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Stanley Alpert
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Apple Announcer
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Stanley Alpert
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Apple Announcer
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- [01:43]
Sarah Austin Janess
From PRX this is the Moth Radio Hour. Sarah I'm Sarah Austin. Janess this episode is about the significance of sound. Each of the four stories in this hour involves an acute sense of hearing and voices literally play a starring role. Our first storyteller is Stanley Alpert. He told us at a Moth night where the theme was New York stories. Here's Stanley live at the moth.
- [02:10]
Stanley Alpert
It was January 21, 1998, an ice cold New York night, but I was feeling great. I was on my way downtown. On the number four train, I met a girl. I walked her to her apartment at 6th Avenue and 10th Street. We traded business cards and I walked down the street feeling good. I was going to go home, eat my favorite chocolate chip cookies, drink a cup of tea, read a book. I was in a great mood. It was cold out, nobody was on the street. As I got to the corner of 10th street and 5th Avenue in the Village, suddenly from out of nowhere, I felt a tug on my elbow from behind. I spun around. There's an automatic machine gun sticking in my gut. Two guys behind me, move, move, motherfucker. Get in the fucking car. And they had a car waiting in the street, which they shoved me to put me in the backseat. Three guys in the car Another guy with a pistol in my face. The leader of the gang was called Lucky. He said, stanley, let me tell you what we're going to do. We're taking you to the bank. You know, give us your wallet. Which I did. What's your PIN number to your cash machine card? Which I gave him immediately. We're going to take you to the bank. You're going to help us withdraw your money, and if you don't do it, we're going to kill you. So they drove to the corner of 6th Avenue and 23rd Street. Lucky went inside, got some money, came back out. He wanted to know how much money I had in my savings account. I told him I had $110,000. And they were impressed. What do you do for a living, Stan? Well, I'm a lawyer. And I said, you kind of picked up the wrong guy. I'm an assistant U.S. attorney. And at first they didn't get what that meant. They said, oh, you're an attorney. Wow, they're really impressed. So then they drove down 23rd street, and Lucky explained that now the plan had changed. They decided to keep me. So he said he was going to take me to a place, and in the morning, they were going to take me to the bank and have me withdraw $50,000. And if I didn't do it, they were going to kill me. So they drove down 23rd street to the west side highway, all the way down through that tunnel at the bottom. Now, Lucky ordered one of his henchmen, the guy who had the machine gun on me on the street, to blindfold me. And he took my own scarf off and blindfolded me with it. So I'm just hearing what I'm describing to you. And we went through that tunnel at the bottom of Manhattan that comes up on the other side by the FDR Drive. And a minute later, I can hear the sound of rubber tires going over the metal of one of the east river bridges. And as we got into Brooklyn, Lucky said, stanley, you ever been on the bqe? And of course I had, because I grew up in Brooklyn. And then they talked amongst themselves, and they decided to stop at a gas station to buy duct tape for this little caper, which they did. And then we drove. And a little while later, they stopped the car, hustled me out across the street, up three stairs, through one door, up three more stairs, through another door. Now, the blindfold wasn't perfect. I could see out the bottom, and I could see the pattern on the tiles. Sort of a typical pattern of A tenement building in New York City. And in fact, my grandmother had grown. Had lived in one of those when I was growing up on the Lower east side. It had that particular greasy, cooking, old building smell of a tenement building. And they sent me up two flights of stairs. I memorized the number of stairs, and they put me in an apartment. I could hear that we were in a narrow hallway. They shoved me all the way down to the end, put me down on a mattress, took off my trench coat, and there I sat. Now, when we first got in there, this was a very exciting moment for them. They just brought home a really important catch, and they discussed, well, how are they going to make this thing happen? So they had my wallet. And unfortunately, my wallet had in it my father's business card. My father was a cantor. That's the guy who sings in the synagogue. And he was retired, but he kept his business card with his home address on it in case somebody needed him at the last minute to officiate at a wedding or a funeral. And I kept that card in my wallet with the sense in my head that that somehow threw a level of spiritual protection around him. Well, now, what I had intended well was leading me to a very bad place because they wanted to know where my father lived, and what was I going to say. So I gave the real address. I lied about the apartment number. And they said, stanley, tomorrow morning, if you don't cooperate with us at the bank, not only will we kill you, we'll kill your father by breaking every bone in his body. And in fact, they made a call and they were sending a guy to. To go watch him overnight while we waited for the morning. And as it went on, they kept coming over to me. They kept cocking and uncocking their guns. And he said, stanley, you ever seen one of these things? And he waved it in front of my face. I could literally feel it. He says, all I gotta do is pull this trigger. It'll go bam, bam, bam, and your brains will be all over that wall. And he said, but you got nothing to worry about. Rich guy like you, you got your fine education. I got nothing. You'll make the money back. I got a right to something. Lucky left. That's the leader. He left. So the other guys are talking