Host: Jenifer Hixson
[Uncanny Valley by The Drift]
Jenifer: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I’m Jenifer Hixson, senior producer at The Moth, and I’ll be your host this time. The Moth is unscripted true tales told by regular folks and raconteurs alike who bring stories from their lives to the stage. This hour we have three stories for you. We’ll hear about a clinical psychologist with car trouble. An inmate’s desperate desire for a simple transistor radio, and an undertaker with a problematic client.
[crowd noise]
This first story is from way back in The Moth’s history. The name of the show was Savage Mood: Stories of Melancholy. To be honest, I was a bit afraid that a show about depression would be depressing. But the night started with Alina: story from Martha Manning and the audience was immediately sucked into her world, because we’re not often privy to what’s going on inside the head of a therapist. Here’s psychologist, Martha Manning, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Martha: [00:01:10] I’m going to talk about two breakdowns tonight. Thankfully, neither are my own, although I could serenade you for the entire evening [audience chuckle] with those stories. My stories are about a breakdown as a therapist, me, and a breakdown of a car, mine. For a long time, I was the epitome of the perfect therapist. I had a high-rise, expensive office. The Kleenex matched the carpet. [audience laughter] It resembled in no way my own home, which was decorated in one accident perpetrated upon another and another. But I loved my office. It made me feel closer to being a real therapist.
And for the most part, my therapy patients helped in that regard, in that they seemed to respond to what I did for them and with them and get better. That was until Annie. Annie was the first person who was referred to me by an oncologist. After that I got a number of referrals because it appears that depression and cancer are very much hinged both in terms of dealing with the day-to-day as well as the inevitabilities that are shoved in your face.
Annie and I worked together for a year and a half and she was a real street fighter when it came to cancer, which was marching relentlessly through her body. But the things we worked on were fairly mundane, many times. Her recalcitrant 12-year-old son, the fact that he didn’t get along with his new stepfather, those kinds of things. Unfortunately, her breast cancer metastasized again and it metastasized to her brain. And at this point it was decided that there be no more treatment. Annie came into my office to tell me that. And with that knowledge, the first thing she did was reach down into her bag and pull out a new pack of cigarettes. [audience laughter] She and I were going to light up the world. Unfortunately, I didn’t smoke and had absolutely no intention of starting. And we were in a medical building that would go absolutely nuts if there was any smoke detected. So, I’m thinking, “What would a real therapist do?” And I didn’t know. So, I said, "Let’s go outside."
So, Annie and I went outside and we leaned against a green Dodge in the parking lot and our faces were tilted up into the sort of the new spring sun. And Annie is puffing away and says to me casually, "What is it you believe?" And I’m stunned. I don’t know what I believe. I believe data. And I said, "Well, it’s not so important what I believe, Annie. [audience laughter] It’s what you believe that’s important." "Bullshit, Martha. That’s bullshit. I want to know what you believe." And I said, "About what?" And she said, "About dying. About where we go after we die. About prayers, about God answering our prayers." Well, you know, I mean, Jesus, I had 16 years of Catholic school, but I didn’t have a single answer for any of those questions.
And so, I started again and talked about how there was data about the healing power of prayer. And she had just about had it with me and actually came over and bumped me in the leg and said, "Cut it out. I want to know. I need to know." And then I realized what she was asking me. And so, I struggled and I struggled out loud. And my final answer was a mess. And it was that I didn’t know. Sometimes I thought I knew, and other times I was sure I didn’t. And right now, I had no idea where I was. And for some reason, that sorry-ass answer was satisfactory to her. And she let me back in.
She lit up another cigarette and she said, "You’re going to be with me, right?" [sobs] "What?" "You’re going to be with me." "What do you mean?” “Till the end?" I’m thinking, “What end?” She goes, "The end, Martha, the end. You’re going to be with me." Again, there’s part of me that’s thinking, “What would a real therapist say?” I had never been taught any of this stuff. And I said, "Yeah, Annie, I’m going to be with you till the end," having no idea what that meant.
