Transcript for Introducing: Death, Sex & Money

I am 64, 248 pounds. My employees use the word a brolic. A lot when they see me pick up stuff. Like, I literally just pick a sofa up over my head while I two are struggling with it. You know, and I'll just say, I got it. Now, just pick up the sofa bed over my head and start walking with it. And they go, oh my god, he's so brolic.

And Axel, what was wrong? She explained that she had to make a choice between leaving the bags of clothes and carrying the kids.

I'm that way, even on the way here, I stopped to get me a cup of coffee and it was a mother with her daughter in Duncan Donut's true story and a little girl was crying because she wanted the Strawberry sprinkled doughnut and her mother was just going in to get a coffee. You know, I said, ma'am, I'm going to pay for your coffee. I'm going to pay for her doughnut and that's this the way I am. I see, you know, people who sad are crying, you know, but I do have one rule. I don't take care of the homeless in other states. Like, I travel too much. But if somebody comes up to me in the window and Texas of Tennessee, I don't, I don't give anybody. I know it's sad, but I just can't take care of the world. But in New York City, if you come up to my window, I'll give you $2, $5, and that's every day all day anybody.

Mr. Dickson, have you ever ate that Spanish restaurant right here? Where's your honor? Right here. No? No, I guess you never ate here. Are you thinking while back?

Oh.

Like we killed guilty about taking you on money with such a small job old. I mean, I think give you some money. I had to pay you for the exercise today.

Well, I remember moving as a child between Harlem and the Bronx. And we never hired movers. I didn't even know, you know, I would just come from school and we'd be in a new place. My dad took care of everything. And we just did it with pickup trucks, cars, you know, whatever we get, you know, whatever relative could come by. We never ever hired a moving truck.

I just did back to back Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Massachusetts and now I have a very month coming up next week. I've been to every state except for Seattle Washington and Oregon.

Sometimes, sometimes I do or sometimes I pick up my dad Yeah, my dad. He comes and he does the driving. You know, even at 70 years old, he's still a hell of a driver and still moves furniture and picks up boxes and stuff.

No, no, no. My parents eight years ago moved to North Carolina and I moved them and they said, if I gave them the cheapest price.

Because I said move for free.

Yeah, I moved my parents out to North Carolina and I visit them anytime I do a move going like I said I'm doing New York to Florida New York to Georgia New York to South Carolina. I was stopping and use my parents' places to hotel. But my dad still goes when I go up 95. He's always happy to put on his fatigues because that's when he goes, yeah, he likes the fact that when he is wearing his Vietnam hat and his fatigues, a lot of people will say thank you for your service. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a matter of fact now, I get the email. Adonis, you move me and let's say, just use the name Josh into the apartment five years ago. We're now getting divorced and I just want to know if you would help me move. So they all know the kind of atmosphere I'm entering. Like I won't be like, Hey, how was everything going? You know what? And it's a set. occasion for them because they're getting a divorce, you know what I mean? And so I go in there like neutral, not taking any sides.

usually all every time every time you do the move there is some, you know, they want to talk to you about it. You become the bartender or the taxi driver that they need to, you know, vent to, or at least tell their side because, you know, everybody feels they will, oh, I'm not the bad person. And you can some, I get some people, guys, both guys and girls and say a dinosaur really messed up. I cheated on him and got busted.

Absolutely. You can't go in and just hear about their life and not have to share part of your life with them. And that happens all the time. I told my mistakes because at 54, I'm always older than the person that I'm moving.

No, now I have my question here. When I send them a list of tips, you know, moving tips, the please check under the beds for anything personal, so that cause a lot of times the apartments are so small. The room's so small that the bed takes up most of it and you can't move the bed left or right or nothing. It just up against the wall and so I accidentally check under the bed because usually whatever falls on the side of the bed or under the bed they can't get it until the movers come and move the bed. So I moved in Indian couple that had moved before. and was familiar with them and everything. But this time, they were having a baby and they needed a bigger space. So when we move the bed, and a lot of the Indians and Asians, parents come on both sides when they're doing a move. Yes, they both come like this and event, whatever. They come help do the packing and maybe the mind, the baby, the small children, so the parents can do whatever they have to do. So I got ready to take apart the bed, took the mattress off and lifted it up. They're all talking to me, you know, and I moved the bed and some use condoms were fell on the side of the bed. And yes. Yeah, use used used. And the girl was pregnant, which was the reason they were moving. And so the husband had no reason to use condoms. And so, everybody's staring at room looking at each other except me, I just put the better to decide and take it out, but there was a big argument in their language. And it didn't well. She ended up staying at the place and he ended up leaving, and it was a big or argument as a little man.

