The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Shocks and Surprises

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

In this hour, a woman gets a call in the middle of the night; a young boy discovers the truth about his idol; a girl does her best to prepare for a big moment; and a family camps out in hopes of seeing the Kennedy family. Hosted by The Moth’s Artistic Director, Catherine Burns. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Hosted by: Catherine Burns Storytellers: Teri Garr bonds with friends over justice and revenge. Liel Leibowitz learns the identity of a real-life anti-hero from his childhood. Nasrin Marzban gets ready to meet the Shah of Iran. Micaela Murphy endures a family beach vacation.

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. I'm Katherine Burns and this is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. Today, we're going to hear stories that involve big surprises.

You're going about your life, business is usual, and then something completely unexpected happens that changes the course of things in an instant. A classic way to receive shocking news is getting a phone call in the middle of the night. I mean, does good news ever come at 3am? Our first storyteller, Terry Gar, got that dreaded call. Terry is a legendary comic actress, best known for classic films like Tutsi and close encounters of the third kind. And my favorite, Mr. Mom.

Terry told her story in an event called La La La, stories about Los Angeles. Here's Teri Gar live at the Moth. November 18, 1989, 4.13 AM at my home in LA, my phone rings. And this woman's voice said, is this Teri Gar? And I go, yes, hi, thanks so. She's the lightest one she didn't know that I've been sleeping with your boyfriend since August. And that I just caught him in bed with another girl this morning, or three of the morning, and I threw all of his pot of plants in the pool. And I got your number

from his phone book. And I'm like, who is this? What? Hello? And so I listened as far as, well, that's, that's very interesting. Yes, my name? Hello. And so I listened to his phone. Well, that's very interesting. Yes, my name is Donna. And I was going around with this guy for quite a long time. And he always told me, I knew that he knew you. He said that you were business partners with him. I was business partners with him.

Okay. So I went, all right, that's interesting. And he would drive me around in your car. I had a Mercedes at the time. And he told me that it was his car. But this girl who was this aspiring actress took the initiative to look in the glove compartment and see that it was registered to me. So it was my car that he was driving her around,

telling her that it was his car. All right. And I think I was, well, thank you very much. Thank you very much for the information. And I hung up the phone. And I thought a lot about it. What should I do? I mean, I was totally blindsided. I thought a lot about it. What should I do? I mean, I was totally blindsided.

I'm completely naive about this. But I was starting to hyperventilate. So that was around four in the morning. So around by seven in the morning, I thought, you know, he has left a few things at my house. This was a guy I was having a relationship with. We were actually trying to have a baby together. And I was taking those fertility drugs.

So I was a little bit crazy from extra hormones anyway. So he had a few things that he left at my house in drawers. He was practically living with me so I thought I'll just put all these things in a box. Now take them back to them now because obviously he's neat them anymore. So I put in the socks and the underwear and there's a few baby pictures and all that. Whatever crap of his is left in my house. So I was just throwing all the stuff in a box and I happened to see a hammer sitting and I thought I'll throw that in the box too. And I decided that I should take these things back to him. So I got in my car, I put the box in the car and I started driving up there to Belair

and it's like 7, 30 in the morning and I now realize how murder can happen because you know I was just so, nothing was gonna stop me at all. I mean, if someone can do me, is that here's a $1 million cash in $10 bills. If you stop this car, I go, you'll have to keep your fucking money. Cause I'm going, I'm up there and I'm not stopping. So, I pull up to his house, his little foe,

you know, whatever, ranch house, they make a lot of these in the in LA. And I look at, I go, whatever ranch house they make a lot of these in LA. And I look at and I go, I pull out this box of stuff and I walk up to the front door and I ring the doorbell, nothing, doorbell, doorbell, doorbell, doorbell, doorbell, nothing, nothing. It's so go well, what the hell. So I pull out of here, it's your underpants, and here's your socks, and here's your stuff, and here's your pictures, and it's me, and, um, oh well, there's a hammer in there. What are you gonna, so I pick up the hammer and I start breaking the windows.

Break, break, crash, crash, crash, crash. You lived in one of those houses that had like, I don't know what you call it, like Tudor, you know, like a lot of little glass. Break, break, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash. Okay, here's the, and the front door, crash, crash, crash, so I walk around and I hear nothing stirring in the house. I'm amazed.

But anyway, I go to the garage. They have little windows up there. Crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash. On the side of the house, there's some windows on the side, crash, crash, crash. I get back to the kitchen and I'm crash, crash, crash. And I see him in there like this, like staggering on the, in a robe on the phone.

