The Super Move

My short and tragic relationship with my hunky Craigslist mover.

Illustration by Naomi Elliott

I thought I’d learned everything there was to know about both Craigslist and movers when I first made the jump across the East River to Park Slope, Brooklyn: I posted an ad 24 hours before the move, asked the movers to name their prices, and was promptly swarmed with several hundred emails from men who touted their brawn.

When I settled on one guy who was the third-least expensive—you really can’t trust someone who wants to move all of your belongings for a mere $40—I was in for a treat. He was a complete stoner from Greenpoint named Zach who showed up alone. He was so skinny that I figured I’d have to do the heavy lifting, but he did prove himself to have an invaluable knowledge of the ins and outs of illegally parking his van on Manhattan streets. Zach was a musician for 25 days a month, earning somewhere between $0 and $100 and loving every second of it. But when it came time to pay the rent, he had to pony up, and he did that by working as a mover.

Two m…