Seth Gale (11:01)
And so, oddly enough, they. They were part of a church, you know, heavily involved in a church up there. We would go to church with them. There's a lot of. They never did anything with me, but they. They're not innocent people, and I'll kind of leave it at that. What's unfortunate about that is neither one of them have ever been convicted of their crimes, so they're living in Ohio, free. I don't know what will happen if I ever encounter them one day again. You know, I. I will likely go to some sort of reporting through some sort of reporting process and. And. And tell them what I do know, but it's disturbing to know that specifically that. That uncle. Because that those two had gotten divorced. And so that uncle I know now lives in Ohio with a wife and kids, like, multiple children, after everything that he had done over the years. So, which. That's not my story to tell, but he never did anything with me. And so we lived with people like that, right? Or my and uncle were, like, very weird about sex. My exposing herself. And then I can remember, like, seven or eight years old, meeting my dad for the first time. We were in our hometown, and we had moved back to our hometown. And my mom, like, I don't know what it was. Like one day she's just like, hey, do you want to. We're gonna go see your dad or whatever. And he's in jail. And so my first memory of meeting my father is in prison or in a jail. And so we go into this room. There's a cubicles, plexiglass phones on the walls. Walk in, sit down. And I don't know how I knew it was my dad off the jump, but as soon as I saw him, I knew who he was. And I think I was probably 8 years old, 8 or 9. And he walks in. My dad's like 6, 2, he's bald. He's got. He looks, like, weathered at that point. I mean, he was only, I don't know, in his 30s, maybe 40. But he looks like. You can tell, he just looks old and worn out, like he spent most of his life in prison. And he's got pain tattooed across his throat and big, like, block graffiti letters. He's got, like, all kinds of prison tats, you know, ozzy across his knuckles. All of his fingers are, like, bent and broken and jacked up. He hasn't, like, no fingernails. He bites his fingernails real bad. And all these, like, prison tats on his arms. And he's got a skull on the back of his head with a question mark. And just I remember he, like, walks in and sits down and I grab the phone, and I'm the middle child, but I grabbed the phone and I can't even say anything to my dad. I just start breaking down and crying. And we were there for 15, 20, 30 minutes, something like that. And the whole time I just cried. I just couldn't. I could. Just couldn't talk. My sisters talked to him, my mom talked to him, but I could not get any words to come out. I. I just couldn't stop crying. It was, like, very, very emotional. And it really sucks. Like, when you think back on those days, like, As a child, like, I don't have any happy memories with my, with my family. I've got a couple, you know, here and there. But like, the earliest happy, happy memories, you know, like the only happy memory I had with my mom at a very young age was being like five or six and sitting on a couch with her. I remember I had chickenpox and so I stayed home from school. And so like, it was like this moment that's in my head. And it sucks because it's like, I wonder what my mom's like, earliest memory or what her happiest memory is of me. And I don't know if I ever know that. But like, mine is sitting there on the couch with her and we were both eating a bag of potato chips and we're sharing the chips and both of our hands were in the back at the same time. And it was kind of like this, like, weird, like you're on a date with a girl kind of moment and like, you put your hand in the popcorn bucket at the same time, you're like, you know, and so as a, as a young man, like, your, your mother is the first woman that you, you know. And same with a girl and her father, you know, so there's like that special bond that you have. And I could just remember being on that couch with my mom and just like, I was so in love with the moment, you know, and like, yeah, that's, that's, that's. It's interesting to think about people's. As somebody who grew up with neglectful parents or absent parents, I like to ask people that question, like, what's your earliest, like, memory with your parents? Like, what's your happiest memory with them, you know, as a child? Like, what's the earliest one? And I don't know why it's like cathartic for me to hear that, but. But it just is for some reason, almost like living through, vicariously through somebody else's childhood. That's kind of how I am with my kids now, I guess. But anyways, my first memories with my father, you know, or meeting him in prison, right? Meeting him in jail. I don't have the memories of throwing the football in the front yard, teaching me how to play baseball, showing me how to ride a bike. I don't have any of those memories, you know, like, those are not there and they never happened. They were all, you know, my earliest memories. Prison. So life goes on. Nine, ten years old, you know, my mom becomes more abusive. She. She starts to get abusive. And as in, like, physically striking my sisters and I grabbing us by the face, slapping, punching. I can remember. I can remember her. She. She started drinking more. I don't know if I'd say she was an alcoholic, but