So I think, well, who's he calling? He's a police, my god. And when I, well, who's he calling? You know the police? Oh my god. And when I see him, I come out with some of my best Valley Girl talk, which was like bastard son of a bitch. I mean, he was just looking at me. I really wonder sometimes what he was thinking at that moment. I know what I was thinking. And it was one of those moments that just, you changed my life. You know, I just thought, I'll never be the same after this. I was really, it was a big wake up call, okay? So I started walking around the back.

I figured it's time to wrap this up. He's on the phone to the police or something. So I guess it's gotta be sort of, maybe I better haul ass out of there. So I walk around the side of the house, and as I come around the front of the house and around the side of the garage, there's this cop.

It was a fake cop, Belair Patrol. I don't know what they are. And he's got a gun pointed at me. And for the first time in my life, I was very happy with this. He recognized me. And he said, oh, Ms. Gar. Are you all right? See, I think he thought I was the victim, which, of course,

I was. But in a different kind of way. I mean, so I was the victim, which of course I was, but in a different kind of way. I mean. So he said, well, I am now. And I went back and got in my car and drove away. And that was sort of the end. I went home and I sat around for a while. I was like puffing and puffing, walking around my house.

And well, I did that. And now, you know, by the time I was like nine a.m. or something, and I've done a lot of work since four and more. So I started calling people up to tell them about this. And you know, some of my friends said, oh, I told you, so I tried to tell you. And as I don't remember anyone trying to tell me about this guy, but anyway, some people just,

you know, they tried to help me calm me down and I wasn't having any of that. So, I, later that day, I decided not to let this stop me from my life and I'm going off with my life, even though this horrible thing has happened and I have all these raging hormones. And so I went to this, I had been invited to this art exhibit, art opening at a gallery, because, you know, I wasn't going to let this incident interfere with my sense of art and my whole aesthetic feeling. So I walked into this, this is a really LA Hollywood story, and I walked into this art gallery and there was people there like Angelica Houston, and I think, oh, I kind of drank up like

the wonderful model with the gap tooth. Exactly, learn how to. Oh, they're all being difficult. It was the big A crowd at this place. So I walk in, I'm just walking around looking at the art. And someone came up to me, says, how are you? I said, how am I?

I'll tell you how I am. So I told everybody the story. I just broke all the windows and this guy's house because he was like, so then interestingly enough, all these other women came up to me and started telling me they're sitting. Oh, you want to hear what I did once? I'm not going to say if it was Lauren or if it was, you know, Angelica or anybody, but

there's a lot of good stories. This apparently has happened to a lot of women. So one girl said, you know, I went with this guy. It's always guys like this. He was very vain and he had all these Gucci or the Armani suits in his closet, you know, like a dozen of them. And I stuck in the house one night, and I just cut off the left leg of every suit.

I said, very creative, very nice, very subtle, very nice. So the next girl said, you know, I just did something, I just put a little hose, I knew I was going away for the weekend, I put a hose in the bathroom window and turned it on and left. And so that was, I think, nice and hose, I knew I was going away for the weekend, I put a hose in the bathroom window and turned it on and left. And so that was, I think, nice and simple, very nice. You did that, but there was a lot of these stories. One girl came out to me, this is one of my favorites,

and she said, you know, I got so pissed off, and he started going to this other woman, and we were having, you know, everyone's got this story about it, it was the perfect relationship, of course, it wasn't. I'm sure. Anyway, she said, I went to the house, and I shaved my name and the dog's back. So that, you know, for the next six months, this woman who's there, I said, who's Judy?

Oh, never mind, never mind. I thought that was very good. So this apparently happens to a lot of women because of the way men are. No, but I've decided now. Because of being in LA and being in Hollywood, and hearing all these stories about how the actors and actresses of Hollywood, me being one of them,

are sort of naive and narcissistic and self-centered. We don't see the truth until, of course, it's right sitting on our heads. I'm going, oh my God, he's fooling around on me. But here's the trick. I think in every relationship, after a year or so, everyone gets to the point where they want to kill the other person.

I mean, it just happens. And the trick is for you to have to kind of avoid that and somehow. And you have to get just up to the part where you're going to kill and then you have to kind of avoid that, and somehow. And you have to get just up to the part where you're going to kill, and then you have to not do it. Well, I think I recommend the windows. That worked for me very well. That was Terry Gar.

