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The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Bible Salesmen, Ghosts and Strippers
00:53:15
A young woman in Southern California describes her unconventional upbringing with a very free-spirited mother, a door-to-door bible salesman-circa 1953-shares sales tactics, an actor from the golden age of Hollywood reaches out from beyond the grave,
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- [00:00]
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- [01:20]
Jennifer Hixson
From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hixson, part of the creative team at the Moth, and I'll be your host this time. The Moth is true, personal stories told from the heart, without notes, in front of a live audience. This hour we have four stories for you. We'll hear about a Bible salesman circa 1953, an actor from the golden age of Hollywood who reaches out from beyond the grave, a little boy who gets through a serious illness by pretending he's a superhero, and this first story about an unconventional upbringing in Southern California. The story is in no way graphic, but does contain some adult themes. So here's April Salazar live at the mall.
- [02:08]
April Salazar
It started as a typical Saturday night. My mom and my stepfather were out while my stepfather played a cocktail piano gig. This was becoming really common on Friday Saturday nights, and my brother and I really loved it because it meant that we got to stay up late and watch as much television as we wanted to. If we were really lucky, we'd get to watch Saturday Night Live. My mom and my stepfather returned a few hours later. My stepfather returned his electric piano to the stand in the dining room. My mom flipped off the television, which was okay, because at that point Showtime at the Apollo was on and she sat on the couch and made a patting gesture next to her. She called me and my brother over and I could tell by the look on her face that she had something serious to say we sat next to her, and she looked at us and she said, I bet you've been wondering where I've been going all of these nights. And I hadn't, because, duh, she was with my stepfather on these piano gigs. My stepfather was a tenured professor. He was a scientist, and he liked to earn extra money playing piano. Just the Thanksgiving before, he had dragged us to the yoga center in Manhattan just in exchange for a vegetarian meal. So I said, not really, Mom. But she continued, well, I've been working as a stripper at private parties. Your stepfather's my escort. And just so you're comfortable with what I'm doing, I'm going to do my routine for you. So my mom stands up and she smooths the front of her dress, and she nods at my stepfather, which is a cue. I look over at him and I see that he's crouched over a boombox. And he hits play. And the sound of a screeching saxophone fills our living room. I instantly recognized this song because just a few months before, my stepfather was obsessed with hunting it down. It was a song from the Lenny soundtrack called Lament, and he had dragged us to Colony Records in Times Square so that we could dig through records and 45s and even sheet music because we couldn't find it on vinyl. And now I understood why he was so obsessed with finding this one song. My mom walked over to the 4x6 brown shag rug and she started her routine. She started to slowly remove her clothes, but she had no rhythm. So as she was doing our routine, she was basically just walking back and forth between our big console television and the rocking chair in the corner. The entire time, my brother was staring at the bookshelf behind her. Eventually, she removed the dress, and she was wearing nothing but her black bikini. And I recognized it because it was my mom's bikini. It was what she wore whenever she was in the backyard with a shovel picking up dog poop. Only now she was stripping out of it. My brother looked down and I thought, oh, God, Mom's being embarrassing again. It wasn't that shocking. My brother and I were used to seeing our mom naked. She was the kind of woman who left the door open when she used the bathroom. But she was also a nudist. We had even been members at a family nudist camp called the Treehouse Fun Ranch. It's where she had met my stepfather. The Treehouse was kind of like a country club. It had swimming pools and tennis courts. The only difference is that its members were working class. And stark naked. It was also done up in a Wild west theme. For some reason, this was all totally normal to me. In fact, when I first visited the tree house, I didn't notice the naked people so much as I noticed the Olympic sized swimming pool and the Western saloon. I was really excited about that. There just wasn't a time that I wasn't naked when I was little. And my mom never ever made me feel ashamed of that. I think that that was in direct defiance of her strict Catholic upbringing. She had even made me the flower girl. A nude flower girl at her nude wedding to my stepfather. That one was an intimate affair. It took place in our living room and it was broadcast on Manhattan public access television. It was all fine and good until I hit puberty. And then I started to feel self conscious. I felt self conscious about being nude myself and I started to feel self conscious about having a nudist family. My mom, though her feelings were unwavering, she still was very, very comfortable being naked all the time. And she also realized that with just a high school education, she could earn a lot of money by working as a stripper. But she wanted me to have the educational opportunities that she hadn't. So she enrolled me in private school. I was a super super, super nerd. So I loved private school. I got to take Latin and philosophy and a lot of other classes that I knew I would never ever be able to take in public school. At the same time, I was so afraid that the other kids in my school would find out about my weird