It Could Happen Here - Thanksgiving Fiction Special: The Thirty-Seven Marble Steps

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

In this extra-special Thanksgiving fiction special presentation, Margaret recounts the true origins of the Thanksgiving holiday and then reads a story from her new book, We Won't Be Here Tomorrow, to Sophie. Join Robert Evans, Margaret Killjoy and Sophie Lichterman for a special live episode of Behind the Bastards with Q&A. Upon purchasing your ticket, you’ll be redirected to the show screen where there will be a prompt for you to submit a question to the hosts. Questions are picked at random, but be sure to get yours in as it may be featured in the live episode.  The show will be available for replay for 7 days after the event. Tickets: https://www.moment.co/btb (1 Part)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan, or Joe Ho. And we are the Black Fat Femme Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Ooh chat, this year we have had some of our favorite people on, including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more. I know that's right. Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. was introduced to the world. We are going to be reliving every hookup, every scandal, and every single wig removal together.

So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, which is normally a show where I, your host, Margaret Kiljoy, talk to you about cool people in history. But this week, it's a very special holiday week. Everyone loves Thanksgiving. There's not a terrible history of Thanksgiving that we're going to get into in a little bit.

This week will be a little bit different. We're going to do a short little bit of history, and then we're going to do a little bit of fiction because I think that's what I do when I don't have an entire episode, is I read you short stories, because I write short stories, and so then I can read them because I've written them. Today, my guest is very excited to be on the show, has never been on the show before, is Sophie Lichterman. Sophie, how are you? I'm good. I think you do fiction because I ask you to,

because I like it. Oh, right. It has nothing to do with, you know, not having time or anything like that. It's that I'm like, hey, can you do this thing that you're really good at that I enjoy that listeners also enjoy? Thanks. Oh, yeah. Okay, that's what I'm doing. I'm very thankful for that because it's, you know, a week of thanking for things. Thanks, by the way. I mean, let's talk about this really awesome, awesome thing. I can't even be serious about it. No, it's hard. And fortunately, I finally get to go back to my roots of how I earned the name Killjoy, which was not by telling people about cool people, but instead by complaining about things that people hold dear. Let's do it. I'm so excited.

Hooray! We're going to talk about Thanksgiving. The story of Thanksgiving is a lie on almost every conceivable level. The idea didn't originate in North America. The first American Thanksgiving feast wasn't the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock in 1621. The colonists weren't actually very good to the indigenous people, even the specific nation that they'd made the treaty with that the whole Thanksgiving myth is built around. And the current incarnation of Thanksgiving isn't even directly related to the feast that they had on Plymouth Rock. Yep. of Thanksgiving. And it was part of this Puritan idea. The idea of Thanksgiving wasn't like something that they came up with once they were in North America. Puritans, famously not fans of fun. And so they didn't, or paganism. And they correctly assessed that all the Christian

holidays were just pagan holidays rebranded. And so they only had two holidays that really mattered to them, Days of humiliation and days of Thanksgiving. I mean, that sounds like, you know, an average Wednesday for me, but okay. Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, the Puritans and well, I guess I would say, you know, Protestant culture in America in general has forgotten about the first one. Not as big on the days of humiliation as they used to be historically. Yeah, I feel like that should be, you know, a weekly day, you know, for at least for like Congress in America or something. Yeah. There should be a day of humiliation each week where they just get to, you know, make fun of some horrendous politician.

Yeah. I think, I didn't look a ton into it. I think it's like to humble ourselves, to express humility. I like my version. I like my version better where you take like Mitch McConnell from Senate and let, you know, somebody from Congress throw things at them. Is he the one who looks like a turtle? He is.

I can't remember. Okay. He is. He is. Yeah. I'm like, as a matter of fact, if we're being factually accurate, he is. Yeah. Okay.

Just checking, making sure I have the right one in my head. The Thanksgiving in colonial America that we mythologize today is two years later from the 1619 Margaret ones. 1621. You've probably heard this story before. Have you heard of these people, the pilgrims, Sophie? Unfortunately, for way too long. I mean, just an unbelievable amount of time in class and school. Unbelievable.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but did you know that they didn't actually set out from England? They set out from the Netherlands? No. I mean, they taught this in school. I realized it was not a real story. And then I was like, I will not fact check this because fuck them. Yeah, no.

