The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Boyhood

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

A writer makes his dad proud, a preacher’s kid takes money from his grandfather, a high schooler chases his dog out onto the Grand Concourse, and a former child soldier negotiates high school in New York City. This episode is hosted by George Dawes Green. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Neil Gaiman, Christian Garland, Wilson Portorreal, and Ishmael Beah.  

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 theMoth.org forward slash Houston. From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour, and I'm George Dawes Green, the founder of the Moth. I have friends who think nostalgically of their boyhoods.

They remember a time of rapture. My boyhood felt like a horror movie. Everything was alien. Everything scared me. I was never comfortable. I mean, first I had no idea what I was doing on Everything scared me. I was never comfortable. I mean, first I had no idea what I was doing on this bizarre planet. But also I kept morphing all the time. And everybody around me kept morphing all the time.

And there were these huge terrifying lumbering creatures who told me they were going to catch me. And then I'd become one of them. I'd become an adult. And finally I thought, all right, that's okay, that's fine. Good. I'll be an adult. Good.

At least then I won't feel like such an alien. Right. In this hour we have four stories about the terrors and the putative delights of boyhood. A few years ago, my friend Neil Gaiman, the novelist, came with me on the Unchained tour. We filled up an old 1972 Bluebird School bus with rock-on-tours and musicians, and we went all around the American South, looking for towns where there were still independent bookstores.

And in those towns, we told stories. Here's Neil Gaiman on the Unchained Tour in Asheville, North Carolina. I didn't actually expect to be an asphalt for the first time in my life until three weeks from now when my son is getting married here. Thank you. He's marrying an Asheville girl. And it was because of my son, his name is Mike, or Michael, or Mikey, depending on what time period we're talking about. It was because of him that I discovered what an incredible disappointment I had been to my father.

And it was almost entirely the fault of the mighty ducks. Because shortly after we moved to America, to the frozen Midwest, Mike, he was Mikey then, went to see the mighty ducks and came back saying, I have to play hockey. I have to do this. I have to do this. I'm gonna do this. And he did. He learned to play hockey, he learned to ice skate.

Next thing you know, I was a hockey dad. I was a good hockey dad in that I could drive him to hockey and I could stand in a cold shed after that I kind of failed as a hockey dad. I was never quite sure what was happening. He actually asked me after my first attempt to cheer him on, to either stop cheering him on, or to get the terminology right. It wasn't a hockey bat. And shouting, hit that flat thing was just wrong.

And I apologized and was sort of silent after that and was never quite sure what was happening but I would keep my eye on the score and I would know which side was him and which side was the other team. So at the end of the game, I would be able to say, well, you did your best or congratulations.

And then my father came out from England to stay with us for a few days, and I took him with to a hockey match. And I got to see the joy in my dad's face watching his grandson, part of his genetic line, play a sport. And play well and take pride in this. And I saw this amazing joy and delight in my dad's eyes. I'd never, ever seen. I was the other kind of kid.

In sort of junior school where you'd get two teen captains and they'd get to pick the kids that they wanted to play with them and they pick backwards and forwards. They would eventually get down to a very short girl with very thick glasses and me. And then they'd pick her. I did not have what it took to play sports. I had a different kind of head. And I wasn't that I didn't want to be good at sports. I would have loved to have been good play sports. I had a different kind of head. And I wasn't that I didn't want to be good at sports. I would have loved to have been good at sports. I would go out onto that football field,

or the rugby field, or whatever the kind of field it was, with every intention of making everybody proud of me. And they would tell me where to go and stand and I will go and stand there and I'd watch that ball go and I'd think, you know, that ball, it's a lot like those adverts in the back of those American comics for baseballs that you can throw and they go in all sorts of weird directions and that's really cool. And you know that that's not quite as cool, though, as those extra-specicles that they advertise, where you can not only look at your hand and see the bones, but you can also see naked ladies. And it's $1.99, and the Americans have to be so far ahead of us,

technologically. And they have sea monkeys. And I don't know what they are, but they're monkeys. And they live under the water. And somehow, the older male sea monkeys can smoke pipes. Under water. a male C-monkeys can smoke pipes underwater and I wonder how you smoke a pipe underwater. And just as I'm pondering the various ways you could smoke a pipe underwater, something very large and heavy and wet and made of leather is going to hit me in the side of the face. And then I'm going to look around and people are going to be shouting at me because apparently

