Shownotes Transcript
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Hey there. We here at The Moth have an exciting opportunity for high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors who love to tell stories. Join The Moth Story Lab this fall. Whether for an aspiring writer, a budding filmmaker, or simply someone who loves to spin a good yarn, this workshop is a chance to refine the craft of storytelling. From brainstorming to that final mic drop moment, we've got students covered.
Plus, they'll make new friends, build skills that shine in school and beyond, and have a blast along the way. These workshops are free and held in person in New York City or virtually anywhere in the U.S. Space is limited. Apply now through September 22nd at themoth.org slash students. That's themoth.org slash students.
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX, and I'm Katherine Burns. Today, we're going to hear stories about knowing when and how to fight. I don't know about you, but when it comes to physical fighting, I'm not that up to the task. The one fight I was ever in took place in third grade, when I didn't notice two boys fighting and stepped right in between them as a punch was flying and ended up on the ground with a bloody nose.
But a lot of fighting isn't the physical kind, which is the case with our first storyteller, Hilary Boone. We met her in our Burlington, Vermont Story Slam series, where we partnered with Vermont Public Radio. Here's Hilary Boone, live at the Moth. So in the year 2000, I was in high school in the northeast kingdom of Vermont, and I knew that I was gay.
And there was a huge backlash happening at that time from the Civil Unions Bill passing. And there was a motto for the movement. Some of you will know it. It was Take Back Vermont. It started out as a political slogan that meant take back Vermont from the liberals. But where I lived, it morphed and it became a slogan of hate. It became take back Vermont from the queers.
And it was everywhere in our town on huge white billboards with big black letters, "Take Back Vermont." And I didn't know any other gay people and we did not have the internet, but I knew that the way that I felt was not okay and it was not to be shared with anyone. But luckily for me, that's not the whole story because I have a really awesome mom.
And this awesome mom, she didn't know a lot of gay people either, but she knew that she didn't like those signs. And so one day, I was a sophomore in high school, mom took me and my friend Tara aside and she said, "Girls, I've got a proposition for you. I'm going to pay you $10 for every one of those horrible Take Back Vermont signs that you steal and bring back to me here at the house." And we were like, "Yeah!"
So we went to the shed and we got the tools we thought we would need. We got hammers and crowbars and a ladder, put it in the back of my trunk, waited until nightfall, dressed all in black, and went out into the northeast kingdom of Vermont to steal.
And off these signs came, I mean from the tops of trees, from the sides of barns, from someone's trailer, these huge signs. And we brought them home. My mom helped us take them out of the car. She took them into the backyard and she lit them on fire. And that's where my dad found us. And he said, "Jesus Christ, Carla, the girls are gonna get shot. You can't condone this." So we were asked to stop and we didn't, you know.
That summer, we stole. But I didn't come out then. I didn't come out until I was a sophomore in college in Boston when I met the other gay people, when I got the internet. It was really hard for me. It was excruciating. And at that time, I didn't know where the strength to be who I needed to be was coming from.
So flash forward, it's 2010 and I am living in Seattle with my girlfriend and my little brother Thomas is visiting. He's on his way to Japan, but he stopped in Seattle for his birthday and
and it's 8 o'clock in the morning, and my phone rings. And I don't answer it, but I look at it, and I see that it's my dad, and I think, "Well, that's weird. It's early." And then in the other room, I hear Tom's phone go off, and I think, "Well, that's not good at all." And the next thing that I know, my little brother is bursting through the door into the bedroom, and he's in my arms, and he's heaving. And our mother has had a massive stroke overnight,
And my dad has carried her to the car and he's driven a half an hour to the hospital. And now he is on the highway and she is in a helicopter on her way to Dartmouth-Hitchcock and we don't know if she's going to survive. And this is my worst case scenario. Like this is the worst thing that could happen to us.
