Fright

The Devil Wears Prada 2. He's the movie I've been 20 years in the making, despite I'd be the first to experience it only in theaters. I like the recent scandal. I'm here to restore your credibility.

Oh, because we're a team now. That's a nice story. The Devil Wears Prada 2, in theaters Friday. I'm Richard Serra.

Join me on Strange Planet for in depth conversations with the world's top paranormal investigators, alien abductees, Bigfoot trackers, monster hunters, time travelers, and more. The handler one day told her this whole thing about how they've been terraforming on Mars and they're building a colony and they're recruiting specific people, a specific bloodlines of specific talents and skill sets to go onto the planet. On Richard Serrat's Strange Planet, we are redefining reality. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, folks, this is Kevin. On this week's episode of Risk, you'll hear Craig Conant sounding a little weed, little mushrooms, little fireworks, you know, just the basics. That and more. But before that, a song you are going to want to learn to sing along to.

Have you bought the Risk book yet? Have you have? Buy more for friends. There are only versions of classic stories and six never earn a fort elsewhere.

There's a bunch of famous people in it. Say play a Q and A with all the authors. Wrist Book has stories that are funny and scary and lovely and totally fucked up. It's a perfect gift against friends.

And it's getting all kinds of raves. Come on. Audiobook, ebook and paperback, where books are sold or@the risk.com. buy the wrist.

Buy the wrist. I mean, is that an earworm or what? Don't forget to get the book. Get copies for your friends.

Call your indie bookstores, make sure they have it. Call your libraries, make sure they have it. Be sure to review the book on Amazon. And don't forget, it's available in paperback, ebook or audiobook.

Now here's the show. Hello, kids. This is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison.

This is Polar Bear behind me now. Not to be confused with Grolar Bear, which is the name of a new sort of animal that is coming about because polar bears and grizzlies are mating because of CL change. There's a new report out from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that says by 2030, extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people will be a reality. And the political party that has strong armed its way into running our entire government now is rolling back all regulations and protections to prepare for that.

I'm not gonna lie. I am completely, I've never been, I think, so outraged as I have been about the completely unjust and illegitimate forcing into the Supreme Court a man who is clearly unfit to be there. Christine Blasey Ford mentioned in her testimony how indelible the laughter is in her memory from the traumatic experience had at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh. And so the final story on this week's episode reminded me of that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Go to iwillvote.com make sure you're registered. Make sure all your friends are registered. Look up indivisible.org or swingleft.org or moveon.org There are so many ways that between now and November 6th you can get involved.

Make sure you are registered, friends are registered and make sure people are getting to the polls. Lots of ways to volunteer. And you know, any free days you have between now and November 6th, jump on it. We're calling this week's episode fright because this October there's so very much to be frightened about.

It's also the beginning of our 10th year of doing this. Risk started on October 6th of 2009. So here's to our 10th season. I want to give a little shout out here to our latest Patreon patron.

We always give a shout out if someone donates $25 or more per month. And so thank you so very much to Anthony Scalarud or Scalarud. I hope I'm not butchering that name. If you don't know.

There are so many bonus stories on our [email protected] risk with me too. So in the spotlight lately. One of our latest stories that we've uploaded there on the Patreon is one of those it's incredibly essential to us to get support from our fans just in order to keep this machine running. I'm not kidding about that.

We need your help. And there's all sorts of other sort of, you know, behind the scenes check ins, videos, photos, people talking back and forth to one another there on Patreon. So it's a great way to help out and become a part of our community. Okay, in a little bit we're going to hear a remarkable story that Susan Liu shared in Seattle.

Susan has an extraordinary one person show called 140 pounds. You can find out more about that at Susanliu Me. That's L, I, E, U, Me. But before we get to Susan, something much lighter, a story by Craig Conant.

Craig is a hilarious standup comic based in Los Angeles, which is where he told this story at our monthly show at the Bootleg Theater there. Here he is now with a story we call the Raid. Yeah, I'm going to tell you a stoke. Jesus Christ.

Yep, a story that helped get me sober. Despite my speech and my appearance, I was raided by the LA Impact Task Force. Thanks, man. The police.