and they're saying, you know what? This thing's not going to work in the morning. And this is them talking. So they said, when Lucky comes back, they're going to try to convince him not to do it. Now, there were some other people who had Entered, okay? There were three girls. They were prostitutes. Lucky was the pimp. He was the leader of the gang. He used the other two guys as heat to protect his prostitution ring. So the girls show up. So first they smoke weed, and then they have sex with the girls. And, you know, this is the point at which I thank God for my blindfold. And then it's over, and everybody's feeling good. You know, A little weed, a little sex, you feel good, right? So they're like. They decide to play with me. Stanley, what would you be doing right now if we hadn't picked you up on the street? I said, well, actually, later on. Today is my birthday. I'd be meeting friends later today for my birthday. And they thought this was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. Oh, shit. We kidnapped the motherfucker on his birthday. This was just amazing news. So they offered me some weed. The thing is, I've always been uncool, even before I became a federal prosecutor. I could lose my job. Then they kept having fun. They're like, you know, stanley, you should join our gang. You can make more money with us than you're making as a lawyer. You can recommend friends for us to kidnap. Oh, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on. Not friends. Enemies, okay? Oh, and by the way, let's see if we can figure out how else we can get money out of you. You got a car? No, I live in Manhattan. You got a wife? No. You got any kids? No. You got a girlfriend? No. Stanley, let me see if I get this straight. You got $110,000 in the bank. You ain't got no wife, you ain't got no kids, you ain't got no car. What the hell have you been doing, man? I said, you should ask my parents. They've been wondering the same thing. And then the guy sitting to my right, the guy who had the machine gun on me on the street, he gets a brilliant idea. He says, what's going on here? We give you food. We give you. We offer you weed. What kind of robbery is this? Anyway, so the plan had changed, and time went on. I was there for almost 24 hours when Lucky comes back. And they've told me that they're gonna take me back to where they picked me up in the Village. So they raced me downstairs. I'm still blindfolded. They put me in the backseat of the car. I'm on the hump between the two thugs. I can feel their legs pressing up against me. Lucky's in the front seat, and they Sit for a pregnant pause, and nobody says a word. And then Lucky drives. Now, I know it's going to take about 25 minutes for us to get back to where they pick me up if they really mean to drop me back off in the village. About 10 minutes into it, without saying a word, Lucky pulled the car off to the side and stopped. It killed the ignition. He opened the car door, stepped outside. I could hear him walking around to the back. He opened the trunk. The next thing I heard was the sound of duct tape being pulled from a roll. I was positive in that moment that my life was over. I was positive that I'd never get to call my mother on the phone again or go on a date or pay my American Express bill or eat a box of chocolate chip cookies or read a good book. All of that adventure that made up my life was done. And this was a very sad moment. But I was wrong. Because what happened was someone had broken the window on his passenger side, and there was plastic covering it, and it was making too much noise in the wind. So all he was doing was taping the plastic. And he gets back in the car and he drives again. But they stop the car. They take me outside, and they tell me to walk. And I walk. I'm still blindfolded. Say, put up your hands and walk. And I walk one step after the other. And I think I can hear the car pulling off, but I'm really not sure. And I didn't hear the door close. I thought the guy might still be there on me with the gun. But I walked several steps, and I thought I might fall into a ravine or the river. I didn't know where we were. So finally I say, are you there? And nobody answered. And I ripped off my blindfold, and I spun around, and they were gone. And I had my life back. So I was in Prospect Park. I could have got mugged in that park. I raced this out 7th Avenue. I called my father to see if he was okay. He told me to call home. The NYPD and the FBI were already in my apartment. It was a crime scene. They were already referring to me as the body. They interviewed me for four hours that night, and I had so many clues. I had the pattern on the tiles. I could tell you exactly what floor it was on. I knew that seagulls had flown overhead at night, so I thought we were near one of the water bodies near one of the airports. I knew that we were near the command bus line because they talked about a 350. Fair to get there. I knew one of the girls was due in court that next morning on a prostitution charge and had to pay either a fine or spend 30 days in jail. I knew the street names of the girls, and I knew the full name of one of the guys. And I knew the first few numbers of the leader of the gang's cell phone. Within 48 hours, the FBI and the NYPD rounded them up. The girls did very short sentences. The guys are in prison for a very long time now. They hurt me. They traumatized me. They shocked me, and they definitely caused me pain. But at the end of the day, they also gave me a gift. I don't go into a sushi restaurant anymore and order the sushi special because it's a little cheaper and get a couple of things on that plate that I don't like the looks of now. I order exactly what I want, even though he's awfully annoying. I still call my brother all the time now, okay? And I enjoy that. The first day of spring, and I'm just. I'm able to live my life in a fuller way. I've got a dog now. It took me a long time after the kidnapping, but I finally met a wonderful woman. And we're married. And with God's blessing, we've got a baby on the way.