And so Thomas is in the bathroom throwing up, and I'm on the phone, and I'm on the internet, and I'm canceling his flight to Japan, and I'm booking us flights home, and I'm telling my dad that it's okay and that this isn't his fault. And all the while, I know that my beautiful, powerful, elegant, strong mother, if she survives at all, is never going to walk or speak again.
that having pride is a medal of honor and I think that it comes because you overcame something or because you earned something and over the last four years as I've watched my mom relearn to talk using the right side of her brain where most of us learn to play music from watching her learn to walk again watching her go back to school as a physical or back to work as a physical therapist and then back to school for massage therapy and
Having a Dartmouth-Hitchcock neurologist quietly tell me, "When I look at your mom's brain scan, I can't explain how she's doing this well." With all of that, I know exactly where I got the strength to be who I am. Because for the second time in my life, my mom showed me what it means to take back your identity and to be yourself. And I'm so happy I got to tell this story because I'm so proud of my mom.
And I'm so proud to be part of a badass lineage of women who do what it takes, no matter what it takes, to be ourselves in the world. Thank you. That was Hilary Boone. Hilary works in nonprofits as a program manager and consultant.
In her free time, she plays outside and draws cartoons. Hillary is now married and lives in Fort Ethan Allen with her wife and dog. And quick update on her mom, Carla. She's now studying massage therapy and working with patients who are in chronic pain. You can see pictures of the two of them at themoth.org. While you're there, you can call our pitch line and leave a two-minute version of a story you'd like to tell. Do you have a story about fighting for something you believe in? We want to hear it.
The number to call is 877-799-MOTH. Or you can pitch us a story right at our website, themoth.org. ♪♪♪
Next, we have a story from Maria Hodromarska. We met Maria at a community workshop we did with Open Future Learning. Participants in this workshop were all parents of people with developmental disabilities. I happened to be in the audience when she told it, and the story has always stuck with me. Here's Maria Hodromarska, live at the Moth. I've always tried to let my older son show me the way.
When he was eight years old, he was obsessed with trains and he insisted on having his birthday party at Grand Central Station where he could watch the trains come and go and hand out food to homeless people. He called them lonely people and that was his criterion for selecting who to approach. Lonely. At one point in the afternoon, I watched him walk up to a businessman seated on a bench waiting for the 510 Metro North to New Haven.
And I stood there fascinated while the very lonely-looking investment banker handed the sandwich back to my son. My son is also a person who lives with a disability, and it was always thought that he was functioning somewhere on the autism spectrum. Parents like me, parents of people with disabilities, spend our lives telling another story. I call it "the story."
The story of the pregnancy, the story of the birth, the story of the developmental milestones achieved or not achieved, the story of the accumulating laundry list of the things that the person with a disability cannot do. And the service delivery system is set up in this contentious and adversarial manner, so parents like me are required to tell the story, the same set of facts over and over again,
in order to get the services that our children require to professionals, bureaucrats, whose job it is to either not listen, half-listen, or not believe the story and deny the services. I think of it kind of as a narrative purgatory. Not to mention how it feels when you want to talk about your son's majestic humanity, to know that the story that really counts is how he can't tie his shoes.
When my son was about to turn 18 years of age and was going to age out of the Board of Education system, he would lose all of the services that he had. So I decided to apply for Medicaid for him, which would cover the cost of extending the services that he requires into his adult life. This was going to be the most important telling of the story that I would ever do.
And his entire future hinged upon that. Literally, if I didn't tell the story well and he didn't get the services, he would have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody to do it with. A truly lonely life. So it's a gray autumn morning, and my son, who I'm going to call David, and I, David and I, set out for the Brooklyn Developmental Disabilities Services Center.
which is a 1970s brutalist structure built on a toxic landfill in East New York to house people with developmental disabilities. And we go there to do battle with the state of New York for the Medicaid. And the state of New York herein represented by a clinical psychologist who I will call Stewie. Now, that's not his real name, but his was an equally friendly diminutive.
And David is looking good, as he often does. He's got on a hat and a jacket, and David often looks so good. In fact, once he was nearly arrested for illegal use of his half fare card.
