Cici and Rookie Me
October 16th, 2006
Cici was this guy from Congo that I worked with at Breakaway Courier in Manhattan. He was always really nice to me, even when I first started out. Anytime he’d see me on the street, he’d ask how I was doing — he called me Miss. He knew the city like the back of his hand, and he’d always tell me the best way to get somewhere, or the best order to deliver my packages in.
This is a drawing of my first day as a bike messenger, in the break area of Breakaway. I met Cici that day, he chatted with me while other messengers changed out of their layers of sweaty winter clothes in the background. I felt like a little kid, around all these big tall, athletic men. I might as well have been in a locker room for the NBA or NFL.
October 18th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Does everyone have to have a flag on their head, or just the rookies? :-)
October 18th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Haha, that’s awesome. I was wondering if someone would ask about the flag. Yeah, that was my creative touch, just trying to make myself stick out like a sore thumb a bit more.
Similarly, Cici wasn’t that much taller than me, but this drawing is kind of how I was feeling at that moment.
October 18th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
This is a great piece — it seems to convey the situation perfectly.
October 18th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Thanks Tim!!
October 21st, 2006 at 2:13 pm
I love this picture. You look so amazed by him, and it shows how you felt about him. :)
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:45 am
The rookieness truly shines out… Helmet[did Cici ever wear one? Curious.], flag, puzzled eyes. Felt that way when I first started working for Ace Messenger Service(Los Angeles DTLA [aside from WorldWide-but they suck, might as well give up.] messenger Academy)). Is that dude in the background mocking? How long ‘fore you started kicking arse?
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:33 am
Thanks Lan, and nice use of brackets and nested parenthesis, haha!
Cici never wore a helmet, I only saw him wearing baseball hats. The dude in the back is just generally talking shit to anyone who’ll listen while changing out of his clothes. There was a lot of trash talking and machismo as I remember.
Hmm…how long? I’d say the metaphorical flag came off my head in about 6-8 weeks. Those first two months were really a struggle because of weather — Winter in NYC. Actually things got a lot better as soon as I got on with a different company, but Breakaway is great that it always is willing to hire rookies.