When I lived in Culver City and I was asleep, and I'm blind as a bat. I wear contacts and glasses, and I just. I just hear, you know, battering. I didn't know what it was, but it was battering rams breaking down the gate to my place.

And I just hear noises, and I just hear hands in the air. But I think it's my roommate playing a prank on me, you know? So I'm reaching for my glasses, and I just hear hands in the air, motherfucker. I'm like, who is this?

You know? And I put them on, and it comes into focus, and I'm like, oh, this is real. You know, I guess it's in a prank. And it was just like in the movies.

Like, I had windows. Of course I had windows. But this WAT team fills out the first window, and I'm like, ah. And then it fills out the next one.

I'm like, oh. Then it fills up the third window right behind me, and then I'm just like this. In my. In my underwear, my chonies, you know?

And now my hands are in the air, and then I'm walking to the door, and I have a deadbolt on it. Cause I'm selling a little weed, little mushrooms, little fireworks. Just the basics. Because I know how to live, you know?

And I undo the lock, I unlatch the deadbolt, and I open the door, and there's a Culver City cop. When A shotgun at my heart, and I go, chris. And he goes, craig is my buddy, Chris. I probably shouldn't have said his whole name, you know, but I played Little League with this guy.

I went to high school with this guy. I've known this guy my whole fucking life. And this guy, he's pointing a gun on my chest, you know? And I just see my friend and I go, help me.

And he goes, I will. And he handcuffs me, that bastard. You know? But he put him on loose.

He just put him on loose. I've been cuffed up three times prior, you know, because I Know how to live, you know, and they crank those bitches on, dude. They give you a little nerve damage. You can't even stock apples good the next day at Trader Joe's, you know, I work at Trader Joe's.

And all I'm thinking of, like, how. How can I be getting rated right now? Like, I'm a criminal, but I'm a little baby criminal, you know, Just five words. Ounce of weed, little quarter of mushrooms, you know, nobody trying to hurt anybody over here.

And I'm like, how are they rating me? And then the only thing I could think is, I had to just smoke meth for the first time. Yeah. And I was at Trader Joe's on lunch break with this new guy.

He's a weirdo, you know? And I go, you want to smoke a bowl? And I meant weed. And I pulled out my pipe, you know, and smoked some weed.

And he pulls out his pipe, and it was meth. And I was like, what the fuck? You know? And then he's like, you want to hit it?

And I was like, all right. That's how I know I'm weak, you know? You're weak? 27 years old, you hit the pookie for the first time on your lunch break at Trader Joe's, you know, I was stocking some bananas after that, though, you know, so that's how I could think.

I was like, okay, maybe it's that. That guy, you know, he's bad news. I'm hippie news they got, you know, like, this is impossible. So then I'm talking to Chris, and I just see my friend and come all the other cops, and it's a SWAT team, you know, there's helicopters, there's.

It's. There's. I don't even know, 30, 40 cops. And the other cop, he's an asshole.

He's got the drug sniffing dog. He's like, you got anything hippie? And I'm like, well, yeah, of course, you know, look at me, dude. And he goes in there and they ransack my room.

And then I'm looking at Chris and I see my buddy. I'm like, hey, dude, I got weed in there. I got mushrooms in there. And he's like, bro, stop telling me this, you know?

And then I'm still panicking. I'm like, dude, I got fireworks in there. I'm on probation for fireworks from the fourth July incident. And he's like, you mean the time you threw the firecrackers at cops on horses in Herosa Beach?

And it made the newspaper and I was like, yeah, that one. That's another story for another time. And, and he's like, bro, stop telling me this, you know, And I'm just nervous. And then they take me out to the alley and they're all questioning me and I'm just handcuffed in my underwear in an alley surrounded by a SWAT team.

And I'm just nervous and I just fart. I just farted. And I just was scared. I was like, sorry.

And they're looking at me like, is this guy serious? This, this guy special? He's farting on us or raiding his house? And they, they weren't actually there for me.