Yeah, totally. How? Many of the Puritans did set out from England, fact check this because fuck them. Yeah, no, yeah, totally. And many of them, many of the Puritans did set out from England. But this other group, the separatist Puritans, who are the ones who get called the pilgrims, set out from the Netherlands

because they'd already fled England and gone to the Netherlands. And then they continued on their way and then they came over here. And so those plucky Puritans, the pilgrims who would fucking hate, this is the best part about it all. The Puritans would hate that Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is a harvest feast.

Like fundamentally it's a harvest feast. It's a little bit weird that it's a harvest feast. Every other culture celebrates harvest feast around the time of the harvest. Right. But we can't do anything right. So our harvest feast is at the end of November. But anyway, the Puritans fucking hate all pagan holidays. So they would fucking hate that their day of Thanksgiving is a fucking pagan harvest feast.

Cool, cool, cool. So they show up on the Mayflower and they found Plymouth and they had a hard winter. They were like, I guess we'll just die. I mean, honestly, here's, I'm just going back for one second. If they had named that ship Margaret, maybe we would like them more. I think we're fine. Maybe we would like them more. That's true. Or maybe I would have had to pick a different name out of humility and shame.

Oh, that's true. Maybe you would not be Margaret because you'd associate it with that. I'd be named May. Yeah, you'd be Mayflower Killjoy. Yeah. Okay, not a bad name, I'm not going to lie. Like, it kind of is a bop. I know, I know, but it's too steeped in the aforementioned.

I know. Wow. Life could be different. I know, I know. Fortunately, according to this myth that we all hear, the heroic indigenous people of a nearby nation, the Wampanoag, plus a plucky fellow named Tisquantum, whom history remembers by the nickname a white guy gave him, Squanto,

who was the last surviving member of the Patuxet people who were a subsection of the Wampanoag. And they show up, especially this guy, Tisquantum. And he's like, hey, buds, here's some food and here's some knowledge. It's all going to be okay. And he teaches them the basics of how not to die in North America. Like, here's how to get maple sap, how to grow corn, how to catch eels. It's funny because, like, the first things you read are like,

taught them how to catch fish. And then you, like, read a little bit more into it. And it's like, taught them how to catch eels. And I think people were, like, grossed out by the fact that people used to eat a ton of eels and so like you know that's like the level of grossed out about that robert evans big big eel guy big eel guy don't they like not know how eels reproduce even still i i i have not looked into this but would not be surprised there's a whole um i'm trying to make a historian yeah sophie's googling continue with the story so people pop back in okay great and you should also google medieval eel historian and come up with this

guy's name because apparently people used to pay their taxes in medieval England with eels and pay their rent with eels. And there was just this whole eel-based system in medieval England that no one... John Wyatt Greenlee? Probably, I don't know. I don't remember names. Well, everyone should look up medieval eel history

and listen to podcasts about it because they're very entertaining. But even despite all this help, half of the pilgrims died that winter. So critical support for winter for killing half the pilgrims. If it had killed all of them, maybe the world would be a better place. I'm not a big, this is going to come across a little bit. I actually, the heroes of the story are not the pilgrims. Oh my God, no way.

I know. Isn't that weird? Wow. So, according to the story, next year, next harvest, the pilgrims were like, yay, let's have a day of Thanksgiving, which is definitely not a pagan holiday. And we'll invite the indigenous people with whom we will be great friends and totally not try to wipe out. indigenous people with whom we will be great friends and totally not try to wipe out except they didn't actually call it a day of thanksgiving back then that just like randomly even though they would have called it a day of thanksgiving they probably didn't the reason that tusquantum was the last surviving member of his people is because he'd been enslaved by an english guy about seven years earlier basically this english this English, quote, explorer.

