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- [00:00]
Sponsor Voice
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- [02:21]
Meg Bowles
From PRX this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles from the Moth and I'll be your host this time. At the Moth, we present true stories told before a live audience. And in this hour, we bring you four of those stories. A speechwriter faces off with Bill Clinton. A daughter helps her aging father. A man questions his personal safety and our first story from Diana Speckler. Diana first told the story at a Moth Grand Slam at the Highline Ballroom in New York City. The theme of the evening was Day of Reckoning. Here's Diana Spechler live at the mall.
- [02:56]
Diana Speckler
Andrew is a student in the summer writing class I'm teaching who doesn't really stand out. He's just this man writing a novel about aliens involved in a bank heist. But during the last class, he announces that he just signed a contract to star on a reality show called Arranged Marriage. Women all over the world are applying to be his wife. In late February, he'll meet three candidates for an hour each and choose one to marry. And then his wedding and the first year of his marriage will be broadcast on cbs. Everyone in class is like, why are you doing this? And Andrew says, I want to find true love. Looking at Andrew, it occurs to me that this man belongs on television. He even looks like a headshot. Super symmetrical face, dimples, glossy finish. How have I spent all summer not noticing him? Well, now that class is over, we start meeting at night in bars, and all this lust develops between. Like, our legs will touch between the bar stools, and it feels like our kneecaps are generating electricity. One night, finally, he kisses me. And by October, I'm in love. I feel like I see a side of Andrew that other people don't get to see. He's vulnerable. Like when he feels embarrassed, his ears turn pink. And when he feels insecure, he shadowboxes. I just love him, even though sometimes he looks meaningfully into my eyes and says a cliche as though he invented it. Like the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. Well, because reality TV has become a big part of my life, I start watching old episodes of the Bachelor, and I find one season finale particularly enlightening. The Bachelor proposes. The girl says, hang on a sec. Then she turns away and does a victory dance. I'm like, that's it. That's the key to lasting romance, to never getting bored. You have to achieve, rather than receive love. That fall, Andrew and I stay up nights talking, drinking, cooking, and everything's great. Everything's perfect. Except the CBS people keep calling, and I listen to Andrew describe for them his perfect woman, who doesn't sound much like me. She sounds like a porn star who's also a genius. But I have an advantage over all the wife applicants. I know Andrew. I'm his girlfriend. All I have to do is keep making him happy until he tells CBS that he's sorry, but he's found true love in real life. So I start doing Andrew's laundry, making him lasagna, editing his alien novel. But I worry that if I act too much like his wife, he'll want someone else. Because to quote Andrew, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. One night in late January, he's sifting through pictures of potential wives and I'm pretending not to notice. And he says, you should apply to be my wife. And I say, really? And he says, no. And I say, good, because I wouldn't have anyway. And he stands, puts his hands on my shoulders and says, I hate it that I'm hurting you. And I say, then stop hurting me. And he just hugs me and doesn't answer. But a couple weeks later, it's the day before Valentine's Day and he says, I'm taking you to dinner. I know he doesn't want to take me out on Valentine's Day because Valentine's Day is a Hallmark holiday. He thought of that himself. And I think finally tonight he'll tell me, I choose you. So we're at dinner and I'm all dressed up and I'm waiting for the big declaration when Andrew sets his fork down, looks at me and says, I don't love you. And then he says, but you're a beautiful person inside and out. Well, I don't know if you've ever lost your boyfriend to a woman he's never met, but it's kind of like losing your best friend to an imaginary friend. But some months later when you get perspective, it's kind of like you didn't lose anything. It's kind of like you won. Thank you.
- [09:04]
Meg Bowles
Diana Speckler is the author of the novels who by Fire and Skinny, a five time moth story slam winner. The CBS reality series Arranged Marriage was cancelled before it even aired. Rumor has it that some couples featured in the show actually got married during production. So once the show was canceled, they were just married to strangers. Our next story is from Mark. Mark told this story back in 2001 at the once legendary but now gone Nell's in New York City. The theme of the evening was carpe diem stories of our most vital moments. Here's Mark Katz live at the mall.
