The Moth Radio Hour: Other People's Shoes
53:25 Share

The Moth is brought to you by Progressive, home of the Name Your Price tool. You say how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. It's easy to start a quote. Visit Progressive.com to get started. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law.

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.

From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Janess. Moth stories are all true and are all told live. Listening to these stories is like walking for a few minutes in someone else's shoes. So let's do that for this hour. Our first storyteller is Val Rigodon. We met Val when she told a story in the CUNY Young Women's Voices Festival, which brings students together from all over the City University school system in New York.

Since telling this story, Val has gone on to host shows with the moth. She's charming, and she's quick on her feet, as you'll hear. So live at the moth, Val Regedon. Hello.

Okay, so a few months ago, I learned that someone I knew very, very long ago, I was maybe six or seven, and he was five. He died all of a sudden. And to be honest, I haven't thought about him or spoken to him since I was six or seven. So it was very strange for me. It was like a puzzle piece plucked out of my past and just thrown away. And it was very...

Just like I was on uneven ground, suddenly, you know, I could die next. My house could burn down. My parents could die. I could get into a car crash. I could fall down the stairs and break both my legs. Anything could happen. I was like, oh, my God, this is too much. I got to watch a cartoon. So I go, and I turn on this CGI movie, and it's called Leap, and it's a very...

ugly movie. It's like sort of CGI 3D and they have these really realistic human faces on these tiny cartoon bodies and it's a little disturbing to see. But aside from that, it's a movie about ballet and when the young girl who's the, you know, the protagonist of the story, she's dancing, it becomes very beautiful and it really spoke to me because

For almost my whole life, ballet has been something in the back of my head that I think, "Oh man, I wish I did ballet when I was three or I wish I started ballet and I could be a ballerina now." But as I was watching the movie, I was thinking,

Why not do it now? You know, I have the money, I have a job, and I could just go to a ballet class. And I was thinking, you know, okay, I'm 25 and I want to be a ballerina. Okay, why not? I'll do that. So I go to Groupon.com and I start...

I start researching. I'm like, okay. I found a class and I do a little research. They have absolute beginner and basic beginner and advanced beginner and then intermediate and then you can become, I guess, mid-level ballerina after all those classes. So I think, okay, I'm going to do basic ballet, basic beginner, which is a step up from absolute beginner because, you know, I'm a spry little pony. I think I could keep up, you know?

It's not gonna be, you know, it'll be fine. So anyways, I rush into class and I go in and it's this little studio with mirrors on one wall and bars down the center. And I rush in and immediately I notice

Everyone is very beautiful, and they're in the middle of their exercises. And I don't know much, but I do know the difference between a basic ballerina and a professional ballerina. And everyone in that class was like a professional prima ballerina. And I don't understand. It's like these were the people who had done ballet in their youth when they were like six

and they had to stop, and now they're back 10 years later to put on their pointe shoes again and dance. And I'm like, oh my God, what have I done? But anyways, I just jump in, and I start doing the dances, doing the exercises, and it's so hard, and it's so fast, and I don't know what I'm doing. The teacher is saying all these words, passe, releve, tendu, plie, and I'm like, oh my God, I can't.

And everyone around me is beautiful. They're like falling snow and so graceful. And I'm like sticks and rocks and I can't move. Okay, and the teacher, she's looking at me. She's like, okay, calm down. She doesn't recognize, she knows I'm new. She's like, okay, slow down. But I don't hear her because of all the blood rushing to my head because I had attempted to touch my toes, which I haven't done. So I'm like, ugh. Okay, so...

So by the end of class, I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to have to call an Uber. I'm not going to make it home. They're going to find my body on West 3rd Street buried under like three inches of snow. I'm done. It's over. My legs are gone. But I make it home and I go to the class, you know, the day after because the Groupon was for five classes. And, you know...

I can't be wasting money like that. Not in this economy. I gotta go back to the class and complete it. And as I'm doing, you know, completing the Groupon, I'm looking for a little inspiration. So I look up ballerinas who started late, and I...

And I look up, I find Misty Copeland and she's another black ballerina and she's famous because she started much later than all the other professional ballerinas. So I start doing research into her. I'm like, okay, how late did she start? Says Misty Copeland started ballet extremely late at the age of 13. I'm like, oh, I'm done, it's over.

