Punks, Blessings, Burlesque and Lotus Flowers: The Moth Radio Hour

This episode originally aired on June 21, 2022. In this episode, five strangers redefine themselves and family in the face of their past. This episode 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: Eddy Laughter sees her future at her first concert. Christopher Brune-Horan finds sanctuary in an unlikely location. Louise Newton-Keogh learns an important lesson about controlling the universe. Pauline Nguyen reconciles with a harbinger of fear. Denise Bledsoe Slaughter gets a second mother when she needs it most. Podcast # 770

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• 1:55Speaker 02

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Suzanne Rust, The Moth's curage oil producer. Sometimes people ask me what Moth's stories are about. I tell them they are really about everything and anything, which explains the title of this episode: Punks, Blessings, Burlesque, and Lotus Flowers.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Like this title, moth stories are like life itself. A variety show with every act imaginable. But what often unites them are common themes, like self-discovery, finding sanctuary, learning to forgive, and acknowledging blessings of different kinds. Our first story is from Eddie Laughter, who discovers just what she needs in a most unlikely place. She told this story at our moth teacher institute. Here's Eddie.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  I'm on my way to see live music for the first time, and I'm so much more anxious than I think I have any right to be, because this band I'm about to see, I'm completely and utterly obsessed with, and I have seen every interview YouTube will physically let me watch, and I listen to them so much, at this point, it's probably doing something unhealthy to me, I don't know how that would work, but it's happening. And when I listen to, and this is because when I listen to them, all of a sudden, I feel like I'm big, and like I'm powerful, and like nothing can touch me when I'm walking down the street, which is really not something I feel at this, like, ever at this point in my life, and I feel like so small and clunky, and like I don't fit into my own body right, and I'm kind of, I'm kind of starting to think that the middle school mentality that I'll never fit into any scenario I go to is just gonna be how I live my life, and

• 3:26Speaker 03

  I feel like I'm, like, I just have to accept this at this point. So it doesn't make any sense that I'm this anxious to see this band, but I'm trying to think about what I can expect, and I'm just kind of thinking about how in movies, punk shows are always like, a bunch of loud, aggressive, intoxicated white boys, and that doesn't really seem like my scene, and I'm spiraling a bit, and I'm looking around on the train, and I see this girl who's about like nine or 11, I don't know how age works, but she's there, and she's with her dad, and I'm like, I wonder if they're going to the punk show, and then, and then, and then, I'm more of a mess, and I'm still spiraling, and then I get off the train, and we get to the venue, and it doesn't look like a venue, but it definitely is a venue, because I get inside, and it's dark, and everyone's bigger than me, and it's really loud, and I pick a direction, and I just start walking, and I see my eighth grade math teacher, and, because of course I see my eighth grade math teacher.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  So I go up and talk to my eighth grade math teacher. Because that's who he wants to spend his Friday. And I get up to him and it was a lot less awkward than you would think. And he asked me about music and what bands I listen to. And I forget every single band I've ever heard of, ever. And I'm like, "This one." And thankfully, I'm interrupted by the first band that's up. And they have this very... They introduce themselves and they have this very nice, welcoming, like, speech about just like, accepting everyone who's at the show. And I'm like, "Huh, wow." And then they start screaming and they sound like they're wounded animals. And... But then there's this weird pop music playing underneath it and they're still screaming. And then, after each song ends, the front person goes, "Thank you." And then continues screaming for the next song, and it's awesome. And then, this goes on for a bit and it stops. And then I kind of creep out of the corner that I'm in.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  And the next band is up. And they again start screaming, of course, as you do. And... But these guys, just, they legitimately sound like they're demons. And, like, just from how they're moving, to the way this man's, like, eyes look. And whatever the noises that's coming out of him. And for some reason, I start to relax a bit and people are starting to dance around me. And in like, this sort of, like, way where it feels like there's a big sense of unity in the room. And I don't know where that's coming from. And then, my band has gone up to tune their instruments. And I'm like, "Tch, tch, ah." And then I text my friend and I'm like, "I see the front woman." And she's like, "Ah." And I'm like, "Ah." And this is all over text. And I can... I'm so excited. And I can feel everyone else is just as excited as I am.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  And it feel like, it feels like the room is like buzzing, which is so crazy. Because no one's ever excited about what I'm excited about. And then they start playing. And it's like, all of the air and sound gets sucked out of the room. And we're all watching them. And we're all just so excited to be there. But it's like, beyond excitement at this point. And it's like, everybody is where I am in my head right now. And I... We're all just there together and we're all having the same experience. And then they start to play more songs and they start to like get into the music a little bit more and everyone else around me is doing that as well and they start to play my favorite songs and apparently everybody else's favorite songs too. And then people are starting to dance more and there's this woman in front of me

