So Special Ed’s been nipping about my heels telling me to write about how two tough-guy Northerners made the move to the Deep South. It’s an epic story, so I said real excitedly, “Hey, Pooch! How about you write that story for me? Huh? Huh? Wanna treat, do ya’, huh?!” And so he did just that. I sure did pick the right breed of husband. So without further ado, Special Ed barks up the right tree:
The whole neighborhood came out to watch when the movers arrived to drop our stuff off. Our landlords, some of their friends, Jimmy from across the street, some stray dogs. We had spent a torturous week and a half in our bare apartment waiting for our stuff sleeping on an air mattress with a slow leak that would beach us every night on the hardwood floors at 4:30 a.m. We had no tables, chairs, or T.V. We were so desperate we paid to see American Wedding.
We couldn’t believe the truck was finally backing into our driveway. When it stopped, the driver’s side door slowly swung open. Out stepped an older gentleman, over sixty years old. He walked towards us, his open shirt flapping in the wind, showing a wide grey-haired chest and bubblicious stomach. He was chomping on a cigar. He wore sandals. Our mover was wearing sandals.
The other mover came around the other side, a tiny college kid, a Mini-Pete Sampras with a limp. Sarah and I exchanged what-the-fuck-are-you-kidding-me-these-can’t-be-our-movers looks. They were both quiet, almost surly. Mini-Pete immediately asked if he could use our bathroom, and Sarah said “yes,” forgetting the lesson she learned when one of the pick-up movers in Chicago asked the same question, spent 30 minutes in the john, and didn’t light a match.
The older man – we never learned his name – was immediately grumpy and unpleasant. He looked and sounded like Carl Reiner as Saul Bloom as the rich German guy in Ocean’s Eleven. Thick accent, maybe Russian, or Polish, or Ukrainian, or Czech. His first request, after showing up a week and a half late to our home, after we had already given his company over $1000: he demanded $200 cash to bring our shit up to our apartment. He said, “You read contract. It say, $50 for stairs. There are two of us, and those stairs are like two staircases. Very big.”
I knew this was a shakedown. I said “I’ll give you fifty.” He shrugged, and I thought he might do a head fake, jump in the truck, and drive off with Mini-Pete still sitting on our toilet.
We had already been alerted that these movers might not be on the up-and-up. The two pick-up guys in Chicago argued the whole time as they slowly worked. At one point Sarah overheard one say to the other, “What, you think I’m going to fuck you? Have I ever fucked you before? What’s your problem eh?” They were now a week and a half late, after apparently taking the scenic route between Chicago and Louisiana by way of California. But here they were, and we were just grateful to finally get our stuff.
They opened the back of the truck and the old guy and Mini-Pete started shifting things around. There was only one problem.
I saw the sick look on Sarah’s face. “That’s not our couch...,” she said quietly, and then louder, “That’s Not Our Stuff.” Then louder, screaming: THIS ISN’T OURS! WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR STUFF?!?!?!?!?!?!?” “Calm down dear,” I answered, “our stuff is probably behind this stuff here, heh heh, right guys?” They stared blankly at me. The old guy said “Not yours?”
The next forty minutes were a blur. Sarah and I were both screaming, literally, at these two guys, swearing at them, in front of all our new neighbors. I got on the cell phone and screamed at their boss, Kovi. I asked, “How is this good for business?” a question I had always thought was only asked in commercials about shipping companies.
It was a sad, maudlin display, Sarah crying, our neighbors clucking and shaking their heads, the movers driving off and leaving us bereft and heartbroken. We had no stuff. Again. They would have to drive back to Chicago, try and locate it, and drive back to Louisiana. At their previous rate, that would take about six months.
The days passed slowly again, we’d work the phones with Kovi, pleading our case. At one point Sarah had a full hour fight with him, where we were trying to get out of paying the remaining $500 on our balance. Kovi wouldn’t budge, he was saying “Hey, don’t I give you good service? I thought you were nice customers, I gave you discount.” Sarah gave him the routine: “I’m going to tell all my friends about you! I’m going to tell all of my friends’ friends and their friends’ friends’ friends!” Then the ace-in-the-hole “I’m going to post this all over the internet!” I wanted her to take it a step further and use the threat that I have grown fond of since I became a lawyer for the government: “Hey pal, you ever been to Federal Prison?!?!”
But in the end, you are at their mercy. They are free to brutalize you when they have your stuff. And that goes double for someone who has your stuff, knows where you live, and sounds like John Malkovich in Rounders.
The neighborhood came out to watch when the movers returned. Again, the truck backed in the driveway, and again, the old guy stepped out with his bare chest and belly and cigar and sandals. This time, though, he was triumphant: “SE-RAH,” he said “you heppy now eh?!!??” As he said this he did a little jiggly dance with hip swivels. He slapped me on the back (fucking hard!) and did a laugh like the Count from Sesame Street: “Ahhhh Haa Haa ha ha.”
But there was one problem. The old guy said, “Me, I’m too old and tired to be moving this heavy stuff. And the kid has a hurt ankle, he can’t do it.” Sarah and I exchanged what-the-fuck-are-you-kidding-me looks while the laugh track to this particular episode erupted in groans and guffaws. The solution? Of course, the movers hired movers.
We waited for two hours, the stuff still in the truck. Finally, a beat-up Cadillac with tinted windows pulls up, bass thumping. The doors opened and smoke spilled out and then standing in front of us were two enormous black guys. These guys, I thought, are movers. So, the movers who were hired by the movers who were hired by us moved all our stuff into our house.
When it came time to pay the remaining balance I took the old guy aside and told him that we weren’t paying the rest on account of this nonsense, but I gave him $60 for his trouble. “You can give that to Kovi,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I give to Kovi,” he said. “This is what I give to Kovi.” And he gestured down and I looked at his hand and he had his middle finger up. “Fuck him,” he said. “I fuck him.”
The End.
