The Master

"His secrets filled the air around him like smoke..." A young boy idolizes his karate instructor. Each kick, throw, and punch a step on the path to becoming a man. But the power of his presence cannot hold back the questions of his character. STORIES The Master "His secrets filled the air around him like smoke..." A young boy idolizes his karate instructor. Each kick, throw, and punch a step on the path to becoming a man. But the power of his presence cannot hold back the questions of his character. Thank you, Simon Shieh, for sharing your story! Read the poems featured in this story and more -- in Simon's debut poetry collection Master https://www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/p/master-simon-shieh. And an extra special thank you to Katherine Litwin. Produced by John Fecile. Edited by Anna Sussman and Nancy López. Original Score by Renzo Gorrio and Doug Stuart. Artwork by Teo Ducot. Ego Tripping - Nikki Giovanni Read by Flo Wiley. Music by Pat Mesiti-Miller. Burning Books Glynn's mom finds the devil in her house. Performed by Glynn Washington at Snap LIVE. Original score composed and performed by Alex Mandel, Tim Frick, and David Brandt. Season 16 - Episode 11 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Speaker 00

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• 0:53Speaker 00

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• 1:10Glynn Washington?

  OK, 6th grade, rural Michigan. Close to where we live, there's a livery stable where the rich folk keep their horses. Now that me and some of my buddies come through and muck stables, move, feed, do chores or whatever, for the exalted privilege of getting to be around horses. No, we can't ride the horses. At least, we better not get caught riding horses. Still, we get to tend the most beautiful animals that have ever breathed air. And there's one. Just not baylike from a story. Looks like a Patronus, glorious. But no one can get near her. She bites, she whinnies, she kicks.

• 1:55Glynn Washington?

  We call her demon. You can't even walk by her. Except for the owner's son Chad, the one that says to us, "Well, that water hose ain't for you. You bend over and get water from the horse's trough. You're so thirsty." The one that hisses at us to, "Keep your head down. Don't you look me in the eyes." The one always blinking.

• 2:19Glynn Washington?

  One day, my buddy steps too close to Demon's stall. She nips him on the shoulder hard enough to draw blood. He screams, "Bloody murder." Demon screams back. All the horses answer, the stable explodes into panamonium. Then, the owner's son Chad pads through, walks right up to Demon, pushes his hand into her stall, places it on top of her head, her crazed eyes still. She whinnies, presses into his fingers, knickers, snorts. Then she's silent.

• 2:59Glynn Washington?

  Every other horse goes silent as well, and I am in awe.

• 3:05Glynn Washington?

  I've never seen this kind of control, this type of certainty. It is magical, and I hate this guy so much. I hate him, but he speaks horse like no one I've ever seen in life. So I watch him, hoping maybe someday, you know, I can speak horse too.

• 3:26Glynn Washington?

  The owner, Chad's father, always laughs that he wants to train Demon not to bite. Says she'd be worth a million bucks. I'm not getting anywhere near her, but I shadow Chad from a distance. He always has sugar cubes in his pocket, so I make sure I have sugar cubes in my pocket.

• 3:47Glynn Washington?

  I always carry apples as a special treat. I start carrying apples. And one day, after someone else runs bleeding from the stable, I see Chad press sugar onto Demon's searching tongue. And it occurs to me, he never gives her treats when she doesn't bite.

• 4:07Glynn Washington?

  He only gives her treats when she does. The bigger the melee, the larger her reward. He looks over, sees me seeing him, and quickly, quickly, before he gets angry and they never let me back in here again,

• 4:24Glynn Washington?

  I turn my eyes down.

• 4:30Glynn Washington?

  Today on Snap Judgment, we proudly present the master.

• 4:37Glynn Washington?

  My name is Glynn Washington. Not everyone is a hero, even when you're listening. The Snap Judgment.

• 5:04Glynn Washington?

  One of my favorite movies from the 1980s is Karate Kid. With Mr. Miyagi, Daniel-san, the crane kick, "Ha!"

• 5:14Glynn Washington?

  And of course, the dastardly Cobra Kai with their master, the feather-haired, muscle-bound, middle-aged, all-American psychopath.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak.

• 5:28Glynn Washington?