• 6:24Speaker 03

  and all she's doing is like jumping up and down, which in any other context would look ridiculous. But it doesn't at all look ridiculous now and like I can do that too. So I start to like move and like jump around a bit. And then I'm, I get that same sense of power and freedom that I get when I listen to it normally, but it's like fresher or it was like revived or something. And then someone kind of nudges me and like pushes me out of the way and like takes my front middle spot and I'm about to like get internally offended because conflict is scary. And then, but then I just see that this woman was just making space for her girlfriend to go up next to her and I'm like, this is a room full of punk queer women and I just, I didn't know that was a thing and I just need a minute to like sit and process that.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  And I look around and I see the girl from the train sitting on her dad's shoulders with like these big clunky headphones so her ears don't get all messed up. And I would think that it would be weird for a kid to be here, but she looks like she's exactly where she is supposed to be. And I feel, and I start to realize that I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be too. And so I just let myself hold on to that and the last thing I want to do is run away and hide in a corner and I really feel like I belong here. And I'm so happy and I've never felt this kind of happy before. And then like the band, still in a show and there's like a mosh bit that's forming next to me, which I don't go over, I don't go in because I would get squashed like a little tiny person pancake. But I'm like on the side of it and I can still feel all of like the energy and from it

• 7:54Speaker 03

  and I'm just, I'm still like kind of like riding off of that excitement that I'm feeling and that everybody else is feeling as previously mentioned. And then eventually the band, like they stop playing and I feel, and I come back to my body and I really don't want to leave the room, but I realize that I have to. And I kind of look at the front woman and I'm like, ah! And then I leave and get on the subway and I'm looking at all these other people who are at the show with me and I can tell because they're holding like little various bits of merch or whatnot. And I'm looking at them.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  And I'm realizing that I'm, they're all like me in some way, and in so many different ways they're like me, which I really didn't think was a thing, and I didn't, I didn't realize that I had something to grow up into before. I don't really know what I thought would happen to me, but I just never had an image that my life could like go somewhere and I could stay being like the weirdo person I am and have it make sense in the world around me. And I started to realize that the small feeling that I'm holding on to, I don't need it anymore, and I never needed it, and that I'm not that small person, and I'm not going to be small forever, and I don't need to be, and that I'm gonna be okay, and it's just so crazy to think about. Thank you.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  That was Eddie Laughter. Eddie is a Brooklynite and a student at Smith College, where she studies different forms of storytelling, as well as what the moon looks like in low light pollution. We're proud to say that Eddie is also one of The Moth's education program alumni teaching interns. Eddie was just 15 when she attended that concert, and in case you were wondering, the band was The Screaming Females. I had to Google them. They're still one of her favorite groups, and listening to them brings her a lot of joy and comfort. Here's a taste of their music.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  To see photos of Eddie on her way to a Screaming Females concert, go to our web extras at themoth.org. Next up, a Broadway debut of sorts, and a hidden talent, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 10:20Speaker 04

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

• 10:26Speaker 05

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• 13:26Speaker 02

  This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Suzanne Rust. This next story is about a young man's growing awareness of his sexuality, and might not be suitable for everyone. So if that's you or those around you, please just rejoin us in about seven minutes. I'll spare you from my mediocre singing voice, but you know how the song goes. They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, they say there's always magic in the air. Well, our next teller, Christopher Bruin-Horan, found even more on Broadway. He told this story at one of our Los Angeles Story Slams, which is supported by the public radio station KCRW. Here's Christopher.

• 14:04Speaker 06

  The first time that I saw the sign that said, "The Gady Theater, All-Male Burlesque", I was on a yellow school bus with my Cub Scout troop, traveling through lower Manhattan on our way to see the The Radio City Rockettes. I must have been ten years old. All the other boys were singing a very rowdy rendition of our favorite, uh, bus song. Ravioli, I love ravioli, ravioli, it's the one for me.

• 14:36Speaker 06

  And they were super, super excited about the pictures of the Rockettes that they had seen. Uh, these long-legged dancers, always posed with their legs in a kick line. But here I was, looking out the window at West Forty-Sixth Street, at this sign that said, "All Male Burlesque." Now, I didn't know what was going on up that dark stairwell. And I didn't know what the two or three guys were doing who were looking over their shoulder before they went up. But I knew that I wanted to find out. I knew that I liked boys the way that most boys liked girls, as early as first grade. When, on a jammed family car trip going somewhere, I was thrown in the backseat on my cousin John's lap, and I didn't want to get out of the car.

