Host: Jenifer Hixson
[overture music]
Jenifer: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I’m Jenifer Hixson. In this hour, stories of letting go, or trying to, releasing long-held beliefs, junk, hang-ups, grudges or in the case of this first story, family traditions.
Chris Foley told this for us at the Atlanta Moth GrandSLAM, where we partner with Georgia Public Broadcasting.
[cheers and applause]
Before he starts, I need to give you a visual. Chris is bald, bald as a ping-pong ball. Here’s Chris Foley, live at The Moth.
Chris: [00:00:42] I'm seven or eight years old. I’m watching my dad get ready for work. He finishes shaving and he grabs his long hair on the one side of his head, [audience chuckle] and carefully stretches it to the other side. [audience laughter] He then takes a can of Aqua Net, and he sprays his hair and he pats it down on his scalp. And I look up, “Dad, what are you doing?” “I’m covering my bald spot. With our family genes, you’re going to be doing the same thing one day.” [audience chuckle] “No. Not me, Dad. [audience laughter] I’m never losing my hair.” [audience laughter]
Fast forward. I’m just 20 years old. I’m lifting weights with my friend, Peter Brown, in the gym. I’m doing a bench press. He’s spotting me, he starts laughing. “What’s so funny?” Foley, you’re going bald.” “What?” I run into the men’s locker room and I look in the mirror and I comb through my thick, wavy, reddish-brown hair. And there it is, my scalp showing on the crown of my head. And my heart sinks. “Oh, shit.” I go home for Christmas break, show this bald spot to my mother, and she says, “Oh, no. Oh no, [audience laughter] we have to do something.” [audience laughter] My father’s on the couch, “Welcome to the club.” [audience laughter]
Next day, my mother takes me to the dermatologist. The doctor examines me, opens up a manila folder, starts writing notes. Doesn’t say a word. I say, “Doc, so, am I going bald?” “Yep.” [audience chuckle] He writes me two prescriptions, gives me instructions. One of the prescriptions is Rogaine, and the other one I don’t recognize. I say, “Hey Doc, what’s the second prescription?” He says, “Oh, right. That’s for the acne all over your forehead. [audience chuckle] Nice meeting you.”
take the Rogaine as prescribed, with an eyedropper on my scalp twice a day, every day. My hair grows back to the point where there’s the faintest amount of scalp showing. I get eight good years out of Rogaine [audience laughter] until I’m 28. I look in the mirror and there’s a gap forming in the front part of my hair, like the parting of the Red Sea. [audience chuckle] I go visit my parents, show it to my mother and she goes, “I’ve noticed, and I’ve been doing some research. There is a phenomenal doctor on Fifth Avenue who does hair transplants. I made you an appointment and I’m going to pay for the consultation.” And my dad goes, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hair transplant? What are you talking? Listen, Christopher, just grow your hair long, move in on it, [audience laughter] fluff it up.”
Now, by this point, 28 years old, I had learned that male pattern baldness is rampant on not only my father’s side of my family, but also my mother’s side, with comb-overs all through the family history. [audience laughter] Grandparents, uncles, cousins, aunts. [audience laughter] I’m determined I am not going to get a comb-over. I’m going to do something about it. So, I go to the consultation. The doctor examines me. “Mr. Foley, great news. We can get your hair back.” “Yes.” “All I have to do is make a four-inch incision in the back of your skull, and I’m going to transplant the hair to the front and the back where your hair is falling out.” “Oh. Well, how much is that going to cost?” “Well, the first treatment is $10,000.”
I call my mother after the appointment. I say, “Mom, 10 grand for the first appointment!” “I’ll pay for it. Do it. Do it.” I decide not to get the hair transplant. [audience laughter] I keep hanging on. Now, I got to use more Rogaine, because more hair’s falling out. It’s this vicious cycle. Right after my 30th birthday, I go to a special hair salon. And my stylist’s name is Carmel. She’s from Ireland. Before our next appointment, I say, “Hey, Carmel, can you be careful? It’s thinning in the front. Just be careful. Be careful here, be careful there.” And she obliges.
That night, I go back to my apartment. I’m in the bathroom and I’m shaving my pubic and back hair with my electric clippers. [audience laughter] I think about what Carmel said to me earlier in our appointment when I was giving her directions and she cut me off, she said, “Darling, could I give you a suggestion? Just shave your fucking head.” [audience laughter] I turned those clippers back on. I go right to the sideburn, over the side, over the top, completely bald,- [audience cheers and applause] -making me the first completely bald man in my family. The next day I go to work. All my coworkers, “Foley! Looking good. Nice head. Looks good on you.” All right. I’m strutting around the office like John Travolta. [audience laughter] I get out of the shower each time, I pat my head dry and it feels like a cool mountain breeze over my scalp. I go home to visit my parents. My mother opens the door, there’s her bald son, “No.” [audience laughter] I go, “Yes.” So, today, I’m married. My wife and I have a 17-month-old son.
