A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A COURIER
A Delivery Guy's Journal: Thursday, December 21, 2000
I.
Yesterday I had an interesting time at my delivery job.
Yes, I'm still at my delivery job, though I have an iron in a fire elsewhere. Who knows if
anything will come of it?
If delivering packages across galaxies of cars, across epochal energy fields of traffic, across
vortexes of speeding, metal-encased egos, across vast magnetic fields and centrepital moving
force-fields of whirling, machined meteors.. if facing the massed, mechanized divisions of white
headlights coming toward me, and, believing I've finished work, turning onto the freeway only
to find thousands of stalled legions in front of me whose red brake-lights create a diorama of
Hell, with fifty urban/suburban miles of them between myself and home.. if this is what Baba
has ordained for me to do, then let me consider it my sacred work, and let me consider all
obstacles to be propelling me toward the Goal. And let me consider them as the labors of
Hercules or the ordeals of Oddysseus.
Often I have to work twelve/thirteen hour days to even come close to earning a living.
The thousands of red brakelights in this metropolitan area that sprawls a hundred miles
lengthwise and seventy-five in width, with maybe 5 million cars to clog the roads, remind
me of author Jean Shepherd's tape in which he tells stories of working as a young man in a steel
mill, another hell-realm, this one of red vats of molten slag. That one may have been much
tougher, but mine is tough enough—tough enough to dim my resolve sometimes, to make me
wonder how I can go out into the madness another day.
This in a nation where many people work two or three low-paying jobs to try to make ends
meet, and yet Buddha said, "You can search the entire universe and you'll never find anyone
more deserving of love than yourself," and so everyone else's burden matters, yes.. and mine
does too.
And if it can bring me closer to God, it is to be treasured, as you all will be aware, as more
precious than gold.
Ah, burden, sense of helplessness, of social humiliation at being a college graduate from a
well-to-do family who simply cannot seem to fit in, or perhaps after decades of prayer and
affirmations, who still, can it be, does not believe in his worth enough to have it manifest materially.
Ah, karma, formless something that somehow has shaped my challenges. You can break me, or
I can hold you to me and make you sacred. I can yield the gold and the God from you!
May I do so!
*****
II.
This began as a vignette about yesterday. Do the little incidents of yesterday have any bearing
any more? It would be nice to tell the lighter, the more beautiful side. And there is beauty, a lot of
it, as there is everywhere. Between the senseless, maddening commutes..
I came into downtown San Francisco last night with three loads to deliver. The first was easy.
At the 4th Street Marriott, the doormen helped me load 9 heavy boxes of printed material for the
manager, onto one of their shining brass luggage carts. I wheeled it in to the Bell Captain, got his
signature, made a quick run to the Men's Room, and was off, hoping that this time I would nimbly
get in and out of the city a little before rush hour, like a bird lighting on earth for a grain of corn,
instantly to be heaven-bound again.
Well, just before I could deliver my last city package, a girl from the office called me on my nextel
phone, saying, "Could you please do a quick Providian run, from 201 Mission Street to 100 Pine?"
Who can resist a feminine voice? Me, in the future! But as you all know from your own lives, often
comes that request to do one more thing, and sometimes it's all but impossible to say no. And the ease
with which in one's imagination one dispatches the assignment is quickly pulverized by actual events.
I easily picked up three manilla envelopes on the 28th floor of the Providian Insurance building. I
knew Pine Street, it crossed Fremont, a block over from Providian, just the other side of Market. I
was there before long. Where was the 100 Building, though? I tried reading addresses while dealing
with waves of motorists, kamikaze-like in their commitment to get out of downtown. Number 160
flashed by, and so now I knew too where 100 was. I'd passed it!
The only way to get back was to drive all the way around the block via one-way streets, amid
lines of traffice that wouldn't budge all through a whole green light's span, sometimes more than one.
The pedestrian lights downtown are timed so there really isn't time for pedestrians and motorists, too.
The WALK sign for pedestrians goes on at the same time the light turns green for motorists. There's
always tension, at every light. Pedestrians frequently die crossing San Francisco streets. During rush
hour, it takes about 15 minutes to drive every city block.
I finally got around the block. By now I'd pinpointed the 100 building—but not the loading dock
parking entrance. My car got towed a few months ago for illegally parking on the street. Getting the
car back cost me $125. During rush hour, you can't park legally anywhere on downtown streets.
Rather than take a chance of getting towed again, I re-entered the maelstrom.
I pulled into the first parking garage, hoping it was the one. An attendant met me. No, this isn't the
100 building, he told me. He made hand motions showing me how to get to it. Could I leave the car
a few minutes, I asked.
"Yes," he said. "It will cost you $8. This is a private garage."
I did my time in this hell world until I finally did find the right parking garage and deliver that
package. Please don't stop following my adventures now, gentle reader. Stick with me, it gets better!
Finally I was on my last delivery, at Nordstroms' downtown mall. I parked easily and legally this
time. It was after 6 and a parking meter space was available right across the street from the building.
A homeless man tried to navigate me into the space, to get some money from me.
"I don't need help!" I shouted and he disappeared.
Once out of my car, carrying the big box I was delivering to the crossing signal, I joined the other
side in the war between drivers and pedestrians. Now I was on the side of the fearful pedestrians,
resenting the predator motorists just as, a few moments before in my car, I'd been enraged at the
selfish walkers!
Nordstrom's and its mall have a seven-level, spiral escalator, with a panoramic view of everything
below as you go up. Ascending, I literally felt like a character from Dante's "Divine Comedy". I'd
already been through hell, that was certain.. Rising slowly on the escalator, I now carried a burden
of only this single box. Soon I'd be on my way back to Walnut Creek.
I set the box down on the escalator as I rose. Now there was no burdenat all! Sisyphus was
freed from his rock and was heading toward Paradise! I was amazed how the simple act of freeing
my body from the weight of the light, but clumsy box also freed my senses to enjoy the mall with its
bright light, colorful displays, festive crowd, and Holiday frills.
As I rose on Dante's escalator, I leaned over and beheld the panorama of an untold number souls
ascending and descending. Sculpted stars hung from the ceiling, gracing the highest levels. Amid the
surging tide of Humanity, I moved, without taking a step, toward those golden stars.
*****
Tomorrow is another day!
Note: After the Christmas season, the bottom pretty much fell out of the economy. The Silicon
Valley bubble had burst, and there was very little business for delivery guys like me. I waited out the
situation for several weeks and then began looking for another job. Before long I found a position
at Meher School, in Lafayette, California, where I am still working, in July, 2004, as a preschool
teacher. See School Days and Preschool Days, Too.
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