Moving targets

Part 2

by Jason Gay

Practically everyone in Boston, it seems, can tell a bike-messenger horror story. Maybe it's the time they were crossing the street and got brushed by some hellion who popped a middle finger as he sped past. Or it's the messenger who ignored two red lights and caused a T bus to swerve like a stunt car. Perhaps it's the courier who got irritated with a slow driver and deposited a loogie on the hood of a Lexus.

It's hard to recall a courier crash as news-making as the William Spring-Jonathan Gladstone collision, but local animosity toward bike messengers is nothing new. Almost a decade ago, Globe columnist Mike Barnicle fantasized about "what one of these morons would look and sound like if I was able to thrust a stick into the spokes of their speeding front wheel. In my mind, the guy . . . would land, screaming, in the park at Copley Square, preferably on cement."

Obviously, not everyone wishes physical harm upon couriers. But there's little question that the Hub is a hostile clime for bike messengers. In downtown areas like the Financial District, runaway bicycle couriers are feared almost as much as a Wall Street crash.

"I've never been hit," Fleet Bank president John Hamill told the Globe after the William Spring accident, "but I've been a victim of their crude remarks."

Pop culture hasn't helped the bike messengers' image any. The profession has been caricatured by inane films such as Quicksilver (with Kevin Bacon) and poster children like Puck Rainey, the booger-eating jackass in the San Francisco edition of MTV's The Real World, who bragged ad nauseam about his courier career (but is rumored to have been a Bay Area messenger for only a few days). Because they tend to be young, and to have a flair for inventive wardrobes and lingo, messengers are often lumped into the same rebel-stoner-outlaw category as skateboarders, snowboarders, and surfers.

Such stereotyping irritates real-life couriers no end. "The public should understand that messengers are not the kind of people we've been made out to be," says Andrew van Gulden, 31, a Boston rider of 10 years. "We are college people, married people, parents, and homeowners. Most of us are not punks."

Today, there are roughly 200 messengers in Boston, a number that rises a bit in summer and dips in January. Most of the city's couriers are in their 20s, though a few are younger and a couple could have voted for McGovern as president. They include men and women, high-school dropouts and Ph.D. candidates, pierced alterna-hunks and clean-cut computer dorks, party lords who drink their paychecks at J.J. Foley's and family men who squirrel cash to buy a house.

Most couriers were drawn to the profession because they love two things: bikes and independence. Messengering was custom-built for gearheads who love feeling their quadriceps burn, and hate office jobs and dress codes. Though the profession will attract short-timers who can't hack the pace, a surprising number last more than a few months. Those that survive a few winters -- veterans are called "careeriers" -- say they are addicted to the job's many freedoms. (Boston's messengers are known for their penchant for public nudity, which began with some late-night pool-hopping and peaked with an impromptu 30-rider au naturel spin down Newbury Street a couple of years ago.)

There's a strong us-against-them quality to the courier lifestyle; unless you ride for a living, riders say, it's nearly impossible to grasp the public scorn they face every day. "I've learned how to deal with the animosity of people in general," says Rick Page. "Whether it's stepping into an elevator and watching people move back, or asking to use a bathroom or telephone and being told, `Absolutely not.' "

But last month's accident sent a chill down every laid-back spine in the Boston courier community. Serious injury is a constant fear among bike messengers, but seriously injuring someone else, especially a pedestrian, is unthinkable. In the aftermath of the crash, couriers have expressed sympathy for Spring and empathy for Gladstone. But over the past three weeks, messengers report being sworn at, spit upon, and harassed.

"Yes, I've heard things," says Matthew Russell, an experienced courier who rides a vintage-frame bike. "Just as I'm walking out the door, they'll say, `Don't kill anyone today.' "

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Jason Gay can be reached at jgay[a]phx.com.