she was drinking a lot. And there's. There was always a lot of drama with her boyfriend, her current boyfriend at the time, and all the guys that he would hang out with. And for some reason, people are always over at our house. They were always over at our house drinking and smoking. I can remember coming home like 9, 10 years old, and it's interesting, people ask me, like, when did you know you were going to write a book? Or when did you know you were going to, like, tell your story one day? And this day, like, no, I was like, my life is not going to take this path. What had happened was I was. I was coming home and I was going up my stairs, and I look in the living room and my mom is in there with probably six, seven, eight, nine guys, and they're all smoking weed. They're passing a blunt around the room. And my older sister's in there. She wouldn't have been older than 10 or 11 years old, and she's in this room with adults smoking weed. And that very moment, I can remember looking at. Looking at them and just thinking to myself, like, my life will not take that path. Like, I'm not. I don't know what I'm going to do, but, like, I. I know that I will do something great with my life. I'll not. I will not take this path. And so I can remember going up in my bedroom and thinking to myself, you know, that one day I'm going to do something special. Like, I don't know what it is yet, but one day there's, you know, there's something in me that I'm just not going to accept this life. You know, within a couple weeks after that, sitting in my bedroom with my. With my. My sister. And she had just gotten into a fight with my younger sister. So she's sitting in there talking to me, and I'm playing video games. I'm sitting on my bed and my sister's off to my left. So she's got, like, her back against the wall and there's a door right here. And I'm sitting here playing games, and out of nowhere, my mom, like, kicks open the door. And, you know, I turn and look and my mom just, without any warning or anything, just turns, looks at my sister and just like, hammer fist strikes her in the mouth. And I remember she Had a sucker in her mouth. And so that's kind of what I was worried about more than anything. But she had hit her like three or four times, I mean, bounced her head off the wall. I jumped on the other side of my bed, started crying. I can remember, like, looking up over my bed, over my mattress, like, like looking at my mom, and I'm just like, hysterical. I've always been an emotional person. I mean, I would cry over spilled milk. And so I was immediately just like, just screaming and crying, you know. And I think that's probably the first time I'd seen my mom like, really strike one of us. And so it just took me. It just, it was just hard to watch. And so in the midst of my crying, my mom looks at me and says, what are you crying about? Stop being a. Before I give you something to cry about. So I shut up and, you know, she walks out of the room. And a couple weeks after that, I was coming home from school and I, I did not take the bus. And I usually took the bus and me and my cousins were walking home from school together. And being boys, we, like, were running around just doing dumb. We took our time, got home like an hour or two later than what we normally do. And instead of my mom being like, hey, where were you at? Like, I, you know, was worried, whatever. When I got home, it was like very angry, you know, she's like, where the were you? Screaming, yelling at me. So she tells me, go upstairs and you know, bend over the bed. Which was like, standard, like, you're going to get your ass whooped protocol, right? Which is not that bad. You know, usually it's like one or two smacks with the paddle and then you're done. Well, this particular moment, like I can remember going up there, I kind of grab the blankets and my mom strikes me. The first time she hits me with this board, I. She had hit me so hard, I knew like immediately that, like, this is not good. She hits me again. And I had fallen to my knees and she kept swinging. So she hits me, I don't know, three, four, five times across the back with this massive, like it's a two by six is what it was, with a handle carved in it, into it with a bunch of holes drilled into it. It's like designed for like the most optimal ass whooping tool for kids, basically. And she's striking me across the back instead of my, my butt. And so I can remember like falling down and my mom yells and screams at me, you know, because I'm on the floor, screaming and crying. And I'm just like, kind of broken because she's the only person that I have, and she's like beating the hell out of me with no remorse. You know, I think that, like, as a child, you can go through. You can go through a lot of like, pain and heartache, especially from your parents, because most of the time the parent is going to like, reassure you or love you or apologize or there's some sort of like, empathy or compassion there. Some sort of love, right? Like tough love. Right? This was not tough love. This was just straight up, like beating the. Out of your child. And as I sat there and cried, she, you know, she didn't, she didn't say. The only thing she said to me was, get the out of here. Get the up. Get that, get out of here. Go to your room. And so I crawled to my room and I laid there and cried for like, hours. And I wasn't. I don't think I was in pain