Host: George Dawes Green
[Uncanny Valley by The Drift]
George: [00:00:13] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm George Dawes Green and I'm the founder of The Moth. The Moth is true, unscripted personal stories told before a live audience. Back in 2000, we started these nights called Moth SLAMs, Gladiator Nights. People come in off the street, put their names in a hat and tell a five-minute story. The atmosphere is raucous because people are ripping themselves open and making fools of themselves and creating triumphs for themselves and the audience is screaming. It's this primal place. It's where people tell stories. And the beauty of a Slam story is that it can be about anything. It can be about the smallest thing. It doesn't have to be about how you fought off six Hell's Angels. It can be about a visit to a local deli. [cheers and applause] Here's Adam Wade, one of our favorite slammers, and his story about his visit to a local deli.
Adam: [00:01:16] Two years ago, I had the lowest point I had living in New York. At the time, I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey, and I hadn't worked for a full year. And I had worked my way up from a basement apartment to an apartment on the third floor. And I had to give it up and move in with my friend Tricia, God bless her, with a lot of cats. And I'm asthmatic. [audience chuckle] So it was, I guess, the summer. And I'm sitting in there and she has a place at the Jersey Shore and this is me and the cats. And I got my air filter and my humidifier going and I'm not working. I've had interviews. Everybody says I'm a nice guy, but they won't hire me. And I was just so frustrated and the cable wasn't working. I go, "I need to do something to make me happy." And I like roast beef sandwiches. [audience laughter]
So, I had seven dollars in my wallet. I go, "I'm going to ShopRite. I'm going to get a nice Italian bread. I'm going to make it myself. And then I'm going to get a quarter pound of Boar's Head roast beef, rare, and we're going to be all set." So, I go in. [audience laughter] And there's a gentleman. He kind of looks like Eric Roberts from The Pope of Greenwich Village. He's working behind the deli and it's just and him. He just kind of shaking. And he's waiting on this elderly Italian lady. So, he's waiting on, I guess, 61. So I take the number and it's 62. And I'm just waiting there. And she's like, "Hi, John, how's your mother?" And they're talking about his mother. And I'm like, "Come on, I got absolutely nowhere to go, but I'd like to get my roast beef and my roll and get out of here." [audience laughter]
So, they're finally done, and I'm like, "All right, hey, John, I'll have a quarter pound." And he's like, "Excuse me." And then this other elderly Italian lady cuts me in line and they say, "How's your mother?" And he's like, "She's off dialysis." And they're going back and forth and I'm like, "All right. I'm a laid-back guy, but I'm getting there," and so I'm sitting there and she ordered a lot of stuff for a little lady. [audience laughter] So finally, and I'm ready to jump on it. So, they say, "Goodbye, say hi to your mom." And I go, "Quarter pound of Boar's--" And just as I said that, two like them. There must have been twins, elderly Italian cut me in line and they order like the whole place. [audience laughter] And I'm sitting there, and I’m starting to get pissed off. And as I'm going through, a lot of Hoboken yuppies are gathered around, so there's a lot of people now. And they go-- And I'm holding on to my number and I'm starting to shake. And so, they're like, "Tell your mother we said hi." And he's like, "I will. Bye ladies" And then I'm like-- and then I just-- I go, "Quarter pound of Boar's Head right now." And he's like, "Excuse me, I got to make a phone call." And I just go, "Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus." And all the yuppies are looking at me like I'm a jerk. And I'm like, "Jeez, this guy."
So he goes, makes a phone call, and he's at least five minutes, and he comes back and I know, okay, there's no-- [panting] I don't see any elderly Italian ladies. It's just me and the yuppies. And I got my number, I'm all set. So, he hits the numbers thing, but he hits it twice. And he goes, "All right, number 63." And then I just snap. I go, "Wait a minute, I got 62. I've been waiting here. You let half of Italy cut me. [audience laughter] I'm ready to go." And I go, "I want a quarter pound of Boar's Head roast beef, and I want it rare, please, John." And like, the poor guy, like I thought he was going to start crying. He's like, "I'm sorry, sir." I go, "Don't worry about apologizing. Just get me my meat."[audience laughter]
So he cuts in, and he's doing it, and he gets in, and I just grab it. And I get to admit, I'm having such a tough time, I felt good at yelling at someone. It just made me feel really good inside. And I'm still shaking, but I feel-- So, I'm heading to the cash register, and one of the elderly Italian ladies that cut me grabs my arm. She goes, "Shame on you. Shame on you. John's mother's sick." And I'm like-- and I just walk. [audience laughter] I get my roast beef when I go home and I'm still shaking, I go-- And I get the cat, scram. And I'm making my sandwich. And I can't stop thinking about John's mother. [audience laughter] It's like the way I am. And I'm just sitting there like, "John's mother, she's-- Jesus Christ, this poor guy." [panting] I'm okay. I'm not hungry.
