Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved (17 page)

“Yes.” I nod. “The front door of the cottage needs to face the bog.”

“Oh, they always give me the toughest job,” he says with a smile, that smile. I find myself, even as the cottage heads bathroom-first toward the bog, entertaining fantasies of shared meals with laughing reminiscences of the day he lifted my cottage into place.

“I didn’t want a houseboat,” I say, turning back to the activity. Rick chuckles. Another one of the guys hears me and repeats my nervous humor.

“You hear that—she doesn’t want a houseboat!” Low-level laughter.

They pace. They assess. They mumble. They try pushing the truck, five men at first, before they use a second truck. The cottage tilts first twenty degrees, then forty-five, and now sixty degrees. It’s headed straight for the bog.

Harry’s on the other side of me now. “I didn’t think they’d want me to keep filming,” he says.

“Yeah, just let them figure it out.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t watch?” I know he has a point, but I am not going anywhere. If my cottage is going to land in the bog, at least I’m going to watch it happen. The men are working silently now. No shouts, only murmurs. Another truck arrives with the Hayden Building Movers logo. A jack emerges, more blocks of wood. Hayden crawls under the house.

I hear Harry’s breathing. I am thinking about all the calamities I have imagined. A slip of the crane, a house dropped without a parachute; a roof snapped off like the red cap of a Tylenol bottle; a cottage too big for its foundation landing on earth and air. I never imagined that the bog could claim my cottage. The Conservation Commission comes to mind again. I wonder what papers you have to file to let the town know you have inadvertently dumped a cottage in a protected wetland. No doubt the state would get involved, too. Then there would be the matter of getting it out. Which would probably cost a good deal of money—and if the cottage falls face-first, the way it is leaning, that would be the end of it. Leaving me with a big hole in a hillside that currently more closely resembles a sand pit.

Or a money pit. God, I wonder if Hayden is insured. He must be, but $3,000 for a lost cottage won’t build me an addition from scratch. I think about how much more the cottage is really worth—the price of engineering plans and permits, of a yellow mini-excavator and a state police escort in the rain, the price of making way, of concrete forms and pump trucks—the cost of my commitment.

As I calculate my losses, the men work to right the cottage. It is slow going, and it takes all of seven men, two jacks, lots of wood blocks, a shovel, a ramp along the bog bank, and two red-cabbed pick-ups. Finally the truck and trailer are once again on level ground, edging down the driveway. Rick moves away from me and toward his crane. The cottage is coming.

“Stay right,” Hayden says to the driver, as if the driver would consider doing anything else. “Away from that bank. Too damn soft.”

Slowly, the cottage, unharmed, sitting up straight, closes in on the crane. Harry resumes his camera work. Erika and Sara move to the backyard to get some shots from there. I move too, but slowly, like the cottage. I think we are both feeling a little shaken.*

*
WHEN THE COTTAGE
is within ten feet of the crane, Hayden’s men begin the next stage of preparation. They thread two long straps—a slightly wider, stronger version of the kind you might use to tie down a canoe on top of your car—under the cottage. Then John lowers the boom and they grab for the cables that swing down. They hitch the ends of the orange straps to each of four cables, creating a harness for the cottage. The cables themselves are connected to two steel bars, which hang on another set of cables that connect everything to the crane. It is a hoist of elegant geometry: parallelogram to double triangle to single point where the arm of the crane hooks in to lift its load.

While his colleagues prepare the cottage, Glen circles the waiting foundation with a sledgehammer. Four swings send the wood blocks flying, revealing the four openings where the straps will land. Satisfied that the cottage is secure, Hayden’s men step back. Two stay with the house and the rest move up the hill, stationing themselves around the perimeter of the foundation.

Harry decides the best place to shoot the video is atop the shed, and he scrambles up to get into position before the action begins. I have a camera around my neck, but I’m unconvinced I’ll shoot much more film today. I want to see this with my own eyes, not through the lens of a 35-millimeter. Sara and Erika promise to take lots of pictures for me. As I move away from the group, my mother warns me not to get too close to the foundation.