I should have known this was going to happen and done something about it. And that was how I played sports. What I did was make things up. It was all I really wanted to do. My dad found this rather hard to understand that I had no wish to follow him into any of the family businesses that he wanted to be in or he was in.

I didn't have that. I didn't want to be in property. I told him I wanted to write. So he tried to get me a job as somebody who showed people around a show home. And I said, that's not actually writing. And he said, no, no, no. There's a lot of time when people won't be visiting the show

home. So you can just sit there and write. And to please him, I actually went for an interview, but the man never showed up. So I got in a bus and went home, and that was the end of my attempt to ever get a real job. And I wrote, and my dad was great. He was really supportive in the ways that he could be supportive. When I was a young starving journalist with two very small kids, he suggested that

probably the best thing that he could do was he had a flat that he owned above a shop and I could just stay we could stay in that flat and we could cover the bills, but we didn't actually have to pay rent. And that was great. And 18 months later, when I could afford to pay rent, he said, right, now move out. Go get a place. And I did.

And it was great. And time went by and I started to get more and more successful. And I started to win awards. And people would say to my dad, you must be so proud of him. And he'd say, I'm proud of all my children. Until my little sister told him to stop saying that because it was really irritating. And I was proud too. Mike grew up. And he started doing computer things. And I discovered,

whenever I'd asked him what it was that he actually did, that it all went away. I'd say, what do you do? And he'd say, well, what I'm doing right now is what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, I don't think I got that. And he'd say, well, you understand Python is a programming language. And I'd say, yes, I've got that. And he'd say, well, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well well by Charles Vess. And the last time I'd done a signing in New York, it had been a horror show. It had been at Barnes & Noble Union Square.

It had been at night. There was, we had to finish signing for about a thousand people against the clock and all I did was put my head down and I signed and I signed and we'd check and we were pleading with these people to keep the store open, and we finished, and the last person went out, and they locked the doors, and I saw I was never coming back. And now I was coming back, but I was coming back

to a bookstore called Books of Wonder, Beautiful Children's Store. And Charles Vess was there with me, and the smartest thing we did was we were going to start at one o'clock in the afternoon. So we didn't have a cur we did was we were going to start at one o'clock in the afternoon. So we didn't have a curfew. We were great.

And I was in the taxi on the way to the signing, one my phone rang, and I answered it, and it was my sister, my little sister, calling from England to let me know that my dad had been in a business meeting and he'd asked for a glass of water because he wasn't feeling very well. And having never been sick for a day in his life, he was dead of a heart attack by the time he got to the hospital. And I was numb. I had the taxi drop me off. Actually in Union Square near that

Barnes and Noble and I phoned my children, phoned a few people and then my agent, Merrily, who was with me said, you could not do this. You know, everyone will understand and I said no, I actually really want to do this. And I walked up to Books of Wonder. And Charles was there. And Charles showed them his beautiful paintings. And I read this poem that I'd written to an unborn daughter. And then I signed for 1,500 people for 8 and a half hours.

