He Truly Moved Me By Theodore Kent Prologue - Iria “God Damnit” I sputtered, a little bit of angry spit splipping out of my mouth as I heard the news. “You are cancelling one me?” I shuttered to think of what I would do without my moving men. I was supposed to be moving into my Fishtown apartment, with my roommates… We had already driven the 16’ U-Haul from NYC to Philadelphia, as terrifying as that was (The Veranzano Bridge is a bitch), and all we needed was a couple of guys to unload our stuff for us, and carry it up the three floor to our new Fishtown apartment. But the moving company we had contacted in Philly dipped out… “Greg the Mover Guy” seemed to have a small, and weirdly reputable, moving company, who I heard great things about from friends who used him, and he was really nice on the phone when I had called him, patiently listening to me and taking all my inventory, making me feel comfortable throughout the entire process. And… despite the fact that he was very nice, and I felt no ill-will to him, he seems to have over-extended himself, like a lot of small moving companies do. Greg told me over the phone, it was a combination of over-booking, and an employee getting injured. It was fucking mid-July, on a Friday, and one of the hottest days of year so far... I took off my sweaty tank-top, wearing only my sweaty sports bra underneath, preparing to try to move the furniture with my girlfriends. It was 4:30 PM, and we would have to do this outselves. Just than, ‘Greg the Mover Guy’ called back… What a crock of shit. Why even pick up at this point? Yet I did, hoping for a miracle. “Hey Iria, once again, so sorry we weren’t able to help you with your unload. But I talked to a couple of guys I used to work with, at a different company. Good guys, good homies, they are great. Regardless, even though this is an impromptu job for them, they would be willing to honor our contract, so same price, same everything, just a different company. Do you want me to put you in contact with them?” Iria sighed… “I guess… can they get here soon?” Greg said, “Just give them a call, it can’t hurt” Chapter One – The Office It was late in the afternoon, on a Friday, during July, and Theo was very cold and very bored. The office of GR movers was located in a former marble shop/warehouse, and everything was made out of marble. Or faux marble, composite bullshit. Every tile on the office floor was one type of marble, granite, or some other type of expensive stone he couldn’t identify.. It didn’t look good, but he understood the purpose it previously served. Walk a customer in, show them all the mis-matching tiles on the floor, ask them which one they looked the best. Fuck, Theo’s desk was made out of some sort of slab of fake composite-marble, perched atop two filing cabinets. His bosses desk, though… That was the real deal… A massive wrap-around desk, of curving Italian marble, probably nine feet long… Regardless, the sheer amount of cold hard stone mined from strange Italian cliffs kept the office cold, no matter what time of year. Theo checked Samsara, their fleet management software, to see how close all the trucks were to arriving back at the lot. Shawn and Jerry were barrelling down i-95 in one of the diesel 16’s, as a speed that was almost certainly illegal. Eh, God Bless ‘em. The thing about driving a straight-truck below 26’ between NYC and Philly, is that nobody really gives a shit how much illegal shit you do, as long as you aren’t rubbing it in their face. Fuck, they were probably smoking weed even as he monitored their progress down south. Just then, the phone rang. Theo thought about who it might be. It was so close to 5:00 PM on Friday. Would it be a pissed off customer from today? Or some dipshit trying to book a last minute move for tomorrow? Theo was the only one in the office at the moment, and it was kind of late enough, he could just not pick up the phone, if he didn’t want to. Buuuuut…. He was bored, and he was supposed to stay there until 5:00 PM, and he did kind of suspect Jerry might have fucked up on the load, so best to cut this off at the pass. He lifted up the Phone’s headset. “GR Moving, this is Theo, how may I help you?” He said it nearly automatically. He expected the other side of the line to be a pissed-off bitch. “Oh… ummmm yeah…” The other side of the line sounded kind of quite, prehaps even apologetic. A mousy little voice, perhaps too timid to complain. “No worries miss. This is Theo from GR Moving. How can I help you today?” He voice only got a little more timid after that. “My name is Iria, and I got had a job booked with ‘Greg the Mover Guy’ for this afternoon, in Fishtown. He was supposed to help us unload our truck, it is a pretty small one, just a 16’ uhaul. But for whatever reason, he can’t help us right now, I think he got over-booked or something. Regardless, he said he had worked with you guys before, and recommended I call you, and see if you guys would be willing to help. Is that something you guys could do?” Theo listened intently, and a million thoughts raced through his mind. ‘Damn, it is cold in this office, I would not mind streching my legs to this girl out’ ‘Damn, it is close to closing time on a Friday, I can’t ask a crew coming back from NYC to help me out’ ‘Damn, I don’t even know how I would bill this job, it is weird and after hours’ ‘Damn, I bet I could convince Shawn and Jerry to do a simple unload if we did this under the table’ And he said ‘Yeah, we could probably help you Iria, what’s your unload address?