You gotta take me out back. I'm going to the pasture in the sky. I'm already dead. I'm 25. She's 13. So here I am six months later, and I'm doing about three classes a week. You know?

trying to get my body in order. And it's very frustrating now. It's still frustrating because I know what all the moves are supposed to look like, but I can't do them with this body I have, this ancient 25-year-old body.

But I am making progress little by little and it's very encouraging with something as hard and difficult as ballet to see myself getting better. You know, it's rewarding. So here I am and I can just, you know, six months later and I can just barely sort of graze my toes with the longest nails on my fingers, you know, sort of brush them like a fairy's kiss very lightly.

And I know what all the ballet terms are and, you know, I can't do them. But I can tell you what they're supposed to look like. And I realize I have many more years to go before I'm going to be, you know, I can show off and show my ballet skills. But, you know, here I am and I'm alive. Thank you.

That was Val Rigadon. Val lives in Brooklyn, New York, and she's a Renaissance woman. She plays piano, violin, she bakes, she collects insects, and she loves to write letters to people who are incarcerated. She says she hasn't danced for a while, but she plans to start again soon. It's never too late, Val.

Lincoln Bonner is our next storyteller. He was part of a moth storytelling workshop with the Veterans Affairs Center for veterans over 65 in the Bronx here in New York. It's quite rare to become friends with a rooster, so that's why we asked Lincoln to tell this story about his favorite childhood companion. Here's Lincoln Bonner live at the moth. I was born and raised in a small Jamaican village.

with a population of about 150 people, and most of us know each other by name. Our family were very close-knit religious family. At the early age of eight, I began to identify with favorites. I had my favorite song, my favorite poem, my favorite sibling. I had quite a few friends then, but my favorite friend was my pet rooster.

I named him Two. To me, he was larger than life, so he ought to be more than one. So, that's the name, Two. Two was from a brood of ten other hatchlings. But from early on, I realized there was something special about him. I just know he's different. But as he got older, I realized he was a boy chicken. He was a rooster.

He was very, very proud. He had an attitude. I'm saying he had that attitude especially by the way he walked. He walked in this sure-footed manner in kind of a musical cadence. He was the type that stands out in a crowd. His feathers was what I noticed mostly about him. It was a bright color.

brownish red hue, that glistening in the morning sun. I sort of begin to see him more like a person than a thing because he always seemed, if I can say this about a chicken, he always seemed happy. But looking back, if you were the only rooster in a yard of hens, why wouldn't you be happy? So anyway, as time go on,

I was in charge of, one of my duties was to feed the chickens every morning before I go to school and every evening when I get back from school. I used to see my father watching me feeding the chicken and he had this proud look on his face as if he's saying, "Oh, my boy is growing up to be an ardent chicken farmer." One other thing I used to do though, I used to sneak a pocket full of corn.

And when no one else was watching, I used to feed this extra corn to Two. Two was a very peculiar chicken in that every evening on my way from school, he would meet me at the gate. Now, dogs do that. Those are the characteristics of dogs. Chicken usually don't meet you at gate.

So he used to meet me at the gate and walk me to the front door. And then I started to bond with this chicken, this rooster. And coming to think of it, I said, you know, when we walked to the door, he never walked behind me or in front of me. He walked next to me. And I'm saying, does he see me as his friend, his bodyguard, or his peers?

Then I began to think, I wonder if he thinks he's a person, or I wonder if he thinks I was a chicken. Anyway, in our family, Sunday was very special. Monday through Friday, everyone was busy with school and work.

We were Seventh-day Adventists, so we worshiped on Saturdays. There's no cooking, no buying, no selling, no entertaining. So therefore, Sunday was very special, and Sunday dinner was very, very special. This particular Sunday, we gathered at the table, and as customary, my father always pray over the meal before we start eating.

So this Sunday while he was praying, the smell of the chicken, the aroma emanating from that baked chicken was so tantalizing. I just couldn't wait for him to say amen. So anyway, as we sat there waiting to be served, my father looked at me with this sense of assurance or pride and he says, son, do you know what you're about to eat?

At that moment, straight away I knew what he meant. But I started to say, no, no, he didn't say that. So I raced away from the dining table and I went to the bathroom and I closed the door and I sat down. And I was just there in a gaze, a frightened gaze.