[cheers and applause]
Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t know whose genes he’s going to inherit. But if he inherits my genes and starts going bald at 20, I’m telling my son, “Son, be bald, be proud.” Thank you.
[Dub Dub by John Scofield]
Jenifer: [00:06:46] That was Chris Foley, live at the Atlanta GrandSLAM. Chris has lots to say about taking the plunge and going for bald. Some benefits include lots more pocket money, no more Rogaine burning his eyes on the treadmill and no more tedious work putting sunscreen on just his bald spots, which is a thing I had not previously considered. Now, he just slathers up the whole cranium at once.
Chris wanted to honor his father by saying that as comb-overs go, his father’s was really pretty well done. He had a front tuft that gave him lots of options and versatility. To see some pictures of Chris and his various hairstyles and the ultimate lack of hairstyle, visit themoth.org, where you can also find a shareable link to the story. Perhaps there’s a certain someone you know who really needs to hear this story. Consider it a Moth intervention, with apologies to the Hair Club for Men.
This next story comes from Caridad De La Luz, or as she’s commonly known, La Bruja. That translates to The Witch. But Caridad likes to clarify, definitely a good witch, after all, her full name translates exactly to Charity of the Light. Caridad raps, acts, sings, dances, writes and teaches others how to do the same. She’s also an activist.
[cheers and applause]
Her story is about letting go, but of someone else’s baggage. Here’s Caridad De La Luz, live at The Moth.
Caridad: [00:08:18] [sighs] So, I’m born and raised in the Boogie Down (Bronx).
[cheers and applause]
I was raised on salsa and hip hop. And thanks to my Puerto Rican family, I’ll probably always live in the Boogie Down (Bronx). I lived in my grandmother’s house until the age of five. When I was five, my parents bought a house only five blocks away, because, you know, Puerto Ricans, we stick together. [audience chuckle] So, this house had a beautiful backyard, cherry tree, an apple tree, two broad maple trees. I felt like Pocahontas when I would play back there. And then, some years passed, and the house next door went up for sale and my father decided to buy that house too, because it had a huge trucking garage behind it, El Garaje. It was 50 x 50 square feet, 30-feet tall, this roof and it had these iron I-beams and these rolling cranes to pull the engines out of the trucks.
My father was a mechanic and my mother was a teacher. Very hardworking people. So, they bought the houses. My parents had gotten married on Halloween, so they decided to throw a huge Halloween anniversary party in El Garaje. [audience chuckle] So, I dressed up as a hula girl, and Papi dressed up as a swami, Mommy dressed up as a cat. Even Darth Vader showed up. All our neighbors were there, our family was there and it was so much fun. We were dancing salsa. We were dancing merengue, cha cha, the hustle. We even did the limbo. [audience chuckle] My uncle was the best. He was dressed as Dracula. He would go under that stick and scrape the back of his head on the floor as he went. [audience chuckle]
So, time passed by, and my father started collecting things in the garage. Cars, broken cars. [audience chuckle] Bicycles, broken bicycles. Motorcycle. Then it was fans. He just started collecting stuff. And all along he was collecting stuff, he was also collecting women. Mommy knew about that. She was resigned to her little space. She had her living room clean, the kitchen clean, her bedroom clean. Slowly, every space in the house started getting filled up with stuff. My father had this thing that when somebody would die, he would volunteer to pick up all their stuff and bring it to the house. So, there was furniture and all kinds of things. It just grew and grew. He had this thing that I couldn’t throw things away either. So, not only was he collecting, but he wasn’t throwing things out.
If I threw away, like, a broken toy, it would wind up somehow back in the house. If I threw away a chair, it would wind up in the garage. A teddy bear, back on the bed. It was crazy. As a kid, it was fun, I must say. All those things, it was like a museum. Like, I would invite my friends and it was like a jungle. We would just swing through the stuff and playtime was fascinating. So, I go off to college, and I returned and now there was a catamaran in the backyard. [audience chuckle] Canoes, more broken cars. And underneath the rubble, there was cycles of life happening. There was dogs, cats, rats, squirrels. It was just wild. Now, it wasn’t fun. Like, now, it was embarrassing, like, we were the junkyard of the block.
