WEBVTT - Get the Money and Run | First Time Out 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.680 Hi, there's Steve Fishman from Orbit Media. You're listening to 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:07.600 Get the Money and Run. Over seven episodes, we're gonna 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.320 learn how Joe Layer became one of California's most daring 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:15.440 bank robbers. We're gonna hear about high speed getaways, a 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:20.720 relentless FBI, about disguise's body doubles, and also about another 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.880 side of Joe. Joe Layer is a soul searcher, a 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:30.240 soul searching criminal, one of the most original criminals in 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.440 true crime podcasts, and I listened to a lot of them. 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:40.040 Today's episode First Time Out Remember to binge All seven 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:45.400 episodes ad free. Subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts. 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.360 Our host and creator is the Great Benedair, producer of 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:55.360 shows like Lost Hill's, Ripple Pulse, The Untold Story. All 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:56.680 right over to Ben? 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:00.640 How much? How do you planned this all out in advance? 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:02.840 But what did you know going into it? How are 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:04.360 you going to go in? How are you going to 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:04.800 get away? 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:05.440 No? 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:05.800 None? 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:06.280 None? 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:09.880 I mean you can't just rob a bank with no plan, 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:10.319 can you? 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.400 What I do remember about the day is this I 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:23.400 started ten. I walked into the first bank, and I 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:29.840 grab a slip and I write we have a bomb, 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.760 just a bank cropper, and I wrote a bank rubbing 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.039 note and then I'm like a fucking I don't want 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.759 to do this year. For some reason, this doesn't feel right. 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:41.720 So I start walking away and as I walk away, 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.760 there's like three cameras on me at the door, and 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.000 I realized, I think I could have been busted. Right 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:50.720 if anyone just kind of like you know, zoomed in 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:52.840 the guy who was writing something on the back of 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.520 that slip, they could have seen I was trying to 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:59.000 rob that bank. So I wrote my next one, next 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.200 note at McDonald's, just run it there. And I would 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.800 walk in the banks and I would leave them all 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.160 day long, you know, Like I would walk in and 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.920 I would stand in line, go a couple of steps up, 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:13.120 A couple of customers would be going and I was like, nah, 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:15.320 that I don't got a feel for this. I'd walk in, 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.960 I'd see you know guards, Noah, God, I swear to 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.840 God man. I probably nibbled a little bit of food 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.720 from every fast food joint available at the time, KFC, Wendy's. 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:27.400 If this was a short film, it would be a 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.560 comic film because you would see me going in there, Okay, 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:31.959 I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. And the 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.960 next thing, you see me drinking coffee at McDonald's. You 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:36.560 see me, Okay, I'm gonna do it. I gonna be 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:38.600 all fucking nerve you in there. The next scene, I'm 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.639 biting the whopper at or like it would just be okay, 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.160 let's do it, let's do it, Taco Bell, do it, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:48.200 let's do it, Wendy. It was like fucking hilarious. 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:51.919 Where were you feeling inside? 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.280 Fear? I was just like, at this point, I'm not 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.400 going to jail, just standing in line thinking about robbing 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.679 a bank. When I go do the next thing, this 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.280 is the real thing. So I know that on the 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:08.119 other side of this is a payoff, a big payoff, 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.160 because when you run past your fear, then it cannot 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.760 harass you anymore. On this side of it, it's a big, dark, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.240 menacing curtain and it's saying, try to come back here, 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:21.560 see what the fuck's gonna happen, And you're like, I 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.480 don't know if I want to open that curtain. Oh fuck. 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.880 Once you open that curtain, that curtain fucking evaporates. There's 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:28.400 no more curtain you could turn around like, where's that 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.919 freaking curtain? It was menacing me. There's no curtain, And 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.040 that's what you have to do. You have to push 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:34.920 past your fear to get to the next level. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.640 Right now, walking in and out of these banks all 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.040 day staring at that curtain. 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.320 Oh, that curtain is just like taunting me, you fucking punk. 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.120 And I knew that I had this in me where 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:47.960 I could cough up a nutsck and do something if 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.160 I need to do it now. All day I wasn't 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:54.040 coughing up the nutsack all day, I was not calling 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.920 up my courage. It would just go somewhere. We only 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:58.600 get me so far, and then it would peter out. 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:00.280 But it was like this point, I was like this, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.080 so we're doing it. We're doing it right now. Fuck 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:04.640 all the bullshit, Let's go do this. 