- [09:53]
Mark Katz
It's January of 1995. I'm in a. It's Washington D.C. on a Saturday night. I'm in a holding room in a hotel wearing a tuxedo. In my left hand is a draft of a speech I've written. In my right hand is an egg timer. I'm doing deep breathing exercises because I know at any moment to that door will walk the President of the United States. I only have 12 minutes, so I can't explain to you how I came to write humorous speeches for Bill Clinton over the course of his two terms in office. But I can tell you that this was a particularly bad time to be doing it. Just a few months earlier, he'd received a severe rebuke of the 1994 midterm elections. Newt Gingrich, the 105th Congress, the Contract with America. And at that moment, he seemed like a guy halfway through a failed term. And they knew that in 1995 had to be a good year for him or 96 would be his last. And they set out a plan to kind of get back on track. And part of that plan included the State of the Union address early in 95. And they put together such an ambitious State of the Union address, so chock full of agenda setting mantle, stealing back ideas, that it set a record for time. He gave a speech that night that was one hour and six minutes long. And the next day in the news, all the pundits and all the Washington press corps could talk about, all they could talk about was how long his speech was, forgetting about what he had said. And everyone at the White House was very upset that they had missed yet another opportunity. Everyone but me, because I was there that week writing a humorous speech for him. Every year he gives four humor speech you may have heard of the White House Correspondence Dinner or the Gridiron Dinner. This is one I promise you haven't heard of. It's called the Alfalfa Club. 300 very important Washington insiders all there to hear a humorous speech from the President and really to take his measure. And I got to the White House Friday morning and realized this was a great moment, that all of a sudden this speech had a reason to be relevant in a way that it didn't the day before. And I wanted to make this speech the comic answer to the crisis du jour. How he could come back with a comic retort to this silly accusation he had given. A speech was too long. And the answer was simple enough. Everyday egg timer and the whole idea was that the President would walk up to the podium in this hotel room where he's about to give a speech, set his egg timer to 5 minutes and place it on the corner of the podium, unleashing a room full of laughter and applause at someone who's doing self directed humor at his own expense. And I was actually very secretly pleased with the idea and the many pages of jokes I'd written about a guy about to give a speech on the heels of a speech he had given that was far too long until the next day when I was in this holding room waiting for the President with the egg timer in one hand and the speech in the other. And I could tell from the moment he walked in that something was terribly amiss. He was not happy to be there. I said, hello, hello, Mr. President. Just a grim look. A moment later, the first lady comes into the room. Didn't even get the grim look. She never made eye contact with me. She stayed by the door as though she thought herself invisible, just waiting for whatever this meeting was to be over. And the first words the president said to me that night was, you can put that egg timer away now. I wanted to make sure that I understood him, so I said, no egg timer. And he said, that's a joke on my State of the Union address, isn't it? And I said, yes, it is. And he said, well, there's no way I'm gonna let those unpleasant people have the satisfaction of that joke. There's no way I'm doing it. I said, that's exactly why you have to do it, because these people have been making fun of you for two days. All of a sudden, the free floating anger that he brought into this room is now directed at me. And I'm looking up at the big, mean, angry president. And the tone of my voice was just that urgent, as though I was talking about something of moral imperative, a global importance. And it actually surprised me, the tone of my voice, and I think it surprised him. And I went about trying to explain to him something that was self evident to me, that had eluded him, why the self directed joke was the answer to this particular problem. Well, his response to my argument was a very strong non verbal response. He reached down and relieved me of my egg timer. He took it forcibly from my hands and placed it on a mantle a few feet. He turned back to me and he says, gives me the full measure of his glare and he says, what else? Well, you know what? There really wasn't that much what else. The egg timer was the organizing principle of the speech. And more than that, it had taken on such importance to me that it struggled to explain to other people. To me, the egg timer was hubris itself. It was what he needed. It was a compass back from the road, the missteps he had taken, and that he needed to be the biggest person in that room that night and have that joke at his expense. And I guess it's because I felt so strongly about this egg timer, of all things, that I did the bravest thing I've ever done in my life. I reached for this egg timer, brought it back into his sphere of vision. And I said to him, well, in case you change your mind. And I realized I was in trouble. And I shot a look over to the first lady, sending out a silent plea for help. Hello, healthcare lady, I'm hemorrhaging over here. Nothing. No response. And there I am looking up again. The big, mean, angry president is staring me down, just waiting to hear what's coming out of my because he can't believe it. I go on to explain to him the joke part of the joke, which I'd yet to get to. I said, the best part is after the egg timer goes off for the first time, you keep on adding more time for as many times as you like. I promise him. There was a big laugh each time and there was a manic tone to my comic pitch, like I'm Maury Amsterdam at gunpoint. And by the way, this room was plenty tense before I introduced the tick, tick, tick of a time bomb into it. And with the last ring of the bell, time had run out on me. The President turned on his heels and walked out of the room. First lady followed him out. And I felt many things at that moment. I felt petrified, way in over my head, slightly moist, but oddly exhilarated in a way that I never would have guessed. I stood up for what and in a way that was ill advised.