  Now, I tried to show this movie to my kids. They're like, "Nah, over-the-top cringe. That's unbelievable." I'm like, "What? Some guy spending his entire life bullying the weak so he can feel bigger? That's unbelievable? A guy saying the rules don't apply to him because he's special is unbelievable?" I'm thinking, "Maybe y'all need to watch Karate Kid again."

• 5:55Glynn Washington?

  Or perhaps, the film is not the best medium for this kind of understanding. Maybe, this is the kind of wisdom best approached in a story.

• 6:07Glynn Washington?

  Well, Simon Shay tried to do just that. And yes, just like the Karate Kid, our story today does have descriptions of violence and references sexual abuse. Snap Judgment.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  At first, I didn't want to write about the Master. I actually decided on multiple occasions not to write about him because I felt like the Master was an unpoetic subject. The Master was harsh, violent, and brought up really complicated feelings in me. What I realized was, he wasn't just a person, he represented part of me that I didn't want to look at. And it was a part of me that wanted, or maybe needed, a Master. I remember writing this poem.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  I was sitting in my university dormitory. The words "to be wrapped in a hotel blanket under a table" came to me, and then the memory came back. Self-defense. To be saved and unsaved. To be wrapped in a hotel blanket, under a table. Because pain is temporary, but pride will never abandon you. All those fires yelling on the sidewalk, and I never once checked my hands for burns.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  I am firewood being cut in the rain. I am trying to tell you that I was young without telling you why. That I learned how to disarm a man trying to drive a knife through the top of my head before I learned how to saw through the belly of a tree.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  I would start traveling to compete in karate tournaments when I was around 10, 11 years old. We would get one hotel room and we would all cram into it. Often I would be sleeping under a table, on the floor with a blanket over me, and I would be freezing cold because they love to crank the AC up. You know, and then we'd wake up the next morning and compete. At first glance, all narrative is harmless, and there are so many ways a boy can become a man.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, my dad is an academic. He was quiet, he was gentle, and he taught at a university, he taught political science. And I would watch him typing on the computer and grading papers and reading books, and I thought, you know, that's not, that can't be, you know, what a man does. And then I saw these people breaking boards and kicking and punching each other.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Every night, we took the garbage out to the big dumpsters in the parking lot. We always wore our uniforms so the kids working at CVS would be curious, ask us questions. We said we were from the martial arts school next door. When they asked whose name was written on our backs, we told them, "Our masters."

• 9:49Speaker 03

  I remember seeing the master for the first time. He walked in, he didn't introduce himself because he didn't need to, and he just started ordering people around. Put your fist higher up on your side, bend your knees lower. He was very good at embodying, you know, the figure of the knowledgeable master, the master who knows more than everybody else. In real life, he was just kind of an average, you know, white man. He had one very striking feature, gelled black hair. He always had immaculately cut black hair that he'd gelled to the side. And also, he was big, you know, he was muscular.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  He had tattoos and his hands were just gnarled and, you know, huge from like punching wood and conditioning his knuckles. And he would always, you know, show us his fists. He could hit anything and he wouldn't feel it.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  For him, I kept a fire burning in a glass cup. His secrets filled the air around him like smoke.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  I was just a shy, sensitive kid. And when you're a shy, quiet, vulnerable boy in middle school, you have no value. At least, I didn't feel like I had any value. Once, he released two wounded fish back into the sea. It was like nothing I had ever seen.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  When I saw him, I thought, this is what a man is and this is what I need to be.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  And I loved Kung Fu movies. I was a huge, I was, I was actually enrolled in the Jackie Chan fan club. And I was one of the first 50 people to enroll in the fan club. So I got a huge Jackie Chan calendar in the mail.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Someone must have told him that I like Kung Fu movies. And so, I was walking home. I walked to the karate school and back. It was like a 20-minute walk from my house. And this red sports car stops. Of course, he drives a red sports car.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  The master rolls down the window and immediately I recognize him. I was so excited. He just handed me a box of Kung Fu movies. And then he drives off. They were, they were kind of, I guess we would call them now, deep cuts. Like they, it wasn't like Jackie Chan or Jet Li movies. It was these like old Chuck Norris movies. And like, I remember watching them and being like, this is kind of weird, but I'm into it.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  The whole essence of what we do is a philosophy of discipline.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  When I am old enough, he tells me what the mind can overcome. And I believe every word. He talks about loyalty. He talks about bone growing on top of bone. How to convince my body that it's worth it. Often I grow sleepy and stare at his hair. The gel like blood caked on black fur.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  I was a very good student. I would stay the latest. I would train the hardest. There was a heavy bag in the back. I would hit the heavy bag. I would practice my forms just constantly. And I felt really good doing karate. That's kind of the time when I felt most myself, the time when I felt the best.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  The test for the third degree black belt was a three day long test. We slept at the school overnight. He made us like run up hills at like sunrise and like, I just remember being in this like really hot karate school. It was like steam clouding the windows and I'm sitting in like a row of people. I have this like big, heavy uniform on and I'm doing, you know, forms for the hundredth time in front of the master and he's drinking a cherry Coke and I'm so thirsty and so exhausted.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  My hands are cowbells at the bottom of an ocean. Here I am, here I am. Does he even know my name? He calls me China Boy. He calls me son. My first words to him are mourning, sir.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Our interactions were him punching me in the arm and laughing, calling me a affectionately racist name like China Boy or Asian sensation, and then walking off. But I knew him, I think, mostly through hearing him talk to other people. Hearing him joke around with other people. He made the most disgusting lewd jokes about, you know, women and sex and all kinds of things.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  I have a lot of memories of being in the karate school after everyone leaves except like one or two other people, you know, boys that would kind of stay, who were kind of in the same position as me. We were cleaning the bathrooms after everybody left. We were sweeping up, throwing stuff away, taking out the trash. And the master's in the office screaming on the phone, really terrible things and really loudly to one of his ex-wives or the person he's dating or something. And I would, we would just hide in the bathroom. So we'd kind of be trapped there with the master's anger.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  What is left?