family and that I would be ostracized. So if anyone ever asked me what my mom did for a living, I would say that she was an actress. And if I was really pushing it, I would say that she was a dancer. This was working really well for me. And you know, you're dealt with the cards that you have. And as much as I wanted a normal mom, I so wanted a normal mom. I wanted the kind of mom who joined the PTA and who spent hours sewing Halloween costumes for me. But I felt like I could live two lives. I felt like I could cover it up at school and then just kind of like ignore things at home. And of course I started to rebel. Just as my mom had rebelled before me. I started to wear turtlenecks and high waisted pants. So I was living my double life. And I think I was doing well with that until the eighth grade when my mom decided that she, she was going to throw a Halloween party and invite my entire classroom. This was really bad because it meant that they were going to be in our house. And it meant that these little things that we took for granted might give us away. Things like my mom's costume rack, which was filled with various uniforms, but also feather boas and a leather whip. And my mom totally got this. So before the party, she and I went through the house and we hid everything away. We hid that costume rack and we hid all of her promotional materials, like her pens and her mugs and her T shirts, which were printed with her stripper name, which was Amber Graham. We also closed the curtain on the pot plants that were growing in the window. That's not necessarily nudist, but in my mind it's kind of connected. And then when we were done with all of that, she let me choose a costume from her costume rack. I got to choose between nurse and police officer, and gypsy and French maid. I was pretty happy about that. It wasn't the same as my mom sewing a costume for me, but it was pretty close. Once we were done with that, we decorated the house with black and orange crepe paper. And my mom went so over the top that she asked my stepfather to bring dry ice home from his lab. And she placed in a black cauldron on our porch. And I kind of felt like we were a normal family. My classmates started to arrive and I was starting to feel really great because you could tell that it was going to be a successful party. They were munching on English muffin pizzas that my mom was bringing out, just like one of those PTA moms. And I was getting a lot of compliments on my costume, which was sexy cop, by the way. I had the hat, I had a shield. I had way too much room in the top, but no one seemed to notice that. And I was wearing a badge that said Amber. And just as I was starting to feel great about how the party was going, one of my classmates pointed to the top of a bookshelf and he said, what is that? And I looked and my heart sank because I realized that we had overlooked one thing. It was a three tiered gold trophy with an angel on top. Naked angel, her arms outstretched. And there was a nameplate with my mom's name printed with her title. I knew there was no hiding it. I said, that's my mom's, of course. By this point, my entire class had gathered and formed a semicircle around us. My classmate looked at the nameplate on the trophy and he squinted at first, and then his eyes got big and he turned to me. And he said, your mom's Miss Nude International. And the room grew quiet and I knew it was over. And I knew that I would never ever be able to show my face at school again. And then finally he broke the silence and he said, you, mom's cool. And everyone chimed in behind him, yeah, she's cool. I didn't think my mom was cool, but it was definitely the first time that I thought that maybe she wasn't as embarrassing as I thought she was. My stepfather told me a few years ago that he and my mom had really debated whether she should do a striptease for me and my brother in our living room. He thought it was a terrible idea, but my mom was really insistent. She said that she wanted us to feel comfortable with what she was doing. And she was right. I never had any question about it. I thought that my mom could show her love for me by decorating our house in crepe paper and making English muffin pizzas. But I realized that she could show her love for me in other ways too. And she did. Thanks to her, I got a damn good education and she paid for that one bachelor party at a time. She also showed me a whole world beyond the tiny one that she had grown up in. And she taught me that clothes are kind of meaningless. You can strip all of that away and what you're left with is heart. Thank you.
- [14:10]
Jennifer Hixson
That was April Salazar. April works at an educational nonprofit and writes and tells stories whenever possible. When I asked if she ever revisits her nudist past, she laughed and said, these days I'm only naked in the shower. To see a picture of April with her family fully clothed, Visit our website themoth.org In a moment, we'll be back with a story from the 1950s about a young man's stint as a door to door Bible salesman.
- [15:17]
Vincent Patrick
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by prx.
- [15:26]
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- [15:28]
April Salazar
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- [15:43]
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- [15:46]
April Salazar
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- [15:52]
Jennifer Hixson
This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Jennifer Hickson. Our next story was recorded in the moth's early days, 1999. Back then, our recording equipment wasn't always the best. But we still think it sounds pretty good. The story was recorded in a place called Lansky's Lounge. An old speakeasy attached by a secret alley to a famous car kosher restaurant. The storyteller is also old school New York. As you'll hear in a moment. The theme of the evening. Who do you think you are? Here's Vincent Patrick live at the mosque.