- [17:55]
Tamara Jenkins
I.
- [17:55]
Mark Katz
Had found the courage of my convictions and they were embodied, of all things, in an egg timer. And I was also very confused at that moment because I honestly had no idea what speech he was going to give. He left the room to go give a speech I didn't know he had pages and pages of jokes about a mind numbing, soul deadening speech that wouldn't end. And I didn't think those were going to make the cut at this point. So I walked out of the room and I handed the egg timer to an aide, an advanced aide who was out there. The egg timer now basted in palm sweat. And I said, the President's going to need this at his seat up at the dais. Would you bring this up there? So I walked into the ballroom, 300 of the most important people you could assemble in a room in Washington. And I go and take my seat in the corner of the room where the ghostwriters go and sit and presents up on the dais and throughout the dinner. And this is no ordinary dais, by the way. On this dais is former presidents, Supreme Court justices, two thirds of the joint Chiefs of staff are up there and they're all talking among themselves and eating Their dinner. The President's head is down, writing furiously as though he's doing the essay section on a final exam. And finally comes this part of the night when he gives a speech. And I was really very curious to hear what was going to come out of his mouth. Not surprisingly, he did not open with the egg timer, nor did he use any of the pages of gentle, self effacing humor that were there for him. Right on the page. He launched into a mean, meandering, drive by diatribe of a speech that I can only give you a sense of by. And I got special dispensation to use notes for this. Just a few of the lines he said to the room that night. Just a few, just to give you a sense. Turned to President Bush. President Bush, you don't have to put up with this crap anymore. Why are you here? Then he starts going around the room settling old scores. Senator Bennett Johnson was in the room. He had voted against the president's budget in 1994, and he was now named the President of the Alfalfa Club. So he said this to him. I'm glad Ben Johnson is alfalfa president now. Maybe I'll get to vote against his budget. And at one point he turned to Senator Pete Domenici and I can't explain this other than just to read the word on the page. He said, turns to Senator Pete Dominche and says, do you dye your hair? No one in the room knew what to make of that. Well, at some point during the speech, initially I was hoping to hear the jokes that I was familiar with and knew that would help him get to the speech. But as the speech really digressed, I started hoping he wouldn't say the jokes that were on the page. This was so bad, it was every man for himself. And a few terrible jokes later, he finished his speech and before he sat back down, as he's dying up there, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out an egg timer and he says, maybe this will help. And it did. He got his only real genuine laugh of the night. The room was so anxious to respond to something positive that he had said. It was like a lifesaver. They were throwing him life preserver. Then after he used the egg timer, sat back down. Terrible speech was over. And then evening was over and he left in a hurry. And I left through another exit in a hurry. I knew he didn't want to see me and I wasn't particularly interested in seeing him. Next morning I'm up first train back to New York, like 7:00 in the morning. It felt like a prison break getting out of Washington, D.C. and I come back to New York to my life here as a freelance writer in the greatest city in the world. Very pleased to have escaped that night. And really I thought it was the last speech I would ever write for him. I couldn't imagine that I would ever find myself back in a room with him. That Monday morning I went to go get the Washington Post, and in the Style section, which is the sports pages of kind of intramural Washington politics, there was a front page story about the terrible ill humored humor speech the President had given that night. And it was a debacle in this article. People in the article said, did he know it was a humor speech they couldn't figure out in the White House? Of course, the drill becomes who's to blame. And thankfully, I was exonerated by a transcript that showed that the words I'd written and the words he had spoken really didn't correspond at all. And, you know, I was upset that he had missed a second opportunity in a week to have a good speech and to have a shining moment. And I regretted that. And maybe he did too, because on Thursday I went to go pick up my tuxedo at the dry cleaner that had been soaked in sweat, got back to get my mail and found a note in my mail from the White House. And I opened it up and it was a note from the President of the United States, addressed to me. Dear Mark, thank you for your help with the alfalfa dinner. You're a funny man. The egg timer was great. Best Bill Clinton.