• 16:04Speaker 03

  One summer, we cleaned his backyard pool at dusk.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  He pulled sumac branches from the water's surface as I held a garbage bag open beside him.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  The branches floated on the water like bones arranged in an open casket.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Another thing we would often do is go to his house. Sometimes it needed to be painted, sometimes it needed other, you know, work done.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  When I tied the ends of the garbage bag closed, the sharp branches struggled against the black plastic. How much of me did he take and how much did I give him?

• 16:49Speaker 03

  I would just, you know, take every opportunity to be at the karate school. It started out just, you know, Saturdays, I would spend kind of all day there. And then it got to the point where I was spending my whole summers there, Monday through Saturday, then holidays, to the frustration of my parents, you know. In the beginning, they were like, great, this is an outlet, this is something that he's interested in, but it got to the point where I was just not spending any time with my family. But I was also a teenager.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I missed a lot, you know, I missed a lot. The only thing I really remember missing is my mother's birthday one year. They were celebrating, you know, blowing out candles. And I walked in, because I needed to grab something and go back to the karate school. My head was so, you know, in the karate school that I didn't think to just stay. And I remember it made my mother cry, of course it did.

• 17:55Speaker 03

  Kindness comes too easily to wicked men. In every ballroom, he is the chandelier. No, he is the song that everyone only knows the chorus of. Beautiful, relentless. He dresses as a dead soldier every Halloween. "In the army," he says, "you are dirt under the nails of your country." My mother wants him dead. The family of a young girl wants him dead.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  I do know that he was notorious for having, and I witnessed some of this, for having inappropriate relationships with his female students. I can say that I did not experience sexual abuse. I was not molested. It was something that had happened, kind of in my periphery, but it was not talked about. It was this kind of silence that pervaded all of our interactions with the master. My mother found out about this. I think it was a specific student he had a relationship with. And she found out about this when I was about to go