And it was wonderful. All of these people were there, and each person came up gave me something to do, and I didn't have to think about it. And I didn't have to worry. And at the end, I was exhausted. And I was done and I was leaving books of wonder. And Merrily said to me, you know the last time I saw your father and I said no, when was the last time you saw my dad? And she said, oh, wasn't that Barnes and Noble sign he didn't

union square? She said he came up there And he was just standing on the side. He was in New York and he stood on the side and he watched you And I saw him and I recognized him and I went over and I said hello David and he said hello And I said you must be so proud of Neil and he said I really am And she said so I said to him, but you must have known this would happen. He must have known, he's such a brilliant writer, he's wonderful, you must have known this was going to happen. And my dad looked at her and he said, no, he wanted to be a writer, I thought I was going to be supporting him his whole life. And I thought, you know, for my dad, watching me signing that Barnes and Noble was probably

an awful lot like me, watching Mike play hockey. I thought, but even so, he was perfectly willing to support me my entire life, just as I would have been willing to support Mike. And even though he was completely baffled, just as I had been baffled, he watched, as I watched, with every bit as much love. Neil Gaiman is the author of The Sandman, American Gods, Coraline, and the Graveyard book. He's won the Newberry Medal and the Carnegie Medal and the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award

and all the awards. In a moment, we'll be back with the story of a dog running berserk on the grand concourse of the bronze, and the tale of a teenage boy berserk on the grand concourse of the bronze, and the tale of a teenage boy who steals from his church collection plate to buy sneakers, more horrors from the annals of boyhood when the moth radio hour returns. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.

I'm George Dawes Green, and we're telling stories of boyhood. Our next two raccontours are still boys. They're recent graduates of our Moth High School SLAM program. Christian Garland told his story at the Housing Works Bookstore in New York City. So I'm going to let y'all know now, I'm a preaches kid. I grew up in the church. I swear I'm only missed like two Sundays out of my whole 16 years of life.

And my grandfather, he was a minister. So you know, he was my best friend. He was my, he was like the person I could talk to about anything and everything. So when I was growing up, I'm about nine, 10. I wanted to be the friend I had and anything everybody else had, but I always wanted to have something better than everybody else.

I was the friend I like, if you got the new video game, I had that video game and another one that was just about to come out that you ain't no about. So, you know, one day, my friend came outside. He had these ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly sneakers on. I suppose I should mention at the time, my grandfather, he was a big dude, he wasn't small. He was like six, three,

well like 200 pounds and one like a size 13 sneaker. Shoes, sorry. And so I used to walk around in the shoes like it was cool. I thought big feet was cold. So, you know, I was like, all right. So I was like, yo, bro, I got those, man, there ain't nothing. I got those already. He was like, I, I, prove it. I didn't have them. So my grandfather, my grandfather being a minister or whatever, he gets the money out of the

collection plate. So I knew where he put the money. It's not what you all think. I lied, it's exactly what you think. So I told him I got sneakers, one upstairs, I took the money, I did, and it was like $200. And I went on third avenue in the Bronx. I went inside, looked at the guy with straight face. I want the biggest size you got. And so, you know, I got sneakers. And I go home.

And my grandfather, he's going off. He found out. He's like, he's going off. He found out. He was screaming at my uncle. He was like, why would you steal my money? My uncle was like, I didn't touch your money. I don't know what you're talking about. And I walk in, and I froze. I was like, oh, he mad.

And he was like, question. Come in. I was like, huh? He was like, where'd you get some sneakers? Funny story. I went in your briefcase, got the money? Yeah. He was like, how much money did you take?

I said about $200. What? About $200. What are you crazy? Boy. It was, he was screaming. And he said some very hard words. He was like, I would never be able to trust you again,

but one day you're going to repay me for the money you took. I don't know how, I don't know when, but you're going to repay me. I cried. It was terrible. It's fast for a couple of years, about like two, three years ago. I started.

I'm a drummer. I should let you know I'm a drummer. I played the drums on the radio for Al Sharpton on the radio, not a clock. And so, he paid me good, that's good. And so, I'm like, I didn't get McDonald's for two weeks in the row. So I had got the money to pay him back. And so I take him out to dinner at his favorite place, crowned Donut on 160th Street, next to Nikki Sadie.