And then I said, "Did he say, 'Do you know what you're about to eat?' Or did he say, 'Do you know who you are about to eat?'" See, because in my mind, two was not a thing. He was my friend. He was like a person. So anyway, I gathered myself and I started to think. I said, "I fed him extra corn daily. That made him plumper than the rest. That made him qualify for dinner.

So all kinds of things started going on in my head. I have anger, I have fear, but I also have guilt. Am I responsible for his demise? I was the one who fed him extra corn. So anyway, that day, two died, but one death. But I think I died a thousand deaths. I just couldn't think. I did not have dinner that day. And in fact, that was the last pet I've ever owned. I just couldn't have myself anymore.

be attached to anything that you might eventually lose. It wasn't until I was a young adult that I was able to share this whole experience. And I started to re-reason again and I said, "You know, I never told my father this was my pet. I never told them he was my friend. I just incorrectly assumed that they would have known the obvious."

He knew I was attached to this chicken, but he never knew anything beyond that. See, as a country boy, I should have known when you raise chicken or any animal for that matter, it's the healthier ones that make it to the butcher or to the market or to the dining table. But as a child, you're not thinking that. You just think they're going to be with you forever. So I was able to shake that. I began to totally forgive my father.

And he wasn't guilty of anything. Two died the way he lived. He died a hero. He lived like, he lived a hero and he died a hero. Thank you. That was Lincoln Bonner. Lincoln told me it took years before he could have any close relationships again after the loss of two. It still affects him.

Lincoln loves to garden, and he's also a singer. In fact, he's been a tenor with the New York City Labor Chorus for the last 27 years. He's performed with them in Wales, Sweden, Cuba, and in New York City at Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall, and on the Great Lawn of Central Park. And we're listening to the New York City Labor Chorus right now. The sun's light over you, and skies are sometimes blue.

To hear more stories from our Moth Community program, go to themoth.org. After our break, an indecisive man makes a decision that will forever change his family's life when the Moth Radio Hour continues. Moth Radio Hour

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 Sarah Austin-Ginness.

The Moth started as a live event series in 1997, way before this radio program began. And at this point, more than 30,000 people around the world have told stories at The Moth. If you go to themoth.org, you'll find a treasure trove of stories and curated playlists. James Brawley told this next story at a Moth Night in Boston, where we partnered with public radio station WGBH. The theme was high anxiety. Here's James live at The Moth.

So I'm sitting at my desk in my little apartment in this tiny town in western Massachusetts sorting through a big box of photographs of my life with my wife Jane. A few hours from now we're scheduled to meet one last time at the mediators and sign our separation agreement. So I'm crying because I'm terrified I'm making this huge mistake.

leaving a woman I have loved over half my life at this point and who I am certain I'll love for the rest of my life. That much I know. We've been together so long, I can't even remember what it feels like to not be us. I've gone from boy to man, husband to father, all with Jane, all in photographs. The day I graduated from college, standing in a cap and gown amidst 5,000 people kissing Jane like nobody's there.

Our first trip to Europe on a street in Paris. You have no idea when this is. The buildings are centuries old and Jane's in this timeless red coat and earmuffs. All you can tell is that she's radiantly happy and whoever's taking this photograph loves her. Standing in our living room in our first apartment in party hats and party favors like two little kids.

On our wedding day, in the back of the London taxi, surrounded by flowers from our wedding reception, I'd seen the taxi at a stoplight in New York a few years back and asked the driver for his business card, thinking, "One day, you might need this." Our first son and his little car seat after we'd just gotten out of a taxi bringing him home from the hospital for the first time, Jane and I holding it together, standing in front of our apartment building.

Our second son in that same building, moments after he was born, in our living room, on purpose.

The four of us together on a beach vacation, tan and smiling, scrunched together in the frame as I snapped the photo. Every major stage of life, Jane and I have been through it together. She's like my name. I know there's a time I didn't have it, but I can't actually feel what that was like. Versus Jane and how she feels. My hands have actually grown around her body. I would know her with my eyes closed.

The problem is that even with my eyes closed, there's a whole other set of memories. And I don't have any pictures of those. You never take your camera out during a fight. The hundreds of times I begged her to stop nursing the boys after they'd turned three and then four and then five years old with teeth and chores and baseball gloves. Stop breastfeeding the short stops.