- [16:27]
Tim Manley
I'm going back 45 years, so I'll set the stage a little bit. It'll be 1953, it's New York. The subway fare has just jumped from 10 cents to 15 cents for the first time in a long time. The double decker buses have just. The last one's gone from fifth Avenue, that's disappeared. I'm in the Bronx. Beers at the time are 15 cents a glass. In the neighborhood blue collar bars, every fourth beer is a buyback free. So for a buck you can leave a quarter tip and do very well. And I find myself in the Bronx 18 and a half. And I'm about six months away from getting married. And I've dropped out of high school at the end of the third year so things aren't too promising. And I find myself working at night setting up pins in a bowling alley at West Farms. It's called. This is pre automatic pin spotter days where each guy takes two alleys. You get paid 10 cents a line. It's 10 frames. Usually you get tipped around the Nicola line. So if you do 100 lines, which is a lot of bending, it's 15 bucks. Number of the people bowling. The younger macho guys try to catch you with the ball when you're not watching and you're bending down so you doing that. And it tends to draw a crowd of irregular types. A lot of people carry a small flask in their pocket. I end up next to some guy who a little older than I was, but kind of articulate. And while you're doing the two alleys you actually keep conversations going and get to know one another a little bit. And he speaks rather intelligently and I'm wondering a few times, you know, what's he doing here. And I sort of want to ask, but I don't. You don't have a lot of time. Anyway, finally we stop one night and to buy each other a couple of beers. On about the second beer he says to me, you know, what are you doing here setting pins in this alley? Just what I had wanted to ask him. I tell him, well, I'm sort of trying to figure things things out, you Know, and find something I can do with three years of high school under my belt. He said, well, you know, I've noticed. He said, you went through Catholic schools. I said, yeah. He said, well, you know, between that and you seem to be able to talk all right. He said, I could direct you somewhere where you really can do an awful lot better. I said, what? He said, it's door to door selling, which still happened in those days. You could actually walk through apartment buildings, knock on doors, people would open the door, and if you were selling something, they'd invite you in, you sit down, you purchase things, etc. The money could be very good. So I said, well, what is it? He said, well, he said, I just left about six months I've been selling Bibles door to door. Catholic Bibles. He said, it's a sort of specialty way to pitch them, but a lot of money. So I said, what's a lot of money on a good week? 100 and a quarter, $140. Well, compared to 15 bucks a night in the bowling alley, I mean, this looks awfully attractive. And then it occurs to me, why. Why are you in the bowling alley now? And, you know, he said, I did fine for a while, he said, and then I. I became a negative thinker, all right? I don't ask much more. The next day, I put on a tie. I go up to Gun Hill Road in the Bronx, and there's a storefront with the windows. Bon Amide, it was called. You used to put Bon Ami on them so you couldn't see in. And there I go in and meet the local borough manager, Jack Kelly, who's in his 30s, I guess, blond hair, intense blue eyes, and an absolutely very striking kind of guy. And it's a kind of skinny Elme Gantry type that Burt Lancaster played in the movies. He asked what I've been doing. I tell him, I've been setting up pins in this bowling alley who sent me. I tell him, I don't recall the guy's name now, even. And he said, oh, yeah. He said, God, he was a good salesman. He said, you know. And fortunately, he became a negative thinker after all. Right, still making a note on this. And I learn about this quick Bible thing. This is a very elaborate Bible. It's about that thick. It's all gold on the edges, leather embossed. The back has a beautiful place where you can write your family history. This is all in the Bronx, mind you, where you put your great, great, great grandfather, et cetera, marriages and what have you and this thing sells for $29.95, which is about what most people are earning a week. I mean, rent. I was paying $35 a month rent. And this Bible is $29.95, but you could buy it for a dollar a week. You needed a down payment of about $7, and that became your commission. The 7. Then it turns out that whoever your immediate manager was got a dollar and a half override. And then the borough guy got a dollar and a half override. The New York State guy got a dollar and a half override. There were finally five regional managers, each one getting a buck and a half on every Bible sold here. And finally, at Gastonia, North Carolina, where the Bible was produced, there was $3 got in there to pay for this thing, and they could do it for it. So it was sort of commission. He And I'm bound and determined to give this a try because it sure looks like a lot better than what I've been doing. And Kelly teaches me that. This is done with what's called a canned pitch, meaning no improvising. You went home and learned word for word, a pitch. And you learned how to time certain hit points by opening to just the right double page. Bread in glorious color. The Crucifixion got hit at this point. And all of this you went through. You went in a building and you looked. The last thing you did before you began moving through a building was to check yourself in the mirror. And even more important than checking the mirror, the last thing, as he told me a number of times, check that your fly is closed because it's like, it's disastrous to go in these Catholic homes with an open fly. And the way it generally worked was one