At the same time, my car was stalling out. It particularly hated bumps in McDonald's, in the Safeway parking lot and would stall out, leaving lines of people royally pissed off at me, that’s McDonald's, and me stranded with groceries at the Safeway. And I finally brought the car to the person I should have brought it to at the beginning. And this was a person whose name was Chuck, but he worked at a place called Malcolm’s, Malcolm’s Automotive. And over the years, I had so associated Chuck with Malcolm’s that I always called him Malcolm. [audience laughter]
Chuck always had a perfectly pressed gray denim uniform with the most remarkably clean fingernails and a deeply resonant, calming voice that would have qualified him to be an FM DJ late at night, comforting people in their insomnia. I would always say, "How you doing, Malcolm?" and I’d go, "Oh, God, I’m sorry. I guess a lot of people do that." To which he would always go, "Well, actually, no." [audience laughter] But I described the problem to Malcolm, and he was very satisfied and confident that he could fix it. Malcolm had always fixed it, and he conveyed his confidence this time.
So, I rented a car and went back to work. Annie was sliding downhill faster than any of us had anticipated. She was in tremendous pain and was vomiting a great deal. She entered hospice to have better pain control. Hospice is one of the few places in life that says “We can’t fix it and we’re not going to try.” She went in and started having people call me immediately. And I began to understand what it meant to be with her until the end. And at night, after work, I would take my rental car and drive to hospice. And I would sit with her, always wondering, “What would a real therapist do?” She got worse and worse so that she was blind and she was in a great deal of pain. And I would struggle to know even what therapeutic thing could I possibly do with her. And when I ran out of stories to tell her, I resorted, and you’ll see how pathetic this is in several seconds, I resorted to singing in her ear [audience laughter] because we had, over time for meditations of pain control, used things and we had used, in the beginning, Steve Winwood's Roll with it baby.
In the beginning, that song is a vibrant, rocking rebellion about taking charge and moving on, but at the end, it’s very different. And I would lean over and whisper into her ear, "Then you'll see. Love can be so nice. It's just a step up to paradise. You just roll with it, baby." And she would squeeze my hand and I would know that she heard me. The next day, Malcolm called and said, "Things aren’t going well. I can’t get the car to stall." I’m saying, "Did you take it to Safeway? [audience laughter] Did you go to McDonald's?" He made me very anxious in his impotence. [audience chuckle] He said, "We’ve done all those things, but I’ll call you tomorrow."
So, the next morning I get a call from Malcolm. He says, "I’m sorry. We’ve done everything we can, everything. And we can’t find the problem. And if we can’t find it, we can’t fix it. It’s as simple as that." And I was furious. I said, "What do you mean you can’t find it? You can’t fix it. Mechanics can always do more, fast-talk me, cheat me, deceive me, but don’t say there’s nothing more you can do, Malcolm, I mean Chuck." [audience laughter] And he said, "I’m really sorry." And I believe he was, but it didn’t help.
That evening I went to visit Annie at the hospice and she was in terrible shape. And I knew by her breathing that she was not long for the world. But in a moment of lucidity, she held my hand and she said, "I want you to know something. I want you to know the best thing you ever said to me." And I’m thinking, “Well, thank God, finally we’re going to hear a therapeutic intervention somewhere that was you know--” And she said, "Remember when the cancer came back the third time? Remember what you said?" And I said, "No, I don’t." And she said, "You got really choked up. And you said, 'This really sucks." And I’m waiting to hear therapeutic intervention. And then I realized that was it, all of it. 15 years of training and experience in psychotherapy and "This really sucks" had the most impact on this dying woman.
And just as I was despairing, she with great effort leaned her head over to look at me. And she said, "And it really does, you know, it really sucks." And all I could do was look right back at her and say, "Yeah, it really does." I kissed her on the cheek, not knowing when I would ever see her again. And as I was leaving and closing the door to her room, there was someone down the hall leaving another room. And from a distance I could tell that it was a man. And then closer, I could tell that it was a tall man in a uniform, a gray uniform. It was Chuck. Chuck was at hospice. And from the way he was leaving in that droop-shouldered, quiet way that people leave the rooms of the dying, I could tell that he was leaving someone he loved. I wanted to run to this man-- I had such violent fantasies about all day. I wanted to run to him. I wanted to wrinkle his perfect uniform. I wanted to hug him and say, "I get it, Malcolm-- I mean, Chuck. I get it. Some things just can’t be fixed, can they?" But I didn’t. I watched him get into his pickup truck and drive away.