anymore. I don't really remember the pain of it as far as physical pain goes. But I can remember just like being heartbroken, you know, and just. Just sad. Like, why is my life going? Like, why, like, why? What's happening right now? Like, what's going on? Why is my mom acting like this? You know, and to the point of like, I knew I was going to tell my story. Like, in those moments, I knew that, like, one day I knew that my life was taking a path. And I knew that one day I would tell my story and, like, I'm going to, you know, I don't know, make me change the world. I want to do something special. That's. That's kind of what I would tell myself, you know, in those following in that same house. I can remember my mom. I don't know what was going on. We were in the car and she was with her boyfriend and she's driving and she's going down this street. It's a 25 mile an hour, like, neighborhood street. And she's doing like 60, she's drunk. And this was probably like one of the more like, terrifying moments. I was in the back seat with my sisters and my mom is yelling and screaming at her boyfriend, drunk driving, and she's threatening to kill us all. And she's like, literally like, I'm gonna kill everybody in this car. Like, you know, yelling and screaming. My sisters and I are in the back and we're screaming and crying and we're just begging her, like, mom, please, please stop. Like, mom, Mom, Mom. Mom. And she, she turned around and just yelled at us and you know, says like, you know, shut the up, I'm gonna kill us all. And yelling and screaming, you know, and she, I don't know what happened. She calms down and there's these moments, like you have these like deeply traumatic memories and then everything else is like a cloud. Like, it's like there's like this cloud and I can see like that, that little memory right there. And like that's all I can pick out of it, you know, and that's the only memory that I have of that moment. But it was crazy, you know, and so not to kind of belabor the point of, of the situation, but I'll share a couple more stories and move on. So, you know, with, with the abuse and the drama from my mother and all the, all the bs, if that wasn't enough, our, our security was like at risk as well. My mom would go to work at night. So she would, at this point when we were like 10, 11, 12 years old, she would be at home during the day, she would work at night. So she would go to work at 8 o'clock at night, 7 o'clock at night, and be gone until 7 in the morning. Looking back on it now, I assume that she's probably doing this to avoid responsibility. Maybe. I'm not really sure. I don't know why you would leave your kids at home alone at night when you, when you have the option to work during the day when they would be safer at home during the day and they're at school during the day. I just don't understand why you would work at night when you have kids to take care of. And so anyway, she, that was her decision. And with her being gone one night my sisters wake me up and one of my sisters has a knife in her hand. The other one has the cord of the alarm clock wrapped around her hand. The alarm clock's like hanging from her hand. And they said, Seth, you know, somebody's trying to break in. And so I kind of, you know, wake up and we go downstairs and although I was the middle child, I was kind of like the leader between the three of us. I just, I don't know, there's something about me that just, I just, I don't know. I was the leader of the three of us. And so they came and got me and we go downstairs and sure enough, at our back door, which has, you know, the handle lock, the deadbolt, we also had a two by four that was nailed across the door. We lived in a bad neighborhood. So there was a two by four nail across the door. The back windows had like chicken wire around them so people couldn't. Couldn't break it in and come down to the kitchen and sure enough, there's three guys kicking in our back door. One of them's got like a sledgehammer, the other one's got a, maybe a baseball bat and a shovel, something like that. And they're just striking the door, door. And I can. I'm sitting there in the kitchen, not sure what to do. We're kind of just sitting there screaming and crying. And you can just see the door just like inching open. You can see the 2x4 being ripped away, the frame of the doors, like popping out, you know, and the doors just slowly just cracking open. You know, it seemed like hours were kind of sitting there. It's probably a few minutes. And our neighbors came outside, the people ran away. And we, the cops show up, they call my mom. My mom comes home from work. We're kind of standing outside and you know, the cops are like, okay, is everything okay? My mom, you know, Yep, everything's fine. All right, go inside, go back to sleep. So our house we just watch is nearly broken into, and we just go inside and go back to sleep. And then the next day we go, we get up and go to school, right? And so while all this craziness is happening, like, I'm just showing up and going to school. Like, no therapy, no help, no support, no, like, hey, I know the times are hard right now, but we're going to get through this. You know, there was nothing, right? And so I'm showing up to school and then I'm this kid who's trying to just freaking survive, basically. And the good news is, is I was a very smart kid. So, like, I naturally exceeded very well. I mean, I