• 15:22Speaker 06

  In fifth grade, I, uh, I played my first spin the bottle game. And, um, I just was acutely aware that I wanted that bottle to land on either Chip, or Billy, or Pat. And it just kept landing on Bridget, over and over and over. And if it did land on two boys, they just spun it again, like, nobody cared. And it wasn't even an option. And, um, you know, my, the, the environment in my small town about gay was hostile. And, uh, my body and my voice betrayed me. I, uh, I strutted where other boys walked. And, uh, people were starting to mistake me for my mother when I picked up the phone and said, "Hi." People like my father, who should have known better.

• 16:08Speaker 06

  And, uh, junior high was the worst. I mean, it truly got dangerous. Uh, people started calling me faggot in the hallway. And, uh, it just, I was taking shit wherever I went. At the, at the time, I, my thinking was that if I just became very small and, and I, I didn't say anything about it, that maybe it would go away. You know, I might handle that differently today. But then I just thought, if I start fighting with people, I'm gonna be bloody every day of my life. And so, around the same time, my best buddy Agnes and I, we started sneaking down to New York City on the bus. And, uh... She was an underdog as well. She was Polish with the unfortunate last name of Spakowitz. Agnes Spakowitz.

• 16:52Speaker 06

  And kids were cruel to her as well. And we loved the movie Fame. We loved the soundtrack. We used to sing it in the streets. We felt so very free in New York City. We would sit on the steps of the School of Performing Arts pretending to be students. And that was when I saw the Gaydy Theater again. And my heart started to race. And I steered Agnes over by the entrance, carefully noting that shows began on the hour, beginning at 1:00 P.M. And later, I left her at the New York Public Library browsing. And I ran the four blocks and two avenues it took to get me back there. And I was as shady as anybody else going up.

• 17:36Speaker 06

  I guess nobody goes up proudly. And I threw my shoulders back with like this pitiful attempt to look older. But the board lady taking tickets, she could even be bothered to look at me. And it was just one crank of the turnstile and I was in there. And I was in there and I remember the whole place had this, just this feeling of forbidden. It took a while for my eyes to adjust. It was just black. There was men everywhere, ranging in age from 20 to 80, but nobody was looking at anybody. And I remembered noticing that somebody had cared enough to hang wallpaper, but there were sweat marks on it where the dancers leaned against it to tie their shoes. And I was scared. I didn't know what to do and I was frozen.

• 18:19Speaker 06

  And I remember I heard muffled voices and I knew that there was a movie playing. So I pushed the lobby doors open. And there, for the first time in my life, in big technicolor, in huge screen, was gay pornography. And I had never seen men having sex before. Suddenly, the movie stopped and music started to play. And the screen went up and there was a black box stage. And I realized, all male burlesque means strip show. And I had no idea, like I was that young. And this construction worker walks out on the stage and a... Somebody says into a microphone, "Gentlemen, Dino." And this Italian guy comes out on the stage and I realize I'm about to watch a strip show.

• 19:03Speaker 06

  And he literally starts to dance awkwardly, like he was in pain. Nobody moves. We're all as embarrassed as he is. Nobody's catcalling or whistling like they do at women in movies. And then, suddenly, you know, he's done and he's just down to his underwear. He leaves the stage and I'm sitting there with my testosterone turning, wondering like, "What's gonna happen?" And then, he comes back on stage with a slow song starts to play. This time, he's stark naked with nothing but work boots. And he just walks around, not even bothering to dance anymore, just displaying himself, like a toddler who hasn't been schooled yet, or a rooster in a barnyard. Anyway, I ended up going back to the Gayety. The next time I went back to the Gayety, I had sixty dollars in my pocket and I hired a dancer who looked just like Leroy from Fame.

• 19:48Speaker 06

  And I ended up going back there about ten more times throughout high school. It was my secret that I told no one about. I had my first experience with a guy there, just off the... in a fire escape, just off the backstage entrance. It wasn't my ideal, you know? I remember we locked eyes with having that gaydar radar that we have and we went back there and he obliged. And it was nothing that I was proud of at the time, but I went back there recently with my husband on a trip to New York and I saw the Gayety Theater and it's gone. The marquee is gone, everything about that era.