• 19:19Speaker 03

  on a trip with him to compete at a tournament. And she drove straight to the karate school, and she stormed in, and she spoke to a female instructor. And she unloaded her anger and said, "Why wasn't I told about this?" And the female instructor said, "Don't worry, I'm gonna take care of your son. I'm gonna go with them. I'm gonna make sure everything's okay." I think that moment was really scary for my mother. And after that, she sat me down. And she said, "This is who this person is, and I recognize that you have a lot of respect for him." And she kind of asked me to make a decision.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  She said, "Do you want to keep going down the path that you're going?" I kind of tear up when I think about this, but I really, I really respect her for that. That must have been really hard for her. And I probably would have resented them if they had just pulled me out.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  I could only say that I would not quit. No matter what he's done, I can handle it. I saw what happened to people who stopped going. And there were a few very notable instructors who quit. And they all quit in a way that was really ugly. If a man left, he was called a [BLEEP]. And if a woman left, she was called a lesbian. I knew that I would be talked about like that, and I knew that I would be considered that. And in my head, the way he thought about me was the way I actually was. I had no self-concept.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  I had no self-esteem. I was purely as good or as bad as I was in his eyes.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  I was in delusion. I was pretty firmly in delusion. I think that by the time we were moving to Beijing, I was tired more than anything. Yeah, I just couldn't admit to myself that I didn't like where this was going. I didn't like spending all my time there. And I really didn't like that I couldn't see a way out for myself.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  I remember when my mom told me she had got posted to Beijing being overjoyed but pretending to be really angry about it.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  We moved to Beijing when I was 15. The night my parents told me we were moving, I said that I hated them. But as soon as they left my room, I burst into tears. On our last night together, he took me and two other boys to Applebee's. He ordered hamburgers and milkshakes for all of us. Hamburgers the size of our heads. They joked that I would come back a man.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  We were living in a hotel for like a few days before we were gonna fly to Beijing. And two of the boys from the karate school came and said bye to me. The bond I formed with these other boys was so strong. And that's a big part of what kept me there, that, you know, these were my best friends. They came and said bye to me and they just broke down. And I'd never seen them cry before. You know, I was leaving them behind.

• 23:11Speaker 03

  On the plane, I dream of him dreaming. Beside his bed, a burlap bag full of guns. Rifles, semi-automatics, machine guns, pistols. A bag full of black snakes.

• 23:41Glynn Washington?

  When Snap returns, we go to Beijing and Simon prepares for a final showdown. Stay tuned.

• 24:00Speaker 05

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  But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or-

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  Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not-science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers.

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  And hopefully, make you see the world anew.

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  Radiolab: Adventures on the Edge of What We Think We Know.

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  Wherever you get your podcasts.

• 24:31Glynn Washington?

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• 25:44Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. Our story today does have descriptions of violence. We join Simon, who had left home for Beijing and continued training far away from his cruel master back in the States.

• 25:57Glynn Washington?

  Snap Judgment.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  Flying into Beijing, it was January, it was freezing cold. The air smelled of coal and like smog and disgusting. And we got to our house and they had just painted it for some reason, the interior and put out pineapples everywhere so to cover up the paint smell. So we walked in this house, it smelled like pineapples and paint. And I just felt so free and I felt like, you know, anything is possible.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  I would get out of school in Beijing and I would walk my dog for hours just like around the city.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  I mean, coming from small town America, this is, you know, I cannot be overstated how big of a change this is for me.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  But also the specter of the master still kind of weighed heavily on me. And I often imagined him walking into my school cafeteria and kind of taking me away, taking me out of the cafeteria and bringing me back to the karate school.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Feel him out. To celebrate his birthday that first year away from him, I crushed an egg in each hand. Let the yolk bleed through my fingers.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  Three nights a week, I take a crowded bus across the city at rush hour. A coach I can barely understand orders me into the ring with a grown man. On the ride home, I watched the city from the window, trying to repair the shattered beams of light in my head.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  Martial arts was just like such a big part of my life. I wanted, obviously, to keep like training myself and to keep practicing. And there wasn't really the karate that I knew.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  I got to Muay Thai because I somehow stumbled across this instructor. And his name is Vince. And I started taking classes. And I was like, wow, this is really cool. Muay Thai is like this very, very violent sport where you're punching, kicking. You're also using your elbows and your knees. And so it can get very bloody. I felt like somehow my, like my physical body and even mentally, I felt in danger. I felt like in order to take on life, I needed this thicker, I needed a thicker skin.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  And I felt like Muay Thai would give me that thicker skin.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Nothing to give, nothing to take.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Skin glistening under a coat of liniment oil. Knuckles, elbows, knees, shins, bones luminous in the alleyway dark. Every muscle a clock, keeping time underwater. My coach tells me that he is a man, just like me. That he wakes up every morning and puts his pants on, one leg at a time.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  You walk into Vince's gym and you don't feel like you're in a parallel universe where there are these other rules and, you know, people are not just people, but like masters and like grandmasters. You just feel like you're like around people.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  You know, Vince didn't make anybody bow to him. I felt like I was treated like more of an adult, more of an equal. And I didn't have to earn it. I felt like I could just be me.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  In Muay Thai, you're kind of training, you start out as an amateur and then you train to fight professionally. I did my first pro fight in Shanghai when I was 18. My parents took me. They were so nervous. They didn't really know what to expect, I think. I weighed in. I was kind of at the weight I should have been. My opponent weighed in 10 kilograms heavier than me. And Vince told me this and he was like, "Do you still want to fight him?" And I was like, "Uh, yeah."

