Facing Off and Facing Up: The Moth Radio Hour

This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jodi Powell. In this hour, stories of confrontation. Growing up in Jamaica, I was so used to hearing the shouts when a fight was on in the school yard. I would often find myself standing at the edge peering in, and one day I got caught in the rumble with a classmate, and this time it was me in the center fighting. I desperately

“needed to get out, but I quickly realized the only way out was to go fully in. And so I fought back”

and the school yard sounds enveloped us. And before I knew it, it was over. But I was terrified because now I had to go to the vice-principal and face what I had just done. I got two days

suspension and more chores for my grandmother than you can count. A confrontation isn't always

like a school yard fight. It can mean asking yourself hard questions, understanding and sticking to boundaries, rolling up in a space that is not meant for you and owning it. It can mean finding courage. That was true for our first storyteller, Harja Singh, who told this at a main stage in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where we partnered with the Ziterian Performing Arts Center. Here's Harja's Live of the Month. Ever since I was three years old, and my hair

“was long enough to be tied into a bun or a juda, my mom and I had developed our daily ritual.”

I would sit down in front of her and my back towards her, and she would oil my hair, comb it, braid it, then tie it into a bun. She would then cover it with a one-foot by one-foot square cloth called a partka. But there was another daily ritual that I would observe every morning. I would be sitting at the breakfast table and I would see my grandfather and older, bearded, dumbledore-esque gentleman. And with the bun on his head and he would take this really long piece

of cloth, let's hit the length of the stage, and he would hold one end of it, my father would hold the other end, and they would roll it from either side until it looked like a long pipe. He would then take it to his room and he would walk out, and there would be this beautiful turban sitting on top of his head, and to me it looked like a king wearing a crown. He almost had an aura about him, and I would ask him, "When can I wear that?" And he would say, "When you're older, when you're

more responsible, I had no idea what that meant. I was three." But all I wanted to do from that day on was be older and more responsible. So when I woke up on the morning of my 13th birthday,

I was bursting with energy because today was finally the day. Today I would transition from boy

to man, and it would be marked by my very own turban tying ceremony. See, the turban tying ceremony is not too dissimilar from Obama or more religious sweet 16. But instead of reading from the Torah, we read from the sick holy book, the Guru Gran Sahib. But more importantly for me, my grandfather would switch out my protocol with the 16 foot long, the star, or turban. So I shower quickly that morning, I put on my favorite bug's bunny sweater, and I make my way outside, and I

see my grandparents, and I touch their feet to seek their blessings. My parents, they're so happy on this day because for them, with the turban on my head, I would be fully accepting my identity

“as a sick, that a living honest life, I give back to society, and I remember God. And I was really”

really excited, but it had also been a little while since I was three years old, and I had seen

some stuff. Before the ceremony started, I thought back to my first day at St. Xavier's school.

I was five years old, and I would be attending the same school that my father had attended when he was a child. And I was so proud, and I almost felt like I had bragging rights, like, you know, kids who go to Harvard and say, "Oh, my parents went to Harvard." And my mom and I went through our daily ritual. Like we did every morning, she ordered my hair, combed it, braided it, tied it into a bun, covered it, covered it with a potka. I put on my school uniform, my native

blue shorts, sky blue shirt, and tie, and my grandfather dropped me off at the bus stop. Me riding behind him on his LML bus scooter. And as a kid who'd grown up in a sick family and in a sick neighborhood, I thought everyone is supposed to have a bun on their head, or wear a butka, or have a

No one is wearing a butka. No one has a bun on their head. But these kids keep looking at me funny.

“For all they could care, I must have looked like Schrecked to them. But instead of being ugly”

in green and an ogre, I was ugly and had this thing on my head, this turban. So after my grandfather left, some of these kids started circling around me like vultures. One of them came close to me and said, "Hey, what's that? What's that thing on your head? Is that a neck?" And another kid said, "No dude, that's a tomato." And then another kid said, "So you put a tomato on your head every morning and then you cover it with a piece of cloth. Ew!" Five-year-olds can be pricks.