• 20:30Speaker 06

  And I told my husband what I did and I was very proud of that kid who had done that, who had had the courage to find sanctuary and survive.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  That was Christopher "Bruno" Horan. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband and their sons. He's a playwright, essayist, and educator, who, among other things, developed a storytelling program for inmates at the men's central jail in Los Angeles. It's hard to be different, especially when you're a kid. And Christopher remembers being bullied and feeling isolated. He was afraid of anyone discovering the truth about him. Although his best male friend was also gay and they spoke every day, they didn't share that information with each other until they were in their twenties. He says that the outside messages they got were that scary. Eventually, he found his people in drama club and musicals in high school, but he always felt afraid and self-conscious. I asked Christopher what advice he'd give to his younger self.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  And he said, "Tell someone, anyone. Shame is the worst. One day, you'll stand in front of 150 people and marry the man of your dreams with your brother as best man and your Irish Catholic father weeping in the front row next to mom. You're a trailblazer and you don't even know it." To see photos of Christopher as a child and as a teen on one of his undercover trips to New York City, go to themoth.org.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  There are times in life when you need to find creative ways to control chaos. Our next story was told by Louise Newton Keogh at a story slam in Melbourne, Australia, where we partner with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC RN. Here's Louise.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Hi. So when I was in grade three, I learnt a valuable lesson about controlling the universe from my little sister Helen and a pair of dodgy rosary beads. So there wasn't a lot of control in my life at home at that stage. I mean, my mum was living with a mental illness and my dad was a Vietnam vet who tried to manage his PTSD with alcohol. So there was a lot of chaos, not much control. And certainly not much an eight-year-old could do about it. But when I was in grade three, I thought I'd solve this. I thought I could find a way to control the universe. You see, grade three is a very special time when you go to a Catholic primary school. It's the year of the first holy communion,

• 23:10Speaker 03

  which basically means you get the bird and the wine, and also means that you get to wear a white dress and eat lots of fairy bird and drink lemonade at the party afterwards. So it was a fairly big deal. It also means you get your first ever religious education. So in our school, religious education, they introduced these two amazing, wonderful storytelling nuns. And these women, if they were alive today, would be on the moth for sure. Now, the first nun was called Sister Mary Clotilde, and she liked to tell stories of gloom and doom and what would happen if we sinned. So she would tell stories that you'd never forget, like the boy who went to church and refused to kneel, and then when he went outside, he got hit by a bus and broke both legs and had to kneel for the rest of his life.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, that one stuck with me forever.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  And then there was Sister Vincent, Sister Mary Vincent, and she was this amazing Oprah-esque woman, and she could honestly, she would not be out of place, you know, as a motivational speaker today. And she said, basically, she said, "The secret to the universe, the way you could, or Jesus is what she called the universe, says just to follow Jesus, to put what you want out to God, and he would, he would help you." So, follow Jesus, do what he asks you to do, be good, and Jesus would solve everything. So I thought, oh, cool. So if I'm really good, if I am really, really good, then Jesus will listen, and he will answer my prayers, and my mum will be fine, and my dad won't drink, and this was what I thought I would do.

• 24:45Speaker 03

  So I made it my, my mission was to be good. The goodest kid that ever was. And the trouble with that is, I didn't actually know how to do that, because I was a pretty good kid anyway. So I thought, there were three things. One was my times tables, which was another big deal in grade three. So I went out of my way to learn them. I spent every night before I went to sleep reciting from two twos to twelve twelves and back again. And the other one was I did the dishes without complaining, even when it was not my turn, felt really proud.

• 25:16Speaker 05

  And the other one was not fighting of my brother and sisters. And that was hard, because once they cottoned on to what I was doing, they absolutely went out of my way, their way, to make me crack. It's like, let's see if we can make the angel crack this time. So that was hard, but I persevered. Didn't seem to help, but then came the glory day when it was our feast day and the whole school was given rosary beads. The entire school, and apparently they were blessed by the Pope himself, so that was a big deal. But these were the dodgiest rosary beads you've ever seen. I like, if I could have some pink little beads of plastic with held together by flimsy white string, and on the end was a silver cross. I wanna see if he paid two dollars for them, it'd be ripped off. But in my mind, they were the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  And for me, this was the key to the universe, because I thought, ha ha! I've got the rosary beads now, I know what to do. So I became a blesser.

• 26:12Speaker 05

  And I didn't actually know what blessing, I didn't really know what I was doing. So my way of blessing people would be to touch them with the rosary beads and say, "You are blessed."

