Pod Insights The Moth Facing the Music: Stories about Coming to Terms: The Moth Radio Hour About this episode This Episode originally aired on August 2nd, 2022.
In this episode, four storytellers square up to the truth. This hour is hosted by Moth Senior Curatorial Producer, Suzanne Rust. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media.
Storytellers:
EJR David breaks a decades long silence.
Mary Furlong Coomer prepares for her first communion.
Karen Kibaara learns the meaning of invincible.
Colin Channer stages a perfect heist.
Podcast # 776
Transcript 0:13 Speaker 00 This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host Suzanne Rust. You can try to escape it, you can try not to listen, but eventually, reality turns up the volume and we are forced to face the music and come to terms with our stuff. I generally know what that means for me, you probably know what that means for you, and so do these four storytellers. Our first story is from EJR DeVide, who told it at the Atwood Concert Hall in Anchorage, Alaska, where we partner with the Anchorage Concert Association. Here's EJ.
0:46 Speaker 01 I've always had a high tolerance for pain. I broke my left arm when I was a kid trying to skateboard and I just tried to walk it off. I tore my ACL on my left knee playing basketball, but I still ran a couple of marathons and a couple of half marathons on it. In fact, one story that my mom often shares with me that exemplifies this tolerance for pain, happened when I was just three years old. She said it was just an ordinary day. I wasn't complaining or crying, but that night, after we went to bed, I started convulsing.
1:27 Speaker 01 She checked me out and she saw that my eyes were rolling up to the back of my head. She rushed me to the hospital, where the doctors told her that I was convulsing because I couldn't break out into a fever. I guess fevers can be a good thing, because it's an indicator that our immune system was activated to fight off whatever virus was inside our bodies. And so I needed to get this fever out in order to heal. But I couldn't, and so I started convulsing. Anyway, the doctor said that I had a pretty serious virus infection in my body, but we didn't know about it because I didn't say anything. I just stayed quiet and didn't complain.
2:10 Speaker 01 So yeah, high tolerance for pain. It's something that I take pride in.
2:17 Speaker 01 I see it as a sign of strength, of resilience. And this is also how I handle psychological pain. Like the pain I felt when I had to leave the Philippines to move to the United States when I was 14. The pain I felt when I had to leave my mom to go to a country I've never seen. My mom made a huge sacrifice when she put her two young sons, me and my younger brother, who was seven at that time, on a plane to cross the Pacific Ocean to go to a land she did not know if she would ever see. She was strong and didn't complain, and so I stayed strong and didn't complain. She believed life here was better, and so I believed life here was better.
2:59 Speaker 01 And those were my two core beliefs when I came into this country. For every racist experience I faced, for every insult, every slur, every spit, I was able to just keep quiet and keep going because I reminded myself that I'm strong and I can handle pain. For every anti-immigrant comment I heard, for every "Fucking Filipinos, you come here and take all the jobs," I heard, I was able to just keep quiet and keep going because I reminded myself that life here is better.
3:37 Speaker 01 Until one day, I was in college and I was going on this road trip with my girlfriend, who eventually would become my wife, and her sister. And the road trip required us to go through the United States-Canada border. And they said that we didn't need to bring our passports to go through the border, we just needed to bring our driver's licenses, but as a brown man, I couldn't take that risk. I have to always stay at least one step ahead of racism. And so I brought my passport with me anyway, just in case. When we got to the border, the officer looked at us, asked if we were US citizens. We all said yes, and we showed him our driver's licenses.
4:18 Speaker 01 I was hoping that was gonna be it, but then he looked at me and asked if I had any other document to prove my citizenship. And so I showed him my passport, and I thought that was gonna be it, but still, it wasn't. The officer asked me to step out of the vehicle. He asked me if I've ever committed any crime. I said, "No." Then he followed that up with, "Are you sure?" Are you sure you've never murdered anybody?
4:48 Speaker 01 Now, I started getting worried at this point.
4:52 Speaker 01 But the question was so absurd that I realized this officer was messing with me. He was using his state-sanctioned authority to play this mean, insulting, dehumanizing power trip over me. And I wanted so badly to tell him off.
