The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Beauty Queens, The LBJ Library and Holdups

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

The Moth Live in Austin, TX: a girl gets “discovered” at charm school; a Texas romance is thwarted by religion; and a teenage hotel clerk comes of age at gunpoint. This hour is hosted by Ophira Eisenberg with additional hosting by Jay Allison, producer of The Moth Radio Hour. Storytellers: Trisha Coburn, Sarah Bird, John Lincoln

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's the Moth.org forward slash Houston. From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this radio show, and in this hour we present a live Moth

event held at the historic Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas. Your host is Ophira Eisenberg. Good evening everybody, welcome to the Moth, I'm so proud to be in Austin, thank you. Basically, the Moth is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the art of storytelling. It sounds so simple and it is and it's amazing. It was started by an author by the name of George Dawes Green, who was living in the South, and he had these fond memories of sitting on the porch late at night telling stories him and his friends

would say late night telling stories to each other. And as it got later, the moths would be drawn to the porch lights. Thus it was called the moth. And when he moved to New York, New York obviously has a fast pace. People were just going very quickly. They talk in sound clips. And he just was so, you know, he reminisced of these times

where he just would hang out and tell stories. And he really missed that. So he started a storytelling salon in his living room. And then it grew. People were excited by this. And it grew to little venues. And then it grew more to larger clubs. and now we are going to theaters across America. We have a award-winning radio show and our theme tonight is nine lives. So when we do the math all of our

storytellers have done amazing things, they are incredible people, but by introduction we always ask them a question that has to do with our theme. So for tonight our question is who or what would you like to come back as for your 10th life? Our first storyteller said very clearly, Amy Lou Harris. Perfect idea, Amy Lou Harris. And she said, because I'm sick and tired of pretending to be her at karaoke. Please walk to the stage. Trisha Coburn, everybody. Oh.

Oh. Are you okay with your own? I grew up in a small town that sits at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Aniston, Alabama. The population in the 1960s was around 35,000 people. Much of the town worked at the cotton mill, the Fort McLellan Army base, or the Monsanto chemical plant. The towns stink like rotten eggs. And there was so much cotton in the air, you just couldn't get away from it.

Now, it was a poor and uneducated town where girls got married at the age of 14. They were usually pregnant by 15. My mom had five kids by the age of 22. And six of her eight husbands came from the Fort McLellan Army base. So, my siblings and I grew up in a housing project, and at school, we stood at the end of the lunch line.

We had to eat last because we were the welfare kids. Now Albert was Mama's first husband, and the father of my three-old siblings. When I was conceived, Albert was in prison for arm robbery and attempted murder. Mama always said he was my daddy, but you know I think she felt guilty because she didn't really know who my father was. On my 16th birthday, Albert told me over the phone, I ain't your daddy. Oh man, more says your daddy, you look like his kids. Well Mr. Morris was our neighbor, and you know I did kind of look like his kids, but I

don't, I still don't know who my father is. Now, I was terrified of Mama's anger, especially when she drank. And sometimes she drinks so much, she just pass out for hours and leave my siblings and be locked outside the apartment until late at night. In between husbands, she had my older siblings quit school

to have out with the bills. By the time I was eight years old, I was cleaning houses and babysitting, but you know, I didn't mind. I felt safer working than being at home with mom and all those strange men coming and going all the time. When I turned 12 years old, I got my dream job working the concession at the movie theater. I got a chance to see how people outside the projects behaved and how they dressed. They were real different from me.

Well, one day, the tallest woman I'd ever seen walked in. She went on a big pink hat, she was wearing a pink dress, she was carrying a pink pocketbook and wearing white gloves. She walks up to the counter and said, I'll have a large popcorn, a large RC cola, and a large Hershey Barberdommons. I thought she must be rich. Nobody orders large. So she looked at me and said, what's your name? And I say, Trisha Mitchell,

she said, how old are you? And I'm thinking, why is she asking me all these questions? And I'm thinking, why is she asking me all these questions? I answered 12. She said, how tall are you, honey? I said, I don't know, ma'am. She said, withstand again, said, RC Cole machine. I'm going to measure your height. She pulls out a pink measuring tape. She said, my you are tall for your age.