And then out of nowhere, one of these kids comes and smacks my forehead trying to squash that tomato

pride turns to shame and shame turns to fear. And it's the first time I realized in my life

“that I could be hurt for no other reason than how I look. I go back to the bus stop every morning”

and this game continues and I suffer this day after day and I don't tell anyone until one day becomes too much. I go back home crying to my mom and I ask her, "Why do I look like this? My mom's first reaction." She rolls up her sleeves and says, "Who are these damn kids?" And what are your teachers doing? Not protecting you? And then she comes down and looks at me crying, "Wife's my tears." It gives me a hug and she says, "Beta, my son, we are six." The turbine is a part of

our identity. It's a gift given to us by our gurus and who are you to try and blend in when you were born to stand out. Easier said than done for a kid who's just trying to fit in with his friends. But things only got worse after 9/11. It was almost as if an anti-turban rhetoric had to take and hold of the world and it didn't leave my small town of Ranjee in India. This game of Wacomol that started at the bus stop continued for the next couple of years. And the more I would tell these

kids not to touch my part, the more they would want to do it. So one day I was at school and this kid tried to touch my part again, my junior and I tried to like rip it off and I told them, "No, don't touch it." And he said, "Why are you hiding a bomb underneath there?" I felt hurt.

“Confused, disturbed, angry. Why had this kid called me a terrorist when I wasn't one?”

I went home crying to my grandfather. He was sitting in his reading chair in his room and I asked him, "Why do I look like this? Why do I need to wear a turbine?" He gave me a little bit of a history lesson. He said, "When Sikhism started in India five centuries ago, India was ruled by kings. And turbines were a symbol of royalty, only kings and noblemen could wear them." And these kings were necessarily kind, they would put people to death for no other reason,

then practicing a religion the king didn't approve of. So the Sikh gurus had instituted the turbine as a symbol of equality, as a symbol of standing up against the injustices of these

kings. This was the first time I had questioned my religious identity and received an answer I thought

I understood. But even though I theoretically understood why I should be wearing the turbine, the world outside kept giving me reasons not to. So back at the ceremony as excited as I was about putting this turbine on my head, I was also conflicted with all these memories of being treated like I was an outsider. The entire family then started the ceremony. We moved to the prayer room in our house where the Guru Grand Sahib sat atop a bulky or pedestal. My father took his place behind

the bulky while we sat around on the floor as he read verses from the Anans Sahib, the prayer of happiness and bliss. Then from a crumpled purple plastic bag, my grandfather took out this beautiful red and golden polka dotted turbine. It had been custom made for me just like all the turbines had been made for my father and my grandfather before me. My grandfather held one end of the

I knelt down in front of the Guru Grand Sahib, clutching one end of the turbine in my mouth,

“and my grandfather put down layer after layer of this turbine over my head. And with each layer”

that he put down the weight of the turbine started to feel more real. And I realized that it wasn't just the weight of the turbine. It was the weight of history on my shoulders. It was a weight of expectations that I wasn't sure if I was ready to carry just yet. When the ceremony was over, I bent down to touch my grandparents and my parents' feet to seek their blessings. I then went into my room, stood in front of the mirror, and looked at myself with this

turbine on my head and I thought, "I look weird." I now was looking at myself like those kids

had looked at me at the bus stop, like I was shrek. And I realized I started a question in that moment

“that there were other kids who I had grown up with, other sick kids, but instead of wearing”

turbines now, they would wear baseball caps. Instead of keeping their hair and their buns, they would now shave their hair off. And I would wonder, is it worth continuing to fight for your right to just exist instead of just trying to blend in? I realized after the ceremony that the turbine had been given to me. It wasn't something I had accepted. My grandfather tied the turbine on me, but it wasn't my turbine. It almost felt like an organ my body was rejecting,

but I also wanted to be proud of my religion and my culture just like my father and my grandfather were. So over the next few years, I tied the turbine off and on. Mostly on special occasions like friends' birthdays or family events, because those felt like safe moments where I could put the turbine on and become comfortable with its weight. And every time I tied the turbine by myself, the weight of the turbine started to feel lighter, as if the turbine itself was evolving to fit

with my head becoming one with me. So on the morning of my high school graduation, I woke up and I went through my morning ritual again. I oiled my hair, combed it, braided it, tied it into a bun. I put on my school uniform, my navy blue pants, sky blue shirt and tie. But instead of choosing to wear the partka like I had for so many years before this, I chose to wear my turbine on this day. I decided I was done feeling afraid of who I was and I wanted to be proud in who I am.