5:12 Speaker 01 But I didn't.
5:14 Speaker 01 I chose to stay silent.
5:18 Speaker 01 I thought to myself, "Don't do anything that will jeopardize our American dream."
5:25 Speaker 01 I just wanted to survive.
5:28 Speaker 01 Survive. You see, that incident at the border was different from all the other racism I faced in the past because this time, the person messing with me had real, tangible power over me. He and the other officers could have just taken me somewhere and harmed me, and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. I was concerned for my safety, for my life. So this time, I also stayed quiet because of fear.
5:56 Speaker 01 After that incident, my core beliefs began to crack. They began to unravel. I started asking myself if I was still being strong by not speaking up, by not standing up for myself, for my family, for my people, for our humanity. Or was I now simply giving people permission to treat me like shit? Time passed. I continued to keep my head down, kept quiet, just kept going. I graduated from college, got into grad school, got my PhD, got a job, got married. But those thoughts, those questions, those confusions, those doubts about my strength and about life in this country continued to linger inside me.
6:43 Speaker 01 Then one day, here in Alaska, it was summertime. We had out-of-state friends visiting us, and so we decided to take them camping. It was me, my wife, and our friends. We drove to our campsite, we set up our tents, we grilled some dinner, we sat around the fire, we laughed, it was a fun night. The next morning, I was the first one up, and I thought I'd be a good host and make coffee for everybody for when they woke up. As I was walking around our campsite looking for kindling, I started hearing this rustling noise from a bush about 10 feet away from me. Like where you are.
7:23 Speaker 01 And so I looked over,
7:27 Speaker 01 and a bear walked out from behind the bush.
7:31 Speaker 01 And so I paused, and the bear paused, and we both looked at each other, and I sized it up.
7:44 Speaker 01 And I don't know a whole lot about bears, but the little bear knowledge I have tells me that if a black bear attacks you, you must fight back. And so I was, at least that's what I heard. And so, and so I thought to myself, "Shoot, I might have to fight a damn bear this morning."
8:09 Speaker 01 But then, another option popped into my mind. I can just make loud, scary, intimidating noises to hopefully scare the bear away. Now, that might sound like the easier option, but as you all know by now, opening my mouth to make noise isn't really my thing. I haven't done a very good job of that in my previous 25 years. But I thought to myself, "I have to freaking try." Because it's still a much better option than having to fight a damn bear.
8:46 Speaker 01 And so, I took a deep breath, and with all the courage and the strength that I could generate from inside my body,
8:56 Speaker 01 I opened my mouth to let out the scariest, most intimidating noise I could muster at that moment. And out came...
9:33 Speaker 01 The bear just looked at me.
9:38 Speaker 01 Probably confused. And I just stood there, shaking. Stunned, shocked really, at what my body chose to release.
9:58 Speaker 01 And then, from hour ten, I heard my wife. And she's never been a morning person. And she sounded very annoyed.
10:09 Speaker 01 And she said, "Please be quiet, I'm still sleeping."
10:16 Speaker 01 And so, I replied with,
10:20 Speaker 01 "I'm sorry about the noise,
10:25 Speaker 01 but please don't make any sudden movements. There's a bear outside."
10:37 Speaker 01 And I thought that was it. I thought this bear was now going to attack me and just inflict serious damage.
10:47 Speaker 01 But, but maybe because of all the commotion, or maybe because the bear realized I was not alone, it just scampered away, back into the woods. And, just like that, it was over. We were safe, and it felt great.
11:06 Speaker 01 As I processed that experience further, weirdly enough, it reminded me of that story that my mom shares with me of when I was three and I had that virus and I convulsed in the middle of the night.