And she opens her back and gives me a pink card. She said, I am Oma Macy Harwell. I run Miss Macy's charm school down on 10th of Noble. Have you, Mama Call me? I want to talk to you about you coming to my charm school. Well, after work, I'm clutching that pink card, and I'm all excited to run home. And Mama's setting at the kitchen table,

painting her fingernails, redden drinking a glass of gin. I go, look, Mama, Miss Macy wants me to come to her charm school. Mama looked at the card and said, hey, I'll know you ain't going down there. It's a whorehouse. She throws the card down on the floor. Now I'm really confused, but I knew I had to do something so when Mama wasn't looking, I picked up that card and I went to a neighbor's and I call Miss Macy and told her Mama won't let me come to her school.

Miss Macy said, don't you worry about that, honey. I'll call you, my mom, I'll handle it. Now, Miss Macy knew a little bit about my family history because her husband was the town judge and he had sentenced Albert to prison a couple of times. So, Miss Macy told mom I could come to her school free and I might even be in the newspaper one day and that could make mom mom look real important.

So my mom realized she didn't have to pay a dime and there was something in it for her. She agreed to let me go. So after work I'd go to Miss Macy's and she'd teach me how to walk up and down stairs like a lady. She had some portable stairs carpeted in pink. She taught me how to set properly in a chair and even how to exit a room. You want to know something? I could exit this room right now and never turn my back on any of y'all. I know how to do that. It's a perk going to Charmsco. That's just one of the perks you get. Well,

the most important thing Miss Macy taught me though was how to walk a runway, how to tilt my pelvis and tuck in my stomach and keep my chin up. And she encouraged me to enter every beauty contest that came to the state of Alabama. And I did, and some of my won. Like Miss Talida could 500 raceway. I ain't finished.

Miss Cottoncrop. I ain't finished. Miss Cottoncrop. And Miss Escalator. Woo! Yeah, but let me just explain something. I mean, it was the first escalator the town had ever seen. You got to have a beauty pageant, you know, and you have a beauty queen to ride it and wave it to everybody who comes in from miles around it to look at them moving stars, you know.

So when I turned 16 years old, I miss Macy Arframea job teaching at the Charms School. So I go into work one day and she's all excited and she's waving this glamour magazine above her head. She said, where you're going to a modeling competition at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Now, I didn't know where to start crying or get excited in New York City. I never thought in a moving years I'd go to New York City, but the trip was gonna be expensive.

And I had a year, so I started working three jobs and saving every penny I could. Well, one day I'm walking down the street and this little lady comes up to me and she says, honey, I just got my welfare check. But I'm going to give you $5 to help you leave to go up north. I said, ma'am, wait a minute, how did you know I need any money? She said, well Miss Macy went on the radio this morning and told the whole town that we

got to help you leave. And the town did help me leave. JC Penney's gave me a madras miniskirt with a matching jacket. The shoot apartment gave me a pair of white patent leather go-go boots. The jewelry store gave me an alarm clock and the beauty parlour frosted my hair. I walked in a brunette and I walked out a striped platinum blonde. They even proxied in my eyebrows. I had two orange neon beams plastered across my forehead. Well, a few days before we were leaving to go to New York, an envelope arrives at the charms go with my name on it.

Inside was $2,000 cash. And I note that red, I want to help you leave to become successful. You know, I still don't know who sent that to me, and I still wonder to this very day. In May of 1971, I was 18 years old. Miss Macy and I board the train for New York City with a bottle of Drembewey, and a brown paperback fill

with southern fried chicken. 30 hours later, we walked into the Waldorf Astoria hotel. We had never seen anything like it. It was grand, like out of a movie or something, and people sounded different, and they looked different. And our room was a far cry from the Cinder block walls in my bedroom back in Alabama. Well, when the competition started,

I was immediately intimidated. I thought for sure I did not belong there in my strapped hair and my white go-go boots. And I didn't see one girl walking there one way the way Miss Macy had taught me by tilting and tucking and keeping her chin up. They're walking all fancified and flipping their hair over their shoulder

and acting all competent. Well, I pretended to be competent, but I was really numb. I mean, I was really scared people were going to find out who I really was like this poor girl from the project, you know. But Miss Macy, she never stopped encouraging me. And with my turn to walk the runway, she said, you get on out there. Those judges need to how we show clothes in Alabama. Well, the competition was judged by two top model agents, Wilhelmina and Ford, and by the editors of Glamour and Metamazelle magazines.

