Taco Bell and was finally able to eat terribly for under $3.
Arturo, the best, most experienced, and least used dispatcher, gave Our Inspiring Hero the option of a lucrative-ish van job in The Loop, or a less lucrative run picking up from the Indiana border. Since Brian May was the guest on Fresh Air, he decided to take the long run and get cheap gas in Indiana.
At Johnny's Tap in Munster, a neon sign declared MR. FUN IS HERE.
He wondered if Mr. Fun moonlighted as a messenger escort.
Back in Chicago, he found shelter from the ridiculously stubborn afternoon sun in a loading zone on Lower Hubbard. Across the street sat The Billy Goat Tavern. He liked the Billy Goat. The coffee was only 56 cents.
A man approached him for a light.
"Sorry."
Thirty minutes later, Our World Class Hero realized he did have a lighter in one of the cup holders.
The man was not still standing there waiting.
He drove 118 miles, earning him $25.96.
He made about $50 in runs.
He spent $30 on cheap Indiana gas.
Maybe he should have taken that almost lucrative van job.
That way, he would have made $60 in runs, $14.63 in miles, spent $40 on over-priced gas, and missed Fresh Air.
Exhausted, Our Hero drove home in the defeating sun. He did a sloppy job of parallel parking, bumping the curb and sticking out on the narrow one way street. To get out of the path of an approaching motorist, he gave the van some gas in reverse and hopped onto the curb. A loud crunching sound happened.
"What the fuck?"
He had slammed into a tree.
Eight more days.
Verdict: Loss
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