guy started at the top, these were all walk ups, one at the bottom, and you worked your way. And eventually you would get into an apartment where the other fellow perhaps already was, and at which point you would help him out. I, the first few days, very briefly ran into a guy, opened the door. I rang the door, opened the door. This was on my fourth or fifth call. And there's Joe Six Pack. I mean, a really heavy set guy with a little undershirt and he's got a can of beer in his hand. He doesn't even wait for me to say, we've been asked to call on the Catholic families, which is how you opened it. We've been asked to call on the Catholic family. And if you don't say who's asked, if somebody asked you, do you get paid for. Sometimes people Become suspicious and say, you know, are you getting paid for this? And you'd say, there's a small stipend that we each get to keep going. So the whole thing is a kind of legal scam. You're walking this line. This guy opens the door and doesn't. I mean, he doesn't even ask what I want. He says, yeah, come on in. You know, have a beer. Turns out he drives a potato truck from Montoy out in the island. They were still growing a lot of potatoes in Long Island. He drove a potato truck back and forth. He had a Japanese wife he had brought back from Japan after the war. He liked his beer. And we began talking about the Yankees or something. And eventually he said to me, oh, what? He said, what are you. What's in the briefcase? I said, it's nothing. No, he said, you must have something there. I said, please forget. I want to know what's in the briefcase. You know, it's a Bible. It's 29.95 for this thing. Only three bucks gets down to Gastonia, North Carolina. You're really not interested?
- [25:16]
Craig Chester
No.
- [25:17]
Tim Manley
If you're selling it, I'm interested. This is beautiful, this thing. I realized when I left there, and he bought the Bible and I took the seven bucks, but I realized when I left that, you know, this. This maybe wasn't going to work too well. I was off getting off in the wrong direction. And a day or two later, went into the building, started at the bottom. Kelly. I'm working with Kelly this day. Start at the top, and I go into a house in which I'm pitching a woman, Latino lady at that point, almost certainly Puerto Rican, in the Bronx. And she loves the Bible. She has a little daughter in school. But I'm getting right toward the end, knock on the door. It's Kelly. He comes in, and now he's going to assist me. And he just watches to kind of encourage and nod. And at the end, I take the pad, having demonstrated the Bible. And now what you want to do is get a signature. And the way you get the signature is the pad has six carbons, and you have a ballpoint pen, and you say there are six carbons. Please press hard because. And people press hard to see if they can get the six carbon. And then outside, you throw away four carbons. Because the only reason they're there is so people will concentrate on pressing hard and not on the fact that there's $29.95 that's on this thing. I push my little thing across, and she Loves the Bible. She'd love to have it. She thinks it's all for a good cause, but she doesn't have the down payment. So I'm stumped. I'm new at this. But Kelly immediately says, well, we've got time. As important as our work is, perhaps you can just run next door. Surely one of your neighbors has $7. And she says that she doesn't borrow from the neighbors. I meant it. And he suggested the corner grocer. There must be a corner grocer downstairs you can borrow from. She didn't. And her back is getting up a bit here. Perhaps she could do that. She couldn't. And finally he smiles and says to me, this reminds me of just what happened to us last week. I don't know what happened to us last week. The woman who wanted the Bible just as she does and finally remembered the piggy bank. Do you have a piggy bank in the house? She said, well, if she gets caught off guard, I have a piggy bank, but it's not my piggy bank, it's my daughter's piggy bank. He said, we can get the money out of the piggy bank without breaking the piggy bank. So if you bring the piggy bank out, it must be $7 in this bank. The bank comes out and it's a clear glass bank, but you can see the money in there. I hold the bank while he's got knives in this thing, trying to coax out quarters. And now he's getting cranky at me because he claims I'm not holding the bank steady enough and at one point gets impatient enough to tell me, that's not a goddamn bowling pin, it's a bank. You know, Try to hold this thing. I try to hold it and nothing's coming out. Or a few quarters came out. And suddenly the front door opens and from school arrives the seven year old girl. She says, it's my piggy bank, you know. He puts the bank down. Come here, little girl. You know, where do you go to school? Saint Cecilia of something. Show her the Bible. You know, show her the Bible. And she's nodding at the Bible. Isn't it beautiful? It's beautiful. Would you like to help Mommy buy the Bible? Bible. She wanted to help mom buy the Bible. At which the. The minute this word comes out of her mouth, there's this smash, crunch. He's cracked this bank. The minute he gets an okay, the bank is cracked. And then sort of sits back and said his words exactly were, you know, to the woman, be careful Please, he said, you know, several Catholic housewives have cut their fingers on the glass with these banks. So this was something he had done before. At any rate, we got our seven bucks and we went outside. And I would love to say that, you know, I stood on the sidewalk and quit, but I didn't. And I guess about a week or two weeks later, finally, although I was doing fairly well, I became a negative thinker. Decided not exactly. I didn't know yet who I was, but I kind of knew who I was. Not at the moment.