- [15:26]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Stanley Alpert. Stanley wrote about this experience in his book the Birthday Party, a memoir of survival. He's an environmental and commercial litigator and he travels around the country lecturing on green building. And yes, he's still ordering exactly what he wants at the sushi restaurant. Our next storyteller is Faith Ekniabor. Faith told this at a moth night we produced at the Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi as part of our Global Community program. The evening featured stories all about women and girls. Faith developed glaucoma and lost her sight when she was a teenager. And the story takes place as Faith is navigating her first year of college with the help of her friend Toby. Here's Faith live at the mall.
- [16:18]
Faith Ekniabor
Listening to my friend Toby tell me stories of all the places she had been to, all the fun she had had, were exciting moments in my life. These were moments when I would laugh and sometimes cry with tears coming out from my eyes. Toby was a good companion, and sometimes she made me reflect on the past. I too, used to be bold and daring, and she made me remember how I used to be before I became blind. You see, everything stopped for me the moment I lost my sight to glaucoma and irreversible Eye disease. I began to live in a lonely world of darkness where I shut myself out from the entire world. And I couldn't move from one point to the other without hitting my head on the wall, knocking down objects or having scars in my body and trying to do some literatures around the house. And so I would always depend on my family members for support. Luckily for me, I got admitted into the University of Lagos, Nigeria to study psychology. And I was happy because I knew that the study of behavior was going to help me and help me to have better relationship with people around me. So I wanted to be diligent and I wanted to work hard. Well, there was just one problem. I needed help to go around school. Toby agreed to be my helper. And since we were in the same department, it was easy. And then she moved in and we became roommates. And that was when I discovered that although Toby was very friendly and nice, she wasn't taking her education seriously. Every morning as I tried to get Toby up for classes, it was a huge ordeal, as whenever she opened her eyes, it was hell for me. She began to ask me questions like why do you have to wake me up? What's the time? Why do we have to hurry? Why can't we just stay in bed and laze all day? We're always late, always late in attending classes, in submitting our assignments. Sometimes we absentees. And then we started going for exams late. There was this particular one, the lecturer was mean. He had told me earlier to be in his exams on time. And when the day arrived, as I sat waiting for my friend Toby, she was in her usual spot by the window listening to some reggae music. And she was applying her makeup. And all I could hear was just the clock ticking away. And my heart was pounding heavily. And I began to wonder when were we going to leave. I knew that Toby's makeup lasted for an hour. So how are we going to make it in due time? And then I drew my friend's attention to the time and I said, toby, we're going to be late. And she said, why the hurry? I'm not yet done. This is the last exam for the semester, so I want to be in my best. Although I was angry, I couldn't voice out. I couldn't tell Toby a word because Toby was my only ticket in going out. So I kept quiet. When we arrived at the faculty, the main lecturer approached us and he said, hey Faith, you are late again. You're just being negligent with your studies. I'm not going to give you Any extra time. And with that, he marched off. As I sat to type, my hands were shaking. I was getting so nervous and disoriented. I couldn't concentrate. I was getting almost blank. But I knew that I could blame no one but myself. If I had come earlier, perhaps this wouldn't have happened to me. The results came out for that semester, and of course my grade was very bad. The next semester came by and we were back to our routine. And then exams period came again. And this time around, as I sat fully dressed waiting for my friend, whom you guess was in her usual spots listening to some Jamaican tunes. And she was huming along and making up her face, happy as usual, all I could hear was just a voice in