• 26:22Speaker 05

  And so what I would do, every night, before I went to bed, before I set my times table, I would go around house touching my family, my mum, my dad, my brother, my sisters, saying, "You are blessed." And then I moved on to my cats, my dog. Then I moved on to my toys. Then I moved on to my times table, and so on. And I did this every single night. Now, there were some interesting reactions at home. Dad, who the only thing he loved more than beer was Catholic Church, prayed Jesus and thought, finally, he had one. And it was planning my trip into the convent when I was 15. Mum was a bit bemused, but she thought, oh, well, if it makes me happy, it doesn't seem to be bothering anyone, what the heck? My brother Patrick, who was a bit older and a bit further along the Enlightenment journey, he thought it was hysterical.

• 27:06Speaker 05

  And he also used every opportunity he could to tease me. Like, just as I was about to bless him, he'd lock himself in the bathroom or his cupboard and say, "I think I'll be a while."

• 27:15Speaker 05

  I can't bless you, I'm ragged and mad, come on! My sister Mary, she really just got angry, like, "Don't touch me with those things!" So then I had to become a covert blesser. So what do I do? I would go up to her and I'd just go, "Tap!" Or when she was brushing her teeth, I'd accidentally bump into her and she's like, "Tap!" "You are blessed."

• 27:35Speaker 05

  My sister, and hoped she didn't hit me, my sister Helen, she became my disciple. She became a blesser. She was two years younger than me and she followed me, blessing everything behind me. We were the blessers. But Helen actually took it one step further than me. She blessed objects. So she started blessing the wall, the floor, the couch, the taps. I was really impressed, but I didn't do that, I just, well, I did bless the odd wall, but only one or two. But then, of course, this kept going and something had to give, and it did. One night, I had gone through my blessing ritual, was in bed, doing my times tables, waiting for Helen to finish hers and turn the lights off, when there was a bang. And the lights went out.

• 28:20Speaker 05

  And smoke, like, we could smell smoke. And there was silence. And then I heard my mother screaming my sister's name. And that's when I realised there was something really, truly wrong. So I jumped out of bed, and Dad had found a way to turn the lights on. And my sister Helen was on the bed, shaking uncontrollably, and in her hand was a black cross.

• 28:44Speaker 05

  And, it turns out, my sister had tried to bless the electricity with a metal cross. Now, she was okay, and Dad believed that Jesus had saved her, and Patrick believed that Jesus just wanted to shut us up. But truly, that she was saved by the foam mattress that she was leaning on. But it did have an instantaneous effect. We were cured, that was it, we were done. The days of controlling the universe, we've always really been to work over. Thank you.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  That was Louise Newton Keogh. She lives in Melbourne with her husband where she's a student advocate at La Trobe University. And while she rarely tells stories these days, she does write daily and calls it her true passion. Louise is still very close to her four siblings, and they often reminisce about growing up in their tiny house filled with cats, rosary beads, and violins. She's pleased to say that her sister Helen has shown no ill effects from the electric shock she received so long ago. And during the dark times, Louise says that she will reach for the rosary beads, but only to pray, never to bless. However, she does count her blessings daily.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  To see photos of Louise as a child and with her sister, go to the web extras at themoth.org. In a moment, a story from a woman reconciling her complicated past with her father and his demons, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 30:23Speaker 04

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

• 30:32Speaker 00

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• 31:57Speaker 00

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• 32:28Speaker 02

  You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Suzanne Rust. This next story is about a father-daughter relationship complicated by the horrors of war. Pauline Nguyen told this story in Perth, Australia's Octagon Theatre in 2008. You'll hear that the recording quality back then isn't quite up to today's standards, but we think you'll be fine with it. Here's Pauline.

• 32:52Speaker 05

  When Saigon fell to communist rule in 1975, my father realized that he had no choice but to escape Vietnam. And the only way that he could do this was to build a boat and smuggle himself and his family out to sea. I was three years old at the time and my brother Louis was two. My grandmother begged my father not to leave. She couldn't understand how a parent would want to risk perishing their children out at sea.

• 33:25Speaker 05

  But my father is a very determined man. He stands at just five foot one, a little shorter than myself, but what he lacks in inches, he makes up for in fearlessness and determination.

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  And he had already made up his mind. He would rather die trying than risk imprisonment or to suffer a fate far worse,

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  the re-education camps.

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  It's not enough that they take our freedom, he would tell me. They want to take our thoughts as well.

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  My father was determined that if we died, we will all die together.

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  So in October 1977, armed with only a rudimentary map and a compass to guide him, my father steered our vessel, our tiny vessel, out into the South China Sea.

• 34:19Speaker 05

  We spent our days drifting, and waiting, and praying. We prayed that a foreign ship might come and save us.

• 34:32Speaker 05

  We prayed that we might find friendly shores.