was arguably the smartest kid in my class. I was a perfect student as far as grades go, but I got into a lot of fights, so I was constantly suspended or in school suspensions, whatever. And even despite all that, I managed to keep perfect grades. So I was a very smart kid, but I was a class clown, talked a lot, got into trouble for talking a lot and just being funny or whatever. But it's interesting to, to look back on all that and see how, like, my home situation was impacting my social life at school. You know, school was like a reprieve for me. It was warm first off. It was like a warm place to be. I had friends there, there was food There was, it was safety. You know, there was no like craziness happening aside from getting in fights, which I was likely the, the instigator in the situations anyways. But yeah, it's interesting to look back on that. And I had a few teachers that probably were harder on me than they needed to be, and then some that were certainly, they knew something was wrong. They're trying to help me as much as they could. But I say all that to say that, you know, that break in was a perfect example of when somebody should have intervened and been like, what the hell is going on? Like, okay. Or hey, call the school system and let, let them know. Like these kids, they just had a break in, you know, like somebody needs to talk to them tomorrow or you know, just let somebody know. And I'm not mad at the system. I'm not mad at the police or the teachers because they're underpaid and under trained. They're, they're, they don't know. They don't know what they don't know. And I think people look at police and teachers like they're these high class civilians or these high class people that are above all else because of the roles that they have and they have these crazy expectations. And like, teachers are just, they're just normal people. Police officers, they're just normal people with a harder job. So the title does not always come with the necessary pay and training that they need. So I think their job is incredibly important. But it doesn't make them this. You don't just become a teacher or an officer and then become this highly skilled individual anyways. So I'd say that just, you know, I'm not knocking them for further failures, I guess you could say, or their oversights. But anyways, you know, kids go through all this craziness every day and they just keep showing up to school and a lot of times they're looked at like troublemakers and, and, and you know, we don't realize that there's something going on. So the, there's been a lot of research and studying in that field where they do kind of pick up on these things now more than they did in the past. But yeah, that, that house was just craziness. Like things were just spiraling out of control. And because of all that, I found myself outside of the home more. So there were, you know, many nights where I'd be running around outside playing, having fun with my friends. I end up meeting this kid down the street. His name's Jacob. For the sake of the story It's a fake name, but to protect his identity. So I meet Jacob. Jacob's like 15 years old. I was 10. And he lives down the street from me. Started hanging out with him and Jacob's actually like a good kid, a good influence, like solid kid. He's in high school, but he kind of takes me under his wing and he kind of, he picks up on the fact that I had a broken home basically, you know, and you kind of know something's wrong. So he takes me under his wing and he starts letting me hang out with him, playing video games, doing all the things. And after like a month or two of hanging out with him, I'm at his house, coming down the stairs and there's, there's this guy that walks in the front door. He's like 6, 5, 6, 6, big guy. He's, you can tell he's Hispanic, but he's very pale, very, very light complexion. He's got these big aviator style glasses on, like Dahmer style glasses, you know, long black, slicked back hair and very big wide guy. He's like 380 pounds and just a massive dude, but imposing. Like, does not look sloppy like always say he looks like he could throw a hard punch. And he walks in and he's like, hey, what's your name? Seth. He's like, you like football? Yeah, I love football. Like video games? I love video games. You like pizza? Yeah, I love pizza. And so he's like, well, why don't you come up to my house this weekend with me and Jacob and we'll play video games and eat pizza. And I was like, all right, well, let me go ask my mom. This is a message from sponsor Intuit. TurboTax Taxes was getting frustrated by your forms. Now Taxes is uploading your forms with a Snap and a TurboTax expert will do your taxes for you. One who's backed by the latest tech which cross checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy. All of which makes it easy for you to get the most money back, guaranteed. Get an expert now@turbotax.com only available with TurboTax Live full service. Seek guaranteed details@turbotax.com guarantees. Go home and ask my mom. And my mom says, as long as I'm with Jacob, I'm okay, you know, and so because I'm going to this grown man's house and so my mom showed a little bit of concern. But as long as I was with Jacob, I was good to go. So I go to his house and I remember getting into his car, he drove this small Honda Civic and it was a hot summer day and I think this is probably the first car that I'd ever