So we arrive on the campus and first it's David's turn to go in with Stewie. And this takes about an hour and a half. And David comes out of his meeting with Stewie laughing and talking about his favorite Kinks album. And Stewie shoots me a look that I've seen on a lot of bureaucrats. It's beleaguered and slightly sarcastic. And it tells me, you're going to lose this battle. Your son is too high functioning.
So now it's my turn to go in. I am not feeling particularly cool or put together. I've told this story many times and I'm prepared to tell it again. I walk into the room with Stewie and pretty quickly it becomes like a boxing ring and the punches start flying. Stewie draws his attention to an 80-page adaptive behavior assessment that I've completed on my son. Stewie says,
You know, you said here that your son can't follow a simple three-step command, but he just told me that he's been riding the city subway system by himself for a long time, and he offered me some pretty complex train directions. That's right, I say. And I go on to explain how he took his grandparents around the city in the subway when he was three years old, but that he still can't sequence a shower, and he often leaves the bathroom with soap suds in his hair. Stewie says...
You know, you wrote here that your son can't do bilateral skills, and those are skills that involve tying shoelaces or cutting something. But he told me that he's learning how to play the guitar. That's right.
I said, and I explained how you never want to give David a two-fisted sandwich because most of it will wind up on his lap or on the floor. But if he's playing music, both his left and right brain and both hands are working in concert. I become aware that Stewie's not buying any of this and I'm losing this battle. David suddenly bursts into the room. He starts to scream at me.
"When are we leaving? We've been here all day. I've had enough. I'm overwhelmed." And he paces the room like a caged animal.
And I say, "David, maybe you want to listen to music?" "I've been listening to my music! The iPod's out of juice! I don't know what to do!" "Did you bring your charger?" I say, "Yes, yes, yes," he says. "Go get the charger. Let's plug the iPod in. Maybe you can listen to some more music in a little while." And David reaches into his backpack where he's got the charger, and when he pulls it out, the bag explodes. Small pieces of paper, half-broken nubs of pencils,
food, small pieces of plastic all over the room. And there I am again where I often am. A little embarrassed about my son's behavior until I realize that I don't need to explain anything. That David is doing the explaining for himself. He's showing the way. And Stewie begins to pay attention. He threads through the
narrative that I've given him, the presence and absence of certain things. He pours over the evaluations from my son from the age of 2 to 18. I look up at the clock and realize that six hours have passed. Stewie suddenly looks up at me and smiles. He tells me that he has an explanation for all of it. Your son is not autistic.
The anoxia at his birth, the lack of oxygen, caused brain damage. This is a traumatic brain injury. There we were, Stewie, David, and me in our ring, having done battle for many hours. My adversary had become my hero. My son David had shown the way, and as is true with any prize fight, there was a decision, and my son would get his services. Thank you.
That was Maria Houdramarsta. Maria is a clinical assistant professor of drama therapy at New York University. She's also the proud mother and stepmother of seven wonderful adults. To see a photo of Maria and her son, go to themoth.org. Coming up, a trip to visit his long-distance girlfriend puts a young man in a threatening situation when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX. This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Katherine Burns.
In this show, we're hearing about fighting, specifically the decision about how far to push things. We met our next storyteller in a workshop we did with the Aspen New Voices Fellows. He went on to tell this story at a main stage show in Ithaca, New York. Here's Ed Mabaya. In 1998, the hit song, Get Jiggy With It by Will Smith, was guaranteed to get everybody on the dance floor. See, it was my business to know all these things because as a graduate student at Cornell University...
I used to DJ at student parties just to make a little extra cash. So at one of these parties, a good friend of mine introduced me to this cute and rather shy girl named Krista. Later on, I danced with her that evening, and before the night was over, I got a Digis, as we called it back in the days. Not wanting to sound too desperate, I waited for exactly 48 hours before I called her, and we agreed to meet for coffee right here in the Commons.
It turned out that neither one of us liked coffee, so we both had tea instead, and we spent much of the afternoon getting to know each other, just talking. About two weeks later, we started dating, and things were a little rocky, a little shaky at the beginning as we were both transitioning from other relationships. However, I kind of noticed that Christa and I never ran out of things to say to each other. We would spend all weekend just sitting together, enjoying each other's company, and just being in love.
