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- [00:00]
Kevin Allison
Hey, folks, this is Kevin. On this week's episode of Risk, you'll hear Joanna Stein.
- [00:06]
Joanna Stein
There's also a huge wad of cash in there. Possibly as much as 20 bucks. I don't know. Causing me to wonder if maybe I have a legitimate claim to the money. I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but even at 12, I know the finders keepers rule.
- [00:20]
Kevin Allison
That and more. But first, you're about to hear some scary shit. It's our end of October special, our Scary Story series. And when you go back and listen to any of our Scary Stories episodes, you might think to yourself, well, I've never seen a ghost, but there was that one insane coincidence that scared the fuck out of me. Or you might think, well, I've never barely escaped from a serial killer, but there was that one time that one lady went horrifyingly bonkers on me. Whatever it might be beautiful, pitch us your scary memories and you might just be on the podcast at the end of October next year. If. If next year is a thing. We'll be right back. Now here's the show. Hello folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, this is just Jason Shaw behind me now. And we're calling this week's episode scary stories 17. Bone chilling.
- [02:36]
Jason Shaw
Can you believe.
- [02:39]
Kevin Allison
We'Ve done 17 Halloween specials? Now I feel like we're the Simpsons or something. Our old friend Marc Maron is such a quitter. You know, if you go to risk-show.com scary stories, it is a treasure trove of creepy, spooky, nerve wracking horror. In a little bit we're gonna hear from Joanna Stein. But first, last year we featured a strange and spooky tale from the remarkable singer songwriter Alison Callery. And this year she to us. Hey, you should also ask my friend Robert Oakes for a scary story. He's got a lot of them. And as you're about to hear, he does. In fact, he's written several books of ghost stories of the northeastern purview of the United States. I'm not sure that I just used the word purview correctly. And with his wife Kate, he's in the folk duo Oakes and Smith. Look him up@robertoaks.net. and here he is now with a story we call do you know my name?
- [04:29]
Robert Oakes
So I have this unusual job. I lead ghost tours at places that people say are haunted. In the Berkshires, the western side of Massachusetts. It started at the Mound, the home of Edith Wharton, the Author in Lenox, Mass. I accepted a job at the Mount thinking that I was just getting into leading tours about the house and about Wharton and her writing. I had been an English major in college. I studied Edith Wharton, so I thought this could be an interesting job, studying Edith Wharton in college. I knew her as this sort of writer of society novels, books like the Age of Innocence, the House of Mirth. What I didn't know about Edith Wharton, what they never taught me at college, was that she actually wrote many ghost stories using ghosts to express other things, like mistakes you made, regrets and skeletons in the closet, and things that come back to haunt you. But did Wharton believe in ghosts? Or is it just something a writer uses to convey something else? Something psychological or emotional? I myself, I think I kind of came to face that question as I started to work at the mound. At the beginning, I think that I was a little bit doubtful of all of this. You know, I was like, I don't know, how is it that so many things happen to so many people in one location for so many years? And isn't it convenient that it's in this old house in the Berkshires that was once the home of an author who told stories about ghosts? Always in my mind, the question was there is the reality behind all this, or is it just a story? One of the things I've found is that for people, it's. It's sometimes not that they are picking up on something that haunts the house that we're in. It's personal. Like they are feeling a presence of someone they know, maybe someone that passed away. And I get that, because I think maybe something like that happened to me after my father died. My father was this huge presence in my life. I mean, he was a big character. He was a salesman. He was a singer. He was a storyteller. He was a jokester. And often he would say these kind of wild things that, like, you know, you're not really sure what he's saying to you. To me, my father was kind of this. I don't know, he was almost like this traveler from somewhere beyond. Always have a song for every moment. Always have a story or a joke and would sort of tell these stories that were like, where is this coming from? You know, did this really happen? What I was interested in was, like, reality. Like, I wanted to find out the truth. I was like, just for a minute, could we just not tell a big story? Could we, like, find out what's real? But I think he liked the stories. You know, I think for him, the stories were real. You know, that's where it was at. That was the juice. And I love that about him. But, you know, I was always looking for, like, yeah, but what's real? That's kind of how I approached it. I think from the beginning, I wasn't a doubter, per se. I wasn't necessarily saying, no, this is not real, and I'm gonna blow the COVID on this. No, I was drawn in. I was fascinated by it. And by the end of that first ghost tour that I went on, I was sitting on the floor with my head in my hands because I just felt it. I felt it so intensely. It was all just hitting me. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, what is this? Like, what's going on here? And I didn't really have an answer to that. I just knew that it affected me deeply. Like, on a visceral gut level. For me, it was like, okay, I need to understand this or try to understand this. A lot of us have ideas about what a ghost tour is, like a haunted house. You know, you go through and people jump out at you. And it's not like that. For me, the ghost tour is really about an invitation into mystery. Places like this inspire the imagination. And then once the imagination gets inspired, all sorts of things start to kind of permeate your usual way of experiencing life. And for me, that's. That can be enough. Whenever I start a tour, I always ask people, by a show of hands, how many of us here believe in ghosts? You'll get some believers and some non believers and some people who are just not sure. Sometimes people will ask me if I believe in ghosts. I'm not trying to be cute, but I'll usually say something like yes and no. I have a very, you know, very well developed sense of skepticism. So my doubting mind goes into action whenever something is told to me or I see something and it tries to find some explanation, some reason. But at the same time, I believe all of it. I know that I know this. I know that I've known this my whole life. I have had experiences that are mysterious and are not easy to explain. When I was a kid, when the mother of one of our friends died, the first time I think I'd ever experienced someone dying, like somebody that I knew. We went to her wake, and I just remember seeing her body in the coffin, and it was really hard to make sense of this. You know, this was the woman that used to make us iced tea and hot dogs when we were out playing football in the street during the summer. And now she's lying there in a coffin, dead, pale and stiff and lifeless. Later that night, I was sitting on the couch in the TV room. The rest of my family was sitting there watching something on the tv. I couldn't really get into it because I was feeling kind of distracted. I was thinking about seeing her body in the coffin and wondering what happens now? Like, is she just gone? You know, I think a lot of those big questions were starting to come into my mind because of this. What happens when we die? Is that just the end or horror? As I'm sitting there watching tv, trying but failing to get distracted, the door between the kitchen and the living room was left open. And so I had a clear view through the side door that leads to the little staircase that went down into the basement. There was this kind of yellowish light over there. The walls were yellow. And on the walls there were these pictures and frames from like when we were kids. As I'm sitting there, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. And for just a second I see this shape, like a person standing there. Just a shadow, no features, but kind of illuminate it from behind from the light that was on the wall in the stairwell, creating this kind of radiance around the shadow. And then it's gone. I looked to see if there was somebody there and there wasn't. But for that just second I had this feeling that there was somebody there. And because she was on my mind, I was wondering if it could possibly be our friend's mother somehow. But it just left me with more questions than answers because I wasn't really sure I saw what I thought I might have seen. Eyes play tricks and the imagination can run wild. And so who knows, who knows what I saw? There was this one thing that happened when I was a kid that actually really was pretty scary. It's one of those things that's hard to know for sure if it happened exactly the way I remember. Almost seems like a dream. But you know, I was a kid and like everything seems like a dream from those years. But here's what I My bedroom, which I shared with my brother, was right next to my parents bedroom. Sometimes you could hear them talking through the walls. One night I wake up and I can hear them talking in the middle of the night. And I can hear my mother's voice.