• 30:54Speaker 03

  This guy walks out, much bigger than me, probably in his 30s. And first thing he does is he picked me up and he dropped me directly on my head. And my mom just starts freaking out in the audience. After he did that, I kind of came to being like, "I have to do something or I'm gonna get killed." And then I kind of found my, my voice in the ring, I guess. Record.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  In violence, there is no reciprocity, like rain and soil. Shanghai, eighteen years old, winner by knockout. The doctor called a stop to the fight when he noticed part of the skull exposed next to his eyebrow, a piece no bigger than an eye. Thailand, nineteen years old, winner by knockout. My lower lip gushing, I drop him with an uppercut as his queen looks on. Her lips, bright red, her mouth curled into a smile. Brazil, twenty years old, loser by knockout.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  One night before, hoodie drenched in sweat, ten pounds in two hours. Then newspapers soaked through with grease, endless slices of watermelon at the chuhaskhadiya. Then his knee shattering the bone around my left eye. The doctors called it orbital. My mistake, resting my head on his shoulder, letting him cradle it in his arms. And to think, all those years and not a moment of pain.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  My mom was okay with me pursuing Muay Thai, but she made me promise her that I would go to college. But then I applied to a school near the karate school, university, and I got in there. And so I went back, moved back to New York.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  And I started working and training at the karate school again.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  The master still had a hold on me and I felt like that is what I needed to do.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  It was a normal sparring training at the karate school. Normally, the master would sit on the sidelines. He rarely got into the ring himself. But on this day, he wanted to spar me with Muay Thai rules, full contact.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  You know, he was like, "Oh, you're back. You've grown up a little bit and you think you're hot stuff. Let's test that out."

• 33:53Speaker 03

  You know, in the back of my mind, I was like, "I think I could probably beat this guy up now."

• 34:00Speaker 03

  As soon as he stepped in the ring, it became a spectacle. Everybody stopped what they were doing and turned and watched us.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  We put on the gloves and we sparred, and it was intense. We both hurt each other.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  You know, whereas before, when I would spar with him, it was just a foregone conclusion that he would beat me up and I wouldn't. I would barely even fight back. We were really on equal footing. And there wasn't a referee, like, you know, awarding points or anything like that. But I felt good about it, so that says a lot. So, yeah, I think I got a couple of good shots in. And then afterwards, of course, he said something that like, kind of invalidated that. He was like, "Oh, yeah, you know, I was going easy on you," you know, something stupid like that.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  A lot of the problems that the master was facing were more clear to me as an adult, who kind of understood what was going on behind the scenes. The master was struggling. I think the school was struggling. Money troubles, people quitting. And he continued to not pay me, just like he did when I was younger and when I was teaching classes for him unpaid.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  I decided to confront the master with another friend from the karate school who had come up with me there, who had experienced everything I experienced. So this friend and I, we wanted to be paid, but we also wanted to start our own branch of the karate school, where we could run it ourselves and run it the way we wanted to. And we went to his office. There's trophies everywhere, there's swords everywhere, knives, all kinds of weapons. And he sits behind the desk in a chair. The whole time I was shaking, I was anxious, sweating.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  He asked me to leave the office, and he asked my friend to stay. And they had a conversation, and then he sent the friend out to tell me what he had decided. And that showed me that the master was done with me. It was a really big letdown. I was like, if he's not going to let us do this, then I don't want to be part of this anymore. I ended up leaving, and I never saw him again after that.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  I imagine him reading this, telling me none of it happened. Nose broken from a punch, gushing. I peel a red puddle off the ground like a wet autumn leaf. Using the smoke from a smoldering cigarette as thread, I stitch it to the back of a wounded boy. Even in war, mercy. After I finish, I look at his back, admire my handiwork, a window of burnt glass. I didn't know how to think about my experience at the karate school. I didn't know how to think about the master.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  I hadn't processed it enough. I hadn't talked about it with anybody. I would write things down, and then I would second guess myself. And I would be like, wait a second, that, that image is not real. That never happened to me. Or, you know, do I really mean what I'm saying in this, in this line here?

