by Adam Shepard
So she sat on the street corner. But, rather than sitting there with a cup in hand, begging for spare change, she held up a sign: IF I HAD A MOWER AND A TRUCK, I COULD START CUTTING GRASS AND MAYBE EVEN CREATE A FEW JOBS.
James rode by the same street corner every day, and for a month straight, he saw her sitting out there with her sign. Wind, rain, humidity, whatever. Didn’t matter. She was out there, every day, for a month.
And then one day, Poof! She was gone. He never saw her again.
“I can’t say for certain what happened to her. I’d like to think that she got her mower and her truck, and that she is doing well, but there’s no tellin’.” But that wasn’t the point. It was her attitude that inspired James. She wanted out, and she had an idea of where she wanted to go.
I spoke with James for nearly an hour that Wednesday night, and it helped me to gain insight into yet another homeless man’s life. He was different from many of the other guys. In fact, he shunned them, telling me that they never listened when he told them the same stories that he was telling me. I thought he was right on target with his message (although a complete idiot for going back to his ex-wife).
“Some of these guys want out, but most of them don’t,” he told me with an escalated tone, hoping that somebody would hear him and try to prove him wrong. “They’ll be journeymen for the rest of their lives.”
Sarge came through the common area, calling out some guy’s name that he needed to speak to. Nobody came forward. I often wondered who Sarge was looking for when he came through calling out names. He had busted two guys from “America’s Most Wanted” in his nearly ten years on duty at the shelter, so I’m sure he was always looking for his next big bust.
Which also really got me wondering about Sarge’s motive. What kept that man coming back to the shelter five nights a week for a beat that the other officers shied away from or took lightly? Even when the shelter residents would poke fun at him for the way that he took his job so seriously, disciplining even the most minor offenses, what inspired him to keep coming back?
When I asked him what motivated him, he simply told me, heroically, “I go where I’m needed, and they need me here,” but I know it was more than that. He had been there for almost a decade, ever since his retirement from the army, and it was evident that he loved serving and protecting the residents. You could see it in the way he prowled around, eyes squinted, like he was preparing for a night ambush. Working at the shelter filled him with a sense of nobility, like his chosen occupation wasn’t just for a paycheck. He knew how much the shelter needed him just as he knew how much he needed the shelter. His name was synonymous with Crisis Ministries and he was proud of that.
On Wednesday night I called Fast Company, the moving company where I had applied, to leave a message inquiring about job openings. I knew the office had closed down for the evening, but I hadn’t had time throughout the day to call, and besides, putting the bug in Curtis’s ear about who I was would set up my follow-up phone call on Thursday. For an additional $2 per hour, I was much more anxious to get a job with them than with the car wash, but it didn’t look like it was going to be as easy.
On Thursday I was sent out on the same ticket as the day before. More construction cleanup downtown and another $38 in my pocket. Thankfully, it was my last day working for EasyLabor. Every day I went out to work for them, I felt like they were pimping my services. We were working hard, and getting paid peanuts compared to how much EasyLabor was making off of us. I was happy to finally be free from the need to work for them. My plan was to take Friday and the weekend to fill out the necessary paperwork in preparation to work at the car wash.
Over lunch I had called the office at Fast Company again, but Curtis wasn’t in. They gave me his cell phone number, but he didn’t pick up my call nor did he return my call back to the shelter’s number that I had left on his voicemail. I was getting the runaround, and there was nothing I could do.
Until I spoke with Phil Coleman on Thursday night over a dinner of spaghetti (yet again!) at the shelter. He had, just as he had promised, landed a job as a landscaper at the Medical University of South Carolina. I congratulated him and told him that it was looking like the car wash was going to be my only option.
“Shiiiiit. Who told you about the car wash? Spike? Shit. That muh’ fucka’ is the best car washer you’re ever gonna meet. He done washed every car in the tri-county area. He’s a car washing legend. Made good money, too. Then spent all that money on dope. And look where all that got him. In the bum house, that’s where.”