Or the hundreds of times she begged me to stop reorganizing the spices in the kitchen alphabetically and by bottle size when I didn't do any cooking. I am not controlling. I just respect order. Or the time when, in addition to being controlling, was I hyper-competitive at one of our son's birthday parties after Jane had organized a non-competitive game of musical chairs.

Leaving an apartment full of happy and smiling kids versus the children after I had organized a game of real musical chairs. Leaving one winner in an apartment full of losers, including my son, in tears. Did I recognize the error of my ways and the wisdom of Jane's? Absolutely. Did I tell Jane? Absolutely not. Love means never having to say you're sorry, and I love Jane.

In addition to being controlling and hyper-competitive, was I paranoid just because I believed that all the paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art were fakes? Because who in their right minds would let someone like me stand inches from real Rembrandts with a Swiss Army knife in my pocket? I could slash it up just like that. After Jane realized I was telling her the truth, she asked, where do you think they keep the real Rembrandts?

And I sat in vaults in the basement next to the workshops where they make all of the other fakes of the Ming vases and the Byzantine jewelry they shell in the gift shops, leaving Jane to conclude that in addition to being controlling and competitive and paranoid, I was crazy. Just basically the same thing I thought about her every time we sat down to have a meal or tried to.

One time we were on vacation, standing in a deli, and I was ordering smoked turkey sandwiches and potato chips. And Jane said I couldn't have the smoked turkey because it had nitrates, and the potato chips were fried in cottonseed oil. Cotton, not a food product. No FDA oversight. I said, we're on vacation. The boys said, we're starving. And the woman behind the turkey slicer said absolutely nothing. She just stared at us through these vacant husks.

It was like looking at me in a hairnet. Thousands of these arguments, which maybe on their own don't seem significant, but when added together, it feels like you've been through a war. A death by a thousand cuts. And I really wish I had photographs of those memories right now, to go along with the happy memories, which I'm actually holding in my hand. They're real things. As the phone rings, and it's Jane saying, "How are you doing?" I say, "Not good."

She says, "Do you think we should go through with this? Like it's my decision." Which it is. But I'm not qualified to make decisions. Decisions aren't my forte. I think I'm the most indecisive guy I've ever met. So I'm half hoping when I say, "We have to go through with this," that she'll say, "Well, actually, we don't. We could go to a 14th marriage counselor, or maybe to one of those getting-the-love-you-deserve weekends with the crazy couple in North Carolina."

"Come on, James, don't give up!" Because that's what she always says. But this time she says, "I guess you're right." Finally, she agrees with me. A few hours later, we're at the mediator's. He's on one side of the desk and we're sitting side by side on the other, and on the desktop I've built an altar to our marriage. Four or five photographs from the big box leaning like a teepee against this giant, organic, Canadian baby beeswax candle.

It's made from the honeycomb tops of organic Canadian baby bees. It costs an absolute fortune. But Jane loves the fragrance and supposedly it burns for 700 hours, so it's a good value. I'll never know. I'm giving it to her along with the house. She grabs one of the photographs from the altar and says, look at that family like it's somebody else, which soon it will be. We are so strong, she says, and balanced. And now I agree with her.

She's the home, I'm the worker. One son's an athlete, the other is an artist. We have everything anyone could reasonably expect out of life. Jane hops up on my lap like she did on our first date and then cranes her head into my neck like a swan, like we've made it for life, which Jane says we have, and next life too. She believes in reincarnation. The mediator says, well, this is very unusual, and I've seen this a lot. Are you sure you want to do this?

James says, we love each other, which is true, which is why I'm not sure I want to do this, but I'm not sure about anything. Being uncertain just means I'm alive. The mediator asks his assistant to come in and says, will you give them that piece of paper you use? And she hands us a sheet of non-denominational wedding vows, saying, I marry people when I'm not divorcing them. Hang on to that, James, says the mediator. One day you might need it.

And then the assistant drops a big stack of separation agreements on the desk, which are as big as the altar. And Jane starts crying, saying, "I'm losing everything I have ever wanted, and I am too. I've had two stepmothers and three stepfathers, a half dozen brothers and sisters-in-law, some of them twice.

