The Moth Radio Hour: Not What They Seem
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From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. In this hour, we're sharing stories about situations where things are not as they seem. From purposeful deception to just coming to terms with who you are versus who you thought you were. We found our first storyteller, Phil Branch, at our Story Slam in Washington, D.C. Here's a story he developed for a show in Boston where we partnered with public radio station WGBH. Here's Phil Branch.

So, my senior year in high school, I am your average all-American teenage boy, interested in average all-American teenage boy things like having a cool car and taking a hot date to the prom and designing my date's prom dress. My senior year, I'm 5'6", 129 pounds, and this might be surprising, but I could not catch and/or dribble a ball of any sort. So the fact that I had a date at all was a miracle.

My girlfriend's name was Dana and she was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen. And we were together most of senior year and as we got closer to senior prom, we began planning. And when I say we began planning, what I really mean is that I began to sketch what we were going to wear to the prom. Prom was a big deal in my family and

My parents went to the prom together and several of my aunts and uncles went to the prom together and all those pictures were up on the family wall. And I knew it was my turn and nothing could go wrong.

And one day I was at home watching music videos and there's this artist named Christopher Williams who was really popular at the time. And he was this tall, gorgeous man with this great curly hair. And it was this music video called Promises Promises. And he's wearing this white Nehru collar suit. And he just looks so regal and strong. And I look up at him with my 129-pound self and say, I'm going to look like that for prom.

So I begin sketching this suit. Now, I'm not going to completely rip off Christopher's style because you can't steal another artist's work, but I'm going to design a suit that looks kind of like his, but it has my flair. So it's all white, but the sleeves have this sort of satin material that has a sort of paisley design to it, and I use that same material for the trim that's going to go down the pant leg and to cover the buttons that are going to go all the way down from my neck down.

You're judging. And, you know, just something simple. And for my date, I combed through all the hottest fashion publications of the time to kind of decide what her look would be. And, you know, I'm in the Sears catalog and Spiegel, JCPenney's. And I finally decide that she's going to wear this mermaid dress and is going to have some of the material from my suit because my suit was the base. And...

And she would have this sort of pink lace overlay at the top, and it would be great. So I couldn't actually draw or sew, so I gave her these sketches and said, you know, go find someone who can make this. And then I took my scribble to my seamstress slash my friend's mother and said...

Do you think you can make this?" And she said, "Sure, give me about a week or so and I can put it together once you give me all the fabric and the things you want." And I said, "Great." So the plan was in motion. So I had no idea that asking my date to accept my design for her senior prom dress was going to be problematic and Dana was not into it at all. So she broke up with me.

I wasn't necessarily in the closet at 16 because I wasn't conscious, per se, that I was gay. But apparently I was so gay that I wasn't aware that designing my date's prom dress in a white suit with sort of a pink shimmer that when it hit the light was essentially my coming out quinceañera.

For that whole school year where Dana was my girlfriend, it felt great to just be one of the guys and to feel like I had the things that other guys had and I could have this future and maybe I can get married and have this life. And it was a really powerful feeling because I hadn't had that feeling before. And when she left, it was equally powerful because it affirmed all the feelings that were starting to brew up in me that I was indeed broken and I was hurting. But I had about 50 yards of satin and...

Somebody had to wear it. So I just asked a freshman who I knew would go and things just moved along. And the day before the prom, I go pick up my suit from my friend's mother/seamstress and I take it home and I put it on and for the first time I realized that you might need to be able to draw if you are going to design a suit and

It didn't quite work, all the colors and the materials, and then one sleeve was shorter than the other. The pant legs weren't even, the trim was crooked, and my mom is downstairs waiting for me to come down so she can see this suit. So I go downstairs in the suit, and she does her best not to laugh in my face.

But after a few moments, she just sort of runs off in her room and just lays down on the bed and like cries real tears. So the suit didn't work. But the next morning I say, well, maybe if I get the curly hair, it'll balance it out.

Now, at the time I had what was called a Gumby cut. It was sort of like Bobby Brown-ish and it was up and to the side and I was really proud of it. And I rip out a picture of Christopher Williams from a teen magazine and I take it down to a salon in my neighborhood that I had never been in because I wasn't a lady. And I take it inside and I say to the stylist, can you make me look like this? Now, anyone with eyes that functioned...

