← Snap Judgment
Snap Judgment
The Master
00:49:23
"His secrets filled the air around him like smoke..." A young boy idolizes his karate instructor. Each kick, throw, and punch a step on the path to becoming a man. But the power of his presence cannot hold back the questions of his character.
Loading summary
Transcript83 lines
- [00:03]
Glenn Washington
Snap Studios Snap Judgment is brought to you by Progressive Insurance Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. This message is brought to you by Apple Card Apple Card is everything a credit card should be. It's easy to manage, built to be secure, and gives users up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase. The best part about Apple Card is applying is quick and easy. Apply in the Wallet app on iPhone and see your credit limit offer in minutes. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch member and FDIC Terms and more@applecard.com okay 6th grade rural Michigan, Close to where we live, there's a livery stable where the rich folk keep their horses. They let me and some of my buddies come through and muck stables, move feet, do chores or whatever for the exalted privilege of getting to be around horses. No, we can't ride the horses. At least we better not get caught riding horses. Still, we get to tend the most beautiful animals that have ever breathed air. And there's one chestnut bay, like from Astoria, looks like a Patronus glorious. But no one can get near her. She bites, she whinnies, she kicks. We call a demon. You can't even walk. Except for the owner's son, Chad, the one that says to us, well, that water hose ain't for you. You bend over and get water from the horse's trough. You're so thirsty. The one that hisses at us to keep your head down. Don't you look me in the eyes, the one always blinking. One day, my buddy steps too close to Demon's stall. She nips him on the shoulder hard enough to draw blood. He screams bloody murder. Demon screams back. All the horses answer. The stable explodes into pandemonium. Then the owner's son, Chad pads through, walks right up to Demon, pushes his hand into her stall, places it on top of her head, her crazed eyes still. She whinnies, presses into his fingers, nickers, snorts. Then she's silent. Every other horse grows silent as well, and I am in awe. I've never seen this kind of control, this type of certainty. It is magical. And I hate this guy so much. I hate him. But he speaks horse like no one I've ever seen in life. So I watch and hoping maybe someday, you know, I can speak horse, too. The owner, Chad's father always laughs that he wants to train Demon not to bite. Says she'd be worth a million bucks. I'm not getting anywhere near her. But I shadow Chad from a distance. He always has sugar cubes in his pocket, so I make sure I have sugar cubes in my pocket. I always carry his apples as a special treat. I start carrying apples and one day after someone else runs bleeding from the stable, I see Chad press sugar onto Demon searching tongue. And it occurs to me he never gives her treats when she doesn't bite. He only gives her treats when she does. The bigger the melee, the larger her reward. He looks over, sees me seeing him and quickly, quickly, before he gets angry. And they never let me back in here again. I turn my eyes down. Today, in snap Judgment, we proudly present the Master. My name is Glenn Washington. Not everyone is a hero, even when you're listening. But snap judgment, one of my favorite movies from the 1980s is the Karate Kid. Mr. Miyagi, Daniel Sign. The Crane kick.
- [05:07]
Simon Shea
Ha.
- [05:09]
Glenn Washington
And of course, the dastardly Cobra Kai with their master, the feather haired, muscle bound, middle aged, all American psychopath. We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak. Now, I tried to show this movie to my kids. They're like, nah.
- [05:29]
Richard Washington
Over the top.
- [05:30]
Glenn Washington
Cringe. That's unbelievable. I'm like, what? Some guy spending his entire life bullying the weak so he can feel bigger? That's unbelievable.
- [05:40]
Richard Washington
A guy saying the rules don't apply.
- [05:42]
Glenn Washington
To him because he's special is unbelievable. I'm thinking maybe I'll need to watch Karate Kid again. Or perhaps the film was not the best medium for this kind of understanding. Maybe this is the kind of wisdom best approached in a story. Simon Shea tried to do just that. And yes, just like the Karate Kid, our story today does have descriptions of violence in reference to sexual abuse. Snap judgment.
- [06:20]
Unnamed Speaker 1
At first, I didn't want to write about the Master. I actually decided on multiple occasions not to write about him because I felt like. Like the Master was an unpoetic subject. The Master was harsh, violent, and brought up really complicated feelings in me. What I realized was he wasn't just a person. He represented part of me that I didn't want to look at. And it was a part of me that wanted or maybe needed a master.