It's so fucked up. Like, all these things are like, oh, we're off to go explore. But if you read, all these explorers were like, look, we're just, we're here to capture people. That's what we're doing.

And so this guy was like, hey, come on board my ship and we can trade. And 20 folks came onto the ship and then he kidnapped them and he took them to Spain. Never go on their ships. No.

De Squentum, once he was sold into slavery in Spain, he somehow escaped to London. He became a shipbuilder for a while or maybe apprenticed with a shipbuilder and then eventually he was like, hey, I got an idea. We should go back to North America. And I know a good spot.

Specifically, it was the spot he was from because he wanted to get the fuck home. And when he got home, literally everyone was dead from disease. And so, and the Wampanoag, within a generation of this whole, like, peace, love, and happiness Thanksgiving thing, the pilgrims were breaking their treaties

with them left and right. They were hanging the Wampanoag for bullshit crimes. They were stealing their food. They were demanding that they weren't allowed to go own guns. The whole history of gun control goes real far back with racism in this country. And they try to force them all to become Christian, all this shit. And they leave them with no choice but go to war. It's called King Philip's War, the first Indian war. And that's not what we have time to go into today because this is literally just a section of me talking shit on Thanksgiving. But yeah, so the people that they were supposedly friendly with or whatever, within a generation, those people were like, fuck, you're trying to kill us all

and had to go to war against the colonists. It also wasn't the first American Thanksgiving by a long shot. Some Spanish conquerors had done one consciously in 1565. The Virginia, the Margaret people had done one a couple years earlier. It's not the actual story behind the actual Thanksgiving we currently celebrate. Of course, a ton of indigenous people in North America had tons of harvest festivals, as did fucking everybody on the planet, except the Puritans who hated fun. So once again, the only joy I can squeeze out of this story is the fact that the Puritans would be really upset about all of this. Do you want to know how eels reproduce? Oh, is it known? How do eels reproduce?

I know. I was waiting to give you this information when you were going through. There's nothing good here. Well, this is how eels reproduce. For example, it is known that eels produce eggs. It is believed that eels reproduce through what is called external fertilization. This means that instead of mating using sexual organs, females release eggs. Males then release sperm into the water, which then mixes with and fertilizes the eggs. So they don't actually like, they reproduce, but they don't fuck

is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know. I met some male eels. That seems fair. I've actually never met a male eel. That implies a whatever. Anyway. I guess, who would be sponsoring this

anti-Thanksgiving episode today? Huh. The concept of a national day of mourning reflecting the fact that we're on stolen ground? Word. Let's do it. I don't know why I said word seven times this episode, but here we are. All right. And then, you know, who else has some words from our sponsors?

Hey, everyone. are all right and then you know who else has some words from our sponsors hey everyone it's john also known as dr john paul and i'm jordan or joe ho and we are the black fat film podcast a podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated oh chat this year we have had some of our favorite people on, including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from The Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Fan Podcast

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Jenny Garth, Jana Kramer, Amy Robach, and TJ Holmes bring you I Do Part Two, a one-of-a-kind

experiment in podcasting to help you find love again. If you didn't get it right the first time, it's time to try, try again as they guide you through this podcast experiment in dating. Hey, I'm Jana Kramer. As they say, those that cannot do, teach. Actually, I think I finally got it right. So take the failures I've had the second or even third or whatever, maybe the fourth time around. I'm Jenny Garth. 29 years ago, Kelly Taylor said these words, I choose me. She made her choice. She chose herself. When it comes to love, choose you first. Hi, everyone. I'm Amy Robach. And I'm TJ Holmes. And we are, well, not necessarily relationship experts. If you're ready to dive back into the dating pool and find lasting love, finally, we want to help.