Annie died the next day and I stood by her bed as her priest said his prayers. My car got better. It never stalled again. I don’t get it. I don’t understand how a car gets better with nobody’s help and how a person doesn’t get better with everybody’s. But I’m learning that there’s a lot I don’t understand.
[cheers and applause]
[Between Sheets (Instrumental) by Imogen Heap]
Jenifer: [00:14:50] That was Martha Manning. Martha is a clinical psychologist and author of many books, including Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface. In a moment, we’ll be back with Piper Kerman, whose bestselling memoir was the inspiration for the award-winning series of the same name, Orange Is the New Black.
Jay: [00:15:45] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
[crowd noise]
Jenifer: [00:16:00] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I’m Jenifer Hixson. Piper Kerman grew up in a supportive family, graduated from an elite college, and had a promising future until some bad decisions caught up with her and sent her to prison for 13 months. We were drawn to a story in her memoir that outlined the immense value of an ordinary transistor radio in prison. Here’s Piper Kerman live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Piper: [00:16:32] For sale at the commissary at the Federal Correctional Institution for Women in Danbury, Connecticut. You can get shampoo, deodorant, soap, toothpaste. You can get pens and paper, envelopes and stamps, your lifeline to the outside world. You can get packets of tuna and hot sauce and candy and razors. And if you’re lucky, if you got it like that, you can get sneakers, vitamins, luxuries, the most coveted item of all, a radio. I went to prison in 2004. I went behind a drug offense from 1993, when I was fresh out of Smith College. I fell into a relationship with a mysterious older woman. And she was a narcotics trafficker. And she asked me to carry a bag stuffed with money from Chicago to Brussels and I did.
The things that we do, the consequences of the things we do, they come back to us in one way or another. And for me, more than a decade later, I found myself walking through prison gates in the biggest, most vicious-looking razor wire fence I’d ever seen in my life. And on that day, when I surrendered at that prison, I found myself stripped naked in a cold tile room, commanded to squat and cough for the first of what would be hundreds and hundreds of strip searches. And I was transformed head-spinningly quickly into prisoner number 11187-424. That place and the people who ran it never let you forget that to them, you were nothing but that number.
So, I was put in the unit where I would live for the next year. And I immediately saw that I was one of hundreds and hundreds of prisoners. I was surrounded by women of every size, shape, color, accent, and I knew none of them. I was desperately trying to avoid eye contact with anyone, and women began to approach me, and I was scared. And they said things to me, they came at me, and they said things like, "Do you need a toothbrush, some shower shoes, some instant coffee?" This was the phenomenon known as “The Welcome Wagon.” And you need to get everything that you need from the welcome wagon, because you’re not going to get it from the prison. The only things that the prison gives you during your stay are toilet paper, tampons, and once a month, a small ration of laundry powder. So, everything you need comes from the commissary. Even the things on offer from the institution, like green meat and government cheese and moldy pudding, are ironically in short supply. The portions-- the food is lousy, and the portions are too small. [audience laughter]
And so that commissary is very important. If you have money in your commissary account, you can get a banana, some ibuprofen, even some eyeshadow in hummingbird colors. And these tiny comforts, they make you feel human there. And they also make you feel just a little bit more in control of your prison life, which is why commissary is one of the first privileges you might lose if you’re punished there. So, I was very fortunate. Unlike most of the women that I was doing time with, I could count on folks from the outside world to put money into my commissary account. So, in theory, I would want for nothing. But there was one thing that I wanted from that commissary very, very badly, and I couldn’t get it, and that was a radio. Just a cheap little transistor radio about the size of a deck of cards with a headset, and it would have cost about $6 out here on the street. And in prison, it costs $42.90. And at 14 cents an hour, that represents about 300 hours of prison labor. So, those radios are very, very dear.