- [29:53]
Jennifer Hixson
That was Vincent Patrick. He's a writer and wrote both the novel and the screenplay for the cult classic the Pope of Greenwich Village. In his story, Mr. Patrick mentioned that he was about to get married in six months. Well, he did. And he and his wife have been together for six decades now. Next up, what should you do when not one but two psychics tell you that someone specific from the other side is trying to reach you? That story when we come back.
- [30:23]
Vincent Patrick
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX.
- [30:33]
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- [31:10]
Jennifer Hixson
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hickson from the Moth. This next story is from Craig Chester. It's pretty crazy and there's no way to prove it, but I worked with Craig on the story and can say without reservation it's true to him. Live at the Moth. Here's Craig Chester.
- [31:30]
G
Hi. A few years ago I made directed my first movie, sort of a big gay, goofy romantic comedy with like line dancing and all this crazy stuff, very R rated humor. And Hollywood saw my movie and thought maybe they could bring me out there and I could make big dumb, goofy, R rated Hollywood movies. Movies. So I'd been an actor to this point. I'd never made any money and I thought, well, maybe I'll go out there. But I didn't know what to do. So a friend of mine suggested I go see a psychic on the brief side named Reverend Catherine. So I'd never been to a psychic before, but I thought you know, what the hell? So I'm sitting across from her and I'm going on about my career and my life, and the whole time I'm talking to her, she's looking over my shoulder at something that's not there. And finally she speaks and she says, none of what you're talking about is important. There's a spirit of a dead gay actor around you, and your next movie is going to be about this man. Who could this be? So, you know, I start throwing out some names. I'm like, is it Anthony Perkins? She's like, no. He's saying, I'm not Anthony Perkins. Is it Rock Hudson? And she's like, no, he doesn't like Rock Hudson. Is it Montgomery Clift? And she's like, oh, he's jumping up and down and saying, that's me. That's me on Montgomery clift. So for 45 minutes, Catherine uses herself as like a magical human iPhone to receive text from beyond. And Monty starts talking to Mile A Minute. He's saying, you're having this life you couldn't have because you're an openly gay man and he was a closet case of in the 50s, and you're going to write this movie about him. He's going to get you into this house that he died in, the Upper east side. And this is so exciting. He's been waiting this long time for this reunion. And, you know, I didn't really get any of the answers, any of my questions answered, but I left there and I kind of blew it off. So I got to la, where my big gay romantic comedy premieres, and I go to this restaurant and I'm sitting with, like, you know, a bunch of people, and there's this woman, Jose, sitting at the table, and she's very sweet. She's a very suburban type of mom type person. And while we're talking, somehow or another people are talking about famous Hollywood closet cases. And Montgomery Cliff's name came up. And when his name came up, this woman, Jose leans away like she's listening to something. She turns back to the table and she goes, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt all you guys. Craig, this Montgomery Cliff guy is at attached at your hip, and he's saying, hold on, hold on, hold on. He's talking a mile a minute. He's saying that you're having this life he couldn't have because of the time he lived in and he was gay and you're gay and something about a screenplay you're going to write for him, and he's going to get you into this house that he died in. Now, this woman, Jose, happens to be a psychic, and she tells me everything that the woman in New York told me, verbatim, word for word. Joanne is sort of like this. She's sort of the opposite of Catherine, the New York psychic. She doesn't charge. She just, you know, talks to dead people. She's been this way since she was 5. And she's sort of like a psychic Carol Brady, you know. So, you know, I go home, I'm kind of shaken, and I'm trying to find a logical explanation. They don't know each other at all. And the next day, Jose calls me at home and she's like, hi, Craig. So listen, I was taking a bath and Montgomery Clift is here and he wants to get started on his screenplay. Now I'm in LA and I'm taking. You know, I'm like, well, you know, I'm very flattered that Monty would pick me first time, you know, but I was very busy. I had a really important pitch the next day at a studio for a female mad wrestling comedy. And I was up for Revenge of the Nerds remake. And also I was like, you know, wouldn't it be more sensible for Monty to pick like an A list writer, you know, like Paul Haggis or someone? And while I'm talking to her, my landline dies. My landline. So I go outside to get a reception on my cell phone and I call her back. And while I'm talking to her, she goes, craig, are you outside? And I'm like, yeah. She's like, are you looking at a tree? And on one side of the tree the leaves are gone, and at the bottom there's like a bamboo fence, and to the right there's like a red looking barn house. And she described what I was looking at. Now, I was in a temporary housing situation. She didn't know where I was. I met her once and she said, monty's giving this to you as confirmation this is real and you need to pay attention. She's like, he's going to talk about his life. Do you have a pen? He's going to start talking, need to write this down. And I lied and said, yeah, I've got a pen, go ahead. And she takes a