I lived in a back house, I lived behind this guy, King Mike. He was in the front house. He was the real criminal. He was a two striker.

They're trying to strike him out and send him to prison for life. I guess he was selling meth and guns and stuff. And he's a good neighbor, you know. And I know his name was King Mike because I used to steal his wifi and that was his name on the Wi Fi.

King Mike. Password thug123. You know, he's a nice guy. He had good weed too.

But he's a, he's a good, good criminal. I mean a bad criminal, but like good at his job criminal. Yeah, because he had, he's a plumber, had two trucks and a business but never touched a toilet kind of criminal. You know, it was all front and they were there for him.

And like I said, he was good. They didn't get him and they couldn't take me in. They can take, you know, hippie boy, hippie man for weed and mushies. They'd be the laughing stock.

What'd you get this guy for? He farted on us. It was assault. He should have been there.

That's real brutal. So the cops left empty handed. They didn't strike King Mike out. They didn't get me for my, my stuff.

And then all I kept thinking when I was in handcuffs, I was like, I can't call my mom because that'll be the fourth time she bailed me out of jail. What kind of man would I be? Three times, I get it. Four times.

I'll take the time, you know. And I just kept thinking like, I can't go to jail. I paid $450 for UCB improv classes and I got to be there later because they're going to teach me how to be funny, you know, like you guys can't, you can't take Me to jail. I paid good money for that.

And then later I ran into Chris. He was just, you know, doing cop shit, patrolling the streets. And I ran into him and I was like, oh, man. Remember when you raided me and almost killed me?

He's like, yeah. And he said the precinct talked about me for like a month straight. Like, remember that special hippie that farted on us? So when something like this happens to you, it inspires you to get.

To get sober. And, you know, three arrests in a raid, you get sober. And I finally got sober. It just took about two more years.

And I tried to hook up with my cousin in front of my family on my birthday. Somebody clapped. What are you doing? And anyways, I'm sober now.

Thank you. One more. Bodily functions in the news this morning. Next time you pass a gas, make sure no police are around.

A man in West Virginia faces assault charges after police say he passed the officer. While the office said it was, quote, very onerous and created. And created contact of insulting or provoking nature. See, that wasn't even right.

That was wrong. That was wrong. Right? There you go.

I lost my mom when I was 11. I don't have many memories about my mom, but I know that my entire family calls her the hero. She grew up in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam in this small province called Sakjiang. It's known for its fermented fish noodle soup.

We call it bung Nu Pl. To me, when I smell it with the shrimp and the pork and the banana flour and the citrus, I think it smells like home. But maybe most of you, when you smell it, you might think it smells like compost rot. When the bin gets too full, it's super funky, but that's what we're known for.

And when my mom was 16 and she was growing up, she had to drop out of high school. She was the best student in her class. She was in ninth grade and she had to support her 11 brothers and sisters. So she went out to the village.

She'd walk down this dirt road every day and she'd sell a lotto tickets. She started selling lotto tickets to people and she started making money. And then she found out that if she started having other people sell lotto tickets for her, she'd make more money. And then she started having dreams.

And she had animals. A pig was one, a cow was two. A water buffalo was three. And then she started figuring out what the numbers were and started buying lotta tickets.

And then she started winning. And she won several times. And that's how she saved up enough money to save up for six 1 ounce gold bars. And that was enough money to pay for four tickets out of Vietnam.

Four tickets to try to get on a boat and get to a Malaysian refugee camp. This was after the fall of Vietnam. And everyone was frightened for their lives every day. They didn't know what was gonna happen the next day to them.

So she had enough money. She, my dad, my two brothers, they were planning an escape. But it wasn't an easy escape. It was risky, because if any of the communists spotted them or anybody else trying to leave the docks that night, you get thrown into a labor camp, you get thrown into prison, or maybe you just disappear.

So that was obstacle number one that night. She knew it was a night to go. So each parent took a sun in their hands and walked quickly to the docks. And when they got there, the communist lighthouse, it lit up.

And all of a sudden all the passengers had to run back and just run back into the jungle and run as fast as they could. And she started running and she was holding my 4 year old brother hard against her belly and her shoes started flying off. But she kept running into the darkness. She didn't know where she was going.