At first, he was skeptical, he said, you got somebody pregnant? I was only 13, I don't know if he was talking about it. I was like, no, of course not. That'll be absurd. So, we got our food or whatever. And I took the, I had on a coat. It was cold.

It's like the end of October, early November. It was cold. And so I took it out my pocket. I felt like a big boy. I took it on my side pocket inside, you know the little pocket inside. Took it out, put it on the table, had my, had my golf on the face. I was like, it's there. And he looked in, he was like, what's this? I said, you said I was going to repay you. And you didn't know how, but I just repaid you. And we started crying, hugging, oh, I love you.

I love you too, granddad. The waitress came, she started crying because she thought it was her tip. And, you know, I just, I'm just glad that I got a chance to fulfill my grandfather's sentence, got to pay him back and earn his trust back from him, because he said, you know what, you surprised me, I'm proud of you, I trust you again. And I was the last thing he told me because two weeks after that, he died. And I did the same thing, I did aww.

Until I found out he didn't get to spend the money, I was mad. I said, I ain't even Donaldson two weeks. Two weeks, that's like three years to a 13 year old. And I was mad at my grandma cause I knew she had the money. I didn't know what she did with it. And so a couple of late days ago

Bob made a funeral arrangements. I still ain't know what the money went. I got up and I want to go view the body and my grandma. She stopped me. She said, you see that suit in them shoes? He got on. I'm like, yeah, she said, your money paid for that. And the expression on my face was like, oh, what?

I was so proud that number one, I got my trust back for my grandpa. And he was stung in the suit. And she was I bought him. Thank you. Thank you. That was Christian Garland. Christian was a student at Dreamyard Preparatory School in the Bronx, where he participated in

the Moth High School Story Slam in 2012 and 13. Wilson Porter Royale is another recent graduate of the Moth High School Slam Program. Here's Wilson. All right so as a kid I've always wanted a dog. Who doesn't want a man's best friend? Come on. So I didn't want this one any dog. I wanted a big dog for a little kid. I wanted to, I feel like a macho man. I wanted to caveat rock, wile, or a husky. You know, I wanted a protection, basically. I wanted some protection. And I've always asked him, oh my, my, can we have a dog?

I'm gonna have a dog. Please can we have a dog? No, I'm sorry if you can't have a dog. A dog is a lot of responsibility. So, come on, I'm gonna train me. I'm gonna teach you how to stay, how to follow me, how to fetch. I'm going to give it treats. He's going to be like, I'm going to, that's going to be me.

That is my responsibility. And she goes, no, because it's too much work. And I'll talk about that we live in an apartment. So all right, fall back. So last year, I arrived home from school and exhausted. I took off my shoes, I put it to the side. And I see this little fur ball come up to my socks and starts to believe my socks.

And I just put the little teeth, like little sharp teeth, going to my toes and it tickled but it hurt at the same time. It was like little pinches. But I couldn't get mad at the fact that this was a dog right beside me. So the excitement, I didn't really feel as much pain. And I looked at him and I remember seeing the nice

little chocolate coloring, like a caramel color with some white whipped cream. Just picture that carbonation together. He was a lovely dog. We named him Hershey. we named him Hershey. We named him Hershey. So Hershey, I was given to him about two months. And I did everything.

I said I was gonna do. I trained him. He learned how to follow me. He learned how to fetch. He learned how to stay. And he was just the best dog to me. So, I'm just saying that because he's the only dog he's out of hand.