- [13:36]
Jason Shaw
Saying, bob, Bob, who is it?
- [13:41]
Robert Oakes
And then I hear the phone slam down. So I got up and I went into their room. And as I walk in, I can hear my mother saying to my father, why would they call you Robert? Anyone who knew my father knew him as Bob. The only person who ever called him Robert was his grandmother, who raised him when his father skipped out and who died decades before. So I walk in and I could see them sitting there. There's a lamp on the bed stand. And the light from the lamp is kind of making shadows in the corners of the room. On the wall, there's this wallpaper with this repeating pattern of roses in a kind of diamond shape. The blankets on the bed are all messed up, like they'd been thrown over in a hurry. My parents are sitting in armchairs near a table. And on the table is the phone. My father's kind of slumped over in the chair, and he's looking down toward the floor. His pajamas are all kind of messed up. Buttons misaligned. My mother is wearing a kind of silk nightgown with a belt tied tight. They both look tired, but my father looks rattled. And he's just sitting there quietly. He's not saying a word. And I say what happened because I could feel that something was wrong, something bad had happened. My father doesn't say anything, and he's looking pretty shaken up. What I. What's told is that the phone rang and it woke them up. And my father answered the phone. Hello? And he hears this thin, gravelly voice. My father says, who is this? Your grandmother? And he says, where are you calling from? The grave. And then he slammed the phone down. And when I came in, that's where I saw them sitting in these chairs. My father rattled. Just sitting there quietly. And the whole atmosphere of the room felt. It felt like charged. Something had just entered into the safety of our home in the middle of the night. But I could feel. Felt haunted. My father really loved his grandmother. When his father left, his grandmother took care of him. They had, like, no money. I never met her, but she was, like, legendary in my family. She was this performer, an actress. She was a tea leaf reader. She was a real lover of stories. She used to read to him by, like, a kerosene lamp. One of the stories that I was told was that she had the opportunity to go on the road, some big show. But she sacrificed for him so that somebody would take care of him. And so he loved her, and he was very much attached to her. So when she died, it really crushed him. It took years for him to move on. And this brought it all back. You know, my father believed in ghosts. So for him, this may have been real. It may have been that the spirit of his grandmother really did call him. The thing that scared me the most was seeing him so scared, seeing him so speechless. He was constantly breaking into song or story or joke, but in this moment, he was silent. A kid wants to see his father as someone who can handle anything. And this. Whatever this darkness is, he can't help me. The year I started leading ghost tours at the Mount was the same year that my father died of esophageal cancer. From the time that he was diagnosed to the time that he died was very short, and there wasn't a whole lot of time to say anything. And anyway, you know, it was always difficult to cut through to my father. Honestly, he. He talked better than he listened. I didn't often have the feeling that he heard me and that he saw me. For me, there was a point when I wanted to be called Robert to distinguish myself from him. Sometimes he remembered to call me Robert. But honestly, I got pretty mixed results. But after he died, I felt his presence around a lot, especially when I performed, especially when I would do music. In those early days after he died, it would feel like he was there somehow. We would even sometimes get somebody coming up to say, hey, really liked what you did. And, you know, just to kind of acknowledge who just always reminded me of him. Like he was coming to me to just say, I see you, kid.
- [19:19]
Jeff Barr
I see.
