After moving to Philadelphia in his late twenties, Avendano started working as a bike courier for Sparrow Cycling Couriers, a worker-owned collective run out of a storefront in Center City. Sparrow’s couriers mostly deliver food and legal documents. They put business decisions to a vote, and their work earns them wages and a stake in the company. But for Avendano, it wasn’t enough to live on; to make rent, pay bills, and have fun. So he picked up delivery work through Caviar. As a Caviar courier, Avendano earned according to a formula that weighs demand, distance, and riders. He got a bump during peak hours: meal times and some other periods, as determined by the app. Rain, according to online postings from people identifying themselves as Caviar couriers, raises pay. Of course, rain also makes the work more dangerous. Avendano signed the 11-page Courier Agreement, which says in capital letters, in three separate provisions, that it disclaims liability for all work injuries, including death.

The evening of Saturday, May 12, the clouds had burst, pouring down rain, so people were ordering in. Avendano decided to deliver some food through Caviar to make some extra cash. He was riding his bike down Spring Garden Street, which divides Center City and the northern neighborhoods, when a Mitsubishi SUV struck and killed him.

Three hours later, Avendano’s younger brother Bryan and their mother, Graciela, were watching a Spanish show called Merlí on Netflix, at Graciela’s row home in south Philadelphia, when there was a knock on the door. Bryan answered and an officer asked whether Avendano lived there. Bryan balked. Avendano had always told them, “If the cops come looking for me, don’t let them in.” But Bryan did, shifted by a gravity in the officer’s voice. He found himself between the police officer in the foyer and his mother on the couch, translating as the officer told his mother that her eldest son was dead. Avendano was 34 years old.

One night not long after Avendano’s death, I went on the Ride of Silence, a yearly eight-mile procession that mourns cyclists killed in traffic. Three hundred or so cyclists gathered in the rain at the Art Museum for the pre-ride ceremony. The lead organizer read the names of the dead over a PA system. Avendano’s was the 11th name, the most recent death and the last on the list. The organizer flubbed the name and read, “Pedro—”

“Pablo!” came a shout from the crowd.

Avendano had friends there. Mostly young and clad in black, they held their bikes with one hand. With the other hand they held each other. Later that night, Avendano’s body was laid out in an open casket in a funeral home on South Broad. His face was pale, his eyelids bruise-dark. His body, dressed in a dark suit, somehow looked unharmed. Avendano’s mother, Graciela, knelt before the casket and sobbed and sang. His brother, Bryan, hit play on Black Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath,” and from speakers, rain and bells sounded.