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:21.920 Part one, first time out. Okay. So I'm sitting here 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.040 in the studio. This has been adare and I'm sitting 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.920 here in the studio with Joe Loya. Hi Joe Joe. 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.240 Today you're wearing a sort of a black pullover shirt. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.520 You have got black glasses, silver goatee. You normally you 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.680 have a City of Oakland baseball cap, right here on 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.920 the chair next to you. How do you describe yourself 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:40.440 to people? 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.320 I say I'm fluffy. I mean, I don't say I'm fat, 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.520 but I'm very heavy. I mean you're living, Yeah, living, 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:49.719 I'm existing large. 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:50.760 I don't know why to liver you. 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:56.440 Yeah, so I'm I'm a thick man, Mexican man, dark skin, 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:57.359 you know, in a. 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.520 Late fifties, late fifties. 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:00.800 Yeah, easy to say. 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.960 I mean, looking at you now, you're charming. I don't 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.520 think people would understand that you used to break school 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:08.359 records and track. 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:12.760 Though nobody's get into My friend Danny Diego Swan City, said, man, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:17.200 you look like you ate that guy I showed on 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.640 the photo of me when I was eighteen years old. 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:21.880 He says, man, you look like you ate that guy. 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.440 I mean, which, that's what I look like. But let's 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.280 get back into it. It's nineteen eighty four. You've never 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.800 robbed a bank before. You've committed crimes, but mostly small stuff, fraud, 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:36.120 stealing cars. Enough that has gotten the attention of the cops. 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.520 You're wanted by police. So you've been hiding out in Tijuana. Uh, 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.200 You've driven up to San Diego from Tijuana. You're in 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.039 a stolen car, and you're walking in and out of 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.520 banks all day. But now it's deadline time. 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:56.320 HM. Okay, So finally four forty five, I gotta rob 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.000 this bank. I know it. There's no getting around it. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.160 We're doing it right now. I don't have a choice. 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.560 I stand in line, have my note and go to 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:09.520 the line and say, how are you doing, sir? I said, 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.320 I'm fine. How you doing is? I'm walking over Let 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.000 everybody like see us, and then let not pay attention 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.279 to us. And as I walk up there, I slide 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.160 the note here, she puts it. I put it down 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.040 on the table. I slide it to her. She looks 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.159 down at it, and she reads it and reads it 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.839 and reads like has plenty of time to have read it, 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.719 turned it over, copied it, turned it back over, read 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.479 it again, like too long. So I reached forward and 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.080 I realized I got to get her attention. So I 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.440 grabbed a note and I move it around a little bit, 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:44.119 like hey, let's do something about this, And she still 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.200 won't look up. So I had to pull the note 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.440 away from her because I realized, oh shit, I've given 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.520 her something to distract her. She does not want to 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:54.800 look up. And she doesn't have to look up. So 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:56.760 I tried to pull the note back, and she tries 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:58.599 to pull the note to her. And when she's pulling 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.000 the note, we're doing this a little bullshit war. Now 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:06.640 I'm just fucking pissed. So I lean forward and say 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.640 I'm not fucking around. I'll jump the counter. And I 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.559 reached down like I got a gun, and I pat 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:19.000 my waistband like I'm coming over. I will fuck you 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.040 up for this bullshit stuff. And it was in that 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.320 moment she looks up and just with my eyes I 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.960 menace her. And then when she looked at me, she 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:28.680 saw I was serious. She opened her drawer and just 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:32.480 gave me the money. Now, I put on the table 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.440 on the counter, I put a fanny pack. I start 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.560 throwing the money in it, and then I tell her 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:39.440 good I walk away. 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.320 So then you get the money, you take the fanny 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:46.440 you pick up the fanny. 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:47.880 Pack, walk away with my family was zipping it up. 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.520 I'm walking away like I just did banking. I'm not 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.280 like running. I'm not like I just robbed the plane. Now, 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.600 no energy other than you know, walk away. I turn 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:58.640 around to walk out of the bank, like I'm a customer. 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.760 Just finish my transaction. I get to the door, and 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.160 before I can even walk out the door, somebody yells 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.600 he robbed the bank. He dropped us. And so I 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:16.640 start running, and I mean I run. I'm bending it over, 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.640 driving my arms and I'm high stepping it, and I'm 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.440 running to the far away. At the end of the block. 