- [19:20]
Robert Oakes
Keep it up. But as time went on, I was feeling like maybe I wasn't hearing from him as much anymore. Halloween at the Mount. We will often do something a little dramatic. You know, we'll sort of dress in character, maybe perform a little monologue as if we were one of the spirits. And on this night, I was asked to go up onto the second floor of the stable dressed as Charles Cook, who was Edith Wharton's driver. And he is believed to haunt the stable. Now, this man was known to be kind of a prankster, a jokester, Liked to tell stories, liked to pull people's legs. He smoked cigarettes. He was a big guy, and he drove a lot because he was the driver. There was something about Charles Cook and my father that seemed very similar to me. You know, my father, as I said, was a jokester. He always smoked a cigarette. And because his job involved traveling, a lot of his life was spent behind the wheel. Anyway, here I am on Halloween, just after my father passed away, standing on the second floor alone in the dark, waiting for the group to come up so that I can turn around slowly and face them, tell them a dramatic story. So I sat there for a while in the dark in this Musty old room. Standing by the old window, looking out into the dark, thinking of my dad. And I said, hey, dad, can you hear me? And of course, I heard nothing. I guess I just want to let you know I miss you. But I'm carrying it on, dad. Singing songs, telling stories in my own way now. I don't think. I don't. You know, maybe I felt something. Maybe I felt his presence. But it's so hard to know. I don't know. I don't know. You know, we look for proof. We look for, like, some kind of certainty. Eases our minds, I guess, and gives us some sense of security in this chaotic universe that we live in. I think the mystery can be unsettling. You know, I talk about it as something positive, and I believe it is. But there's also that wanting to know, you know, that wanting to have some sense of certainty. While I was standing in the stable, I did feel like there was something in the closet behind me, and I wasn't sure I wanted to turn around to look. The truth is, I am afraid of ghosts sometimes. Sometimes it does scare me. Ghost tour guide, you know, afraid of ghosts. As time went on leading ghost tours at the mound, I came to see myself as really more of a storyteller, someone who guided people through these stories and invited them to open up to the possibility of having an experience themselves. But I didn't think of myself as the person having the experience. There is some safety in that role as a storyteller. You get yourself a little bit distant, and you start to feel almost like whistling in the dark, that by playing that role, you have a kind of buffer between you and the raw experience. There was this night in 2019 when I was asked to give a private tour to a group of seasoned paranormal investigators and psychics and mediums. This was not going to be like the usual public tour. I asked how many of us here believe in ghosts? And, of course, all hands went up. And these people were deep in the paranormal world, you know, certainly used to exploring haunted places in the dark. There was this woman at the beginning of the tour, like during the introduction, we were gathered in the stable, who interrupted me to tell me that the spirit of a horse had just entered the room. I knew that we were off script, and so I realized that the best way to do this tour was collaboratively. You know, I would share the stories I had to share, but they would also interrupt me and tell me things that they were picking up on. Some of them would sort of, you know, jump in and Say, hey, did something like this happen here? You know, was there a hanging here, for example? And it was like they knew it already, which is remarkable to see. But, you know, of course, that skeptic part of my mind is always going, wait a minute. You know, first of all, is that just a trope? You know, did everybody expect a hanging in a place like this? It was kind of a roller coaster ride, honestly, because, you know, I was being pushed and pulled in and out of my role as storyteller. You just get that little bit of, like, inner tension, both between the inner skeptic and the inner believer and also the storyteller in me. And then the person who is having a direct experience. You know, there were these moments that I was back to that first tour, you know, grasping in the dark, like, feeling it with these folks. It hit me. I mean, I was deep in the mystery with them. At the very end of the tour, we were upstairs in the third floor of the main house at the mound, outside the room that's known as the Henry James Suite. It's totally dark now. And now we've been going through this house, and we have been feeling things, and it's just been a pretty intense night already. And as we're standing there in the dark in this hallway, outside this bedroom, this group of people circling around me, and I couldn't really make out faces or forms. It really was just this kind of group of indistinct, shadowy shapes. And I'm telling this story about a shadow figure that somebody once saw at the foot of the bed in the room that we're standing outside of. And somebody interrupts me, do you ever try talking to them? And I'm like, no, I talk about them. I don't talk to them. That Halloween night all those years ago when I was talking to my father, that was a long time ago now. And in the time since, it's been about me telling the stories, not about trying to make contact. And somebody says, well, you should. They know you, and they want to talk to you. They want to talk to you, but you never talk to them. Never talk to them, right? And I guess. I guess part of what it is is that, you know, to talk to them means stepping beyond the threshold of belief. You can tell stories and not necessarily believe that it's real, right? For a good story, it doesn't have to be true. As a storyteller, I'm trying to be truthful. I'm trying to honestly relay the reports that have been shared with me. But I'm Also not worrying myself too much about whether any of this can be verified. Right?
- [27:37]
Kevin Allison
It's.
- [27:37]
Robert Oakes
We're talking about ghosts, right? Like, but to try to speak to them directly means believing that they're there. Do I really want to find out if it's real? Somebody says, why don't we do an EVP session? Now, in the paranormal investigative world, what that means is electronic voice phenomenon. What you do is you take out some kind of audio recorder, start it up, record the room, and then you ask questions. And after each question, you leave about 10 seconds of silence. And sometimes when you play back these bits of silence that you get after questions, you can hear things that you couldn't hear in the room. And sometimes it sounds like voices that when you do this EVP session, you can actually make contact with the spirits, and you can record their voices responding to you. And so somebody says, why don't we do an EVP session? Something inside me, I think, in that moment, woke up to just try to find out if it's really real. And I said, you know what? Okay, let's do this. And then I could feel this, like, anticipation. I could almost, like, feel the darkness around us. It felt heavy, like it was leaning in. And so I said, do you know my name? And then there was this long silence. And then there it was, my skeptic's voice coming through loud and clear. And it said, come on, did you really think you're going to hear somebody talking to you? And I guess it started to make me feel a little silly. But I tried again. I asked a few more questions. There was more silence. And then that was it. We went back downstairs to the gift shop, we put the lights back on, and I finished the tour. I guess I was feeling conflicted about whether I wanted to hear anything in the recording. And though my inner skeptic was ready to be vindicated, I wanted to feel someone was there. Someone was listening. I don't know. Maybe I was hoping it would be my dad. I don't know. I don't know if I thought about him in that moment. I don't know that I was even all that aware of what I was thinking, feeling this anticipation of, like, maybe this is the moment, you know, that's gonna give me some sense of certainty about all this. I don't know. Maybe I don't need to know. So then someone says, play it back. Play it back. And the investigator pulled out the recorder from his pocket, and he presses play. And in the recording, we heard my voice. Do you know my name?
