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- [00:00]
Sponsor Representative
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- [02:10]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. So this week we're going to bring you two stories from our Story Slam series. As you probably know, our Story Slams are our open mic storytelling competitions now in seven cities across the country. We're going to take you to Louisville, Kentucky for our first story from Randy Skaggs. The theme of the night was on the road.
- [02:37]
Randy Skaggs
The trip from Upton to Lexington is only about four hours round trip, two hours each way. But for me, this road trip was epic. I was eight and we were going to go see my dad. Now I'm not particularly close with my father. He Was and is a very violent, abusive tyrant. But I couldn't help but be a little bit excited. I mean, a month previous, my dad had left home to go to college. Now, my dad started college way back in the 60s when my parents got married. But he had to give it up to support the ever growing family. And now he was going to make this change. You know, he was. We were going to be a better man, go back to school. I was loving it. Well, we stopped about a half an hour into the trip to pick up my mom's friend and her daughter. They were compatriots because her dad was also going back to school. Her name was Gwendolyn. Not Gwen. Not Gwenny. Gwendolyn. Like dangerous and exotic goddess, as she befit her name. She was only a year older, but she had high cheekbones, full lips, self confidence. She might as well have been a teenager. The minute she hit the vinyl of that seat, she launched into a monologue about her amazing life. You know, she took jazz dance classes. I took ballet. She had this amazing Cabbage Patch doll collection. I just had one. And her parents got her real, real diamond earrings for her birthday. She was everything I wanted to be. I was pudgy and nerdy. I definitely wasn't beautiful, certainly wasn't rich. And there was no point in my life where I held high status. My own little sister beat me up, for God's sake. We stopped at a pizza place and she blotted the only slice of pizza that she ate. I stopped after two, despite the fact that my mother gave me a really weird look and said, aren't you going to be hungry in an hour? Then she told me about her new favorite movie. Scarface. Yeah, it sounded intriguing. I thought it might be about some guy who was in a horrible accident. And the woman who saw past all that, his heart. She said, no, God, no. It's about this guy. His name is Scarface. And I said, is he cute? She said, you're not getting the point. He's a criminal. He's a bad man. He shoots people. He sells drugs. And I said, you like a movie about a criminal? And she said, you know, not everything's about fluffy pink unicorns. That really hurt. But I have to say, her cool factor just went through the roof. And she was just a total badass. And I just wanted to do anything to be like this girl. She kind of ignored me after that, listening to her Walkman Prince, of course. I blew some steam on the window and drew some hearts. And then quickly realizing my mistake wiped out the hearts and drew some knives. We arrived at the college sort of stiff and quiet. Our mom seemed kind of nervous. Gwendolyn seemed bored. And we had to wait in this long line and these guards had to look through my Michael Jackson purse before they let me in. We were led to this large room with a high ceiling and peach carpet. And people were sitting around rectangular tables smoking and drinking coffee. My dad came out and I started to cry. I didn't really understand the rush of emotion. Having him out of the house was frustrating, frankly a relief. But something in the way he looked at me made me really sad. And then my mom and dad were hugging and she was sobbing and I looked around and pretty much everybody was crying, which was weird. And then I saw Gwendolyn, and of course she wasn't crying. She was in this glass enclosed playroom flipping through a Highlights magazine. And she barely acknowledged me as I walked up. And I said, aren't you going to go say hi to your dad? No, she said, I hate him. Don't you hate yours? I thought about it. I wasn't sure. I told her, I guess I'm proud of him for going back to college. And then she gave me the weirdest look and she said, God, you really believe that, don't you? I felt a crack form in the veneer of my reality. And I said, what? And she said, randy, our dads are not in college. Our dads are in jail. And she just left the room, left me all alone. And out of the blue, I just peed my pants. True story. My mom walks in, horrified, angry, and I just didn't have the heart to ask her, is this true? You know, I don't think I was really ready to know. And then I'm cleaning up in the bathroom and I start thinking I'm like, my dad's college is encased in barbed wire. He's not allowed to visit us, not even on the weekend, and his fellow classmates are all middle aged men, often with tattoos. I knew it was true. I was quiet on the car ride back. Gwendolyn was going on about all the boys that wanted to go with her. And just dawned on me. She's just a hardened kid. You know, she's just growing up way too fast now. I grew up a lot that day too. I started to realize most of what my mom said wasn't true. Much of what my dad did wasn't legal. But I wasn't ready to go down that road. Not just yet. So I blew some more steam on the window and drew two Hearts entwined. Thank you.
