Host: Kate Tellers
Kate: [00:00:02] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host for this week, Kate Tellers.
Life is all about compromises, and some are easier to reach than others. So, this week, our stories are about striking a deal, bartering, negotiating, shaking hands, all of it. Up first is Denise Bledsoe Slaughter. Denise told this at a D.C. StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Begun, Borrow, Steal. Here's Denise, live at The Moth.
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Denise: [00:00:40] Okay. First of all, I want to say that I'm going to strangle my friend, JR, who talked me into doing this. [audience laughter]
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So, you all support murder. [audience laughter] Thank you. I am 66 years old.
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And this brief story is about my time in grad school in Providence, Rhode Island. I went to grad school at Brown University.
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I work very proudly now at UDC, that's the University of the District of Columbia.
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I thought that on today, I have a story that reflects both borrowing and begging and in the spirit of Martin Luther King and why can't we all just get along? This is a brief story about Pearl Wolf, one of my two Jewish mothers. Everybody should have a black mother [audience laughter] and a Jewish mother, [audience laughter] okay? I have been privileged to have had both. Pearl was my Jewish mother at Brown for six years.
And my last year of grad school, I had custody of my younger brother, who I might note, I still have custody of [audience laughter] 45 years later. You do the math. [laughs] It's gotten worse with age. But really, he was in the ninth grade. I took custody of him. My brother's gay. He and his father, my stepfather, were not getting along. I told my mother, "I'll take him to school with me for a couple of weeks." It turned into the whole year.
Providence weather is not that bad, but it can get cold in the winter. And it did. It changed the trajectory of my life in many ways, and one of those was that I had to work and the money that I made was not enough for that first oil delivery. So, we were cold. I called family members around the country. We were not poverty stricken, but it wasn't a whole lot of extra money. I called my older sister. "Oh, wow, I wish you had called me a couple of weeks ago. I just got back from Nassau, and I don't have any money to spare."
I called my mother's famous sister, Velma, [audience laughter] whose husband's name was Jacques. Actually, it was Jack [audience laughter] when I first met him. [audience laughter] As soon as I mentioned money, she says, "Oh, you need to speak to Jacques." [audience laughter] Jacques, of course, says, "We don't have any money." I knew it was a lie. I needed $180, which today is-- It doesn't sound like a lot, but what's this 1976, that was a lot of money. So, I'm whining to Pearl with whom I work.
Pearl, you got to imagine, is this short, squat woman. She looked like she was a bodybuilder in her youth or something. She had a cigarette permanently glued to the inside [audience laughter] of her lip. She could talk with it like Susan Hayward in the movies. And so, she says, "What do you need?" I said, "$180." She said, "Come by the house tonight, I'll give it to you." I said, "Pearl, I don't know when I'll be able to pay it back." And she said, "That's okay. That’s okay" And so, she loaned me that money and it got us through the winter. The point of my story is that at the end of that year, I told her I would pay her back.
I still didn't have $180. She said, "You got a little refrigerator, right?" And I said, "Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact." "What are you going to do with it?" This is the end of my grad school years. I said, "I don't know." I said, "You want it?" She had three children lined up to go to Brown. So, she said, "I'll take the refrigerator." So, that was my introduction to bartering. I paid off my debt to Pearl in any number of ways.
Just as a footnote to my story, my brother, who went on to become a soldier, so thank you for your service, I thank him for his, he also was diagnosed with HIV in 1983 and he's still alive. He survived all these years-- [audience applause] - Oh, no. No, that would be too simple. [audience laughter] He became a crack addict and an alcoholic, and that is what you should be applauding. He survived that. He finished his undergraduate years and just got his Master's in rehab counseling. [audience cheers and applause] So, I thank Pearl Wolf for keeping us warm.
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Kate: [00:06:21] That was Denise Bledsoe Slaughter. Denise was raised in Washington, D.C., and is a proud graduate of McKinley Tech High School and Brown University. She has a son and daughter-in-law who also live in the city. In an email to our podcast team, Denise wrote, "Take care and keep smiling. You'll live longer and happier." To see some photos of Denise and her brother, head to the Extras for this episode on our website, themoth.org/extras.
Up next, Bill Robinson. Something to note about Bill's story. At The Moth, we are sensitive to when storytellers do accents from places and cultures they're not a part of. However, Bill's version of a Brooklyn accent didn't feel like punching down or making fun. So, this team of Moth New Yorkers gave it the thumbs up. Bill told this at a StorySLAM in Chicago, where theme of the night was Business. Here's Bill, live at The Moth.
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Bill: [00:07:19] So, for the first six years out of college, I worked as a youth minister right up the road in Winnetka. And then, I got married, we wanted to start a family and I thought, okay, I'm going to have to get something that makes a little bit more money. So, I took the next logical step and, say it with me, became the sales manager for a plumbing and heating valve company. [audience laughter]
So, I'd been in that job about a year. I'm on my first business trip without my boss. And because I was in New York City, I was calling on our largest customer. He was located in Brooklyn. And this was in the early 1990s, so long before Brooklyn became the artisan, handcrafted, trendy place that it is today. I walk through this door of this big warehouse, and it was just chaos. Contractors everywhere, just a mass of people all pushing their way up to the counter. I'm in my suit and a polite Midwestern guy. So, I wait my turn.
