Bronx Jon

When I ran into Jack Blackfelt a couple of weeks ago, he informed me of Jon's passing. Really quite a shame; it's been on my mind ever since.

I probably met Jon in 2000, when I first began working for Breakaway. He was someone who I'd always see on the road and I inevitably became aquainted with him. Even when I was no longer a messenger, I'd see him every two or so months; I'd yell to him "JONNY!" and he'd stop his bike and pull to the curb for a chat. He'd tell me to stick with the 9-5, despite my bitching about sitting at a desk and getting fat.

He truly made me feel good, and his general demeanor was always uplifting -- even if I could tell he had some shit on his mind.

I'll miss running into him, as I'm sure anyone whose ever known him will as well.

His energy was unmatched and I hope to one day experience it again.

I've known Jon for the past six or nine years. He was my first friend from the road. We both worked at some crap courier company and were on the crazy white-boy crew with the punk rock dispatcher Jack Shit. Jon and I once decided that we would try to make it cool for white people to call each other "Cracker". We even made up a song called "Cracker Who?" during a long elevator ride. The Spanish UPS guy thought we were nuts. If he only knew. Our mutual love of hip hop gave us stuff to talk about. He would freestyle sometimes, the craziest rhymes, while we waited for elevators at modeling agencies and he would snap on the security guards at freight entrances. No one will ever forget the hundreds of times he would grab the mic at parties and spit one out. The best MC battle I ever saw Jon in was against Igor, the champion of metropoloco. A drunk Russian against a drunk mick throwing down all sorts of incoherent insults in metered diction for a full twenty minutes. Jon won. Jon never won them all, but he was never afraid to battle. I think he liked the attention.

Tompkins Square Park used to be a place to drink a beer and have a smoke after work. All sorts of grimy weird messenger characters used to fraternize under the Hare Krishna tree and talk shit about each other and work and politics. Jon introduced me to people like Ho, Blackfelt, Wild Bill, Bilthy, Evil E, Reggie, Fast Eddie, KT, Jen, Russian Dave and the rest of those skells. Jon took me aside one day as we stumbled into Sophies, and said,"Mike D, You should get involved in the BMA. Your smart and we could use somebody like you. Really." So I did.

When we started drinking at Sophies the beer cost three bucks a pint and seven a pitcher. That is the only thing that has changed. Jon was always a good friend and drinking buddy. He liked to buy his friends beers when he had the money. He had an ability to see when an argument might turn violent or if certain people would be trouble and he could distract the folks involved by getting them all focused on him. He would have made a great teacher.

At the Worlds in Philly Jon was able to infiltrate the Howard Johnson Hotel that team Tuborg and some of those other eurotrash teams were staying. As part of an elaborate scheme to give Yac an advantage, Jon started calling all the rooms that the bad guys were sleeping in at about 2 in the morning saying " Do you know ver ve can find der Spooky Party....Fancy Party?" We kept screaming that all weekend long every time we saw a German in tights. He terrorized them.

I knew 'Bronx John' like many fellow messengers. A ray of sunshine on a shitty New York day. Always beaming. Our paths would intersect, collide, or run along and theres was always a common cheery banter.

Lucas Brunelle and I were foolin around with cameras in Times Square this February and over my shoulder I hear 'TRACKCVNT' in a booming voice... who else COULD it be. The last time I was with Jon was the post race party at Rockstar bar, beer in hand naturally. I got a bag as a prize and he was in my ear two seconds later wanting it. He said just make sure you tag it. I remember hugging him goodbye and asking him to come to Sydney.

The night I met "Bronx Johnny" was a blur...

It was the last Friday of the month in January (2001, I believe).