Should have said, "Absolutely not." But she said, "Sure." So I sit down, and she begins to work her magic, and she puts the cream in, and she's doing all this stuff, and I'm just sitting there, and at first I'm really excited, but then I start to feel like someone's poured acid on my head, and I'm confused why everyone is still singing music to the radio and reading old Ebony magazines when I'm clearly dying in this salon chair.

And just before I scream, the stylist runs over and rinses my scalp. And it feels so good. And she turns me around to the mirror. And I don't look like Christopher Williams. I look like Sade.

My hair is bone straight and I am freaking out. And she goes, "Calm down, we're not done." I said, "Okay." And she turns me back around and she starts putting more things in my hair and trying to do something and then she turns me back to the mirror and she was right. I didn't look like Sade anymore. I looked like Salt-N-Pepa.

I had this curly bob and it was awful and I was about to cry and she tried a few more things and nothing was working and then she looks at me and says, "This one's on the house. Do you know how bad your hair has to be for a stylist not to take your money?" So I just get up and I walk back down the street singing Push It and

I go to the barber shop where I should have been in the first place and he does a little something, makes me presentable enough and I go home and put on my crooked suit and I take the freshman to the prom and we have a good enough time. A few weeks later the prom proofs come back, the pictures, and my date looks great, props to me, and I look insane. So the pictures weren't ordered and

They weren't given out to family like we normally would do for people at prom time. And worse, I did not make it to that wall. I had failed at being normal again, and it was disappointing. Years later, I'm in college, it's my senior year,

And I hear from Dana again, and we hadn't talked since high school really. And we started to reconnect, and it felt good to hear her voice. And I started to wonder if maybe we could still have something. But by this point, I kind of knew I was gay, because there had been clues. But I still invite her down to Virginia to visit with me and go to my senior ball in college, and she agrees.

So she comes down and we get all dolled up in clothes that I did not design and we go to the ball and have an amazing time. And for a fleeting moment I wonder, like, could this be my life? But I'm not 16 anymore and I know that I don't love her in that way and I knew that I had to let her go and let that life go or that idea go and that was really rough.

But on the upside, the pictures were amazing. And I had the right hair and the right suit and the right date. And that picture made it up to the family wall with my parents and all my aunts and uncles. And I am smiling in that picture. But the truth is, I am terrified in that moment because it was the first time that I had told myself the truth.

And I wasn't certain what I was walking into after that night, and I am scared to death. And, you know, we often talk about coming out to other people, but the truth is you have to come out to yourself first. So after all this goes down, I realized that it was okay for me to be me. And as it turns out,

I ended up with all the things that I thought that I wasn't going to have when I became my true self. Have a wonderful husband and a home and two amazing kids that I love. And it's a beautiful life. But as it turns out, that picture of my life now hasn't made it to the family wall either. But that's okay because I have my own walls now and I can hang any damn thing that I want.

That was Phil Branch. He's a husband and father of two. And he's also a film and media scholar, a college professor, and a documentary filmmaker. You may have seen Searching for Shaniqua, his documentary about the impact names have on our lives.

Now, about that prom picture. At the time of this recording, Phil was not able to locate the official version. Remember, his family didn't order it. But he was able to dig up one where if you look hard, you can make out his white slip-on loafers and light pink hose. You can see the picture at themoth.org. While you're there, you can also download the story and any of the others you hear this hour.

Next up, trying to find a lap lane at the public swimming pool, and a kid from Kentucky gets a job working just two blocks from the White House when the Moth Radio Hour returns. ♪

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX.

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This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hickson. We're sharing stories of misconceptions, some accidental and some, as in the case of this next story, completely purposeful. We first met our next storyteller, Rabia Wazir, when we did a show at a media arts and education center in Appalachia called Apple Shop. Live from Whitesburg, Kentucky, here's Rabia Wazir.

Having a name like Rabia in Eastern Kentucky means I get asked where I'm from an awful lot. And not just a simple, hey, where are you from, but the slow, drawn-out, squinty-eyed version. Where are you from? And if I'm not feeling particularly generous, I say I'm from West Virginia.

But if I am feeling generous, I say that I was born and raised in Charleston, but my dad is from a small mountain village in rural Pakistan, the tribal area. And my mom is a coal miner's daughter, a little white lady from Mount Hope. So basically, I'm hillbilly on both sides. In college, I coined the term "Packalachin."

