Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved (15 page)

“It’s a go,” he says. “We leave at noon.”

I am already folding up the newspaper and gathering up my cup of tea. “Noon,” I repeat before Hayden hangs up. Bruce and Harry look up from their sections of the paper. I nod and we rush out of the coffee shop, across the street and into the car. It’s after eleven-thirty. We repeat the journey we made only a few hours ago, with the same fear, that we will miss the beginning of the move.*

*
WE ARRIVE IN HARWICH PORT
as the rain departs. There is that after-rain feeling in the air, which is still thick, but clean, tart. The wetness is shimmery on the grass we cross to get to the cottage. Hayden and his crew are already there. My little cottage, separated from its brethren now, is atop a flatbed trailer that is attached to a red-cabbed dump truck that looks much too small to haul a house. Hayden moves houses of all sizes, some that have to be cut in half, others that require telephone and electric crews to disconnect and reconnect the overhead wires along the way. Moving these cottages is a small project for him, even if it is huge for those of us who will welcome the cottages at the other end of their journey. I’ve noticed he calls them “shed” moves. On the day he told me he had all the permits, I reminded him that my new addition is a cottage.

“I am not going to all this trouble to attach a shed to my house.” I said it with a smile, which he returned in a crooked sort of way. Then he told me he’d arranged for state troopers to escort the cottage on the twenty-fourth of May.

“Saves money,” he said. Without their presence, he explained to me, we’d have to pay for escorts town by town, the cottage passed like a baton from one police department to the next. “Two-hour minimum, each town, four towns, a thousand bucks. And a hassle every time we change towns.”

The state police cruisers are here today, sleek blue-on-blue Crown Victorias parked on Route 28, their drivers ready. Their presence only reinforces the parade concept in my mind. I think of high school, marching band, high-stepping in black-and-red uniforms. “Knees to waist,” our high school band director, an ex–Navy Band man, would shout over his megaphone at our endless after-school practice sessions. We marched for every holiday, and we also marched to every home game, a parade through town every other Saturday, a police car at the fore, blue lights clearing the streets for us. When we reached the field, we’d settle into our assigned places in the bleachers, playing fight songs and marches to cheer on the home team, a team that never, in my entire high school career, won a game. Maybe that’s why it was so important that the band look good. At halftime we would wow the fans with our intricate pinwheel formations and our strong sound. We played a new program for every home game, forming letters and making pictures with precise movements, our helmet-like hats bobbing.

Harry takes over the video camera and I snap a picture of the police cruisers, feeling a little like a spy. Then I focus on the red cab that bears the surprisingly elegant logo of Hayden Building Movers on its doors. I want to get a long shot of the house and truck. The start of the journey.

I recognize Glen, one of the men who was messing with the bolts on the foundation yesterday, and say hello. He and another of Hayden’s men are in the truck, ready to go. Hayden is moving around, chatting with the cops, going over the route, doing a few last-minute checks. House looks good; headsets are working. Finally he gets into his maroon Volvo station wagon, the grand marshal of the parade. Harry aims the camcorder at Hayden’s bumper: “Save a Tree. Move a House.” The cops move from the side to the middle of the road, blocking traffic. One of the troopers motions the traffic to a halt while the line assembles: police car, Hayden, police car, truck hauling cottage.

I can hardly contain myself as I watch the cottage turning onto Route 28, but I manage to shoot the departure: the cottage on the back of a truck, state cops with red and blue flashing lights. Even as I have come to understand the possibility of lifting a building from its foundation, even though I saw Tony’s pictures of these very cottages, lifted up and away, even though I have visited my cottage several times, grown used to the sight of it up on concrete blocks, I find it nothing short of miraculous to see this tiny house on the back of a truck, zooming away from us.

We shoot until it is out of sight; then we pile into my car. Harry’s Nova has been retired, and he has a line on a low-mileage 1987 Volvo wagon, a distant, elder cousin to Tony’s new vehicle. Harry is driving, Bruce is in front, now in charge of the video camera, and I am squeezed in the tiny back seat. I am here because Bruce has a back injury and cannot risk the contortions that my rear seat demands, and because I do not want to drive on this big day. I just want to watch. Still, I feel a little annoyed that Bruce occupies the front row while I have to watch from a lesser seat.