Listen to I Do Part 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, everyone. I'm Madison Packer, a pro hockey veteran going on my 10th season in New York. And I'm Anya Packer, a former pro hockey player and now a full Madison Packer stan. Anya and I met through hockey, and now we're married and moms to two awesome toddlers. And on our new podcast, Moms Who Puck, we're opening up about the chaos of our daily lives between the juggle of being athletes, raising children, and all the messiness in between. We're also turning to fellow athletes

and beyond to learn about their parenthood journeys and collect valuable advice, like FIFA World Cup winner Ashlyn Harris. I wish my village would have prepared me for how hard motherhood was going to be. And Peloton instructor and Ratchet Mom Club founder, Kirsten Ferguson. And I remember going in there a hot mess. So listen to Moms Who Puck, a production of iHeart Women's Sports and Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. And we are back. And the first federally recognized Thanksgiving holiday was made by... Have you ever heard of this guy? He's mostly famous for being a slaver. George Washington.

Is that the one with the wooden teeth guy? Well, we're going to talk about his teeth. Cool, cool, cool. he called for the you know the american revolution all that shit he called for the first federal official federal day of thanksgiving there have been a couple that churches had been doing and stuff before then and it was to give thanks for winning the revolutionary war uh if you want to hear my opinions about that war you can listen to the episode about public universal friend except first i want to talk my opinions about that war, you can listen to the episode about Public Universal Front. Except first, I want to talk a little bit more about George Washington. Wait, wait, I swear on everything I did not read ahead and see that you had a whole thing

about teeth. That's just the first thing that came to my mind. Oh, yeah. We're talking about George Washington's teeth. This is very exciting. Yeah, we're talking about George Washington's teeth. This is very exciting. George piece of shit Washington, whose statue should be treated exactly the same way as any Confederate statue. Have you heard about George Washington's teeth, Sophie?

Apparently I have. Oh, man. So I was about to say the Mr. $1 bill himself and the next paragraph starts on the $1 bill. Yep, yep. Mr. One dollar bill himself and the next Bear Gryff starts on the one dollar bill Yep yep On the one dollar bill George Washington Has a smug little smile And it's cause his cheeks are a little bit puffed up Because he's wearing dentures And in school they told us his dentures

Were made out of wood That isn't true Of course it isn't why would they ever Tell us anything true about these Despicable fucking people that Founded our country citizen why would they ever why would they ever tell us anything true about these despicable fucking people that founded our country i know because then we can have complicated conversations about them i'm not gonna have a complicated conversation about them i'm gonna have a one-sided conversation about it today but it's like you could theoretically eventually have

complicated conversations about some of these people if you started with the fucking truth but we're gonna start with the fucking truth and we're gonna leave it at there uh he had a bunch of different dentures, but one of his sources for teeth was that he bought, and the word bought gets really heavy air quotes here. He bought teeth from the people

that he enslaved. His estate had over 300 enslaved people on it, more than 100 personally owned by George W. himself. And it was these people that he got his dentures from while they were still alive. Oh, W. himself. And it was these people that he got his dentures from while they were still alive. Oh, Jesus.

Fuck. And, yeah. And during the revolution, a whole group of the people that he thought he owned ran the fuck away and got onto a British warship and escaped the fucking monster

they lived with. Anyway, I feel like it's just hard to say the words George Washington in a sentence without adding the guy who ripped teeth out of living people's faces and in our in our country he's the delightful founder with the cute little wooden teeth i know that we tell that story to you know preschool children yeah he's a he's a horror villain he's a horror villain. He's a horror villain. He's absolutely a horror villain. He's a fucking ghoul.

Like a... Yeah. Jesus Christ. Yeah. I mean, like, that should be talked about in the same, like, not... Obviously not at scale, but, like, King Leopold of Belgium taking people's hands. Yeah. Like, this is...

Yeah. And there's, like, there's some historical questions to be people work really hard to make george washington seem like a chill guy there's all of these articles you can find being like here's the daily life of someone that he enslaved and it like tries to be like in their free time they blah blah blah no they were fucking treated like shit one of the people who ran away was like 300 people how can you yeah well let's well only he only personally owned a hundred and something of those people the other people just lived on his estate as enslaved people you motherfucker yeah no no it's people work so

fucking hard to try and and so like we know that he bought teeth from people and we know that he had all this shit with his teeth but it's possible he bought people's teeth and they went in someone else's no he fucking there's anyway whatever is a fucking horror villain then so he the first day of thanksgiving was the one he suggested but then it wasn't until the civil war in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared the current incarnation of Thanksgiving. And I hadn't actually realized this. The current incarnation of Thanksgiving, the one that happens this week as you all are listening, was created, quote, with the intention to heal the wounds of the nation from the Civil War. And theoretically doesn't even have anything to do with Mayflower and any of that shit.