- [31:30]
Jeff Barr
Sam.
- [31:59]
Robert Oakes
And then in what had been total silence upstairs, we heard a voice say.
- [32:21]
Narrator (Interstitial)
Marie and her friend, two girls from the suburbs going to the city to have a good time. They meet in the last house on the left. What began as a birthday party ends as a nightmare. Just what did happen in the last house on the left? To avoid painting, keep repeating to yourself, it's only a movie, Only a movie, only a movie, Only a movie. Last house on the left.
- [33:16]
Kevin Allison
We'll be right back.
- [33:18]
Robert Oakes
Unplanned pregnancy. Learn how people are getting abortion pills by mail for a safe abortion at home, no matter what state they live in. @plancpills.org that's plan C pills.org.
- [33:33]
Dr. Mary Claire Haver
Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Claire Haver, a board certified OB GYN and menopause specialist. My new podcast, Unpaused, is the place for bold, unfiltered conversations about what it really takes for women to thrive in the second half of life. Every week I sit down with medical experts, cultural icons, and powerhouse women to talk about what really matters. Your health, your power, and your future. We're covering hormones, identity, finances, relationships, and so much more. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow unpaused with me, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, available now wherever you get your podcasts, we're back.
- [34:12]
Jeff Barr
There was no lady all skin and bones. She thought she'd go to church one day to hear the parson preach and.
- [34:28]
Robert Oakes
Pray.
- [34:33]
Jeff Barr
And when she got unto the stile she thought she'd rest a little.
- [34:39]
Robert Oakes
While.
- [34:44]
Jeff Barr
And when she got unto the door she thought she'd rest a little more she was okay. She looked down, she spied a corpse upon the ground the woman too, the parson said, will I look so when I am dead? The parson to the woman said, you will look so when you are dead. The woman too, the parson said.
- [35:54]
Kevin Allison
This is risk. Before the break, we heard a creepy interstitial by the even creepier Jeff Barr. If your definition of creepier is just a really swell guy. But some of Jeff's drawings are creepy and some are delightful. Jeff has his own show on YouTube called no Idea what I'm Drawing, where he draws something in real time, live, usually something super surreal and from who knows what part of his mind. And he does it live and people tune in to see it coming together. You can also see the sped up the versions of past drawings, which feels very Sesame street in the best kind of way. And he's our episode editor and most creeptacular of all. We just heard a little tune that's in the Library of Congress as some sort of folk song from some sort of century, but they don't know whose voice that is on the recording. So obviously a ghost. Folks, what is scaring the fuck out of us right now, for real, not in an entertaining way, is that we are in dire straits financially. Again, we are about to take some drastic measures. We are gonna do everything in our power to keep the show running, but things are really, really bad for us financially right now and we desperately need as much help as we possibly can get from people who appreciate what we do. I hate.
- [37:57]
Jason Shaw
This.
- [37:58]
Kevin Allison
I hate this part of what the show has become, that I have to say this shit. It's my single least favorite thing about doing the show now. But yes, we are really, really hurting and we're really worried about our livelihoods here. As you know, we have a phenomenal patreon@patreon.com risk where there's tons of bonus content like this new story from Chris de La Cruz.
- [38:35]
Robert Oakes
I take off the bandana and I look at myself and I see that I'm wearing this like green latex and a cape. And one of the second year students goes up to me and says, tu no eres gringo, eres super gringo.
- [38:55]
Kevin Allison
That and so much more there on our Patreon. So please, I beg of you, if you aren't a Patreon member and can become one, or if you are and can afford to increase your donation amount, that is at patreon.com or/risk. And if you want to make a one time donation instead, that's at PayPal me riskshow. And we are so deeply grateful for those of you who are helping out. Our latest Patreon patron is Aaron Vorwerk. And Aaron were so moved and so thankful that you're a part of the community helping keep this magic happening. Now, next up, we're gonna hear from Fixie. That's gonna be a hell of a ride, my friends. But before that, a story from Joanna Stein, a Canadian American writer, producer, animation showrunner and and dash overuser who you can find@jojostein.com go get her new book of comedic essays called how not to Calm a Child on a Plane. And here's Joanna now with a story we call A World of Corpses.