Terry was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the film Tutsi. She also starred in the movies After Hours and Young Frankenstein. And the guy in Terry's story, Don't worry, he's history. Coming up, a young nerdy boy growing up in Israel finds an unlikely hero when the Mothrad 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 Katherine Burns. In this hour, we're hearing stories about shocks and surprises.

Our next story was told by Liel Lieberwitz. Most kids idolize superheroes who can fly, or have superhuman strength. But what about the kid with other ideas? Here at the live event at the Avalon Theater in Los Angeles, where we partner with station KCRW, Liel Lieberwitz. I grew up in Israel in the 1980s, and my father's mission in life was to make sure that his only son, me, grew up to be a real man.

And so as soon as I turned four every Saturday, he would take me shooting, which was funny, because my arm was exactly the size of a Smith and West in 45. And two or three years later, when I was six or seven, my father would take advantage of Israel's surprisingly relaxed car rental insurance policies and he would rent a car to take me on driving lessons,

which were terrifying because even sitting on his lap, I didn't really reach the wheel. And every two or three weeks there was a special treat, we would stop the rental car by the side of the road, and my father would make me go out and change tires, whether the car needed it or not, because in his mind, knowing how to change a tire was the epitome of manhood.

And I really hated changing tires. And I really hated spending the Saturday afternoons with him, but he didn't really care, because he was inducting me to the international brotherhood of macho men. And so every chance he got, he would take me to the movies to see his heroes, men like Sylvester Stallone or Chuck Norris or Bert Reynolds. And I didn't mind these guys too much, but they're not my idols. My real idol was a real live

person named the Motorcycle Bandit. He appeared on the scene shortly after my 12th birthday, robbing bank after bank after bank all over Israel. He was in and out of the bank in under 40 seconds, never leaving behind any clues or his real name or identity. And he just drove people insane. He got so popular that Israel's most famous comedy sketch shows, sort of like the local version of Saturday Night Live, devoted an entire episode to the bandit,

speculating in one bit that he probably never robbed the bank in Jerusalem because he didn't particularly care for that city. So you can imagine what happened the next day when in an apparent tribute to his favorite television show, the motorcycle band at Rob, his one and only Jerusalem bank. People went insane. Women who worked at banks would write their names and phone numbers on little notes so that if the sexy heartthrob robber happened to hit them up, maybe when he got off work, he would find their number

and give them a call. But the people who loved the bandit most were us teenage boys. For us, he was a complete hero and on Purim, which is more or less the Jewish equivalent of Halloween, we all dressed up like him in a leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet and a big shiny gun. So about a year and a half later, I'm 13 and a half, I'm walking home from the eighth grade and no one's home, so I sort of

mosey over to the kitchen to make myself a snack. And I hear a knock on the door. But it's not a tap, tap, tap. It's a boom, boom, boom. So I opened the door, and there are three police officers standing there, and they're not looking at me, and none of them are saying anything. And finally, about half a minute later, one of them looks up and says, son, we arrested your father a while ago with a motorcycle helmet and a leather jacket and a big shiny gun. When I remember, my first thought was, no way!

You think my dad with a beer belly and a receding hairline and the terrible jokes, you think that guy is the motorcycle bandit? But in the hours and the days and the weeks that passed, I learned that he was. The real story, as I soon came to learn, began about two years earlier, when my father, who's 35 at the time, and the son of one of Israel's wealthiest family, was summoned by his father to have the talk. Now, if you've watched a couple episodes of Dallas or Dynasty or nots landing, you know, the talk. It's when the rich guy calls his wayward playboy son over and says, son, it's time for you to grow up and be a man, take responsibility for your life and get a job.

And my father didn't like that at all. So he stormed out of my grandfather's office and he hopped on his motorcycle because of course. And he drove to the beach and he's sitting there watching the sunset over the Mediterranean and he's thinking really about his life. And my father grew up in the 60s, so he believed in sayings like, do what you love or follow your heart.

So he decided to follow his heart, and his heart led him to robbing banks. Now as it turns out, he was good at it. He was great at it. He was an inventor and innovator. He was the Elon Musk of the stickup job. And later I learned how he did it and how he did it was incredible. He would rob a bank in under 40 seconds.

He would run out, jump on his motorcycle, drive around the corner, up a ramp. He had custom built and into a van, where he would pause and like some mad philosopher king, he would ponder the seminal existential question of back robbing, which is, where's the last place you would ever look for a back robber? And the answer is, and now is the point in the story where any of you contemplating this line of work may want to pay attention. The answer is that the last place you would ever look for a bag robber is the bag.

