When four thirty rolled around and the boys began to return from their various jobs, we saw a plume of smoke rising at the far end of the yard. John Callahan’s car, idling in the sun since two thirty, with the AC turned up full in the heat of a ninety-degree day, was peacefully melting down in the sunlit corner where I’d parked it two hours before. I had neglected to shut off the engine.
I wanted to run away. I never wanted to look at any of these people again, and I knew what I was going to do. I’d quit before I was fired. Bobby Rich came over, looked at me, and quietly said, “Let’s go punch out, Murph.” I went into the foyer where the time clock was, grabbed my virgin time card, slunk into the office, and laid it on John’s desk. “I won’t need this anymore. Please don’t pay me for today either. I must have cost you more money today than any ten guys.”
John looked up from his pile of claim forms, eyed me narrowly, paused a moment, and handed the time card back to me. “Go punch out. You’ll need this card tomorrow. Don’t be late, we’ve got a busy day.”
I heard the next day that my exploits were subject number one under the tree at Dan’s that afternoon. I didn’t attend, needless to say, but I received the distinct impression that the general view was that I had demonstrated a lot of pluck carrying the lateral files in the morning, which showed promise, and that I was such a fuckup the boys couldn’t wait to see what I’d do next and was therefore welcome.
The next morning I punched in seconds before the clock ticked ten to eight. I waited and looked for Gary Rogers, but I found out later he had called in sick.
The job was obviously too much for him.
Chapter 2
ROAD WARRIORS
After that eventful first day at Callahan’s, I settled down into the rhythm of daily manual labor. I discovered that moving suited me perfectly because I could lose myself inside the work. Many young male neurotics find out early that hard labor is salve for an overactive mind. When the old guys marveled at my intensity, they were impressed. Little did they know that running up and down staircases for hours on end, carrying dressers and refrigerators and pianos, was to me a relief from stress. Hard work temporarily shut down the constant movie running in my brain that looped around in an endless cacophony of other people’s expectations, obligation, guilt, anger, and rebellion.
My status was solid as a good worker and a good shipmate. I could be relied upon to pull my weight on the trucks, and after work, my yearning for distraction translated into an epic thirst under the tree that matched or surpassed any of the older congregants’. Work hard, drink hard. I was right there. Each day I’d punch out in my brine-streaked green T-shirt and walk over to the fence, pointedly ignoring Dan’s candy-ass gas jockeys, and dig deep into the cooler for one of those frosty Schaefer cans. The truth of it was, the club wasn’t all that exclusive.
Callahan Bros.’ arch competitor in Fairfield County was Morse Moving, based in Stamford. Both companies were agents for North American Van Lines so there was occasionally some conflict as to who got credited for booking a move. Morse operated more like a bucket shop out of Glengarry Glen Ross than a trucking company. They had an army of aggressive salesmen and access to North American’s enormous fleet. At Morse the salesmen were procuring multiple listing books, haunting mortuaries, cold-calling corporations, monitoring divorce courts, you name it. Whenever a change in personal circumstances occurred in someone’s life that might conceivably trigger a relocation, there lurking in a corner would be a Morse salesman waving a binding estimate and wearing an understanding smile. Callahan Bros., on the other hand, was so well established that they sat around in the office and waited for the phone to ring, which it did, often. The cultures of Morse and Callahan were as far apart as two entities could possibly be.
Morse had a long-haul driver named Tim Wagner, a handsome white guy in his late twenties. Tim was leasing a tractor from Morse and running forty-eight states for North American when he was dispatched to load 12,000 pounds booked by Callahan’s to Dallas. Tim showed up at 8 a.m. and took the trudge down the stairs to pick up his helpers. He was immediately struck by the conviviality of the crew and the relaxed authority of management. The air of entitled prosperity that permeated Callahan Bros. was a stark contrast to the hornet’s nest over at Morse. At the end of the workday, having experienced Callahan’s high-quality help, and further impressed with other information gleaned from the workers, Tim approached John Callahan with the idea of switching from Morse to Callahan’s. Tim’s proposal was to buy his own tractor and lease it to North American through Callahan Bros., who would provide the trailer and equipment. John would make less money by not owning the tractor, but he would have another truck on the road (North American was always hounding him to put on more trucks) and a great driver available when he needed one. They shook on the deal, and it wasn’t more than a week later when Tim drove up in his brand-new $85,000 Peterbilt tractor looking for a trailer. All John had available was a 35-foot single-axle piece of junk from the 1950s, which clearly wasn’t going to work, so John sent Tim bobtailing—driving a tractor without a trailer attached—down to Kentucky Trailer Corp., outside of Louis-ville, to go shopping.
Tim picked out the longest legal trailer he could, which was a beautiful 45-foot flat-floor moving van complete with belly boxes, pull-out tailgate, extra side doors, and a deck door. For the inside he bought forty steel cargo bars, six furniture dollies, four rubber dollies, two piano boards, two refrigerator dollies, two Mag-liner dollies, 250 large rubber bands, assorted straps and winches, fifteen sheets of plywood, a first-rate toolbox, and twenty dozen brand-new moving pads. Tim signed John’s name to everything, called dispatch in Fort Wayne, and got loaded out of Madisonville, Kentucky, the next day with a full load to Seattle. John Callahan waited almost two years to see his new trailer because Tim’s furious pace kept it out on the road. When Tim finally showed up in Callahan’s yard, the trailer had 125,000 miles on it and was completely paid for.