I rolled the turbine from either side into a long pipe. I carefully put down layer after layer of the turbine over my head. And when I was done tying, I stood in front of the mirror again and I asked myself, why do I look like this? Why can't I just blend in? But this time the answer came from within. Why try to blend in when we were born to stand out? Thank you. That was a hard just thing, who is now more confident in his identity, which gives him the strength

to be an active representative of the Sikh community after 11 years of being in the US. He is now a software engineer, but also a storyteller and things he inherited storytelling from his

grandfather. He still gets the occasional stare from someone who's never seen a man with a turbine before,

but oftentimes his turbine is a great conversation starter. He'll happily discuss religion with complete strangers anytime. In a moment, we hear from a backgammon champion and a mother introduces her kids to the movie home alone, and they come up with a plot of their own. That's when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

We always recommend Shopify. It took us from an idea to a real business. We got set up.

“I think in less than a day, with very little effort, we could just focus on the supply chain”

to the product development. Shopify gives us the ability to customize without the complexity. We can change something without introducing fragility or having to pay a developer.

Start your free trial at Shopify.com/au.

This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Judy Powell. Our next story comes from Antoinette Marie Williams. She told it from her motorized scooter that she calls her Ferrari, and she calls herself handicapable. Live from our Harlem main stage at City Colleges Erin Davis Hall hears Antoinette Marie.

“As far back as I can remember, Rachel and Henry Williams played cards. At 10, I listened to the”

laughter and teasing around the card table. My dad invited me to play. He needed a partner.

He taught me the rules of the game, how to win, and he also taught me how to hold the cards and my small hands to play Midwest, pinnacle, and cut through a pinnacle. They lit up the room with passion and confidence, and it rubbed off on me. I learned to play back emin from my friend Terry almost 50 years ago, probably longer than most of you have been on the planet. Back emin is a board game that's been

“around probably longer than and found in Tudon Commons often. The game is played with 15 checkers”

and dice for each player. Each player rolls the dice and moves their checkers around the board according to the numbers on the dice. You win the game by getting your checkers to your home board and getting your checkers off before your opponent. I loved back emin. I was dying to play. I was hungry to play this game. I found chess city, a few blocks away from my apartment. They played bridge, chess, and back emin there. Only a few women were in the game of bridge. I found a group

of men playing over in the corner, formal garrons and one Haitian. They were arguing, mostly

“I'm Bulgarian, about the place to make. They made some of the worst plays I had ever seen.”

They were really bad. After watching for several days, digging one of the Bulgarians and invited me to play. Had he read my mind, Jesus, he invited me into this game. I was so excited. That evening, I walked home with more duckets than I came with. It was truly reassuring and exciting to play with them. We played several days a week and I walked away generally with more money in my pocket. Sometimes I lost in my mind, it's just an investment.

Kept them coming back, putting more money in my pockets. After playing with them for a while, I heard about Montecarlo. Montecarlo has the largest world back emin championship in the world.

I always thought that this Mediterranean Wonderland tournament was out of my reach to expense.

I did some research. Montecarlo, here I come. It was a week-long tournament in July and I went. There were over 200 people in the intermediate division, very few women, but I was there representing the sisterhood. When I walked into the room, I heard the melodious tone of the shaking of the dice. It was music to my ears. Most of the men there male opponents underestimated me. They thought that I was a mere dilatant in the game, but I was going there to prove that I was a winner

that I could beat them. Day one, Pierre walked in, tall, dark, mustache, and handsome, fine by my definition. He sat down to play. Pierre had no chance. I rolled like Wanda possessed

I shredded to the scorekeeper's desk to claim my win. Throughout the rest of the week,

“I played all male competitors and I beat them all. undefeated, undefeated, I won the”

intermediate division of the Monte Carlo World-Backem tournament. I want to trip to Spain to use a car at the time share a $1,200 German backgammon set and a trophy and the recognition of my peers at this tournament. I had made it. After playing some more tournaments, winning and losing,

there was this tournament in San Antonio. In 2017, I was the only black female and the first woman

to ever be in the finals of this tournament. But not only was I the first woman, there was another woman, she and I were in the finals, both from the big apple. We sat down to play and Laila was beating me eight to five in an 11-point match. I took a break from the defeat. I rolled to the bathroom on my Ferrari and I got to the sink and I splashed cold water on my face and I heard my father's voice

play every game like it's your first. I talked to myself in the mirror. God damn it Antoinette,

you can't let her beat you. Second place is not an option. I rolled back to the table, people are standing on chairs and encouraging. Thumbs up, smiling at me, rooting for me. The score was 85. We started to play. I rolled. I got to the best part of my game. I turned the cue. Laila passed. The score is now 86. We play on. I get into a good position again. I double the cue, Laila passes. It's now 87. My end of voice is saying, Antoinette, go with it. You've got to go and on girl,

move, move. We start the next game. I put one of Laila's checkers on the bar. She has to come into my home board. She can't come in. My board is closed. I'm rolling to take my checkers off. I'm shaking

“vigorously. I'm nervous. My heart is pounding. I think everyone in the building hears me.”