So, I Google ShopRite Hoboken. And I get on the phone and I go, "Please, can I have the deli department?" John answers. I go, "John, it's Adam Wade." And he's like, "Who?" I go, "I'm the guy that just came in that yelled at you at the deli department." He goes, "Oh, yes, I remember." And I go, "You know, I'm really sorry." And I go through my whole spiel. I'm having a rough summer. And he's just so-- He's like, "Don't worry. You seem like such a nice boy." He goes, "You'll get a job. Don't worry." It made me feel so good. [audience laughter] And I'm like, "John, how's your mother doing?" And he's like, "She's off dialysis, but she might go back." And we're going on and on, and it's like the best 15 minutes of my life. And then he cuts me short. He's like, "Adam, I'd love to keep talking to you. It's been a great conversation. But there's a lot of people here that want their meat and cheese." [audience laughter and applause]
So, for the rest of the Summer, I went in three or four nights a week. Some nights I wouldn't even get anything, but I would like-- I don’t have money but I would talk to John, see how his mother is. "You got to keep the faith." And then I met Wilma that did the samples. And I'd have samples to eat. And then Dorothy at the checkout, 15 or less. And they helped me. And I'm fortunate to say, I had a job for a year straight, and I just go-- I can't go in every night to ShopRite. I got a life. [audience laughter] But I go in on Saturday afternoons, and it's packed, and it's always really busy. I just get my Grape-Nuts and cranberry juice. But no matter what, I'll always go and say hi to John if he's there. And I'm like, "Hey, John, how you doing? How's your mother?" And he's like, "Off dialysis. She's riding a bike." I'm like, "That is fabulous." He's like, "How's work?" I'm like, "Great." He's like, "I knew you'd be all right." I'm like, "Oh." And the crowd, they're starting to get annoyed. And then I'm like, "All right, John, I'll see you. Have a good day." And he's like, "Hey, Adam, come here." And I'm like, "What, John?" He's like, "Want a quarter pound of Boar's Head roast beef?" I'm like, "Come on, John. There's a lot of people there. I can't do it." He's like, "Come on, have a quarter pound of roast beef on me." "All right, give me the quarter pound of roast beef." [audience laughter]
[cheers and applause]
George: [00:07:28] That was Adam Wade at a Moth StorySLAM in New York City. [Mio Tesoro by Il Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano G playing] Moth Slams are competitions. We pick out random folks from the audience to be judges, and they vote for the best story. Adam Wade has won these competitions 18 times. To see a picture of Adam eating a roast beef sandwich, go to our website, themoth.org.
In a moment, we'll be back with the story of a man annihilated by his wife's epilepsy, but still fighting back. Always fighting back.
[music continues]
Jay: [00:08:36] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.
[Human Rind by Tin Hat playing]
George: [00:09:47] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm George Dawes Green, the founder of The Moth. And in this hour, we're talking about The Moth's amateur story nights. They're called slams. Anyone can put their name into a hat, and if their name is picked, they tell a story. And sometimes these people who walk in are amazing. I was talking to Jenifer Hixson recently. She runs the slams, and we remembered the first time that Peter Aguero showed up.
Jenifer: [00:10:16] You just-- You wanted to listen to him. He commands a room. He has a big booming voice. He's physically a very big presence. And he also looks and sounds like, “Who's this?” I find at the slams that people really respect a different voice, an accent from someplace they're not used to. Yeah, there's a little—there’s a freshness to somebody new. "Oh, we're going to hear-- listen to that Staten Island accent. He's going to bring me someplace I haven't been-- I've only driven through there, [chuckles] bring me into Staten Island." And Peter Aguero kind of brought you into New Jersey. Southern New Jersey, [chuckles] maybe. I mean, and to look at him, he's got tattoos and kind of a mullet maybe, or not a mullet, but what would you call that? A Prince Valiant hairstyle. And he's always wearing a big Bob Marley T-shirt. It would be very easy to pigeonhole him into a certain kind of guy. "Oh, that kind of guy." But wow, he really says beautiful things. And when he hosts, I notice he makes connections that are lovely.
George: [00:11:14] We liked Peter so much that we've asked him to tell longer stories and we've taken him on tour around the country. [cheers and applause] Here he is with a heartbreaking tale that he told at a Moth in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Peter Aguero.
