In the 10 months he worked as a motorcycle messenger in Los Angeles, Ray Charlton logged 40,000 miles. “The first motorcycle I had was one one-cylinder Yamaha SR500… and it just beat me to death,” he said. “To this day, my hands are sensitive to shaking.”  

In 1983, Charlton worked for a company called Royal Messengers, which employed about a half dozen motorcyclists to transport documents around the LA basin. Often, he delivered legal documents requiring a physical signature.

“I’d just knock on the door, hand ’em the paper, tell them I’d wait, then a few minutes later, [they] hand it back and zoom, off I went,” he said. 

Because it’s legal for motorcyclists to split lanes of traffic in California, Charlton could zip through LA congestion at speed. “I used eight of my nine lives in that job,” he said. 

Click the audio player above to hear Charlton’s story.

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