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  We prayed that the pirates wouldn't attack us and we prayed that our supplies would not run out.

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  But our prayers were not always answered. Ship after ship after ship ignored our SOS, the most basic code of the sea.

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  And at gunpoint, a group of Malaysian soldiers pushed us off supposedly friendly shores.

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  We ended up in Thailand where we spent a very difficult year. And in 1978, Australia finally accepted us.

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  The government housed us at Westbridge Migrant Hostel and my father quickly found a job working on the production line at the Sunbeam factory in Campsea. Sunbeam gave him the graveyard shift from 2pm to 2am and they gave him all the jobs that nobody wanted.

• 35:29Speaker 05

  The train ride home was the worst, my father would later tell me. Every night was dangerous for him. The locals threatened to beat him and the bigots threatened to kill him.

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  My father cried every day going home on that train.

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  A lot of us cried in those days. We came into this new world with nothing.

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  Nothing. No job, no house, no money. We didn't know the laws, the systems, or the language.

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  My father had nightmares. And it's the same dream over and over. He's back in Vietnam. He's preparing for our escape. Um, he's back in the water drifting day after day with nowhere to go and then he wakes up.

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  My father had constant flashbacks to the war.

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  Part of his job as a lieutenant in artillery was to return to the scene and count the dead bodies after a kill.

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  One shell killed so many.

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  The scars from his own bullet wounds resemble a question mark down the length of his spine.

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  But determined to succeed, my father took on a second job and then a third job and then a fourth job. And at home, he was always angry. He had an anger in him that none of us could explain. He would throw things, he would yell at us, he would smash things. And sometimes he would just stand there and scream.

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  My father was determined to raise four high achievers. He wanted to make sure that the sacrifices that he and my mother made were honoured.

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  It wasn't long until he started offloading his anger upon my mother.

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  Soon after that, he started to offload his anger upon his children as well.

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  If someone were to ask me now what it is that I remember most about my childhood,

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  it would be the overwhelming stench of fear.

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  Fear followed us every day of our lives. Fear stayed with me everywhere.

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  My father kept three instruments of torture.

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  The first was a flexible cane whip.

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  The second was a flexible, was a stiff and shiny billiard stick.

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  And the third was fear.

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  Twice a year from the age of seven to thirteen, we would bring our school reports with absolute fear and loathing.

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  For every B, he caned us once.

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  For every C, he caned us twice. And this ritual required us to lay flat on our stomachs and not budge a millimetre until he was finished.

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  Blow after blow hacking at the flesh of our buttocks and our thighs.

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  And when he was done, he threw us a dollar for every A.

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  My father would find any reason to beat us, and sometimes he would beat us for no reason at all.

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  One of his most well-used and memorable quotes. "I created you and I have the power to destroy you."

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  Yep. He did that alright. At seventeen, I ran away from home and I spent many years hiding from my father. I would look over my shoulder everywhere that I went, paranoid that familiar faces were following me. You see, I wanted my fears forgotten. Not faced up to.

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  But there comes a time in your life where you need to overcome your fears by looking at it in the face.

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  And for the sake of my mother, and for the sake of my brothers, and for all the shame that I had dumped upon my family in the years that I was gone, I reluctantly reconciled with my father.

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  Out of duty, I would go home to visit, and I hated those visits. I hated the sense of claustrophobia and the sense of suffocation that I always felt in his presence.

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  The meetings were always so stifled and false and tense.

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  But what I hated the most was the overwhelming realisation that I had grown up to be just like him.

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  I too was angry all the time, angry at my loved ones, angry at my work colleagues, angry at the world, angry at myself.

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  Angry people are very skilled at noticing all that is wrong.

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  And I carried this anger for many years.

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  And later, when my partner and I wanted to have a child, I was determined that this cycle end there. I was determined to not be the same person I had always been because I was frightened, frightened of history repeating, frightened of treating my own child the way I had been treated, and I needed the cycle to end there.

• 41:14Speaker 05

  I could not pass on my anger to the next generation.

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  Toward the end of my pregnancy, I landed a book deal

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  to write a memoir about my family.

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  And as I'm writing this book, my fears returned. As I'm writing this book, I'm thinking, how am I possibly going to survive my father's reaction to this story?

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  There are ten chapters all up in my book, and it's not meant to be a scathing account about my father. It is a beautiful story about personal freedom and family and hope.

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  But in order to talk about the good things, I have to talk about the bad things as well.

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  And it was my plan to finish my book and give it to my father in its entirety so that he could see the full arc of the story and so that he could see what a beautiful story it really is.