We pull onto Route 28 and turn at the lights onto Route 39. No cottage in sight. “We’ll see it soon,” I say, because I cannot imagine that they are going very quickly on these back roads of Harwich. But we travel a mile, two, three, and still no cottage.

“Could they have gone a different route?” Bruce asks, and we all contemplate this horrible possibility for a few moments. Imagine missing the move. Imagine arriving home to find the cottage already there, delivered, the house-movers ready to call it a day.

“No,” I say. “This is the route. They just had a head start.” I say it with an authority that I do not feel, and we are reaching a road where we must make a decision. Which way did they go? Either one will work. We hesitate before we choose the road Harry deems most likely, and in another minute, we spot the cottage up ahead. Relief.

For awhile, there is a white SUV between us and the cottage. “OJ,” I say—imagining a helicopter photographing us from above. The cops have stopped the oncoming traffic on this narrow road to let us go by. The driver of the Trooper seizes the opportunity to pull a U-turn—no doubt planning an alternate route in his head, glad to drop out of our parade. We are thrilled with this development; now we have an unobstructed view of our cottage. I snap pictures, wondering if they will come out through the windshield, and I take in the view in case they do not. The trees are fresh with new green, and many are in flower, their colors even more bold on this still-gray day. The cottage moves along, and at a good clip.

“They are going thirty-five!” Harry says, and we marvel at the speed and skill of these house-moving men. Every so often, we reach a narrow stretch of road with low-hung utility wires, and we slow down. Hayden hops out and lifts the wires with something that looks like a cross between a rake and the triton of Neptune. As he lifts, the truck inches forward ever so slowly, the wires slipping off the cottage roof. Then Hayden runs ahead, jumps back into his car, vigilant at the wheel, on the lookout for more wayward lines.

We hold up traffic only occasionally, when the road is extra-narrow or curving. By virtue of the declaration on Route 28, however, my house-moving will be blamed for many unrelated traffic snarls today. Everyone looks for a reason for Cape Cod traffic, especially in those few days before the tourists arrive. We fool ourselves into thinking the roads are still our own, but in truth, the traffic has been thickening as surely as the weather has been warming. As we pass ongoing traffic pulled onto the side of the road, I try to read the faces of the delayed drivers. Despite the driver of the white Isuzu and his obvious desire to escape from his place behind the house, I still imagine that the drivers we encounter are happy to see a house-moving. I imagine that they are taking it all in, rehearsing the story they will tell later. If they are made late for an appointment, I know they will be forgiven when they tell their story. Yes, despite that one impatient driver, I remain convinced that our parade is enriching the lives of these lucky Cape Cod motorists. This view is only reinforced when we encounter Ed, stationed in South Dennis, on the small green by the old church. He is in shorts and a T-shirt, camera poised. He returns our wave and flashes a big grin as we pass in my tiny blue car. Another satisfied spectator.*

*
ONCE WE FEEL CONFIDENT
of the route, we slip away to a side road so we can meet the cottage head-on. The first time we do this, we surprise the movers. They smile, and Glen gives us a big thumbs-up out the passenger window as we shoot the cottage coming at us. We get behind them again and follow until we hit Station Avenue. In order to keep the traffic moving on this stretch of road, the town of Yarmouth has put up construction cones, creating a special lane for the house parade. We take this opportunity to zip ahead again and get some good shots of the house rounding the corner.

“How’d you get there ahead of us?” Glen shouts. We just laugh and point our cameras at him.

Back in the car, we discuss the shot we know we have to get: the house coming around the Airport Rotary in Hyannis. This is the photograph I want to blow up and hang in the hallway that will connect the house and the cottage: the bank’s digital readout of time and temperature high in the background, the Welcome to Hyannis sign in the foreground, the confusion of traffic, the flash of police lights, and the cottage, serene, above it all, rounding the curve of the circle. We decide we need to get well ahead of the cottage to set up our cameras; we take a direct route, while the cottage weaves in and out on back roads. Along the way, we see my mother, stationed on the side of the road in West Yarmouth. We pull up alongside her car.