And when it was over, I didn't win anything. Nobody paid any attention to me, and Miss Macy, oh, she was just fit to be tied. She could not understand why I was not picked out by one of those agents. It's a Sunday afternoon. We're going back to Alabama the next day. Miss Macy's frantically pacing our hotel room

drinking drunk and brembewy. Yeah. She said, I am not prepared to take you back to Alabama tomorrow. There is nothing there for you. She picks up the telephone and calls a Birmingham newspaper. She told them that had just been signed with the world's most famous model agency. When she hung up, I couldn't believe it.

I said, Miss Macy, that ain't true. Nobody wants me in New York. Why am I supposed to if I can go back to Alabama with you? But you know, when I look back on that, I realize that Miss Macy had a far better understanding of how destitute my life was in Alabama. And she just kind of ignored my protesting in order to get dressed. We were going to go down to the bar in the lobby at the hotel. So I put on my madrass mini-script McGogo boots and she puts on her big hat and her white gloves.

And right when I'm reaching for the door, she picks up the telephone and calls governor George Wallace. George? This is Alma Macy Harwell calling you from the Waldorf Astoria, New York City. Our local Alabamaian girl, she just got signed with the world's most famous model agency. That's right, Governor. We're putting Alabama on the map.

Well, at that point, I just grabbed that bottler drum, Buie, and I am chugging it. Well, Miss Macy grabbed my arm and we head down to the palm bar in the lobby of the hotel. We walked in and there sat Willamina in an entourage of people in a swirl of cigarette smoke. Miss Macy walked right up to her. I had behind a palm tree.

Miss Macy said, well, hey, Al-Mena. she said, well, hey, all meena. I am Oma Macy Harwell from Aniston, Alabama. And I have a young lady with me that I am not prepared to take back to Alabama tomorrow. She's staying in New York City and becoming a professional model with your agency. Well, at that moment, I didn't know where the Willemini was going to burst out laughing or, you know, applaud Miss Macy. So Willamina said to Miss Macy, well, where is she? Miss Macy snapped her fingers.

Now, y'all, I am sweating so much behind that palm tree that my white panty and other go-go boots are all stuck together. So when I managed to unstick them, I go stand next to Miss Macy and Willamina said said, would you have a name? I go, yes ma'am, my name's Trisha Mitchell. She says, so tell me Trisha Mitchell, what's so special about you? Why would I want to hire you as one of my models?

My heart was pounding at that moment. I didn't know if this was the right thing to say or not, but this one word popped into my head. And it was a word that Miss Macy had always told me about myself. And I said, determination, ma'am. She said, well, why don't you and Miss Macy come to my office tomorrow morning. The next day will amina hand me a contract. She said, I'd like to see what you can do with that determination. termination, but first we have to do something about your hair. Y'all, you're sure our generous thank you so much. I'm just not finished with my story though.

There's more to come. So, the next day Miss Macy and I went back to Alabama and I said goodbye to family and friends into the life that I knew. Four days later, I moved to New York City and moved into the Barbizon Hotel for women on 63rd in Lexington and began what became a successful modeling career

for the next 11 years. Back in 1990, I was pregnant with our third son and we were living in New York City. This is the hard part. I get a telephone call from Miss Macy's daughter. She said, Trisha, my mama wants to say goodbye to you. She wants you to come down here. I didn't want to go. I mean, I didn't want to let her go. I couldn't imagine my life without Miss Macy, but I knew that I had to do it because I

owed it to her and I owed it to myself. So the next day my husband and I fly down to Aniston and Miss Macy's room was at the end of a very long corridor. And as I walked towards her room it felt like I was walking the longest runway I'd ever walked. And I sat down next to her and I said, thank you for believing in me. And thank you for taking time to help me. And thank you for opening up a door outside of Aniston.

But more than anything, thank you for saving my life. Thank you. Trisha Coburn. Trisha Coburn has worked as an artist in Boston in New York and has built an interior design practice. She's working on a collection of short stories based on her childhood experiences growing up in Alabama. To see photos of Trisha crowned Miss Aniston, Alabama 1971, and with Georgia O.R. Monty in its showroom in Milan in 1972, visit themoth.org.

By the way, Trisha's story came to us through our story Hotline where anyone can call and pitches a story that includes you, radio listeners. You can leave a two-minute pitch via our website, themawth.org, or call 877-799-Mawth. We'll be back in a moment with a story about a good faith effort at marriage. The Mawth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is The Mothradio Hour from PRX. I'm Jay Allison.