pause and she comes back to the phone. She's like, I'm sorry, Craig, Monty just told me that you're lying. So I get a pen, I start writing down what Montgomery Clift is telling me in the day. I'm Going on these dumb jobs to get these R rated comedies. And at night, Montgomery Clift is calling me, giving me lectures about, like, integrity in Hollywood. And out of the blue, like, you know, these people started appearing that Monty knew in my life. Jose was like, you know, Monty's saying, you've got to find some guy named Jack. Who's Jack? And I'm like, is it Jack Larson? He was Jimmy Olsen in the Superman TV show. And she's like, yes, yes, find Jack Larson. You know, I'm not a journalist. I don't know how to do this stuff. I go on peoplefinders.com, there's like 60 Jack Larsons in LA. I go to sleep. The next morning, I wake up on my cell phone. There's a voicemail from my friend Michael saying, hi, Craig, it's Michael. I'm in town. I'm having lunch with this guy Jack Larson today. He was Jimmy Olsen in the Superman TV show. I don't know if you know who he is. And within 24 hours of Monty telling me to find Jack, I'm speaking to Jack Larson. This is how it was the whole time. Things would happen, people would appear. I go back to New York, and right away I get invited to a cocktail party at 217 E. 61st St. Which is Montgomery Cliff's old brownstone, where I was told I would go from the very beginning. So with an hour's notice, I go over to. To the house and I walk in. I'm sort of in a daze. And it's frozen in 1966. It hasn't changed since Monty died. And I meet this guy Paul, who's lived there for decades and knows all the secrets of Monty's house. And he tells. And I see the room where he died. He died in his bedroom, famously, this famous story of his death. And he said, oh, actually, no, he died in the bathtub. But nobody knows this. It's not published anywhere. So I leave there, I call Jose and I say, she's like, what was the house like? You know, And I'm like, it's exactly like it was when he left it. It's Monty's wallpaper and Monty's tile. And she. She says, what's the significance of the bathtub? He's saying, there's something about a bathtub. And then she says, you know, Craig, Monty just told me that he's been trying to get you in here for 20 years. And I'm sort of. This doesn't quite sink in. But a week later, I get an Invitation from Paul, the guy who lives in Monty's house. And he. He says, listen, I know this may be a little morbid, but do you want to spend the night in Monty's bedroom? So the following Wednesday, I have a dinner party at Monty's house. My friends come over, and at midnight, they all leave, and I go up to Monty's bedroom, and I'm there. I've been led all this way. I'm in his bedroom, and I'm looking at the tub, and I'm thinking, oh, I've got to get into the tub. I mean, Monty would. I mean, he was a method actor, and he'd want to feel what it felt like to be him. So I go in the bathroom, I get in the tub, and I lay back. And I'm looking at this air vent, and it's this very sacred moment, you know, And I'm looking at this air vent, thinking that's the last thing he saw alive. And while I'm laying there, I'm thinking, you know, I remember what Jozanne said about 20 years ago. You know, he's been with you for 20 years. And then it hit me, like, my face. When I was 19, I had a massive reconstructive surgery to my face. I had a genetic disfigurement to my jaw and had a year's worth of operations to rebuild my face. Montgomery Clift had a terrible car accident at the peak of his fame. He was leaving Elizabeth Taylor's house, and he hit a telephone pole, and his face was demolished, and his jaw was wired shut for months, just like mine was. And I thought, this is why he wants me. Like, when you have an experience like that, you see the world. You really sort of see how people are because you have two different faces, but you see the world through the same set of eyes. And I felt like I understood him in a way that maybe nobody else would. And wouldn't we want the person to tell our story, be somebody who understands who we are? So I got out of the tub, and I was very aware that I could stand, that I could leave and I could be, in a way, Monty's happy ending. I could live past 45. I could have a great life. I could be out after this. After the bathtub, it kind of died down. Monty left me alone and went back to my real life. And I'm not any more spiritual than I was before this started, by the way. I mean, I'm still completely living in complete fear of everything. And so I go to la and I work in television, and it's great. And then a few months ago, Jose called me, and she's like, montgomery, Cliff's back. He's been waking me up the last two nights. And I'm like, you know, that's great. I'm really busy with my TV show. And she's like, he's saying, you've got to get to Elizabeth Taylor. Because there's something that Elizabeth Taylor knows that no one else knows, that he knows that she knows. So I blow it off. I finish my job. The day after I finish my job, my cousin Chandra calls me from Texas. Now, I talk to chandra once every 10 years. We have nothing in common. She lives in a small town in Texas. She's got eight kids, and she calls me out of the balloon. I'm like, thinking, who died? She says. I'm like, is everything okay? And she's like, well, this really scary thing happened here last night. I'm like, what? She's like, well, I woke up and there was a man in my bedroom, and I thought it was you. He looked a little bit like you. And he said he wanted me to tell you something. And I'm like, what? And she's like, he's kind of mumbling. And he said, my name is Clifton Montgomery, and you need to tell Craig to hurry. So, Elizabeth Taylor, if you're there, it's me, Montgomery Clift.