There is no countdown, and the liftoff is almost imperceptible. A tightening of the cables, a stretching of the strapping, the subtle rise of the boom. The men straighten the strap, lend a guiding hand. A minute passes, and another before the cottage appears to be levitating. Hovering, just a few feet above its trailer. It is the strangest thing to see. Slowly, it rises, and even though I know the ascent is controlled by the crane, by the crane operator, it is hard not to imagine the cottage has supernatural powers all its own.

The house is seven or eight feet off the trailer when it begins to turn. In order to avoid the big spruce, the cottage must approach the foundation sideways. The ninety-degree rotation is graceful and smooth, and for another minute I allow myself to be impressed by my knight in shining armor at the controls. I take some photographs of his excellent work, marveling at the miracle of a house in midair. The cottage moves up, up, and in, swishing past the spruce tree, bending back the tips of a few branches. When it is almost over the foundation, the cottage begins another slow rotation. I watch the tiny bathroom window move away from me, and watch the side door come into view.

“Oh, that side’s cute with the little door,” my mother says. “Are you going to leave it that way?” She is referring to the bright blue section of vertical pine siding. The side door of the cottage once led to the screened porch, the porches that were lopped off by Hayden’s men before they moved the cottages the first time. My guess is that when they added the porch, the owners must have replaced the white cedar shakes with the pine boards. Personally, I have always thought these out-of-context blue planks should be the first thing to go, but I see what my mother means. From this angle, the blue door is sweet and appealing, and the planks hardly bother me at all. It’s remarkable what a little altitude and a sense of presentation can do.

“This is amazing, Katie,” she says. My mom hasn’t always been impressed with what I have accomplished, or more accurately, she doesn’t always say much about what I do. It isn’t that she doesn’t care, but rather that she just expects me to do well in the world. But this cottage move. This is a surprising achievement, and strangely, she credits me with it, even as she has seen the men pass by with the house on the back of a truck, even as she has viewed the near-miss, the save, and the cottage liftoff.

“It’s too bad Barbara isn’t here to see this.” My mother knows I miss my longtime neighbor.

Since my first sight of the cottage, I have felt the urge to share the adventure with Barbara. I can imagine how intrigued she’d be with the project. I know that she would have taken a proprietary interest in my adding on. In so many ways, the house is hers, her father and mother’s, as much as it is mine. I’ve thought of her often, but have visited her only twice, unable to rouse her on either occasion. I suspect they keep her sedated. Barbara, who suffers from chronic depression and chronic impatience with the idiocy in the world, can be difficult. I understand from her attendants that when she is awake, she demands to go home. Busting her out for a day to watch a cottage-landing—though it is exactly what I would like to do—would probably be more cruel than kind.

“They said it would be too much for her; that it would upset her.”

“It probably would.” I know my mother is trying to make me feel better. “Wow. Look at that,” she says now, turning the conversation and our thoughts back to the midair activity.

The cottage is almost parallel with the house now; Rick has achieved about 178 degrees of the required 180-degree turn. It’s high in the air now, suspended and motionless in this moment. We are silent, all of us—even the house-moving men. This dislocation of object and place requires our beliefs to extend at least as far as the arm of the crane. I remember many years ago, when I worked in a bookstore, looking out the plate-glass window at just the right moment. There was a truck stopped at the light, hauling a dozen post office letter boxes in its open cargo area. I remember feeling giddy seeing all those blue boxes—destined to be bolted down to sidewalks—riding free in the back of a truck, as if they were having an adventure.

I stare hard at my cottage now, and I can’t help smiling. I take advantage of the pause in the action to take a shot or two. But I am pretty sure I won’t need the pictures for reference. The image of a silver-shingled house floating against a backdrop of blue sky and treetops has imprinted itself in my mind—I am pretty sure—for life.*

*
THE DESCENT IS SLOW,
careful, punctuated by directions from Hayden and his crew, who communicate to Rick mostly with a combination of shouts and hand motions. When the cottage is only about two feet off the foundation, the men move in close. Rick waits for further direction. Glen and Hayden are positioned on the far side.

“Ease it down, now.”

“Okay, take it up.”

“Up.”

“Down.”

“Up again.”

“Down, easy. Okay, up.”