And I made a Facebook group for it too, using a selfie as the profile picture. It did not take off. It was a very niche audience. But I loved growing up in West Virginia. But there was always this sense that you had to leave. As soon as you turn 18, get to a big coastal city, go to college. And if you couldn't get there, then just crossing the border to Pittsburgh or Athens or Blacksburg would be good enough, right?

You know, to stay was to accept mediocrity. And it was almost like the Ohio River was this natural demarcator between shame and glory.

And that's probably why I was so pleased with myself when I finally got my first big girl job out of college. I was the national outreach coordinator for a Muslim American civil liberties organization in Washington, D.C. I loved how it looked on paper. I immediately updated my resume. When friends or family would ask me what I was up to, I'd say, oh, I'm the national outreach coordinator for a Muslim American organization in Washington, D.C.,

So professional and glamorous. But in truth, the job was a lot harder than it looked. Being a Muslim activist in DC during the Bush years didn't exactly open doors. I was stuffing envelopes, I was making fundraising phone calls.

I was managing the internship department. When there was a candlelight vigil, I was the girl hitting up the craft stores trying to find candles. And when a windstorm hit that night, I was the person on my hands and knees desperately trying to relight the candles. When there was a dove release ceremony, I was the person that was somehow supposed to find the doves. But...

But working there was a really awesome experience. It was a super diverse office, people from all over the country from different perspectives and backgrounds. We had Muslims and non-Muslims. We had immigrants and converts. We had hijabis and non-hijabis. And we were all working for this really noble idea of embracing civil rights and encouraging civic engagement. And it really felt like we were doing something good.

But, you know, after about a year with the organization, I started to feel burnout, which is pretty common in the nonprofit world. And I ended up taking some time off to try to figure out what my next step was. So it's October 2009. And at this point, I'm basically living in bed with my laptop. I'm on the internet, looking at a feminist blog, just looking for something to get riled up about, right?

And I see our organization mentioned. And I'm like, oh, great. That's awesome. Let's see what they're saying. But I start reading and it says the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus has accused our organization of planting spies on Capitol Hill, which it sounds bad, but we're always getting accused of being terrorists. No big deal. Yeah.

But I keep reading and it says that a man, those allegations are based on a statement by a man who infiltrated the organization in 2008, which was when I was there, as an intern. This was one of my guys.

And so my heart immediately starts pounding, adrenaline starts pumping, like who is this person? So I Google his name and immediately up pops a picture of one of our interns. And it wasn't just any intern, it was my intern from my department.

So this is a white guy. He's from southwestern Virginia. And he always seemed really mild-mannered and hardworking, even though he wasn't particularly bright. But he said that he was a convert to Islam. And I had offered to introduce him to my mom. So...

It says, the article says that not only is he making these statements, but he's putting out a book published by World Net Daily. And if you don't know, World Net Daily is the same website that said Obama was a secretly gay Muslim terrorist who was building FEMA concentration camps. Like, that is a level of journalistic integrity that we're dealing with here.

So I am freaking out. Because if there's a book, that means there are crazies reading the book and the harassment is going to start, right? It's happening. So I call my family and friends. I lock down social media and I start checking the doors and windows, like double checking, triple checking at night.

And almost immediately, it hits national news, right? Fox News starts promoting the book. And the crazy thing is that the big reveal, these spies on Capitol Hill, was referencing a program to help Muslim students get internships on the Hill, which is perfectly normal. Everybody does that in DC. But because we're Muslims in doing it, it was suddenly nefarious and scary.

And thankfully, we had a lot of big-name journalists and politicians that stood up for us. My parents, by the way, thought it was hilarious. They were like, if you have enemies like these, you're really somebody. And they bought two books! Don't give them money. But...

But I still felt so stupid. Like all these weird behaviors that I didn't catch or just dismiss suddenly made sense. He was wearing a body camera and constantly filming us.

And somebody else had mentioned, oh, he really loves shredding documents, which was a really boring task assigned to the interns. I was like, okay. Like, he's not that bright. He just needs some time to turn off his brain. It didn't occur to me that he was just taking boxes of paper and putting them in his car. You know, I felt so exposed and scared, and I...

I couldn't get his face out of my head. And I remember going into just ordinary public spaces and starting to feel uneasy. You know, working with a Muslim American organization kind of hardened me to the idea that these right-wing crazies thought I was part of a global terrorist network.