There was a Jehovah’s Witness church next to our house, and they stopped knocking on our door to try to convert us. [audience laughter] They were probably looking like, “Not even Jehovah could help these people.” [audience laughter] So, then, I knew that things were not going to change. So, I did what my mother did too. I just put the blinders up and just kept looking forward and living my life. I met a man, and fell in love, and got married and had two beautiful children. Somehow, we found a way to make space for ourselves and live within the chaos.
During that time, my father started traveling back and forth to Puerto Rico, because my grandfather had started getting sick. He was saying that he had to spend more time there, because my grandfather was sick. There was this little old lady that he needed to help that lived nearby. So, he would leave, but all his stuff would still stay there. My grandfather passed away, and then me and my mom, we went to Puerto Rico. And then, my mom saw that little old lady he was helping wasn’t actually a little old lady at all. She was a beautiful woman that owned a lot of land, and my father had seduced her and now, he was hoarding on her land too. [audience chuckle]
Now, it was animals. He had horses and cows and goats. He was like a farmer and shit now. Six months passes, Papi doesn’t come back. I’m like, “Mommy, I think we should start throwing stuff out.” “No, no, no. If I throw any of his stuff out, he’ll make my life hell.” I was like, “I think he’s already made your life hell. It looks like hell to me.” Two years go by, the junk is still there. The third year, I’m like, “Mom, it’s time to throw this stuff away. Enough is enough.” She’s like, “No, no, no. You don’t have my blessing to do that. No.
Your father will be so upset.” I was like, “We are doing this.”
So, I got a dumpster, a 30-yard metal dumpster. They come and they deliver it, this gleaming heap of metal. They open it up and it was empty, just dying to be filled. [audience chuckle] So, I start throwing things in there. I go into the garage and slowly start throwing things out. I found photo albums of families I never even knew. [audience laughter] I was like, “This got to go too.” [audience laughter] I started throwing things out with gusto, you know, like, with realm, real passion. I felt like Michael Jordan dunking a ball. I was like, “Thaaaa. [audience laughter] Bull.”
I still throw things away like that, because it just feels so good. [audience laughter] So, I’m filling it out, right, taking everything out, cleaning things out. Now, I’m starting to see the floor of the garage. Now, I’m starting to see the ground and the grass. I’m throwing out carcasses of raccoons and just throwing things away. And now, I finally have some clarity. And then, my father, he returns from Puerto Rico, and he sees the stuff that I’ve thrown away and he was pissssed. [audience laughter] He said, “You threw away my dreams.” He’s like, “But that’s okay, because I’m going to come back here in six months and I’m going to fix this.” Okay.”
So, he flies back to Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria happens. And now, there’s a lot of broken things that he’s promising to fix. So, he stays out over there, and I start fixing up El Garaje. And now, it’s a space where we make music, create poetry, art and dance, a place where we could fix our souls. I decided to throw a huge Halloween party. I invited all of my friends. Mommy showed up dressed as Sandy with her new boyfriend, Danny, from Greece. [audience laughter] They’re dancing salsa.
I was dressed as a nurse because I like fixing people. We’re eating food, and drinking drinks, and dancing, and lights and clarity and beauty. Enough had been enough. And I was so, so happy. Even Rosie Perez showed up to my Halloween party. [audience laughter] I knew that even though my father said that I had thrown away his dreams, I had only just started living mine. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:18:09] That was Caridad De La Luz. I visited Caridad at her house and went out back to see El Garaje for myself. It is a beautiful, absolutely enormous space. Room for four or five semi-trucks. By the way, Caridad forgot to mention in the story that the cleanout required five giant dumpsters.
Now, El Garaje is used for all sorts of arts events in the Bronx. Poetry readings, salsa lessons, merengue, band practice, hip hop, video shoots. It’s a place where creativity thrives, and all it took was letting go of decades of clutter. Create the space and creativity will follow.
When we return, a teenage girl corresponds with a boyfriend drafted into service in Vietnam, and a seventh grader goes all in on the competitive Japanese card game Yu-Gi-Oh!, next up on The Moth Radio Hour.
[fast paced music]
Jay: [00:19:19] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
[fast paced music]
Jenifer: [00:20:29] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I’m Jenifer Hixson. Our next story is by Andrew McGill.