my head telling me, we're going to be late, we're going to be late. And then I said, toby, let's get going. You're beautiful just the way you are. And Toby replied with her usual phrase, why the hurry, please? I'm not yet done. In that moment, I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't take it anymore. I just picked up my bag and brought out my guide cane and slowly walked towards the door. And I could hear Toby laughing behind me. And she was asking me, faith, where are you going to come back and sit and stop playing pranks. But I just ignored her. I opened the door and I started working. Although I was panicking, I was scared. I was afraid. Because this was the very first time I dare go out all by myself. Although I knew the path so well because I'd walked with Toby along the path in the past. But it was a new experience for me, going alone. And as I walked, I began to pray. And then suddenly I stopped. Because a thought flashed into my mind. What if I fall down? What if I crash into something? What was I going to do? But the mere thought of having Toby laughing at me and telling me, I knew you couldn't do it, made me to just forge ahead with greater determination. And then as I walked, I began to pray that help would come. Luckily for me. Ahead of me I could hear voices. People were talking and laughing loudly. And so I walked towards the direction. And when I was sure I was close enough to be heard, I said, good morning. Please, where can I get a cab? And a male voice responded. It said, it's just a little bit further, just like 10 steps away. So I said, thank you. And as I began to walk, I was counting in my mind. And when I was sure I was almost there, the tenth step I used my other hands to reach, to feel if I could feel a car in front of me. And yes, I could. So I stopped by the car and then a man asked me, where are you going to? And I said to the faculty and he said, come right in. So I reached for the door and I opened the door and I jumped right in. I smiled to myself and I laughed out. Yes, I did it. Yes, I made it. This is my freedom. And it felt so good. Thank you.
- [23:46]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Faith at Niagara. Since the events in this story, Faith has remained fiercely independent. Faith lives in Lagos, Nigeria, and works as a counselor in a domestic violence unit. She's also an advocate for people living with disabilities and a youth leader in the blind community. To hear more stories from this moth night in Kenya when Faith took the stage, check out the Moth's global community playlist on YouTube. After our break, an overworked trauma surgeon tries to save the life of a teenage girl when the Moth Radio Hour continues. We all take supplements, or at least we know we should. But why are so many supplement companies charging ridiculous prices for products that really aren't that special? It's frustrating and frankly unacceptable. That's why I want to introduce you to Livegood, a brand that's turning the supplement industry on its head. Livegood believes that everyone deserves access to high quality supplements without the insane markups they offer. Premium products formulated by an industry leading team of natural health experts and they cut out the middleman to sell them at the lowest prices anywhere. I'm excited to try their organic coffee. I chose this because it includes fiber and mushrooms to ease stress, reduce caffeine and support my overall health. It'll be a game changer for me. They also have organic super greens, multivitamins, collagen, protein powder, creatine, detox, hormone products, skin care products. All highest quality products at prices people can actually afford. Ready to make the switch and start saving? We'll make it even easier for you. Use our link and you can save an additional 10% off your first order on top of the already lowest prices. Just go to livegood.com moth to take 10% on your first order. That's livegood.com moth don't miss out on this opportunity to invest in your health without overspending.
- [25:52]
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- [27:03]
Sarah Austin Janess
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austengines. In this hour, stories that are all about our sense of hearing. Our next storyteller is Tee Dixon. T told the story live at the Moth in Los Angeles where we partner with public radio station kcrw. Here's Tee Dixon live at the Moth.