And despite that, once a woman has her basics taken care of, her hygiene’s, her stamps, that radio is going to be one of the first things that she gets if she can scrape together the racehorses. And here’s why? Prison, especially in this country, is crowded, and because of that, it’s noisy. Imagine the sound of hundreds and hundreds of people bouncing off of cinderblock walls and metal all day, every day. And prison is lonely. The last thing my lawyer said to me before I was about to go in was, "Piper, don’t make any friends." And something you hear again and again when you’re locked up is "You walk in here alone and you walk out alone," and prison is stultifyingly intimate, meaning that all of your moments of every day, your most private moments, are lived, stacked on top of one another in a place where no one wants to be. This is not the kind of intimacy that one craves. So that radio was like the silver bullet that could at least alleviate those conditions a little bit, just a little bit, but I couldn’t get one, and that’s because every week when I went to the commissary on Tuesdays, the prison guard who ran the place, he was the one who would throw every grocery item at you after he scanned it. Would say, "No radios, Kerman. No radios, Kerman." They were out of stock, out of stock of the radios.
Now, folks wanted those radios for practical reasons. You had to have the radio in order to watch television. So, if you’d gone into any of the many, many TV rooms in the prison, you would have been surprised by the silence. And what you would have seen was dozens of women sitting there, headphones on, turned to the same frequency so they could hear the program. But I didn’t want the radio to watch the Today show or Fear Factor. I wanted it so that I could go to the movies on Saturday night.
In the federal prison system, every weekend, they screen a movie, and the movies reliably fall into three categories. You’ve got low comedy, high melodrama, and anything with animal protagonists. [audience laughter] When they screened Hidalgo, the horse dies at the end, and I found myself surrounded by sobbing convicts. Movie night was the collective social event, everybody went. Everybody-- folks would go to the same screenings and sit in the same seats with their friends. And even the biggest loner in the prison would make the scene. And after weeks and then months of trying to follow my lawyer’s advice and keeping to myself all meek and mild, I wanted to make the scene, too. I wanted in on the action. And that radio was the golden ticket to movie night because otherwise, you were just reading lips. But every week, "No radios, Kerman." I wanted that radio for another reason, too. I needed it to escape.
Since I had arrived in February, I had been fleeing out of the unit building where I lived down to a little gravel track that we’re allowed to use. I would go out there in the freezing cold and crunch around in that ice and snow to get away from that noise, to get away from the gossip and the fights and the human stew that I was a part of in that prison. And I wanted that radio to get even further away. I wanted to hear music. I wanted to hear the news. I wanted to hear voices that had nothing to do with that awful place. I wanted to remember that the outside world existed. And still, every week, "No radios, Kerman."
The ice and snow down on that track turned into mud and then dried up in the Spring sunshine and still, week after week, they we were out of radios. I was getting desperate. So, one day I was down in the dorms doing work as an electrician, that was my job. Well, actually, I was hanging up illegal hooks. One of the rules of the prison is that you can have no personal items anywhere in your living quarters except in your locker or hung up. And those hooks were in very, very short supply. But as an electrician, I had access to tools, and I could fashion a makeshift hook that I could install in someone’s area. And the word spread like wildfire that upon request, I would do just that, hang up those hooks. And all of a sudden, women I didn’t know, some women I didn’t like, were coming to me and asking me to hook them up, [audience laughter] and I never said no, I always did it.
And one of my coworkers in the electric shop got frustrated with me one day. She said, "Piper, you don’t have to do this. Why do you bother?" And I said, "No one is looking out for us in this shithole. We have to look out for each other." So, on this particular day, I was in B dorm, my own dorm, hanging up hooks, screwing them into the wall and I spotted Lionel. Now, Lionel, unlike me, was doing serious time, a long sentence. And she was the acknowledged consigliere of the warehouse and the commissary, which was a plum prison job. She was a formidable figure, but she was my neighbor. She was not my friend, but she lived about three feet away from me. And she would say good morning to me. And we found ourselves brushing our teeth side-by-side before lights out, she’d give me a smile every now and then. So, I got up my courage and I approached her and I said, "Lionel, I’m really sorry to bother you, but I’ve got a question." And I explained my radio problem. And Lionel just looked at me, I said, "Lionel, I am going crazy without music. The CO won’t tell me when that shipment is coming in. Do you know?" She just stared at me, not smiling. She said, "Kerman, you know you’re not supposed to ask warehouse folks about the inventory. It’s against the rules." I said, "No, Lionel, I didn’t know that. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I’m sorry." I could have kicked myself. I felt like a jackass. So, I had broken a cardinal rule. Another thing you hear again and again when you’re locked up is "Don’t ask questions in prison." This in response to essentially any question. [audience laughter]
So now, not only did I not have a radio, I had committed a huge prison faux pas. So, I was dejected, to say the least. And the next week, I almost didn’t even put the radio on my commissary list, why bother? Some women who had shopped before me were complaining they were still out. And I just dragged my tail into that commissary building. And so, when a shiny, bright new radio came hurtling into my grocery pile, I just stared at it until the CO began to scream, "What’s wrong with you, Kerman? I guess it’s true what they say about blondes, huh? Keep moving, Kerman. Move, move, move " I began to shove my purchases, including that precious radio into my laundry bag as quickly as I could. And as I did that, I looked past the CO back into the commissary and I could see Lionel back there working. And she would not meet my eye.
