Peter Aguero - Way Down In The Hole

 

The sky was clear, and the sun is shining. It's hot, and there are lots of people and voices and music and noise. It's a beautiful day at the New York Renaissance Fair. I just finished selling a $400 gold dragon ring to a wizard from Hoboken. [audience laughter] And my boss said I could take a break. So, I went into the back room, I started to make myself a sandwich, and there's almost nothing more celebratory than a perfect sandwich. So, I was putting the turkey just right, and the lettuce, a little slice of onion, the tomato cut just perfectly, little bit of dressing, put it together, a little pressure just so everything comes together. And I was going to let it sit for a minute because you got to let everything marry.

 

And just then, my wife comes into the back of the booth, and she looks beautiful. She's got this long purple and black skirt, and it's got dust all around the bottom. And she's got a big plume of feathers in her hair and a bodice. So, everything is this-- like [audience chuckles] It’s really nice. [audience laughter] But she's got a strange look on her face. I say, "Baby, what's wrong?" And she says, "Nothing. Nothing." "What's wrong?" "Nothing." She starts to cry. I said, "Baby, what's wrong?" And so, she tells me she was over at a cart that we also have where we sell jewelry over by the jousting arena. And while she was over there, she's very friendly. She talks to everyone. She loves to speak in an accent. She does all that stuff.

 

This guy comes up to her and says, "Hey, do you want to see some pictures?" And she says, "Sure." And he shows her. On the back of his digital camera, he starts flipping through the pictures, and they're like grainy, odd pictures of a woman in a bathtub. It didn't happen at the Renaissance Fair. And she wasn't-- It just-- immediately she froze. And this guy goes, "Hey, can I have a hug?" And she just runs away. And she comes over, and I was like, "Baby, it's okay." I hug her and, "It's not your fault. This isn't your fault. Don't worry, you're okay. You're safe. Everything's fine. It's not your fault." So, I go to find my buddy Sean, who works for security at the fair. And I'm looking all over the place for him. I find him over by the human chessboard. And he's a big dude. [audience chuckles] He's got a kilt on and a big orange puffy shirt. It says Ye Olde Security. [audience laughter]

 

And I tell him what happened. And he radios his other guys on his team, and they want to be on the lookout for this guy. He's like, "All right, it's okay. Just take care of Sarah. It'll be all right." So, I go back to the booth. I tell my boss, “You know, that I'm going to go work at the cart.” And so, I had given Sarah my sandwich because I'm a good husband. And so, I made [audience chuckles] another sandwich to take on the road. And so, we get down there, and it's just bonkers. There's all-- just all these people all over the place. And I'm just scanning the crowd, and I feel my heart beating. And I'm starting to get angry, and there's, like, a little bit of, like, a flutter in my stomach because I know that it's coming.

 

I'm not an angry guy. It took me a long time-- I grew up with a bad temper and a bad house. And it took me a lot of years and a lot of meditation and a lot of other things to calm myself down. And I've gotten a hold on it. When I was younger, I played football, but I stopped playing football because it was too violent. I did musicals instead. [audience chuckles] That sort of-- I'm just-- I don't like the feeling of fighting. I've been in-- it doesn't matter-- maybe six fights in my life. Doesn't matter how many I've won, all of them. [audience laughter] But, like, after every single fight, I would cry every time because it just-- it's an ugly feeling because you're out of control.

 

So, my buddy comes up to me and he says, "Hey, listen, we're still looking for this guy. We got reports that he'd been doing it to other people, including some, like, young girls. So now we're really looking for him. If you see him, Pete, don't do anything." And I was like, "All right, man. Okay, no problem." So, the 5 o'clock joust is over. Spoiler alert: Robinhood won. [audience chuckles] He always wins, every-- every day. And the queen fell off her horse, and then she sword fought. It was pretty intense. And so, the crowd is filing out. And there I'm like the T-1000. I'm just, like, looking around at the crowd, just scanning and scanning. And then I see him. I say, "Baby, is that him?" And she just says, "Peter, don't do anything." And she goes and hides.

 

And now I'm pissed off because she was having a great day. She was doing this thing that she loves to do. We'd been working at that fair for years. Her mother married a guy named Pepe who makes amulets. That's a long story. [audience chuckles] But she loved doing this. It was a fantasy world, and she enjoyed it. And this guy stole it from her. And he stole it from her. No one has the right to do that to anyone else on a beautiful day. So, I walk toward him, and the rest of the crowd disappears. It's just me and him. And he's got, like a-- his hair's a little too long in the back. He's got a Budweiser T-shirt with no sleeves, jean shorts. And I'm just going toward him, and I get right in his face, and I just-- he looks up at me askance, and I say, "Show me the pictures." And he says, "I don't know what you're talking about."

 

And I lean in and I say, "Show me the pictures you showed my wife." And now the flutter is starting to be-- it's starting to tremble because I can feel myself get out of control, and I'm scared. And he says, "I don't know what you're talking about." I said, "Show me the pictures you showed my wife." And he just said, "Oh, man, get out of my way." And I lean down and I get in his face, and I'm so close, our noses are touching. I can feel and smell the fear coming out of his mouth. It smells like old copper. And I get really close and I say, "I'm going to kill you in front of all these people. I'm going to dig my fingers into your throat, and I'm going to rip it out in front of all these people." And he's terrified.

 

Now, mind you, I'm wearing these breeches and a big blue shirt and this hat [audience laughter] with, like, a flower garland on it and these horns. It's absurd, completely absurd. [audience chuckles] And he just says-- he says two words. He just looks up at me. He goes, "Please don't." And I feel myself-- I see in the future, 15 seconds, where I'm just throttling this guy in front of children and Robinhood and the Queen and everybody. And just then, here comes the security. They come bounding out of the woods, and they're like, "Oh, we got it. We got it. It's fine." And then the cops are there, and-- and I step back, and my buddy pushes me to the side. He's like, "You're all right, man. It's all right. It's all right."

 

And the cops handcuff this guy, and they're pulling him out, and he's like, "I want to press charges. He threatened me. He threatened me. I want to press charges." And the cops stop, and they say, "Okay, you can press charges, but we're going to give him 15 minutes alone with you in the woods first so he can earn them." [audience chuckles] He's like, "I don't want to press charges." And they take him out of there. [audience laughter] So, I'm over there on the side, and I'm just breathing heavy, and I'm just trembling, and I'm going crazy because this monster, this thing that took me my whole life to kind of put a leash on is now unleashed inside of me, and I can't control it. And my buddy in security comes over, and he just-- he hugs me. He's like, "All right, you did it. It's all right, man. It's okay. Go take care of Sarah. She needs you right now. You did a good job."

 

So, I walk over and I sit down on this rock, and Sarah comes over, and she sits behind me, and she throws her arms around me, and I start to cry because I hate that feeling, and I don't want it to come up anymore. And she just holds me as I'm crying, and she says, "Baby, it's okay. It's not your fault. You're all right. Everything's okay." Welcome to The Moth of the Englert Theater. How you doing, Iowa City? [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Thank you so much. You guys are beautiful. Thanks for coming out tonight. This is The Moth. So, when I asked our next storyteller what is it that turns you into a madman that needs to be stopped? He said it was clickbait posts on Facebook. So, [giggles] listen to this story, and at the six-minute mark, something's going to change your life. [audience chuckles] Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jim Bennett.