- [27:26]
Apple Announcer
So I'm a physician, a surgeon actually, and that took a lot of sacrifice and a lot of time to get all of that training done. At first I thought I wanted to be an anesthesiologist. So I did some training in that before doing my surgery training. And then ultimately I did trauma critical care and burn surgery fellowship down here, actually. But that's 16 years of training. And at the worst of it, I was at Hopkins in Baltimore and it was before the 80 hour workweek rule. And, and so we were working about 134 hours a week. And there's only 168 hours in a week. I mean like in the entire week. Right. So that's 34 hours to eat, sleep, and hopefully sleep with your girlfriend. You know, I mean, not a lot of time for the important stuff, people. So at one point I went like 93 days without a day off. I'm talking no Saturdays, no Sundays, just 93 consecutive days. And when we were on call, it was usually every other day, every other night. And it was in the hospital. It wasn't home call. And so we go in at 4am and you might not get home until 4 6pm the next day. So 36, 40 hours on, a few hours off and you're back at 4am and that's why there's a saying in surgery that is eat when you can, sleep when you can, and don't fuck with the pancreas, but that's another story. So anyway, there was one point when I was in residency, I was going through a really tough time. Just personally, there's not enough lot of time, like I said, for your personal life. And it was just a dark time for me. I was in a dark place. I didn't know if I wanted to continue with my surgery training. I was depressed. I mean, I was really hurting. And at the time, I was the chief of the trauma surgery service. And we got this call, we got this patient that was coming in, this.
- [29:17]
Tee Dixon
This girl.
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Apple Announcer
And the story from the paramedics is it was her 16th birthday and she wanted to take a drive. She wanted to get in her car by herself and go to McDonald's and come back home. Well, she didn't put on her seat belt and she took a curve a little too fast. And she goes flying off this curve, which was on a hill. She goes flying off the hill through the windshield. And then the car flipped over and landed on top of her. So this is a devastating crash. And she's, you know, unconscious, obviously, and has to be intubated, which means a breathing tube put in at the scene. And she comes into us and she has a head injury that is horrific that could have killed her. She had bilateral lung contusions that could kill her still. And she had a grade four liver fracture that could kill her. She had a grade five splenic fracture that could kill her and a grade five pelvis fracture that could kill her. I mean, this girl was broken. I mean, I guess we kind of both were at that point in time. But that night was insane. And I get her to the intensive care unit and get her on a ventilator and we're starting this massive transfusion. Normally we would take that spleen out. You don't really need your spleen. But we were afraid to open the abdomen for fear that it'd let loose that liver. And ain't nobody living without a liver. I mean, it's in the name liver. You know, you gotta have a liver. So we couldn't do that. So we're, you know, this crazy transfusion just trying to keep her alive minute by minute. And, you know, at some point I hear that the parents have arrived. The crash was in a small town. So even though this chick, we don't know who this 16 year old is, she's just Jane Doe to us. She's a random patient. So I finally get sort of a tiny little minute that I can go and Just kind of update them. And I end up alone with them for a minute, you know, and as I was walking there, I was thinking, you know, these five injuries, any one of these injuries could kill her. Like, this is so awful right now. And I have to go and prepare this family. I have to let them know how bleak this is. But I also don't want to squash any hope they may have, because that doesn't help anybody, you know, to squash that. So it's one of those weird things in trauma surgery, especially in the intensive care unit, where the doctors and the nurses are spending almost as much time taking care of the family as they are the patients who are oftentimes not with it or completely unconscious, you know. And so it's a very delicate balance to do this job. And so I end up alone with them for a minute in this consultation room, and I say to them, you know, I want you to understand, I don't know if she'll make it through the night, you know, And I've gone through all these five injuries and how each one of them are trying to take her life, like, as we speak. And I said, but she's 16. I mean, as best I can tell, she's a healthy, fit 16 year old. And if anybody could beat it, you know, that would be it. You know, they're still hysterical, they're sobbing. That was the closest thing I could give them to any kind of hope. And so I'm like, but I got to get back in there. She's real critical. And so I stand up to leave and I'm walking to the door, and all of a sudden the sobbing stops and it's like everything calmed down. And the mama says she's going to be okay. And my hand's on the door and I stop and I turn back around and I said, ma'am, what? What? And she said, she's going to be okay. Her name is Savannah. And she kind of points at me, your patient Doe is Savannah. And I look down and I'm wearing the appropriate scrub top for that hospital. But for whatever reason, and I think it's the first time it ever happened, I was wearing the inappropriate bottoms. My scrub bottoms were from my medical school, and I had done my clinical rotations in Savannah, Georgia. So Savannah was written across my ass. And that was just what they needed, that little tiny bit of encouragement. And if my ass can bring hope to the people, I'm here to help, you