12 marriages amongst 5 people. Mine is the 13th marriage, and it's the last first marriage. The last chance to change this history and have a family I can count on, which I am breaking apart. And no one is telling me, don't do it, including Jane. One at a time we sign and countersign the separation agreements, handing them back and forth to each other.

Jane's signature looking exactly as it did on the night we met at the Hungarian pastry shop when she wrote her name and number on this little scrap of paper and I put it in my wallet and brought it home and put it on my bedside table and kissed it goodnight for three weeks until I finally got through the busy signal. And when the last agreement is signed and countersigned, I hand the mediator my camera and Jane and I stand against the wall and pose and the mediator snaps a shot and says, "What do you think?"

And I think it looks like we just got married. And I'm looking at a picture of when we just got married right there on his desk. We are beaming because this is what it looks like to agree about education and health care and money and all the things we've been bickering about for years. Granted, it took seven lawyers and a judge and a forensic psychologist and a mediator and a whole lot of money, but all's well that ends well. I am so happy I could ask her to marry me.

A few minutes later, we're walking down the sidewalk, hand in hand, embracing at her car, feeling her shape, inhaling her scent one last time, knowing that I will always regret leaving her, but that this is what it means to be me. The most you can hope for, if you're me, is that this is the right thing to do right now. Leaving a woman I have loved more than anyone I've ever known, except for my boys.

Which is why one of the photographs on the desk was of them and me, the three of us on vacation. Me suspending them by their ankles upside down back when I was strong enough and they were small enough for me to suspend them. All three of us laughing. It's the picture of happiness which Jane not only photographed but made possible because the truth is

I didn't have the courage to reproduce. I didn't want to be me. And I could not imagine making someone else feel that way. But she did have the courage, which made it very easy to follow her to this emotional continent I didn't even know existed. Kind of like she's following me now to this brand new place in our lives. I can actually see her behind me in the rearview mirror as we're driving home. So I slow down so that the other cars can't come between us.

Like we're still together. I'm in front. She's behind. Our kids are in school. Everyone is exactly where they should be right now. As I pull down my signal and turn. Thank you. That was James Brawley. James is the writer and performer of a one-person show, Life in a Marital Institution, 20 Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Hour. You can listen to this show through a link on themoth.org.

As you're listening, do these stories make you think of your own? Because you can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. The best pitches are developed for moth shows all around the world, so your story could find its way to the moth stage and this radio show.

After our break, two stories about matriarchal figures. One surprises her grandson, and the other pushes her son to the edge when The Moth Radio Hour continues. 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 Sarah Austin-Ginness. We have two more stories for you.

I love stories about grandparents who have a strong influence in the lives of the younger generations. And our next story from Robert Shearer is an ode to his feisty grandmother. Here's Robert live with the moth in Seattle. So a couple years ago when I was living in New York City, my grandma and I were sitting in the living room of her apartment. It had been about five years since my grandfather had died, so she was living by herself.

I was in the spell. I was in the middle of a spell of unemployment So I was visiting her pretty frequently because I had the time because I was the only person who in the family that was nearby and A lot of her friends weren't there so she wasn't getting many visitors and if we went to lunch She would pay so

We're sitting in the living room and talking, and I had to go to the bathroom, so I said, "Grandma, I'm gonna go to the bathroom." And she says, "Okay, I'll walk with you." Now, I knew where the bathroom was, and despite what I look like, I am potty trained. But this was actually, this was unusual.

My grandma was in her early 90s, and she was getting early in her stage of dementia. So because I was the only person that was nearby, I was tasked with coming and taking care of her a lot. My dad and my aunt were living in California. So this involved taking her outside the apartment to places like...

the drugstore to get her medicine or going accompanying her to the doctor for those visits but it also meant doing things inside the apartment and like keeping track of what was going on and she was a paranoid New York Jew who had dementia who was prideful and stubborn so she would always follow me around the apartment if I needed to take care of anything so

And she was just always on me. She's like, "What are you doing over there? Why are you... Don't touch that. Why are you... Look at the photo. It's wonderful." Like this. So I figured out eventually that if I told her I had to go to the bathroom, that she would actually go into the kitchen and read the newspaper.