- [40:45]
Joanna Stein
So I was one of those kids with a really overactive imagination. When I was 10, I told my parents that our house was being haunted by 17th century fur traders. In third grade, I faked stomach cramps so, so believably that I got an ambulance ride to the hospital and then made an immediate recovery upon receiving my first rectal examination. Then there was the time that I convinced the school nurse that I had scoliosis. Yeah, but the majority of my claims involved corpses. Now, I don't know how I got so obsessed with dead bodies. Might have been that my parents, who didn't believe in babysitters, took me to see Night of the Living Dead when I was seven. Whatever the reason, I can't remember a time when a pile of leaves was just a pile of leaves and not obviously a hiding spot for a headless body or a freezer at a yard sale wasn't clearly holding two adult males stacked one on top of the other. Every space that I saw, attics, porta potties, garbage bags by the side of the road. All of them were fair game for my corpse filled imagination. So it's the summer that I'm 12. My family, we live in Winnipeg, Canada, in a house on the banks of the Red River. This summer I was going through some changes. I don't mean like puberty, not yet. It was more social changes. Like I wasn't speaking with my bff, Annie. We had had a complete falling out over this thing that happened. I had shared with her that it was I who had invented the euphemisms number one and number two when discussing, you know, bodily elimination. And when she didn't believe me, I. I was furious. Someone had to invent it. Why is it so hard to believe it was me? That's what I yelled at her over mayonnaise sandwiches. So Annie was off the friends list that summer. Then there was Elena. Elena and I had just met that summer at Orchestra camp where we had both been bullied by a pair of trumpet playing twins named Marlene and Darlene. And since my only other option was to spend the afternoon with my brother Aaron while he farted this Land Is yous land on my head, I decided to pick up the phone and call Elena, invite her over. So Elena comes over. We hang out in my room listening to and crying to the greatest hits of Air Supply. And after the batteries on my boombox die, we head out to the backyard where my dad is standing over the barbecue, swearing at a plate of hamburger. Now, my dad was once a radical hippie and back in the day he marched at Berkeley. But by now he's living in Winnipeg with his family and all that was left of his hippie past were the three hits of acid chilling in the fridge. My dad suggests that we go play down by the river. And since Elena is Unfamiliar with the concept of sarcasm, she leads the way. So we climb down the bank, through the slimy grass and the discarded beer bottles, and we jump onto this wooden dock that belongs to our neighbor. The paddle wheel Queen's big boat chugs past for its daily cruise. We're jumping up and down on the dock, we're waving, yelling at the passengers, you know, a couple of old drunken ladies and some tourists who are undoubtedly regretting their plans to vacation in Winnipeg. And as the boat passes, it sends a ripple of waves towards the dock. And as it does, my eye catches something floating maybe 50ft out. And of course, I pick up a rock and I huck it at the object and I nail it, which is really odd for me since I have always thrown like a girl with no arms. So when the rock hits this object, it pitches and bobs very strangely, like it's clearly very dense. And I decide instantly that it's a human head. Of course. I call for my dad. Dad. There's no answer. I call again. Dad. Finally, a response. Fuck off, I'm cooking. Elena is totally confused by this, but there's no time to explain to her the intricacies of my family or the fact that it's likely my dad is stoned at that very moment. So I leave her there and I run up the grassy slope to the barbecue where my dad is swearing at a fly. Dad, they need you to come with me. We found it. I found a head. He wants nothing to do with me. He's swinging his greasy spatula, trying to knock out this flight. Goddamn son of a bitch. Can't you see I'm busy? Son of a bitch. But I will not be ignored. I give him my best Lucy Ewing look, the kind that I'd seen her give her father JR countless times. I guess it works, because he says, oh, for fuck's sake. All right, let's go. So I lead my dad down to the dock. I shove my way past Elena. We're joined by my brother Aaron, who's taking a break from terrorizing the cat, and I point to the bobbing head in the water. My dad squints that that's just driftwood, and he turns to leave. I beg him to look again. Aaron mocks me.
- [46:19]
Jason Shaw
Oh, maybe we should call the river patrol.
- [46:23]
Joanna Stein
Yeah, I say.
- [46:24]
Jeff Barr
Call them.
- [46:24]
Joanna Stein
And make sure when you do, tell them that I'm the one who found it. My dad thinks about this. Hmm, that's not a bad idea. They'll give me a chance to register a complaint about that fascist bastard with a speedboat who's been tearing it up out of here. So my dad calls, and in 20 minutes two mustachioed officers from the river patrol pull up in a motorboat. I wave frantically, pointing at the spot where the head is bobbing away. The boat circles around my discovery. One of the officers lowers a rope into the dark, sludgy water and then he pulls the rope into the boat very slowly, hand over hand, and there, I can see quite clearly, is a head. And attached to the head is an entire fucking body. I hold my breath while they drag the body into the boat and then drive the boat over to our neighbor's dock where we're standing, where they drop him like a wet sack of meat and I will every neuron and synapse of my brain into recording the details of this event. Something tells me that I'm going to need them when the news crews arrive. So there's the red and white plaid shirt, the bald head that holds a few soggy wisps of white hair above each ear, the brown leather shoe and leg brace on the right foot and the shoeless black sock on the left, and the eyes half open as though we just caught him drifting off to sleep while staring up into those perfect puffy summer clouds. One of the policemen pulls a wallet from the old man's pocket and in it there's a waterlogged driver's license that shows the man's address just like three blocks away. There's also a huge wad of cash in there, possibly as much as 20 bucks, I don't know, causing me to wonder if maybe I have a legitimate claim to the money. I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but even a 12, I know the finders keepers rule. The police, they find a cane and somebody footprints at the river's edge a couple of houses over. Looks like he just fell in, eh? Says one of the mustachioed officers. At that point my family heads back up to the house to eat dinner and I am stunned. How can you eat? There's a dead man in our yard. Oh well, more for me, I guess, says my dad as he pulls the sliding screen door shut behind him. Elena says she has to go home for supper, but do I want to come over afterwards for a game of Ding Dong Ditch? I don't even dignify her invitation with a response. I stay with the river patrol until two more official looking men with mustaches show up. They come by land, they put the body onto a stretcher, they carry it to an unmarked windowless white van in our driveway. And off it goes. And as the van pulls away, I sit on the curb and I ponder not only what has just happened, but what is undoubtedly to come. Obviously, I will be getting a call from Sylvia Kusick, the local newscaster for CKY tv, wanting a minute by minute rundown of the whole event. I run my fingers through my hair. I'm cursing my mom for not letting me get my ears pierced now that I'm gonna be famous. And when school starts in September, I imagine the principal will probably arrange an assembly for me to give a speech, I don't know, sign autographs afterwards, who knows? But Sylvia doesn't call the news doesn't call. Nobody calls. A week later I hear that one of my dad's friends, a guy named Kevin, has found another body in the river. Kevin lives about a half a mile up the Red and the whole neighborhood has turned out to see his body. That of a young woman. Apparently she's been dead for several days and is blue and bloated and much more impressive than my day old corpse. And yeah, I am annoyed by this. Just because Kevin was inattentive and let his body sit for several days before finding it, he's being celebrated. Spare me. By the time school starts that fall, my body is old news. Turns out Shelly Pepadatis had cut the tip off her pinky while washing dishes and that's the talk of the school. But by then my bitterness has dissipated and has been replaced with something much more lasting. Sweet vindication. I wasn't weird for thinking dead bodies were everywhere. It turns out I was right all along. Now it's been decades since my body finding experience. But it left me with a lesson that has stuck with me to this day. And it is this. There is a world of corpses out there and those bodies aren't going to find themselves. That's why I keep looking. It's also why I had my ears pierced. Can't be too prepared.
