Scratch Beginnings_ Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream - Adam W. Shepard [71]
For everything that was said about him, Derrick Hale didn’t look like anything special to me. Considering all of the hype I had heard about what a sensational mover he was, I was expecting a seven-foot tall monster with a good three hundred pounds of muscle. He wasn’t this stoic character, though, like those you see in movies—without emotion, just a lot of power. Nope. Quite the opposite, actually. Five foot eight, 160, normal build. He was, well, normal looking, just like any other guy that I had seen running around Charleston.
But the fact was that there was nothing normal about Derrick Hale. After less than three years on the job, he had catapulted himself to the top of the list as the guy that everyone wanted to work with. He was legendary, the best, irrefutably, and nobody, not a single person that I had encountered at Fast Company, had said anything different. JB was stronger, DeWayne “Too Tall” McGovern was faster on his feet, and Old Man Jimmy could pack the truck better. But as far as the total package—strength, quickness, stamina, and knowledge—Derrick Hale was far and away ahead of the rest. Which made it even more of a mystery that I had been assigned to work with him on my first Wednesday back on the job.
I figured I would always be a small timer, working one-and two-bedroom moves throughout the duration of my time at Fast Company. Which was fine with me. I was doing well, and I was certainly on course to reach my goals in my specified time frame. But everything changed on that Wednesday, my first day back on the trucks in three weeks. Derrick’s driver, too, had quit (“That weak cat couldn’t lift a four-drawer filing cabinet” was the ultimate put down, the humor being that Hercules himself couldn’t lift a four-drawer filing cabinet), and we were more or less thrown together at the last minute for the move that day—a three-bedroom move in Park West, Mount Pleasant’s largest neighborhood. By chance or mistake, he was assigned to work with me. As much as I would love to say that Derrick had heard that I was starting to learn the trade pretty quickly and that I was a good listener and that I was a good catch as a driver, that wasn’t the case at all. He didn’t have a clue who I was. Even though I clearly stood out with my floppy hair and tall, gangly frame, he still hadn’t paid any attention to me during my initial eight weeks as a mover. There was a pecking order at Fast Company, which was determined by our performance on the job, and after eight weeks on the job, I was still a bottom feeder.
So while I was expecting Mr. Hard-ass, he, again, defied my rumored images of him by treating me like we were long-lost buddies who had been separated for years and were finally reuniting. We talked about my life, where I was from, what I did for fun, and how my skinny legs and abnormally large shoes made me look like Ronald McDonald. We talked the whole way to the job. It was unbelievable. I was on edge the whole time, captivated by a combination of stories and the mere thought that I was actually sitting in the same moving truck as Derrick Hale himself. I learned about him, and he learned about me. There I was, sitting alongside the greatest mover at Fast Company, and I felt like I belonged. It was a remarkable feeling.
Once we got to the job, though, we buckled down. Which is not to say that we didn’t joke and socialize throughout the day, but things were certainly more serious when we were on the job. We had work to do, and all three of us did it. (Mike, another renowned mover at Fast Company, was out there with us too, but I was invisible to him.) We wrapped the furniture, carried it out, loaded it on the truck, and drove to the unload. Our process was fluid, without hesitation. Every room was full, so it was a large move, but we knocked it out in six hours.
“I like you, Adam,” Derrick had said on the way to the unload, surprisingly early in our partnership. “Don’t take it to heart, cuz I like everybody, but you’re a’ight with me.”
Derrick was more than “a’ight” with me. Working with him was so different than