© 1997
by W.P. MavinInstallment 1 - Meticulous Movers
A few months before my 22nd birthday I moved in with my girlfriend. As always I had no money, savings, or safety net, so I took the first decent-paying job I could find that did not involve food service.
I found work with a gay moving company. The work was hard, the hours were long, but the pay was good and I kind of enjoyed driving around all day with a bunch of muscle-bound queens who would hoot and holler out the window at cute guys. Four of us would squeeze together on the bench seat of the truck, like a scene out of The Producers. It was an education, watching normally-confident looking straights get extremely uncomfortable, myself included. I don't remember if I ever joined in their wolf-whistling; I probably wouldn't tell you, anyway.
Meticulous Movers was owned by a guy named Barry. Barry looked like he'd always play the part of a shady, unsympathetic minor figure in the B-movie of life. He was little, mustached, with greasy matted hair and pockmarked skin. The sort of guy who ate hard boiled eggs every day for lunch.
The company was operating on the fringes of legality-trucks weren't up to code, tires were bald, equipment was shoddy-but the work was there and the pay was good. This was the late 80s, New York City, and we were a gay moving company. There was plenty of work. We all just wished there wasn't. I'd see the photos on a dresser or nightstand, the happy couple at Fire Island or Key West, and now the boxed clothes, the personal effects going to thrift shops, antique stores, being returned to family or friends. And the surviving partner moving to a smaller place or back to Minnesota, or in with a new lover. I saw their haggard faces, tired, resilient, sometimes looking decades older than they had in photos from only a few years earlier. The guys I worked with always always seemed to know what to say to put them at ease, make them laugh, and the customers were almost entirely grateful and generous. I kept my mouth shut and did what I was told.
The job carried its share of good feeling, we knew we were helping people, but work is work, which is to say almost uniformly pointless and sprit-crushing, and Meticulous Movers was no exception. More than once I was close to dropping the business end of a Louis Whatever armoire, after trying to navigate it down one of those tortuous upper east side brownstone staircases. It was backbreaking work, and my tolerance for the pissy bullshit some of the guys dished out grew ever thinner. When our driver and foreman, a pudgy blonde named Jack, let us know that the company was on the edge of bankruptcy, and if we had been thinking of getting new jobs, now was a good time to get looking, I called in sick the next day.
That morning I took the PATH train to 9th Street, bought a New York Times, coffee and a bagel, and walked to Washington Square Park to check the classifieds. I was still harboring vague aspirations to be a musician, so after checking under mail clerk, messenger, and carefully avoiding moving company, I looked under music. What I saw:
Music Co. Seeks Self-Starter
Renowned commercial music house needs messenger. Your interests will shape your growth. Call Alan at...
I finished the bagel and coffee, found some change in my pocket, and went to a pay phone. Wow, the person named Alan said, that was fast. You're the first to call. Are you able to come in today? No, I told him, I was terribly busy, but tomorrow would be fine. I wasn't trying to be coy, I just realized that I had no resume, suit, dress shoes, or even a clean shirt. I figured, if they expect me to apply for a messenger job in a suit, they can kiss my ass. I took care of basic wardrobe needs at a Hoboken thrift shop, and that night sat down at my trusty battleship gray Royal manual and banged out a c.v. that sounded reasonable. The next morning I called in sick to Meticulous Movers again and got ready for my interview with Pariah Productions.
I was hired on the spot. Judging from the way Alan looked at me, I think my tenure with Meticulous Movers, however brief, helped immensely. When the interviews and paperwork were over I celebrated by walking from Chelsea to 57th street and seeing a Milton Avery exhibit. I had strange ways of celebrating back then.
When I got home that afternoon my girlfriend was lying on the bed, as usual. She was independently wealthy. We had been living together for about three weeks.
"I got the job!" I told her.
"That's nice," she said. She was looking at her stomach.
"What's wrong?"
She kept looking at her stomach. Then she began to cry.
A few weeks later I was taking the uptown E train, on a run, when I heard a plaintive voice calling out from the end of the car:
"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I'm homeless, and I'm selling this paper to try to raise money for food...." The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't see him through the crowd.
"...Just a few weeks ago I was the owner of a moving company, and then I went out of business. I lost everything. I'm selling these papers to get some money so I can find a place to live and get back on my feet...." I looked up and saw Barry coming down the aisle, working for his egg money. I don't know if he saw me or not, but as he passed he seemed to studiously avoid looking in my direction, even walking past someone to my right who was holding out some change. I won't say I was glad, because I wasn't, but I couldn't help but remember how I had to threaten him to get my last paycheck, and how Jack had stepped between us and let his hand linger on my chest just a second too long.
That night I was sitting in my favorite bar, the place I first heard Esquerita and Arthur Alexander, where I had my first cajun martini, the place I smoked crack once and we all played cards and accused each other of cheating until Bob had to separate a few of us. The bartender came over.
"The next one's on that gentleman over there." I turned on the stool and looked to a table in the corner and there was Jack, sitting with a good looking man. He smiled warmly at me. There were some problems he wouldn't know, and I was glad for that. We raised our glasses, and I mouthed my thank you.