been in that had air conditioning. And he was a big dude and so like he kept it cool in his car. And I can remember like getting in there and being like damn, like this is awesome. It's kind of nice, you know. I've got this friend now all of a sudden who can drive. We go to this chicken place in our hometown, his famous chicken place. And for the first time probably in my life, I get whatever I want on the menu. You know, I get this big meal, large fries, large drink, frickin sitting in the back like eating all this food and I'm like damn dude, this is freaking sick. Like I've got this once again this friend who can drive and now he's buying me things. I mean all within an hour. Like this is all happening very quickly. And then we're on the highway to drive up to Bluffton, Ohio, which is about 30 minute drive. And we're listening to like AC DC, Metallica and we're freaking rocking out and just eating the food and just like, I'm like, you know, Jacob's in the passenger, the guy's name, we called him Mondo was his, his nickname. He's driving and we're just like hell yeah, this is awesome. Get up to his house, walk in and he lives in this big studio apartment. So it's one big room and you walk in, you turn and it's, you know, there's a low ceiling, it's like a nine foot ceiling, Acoustical ceiling tiles. It's very dark and it's very cold and very dirty. There's trash like everywhere all over the apartment as soon as you walk in. And his car was full of trash too. But as soon as you walk in, there's like three big trash bags right there, like full of trash. There's like fast food and pizza boxes all over the place. You know, there's a kitchen in the back right corner and the sink is full of like dirty moldy dishes. I mean it was like disgusting. But as a 10 year old kid, like you don't give a. You're, you know, you like, you barely take a shower, you know, so you just don't care. And the first thing I noticed was the trash. But then also I turned to my right and there's three TVs, a couple game systems, couch, chair, there's two desktop computers in the back right corner, a big table like this Kind of sitting in the middle of the room. And then there was this. In the back left corner, there was a black sheet that was hanging up from this. It was just tied into the ceiling. And that was where his bed was. It was like his bedroom. There's this black sheet that blocked it off. So my first impressions were, okay, there's multiple TVs and multiple game systems, which means we don't have to take turns, and we can play video games all night long. So that's what we did. We sit down, we start playing games, and, you know, gets late. He orders pizza, energy drinks, pop coffee. Like, this is just freaking heaven for kids, you know, especially for somebody like me, because, you know, you go to a friend's house and their parents, you know, you can't just go in the pantry and eat whatever you want. The parents are going to put you to bed. You can't drink the pop, like, all these things, right? And we were just. I mean, there's no rules. And so, I mean, I did not sleep that night. I know I didn't sleep. I stayed up all night long playing video games. I mean, it was just awesome. And so I was so happy to admit to had met this guy and to have known Jacob. And that was a Saturday Sunday. Mondo takes us both back home, and he's like, hey, you know, well, when do you want to come back? And I'm like, dude, I'll come back, like, next weekend. Like, just say when, you know? And so he's like, all right, well, cool. And So I was 10 years old when that happened. And from that point forward, I started going to his house every single weekend. There's 52 weekends in the year I was at his house, probably 45 to 50 of them. If there were holiday events, like Fourth of July, memorial Day, whatever, it was like I was at his house with his family. So I ended up meeting his mom, ended up meeting his sisters. His sisters who had kids, ended up meeting his whole family for Christmases. Like, all those. All the holidays, I'd go to his house and hang out with him and his family, or we'd go see his family and then go back to his house. And, you know, it's interesting, when I first met his mom, I had really long hair. I had long hair down to my shoulders. And admittedly, I did look like a little girl. But his mom even told me, like, you're too pretty to be a boy. And I'll kind of circle back to that here in a minute. But as I got to know Mondo, within maybe two or three months, I started to kind of share some personal things with Mondo. I started telling them like, hey, you know, my mom's like really mean. She's very abusive. She drinks and smokes a lot. I get bullied at school. I'm really smart, but I get bullied a lot, a lot. You know, a lot of kids make fun of me for my clothes and things like that, my shoes, because I had like just. I had holes in my shoes and dirty clothes, you know, so got bullied a lot for those things. I started telling Mondo, you know, I don't have a dad, I've got a couple sisters. And like, life just, it's just hard right now. And around that same time that I had met Mondo, you know, over the course of those first three months, my mom had met a new boyfriend. And so this guy, his name was Jamie. He was a light skinned guy. He's like six two, couple missing teeth, cornrows. He was, had a very athletic build, like natural. You could just tell his naturally, naturally athletic. And