11:20 Speaker 01 You see, there's a virus in this country. Racism, anti-immigrant sentiments. And it got under my skin to invade my heart and my mind. And I thought that the best way to handle that virus was to keep quiet about it and not complain about it. I thought I was being strong that way. But in order for me to heal from this virus, I need to let this fever out. And then it also hit me that, yeah, my mom always thought of me as having this special ability to tolerate pain. But by telling me that story, she was also trying to teach me
12:01 Speaker 01 that sometimes I need to express my concerns so that others can know about it because then maybe they can help me heal. Or maybe so that we can all heal together. That bear experience, believe it or not, as funny as it sounds, was the beginning of something new for me. Even when I'm feeling really weak and feeling helpless and feeling really scared that all I can muster is a whimper, even when I'm feeling insignificant, I'm not. I have a voice and I've been making noise ever since. Thank you.
12:49 Speaker 00 That was E.J.R. David. E.J. is a professor of psychology, author, and radio host who lives in Anchorage, Alaska with his wife and children. With his bear encounter behind him, I asked E.J. how he was using his voice and being loud these days. He says that he sees himself as a scholar and activist who likes to support and amplify voices of historically oppressed communities. He's proud to say that getting into necessary trouble has been a regular part of his life. He hopes his story will inspire people to stand up and speak out. To see photos of E.J. with his mother and brother, go to themoth.org.
13:36 Speaker 00 Next up, a young girl striving for holiness and a mother's most difficult choice, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
13:53 Speaker 02 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
14:02 Speaker 00 This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Suzanne Rust. This next story is about a little girl discovering the world of saints and sinners. Mary Furlong Hummer told it at a story slam in Louisville, Kentucky, where we partner with WFPL. Here's Mary.
14:19 Speaker 03 Hello, girl.
14:23 Speaker 04 When I was seven years old, that was 68 years ago, I'm 75, you don't have to do the math.
14:30 Speaker 04 When I was seven years old, I was in a Catholic school, and we were preparing for our first communion, which necessitated, prior to that, our first confession.
14:44 Speaker 04 The heat that I was most afraid of would be the eternal flames of hell.
14:56 Speaker 04 Already at age seven, they had put the fear of hell into me. If you ever noticed, everything is geared to the most lax people, you know, all the scary stuff. They don't think about the poor, scrupulous little seven-year-old sitting there trembling in her seat because she just knows somewhere along the line she must have done something wrong. All right, concurrent with that preparation were stories about the lives of the saints.
15:26 Speaker 04 Now, many saints, as you may or may not know, and it's certainly worth a Google, were blessed with a strong desire for self-abuse, and not the good kind.
15:48 Speaker 04 So there was all manner of flagellation and crowns of thorns and in the case of Saint Rose of Lima, of whom our nuns were especially proud because she was a this side of the Atlantic saint from Lima, Peru. So she, among other things, walked on broken glass as her penance. There were later stories about crowns of thorns. I'm not kidding, you should look this stuff up, it's insane. But anyway, she did this because she wanted to be close to our Lord and all His suffering. Now, this was pre-self-esteem days.
16:30 Speaker 04 She goes back to the 1500s.
16:34 Speaker 04 But, anyway, so we heard the stories of all the different saints and then in order to confess properly, we were given a little book that had just like every sin you can imagine in the book. And we were supposed to study the book in order to prepare for our first confession. But I thought, "Oh my God, what if I missed something?" I was really nervous. Now, they had two priests and two, you know, that's two people on each side. They had two confessionals going that day. But I was so scared, I just took the book in with me. And I just figured I would be on the safe side if I just read every sin.
17:16 Speaker 04 And said, "Yes, I did it or no, I didn't." Now, I had a problem with some things I didn't understand, like what in the world was S-O-D-O-M-Y?
17:35 Speaker 04 And the good priest who heard our confessions was known to take a weed drop.
17:42 Speaker 04 So I have a feeling, because he did not even stop me at all, that my mellifluous little seven-year-old voice just put him out like a light. But the next day, Sister Catherine Albert, who I must say was generous in just sweeping the room with her eyes, she never looked right at me. She said, "Boys and girls, we are a little behind on our confession schedule, because we had a very thorough little girl."
18:11 Speaker 04 She could have said "child." She said, "We had a very thorough little girl who found it necessary to name every sin, and that's really not necessary. Just, you know, hit the high spots."