I turned around and I walked out of that commissary and I was elated, and not because of what I had in that bag. The idea that Lionel, a prisoner, one of us, could make something happen just like that was thrilling to me. The fact that she had the power to get that radio was stunning to me. And the fact that she had chosen to give it to me was absolutely astounding. I knew in that moment that I had her regard. She saw me for who I was and not just the number that we were supposed to be in that place and that made my heart sing.
[cheers and applause]
[Wait It Out (Instrumental) by Imogen Heap playing]
Jenifer: [00:30:49] That was Piper Kerman. Her memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, was the inspiration for the long-running, critically acclaimed, and award-winning series of the same name. My favorite characters, Taystee and Crazy Eyes. We asked Piper how she felt her story fit into the theme of the evening, which was “Currency.”
Piper: [00:31:09] It was a story about how a person builds social currency in a place where they really know no one and where they really have to earn their keep. And the reason that I was so excited to tell this story is because I’m always hopeful that folks will think about who’s in prison in this country and what happens to them and why they’re there in the first place in a little bit more of a complex way and perhaps a little bit more of a complete way. It adds a layer of nuance that folks don’t necessarily expect when they think about crime and punishment in really basic ways.
Jenifer: [00:31:51] To see a picture of Piper Kerman and her husband in the visitor’s room of the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution, please visit our website, themoth.org.
[Wait It Out (Instrumental) by Imogen Heap]
In a moment, our final story from an undertaker who makes a wrong turn while driving a hearse.
Jay: [00:32:45] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
[Around the World by John Zorn playing]
Jenifer: [00:33:00] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I’m Jenifer Hixson, senior producer at The Moth. In 2009, I was looking for an undertaker. We were working on a show called Stiffs: Stories of the Nearly and Dearly Departed. Four stories were cast, most of them pretty serious. I needed a story on the fun side. I asked around to see if anyone knew of any funny undertakers, and the problem was pretty obvious. My calls to funeral homes asking for hilarious undertakers were not well received. Eventually, I put in a cold call to a school of mortuary science and asked, "Hey, have any of your students been particularly funny?" By the way, undertakers return to school regularly to learn new techniques. This is the sort of stuff you learn when you work at The Moth. Anyway, I got a number. It led me straight to Chris Tomline, who’s been in the business for more than two decades now. If you’ve ever wondered what undertakers are really thinking, here’s Chris Tomline live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Chris: [00:34:00] Thank you, thank you. I’ve been a funeral director now for 20 years here locally in New York. I worked in Brooklyn and Queens, currently in Long Island. And I’ve always worked at the busiest funeral homes. Kind of like death is following me around. And when you work at the busiest funeral home, what that really means is that you’re better than everyone else at getting rid of people. So, I don’t have any misconceptions. I had a happy childhood. I wasn’t off playing with dead animals or anything like that.