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  But as I'm writing this book, this cloud of dread is hanging over me. I know that one day it's going to be published, and I know that one day the world's going to read it, and I'm just dreading the day my father's going to read it.

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  But there's a job to be done and a story that needs to be told, and so I write.

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  By the end of the seventh chapter, my father demands to read my story. And I freak out. I freak out because he can't read it now, it's not finished. The seventh chapter is actually the most confronting chapter, and it was the most difficult chapter for me to write. And it possibly is the most scathing chapter about my father, and he can't possibly read it now.

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  But you don't say no to my father. And I had no choice but to hand over my unfinished manuscript, the story about his life written by his prodigal daughter.

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  And I didn't hear from my father for two months.

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  And I needed to hear from my father. I needed to find some sort of closure so that I can finish my book and move on.

• 43:38Speaker 05

  Father's Day came and I decided to go home and face the music.

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  So I'm in my car with my beautiful baby daughter Mia. And we're driving home to Bonnyrigg to confront my parents.

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  And I'm so nervous and so scared with this confrontation that I can hardly breathe.

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  I'm not scared that he's going to hit me or be violent or anything like that. We've passed that stage in our lives. I'm scared because I've exposed him to the world.

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  I've exposed our family's story to the world and our family's secrets. I'm scared because he might give me some ridiculous ultimatum like, "I forbid you to publish this book" or something crazy like that.

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  But I'm scared because I'm about to do something that's never been done before. I'm about to take responsibility to end this family's pattern. I'm about to confront my father in order to make things better than before.

• 44:50Speaker 05

  And so Mia and I Waiting at the front door. And I've taken with me a case of my father's favourite red wine as a peace offering. And when the doors open, they take Mia, they kiss her, they cuddle her, they're so happy to see her. And I see that they've made a feast for me.

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  And we sit down to eat and I ask my father. "Dad, what do you think about my story?"

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  He says, "Good, good, good, but there's just one thing."

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  "What's that one thing, Dad?"

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  "The fish sauce recipe's wrong."

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  "What do you mean the fish sauce recipe's wrong? There's no water involved, no water involved." And I'm thinking, "Oh my God, this can't be happening." And later on, I ask him again. "Dad, what do you think about my book?"

• 45:45Speaker 05

  I get the same response about the fish sauce recipe. And I'm so frustrated. "We're never gonna define our relationship, we're never gonna connect." "I'm doomed, I'm never gonna finish my book, I won't be able to move on." "I get my baby ready, I'm getting my things ready, and I'm just about to leave." And I ask him one last time. "Dad, what do you think about my book?"

• 46:11Speaker 05

  And in a voice so sad and serious, he says,

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  "Do you know why Buddha sits on a lotus flower?"

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  "No, Dad." "Why does Buddha sit on a lotus flower?"

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  "There is nothing as beautiful as a lotus flower." "Out of watery chaos, it grows,

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  emerging from the depths of a muddy swamp and yet remains so pure and unpolluted by it. So pure, you can eat it, all of it.

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  The roots, the stems, the leaves, the seeds, the petals.

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  But the lotus flower has another characteristic.

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  Its stem, you can easily bend, but you cannot easily break. It has tenacious fibres that hold the plant together. My children are lotus flowers.

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  You have grown out of the..." Aftermath of war.

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  You have grown up in Cabramatta during its murkiest time.

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  And you have grown out of me.

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  I am mud. I am dirt. I am shit. I am very lucky to have you all.

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  And with those words, my father gave me everything that I had been waiting over 20 years for. He never gave me an apology. He gave me acknowledgement. Acknowledgement of the harm that he had inflicted.

• 47:47Speaker 05

  If someone were to ask me now, what things I think about when I think of my father?

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  I would say I think about forgiveness.

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  I think of redemption. And I think about hope.

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  But most of all, I think about unfailing courage in the face of any adversity.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  That was Pauline Nguyen. Pauline is an award-winning author, speaker, entrepreneur, and the co-founder of the renowned Vietnamese restaurant Red Lantern in Sydney, Australia. Her book, Secrets of the Red Lantern: Stories and Vietnamese Recipes from the Heart, is about her family's journey from their native Vietnam to Australia.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Our final story was told by Denise Bledsoe Slaughter at a story slam in Washington DC, where we partner with public radio station WAMU. Here's Denise.

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  Okay, first of all, I want to say that I'm gonna strangle my friend, JR, who talked me into doing this.

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  So you all support murder?

• 49:23Speaker 05

  Thank you. I am 66 years old.

• 49:30Speaker 05

  I went to grad school at Brown University.

