Sure, Why Not.

Moving Day.

I was once employed moving casino and gaming objects for more than a couple years. I enjoyed the job very much. I may spend a whole day almost driving somewhere, setting up, waiting, tearing down, and driving back. The physical work is heavy but minimal. It’s sightseeing and being paid for it and when the person you work for is kind and generous it’s a bazillion times better.

You may also have a day where you have to move dozens of something. That’s not as easy, loading and unloading is a pain in the ass but whatever, you can smoke in the cab because it’s disconnected from the rear of the moving vehicle we used. If you can smoke at work, being paid decently, and you can literally plug in any arcade game ever made and just start playing when you’re not busy while any style of jukebox you like is playing your favorite album… you’re fucking home, people.

My boss that I’ve previously mentioned, we will call him Boss for all intents and purposes, was a guy that made his small fortune by engineering large projects for the big 3 before robots were a thing, and then just collecting immense amounts of old shit and selling it before Ebay was a thing. He sold everything from guns to humidors to the things I mentioned earlier to things I had never seen before and do not remember the names of. There were other types of restoration work that you learn to do and then some things get shopped out to specialists and Boss knew the best guys in the business. Very wealthy people called Boss to fix their antique vending machines, pinballs, and other old artifacts or machines.

One day I arrived at work expecting to take two pool tables to a conference at a hotel by the airport. I began to load the pool tables. The operation is no big deal, the table is preassembled save the legs, and on its side on a couple of flat “dollies” on castors and rolled up a ramp into a cube van where it is strapped to the wall of the truck. it’s moved in and out of regular doors but even freight elevators have problems with the fit once and a while.

I had just gotten the first table on to the truck and ratcheted the straps onto the wall and Boss, an older stocky and wild haired fellow in a polo shirt and khaki shorts with his socks pulled up way too high and a pair of loafers that were probably more expensive than my car, ran to the back of the cube out of breath with a piece of paper in his hand. His glasses half off his nose, sweaty and serious looking, he tells me that he needs me to get my coworker before he leaves on his delivery, take him in my cube, and pick up one juke box. The paper which is now in my hand is a service slip bearing the address.

Boss, I tell him… let me just unload this pool table. Without hesitation he declares with a plain serious face that he will be taking the delivery to the hotelWITHOUT the table that was already in my van and have us double back after this surprise *emergency* jukebox pick up to deliver OUR pool table at the hotel too.

I had earned trust over years; I was the right guy for super urgent emergencies (like jukebox pick-up?). By now I had also learned that with collectors and trading people you just don’t ask, because they get windows of opportunity to get an item. This item is always the one they’ve been after forever no matter what the item, so I just went.

When we reached the massive residence there was a large open iron gate and a long stone driveway that led up to a giant Bavarian Tudor style home. The Van we arrived in had the company letters printed bold on the side and surely this is why Boss wanted us, his most trusted employee and loyal long-term friend (and for all intents and purposes in my story a subordinate element because history is written by the writers) to take that specific van and “represent". We were to leave a grand impression on a very wealthy person. This was us securing a massive contract and job security for ourselves. Time to be proud. I reach out and ring the doorbell.

After about 2 more rings and 3 minutes a young woman answers the door in very fashionable looking professional attire, the jacket worth more than half of one of Boss’s loafers. The woman was the assistant of the homeowner, who was on vacation.

It’s completely obvious she does not give two fucks as I show her the service slip for the jukebox and explain our mission, but she smiles politely and agrees to show us to the “game room” where I am not going to explain there was both an aerobic studio and a bowling alley and in the center of the massive walk in basement was a really old Seeburg jukebox (I do not remember the make or model but it was long so I’m guessing it was a Seeburg), probably 1950s. The assistant left us inside the main house as soon as we began to plan our route out with the Seeburg. I say left the main house because she had a separate full-size two-story home of her own on the property which she promptly disappeared to.

The Seeburg is impressive but moreover it’s very delicate and expensive like everything else around us and there is one door out of the basement and no way to maneuver it up the spiral staircase or elevator or to move through any other exit. This is how it came in. The back door opens up to a narrow concrete pit maybe 2 and a half feet wide and turns 45 degrees to a set of steps going up. The back house door will have to come off and we will not be able to secure a dolly to the side of the machine, nor can we fit a human into the pit with the the machine until we get it out into the stairs, turned 45 degrees, and up at least one step. There is just no room… We have no tools and so we are forced to reluctantly call Boss. “Stay there, I’ll be right there” Boss says.

I really don’t remember what I did while I waited, stood there and pretended it was all under control I suppose. When the large brand-new pickup truck arrived through the gate it tore off the beaten path, onto the lawn, around the house and stopped on the hill with the tailgate aiming down to where we had the machine nearly all the way out and could go no further. As we started to load it back inside to remove the door Boss comes down the hill and hands us a truck strap and a chain.

Positive that he has no Idea why we are stuck and sure that he must be misunderstanding the problem I protest accepting the items but before I can get a word out, he looks at me calm and his stare goes cold. Ted, he says… put the strap on the jukebox, and put the hook on the strap and come to the truck… co-worker looks at me and we shrug and hook the jukebox to the chain which Boss has reasonably attached to his trailer hitch. I take a good long look back to make sure I’m not missing something… Jukebox half in door, door open as far as it ever will be or probably has been, machine stuck almost all the way out in concrete pit, chain hooked from machine to truck

As confused as I am at the design, I look at Boss and he tells me, we’re going to get this out of here, I need one of you to get the dolly out of my truck and one of you to get blankets ready. I am a bit relieved as I can see that he clearly has experience and a plan here.

As I’m in the cube carrier getting moving blankets, I begin to think to myself that this makes more sense, and I begin to picture myself in various predicaments in the pit with the jukebox and wondering if I would be in danger. But that’s when I heard it. The loud cacophony of breaking glass and twisting metal. The noises of a door no longer hinged and popping off of its frame. The roaring sounds of a motor and grinding of the machine against the rocky cement steps. And then just dragging and rattling noises as Boss dragged the bent and torn carcass of the jukebox up the hill with his brand-new truck while my co-worker watched in what can only be described as a mixture of amusement and horror.

Boss lets us know to load up the broken box and mech into blankets and onto the truck and get the pool table to its destination and tells us we did a “good job”.

The official story to us was that the box was in for servicing, and the person was a repeat offender stiffing him. I heard all sorts of rumors about why we made a trench with an antique in a lawn that cost more than 2/3 of one of boss’s loafers. But I never truly found out if anything was true. Whatever it was I’m sure he had a good reason.