Peter: [00:11:32] I emerged from the subway into Penn Station, and there are a million people all over the place. I'm looking for my mother. She's easy to spot because she's standing at the foot of the escalator by the Seventh Avenue side wearing all pink, and she's oblivious of the fact that she's in everybody's way. And I get up to her, I give her a big hug and a kiss, and the first thing she says is, "Peter, I can't believe how many cookies they have here in New York." She's dumbfounded. She's a big lady. We're big people. [audience laughter] And I take her down back to the subway, and we get on the two-train to head uptown. And it's packed in there, too. It's right around five o’clock in the afternoon and you're just packed in with people. So, if you're going to scratch your nose, you have to bring your hand up your body and scratch your nose and then bring it down.
And she's sitting in the one seat I could procure for her. And I'm standing in front like a sentry, holding on to make sure the great unwashed don't bother my mother. And she's white-knuckling the handle because she's terrified. She hates the subway and the entire idea of being underground, because she read once that if you're in New York and you're on the subway and it breaks down, they make you crawl out amongst the rats. [audience laughter] And so, we're riding uptown, and she just says, "You look exhausted." And I said, "I'm so tired. You have no idea." And she says, "It's okay. You're going to be fine. Sara's going to be fine. She's with her parents. She's in the hospital. It's the safest place for her to be."
We're going up to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on the Upper West Side because my wife has been in there for five days. My wife has epilepsy, and it's difficult. We at this point are in a what the doctors call a cluster of seizures, where she's having them once every two weeks. And she had gone from-- In the beginning of our relationship 15 years ago, she was having myoclonic seizures, where she would just jerk and spill her coffee, and it was funny. And now she has grand-mal seizures, which is French for "big bad." And that's not funny at all.
We live in New York City for a bunch of reasons, the least of which isn't that there she can be mobile. When we were living in New Jersey, she couldn't drive, so she couldn't get anywhere. In New York, she could take a subway or a bus or a cab, and she can live her life. And also, because if she's walking down the street, which has happened, and she'll have a seizure in public, there will be a nurse walking by or two cops or like a Vietnam medic, and like, they're all just there and she's safe. Or there'll be, ten hipsters from Brooklyn trying to be the person that saved this girl on the street so they can tweet about it later. [audience laughter] Instagram. [audience laughter] And you know, there's no seizure filter on that phone, though. [audience laughter]
The reason why she's in the hospital is because we've had enough. The latest seizure that she'd had taken place in the shower. And I was home with her in the other room, and I heard a big crash. And I said, "Baby, you all right?" And I didn't hear anything. So, I ran into the bathroom, and she was face down in four inches of water having a seizure. And her back was cut open because she fell and hit the faucet so hard that she bent the steel pipe. And she was just in a rictus, and she went down like a ton of bricks. And I picked her up out of the tub, which was hard because she was wet and naked and shaking. And I pulled her into the bedroom and I laid her down on the floor and I held her on her side, which is what you're supposed to do when someone has a seizure. You don't put your wallet in their mouth. Everything gets like tight. All the muscles are tight, and she's like marble. And her eyes are rolled back into her head and her jaw clenches so hard you can hear the teeth grinding. And I hold her on her side like I saw my mother do with my baby sister when she was growing up when she had seizures. And I do what my mother did, and I hold Sara and I say, "You're a good girl. Everything's okay. You're safe. I'm here. You're a good girl. You're safe. Everything's okay."
And then after the seizure stops, it lasts for about two minutes. Now, it's the worst part. It's called the postictal state. And for about 30 minutes, she's like a computer rebooting. She starts to come back online, and the color comes back in her eyes and her lips are blue because she's unconscious. But for those minutes in between when the seizure's done until she starts to come back, she is a dead bag of meat. And every single time, I'm convinced that this is it and I'm never going to see her again. That wherever she goes when she has the seizure, she's never going to come back, every time, I know it. So, in that moment, I'm already thinking, who do I have to call first? Her father? My mother? She comes back and then I give her some Ativan because she's terrified. The only thing she knows when she comes back into consciousness is that she's scared and that's it. It's like the fear section of her brain wakes up before anything else. And she doesn't know who I am. She doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know what epilepsy is. She's just fear incarnate. And it's awful because I worry that again, when she's rebooting, she'll stay right there and she'll be like that forever.