- [06:58]
Simon Shea
I remember writing this poem. I was sitting in my university dormitory. The words to be wrapped in a hotel blanket under a table came to me and then the memory came back. Self defense. To be saved and unsaved. To be wrapped in a hotel Blanket under a table. Because pain is temporary, but pride will never abandon you. All those fires, yelling on the sidewalk, and I never once checked my hands for burns. I am firewood being cut in the rain. I am trying to tell you that I was young without telling you why. That I learned how to disarm a man trying to drive a knife through the top of my head before I learned how to saw through the belly of a tree. I would start traveling to compete in karate tournaments when I was around 10, 11 years old. We would get one hotel room, and we would all cram into it. Often, I would be sleeping under a table on the floor with a blanket over me, and I would be freezing cold because they love to crank the AC up, you know? And then we wake up the next morning and compete.
- [08:39]
Unnamed Speaker 2
At first glance, all narrative is harmless. And there are so many ways a boy can become a man.
- [08:49]
Simon Shea
Yeah, my dad is an academic. He was quiet, he was gentle, and he taught at a university, taught political science. And I would watch him typing on the computer and grading papers and reading books. And I thought, you know, that's. That's not. That can't be, you know, what a man does. And then I saw these people breaking boards and kicking and punching each other.
- [09:16]
Unnamed Speaker 2
Every night, we took the garbage out to the big dumpsters in the parking lot. We always wore our uniforms, so the kids working at CVS would be curious, ask us questions. We said we were from the martial arts school next door. When they asked whose name was written on our backs, we told them our masters.
- [09:44]
Simon Shea
I remember seeing the master for the first time. He walked in, he didn't introduce himself because he didn't need to, and he just started ordering people around. Put your fist higher up on your side. Bend your knees lower. He was very good at embodying the figure of the knowledgeable master. The master who knows more than everybody else. In real life. He was just kind of an average white man. He had one very striking feature, gelled black hair. He always had immaculately cut black hair that he gelled to the side. And also, he was big. You know, he was muscular. He had tattoos, and his hands were just gnarled and, you know, huge from, like, punching wood and conditioning his knuckles. And he would always, you know, show us his fists. He could hit anything, and he wouldn't feel it.
- [10:44]
Unnamed Speaker 2
For him, I kept a fire burning in a glass cup. His secrets filled the air around him like smoke.
- [10:55]
Simon Shea
I was just a shy, sensitive kid. And when you're a shy, quite vulnerable boy in middle school, you have no value. At least I didn't feel like I.
- [11:05]
Unnamed Speaker 2
Had any value Once he released two wounded fish back into the sea. It was like nothing I had ever seen.
- [11:17]
Simon Shea
When I saw him, I thought, this is what a man is and this is what I need to be. And I loved kung fu movies. I was a huge. I was. I was actually enrolled in the Jackie Chan fan club. And I was one of the first 50 people to enroll in the fan club. So I got a huge Jackie Chan calendar in the mail. Someone must have told him that I like kung fu movies. And so I was walking home. I walked to the karate school and back. It was like a 20 minute walk from my house. And this red sports car stops. Of course he drives a red sports car. The master rolls down the window and immediately I recognize him. And I was so excited. He just handed me a box of kung fu movies. And then he drives off.
- [12:18]
Unnamed Speaker 1
They were.
- [12:18]
Simon Shea
They were kind of, I guess we would call them now deep cuts. Like they. It wasn't like Jackie Chan or Jet Li movies. It was these like old Chuck Norris movies. And like I remember watching them and being like, this is kind of weird, but I'm into it.
- [12:32]
Glenn Washington
The whole essence of what we do is a philosophy of discipline. A force of one, a blue steel force. The North.
- [12:43]
Unnamed Speaker 1
When I am old enough, he tells me what the mind can overcome. And I believe every word. He talks about loyalty. He talks about bone growing on top of bone. How to convince my body that it's worth it. Often I grow sleepy and stare at his hair. The gel like blood caked on black fur.
- [13:17]
Simon Shea
I was a very good student. I would stay the latest. I would train the hardest.
- [13:23]
Unnamed Speaker 1
There was a heavy bag in the.