But I figured, you know, if they just got to know me and got to know all of us, they would understand how silly that is. We're just ordinary people. But this guy knew me, and he still thought I was the enemy. So, you know, I was really struggling to try to just minimize this stuff and move on. But that's the trouble with this kind of crime, because you don't want to allow these people to have any kind of emotional sway over you, because if they do, they win, right?

But to ignore the harm they've caused is to let them off the hook. I'd already been considering going to law school, but now being a lawyer felt like some kind of armor. And I had two choices in front of me. I could stay in D.C. and study international law, or I could go back home.

And my friends were completely baffled. Like, I had just been attacked by the right-wing fringe. Why would I go back to one of the reddest parts of the country? But for me, it wasn't a matter of red states or blue states. It was this continued faith that if people knew me and I could make connections, I could make a difference. In Kentucky and West Virginia,

I had these, I was part of these beautiful and intimate communities and I had deep and long-lasting relationships. And there's strength and power in that. As a kid, I thought that in order to succeed, I had to leave. But it became increasingly apparent that in order to become the person I wanted to be and do the work I was called to do, I had to go home.

That spring, I submitted my application to the University of Kentucky, and I decided to continue to have faith in people. But I still shred my own documents.

That was Rabia Wazir. These days she works for the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, representing coal miners seeking federal black lung benefits. She says the term "Pakalachian" still hasn't quite caught on. And as for the book? Suffice it to say, it's out of print.

Our next storyteller, Jean Lebec, is a tried and true New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn. We met her at a story slam in Manhattan, where we partnered with public radio station WNYC. Here's Jean.

I'm walking up Lee Avenue in Brooklyn. It's a really cold, windy day, but still, Lee Avenue is crowded and it's busy. Men wearing large fur hats and black coats to their ankles. They walk in groups, holding prayer books, eyes down as I pass them. They ignore me. Women wearing turbans or hats placed carefully on coiffed wigs.

Black coats, mid-calf, beige stockings and flat shoes. They walked very, very quickly, pushing baby carriages. A trail of five or six kids running to keep up with them, all dressed exactly alike.

Shops line both sides of Lee Avenue. In the two years that I've lived in this Hasidic community of East Williamsburg, I've never shopped in these stores, not even the bakery, with the smell of sweet bread baking and the black and white cookies in the window. I feel like a foreigner here. I'm Jewish, but I don't feel a connection here. The language is Yiddish. I walk past words I don't understand and signs I can't read.

I'm on my way to the Metropolitan Recreation Center on Bedford Avenue. It's an all-woman swim this morning, and I'm really excited, looking forward to it. I've made a promise to myself that even though it is really cold out, today is the day I start my exercise routine, and a woman's swim is the best. I walk into the locker room. It's empty. I quickly...

squeeze in - I have to squeeze because I gained a lot of weight - into my black Speedo bathing suit, kind of stuff myself in. I pull on my pink Speedo bathing cap, pink and green goggles on my head. I take a quick shower. I am ready. I open the door to the pool.

There are women everywhere, everywhere. They're walking around the pool. They're sitting on the edge of the pool. They're laughing and they're talking. They're in the pool, wall to wall in the pool, floating and singing and bobbing. There are women with arms extended, floating pregnant women back and forth. And I suddenly, there's no lanes. Nobody's in lanes. And

And they're not wearing bathing suits, they're wearing turbans and they're wearing dresses zipped to their collarbone down to their knees and I am so naked in my black Speedo bathing suit with my pink cap. So I think I could be invisible, I could be invisible. And I'm just going to scurry over to this little corner that I saw and slip myself in. So I slip myself in and I'm kind of hovering there thinking what to do, what to do. Lap swimming is out of the question.

I'll just be invisible. Maybe I'll hoist myself out. Hoisting is too hard.

There's a woman swimming right towards me and she's coming and I think, "Don't come to me. Don't come to me." She comes to me and she goes, "Hi, I'm Lily." She has the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen. I say, "I'm Jean." She says, "Welcome. This is your first time." I go, "Yeah." She goes and she takes me in, you know, she takes in my goggles and my hat. She looks just, "You want to swim? You want to lap swim?" I go, "Yeah." She goes, "Well, swim. You can swim."