And she ran into a thorny patch. And every step she took, more and more thorns went into her body. And then her foot became a bloody mess. And then she came back to my grandma's house and you could see all these bloody footprints coming through the house.

And she lied down in the hammock. And my grandma would cry, saying, this is the last time you're gonna do this, it's not worth it, and you're gonna die out there, so stop doing this. And my grandma would take this needle and just take all the thorns out of her foot, take all the thorns out of her foot and wipe all the blood off her feet. Stop doing this.

And my mom did it again and again and again. And on the sixth time, they finally just made it onto a boat. And the boat made it past the communists and after three days at sea, they made it to Malaysian refugee camp. My sister was born in that camp.

And after two years we made it to America. And I was born in 85. When we were in America, it was all about the family business. Susan's Nails, named after me.

My sister's so pissed about it to this day in the family, everyone had a part to play. And I remember I was 4 years old, and when all the customers were backed up and people starting at the right point in time, she'd look over me and she'd nod. And I knew I gotta turn on the charm. And so I go up to the customers are waiting.

Oh, hi, Daddy. How's your dog? Yeah, your hair looks nice. Yeah, I'd be like taking off her nail polish.

Really engaged scheduling the next appointment. It was a family business and we all had to take part in it. And I felt like I got to take part in my mom's dream. I know some of you might be thinking, isn't that called child labor?

I call it all Vietnamese refugees. We call it free daycare. It's very good model. You should think about it.

My mom, she was tough as nails and she only prioritized education. She couldn't finish ninth grade. So when we got to America, she wanted us to focus on school. So I wanted to play trombone.

I wanted to play with Todd in band class, but I was not allowed to. And I remember one morning I woke up really early and I was going to gather the courage to tell her, I'm going to try out for volleyball tryouts. Yeah. And I'm getting ready to ask her, and I see my mom and dad in the kitchen shuffling about and they're moving about and it's weird because this is way too early for them to go to the nail salon.

And so I say, ma, where are you guys going? She said, oh, we'll be back later. It's fine. But ma, it's 6am and you guys go to shop at 8am so where are you guys going?

We're coming home late tonight. It's fine. Well, I'm coming home late tonight too. I'm not coming home at 3.

I'm coming home at 5. I'm going to volleyball tryouts. And she said, oh, no, you're not. You have school.

And I was like, I'm in the under minute club with multiplication tables. I'm smart, I have school handle. I want to do tryouts. And she said, which means shut up.

And I said, you can't tell me what to do. I'm going to all about tryouts and I'm making the team and I'm going to show you, and I'm going to do whatever I want. I hate you. The car's running.

They get in the car, they close the door. I slam the garage door. I hear the car roll out. I hear the door close.

That's the last time I ever talked to my mom. And I come back home from school from tryouts, and my brother says, susan, Mom's in a coma. And when I Get to the hospital. I see my dad in the doorway of the room, and I walk over there and I look at the bed and that's not my mom.

That's a body, that's a vegetable. And when I see her lying there, my legs turn into cement legs. And I can't move and I can't say anything. And then my dad says, go.

And he pushes me to my back and he says, go talk to her. And I said, say what to her? Just go talk to her. And it feels like ages of me just trying to drag my legs over and then walk and sit down and he goes, hold her hand.

So then I pick up her hand and her body is this weird yellow color because all the liquid of her natural body has soaked down into this little tub mixture of all this liquid. And I'm holding her hand and it's cold, it is so cold. And the only color on her body is her red nails because she thought she'd come out of a that day with her beautiful nails. Talk to her.

So finally, when I ready to talk to her, I said, ma, you always said that when I go to college, you move in with me. So can you come back so you can go to college with me? Can you come back to me? After five days in a coma, she flatlined.

It's always hard when people ask me what my mom died of. It's not something that you can immediately feel sorry for, like cancer or getting hit on the sidewalk by a car. She died from plastic surgery. She went in for a tummy tuck, then narrowing off her nostrils in a chin implant.