- [51:48]
Kevin Allison
Sa.
- [52:14]
Jeff Barr
To happen.
- [52:22]
Kevin Allison
Thank you.
- [52:39]
Robert Oakes
It.
- [53:08]
Jason Shaw
I have always been, let's say, an explorer or a hunter of new experiences. I have a certain attraction to the more grotesque. I wouldn't say I get bored easily. I just. I want to fully immerse myself. Inexperience. I'm just trying to make you understand it was just so, you know, wrong. And that's. That really kind of like turned me on. Like I was doing something very wrong. I mean, like, listen, I'm a fucking Catholic boy. So. This story takes place in the late spring, early summer of 1999. I was I would say about maybe 19 years old. I had been, you know, thrown out of the military just for a general unrulyness. I was unfit. So they said. I found myself back in Pittsburgh and I had made the reacquaintance of an old friend of mine. And she had gotten into escorting and suggested. Well, not just suggested, linked me up with her escort service and they would send me on some calls. Now, it was very, very, very few and far in between. I mean, like maybe two of them worked out and the last one definitely did not work out. It was not working out. And, well, this old friend of mine, she had made the suggestion, why don't you just go downtown? I said, well, what am I supposed to do downtown? She said, well, you could just hook. And I'm like, what are you talking about? She's go down there and guys will just pick you up. You go down to First Avenue. That is where all of the guys are. You just hang out down there. Guys cruise around and they'll pick you up and you know, bada bing, bada boom. I went for it. I mean, why not? What's the worst? What is the worst that could happen? So I spent a good summer or so down there doing this. There were judges and lawyers and coaches. I mean, we're in the gamut for the most part. All the young dudes, they were all the way up near the Smithfield Bridge, they were up there. Now, if you go further down, there would be less and less and less. The way I looked at it is like, I'm not them, which is just so silly in hindsight. But I'm like, well, I'm just dabbling. So I would go all the way to the other end of this strip on First Avenue. There is like these cement benches down there and I would stand on them under the street lamps. I had a Discman and I would carry CDs with me, one of which I remember was. Was cake fashion nugget. And I would sing really loud or I would dance, you know, I would just have a good old time by myself. So one night this fellow drove by, you know, more than once. And then we eyed each other, you know, more than a couple times. And eventually he slowed down a little bit down the way enough to give the hint. It was understood that I would go over. This is a younger fellow, this fellow, he comes, he picks me up, right? Probably, you know, somewhere in their 20s, kind of like a mullety, longish hair, messy, nerdish looking kind of like an example. Metalhead is the Best way I could describe it, I hop in the car. It was a little red hatchback. I'm a tall person. I do remember feeling just a little bit tight inside the vehicle. There was a crack in the windshield. The music that was playing was very soft rock kind of music. I like a lot of those songs. So, I mean, I was not complaining. There is definitely the Christmas tree air freshener. We're just cruising around discussing what this person wants to do. And they're kind, they're nice. When you get in these cars, it's not like straight down to business, like, hey, how you doing? What's going on tonight? It's all very, you know, friendly and everything until somebody eventually makes the proposition, so to speak. This fellow was like, listen, I don't want to suck you off. You don't have to suck me off. What I'm into, it's really simple. I know it's going to sound weird, but, like, it's not that weird. I mean, it's just. It's just what I like. And listen, I'm going to give you, like, 150 bucks for this. I was like, wow. And I don't have to do anything. I don't even have to, like, jerk you off or anything. I'm like, well, what is it? He's like, well, it's tickling. I'm really into tickling. He's like, are you ticklish? I'm like, well, yeah, actually, as a matter of fact, I am. I mean, even if I was not ticklish, I would have said, of course I am. I mean, who is not ticklish? But I am ticklish, I'll have you know. I'm like, that sounds easy. I'm like, well, how does this work, you know? Well, I have to take you to my place. He says. And I say, okay, well, how far is your place? He's like, oh, it's about 45 minutes away. I mean, that's pretty far in a car. And I'm just, like, trying to suss this person out. Like, is this okay? It was also getting towards the end of the summer, and all of this was trying to save up money to move to New York City. So, anyway, I agree to it. I say, okay, let's go, cowboy. Take me to your place and tickle me up. So off we go. So we're driving, but I definitely lost my sense of, like, where the fuck are we? Are we in North Hills? Are we in South Hills? Like, where the fuck are we? Eventually, we come to a suburb of sorts, and it's very quiet, very, very 70s suburban type of houses. Double garage. So he pulls in and we go around to a side door and go inside the garage. It's clear, like, this is his. His hangout spot. And there's like some posters of fans on the wall and this and that. There's a couch, a tv. He's not exactly taking time to show me around or anything, but he is making me comfortable and offering me something to drink and whatnot and making it clear what's going to happen. And it is agreed upon that. That I am, you know, going to be restrained in some sort of way. And he goes off. It's a deep kind of garage, and he wills out this X cross fetish object called a St. Andrew's Cross. Now, it is curious me that my real name is Andrew, but, you know, nobody calls me that. You have the wooden beams almost like a crucifix with the arms slightly raised. There's a slight bit in the middle that raises up for your head because my head is going to be restrained. He wheels it out, and I'm looking at it and I've never seen anything like it. I'm not exactly frightened, let's say that at this point I'm pretty chill about what's happening. I'm a little nervous, but I'm not entirely freaked out about it. I'm like, okay, I've agreed to this. This is just part of it. He's like, okay, you just have to, like, get on that, and I'm going to, like, tie you to that. And I'm like, that's fucking nuts. I was like, you can't do it tight. He's like, no, no, no, I won't do it ty alone. Don't worry. He's like, I'm just gonna use these feathers. And I'm just gonna, like, lightly, you know, touch your skin until you get goose pimples. That's just really what, like, turns me on. I'm like, okay, it. He's like, but you have to take your clothes off. You can leave your underwear on, but you have to take your clothes off. I'm like, okay, so here we are. I'm in my skivvies. I'm getting up in there. I hesitantly put myself against this thing. And, you know, I'm. I'm nervous. And. And the whole time