know, what can I say? So anyway, so I was grateful that they had some shred of Hope. But, you know, I walked out of there and I was like, that was funny. But, you know, but oh, my gosh, you know, this girl's still dying, you know, So I rushed back in there and, you know, and it was just. I mean, I never left her bedside. And she did make it through the night, but then every day it was like that. It was a constant battle to keep her alive. And I'd go in there and I'd be like, hey, Savannah, it's Dr. T. She's unconscious, but I'm still talking to her. And we had to do a lot of painful procedures on her during that time to help get her through this. She had chest tubes put in, chest tubes taken out. The chest tubes are very large. They're like garden hose sized tubes that go in between your ribs. They're drain off fluid, air, and blood from around the lungs so the lungs can work better. And she had to have those procedures multiple times. I put in multiple central lines, which are like really large IVs that go in your neck. Had to give her a tracheotomy, which is a breathing tube through the neck as opposed to through the mouth. And I tried to warn her before I did anything to her, and just continued to take care of her. And we made it through day by day. But still, you know, you knew that they were going to come. Complications from all these, like, these were too horrible of an injury to get away with. Just, oh, you're healed, you know, so it was just like, when is the next complication coming? When is the next fight for her life coming? And even at that, we were like, even if we get her through this, we don't know if one day she's going to, you know, wake up at all. And if she does, you know, with that brain injury, will she be catatonic? Will she be in a regressed state? Will she just have some deficits? I mean, we had no idea. But I took care of her on that intensive care unit for two or three months. And then I consulted through the vascular surgery service for some blood clots for a few more months. But after about five months or so, it was time for me to move on. I rotated out to a different hospital in that same town, and I lost track of her. I mean, that service had anywhere from 30 to 50 patients on it at any given time. And I mean, I treated hundreds of of patients over those same months that I was taking care of Savannah. So I lost track of a lot of patients. And I went on to go back to this. I Mean, it was the same as it was there, but, you know, 100 plus hours a week and just a high stress job all the time. And I was still struggling and still didn't know what I wanted to do in my personal life. I didn't know what I wanted to do in my career. And, you know, and with surgery, the stresses are, are as much mental as they are just the time. It's not just the physical tiredness and the time, but, you know, I'm the type of person, I took my work home with me a lot, so I would worry about the patients and the cases even when I was off duty. And so it was a very difficult time. And I just felt like I was really just kind of limping along during that time. So about a year after Savannah's surgery, or about, not surgery, but after her accident that she had, I was back in that same intensive care unit again. And, you know, and I'm working on all these patients, and one day I'm talking to this nurse, and if you hadn't noticed, I talk a little loud. That's just normal. And so I'm talking to this nurse across the way, and this girl approaches me and she's like, hey. I'm like, hey. And I don't know who she is. And she lowers her shirt a little bit in the front to show me a tracheotomy. Scarlet. And just about the time I realized who she is, she says, it's me, Savannah. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know, she looked great. She was healthy, and she was talking to me. And she only had one class to make up so she could graduate with her fellow high schoolers. And she was so excited. And it was so much better than I ever thought that she would be after all that she had been through and all those injuries she had. And then all of a sudden, it occurred to me, I was like, wait a minute, how do you know who I am? Like, you've never met me. You were unconscious every time I ever took care of you. And she said, oh, well, I recognize your voice. You were the one who talked to me. So all those times that I would say, savannah, this is going to hurt, but I'm going to do everything I can to try to make it as painless as possible, but. But it's going to hurt a little bit. She had heard me and she remembered it. And so I knew that treating people like a human being, it does matter. It does make a difference. And for me, that's when I finally realized that all that Sacrifice and all that blood, sweat and tears. It was worth it. Thank you.
- [38:24]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Tee Dixon. Tee was raised in the Deep south, and after medical school, she joined the United States Army. In addition to being a combat veteran of the Iraq War, she's been a tutor, trash collector, and waitress. She volunteers with Mission Continues and Wounded Warrior Project. And she loves obstacle course racing and quilt making. An eclectic life indeed. After our break, an artist tries to turn a mental institution into an instrument. You heard me right. She tries to turn a building into a musical instrument. Hear if she succeeds when the Moth Radio Hour continues. This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Sarah Austin. Janess. This is an episode that explores the audible world. And our next and final storyteller takes this to another level through her inventive art. Anna Schuleit Haber told this story at the Moth more than a decade ago on a night when we partnered with the New York Public Library. The theme of the evening was Art Attack. Stories about wrestling the muse. So here's Anna Schuleit Haber live at the Moth.