If the audience response sounds a little strange, it’s because Andrew told this outdoors at a historic cemetery in Brooklyn called Greenwood. It’s one of our favorite New York locations for shows and technically might be our largest audience, if you count the 600,000 people buried there. I mean, they might be listening, right? Here’s Andrew McGill, live at Greenwood Cemetery.
[applause]
Andrew: [00:20:58] When I was in the seventh grade, I was a lot shorter. I had glasses, I was very chubby. I looked like the black Harry Potter, except I didn’t have any magic or friends. [audience chuckle] I remember walking into the lunchroom one day, I grabbed my lunch and I see all these kids sitting down and they’re playing this game and they’re laughing and they’re having these good times. So, I walk up a little closer and I see they’re slapping these cards down on the table and they’re saying words that I didn’t even know how to pronounce.
I go a little closer and I ask this kid, Daniel, he was in my English class and I was like, “Hey man, what is this?” And he’s like, “Hey, it’s Yu-Gi-Oh.” And I was like, “What is Yu-Gi-Oh?” And he’s like, “Hey, I’m not going to explain to you. Just go watch a TV show. It comes on at 04:30 right after school.” I was like, “Whatever.” So, I went home and I watched the show. It was amazing. If you don’t know what Yu-Gi-Oh is, it’s a Japanese card game. It was beautiful. It was awesome. It was a mix of magic, monsters, friendship and it was amazing. And I was like, “Oh, I got it. This is me. This is me now.”
So, I go to school the next day and I was like, “Yo, teach me the game.” And he was like, “I got you.” Daniel gives me a pack of cards, and they invited me into this weird little friend group and we started to become homies. And these were my guys. We weren’t as cool as the guys who like talk to girls, but we weren’t like those kids who played Dungeons and Dragons. Those were the real nerds in our school. [audience chuckle] We were hanging around, we played all these tournaments all the time and I’d win different cards. I had all these great memories hanging out with these dudes.
I remember one time, Daniel’s like, “Yo, there’s going to be this tournament at this place called King’s Games right off the Q train stop. It’s going to be amazing. You have to go.” And that was a little further away from my house. So, I was like, “Ah, boom.” I’ll get my dad to drop me off. So, my parents are divorced and my dad is a taxi driver. I was like, “Cool, it’ll be all right.” So, on a Saturday morning, I get my dad to pick me up in this bright yellow taxi. He pulls up, and I get in the front seat and it’s like a very quiet ride. We pull up to King’s Games, and there’s all these kids lined up around the block and he’s like, “What is this?” And I was like, “It’s just something we’re doing, and we’re going to have some fun and play some games.” And he’s like, “I’m going to pick you up at 04:00.” And I was like, “All right, dude, I’ll see you.” I come out of the taxi, and all my friends are like, “Yeah, you’re in a taxi.” I was like, “Yeah, what’s up, baby? [audience chuckle] Trying to pop?”
And then, one kid’s like, “Why are you in the front?” And I was like, “Shut up, man. There was something in the back. Don’t worry about it.” [audience laughter] And then, we’re sitting in line and we’re just chilling, talking, whatever. And then, my dad rolls down the taxi door and he’s like, “I’ll pick you up at 04:00.” And I was like, “All right.” [audience laughter] And they’re like, “Why is your driver screaming at you?” And I was like, “Shut up. Just go play some damn Yu-Gi-Oh.”
So, we go into King’s Games and it’s like a really tiny shop. But there’s all these different memorabilia from different TV shows, cult classic movies, cult classic video games, all this stuff. It’s beautiful. It’s nerd paradise. And downstairs is where the magic happens. It’s Yu-Gi-Oh Fight Club. One-on-one Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments. It smells like virginity and whatever the spray for inhalers smells like. [audience laughter]
We’re down there and we’re playing Yu-Gi-Oh. I just lose track of time, like, we’re playing, we’re having a good time. I was asking my buddy, Shun, man, I’m like, “Yo, what time is it?” And he’s like, “It’s 05:30.” And I said, “Oh, no.” So, I run upstairs, all these kids come out and I see my dad in the store. I look at him, he looks at me, he’s like “Hmm.” And I was like, “Hey, what’s going on?” And he’s like, “This is very interesting.” I was like, “Yeah, you don’t use words like interesting. Let’s get out of here.” So, we get in the taxi and we’re driving, and it’s very quiet again.