And so, one day I take my side to my front building and, you know, I'm like, you know what, today I'm going to teach him how to follow me without the leash. And, you know, I'm growing this bound with him and I'm believing in trusting him. That's my pile. He will never leave this building when the door opens. Now, at this time of the, he's like about five to six months and that door opened and he dashed out of of the building. Now I'm in uniform in shoes and I'm running down block chasing this dog. Now you don't not see that everyday mind you I'm chasing a little dog, have shit to have more teeth. Yeah, so I'm chasing the dog and I'm running and I'm like,

no, I'm gonna get this dog and I'm catching up to him in the sidewalk and I run beside him and I'm catching up and his hair's flying back here like a little, like a lion, a miniature lion. And his tongue is rolling out, his mouth, He looked like a fruit roll up tongue. He just excited, freedom at last. And so he's running. Now mind you, he runs into the street now. And this is the Grand Concours.

Now if you've been to the Grand Concours, you would know that this is like a mini highway hell breaks loose. Anything that happened in the Grand Concours. Now in the Grand Concours, I felt like, you know what? This is my responsibility. I'll sell them and take care of him. Now I have to go and take this risk.

And I charged for him. I ran outside into the streets, and I'm chasing this dog. I ran through all these calls, and I'm, no, you're gonna stop. I'm gonna miss you right now to save the dog. Mission of the day. Get this accomplished. Now the bus driver sees that I'm chasing this little dog and he's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, go get him, get him.

Yeah, get him. And I'm all thank you. Now, things are getting a little hacked because he runs into the middle of the street, more centered, but all these cars are coming up. Now you have vans, trucks, buses, all coming in from one side and he just shocks and everything gets hacked as faster they're coming and I see the the horns of the of the cars and you can see the tombs of the buzz and it was too late for death because I

grabbed my dog and I went to him up into the sky like a few of Simba That's what's not gonna take my dog today no So I'm lifting him up into the sky because he was Simba and I'm just I bring him to my to my chest And I have his heart so hard chest to chest connection And he's just shivering on me and I go no you little dog I'm scolding him like no next time, like you see a child you will hold his hand so you will cause a mystery. I'm gonna keep you on the leash, you will not go anywhere.

And so I walked out for the dog and the bus driver gets me the thumbs up. He goes, yeah! And I walked out of there feeling victorious. And thank you. That was Wilson Fortorea. Wilson was a student at the Bronx Leadership Academy and was the winner of the citywide Spring 2014 High School Grand Slam. When I talked to Wilson recently, I asked him what it was like being a boy in the Bronx.

Growing up in the Bronx is not easy, man. I think you get punched in the face by just staring at somebody. And it's sad, you know, it shouldn't be like that. Aside from being bad, it has good parts. You always get love, you know, you always get love out there. Maybe you don't have love in the house and, you know, a group of kids outside and they'll be there outside every day all the time. That's family. For a lot of people, that's their family, you know. That's what they come home to. That's what they leave school and that's their home. Because a lot of parents aren't there for the kids when you come from

a police like that. A police that's not as clean or very troublesome. If you could choose where to raise your kids, where are you going to raise some in the city? Are you raising them in the country? I don't know. I think I'll probably raise them for a short amount of time in the Bronx to a certain age and then move out to something greater or better. Why do you want to raise them in the Bronx for a while? Just so they can know that, because I don't know, I think something about New York people say New Yorkers have attitude. Now I'm not saying I'm one of my child or children to have attitude, but I want them to have that confident attitude.

And something about the Bronx to me, it could give you something. It doesn't just give you bad things. You could really learn something positive about it. And, you know, I want them to take that with them and bring it somewhere else. that with them and bring it somewhere else. To hear more of my interview with Wilson Porto Real and to see a picture of that dog Hershey, visit TheMoth.org. We'll be back in a moment with the tale of a boy from Sierra Leone, orphaned by war at 13 he becomes a child soldier.

But that's not his story. The story is about his new life in a Manhattan High School when the Moth Radio Hour returns. The The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. I'm George Dawes Green, the founder of the Moth, and you're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. In this hour, we're telling stories about boyhood. Ishmael Bayah was a child warrior in Sierra Leone.