But it's just not true. That's not what people are celebrating. People are celebrating the other shit. They're celebrating the Mayflower shit. Because no one's even fucking... Because that's not the story that we hear. We don't hear that it is a day of Thanksgiving to sit down with the people who enslave people

and break bread with them. And while I'm just on a tear about... I'm not a big fan of US presidents as like a general rule. I will say Abraham Lincoln, not a slaver. Famously, the opposite of that. His vice president was a slaver, but you know. And no, what he gets marked off as great

is that he oversaw the largest mass hanging in US history of 38 members of the Dakota Nation in Minnesota. Not just was president during the hanging of, but like personally provided the executioners with a list of names after like looking through the trial transcripts after these people have been on trial for like five, 10 minutes each or whatever. That's where Thanksgiving comes from. And so, yeah. Happy Thanksgiving. Ew, I felt weird coming from you i fucking hate thanksgiving it's shit the idea of getting together with your family or friends or chosen family or whatever you're into

and like literally giving thanks that's cool although it is worth knowing that the idea of thanksgiving was literally this idea of erasing all of the other holidays that almost every culture had naturally set in front of them. Personally, I dislike that people post the same picture of their crusty, dusty, musty ass food all day. I don't want to see your plate. I've seen it. I know what you're eating. We're all forced to eat it or choose not to eat it because it's bad we got it all right yeah yeah fucking sweet potatoes with mashed

potatoes and your fucking dry ass meat like we got it and i say this as a vegan but one of the cringiest things is when vegans act as if the problem with Thanksgiving is the meat that's being eaten as compared to the colonization of North America. Yeah, I was going to say, you know, it's a symptom. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. Which brings us to what we're really going to talk about today, which is something unrelated to any of that, which is a short story.

But first, do you know what else is a short story? Is it the story of products that allow us to have a show? Yeah. I like having a show. Sophie, do you like having shows? I like you having a show. Well then, I guess it's a good thing that we are sponsored. Cool. In a complicated

way. Here's some ads. Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan, or Joe Ho. And we are the Black Fat Femme Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated.

This year we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Femme Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. a podcast or whatever you get your podcast girl. Ooh, I know that's right. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba.

He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother

died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story as part of the My Cultura

podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. I'm Madison Packer, a pro hockey veteran going on my 10th season in New York. And I'm Anya Packer, a former pro hockey player and now a full Madison Packer stan. Anya and I met through hockey, and now we're married and moms to two awesome toddlers. And on our new podcast, Moms Who Puck, we're opening up about the chaos of our daily lives between the juggle of being athletes, raising children, and all the messiness in between. We're also turning to fellow athletes and beyond to learn about their parenthood journeys and collect valuable advice, like FIFA World Cup winner Ashlyn Harris. I wish my village would have prepared me for how hard motherhood was going to be.

And Peloton instructor and Ratchet Mom Club founder, Kirsten Ferguson. And I remember going in there a hot mess. So listen to Moms Who Puck, a production of iHeart Women's Sports and Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. And we are back. And the story I'm going to read today is a retelling of a story

that my father told me when I was younger. It is the last story in the book that I've been hawking at the end of every single fucking episode, as long as you've been listening to this podcast, called We Won't Be Here Tomorrow. And so shout out to my dad for writing a story that I then stole and put into my own words.

And I'm now reading to you. It's called The 37 Marble Steps. I grew up near the foothills of Appalachia and there's something to these forests. The trees themselves aren't old, but the mountains are old. The mountains are old and battered and smoothed over and what is a forest but the outbursting of life come up from the land. The trees themselves are not old, but the forests are old because these mountains are old. I grew up near the foothills of Appalachia and I remember when the Blair Witch Project came out, set close to where I lived, and it didn't surprise anyone.