With Dr. Frank Thomas, a plastic surgeon in San Francisco who had 24 lawsuits against him, had been on probation for years, been sanctioned by the medical board two times, operated in an unaccredited facility. She walked into this clinic and she didn't know what she was walking into. Two hours in the operation, her narrowing of her nostrils goes fine.

They're working on the tummy tuck. And then the siren goes off. She's lost oxygen, her brain. The nurse tells the doctor, the doctor tries to do mouth to mouth immediately lifts her legs up, tries to figure things out, gives her extra medication, and nothing is happening.

Usually after not having oxygen for four minutes, you have permanent brain damage. And it was at the 14 minute mark that he calls 911 and turns out the clinic was a block and a half away from the hospital. So I'm in my late 20s now and I'm at business school. I'm staying up late at night working on a statistics Problem set.

But I don't want to do it because I keep thinking about Dr. Frank. And I keep thinking, how does a man like him, he kills somebody, he continues to have a check record. How do you lose your license for a couple years and keep on practicing?

Where's the justice in the system? I can't stop thinking about him. And I said, you know, I'm going to Google this motherfucker. And turns out he was still practicing and he was still on permission.

So I decided because I was getting an mba, I was going to seek revenge, but with a multi prong marketing campaign. And I was going to get him because I found out a couple of things. I found out that he targeted Vietnamese women in the weekly Vietnamese newspaper. 30% of his clients were Vietnamese.

And he also had volunteered his time during the Vietnam War doing reconstructive surgery. I couldn't put my finger on it. There was something really odd about this guy. But maybe instead of just the negligence on my mom, maybe there was a class action lawsuit.

So I was gonna go at it that way. But then also I was gonna have a marketing campaign where he starts to feel paranoid. I was gonna have targeted Facebook ads so that he'd click on Facebook and he'd see his face and it would say, I am watching you. And he'd look at me and be like, ah, that's me, but I'm watching myself.

Who is watching me if I'm watching myself, right? And then so I would start the paranoia, and then he would drive into work and then there would be a billboard and it would be all the women that he's hurt. And it'd say, we got your eyes on you. And then he'd be like, what?

This is so confusing. And then I would stage protests in front of the clinic so that any new patient would know who they were going under with a knife. And my final trick in all of this is I was going to schedule an appointment to get breast implants. And I would sit in front of him and he would be like, so how'd you hear about us?

And I'd say, oh, I've done my research. And then he'd say, well, what are you here to get done? And then I'd slowly unzip my bag and say, revenge. And then I'd pull out the subpoenas and I'd put it there and I'd slide it onto the desk.

And then I'd get up and walk away very slowly, just looking at him for a long time until I closed the door. That's what I was gonna do. I was up late one night, and so I was talking to my friend, Harvard Law School. And I was like, man, I need to research on this, figure out how we're structured the case, tell me how this is all gonna go down.

I was so excited about my plan. And then she said to me, susan, he's dead. And all of a sudden, my mouth, it turned sour. It was all the sour enzymes that you get when you start to throw up.

And it got sour all over, through my mouth and through my stomach. And then I just felt like my body just slipped out onto the floor, onto the mess of all the research on my papers. And that hero that I wanted to be for my family was gone. All of that was for nothing.

And I said to her, amanda, can you sue dead people? It turns out you can't. This has been really hard, dirty for me because I'm a Buddhist and I should be compassionate and have loving kindness for all beings, and I should forgive people and see the good in them. And that's been hard to do, but I think I could do that if I could humanize him or get to know him.

So I sent a letter to one of his kids. His son is a marriage and family therapist. And my siblings thought I was totally crazy. And they're like, what are you doing?

I said, I gotta do what I need to do. And then three days later, I got a call. It's the youngest daughter, Megan. And she said, susan, I got your letter, and I want you to know that I'm really, really, really, really, really, really sorry.

And I can't imagine this happening to my family. And I want you to know that your mom's death impacted me the most. Call me back. So I texted her.

And then three days passed. And so then I called another voicemail. A few more days passed and texted her a couple more times. And that's where things stand now.