You're listening to a live storytelling event held at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas. Your host is Ophira Eisenberg. Our next storyteller when I ask the questions of who we would like, who are what would you like to come back as? She said Molly Ivans. Yes. And she said she's the only hero I've ever known.

Please welcome the stage Sarah Birds. Oh Molly, I still miss her, don't you? Okay, the thing is that I always like to tell people that I came to Austin for graduate school, but that's a lie. The truth is that I moved here for love. The object of my mad obsession was a guy I was living with in Albuquerque

who made me laugh until I wet my pants and was hotter than lava in bed. I don't know if all this hotness and hilarity was because I was so crazy in love with him or because of the crazy amounts of cheap weed that we smoked. Whatever it was, when he told me that he had to move to Austin to take some courses I could not pack fast enough. In Austin, we set up a sweet little love nest and he went off and got deeply, scarily immersed in these courses he was taking. I was alone, I didn't know a single person in Austin, Texas. I got a little clingy and lonely and I realized

that what I needed to sort of stop this slide of loserhood, was a job. And like a good job, not one of the crap jobs that I'd always had working my way through college. So I held out for that really good job. And finally, the perfect job came along. Temporary archivist technician at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. This was it. I could just see myself cataloging

secret correspondence from Ho Chi Minh and never before seen briefs about civil rights initiatives. I had to get this job. Motivated by love, I rushed in and with a cany combination of line and making shit up, I got that job. I couldn't wait to race home and impress my beloved. Once again, bask in his admiration

when I told him about this super impressive job I had scored. He was not home. This was not unusual because he was hardly home at all anymore. But that night, as the hours rolled by, I had time to reflect. And I started thinking about how much he had changed since we moved Austin. And he started taking these courses. I thought how much he had changed since we moved Austin and he started

taking these courses. I thought how distracted he came, almost as if he was keeping something from me. I had to face some very grim suspicions. When he finally walked in around two o'clock in the morning. I confronted him with this. There followed a soul-serying gut-wrenching conversation which I found out, yes, he was in love with someone else. And that someone else was El Ron Hubbard. He explained to me that Scientology is a religion dedicated to spiritual enlightenment through the pursuit of self-knowledge, but he was scared that I wouldn't understand,

that I wouldn't be able to accept this. I said, not understand? Are you kidding? We're both follow-way Catholics. Of course I understand. I understand the hunger that being raised to Catholic leaves you with for the rest of your life. You hunger for certainty.

Of course I understand that. And they're followed a period of bliss in which we explored Scientology together. I learned about emeters and operating thatons and I even took a beginner's course. It was like a combination between a toddler's birthday party and a certiveness training. We would have staring contests and the first person to blink lost. The really sad thing was as much as I wanted to believe, and God, I wanted to believe, the more I learned about Scientology, the less plausible it seemed to me.

Until finally, I had to conclude that it was a sci-fi pyramid scheme. A wall went up between us and overnight we became an interfaith couple. As I felt him drifting away from me, it terrified me. It terrified me. And things at work were really not any better. Instead of the secret correspondence with Ho Chi Man, I spent my days unpacking yellowed copies of Lady Bird's recipe for bunkhouse chili.

And reams, and reams of letters from outrage school children telling LBJ to stop lifting his bigles him and her up by their ears. And photos. There were photos of LBJ hiking up his shirt and showing that famous gallbladder surgery scar. And lots and lots of pictures of his beautiful daughters, Lucy and Linda. There was one I remember in particular of Linda's fairy tale wedding.

And she's standing next to her handsome husband, a marine captain, and he's cutting their gigantic wedding cake made of fruit cake with his sword. There's another one, another beautiful photo that I remember of Linda on her dream date with George Hamilton. But what really riveted me were the makeover photos before the date. In the photos, Linda had had her hairline plucked. She had been speckled in gaysha white makeup. She had big bird eyelashes glued on her. I wonder, is this what I needed?

Did I need a makeover to bring my man back to me? And then I realized, no, no, it was not a cosmetic makeover that I needed. It was a spiritual makeover. If my darling wanted spiritual enlightenment, I was going to give him some hot, sweet, smoking enlightenment. I speed dated all the isms, Buddhism, Taoism, I read the Tibetan book of the dead. I dabbled in transcendental meditation. I got in touch with the guru and brought the three things he required of me, three white folded handkerchiefs,

five marigolds, a check for $35. folded handkerchiefs, five marigolds, a check for $35. And he gave me my super secret mantra never to be revealed to anyone, Ubi. And then he taught me how to meditate. I couldn't wait to get home. And then when my darling arrived, I very ostentatiously plunked myself down on the floor and began to meditate. Being the great grubbing overachiever that I was,

I was certain that I would zoom to the head of the enlightenment class, and I would be levitating in front of him. He would be so dazzled, he would fall down in his knees, and our love would be reborn. When I opened my eyes, he was on the couch sleeping with his back turned to me. I almost gave up except for one thing, Edgar Casey.

