We set everything up. I was in the Jeep with the cargo straps attached to the piano board, and Carlos and Julio were on the vertical balance ropes. I put the car into gear, tightened up the slack on the straps, and began pulling. It worked perfectly. The piano moved easily up the incline, and the tip came over the top step. But just when all the weight was on the joists at the keyboard end, they gave way with a groan and the stairway fell apart. The piano did a back flip, pulled the jeep backward, and dropped ten feet onto the ground with a final chord just like the one at the end of Sgt. Pepper’s. Julio and Carlos dropped their ropes and ran. I’ll remember that sound to my dying day. Like a whale groaning in its final flurry, the baby grand sang its death song.
It got very quiet for what seemed a long time. Mr. McNally was standing some distance away with the infant and just stared. Mrs. McNally came out with the toddler and joined her husband. Carlos and Julio came over to where I was standing after stopping the Jeep. I looked over at the family and saw silent tears running down Mrs. McNally’s face. Mr. McNally put his arm around his wife’s shaking shoulders and started crying too. Then the kids joined in. We just stood there, silent, watching this nice young family take the punches. They hadn’t wanted to move to Colorado. He’d lost his job in New Jersey, and his in-laws who lived down the road had rented this wreck of a house out in the sticks for them to start over in. The move had gone over the estimate, the driver had abandoned them, and the A-team cleanup crew had just destroyed their most beloved possession. Julio was wiping his eyes; Carlos the Mexican bandit was bawling out loud. So was I. Julio went over and put his arm around Mrs. McNally’s other shoulder, and she put her arm around his. Then Carlos went over, and then me. There we were, a bunch of broken people with nothing left but our shared humanity and grief and loss and failure. There wasn’t anything left over for anger or blame or apology.
I don’t know how long we stayed there, but then the thunder cracked and the skies opened up for the afternoon rainstorm. At first there were only a couple of drops, and then came the deluge. Mrs. McNally looked over at the driveway, where all their stuff was still lying around where the driver had left it. The pads and boxes and furniture were all getting soaked. She stared at the pile for several moments and started to laugh. She looked at her husband and murmured, “I guess we keep on going, right?” Mr. McNally set his kid down and opened his arms to the rain and started laughing too. “Bring it on!” he shouted. Julio yanked off his shirt, put it on the infant’s head, and ran to load what he could into the garage.
I walked over to the truck, took the soggy release form from my pocket, and laid it carefully on the seat so it wouldn’t get ruined. I felt like a total shit doing that.
The storm lasted only a few minutes and passed away. The remnants of the piano were still attached to the board, and we wheeled it into the garage. We brought everything else into the house, assembled the beds, and unpacked all the cartons. We stayed very late putting everything where it belonged, setting up the kitchen, and putting away the linens. We all wanted the house to look like a home before we left, but there was no ignoring the gaping hole in the living room where the piano was supposed to go. There wasn’t a lot of chat. Finally, when there was nothing left to do, we put the wet pads into the truck and went into the house to say good-bye. Mr. McNally was sitting at the kitchen counter with his checkbook.
“What’s the bill for you guys today?”
“There is no bill. Nick in New Jersey said it’s all covered.”
“That makes sense. Here, take this and split with your men.” He handed me a hundred-dollar bill.
“I’m sorry, we’re not taking that.”
“There were plenty of mistakes made today all around. You guys worked hard. Please take it.”
“Not a chance.”
“Do you think I can file a claim for the piano?”
“You’ll have to talk to Nick about that. We were never here.”
“The phantom movers. In and out like the fog, never to reappear.”
“Pretty much. We tried to help you, and we tried to help Nick. All we did was make everything worse.”
“Believe it or not, everything was worse before you got here. After the piano went overboard and we got rained on, everything got a little better. It’s hard to explain.”
“I guess we all got banged on the head about what’s important and what isn’t.” I said. “Someday this is going to become one of those family legends you tell around the Thanksgiving table.”
We drove back to Erie in silence. Julio went to sleep in the sleeper, and Carlos just stared at the road. At the yard I parked the truck. Carlos took off in his car, and Julio woke up.
“Shit. Where’s my shirt?” He was only wearing his sleeveless undershirt.
“You left it with the kid.”
“Damn. That means we were there after all. I thought it was all a bad dream.”
“It was both, Julio. See you at five a.m. We’re off to Wyoming.”
Chapter 11
WAITING TIME
I knew I shouldn’t have stayed in Nebraska. I should have driven over to Denver and waited there for a General Electric or Verizon move. Instead I’ve got a military:
Shipper Howard 13500lbs GBL pack & load OA Omaha Line haul $12700 DA Anaconda Movers Brighton MI.
We call them GBLs for Government Bill of Lading. GBL moves are charged on a contract rate that the government negotiates with the big haulers and they’re all cut-rate moves. There’s very little money in hauling them, but there is something to be made on the packing. This one I’ve got is a GBL pack-and-load going to Michigan.
It’s not great but not horrible. At least I’ll get the packing. Military moves are different in that everything gets packed into a carton. I don’t often think about who’s moving where, especially for military people, but Lakeland, Michigan, seemed an odd place to send a lieutenant colonel of infantry. Still, I didn’t worry about it. I’ve moved lots of military folks over the years and though most them go where you’d expect—North Carolina, San Diego, Texas—there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the post-9/11 world, and the armed forces have facilities everywhere.
The Howards lived inside Offutt Air Force Base. On-base housing is often a problem for movers because the security folks at the entry gates perform background checks on everyone coming in. Anyone trying to get on base with a felony record is turned away. This reduces the pool of available movers by about two-thirds. The Howard residence was your general-issue, senior-officer ranch house. I arrived with my crew at 8 a.m. and Colonel Howard met us at the door in full uniform. He was five feet seven inches tall with muscles that bulged out of his uniform. He shook my hand, very firmly.
“I don’t like moving and I don’t like movers. I’ve moved a lot. I think you’re a bunch of undisciplined vagabonds. If you’ve got a problem with that, I’ll take off my uniform out back and we can argue the point with our fists.”
This was odd. Our shipper wanted to beat us up, and we hadn’t even broken anything yet. I spoke for myself and, I assumed, the crew:
“We’re fine with that, Colonel. I am kind of an undisciplined vagabond. We’re just here to do our job.”
“I have work to do at the office. It’s just up the road. Call me if you have any questions. My wife will be here but do not bother her. I’ll handle all the details. Any questions?”
“No, sir,” I answered. I wanted to salute.