To the contrary, actually, I wanted to be a doctor. And one day I was sitting in Queensborough Community College and realized that wasn’t my fastest route to learn how to save a life. [audience laughter] And I thought what I was going to do. Now, my only obstacle getting into medical school at the time was going to be time and money. And funeral directing school was two years and ten grand and I was out. So, I looked into the curriculum and see what I wanted to take. And our classes were like anatomy, I said, “Doctors take anatomy.” Chemistry, pathology, physiology. I said, “I’m working on building something up here.” We took classes like Embalming for Dummies and Psych. And the class that I learned the least amount in, I didn’t realize I was going to use the most. Because when you’re with people at the worst time in their life, you really become their therapist. And my psych class was only about six months of vocabulary words stuffed down your throat that you had to regurgitate back down on a piece of paper.
But one statement that stayed with me is that funerals are going to bring out the best and also the worst in people. And it was early on when I became a funeral director. And after only going to school for two years, you’re 21 years old, and I didn’t know it at the time, but I didn’t know [beep] and I’m going to try to get people through a bad day. I couldn’t get myself through a good day. [audience laughter] So, one of my first arrangements, I’m sitting with somebody and Nana died. And Nana was old when I was born. She was almost 100 years old. She was 98. And I’m sitting with these people, and they were affectionately talking about this lady. And it left an impression on me because usually when they’re old, they just look to discard the people as fast as they can. And it was December when she died because they were talking how in a few weeks, we can’t have Christmas at Nana’s house anymore, and who’s going to call us at night to say goodnight, and our birthdays weren’t going to be the same.
A little while into the arrangement, I realized that I didn’t know what to do. So, I started to cry with the family. [audience laughter] I think I babbled something like, "She was so young." [audience laughter] And by the time we got done with the arrangement, they were patting me on the back, saying, "You’ll be all right. Don’t worry." [audience laughter] But at the end, they were nice people because I did something, maybe my sincerity that made them feel better and they said, "Thank you." Well, the year goes by and I’m trying to fumble through my industry here. And I come across Antoinette. And Antoinette was the girl who worked at the deli down the block from the funeral home. And three, four days a week we would eat our lunches by going down to deli and getting our sandwiches.
And Antoinette was not only the sandwich girl, she was a divorcee in the neighborhood and the local barfly. If she wasn't at the deli, you could find her at any pub by 8 o'clock at night. And this is the truth, because her mother was so involved in the neighborhood, we would see her pass by the funeral home either to go to church or ask if we saw her. So, one Sunday morning, the phone rings at the chapel. And I know it was a Sunday because I said, "What is she doing up so early? Saturday night's a big night out." So, she said her mom died and she wanted to come over and make the funeral arrangements. So, professionalism kicks in. I said, "Antoinette, come right over. We’re going to get you through this." We make the arrangements. They were very religious people. Her mom was very involved in the neighborhood and in the church and every parish that she could go through an open door. So, we set up a traditional two-day wake followed by the mass at the church down the block, which was the biggest in the neighborhood. And then we were going to Mount St. Mary Cemetery over in Queens.
So, anybody who has a drunk in their family knows that a wake is the license for public consumption and nobody’s allowed to say anything. [audience laughter] And Antoinette did not disappoint. [audience laughter] For two days she was stumbling around in the funeral home. She was laughing with everybody that came through the door that she didn’t see for a while. And she was crying at the most inappropriate times, like, "Where’s the bathroom, uh?" [audience laughter] So, this was our entertainment. And I’m figuring the morning of the funeral that she was going to be out on the binge the night before. We were going to get started late, but to my surprise, she actually got there early. So, we go off to church and it was a nice send-off for a woman who was a little bit elderly because the church was packed. It was the kind of-- you had to bus in three communities full of people in order to get this church full and the old lady had this church filled with everybody that she knew. There were eight priests on the altar. We had about four altar servers. Everybody wanted to pick a song that they knew was one of her favorites. And two people did a eulogy.