And so my father would take off his jacket and his helmet and tuck the gun back into his pants and walk out of the van calmly around the corner back into the bag, which at that point was a crime scene sprawling with police officers. And one of these police officers would inevitably run up to my father and say, you can't be here, sir, this is a crime scene. And my father would look at him, this dopey look and say, oh, can I please just make a quick deposit? My wife will kill me if I don't.

And the police officer would say something like, sure about, be quick about it. And my father would walk up to the bank teller and deposit the same exact cash he had robbed three minutes earlier. And this being the 1980s and computers were still kind of new. He made the cash virtually untraceable. It was a work of genius. He was so good at it and he became so popular

that eventually he got cocky. He robbed one bank at a and then and then two and then two banks in two different cities. One time he was writing in a cab on his way to the airport when the urge struck. He told the cab driver, do please mind stopping. I promise I'll only be a minute. It was literally true. he was only a minute. He robbed the bank, hopped back into the cab, drove to the airport and flew off for an all-expenses paid vacation in New York. But you know how this story ends. Eventually, he was caught. And after he was arrested, life got really weird. And no small part, because Israel, as you may have heard,

being a small state surrounded by enemies, has its own ideas about prison. And one of them is that prisoners get the one weekend out of the month off to go home on vacation. The logic being that since the country only has one really secure airport if you want to go ahead and try to escape to Gaza or Syria, you know, be our guest.

And so every fourth Friday, I would stop, I would go to the prison to pick my father up and we would go out and have ourselves a weekend on the town. And people would come up to him and say, you know, high five him and pat him in the back and say things like, bandit, we love you, you're cool. But to me, he wasn't cool. And he wasn't even the bandit. He was my dad who had just done something so incredibly stupid that lent him with a 20-year prison sentence.

But even weirder than that one weekend a month together, where the three weekends a month apart. Because here I was, and it was Saturday, and there's no shooting practice, there's no driving lesson, no changing tires, no burnt rentals, and I didn't know what to do. So one afternoon I got dressed, which by the way was also a no deal because when the police searched our house, they took not only all of my father's belongings, but because we were more or less the same size, also all of mine. So I put on the one of the few outfits I had,

which was this really ratty, disgusting purple sweat suit with the Batman logo up front, which I assumed the police just thought no self-respecting pan-crop or would ever wear. And I walked out and started walking around town, literally looking for a sign. And then I saw it. It was a sign above a theater advertising an all-male Japanese modern dance show. And I thought for maybe five seconds, and then I did something that I'm pretty sure

my father would disown me for. I bought a ticket and I went in. And I loved it. Here on stage were these amazing, elegant, graceful men. And guess what? They weren't punching each other in the face. They were not riding Harley Davidson's. They were dancing.

And yet they were so secure in their bodies and their masculinities. And I thought to myself, if that's another way of being a man, what other ways are there? And thus began a two-decade long process of trial and error of trying to figure out what kind of man I wanted to be. And look, some of the things I learned didn't surprise me at all. I love bourbon, and I am the kind of guy who would watch as much sports as you would let him in a given day.

But some things were really surprising. Like, some French poets really moved me to tears. And even though Bourbon was great, you know what else tastes really good? Rosey wine. And even though I'm really, really good at changing tires, if I get a flat now, I'm calling Triple A. I didn't share any of these insights with my father because for one thing, he's not really the kind of guy who's into insights. But for another, by the time he got out of prison, I was already a man in full. It was too late for him to shape who I became in any meaningful way.

And he still comes to visit from time to time in New York where I live with my family. And on one of these recent visits, he and I are sitting in my living room, not talking as men do, not talk. And my son comes prancing into the room, my three year old boy. Now that boy looks exactly like me, just as I look exactly like my father.

And if there's one thing in the world that that boy loves, it's his older sister. And if there's one thing in the world that his older sister loves, it's Disney princesses. And in Francis the child, dressed like Princess Anna from Frozen. And I look at my son. And I look at my father looking at my son. But by the way, he looked amazing in this green taffeta with a black velvet bodice and some lovely lacing. And I know that my father is judging me.