I'm shaking the dice. Laila can't come in. I'm finally taking off all my checkers.

Laila still is on the bar. Oh my God. I'm winning this game. I'm winning this tournament. Before I know it, I've won four points. Not only did I win. I back amateur. I won six points. I won the San Antonio tournament. The first one in the first black woman to win this tournament and the prizes. I am so happy people are surrounding me with joy and thanking me, giving me congratulations. That same year, I won third place in the American back amateur. The first woman

to ever win in that division as well. A black woman in this game representing other women. Finally, I got a phone call that said that I was nominated for the backgammon hall of fame. I've been recognized by my peers. I'm so happy to be recognized by my backgammon peers. I love the game as much as I did in 1973 when I first learned and I'm proud that there are other

“women joining in this male-dominated game. I remember what my father taught me. I still take risks”

and I still play every game like it was my first. Thank you.

At 75, she's still playing and she gives free backgammon lessons to adults and teens outdoors

“in the park in Harlem or in Zoom. And according to Antoinette, she doesn't plan to slow down any time soon.”

To see photos of Antoinette, please visit themoth.org. Our next story comes from Rachel Kane, who told this on the Anarbor Storeslam stage with our media partners, Michigan Radio. Here's Rachel. Alright, so my mom died when I was nine years old and ten years later, I was getting married and having babies of my own. And when I put it like that, it's like, oh my god, that was way too young.

But yes, and I found myself at this age feeling completely lost. I didn't have a mom. I was a

mom and I was constantly questioning if I was a good mom. And if I was going to do this right, and I cared, I cared a lot and I had a lot of really grand ideas that have going down a lot since then. But at the time, I really dreamed of sharing like the highest forms of art and music and, you know, literature with my children, I fantasize that they'd be reading Shakespeare at five. No, it's a lot of Pokemon. It's not good. But I had these these fantasies

and one day, in an effort to, you know, get started on this, I brought home a really great classic art house film to share with my two children four and five years old. You guys might have heard of it, it's called Home Alone. It's great. It's one of the best. So, I brought this home. My kids watched it. They loved it and it turned out to be a real bad movie to show them. Because the next day, they got real mad at me. I had made cookies and I had told them,

“I'm a real bitch here. I had told them, you have to wait till they cool before you can have them”

and they lost their goddamn minds. I mean, just lost it. They stormed out of the room. They slammed themselves against the wall on the other side of the wall where I was holding clothes and they plotted their revenge. And they were at this perfect age where they didn't realize this complicated scientific theory that noise travels and they were also really horrible at whispering and so I heard everything and everything was they were going to murder me. Yeah, like full on McColley,

called in murder me. And so I'm sitting there and I have this dilemma, right? Do I do I get up? Do I walk over there? Do I kneel down? Do I tell them softly? That's not how we handle our big families. We don't do it like that. We, you know, we talk it out and would you ever or do I

“listen to the other guy on the shoulder? And do I just like go with it and see what happens?”

I was in the him. So I wait for them to get this all set and they had an Easter basket that why do I had lovingly filled like months before? But they took that Easter basket and they filled it with stuffed animals and they tied a rope to it and they swung it over the banister of our stairs and their plan was to do that every time I walked by right until they got me. And so I walked past

I walked past the first time in the mist which does not surprise me, my someplace basketball

now and he's not good. But they missed, I walked back again and they missed again. I did that eight fucking time until finally it hit my shoulder and that was it, I couldn't do it again. So that was it, that was the one, right? So I just swung back. Now I'm an English teacher so I've got some Shakespeare in me. So like it was full on death scene, right? And I'm like clutching my heart and it's like the blade, they didn't hit my heart. Oh my god. And I lean against the wall and I sink down

because I can't do squats very well so I had to like, and I sink down and I fall over and that's it, I'm dead, I'm dead. And there's silence. Just silence. And then my five-year-old starts wailing. Like, he just starts running down the stairs, tumbling over himself. I mean, just weeping. He prostrates himself over my corpse. And I have this moment where I'm like, I might have like taken this too far. But I was working so hard to hold in the laughter that

four-year-old comes down. And there's not a tear to be seen. He's just flung like, oh yeah,

“we fucking did this. And I'm there peeking out of the slits of my eyes because they're stupid.”