- [23:47]
Meg Bowles
Mark Katz managed to keep his job for the full eight years at the Clinton presidency, thanks in part to the transcript of the actual speech Clinton gave that night. To see a picture of the infamous egg timer, the thank you note from the President, and to learn more about Mark, Visit our website, themoth.org.
- [24:09]
Tamara Jenkins
In a.
- [24:10]
Meg Bowles
Moment, we'll have a story from one woman's trip across the country to help her aging father, a father she hasn't seen in almost 18.
- [24:17]
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- [25:45]
Mark Katz
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- [26:19]
Meg Bowles
From PRX this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bolles. Our next story is from Tamara Jenkins. It was told back in 2002 and in those early days of the Moth, it was a miracle we managed to record the stories at all. And unfortunately, the audio from this particular show is a bit rougher than usual, but we loved it and we hope you will too. Here's Tamara Jenkins live at the Moth.
- [26:44]
Tamara Jenkins
After my parents split up, I was living in my mother's house in our old house on Yarmouth Road in Philadelphia with my mother and my little brother. And one Christmas morning I came down the stairs and underneath the tree there were all these really large scale gifts and they were all addressed to me and I ripped them open and it was luggage in all different shapes and sizes and with this beautiful floral print. And I said, oh my God, mom, there's so many of them. And she said, well, you know, when you go on a big trip, it's nice to have a matching set. And I said, who's going on the big trip? And she said, you are. And your little brother, you know, your father gives me no help here. I'm sending you both out to California to live with him. So now I'm in California and I've been living with my father for like 10 years. And at this point I'm 15 and my little brother's 11, and my father's 68 years old. He's not a young man, but, you know, he's doing okay. And we're going along and it all seems, you know, fine, until one day my father's girlfriend offers him this deal. And her name is Retta Hirschfeld and she's a widow, a two time widow, and she's my father's age and she's put a little money aside, not a lot, but enough. And she says to my father, look, Manny, you can either go into old age and style, you can move into my condominium complex with all the amenities and all that that affords my swimming pool, the, the laundry room and the free parking, me and my Hamilton collection of limited edition Gone with the Wind plates. Or you could continue living with those two kids of yours in that crappy rental apartment on La Cienega Boulevard that you can barely afford. So that's sort of what it came down to. Either the condominium or the kids. And my father went with a condo. So now it's like 18 years later and I'm living in the East Village and I'm like 33 years old and I'm. And I haven't seen my father very much during the course of this time. So one day the phone rings and the answering machine picks up and it's my father's girlfriend's daughter, Retta Hirschfeld's daughter, she lives in Hawaii. And she says, aloha. I just thought you should know that my mother, Retta Hirschfeld, has had a stroke and we had to hire a 24 hour home health care worker to attend to her needs. And Tammy, the fact of the matter is your father's not getting any younger either. And actually, Tammy, the fact is he won't dress himself and he's wandering around the apartment in the nude and he's showing up at the dinner table nude and he's like a nudist. And we're really concerned and we are paying Alonzo to take care of our mother, not your father. And we, you know, we don't think it's fair. And I don't know what kind of people you are. You don't even talk to your father. You're a bunch of savages. And then she said, you know, oh, and I also want you to know that your father's in the hospital. I mean, it's nothing serious, it's apparently rude, but I just Thought you should know. Aloha. So my brother, my big brother and I, we fly out to California to meet with Alonzo and to check out the situation, the home health care worker. And we strike up a deal with him that we're going to give him, you know, we're going to kind of pool our money and we're going to give him this monthly payment if he continues to care for our father. And he agrees to this. And that's all very nice. And we sign a little piece of paper and that's all really great. And then we go to the hospital to see my father. And, you know, I haven't seen my father in a really long time. And we get to the hospital and he's in a hospital bed. And now he's quite old, he's like 86 years old. And he's laying there and it's all very sort of sarcophagus, strange feeling in the room. And it's silent. And then suddenly my father's eyes sort of pop open and he looks at me and I look at him and he says, you know, where the hell have you been? They've had me hog tied for days. Get me the hell out of here. And he starts pulling at these restraints and I start, start to undo him and I try to explain to him that I've been living on the Eastern seaboard for the last 18 years. And, you know, I'm sorry I'm late, dad. So I untie my father and apparently he's going to be released in a few days. And everything's set with Alonzo. So my brother flies back to Boston, Massachusetts, where he lives. And now everything starts happening very quickly. I'm still in