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.160 I knew there was a trolley station a cab there, 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.640 and I jumped into the cab, pulled away from these 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.000 guys kept looking back and they were like in the beginning, 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.440 they were chasing after me in earnest, and then they 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.000 realized there's no catching me this this jack Rabbit's gone, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:41.000 gone gone. So get in the car, tell him to 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.120 get me to Sanya Sidro. He drops me off on 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.520 the other side of the freeway in Santa Cidro, and 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.640 then I walk over a bridge to where I had 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:56.640 my hotel room. So again inside my room, and obviously 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:58.960 the first thing I'm excited to do is figure how 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:00.720 much Monday. The guy looked like a lot of money, 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.480 and so I start counting the money. I break up 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.599 the twenties, the fifties, one hundreds of five. It's the 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.360 ten is that I always did, and then I say, okay, 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.000 that's count it because this looks good, and sure enough, 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:21.800 forty five hundred dollars a man of glory felt glorious. Okay, 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.960 so already when I was in college, I used to 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:26.920 think I did this math and thought, you know, I'm 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.080 gonna get out of college. I'm gonna do four years. 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.520 I'm going to be working through college because we don't 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:34.559 have a lot of money. And when I get out, 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.200 what do I think I might get start off at 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.600 forty thousand dollars, maybe fifty if I'm lucky. I don't know, 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:42.000 but I don't think that I'm going to make a 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:43.800 lot of money, and then I'm gonna have to do 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.800 that over a year of work. And one of the 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.040 reasons I went into crime was I thought, no, a 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.439 guy who has that kind of gumption, he should be 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.360 getting paid buckets of money. I felt like, this, this 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.120 is what my time is worth. So this money already 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.760 felt so much better. It felt like I got it 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.600 based on my wit, on my ferocity. I was getting 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:12.400 paid for fucking heart. And also I love the cleanness 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.000 of it. Like everyone's like, oh, okay, we're gonna go 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.200 do this game where we exchange money all the time 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.080 and life, and then we all die. Here I'm gonna 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:23.760 get it. Here's a paycheck, and okay. Then here I'm 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.120 gonna go buy food, and we're all exchanging money and 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.280 then we die. And I felt like, man, we've been duped. 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.520 This is no way to fucking live. But if we're 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.360 gonna be having exchanges of money, let's make it this way. Hi, 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.400 you have a lot of money, give me your fucking shit. 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:41.720 Now it's my money. Buy Just give me the money. 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.560 That's what I want by It's just clean, and it 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:50.160 was fast, and it was commiserate to my time. That's great. 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.160 I love getting four thousand, five thousand dollars for five 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:54.800 minutes of work. I felt like that's I should be 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.760 getting that every day of my life, every five minutes 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.280 of my life. So I was happy. It was like, 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.480 I don't have to be a petty criminal ever again. 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.480 I never have to steal a snicker bar, a shirt, 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.679 I never have to defraud anybody. I owe somebody fifty bucks, 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:12.880 I get to give them fifty bucks. I get to 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.559 be honorable now and in my life except for this 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.600 one thing, because I'm a bank robber. Now, I'm gonna 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.280 rob Banks. That's all I'm gonna do too too. 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:34.680 We'll be right back Part two. Mama's Boy. Not to 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:36.760 be out telling me about your mother. But what was 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:38.800 life like for a young Joe growing up? 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.120 Okay? So I was born in East Los Angeles, the 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:48.559 old Matavia housing projects, back in those days. My parents 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:50.520 were sixteen when I was born. My mother had just 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:55.000 turned seventeen when I was born, and so my mother 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.199 and dad found other. My mother was pregnant. They went 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.040 to their parents and parents said, you're getting married. They 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:03.360 were in tenth grade. Sid, You're getting married. And it 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.400 was a loving home, cool, loving home. The love story 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.400 that I was raised in with my parents, They've loved 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.480 each other since twelve. Everyone loved them. I was raised 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:14.240 in that love story. I was raised in the love. 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.360 We went to church, and our church was our life 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.920 at that time. I was raised with Bible stories. I 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.480 was raised at church camps. I was raised pot lucks Man. 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:24.880 I was raised in the church, and I was raised 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:26.560 with a dad who wanted to be a preacher, and 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.000 he had a love of language. He was he was 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:33.120 very smart and he was devoted to learning. Everything was 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.240 cool until seven. I turned seven, by that time, we'd 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:38.800 moved out to People Rivera and my mother got sick 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:58.679 as always. Man, this always gets me, man. I remember 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:04.000 my mother got a job at the Sears tower over 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:05.920 here on the Olympic. I don't even know if the 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.199 Seers buildings still there, but there's be a big Sears 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:10.920 building there, and she got in the typing pool because 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.360 she apparently she was like she was a typing folio man. 