The guy right in front of me is yelling at the guy behind the counter saying, "You're not going to spot me credit for one lousy pump? I spend hundreds of dollars in here every day, and you're not going to spot me credit for one lousy pump?" And the guy behind the counter introduces me to New York customer service, which was-- He responded with, "Okay, I explain it one more time. You give me money, I give you shit. You don't give me money, I don't give you shit. Now, get the fuck out." [audience laughter]
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So, this guy pushes past me. I go up and I say, "I'm here to see Warren." And he says, "Does he know you?" And I said, "Yes, I have an appointment." He looks over his shoulder and he says, "Tony, this guy says he knows Warren." Tony helpfully says-- I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do, because the only way to get over the counter is to either crawl over it or crawl under. So, I go down. I crawl under. [audience laughter] He walks me through a doorway and then this massive room with dozens of desks. There's one in the middle, and he points to the one in the middle and I go stand there. There's this huge guy behind the desk. Not fat, but just big. He's talking on the phone, eating a sandwich, and typing on his computer all at the same time.
So, I stand there for about 10 minutes without him acknowledging me. He finally puts down the phone and says, "What do you want?" I explained that I'm here, thank him for his business, we have the valves, we can ship them to him, here's the price. He says, "Oh, no, no, no, my friend." He writes something down on a piece of paper and tosses it on his desk to me. And I said, "What's this?" And he said, "I can buy those valves from your competitor for that price." And I said, "Well, then you should do that, because that's a really good price and those are good valves," [audience laughter] which was not what he was expecting to hear. And that angered him. [audience laughter]
So, I'm explaining to him my rationale, and he keeps scratching his chest. After the third time, I realized it probably wasn't a rash. He wanted to make sure I noticed the gun that was in the shoulder holster under his coat. So, I realized very quickly he's not going to buy anything from me that day. So, I said, "You know where to find me. You can call me if you change your mind." I put my hand out to shake his hand. He starts to stand up. I think, oh, this is a sign of respect. I was very proud of myself until I realized that he wasn't standing up. What he was doing was he grabbed my hand and then he pulled me, so that I fell flat on top of his desk with my legs sticking out behind me.
Our noses are this far from one another. He looks me in the eye, squeezes my hand like a vice, and says, "Now, why do you want to fuck with me? I'm going to tell you what's going to happen now. You're going to step out the door and you're going to say, 'I fucked up. I should have done business with Warren, but I wouldn't do business with Warren.' And then you're going to get on that plane and you're going to look down over this fine city and you're going to say, 'Oh, I fucked up. I should have done business with Warren, and I wouldn't do business with Warren.' And then you're going to have to walk into work, and Jim's going to say, 'Hey Bill, did you get the order?' and you're going to have to say, 'No, Jim, I fucked up. I wouldn't do business with Warren.'" [audience laughter]
I couldn't think anything to do but to squeeze with what was left of my hand and say, "I do want to do business with you. I just can't do it at that price." So, I come back to Chicago. A few days later, the phone rings. It's Warren. "Still got those valves?" "Yeah." "What's the price?" "The same price it was before." "Okay. Would you throw in some humidifiers for my uncles?" [audience laughter] We had these humidifiers for $50. I said, "Sure.” “Yeah, I got three uncles and they need humidifiers. You'll put those in for free?" "Yeah." "Okay, then I'll take 80 gross of the valves." Great. That was a big order for us.
So, I'm writing up the order, and he says, "You know what, Bill? You're pretty good at this. What you used to do before you started working for the valve company?" "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." "No, seriously, what did you used to do?" "I was a youth minister at a church." "Get the fuck out of here." [audience laughter] "No, no. That's what I used to do." And he says, "Well, you know what? You're actually pretty good at this. Next time you come to New York, I'm buying you some bagels and I'm going to make you an honorary fucking New Yorker." [audience laughter] He did that the next time I came to New York, and from that point on, doing business with Warren was easy. Thank you.
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Kate: [00:12:48] That was Bill Robinson. Bill works for the American Dental Association, and is currently leading a startup company on their behalf called ADA Practice Transitions. He credits storytelling as critical to his success in business, and in particular for raising the funding for the company he now runs. Bill, as the director of MothWorks at The Moth, you are speaking my language. He lives with his wife Laura in Arlington Heights, Illinois, where they are grateful, empty nesters. Bill wanted listeners to know that even though he and Warren played hardball before reaching a deal, they were arguing about a difference of only 7 cents per valve.
That's all for this week. Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.
Julia: [00:13:38] Kate Tellers is a storyteller, host and director of MothWorks at The Moth. Her story, But Also Bring Cheese, is featured in The Moth’s All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown. Her writing has appeared on McSweeney's and in The New Yorker.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by me, Julia Purcell, with Sarah Austin Jenness and Sarah Jane Johnson.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.