I loved Edgar Casey, the sleeping prophet of Kentucky. I read Edgar at lunch as I ate my invariable Pimento cheese sandwich and the one thing I loved about Texas at that point, the diet Dr. Pepper. I was reading as I started on my vanilla wafers about soulmates. He wrote about loves so true, so meant to be, that they transcended lifetimes, and the soulmates would find each other again and again through many lives. This was me.

He was talking about me and my soulmate. I ate a vanilla wafer and at that same moment, I was overwhelmed by childhood reveries, a sort of proustian moment where everything came back to me, and I knew what I had to do. In the very next box that I cataloged to be put on the shelves of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Library to last there forever

through many, many lifetimes. I sniffed that vanilla wafer one more time, last there forever through many, many lifetimes. I sniffed that vanilla away for one more time, embedded that vanilla scent in the limbic chambers of my brain and put it in the box. I put it on the shelf. I was certain that in some future incarnation, reincarnated Sarah would find that box. Perhaps she would be researching Lady Bird's recipe for bunkhouse chili.

She would open it. The scent of vanilla would come to her, and she would remember, I have been here before. I must find my soulmate how she was going to do this. I didn't know. I couldn't figure everything out for future Sarah. I was happy now. My hope was born again. I rushed home. I sure there were problems. If you problems to be wrinkled out in here now, but I had figured out eternity. We would be together forever. When I got home, he was packing his car to leave. What did this mean? What are you doing? I've been called to LA to work at the celebrity center.

No, I pleaded, you can't leave. We're soulmates. We're meant to be together in this life and in all future lives. That can never happen Sarah. You're an SP. I was a suppressive person. In Scientology, that means you are dead to me. When he drove away, I was so shocked and heartbroken, I could not even cry. I could barely roll out of bed and go back to the library where my job was also coming to an end. Finally, there was only one box left to unpack and catalog. When that box was done, my life in Austin would be over,

and I would go back to Albuquerque. I took this big box off of the top shelf, and they're usually so heavy that I had to brace myself. I pulled the box down and went clanging into the empty shelf behind me, because it felt like the box was empty. I rushed over to my work area, and underneath the bear bulb,

I opened up the big brown box. And inside the big brown box, with dozens and dozens of little, white heart-shaped boxes, covered in satin with red, curlicue writing on them. Oh, is this a cruel joke the universe is playing on heartbroken me?

I picked up one of the boxes and opened it. Inside the little white heart shaped box was a tiny packet wrapped in red foil. I opened it up and inside was what looked like a piece of jerky. As I stared at it, I realized what it was. This was Linda Bird's Fruitcake Wedding Cake. The instant I realized what it was, I popped it in my mouth. I did, I did.

I popped it in my mouth and bit down. This little piece of fruitcake jerky had been sitting on the tin foil for so long that it was exactly like biting into a piece of tin foil. And I got a giant shock in my back molars. And at that literally electric moment, I started to sob because I knew it was over. If this, this, fruit cake, the only, actually eternal baked good there is, that had turned into this tasteless metallic nothing in 10 years, what chance did my vanilla wafers have?

years, what chance did my vanilla wafers have? I knew it was over. I didn't have a soulmate in this life. I would not be sending any messages to a future soulmate. My sweetheart did end up going to Los Angeles, and at the celebrity center, he met an actress named Mimi, who took his last name, Rogers, when they married. Mimi ditched him for Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise ditched her for Nicole, and then there was Katie, and then there was Surrey.

As for me, I stayed in Austin. I stayed in Austin. I went to graduate school. I became a writer, and just last week, my super cute husband and I celebrated the 34th anniversary of our first date. I don't think much anymore about eternity and reincarnation. I'm a fallaway Catholic who's gotten comfortable with uncertainty.