• 37:52Speaker 03

  I guess this poem is really about writing a poem and this process of discovery and revelation.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  I think one way I can describe writing a poem is pouring out your coffee but trying only to pour the milk out and not the coffee.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  Absolution.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  I walk to the river empty-handed, except for a cup of coffee. Whisper into the dark, forgive me my manhood. I pour the coffee into the river, but only the milk spills out, splashes into the water like a bolt of lightning.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  No matter how hard I try, I cannot see all of the dark at once. And I know how the sky lies to us in the rain, but the snow, the snow must be a confession.

• 39:39Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Simon Shea. You can read all of these poems in his debut poetry collection, Master. An extra special thank you to Catherine Littman. This story was edited by Anna Sussman and Nancy Lopez. The original score by Renzo Goryeo. And Doug Stewart was produced by John Vasio.

• 40:10Glynn Washington?

  Next up, we're gonna take a moment to honor another poet. In fact, one of the greatest poets ever to have breathed life into words, the late, great Nikki Giovanni. She was an iconic poet, writer, commentator, activist, educator, and one of the world's best-known African-American poets. Someone deeply important to our own storytelling here at Snap. And our operations manager, Flo Wiley, chose one of Nikki Giovanni's poems that means the world to her. Flo, take it away.

• 40:43Speaker 07

  This is a tribute to a storyteller masquerading as a poet who was a major influence in me becoming me. This poem in particular resonates still. "Eagle Trippin'" by Nikki Giovanni.

• 41:07Speaker 07

  I was born in the Congo. I walked to the Fertile Crescent and built the Sphinx. I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every 100 years falls into the center, giving divine, perfect light. I am bad. I sat on the throne, drinking nectar with Allah. I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe to cool my thirst. My oldest daughter is Nefertiti. The tears from my birth pains created the Nile. I am a beautiful woman. I gazed on the forest and burned out the Sahara Desert. With a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothes, I crossed it in two hours.

• 41:50Speaker 07

  I am a gazelle so swift, so swift, you can't catch me. For a birthday present, when he was three, I gave my son Hannibal an elephant. He gave me Rome for Mother's Day. My strength flows ever on. My son Noah built Newark, and I stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft, summer day. I turned myself into myself and was Jesus. Men intone my loving name. All praises, all praises. I am the one who would save. I sew diamonds in my backyard. My bowels deliver uranium.

• 42:32Speaker 07

  The filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels. On a trip north, I caught a cold and blew my nose giving oil to the Arab world. I am so hip, even my errors are correct. I sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth as I went. The hair from my head, thin than gold, was laid across three continents. I am so perfect, so divine, so ethereal, so surreal. I cannot be comprehended, except by my permission.

• 43:12Speaker 07

  I mean, I can fly like a bird in the sky.

• 43:37Glynn Washington?

  Rest in power Nikki Giovanni. Original music for that piece was by Pat Masiety Miller. Nikki Giovanni's poem, "Eagle Tripping," was read by our own operations manager, Flo Wiley.

• 43:58Glynn Washington?

  When Snap Judgment returns, how do we sleep while the books are burning? Stay tuned.

• 44:14Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. I'm Rick Washington, and I have saved you the very best seat in the house to tell you exactly what happened. Snap Judgment, live.

• 44:33Glynn Washington?

  Okay.

• 44:35Glynn Washington?

  So to understand this story, you have to know that I was itinerant. And this is really kind of another word for broke. But I was doing my thing. I was traveling around the world and being broke, lying on people's couches, you know, running from place to place. The one luxury I allowed myself, though, was books. I loved books. Got books on chimpanzees, got books on Thai cooking. I got a book in Braille. I can see fine, I love books.

• 45:20Glynn Washington?