18:26 Speaker 04 So I was mortified, plus I'd blown my only confession before my first communion by doing that. Now, what should have only been an embarrassing faux pas in my little seven-year-old mind was a grave sin for which penance was required. I went out back in the alley, there was a lot of broken glass. But I'm like, "You know what? No."
18:58 Speaker 04 There are limits on sanctity. But I did go in the bathroom, and I did turn on the water. We had a very good hot water heater. I did turn on the hot water as hot as I could get it. I put the stopper in the sink, and I plunged my little hands into that hot, hot water, and I just held them there as long as I could. And I just prayed to be forgiven, because I had to do penance for this faux pas, which of course I thought was a sin. So when I levitated out of the bathroom
19:27 Speaker 04 with little lobster claws,
19:30 Speaker 04 my hands, and my mother asked me what happened, I have to tell you, when I explained to her what I did, I felt holy.
19:48 Speaker 00 Mary Furlong Coomer is a fitness instructor for seniors at her local Y in Louisville, Kentucky, and her main hobby is dancing of every kind. Mary recently turned 80, and she likes to refer to it as "Act Five," the final 20. At the end of her story, Mary says that she felt holy. So I asked her what that meant to her back then and what it means to her now. She said when she was little, it meant that because she had bungled her confession, her absolution probably didn't count, so she had to face up and manage her own vindication. Today, it means continuing her 12-step journey, which has helped keep her sober since 1986.
20:30 Speaker 00 Mary likes to say, "I had better luck with the 12 steps than with either the 10 commandments or the five precepts." To see photos of little Mary at her holy communion, go to themoth.org. When survival is at stake, sometimes the most difficult and painful choices have to be made. We met our next storyteller, Karen Kibaara, in one of our Global Community Workshops in Nairobi, Kenya, where she shared a story of surviving domestic abuse. After the workshop, Karen told this story at a Moth event that we produce during the UN General Assembly, featuring stories of women and girls.
21:13 Speaker 00 Here's Karen Kibaara, live at the Moth.
21:23 Speaker 05 I was a good girl, and I did everything that my parents told me to. I was not taught to be assertive, and I had learned from being a young girl to give up things that I really wanted. I had siblings younger than me, and I would give up things like toys if I was playing with them and they cried for them.
21:57 Speaker 05 I really, really loved travelling. And I thought I would become a tour guide. But my father said, "No, you will be a secretary." And I became one.
22:09 Speaker 05 At eighteen years old, I never had a boyfriend. So at nineteen years old, I had just cleared high school and I was waiting to join the uni- the, the college. Um, and my father called me, I was at home, and said, "Karen, cook good food, I'm bringing home a guest." That was the first time I met this man. He dressed to the nines. He looked good. And after they had the meal, he commented me and said, "That was a good meal." And at nineteen years old, I was feeling good, you know, and I had shivers all over me.
22:54 Speaker 05 My mother ran a shop in our town. It's the same town where this man ran a very successful legal business. And in my mother's shop, we sold like, um, you know, sodas and some cakes.
23:13 Speaker 05 And I would go to help her run the shop. And then I noticed that this man kept coming to the shop quite often. And sooner or later, I realized, no, it wasn't the refreshments was coming for. He had seen a good thing, and that was me.
23:31 Speaker 05 And he was in hot pursuit.
23:35 Speaker 05 A few months later, I joined the college that my father had picked for me. It was about two hundred miles away from home and away from him. And this man, who did not know how to drive, bought a car and hired a driver just to come and see me over the weekends. And I felt loved. And I found myself in a relationship with this man.
24:05 Speaker 05 A few months later, I got to know that some people were talking to my parents and warning them that perhaps they should rethink allowing me to have an affair with this man. Especially his girlfriends, his former girlfriends, they told him that he did not treat women quite well. So when I told him about it, he said, "Oh, no, Karen, they're just jealous." So my parents panicked and they said, demanding that I stop seeing this man, but I just couldn't. I was in too deep.
24:40 Speaker 05 In the last semester of this college, I got myself pregnant. Oh, excuse me, he got me pregnant.