I had that kind of lingering feeling that, you know, this could be the one. So about a year later on, Krista got funding to go and do a PhD fieldwork in Cape Town, South Africa. I was happy for her, but I knew this would be quite a big test for our young relationship. While she was away, we tried our best to maintain this long-distance relationship. These are the days before Facebook and WhatsApp, so we tried to do as much as we could on email.
So, about a semester later on, I got funding to go and do my own field research work in my home country, Zimbabwe. I jumped at that opportunity to make a one-week stopover in Cape Town to see Krista. The reunion was just as good as I'd imagined it to be. As two young lovers who were happy to be reunited, we walked around town holding hands. We giggled and kissed as we checked out the many restaurants and the many amazing signs that
Cape Town has to offer. Just a lovely place. Krista was renting an apartment in an upscale neighborhood called Seapoint. From her apartment, you could see the deep blue Atlantic Ocean. And also in the distance, you could see Robben Island, the infamous prison island where Nelson Mandela and a few other mostly black prisoners had been held captive under apartheid. Walking around town with Krista, I noticed that
People would turn around and take a look at us after we'd just passed them. Initially, I just brushed this off as maybe cultural differences on public display of affection. But after a while, I started to notice a pattern. We were getting these disapproving stares from mostly older white people. See, I forgot to mention that Krista was white and I am black.
And this is only a few years after the end of apartheid. So South Africa was still very much divided on racial lines. While interracial dating was now legal, it was still extremely, extremely rare. Chris and I kind of brushed off this unwanted attention, and we even reminisced on how back in Ithaca, our little beautiful 10 square miles surrounded by reality, nobody would look at us. But for the first time,
we started to discuss the implications of being in an interracial relationship. While I was in town, Christa told me that she had booked a dentist appointment to get her wisdom teeth pulled out. I remarked that this was not exactly the most romantic thing to do, but I did welcome this as a sign of our growing relationship. She wanted me to be there for her for this very important medical procedure.
So on the day of the appointment, we drove to downtown Cape Town where the dentist's office was located. And after filling in some paperwork, Krista laid down in the dentist's chair and I sat a few feet next to her. With the help of a nurse, the dentist started yanking out these molars out of her mouth. And quite honestly, if you take away the white lab coats and the stainless steel utensils or tools, whatever they use,
This scene looked straight out of medieval times. Very primitive. Just when they were starting to stitch up her gums, Chrissa started to mumble something. She was awake all this time, even though she was under partial anesthetic. She started to mumble something and call my name. So I moved closer to her, and I held her hand. Then with a mouth full of blood, she said, Ed, I love you so much.
I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Almost in tears, I said, I love you too, babe. And this brief romantic moment was quickly interrupted by the dentist who said something to the anesthetist in Afrikaans, which I could not understand. Then the anesthetist gave some instructions to the nurse who hurried out of the room. I was starting to wonder if something was wrong. And then the nurse came back in after a few minutes with these long legal forms.
Basically, the forms said something to the extent of, the patient may not be held liable for whatever he or she says while they're under the influence of the anesthetic. I thought, this was a little bit odd, isn't it? I was filling these forms. I noticed that all the staff in that room were white, and I started to wonder if this situation maybe would have been handled a little differently if I'd been white as well. After all, if this was just routine paperwork, they probably should have just given this to me when we checked in.
So after the procedure, we got back in the car and I started driving back to Chris's apartment. She was still sedated, so I played some of her favorite music and I enjoyed listening to her mumbling to some of the lyrics. When we got to her apartment, I parked on the cab side and I walked over to the passenger side to help Chris out of the car. She got out of the car, stood up, and she said, Ed, I don't feel good. Then she turned very pale.
whiter than I'd ever seen her. And then she passed out. Instinctively, I grabbed her just before she hit the ground and I held her up in my arms. I screamed, "Help! Help!" And I looked around to see if anybody was looking at us. A few people in the nearby apartment balconies and people out of their windows started to scream, "Help! Help! Somebody help!" Initially, I was quite relieved to know that help was on the way.