Picture this, a Westchester executive who wears suits, stockings and high heels during the day, hanging out in Sophie's with all the messengers after her first critical mass when it is 10 degrees outside. To this day I cannot believe I was ever talked into that night. I am glad I went on this crazy ride. Not only did I have a blast riding with the other insane people, I hung out and met the most insane at Sophie's!!! I was introduced to "Ditka & Bronx Johnny". I know that I met more people that night, but it was Ditka & Bronx Johnny that stuck out in my mind. One night I was hanging out with the guys again and Ditka & my friend deserted me and left me alone in the bar. Johnny stayed with me for 2 hours and talked a blue streak. Although I am considered one of the guys on the critical mass nights, I am not used to being left alone for hours at strange places in the middle of nowhere. Johnny realized that and hung with me until I was ready to leave. I will never forget that. He could have easily gone with Ditka and my friend. He chose to be a perfect gentleman and keep me company. Another time after critical mass, we ended up at some bike shop on the west side that was having a party. The next thing I know, my protector deserted me again. I know what you are thinking; at this point I shouldn't be riding if I cannot take care of myself. Well, out of the blue Bronx Johnny came to my rescue with his big smile and a kiss and a hug. Once again, Johnny stayed with me until Ditka and my protector found me.

"Yo, X!! Wassup?!"

As soon as i heard my name i knew who it was, i didn't even have to see him to know. "Bronx Jon! What up kid?"

No one else i know gets this excited at seeing me, not even my mother. Typical of Jon to be Sunshine-In-A-Can; in the eight years i "knew" him (i mean, in the eight years i bumped into him), i saw him unhappy only once.

It breaks my heart to hear that he's gone. He and Wild Bill truly took me under wing like a sister when I was there for a visit. I'll never forget him, so open and bursting with energy that was contagious. He's the first person I heard use the saying 'yo' all the time and he let me ride along a few times in the morning to Manhattan for his first delivery runs of the day to point me in the right direction. I ended up giving him that black wig that I'd brought out for the Halloween ride because I think he loved it more than his own hair.

I knew Bronx Jon from New York
City Alleycat Scene. Where you find
the fastest bicycle messengers in New
York City, the business capital of the world.

This poem is for bike messenger, Jonathan Neese.
AKA Bronx Jon died last week in a bicycle accident.
I remember Bronx Jon as a happy messenger and full
of spirit. He would always show me respect on the streets.

You see I am Kurt Boone AKA Messenger 841. A known
Foot Messenger in New York City, the business capital of
the world.

Me and Jonathan were partners in making this city the business
capital of the world. Picking up and delivering packages in minutes
from Wall Street to Time Warner Center.

Jonathan Neese was a New York City Bicycle Messenger.
And this city must not every forget it.

Let me tell you all about this man. He was the closest thing to family that I had without being family. Like my crazy little brother that would annoy the hell out of me. But with Jon it was never the same. He could make you mad and happy at the same time. Sure he was a kidder but at the same time Jon would listen to every word you had to say. Jon was a true friend in every sense of the word.

When I first met Jonathan Neese he was homeless and rode a skateboard with a plastic bag to carry his packages in. At first I thought he was just some weird kid from the streets. But then as I got to know more about him I thought he was pretty cool. One time while both of us were working for Mother's Messengers he got robbed while delivering a package to the Bronx on his way home. When I saw him afterwards and I saw how f**ked up he looked, I asked him what happened. "I got robbed yo! I'm just pissed that they stole my f**kin' skateboard!" Eventually he got himself a bike and bag and turned into one of the best messengers in NY City. I would see him on the streets at least a few times a day and we'd crack each other up with inside jokes and wisecracks. Not a day went by when seeing Jon bought a smile to my face.

There are two times that I will never forget. The time we rode back to my house in the winter and the time he got arrested. The first time he came to my house was during the winter of either 1997 or 1998. Part of the route was covered completely in ice. So we walked for a little. While we were walking I fell and busted my ass. "Are you okayyyyyyyyyy!" Boom! Down goes Jon right next to me. We slapped hands and had a good laugh then got up and rode to my house. Then the time Jon got arrested some of the crew were hanging out at the Village Idiot on West 14th Street. One of the bartenders came over telling us that there was a messenger on the phone. So when I went to the phone and as I said hello I heard "Holla!" "What's up Jon?" "I got arrested yo!" "For what?" "I hit a cop yo!" "Oh geez Jonny! I'll get someone to get your stuff!" How he knew where I was is beyond me. Eventually he got out and did his time just like a good boy!