24:51 Speaker 05 So I called him and told him of the news of what I had found out and he said, "Don't worry, calm down, we'll talk about it." So after I finished college and I packed everything that I had, he come, he came and picked me up and he could drive at this time. On our way home, he said, "Karen, I hope you remember that you and I agreed that you're coming now to move in with me." And for a moment there, I was like, "Ah, I don't remember us having that kind of a conversation."
25:25 Speaker 05 And I said, "No, you know my mom is waiting for me, I got to go home." And he got so, so angry that he did not talk to me. But then along the way, I thought, you know, how do I break this news to my father and to my mother and tell them that I was pregnant? So I thought probably it was not a very bad idea to move in with him and so I did.
25:48 Speaker 05 About six months later, our son was born and that's when things took a turn. This man that I thought loved me said I'm coming home late drunk and he would get angry at small things. The baby is crying too much at night. You are getting too fat. You are going to see your mother too much. The food did not taste as good as it used to. And I just couldn't understand what was going on. Now, on one of those days that he came home late, this time he came a little bit later, just about morning. I had spent the entire night crying, looking out through the window. We didn't have cellphones at that time, so I couldn't call him. So when he got into the house, I was like, hey man, what's going on?
26:34 Speaker 05 Why are you coming home this late? Could you just tell me what's really happening? I tell you, I never had anything that he said. The only thing I had was a huge slap on my face.
26:48 Speaker 05 And then another, and another. And I was so shocked. This was the first time he had slapped me. And I was so frightened, so I didn't talk much. In fact, I didn't speak anymore, then he went to bed. Now, when he woke up, he came to me and said, "You see what you made me do to you? Had you just shut up? If you didn't ask those silly questions, I wouldn't have hit you. Why don't you just be as quiet? Don't you know that a woman is there to be seen and not to be heard?" And I was like, whoa, well, this is gonna be different.
27:26 Speaker 05 So this physical abuse went on for the next seven years. And I got myself a job. He really, really made me feel guilty about it. He demanded that I should choose between my family and the job. And so I chose the job. He got the director firing me. My contract was terminated. My family knew that there was abuse going on in this relationship. Twice I had left, and he had cried and pleaded and promised that he was not going to hurt me anymore. Twice I went back with him. My parents did not know what to do. The only thing my mom thought best to do was to call her friends quite often.
28:11 Speaker 05 And so one day, as I was talking to my father, he looked at me and said, "Where is my daughter? Where is Karen? Because the woman that stands before me, this is not my daughter. My Karen would not stand such kind of nonsense from a man like that."
28:30 Speaker 05 And I was quiet. My father never taught me how to be an assertive woman. He never taught me how to stand up for myself. And now in adulthood, he's asking me to stand up against a man 11 years older than me. How was I going to do that? I just did not understand. And so, one other bad night. This man came home late. I opened up the door. And because I had learned how to tune him out, I didn't hear what he was saying.
29:09 Speaker 05 But I think because I ignored him, he just suddenly grabbed me with the collars off my pajamas. And he started to shake me. And he shook me real hard. And he asked me, Karen, tell me, why do you feel invincible? I had not heard that word before. I did not know what it meant. And then he said, you know, I don't think you understand what I asked you. I asked you, why do you feel so invincible? And I did not say invisible. I said invincible. And so he went to the bookshelf and grabbed a dictionary and threw it at me and told me
29:53 Speaker 05 to look out for that word and read it out loud and read out the meaning of it. And, well, I obeyed. And as I read the meaning of the word out loud, I read words like, too strong to be defeated, powerful, concrete, unbeatable, unshakable, unmovable. And I'm like, wait a minute. Was this man describing me with this word? I, who for eight years lived in this marriage, believing I was weak, vulnerable, unlovable, powerless.
30:38 Speaker 05 In his eyes, I was much more than just a strong woman. So it dawned on me, all along, what this man was trying to do was to beat me and to subdue me, to crush this strong woman that he was seeing.