• 49:36Speaker 05

  This is a brief story about Pearl Wolf, one of my two mothers. Everybody should have a black mother, and a Jewish mother.

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  Okay, I have been privileged to have had both. And Pearl was my Jewish mother at Brown for six years. In my last year of grad school, I had custody of my younger brother, who I might note I still have custody of

• 50:08Speaker 05

  45 years later. You do the math. It's gotten worse with age. But, really, he was in the 9th grade. I took custody of him. My brother's gay. And he and his father, my stepfather, were not getting along. I told my mother, "I'll take him to school with me for a couple of weeks." It turned into the whole year. And Providence's weather is not that bad, but it can get cold in the winter. And it did. It changed the trajectory of my life in many ways. And one of those was that I had to work.

• 50:48Speaker 05

  And the money that I made was not enough for that first oil delivery. So we were cold. And I called family members around the country. We were not poverty-stricken, but it wasn't a whole lot of extra money. I called my older sister. "Oh, wow, I wish you had called me a couple of weeks ago. I just got back from Nassau. And, you know, I don't have any money to spare." I called my mother's famous sister, Velma,

• 51:27Speaker 05

  whose husband's name was Jacques. Actually, it was Jack,

• 51:33Speaker 05

  when I first met him.

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  And as soon as I mentioned money, she says, "Oh, you need to speak to Jacques."

• 51:43Speaker 05

  Jacques, of course, says, "We don't have any money." And I knew it was a lie. I needed a hundred and eighty dollars, which today is, it doesn't sound like a lot, but what's this, 1976? That was a lot of money. So, I'm whining to Pearl, with whom I work. And Pearl, you gotta imagine, is this short squat woman. You know, she looked like she was a bodybuilder in her youth or something. And she had a cigarette permanently glued to the inside of her lip, and she could talk with it like Susan Hayward in the movies. And so she says, "What do you need?"

• 52:26Speaker 05

  And I said, "A hundred and eighty dollars." She said, "Come by the house tonight, I'll give it to you." I said, "Pearl, I don't know when I'll be able to pay it back." And she said, "That's okay, that's okay." And so she loaned me that money. And it got us through the winter. And the point of my story is that at the end of that year, I told her I would pay her back. I still didn't have a hundred and eighty dollars. She said, "You got a little refrigerator, right?" And I said, "Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact. What are you gonna do with it?" And this is the end of my grad school years. I said, "I don't know." I said, "You want it?"

• 53:09Speaker 05

  She had three children lined up to go to Brown, so she said, "I'll take the refrigerator." So that was my introduction to bartering. And I paid off my debt to Pearl in any number of ways. And just as a footnote to my story, my brother, who went on to become a soldier, so thank you for your service, I thank him for his. He also was diagnosed with HIV in 1983. And he's still alive. He survived all these years. Oh, no. No, that would be too simple. He became a crack addict in and out...

• 53:52Speaker 06

  alcoholic. And that is what you should be applauding. He survived that. He finished his undergraduate years and just got his master's in rehab counseling. So, I thank Pearl Wolf for keeping us warm.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  Denise Fledsoe-Slaughter is a self-described workaholic who looks forward to resting when she retires. But for now, she's a special assistant at the University of the District of Columbia. She also works with a nonprofit that provides education and career skills to low-income residents in the DC metro area. She says that helping people realize their ambitions is what keeps her going. I followed up with Denise to see how she was doing these days, and she joked that except for the vagaries of aging, she's doing just fine. And while her brother still has his struggles, she is proud of his accomplishments and is still there for him 100%.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  To see a poem that Denise wrote about Pearl but never got to deliver, go to themoth.org. Pearl is no longer with us, but all these years later, Denise says that she is forever grateful for the friendship, tough love and guidance she provided, and the belly laughs that they shared. And I heartily agree with Denise. Everyone should have a black mother and a Jewish mother. I was so lucky to have had the amazing Edna Rust as my mother, and fortunate to have a few Jewish mothers of my own. Sarah B. and Suzie S., thanks for being there. Well, that's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from The Moth.

• 55:51Speaker 04

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Suzanne Rust, who also hosted the show. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The stories were directed by Leah Tao, with additional education program coaching by Melissa Brown. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Kluch, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. The Moth Teachers Institute is made possible by generous support from Alice Goddessman. Thanks also to the Perth International Arts Festival. Moth stories are true, as remembered and

• 56:35Speaker 04

  affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Screaming Females, Chill, Blue Dot Sessions, Fong Duk Tong, and The Fearless Flyers. 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 us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.