he's. He's reassuring me. And the whole time, you know, I'm backing myself up on this. I'm raising my arm, and as I'm raising my own arm, I'm thinking To myself, like, what. What are you doing? Don't do that. But at the same time, I did agree to it. I know I want to be paid for it, and I'm okay with it. I mean, I'm not okay with it, but I'm okay with it. He says, I'm not going to do anything. You can trust me. Okay. Okay, fine. Here we go. Other arm up, legs are tied. And at that point, game on. It's all very light and friendly and tickles and feathers and fingertips and goose pimples and even him, you know, just blowing on my neck and my ears and tickling my ears, and my ears are very sensitive and. And I'm. I'm playing along. I'm like, we're having fun. You know, this is. This is what I'm here for. And I can only see ahead, mind you. So anytime he walks behind me, I can't see anything. And then he ties the knots tighter, and I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, no, no, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. And I'm like, hey, you said you wouldn't do that. Now you're, like, you know, changing it. Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. There's just one more thing I want to do. So he comes up behind me and. And he says, okay, don't be nervous. Don't be nervous. I'm just gonna put a blindfold on you. I'm just gonna. And I'm saying, no, no. The response I'm getting is, don't worry. But, no, don't worry. Blindfold's on. Blindfold is on. There goes my vision. Can't see anything. This same sensory touch continues until things get quiet again. Comes up behind again, whispering, okay, okay, don't be nervous. Don't be nervous. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. I'm just going to put. Just open your mouth. Just open your mouth. Mouth. I know it's weird. Don't freak out. Just go with it. Just. It's. Oh, it's okay. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. And I was not fine with it. And he's pushing, and next thing you know, your mouth is open, and there's a rubber bone in your mouth, and you can feel the strap coming around your head. So now I have a ball gag in my mouth.
- [64:31]
Robert Oakes
Mouth.
- [64:31]
Jason Shaw
And I have a blindfold on, and I'm tied to this goddamn X, and I'm tied tight, and I'M struggling and I want it to be over and it's not. And, and, and, and I'm just like getting nervous. Part of me knows you might be in a little bit of trouble here, but at the same time, I'm restrained. This is not the time. This is not the time to, to freak out. It's bad. But stay calm. It's not going to help anything. Making a scene here. The tickling continues briefly, very briefly, until another call. He comes up behind me. He's already found my sensitive spots. And my sensitive spots are my ears and my neck. And he comes up behind me, right behind my ear. And I could feel the skin of his chin right against my neck. And he whispers right in my ear, nobody knows where you are and nobody can hear you scream. And I will, but you are. You weren't. Ice cold piece of steel shooting down your spine. That will do it too. And at that point I, I just lost it. I was just fucking trying to shake the goddamn thing over. The thing's not budging. I don't know what the fuck he did. I can't see anything. And then you hear the dragging of a table and the movement of furniture and whatnot. And, and finally the blindfold comes off and all I see is a table of just the, the most horrifying objects you could imagine. Chains and blades and whips with like sharp things attached to them. And there's steel and shining metal things. There's a lot of things there. And none of them are soft. None of them are feathers. None of them are, you know, ticklish. What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this? And he is standing there, his misformed pale body in this leathery harness stuff, with a smile on his face. Everything that I've said no to has not been granted. So at that point, no hasn't worked. And no is not going to work. You know, here on out I'm thinking like everything on the table is everything that's on the table at this point. My eyes are popping out of my head, so screaming, no, no, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. And he's running his fingers across them softly, like, do you want this one? Do you want this one? What about this one? No, I mean, I'm scared. Part of me in my head is just thinking like, I cannot, I just could not believe, I cannot believe that I, I got myself into this situation. I just could not believe it. And, and, and, and in, in my panic, all some things like how, how the do I get, how am I going to get out There must be a way. There must be a way to get out of this. And there was no way out of it. And I was, I was floored. I mean, like, I. I was like, what this? They're never gonna find me. They're never gonna find me. I'm just gonna disappear from this fucking earth. And what is he gonna do with me? What is he gonna do with me? Nobody knows where I am. And I'm just like, don't do this, please. Please don't fucking do this. No, this was not what we agreed upon. This has gone way too fucking far. And all I can see is, Is the slight smile on. On his face and him gently walking his fingers across which object he's going to choose to use upon me. And with that, he walks behind me and puts the fucking blindfold back on my fucking face. And I'm trying to shake, I'm trying to fucking rock in my head. If I rock this goddamn thing far enough like I could knock it down, I could knock that maybe I could get loose. But nothing's moving. Nothing's moving. And then he came up behind me again, nose brushing against the back of my ear, and whispers, I'm never gonna let you leave. You're never getting out of there. You belong to me. I was just like. I couldn't even. My. My breath choked down and went down to the back of my stomach. Tried to bounce out my mouth, but couldn't even get out of my mouth cuz gagged with a rubber ball. Ears popping. You don't know what fear is, but you're not there yet. This is not even the height of. Of terror because then he's. He's picking things up. I can feel him rubbing his things against me. It is the constant hint of everything that is to come that you cannot stop. Things got quiet for a minute and I was always focusing in on what I could hear because I'm relying on what senses I have. And I could hear his breathing change and I could sense him near me. And then I felt it. I felt him ejaculate on my left thigh. And the noise he made along with that. I think, thank God, thank God, thank God he fucking just came. I did not think that this could go any further as, you know, a 19 year old who comes and it's like, good night, you know, he started wiping it off and now it's over. Is it? Yeah, he's apologizing. It's over. It's over. He comes back behind me. He's like, it's done. It's done. It's done. It's done. I'm gonna take off the blindfold. Don't scream. You're fine. Please believe me. This is it. I'm sorry. Just don't freak out. You are fine. And I'm just, like, in my head, like, just take it. Fucking.