But then after a while I realized that these people were talking to each other. None of them were talking to me. They were ignoring me as if I wasn't there at all. And in that moment, time seems to have just frozen. As I looked up at all those faces looking out of their apartments, out of their balconies and windows, I noticed for the first time that all the faces were white. It then dawned on me how this situation, how this scene might look like for them. There I was.
A young black man holding the body of a very limp body of a young white woman who was now bleeding profusely out of her mouth. These people did not know me. What had I done to her? What had I done to her? I started to wonder. Those cries for help were not for me. These were cries to help rescue this poor girl from me. I started to fear for my own life.
I recall that South Africa was well known for this mob justice where people got injured or even killed for even the most petty of crimes. I knew that with such a history of racial tension, even if the police arrived there, they probably could easily misread this situation. I felt vulnerable and confused. I could not tell the difference between my own paranoia versus what was happening out there after what felt like an eternity.
but was probably just a few minutes. Two men showed up and approached me. They were very well built construction workers who were working on a nearby apartment. They demanded to know what was going on. In a very shaky, scared voice, I said to them, "This is my girlfriend. She's just been to the dentist and I just need help getting her to an apartment." They did not seem to believe me and one of them just said, "Look, guy, we'll take it up from here.
and reluctantly I handed Krista over to them. I then led the way to the apartment and they walked behind me carrying her, still not sure what was going on. I got to the apartment, I unlocked the door, and I immediately started to look for any evidence at all to show these guys that I was indeed their boyfriend. You will be amazed how difficult it is to prove this simple little fact. First I opened the closet,
I pointed to my clothes, and then I pointed to the suitcase in the corner. That was not convincing. This could belong to any man. In desperation, I even pointed out to my Afrocom just to show them that she at least had a black boyfriend or something. Then after a while, I saw this little picture frame sitting on the windowsill, and in this picture was Krista and me taken up in the beautiful Adirondacks. The picture looked like
A perfect postcard of two young people in love. Finally, the two men looked convinced. Around that point, Chris started to regain her consciousness. Perfect timing. I explained to her what had just happened. She smiled and whispered to me, I love you so much, Ed. And then she told these men that she was okay. I looked at them. They were starting to look very uncomfortable. I thanked them for helping me very politely, and I asked them,
to please leave us alone. That moment of near panic left me with so many questions running in my head. How much could our relationship endure in a society that was so racially polarized? How could I ever tell the difference between my own biases versus this passive-aggressive racism that was out there? And even when the rules and laws and regulations say otherwise, are we really free to love whoever we want?
I had all these questions running in my head, but there was one thing that was as clear to me as daylight. And that is, twice that day, in the most unfiltered moments, with blood in her mouth, Christa had declared her love for me. And 20 years later, right here in Ithaca, we're still getting jiggy with it. Thank you. That was Ed Mabaya. Ed is an agricultural economist with a deep passion for rural development in Africa.
He grew up in Zimbabwe as the sixth of ten children. He loves dancing, gardening, and fixing his daughter's hair. I asked Ed if he has any updates on the story. He writes, The day after I shared the story in Ithaca, I flew to Cape Town for a conference with Krista. I felt a sense of hope when I noticed that no one was staring at us anymore as an interracial couple. To see a photo of Ed, Krista, and their kids, go to themoth.org. Get jiggy with it. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Getting jiggy with it.
Coming up, two siblings can't stop beating the crap out of each other. And later, a young girl struggles to stand up for herself while receiving her first tattoo. That's next on the Moth Radio Hour. The
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the public radio exchange, PRX.org. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Katherine Burns. In this hour, we're hearing stories about fighting, and our next story features an actual physical fight. It was told by Brad Lawrence at a story slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City. Here's Brad, live at the Moth.
