Bye-bye Van Guy

My Van Guy has retired from van-guying. I know I should be happy for him - van-guying is no life for a young fella with a wife and coupla young'uns. But I can't help but feel a bit sad. It's like the Gem Store on Delancey closed down all over again.

Matt's a beanpole. He looks like Carrot top, with a slightly more subdued mop of hair. When he showed up at my door the first time, I couldn't believe it - this stick of a man was going to help me move heavy objects down and up stairs? But move heavy objects down and up stairs he did, like the dickens!

I first used Matt's van-guy services when moving from my Devoe Street apartment to Greenpoint. A third floor apartment to a fourth floor apartment. The big move with the U-haul and the friends helping is a harrowing tale unto itself; Matt just helped with the extras after all that was done. Mostly hanging clothes, a couple of boxes, a few loose items, maybe a small piece of furniture, and of course the ten foot pole that I'd used as a curtain rod.

That's how he remembered me the next time I hired him. The ten foot pole girl. It was about nine months later and I was moving again, to my own place off the Montrose stop. A studio about the same size as the one I lived in on the LES, but ill laid out, and, oh yeah, totally janky. But I was desperate and the landlord was willing. Matt told me his wife was preggers and due any moment.

I called on Matt again a year later when I moved from that hellhole to my current, glorious place off the Grand stop. It was a busy moving time for him, so he couldn't help me move, but he did pick up some wardrobe boxes and drop them off at my apartment - a lady was giving them away in Park Slope, and he didn't even make me go out there to me him! He just delivered them. That's service. I got him a again a couple of months later, when I picked up a love seat for the new place. By that point he had some photos of baby Olive on his phone, and they were expecting again.

I found out he'd retired the hard way, when I texted him today to see when he could help me get something from craigslist. I'm not entirely surprised. The last time I saw him, when he picked up the love seat, he mentioned that he and his wife were trying to start an Italian shoe importing company, she being Italian. But he makes temporary wall tiles or some such now. Or sells them. Or made the website for them. He sent me the website, and the name and number of another Van Guy. Will this Van Guy be my new Van Guy? Only time, and several moves/craigslist runs, will tell.