Taylor Lambert - Darwins Moving

I feel compelled to begin by stressing something of considerable importance. To the extent that the stories that follow might cause the reader to wonder just what sorts of people are coming into their home to move their furniture, it must be understood that nothing described is unique to Darwins Moving as a company. Darwin very generouslyand indeed bravelygranted me permission to write an honest account of his business and his employees with the understanding that these tales are reflections of the industry as a whole. I hope the reader will take care to interpret them this way.

My intention is in no way to make Darwins Moving seem like some shady operation with questionable characters. Every single moving company in your city has people just like this working for them. Some of them are good movers; some of them are lousy movers. The key thing that makes Darwins Moving one of the best is Darwin himself and the high standards he holds his workers to. Ask around Calgary or Regina and youll find no shortage of highly satisfied customers.

On to other matters. I have done my best to corroborate and verify the stories told to me in researching this book, but this was not always possible: juvenile criminal records, for example, are sealed. The accuracy of events and claims detailed in these pages is not beyond question. Tall tales abound. Exaggerations and lapses of memory are inevitable. I mention this not to absolve the journalist but to caution the reader.

I have known the three principal subjects of this narrativeDarwin, Jesse and Keith, whom youll meet in a momentfor many years. I consider all of them to be friends. Despite this, it was only in the course of researching this book that I became familiar with their life stories in both a broad and an intimate sense. Id known, for example, that Keith had suffered abuse and had a long history of crime and drug addiction. But hours of interviews and probing questions revealed the man and his complexities in a way that years of simply working together did not allow, and the same applies to Jesse and Darwin.

Journalists are generally advised that writing about close acquaintances is full of pitfalls, but there are benefits as well. During those many hours of recorded talks, each man was forthcoming in a way he never would have been with a stranger. I heard the bragging, laughing stories they tell to anyone with ears, of course. But the emotional, difficult, shadowed parts of their lives that, in many ways, they have not fully grappled with themselvesthese are the parts of a person shared only with those who have earned a great deal of trust.

And so while I caution the reader that I have not been able to fact check every claim, I will also state that I have personal faith in the broad if not exact truth of these accounts, enough so to publish them with my name attached. Dates may be off, details may be fuzzy or exaggerated at times, but outright fabrication seems to me an exceptionally unlikely possibility. Both Jesse and Keith understood their real names would not be in the book, and I doubt they would lie for glory under this cloak of anonymity. Moreover, I corroborated enough of their tales for them to earn my trust. I leave it to the reader to determine what this endorsement is worth.

On to the debts of gratitude. I could spend many words expressing appreciation to the people who made this book possible, but I would still come up short. So, for the sake of brevity, my sincere thanks to Jesse, Keith, Barb and the others who shared their personal stories; and especially to Darwin, not only for being crazy enough to let me write this book, but for ten years of friendship. Thanks as well to Brian Gabrial, who convinced me that a book about furniture movers was not, in fact, a terrible idea; to Leslie Vermeer, whose editing made this book better; and to NeWest Press, whose support brought this book into your hands.

Finally, with the exception of Darwin and his family, all names have been changed to protect both the guilty and the innocent.