I've never had a chance to formally meet Bronx Jon, but when I saw his picture I immediately recognized sharing the road with him. I did however have one encounter. It's nothing life changing, but it is my own personal experience. I, a 19 year old rookie at the time surviving my first winter messengering, was approached by some dude I've seen in races, streets and in loading docks. Unaffected by the bitter cold, this tamer of the road in a raspy voice said "hey man, I'm backed up on this double rush and my valve just busted. You gotta an extra tube? I'll pay you $5 bucks" Going in my bag, I managed to find an old tube that I never got around to patching. I apologized and told him thatâs all I had. He then said: "Thatâs cool, I'll patch it." He then went in his pocket and took out a $5 bill, after I refused; He said, "Get yourself a cup of coffee kid".

When Pit and I finished our cross-country bike trip in 1999 Bronx Jon was the first messenger we saw back in town, right off the Staten Island Ferry. "YOOOOOOOO!!!!!! LOOK WHO'S BACK!!!" He said with gigantic smile and wide eyes. And who better to be welcomed back to NYC by? He had the charisma of 10 people all rolled up into one: The scraggly-jawed, wild-eyed ambassador of the dirty streets of NYC.

Jon and I had different backgrounds. He didn't have a lot of the things I had growing up. He told me about his relationship with his mom a little over the years. At one point he said that it was getting better... then for a while it seemed that it was getting worse. He said that he didn't know who his father was. We thought that maybe it was John Travolta, because he kind of had that look. When I told him our suspicions I remember him cracking a little bit of a boyish smile, and quickly changing the subject.

At the DC Championships when my mother showed up she invited him to dinner with us that night after the race. Jon chickened out and never showed up. He told me later that "It didn't feel right. See, Hermes you've got a beautiful family, and your mother's a wonderful person and... it's just not my place."

I'm sad that he's passed away. I think the blows that life dealt Jon wore away at him. He did his best to deal with it, but time took its toll.

Bronx Jon... that was a name I heard about three years ago when I first moved to The City.Ê His, along with some of the other more well known monikers (Squid, Ho, Ninja, etc.) was the stuff of legend to me.Ê It seemed like as soon as I started riding his name was uttered everywhere I went, on the road, at BMA meetings, in the shops, at the German Bar on Ave C.Ê There was this one guy at Zum Schneider who, as soon as he saw me come in, would begin to talk about and ask about Bronx Jon.Ê Usually he hadn't seen him in a while and was wondering how he was faring after his last date with those monstrous steins of high octane brew that they serve there.Ê Of course we all know that beer wasn't necessarily Jon's beverage of choice.Ê It was Sparks.Ê I never understood what he liked so much about that stuff.Ê I personally never could tolerate the whole booze/caffeine buzz. Ê

I don't remember exactly when I first met Jon but I'm pretty sure it was Halloween, 3 1/2 years ago.Ê He never asked me all the ubiquitous questions about where I had worked before, how long I had been on the road, etc.Ê He was immediately friendly and warm and a shit-ton of fun.Ê I am horrible with names but I never forgot his.Ê I would see him on those lazy days in the summer, usually at Union Square watching the girls go by.Ê He always gave some sort of trademark shout and I always found the time to pull in say hello.Ê He would usually fill me in on his day and always asked about mine.Ê He was never much for war stories with me, he struck me as someone who lived only in the present.Ê Something I hope that we all take from both his life and his death.Ê We only have today. Ê