Like, yeah, the movie is a work of fiction, but there's still something to these mountains and these forests. There's still something there, something that that movie drew from. My father told me this story when I was a kid. He told me this story under the boughs and the stars, and it's not something I'll ever forget.

The next day, he took me to the place it happened. He took me to the marble steps. There are 37 marble steps in the middle of the forest, far from any road. The steps climb steep and twisted up from a seasonal creek up to a tiny concrete foundation peppered with stones. There's no house there anymore. There is, however, a crack in the foundation. The crack is narrow and long, and underneath there's nothing.

Not soil, not rock, just nothing. You shine your flashlight through that crack and you see nothing. You slide your skinny arm through that crack and you feel nothing. You drop a coin through that crack and you hear nothing. I tried all those things. born, probably before his mother was born, maybe before her mother came over from the old country, fleeing persecution. I couldn't tell you when, exactly, there was a house on that foundation. It doesn't make sense for there to have ever been one. Not out where there's no road, not out where whoever built it had to carry marble and concrete on their back, or on the backs of animals. I can't tell you why there was a house, I can only tell you that there was one. I can tell you about the woman who lived there too. I can tell you that she didn't have a name, that she didn't need a name.

Names are not for yourself. They're for other people. You live alone in a house in the woods at the top of the marble steps and you don't need a name because no one calls you anything. The people from the nearby town, they just called her the woman who lived in the woods.

This woman lived alone and she was ageless like all women who live alone. Learning that one myself. It's been a nice bonus. Say! Yeah. She lived only five miles or so from that nearby town. That town is gone now, too.

It probably had a name, though I don't know it. The woman lived close enough that people hiking or hunting in the forest saw the smoke from her chimney and saw the lights in her windows. Sometimes people even saw her herself wandering the forest. They saw her hair pinned up in a bun in the summer and under hats and hoods in the winter. They saw her gaze, alternatively blank and fierce. Sometimes they heard her sing. It went like this. She walked paths through the woods, sometimes down even to the road alongside the town. She had a stick in one hand and a burlap sack in the other. Bad man, bad man, braise the bones, she sang as she beat bushes with the

stick. A good whack, a good thump against the branches. Bugbear, bugbear, boil the broth. Animals, all kinds of animals, would run out from the bushes and the brambles right into her sack rabbits groundhog snakes possums raccoons mice birds and lizards every creature under the sun and every creature that hides from the sun would run right towards her and into that sack once it was good and full she'd twist the end closed lift it like it weighed nothing and beat the bag with a stick until the squirming stopped and the crying stopped and everything inside was dead or willing to pretend she'd throw that bag over her shoulder and walk away whistling now instead of singing that same tune i know the tune i could hum it to you but i don't know how

to write it so maybe that tune will die out one day and maybe we'll all be the safer when it does or i'll record an audiobook version and y'all are stuck knowing it well it's a podcast so you can sing it now ha ha why that's what i've been doing that's what i'm trying to say okay anyway it's just funny when you when you write stuff and you like write it for being written, you know? Anyway. Dogs went missing sometimes around that town. Cats too. Lambs and calves and chickens. Never children. One reason people in the town put up with that woman as long as they did is that whenever a kid went missing, they'd wind up back at home right in their crib, not crying, the blood of berries tinting their lips. One day, a little girl, not yet seven years old, got swept away by the river.

Surely she'd drowned, the parents thought. The whole town thought. That night, she walked up to her own house wearing a burlap dress, her hair brushed and braided, her belly full. She didn't say a word about what happened, but everyone knew that the lady with the bag and the stick was watching out.

It went like that for years, for generations. Was it the same woman? No one could tell. Bruno, Bruno, bake the bread, she sang. Boatman, boatman, baste the bear. A good whack, a good thump, and she had the animals, and off she went on her way. Never said a word to a soul. This was fine, and this was good, and no one in town thought too hard on it. Until one day it wasn't fine, it wasn't good. People mostly want to let each other alone and that woman wasn't hurting anyone. A boy came up in that town and he became a man while he was at school in a nearby city. And when he came back as a man, he decided he wasn't going to be the sort to just let people alone. John was his name, at least as I have it.