  So I sent them all back home. And it was, it was two, they were like letters, letters to an older me, an older Glenn, that was gonna be able to kick back someday, chill in his den. His den, just like Freddy Bunch. Kick back and read those, those books. It was gonna be great. And one day, I was minding my own business. I was in Japan and I was eating an apple. And I got a phone call from my mother, who never calls me, wasting up her long distance. She called me, she said, Glenn? How you doing, mama? Glenn, me and the ladies here, me and the church ladies,

• 46:05Glynn Washington?

  we got to divining. Divining? And I hear this shouting and hollering in the background, divining, we got to divining. See, turns out Satan was up in my house. That's a shame, mama. That's a shame. I was Satan up in your, yes, Satan was up in my house, up in my cabinets, walking on my clean floor. Uh huh. And we went downstairs, we could sense his presence. I bet you could. I chased him down there. I, I wanted to know where he was coming from, son. I wanted to know where he was coming from. Went right downstairs in the basement. And the ladies were with me and they agreed,

• 46:49Glynn Washington?

  they could feel it too. They could feel the evil power. They could feel it and son, he was coming right from your pile of books. Mama. Right from your pile of books, son. And I looked there, and right on top, right on top, was Satanic Verses.

• 47:15Glynn Washington?

  Mother, Satanic Verses is not what you think it is. See, there is this dude, Salman Rushdie, and they got a five... I know Satanic Verses when I see him, son. I know what a Satanic Verse is. How you gonna bring the Verses of Satan up in my house? Mama, you really gotta calm down. That book is going in the fire along with all the rest of them. Mama, Mama, leave my books alone. Hey, you can take Satanic Verses. I don't even like that book. But just leave everything else alone. Uh-uh, it's all got the same taint. It's all going in the same fire. Hot.

• 47:54Glynn Washington?

  Mama, Mama, mother.

• 47:59Glynn Washington?

  Mother, leave my books alone. I just thought I'd let you know. Mother, Mama, leave my books alone. I just thought I would let you know, son. Goodbye. Mama, Mama. Click.

• 48:14Glynn Washington?

  I called her back. I called her back. I called her back. I called her back a dozen, thirty, forty times. No pickup. No, she didn't. No, she didn't. No, she did not. I called her back the next day. From morning till night, I called her back the next day. I called her back. I kept calling her back. Mama, no. Mama, no. Mama, no.

• 48:35Glynn Washington?

  Finally, finally, on day number three, she called me.

• 48:43Glynn Washington?

  How you doing, son?

• 48:46Glynn Washington?

  I was so angry. I was so angry. Did she do it? Did she do it? Did she burn up my books, my treasures, my letters to an older me? No way. No way. No way.

• 49:02Glynn Washington?

  How am I doing? I was about to ask her, Mama, did you really do it? And then I thought,

• 49:11Glynn Washington?

  why ask questions you already know the answer to? How am I doing?

• 49:27Glynn Washington?

  I'm fine, Mama.

• 49:30Glynn Washington?

  How are you?

• 49:44Glynn Washington?

  Snap Judgment!

• 49:54Glynn Washington?

  Have I introduced you to Mr. Alex? Man down!

• 50:02Glynn Washington?

  David Frat on the sticks!

• 50:08Glynn Washington?

  Tim Frat! Tim Frat! Tim Frat! Tim Frat! Tim Frat!

• 50:19Glynn Washington?

  DJ! Wish one! Wish one!

• 50:39Glynn Washington?

  Now, if you missed even a moment, know that an entire world of Snap storytelling awaits. In fact, in partnership with Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o, Snap created a brand-new series called "Mind Your Own." Amazing stories from the African diaspora, distributed by Lemonada Media and on podcast platforms everywhere right now. KQD, the Snap San Francisco Orbiting Hall of Justice Snap, is brought to you by the team that truly has a way with words. Except, of course, for the uber-producer, Mr. Mark Ristich. But not to worry, him'll talk pretty someday. Now there's Nancy Lopez, Pat McMillan Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryo, John Facile,

• 51:24Glynn Washington?

  Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decot, Flo Wiley, Beau Walsh, Risa Dodge, David Exame, and Regina Mediacco. And this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, we teach the kids at the local dojo by having them wax on and wax off the car. Have them pick up, throw away the trash. Have them dig up, pat down a new ditch for your storm sewer. And when the ICE officers escort you downtown to talk with the National Labor Relations Board, well, you will still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.