I told him that it was looking like it was my only option. I had filled out ten applications and a profile online, and I wasn’t getting any response.
“So, hold up a second. Let me get this straight,” he said. “You mean to tell me that you live at the homeless shelter, and you have put out over ten applications, and you still don’t have a job? What the hell is that all about? Imagine that. That is just craziness, kid.” He was not hiding the sarcasm in his voice.
“Man, y’all are some dumb muthas.” He began to address the table as a whole, anyone who would listen. “I mean straight dumb asses. How do you think this works? Employers call the number you put on that application and when Harold answers ‘Crisis Ministries’ they just get real excited that they get to hire a homeless dude? Shit man, y’all some dumb muthas.” Choosing that guy to relay my employment woes to was looking like a big mistake. But his tone started to perk up.
“Listen, y’all muthas gotta change your whole way of thinking. This ain’t no fuckin’ game. Shit. This is real life. You gotta go down to these managers and be like, ‘Look here, homeboy. You need me. I’m the best worker you’re gonna find, so hire me or not.’ And if it don’t work, hell, it don’t work. You got like a million other places to go and give the same speech to. Shit, man, it ain’t no rocket science. You just gotta go do it. Ha! Do y’all really think they’re gonna call here and hire you. Ha! I ain’t never heard no shit like that.” He started to mumble to himself. “Y’all some dumb muthas.”
He had a solid point. Sure, guys were getting hired through the Career Services Department at Crisis Ministries, but I couldn’t imagine that many guys were receiving calls at the shelter for applications that they had filled out throughout the city.
Yep, crazy Phil Coleman, a guy that most people ignored, had the secret. Be assertive. That’s it. Make the manager see it as a mistake not to hire you. “Take me or leave me. Whatya think? I need an answer, cuz, uh, I have another appointment in about fifteen minutes.” Something would come along, and when it did, it would be a hell of a lot better than $6.50 an hour. And after I had a job, it was just a matter of disciplining myself enough to keep that job and save the money that I needed to achieve my financial goals.
Scrapping the whole car wash idea altogether and armed with a brand new, Phil Coleman-esque attitude, I had the entire weekend to go out and start schmoozing the managers and owners of any companies I could find.
And Curtis from Fast Company was going to be my first target.
EIGHT
PUT UP OR SHUT UP
Friday, August 4
The shelter was supposed to be repulsive. That’s the only way it could be. It couldn’t be comfortable or clean. They couldn’t call a plumber every time one of the commodes was out of order or call an electrician to fix a broken light in the hallway. There was a reason Ann and the other shelter employees were stern in their approach to us. There was a reason we didn’t have cable TV, and there was a reason that many of our rights and freedoms were checked at the door: they didn’t want us there. For our own good, they wanted us out.
Can you imagine how the conversation would go if the shelter was an appealing place to live? Or how many people would come to live there?
“Hey, dude, where do you live?”
“Oh, over there on Meetin’ Street. Y’know, at the homeless shelter.”
“Oh man. I hear it’s nice down there. Very pleasant. I’m thinking a
bout moving there for a few months myself. Y’know, take a little vacation from paying bills and what not.”
It’s unrealistic for the shelter to be accommodating. Nobody should look forward to living at the shelter. They should come “home” thinking, “Man, I’m sick of this hole. I gotta do something to get out of here.”
And, as I was beginning to discover, that was how most of the shelterees felt. While some had become complacent, and others were disgusted yet accepting of the conditions, many longed to be free from the realities of such a dehumanizing world.
Some guys would even make their feelings known, publicly or privately. At breakfast Friday morning, one guy came in with his face all balled up and, without addressing anyone in particular and without providing cause for an outburst, he said, “I hate this place. I hate living here, and I hate all of my roommates.”