Big John they called him because there were an awful lot of Johns and. John was his name, at least as I have it. Big John, they called him, because there were an awful lot of Johns, and this John was the tallest. One day in early March, John was walking home from the mill. The sun was near to set, and the wind was something wild, and a little bit of snow was being thrown here and there. He saw the woman, and he heard the woman, and he saw a cat run into her bag, and he decided enough was enough. He waited until she was far enough distant, and then he followed her off through the woods, up to that seasonal creek. Most people, they took one look at that house up on the top of those marble steps perched

down over the gully, and they went right back the way they came. Big John, though, he waited until the woman went into the house, then he climbed each of those steps himself. Smoke was pouring out of the chimney, and lamplight flickered through the unshuttered windows and Big John went up to one of those windows and looked inside. The woman was there and she had the sack over one shoulder and she went up to the middle of the bare concrete floor and she tapped her stick seven times. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. She tapped her stick seven times, and she stepped back, and she waited,

and a trapdoor was there where nothing had been. And she reached down and grabbed the iron rung and pulled it up, and Big John heard a wailing, a keening from within. He couldn't describe it better than that in all the years he tried. Inhuman, an animal, demonic. The woman upended the sack. Animals, including that cat, tumbled out down into the darkness. Soon after, far worse sounds came from that trap door, and the woman

smiled and cooed like she was tending a pet, and she closed that trap door. She tapped on it seven times with her stick. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. The trapdoor was gone. On the wall, hung up with the coats and the cloaks, were animal collars and tags. Dozens of them. Big John had seen enough, and he turned to go, but snuck in one last look and saw the woman at her stove, singing again, cooking what looked and smelled for all the world like vegetable soup. Big John snuck down those stairs as quietly and carefully as he could, but as soon as he reached the path by the creek, he ran all the way back to town. Five miles he ran, and when he showed up at the sheriff's house, he was panting and sweating and pale and just worn out, and his body was just

about to give up on him. He knocked on that door. Tap, tap, tap. The sheriff answered. that door. Tap, tap, tap. The sheriff answered. The woman, he said. The cats, he said. The dogs. He told the sheriff what he'd seen, and of course the sheriff didn't believe him about the trapdoor, and he didn't believe him about the vegetable soup, but he believed him about the animal collars. Everyone in town knew that the woman stole pets and livestock, anything with fur or feathers that was small enough to fit into her sack. Everyone knew it, but no one had admitted it, because if they'd admitted it, they would have had to do something. But here was Big John standing at the doorstep of authority, and that authority decided to finally admit to himself what he already knew. It wasn't yet late, just past dinner, and the sheriff rounded up his posse and headed into the forest with guns and lanterns, ready to find the woman and bring her to justice.

Big John, though, he stayed at home. He'd used up all his nerve for that night, maybe for the rest of time. Now, this is where you expect the story to go all wrong, and it will, but it doesn't go wrong the way that it might have. The sheriff climbed the 37 steps, his posse following. He showed up at the woman's door, banging with the handle of his revolver on the wood. Bang, bang, bang. The woman answered and the sheriff arrested her.

And the posse tore apart the cabin looking for contraband. They found the dog collars and the cat collars and that was enough. But they found nothing else besides hot barley soup on the stove flavored strong with garlic and wild onion. No bones, no midden, no trap door, no basement at all. Big John had been seeing things. They marched the woman five miles back to the sheriff's office and locked her into the town's one holding cell, and by then it was the middle of the night, and the woman was steel-faced and unbroken. You have to feed her, the woman said. Feed who? the sheriff asked.

Someone has to feed her, the woman said. Someone must go up there and feed my daughter. You don't have a daughter, the sheriff said. And that was that, and the woman was sent to the city for trial, and no one thought much about her again, because what is a prison but a place to put those you wish to forget, those who make you uncomfortable? What is a prison but oblivion? A week later, Big John was walking home in the evening out along that road when he heard a terrible thing, a wrenching, a scream of wood and steel, and a scream of animal throats and a scream of emptiness and horror. Then, nothing.