At the end of the mass. I’m standing outside by the hearse and I knew we were going to pass Mom’s house. And I watch Antoinette come down the stairs and she comes over to me and I could smell that she’s been drinking a little bit, and I know it wasn’t communion wine. And she said, "Chris, before we go past-- before we go to the cemetery, after we pass Mom’s house, can we go past the house that I grew up in?" I didn’t think it was a problem, but I asked “If she knew anybody who lived there.” She told me “No.” So, I figured we’d go surprise the new homeowner and stop in front with the hearse. [audience laughter]
So, I get the procession going. I have a hearse that I’m driving. The limousine is carrying the family and about 20 private cars following behind us. Now, if anybody has ever tried to lead one car through the streets of Queens, you know it’s pretty much impossible. And I have a tail of 20 cars following behind me. And I knew which car was going to be the problem because the first light we go through, the light turns green. And I have two cars after the limousine behind me. And it was this little old man who was driving a dark little Fiat with his hands above his head, looking through the steering wheel. [audience laughter]
So, I go about a block further down and I pull to the side because I don’t want anybody to get rear-ended. I only have a couple cars with me, and I stand out and I’m waving people past so they don’t get in my line. The light turns green and I hear this engine starting to rev. And out of the dust comes this car moving a lot slower than it sounded. [audience laughter] But by the time he got to me, he blew right past the whole funeral procession. And everybody else followed behind him, too. He was like-- now I’m in trouble because I lost half the line or more. I figured he’s old enough, he’s been at the cemetery probably more times than me. [audience laughter] And I take my time and I head over to Mount St. Mary’s Cemetery and I pull in and everybody is not just there waiting for me, they’re out of their cars like they’ve been there a while, and this is not helping my plight here. So, I bring everybody who was once in front of the procession back to the front and I get out of the car.
Before I get to the back of the hearse, Antoinette is already out of the limousine and she’s stumbling towards me and she’s being a little bit belligerent and she goes, "You dumbass." I go, "Excuse me?" She goes, "You lost half my mother’s friends and now nobody’s going to be here." After so many people that were at the church, I said, "No, Antoinette, look, everybody’s right over here. They’re by the cemetery office." She goes, "Don’t you tell me. Get out of my face." I go, "Antoinette, everybody’s over here." She goes, "You idiot. Fuck you."
And even though we were outside, I heard the collective gasp of everybody like [gasps]. And my arm was still sticking out like this. It was like I was watching the whole thing. I was talking to myself. I said, "Did you see that? I saw that." [audience laughter] And I didn’t want her to be intimidated. So, here’s where I failed psych. I brought my arm back around. I took a step back so she doesn’t feel intimidated. And I said, "Antoinette, get back in the fucking limousine. I got to go plant your mother." [laughter and applause] Forget training. I was brought up better than that. [audience laughter] And I thought I was going to get gang-tackled, [audience laughter] but everybody else was standing there, so I figured I’d put my head down and I’ll head off to the cemetery office. I’m going to let them know we’re here and either they were going to jump on me or part the way, and it was like the Red Sea opened up and I just walked inside.
I came back out. I was embarrassed to come back out, if you want to know the truth. And everybody was in their cars. I guess they didn’t want to be with the psycho undertaker. Now, I never cursed at somebody and then prayed for them so close before in my life. [audience laughter] And I had to take them back up to the grave. I would pick my head up, they would put their head down, and I said prayers. And it was a quiet prayer because the lady that died didn’t deserve what had happened. You could have heard a pin hit the grass. Now, normally when I get done, I go over to the next of kin and go, "Is there anything else you need?" I didn’t think that was a good idea here, yes of course. So, I went back to the hearse and I figured I’m going to drive back to the funeral home to get fired. On my way back, I said, "You know, I really like working here. Maybe I won’t say anything. I’ll catch the boss by surprise."
As soon as I get back to the funeral home chapel and I go to put the keys back in the drawer, there’s a note there "Chris, the boss is looking for you." Now, he was all the way back at two buildings that we had put together. He was so far back in the funeral home, he was walking down two long hallways. And when you think you’re getting fired, it was like walking the Green Mile. I go over, I knock on the door, he goes, "Who is it?" I go, "It’s Chris." He goes, "Come on in." Now, normally when you opened up his office door, you were looking at his back. Now when I got in the room, he had his elbows on his knees, he was palming his face. He had these big round glasses that were in style at the time. And he’s looking over the top of them and he goes, "What happened?" I said, "About what?" [audience laughter] And he told me that somebody from the family called already from the cemetery. "What happened?" I said, "She was being belligerent and I don’t get paid enough." "Relax, I’m going to let you off the hook." I guess he was afraid I was going to ask for a raise. He goes, "The cousin called and said everybody in the limousine couldn’t come to your rescue because they needed the ride home, but they wanted to thank you for putting Antoinette in her place." [audience laughter]
Now I feel good about myself. He said, "The only thing you did wrong was you tried to justify the mistake." He’s in business. He said, "Whether the customer’s right, wrong, or drunk, just act like they're right and walk away the next time." I said, "Anything else?" He said, "Yeah, don’t order deli anymore." I said, "Is that it?" He goes, "No, there’s two bodies in the prep room. Go embalm them." Now a lot of people might think that was a punishment, that was actually my job. So, the day goes on and a few weeks pass and I didn’t know it at the time because I was young and I was brass and I had a short fuse, but I learned a lesson there. And a few weeks later, it hit me in the face.
