The movers showed up at 10:00 Saturday morning, and despite a few minor
setbacks—having only three boxes packed just 24 hours before, pausing Friday
night for one last trip to Doyle’s pub down the street, and running out of tape
to put together our boxes until 9 a.m. Saturday when I could run to the store—I still managed to be ready for them. I know. Miracle.
Let me just stop right now to defend our decision to hire
movers. First of all, well, we’re lazy. I got winded climbing the stairs to our
third-floor apartment just carrying a small bag of groceries. There was no way
in hell I was going to run up and down all day (or multiple days, most likely)
carrying shtuff. Plus, the price of
the movers included the big moving truck, gas, blankets, security tape, large muscles…
It took them six hours to empty our apartment in JP, unload at my sister’s new
place, and then bring the rest to my new place. If we had rented our own truck,
after six hours we would maybe have brought down the beds and couches and be
halfway down the stairs with the kitchen table. Well worth it in my book.
The three guys from the local moving company in JP were all
fun and friendly. There was Eric, the manager of some sort, or at least the guy
with the clipboard. Mid 30s, short dark hair, increasing number of fingers
wrapped in tape throughout the day from constantly finding things to cut
himself on. He spent most of the time down in the truck rearranging, so I
didn’t get to talk to him much.
Rick was the “runner,” doing most of the legwork, grabbing
boxes from our apartment and running them down the stairs. He was probably late
20s and had black shorts, a black tank top that still managed to get darker
from sweat, a short Mohawk with the sides starting to grow out, and a tattoo of
an elaborate cross on his left bicep. As he walked through the kitchen where I
was standing awkwardly with my sister and her boyfriend, unsure of what to do
while they hauled our stuff out, he commented that we sure do have a lot of
books (packed in very heavy boxes, even though I specifically told The Sister
and The Boyfriend to split them up). Rick told us he couch surfed across the
country for years, and now that he’s been stationary in Boston for awhile now, he’s
excited to have a shelf devoted to books again. We also learned he used
to live in our JP neighborhood and had helped create the community garden that
I love walking through to take pictures of sunflowers. Small world.
And then there was Hale. Plain white t-shirt, short dark
blond hair, big nose and red, puffy eyes. He showed up two hours late and then
introduced himself by saying, “I apologize if I smell like alcohol. It’s
sweating out of me. …Don’t worry, I’m not drunk right now, but I went out last
night. It was a rough morning.” I’ll admit, I’m pretty awful at judging age,
but I figured Hale was in his late 30s. But as the vodka sweated out of him in
the next four hours, he started looking more like mid/early 30s. He was
surprisingly fast and agile for a middle-aged hungover man nonetheless.
After Hale carried down the last load, I went out and sat on
the front step to see if they really could fit everything into the medium-sized
truck (opposed to the large truck we used to move out here) like they claimed.
“We’ve picked up some tricks over the years,” Eric had said to my raised
eyebrows. There were just two boxes sitting out on the sidewalk next to one of
The Boyfriend’s amps and a large white box fan. As Eric and Rick rearranged the
boxes in the back of the truck like Tetris pieces, Hale lit up a cigarette and sat on the steps next to
me. He wanted to know where was I from and why did I move to Boston and what
was I up to, so I gave him all the incredibly exciting facts of my life. He
told me he had majored in journalism at a college in Vermont—or maybe it was
Virginia, I can’t remember—and then moved to Boston and worked for an ad
agency for eight years. But when they laid off 700 people, he was SOL: “And now
I’m here. No one grows up saying they want to be a mover.” He flicked the
cigarette down onto the sidewalk and hoisted himself up to go help the other
two just in time, helping to balance the fan on a box inside as they quickly
shut the door.
When they pulled up to my new place two hours later, Hale
hung his head out the passenger-side window and yelled, “Hey kiddo, nice
place!” They parked and Hale and Rick climbed out, each exhaling smoke from
another cigarette. I’m a little amazed they’re able to smoke so much with such
a physically demanding job, but who am I to judge.
I had them unload all of my stuff into the larger room right
next to the one I am moving into. See, my new room is a tad bit smallish. The
roommate who will be in the room next to mine won’t be moving in until the end
of the month, so I’m taking advantage of her space as I unpack and settle in.
And her room just happens to be about three times the size of mine. Or maybe
the better way to explain it is to say my room is only a little larger than her
room’s closet. (But have no fear—we have split the rent fairly, and my room
is nice and cozy, so I don’t mind.) So I thought it was somewhat genius of me
to have the guys bring all of my boxes into the room next door, pretending it
was mine. I know, that’s a weird thing to lie about. But #1. I knew there was
no way it would all fit into my room anyway. They could have stacked the boxes
literally wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and they would still spill out into
the hallway. (Yes, I have a lot of stuff. No, my plan to go through and get rid
of unnecessary stuff failed.) #2. Maybe I was a little embarrassed to admit I
was delusional enough to think everything would eventually fit in that room,
and I wasn’t sure if the movers would find that amusing or pathetic. #3. It
made sense; I can set up my room and then bring in all my crap at my leisure. But
Eric, adding another piece of tape to his thumb, said, “This is kind of a tight
squeeze for you, huh?” I looked around the spacious room, thinking of my little
nook one door over, and thought, You have
no idea.