And so sometimes I actually had to go to the bathroom, but a lot of times I actually had to like duck into the den to check through her mail because she wasn't paying her bills or something like that, right? Or it afforded me time to go into her bedroom, unfortunately, and actually search for her dirty laundry because she would like hide it. And the cleaning lady at the time was coming in like what she would clean and also do grandma's laundry. So I had to like

literally search for her dirty laundry and put it in a pile for the cleaning lady. Or it would give me the time to like look for the mouse traps, like the glue mouse traps that I'd set when I said, "Grandma, I have to go to the bathroom." She would say, "Okay." Because like I had to go later to make sure there were mice there. We caught six. Two were alive when I caught them, like they move still. It's not, I don't know, it's not great. So...

So I had to distract her, basically, so that I could go and do all this stuff. So when she stands up and says, I'm going to walk with you to the bathroom, it was unusual. So we walked to the bathroom. I went in the bathroom. I took care of my business because I actually had to go to the bathroom. I washed my hands because, obviously, you wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. And I opened the door, and Grandma was standing there waiting for me. And she puts her hand out, and she says, come walk with me.

So we go back in the living room, we sit down, and she hands me a piece of paper. And she says, go ahead, open it. So I open the piece of paper, and there's a 212 number scribbled on it. She's not writing well now. Also, I said, Grandma, what is this number? And she says, Robert, you know that I love you. I care about you so very much. But I'm worried about you.

And I said, "Grandma, why are you worried about me?" And she says, "Robert, you're going to the bathroom all the time. And you're in there so long." So I called my doctor and I got you a referral for a really good urologist. Please, for me, will you just call him and make an appointment?

I never called that urologist. But what happened after that is I still use the going to the bathroom excuse to distract grandma, but instead of saying okay and going to the kitchen, before she said okay, she would say, "Robert, did you ever call that urologist?" And I lied to her and I said, "Yes, grandma, I've told you before. "He says I'm fine, I just have a really small bladder. "Thank you."

Robert Shearer lived in New York for 12 years, mostly in the East Village, eating chicken cutlets with his grandparents. But he lives in Seattle now with his wife and daughter. Robert's grandmother died just shy of her 98th birthday. He says he's proud of the fact that not once in his whole life did he win a game of chess when he and his grandmother played. She won every game handily. ♪

Brian Belovich tells our final story. He crafted this in a moth community workshop with the Generations Project, which preserves and shares LGBTQ history through cross-generational storytelling. We do want to caution you that there's a moment in the story where Brian hears offensive language about being gay. But just so you know, he rises above it. Here's Brian live at the moth. When I was five, I was five once.

I always felt that I was very special in some way. I was very precocious and I perceived things a little bit differently than most kids my age. I was raised by a single mom in Providence, Rhode Island. Yeah, Providence, Rhode Island. Little roadie. And I have one of seven. I have one sister and five brothers.

My brothers were all bigger, stronger, and much more masculine than I was. In contrast, I was pretty and effeminate. It was confusing at first, and sometimes a little embarrassing, but for the most part, I felt special. And, you know, back then, I just thought I was fabulous. Who knew? Um.

Where we lived in our neighborhood up the street, there was this diner where a bunch of drag queens hung out. And my oldest brother would always tease me and tell me, "One day you're gonna be just like them." I felt so ashamed, and to prove him wrong, I would come home from school and brag how I dared my friends to hurl rocks at the queens and call them names.

This became a little bit more complicated when I was about to enter puberty and go into high school. In 1972, when I was 16, I was a person of questionable gender identity myself, and I was being harassed daily. Little did I know, here I was becoming the very thing that I was most frightened of.

Now I was being bullied and I felt trapped and it didn't feel fabulous. Clearly I knew there was something that I had to do. I had to make some decision but I had no idea what it was. At home though, when I was alone, it was a very different story. My mother was really beautiful and very glamorous and she had the wardrobe to match. I loved girls things.

One day, I snuck into her closet and I started trying things on. And soon it became a regular occurrence. I just loved dressing up and pretending to be something other than myself. One day, as I was frolicking in the closet, I didn't even hear my mother's car pull in the driveway until she slammed the door.

Frantically, I ripped off the wig, slipped out of the gown, kicked the high heels back into the closet, and luckily, I ditched all the drag. For surely, she would have killed me. She was notoriously homophobic and wasn't shy about using physical punishment.