So at the time of this story, I am nine years old. My sister Amy is 14. And we are both off from school for the summer. And we wake up on this particular day and we begin fighting immediately. From the minute we, like, our eyes open and we are like, you're fat, you're stupid, you're ugly, I hate you, you suck. And we're just like that the entire fucking day. From, like, morning cartoons until, like, the primetime lineup. We are just like, I hate you. Yeah, yeah.
All day long. And it ranges over the entire house, in the basement, and in our respective rooms, and in the living room. And we are waiting outside the bathroom for the other one to come out so we can start again. You are stupid, and you are ugly, and I hate you. And this goes on the entire day. And finally, we have taken it to the kitchen. We are in the kitchen, and we are hammering away at one another. My mother, who is sitting there trying to do something, stops. She goes,
I have had it. I have had it with both of you. And what you are going to do is you are going to shut up. And you are going to go downstairs. And you are going to watch TV. And you are not going to talk to each other. And you're not going to look at each other. And you're not going to touch each other at all ever again. And you're going to watch TV. And this is what you're going to do. You're going to be quiet. And I am going to go to the store. And while I'm at the store, you do not look at each other. You do not talk to each other. And you stay away from one another completely or I will kill you.
So fine, so we're gonna do this. On the way out of the kitchen to go downstairs and watch TV and not look at each other or talk to each other, I grab an orange and we go downstairs. And Amy gets down there first and she gets the chair with the remote and I get the couch and Amy puts on like figure skating and goes, watch it. That's the last thing she says. So we're watching figure skating and I'm eating the orange. And Amy's, and I'm sitting there eating the orange. And for some reason I'm eating the orange really fast. I don't know what the hurry was but
I was apparently in a really big hurry to consume this orange. So I am eating it like two slices at a time. And I'm just, you know, and Amy's, you know, and I'm just eating the orange. And finally, I'm eating the orange and I get two giant slices of orange in my throat. And I cannot swallow it and I cannot get it back up. And I can't speak. And so I look over and I go, and Amy thinks I'm just being annoying. So she's...
And she won't look at me, and she won't talk to me, and she won't touch me. So I'm... You're gross. Watching as the hair's getting... Completely ignoring me. Our mother has gone out of the house, and she's long since gone. She was going off to the grocery store, and so I'm sitting there, and Amy's... And so, finally, after this persists for a while, Amy turns, and she looks, and she notices. My little brother is purple. And so she...
goes, "Oh my god!" And she jumps up and she runs over and she's 14 and she does not know the Heilig maneuver. So what she does, she grabs me and she throws me on the floor and she jumps on my chest and she takes these three fingers and she jams them down my throat and she is rooting around in there like she is looking for the best gift in a grab bag at a birthday party. You know, and I'm here
And finally she gets a hold of the orange and she's on my chest and when she pulls it free and when my mother walks back in she's on my chest and she is going like this and my mother from the stairs goes, "Had enough!"
And she comes down the stairs and she grabs each of us by an arm and she is doing this. And I am still living on the floor. And Amy is like, Mom! Mom! Mom! And I'm sitting there going, no! Amy! Say hi! Amy! Hey! Hi! Hi! And at this point my mom sees like the orange and looks at me and I was talking. Orange Amy saved my life. And my mother looks at her two darling children and she goes, God damn it!
That was Brad Lawrence. Brad is a story producer for the Risk podcast and a teacher with the Irish Art Center in New York City. Brad tells us that not a single family visit has gone by in the last three decades that did not include Amy saying, you know, I saved your life once. The story you just heard was actually the first story Brad ever told on stage. I was also in the audience for this telling, and I swear I thought the roof was going to lift off when Brad got going. I'll never forget it.
Our final storyteller is from the very first Story Slam we did in Melbourne, Australia. Here's Angela Lush, live in Melbourne. Thank you. OK, so contrary to what you see here, I actually grew up as a very shy person. I grew up in our country, South Australia, which is a thriving metropolis. And when I was about 18 or 19, I moved to Adelaide, which completely blew my mind. So that gives you some idea of the scale that we're talking about here. LAUGHTER
And I grew up in quite a conservative family as well. So I always knew that I was different from them, but I didn't quite know how. So I thought, what can I do to kind of rebel, but not really rebel my conservative family so that nobody would see? So I decided in my 18, 19 year old naive wisdom to get a tattoo.