But the one thing I am certain of, I'm certain that my life, my real life, the life in Austin that I was meant to have, began on the day that I found Linda Bird's wedding cake in the LBJ library. Thank you. Sarah Bird. Sarah Bird is the author of Eight Novels, many screenplays. Sarah was recently voted best Austin author for the fourth time by readers of the Austin Chronicle and was inducted into the Texas literary Hall of Fame. To see a photo of Sarah in front of the LBJ library and a picture of the heart-shaped box

and wedding cake, visit themoth.org. We'll be back in a moment with our final story about coming of age at gunpoint. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX. From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this radio show. You're listening to a live Moth event at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas

with the theme, Nine Lives. Here's your host, Ophira Eisenberg. Our final storyteller when I asked him who or what would you like to come back as and why. He said, as I would like to come back as my dogs. as and why. He said, as I would like to come back as my dogs. He said, because they are pampered, they get to sleep in bed with two hot guys every night.

Please welcome John Lincoln. Yeah. I'm sitting at the front desk of the wilderness road in high on a hilltop overlooking Cumberland Gap Tennessee. It's an old motel. It's way past its prime and it's way off the main highway that winds its way through the valley below. I'm 16 and I've got a job. It's my a job.

It's my first job. I'm the overnight desk clerk at the wilderness road in. And from 11 at night till seven in the morning, I check guests in and out and get to be helpful, get a extra towels, little bars of soap, work the old fashioned switchboard, the kind that Lily Tomlin's character earn a scene uses with the cables. Yeah, yeah, it's great,

and I love my job, and it's sort of helping me adjust to the culture shock that my family's been experiencing because we're Midwest non-alarmist Lutherans. And we've moved from Iowa, the place I call the land of beige food, to the hills of Tennessee. So it's the end of summer, it's the end of tourist season, it's just after midnight, and it's been a busy night at the wilderness road in, and finally get a chance to take a little bit of a break, and I'm get a chance to take a little bit of a break and I'm watching TV. In through the door walk, these two scruffy-looking guys. And the first guy says, hey, we need a room. And I get up to wait on him.

And he says, no, I'm just kidding. This is a robbery. Don't make any false moves, and no one will get hurt. It might have caught me off guard, so I kind of laughed and I said, yeah, right. And he says, no, I'm real serious. And he flops this gun out of his waistband. And I see the gun. And I think, oh, a gun. A robbery. What are we doing, a robbery? I didn't know what the manager told me.

Be calm. Get him the money and get him out the door as fast as you can. Okay, so I turned to the cash register and I opened it up and I started taking the money out and there's quite a bit of money because it's been a busy night at the wilderness, wrote in. And I realized I've got all this cash in my hand and I don't have anything to put it in. So I kind of look over at him and apparently he's forgotten to bring a bag. So I say, sir, would you like a bag?

And he says, well, yeah, that'd be real nice. So I get him a bag, and I put the money in it, and I set it up on the counter real quickly, because I'm trying to move things along here, and I'm thinking we're almost done. And he says, if you got a safe, and I say I say, well, yes, we do have a safe. Let me show you the safe. So I take him over to this flimsy file cabinet safe we've got and he kind of looks at it and he says he wants to pry it open. And I look at him and apparently he hasn't brought a screwdriver.

So I get him a screwdriver. And I hand it to him and he starts prying the safe open and he seems to be taking forever and finally he gets it open, he gets the money out and I'm thinking, okay we're just about done here and he says, you know I'm going to have to tie you up. And I think, well, that makes sense. It is a robbery. So I grab an extension cord and I hand it to him and I sit down and I put my hands behind my back, because I'm trying to be helpful and move things along here.

So he ties my wrist together and ties them to the chair. And when he finishes, he kind of looks around the office and he says, you got anything I could gag you with. And I say, well, would a towel work? So he gets a towel and he puts it in my mouth and he kind of loops it around the back of my head very gently. And when he finishes, he says, there, now when the police come, you can tell him you couldn't call because you had a gag in your mouth. So he gets up and they head toward the door and he stops as he's going out and he says, hey, I hope we get to rob you again sometime. You're real helpful. And I say, hey, here.

And they drive away. So I get my hands free, and I call the police, and I go home to tell my parents about my little incident. And my non-alarmist parents are not terribly alarmed about the whole situation. And I tell them that I'd really like to keep working at the wilderness, wrote in. And they think about it, and they say, well, OK. And my dad says, John, just remember this.