My siblings think that she might have gotten spooked. Maybe she thinks I'm gonna sue her or her family. So, like a nerd, I look up if I could sue her, and I can't. And so I wrote her a letter of all the statutes of limitations of why I can't do anything.

I had a four year window since 1999 to do something, and so now I can't. In the letter, I also said this. I'd just like to know more the kind of person your father was, how he felt about his work, how he felt about his work. Maybe I'm trying to make sense of what happened, or at the very least, trying to come to peace with it by us connecting, I hope we can rewrite the narrative we pass down to future generations, that while we cannot undo the past, the human spirit is capable of forgiveness.

So I'm just waiting and I'm hoping maybe she's going to hear this recording and pick up the phone and call me. This is Risk. This is Solange behind me now. And we just heard from Susan Liu.

Oh, my goodness, what a story. And you know what? She's doing a much larger, much more intricate version of that story in Seattle. Nine performances starting in February.

So the show is called 140 pounds. And you should look Susan up at Susanliu Me. That's L I E U me. Our final story on today's episode was shared by someone who had never shared a story on stage like this ever before.

A brand newcomer. She shared this at our Baltimore show that we did a few months back during the Wrist Book Tour. She is an artist and a massage therapist. You can find her on Instagram freshmints.

Here she is now. This is Heather Minter with a story we call Losing My Religion. I was born into a church and a family based on two love and salvation. You see, I was born into a really conservative, evangelical fundamentalist family.

My dad was leader of the Bible study. My uncle was the pastor of the church. Every single person I knew believed the same thing that I did. And I was pretty much based on two love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

And they believed it so strongly that they wanted to take that out into the world. And they based that on some verses in Romans. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans and said, any man who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call unless they believe it?

How can they believe unless they hear? And how can they hear unless people go to tell them so when I was six years old, my parents enrolled in an international mission organization and they spent three years training. And when I was nine years old, we moved to Papua New guinea for them to be missionaries. And they moved into a tribe in the northern part of the country in the Sepik region.

They moved in a tribe of about 100 people along the Salame river in the East Sipik province, and they left us in the loving care of other missionaries. The headquarters for the mission organization was in the highlands in the middle part of the country in the mountainous region, and it was right outside a major town for Papua New Guinea. Outside Baroka. And there they left us.

This headquarters was basically where all the support missionaries lived that poured. The people who were out in the jungle, there were pilots, there were people who gathered supplies. And then there was a school. And we had A K through 12 schools.

We had teachers and we had dorm parents. So my brother was seven and I was nine and we were placed into a dorm. The dorms were a little different than in some places. There were family style dorms.

So one couple would take care of between 13 and 20 children and the boys would be on one and the girls on the other. And it was run like a family. In fact, when we first moved there, my brother thought we were supposed to start calling them mom and dad. Even though we saw my parents every two months and we got to talk to them once a week over the radio.

We spent the bulk of our lives living in these dorms. And all these missionaries had the same goal, to reach these people with the gospel of Jesus. And love and salvation was the central part of their mission. But you know, when you're living in different families, in each year we were with a different family.

There were different rules, and it took a lot to get used to, to adapt to everybody's different way of doing things. And it was tough. And some people were really strict. Some people were downright brutal.

By the time I was 15, I was really excited because we were going to get to move into the dorm of Uncle Brad and Aunt Beth. We called all of the adults on uncle. It created a sense of familiarity, but a little bit of respect. I was really excited because this couple was actually missionaries in the same region with my parents.

And I knew them. They were really cool and they were really fun. They were from Southern California. They really seemed to like me.

And that was in stark contrast to some of the people that I'd lived with up until that point. In fact, I lived with one family for three years, Uncle Rob and Aunt Jane. Uncle Rob was a former boxer and he had very specific ideas about how girls should be. And specifically he had very specific ideas about how I should be.

And he did not like me. He would say, you just need to be yourself. Why can't you just be yourself? But he'd make me walk up and down the hallway and practice how I walked because he didn't like how my heels hit the ground too hard.