- [39:40]
Tee Dixon
Liese, or Elizabeth, was the name of my German grandmother, a feisty mother of four with an earthy sense of spirituality. One thing she used to say was, when someone dies, you have to open the window so that the soul can fly out. But there's that curious delay between listening to something and hearing it and then learning it for yourself all over again from scratch. So one day I was walking up a hilltop in western Massachusetts, and I walked through a tall row of black pines, and I found a brick structure that emerged against the sky that was gray and November like. And I walked around the structure not knowing what it was. And I. I only saw windows, few doors, bars, rusty railings. And I realized this was a mental hospital, a psychiatric hospital that was abandoned. And I walked around the structure, the facade. And in order to see the entire facade on this hilltop, I had to step back. And as I stepped back, I was able to see it. I later found out, 800ft wide. And I turned around and I felt it looming in my back. And I felt this was something I wasn't going to understand so soon. Years later, I became a student of art in a painting department. And I looked at the map of New England, and I realized I was close to this place. I was close to this little town in western Massachusetts. And I borrowed a friend's car and I drove out, and I said, okay, so let's see if it's still here. And I walked up the same hill through the Same pines. And I found the same structure, untouched, crumbling and rotting with nobody there. Just an eerie silence. And I decided, since I was a student of painting, I would set up an observation post, a visual, scientific observation post in the grass to see if I could understand this building, to just spend time on this lawn overlooking the structure. And I would sit on this lawn with weeds all around me. And there was a security car that would pass around in circles that I could estimate. I knew when this security guy was coming by, so I could dock and he would pass and I could continue painting. But because I had to be able to immediately pack up and leave if necessary, my paintings were very small. They were the size of my thumb. And I would draw these very little paintings. And the security car would come by, and sometimes they would come over and say, young lady, no picture taking allowed on these grounds. I said, I'm not taking pictures, I'm drawing. But I wanted to know what the structure was for. I wanted to know what the people knew about this building. And so on my walks through town, I would try to find people who knew about this building. One story that I found was Clotilda. A patient who had been there because she was a pregnant teenager, was committed by her family. She gave birth, she stayed in the hospital, and her daughter was remembered by the nurses as driving around the campus on her bike. And then her daughter went to school, came back to the hospital and stayed for her entire life. The other patient was Daniel, the autistic race car guy, who would make race car noises as he paced around in circles and every now and then would burst into outcries of shift, shift, shift. Or Emma the seamstress, who, after cutting off the heads of tulips very neatly of her neighbor's garden, was committed for a 30 day observation period that became 30 years. And I didn't know what to do with these stories. I knew there were many more, many more of many patients whose names I do not have for you. And I realized that this hospital had absorbed many, many thousands of lives and that there were many more such hospitals around the country. And I would sit in the grass and I would absorb this building and I would draw it and paint it. And I was frustrated because my paintings did not touch that scale. I wanted to work on a one to one scale with the whole building. And then I had an idea. I said, what if on one day, and then never again, this building could be made into an instrument by using the hollows and voids of this building to function like an instrument? What if the entire structure were made to sound. And I said, well, what if I would just set out trying to do this? And I went out and I was told, well, there are state officials involved and local politicians. And I would meet with them all and I would say to them, what if on one day and then never again, this building were made into an instrument in honor of its past? And what if on one day and then never again, we were to play a piece that I thought as a teenager was so moving when I worked as an usher at a classical music festival, the Magnificat by Johann Sebastian Bach. As an usher, I would stand at the back of these sacred places and I would think that this music was something that touched on the unspeakable. So I presented this project just like I did to you now. And the consensus was, honey, we really like your idea, but we're not the right group for you. You have to talk to state officials. And I said, well, if you like my idea, could you write me letters of support on your stationery? And they did because they felt bad. And so I got all these letters of support. By then I woke up every morning pulling the sheets up to my face and said, what am I doing? I didn't have any money. I had slowly gotten support, but no permissions. And this went on for three years. After three years, and I don't know how this really happened. I got the permission from the state of Massachusetts to go ahead with the planning. I gathered a team of counselors and advisors, people who supported me in the beginning with half heartedness, and they would never quite know how this would all play out. And I didn't know either, but they thought I did. So this was very scary to me at those times. And, well, we had to find a quote, the quote, for the actual cost for doing this. And I contacted Bose because Bose was headquartered in Massachusetts. I thought, perfect reason. They took a walk with me over the