30:58 Speaker 05 And so, I knew that this was my moment. And I told myself, we're going to get out of this and never come back. This is the last day you're doing this. And so after a while, I think he got tired. He went to his bedroom and I went to mine. And I cried myself to sleep that night. But those were tears of joy because I knew this was the last time that this was happening. So when I woke up the following morning, I very stealthily walked out of my bed. And then I tiptoed to his bedroom. And I confirmed that he was asleep, seriously snoring. And so I grabbed a small bag, just small, big enough for me to put a few clothes in and maybe a pair of shoes or two.
31:43 Speaker 05 And I was ready to run out of that house. And as I walked towards the door, and right before I had my hand on the doorknob, I heard the voice of my seven-year-old son. And he asked me, "Mom, where are you going?" And I said, "I have to leave now. I'll come back, I'll tell you everything." And he said, "No, can I go with you?" And I said, "No, you can't come with me. Please." And then he started crying. I said, "Please don't cry. If you cry, you'll wake up your father and I'll be in more trouble." And I, I knew that his father doted so much on his son. And it's I whom he detested.
32:26 Speaker 05 So and I thought that the best I could do was to get myself out of here, get myself back in order, physically and emotionally and financially, and then come back for my son. So I managed to convince him not to cry and to stay in the house. And then I ran out of that house, me and my little bag. And as his cries faded off, and as the distance between me and the house grew, the weight of this marriage was falling off my back. I got into the next bus that came, and I went straight home to my parents' house. And they took me in, and I was able to get myself a job.
33:11 Speaker 05 In the years that followed, I was able to have a relationship with my son. And he's just about to finish university right now. And now, I run my own kindergarten out of passion. And I also mentor and speak to young girls and women, and helping them find their inner strength, their inner power, so that they can learn how to be assertive. And so here I am, Karen from Kenya, telling you the story of Karen the Invincible. Thank you.
33:54 Speaker 00 That was Karen Kibaara. Karen lives in Washington State, where she is a case resources manager. She loves writing and a good road trip. Her son is an adult now and is about to get his master's in international business administration. Karen says that there are no words when it comes to the emotions she felt on the day she left. Choosing between staying for the sake of her son or leaving him behind to save herself was heart-wrenching. We at The Moth were grateful that Karen was able to leave her abusive marriage. But although she did emphasize that her husband adored and cared for their son, and she felt he would be safe, we couldn't help but worry. I asked her to talk a little bit more about this, and I also asked if and how
34:39 Speaker 00 she was able to stay in touch with her child over the years.
34:43 Speaker 05 There was a clear difference between how he treated me to the way he treated our son. I had not witnessed him be unkind to his son in any way. He doted on him. My mother called my son "his father's gem", because he treasured and valued him so much. Five months after I left, he relocated to another city with my son. And with no cell phones at the time, I was not able to reach my child. I would get information about my son's welfare from my in-laws, and this was the only way I was able to verify that he was well.
35:26 Speaker 05 I contacted my son as soon I was able, and that was after his father hid to my plea to allow me to have access to him. Yeah, thank you.
35:39 Speaker 00 Karen's story haunts us. We can't help thinking of women like her all over the world who have to take extreme measures to protect themselves. To see photos of Karen and her son, go to themoth.org. Our final story will take us to Jamaica, where a little boy makes a special discovery in his local bookstore. That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
36:14 Speaker 02 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
36:22 Speaker 00 You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Suzanne Rust. Our last story is a testament to the intrigue and power of books. Writer Colin Channer told it at a Moth main stage at the Schubert Theater in Boston, where our presenting partner is WBUR. Here's Colin, live at the Moth.
36:43 Speaker 06 When I was eight years old, this was 1971, in Jamaica. One day, I was at primary school, and a guy had gone to Miami, and he came back, and he told us a story of something he'd seen in a Walgreens. His description was, "It's a combination of a comic book, a magazine, and a book book, the Superman Annual." I'd never heard of an annual comic book. I'd never seen a comic book that was bigger than about 20 pages. So I decided I had to see one, which meant going to the biggest bookstore in Jamaica, Sangsters.