I wasn't feminine enough. And he really didn't like that my feet would get dirty from playing outside. So he would make me sit in the shower and he'd stand over Me. And he'd say, you need to scrub your feet with these wire brushes until they're just as clean and white as Aunt Jane's.

But he also wanted me to be tough. And maybe it was his way of preparing us for this environment that we were in. You see, the property was outside the town. It was a fenced in property.

Because where you have these towns, you have a mix of people sort of leading village life, but not quite part of the town. And there's an increase in crime and specifically violence against women. So as girls, we grew up understanding that, you know, violence against us was a real possibility. We didn't go near the perimeter of the property, especially at night.

And I think he had his way of sort of trying to prepare us and stand us in hallway. And he'd pound our stomachs to get us tough. And he picked me up in a wrestling hold, and he would say, listen, if anybody grabs you like this, you bite their nose or their ear until it comes off in your mouth. And that way maybe they'll stop attacking you.

But if not, you leave a mark on your attacker. And so I grew up with this mix of things, but he definitely did not like me, and he really didn't like how I wrestled against him. When he would pin me to the ground and he'd rub his beard in my neck until it was red and raw. He's like, the kids all like this.

It's fun. It's called a whisker burn. It's supposed to be fun. And he didn't like that.

I didn't like it. So when I got to move in with Brian and Beth, I was so excited because they were really cool. They're from Southern California. Like I said, they're San Diego surfer dudes.

Brad was this huge guy. They had come out from the tribe to be on leadership at the headquarters and to be born parents. But I knew them. I knew them well.

They were just more than life. Like, what Brad lacked in maturity and experience and education, he made up for in, like, charisma and really vibrant personality. They made things really fun for us, and they really seem to like me. And let me tell you, at this point, at 15, I don't know how likable I was.

I was so moody, and I would sit in the dark in my room and paint for hours and listen to music. Now, I didn't have a whole lot of access to popular music. We sometimes got American top 40, but my friend's dad had given us his copy of Remote of Time, and I've listened to that over and over and over, and fortunately, no one noticed that. There's a song on there called Losing My Religion.

Because it would have been taken away from me for sure. And, you know, at that point, little seeds of doubt were getting supplanted in my brain. And I remember thinking, like, what does it mean to lose your religion? Because everything in my life was based on this love and salvation and reaching these people with Jesus.

And my favorite thing that he would do was he would take us on these walks and where we were situated outside of the town. Like I said, there was a little bit of unsafety outside of the perimeter of this property, and women or girls could not leave without an adult man with them. But he would take us on these walks at night, and it was so exhilarating, not just to leave the property, but kids go at night. And we'd walk up this path.

And where we were situated on this mountain, we were sort of toward the top of our section of the mountain. There was a plateau at the top. And you'd walk along this gravel path up to the top and reach this plateau, and you pass little villages on the way. It's dark, and you're in a little huddle, and you've got your flashlights.

And in the mountains, you know, the wind can really pick up at night. And you'd hear the wind blowing through the grass and trees, and it was so exhilarating. You'd make your way up this gravel path altogether. When you reach the top, stand there, and that wind would just blow right through you.

And for that little time, I wasn't this little girl with all these things happening, all these rules and restrictions. I wasn't battling anything. I was just standing on the top of a mountain with the wind just blowing through me alive. I love those walks.

And I remember one pot walk in particular. It was, you know, a regular school night. He was gonna take us on this walk, and it was really cool because it was actually mostly just the teenage girls from the dorm, though. Teenage boys weren't gonna go with us.

For some reason, some of the younger boys and I remember specifically my little brother was going with us, and he had a new book light that he was gonna use as a flashlight, and he was really excited about that. And so we're walking. We leave the property and go through the fence, and we're walking up the Scrabble path. And it's really particularly fun because as girls, you know, we didn't have to do things like this very much.

And we have Uncle Brad with us and a group of girls and some younger boys walking along. And remember, there was no moon night. It was very dark. And so we had our flashlights and all you see, you know, your feet in front of you and the gravel, feeling the wind.