- [42:28]
Jennifer Hixson
That was Craig Chester. He's a writer living in Los Angeles. Liz Taylor died in 2011, and no, Craig never got to meet her to uncover the mystery. But he reports that, yes, Monty still visits him. To see a picture of Craig in Monty's old apartment, Visit our website, themoth.org to re listen to any of the stories you've heard on this hour, go to themoth.org where you can stream the stories for free or share the specific link with your friends and family. The stories are also available at the iTunes store. Our last story is by Tim Manley. The theme of the story slam, our open mic competition, was mothers. That night, he was the very first storyteller to be picked out of a hat. Here's Tim Manley live at the moth.
- [43:51]
Craig Chester
When I was six years old, I was tiny, and I was so sickly pale that I was the kind of white that's, like, so white that it's more like a light purple. I kind of looked like a frail albino oompa loompa. I was sick, and for months I'd had a fever, and I'd been coughing like a coal miner. I probably Looked like I. Or sounded like I was smoking, like two packs a day or something. But the problem was that we didn't have any money or health insurance to take me to the doctor. My parents had just gotten divorced. My mother moved into a little house. So I was just sick kid sitting there. But then my aunt says to my mom, all right, I'll give you the 70 bucks. Take him to Dr. Haltman. So we go to Dr. Hallman. Dr. Haltmann's a terrifying man. He has a face of stone and a voice like a dragon. But I, as a six year old, read a lot of stories that were fantasy stories. So I knew that scary things happen to the heroes, but if the hero was courageous, he would be okay. I also knew that heroes had sidekicks. So I was very excited to have my mother with me at the doctor. And we go to Dr. Hauban, and he breathes fire on me, and I knock it away with my shield. And he also runs some X rays and blood work and stuff. And he says to my mom, tim has complications of pneumonia and a collapsed lung. Yes. And my mother says, what are the complications? And Dr. Hammond says, we're not sure. So we would like to send him to the hospital. And so we go into the car, and I am fearless. And the reason that I'm fearless is because I'm with my mother. And I know that with my mother, we're in this together. And I know that we're in this together because she said it to us all the time. Because me and my older brothers, we shared a bedroom. My oldest brother on the top bunk, my middle brother on the lower bunk. And I'd be on a pullout mattress. And some nights our mother would lay a blanket next to that, and she'd come and hang out with us, and she'd be like, tell me embarrassing stories about your father's new wife. And we would be like. And we would be like, oh, she's got the most absurd laugh in the world. It sounds like there's a cartoon ambulance in her throat. And it was true. It was completely absurd. And our mother would say, oh, you guys are so sweet. Please don't tell anyone I ever asked you to do that. And so then. And then our mother would. I swear, our mother would say, but, you know, because things were tough for us, we just left our father. And she would say, but don't worry, you guys, we're all in this together. So whatever happens, don't worry, we're all in this together. So going to the hospital, I'm like, I'm fearless. We're all in this together. And then we get to the hospital, and I have my own room, like a king. And I look around the room, and there's all these tubes and things everywhere. And suddenly I'm like, okay. Actually, mom, there's one thing I'm scared about. It's these. I don't want them to put any tubes in me. And my mom says, don't worry. They won't put any tubes in you. And then the nurse comes in, and she says, okay, Tim, it's time for your first shot. And I say, ma, that sounds like a small metal tube. And my mom says, what if I give you a dollar every time they give you a shot? And I say, okay, yeah, a dollar. That's fine, because I'm a hero. But I'm also a shrewd businessman. And so they run some tests, and me and my mom have a ton of fun in the hospital. We play hangman, and I beat her in every single game. We also play a game called shoot the rabbits on the wallpaper with a water gun, which I invented. Child genius. And in between all these fun games, me and my mom are doing, they're running a bunch of tests on us. And at some point, the doctors come in and they say, okay, we've run some tests, and we found a mass in Tim's lung. And my mother says, what is the mass? And I think they finally found the source of my superpowers. And the doctors say, we're not sure. That's why we'd like to send him to Schneider's Children's Hospital. They spe specialize in diseases that happen to children. My