Yeah, right. I looked out at all these women in the pool like, really? She goes, yes, you go. Just go. We're going to let you swim. Go, bubbler. So I went and I swam. And all these women, they got out of my way with their dresses billowing like parachutes in the water. And then I did another lap and another lap and ee.

these women got out of my way and and so finally I did like 15 laps and I stopped and Lillian kind of made her way towards me and she said how was your swim and I said it was it was wonderful and she said you must come back and I said you know I wasn't gonna come it was so cold and she was um and she holds out her arms and I go no

She goes, "Come, come, come." So I'm laying on her arms and

And at first I'm like really, really stiff and then I just kind of relax and she goes, "See how warm the water is?" And look, and I look and for the first time I see this skylight that covered the entire length of the pool and she says, "See? The light always comes in." And later in the locker room, I catch the eye of a woman across from me

And we both start laughing, and I think, I wonder if she was one of the women that kept swimming out of my way. And I really wanted to talk to her. I know she really wanted to talk to me, but I don't speak Yiddish, and she doesn't speak English. But she pointed to herself, and she said, Tova. And I pointed to myself, and I said, Jean. And then as we're leaving the locker room,

She found me and she kind of grabbed my hand and mustering up like all her courage, I just could see her mustering up all the courage to say the only English word she knew to me. And she looked at me and she said, "Jean, if you see something, say something." And I said, "Tofa, yes, if you see something, say something."

And I knew, I knew, I knew that I wasn't going to take the train home. That I was going to walk back down Lee Avenue and I was going to go into the bakery and I was going to buy some black and white cookies. Thank you. Thank you.

That was Jean Lebec. Jean was an educator in the New York City school system, grades K through 6 for 31 years, and then an assistant principal for four. She said that after that first visit to the pool, she didn't have the same feeling of alienation. She continued to swim, and it changed her relationship with the community and ultimately with the neighborhood. She made friends and started shopping on Lee Avenue, and she even found a favorite restaurant for a nosh after a swim.

When we return, a woman thinks she sees a dancing sheep in Ireland, and a man visits Lower Manhattan on September 12, 2001, in search of his brother. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.

You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hickson. This hour, stories involving second looks. This next story comes to us from Dublin, where we held a Moth Grand Slam story competition in 2015. Michael Devlin took the prize for this tale. He talks pretty fast, but please keep up with him. Here's Michael.

So there I was, driving down the N11 with my female companion. And I don't know if you know the N11, but it's the main road between Dublin and Wexford. And there are two landmarks on that motorway, both of which are pubs. One is called the Beehive and the other is called Jack White's. And we're fast approaching the Beehive when all of a sudden my female companion bursts into laughter. Spontaneous, uncontrollable laughter.

And I know I'm not the funniest man in the world, but I do have my moments. Well, that certainly wasn't one of them, because I wasn't even talking. So eventually, when she composed herself, I said, "Come on, share the joke." And she pointed to a field we just passed, and she said, "See that field? In that field we just passed, there was a sheep dancing."

And I said, a dancing sheep? Really? I said, was it ballroom or contemporary? Because contemporary would be a bit unusual. And she said, no, no, no, really, there was a sheep dancing. He was lying on his back with his feet in the air and he was waving them back and forth as if he was some mad rave at disco or something. And I said, yeah. I said, you know what that means? Because I heard it somewhere before. I said, that means he is in grave danger.

Or more precisely, she is in grave danger. Because what happens is, at lambing season, the female sheep they use, they get big and heavy. And sometimes when they lay down, they can inadvertently flip over. And they're in grave danger because they can't eat, but they're also, they get very distressed, and they're prone to predators, particularly foxes. And as I'm explaining this, there's a voice in my head saying, do not get involved, keep on driving, this is your problem. LAUGHTER

But then I know that's not possible because there's another side of my personality which is intent on saving the world and everybody in it. And it's telling me to turn that car and turn it around now. So I go as far as the Beehive and I turn around and then I drive 10 kilometres in the wrong direction trying to cross the motorway. So I cross the motorway, I'm on the way back here and then the first problem presents itself which is to say that I'm looking for a sheep in the field of sheep in County Wicklow. There's sheep everywhere. And I don't mean to cause offence when I say this but to me one sheep looks pretty much the same as the next. LAUGHTER

So I'm driving along, crow crawling for about ten minutes, and I stop the car, and we get to the field, and it's true enough, there's sheep in the field, but this time his feet are totally rigid like this. And I think, oh, my God, please don't tell me I'm too late. So I stop the car, jam on the brakes, get out, hit the hazards, and look out, and I'm surveying the situation, and I'm not liking this. I'm not liking this one bit, because I'm a city boy, and what we have in our hands is most definitely a rural situation. So... So I...