So, what the doctor has decided to do is we made a plan is we're going to finally catch a seizure. So she goes into the hospital, and over the course of five days, while she's hooked up to 80 different monitors and an EEG to her head and blood pressure and things on her heart, cameras everywhere, every monitor in the world in this room, they're going to wean her off her medication and then induce a seizure. Sometimes sleep will cause a seizure in my wife or lack of sleep, so keep her up late. Alcohol will do it, so they give her hospital label wine. [audience laughter] And then they start flashing strobe lights in her face, playing like Japanese cartoons, [audience laughter] making her hyperventilate, trying to cause this thing that we've been spending 15 years trying to avoid. And for the first time, we're trying to cause it to happen.
So, my mother and I are going up to visit her and we get to 168th Street, which is quite possibly the most dystopian of New York subway stations. It looks like the Morlocks built it. [audience laughter] And it's a low arched ceiling and everything's filthy and there's a rickety stairway across the tracks. And then we're so far underground that there's no escalator or stairs. You get into this dirty, dull, diamond plate steel elevator with like a misshapen person behind plywood pushing the button. And my mother gets in there and she's holding onto my arm so tight because she knows that any second green gas is going to start coming up from the bottom and the rat king will have his feast tonight.
We make our way upstairs to street level and we make a left and go one block west to Columbia Presbyterian. We sign at the bottom and get passes to go to the Neurology unit. And we get upstairs and I walk in the room and she's beautiful. She's so beautiful. I bought her new pajamas before she went into the hospital. They're like this light green with little flowers and daisies on them. And she's doing crossword puzzles and laughing. And you almost would forget the 87 sensors on her head wrapped in gauze so she looks like a sock monkey. And her mother and her father are sitting there and, man, I wanted so bad for the seizure to happen while they were there because in the 15 years that she's had epilepsy, they have never seen one. And they have no idea what it looks like and they have no idea what we're dealing with. It's an abstract idea to them. And they have no idea the fact that epilepsy is chaos incarnate. There's nothing to do to predict it. But she doesn't have it then, and her mom sees that we're there and she says, "Okay, I'll see you guys later." And she goes downstairs and gets in her car and drives back to Connecticut. And I walk with her dad to the elevator. He's heading back to Staten Island, which might as well be a million miles away from what is actually New York City.
And I stop at the elevator with him, and I decide I'm going to kind of pour my heart out. He's a nice guy. I've known him for a long time. I said, "Carl, man, I don't know what to do. I'm going crazy here. She keeps having these seizures, and I got to work, I got to go, I got to be out, and I'm traveling, and I can't be at home, and she can't be by herself. And they keep happening. I need help. I can't keep doing this alone. I need something. I need help. We need to have a plan to keep her safe. We need to keep her safe. I can't live without her. I don't know what to do, man. I just don't know what to do." And Carl pauses, and he looks at me and he says, "Well, Pete, she's your wife." I shake his hand. He gets in the elevator, and I go back to the room.
She's my wife. My mom goes downstairs to get a cup of coffee at the cafeteria. And I'm sitting there talking to Sara and helping her with a crossword puzzle. And then she lifts herself up on the bed and turns to the left, and then it's on. And the seizure is happening right then. And she's on the bed shaking incredibly violently because there's no medication in her system. And alarms start going off, and the nurses run in and the doctors. And all I want to do-- I'm standing there on the bed, and every instinct is telling me to hold on to her and just hold her so tight because I might never get a chance to do it ever again. But I'm watching her shake and convulse on the bed, knowing that the cameras need to catch it and the monitors need to catch it. We need this. And I'm so conflicted, and I can’t-- I'm just terrified until the doctor says, "Okay, that's enough." And she gets a dose of Ativan and puts it in the IV. And Sara calms down and she goes unconscious completely. And I go in with the doctor to the nurse's station, and we wind back the tape and we got it. We got it. She says, "We got it."
I go outside and I go down the corner and I just start smoking cigarettes, because why not? And I feel so weird because this is what we wanted and we got it. So, it was a victory. I guess it was a victory. I go back upstairs, and my mom's back in the room now. And the lights are off and Sara's sleeping. And I just crawl on top of her in the bed, and I just hug her with everything I've got, my whole body and my soul and everything. And I'm just holding onto her. And I knock some stuff off. And the alarm's still going off. And the nurse came in, and she goes, "Oh, thank God. I looked on the monitor. We thought a bear got in the hospital."[audience laughter] And I'm like, "No, it's okay." And Sara kind of wakes up and she says, "Baby, did we get it?" I said, "Baby, we got it. You did a good job." And she goes back to sleep, and I kiss her. And then me and my mom leave. I tell her, I whisper in her ear, "I'll see you tomorrow. We'll take you home tomorrow." I'm in the subway with my mother on the way back downtown. And now it's late at night, so it's kind of empty. And the thing about New York is you don't have a car, you leave for the day, and you're in public for the rest of the day until you go home, so, you don't have any private space. So, you have these very private moments in public. And that's just the way it is.