I talk about him in my book, but I say he had a crooked smile because he was very charismatic. He's very smooth, he's very just. He would light up a room when he walked in. But due to the nature of my childhood and having to read people and read situations in rooms, I could pick up a threat very quickly. And I did with him. And as soon as I met him, I knew the guy was trouble, okay? And sure enough, he ends up getting my mom addicted to cracking cocaine. And my mom just swore by the guy because he was a man of God and he was, he was a part of this church. And we even went to the church and watched him, you know, give a sermon or whatever you call it and doing his thing. And so he had a lot of respect and love from the people in the church. They all looked at him like he was his hero. And so my mom was just infatuated with him and that. And he ended up selling her own pipe dreams, which, you know, my definition of pipe dreams are basically you're sitting around smoking or drinking and you're hitting the pipe and then like you have like all these like ambitions all of a sudden, right? Like, oh man, yeah, we're gonna do this and this and this. And then like when the high is gone, everything else is gone, right? And so he's selling her own, all of these dreams. And so we end up moving out of the house that we were in, which was perfectly fine for us. I'm not sure why we moved, but we ended up moving. And we move into this other house that we had no utilities on, which was common. We didn't have utilities often where we'd have to heat up our bath water or we didn't have power or something like that. We would go a couple days without those things or a week or two. And that was common, which. It's not really that bad. But we moved into this house in the dead of winter with no utilities in Ohio. And this is probably where, like, I really began to lose respect for my mom. I didn't know. I didn't know that she was a. That she was using cracking cocaine at this point. But what made me lose respect was I. I go upstairs to the bedrooms. My bedroom was at the top of the stairs. My sister's was down the hall. And this. This little house that we lived in, it had two bedrooms. That was it. And so my mom slept in the living room downstairs, my bedroom upstairs. I walk in, there's hardwood floors. They're cracked and split all the way across the floor. They're buckled up. And they do that whenever they get wet with weather. Weather will turn your hardwoods and crack them and pop them, though. It's called buckling. And they were like that because my bedroom ceiling had a hole in the. In the top left corner or the top corner or whatever. And it was like three feet. It was probably three feet wide, four feet deep. I mean, just this. Literally just nothing. And you could just see straight into the attic above. And I'm. And I mean, it's freezing cold in the room. It's soaking wet because it had been, like, raining and snowing. And so all that was just coming straight into my room. And I'm like. I can remember, like, being in that room at 10 years old and being like, what the fuck is going on? Like, like, what is going on? I mean, it was so cold. You could see your breath, you know, And. I don't know, within a couple hours, I had a mattress in there and a blanket. And I. I spent, yeah, a lot of. A lot of nights in that room, freezing cold, sleeping on a thin little mattress with a thin blanket. Just like, I went to bed every. I dealt with this massive hole in my ceiling. I mean, it was just miserable. And so when I tell my story, you know, it's. It can be kind of hard to follow sometimes because I was living on, like, two sides of the street. You know, Monday through Friday, I was living at home with my mom, going to school, doing all the things. But, but dealing with the abuse and the drugs and the violence. And then Friday night and Saturday night, I was going to Mondo's house, which for the first few months was really cool. It was awesome. Well, and sharing all of these details with Mondo, you know, that my mom had got this new boyfriend in this place that I live and I have a hole in my room and this and that. I also began to become, like, very suicidal. Started to have suicidal thoughts at 10 years old. Thinking about jumping out of my window, stabbing myself, cutting myself. I had thought of all these different mechanisms to. To take my life. I was just scared of pain. Truthfully, I. I don't know that I would. If I could have done it without feeling pain, I probably would have done it, but I was scared of feeling pain. And the only thing that I could think of that, that I could be successful with was jumping from a high window or a parking deck, something like that. And I would, like, rationalize with myself, like, how I could do it. And. But then I would also tell myself, like, well, if I survive, it's going to hurt, you know, and then I'm going to be stuck. So, like, I'm just. Just I'm not going to do it. And so I. I just kind of hung on to life. But when I met Mondo and I. And I began to tell him a lot of these different things, of all these situations in my life, like I was saying earlier, you know, single parent, no father, drugs, violence, abuse, bullying, suicide. Mondo began to kind of reiterate those same things back to me, and whether they were true for him or not, you can probably tell what the story's going, right? And this is part of the grooming process.