- [13:24]
Simon Shea
Back that would hit the heavy bag. I would practice my forms just constantly. And I felt really good doing karate. That's kind of the time when I felt most myself. The time when I felt the best. The test for the third degree black belt was a three day long test. We slept at the school overnight. He made us like run up hills at like sunrise. And like, I just remember being in this like really hot karate school. There's like steam clouding the windows. And I'm sitting in like a row of. I have this like big heavy uniform on and I'm doing, you know, forms for the hundredth time in front of the master. And he's drinking a cherry Coke. And I'm so thirsty and so exhausted.
- [14:21]
Unnamed Speaker 1
My hands are cowbells at the bottom of an ocean. Here I am. Here I am. Does he even know my Name. He calls me China Boy. He calls me Sun. My first words to him are, morning, sir.
- [14:42]
Simon Shea
Our interactions were him punching me in the arm and laughing, calling me a affectionately racist name like China Boy or Asian Sensation, and then walking off. But I knew him, I think, mostly through hearing him talk to other people, hearing him joke around with other people. He made the most disgusting lewd jokes about, you know, women and sex and all kinds of things. I have a lot of memories of being in the karate school after everyone leaves except, like, one or two other people. You know, boys that would kind of stay who were kind of in the same position as me would. We were cleaning the bathrooms after everybody left. We were sweeping up, throwing stuff away, taking out the trash. And the master's in the office screaming on the phone really terrible things and really loudly to one of his ex wives or the person he's dating or something. And we would just hide in the bathroom. So we'd kind of be trapped there with the master's anger.
- [15:55]
Unnamed Speaker 1
What is left?
- [15:59]
Unnamed Speaker 2
One summer, we cleaned his backyard pool at dusk. He pulled sumac branches from the water's surface as I held a garbage bag open beside him. The branches floated on the water like bones arranged in an open casket.
- [16:18]
Simon Shea
Another thing we would often do is go to his house. Sometimes it needed to be painted. Sometimes it needed other, you know, work done.
- [16:30]
Unnamed Speaker 2
When I tied the ends of the garbage bag closed, the sharp branches struggled against the black plastic. How much of me did he take and how much did I give him?
- [16:43]
Simon Shea
I would just, you know, take every opportunity to be at the karate school. It started out just, you know, Saturdays. I would spend kind of all day there. And then it got to the point where I was spending my whole summers there, Monday through Saturday, then holidays, to the frustration of my parents. You know, in the beginning, they were like, great, this is an outlet. This is something that he's interested in. But it's got to the point where I was just not spending any time with my family. But I was also a teenager. Yeah, I missed a lot. You know, I missed a lot. The only thing I really remember missing is my mother's birthday one year. They were celebrating, you know, blowing out candles. And I walked in because I needed to grab something and go back to the karate school. My head was so in the karate school that I didn't think to just stay. And I remember it made my mother cry. Of course it did.
- [17:49]
Unnamed Speaker 2
Kindness comes too easily to wicked men.
- [17:53]
Simon Shea
In every ballroom he is the chandelier.
- [17:57]
Unnamed Speaker 2
No, he is the song that everyone only knows the chorus of beautiful, relentless. He dresses as a dead soldier every Halloween in the army. He says, you are dirt under the nails of your country. My mother wants him dead. The family of a young girl wants him dead.
- [18:31]
Simon Shea
I do know that he was notorious for having, and I witnessed some of this for having inappropriate relationships with his female students.
- [18:44]
Unnamed Speaker 1
I can say that I did not experience sexual abuse. I was not molested. It was something that had happened kind of in my periphery, but it was not talked about. It was this kind of silence that pervaded all of our interactions with the master.