If you work hard, and you're a good guy, and you keep a sense of humor, God will take care of you. And I think, well, maybe. So it's a few months later, it's winter time, and it's a quiet night at the wilderness road in. And I've switched shifts. I'm no longer working the overnight shift. I'm working the evening shift because I go to high school during the day. And I'm sitting watching TV and in through the door walk

to guys. And I get up to wait on them. And I see that the first guy's got a gun in his hand. And I think, not again, but something's not right. He grabs me and he slams my head down on the counter and he jams the gun into my bag. And he yells at the other guy to get the money out of the cash register. And when he sees that there's not very much money, he goes crazy and he takes the butt of the gun and he hammers it down on the back of my

head and I see stars and I feel blood starting to pour down my back. And then he screams, get down on the floor like Jesus on the cross. And then he screams, get down on the floor like Jesus on the cross. So I get down on the floor and I spread my arms to my side, like he said. And he drops to his knees and he grabs me by the hair and he pulls my head up and he screams, you want to play a little game. And then he whispers in my ear, you're either going to win, or you're going to lose. And he puts the gun to my temple. And he spins the cylinder.

And he pulls the trigger. And the gun goes. Click. And I start to cry. I jump up. He gets up. They run out the door and they drive away. The police come.

And I go home to tell my parents what's happened. But my non-alarmist parents are very, very alarmed. And they tell me I have to quit my job. And you know, the really crazy thing is, even with all this happened, I don't want to quit my job. I like my job. The next morning, my younger sister and I are driving to high school, and on a side street, we see this really cool looking blue car, and my eyes catch the drivers and his catch

mine. And he and I recognize each other. It's him. He squeals his tires and pulls out behind us and follows us. When I get to high school I run into the office and I tell the principal that I've got to talk to my dad. I tell my dad that I've seen the guy who robbed me. He calls the sheriff, and he gives the license plate number that my sister has written down. The sheriff traces the number, and he says he knows who it is.

But he wouldn't do something like that. He may be a little rough around the edges, but he's a good old boy. And my dad tells me there's nothing we can do that I have to let it go. But I know, I know it's him. And I can identify him. And he's out there.

A couple of days later, another motel is robbed. The manager tries to put up a fight, and he's shot and killed in front of his wife. When I hear about it, I think that could have been me. And I know. I know it's him. A few weeks later, my younger sister and I have a dentist appointment in the morning. When we finish up and we're walking out the door of the office, across the parking lot, I see the cool blue car parked outside the door to the bank next door.

And I get this really creepy feeling. And then I think, ah, maybe I'm just being an alarmist. We head back to high school and at the base of the mountain traffic comes to a complete stop. And all of a sudden, that blue car comes zoom in by us on the shoulder being chased by a police car. When traffic finally begins to move again, we get up to the top of the mountain. And there are police cars and an ambulance and a stretcher with a body on it. And that blue car.

That night, in the paper, there's an article about a bank robbery that occurred that morning. The robbers had gotten caught in traffic. They got into a fight with the police. One of them was shot and killed. The bank they'd robbed was next door to our dentist's office. They were robbing the bank while we were getting our teeth cleaned. And then I look at the picture. It's him. And I get this incredible sense of relief. And I know right then, through what my dad told me is true, that if I work hard, and I'm a good

guy, and I keep a sense of humor, that God really does take care of me. And there are good guys and good old boys. And God takes care of both. Thank you. John Lincoln. John Lincoln lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his partner Michael and their three kids, a Chihuahua name, Petunia, Pitbull name, Bell, and the Tomcat Puder. John's blog is called Ponderable Pustulations to see a photo of the teenage John Lincoln along with photos and extras on all our storytellers.

Visit themawth.org. That's it for this episode of the Mawth radio hour. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from the Maw. Your host for this live hour from Austin, Texas was Ophira Eisenberg. Selected as one of New York Magazine's top 10 comics, Ophira has appeared on Comedy Central and VH1 and is the host of NPR's trivia and puzzle show, ask me another. The stories in this hour were directed by Meg Bowles, Maggie Sino, and Sarah Austin-Geness. The rest of the most directorial staff includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman,

and Jennifer Hickson. Production support from Kirstie Bennett, Genoize Perman and Brandon Ector. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Moth Events are recorded by Argos Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Arthene Music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour, John Coltrane's Alabama. See the way by Jimmy Dale Gilmore and if it's the last thing I do, I smoke and joke you back. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation committed to building a more just, ferdinand and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website THEMOFF.org. TheMawF dot org.