37:23 Speaker 06 My mother was very strict. My father was already gone, wasn't yet dead. He was a cop. He was scared of my mother, who was a pharmacist. My brother and I were scared of her, too. So every Saturday, she would take us to these drawing classes in downtown Kingston, which sort of looks like an old southern town with these buildings with these pitched roofs. And we'd go to art class, and there was 15 minutes between when we left and when she picked us up. Sangsters Books, biggest bookstore in Jamaica, five minutes run around the corner. I told my brother, "I'm going inside to the bathroom."
38:06 Speaker 06 I'm coming back before mommy comes. My brother, his name is Gary. He wanted to be a priest, or so he would say, to be considered innocent. I wanted to be an astronaut. How practical. So, I ran around to Sangsters. And in those days in Jamaica, you still had mule carts, and you had cars, and you had reggae playing everywhere. And I run into the bookstore, and it's strange to me, because it's cold. It was air-conditioned. And I hugged myself, wow. And then I look up, and ten steps in front of me, at a cash register, was a woman in a blue polyester suit.
38:47 Speaker 06 She was a color of strong tea, and her hair was like broccoli. So I said to her, "Excuse me, miss, is there something here called a Superman annual?" And she says, "Yes." And she told me where it was. And then I went around to where it was, on the shelf, and there was a big sign above it that said, "No reading allowed."
39:10 Speaker 06 So I skimmed through it.
39:13 Speaker 06 It was the size of a family bible. Heavy. It had a hard cover. There were interviews with the people who drew the Superman comics. There were other storylines that we'd never seen before. And there was about a whole year's worth of Superman comics in one book. I ran back to art class. Ah, made it. I started going every week.
39:37 Speaker 06 I became friendly with the cashier. I would go in, "Hi." And she'd go, "Hello." Until she started sending a clerk to guard me while I read the Superman annual under the "No reading allowed" sign. So one weekend, I didn't go to art class. I didn't get to see the Superman annual, didn't get to see my lady friend. And I was thinking about her, about how nice she was, and how different she was from my mother.
40:10 Speaker 06 And then I started thinking about how nice she was. I felt obligated to be nice to her. And as I started feeling obligated to be nice to her, well, my eight-year-old mind started connecting something, which is, I want the book. If I ask my mother for the money to buy the book, she will say, "No." I'm a single mother.
40:31 Speaker 06 But if I had a friend who worked in the store,
40:37 Speaker 06 then maybe I could get her to like me in a special way.
40:43 Speaker 06 And maybe,
40:46 Speaker 06 we could work something out. So when I got back to Sangsters the next time and I walked in the store and I hugged myself, she hugged herself long. I said, "Hi." She said, "Little friend, what happened to you? I didn't see you last week." I said, "Well, you know." And I began to improvise. Well, I was out with my mother, you know, and we were shopping and, you know, I like to help my mother a lot. So that's why I didn't come. She said, "You're a nice little boy." I went around the corner, ran back to art school, made it. Next week, I would steal the book. And I made a plan, a good plan, a wicked plan.
41:29 Speaker 06 I used to like watching The Saint with Simon Templar. I used to like watching It Takes a Thief with Robert Wagner, Alexander Monday. America made this. So,
41:42 Speaker 06 I went in the store the next week, ran inside, did not hug myself, I just ran up to her and said, "Oh, my God, you wouldn't believe what happened. I was out shopping with mommy like last week and the bag broke. You have a bag you could give me?" And she said, "Little friend, of course." And gives me a bag. And I run out the front entrance. I walk around the back way, coming through the back entrance, with the bag under my shirt, pull it out.
42:12 Speaker 06 Superman annual was there. Take it, drop it.
42:17 Speaker 06 Hulk annual was there too.
42:21 Speaker 06 Spider-Man was there as well. And why should a superhero be alone? So I walked out, nice and easy. Perfect heist. Then I got back to art school and my brother, the priest, was there.
42:40 Speaker 06 What you have in the bag? Now, when your brother is 12, and he wants to be a priest, and anything he says is believed, and you want to be an astronaut, and anything you say is otherworldly, you get defensive. So there was only one answer: "None of your damn business." And he asked me again, and I said, "None of your beeswax." And then my mother came. We got in the car. Blue Ford Escort. My brother says, "Mommy, Colin have books from Sangsters." And my mother stops the car.