And they don't know that I can see them. And I'm wondering if I am like in trouble, do I need to find a counselor? I mean, four-year-old are notoriously awful human beings. Anyways, but this feels like extra awful. Like, there's no remorse. And I'm wondering if it's over for me. Like, this is it. We've got a psychopath. It's bad. And then my four-year-old leans down to my weeping five-year-old. And he like strokes his cheek.

And wipes the tears away into his pulls, his little chin up. And he says, "Don't cry, brother." The cookies are free now. And that's the moment when I knew I'm doing this parenting thing again.

“By day Rachel Kane says she's a serious, be spectacleed public media employee. By night,”

she's a slightly less serious, be wicked content creator on TikTok. Though those ones, mischievous preschoolers are no mischievous pre-teens, Rachel is happy to report

they have never tried to murder her again. Well, not intentionally at least. They may still

give her a heart attack though. To see pictures of Rachel and her family, please visit themoff.org and go to extras. Coming up, a seventh grader on a live changing school trip and an unexpected face-off with a wild cat. That's when the Moff radio hour continues. The Moff radio hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. You're listening to the Moff radio hour. I'm Judy Powell. Our next story is from Eddie Lafter,

who shared it at a Moff community engagement program showcase in Brooklyn. The evening was presented by our friends at the Kate Spade New York Foundation. Here's Eddie, live at the Moff. I grew up going to a Quaker school and I was one of the only three actually Quaker kids there. My dad was Quaker, so his Quaker is still. And I thought that made me an expert whenever it came up in class. I was like in her light, I know all about that. I was

gotcha and I wasn't like fourth grade by the way. I was going to Quaker meeting for worship every Sunday, because my dad wanted me to. But I would just kind of sit downstairs and doodle while our parents were in worship and that was just what would happen on Sundays. My mom is Jewish and my connection to that side of my family is even foggier and more distant. I would just visit my family for the holidays and get really confused about how I knew everybody and then I would come back and then go out

go to school the next day. And weirdly a lot of kids at my Quaker meeting were also this combination of Quaker and Jewish and we like to call ourselves Quakers. That was the extent of our analysis of that. And if I'm being totally honest, all I wanted to do was when I was little was pretend to be a dragon with my friends. So religion is not pretending to be a dragon so it was thus not high on my list of priorities then. But as I got older, it eventually was no longer cool to pretend to be a dragon and it

wasn't cool to really talk about religion either. I got in some middle school and got everything got more awkward and I got less friends and I got really distant from religion. I stopped going to Quaker meeting on Sunday because no one was really making me and so I talked about it less.

My Quakers and Facts weren't fun or like cool things to tell people. But I could never really

get out of going to the Jewish holidays. They happened so infrequently that I had to be there and

“I didn't see my cousins very often. So it was important that I went. But I got that it was”

important for my mom. I didn't get how it was important to me. I never really saw myself there. I felt weird and complicated and I just felt so awkward all the time that I didn't understand what it had to do with me specifically. And in 7th grade my school took a field trip to a Holocaust exhibit in a Jewish cultural center in Manhattan. And I had learned about the Holocaust

the 30s and 40s and it was something to have in the past so this was a field trip. We and it was just

“a time and not be in class. So we were in 7th grade and we entered the museum and a sort of”

rambunctious fashion because it's 7th grade and that's just what kind of happens. And the museum goes in chronological order through timelines so we're in the beginning part and the work mean my two friends are just sort of like walking around and sort of like making fun of propaganda. And then the museum takes a hold on us as it is designed to do and my friends go elsewhere and I am by myself and the floor of the museum is carpeted so it kind of eats away at foot steps so

you can't really hear anyone else around you. And I'm by myself and I'm walking and I turn to my left and I see this long hallway and at the end of the hallway is this wall that looks like it's made out of a bunch of small tiles and I get closer and realize that they're not tiles but they're actually very very small portraits of like photographs of people who entered and died in Auschwitz and there are so many of them they go all the way down this hallway they turn the corner and

there are these pillars in the museum just architecturally and they wrap around and I'm overcome with this this wave of like this urge to make eye contact with each and every one of the pictures and I feel like I need to give them the space that I owe them and like take my time and try to give all of my attention to them and I physically cannot do that but I'm trying my hardest in the sort