But you know what I don't care. Because at that moment, I realized, strangely, that by going to jail when he did, he didn't just free me up of the burden of this macho nonsense. He also freed up my son to grow up as a happy boy who can pretend to be whoever he wants to be even, or especially a pretty, pretty princess. And I can't tell you how grateful I am that instead of going through life mindlessly as

two tough guys, my son and I are free to become real men. Thank you very much. We all lead a wits, has written some books, most of which he says are about the beautiful and desperate things people do when searching for redemption. He's a senior writer for Tablet Magazine, where he's a co-host of the podcast on Orthodox. He also has a PhD in video games, which he says would have made his seven-year-old self very happy. Lial and I recently sat down to talk about

where things stand with his dad. Where does he live now? Is he in Israel? He lives in an apartment in Tel Aviv, and he's another way of answering that question. He lives in his own world where everything is kind of happy, and everything he did is kind of funny and just a pleasant old memory. Like a World War I flashback, like, oh, remember those jolly old times where we robbed those banks?

He's that guy, which, you know, considering the alternatives, you know, it's kind of like a sober recognition would have been terrific and like a good emotional closure. But that, not withstanding considering the other alternatives, it's a pretty good emotional place to be it. Like you're always happy. Yeah, I can see that. One of the versions of the story, like in different iterations of the story, you talked a little bit more, and I thought maybe you could talk now about how tough it was for you after all of this broke because people expected you to be the man. To be the man. Yeah, to be the strong Israeli macho hero.

Yeah, I mean, you know, that was kind of one of the more devastating things about it, because as I tell in the story, you know, I'm this kid with this sort of very fuzzy plume type mustache just beginning to grow wearing like a unique color sweat pants, sweatshirt type combination, with like the Batman pin always on a short way of saying this is a big huge nerd. And all of a sudden, these people start talking to me because I'm the cool son of the cool bad robber and some of these people are girls, which is completely terrifying

because that had not happened before. And very quickly, there's this kind of question always kind of echoing my mind. Hold on, like, are these people interested in me? Because they like me And they want to talk bad man or whatever or they hear because they want like a glimpse at like the glory That is like my famous dad That is that is I can't say bad words right that is a mind-twister. Shall we say

Young it yeah, it kind of throws you into this existential loop in which you have to like step back and be like, okay, who is what in this world? It's a very good learning experience. The drama, though, around your dad kind of went on for years, right? Did you tell me there was like this ridiculous maid for TV movie? No, there was several. There was one here in the States. It was an episode of a show called Masterminds. And the amazing thing about Masterminds, it's a Canadian production. And so to save a bit of dough, they shot in Toronto.

Now, those who have visited Toronto until a Veeve, and even those who haven't, know that these two cities look nothing like, I mean, say for like a mountain, writing a moose into the frame, like it had every trapping of like a Canadian city, and they hire these two young local Arab actors in their 20s to play my mom and my dad, who look absolutely nothing like these characters. The whole thing was watching your childhood staged, you know, in Canada was a very surreal experience. My favorite bit about this documentary is that the last

the very last shot The director asks my father if he has any had any regrets and he says I lost everything My money, my house, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat. My family, thanks, thanks, man. Oh yeah, that too. That was Liel Lieberwitz, to find a link to that made for TV movie and to see photos of Liel and his family,

go to themoth.org. Follow there, you can pitch us your own story. You don't have to have had a father who's a famous bank robber to tell a great moth story. Leave a two-minute version of a story you'd like to tell by calling 877-799-Moth or you can pitch us a story right in our website, themoth.org. Coming up, a 13-year-old girl does something that shocks even herself when asked to redepoint in front of the Shah of Iran, when the Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. Our next storyteller is Nazreen Marsban.

Nazreen is from a small town in Iran. She immigrated to the United States in 1985 after the Shah of Iran was overthrown during the Iranian Revolution. She raised two daughters in Michigan and told this story at one of our open-mic storytelling competitions in Ann Arbor, a reporter with Michigan Radio. Here's Nazirin. This is my first time over here, and I didn't know what am I supposed to do. My friends encouraged me.

I came over here without preparation. I hope I do a good job. But I'm going to tell you a story about my childhood. I've been born and raised in the Middle Eastern in Iran in a small town that it doesn't even exist in a map. But anyway, this is a gift. First of all, I have to tell you this is a gift that because very embarrassing and scary thing that happened

during that time, I was like 13 years old. Now I could I couldn't talk for many, many years about this one. Now I could tell this one in United States in your prison and I think the sicker for me. So I was 13, I run 13 years old and during that time like Shah was ruling the country, and people were really scared and respect, and you know, she was a powerful man. And I was a girl, a scout at that time.

So Shah was coming to visit our small town. The whole town was getting prepared for the Shah visit for like six months or a year. And my teachers and principal, they used to put me for some odd reason and put me in front of the people like do this stuff. So they prepared me for six months to go in front of Shah and read this poem and then go back for them. Some other people were going to greet him. in front of Shah and read this poem and then go back for then some other people were gonna greet him.