I was in the embalming room. My friends and I used to alternate. You direct today, I embalm. And I was back in the embalming room and I opened up the pouch that a body came in and I was taken back because it was the face of an 18-year-old boy. And when you’re 23 and you’re embalming somebody younger than you, it’s a little surreal. So, I take my gloves off, I run back up to the front, I grab my friend who made the arrangements. I said, "Stevie, what happened with this kid?" because we usually try to tip each other off what’s happening. He goes, "Well, the police told his father about 2:30 in the morning the other day, he and his friend were going to a bodega on their way home and he bumped into somebody. And nobody said 'Excuse me,' nobody said 'I’m sorry,' and literally pushing came to shove. Two minutes later, the other man pulled a gun at him, pulled the trigger."
I wasn’t so surprised that there was a bullet hole between his eyes, and this is what funeral directors come across every once in a while. I was so caught back by the look of surprise on his face because his head was towards me and his eyes were still open. And that’s when it hit me, when I said, "This kid died for nothing." And I should have-- not that I thought that I was going to get shot in a Catholic cemetery arguing with a drunk whose mother was dead, but there’s been plenty of times before that where I now could consider myself lucky. So, folks, from a younger funeral director’s point of view, I say every once in a while, realize that life is fragile and sometimes, unfortunately, it’s short. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and every once in a while, when you stop to smell the roses, pick a few for yourself too. Thank you for listening.
[cheers and applause]
[Secret Code by John Zorn playing]
Jenifer: [00:47:02] That was Chris Tomline. He’s a husband, the father of four little girls, and in his spare time, an amateur boxer. When we asked Chris if he’d send a picture for our website, he said, "Sure, what do you want? Like, me posing in a coffin?" We said, "Yeah." So, we now have that picture. If you want to see it, visit our website, themoth.org.
To re-listen to any of the stories you’ve heard in this hour, go to themoth.org where you can stream the stories for free or share the specific link with your friends and family. The stories are also available at the iTunes store. Also, you can pitch us your story at themoth.org, record it right on our site, or call 877-799-MOTH. That’s 877-799-6684. Here’s a pitch we liked.
Joel: [00:48:00] Recently, my wife and I were taking care of my mother-in-law’s house while she was out of town and we arrived to discover her house was being burglarized at that moment. Rather than leave and call the police as rational people might, we confronted the burglar. The story is really driven by the mix of my tendency to overthink, overanalyze, over-assess, my wife’s tendency to charge right in and assess later, and the burglar’s desire to not only not run, but to come to the front door and insist we leave. The story is humorous. No one gets hurt, he’s arrested in the end, all despite pretty huge odds to the contrary, including his armed accomplice who just happened to be gone at the moment, the guard dog who thought the burglar was just great, and the policeman who fortunately makes the right decision between who to arrest, the burglar or me.
Jenifer: [00:48:48] Remember, you can pitch us your story at themoth.org. We really do listen to all the pitches and we’ve been using stories from the pitch line at our shows in New York City and all over the country. So, keep those pitches coming.
That’s it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you’ll join us next time. And that’s the story from The Moth.
[Uncanny Valley by The Drift]
Jay: [00:49:24] Your host this hour was Jenifer Hixson, the senior producer of The Moth. The stories in this hour were directed by Jenifer and by Joey Xanders. The rest of The Moth’s directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Whitney Jones. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argot Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Imogen Heap, John Zorn, and Safa Shokrai. The story from our pitch line came from Joel Clemens. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Viki Merrick, Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.