I think the last time I saw Jon was on his Birthday, maybe a month or so ago.Ê I was riding home down Ridge Street and I could hear him a block away.Ê He was standing outside the A-Z locker room whooping it up with some of the boys over there.Ê I don't think I have ever seen anyone so excited for their own Birthday.Ê He had obviously started early that day and said he was continuing the fiesta in Brooklyn that evening, inviting, no insisting that I come along. I didn't.Ê Like someone else shared, I didn't worry if I didn't get to finish my conversation with Jon Ôcause you would always see him again.Ê He was everywhere.Ê A few minutes later I saw him ride by my apartment still singin' at the top of his lungs "HOLLA, HOLLA".Ê I told him to "ride safe" and he replied "it's the only way I know!"Ê Ê

He is not the first friend I've lost but he is the first friend in the messenger community I have who has gone to look after the rest of us.Ê I don't work on the road anymore and I doubt that I'm on the top of his "Hey God, can you save his stupid ass" list but I have no doubt that he has that list together and is lobbying hard, Sparks in hand, for the person upstairs to watch out for the couriers. Ê

When I first got the emails on Thursday about his accident, I had the same feelings that many of us probably did; "he'll pull through, he's Bronx Jon".Ê By Saturday I knew how it had all played out and it wasn't what any of us wanted to hear.Ê I still haven't shed a tear and who knows if I will.Ê I do know that I will miss his ass deeply and I'll never pass by Union Square without thinking of some of those lazy days I shared with him there.Ê Many of the races won't be the same without him, in body, sitting at at least one checkpoint going crazy. Funny wigs, crazy glasses, genuine kindness, storytime in Bronx Jon Land and a rhyme here or there.Ê That is the legacy he left for me. Ê

"HOLLAH!!!"

"heh heh, what up Jon?.Holla.!"

"YO!!! I said HOLLAAAAH, YO!!!"

After eight years of messengering around town; drinking in parks, alleys and apartments everywhere and after I got sober; telling lies to each other; half-assedly ripping on each other's girlfriends and my even dating one of his later; arguing and shouting about the dumbest most trivial shit - but never fighting; upbeat or upset.that was his ever boisterous call to me in the street. I knew his voice anywhere. I will miss it beyond measure.

Bronx Jon and I met in Tompkins Square Park in 1998. He was a former street kid-recently turned rookie bike messenger. I was a nine year veteran of Chicago and San Francisco. We were both former teenage runaways. He didn't give a fuck about any of that. He went right to ridiculing Michael Jordan, Wrigley Field, Joe Montana, gay San Franciscans, the Sears Tower, the Golden gate Bridge and anything else he sensed I might hold dear. He was NYC messengerdom's class clown, a missing and vital part to a community that had recently been saddened by the murder of former messenger Eli Horman. I think Danny Harquio was the one who dubbed him "our Flavor Flav". In any case, he was right on time.

There was something magical about Jon's sense of impromptu timing, and hilariously tacky culture references. The little effeminate voices he would coin as he pretended to hit on women walking by that one would assume he felt were out of his league, would only make them laugh along with him instead of get freaked out by what he had said or how he complimented them. One eternal image I have of him is him goose-step skank dancing, afro on head, to the opening shriek of House Of Pain's "Jump Around". He was Irish and proud. He was Bronx and proud. Even when he called himself Brooklyn Jon, tiring of my nickname for him ("cause I live in Brooklyn, yo") he was always prone to a loud sustained "THAAAA Yankees win! THAAAAAA Yankees win!" a la John Sterling. Above all else, he was a real New Yorker and friendly to anybody at first meeting.

My funniest memory of him was when I woke up from being passed out in my room to his genuinely panicked voice bellowing "Meeces, yo! Holy shit, yo! Your cat's got a meeces yo!" I stumbled into my living room to find him sitting on top of the back of my dumpy loveseat, the blanket I'd given him to crash on clutched to his chest. "Yo, your cat caught a meeces and dropped on my fucking chest, yo!'' I got rid of the dead mouse, and Jon let everyone at Tompkins and The St. Marks Bar know what had happened and how it went down with the "meeces" for weeks. Then, two months later.same scenario - us both passed out drunk at my place."Yo!!! Your FUCKING cat, yo! It caught and dropped another meeces on me again, yo!"