Nothing happened. Except, from then on, children from that town, they weren't returned with berry juice on their lips when they went missing. When children went missing, they stayed missing. And now there's a concrete foundation peppered with stones, and a crack in it, and nothing on the other side. And people don't camp there much, and people don't build towns there no more. And that forest is old. And no one knows how those marble steps got there. And no one knows much of anything anymore. There's no moral to this, to be sure. I'm not here saying that you've got to let the little

evils go unaddressed so that you don't let out the big evil. I'm not even saying what was in that basement was evil, not for sure. I'm not saying it was right what happened to that woman, and neither am I saying it's okay to steal cats and feed them to monsters. I'm just saying it happened. I'm just telling you about the 37 marble steps and that foundation and that crack that goes off to nowhere. That's what I got. I was like, I was waiting to see if you were going to do more song.

Yeah. that's what I got I was like I was waiting to see if you were gonna do more song da da da da da da da da yeah I wonder if we can get in trouble for accidentally singing things on podcasts that you're not supposed to I'll just never sing again dun dun dun anywhere

honestly who cares um yeah fuck you, the man. Yeah, that's literally me. Who we work for. I'm like, eat it. Oh, man.

I love that story. You told that story at a book signing event that I went to of yours. And it's so cool. And it's so cool that it got passed down from your dad too that part makes it even cooler it's uh it's cool people who did cool stuff in my in my book um yeah my dad is definitely cool people i'll go ahead and say that i got lucky in the dad lottery i love that he he made that story up because there are okay that the one thing about lying to kids, one, that story scared the hell out of me when I was little, right? But everything scared the hell out of me.

But he called them the marble steps. And they're not marble. There's real steps in the woods near where he grew up, where he had taken us to go camping. But they're concrete steps with marbles in them, embedded into them. And so for most of my young life, I believed that marble as a construction material meant concrete with marbles in it. Because the marble steps were concrete with marbles. That makes absolute sense. Also, I feel like it'd be really cool to have like, I actually think that'd be a really cool design. I know. Yeah, they were cool steps. And i don't know what the hell they were doing there they were far away from anything there was no road just some concrete steps with marbles in them yeah in the middle of nowhere up

to a pad with a crack in it apparently so maybe my dad didn't write the story maybe he's big john you're conspiracy theorizing which means it must be time for us to end this episode yeah that's that is a that is fair there should be a big red button that actually all podcasts someone should be able to press a red button as soon as they start talking about conspiracy theories we do we do have something to announce though what do we have to announce is it the fact that i'm going to be a guest on a behind the bastards live show it it is that we're doing a live stream virtual show thing like we did uh gosh i don't know many months ago with prop on for behind the bastards and um that'll be happening on December 8th.

And you can purchase tickets at momenthouse.co slash btb if you so desire. I'll also link that. But if you so desire, that is happening. And then people can ask us questions, even though you and I are just the uh the victims of is that what you call guests of behind the bastards uh i don't know i was gonna say i've been stockholmed a little too yeah fair well i believe that people in the audience can ask us questions. Yeah, so when you purchase your ticket,

there'll be like a prompt to submit a question that can be for Robert, could be for Margaret, could be for me, it could be for all of us, could be, you know, whatever your heart desires. And we may or may not choose your question. Also, Robert is going to be writing a script, a Behind the Bastard script for that event. And it should be a good old time.

And if you can't make it at 6 p.m. on December 8th, do not worry. Because this event is available on demand for one week past the time of the live stream. Yeah. Did I do the thing? Yay. You did the thing. We did the thing. We did it.

We're so good at our jobs. Amazing. Iconic. Legendary. The episode's over. Yeah. Bye, everyone. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of Cool Zone Media.

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan, or Joe Ho. And we are the Black Fat Femme Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Ooh, chat, this year we have had some of our favorite people on, including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show,

Angelica Ross, and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Femme Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast

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and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

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