And I'm on the subway sitting next to my mother, and I'm bawling and crying, and she's got her arms around me, and she's telling me I'm a good boy and that I'm a good husband, and I'm just doing this in public, and that's okay. And then she says, "Pete, I know how you feel. I know how you feel. When Michelle had epilepsy when she was little, I know what you're going through." And I stopped and I said, [shouting] "You don't know what I'm going through because you had Dad. You had the two of you, plus your aunts. Everybody was there. You had me in the house. There was no-- this is just me. When Michelle was a little kid, you had everybody watching. I have to watch her all the time. And I'm the only one who sees this [beep]. Don't [beep] tell me you know what I'm talking about, because you don't." And she says, "You're right. I'm sorry. I don't know what you're going through. I'm sorry. But you're a good husband and she's lucky to have you."
We get back down to Penn Station and I walk my mother to her train to go back down to South Jersey. And I give her a big hug and I apologize for yelling at her. And she forgave me because that's what mothers do. So, I walk back up to my train. It's up in Times Square, the seven train to go back to Queens to our apartment. And I know I'm going to be there by myself that night. And I'm walking up Seventh Avenue and there's just hundreds and thousands of people out there just always is at ten o’clock at night. Strollers, at ten o’clock and it’s ridiculous [audience laughter] and I'm walking up Seventh Avenue in the midst of this crowd of people. And I stop and I sit on the base of this statue of a guy using a sewing machine to have a cigarette before I go back down into the subway. And I realize I'm in the middle of this crowd of humanity and that I am alone. That I'm just alone. And that tomorrow, when I bring Sara home, I'll be alone. But there's a third member of our marriage, and that's epilepsy. And it hides like a coward until it comes out, until it decides to come out. And I put out my cigarette. And I go down on the subway and I sit down. And you know, I'm not ever going to be alone because moving forward, no matter where we are, it's going to be me and her and it. And that's just the way it is. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
[Grapefruit by Tin Hat playing]
George: [00:28:53] That was Peter Aguero. Peter's the lead singer of the BTK Band, which is the meanest, darkest, strangest rock and roll band on the East Coast. In a moment, we'll be back with an astonishingly frank story. A girl, her pregnancy, her decision.
[music]
Jay: [00:29:44] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.
[music continues]
George: [00:30:55] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm George Dawes Green. Sometimes at a Moth StorySLAM, someone will walk up on stage and share something so intimate and honest that you're just stunned by listening to it. Here's a very provocative story told by Susan Kent at a StorySLAM in New York City.
[cheers and applause]
Susan: [00:31:21] Hi. So, it was right before Christmas 1990, when I first told my mother that I was pregnant. And I remember walking down the hallway and seeing her asleep on the sofa in the light of the Christmas tree before I woke her up and said, "I need you to take me to the hospital right now. I'm having a baby." And she woke up to find me standing there in her pink nightgown, covered in blood from my waist down. And she said, "No, you're not. You just have cramps." And I was like, "Actually, yes, I'm having a baby, and we need to go now." And she said, "No, no, it's fine. Come on, let me take you to the bedroom. Let me check it out." So, she checks it out in the way that you would imagine that you would check it out. And she was like, "Oh, my God, we have to go right now." I said, "Okay, great.”
We leave. My sister is coming out of the bedroom saying, "What's happening?" She said, "We have to go. We'll be back later." She throws me in the car and starts screaming at me, "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Well, I was 19 and had gotten pregnant at a keg party, as you do, [audience laughter] and so I didn't want to tell her. And so, I woke her up, and she gets me in the car, and we are only two miles away from our hospital. And her main concern, because I'm a girl from South Georgia, is my reputation. We can't go to the local hospital. So instead, we go to the gas station, and I sit in the passenger seat with my feet on the dashboard. And wait for her to pump gas and then go inside and pay. And then she comes back, and she drives me to the hospital like a maniac. I've never driven so fast in my life through the backwoods of South Georgia.