mom says, what diseases that happen to children might you think that Tim might have? And I think the ability to fly. And they say, leukemia. So we get in the car, and we drive over to Schneider's Children's Hospital. And we get there, and my mom says, look, the whole first floor is this whole playroom for kids. It's just kids here. And I see that there's a kid in a wheelchair, and her. Her feet are curled inward, and she has a scarf on her head. And I look to my mom and I say, mom, why does that girl look like that? And my mother doesn't answer me, and we go upstairs, and again, I have my own room, but for some reason, it feels more like a cell and less like a king's chamber this time. And the doctors come in, and they say, we would like to biopsy the mass in Tim's Lung. And I don't know what a biopsy is, but I assume it involves tubes. So I'm frightened. And I look at my mother and my sidekick, and my sidekick looks at me and she turns to the. And she says, is there anything you can do besides biopsying? And I swear I have no idea. And I've asked my mother. Neither of us understand this, but the doctor says, well, the only thing that might prevent us needing to biopsy it is if Tim can cough up a large enough piece of mucus for us. So my mother and I now have our mission. In the next 24 hours, they're gonna biopsy me in the morning if I can't knock up a giant loogie. So we set up. We decided we're like, okay, we have, like, a secret password. If I have a loogie in my throat, I'm gonna go, and then she'll know. And so all night I'm dreaming. Please, there'd be a giant loogie in my throat. But the morning comes and I don't get one. And then I can hear the doctor's feet coming down the hall, and I can hear their tubes for the biopsy. And finally. And then I look at my mom and she looks at me and I go. And she goes, boom. Smacks me on the back. And I hock up a giant brown and green loogie. And she literally. We scream and she cries and she hugs me. And the doctor comes in, takes away the loogie. They run a test on it. It's negative for whatever they're looking for. And they. Yes, thank you. And they don't have to biopsy anything. They don't have to do anything. Within a few days, my fever and cough are gone. The mass in my lung mysteriously disappears. I get to go home. And the craziest thing is, we never get a bill from the hospital. I have no idea. Okay, 15 second epilogue. Or I don't know. So I'm having wine with my mother recently, and this comes up. And I ask her about it, and she says very solemnly, she's very upset, obviously. And she says, there was a black cloud following me in those years. And I say to her, I say, no, I disagree. Everything turned out fine. I didn't have leukemia. Somebody paid all our hospital bills. It was like someone was carrying us. But I realized looking at her face, that actually I have absolutely no idea what she went through thinking that her child might die while she was in the hospital. And that my thought that actually everything was great is just the naive thought of a child who's had such an incredible mother that even when there was a black cloud over them, that she was like an umbrella that protected her children. So that all that I would ever remember is all the great things and all the fun things, and that all that I could do is be so grateful for my mother today. So thank you so much.
- [50:49]
Jennifer Hixson
Tim Manley Tim's a teacher and writer who lives in Brooklyn. He's still very close with his mom. To see a picture of him dressed as a superhero, Visit our website themoth.org maybe one of these stories reminded you of your own story. If you have a unique experience you'd like to share, or a universal experience with your own spin, why not put Pitch us? Your story could end up on this show. You can pitch us right on our website themoth.org or you can call us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll.
- [51:47]
Vincent Patrick
Your host this hour was Jennifer Hickson, the senior producer of the Moth. The stories in the hour were directed by Jennifer and Joey Zanders. The rest of the Moth directorial staff includes Kathryn Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess and Meg Bowles. Production support from Laura Haddon and Whitney Jones. Moth Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the Storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argos Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from the soundtrack from Lenny, Stan Getz, John Zorn and the soundtrack from Superman. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed to building a more just, fervent and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the public radio exchange prx.org for more about our podcast. For information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.