So I was the first one to greet him. So this particular day comes and I'm ready to do this and they are working on me for six months and I am tired and you know, the one teacher comes, see if my dress is okay and other one comes practice with me again. And then I need to go to, excuse me, to bathroom, but they're not allowing me to go.

So this time comes and we go to City Hall, which is like they changed the marble and there's 1,000, maybe more people in the town and the city hall and outside greeting the Shah and Shah comes, like, sits, stays there and then all around the Shah is important people. I am here facing the Shah, like maybe 10 feet after me, all the audience. So, and also then, like maybe three feet after me is the all the girl is Scott. So, right now, and I am supposed to go and read the poem. I am not worried about the poem.

I memorize everything is great, but I have to go to the bathroom. So, I go back and back. I said, Mina, Mina. Mina is my friend and the girl is a guy. Can you come? And my principal is saying, and everybody is doing this to me and I'm, okay? I thought, okay, if I just let go cause little bit I did So suddenly I I feel nice I can't hold it back.

Then I see like people are separated. And there's a different one. So I run outside, I go to forest, and I feel like this end of me. Being in front of Sha is... So I go to the forest, and I feel okay, something has to happen, I have to be... I have time, right? So I need to disappear, but my cousin older cousin comes and say we have to take you home Don't worry like you know it pretends that he doesn't know anything So he takes me to cap and youo in cap. He asks me to sit down. I said, no, I'm just going to stay in a cap and a taxi. So he takes me home and holds my hand and goes knock on door and says, and here your daughter pe okay, end of school. I'm not going to school anymore.

After a couple days, principal and other teacher came and they say, okay, come back. We won't let anybody to tell you, you know, tease you anything. And plus the kids, they don't know because kids weren't there really. And we asked your friend not to talk about it. And the stuff you are safe. I said say okay. So they take me to school and then the principal call everybody and says come and people come, all the students come and they say, if you, he says, if you tell from now on, Nestrine He will be grounded. That was Nauseen Marsban.

She's a chemist by trade and owns her own company. She currently splits her time between Northern California and Istanbul. Our final story in this hour of surprises was told by Michaela Murphy, way back in 2004. Here's Michaela live at the mall. Thank you. Hi. I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and for my entire childhood, we were never more than 20 miles away from the core of our universe, the Kennedys.

We were Irish, they were Irish, we were Catholic, they were Catholic, they were family. We were like the relatives that they never got to see, but we knew they're busy and we knew that they loved us. So anything that was happening to them was also happening to us. So their tragedy, plus our own tragedy, was a lot. So this one Thanksgiving after dinner and a family fight at Grandma's house,

we were in the car and we're driving home, and the radio was playing this 10th anniversary of the JFK assassination. And I'm sitting in the back seat, and I start to cry. And my sister, Aaron says, Hey, dad, Michaela's crying. And my father pulls that car right over to the shoulder of I-95.

He stops it, he turns around, and he looks at us. And with tears in his own eyes, he says, don't you ever be ashamed to cry for that man." So my parents grew up near Newport, and they got married in the same exact church as church's Jack and Jackie, St. Mary's. And my father gave exact replica jewelry to my mother. That was replications of the jewelry that Jack gave to Jackie. And every Saturday night after mass,

my family would be in the living room and we'd be happily ever aftering to the original soundtrack of Camelot. And every year, during the 70s, my four aunts would take me and my two cousins on their dream vacation, a rented beach house in Hyannis on the very cove sharing beachfront

with the Kennedy compound. Every day for an entire week, my aunt Pat would roll a persistors hair, my aunts would apply sunscreen to the back of their necks, the backs of the hands, and the tops of their feet, and then they would drag their beach chairs down to the beach, and they would set them up perfectly, not facing the water, not into the sun for tanning,

but perfectly for spying on the Kennedys. They would sit there all day in the broiling sun with high powered binoculars and keep it constant surveillance. And every year they'd have the same exact conversations. Usually around mid-morning, the first sighting would be made, usually by my aunt Pat, she'd be. Up, they got rose out.

Walkin'. Ethel looks drawn. And then about an hour later, my aunt Gert would say, how old is Rose now? And Aunt Momo would make the calculations. Well, let's see. Jack died in 63 when she was 74. And Rose's birthday was two weeks last Thursday.

And Joe died in 69, making her a widow at 81. So 85. And then they break for lunch. So after lobster and drawn butter and hosing us down, they'd all hustle back to their posts, and they'd watch. And every now and then there'd be something they didn't know. Hey, who's that? Who's that?