We get to the hospital, we run in. "My daughter's having a baby." They throw me into a wheelchair. I go straight to a hospital room, and there this nurse is like, "You have to get into your gown." And I start freaking out, and I sit on a toilet, and she's like, "Don't do that." I was like, "Oh, sorry. It's my first time.” [audience laughter] Yeah, I didn't know. And so finally, they get me onto a gurney, and they're taking me into the delivery room, and I look up at the doctor, and I was like, "I don't want to see it." I had my whole plan the entire time since the morning I woke up after the keg party and thought, "Oh, my God, my head hurts. Oh, my God, I'm pregnant." And I just knew. And in that moment, I thought, "I'm not having this baby, 19, I'm in South Georgia. I'm getting hell out of here, nobody's stopping me." So, I told the doctor I wanted to give the baby up for adoption. And he wheeled me in. I had the baby. I woke up the next morning, and we had a meeting with the doctor where we had to go in and discuss what we were going to do. I said, "I want to give the baby up for adoption." He said, "Well, what about the father?" I said, "Well, I wasn't planning on telling the father, because I had lied to my mother about who the boy was because I didn't want to admit to her the keg party part.” So, I had said it was this boyfriend I had.
And then the doctor said I had to tell the name so that we could get confirmation from the guy. And I thought, "Oh, well, he's going to be surprised, because we never even slept together." [audience laughter] And I was like, "Well, wait, how about this? I also had a boyfriend circa, you know, impregnation that ended up committing suicide." And I was like, "What if we say it was his baby?" And the doctor said, "No, we have to talk to his parents." I was like, "Okay, hold on. Oh what if I don't know?" He was like, "Thank you. That's what I've been waiting for." [audience laughter] I was like, "Awesome." So that's what we went with. And then he was like, "Okay, actually, I happen to know a nice family. They're Christians, and they've been looking for a baby, and let me give them a call. “All right, work it out. I don't care."
And so that afternoon, an attorney's secretary comes into my bedroom-- in my hospital room and brings in papers. And she hands them over to me, and I sign away my rights to what they listed as a "Baby girl." And up until that moment, I had not connected with this lump in my body. I had just kind of pretended that it wasn't happening. I prayed for some miscarriages, just kind of separated, somehow your brain just can ignore everything that's happening underneath. And so, when I read that phrase, "Baby girl," on the paper, it was the first moment that I made the connection to it being a human being that I was passing along to some family I had never met, had no idea about, Christian family, just saying. [audience cheering]
And so I signed the papers. I remember my mother giving the secretary a firm talking-to about, "That's really inappropriate. You shouldn't have done that." She didn't even know she was trying to give it up. And that afternoon, we drove 30 miles back and went home, and we never spoke of it again. And "Baby girl" turned 22 this past December, and I still have not heard from her, but I feel like it's not my right to look for her. So, I left my records open and we'll see what happens. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
George: [00:37:45] Susan Kent is a freelance writer working on a memoir in Brooklyn, New York.
[music playing]
[00:38:00] We always have judges at Moth SLAMs and we always have people who don't like the judges. Sometimes the whole audience, including the host, will turn against the judges. Here's our host, Ophira Eisenberg, at a slam in New York City.
Ophira: [00:38:20] Seven. Seven?
Unknown Speaker: [00:38:24] No. Objections.
Ophira: [00:38:28] You had objections?
Unknown Speaker: [00:38:29] Moral objections.
Ophira: [00:38:30] You had moral objections. [crosstalk] I think that was an interesting judging moment. All right. [audience laughter] I think the audience doesn't agree. I think you have a very slippery slope in which you judge that, but we will have to write your score down and leave it as such. But you will be beaten up later, all right. [audience laughter]
George: [00:39:01] First we ask people to be judges, then we encourage the audience to boo them. I asked Jenifer Hixson, she runs the StorySLAM, if she thought that was fair.
Jenifer: [00:39:12] They get to judge. We get to boo them, I think that's fine. I've booed judges, be like, "What are you-- What's wrong with you? Who are you? What story are you listening to, buddy?" Yeah, people get really mad.
George: [00:39:23] Right. But the audiences seem to go wild. I'm always amazed by slam audiences.
Jenifer: [00:39:28] Yeah, they get into it. It's a spectator sport. [laughs] And I guess to some degree people have their teams because they just have stood there like “that should have won.” People get angry or like, "Why would they give that score? Boo.” They hiss and boo at judges. That's pretty fun.
[crowd noise]
George: [00:39:47] The judges loved Steven Puente's story. He told it at the Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village. And the story is set just a few miles from there at Co-op City in the Bronx. But it felt like another planet. Here's Steven Puente.
[cheers and applause]
Steven: [00:40:08] So I'm sitting in my office and I'm waiting for him to show up, but I don't think he's going to show up. It's Joaquin, he's a 17-year-old boy in the Bronx and I'm working in Co-op City as an intern, as a social worker at a family children's service agency. And Joaquin doesn't really leave the house a lot because he's 17 years old and he still hasn't graduated seventh grade. And I'm kind of thinking, "Well, maybe he doesn't leave the house often and maybe he's just not going to show up to my appointment." But he surprises me and he shows up. And that's kind of a victory for me and I think, "Well, let's celebrate." And it's during the summer, and I think, "What's a better way to celebrate than ice cream?"