- [71:49]
Robert Oakes
Just get me.
- [71:50]
Jason Shaw
Fuck. Just let me fucking go. Untie me. Take it out of my mouth.
- [71:54]
Kevin Allison
So he does.
- [71:56]
Jason Shaw
He lets my first arm go, and immediately I reach for my other arm, and I can't reach it. I cannot reach over to let myself out. And he's already over there undoing it. And I'm like, faster, faster. And my legs. Do it. Do it now. Do it now. But I'm not at that point, I'm only concerned about not being restrained. And I'm free. My knees are knocking, actually knocking. I could not stop. I physically could not stop my knees from knocking. I'm putting my hands on, trying to calm my legs. They're not stopping. And the whole time, he's trying to calm me down, assuring me, assuring me, assuring me in apologizing, but assuring me at the same time. I'm like, well, why didn't you just tell me? You know, why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't you just tell me? He's like, it would have been real. Your reactions wouldn't have been real. When I looked in his eyes, that was not the same person at all. The eyes were. That's the freakiest fucking part. There was no more gentleness. There was no more reassurance in his eyes. It was just blank. It was just the absolute absence of compassion and connection. Gone. Gone. That was far more terrifying than anything on that table. Terrifying. So I get dressed. I'm like, you're an. You're taking me back. Take me back now. Take me back. Okay, I'm gonna take you back. I'm gonna take you back. Where's the money? Gives me the money. I want more. I want more you. This is not what you said. 50 bucks. More like, all right, get back in the car and takes me back down there. And the ride back, my heart is still pounding. My ears are ringing with the amount of adrenaline that's still just, like, rushing all over me. It's very hard to describe that level of true fear that you have completely up. But eventually I do. He does drop me off, and I'm back where I started. And of course, I mean, that was the end of my career on First Avenue. And I didn't tell anybody for a very, very, very long time. When I finally did tell someone the story and I, I replayed it many times in my head, try to bring up that emotion again, that sensation, that feeling. Because what that person gave me was, was. It was a gift, a priceless gift. I know it sounds fucked up. I know a lot of people are not going to be able to wrap their heads around my seeing the experience that that person gave me. Once in a lifetime experience as a gift. It didn't turn me on. None of that. I don't like being tied up. It's not my fucking thing. You know, people go into things like this wanting, you know, to experience what I experience. It isn't real. They know at the end of the day isn't real. What I went through with that person was the closest you can get to believing that you are going to die without dying. So it makes sense to me. I mean, I will never be able to repeat that. I would never want to repeat that. My point is the experience in itself is something that I think few people experience. And as someone who's a hunter of new experiences and smells and tastes and life and whatnot, it is definitely in my top 10.
- [76:13]
Robert Oakes
Sam.
- [76:52]
Fixie (Fix Invictus)
Sweetest Beast pal non gentle breezing more bitter than the Taista one.
- [77:08]
Jeff Barr
In.
- [77:08]
Fixie (Fix Invictus)
Love with dark in love with death Kisses your mouth where my fingers might have been in another place.
- [77:29]
Jason Shaw
In the.
- [77:30]
Fixie (Fix Invictus)
Another time pretty far would have made you mine in another place in another.
- [77:47]
Jeff Barr
Time.
- [77:52]
Fixie (Fix Invictus)
Laugh Upper and Dark Wing.
- [78:00]
Jason Shaw
This is Risk.
- [78:02]
Kevin Allison
This is Allison Callery behind me now, and this is the second time her name has come up on this episode, but this time it's to credit her for this gorgeous song Dark Winged Sparrow. And we just heard from the amazing Fixie, also known as the artist Fix Invictus, whose music you can find on SoundCloud and whose every other kind of art you can find on his truly wild Instagram. Get your fix folks. I'm teaching another eight week long online storytelling workshop. It will be on Sunday mornings starting on November 16th at 10am Eastern Time. Let me read for you a couple more things that students have said about the workshop so far this year. One student said, Kevin's class has been a tremendous confidence booster. The skills and craft I've learned in just one workshop series has already made a huge difference in the way that I think about and approach the stories that I tell to my friends and family. So if you ever feel like you flounder when you're telling stories about your own life, this class is a wonderful way to turn that around. Another student said I appreciated the candor and the vulnerability shared. Kevin's non judgmental embrace of every participant and narrative style allowed for an inclusive, enriching environment. The sincere support of Kevin and all of my fellow classmates impact impacted my storytelling ability more positively than I could have imagined. People started jokingly calling the workshops going to Church because of how communal and moving and provocative the sessions are, how much moral support and illumination and really little bits of therapy happen in the workshops. Not to mention just how much creative stretching there is and how much flexibility there is for, you know, whatever, whatever you, wherever you are, whatever you can bring and want to bring that day. Like I guess church is supposed to.
- [80:56]
Jeff Barr
Be.
- [81:00]
Jason Shaw
But you know.
- [81:02]
Kevin Allison
So email me at kevinriskdashow.com to get in on the next one. Whether you're an absolute beginner or a seasoned pro, everyone is so welcome. And the next one starts at 10am Eastern Time on November 16th. Meanwhile folks, today is the day.
- [81:28]
Robert Oakes
Take a break.