My parents are divorced. So, he stops in front of the building and he’s like, “Hey, I’m going to come upstairs and talk to your mom.” And I was like, “Cool, whatever. I don’t care.” So, we come upstairs and my mom’s like, “Hey, how’s that thing that you were at?” And I was like, “Yeah, it’s fine.” She doesn’t care, because she doesn’t know. And he’s like, “Hey, did you know? Andrew’s in a gang.” And I was like, “In a gang?” [audience laughter] My mom’s like, “In a gang?” And he’s like, “Yeah, he’s in a gang. He’s in the Yakuzas.” I was like, “In the Yakuzas? What are you talking about?” And he’s like, “Yeah, I saw him come out of this basement with all these Korean people.” [audience laughter] And my mom’s like, “Oh, that makes sense. I saw him watching all these Japanese shows.” I was like, “What are you talking about?”
The Yakuzas are from Japan. I couldn’t be a Yakuza, first off. And I was like, “Why am I in a gang?” And he’s like, “Because I know you were in a gang. And they let me buy a weapon at that store.” And I was like, “What? Buy a weapon?” And he pulls out this black bag, and he reaches inside, and he pulls out this knife from Blade II. It literally said Blade II on it. [audience laughter] The movie with Wesley Snipes. “Yes.” And I was like, “Hey, man, that just says Blade II.” And he’s like, “Yeah, Blade II cut people, because you’re in a gang.” And I was like, “No, I’m not.” He pulls out the knives, and my mom’s screaming, I’m freaking out and I’m like, “You know what? I’m just going to explain this card game to him.”
I pull out the Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and I was like, “Hey, I was playing Yu-Gi-Oh.” And they’re like, “What is Yu-Gi-Oh?” I proceeded to explain Yu-Gi-Oh to my superstitious religious Haitian parents. [audience laughter] Lost my breath. Sorry. And I’m like, “Guys, this is the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, it has 3,000 life points. This is the Dark Magician, it has 2,500 attack points. If you attack it, you lose your Dark Magician. These are different spell cards that you can attach to your cards.” They sit down, and I’m like, I’m going to double down and just tell them the real truth of Yu-Gi-Oh.
I was like, “So, Yu-Gi-Oh started when these gods, they started to fight each other. And they’re like, “Hey, we’re taking these demons, put them in the cards. They’re going to attack each other, and they’re going to battle each other. And whoever loses gets into the Shadow Realm. The Shadow Realm is a place that’s devoid of light. There’s no life there. And you lose your soul in the Shadow Realm. I’m just trying to play so I don’t lose my soul, guys.”
And they’re sitting down and it’s all quiet. And I’m like, “Cool, maybe I made my point. Maybe they understand Yu-Gi-Oh.” And they’re quiet. My dad grabs my mom’s shoulder and they both look up at me and they’re like, “Okay, you’re not in a gang. You’re possessed by a demon.” [audience laughter] And I said, “What are you talking about?” And I laughed, I giggled. And just a note, side note, if you’re ever accused of being a demon, don’t laugh. [audience laughter] It makes you look like more of a demon. [audience laughter] They’re all freaking out. They’re like, “We need to get the oils. We need to cover this dude.” And they’re like, “Call a pastor. Call somebody.”
That wasn’t the end. That wasn’t the end, though, because they were like, “Hey, you have to burn these cards.” And I was like, “Burn the cards? No, anything but burning the cards. Please, not the cards. This is my identity. I can’t go back to school if I burn these cards.” And they're like, “You have to burn these cards.” I sat over the kitchen sink just burning card after card, memory after memory. [audience aww] I was like, “Man, I played this with-- I know. I lost that with Shun man.” It’s just burning and burning. I’m crying in his tears. But it wasn’t over, because on Sunday I had to go to church, and then I had to go to school on Monday. [audience aww] Oh, no, I know.
I went to school on Monday and I walk into the lunchroom and I see all my friends playing, having a good time, looking all jolly. I couldn’t go up to those guys and tell them, “Hey, my parents thought I was a demon and I had to burn all my cards.” [audience chuckle] I couldn’t do that. That’s breaking cardinal rule number one of Yu-Gi-Oh, you don’t burn your cards. “What are you doing? So much money on these things.” So, I did what any middle schooler would do. I just pretended to be better than them. I was like, “Hey, guys, I’m not going to sit here anymore. I’m going to go talk to girls now, because that’s what I do.” [audience laughter] I sat alone. I think my parents should have just let me play Yu-Gi-Oh. Because after that, I got into online chat rooms and I started to catfish people, [audience chuckle] and I never played Yu-Gi-Oh again. [audience aww] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
[Don’t Wanna Fight by Alabama Shakes]
Jenifer: [00:28:31] That was Andrew McGill. He did not invite his parents to the show, because if they thought he was possessed before, this graveyard gig was really going to do them in.