In fact, if I did anything wrong and there wasn't a belt in close proximity, she was great at improvising with whatever was in close reach. After school, I used to hang out with my friends and, you know, smoke some cigarettes. And across the street from where we hung out, there was this big red brick apartment building.

I noticed that the tenants of the building were the drag queens from the diner. Above the entrance to the building, there was a big sign that beckoned in red bold letters, the Lola sign.

It became my daily pilgrimage as I sat there puffing away watching this cast of characters that I was just fascinated with running in and out of the beauty parlor with their hair up in curlers, you know, in broad daylight. You know, even like flagging down cars for potential, you know, customers, you know, to make a little extra money.

And my feelings toward them changed. I started to feel a sense of joy just watching them go about their lives. One day, I finally summoned up the nerve to cross the street and bum a cigarette. As I was stepping across the street, up onto the curb, I was welcomed with open arms. I knew right then and there that I was going to run away and join the drag circus. LAUGHTER

After that, I started skipping school. I started staying out later and later and later and making up flimsy excuses, telling my mother where I was. And by this time, I had made fast friends with this trans woman named Rusty who had this huge red afro. She was the first one to dress me up. And she said to me, "Now, I'm your drag mother." I was like, "Okay."

One night we got all dressed up and I was wearing this really cool black satin halter top with bell-bottom jeans and platform shoes and these really cute clip-on earrings. And she did my makeup. She put on a little mascara, some light blush, and some bright red lipstick.

And we sashayed downtown, and we turned around the corner to this dimly lit alley, and we could hear the sounds of the song, I'm Under the Influence of Love. We couldn't reach that dance floor any quicker. We lost our minds over that song. It was just one of those jams of the day. And as we were dancing, Rusty looked over at me at one point, and she had this really worried look on her face.

And she leaned in and she said, whatever you do, Miss Honey, do not turn around. I think that that's your... Before she finished her sentence, I felt a hand snatch up my hair from behind. It was my mother. She must have driven by and seen us walking downtown and followed us.

Before I could do anything, she's dragging me down the stairs, hitting me over the head with her purse. And my butt is like banging every single step down the stairs. We get outside. She shoves me in the back seat of the car. Wait till I get you home, she says. She jumps in the front, looking into her rearview mirror. She barks at me. What is that on your face? You're wearing makeup and lipstick.

Boys don't wear lipstick. So finally we get home and she tells me, "You get upstairs and go in your room and don't come out." What are you, a queer? Like those fags and fairies down there in the bar? As I reached the top of the stairs, I felt my face flush. Unable to stop the tears falling down my cheeks, I turned and I screamed, "Yes, Ma!"

I am a fag. I am queer. And I don't care. Who knows it? Within a flash, she was on that top step, broom in hand, as she broke it across my back and beat me down the hallway to my room. When she was through trying to make a man out of me, she slammed the door behind her. I sat there, looked around, packed up a little bag.

tiptoed out onto the second floor balcony, shimmied my ass down the drainpipe, and never looked back since. That was Brian Belovich.

Brian arrived in New York in 1974 and has been working as a writer and performer here ever since. He said, quote, "My incarnations include a questionably queer boy, a married trans woman, and presently a proud gay man," end quote. The longer story about this amazing adventure is detailed in his memoir, Transfigured: My Journey from Boy to Girl to Woman to Man.

During a recent trip back to Rhode Island, Brian and his husband drove by the Lola apartment building that's featured in the story, and they took photos of Brian sitting on the same bench he mentions. You can see that photo and extras related to the stories you hear on the Moth Radio Hour on our website, themoth.org. And as a reminder to all of our listeners, we have open-to-the-public moth shows all around the world now. Find details of where we are near you on our website. We'd love to see you soon. ♪

That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.

Your host this hour was Sarah Austin Janess. Sarah also directed the stories in the show, along with Katherine Burns, Jennifer Hickson, Katherine McCarthy, and Larry Rosen. The rest of the Moth's directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman and Meg Bowles. Production support from Timothy Liu Lee and Emily Couch. The Moth would like to thank the Kate Spade Foundation for their support of the CUNY Young Women's Voices Festival.

Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Buddha Tribe, the New York City Labor Chorus, Stellwagen Symphonette, the Westerlies, and Love Unlimited. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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