Los Angeles and I'm actually in my hotel room and I'm preparing to leave as well. And then the phone rings. Aloha. Tammy, I just want you to know that last night our mother, Retta Hirschfeld, passed away. And we just, I mean, we feel really terrible about this. I mean, we're really sad, we're really sorry. And we're selling the condo. And I just want to wish, you know, you and your family good luck and God health and aloha. So now my father, this, this deal that we made with a home health care worker is moot because my father has no home. And the hospital is ready to release my father, but he has nowhere to go. And I immediately call my big brother and he immediately starts scrambling to find some sort of facility that will take care of my father and will receive him in a very Short period of time. And I'm in Los Angeles and I'm really kind of freaking out and I'm stalling the hospital and they're getting really mad at me because, you know, it's a hospital and they're explaining it's not a nursing home and I can't drive and I'm in LA and my brother calls me and he finds a place and that's going to take my father. And this is a big relief. So I call up the airlines, I call United, and I'm looking for what's called a Compassion discount fare. And the woman on the phone, the United woman on the phone, she was very nice, but she explained to me that United doesn't offer compassion, they only offer bereavement. So if your father's still alive, I'm sorry, but we can't help you. But when your father does die, please feel free to call United and then we'll be able to take care of him then. Okay? So I end up we're flying American, and it's the morning of the flight and I show up at the hospital and it's quite early in the morning and the hospital's sort of empty. And I arrive at my father's room and the bed's all made and my father's all dressed up. But the odd thing is the way my father's dressed. He's wearing sort of a flannel shirt and he's wearing these suspenders and this kind of baseball cap. And this does not suit my father. This does not illustrate my father's personality at all. I mean, it has nothing to do with. My father was a nightclub owner and then he was a car salesman. And he does. This is like generic grandpa wear. And also my father's a Jew and they don't wear those sorts of things, just benders and flannel shirts. And it was very strange and I was very uncomfortable with it because I thought that my father was sort of losing a sense of identity through this aging process. And people were buying him clothes and they didn't know who he was. So I pulled off the cap and I pulled off the suspenders and I wheeled my father out to the nursing station and I'm signing him out. Then they're giving me medication and dosage instructions and they're very kind. And then they start stuffing my carry on luggage with diapers, these adult diapers, which I was completely unprepared for. But I didn't have time to ask any questions and we had a plane to catch. So I'm rolling my father out of the hospital and then I'm like, dad, oh, by the way, do you know where we're going? And he says, yeah, we're going back east. And he sort of laughs diabolically, like I'm springing him from the penitentiary or something. So, okay, so we get to the airport and, you know, we're doing pretty well. And we arrive at the security checkout point and I'm putting all of our, you know, carry on luggage on that conveyor belt to be X rayed. And somehow in the course of negotiating all of this, I've misplaced my father. And then I look beyond the security point, my father's already gone through, and he's out there in a wheelchair and it's kind of. It's like he's rolling it and they're checking me to see what I've got on me. And I'm trying to explain to them my father is rolling away and they don't care. And then there's nothing I can do. And at that moment I just. I realize actually, you know, that he is kind of helpless and there is nothing that I can do. But I'm gonna do the best I can. And so I catch up with him and I get to the gate and we arrive at the gate and they're boarding the plane. And then there's that moment where you realize, like, okay, a wheelchair is like this wide and like an airplane aisle is like this wide. So how do people in wheelchairs get aboard airplanes? And I'll tell you, they have this thing. It's quite. It's this thing and they pull it out of nowhere. It's sort of like a wheelchair and like a gurney and like a skateboard and it's very low and narrow. And they take my father off of the wheelchair and they put him onto this skateboard gurney thing and they strap him on, they tilt him back and they roll him into coach. And so there we are. Now we're sitting in code. My father's got the window seat, which is lovely. And I've got, you know, I'm sitting there and anyway, the thing is that we're on the plane and that we made it and that we actually, we look like people on a plane. And, you know, we're like passing and we've peeled back the entrees and we're eating our fettuccine or Alfredo or whatever, and it's quite nice. And suddenly my father's fork goes down and then he starts tugging at his seatbelt. And I say, you know, dad, what? And he says, bathroom. And so we're, you know, at the point in the plane ride where the tray tables are down and that little service cart thing is in the aisle, and everybody's eating and taking up space. My father has to go to the bathroom. And I. Okay, so I managed to sort of wiggle him out from behind those little flappy