Andrew was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he’s a comic and a high school English teacher. At the end of his story, he mentions that after being banned from playing Yu-Gi-Oh, he started catfishing. As you probably know, that means he corresponded with people online posing as someone else. For Andrew, it was all in good fun. One of his alter egos was a blonde surfer named Stan. Side note, Andrew has never been surfing.
One of Andrew’s old Yu-Gi-Oh pals from middle school heard about this story and texted him, “I’m so sorry, dude.” Andrew wrote back, “At least, you can’t throw away the memories.”
Our next story is by Patricia Brennan. She told it at our StorySLAM in Ann Arbor, where we partner with Michigan Public Radio. Her story involves the kinds of memories that are very difficult to let go.
[cheers and applause]
Here’s Patricia Brennan.
Patricia: [00:29:33] It’s 1969, and I’m riding with my boyfriend, Jack, and a few friends up to northern Wisconsin. All of a sudden, Jack sees something out the window that makes him lurch out of his seat. I can see the tendons of his neck just vibrating in fear. And then, a minute later, he just relaxes back in the seat, because he realizes that the funnel of clouds in the distance was just from the paper mills of northern Wisconsin. It wasn’t an incoming mortar attack from the Viet Cong.
Jack had just gotten back from Nam, a couple weeks earlier than that. He’d been drafted to fight the war. The whole time he was in country, he and I wrote letters back and forth. I actually was protesting the war in Madison, but Jack made the war real to me. And that whole year he was there, I had that clutchy feeling that you get when you love a soldier who’s in active combat. But now, Jack was back home. He was safe. The war was behind us. That’s what I’d been thinking. But when I saw him clutch at that smoke in the distance, I knew the damn war was still alive, at least in Jack.
So, a few months later, he took off. I knew he had to go and fight his demons. So, he roamed the States and Canada with a few friends while his crew cut from the army grew out. And by the time he got to art school in California, his hair was long and free, and I figured he was too.
So, four years later, when he and I got married, the Vietnam War seemed like ancient history to me. I could easily imagine Jack had never even been there. And that made it easier, because Jack would never talk about the war with me. Not ever. That was amazing, because Jack and I knew each other since we were in first grade. We grew up together in a little Iowa town. We had all the same teachers, we knew all the same classmates. But Jack’s year in Vietnam, it was like a black hole.
Well, I did know the basics of what he did there. And he was a helicopter door gunner. That meant that his job was to provide fire cover while they were landing and picking up troops in the jungle. And Jack, when he was over there, he sent me a picture of himself standing by his chopper. He’s got one combat boot up on the open doorway of the copter, and his hand is resting on this enormous automatic machine gun that’s mounted there. It was Jack’s gun. I couldn’t imagine him shooting that thing, spraying hundreds of bullets out per minute.
And the truth is, I didn’t want to picture him shooting that thing. I prefer to focus on another picture he sent me, where he’s holding this adorable pet monkey that he had adopted from the jungle. And that looked like the Jack I knew, fun loving and creative and affectionate. So, in our marriage, it was comfortable for both of us to just pretend the war hadn’t happened. We just ignored the fact altogether, but that war had a way of leaking into our home.
Like, one night, Jack and I were at the dinner table, and we’re lingering over our last glass of wine and our little boy starts singing the song that he had learned that day in preschool, America the Beautiful. His sweet voice is singing about the spacious skies and the amber waves of grain. And all of a sudden, I notice that tears are streaming down Jack’s face, because the song had brought him back to the funeral of a hometown buddy who was shot down in Vietnam. And Jack, in full uniform, was a pallbearer at that funeral.
Jack started telling me that when he was carrying the casket out of the church, he completely broke down. And he said the worst part of the funeral was that the father of the boy, whose name was Bob Shares, looked to Jack for answers for why his son had died, and Jack had nothing to give him. The reason this memory is fresh in my mind, is that I recently ran across the journal entry that I had written that night, and it prompted me to look up the memorial of our classmate Bob Shares. Bob died in Vietnam on November 18th, 1969. And then, I was titled to make another secondary discovery, the date on the journal entry, was also November 18th. So, Jack had broken down and cried on the very anniversary of his friend’s death.
It’s easy to write that off as coincidence and that might be all it is. But I wonder if it’s more-- That night of Bob Shares’ anniversary, people who loved him were grieving for him. And maybe somehow that grief traveled through the ether and reached Jack’s subconscious, because I think the pores of his war wounds were always open. When you’re a vet or married to one, you never know when an incoming mortar attack is going to hit.