We're making our way up this path, and there's this turn you make as you're coming up, and then you're gonna make your way up to this plateau. As we're coming around the corner, I look up and I see shadows. And by the time my brain is processing this, I hear screaming. And all around us, these village men are coming running at us, screaming and hollering.

There's a certain way that men initiate tribal warfare in the beginning, where they chant and scream and yell and pound their bodies against each other. And they're doing this, and they've got headdresses and weapons and they're circling us and they're pounding against us. And I'm absolutely terrified and I have no idea what to do. And I'm trying to figure out, I'm trying to remember, what am I supposed to do in the circumstances.

Of course, all that is just gone. And all I'm doing is the one thing I know how to do, and that's that I'm praying, dear God, dear Jesus, please don't let them rape me. Let them kill me, but not rape me. Please, dear God, please don't let them rape me.

And I'm so confused. I look down, my brother's taking his shoes off. I can't figure out why. And I'm looking at everybody's faces and I'm trying to figure out what to do.

And it's really dark, so I think maybe I can make a run for it, you know, maybe I can run off into the brush. Then I think, no, no, that's where they'll get me. They're pin me at the ground, they're gonna rape me, they're gonna murder me, and that'll be the end. And no one will even hear me cry.

And I'm thinking, okay, so the best thing is just to stay with the group. Stay with the group. And I'm totally terrified. I'm in the midst of all this confusion.

I see coming from the shadows, my dorm brothers. And they're laughing. I'm so confused. Why aren't they coming to our rescue?

Or why aren't they scared? And then they say, oh, it was great, you guys were so scared. We were just playing a joke. We were just playing a joke.

I was just so confused. And I'm shaking. I'm looking at Uncle Brad, but he's laughing because I come to find out he had asked the boys to jump out and scare us. They had, because they could leave the property, had gone into the local villagers where they had friends and gathered them up and made headdresses and fake weapons.

They really wanted to make it realistic. And we're standing there trying to process this. And meanwhile, my brother's trying to put his shoes back on. And he's so angry because his book light got smashed in the chaos.

And I don't remember the walk back, you know, but I remember lying in bed and not being able to sleep. And I remember turning the light on and my dorm sisters all gathering around and saying, did you think you were gonna get raped? Yeah, me too. Yeah, I thought so, too.

I was so scared. And we didn't know what to do because Uncle Brad was in charge of everything. There was no one to tell. We knew not to tell our parents and nothing would come with it.

And we didn't wanna harm the work that they were doing in the tribe. So, you know, we comforted each other. We did what we normally did and gave each other back rubs. We settled ourselves down and we went to sleep.

The next day at school, the boys thought it was hilarious and they played such a great joke on us. And we were so stupid for thinking it was a real attack because that's not how it would have gone. And I remember just feeling so betrayed and angry, you know, my brothers, my friends, but they couldn't get it, you know? And I didn't learn a whole lot about Jesus that night.

And Jesus eventually sort of disappeared from my life altogether. But I learned a little about love and I learned a little about salvation. And I learned that it's not going to come from the people you expect it to come from. It's not going to come from your parents and these people in authority.

It's not going to come from stupid boys scaring you in the night. But you know where it did come from? It came from that little bedroom and my dorm sisters and backrobes before bed. And that's still where it comes from.

For my sisters and my friends. Thank you. My soul is over My soul is O My soul is okay I said my soul is O. My soul is a weary and beaten down from all my misery online who will comfort me My soul is open down from all my misery online who will comfort me?

That is all for this week's episode, folks. This is Melody Gardo behind me now. And we just heard from Heather Minter. Our stories this week were edited by Jeff Barr and Marty Garcia.

And to keep up with all our live shows, to find out where Risk is appearing live next, don't Forget to check risk-show.com tour. And if you don't already know, Risk also has a sister company. It's called the story studio. At thestorystudio.org we teach people storytelling skills one on one over Skype or in person workshops in groups in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and New York.

And entire courses that you can download as video courses and take at your own pace in your own time. Not to mention the corporate workshops that we teach to clients like Google and Pfizer and Citibank. That is all to be [email protected] Folks, today's the day. And here goes our 10th year of doing this.

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