My first tattoo, nobody would see it, it would be fine, it would be beautiful, it would be amazing. So this story is also about the first time that I thought that I knew what I was doing and clearly didn't. So I thought, okay, I'm not going to be like the stereotypical drunken idiot on a Saturday night getting a tattoo, I'm going to plan it. So I went into a tattoo parlour, my friend Kayleigh with a green fairy on her hip had highly recommended it.
And I picked out my masterpiece. It was beautiful. It was like A4 size. I thought, I'm going to get a back piece. You know, go hard or go home. Beautiful mural. It's very Amazonian. There was like leaves and lilies and cliffs and waterfalls with a pool and the moon was setting in the background. And the piece de resistance was like on the little cliff jutting out was a unicorn. Wow.
I thought, this is something that I could love for the rest of my life. What could possibly go wrong? So I picked out this tattoo. I thought, right, OK, no alcohol, no late nights. So Monday afternoon, I thought, this is the perfect time. Clearly, tattooists are going to be at their peak after the weekend. LAUGHTER
So on a Monday afternoon, I took some time off uni, went to the tattooist on my own because I was very independent and mature. And I spoke to him about what I wanted. I thought, okay, I'm just going to get the unicorn and then I can put everything else in around it when I have some more money, essentially. So I'm kind of bent over the table and the tattooist is behind me and I've lifted up my shirt and he said, oh, I'm not going to do it on your back. And I said, well, what do you mean you're not going to do it on my back? And he said, oh, it's going to hurt too much. You can't have tattoos on your back.
So bear in mind this is 20 or so years ago, or 30 years ago. And so I thought, "Okay, well, you know, maybe he's right. Maybe it's going to be too painful." So I thought, "Maybe what about on my hip?" He said, "No, no, I'm not going to tattoo it on your hip." "Oh, really?" I said, "Okay." He said, "What about your ass?" I thought, "Oh, there's plenty to work with, the mural would be fine." So I thought, "Okay, nobody will see it in the bathers. It'll be okay." So my pants are down, undies down, he's putting the stencil on, he's tattooing.
And what I forgot to mention at this stage is because I was clearly very artistic, classic, it was in black and white, the tattoo. And so he says to me, oh, and I can't do it in black and white and grey scar. It has to be in colour. And I said, I'm sorry? And he said, oh, I can't do the black and white. It has to be in colour. And he said, what about brown? And I'm thinking, in my head, I'm thinking, a brown unicorn. I was like, clearly he's a trained professional. And at this moment, I hear a bell ringing.
And it's the bell of the door on the tattoo shop opening. I look to my right and I realise that actually there are no screens up. So I'm in Hindley Street and I can see people walking down the street. If they casually glance to the left, you can see me bent over with my pants down and a man behind me. But that actually wasn't the most disturbing part. Three or four guys walked in.
And they're clearly friends of the tattooist. So they stepped up and were chatting with the tattooist and making jokes about what I had for breakfast and the size of my arse. And the tattooist, which was quite disturbing, and I felt a little bit paralysed, and the tattooist turns to one of them and says, so I'm thinking about doing this brown, what do you think? He's like, I think that's a great idea. And I'm on the table, it's like, Angela, just this happens all the time, just be mature, you're an adult, this is all going to be fine. LAUGHTER
And so the tattoo progresses and he's like, "Oh, you know how we were going to do the moon?" It's like, "Well, now it's like the sun and we can't really do it up here, so I'm just going to put it down there." Of course, I can't see anything because I'm bent over on the table and the guys and stuff. It's like, "Okay, let's just go with that." And he's like, "Oh, you know how there's like the grassy cliff?" And he said, "We can't really do that, so we're just going to do some tufts underneath each hoof and they're going to be bright green." It's like, "Okay." So by this time, I am completely at his mercy.