“of like frantic fashion of making eye contact with everyone and I think you start to feel different”

all of a sudden they feel like a mirror and I see parts of my own face there I see my nose and my eyes something about my bone structure and my hair and it's overwhelming and it's terrifying my mom would talk about feeling like she looks really Jewish in certain places when there were and a lot of other

Jewish people around and I never knew what that meant and then all of a sudden it makes sense it

clicks and it clicks in a crushing way and I was someone who was very familiar with the concept of loneliness I was I felt really isolated at school in middle school and I was really when I would walk down a hallway it felt like I was lonely to the point where it felt corrosive in my body but this loneliness that I feel in this museum is not like anything I had experienced before it's like the museum had singled out me and like left me some are stranded and I was like almost in free fall and

“it was so much that when I eventually left the exhibit all I wanted to do was find someone”

to talk about this with and so I'm going up to people in my class and trying to relay the information that this museum is apparently about me specifically and my classmates don't really seem to get how shocking this feels I feel like I'm crushed and everyone just sort of takes it like a yeah and my this is the reaction I get from my non-Jewish classmates and also from my Jewish classmates someone just sort of gives me a fake space which doesn't help at all and we eventually

leave the museum and find our way to a playground because that's kind of like where field trips

always lead and people are running around and playing tag and I can't get myself to do that I'm

sitting on this bench in this feeling that I've found in the museum is kind of like sticky it feels like I can't leave the museum and I'm sitting there with my friend talking to me about TV shows that I don't want to talk about watching everybody else play tag and I feel so angry that they're able to play tag and I can't because that was all I would have wanted to do in a normal school day but I'm sitting there and with this feeling that I've found this whole new

piece of who I am in that museum I have to like hold on to it and somehow fit it into my perception of who I thought I was which is so hard it was like my someone it was like suddenly my whole face meant something different than what I thought it did and like how do you deal with that when you're 13 and all you do is think about the way your face looks in comparison to other people and I have just sat with that piece for a really long time and I felt it grow into myself and

I've more maybe I've grown into it and I found other people to talk to this about and with my half-year friends we talk about how we exist in this sort of like limbo space of maybe we're not necessarily practicing but it's still very much in our lives and everybody who I talk to has like their own sort of like definition of what it means to them and somewhere along this journey I realized that I really like going all the family gatherings and I get upset when I

missed them I was sick for Reshoshana one year and I was just like how am I going to have a sweet new year I was like I was distraught there's a lot of comfort and connection in those gatherings

museum and at the same time I've recently after taking a very long break from it I've recently become

“a member of my quicker meeting and I'm finding that quickerism is is own peace that separate”

from Judaism in my life but they can go they can both be there together and they can both exist and they don't negate each other and they're just both there and I don't just have that afternoon in a playground to figure it out I can sit with them for however long I need and I can ponder my spirituality what being quickish means in the fact that I have a heritage thank you originally from Brooklyn New York any laughter is attending Smith College in North Hampton Massachusetts

where she is studying different forms of storytelling wondering aimlessly and over analyzing monster movies or final storyteller is Michael Donovan who told this at a story slam in New York City

“where WNYC is a media partner of the mouth here's Michael live from the bellhouse in Brooklyn”

all right I was a firefighter in New York City for thank you and like many firefighters most of us

we all had second jobs and my second job was I was a copina I worked as a copina and a couple of

the other guys in my fire house they were also copiners and so we would all get jobs and if they needed help they would call me and my friend Kirk call me and he goes Mike I got a great job for us we're going to be doing hardwood floors on the upper east side of Manhattan in my friend Brent spilled ink Brent was a pharmacist and you know when you think of a pharmacist you think of a great head with the glasses looking over the top of his glasses Brent at a pony tail he had