But the story that he told at the Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn begins when he arrives at JFK airport at the start of his new life. Here's Ishmael Bayer. I came to New York City in 1998. I was 17. I entered the United States. We just the passport in my hand. Because somehow the baggage that I had that are checked in when I bought it the flight from Ivory Coast didn't make it. I stood there at the

luggage rack watching all these huge bags go by and mine didn't come. And this back hat had all my possessions at that point which were two pants and two shirts, one long sleeve and one short. So I just started laughing. And I didn't even bother to go to the lost baggage section to claim it, I just worked right out. To meet my new mother, who was standing there with a beam in smile waiting for me. We left and went into Manhattan. And that evening we went to K-Mart, after we had had Chinese food, and a fortune cookie that said, you're about to have new clothes. And I thought to myself, that what a great omen,

this is great, fresh, new start to everything. You see, I was coming from a country called Sierra Leone at age 11, a war had started in my country. At 12, I had become an often because my mother, father, and two brothers had been killed in that war. At 13, I was fighting as a soldier in that same war. At 16 after three years of war, I'd been removed from that and had gone through rehabilitation center

where I began learning how to deal with the memories of the war. So, before standing at JFK in June of 1998, to begin having a new home again, to have a mother who was willing to take me into her life, when most people at the time were afraid of somebody like me coming from this experience. To start living again, I chanced at living again because all I had come to know since I was 11 was how to survive. I didn't know how to live. All I knew really to this point in my life was struggle. It's pretty much defined how I expected things from life and I didn't trust in happiness

or any kind of normality at all. So here I was in New York with my mother. We needed to take a start with that normality. But we had a lot of pressing things to deal with. And one of the most pressing ones was that I needed to get into school. You see, before I came here, the visa that had been given to me with calls

from my mother to the American Embassy, in ways that call in the ambassador and talk into them in ways that probably nobody ever talked to them, but give me the visa, which they gave me, which is a prospective student visa. This meant that when I arrived in the United States, I had three months to get into a school. And if I didn't, I would return to my walk and turn

country, Sierra Leone, at the time. Now, when I arrived, it was in the summer. So all schools were closed. But my mother got on the phone and called every school principal she could think of in Manhattan and tried to get them to grant me an interview. When I went to some of the interviews, I was immediately denied entrance to some of these schools because of the following conversation. Do you have a report card to show that you had been in school?

I said no, but I know I have been in school. And then my mother would interject to explain the context. So I will sit there thinking to myself, you know, what do these school principles really think? They really think that when there is a war in your village or in your town is attacked and people are gone down in front of you, you're running for your life, you're thinking to yourself, you know, I must take my report card, and put it in the back of my pocket.

You know. So, I decided that I was going to write an essay about this, and the essay was simply titled, Why I Do Not Have a Report Card. Um, with this essay, along with the exams that were given to me, I was accepted to the United Nations International School in place in 11th grade. Does began my two years of high school

of confusing other teenagers about who I was. You see, I didn't fit into any box. I didn't have the same worries about what shoes or clothes I wore. And so my teenage counterparts always wanted to find out why I was like that. And of course, I couldn't tell them because I felt that they were not ready.

What was I going to say during a break from hanging out or from class or from playing soccer? Hey, you know, I was a child, so just at 13, let's go back to class now. That would have very, they would interpret it wrongly. So I was silent mostly. I didn't say much. And this got them even more curious. They wanted to find out why does this kid doesn't even act tough.

Why some of my friends who were boys were acting tough? And people were doing all kinds of things. I would just smile. I would just laugh. And so sometimes they would think that I was very weird, so they always had comments, and they would say to me, you're such a weird kid. And that will respond by saying, no, no, no, no,

I'm not weird. Weird has a negative connotation. I prefer the word unusual. It has a certain sophistication and gravitas to it, that suits my character. And of course, when I was finished saying this, they would look at me and say, why don't you speak like a normal person?