So I was like, okay, the tattoo's done. I go out. I haven't seen it because clearly mirrors were not invented at that time. So I haven't seen the tattoo. And I thought, okay, it's going to take a little while to heal. So I couldn't really recognise what was happening at first. You know, a couple of days later at home, I'm looking, it's like, oh, I'm not quite sure, but put the cream on, it'll be fine. And so eventually I got a good look at that tattoo. Yay!
And it wasn't so much the angry eyebrows or the poo-brown shading or the bright green tufts of grass or the orange circle like a religious icon behind its head. I had discovered, much to my disgust, that my unicorn had no horn. And so I had become a person with a horse on their arse. And I could not understand how this had happened. So I thought about going back and getting the horn put on. I thought, no, really...
I really couldn't quite do that. And so I thought, my best strategy is to ignore this. Which is fine, because I can't really see it. Occasionally, a glance in the mirror, I think it's a spider. It's all fine. LAUGHTER
But this obviously becomes a problem when you are sleeping with someone for the first time. And as a young 18 year old from the country, I hadn't really thought that through. I hadn't slept with that many people. So it quickly actually became a judge of character. So people that made 'neigh' noises or 'my little pony' did not last very long. But I have one special friend who I've known for six or seven years.
And one of the things that I love about him is that he has never, ever mentioned my tattoo. And you guys might remember, it was a beautiful time a year or so ago, England were thrown out of the World Cup. He's British, by the way, but lives in Adelaide. And he sent me a text a couple of weeks later after this had happened, and he said, "Thank you so much for not mentioning the cricket." And all I wanted to do was reply and say, "Thank you so much for not mentioning the horse on my arse for the last seven years." Thank you.
Thank you. That was Angela Lush. Angela is a freelance writer who's currently working on a collection of essays based on her experiences as a solo traveler in her trusty camper van. We had actually podcast the story quite a few years ago, and I asked Angela what the reaction was to her story at the time. She writes, I received so many photos of bad unicorn tattoos that mine didn't seem so bad anymore.
Also, my special friend heard my story via Twitter and in a hilarious emoji exchange told me he loved my horse slash unicorn. How much do we love that guy? Angela went on to say, I was very glad that I said no to including a photo of the tattoo with my story when, during a particularly tense questioning session at U.S. Border Control recently, the agent asked, so tell me about the moth.
It was bad enough sitting there for half an hour wondering if he'd listened to the story when he Googled me, let alone knowing that he could have seen a picture of my butt. The Moth is mostly run by women, and we all heard this story a little bit differently in the wake of the Me Too movement. We were trying to put our finger on it and finally realized that it was the audience's reaction. Angela's so funny, so of course they're laughing. But in the current climate, I don't know if the audience would laugh quite so hard.
We asked Angela about why she didn't speak up for herself, and she wrote us a letter. Dear Moff, This is a tough one to answer without writing an essay, but essentially I think it comes down to the beliefs I had about myself. According to my upbringing, I was doing something wrong and shameful. And from childhood, I had a deep-rooted belief that I was wrong and shameful, something that not even God could fix. I felt incredibly vulnerable, violated, and frozen in fear.
And in this moment, it showed up as me believing that other people, even strangers, knew more about me, my body, and how I should live my life than I did. I also believed that since I'd initiated this process, I deserved anything that came my way, even if I was terrified or knew it was wrong for me. In much the same way that I believed that if I kissed a boy, then I'd had to have sex with him, even if I didn't want to, because I'd kissed him and started something. Saying no didn't even seem like a legitimate option, and if I did say no, really bad things would happen.
Having my needs listened to or met seemed indulgent. I wasn't supposed to have any. Add to that some nice girls don't make a fuss or take up any space beliefs, and there you have it. From Australia, that was Angela Lush. That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour. Moth Radio Hour
Your host this hour was the Moss Artistic Director, Catherine Burns. Catherine also directed the stories in the show along with Larry Rosen. The rest of the Moss Directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Janess, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Timothy Liu Lee and Emily Couch.
Moth Stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Lemon Jelly, Moondog, Will Smith, and Krungbin. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the 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.