You can imagine the excitement in the dining room after that. Everyone started screaming at him at the same time, and he was screaming right back at them. They surrounded him like a pack of wild dogs preparing to attack their morning meal. But they never would. Outside the shelter, all bets were off, but inside the shelter, physical confrontation, which was punishable by immediate expulsion from the shelter, was substituted with heated arguments.
Yep, it was another Friday, another great day to do great things. Some people throughout Charleston had already switched their mental buttons to “off” by Friday and couldn’t wait for the weekend to really get started, but that wasn’t me. With everybody else going into shutdown mode, Fridays were my day to stand out and really make things happen, to get the gears turning.
But this Friday was different. Sure, the birds were chirping and the sun was shining and all that jazz that sets the scene for a red-letter day, but that wasn’t it. I felt inherently different. I felt like a new guy, ready to do something worthwhile with my life. Inspired by Phil Coleman’s lecture the evening before, I set out that Friday morning with one goal in mind: meet with Curtis McNeil.
I knew that I would get a job that day. I knew it. It might not be at Fast Company, and I might not have a job by lunchtime, but I just knew that I was going to do what it took to get a job that day. I had to. It was Friday!
Of course Curtis wasn’t in. That must be one busy mother, I thought, when Wendy, receptionist number two at Fast Company, politely told me that I could either wait a while or come back later.
I would wait. A “while” or longer, it didn’t matter. There was no question that I was going to wait. If the same option came up again at Food Lion or McAllister’s Tree Service or Mandy’s Tailor, then I would consider leaving and trying my luck at the next spot. But working for Fast Company was something that had piqued my interest, and Curtis was going to get the opportunity to hear what I had to say, a speech that I had been rehearsing in my head since I had laid down on my mattress the night before.
My demeanor remained taut when he finally did arrive back at the office, noticeably preoccupied with other, much more important business. He walked past where I was sitting and went in to see Jed Franklin, the owner. I could overhear him telling Jed about how one of the moving trucks had three busted hinges on the sliding door on the back of the storage van, but Jed didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with it.
“Well, let’s just get it fixed,” he told Curtis.
So Curtis strolled out of Jed’s office. And in to see me.
Curtis knew who I was from the messages I had been leaving for him. I was straight with him right from the start, asking if he had any job openings, and he was straight right back with me, telling me that he didn’t really need any other movers at the moment. He had my number if any job vacancies came up.
That wasn’t going to do. I had been sitting in the office for an hour, waiting for him to return, and I had not been waiting so that I could hear that response. I might be going down, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Curtis, my man, I don’t want to sit here in front of you and be disrespectful to any of your workers out there, because I’m sure they’re all good guys, but, uh, I’m pretty much one of the hardest working guys you’re going to find in Charleston. Let me tell you about the bar, Curtis. There was no bar before I came along. I set the bar. And I set it high.”
He was attentive, totally engrossed in my monologue. And thankfully, he was not mistaking my bit of sarcasm about “the bar” for arrogance. I continued.
“All I want to do is work. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I’m no fun, actually. None of your guys, as great as they may be, have the work ethic that I do. None of ’em. Now, are they better movers? Of course. I mean, you can look at me right here across your desk and tell that I ain’t throwin’ a sofa over my head and walkin’ it off the truck. I mean, let’s be honest with each other from the start; that just won’t be happening. But I will work hard, and I will pay attention to learn this trade to the best of my ability.”
He tried to speak, but I wasn’t through yet. My blood was flowing, and my heart was pumping as if it was independent of my body.
“Look here, Curt, wait just a second before you respond.” Curt? Who the hell do I think I am? “I don’t wanna sit here in front of you and act like I’m all talk. Because I’m not. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I can talk a big game, but I can also back it up. So I’ll tell you what. Let’s make a deal. You send me out for one day with one of your crews. Any crew. And I’ll work for free. You will have the opportunity to see me work, and it won’t cost you a dime. If you like me, super, take me on. If not, well, then we will part ways, and I can promise you I won’t be a thorn in your ass, coming in here every day begging for a job.”