So they'd draw out the family tree in the sand. They'd analyze it. They'd come up with a profile, and they'd crack the code. It's one of Bobby's. Now, any mention of Bobby would always bring up the inevitable, oh, I just prayed to God, they don't tell poor senile rows about Bobby. It'll break her.

So then the long afternoon stretch would end with the inevitable annual observation. You don't see Jackie much here. And then all of my aunts would drop their binoculars and look at each other meaningfully. Now, all of this meant that no one was paying any attention to me and my cousins in the water. And the summer when we were nine years old, we found something. Now, had an aunt, perhaps, in an effort to ease a cramp in her prying neck, just sort

of glance towards the water, she might have seen us climbing into this tiny, plastic, half inflated boat. She might have cried out in the alarm at the lack of ores and life-ests. She might have had a conibction fit to see a shove-off and drift into the violent rip tide that would sweep us within five minutes out to the open sea and the Nantucketbound ferry. But, and not didn't, and we did. It all happened so fast that we were swept out and it wasn't until we realized that we could make out the specific features of the ferry passengers that we were swept out and it wasn't until we realized that we could make out the specific features of the fairy passengers that we were really far from sure. We were so

far from sure that my aunts were now reduced to four hopping dots. Uh oh, it was like Gilligan's Island for real. So an Atlantic swell crashes over our heads and as soon as the water clears out of our eyes, a power boat pulls up out of nowhere. And in this power boat, our David and Michael, Kennedy. So David and Michael, pull us up into the boat, and we are like, oh my god, we are saved by a power boat. So the power boat sends us back to shore, and we're siked because we're saved until we start to watch the four hopping dots morph back into our four crazed, livid, It's a really weird thing with each other, like their own weird thing about like yelling and getting into huge trouble

Like my aunt Gour, like she gets so freaked out that all she can do is yell out our addresses like Eileen and Kevin to 75 Pooper Street Michaela 180 asylum road I swear to God I grew up on a asylum road That's very telling piece of my childhood I grew up on a silent road. That's very telling piece of my childhood. Or in my aunt Pat would do these things where she would say these things that were like actually kind of nice things, but she'd say them like they were death threats. She'd be like, yeah, I'll save you from drowning.

You get on that beach towel and you lie in that sun. Now! Or she'd say, I'm going to buy you a birthday present. You eat that cake. Now! So we knew that this is what birthday present. You eat that cake now. So we knew that this is what was coming. The Kennedy boys didn't. So they're a vivaciously tanned,

and they pull up to the shoreline, and we brace ourselves. Now, what happens is our aunts are out of their minds. They're ready to flay us. But when they see us in the same boat as the Kennedys, it's like they don't have the emotional capacity to handle it. They kind of snap. They're kind of like freaking out to yell at us, but they start fake smiling and trying to act all normal.

And my aunt Momo, she's like, to take on this like Kennedy Esquay of speaking, which is sort of halfway between Katherine and Hepburn and like the Queen of England. And we're like looking at them, like, what are you guys doing? And they're smiling the smile, but when they smile at us, it's like,

you just wait. But they're like, oh, David, oh, Michael, thank you, thank you, thank you. And they're not mad at us for almost drowning. They're mad at us because the Kennedys had to save us. Like, don't those people have enough trouble? Now you? Like, as if our almost drowning was yet another Kennedy track. like don't those people have enough trouble? Now you?

Like as if our almost drowning was yet another Kennedy tragedy. So these poor boys finally pull and pry themselves away from my aunts. They get back on the boat and they're leaving and my aunt Momo's going, please give all best to your grandmother. And now it's time for our for real punishment, which was that we for the rest of vacation had to stay on the beach because we did not have any respect for the water. So it's a hundred degrees out and after about a half hour of whining and fighting and like I'm emptying out all the copper tone and kicking sand we

break my aunt Pat's last nerve and she says, all right, you can go in the water, but only up to your knees. So we're happy for a minute until we get in the water and realize how boring up to your niezes. And then we get the great plan of having chicken fights. So we start to have chicken fights, but it's kind of weird because there's only three of us.

So, but we're doing the best we can to have a chicken fight like that and like knock each other off into the water so we get fully immersed. And then my uncle Al, who never, ever played with us, ever, comes into the water to play chicken fights with us. And he puts his daughter, my cousin Eileen, up on his shoulders, and then I get up on my cousin, Kevin's shoulders, and we're having chicken fights.