I turned to my female companion and I motioned to her to stay at the car. I said, this could be dangerous, but baby, I'm going in.

So I hop over the crash barrier, over the barbed wire fence, down an embankment, over two electric fences, and as I'm doing this, the sheep in the field start to walk away in the distance, except for the upturned sheep and his little sheep buddies. And I'm so amazed and impressed by this, because sheep are timid and placid little creatures, and here they are, they've overcome their fear to stand by their fallen comrade. I think this is amazing. These must be like the sheep equivalent of the Marines, you know. No man gets left behind. But as I'm thinking that, they got buggered off too, so that was that theory out the window. LAUGHTER

So I'm moving closer and moving closer and it's just me and the upturned sheep lying there with his feet in the air and I gotta tell you, you really don't know what thoughts are going to go to your mind until you're faced with this sheep spread eagle before you. And the first thought in my mind was, please God, don't let anybody see this because it just looks so wrong.

The second thought is, is this thing going to attack me? Because I know you never hear of anybody being attacked and killed by a sheep. It's not up there with like grizzly bear attacks and shark attacks. I get that. But this thing is cornered and I've never cornered a sheep before, so I don't know. I always go on a wreck. And they do have teeth, you know, not big, sharp canine teeth, but teeth nonetheless.

And the sheep was scared and I'm scared and it's debatable as to which was more frightening. So I'm thinking in the interest of my safety and the sheep's dignity, I should stay away from either end. I go around and I take a deep breath and I bend down and I grab two handfuls of wool and then I lift with all my weight and the sheep, which turns out to be about 98% wool, flips over and he lands on the street.

I'm standing there and I feel this power, this strength, as if I'm some superman, some superhuman. And I'm thinking, maybe I should wear my underpants on the outside of my trousers from...

from that day forth, you know, or maybe get a cloak with an S in the back to indicate my newfound superhero status. But the S would have to be made out of wool because after all I'd only saved a sheep. And as I'm thinking this, the sheep is walking in the distance and then it stops and turns to face me. And as we look into each other's eyes, I feel it. I feel the connection because we both know that I've just saved this life. And then we turn away and we walk way back to our previous existence. She to take her place in our flock and me to take my place in the human race. And

And I don't look back. I can't look back. Because I know she's walking out of my life. And I know things will never be the same again. Because this may be just one small sheep for mankind, but it was one giant sheep for me. That was Michael Devlin, patron saint of sheep.

He's a husband and father of two who loves swimming in the sea and studying Gaelic. When I first talked to Michael, I thought for sure he must be a comedian or something, but he isn't. He actually works in shipping. So he's one of those hilarious co-workers you come across in life who make the day fly by. Every office should have one. ♪

If there is a hilarious person in your life, please convince them to pitch us at The Moth. We all need to laugh, and it's your duty to help facilitate. Do not hog your funny person all to yourself. Your witty co-worker, aunt, neighbor, mail carrier, dog walker needs your encouragement. Have them leave a pitch right on our website, themoth.org, or they can give us a call at 877-799-MOTH.

That's 877-799-6684. We listen to them all and we look forward to laughing. And now a caution that our next story is quite serious. Jim Giacone gives tours at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Moth director Larry Rosen took one of his tours and chatted with him afterwards.

Jim shared a personal story, and Larry said that story needs to be told at the Moth. Eventually, it happened at a New York City Grand Slam. Here's Jim Giacconi. Some of the experts on TV were saying that the way that the Twin Towers were constructed and the manner in which they collapsed, there was bound to be voids. And inside those voids was a potential to find survivors. My family and I hung on those words. My older brother Joe, Joseph Michael Giacconi,

had an office on the 103rd floor of the North Tower and he had gone to work early that Tuesday morning and he was missing and we were going out of our minds. I immediately tried to gain access but was turned away again and again because ultimately too many people were volunteering. It would become too chaotic. After a couple of days, a buddy of mine called. He was a firefighter up in Harlem and he told me to meet him at his firehouse and I dressed in his bunker gear and me, him and another firefighter

drove on our way down to ground zero. When we got down below Canal Street, we started encountering checkpoints, either military or police personnel with automatic weapons, but once they saw we were all dressed as firefighters, they waved us right through. We parked all the way on the east side. The guy that drove was afraid that we'd be blocked in by more emergency vehicles, and we walked blocks and blocks west. We were about a block away from the start of the debris field when, uh,

I used to think of myself as somebody who could handle pretty much anything thrown at me. And I thought I had prepared myself for what I was walking into, but I became sick. After I regained my composure, we walked into the pile. There were no words. There's no pictures. There is no way to accurately describe what I saw, what I heard, what I smelled. And I have no rescue and recovery training whatsoever, but I saw no voids.