You know, that clips. What I'm noticing is nobody, and I mean nobody in New York City can live alone. It's very rare for me to move or place. Let's see, even if there's one bedroom where there's just one person living there, just paying the rent. Everybody has to have help. Yeah, the rate is so expensive. I don't care what kind of job you are. I've moved lawyers and doctors and people in advertised men. I once moved a group of girls on Wall Street in a very, very expensive building. And it was seven of them. They had so many walls put up split in this place. So they're going through a maze to get the stuff out. So they're going for the right. Yeah. We had gotten there early and so there was still a few other people sleeping. There was actually a girl who slept by the door. The little hallway that leads to the door was a bedroom. So she had to like fold up her bed and move it so we could start, you know, coming in and out. I was like, yeah, that's really really trying to paint a rent with the seven girls in here.

No, no, you know, I never, it never gets me down and that's like that, but it makes me, um, realize that I'm not the only one in that boat. Because growing up, we were very, very, very, very, very, very, and if I could throw two more varies on there, very poor. Yeah, very poor. We always thought white people lived better than us. You know what I mean? We lived in the projects and, you know, they lived in a tri-becker and Grammysie Park and, you know, all those places. But now that I move people, you use state to yourself, wow, they're really, People in New York City really, really suffer in their own way. You know what I mean? They just put up a good facade.

The frequency of the phone calls where I was trying to do Friday Saturdays and Sundays. The people that are being abused can't wait for the weekend. So then I found myself trying to take care of it in the morning before I went to work.

I had that then, because that's the only thing that they would give me on my credit.

Yes, what I could do as a day, I started off in the front with the Dodge Charger, and then I saw the Dodge Pickups, and I started thinking of myself, I had my son with me at a time, but they walked me way, way, way past all that stuff. So the back of the yard with this van with the leaves on it, opened it up and he said, this is what we got for you. I took it, I took it.

The government was looking for people to look at the x-rays and stuff. And so I was able to identify a lot of small stuff and they were impressed with that and the government hired me to train people at the TSA to read x-rays.

And so I came back with the van and I got her in the two kids and I got them pizza and Hawaiian punch. Yeah and took them to my house and I gave them the bedroom and I used my living room sofa bed and that's when I realized that you know in the shelter system they don't really help you get in or out.

I got some cards. And then I went around and put them to the shelters. Not that the shelters aren't easy to find. They meant that way. So they abuse it. Don't find the shelters. And for the first five years, I didn't make any money. And I didn't get any money. And I didn't accept any money for the first five years of moving.

I also have a Facebook page still called that Facebook page here.

I was only doing the job on the weekends, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. At the Department of Homeland Security, I had 10 hours shift. So I finished my 40 hours and 40 days. So I had Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And I had the ad if I got the phone call, I would just move people. The type of move I was doing was a person with bags of clothes, they even put dishes and forks and spoons and bags of clothes. I mean, in garbage bags, and they would sit like taking a mattress and maybe a TV, you know, maybe a TV. But those are desperate people trying to get out of a situation while either the abuser was locked up, you know, or at work, you know, something like that. I rushed in. Just me and my son at the time, my son was only nine years old. So it was just me and him.

Yeah, it's very, you know, even sometimes the abuser's still there, but we're talking 20 years later, and I have a crew now, not just me and my nine-year-old son, so now when they see like four or five big guys come through the door, the guy's sitting in a quiet, and he doesn't see anything. And we don't give him the mean face, nothing like that.

Well, my parents, my mom and my dad, you used to go through that. You know, and you know what the weird thing is when my mom and dad were fighting, my mom would be bruised up. It was no name for. We got a beating from my dad. My mom got a beating from dad. You know what I mean? It was just the way it was. But when the police came, they nobody got arrested. They would say take a walk around the block. You know, or you got a cool off. They were veterans all Sony understood what he was going through. So they give him a break. But once we got older, I would say, between 17 and 20 and we could me and my older brother could challenge my father and because by that time we lived in Harlem in the Bronx and we were kind of street-hard and you know even though I saw like a I saw like an easy-going mellow guy I have never lost the fight on the streets of Harlem or the Bronx and I did anybody to say so because I come see them you know but yes when I put up my dukes There was no walking away from that. The person always ended up on the ground and people had to pull me off from, you know. So when me and my brother, you know, my dad, you know, he went in after my mom and then we, we, me and my brother closed, got my mom out and closed the door when we came back out that day in 1992. Dad never did it again. Any gave up the drink and smoke and stuff like that over the years. He's a great guy now. But yeah, yeah, he was, he was military train. It wasn't an easy fight. I tell you that, the military, I learned that day train. I'm so just very, very well. But we had youth and stamina on our side and we prevailed 92.