This series of small lifts and lowerings goes on for about ten minutes as Hayden’s crew attempts to line up the bolts in the foundation with the holes they have predrilled in the sill of the house. They work one side at a time, Rick lifting and lowering again and again, Hayden’s men drilling a new hole where the old one isn’t quite lined up. Finally, they are ready to work all four sides at once. Rick lowers the cottage within inches of the foundation now, and Hayden scurries with the drill, makes a couple of last-minute adjustments. The men resume their positions, Hayden on the side closest to us once more.

“Want to help with this part?” he asks me.

“Sure.” I don’t know what he means, but I’m game. It’s my cottage, after all.

He produces a roll of bright pink foam, a little wider than packing tape, and hands one end to me. “Sill sealer,” he says. Leaning in close to the foundation, I work with Hayden, unrolling the thin layer of pink and pressing the adhesive side up onto the wooden sill on the bottom of the hovering cottage. Through the pink, my fingers touch the house, sturdy and prepared for its landing. No houses falling apart here, thank you.

The sill sealed, we step back and Hayden signals Rick that we are ready.

He lowers the cottage far-side first, Glen and his partner adjusting, righting it, just a couple of inches away from the waiting bolts. Next our side, then the front, and finally the back side. Everything is lined up. Rick lowers again, in the same sequence; the men guide and right the cottage before they step back, section by section. I hear the sound of the bolts sliding into place. The rear section—the wall closest to the house—is the last one to find its position. When the men step away from that section, Rick lowers the house all the way. I hear a series of squeaks as the bolts squeeze all the way into the sill and then one long, deep groan. It is a satisfied groan, a groan that is almost a sigh, the sound of a cottage that has found its home.

The straps are unbuckled and Rick pulls back the boom. Hayden’s guys gather their tools and begin packing the trucks. Erika and Sara say their good-byes, promising to e-mail me some pictures soon. I offer the men something cold to drink. “Beer? Ginger Ale? I have to warn you. It’s got real ginger in it, and it’s kind of strong.” They laugh at me. Rick and Mr. Hayden decide to brave the ginger ale. The rest of the crew, house-moving done for the day, opt for beer. I deliver the drinks to the bottom of the driveway, where we lean against the crane and drink.

“Hey, this is strong,” Rick says after his first gulp.

“I usually cut it with seltzer,” I offer. “ Want some?”

He nods and I fill a glass halfway with seltzer. “For you?” I ask Hayden.

“No,” he growls. “I’ll drink it straight.” This doesn’t surprise me.

We recount the day, the bog crisis, the lifting, the landing. There is a lot of head shaking and laughter. “You guys were all so great,” I say at last. “Thank you so much!”

The party breaks up. First Hayden’s men depart, taking the empty house trailer with them. Next Rick, whom I thank one more time as he climbs into the truck. “That landing was so smooth,” I say. “I could tell the cottage was in good hands as soon as you picked it up. You really know what you’re doing. I’m glad you were here—especially after the bog adventure.” He laughs, accepts my thanks, and does not start up his truck. I ask the question I’ve been wondering all afternoon. “What does it feel like to lift up houses?”

“Well, whenever I have a project with Hayden, I know I’ll get a rush.”

“You like it?”

“Oh yeah, I like it.”

“I suspected as much. Hey, is it true this is the biggest crane on Cape Cod?”

“It is today. But we’re getting a bigger one—next week, I think.” Before he starts the engine, he tells me a little more about cranes, about the German heritage of this red crane, and of John Baxter’s preference for Krupps products when it comes to heavy equipment.

“Thanks again.”

“Sure. Good luck with the rest of your project. See you.”

My infatuation has not yet ebbed, but already I know he will not see me, nor I him, unless by happenstance, and certainly not over dinner. Still I respond in kind. “Yeah, thanks. See you.”

I walk back up the driveway and climb the front steps. My mom is on the Adirondack loveseat again, and Mr. Hayden is still poking around in the basement of the cottage. “Concrete blocks will take care of these holes,” he says to me as I walk down the hill to meet him. He means the openings in the foundation we made to accommodate the orange straps. I nod. “Went pretty well,” he offers. “Only lost a half hour.” He is referring to the bog incident.