The snow that had fallen two days ago had not yet melted, and a light rain in the morning left all of Youngstown damp.
When Dean's car arrived on the north side of the city at Brian Avenue, two trucks with 18-foot-long cargo boxes had already been parked there.
"Hey, John, Tom," Frank got out of the car and greeted two middle-aged men gathering around the truck.
They were of Latin descent, with brown skin and also the leaders of this team.
"Frank," John and Tom greeted back, also noticing Dean getting out of the car.
"This is my nephew, here to broaden his horizons and also see if he can scavenge anything useful," Frank introduced Dean to everyone.
But upon hearing Frank's introduction, everyone present knew that the last sentence was the key point. Please, what insight could a moving man possibly gain? The only valuable thing was the stuff that tenants hadn't taken with them.
After Dean greeted them, the group, under Frank's command, boarded the vehicle, ready to start the sweep from the north side to the south side of the city.
This team consisted of John and Tom, plus five more movers. They were predominantly black and had been picked up on the spot from the roadside by John and his team.
The moving company couldn't afford too many employees, so when extra hands were required, they would pick up people on the spot from the homeless areas of the north or east of the city.
For 50 US dollars a day, plenty of people were eager for the job. Even though moving involved heavy labor, Frank and his team never lacked for manpower.
In the low growl of the diesel engines, the trucks started one by one. Meanwhile, the black men huddled together, laughing and joking, with cigarettes and black coffee in their travel mugs as their standard gear.
Following behind the trucks, Dean and his crew could see every move of the people inside the truck through the car's windshield.
"Dean, did you know, out of these five guys, three are junkies," Frank, who was driving, explained mockingly when he saw Dean observing the people in the truck.
"Three junkies?" Dean was shocked, but then thought, could junkies do such physical work?
Seemingly knowing what he was thinking, Frank's face grew even more disdainful. "After they get paid today, they'll definitely buy some 'stuff' to have a good time."
Was this their daily routine? Earn some money, use drugs, then work as day laborers before continuing the cycle? For some reason, Dean suddenly thought of Reed.
His eyes swept over the black men in the truck again. Some looked like regular people with sturdy physiques, dressed in the old Eagle Moving Company uniforms.
They had even cleverly daubed all sorts of slogans on their uniforms, like "Leave the moving to the 'bird'," "Heaving and moving," and "Delivery has arrived."
"This is the life of the poor in America," Frank's voice rose timely by Dean's side.
The American Dream isn't for everyone to pursue.
By the time Dean and his crew reached Silver Spring Street in the north of the city, there were two sheriffs already waiting beside the apartment building.
When executing an eviction, the moving company needed the sheriffs to knock on the door first, present the eviction notice, and inform the tenants that they were being evicted.
Then it was the movers' turn to enter en masse and clear out the interior; the tenants' belongings would be directly piled on the roadside.
Of course, if the tenants didn't want their belongings to be left out, they could ask the movers to take their items back to the storage facility at Eagle Company.
As for the storage fee, it was 125 US dollars a month, fair price for young and old. If the tenants failed to pay the management fee for two months, their belongings would be disposed of by Eagle.
In America, anything can be turned into business.
The first apartment Frank's team cleared out had no response. After the sheriff knocked twice, he signaled Frank to open the door.
Eagle Moving Company had spare keys provided by the landlords; entry into the homes was a breeze.
As Frank swung the apartment door open, Dean followed in eagerly, only to be met by the sight of casually discarded rubbish, half-eaten pizza, rotting unidentified fruit, and cockroaches scattered about...
Even more suffocating for Dean was the stench in the room, and at a glance, he saw an unidentifiable animal corpse in the corner. It must have been a pet dog, abandoned for some reason, its rotting body crawled over by...
Ugh~, Dean could no longer hold back and rushed out the door, bending over to vomit profusely by the greenery. Behind him, he heard the laughter of the sheriffs and several black men.
Frank shook his head, this kid was clearly inexperienced, didn't he see the others had stayed far away?
"First rule of eviction: be cautious when opening doors to unresponsive homes." Frank, the boss, simply waved his hand, "Junk house, retreat!"
It was up to the landlord to deal with the house. They were only responsible for eviction and clearing, not for cleaning.
After that experience, Dean was much more subdued. When they arrived at a light blue two-story residence in the east of the city, and although no one was there, he waited until Frank signaled it was clear before entering.
