Stafford Gregoire wasn't always a professor of English at CUNY's LaGuardia Community College. His past as a bike messenger in New York City during the early 1980s, riding the streets and avenues with a cast of characters out of a Hubert Selby, Jr. novel, set him on an intellectual journey that continues now in the halls of higher education. Stafford's stories touch on racial identity, gentrification, class politics, and the role that art can play in moving us toward both political and personal transcendence.