taking out the trash at 3am

Rob’s decision to ride a bike for a living seemed perfectly natural to him. To the rest of the world, it marked him as probably insane.
Such is life. It’s such a funny thing, though, isn’t it? It never fails to disappoint whenever you try to plan it out, but somehow I never remember to plan for that part of it.
Those are the kind of thoughts that will pull you through Essential Deliveries on a Sunday night. Until 3 or 4 hours into Monday morning, and on a bike, of course. If the rush from spending a few hours in which you actually have some freedom on the road isn’t enough, the level of ambient radiated insanity from the clientele is high enough to send you into a psychological tailspin for the rest of the night.
This is, of course, half the fun of the job.
Rob was in the process of drifting between existential and absurdist thought when he heard the noise. Physically, just a second… he was just nearing the Little League diamond in North Downs, way the hell out in the ancient suburbs. And it sounded like, maybe, something was getting smashed around in the bleachers. Maybe some poor dude. Maybe…
One quick lesson is that if you can’t see anything because it’s too dark, don’t go looking. Doesn’t matter what you heard. The only downside is that no matter how old and seen-it-all jaded you think you’ve become, you still often wonder what it was for the rest of the night.
This particular sound was all but gone from his mind when he saw, across the parking lot of the gutted mini-mall further down the road from the baseball diamond, a speeding vehicle, careening just barely under control down the otherwise-empty street that intersected his 200 meters ahead. The only thing was, it seemed to be the size of a bus. Scratch that, it was a garbage truck, the kind that picked up dumpsters like the giant robot dinosaurs picked up compact cars on the countless televised demolition derbies he'd watched as a kid. From a fair distance away, he watched as the truck slowed to perhaps half of the legal speed limit, took the corner, somehow avoided tipping over, and began heading further up the street ahead of him.
Now that was a dead giveaway. In a significant percentage of the city, that kind of driving would be likely written off as simply free-spirited unwinding, a tired driver sending out an eloquently irresponsible fuck-you to the world that had made him or her a cog in whatever machine it had chosen based upon aptitude tests administered during early adolescence. If you’re gonna judge me like I’m still that person, fine, then I’ll act that age for you.
But as he passed through the intersection, Rob could clearly see the silver BMW parked on the side street, its hood and roof crushed along two lines spaced the same distance apart as -- wouldn’t you know? -- the slots on the sides of a standard trash dumpster.
Yep… the goddamn poser mafiosos strike again.
No part of the city produced so many coked-up, don’t-mess-with-my-shit-guy Dudes raised on Scarface and Get Rich or Die Tryin’ as North Downs did. The place also seemed to serve as a magnet to the rest of them, those who were unfortunate enough to have been born in more gentrified areas.
Rob knew the cops wouldn’t even show up to check this one out tomorrow. But there would be retribution nonetheless. Just not justice.
He flipped his bike up one gear and sped on towards his destination.

"the thunderstorm children still run free"

even when right and wrong no longer matter
and the idol of perfection lies shattered,
the words, though blurted and broken,
mean so much more than ever.

though the city may raise up
all its skyscrapers and chimneystacks to menace us,
its highways and onramps as fences to our bare feet,
will we stop believing? doubting? singing?
or will we join our grubby hands,
to walk with our beliefs, our doubts, and our songs?
for then the buildings of downtown will part before us
and we will make our way through this madness.

we won't care if they see us
running off to somewhere beyond,
and screaming to them our defiance,
"you'll never take us alive, you bastards!"

where, then...
in that unmapped place,
where we'll wake up
after finally touching down?

we'll walk in the fields and forests
with new things found along the way:
a little loss,
a little melancholy,
a little wisdom...
a little peace.

once again, wishing for a built-in camera

What must we have looked like? This intrepid group of sixteen crazy kids, drifting towards midnight -- vaguely keeping together -- across half-empty main streets, darkened soccer fields, under three giant power lines, through the university's new slapdash mini-suburb, and through the campus proper... finally assembling in the green space around the pond for a marathon game of capture-the-flag. We hassled and babbled about rules, sorted out our teams and sides, improvised flags from pieces of clothing we had on us, and set to work.
Yes, Matty, the pond is neutral.
I remember slipping through the nearly-dry drainage canal with Nick and climbing up the concrete slope on the other side, straight into a tangle of tall grass and weeds. From there on we were separated, and I made my way along the edge of the tall grass and where the university actually mows -- right next to the road. So every few minutes, headlights would flash by -- okay, there's this crazy asshole down on the ground next to the road, and it's midnight, and yeah he probably got shot... oh, okay then. Drive on.
No weapons in our battle. Funny how it's more fun that way.