This house was the total opposite of the apartment they'd just come from; it was suspiciously clean, with shoe boxes neatly stacked at the entrance.
The living room TV was still showing a talk show, and on the table in front of the couch, there was a cup of unfinished coffee.
What was this situation? Dean was completely baffled; did the tenants not know that the sheriffs would come today to make them leave?
Just then, the foreman John suddenly gave Frank a signal, his gaze fixed intently on the kitchen.
Receiving the signal, Frank immediately pulled Dean behind him. "Gentlemen, I think we've hit the jackpot," he said.
As his words fell, the two sheriffs instinctively placed their hands on their holsters.
"Frank?" the older sheriff, Dave, asked with his eyes what was going on.
"This is a drug den," Frank's expression turned serious; he and John had worked together for years and had developed an impeccable understanding.
They had encountered drug users during evictions before, but stumbling upon a drug den was much rarer—they hadn't expected such "luck" today.
After hearing Frank's explanation, Dave and the other sheriff didn't hesitate to draw their guns.
Seeing this, Dean's heartbeat involuntarily quickened. WTF? Had he, just filling in as a mover for the day, encountered such a situation?
"Dean, stay close to me," Frank whispered comfortingly, having already checked that there was no one else in the house.
The sheriffs cautiously approached the kitchen, and after confirming that no one was inside except for the boiling pasta, everyone was slightly reassured.
The first to notice the anomaly, John silently approached the kitchen drawer, pulling open the farthest one with a practiced ease, as if he had been there before.
Inside the drawer was a small sealed bag and some razor blades. The two sheriffs exchanged a look, their expressions inscrutable.
"Maybe we should call the station, after all, this isn't our job," one of them said.
"Right, we're just responsible for the eviction, not for drug enforcement," they both agreed, not wanting to get involved in trouble, and decided to turn a blind eye, considering the landlord had also deceived them.
However, Dean was anxious. Because at the edge of the sealed bag in the drawer, there was a thick stack of cards!
He was all too familiar with those. They had come from Dean himself.
With a quick glance, he knew these were the cards he had given to Reed, because their values were all quite high.
What to do? Just pretend he didn't know? But if the police traced it back here later, would they detect anything amiss with these phone cards?
After all, they were so crudely counterfeit that a closer look would give them away. And if the police did notice, would they continue their investigation?
So then came the most fatal question, would they ultimately lead back to Reed or even Dean himself?
While the sheriffs were calling for backup on their radios, Dean was internally torn. Damn it, if only he had destroyed those last few phone cards himself, he wouldn't be in such a mess now.
"All right, we've called the others, let's leave this for them to handle," Dave gestured for everyone to leave the room so as not to disturb the scene.
Phew, Dean sighed, now he could only wait and see how things unfolded.
But before anyone could move, a sudden burst of car engine noises came from outside. Then, car doors slamming and swearing, "F*ck! It's the cops!"
"Pop!" "Pop!" Two gunshots rang out, and the glass of the kitchen window shattered on cue.
"Shit! They've got guns!", "Take cover! Take cover!", there was chaos in the kitchen.
Some people lay dumbfounded on the ground, while the two sheriffs returned fire while shouting into their radios for backup.
Dean looked up at Frank, who was pressing one arm on him while casually grabbing a cutting board to shield them.
In the nick of time, Dean quickly moved to the drawer, grabbed the cards, and threw them into the burning gas stove.
He also grabbed a frying pan, dumped the pasta out of it, and crawled back to Frank's side with it.
"Uncle Frank, use this!"
Discarding the flimsy cutting board, Frank grabbed the frying pan and held it in front of their heads. "Good job, Dean!"
After a few more gunshots, Sheriff Dave signaled his partner to cease fire, "They've run off!"
Peering through a corner of the window and ensuring there was no one outside, Dave began to check if anyone inside was injured.
Fortunately, because the two outside had only shot randomly in anger, everyone was unharmed.
Dean turned to look at the kitchen, where next to the gas stove there was now a pile of black ash.
"Dean, that's enough for today, the police will take over from here," Frank said, looking apologetically at Dean, "are you all right?"
"Uncle Frank, I chose to come along," Dean indicated he was fine, realizing that none of this would have happened if he had simply waited for them in the south of the city as Frank had suggested.
But Dean hadn't come away empty-handed; at least now he felt much lighter at heart.