And the reason why I spoke like this, because I was my British African English that I'd learned, which was only a formal English that I learned, which was only formal English that I knew. So whenever I spoke, people felt ill it is, particularly my teenage counterparts. So what is wrong with this fellow? Some of them, though, didn't find it very strange. They thought maybe it was because I was

from some Royal African family. That's why my English was like this. So throughout my ice cream years, I tried to make my English less formal so that my friends would not feel disturbed by it. However, I did not dispute the fact that they thought I was from some African, Royal African family that I was a prince. Because you see sometimes some stereotypes have their benefits.

But with this silence, I needed to be silent about my background because I also felt being watched. And I realized that the way I conducted myself would determine whether they would ever let somebody into such a school, a child that had come through war. So with all of these attitudes, with this silence, I started making friends. Who to them? It was sufficient that I was just some kid who lived in the East Village, who was from an African country. And these kids were tough.

They told me because they lived in a tough city in New York, and therefore they were tough. They had been to the Bronx, they had been to Bedstuy, they had taken the train there, they went to school there, they had gotten to fights and won, and they were tough. And so they to fights and won, and you know, they were tough. And so they would tell me things about, you know, if you want to survive the streets of New York City, we need to teach you a few things.

And I'll be like, okay, sure. I'm open to learning about whatever you can give me. And they would tell me things about how to be tough and stuff. And I was like, well, thank you very much. I truly appreciate these advices that you're giving me. They were like, no, no worries, African brother, anytime. And then I would laugh. Truth was that that being to some of these places,

these spoke about these neighborhoods. And I knew that the people who lived there didn't glorify violence the way they did. They didn't have time to pretend because they lived in it. Just like I did. I noticed that these kids had a sort of an idea of violence that they never really lived. They glorified it in a way because they've never experienced

it at all. For example, when I walked with them, I observed that I paid more attention to the people who walked past us, how the person walked, which way they were coming. I didn't take the same route twice because I didn't want to develop a predictable habit. These are all things that came out of my experiences,

but I noticed that they didn't do that at all. So I knew they were just saying these things to seem tough to me. Now, I did enjoy listening to some of my friends that had made. I enjoyed listening to them tremendously because I wished when I listened to them that the only violence that I knew was one that I pretended to imagine. And when I also listened to them, it allowed me

to experience childhood in a way that I didn't know was possible, one that was normal, at childhood in a way that I didn't know was possible. One that was normal, at least in a way, to me. I got to be a child again with them where the only worries that I had with them were when we went role-blading. Without any protective gear, we took our brakes off and sometimes we'll avoid hitting an old lady

and falling to a trash can on the street. And we laughed at the voice. So these things meant a lot to me. So after about a year of being friends with some of these boys, one of them decided to invite a group of us, about ten of us, to Obstet, New York, his family had a property up there. And he said we were going there for one weekend to play paintball game. And I said, what is that? And he says, oh, man, you've never played paintball. You're going to love it.

It's a great game. The fellows and I will always play it. And don't worry, we'll protect you. So I went with them one weekend of state to a humongous property that had trees, sheds here and there, rivers that ran into a bigger river. And it's a beautiful open place. But as soon as we arrived, I began to memorize the terrain

immediately. And this was from Habit. I knew how many paces it took to the house, how many paces it took to the first, how many paces it took to the first tree, to the first bush to this shed. I knew the spaces between the trees. So overnight while everybody was sleeping, I tried to replace some of these things

in my head to memorize it to rain. And this was coming out of habit because when I was coming from my previous life, this was life for death, this kind of skill set. It could determine whether you lived or die. In the morning, at breakfast, they were pumped up. Everybody was saying, yeah, the game is going to be awesome today.

And so after we finished breakfast, I was introduced to the game of paintball. They showed me the weapons, how you can shoot it. And I allowed them to teach me to shoot things. And they were very much about it. I said nothing. I allowed them. They taught me, this is a shoot.