And it's like actual family fun for a moment. And we're like, you know, hitting each other, falling in the water. And then I take my foot and I accidentally kick the side of my uncle Owl's head really, really hard. And his eyeball pops out of his head, falls into the water and sinks. It pops out of his head and it sinks. Eileen, Kevin and I are in instant, complete shock. Right this minute, there is still a part of me

that is on that beach screaming. It's like, oh my God, we had no idea that he had a fake eye. We didn't know that you could have a fake eye. Why would you have a fake eye? They didn't tell us that Uncle Al had a fake eye because they didn't want his blabbing it to the whole neighborhood. So they didn't tell us. So we didn't know. And like later on, you know, there was Colombo and Sandy Duncan, but this was way before that. We had no idea. So we're all standing there, and it's so horrible. I can't even like, oh my God.

And my cousin's Eileen and Kevin are staring at me with complete hate. Like, you broke our dad. And my uncle Al is standing there, and he's got the lid open. So you can see inside the socket where it now, it's just's got the lid open. So you can like see inside the socket where now it's just like skin and the eyeball gone. And like you cannot just say, I'm sorry, to someone that you just, so I don't know what to do.

And my aunt Pat is hysterically screaming because that eyeball cost top dollar. It was a special magnetized eye, so it could keep up with the other one. And now I had just better pray that vacation was over and that they got that deposit back, because now they're going to have to buy a brand new top dollar eye, and that was not in the budget.

So I just didn't know what to do. I was like, my life is over. I am no longer Michaela. I am now Murf's girl who kicked Al's eye out in the cape. And it's awful and everybody's just crying and pointing at me and now my other odds are getting in on it like and who's the blame part of the conversation's happening. So I just kind of back off into the water. I'm kind of like going back and like regressing back to like where life as I once knew it had ended. And I just stand there and like I kind of wish I had drowned.

And I kind of wish the Kennedys hadn't saved me. And I bent off into the waves and I just stand there and like I kind of wish I had drowned. And I kind of wish the Kennedys hadn't saved me. And I bent off into the waves and I just start like sifting through sand and shells and pebbles. And it's totally ridiculous. But like I will never stop looking for this eye. I'm gonna look forever. And I keep looking and looking and I'm sifting through. And then all of a sudden there is an eyeball in my palm

staring right at me. And so I scream and I drop it back. And it sinks back into the water. But now we know it's possible. So everybody gets back into the water. And now we're all sifting through and sifting through. And I pray to God for no more future happiness until we find this eye.

And I also kind of pray that it not be me, that finds it this time. So after like an hour, my cousin Kevin finds the eye. And I also kind of pray that it not be me, the one that finds it this time. So after like an hour, my cousin Kevin finds the eye and he holds it up in triumph and he does not let go. And my uncle, Owl, takes the eye. He like washes it off and just pups it back in. And then he kind of like tests it, you know, and it's like keeping up with the other one. So it's working still. And now it's the weirdest thing because now we know it's a fake eye. And now that you know it's a fake eye, it totally looks like a fake eye.

And I can't believe that I never noticed it wasn't a fake eye before. So now vacations back on. And so everybody gets back into their beach chairs and they start to settle down to begin telling the story over and over like a million times about what I just did. And I have not really fully reintegrated back into the family yet. I'm kind of standing apart. And I notice that there actually

has been like kind of a group of people who've been watching this whole thing. And then I see something that I didn't notice, that no one noticed. And that's that two of the Kennedy kids, David and Michael, had taken a walk on the beach. And I can tell just by the look on their faces that they had stood there and seen the entire episode,

that they had been there watching us. Thank you. That was Michaela Murphy. Michaela's work has been featured in the New Yorker and produced both Off-Broadway and at the Clinton White House. She's a co-founder of Life, leadership fueled by entrepreneurism, an education platform for high school students in Detroit and New York City. She's currently director of education at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania. Bakedlas, as her family, continues to surprise her in all the best ways.

That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour. Your host this hour was the Moths artistic director, Catherine Burns, who also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the Moths directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Jones, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bulls, production support from Timothy Lueb Lee. Special thanks to Lindy Hirsch and Harriet Sternberg. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers, our theme music is by the Drift, other music in this hour from Brian Bromberg, Koji Kondo, Yasamine Shahosani, and Tom McDermott and Evan Christopher. The Moth is produced for radio by me Jay Allison with

Vicky Merrick at Atlantic Public Media and Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Reo Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on Pitching Your Own Story and everything else, go to our website TheMawth.org