It's interesting you remember the year you remember when you remember the day you had to go against the most powerful man on the planet. Because there's no kid who doesn't think his dad is not the most powerful person on the planet. There's not one kid out here. I see my pop beat up grown men in the street, just beat him up and you know, because you know, it's the way it was in Harlem in the Bronx. And I had a problem with somebody and you step out at a bar and you know, I see him take on two and three guys like, what am I gonna do? I'm 10 years old. My pop told me to do something. I did it. I saw with the other guys got, you know what I mean? Yeah.

No, I've never talked to my dad about that. But during a drive once, my dad had asked me about why I never cursed. He asked me, oh, yeah, he wants to know why I never cursed. And he wants to know why I never used drugs or smoke or anything. And we had a conversation about that and I explained to him. And he wanted to know what did I do with my mom kicked me out because when I was 24, 25, my mom made me leave. And what did you do? I lived sometimes, I lived sometimes in the same building where she put me out of, but on the roof area. And I still went to work from there until a friend of mine had a studio apartment. He was getting married and he gave me the studio apartment. That was my first apartment in Harlem.

She found that I had a kid that I didn't tell her about. Yeah, my first son. She was upset. She put me out.

Well, I told my dad, um, I didn't do drugs because I saw what it did to him. You know what I mean? You know, I had a cigarette smoking, the drinking, how did it meet him? And I was afraid to become that person. And I don't smoke. To this day, I do not hit women. I do not hit children. And I do not hit animals. Yeah. I never once gave my kids a spanking and I never had a argument with a girl and a relationship and I never hit her and I don't get animals. They can't defend themselves.

In New York City, he could not enter in 50 bucks to 1200. Just for the one move. And so that money started to look way better than, you know, waiting two weeks for a $1,200 check when I get that in one day. Sort of math was pretty easy for me. Uh-huh.

Yeah, I have two boys, you know, and one is 29 and one is 33. And I'm not married, but I'm not single. Uh-huh. Yeah, well, it's not like I'm going to have a girlfriend. You know, you're in a relationship. Yeah, I've been a relationship. Yeah, yeah, I'm in a relationship. Yeah.

I was doing a move and she just walked through to me on the streets. I looked for a job and taught her to wrap furniture. She was terrible at the job, but a pretty girl and I was like, you don't have to work anymore, but I don't think I ever, I think technically even though we've been like five years, I think technically I could still get out of it because I had never officially said I'm your boyfriend. She just have to be around me when I'm going to movies and dinner.

No, no, no, I don't live together. I don't want to live with anybody anymore. I have two separate moms. So I've been through that before. And it's not a good. It's not a good. The breakup isn't good. They know too much about you when it's time to end.

Yeah, I am very less attached to stuff. I don't think I have anything in my house. that I pay for and I even my own bed. And I got a nice comfy bed. Of course, a lot of money that I didn't pay for. I got a big screen TV when it was nice curved TVs. I don't know what they cost. Maybe 2,500 these days. Well, I got it for free.

When the clients, they were upgraded or they're moving, like they can style it in the movie, they got married or in a relationship, they're moving. And they only two beds, they only two TVs. So I get a lot of stuff all the time.

Yeah, I used to try to sell it, but It's just too much hassle to sell it. So I donate it. I donate all the furniture to victims of domestic violence. I still have my ad up. I will take a picture of it and if it can move out, I'll deliver it for free.

I think I could go based on my father. I can't go at least to 75.

Yeah, I'm going to be the person to point the finger to lift that up. Probably in the next five years, if not sooner, as opposed to actually doing the work myself. I actually jumped. It was a four flight walk up. I take a flight myself to this day. And when those guys complain about what they're lifting and how heavy something is, I'll always go, come on, I'm double your age and I'm still doing it. I'm not even sweating yet, but when I sit and I hope they never hear this podcast. When I sit in that truck, I'm going, why the hell did I do that? Oh my God, why am I still doing it? But then when I open that truck door, I'm like, let's get back to work.

It's nothing like looking at the sky and listening to the crickets and having your dog, like they have two dogs. But the dogs love me when I come by and recognize me right away, they even jump up and down like little kids you wouldn't believe these two dogs. They didn't jump up and down, they get to wagon, you know, and they love me. I get me in the dog and and live on my days in a rocking chair with like my dad.