“he had tattoos he had a wife Shannon who liked to go to the strip clubs and bring back another story”

for another night but anyway Brent was a little different from your normal pharmacist and he owned

the building that his pharmacy was and pharmacy was on the first floor apartments on the second floor

and Brent had the entire third floor small building but he had the whole third floor and so we call Brent and we were discussing the job and he was explained in the apartment to us the apartment was one big open area kitchen in the back dining room next to it living room and then in the front was his bedroom and the bedroom had french doors glass french doors and that's where it's bedroom I said and we discussed price and what we were going to do and Brent said to us he goes this one

little problem and we said well what's the problem he was I had a cat I was like I like cats Kirk likes cats it should be fine no you don't understand I have a wild jungle cat as a pet and we were like you have a tiger in your apartment on the upper east side of Manhattan he's no no no no no like a tiger it's more like a cheetah or a jaguar

and we were like it's called a savah and we never heard of a savah and he said he assured us

he goes when my wife Shannon is home the cat is like a domesticated kitty cat but when she's not home the shit's on anything so but you really don't need to worry because Brent likes or watch TV late and then he sleeps late so you're probably not going to see him and we'll keep him in the bedroom which he called the cat's lair and the cat's name was Slash so he'd say the cat will be in slash he'll be in in in his lair and he'll pace back and forth he doesn't

get up till about 11 or 11 30 so you probably not going to say him so all right we're just there to do the floors so the first day comes the first day comes and and we're bringing we have to bring all our tools up to the third floor so we block open the door to second avenue it was right on second avenue of the apartment we block open the door we block open the door to the apartment and we're carrying the tools up we're bringing them in and we start working working

on the floor and sure enough about 11 o'clock Kirk gives me a little mic mic look oh one other

did look like a it did look like a cheetah you know with the spot but the head was small it was

“called a civil he goes the one thing you have to make sure you don't do don't make contact with the”

cat I contact with the cat so we're working on the floor we're working on the floor and Kirk gives me a little he gives me a little elbow he goes mic mic what's that and the two of us look up and they are behind the glass doors is the cat pacing back and forth and and we look in the cat kind of looks at us and we both divert our eyes and we keep we keep working and after a while it became routine the cat would pace we were working we would look at them we would divert the

divert our eyes so day one went by day two went by now the third day was going to be we were

going to finish the job get paid and go home and we talked the doors open a second avenue

“we talked the door open to the apartment and we're bringing our tools up and as we're walking”

through Kirk says to me he taps me again and he goes mic what's that on the back window sell in the living room area and Brent and his wife Shannon had great taste they had these beautiful white lacy's sheer curtains and brownstone windows with the low cells and we could see a silhouette behind the behind the curtains and with the tools we lean forward and just as we lean forward far enough a gentle breeze blew the curtains and now it was slashed and we made eye contact with the

microphone and the cat freaked out two leaps and Kirk and I were pinned to the wall the cat leap halfway across the apartment hit the couch and bounced and now it was at the French doors trying to get into its layer and it kept thrown itself into the glass and hissing and spitting at us we're pinned to the wall and Kirk leans over to me and we're thinking this is 7,000 dollar cat it's going to cut itself it's going to kill itself or worse than that the

door to second avenue is open this is going to be a wild jungle cat running down second avenue

you know we're not going to get paid so Kirk leans over to me Kirk leans over and he says Mike one of us is going to have to open that door like the cat and it's there and being a

“fireman you know you have to keep your wits about you you have to stay common situations”

so I leaned over to Kirk and as calmly as I could I said well it could be me and Kirk looked in me with this guy's and he opened the door and the cat went in we close the door we looked at each other and we were like we're at it here we picked up the tools we went down we told Brent you pain us for the day the cats in his room thank you very much and the moral of the story we went to a ball we drank for the rest of the day the moral

the moral of the story is that cat on the sill is worth a beer in a boy Michael Donovan spent 25 years in the New York City fire department finishing his career as a Captain special operations he is currently retired and spends his time between South Carolina and Vermont Michael is still a very good friends with Teddy and describes him as one of the toughest

people he has ever known but he has lost contact with slash and its owners and has never had

another close encounter with a jungle cat since to see some photos of Michael please visit theMoth.org and that's it for this week on the Moth Radio Hour thank you for joining us this episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me Jay Allison and Katherine Burns along with Jody Powell who also hosted and directed the stories in the show co-producer Fiky Merrick associate producer Emily couch the rest of the Moth leadership team includes Sarah

Haberman Sarah Austin Janesse Jennifer Hickson make bowls Kate tellers Jennifer Birmingham Marina Cluchay Suzanne Rust Brandon Grant Inga Gladozki Sarah Jane Johnson and all the Casa

drift other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions podcast music

“production support from Davy Sumner we receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts”

the Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts special thanks

to our friends at Odyssey including executive producer Leah Reese Dennis for more about our podcast

for information on pitching us your own story and everything else but our website theMoth.org