I finished up strong and then yielded the floor to him.
“Adam, I’m not gonna lie to you, bruh. That’s the first time I’ve heard that speech. Free, huh? Wow. Yeah, that’s definitely a first. That’s serious. But that won’t even be necessary. I like your attitude. You’re hired.”
Just like that. For a moment, I thought I was sitting across the desk from Donald Trump and I had just won The Apprentice. It was exhilarating. That speech—that cocky, unrehearsed, yet ever-so-eloquent speech—unearthed my identity, which I seemed to have been struggling to find during my first ten days in Charleston.
And the most intriguing thing? I didn’t even plan it like that! Phil Coleman did. Sure, I would have gotten a job eventually, and I would have fought just as hard to achieve what I had set out to achieve, but my Phil Coleman-esque speech gave me a jump start when I needed it most.
Curtis asked me a series of questions regarding my availability and moving experience.
“I mean, to be honest, Curt, I’ve moved my parents about five times, but that’s about it.”
“That’s cool,” he said. “We’ll train you.”
“But!” I added, hoping to compensate for my lack of experience. “The good thing is that my hours of availability are infinite. When you need me, I’ll be here.”
Curtis also inquired about my driving ability. Could I drive a stick? Had I ever driven a moving truck before? Commercial Drivers Licenses were not required to drive the trucks at Fast Company, but some experience driving a truck of that size was recommended. While my pops had, in fact, taught me how to drive a stick when I was in high school, I was going to have to brush up on my truck driving abilities.
So, we went for a test drive. And let me tell you, I took that poor man for the ride of his life. I should have charged him admission. While his facial expressions remained somewhat calm, I know he was shaking in his skivvies. At least I was. Initially, I was most anxious about turning the corners in the big moving truck, but my nemesis turned out to be the stick shift, which was way different from my pop’s ’95 Ford Escort hatchback. The gears were tighter and the clutch was looser. And since it didn’t come with a guide on top of the knob to show which gear was which, I ended up finding first gear by way of elimination after backing into the chain link fence surrounding Fast Company’s parking lot.
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br /> I tried to fill the fifteen-minute ride with idle small talk, but that just threw me even more off track. I didn’t have the mental stamina to drive that truck and talk about anything beyond sports and the beautiful weather. Thankfully, Curt’s phone rang twice, and very thankfully, he decided it would be a good time to start answering it. But I still wasn’t feeling like I had impressed him enough that he wouldn’t renege on hiring me. The way I had that truck convulsing back and forth as we cruised the back neighborhoods around the airport, I thought our conversation at the end of the test drive would revolve around my need to come back for a few driving lessons before I began my new career as a mover.
But I was wrong. After all was said and done, I had apparently done all right. “All right” meaning Curtis stuck out his hand and told me that I could start on Monday morning.
“I’m going to send you out with Sammy, though,” he said. “He’s one of the only ones that knows how to drive this truck, so I’ll let him teach you.”
I was pumped. I pulled the string that served as the door handle, and we headed into the office to take care of the paperwork.
In hindsight, I now realize that my test drive with truck No. 2 was a setup of sorts. Everybody pissed and moaned about driving truck No. 2. As I would later find out, one guy, who was one of the few that knew how to drive a stick, had even quit when they continued to send him out in truck No. 2 despite his repeated requests to be assigned to another truck once in a while. Maybe Curtis saw me as somebody that he could finally stick on truck No. 2, but I didn’t care. Put me in whatever truck you want and send me wherever you want. I was tickled pink just to have a job. And it paid $9 an hour! Adding even more excitement to my afternoon, Curtis informed me that drivers started out at $1 above the rate that regular movers made. I was psyched. I was well aware that I had chosen a very demanding occupation, and I certainly knew that I had plenty to learn about my new job and driving big trucks and the like, but I was ready for it. I was ready for whatever Fast Company had in store for me.