- [19:03]
Simon Shea
My mother found out about this. I think it was a specific student he had a relationship with. And she found out about this when I was about to go on a trip with him to compete at a tournament. And she drove straight to the karate school and. And she stormed in and she spoke to a female instructor and she, you know, kind of unloaded her anger and said, why wasn't I told about this? And the female instructor said, don't worry, I'm going to take care of your son. I'm going to go with them. I'm going to make sure everything's okay. I think that moment was really scary for my mother. And after that, she sat me down and she said, this is who this person is, and I recognize that you have a lot of respect for him. And she kind of asked me to make a decision. She said, you know, do you want to keep going down the path that you're going? I kind of tear up when I think about this, but I really. I really respect her for that. That must have been really hard for her. And I probably would have resented them if they had just pulled me out. I could only say that I would not quit. No matter what he's done, I can handle it. I saw what happened to people who stopped going. And there were a few very notable instructors who quit. And they all quit in a way that was really ugly. If a man left, he was called a. And if a woman left, she was called a lesbian. I knew that I would be talked about like that, and I knew that I would be considered that. And in my head, the way he thought about me was the way I actually was. I had no self concept, I had no self esteem. I was purely as good or as bad as I was in his eyes. I was in delusion. I was pretty firmly in delusion. I think that by the time we were moving to Beijing, I was tired more than anything. Yeah. I just couldn't admit to myself that I didn't like where this was going. I didn't like spending all my time there and I really didn't like that. I couldn't see a way out for myself. I remember when my mom told me she had got posted to Beijing, being overjoyed but pretending to be really angry about it.
- [22:01]
Unnamed Speaker 1
We moved to Beijing when I was 15. The night my parents told me we were moving, I said that I hated them. But as soon as they left my room, I burst into tears. On our last night together, he took me and two other boys to Applebee's. He ordered hamburgers and milkshakes for all of us. Hamburgers the size of our heads. They joked that I would come back a man.
- [22:31]
Simon Shea
We were living in a hotel for like a few days before we were going to fly to Beijing. And two of the boys from the Karate school came and said bye to me. The bond I formed with these other boys was so strong and that's a big part of what kept me there. That, you know, these were my best friends. They came and said bye to me and they just broke down and I had never seen them cry before, you know, I was leaving them behind.
- [23:06]
Unnamed Speaker 1
On the plane. I dream of him dreaming. Beside his bed, a burlap bag full of guns, rifles, semi automatics, machine guns, pistols. A bag full of black snakes.
- [23:36]
Glenn Washington
When SNAP returns, we go to Beijing and Simon prepares for a final showdown. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. Our story today does have descriptions of violence. We joined Simon, who left home for Beijing to continue training far away from his place, cruel master back in the States. Snap Judgment.
- [24:20]
Simon Shea
Flying into Beijing. It was January. It was freezing cold. The air smelled of coal and like smog and disgusting. And we got to our house and they had just painted it for some reason the. The int. Interior and put out pineapples everywhere so to cover up the paint smell. So we walked in this house, it smelled like pineapples and paint. And I just felt so free. And I felt like, you know, anything is possible. I would get out of school in Beijing and I would walk my dog for hours just like around the city. I mean, coming from small town America, this is, you know, it cannot be overstated how big of a change this is for me. But also the specter of the master still kind of weighed heavily on me. And I often imagined him walking into my school cafeteria and kind of taking me away. Taking me out of the cafeteria and bringing me back to the Karate school.
- [25:37]
Unnamed Speaker 1
Feel him out to celebrate his birthday. That first year away from him, I crushed an egg in each hand, let the yolk bleed through my fingers. Three nights a week, I take a crowded bus across the city at rush hour. A coach I can barely understand orders me into the ring with a grown man. On the ride home, I watch the city from the window, trying to repair the shattered beams of light in my head.
- [26:16]
Simon Shea
Martial arts was just, like, such a big part of my life. I wanted, obviously, to keep training myself and to keep practicing, and there wasn't really the karate that I knew. I got to Muay Thai because I somehow stumbled across this instructor, and his name is Vince. And I started taking classes, and I was like, wow, this is really cool. Muay Thai is like this very, very violent sport where you're punching, kicking, you're also using your elbows and your knees, and so it can get very bloody. I felt like somehow my. Like, my physical body and even my. Even mentally, I felt in danger. I felt like in order to take on life, I needed this thicker. I needed a thicker skin, and I felt like Muay Thai would give me that thicker skin.
- [27:29]
Unnamed Speaker 2
Nothing to give, nothing to take. Skin glistening under a coat of liniment oil. Knuckles, elbows, knees, shins, bones luminous in the alleyway dark. Every muscle a clock keeping time underwater. My coach tells me that he is a man just like me, that he wakes up every morning and puts his pants on one leg at a time.