[cheers and applause]
[The Boy in the Gap by Martin Hayes Quartet]
Jenifer: [00:35:16] That was Patricia Brennan. Patricia sent me some great photos. Jack and Patricia as a young couple, and some of the pictures she mentioned in the story, Jack with his gun and Jack with a monkey. You can see them on our website, themoth.org. Patricia writes children’s books. 26 so far. Her most recent is called Who Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Although Patricia and Jack are no longer married, she says they’re still close as they share two sons, three grandchildren and a lifetime of memories.
When we return, more lessons in letting go from a man we met at a Moth workshop with the Innocence Project, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[The Boy in the Gap by Martin Hayes Quartet]
Jay: [00:36:13] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
[The Boy in the Gap by Martin Hayes Quartet]
Jenifer: [00:37:24] You’re listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I’m Jenifer Hixson.
The Moth first met our next storyteller, Michael VonAllmen, at the Innocence Network Conference. It’s a national event that brings together members of the Innocence movement to discuss issues that affect the wrongfully convicted. Michael’s from Kentucky.
[cheers and applause]
When we partnered with Apple Shop for a show in Whitesburg, we invited him to tell his story, here’s Michael VonAllmen.
Michael: [00:37:51] I have issues with hate. I wasn’t raised to hate. I just found that hate was the emotion that you needed to survive in prison. If you didn’t hate when you walked through the gate onto the yard, it was taught to you right away. On one side of the prison would be Black folks, on the other side would be white folks. And you were told if you want to do the easiest bit possible, you would stay within your race. So, that’s where the hate started, was expressed in a racial way. But it didn’t take much time. Exposure to the guards in that prison regiment, and you come to hate them too.
It’s not long before you’re starting to hate everything and everybody. And that’s the way you start doing good time when you have everyone at their distance. It didn’t matter if you were innocent or guilty of the crime you were in there for. I was innocent of the crime I was in there for. I had nothing to do with this violent assault that I was accused of. But somehow, I landed in prison and was made to stay there. I spent 11 years trying to prove that I didn’t commit this crime. And finally, after 11 years and my fourth meeting with the parole board, they decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. So, with my hate, I took off on parole in Louisville.
When you release a prisoner, they’re not transitioning from convict to productive citizen, they’re transitioning into hate management, how to control that. That’s what I did. I learned to control it. I managed it for 16 years, became a husband, father, grandfather and just did my bit. I got back into life. The only thing missing was this exoneration, if it could ever happen.
16 years goes by. I’m on parole. One day, I pick up the newspaper, and there’s a story in there about the Kentucky Innocence Project and how they had just received some grant money to investigate wrongful convictions. That’s what the Innocence Projects do. They investigate wrongful convictions and they’re dedicated to correcting the wrongs that people have been accused of. They take my case, and in no time, they uncover this incredible textbook example of mistaken identity. They found this serial rapist that looks identical to me.
So, after 11 years in prison, 16 years on parole, we present this to the courts, and without hesitation, the courts correct this wrong that I had been living with for 27 years. [clears throat] Remarkable. But the first year after I was exonerated, the Innocence Project, once a year, they have a conference where they invite all the attorneys and the folks involved and the exonerees and celebrate, hone their skills and-- [clears throat] So, the first year I’m invited to this conference. I get up and I meet these folks from across the country that have experienced the same thing, some wrongful conviction, and they’ve done decades and decades of time.
I walk into the conference, and the first thing I notice is how many Black Americans there are in this group of people. So, when I walked on the yard and they said, “Yeah, you got to stay in your race,” it was at that moment when I noticed how many Black folks were in there and people of color that I had to reconcile my hatred or whatever and had to let it go. I felt it dissolve right then. I go to another conference, and they got folks up there from the law enforcement community, another group that you just love to hate. And then, I reconciled with them.
This process of going to the conferences is such an emotional experience for me that I find that I’ve got a drive to them just to have that long drive back to process that emotion that I get from this conference. Two years ago, the conference was in San Diego, California. Man, I had a lot of time to sort things out. [audience laughter] [clears throat] But on the way out there, I noticed how close I am to the Grand Canyon. So, while I’m loving this exoneration thing, now I get to make a bucket list, move here and stop at the Grand Canyon. It’s not that far out of the way. So, yes, I’m going to stop at the Grand Canyon. [coughs] Go to the conference, it’s over with. I beeline for the Grand Canyon, taking it all in. And, man, just life is super.