tray tables. And I get him out into the aisle. And he's very, you know, unstable. And I'm not really sure how we're going to get from where we are to back there where the bathroom is. And. And then I think, you know, I'll be like one of those aluminum walkers that you see the elderly with, and I will become a human walker. And I face my father towards me, and I hold him in his hands like this. And I just want to do this with as much, you know, like a private, dignified moment as much as I can. And we're sort of, you know, we're walking backwards towards the bathroom. And it's going pretty well, actually. I mean, it's a little shaky, and it's this kind of odd little thing, but nobody really seems to suspect anything. And, you know, it seems to be okay. And then suddenly, my father sort of sticks in place, and he stops walking. And I look down to discover that his pants are around his ankles and that he's standing in the middle of this airplane and his diapers. And then I realized, oh, my God, those suspenders were actually necessary. They just offended my sensibility. And I felt really shitty and awful and responsible for humiliating my father. And I pull up his trousers, and I kind of bunch them up in a little wad, and I kind of continue backwards towards the bathroom. And finally my back is up against that bathroom door. And we kind of turn him around. He's standing over the toilet, and the door's wide open, and it seems, you know, fine. And then I'm not really sure what I need to do now. Dad, is there anything else I can do for you? And he says, yeah, you can shut the goddamn door and get out of here. So I shut the door, and we arrive at Logan Airport. Horrible, disgusting Logan Airport. And it's winter, and it's disgusting and snowy and ice piles and wretched. And we get out to the curb, and my brother's there in his little Camry. And then we pile my father into the car, and we just start driving towards Cambridge, which is where my brother lives. And he's found some place for my father there. And we Pull up at this place. It's called the Cantabrigian Convalescent Center. We go in there and it is one of those places. It is a nursing home. And we check my father in and it's kind of nighttime and we get him into his room and tuck him into bed. And my brother and I are leaving the room and I feel really awful. Like, God, we are just really horrible people. I mean, I can't. This horrible place and we're leaving this poor guy here overnight. And I just feel really shitty about myself. And I took him on this plane ride and it was just awful. And we get to the door and my father says, hey, you guys. We turn around and he says, don't forget to tip the girl on your way out. Because they expect that in a hotel like this.
- [39:31]
Meg Bowles
That was Tamara Jenkins. Tamara is a filmmaker and actor. She's best known for her films Slums of Beverly Hills and the Savages. When we come back, we'll hear a story of creepy neighbors and locked doors. This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Meg Bowles. Our last story is from David Uhlendorf. David told this story in New York at an evening we called Don't Look Stories of High Anxiety. Here's David live at the mall.
- [40:12]
David Uhlendorf
When it comes to safety, my wife and I, we're in two different camps. I tend to leave windows open. I forget to lock doors. She's convinced that there's people hiding in the bushes just waiting to get us at the first chance they get. And one of the things that drives me crazy that I tease her about is like, she'll go shopping to the market and she'll bring home the groceries, and she'll unlock her car, take two bags of groceries out of the back seat, walk up to the house, unlock the house, bring the groceries in, lock the house, come back to the car, unlock the car, take two more bags out and just kind of shuttle back and forth like this. And, you know, I just think that's crazy. I refuse to do that. And about 13 years ago, we bought our first house in a nice little quiet neighborhood in Los Angeles. And it was a really beautiful little cottage. It was like a little Irish cottage. And it had a big sycamore tree in the backyard and the branches came up over the roof of the house. And we just loved that little house. And we called it Sycamore Cottage. And everything was great except for our next door neighbor who seemed a little crazy. He had this habit of anything in the neighborhood that he didn't like, like if he saw a stray animal that didn't seem to belong to anyone, or graffiti on a wall or a pothole, anything that bothered him or didn't belong in the neighborhood, he would go and he would videotape it. And this is what he did. But the thing, the thing that really kind of freaked us out were his Halloween decorations. Normally most of us in the neighborhood would put up a rubber skeleton and we'd buy a witch from Costco and that was it. He would put what looked to me like real human skulls outside of his house. He would have real hatchets hanging from the wall with what looked like real blood dripping from them. He would dig a pit in the front yard and at the bottom of this pit was a real coffin with what looked like real body parts hanging out of it. And the place was so scary that kids wouldn't go there and parents wouldn't let their kids go there. And everybody stayed away from him and stayed away from. Nobody would trick or treat at his house. And that was our neighbor. And one day I was coming home with my 4 year old son in the backseat of the