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.880 But what I remember about that is my dad would 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.560 would go warm up the car. My dad would go 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.839 warm up the car outside. This in the days when 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:27.959 you weren't afraid someone was just gonna steal your car, right, 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.160 you would go warm up the car, you know, turn 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:32.000 the heater on in there cause it's cold. It was, 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.840 you know, it's early morning, like three or four. Maybe 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:36.760 it was it was four or five, who knows, but 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:41.080 it seemed super early, dark cold. And then he would 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.000 wrap us up inside and they would take us and 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.040 carry us to the car. We leave you in the back, 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:46.920 leave sleeping. That was also in the days when you 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.520 didn't need to buckle your kids in the backseat. And 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.079 then he would take my mom and I remember I 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.160 would get up and I would look out and there 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.559 was fog over there by the by the La River 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:57.120 when you would go over like First Street or one 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:03.760 of those bridges in La and Uh, and I remember like, wow, 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:05.720 this is weird. It's like when you see those old 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.400 movies and like Casablanca and there's this fog going behind 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:09.840 its dark. 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:10.480 It was like that. 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:14.000 But it was early morning, and and she was a 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:18.000 sharp dresser, you know, I remember looking sharp. That's one 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.200 of my first memories. But it's not until he's seven, right. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.240 She was already sick then, and very sick, and he 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.560 didn't know, and she was just tired. She thought it 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.200 was just because of her work whatever. And she had 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.520 to take a physical. That's when the doctor was like, 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.760 oh shit, something's wrong. And then she was in and 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.240 out of the hospital like our life was just gone. 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.240 What it's just it was topsy turvy after she got sick. 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.800 I remember once I visited her, and I hated that hospital. 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.120 I had the smell. I hated being there. I hated 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.080 her shuffling over to us and her chunk laws and 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.200 her little you know, the hospital dressing they had. I 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:07.920 hated her smell of spongebat. I hated it all the 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.840 bee being all that stuff. Man, it brings back crazy 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:22.520 feelings of helplessness. Remember when she was in junior High, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.080 she had been voted, you know, tower Queen of Griffith 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.880 Junior High. She was beautiful when she got sick. The 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.160 medications that they gave her made her look like she 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.600 was nine months pregnant. But she also got really skinny 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.760 and gaunt everywhere else, and she lost the body in 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.560 her hair. She got dark circles under her eyes, and 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.760 you know, she could barely move. She kind of shuffled 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.880 when she was home. She was feeble. She was so 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:52.680 drugged up. Her back. I would scratch her back sometimes. 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.520 She loved to scratch her back. And I stayed home 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:55.440 and I was sick of a lot. I was a 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.400 sickly boy. So I got to spend time with my 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.760 mom and I would scratch her back and I would 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:01.800 go I had this. I knew the pattern of her 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:03.400 back that I get scratched. Because I was I would 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:05.920 scratch her back. I would come across this rough skin. 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.360 I realized, Okay, I'm going into the little volcano head. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.160 Of the boat. Bomb the boil. 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:13.120 Let me move around it. And I would just find 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.160 the pattern and scratch her back, and she loved that 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.200 on her wrists, the vein was raised on the wrist 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.400 because they were constantly putting needles into it so that 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.320 it almost looked like you could see you could see 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.320 the blood flowing through it. It was really creepy. And 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.040 then her mind left her. Periodically, it would leave her, 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:36.480 and in dramatic ways. So one day we came home, 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.360 you know, like we always did. Mothers still in the 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:42.720 hospital that day. So Thursday, but we're outside playing basketball, 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:45.880 me and my brother Paul, my cart some of the 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.840 other fellas, and I get called in to my grandma's Hey, man, 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.640 come on up, I come on up. But I knew 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.520 something was strange because there's people in the house, all 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.160 dressed up, people from church, family people, and this doesn't 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.600 happen during the week. A week night, Thursday night. I'm like, 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:03.880 I don't know what's going on. I have no clue. Really, 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.320 I'm a clueless nine year old boy. This is what 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:12.080 I was. And my dad comes in and everybody moves 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:16.199 towards my dad and there's this like somber hugs whatever, 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.239 and nobody's trying to reveal to us what's going on. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.680 Yet we're just dopey boys our life about to intersect 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:27.359 with Chance like a motherfucker, and he comes. He gets us, 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:28.680 He walks in the room. We sit down on my 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.480 grandma's bed, and then he tells us that, you know, 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:35.520 my mom's you know, I see her again. She she died, 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.280 she's in heaven, and yeah, it breaks it to us 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.600 that she's dead and it's just us. And I remember 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:47.840 thinking that I was gonna be strong for some reason. 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.280 I felt like I need, I need to be strong 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.080 for this. And I tell my dad that I'm not 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.840 going to cry, So don't worry, I'm not gonna cry. 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.239 I'm strong, gonna be strong. He goes, no, you know 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.080 you need to cry. You know, men cry, He says, 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.199 you know, And then you went their little list. George 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:13.120 Washington cried, Moses cried, Abram Lincoln cried like, wella shit, 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.440 all right. I said, yeah, you know, King David cry, 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.879 you can cry. And so after he lays down this 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.200 list a bunch of cry babies, I feel like I'll cry. 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:30.600 So I cry and then it comes. You know, it's heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.959 and then Paul's crying, my Dad's crying, And it was 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.560 actually one of the best moments of my life in 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:44.959 that the feeling you get when my dad leaned forward 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.399 and pulled us into him and it was just us 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:53.000 and we're all crying, and we just become this one 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:58.840 spasm of anguish and pain and and there's this unity 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:03.719 of our grief around the same thing. And it's one 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:05.840 of the most beautiful moments I've ever had my dad, 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:13.159 because around this morbidity, the death of my mother is 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.879 also one of the most erotic feelings that you have. 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.679 But I erotic, I don't mean sexual erotic. I just 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:23.679 mean feeling like just all this emotion and all this 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:28.000 body chemical stuff going on. You're crying and you feel 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:33.040 near to this people. You're literally hugging and touching and 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.680 crying and shedding tears and kissing each other. It's a 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.439 moment of unity. It was like a for brief moment, 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:47.240 all the pain that we've been struggling with is she's gone. 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.560 There's relief in that moment, and we had just cried 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:55.240 our eyes and our heart out and it's huh and 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.639 he gives us to come and he says here, and 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.919 we're all like he's giving It is like breaking breads. 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.720 It fucking it's our thing. Right, So now we got 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.040 a physical thing that we can all physically do together 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.400 for a little ritual here, and he says, we're gonna 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.040 be fine. We're gonna do this. We got this, we got. 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:44.119 We'll be right back. Part three, Mama's gone. Do you 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.159 remember the first time your dad hit you? 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.200 No? I man, I just feel like it was always 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:58.280 hitting me. I just it was Wow. It's like asking 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.240 a fish to just the properties of water, right. I 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.000 don't know where he knows that. It's like I was 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:16.119 always I was always getting hat there was a moment. 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:20.000 For example, my mother had to have been ill at 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.120 this time, and I had to memorize my multiplication tables. 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:25.560 And my dad would do this thing where he wanted 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:27.680 us to be the smartest kids in the class because 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.399 we were scholarship kids and we were the brown kids. 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:32.440 He wanted us to be better and smarter than the 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.440 other kids. So sometimes he would make us do things 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:39.879 that we weren't yet learning. So like, for example, multiplication tables, 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:41.520 I hadn't got there yet, but he wanted me to 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:44.119 know them, and I had to memorize all one hundred 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.199 and forty four you know, one timeands one, all the 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.520 way to twelve times twelve one forty four, and he 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:50.240 wanted to learn me to learn like in a day 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.960 or whatever. He comes home and uh and test me, 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:56.720 and he tells me for everyone I miss, I'm gonna 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.960 get two spankings. It's like he wanted perfection because he 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:02.399 felt if I didn't get it right then that man 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:04.760 I was lazy. That man I was being on discipline, 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.359 which means I was also being refractory. I was just, 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:11.520 you know, rebellious kid for not learning. I missed five 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.680 you know, the five year always going to miss nine times? 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:18.560 He a times. There's like there's someone always get me right. 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.680 I just kind of figure them out. And then he's 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.919 going to hit me ten times with the belt, and 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:27.680