- [28:03]
Simon Shea
You walk into Vince's gym and you don't feel like you're in a parallel universe where there are these other rules and, you know, people are not just people, but, like, masters and, like grandmasters. You just feel like you're, like, around people, you know, Vince didn't make anybody bow to him. I felt like I was treated like more of an adult, more of an equal, and I didn't have to earn it. I felt like I could just be me. In Muay Thai, you're kind of training. You start out as an amateur, and then you train to fight professionally. I did my first pro fight in Shanghai when I was 18. My parents took me. They were so nervous, they didn't really know what to expect. I think I weighed in. I was kind of at the weight I should have been. My opponent weighed in 10 kilograms heavier than me. And Vince told me this, and he was like, do you still want to fight him? And I was like, yeah. This guy walks out much bigger than me, probably in his 30s. And first thing he does is he picked me up and he dropped me directly on my head. And my mom just starts freaking out in the audience. After he did that. I kind of came to Being like, I have to do something or I'm gonna get killed. And then I kind of found my voice in the ring, I guess.
- [29:38]
Unnamed Speaker 2
Record in violence. There is no reciprocity like rain on soil. Shanghai, 18 years old. Winner by knockout. The doctor called a stop to the fight when he noticed part of the skull exposed next to his eyebrow. A piece no bigger than an eye. Thailand, 19 years old. Winner by knockout. My lower lip gushing, I drop him with an uppercut as his queen looks on. Her lips bright red, her mouth curled into a smile. Brazil, 20 years old. Loser by knockout. One night before. Hoodie drenched in sweat. Ten pounds in two hours. Then newspapers soaked through with grease. Endless slices of watermelon at the churrascaria. Then his knee shattering the bone around my left eye. The doctors called it orbital. My mistake. Resting my head on his shoulder, letting him cradle it in his arms. And to think, all those years and not a moment of pain.
- [30:59]
Unnamed Speaker 1
My mom was okay with me pursuing Muay Thai, but she made me promise her that I would go to college.
- [31:06]
Simon Shea
But then I applied to a school near the karate school university, and I got in there, and so I went back, moved back to New York, and.
- [31:16]
Unnamed Speaker 1
I started working and training at the karate school again. The master still had a hold on me, and I felt like that is what I needed to do. It was a normal sparring training at the karate school. Normally, the master would sit on the sidelines. He rarely got into the ring himself. But on this day, he wanted to spar me with Muay Thai rules. Full contact.
- [32:00]
Simon Shea
You know, he was like, oh, you're back. You've grown up a little bit, and you think you're. You're hot stuff. Let's test that out. You know, in the back of my mind, I was like, I think I could probably beat this guy up now.
- [32:16]
Unnamed Speaker 1
As soon as he stepped in the ring, it became a spectacle. Everybody stopped what they were doing and turned and watched us. We put on the gloves and we sparred, and it was intense. We both hurt each other.
- [32:35]
Simon Shea
You know, Whereas before, when I would spar with him, it was just a foregone conclusion that he would beat me up and I wouldn't. I would barely even fight back. We were really on equal footing, and there wasn't a referee like, you know, awarding points or anything like that. But I felt good about it. So that says a lot. So, yeah, I think I got a couple good shots in. And then afterwards, of course, he said something that, like, kind of invalidated that. He was like, oh, yeah, you know, I was going easy on yours, or, you know, something stupid like that.
- [33:13]
Unnamed Speaker 1
A lot of the problems that the Master was facing were more clear to me as an adult who kind of understood what was going on behind the scenes. The master was struggling. I think the school was struggling. Money troubles, people quitting. And he continued to not pay me, just like he did when I was younger and I was teaching classes for him, unpaid. I decided to confront the master with another friend from the karate school who had come up with me there, who had experienced everything I experienced. So this friend and I, we wanted to be paid, but we also wanted to start our own branch of the karate school where we could run it ourselves and run it the way we wanted to. And we went to his office. There's trophies everywhere, there's swords everywhere, all kinds of weapons. And he sits behind the desk in a chair. The whole time I was shaking, I was anxious, sweating. He asked me to leave the office and he asked my friend to stay. And they had a conversation. And then he sent the friend out to tell me what he had decided. And that showed me that the master was done with me. It was a really big letdown. I was like, if he's not going to let us do this, then I don't want to be part of this anymore. I ended up leaving and I never saw him again after that.