car and I drove into the garage and according to my wife, what you're supposed to do is stay in the car, close the garage and then you get out of the garage, then you get out of the car. And that's how it works. And that, that's crazy. I don't do that. So I, I got out of the car and I went to the back seat. I picked up my four year old son. I went to the wall to switch off, you know, to put down the garage door. And as the garage door was closing, these two guys kind of slipped in and rolled in under the door and popped up and they both had guns. And one of them came up to me and he shoved the gun at my head and he said, I'll pop you off. It's nothing to me. I've done it before. It's nothing where I come from. And I'm holding my son in my arms and I'm frightened and I just want this to be over with as quickly as possible. So I have still have the keys in my hand. I say, here, just take the car. And he doesn't like that answer. And he whacks me over the head with his gun. And I can feel like my hair getting warm from the blood and I'm still holding onto my son and I'm feeling woozy from the blow. And then he says, the guys, they want me to turn off the alarm And I say, well, my nanny's inside with my one year old daughter. I can't turn off the alarm and they don't like that answer either. And he hits me a second time and I can feel more blood. And I'm still holding onto my son and I'm afraid I'm going to drop him and I put him down on the garage floor and these two guys kind of hustle me out of the garage and I leave my son there because I figure the danger is with me and the further away I can get from him, the safer he'll be. So they take me through the backyard to the back door and I knock on the door and my nanny comes to the door and sees me bleeding and sees these two guys pointing guns at me. And I just tell her to calm down and let us into the house and she does. And then the guys want to know where I keep my gun and I don't have a gun and they don't like that answer and they hit me again. And then they want to know where my safe is and I don't have a safe and I tell them that and they don't like that and they hit me over the head. And my nanny's really getting hysterical at this point and they tell her to shut up and they make her lie down flat on the ground and she puts my one year old daughter kind of underneath her protectively to kind of protect her instinctively from what's going on. And then I have this surreal conversation with these guys. I'm trying to come up with something for them to steal my wife. We have silver that my wife's grandmother gave her. So I say, well, why don't you take the silver? But that's too heavy, they don't like that. And they hit me again. And I say, well, what about the tv? Take the tv. And they don't like that answer either. And they hit me again. And with each blow I'm really having trouble staying conscious. And they take the three of us, my nanny, my one year old daughter, myself, and they put us in this little closet in the hallway and they close the door and they tell us if we come out they're going to shoot us. And we're sitting there in the dark in this little closet and we can hear the guys ransacking the apartment. And I'm sitting there and I'm bleeding and the nanny's sobbing and I'm remembering all of a sudden that a couple of weeks ago at a Kukuru, which is a fast food place, In Los Angeles. They had been a shooting there. Somebody had come in when they were closing down at one or two in the morning and had made the three guys who were working there closing down the place, made them get down on their knees and had shot all three of them in the back of the head and killed them. It was an assassination. And my wife had completely freaked out about this. And I remember telling her that, you know, that it was probably gang related or drug related, that it's another world that's not our world, we don't live in that world, you know, and that you shouldn't, don't worry about it. But sitting in the dark in the closet, it feels to me like that world and my world have now sort of come together. And what scares me is that these guys are not wearing masks. And I've seen their faces and I know that when you've seen their faces, that's bad. They'll shoot you at the end of the. At the end of it. And I'm also thinking about my. My son, who's probably still in the garage. And I want to go out and rescue him, but at the same time, I don't want to get shot. And I always thought that when it comes to one of my children that I would put my own life in danger for their sake. But now, sitting in the dark there, it's not so easy. I don't want to die. I don't want him to die, but I don't want to die either. And it feels like it's sort of like Sophie's Choice, except I'm one of the choices. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm thinking that my wife probably would have just rushed out, damn the consequences, and would have gone to her son. But here I am sort of weighing it and afraid that I'm going to get killed if I try and help him. And I'm feeling very, very, very, very guilty about that. And all of a sudden we hear a cell phone go off inside the house. And then about a minute after that, nothing. And I'm thinking, what's happened? Maybe they're gone. And I get up to leave and my nanny doesn't want me to leave. She says we're all going to get shot. And she pulls me back down, but I leave. And I go out into the house and the house is a mess, but the guys are gone. And I go out into the garage and I find my son on the garage floor. And when I. When I had put him down, at first it looked to me like he was sleeping, which seemed odd. And now that I've come to him back, he still seems to be sleeping. And I'm thinking, how is that, you know, did he just sleep through the whole thing? And I pick him up and he's definitely alive, he's just sleeping. And I bring him inside and I put him down on the couch and he slowly warms up and slowly comes to. And what I learned later on was that he wasn't sleeping. He had gone into a state called cold fear, which is something that little children and animals, young animals do when they're threatened by a predator or by an enemy. They kind of shut down, they become inert, they play possum to protect themselves. And he had done this, he had just gone into this state of cold fear. And I called up my wife and I called the police and they took me to the hospital and they stitched me up. And when I came back to the house, you know, it looked like a crime scene out of csi. There were little markers where all the blood was and that sort of thing. And I learned that what had happened was that there was two people inside the house attacking me. But there was a third person in a escape car outside, waiting outside. And he was like the lookout and he had. My crazy next door neighbor had seen this car and it was this pimped out cat Cadillac and it didn't fit. And so he started to videotape it. And the guy inside the car saw this guy videotaping him and he panicked. And that was what the phone call was. He called the two guys inside and that's why they all left. This guy who I was afraid of actually saved my life. And I went over to thank him afterwards, but I never really got to know him because after this we put the house on the market. Even though I loved the house very much, every room had a really bad negative association. And I told my wife, we just have to move and we put it on the market and it was gone within a week and we were out of there. And the police, even though they had the videotape, they never caught these guys. And after about two months, they just seemed to stop caring. I guess if someone's not killed, it's not a big deal for them. And we were told that with my 4 year old son, that a traumatic event like this could have really bad consequences later on in his life. So we went to a psychiatrist and we sat down and he was asked what his version of what happened was. And according to him, we were attacked by these evil toys, that these evil toys had come to the house and they would harm grownups because they were evil. Clearly he could see that I had been hurt, but because they were toys, they weren't going to hurt children. You know, toys and children have this special relationship and toys will not hurt children. So in his mind, he was perfectly safe. It was the grown ups who were in danger. And it's been about 10 years now since this happened and you'd think that I would have learned my lesson, but my old habits sort of slipped back. I have to say. I still leave windows open. I sometimes still forget to lock the door. And when I talk about the incident with my wife, sometimes I unconsciously will refer to it as the accident. At which point she reminds me that it wasn't an accident, it was armed robbery. And I guess I ended up dealing with it very much like my son. In his mind we were invaded, we were attacked by toys which weren't going to harm him. And in my mind it was an accident as if it was free of human malice. And I know that the world can be a dangerous place and I know that bad things happen, but I still don't believe that there's people hiding in the bushes to get me. I just can't live like that. Thank you.
- [52:40]
Meg Bowles
That was David Uhlendorf. David is a regular at the Moth Story Slams out in Los Angeles where he first told a shorter version of this story. We produce slams around the country where you can put your name in a hat for a chance to tell your story. To see if we have a slam in your area, go to themoth.org you can find all the stories you've heard in this hour at the iTunes store or on our website where you can also find out more about our storytellers. Thanks so much for listening and I hope you'll join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour.
- [53:20]
David Uhlendorf
Your host this hour was Meg Bowles. Meg directed the stories in the hour along with Leah Tao and Joey Zanders. The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson.
- [53:33]
Sponsor Voice
And Sarah Austin Janess with production support from Jenna Weiss Berman and Brandon Echter.
- [53:38]
David Uhlendorf
Moth stories are true as remembered and.
- [53:41]
Sponsor Voice
Affirmed by the storytellers.
- [53:43]
David Uhlendorf
Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios.
- [53:45]
Sponsor Voice
In New York City supervised by Paul Ruette.
- [53:48]
David Uhlendorf
Our theme music is by the Drift.
- [53:50]
Sponsor Voice
Other music in this hour from Yellow.
- [53:52]
David Uhlendorf
Man, the United States Marine Band and Paulo Conte.
- [53:56]
Sponsor Voice
The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with help from Vicki Merrick.
- [54:04]
David Uhlendorf
This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National.
- [54:09]
Sponsor Voice
Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the public radio exchange. Prx.org for more about our podcast, for.
- [54:25]
David Uhlendorf
Information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.