It was apocalyptic. My buddy said he wanted to try and meet up with the other guys from his firehouse that were working on the west side of the pile. We were all the way on the east. We found the best way to go around was we went down a side street in the side door of an adjacent building and we went into either the cellar or the sub-cellars because all the main floors were damaged. And the buildings were all pretty much city blocks long. So we walked the distance of the building underground and we came up

on the other staircase, across the street and down again and again. Multiple times I saw written on the walls these pleas, usually from firefighters, begging for any information for one of their friends who was still missing, sometimes written in soot with their fingers. We ultimately came out at the base of the atrium of the Winter Garden building. Winter Garden building was an iconic, beautiful atrium and it was completely destroyed.

We climbed out onto the pile and we worked on the bucket brigade. Later on, my friend said, let's go back to the firehouse. I'm pretty sure he picked up on the fact that I was completely and totally defeated. We had become separated from the guy that drove us and there was no transportation, but a cop offered to give us a ride as far as Midtown. Before I got in the car, I called my dad and I told him I was sorry. And I said, no way, Joe is coming home.

The cop dropped us off on 42nd Street and I don't remember what avenue. In fact, I remember stepping up onto the sidewalk to try to get my bearings. And a couple walked in front of me with the young boy and I noticed the man did a double take when he spotted me. And he stopped and he turned and he stood in front of me and he started to extend his hand. And even before I could shake his hand, he fell forward and hugged me. He started to cry and he said, I'm sorry for the loss of your brothers.

He thought I was a firefighter. It's amazing to me when you realize how many thoughts can fire off in your brain in the blink of an eye in a fraction of a second. In that millisecond, I understood that that man needed to cry. In that millisecond, I felt horrible, horrible guilt. In that same millisecond, I reasoned it was okay because he has used the word brother. Thank you very much.

That was Jim Giacone. He lives in Long Island with his wife and two dogs and has three grown children. I called Jim while he was driving between jobs. He's a plumber. I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to share about the story. At Moth Grand Slam, storytellers only have five minutes, so he had to make a lot of choices about what to include.

I do remember some things that emotionally stood out to me regarding that day. And, you know, even working into the story and it was...

I don't know. I wouldn't even know where to put it. But I do remember when I went into the firehouse when I was... Before I changed into his bunker gear. It was... You know, it's like my eight-year-old Jimmy's dream to, you know, be a firefighter. And here I was sitting in the...

In the firehouse putting on this gear and I was, you know, it was almost like a Superman's outfit and I felt, I guess being raised Roman Catholic, I'm born with guilt, but I felt horrible guilt also for feeling anything but, you know, shock and grief.

I felt, you know, I was embarrassed of myself for feeling anything exciting, you know, because I was putting on this uniform. I was transforming myself into a firefighter. It's just it was on a small level, but I distinctly remember that. What an intense experience.

Were you and your brother close as little kids? What's your age difference? Well, no. There was three years between us. We were not particularly close, especially in our teen years. In fact, fist fights, I remember. But when we became adults, and especially when we started families, we became very close.

And I guess we matured into each other and we respected each other as adults. And our families, our kids became extremely close and they are still to this day. So we were really close, you know, as little kids, yeah, as brothers, yeah. But as we got into adolescence and teenage years, we were not close. And then we did become close, thank God. ♪

That was Jim Giacone talking about his brother Joseph Michael Giacone. Jim's been a mentor at Tuesday's Children for the past 13 years and a mentor for two brothers who lost their father on 9-11. As I mentioned, he leads tours around the 9-11 Memorial and Museum. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. ♪

Your host this hour was Jennifer Hickson. Jennifer also directed the stories in the show, along with Larry Rosen. The rest of the Moth's directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Ginesse, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Emily Couch and Julia Purcell.

Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Boombox, Blue Dot Sessions, Warm Body, The Klezmatics, The Bothy Band, and Todd Sycophous. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.