"Bronx Jon is in the hospital in critical condition" The instant message came in on my computer screen from Ken in NYC just after 11am this past Thursday. "He had a real bad accident last night at S4th and Roebling." My heart skipped up into my throat. This didn't sound good. "What's the deal??" I typed back as fast as I could. "I haven't heard anything since this morning but he's not in good shape whatsoever." The words flashed on my screen and my breakfast suddenly felt like a ton of dead weight in the pit of my stomach. "Is he gonna pull through???"

"We don't know" Ken wrote. Those were not the words I wanted to see. Bronx Jon was one of the old school messengers. He'd been around since long before I ever was and he was always present on the streets of New York and in the community. He'd been working as a messenger on his bike for over 10 years and was truly one of a kind.

I got Squid on the Nextel radio. "What's the word on Bronx Jon?" I asked. Squid radioed back right away. "Not sure - I gotta call the doctor back at five. We gotta find his family" Weird how you can know someone for so long and not know how to reach their family. I guess no one really thinks of it until they have to.

I spoke to Squid again a few hours later. "They're going to do another scan tomorrow." He told me. I wasn't sure what that meant but it sounded bad. Still, I was sure he'd eventually be OK, even if it took a while. Other people got into bad accidents and pulled through OK and in my mind Bronx Jon was one of the invincibles. He was the type of person you thought could probably sleep through a nuclear attack and wake up looking for the beer he left by the side of his bed. Except in Bronx Jon's case he would probably be looking for a can of Sparks.

My head raced back to the last time I saw Bronx Jon. I can't remember when it was, maybe at Monster Track 7 cuz that's the last time I was in New York. I remember thinking he looked really good. Better than usual. His face looked clear and he seemed as relaxed and grounded as I'd ever seen him. He gave me a gross sweaty hug and a signature cracked-lip grin and called me 'Shakira' on purpose, like he always did, just to see me smile. His energy was high. I was happy to see him like that. He looked light.

I called Mike Dee on Friday. He was at the hospital visiting Jon. He was still unconscious and in a coma. "Lemme call you right back." Mike said. "I'm about to go in." Mike Dee had just had a bad accident himself a couple weeks ago and cracked his scull open. He called me a few minutes later. "He looks broken." That's not what I wanted to hear. "Like he took the windshield out with his body." I was trying to remember to breath. "You're so fucking lucky you didn't fuck yourself up worse than you did." I told him. "You know, I didn't feel lucky about my accident until I saw Jon just now." His tone was quieter than usual. "Listen." He told me "People have pulled through worse."

I used to see Bronx Jon all the time when I delivered food to the hipster-yuppies in Manhattan's trendy meat packing district. He'd always shout me out from across the street or down the block on 9th Ave or around 14th St. Sometimes he was smiling, sometimes he wasn't. But whatever his expression was, it was always from his heart. He'd cryptically fill me in on blips of his life but never with much detail. It was always about the now. He didn't want to talk about the past.

Jon once told me that he was raised orthodox Jewish but he wouldn't tell me much more than that. I'm not religious anymore but my Dad is. I gave him Jon's name and asked him to say a prayer at the synagogue for him. He did. I asked the friends I was camping with all this past weekend to stand together in a moment of prayer for Jon on Saturday morning. We did. When I left the woods on Sunday and got service back on my phone I had six messages. Before I had a chance to pick them up my phone rang. It was Chris Kim. His voice broke and my heart sank. "Bronx Jon is gone... they took him off life support yesterday." Chris told me that they finally found his Mom, that the doctors said he hadn't improved since they brought him in Wed night, that he'd have been a vegetable even if he did ever wake up from the coma, that his Mom had no idea of the extent of his messenger family or that he was loved by so many.