- [08:34]
Dan Kennedy
Randy Skaggs is a sixth grade language arts teacher at a public school in Kentucky. She is the writer of plays, monologues, and a parenting blog called Bluegrass Baby Mama. And that's Mama with an O, not an A. She lives in Louisville with her husband and her daughter Stella. The next story you're about to hear by John Croteau was told live at our Los Angeles story, Slam. The theme of the night was witness.
- [09:02]
John Croteau
When I was 22 years old, I moved to Manhattan without a job or a place to stay. And so I spent most of my time at the 24 Hour Internet Cafe on 42nd Street. You can go back about 10 years ago. It was before the ubiquity of cell phones and not everyone had a computer and things like that. And so I spent my days looking for a job, sending out emails, searching websites, and I got a lead one day I got an email back with this recruiter saying, give me a call later on today and we can have a conversation. So I went to get his phone number and write it down. I realized that I didn't have a pen with me. I looked around. This place was essentially like a homeless shelter because it was unmanned on 42nd Street. It's since closed or burned to the ground. And so I started to panic because I needed to remember this number. So. So I said it over in my head a couple times and ran out into the street to find a pen. And I went to a newsstand. They didn't sell any pens. I'm looking around, there's no one who has a pen. So I stumbled through the crowd in Times Square to the CVS that's there. And on my way in, I see that the lines at the counter, the register are like eight and nine people deep. It's just there's so many tourists. And I head over to the pens, I see my $1 bicycle and I think, like, do I really want to grab this pen and wait in that long line and risk forgetting the number? Like, it's just a dollar. So I reach and do this thing that I think is really cool because I'm 22 and I like flip the pen up into my coat and like, walk out like this. I'm just going to steal this pen. And I get to the door and the security guard there steps in front of me and he is thrilled. I mean, he has me. I was like, what have you got up in your sleeve there? And this is the first time I'd ever been a criminal. So I don't know what you're supposed to do. I gave it up right away. I was like, I stole a pen. But, like, let me give you a dollar. I'll give you $2, or I'll give you $5 and the store, $1. He said, no, no, no. And he said, you're mine. He's thrilled that he's got me. And he says, first of all, want to see how I caught you? I'm like, okay. I'm playing along, just hoping he'll make this easy. So he pulls me behind his podium, and he's like, see here, There's a lot of great technology here. You know, I can. I have a joystick here. I can control the camera. See, that's me. I can zoom in on the pens. That's how I got you. And it's pretty thrilling. So you were caught. I was like, okay. I said, can I just go now? He said, oh, no, no, no. I have to process you. So I go with him back into this security lounge. You can imagine how terrible the security lounge at the CVS in Times Square is. And he sits me down. He says, now there's a process. I have to take three Polaroid photos of you holding up the item you stole. One is going to go in my personal folder. The other is going to go in the store folder. One is going to get sent to CVS Corporate, where it will be photocopied into a manual that is put at the front desk of every CVS in the country so that each security guard across the United States can recognize my face and not let me in. He starts taking photographs. I'm holding the pen. The first one, we're waiting for it to develop, comes out blurry. Second one's kind of blurry. Third one comes out. Fourth one, he's out of film. So he goes out, he says, hold on one second. Goes out onto the floor of the cvs, grabs a pack of Polaroid film, which clearly is way more expensive than the pen would have been. And while he's gone, a janitor comes up to get his broom, and he's just going, your parents must be really proud of you. How much did they spend on your college education? Really proud. I'm humiliated. He takes the rest of the pictures, and he says, the final step here is that you need to sign an affidavit. It's like an order that says, I will never get within 30ft of a CVS for the rest of my life. That's no joke. He pulls the form out. He pushes the restraining order across to me and says, you have to sign it right here. It says, you agree? I was not trying to be funny. I was like, I don't have a pen. So he opens up the package of the pen I'd stolen and recently gotten my picture taken with. He slides it across the table. I fill up the form and just casually, like anyone would do, just put it in my pocket. He asked me if I learned my lesson. I swear war I had. And I walked out of that CVS with the pen.
- [13:34]
Dan Kennedy
Jon Cotault loves New York, lives in LA and is on the production staff of Conan. His recorded jingles and podcast theme songs can be heard@johncrouteau.com so check him out. The Moth is a nonprofit organization, so consider supporting our free podcast by going to our podcast content contribution page or by becoming a Moth member and you can do that@themost.org Our podcast host, Dan.
- [14:01]
Sponsor Representative
Kennedy is the author of the book Rock on An Office Power Ballad. Learn more@rockonthebook.com thanks to all of you.
- [14:09]
Dan Kennedy
For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange helping make public radio more public@prx.org.