- [35:01]
Unnamed Speaker 2
I imagine him reading this, telling me none of it happened. Nose broken from a punch, gushing.
- [35:09]
Simon Shea
I peel a red puddle off the.
- [35:11]
Unnamed Speaker 2
Ground like a wet autumn leaf. Using the smoke from a smoldering cigarette as thread. I stitch it to the back of a wounded boy. Even in war. Mercy. After I finish, I look at his back, admire my handiwork. A window of burnt glass.
- [35:36]
Simon Shea
I didn't know how to think about my experience at the karate school. I didn't know how to think about the Master. I hadn't processed it enough. I hadn't talked about it with anybody. I would write things down and then I would second guess myself and I would be like, wait a second, that that image is not real. That never happened to me. Or, you know, do I really mean what I'm saying in this. In this line here? I guess this poem is really about writing a poem and this process of discovery and revelation. I think one way I can describe writing a poem is pouring out your coffee, but trying only to pour the milk out and not the coffee.
- [36:26]
Unnamed Speaker 2
Absolution. I walk to the river empty handed, except for a cup of coffee. Whisper into the dark. Forgive me, my manhood. I pour the coffee into the river, but only the milk spills out, splashes into the water like a bolt of lightning. No matter how hard I try, I cannot see all of the dark at once and I know how the sky lies to us in the rain. But the snow, the snow must be a confession.
- [37:55]
Glenn Washington
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Simon Shea. You can read all of these poems in his debut poetry collection, Master. An extra special thank you to Kathryn Litman. This story was edited by Anna Sussman and Nancy Lopez. The original score by Renzo Goriot and Doug Stewart was produced by John Facilitator. Next up, we're going to take a moment to honor another poet, in fact, one of the greatest poets ever to have breathed life into words, the late, great Nikki Giovanni. She was an iconic poet, writer, commentator, activist, educator, and one of the world's best known African American poets, someone deeply important to our own storytelling here at snap. And our operations manager, Flo Wylie, chose one of Nikki Giovanni's poems that means the world to her. Flo, take it away.
- [39:00]
Flo Wiley
This is a tribute to a storyteller masquerading as a poet who was a major influence in me becoming me. This poem in particular resonates still. Ego Trippin by Nikki Giovanni. I was born in the Congo. I walked to the Fertile Crescent and built the Sphinx. I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every 100 years falls into the center, giving divine perfect light. I am bad. I sat on the throne drinking nectar with Allah. I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe to cool my thirst. My oldest daughter is Nefertiti. The tears from my birth pains created the Nile. I am a beautiful woman. I gazed on the forest and burned out the Sahara Desert With a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothes I crossed it into I am a gazelle so swift, so swift you can't catch me For a birthday present when he was three, I gave my son Hannibal an elephant. He gave me Rome for Mother's Day. My strength flows ever on. My son Noah built new ark and I stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft summer day. I turned myself into myself and was Jesus Men intone my loving name. All praises, all praises, I am the one who would save. I sow diamonds in my backyard. My bowels deliver uranium. The filings from my fingernails are semi precious jewels. On a trip north I caught a cold and blew my nose giving oil to the Arab world. I am so hip even my errors are correct. I sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth. As I went, the hair from my head thinned and gold was laid across three continents. I am so perfect, so divine, so ethereal, so surreal. I cannot be comprehended, apprehended, except by my permission. I mean, I can fly like a bird in the sky.
- [41:53]
Glenn Washington
Rest in power. Nikki Giovanni. The original music for that piece was by Pat Mesiti Miller. Nikki Giovanni's poem Eagle Tripping was read by her own operations manager, Flo Wiley. When Snapchat returns. How do we sleep while the books are burning? Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. I'm Richard Washington, and I have saved you the very best seat in the house to tell you exactly what happened. Snap Judgment live.
- [42:49]
Richard Washington
Okay, so to understand this story, you have to know that I was itinerant. And this is really kind of another word for broke. But I was doing my thing. I was traveling around the world and being broke, lying on people's couches, you know, running from place to place. The one luxury I allowed myself, though, was books. I loved books. I got books on chimpanzees, got books on Thai cooking. I got a book in braille, I can see fine.
- [43:32]
Glenn Washington
I love books.
