The following is the completion of that story…
In the time between calling the cops and parking the truck, Shani had located the apartment building and joined us on the corner. An Asian man and his family suddenly appeared among the group motioning over to his car, the Honda with the smashed mirror. I apologized over and over, and he just nodded again and again, apparently unable to speak English. I said that I would pay for it, but the communication barrier posed a problem. As we stood there near his car and he surveyed the damage, I took his information and promised to call him the following day to arrange payment for the broken mirror. We were able to get that much accomplished through broken English and improvised sign language. I returned to my conversation with the police officers.
“Where are you trying to go?” the officer asked.
“Over there,” Shani said and pointed in the direction of the building.
“120 Greenwich,” I said.
The cops looked at each other with confused looks on their faces and then the one that had done all the speaking said, “You can’t take this thing over there.”
Shani and I had only had a few days to find an apartment when we visited in mid-August. We looked all over the city with no luck and had one more stop scheduled that afternoon with our broker when we found a completely refurbished, one bedroom apartment, just a block south of Ground Zero, formerly the site of the World Trade Center buildings.
At the time, it was less than a year removed from the terrorist attacks and the government was offering grants to people willing to move back into the neighborhood in an effort to rebuild Lower Manhattan. Between the grant and the great condition of the apartment and my patriotic sense of wanting to contribute to the area, not to mention our failed search everywhere else in the city, we took it. Little did we know the trouble that we were getting ourselves into. The constant construction and the dark energy in that area of the city certainly took its toll during our time there (that’s another story entirely).
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| View of Ground Zero from Our Apartment |
“What?” I said.
“You can’t take this truck over there. It’s all blocked off.” He said
The attacks on 9/11 had left the entire neighborhood in shambles, obviously. And since they were still clearing away the site, many of the roads had either been barricaded off or re-routed. Apparently, getting to our building was going to be a bit more difficult than I had imagined.
The men in blue looked at each other for a minute and shared a brief dialogue under their breath.
The short, Italian cop, the one who had done all of the talking, turned to me and said, “Get in the truck and follow us.”
Somewhat startled, I said, “Ok!”
Shani and I were moving again. Following the police escort, we wound our way through a couple of turns, one of which was going the wrong way down a blocked off street with the lights flashing on the cruiser in front of us. Within a few minutes, we were parked directly in front of our building. They gave us their badge numbers in case someone tried to issue a parking ticket and they were off. New York’s finest had come to the rescue on our first day in the city.
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| Our Building -- 120 Greenwich Street |
Unloading the truck seemed like an afterthought at that point. Considering all of the drama we went through to get where we were, I was just relieved to finally have arrived at our destination. I went inside and met the doorman.
“Hi. Mike Fecht.” I introduced myself. “We’re here to move into apartment 8E.”
The doorman looked at me somewhat puzzled, and shuffled through a binder on the desk.
“Sir, you’re late and no one is here to operate the service elevator.”
I had anticipated us arriving in New Jersey the previous evening, grabbing a quick lunch with our friends and then heading into the city. What I omitted earlier in the story was the late start we got in leaving Atlanta due to the fact that the truck wouldn’t start. I had to call someone from U-Haul to service the truck which delayed our departure an extra 4 hours or so. I know it seems like something pretty big to just forget, but with all of the other road blocks along the way, it didn’t even cross my mind. With no way of anticipating all of the other problems we ended up facing, the thought of calling ahead completely slipped my mind.
“Well, we’re moving in.” I said definitively.
After a 10-minute argument of sorts with the doorman, he called the apartment superintendent who happened to be at a Labor Day cookout. The doorman turned his back to me and continued his conversation in a muffled tone. I could see that he was pretty emphatic in pleading his case.
He hung up the phone, turned to me ,and at the end of a long exhale, he said, “He’s on his way.”
Upon the arrival of the superintendent, the four of us—Shani, our doorman, our super, and I—unloaded the entire 26-foot U-Haul of all of our belongings. What had previously occupied a 1200-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment now had to fit into a 700-square-foot, one-bedroom on the 8th floor. We got it all done in less than 2 hours.
Afterwards, Shani and I stood there and looked around. Cardboard boxes were everywhere. It seemed a lot smaller than it had when we first visited in August. We were exhausted, sweaty and dirty, and everything was silent.
“Ok let’s return the truck,” I said. It was late, and I hoped to get the truck back before the store closed.
There was a U-Haul store just off of the West Side Highway on 23rd St. Thank God all I had to do was make two right-hand turns to get there. It only took a few minutes, and I pulled up along the right side of the street and parked the truck on the curb. I approached a man in a U-Haul shirt outside of the store. He was thumbing through some paperwork.
“Thank God.” I said. “Man, I must have just caught you. I need to return my truck.”
He looked at me and said, “We’re full, man.”
“What do you mean, you’re full?” I asked, my tone rising.
“I mean, we’re full. I don’t have any room for the truck. Let me see your paperwork,” he said.
I handed him a copy of my contract. He looked it over for a second and said, “You’re good for another day. You’re gonna have to go park the truck outside of the city and then check back with us tomorrow. I don’t have anywhere to put it.”
“Are you f—ing kidding me?!?” I questioned angrily.
He threw his hands up and started to walk away, obviously not wanting to engage me and my profanity. And in that split second, I made the decision that I was done with that day. I couldn’t get rid of that truck fast enough, and if he wasn’t going to take it, I felt like I might as well set the thing on fire. He had barely turned his back on me before I apologized.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I pleaded. “Hey, come here.”
As soon as he turned back around, I flipped him the keys to the truck. “It’s your truck now,” I said, and then I turned and quickly walked away. Oddly enough, he didn’t try to chase me down. Maybe he was just being difficult and didn’t feel like taking the truck. Maybe it meant leaving the truck on the road outside the store for the night and he just didn’t want to do that. I don’t know, but once I turned my back, I didn’t look up to see what he was doing. I was off and running toward Shani who had been cleaning out the cabin of the truck and putting everything in the Rodeo.
“Get in the car,” I said.
“What’s going on?” Shani asked.
“Just get in the car,” I said.
She did, and I followed. And we were done. I called U-Haul the next day to confirm that the truck had been properly accounted for and they said that it had.
The following morning I attended a meeting in the conference room of our corporate office overlooking Madison Square Park and the Flatiron Building as I was introduced as the new Area Sales Director for the 10 Manhattan Crunch Fitness Health Clubs.
Welcome to New York. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
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