The shock of losing someone so vibrant, in such a sudden manner, is hard anywhere. But to lose someone like this while living across the country in LA with no one who knew him to share this grief with is harder. Doesn't everybody know Bronx Jon? I wish I could curl up on the couch in Mike Dee's apartment and cry into his shoulder. I wish I could join the memorial ride tonight for him and the other bike messenger who was killed last week, Darren Lewis. I wish I could hug all the members of my messenger family who have been there over the years and whose hearts I know are so heavy right now.

I spoke to Amy Bolger last night. I was grateful just to talk to her. She told me Jon's Mom said they'll give him a Catholic burial. This confused me because I thought Jon was Jewish. Amy said that there were a couple things that Jon said that didn't seem to match up. I found myself laughing when I heard that. For some reason it struck me as funny and not out of character for Jon. "It's Jon." I heard myself say. "It doesn't even matter."

In truth, it's not like I can say Bronx Jon was all that good a friend of mine. In all the years I knew him, I never took down his phone number. If I didn't see him for a while, I didn't stress it because I knew I'd see him again sooner or later. Bronx Jon may not have been my best friend but he was my buddy and I loved him. Bronx Jon was like the crazy cousin who you thought would always just be there. Everyone knew he didn't fuck with alleycats or racing, but he'd always be at the after-race parties drinking Sparks or beer or whatever. If he was feeling playful, his curly black wig would make an appearance and it suited him fantastically. Bronx Jon would let out a freestyle flow of words on a whim, and I'm glad we have a glimpse of that to keep in the movie "Red Light Go". Bronx Jon would sometimes make people mad but usually he would make people laugh. Most importantly of all though, Bronx Jon was family, and I'm going to miss him terribly.

i'm still in shock, bronx jon and me shared the same birthday, i'm a year older, we both can do this loud sound with the tongue... when i went to dc worlds in 98' i first met him, i wondered about how friendly someone from the bronx can be, i moved to ny after that, partied a lot whith him, igor and russian dave... i saw him everyday while working, you know he's one of the people you would always see... i can't remember a ny without him, hmmmm, makes me sad !!! be safe out there everybody in nyc, my thoughts are with you !!!

I remember Bronx Jon from my first messenger trip to NYC in 2000 for Metropoloco. He seemed kinda crazy but also incredibly welcoming in a town which I'd previously assumed would be even less friendly to new messenger faces. But even though I'm not a drinker, I couldn't help but stop and hang out on the Brooklyn Bridge when he and a bunch of other folks flagged me down. I remember thinking how odd this guy was, a guy whose name changed depending on where he was living at the time. There were a lot of a friendly folks at that event, but Jon's energy and efforts to break through the toughness and aloofness were really memorable.

Last time I was in NYC was for CMWC just after my friend Kristine had been killed working in Portland. I found myself already withdrawing from the messenger scene and it was tough to feel stoked about the job when it takes the lives of people we're close to. One the same note, it's times like this which remind me how lucky I am to be a part of this family.

When I first started hanging out with messengers at Sophie's, the corner deli and in Tompkin's five, six years ago, Jon was one of the first people I felt welcomed by. I was new, I didn't know people or where I fit in, and Jon always talked to me and was always around. At his memorial last night I saw people I hadn't seen in years, certainly not together, and it really brought those days back. It made me realize how much the community has changed - there were so many people there who probably didn't know him very well at all - but it felt good to see them honoring fellow cyclists.

I can't really describe how his death makes me feel. Maybe I'm still in shock. Other people have said a lot that resonates with me - mainly the parts about him always being there, as he always would be, or so we just seem to assume. I liked Stacy's story about his "Vanilla Ice" nickname for her. Jon and I had our nicknames for each other too. Aw, boyo, I wish it hadn't gone like this. Love, your girly-girl.