- [43:36]
Richard Washington
So I sent them all back home.
- [43:39]
Glenn Washington
And it was, it was too. They were like letters.
- [43:43]
Richard Washington
Letters to an older me, an older Glenn, that was going to be able to kick back someday, chill in his den, his den, just like Brady Bunch.
- [43:55]
Glenn Washington
Kick back and read those. Those books.
- [43:57]
Richard Washington
It was going to be great. And one day, I was minding my own business. I was in Japan and I was eating an apple, and I got a phone call from my mother who never calls me, wasting up her long distance. She called me, said, glenn, how you doing, mama? Glenn. Me and the ladies here, me and the church ladies, we got to divining, divining. And I hear this shouting and hollering in the background. Divining. We got to divining, see. Turns out Satan was up in my house. That's a shame, mama. That's a shame.
- [44:40]
Glenn Washington
Why?
- [44:40]
Richard Washington
Was Satan up in your house? Yes, Satan was up in my house, up in my cabinets, walking on my clean floor. Uh huh. And we went downstairs. We could sense his presence. I bet you could. I chased him down there. I wanted to know where he was coming from, son. I want to know where he was coming from. Went right downstairs in the basement. And the ladies were with me. And they agreed. They could feel it too. They could feel the evil power. They could feel it. And, son, he was coming right from your pile of books, mama. Right from your pile of Books, son. And I looked there, and right on top, right on top was Satanic verses. Mother, Satanic verses is not what you think it is. See, there is this dude, Salman Rushdie, and they got a. I know Satanic verses when I see him, son. I know what a Satanic verse is. How you gonna bring the verses of Satan up in my house? Mama, you really gotta calm down. That book is going in the fire along with all the rest of them. Mama, Mama, leave my books alone. Hey, you can take Satanic verse. I don't even like that book. But just leave everything else alone. Uh, it's all got the same taint. It's all going in the same fire. Hot. Mama. Mama, Mother. Mother, leave my books alone. I just thought I'd let you know. Mother, mom, leave my books alone. I just thought I would let you know, son. Goodbye. Mama. Mama. Click. I called her back. I called her back. I called her back. I called her back a dozen, 30, 40 times.
- [46:37]
Glenn Washington
No pickup. No, she didn't.
- [46:39]
Richard Washington
No, she didn't. No, she did not. I called her back the next day. From morning till night, I called her back the next day, I called her back. I kept calling her back. Mama, no, Mama, no. Mama, no. Mama, no. Finally. Finally, on day number three, she called me. How you doing, son?
- [47:02]
Glenn Washington
I was so angry.
- [47:05]
Flo Wiley
I was so angry.
- [47:06]
Richard Washington
Did she do it? Did she do it? Did she burn up my books? My treasures, my letters to an older me? No way, no way, no way. How am I doing? I was about to ask her, mama.
- [47:21]
Glenn Washington
Did you really do it?
- [47:22]
Richard Washington
And then I thought.
- [47:27]
Glenn Washington
Why ask questions.
- [47:29]
Richard Washington
You already know the answer to?
- [47:32]
Glenn Washington
How am I doing? I'm fine, Mama. How are you?
- [48:00]
Richard Washington
Snap judgment. Have I introduced it to Mr. Alex? Man down. David Brant on the sticks. Temper, temper, temper.
- [48:35]
Glenn Washington
Dj. Which one? Which one? Now, if you missed even a moment, know that an entire world of Snap storytelling awaits. In fact, in partnership with Oscar award winning actress Lupita Nyong'o, SNAP created a brand new series called Mind you'd own. Amazing stories from the African Diaspora. Distributed by Limonada Media and on podcast platforms everywhere. Right now, kqd, the SNAP San Francisco Orbiting hall of Justice. SNAP is brought to you by the team that truly has a way with words. Except of course, for the uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristage. But not to worry him. Talk pretty someday. Now there's Nancy Lopez, Pat Mercede Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goriot, John Facil, Shayna Shealy, Tail Ducat, Flo Wylie, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exime, and lagina medico. And this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you teach the kids at the local dojo by having them wax on and wax off your car, have them pick up, throw away the trash, have them dig up, pat down a new ditch for your storm sewer. And when the nice officers escort you downtown to talk with the National Labor Relationship Board, well, you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is prx.