And I think-- I come from the West Coast, and there's a little saying out there "Leave no child inside," meaning we're going to go outside. And I think that this is what New York City needs, is kids outside experiencing nature. But what I don't realize is there's not a whole lot here. [audience chuckle] So, we go outside, and there was an ice cream truck around the corner, but it had left. It was late in the evening. So, I tell Joaquin, like, "Let's just go find some ice cream." He thinks I'm weird, but we're getting through it. So, we walk around the corner in front of a Jewish guy that cuts meat, I just blanked, butcher, [audience laughter] thank you. And we passed a group of kids and these kids’ kind of look at Joaquin and kind of give him a nod. And me being from West Coast, from a really small town, I'm kind of like-- I look at him like, "What was that all about?" And he's like, "I don't know. I'm not from this section."
If you're not familiar with Co-op City, there's different sections, and it's in the middle of nowhere. But the six train goes out there, and it's just kind of this mass, 55,000 people live in 27 buildings, and there's really nothing out there. So, I kind of ask him, and he’s like, "Well, I'm not from this section. Like, I don't know what their problem is." So, we sit there, and we're contemplating in front of the butcher shop, like, "Where should we go? Where's ice cream? Should we go to Sea Town or--" And these kids kind of approach us and they go, "Hey, what's up?" And I know they're not talking to me. And so, Joaquin's like, "Nothing, man." He's like, "You know Rafi, don't you?" And he's like, "I don't know. I don't know Rafi. I'm not from here." He's like, "No, you know Rafi." He was like, "I don't know." "You were here last week, right? Friday night." He's like, "Nah, man, nah." I was like, "Hey, Joaquin, let's just go. Let's just go. Let's walk away."
They follow us, and there's five of them, and one of them is a Latino boy who's got a nice, bright pink lapel shirt, and a few other black kids. And they look somewhat menacing. And they kind of approach us again. He’s like, "No. Hey, you know Rafi, don't you?" He's like, "Man, I don't know. I'm not from here." And the guy in the pink shirt is kind of clenching his fist and he starts getting really pissed. And I'm thinking-- I'm a social worker. [audience laughter] I've got a lot of experience in drug addiction and group therapy. There's a group of us here. [audience laughter] And one of the things in crisis intervention, kind of put it back to them, is like, "Who's Rafi?" "Shut up, man. Do you?” “Do me?" So, they keep kind of asking him, and he's like, "Hey, I'm with my social worker here,” and I’m like “Oh, thank you. They're totally going to listen to authority now.” [audience laughter] "We don't care [beep]. You know Rafi, you were here last week, weren't you?"
I was like, "Dude, Joaquin, let's just go. Let's just walk home." And if you don't know the Co-op again, I told you that it's kind of this mass space, but it's about a half-mile of kind of nothing. Even though 55,000 people live there, it's about a half-mile walk, but let's just go to the bus stop and maybe we'll catch some public transportation. [audience laughter] So, he takes his backpack off and we start walking. I kind of diffuse the situation. We're not going to talk about the kids, but we notice as we're getting close to this bus stop, the Latino kid is kind of separated from the other guys and has followed us. And he's kind of running towards us, and he starts approaching us I’m like, "Okay, Joaquin, let's just take care of this. Like, let's just talk to the guy." So, he comes up and I'm thinking, "Okay, one-on-one. I'm much better at this. Lots of training." [audience laughter] So, we'll just kind of talk this through as rational human beings. Like, there must be a situation where he doesn't know Rafi. He's been miss kind of like identified for somebody else. And before I could even talk to him, and I'm in between this kid and my client, his arm swings around and hits my client in the face and his hat falls off.
And all of a sudden, now traffic is starting to stop and all the other kids are starting to run up and kind of come after us. I don't really know what to do, but I hear people kind of rolling down the windows like, "Don't do it. Don't do it. It's not worth it! It's not worth it." And I don't really know what's going on. But now people have separated, and the boys have separated because Joaquin, my client, took his backpack off, and he has a gun, and he says, "Back off, mother [beep] I'll kill you. I'll kill you. Steven, get my hat,” “Okay.” [audience laughter] “Let's get out of here." So, we cross the street, and now we're trying to go around. We're walking and then walking. And he looks at me, and he's like, "Run." And I'm like, "Okay." We start running. I'm running much faster than him because he's got his pants real low because he's a gangster. And I'm thinking, the only thing close next to us is actually the mall. And maybe we'll just hang out in Burger King and just like all this obviously come around just kind of fizzle out. But we kind of get to the thing, and we're running through the thing. The kids are chasing us. And we're about to cross into the mall. And all of a sudden, a car stops. Boom. Door opens. And they said, "Get in." I'm like, "Yes, let's go!"