You just don’t know how good life can be. I’m taking it in. I’m riding down the road. I’m on my last day of the trip, and I just cross into Missouri. As I come over this hill, I notice there’s two state troopers in the middle of the median. As I approached them, they had just entered their conversation with one another, and now they’re pulling off and going up the interstate, one in each direction. I get about a mile down the road, the cop comes by me, along with all the other traffic that I’m riding with. I got the cruise control on, so I know I’m not speeding or anything.
But as he goes around us, all of a sudden, he slows down. I realize he’s got a target in mind, because he slips right in behind me. We ride for miles. I’m not speeding. I’m just cruising. But I finally come up on this car. I signal and I pass him. The cop signals and passes as well. Now, I don’t want to be accused of cutting this guy off, so I ride out a little ways. As I look in my mirror to see if it’s clear, the blue lights are on. So, I pull over. As the cop comes to the window, he says, “Let me see your driver’s license.” I hand it to him, and he says, “The reason I pulled you over is because in the state of Missouri, the passing lane is reserved for passing only.” And I said, “Well, I didn’t want to cut the guy off.”
And then, the cop snapped, “Sir, you had long passed that guy.” Hate was wanting to start, but reason made me comply. So, the next thing he says, “Where you headed to?” And I said, “I’m going to Louisville, Kentucky.” He says, “What are you going to do in Louisville?” I said, “Well, I live there.” Then he takes my driver’s license, looks at it, says, “Okay, where are you coming from?” I said, “Well, I just left a conference in San Diego, California.” He said, “Oh, a conference? What kind of work do you do?” “Well, I’m a plumber.” [audience laughter]
When I said that, he gave me this look like, “Wait a minute, you didn’t drive no 2,000 miles for a plumbing convention. [audience laughter] You better come off with something better.” He didn’t say that, but I could read that in his face. So, I just throw, I say, “No. The conference was for attorneys and investigators.” He said, “Oh, you’re an attorney?” I said, “No, but I’ve needed one a time or two in my life.” [audience laughter] He just glared through me like, “You better come on with something.” So, I said, “Have you ever heard of the Innocence Project?” I expected that he had, but he said, “No, never. Never heard of.” I said, “Well, they’re a group of lawyers and investigators who was dedicated to wrongful convictions.”
So, the truth of the matter is I was wrongly convicted. I ended up spending 11 years in a prison for a crime I didn’t do. And I said, “Can I show you something?” He said, “Yeah.” So, I picked my phone up and I showed him the pictures that I have that was of me, the composite drawing they used to arrest me. The actual perpetrator looked like two twins in a composite drawing. The cops stopped asking questions. I said, “Yeah, I was out there with dozens of guys who made my 11 years in prison look like I was away to summer camp.”
He’s following me. And at that moment, he looks down and sees the pamphlets from the Grand Canyon. And he says, “I see him looking at the pamphlets.” I said, “Oh, yeah, I stopped at the Grand Canyon. You know, I was able to stop at the Grand Canyon and really enjoy the whole thing.” At that moment, he just shook his head, said, “Yeah, I’m hoping I get to see the Grand Canyon someday.” And with that, this object of hate turned into a human being.
I do pretty good with human beings and I fell right into character. I said, “Yeah, you didn’t see all that coming, did you?” [audience laughter] And he said, “No.” He said, “I feel for you, guy.” He said, “Here, take this. Have a safe trip home.” I took my driver’s license, I started my car, merged back onto the interstate and I felt no hate. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
[The End of All Rivers by Bruce Cockburn]
Jenifer: [00:51:08] That was Michael VonAllmen. In fact, Michael was my inspiration for this episode about letting go, because to my mind, letting go is his superpower. To see pictures of him, including the police sketch used to convict him and photos of both Michael and the actual perpetrator, they look like brothers, visit themoth.org, where you can also see a shot of Michael at one of his bucket list destinations, the Grand Canyon. Michael, I dearly hope you make it to every destination on that list.
That’s it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you’ll be inspired to let go of anything that’s holding you back, so you can make way for more adventures and more stories. We hope you’ll join us next time. And that’s the story from The Moth.
[overture music]
Jay: [00:52:01] Your host this hour was Jenifer Hixson. Jenifer also directed the stories in the show. The rest of The Moth’s directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness and Meg Bowles. Production support from Emily Couch.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from John Scofield, Luis Pérez & su Orquesta, Alabama Shakes, the Martin Hayes Quartet and Bruce Cockburn. You can find links to all the music we use at our website.
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 National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.