43:23 Speaker 06 She looks at me. "Where you get money to buy books from?" "Well, it's not books, mommy, it's comics." "Well, where you get the money to buy the comics from?" And I experienced early onset, prepubescent amnesia. Because at 8, I couldn't remember. That time when Uncle Cody came, and he gave me the money that time.
43:55 Speaker 06 You beg Uncle Cody for money? You're begging people money because you think you have no father? "Why is it nobody ever believes me when I say anything?"
44:08 Speaker 06 "You thief the books?" Now, in Jamaica, you don't steal. You thief. And you don't thief. You thief. "You thief the books?" "No, mommy, I did not thief the books." "Show me the receipt." "Okay, will that make you happy?" I rummage around.
44:31 Speaker 06 "I must be drop it."
44:35 Speaker 06 I'm going to drive you back to Sangsters. Better tell me the truth now. Don't shame me in front of people. There was a simple calculus. When you're in the backseat of a two-door car in 1971, in Jamaica, where parents can do anything they want, in any fashion, for however long,
45:02 Speaker 06 you say, "Let's go to the store."
45:07 Speaker 06 Because in the store you'll have witnesses who are not in the family.
45:12 Speaker 06 So we get there. My mother walks in. She does not hug herself. We come in, and my mother says, "Which cashier you buy it from?" "The Amnesia." Again, "Um, I think it was, I can't re..." And I see my lady friend observing all this.
45:36 Speaker 06 And I am the fortunate son.
45:39 Speaker 06 That one mummy. We walk up to her.
45:45 Speaker 06 "This boy here said he bought three book from you: Superman, Spider-Man, and another one."
45:57 Speaker 06 "You remember him buying anything from you?"
46:02 Speaker 06 I looked at my lady friend. My lady friend looked at me. We had a connection.
46:15 Speaker 06 And she looked at my mother. And she looked back at me. And she said words I will never forget. "Little friend, I am so disappointed."
46:33 Speaker 06 And I learned the power of shame.
46:37 Speaker 06 Years later, my second book came out. I got a letter from Sangster's Books. They were opening a new store in Kingston, and they would like me to come
46:52 Speaker 06 to do a reading there.
46:56 Speaker 06 And when I went to the store, all the memories of that heist came back. But also a real connection of what it means to be disciplined in different ways. There was a discipline of my mother, the discipline of force. And then there was a discipline of someone saying, in her own way, "I know you can do better. Do better."
47:28 Speaker 00 That was Colin Channer.
47:31 Speaker 00 And you'll be happy to know that he is no longer a thief. Instead, he's a well-respected writer who teaches in the Department of Literary Arts at Brown University. Colin likes to say that he's a vegetarian. However, he will make an exception for a really good curry goat.
47:49 Speaker 00 I have a soft spot in my heart for Colin because I also have some Jamaican blood in me, thanks to my grandfather, Arthur Russ Sr., a product of Montego Bay and the best guy ever. I love Jamaica. And so I asked Colin what, if anything, he missed about the island.
48:08 Speaker 06 It's hard to miss Jamaica because it's so influential as a culture. It is everywhere. I learned storytelling in Jamaica. I learned reggae in Jamaica. And this music is one of the artistic touchstones of my life. What it does with finding the natural poetry in the everyday voice, for example, and how it brings together various moods and modes, comedy, tragedy, philosophy, history, politics, what we call slackness, you know, the naughty stuff, and how it goes from the concrete to the surreal and mystical in quick shifts. And what is more Afrofuturist than dub music? All that manipulation of perception and time.
48:46 Speaker 00 To see a photo of young Colin, go to the moth.org. Well, that's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. Thanks so much for listening. I hope you'll join us next time for more stories.
49:08 Speaker 02 This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Suzanne Rust, who also hosted this hour. The stories were directed by Sarah Austin Jenness, Jennifer Hickson, and Larry Rosen. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Kluch, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa. The Moth would like to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of The Moth's Global Community Program. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound.
49:53 Speaker 02 Podcast music, production support from Davey Sumner. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese-Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching as your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.
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