You were in like this. I said, OK, I tried it a few times. I deliberately missed and I did things like that. And then they showed me the camouflage, the gear, the combat gear, and everything. And then they were ready. And we were ready ready, we prepared and everybody was ready to go and they were, I'm top-match, you know, and be like, yeah, we're going to go out, you know, we're going to do this.

We went off into the bush and one of the shout out, yeah, let the world begin. I'm going to bring pain to all of you. I'm going to show you how it's done. And I said, talk to myself, first rule of warfare, you never believe to your opponent at all. But I didn't say this. So I went into the bushes. I already knew, because I memorized the layout of the place. I knew where to go.

And so I would hide. I would wait for them. I would climb a tree here. I would hide on the sidewalks. And they would come rolling around, jumping, doing all kinds of things, probably things that's seen in movies about how people are. And I would just wait for them.

And after they were don't exhausting themselves, I would just come up behind them and I would shoot. The paintball I put. And so this went on for the weekend days that we were there during lunch, during dinner. They would talk about this. How come you're so good? You sure you've never played paintball before? No, I've never played paintball before.

I'm just a quick learner and also you guys explain the game to me so well. So you guys are really great teachers. This is why I'm able to play so well. But they say, but that's not just the thing. They were in their parents' world there, so they were explained to their parents. But this guy, you know, he comes up and you can't even hear him coming at all.

You know what I mean? And I say, well, you know, I grew up in a village, and I used to be a hunter when I was a boy. So I know how to blend in the forest, you know, like a chameleon. I know how to adapt to my environment. And they look at me, you're a very strange fellow man. But you are bad as a paintball, I say.

Thank you. Thank you very, very much. And so they started to team up with each other. And I will see them. Sometimes I will walk backwards, and I will stand where my footsteps began, and they will start following it. And I'll be behind them, we're going, you know. And I did all kinds of funny things that I thought were very funny to me, you know.

Anyway, at some point I decided that I was going to sit out the game just so that they could enjoy it. So, and I saw a sense of relief from all of their faces. Oh, fine, so. So when I returned, I told my mother about this game. And my mother was, you know, being a mother, was immediately worried, oh, did it bring up something for you?

And I said, no, it didn't. Absolutely, because I know the difference between pretend, war, and rare war. But it was just interesting for me to observe how my friends perceived what war is. These boys of mine, what is friends of mine, the next day in school, they talked about the game, the awesome weekend of paintball we had, but they never said I'd

want all the games. And I said nothing at to. You know, I wanted to talk to them about the war. While we were playing this game, I wanted to explain to them certain things, but I felt that if they knew about my background, they would no longer allow me to become children, a child with them, that they would fear me, they would see me as an adult. My silence allowed me to participate in my childhood with them, that allowed me to to experience certain things with them that I didn't think were possible to do as a child because of where I was coming from. But I wish though that I had been able to tell them because it

was only years later that they learned why I had won the game. But I wish I had been able to tell them early on because I wanted them to understand how lucky they were to have a mother, a father, grandparents, siblings, people who to them were annoyingly caring about them and calling them to make sure they were OK. I wanted them to understand also that it was extremely lucky for them to only play pretend war and never have to do the real thing. And that is naive innocence that they have, but the world was something that I could no longer have.

I did not have that capacity. Thank you. That was Ishmael Bayeh. Ishmael is the author of A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and Radiance of Tomorrow, a novel. He lives in Mauritania with his wife and children. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth. Your hostess hour was George Dawes Green, founder of The Moth. The stories in the show were directed by George, Catherine McCarthy, Michaela Bligh, and Jennifer

Hickson. The rest of The Moth's directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Janess, and Meg Bulls, production support from Whitney Jones. Most stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers, Moth Events, recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift, other music in this hour from Carla Kielsted and Dan Rathbun, Dan Romer and Ben Zitland, the whitest boy alive, and it's not you, it's me.

You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Maw 3D 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 the Building Award just, verdant, 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, TheMaw.org.