grounds and they said 300,000 for 28 minutes. And I had to tell them, I'm not living under trust and please reduce the price. And they said, we can't make it cheaper than 250,000. And I fired them. And this was before four months before the event actually happened. The date I had set completely randomly for November. And now this was my own countdown that was strangling me. It was August. I had no sound company and no funding. The press had started to write about this because they were very curious as to what would happen to this European girl that traveled around trying to raise money for an instrument that was actually a building. And I'd gotten a lot of wonderful press. And I realized the only way to do this is actually by raising funds door to door. The deadline was in mid August. The event was in November. And a day before the deadline occurred, and me really committing to despair and saying, this is it. I've tried, I've tried. I have tried and failed. The phone rings and it's a woman from the west coast who says, I heard about your project from an arts journalist. I support the arts. I love the arts. I wanted to know how it's going. And at that time, my neck felt like this because. Because I couldn't speak to anyone about this, because I had instilled all this hope in people and couldn't really admit that I didn't really know how to do this. And so I said to her, since you're a complete stranger, I will tell you the truth. The truth is I can't pull this project off. I don't have the money for this. And she said, how much money would you need right now to save the project? And I just went through my head really quickly, having no relation to money, of course. It said $25,000. I knew I had to make down payments for the electricity, the sound company that I didn't have. I needed to put that aside. Permits, insurance, liability and such. And she said, I'd like to donate that to you. And I hung up the phone. After a little more small talk where I didn't know how to say and how to express my thanks, and I hung up the phone. And I thought I had gone insane because there was no proof that she had really called. And then the next morning, a courier service came and brought a letter that was tiny with pressed flowers and whole grain type envelope. And inside was a checking account check for $25,000. And she saved the project. I deposited the check and I made down payments that same day. And now the next problem was to get the sound company to commit, or any sound company. And the sound company that I found was a man who runs the New Orleans jazz fest, all 32 stages. And he loves unusual projects. He took this project on and he said to me when I met him, I have a quote for you. It's by Goethe. The quote goes, architecture is frozen music. That's what you want to do, isn't it? And I said, you're hired. I want to work with you. And so I worked with him. We had a team of 75 people. We installed a sound system of 45,000 watts throughout the entire building. We strung 5,000ft of cable, we opened hundreds of windows. And we had one sound test in which we tested the system using the architecture to make the sound reverberate so that it would sound to the outside. And as we turned the speakers, the sound would change in all of the wings. So on the next day, we had former patients who had never told their own stories and a whole community of people. 650 seats there were. And I walked into the back of the auditorium and I said, if these 650 people come from the town to my installation up on the hill, then I'm very lucky. And we went to the Forum. It was extremely moving. These patients had never told their stories. And we walked up to the hill together after the stories ended. And there were thousands of people that come from everywhere. And then the music started. And people sat and walked and held each other and cried and laughed and were joyful and very sad. And as I walked among them, I thought of Clotilde and Daniel and Emma and the many more who had been there. And I thought that the most moving thing about this was not the music and Bach in the distance, who I always thought was my collaborator in this, but that the people had come to this because I had said I wanted to create a moment of buoyancy for this building. And it was created only but bringing these people together. And I was hoping that focusing them, gathering them in this sort of way, would make them look more kindly and gently and with more compassion upon the setting of suffering and mental illness. Thank you.
- [51:37]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Anna Shukrona, Light Happen. Anna is a visual artist whose work lies at the intersection of painting, drawing, installation art, architecture and community. She's a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of work that has, quote, conceptual clarity, compassion and beauty. To see a short film all about the sound installation, including stories and testimonies from former patients at Northampton State hospital, go to themoth.org and you're listening now to Johann Sebastian Bach's the Magnificat, the music that poured out of the building that day. So in an hour all about Sound, I want to thank you for listening. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Owl. We hope you'll join us next time. Your host this hour was Sarah Austin Janess. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Kathryn Burns. The rest of the Moss directorial staff include Sarah Haberman, Meg Bowles and Jennifer Hickson. Production support from Timothy Lou Lee and Lola Okasami. Most Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Bonobo, Andy Summers and Benjamin Verdery, Nightmares on Wax and Johann Sebastian Bach. The Moth would like to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for their support of the Moth's global community program. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by prx. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.