“I was just getting ready to leave,” she says with a nonchalance I cannot understand.

“You’re
LEAVING
?” I can hear the uppercase in my voice. “
WHY
?”

“I thought I missed it,” she says.

“No, it’s coming! It’s coming! I promise.
STAY RIGHT THERE
.” I issue the command, and we depart, flying now, afraid we will lose our lead. We watch for a sign of a cottage in the rearview mirror, and we discuss the best place to park. Wendy’s, we decide. “Good, we can have lunch while we’re waiting,” Harry suggests.

“
LUNCH
?? I can’t believe you would risk missing the house go by just to stand in line for a burger at Wendy’s!” The capital letters are still in my voice, and I feel a little bit like a Peanuts character as I speak. Peppermint Patty maybe?

“I’m hungry,” he says.

“So am I, but Harry, the
HOUSE
!”

We get to Wendy’s, find our spot by the edge of the parking lot. We have the perfect view. We’ll see the cottage as it approaches on Route 28, get some shots while it pauses to enter the rotary, and we’ll be able to watch as it travels halfway around, then exits the traffic circle.

“Do I have time to pee?” I wonder out loud. We decide I do, plenty of time. We were well ahead of the caravan, and they have to brave a stretch of Route 28 with no barricades or special lanes. Bruce joins me as I run into the restaurant. Inside the women’s room: two booths, a quartet of women, a small child, and a baby in mid-change. I weigh how badly I have to go against the possibility of being stuck inside the restroom while the house goes by. But the line moves quickly. Bruce and I emerge in tandem, and while he contemplates a cup of coffee, I run outside. He passes on the coffee, follows me to the car.

“You missed it,” Harry says, and I know he is kidding.

“Yeah, right,” I say, making sure my camera is ready.

“No, really, you did.”

“Don’t even
say
that. It’s too cruel. Don’t kid about this, Harry.”

“I’m not,” he says, and I notice he is walking toward the car, keys in hand, that he is not on the lookout for the cottage.

“You’re serious?” I ask in a small voice. He nods, solemnly.

“You mean when
MY
cottage was coming around the rotary in Hyannis,
I WAS ON THE JOHN
?????” I cannot believe this. Bruce is silent, my outrage enough for both of us.

“I got it on video,” Harry says, which makes us start laughing. We climb in the car, struck by the absurdity of our lost opportunity, before we move back into superhero mode, ready to chase down the cottage. Again it has a lead, a good lead, and we don’t catch up with it for several miles, coming up behind it just after the parade turns onto my street. We get some good shots as they back the cottage into my driveway. The traffic is stopped in both directions, but I sense that people are not upset with the delay, not right here in my neighborhood. Indeed, people are climbing out of their cars, gathering around, asking questions. One man tells me he’ll be glad to paint the cottage, gives me his number, and asks for a copy of the video for his son. Turning from him, I see Erika and her sister Sara. “My dad wanted to come too,” Erika says, “but you know him—too busy with work. Will they put it on the foundation today?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” I say.

For today, the cottage lands on the spot we have cleared for it, and Hayden’s men detach the truck from the trailer. People are back in their cars; the cops direct the traffic away and come to congratulate me on the move.

“Thank you so much,” I say to them, as they smile for another archival photo. I am effusively grateful to everyone who has made this day possible. I am even ready to call up Mr. Van Buren and thank him, but I remember his words about the “other” house they lifted, and decide to rein in my enthusiasm a bit. I thank Hayden and his men and tell them what a wonderful job they have done, how impressed I am with them and how well they know their work.

“See you tomorrow!” we shout as they climb back into their truck and wave. Imagine hitching a house to a truck and moving it, all in a day’s work. Wielding tritons and lifting power lines, wearing headsets and enjoying the spectacle of a two-car police escort. “Good work if you can get it,” Ira Gershwin would say. Mr. Hayden gives me a little salute as he climbs into his car.

“Crane’ll be here by two,” he says. “Have it up in Eastham first thing, then coming to you.”

“Two,” I repeat. He’s already in his car. “Thank you!” I shout after him.*

*
HARRY AND BRUCE
and Erika and Sara and I approach the cottage.