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Laughter.

“Dog, you know what we used to call those in prison? ‘Catch me-bang me shorts.’”

Roaring laughter. (Thereafter, my shorts became known as the “catch me’s,” as in, “Hey, Shep, lookin’ good in those catch me’s, Buddy.”)

They said I looked like the UPS man. Even the secretaries (Amy and Wendy) and Jill were having a good time.

So, of course, the UPS guy made an early morning delivery to the office the following week, and of course that man’s shorts extended down below his knees. Straight gangster. It was great. It was as if it was meant to happen, as if the chain of events of me being made fun of and his subsequent delivery with his long shorts were supposed to happen. Everybody loved picking on me for my shorts, and I joined right in. I was in. Just as I had climbed the ranks at the shelter (albeit much quicker), that was the week that I discovered that I had become “somebody” at Fast Company. From that point on, I was one of the guys, privileged to join even the most intimate conversations. I never went shopping for new threads, though, partly because they had become my trademark, but mostly since they were so comfortable. I was so agile in those things. I could bend and stretch and move every which way possible. (Although, in January, I did split a pair of shorts—right down the back and right in front of the customer—when I was setting down a TV.)

But just as I came to be accepted by some people, I was having a difficult time dealing with others. Namely, Mike.

Mike was a legend in his own right. Years before, before Curtis had been named Truck Manager, the two of them had worked on the same crew together. They had Mount Pleasant on lockdown—Rivertowne, Snee Farm, Belle Hall, and Dunes West. Every day was a request move for the two of them in the most premiere neighborhoods. Word had gotten around town that those were the two that you wanted to move you. They were Fast Company. Their third man was irrelevant. The two of them were the best.

But just as Fast Company’s reputation began to founder with Sherman’s death, so, too, did the “Mike and Curtis Duo.” With a weak back, Curtis was promoted to the office to aid in trying to resurrect what had once been Charleston’s number-one local moving company, while Mike jumped from crew to crew, growing more and more bitter every day.

And he was using me as a means to discharge that bitterness—every day on nearly every piece that we would carry together. “Shit man, don’t carry it like that! What the hell are you doing? You just aren’t cut out for moving.” I tried to let his outbursts slide, but then the customers started to feel uncomfortable about the way he was acting, so I had to step in. I approached him on the side, and told him that he would have to shape up a bit. He couldn’t keep treating me like that. Fine, I was a terrible mover. “You and Derrick are the best, Mike. Everybody knows that. I want you to teach me your ways, but you can’t treat me with such condescension, especially in front of the customers. It’s bad for business.”

He agreed, but things didn’t change, and Derrick told me to make a decision.

“You gotta choose, bro,” he told me. “I’m cool with you both, but I can’t work with the two of y’all together no more. It’s him or me.”

In perhaps the easiest decision I’d ever made in my life. I went directly to Jill and told her that I didn’t want Mike on my crew anymore. “I know I’m still a nobody in the grand scheme of things here, Jill, but at the same time, I just can’t keep working with him. For two months I’ve been putting up with it, only because I was happy to have Derrick on my crew, but I just can’t deal with it anymore.”

It turned out that I wasn’t the only one. As a matter of fact, I had lasted longer than most of the other people Mike had worked with. He had burned bridges with most of the drivers at Fast Company, which was a shame, since he was such a great mover.

On the outside looking in, what I had done could have been considered a manipulative, egocentric move. After