I don't know what's going on here, but I jump in. I'm like, "Joaquin, let's go. Get in.” We get in. And there's the old lady and an old man, and he was the butcher. And she was a social worker, and she noticed that I didn't look like I was from around here. [audience laughter] And I saw the kids chasing us, so maybe they'd help. "So where would you like to go?" I said, "Let's just take Joaquin home." So, we drive, and we drop him off at the building, and she looks to him and says, "Joaquin, go upstairs. Don't leave the house. Whatever you do, don't leave the house." And I'm thinking to myself, in all the years of my experience in being in school, but also the years of being an addictions counselor and thinking I can have these great, amazing things to say, that was the best advice we can give, “Joaquin, just don't leave the house.”
[cheers and applause]
George: [00:47:35] That was Steven Puente. Steven is a licensed social worker practicing at a methadone clinic in the Bronx.
[Sticks and Paper by Carla Kihlstedt, Dan Rathburn, Matthias Bossi playing]
All of the stories you've heard this hour are available at the iTunes Store. Just search for "The Best of The Moth." To pitch your own story or learn more about all our programs, visit The Moth's website, themoth.org. We're listening to all your pitches and we've already invited many of you to come tell your stories on The Moth stage. Here's a pitch we liked.
Pitch: [00:48:17] My story is about the secret life that I led between the ages of 11 and 14. That all started when I discovered AOL chat rooms. In 1996, My mom bought our family's first computer. I was 11 and I had just started middle school. I had waist-length hair that I wore in a ponytail every day, huge Sally Jessy Raphael glasses that dwarfed my face, and I loved embroidered overalls. I was not popular.
But when I was scouring the chat rooms I realized, "I can be whatever I want. There's no way anyone can find out who I really am." And the charm that I settled on was called "Parenting." The farthest away from who I was as possible. I forged relationships with women in their 40s who would share secrets with me that no 11-year-old should hear. I created my alter ego, a 35-year-old Australian man with an estranged wife and two twin boys. I researched Brisbane, Australia, where I lived, 17 hours ahead of where I really lived in Oregon. I decided my character should be a manic-depressive and I put him on Wellbutrin, and so I had to memorize all the side effects and incorporate them into our conversations. It started as an escape, but it lasted for three years and I realized that a story can be true even if it didn't really happen.
George: [00:49:38] Remember, you can pitch us your own story at themoth.org, record it right on our site, or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. 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: [00:50:19] Your host this hour was George Dawes Green, novelist and founder of The Moth. Peter Aguero's story was directed by Sarah Austin Jenness with Maggie Cino.
George: [00:50:30] All those folks that didn't get a chance to tell a story tonight, come up on stage and then everybody say the first line of your story. And sometimes they use those for bumpers for the Peabody Award-winning Moth Radio Hour.
Jay: [00:50:42] The rest of The Moth's directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sara Haberman, Jenifer Hixson and Meg Bowles. Production support from Laura Hadden and Whitney Jones.
Unknown Speaker 1: And this is the story by the time I was attacked by Japanese preschoolers.
Jay: [00:51:01] 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.
Unknown Speaker 2: [00:51:11] And that's when I was woken up by an elderly German couple wearing nothing but lederhosen in a graveyard inside of Munich.
Jay: [00:51:18] Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Tin Hat.
Unknown Speaker 3: [00:51:23] You were to ask me if I wanted to give blood, I would just tell you, "Hell no. Not doing it.” Not because I'm a jerk or anything, but because I'm afraid that what happened the first time I gave blood, would happen again. [cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:51:37] The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with help from Viki Merrick.
Unknown Speaker 4: [00:51:45] And the last line of my story is my mom told Iggy Pop that it was a school night. [cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:51:52] 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.
Unknown Speaker 5: [00:52:06] I come from a long line of cowards. [audience laughter] My grandfather was a coward. My great-grandfather was a coward. But my great-grandfather was a magnificent coward. [cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:52:21] Moth Radio Hour is presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
Unknown Speaker 6: [00:52:27] Last year, I was shot through the throat while dressed like a Smurf. [cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:52:34] For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.