Hodari, age 33, doesn't let a few broken bones or peoples' opinions slow him down.

I've been a bike messenger for 13 years. I got cut off from welfare, and I needed a job. You've only got to have a bike, a bag and a lock, and then the companies rent you the necessary equipment like beepers and radios and phones. Fighting with drivers is really a rookie thing. I ride this big-ass bike, so usually if I get cut off or something, I just roll up to the side of the guy's window, and tap on his window, and he'll roll down his window, and I'll say, “Say you didn't see me. Just say you didn't see me!" And they look at the bike and they look at me, and they say, "I'm sorry, Man.”

I've broke my hand, busted my wrist, twice, I got 16 stitches in my forehead, and four in my nose, and I hit a wrought iron fence one time, and it ripped my nose ring out. And since the surgery to straighten out my nose, I haven't put any of my piercings back in.

Truthfully, I really don't give a fuck what people think about me. I mean, they're not sleeping with me, I don't help to pay their bills, they don't pay mine, I don't give a fuck what they got to say, so fuck 'em. I have to say this about messengering: had I gone and got an office job or something like that, I think I would have missed out on a lot of experiences, like traveling. Being in messenger races around the world, and getting to know people from different places: Japan, Afghanistan, all over Europe, Iran. I've made friends from all over.

Sometimes I love being a bike messenger, and sometimes I like it just enough to keep doing it.