This is a transcript of Matthew Dicks’s story, The Promise, at a NYC Moth GrandSLAM.

---

I asked Laura to be my girlfriend on the back steps of our high school. Laura was my best friend, so when I asked her, we made a promise to each other. We promised that we would always stay friends and we would always take care of each other, no matter what happened in our relationship.

I started to lean in to kiss her at that moment, but I realized it was going to be my first kiss ever, and it was going to be hers as well. So, I wanted it to be a perfect kiss.

Three days later, we were leaving for California. Our band was marching in the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day, and Laura and I were taking separate flights. We decided to make mixtapes for each other for the flight. I sat in my bedroom with my finger hovering over the record button, waiting for the perfect Richard Marx power ballad to come on, praying that the DJ wouldn’t speak over the introduction so the song would be perfect. I loaded those cassettes with all of the songs that said the things to Laura that I couldn’t say myself.

But when I got on the plane and pressed play on my Walkman, there was no music on Laura’s cassettes. Instead, it was her voice. It was eight hours of Laura talking to me, telling me stories about her childhood, telling me about her hopes and dreams, reading Shel Silverstein poetry to me, and singing acapella Beatles songs to me. Somewhere over the Rockies, at like 33,000 feet, I fell in love with Laura March.

And I decided she had to have the perfect first kiss. And it was perfect, because the next day we were at Disneyland. We were on the Ferris wheel, at the very top of the circle, surrounded by thousands of people in this beautiful spot, but as alone as two people could be. It was the perfect place to kiss her. And it was at that moment that I realized a perfect kiss is not really dependent upon location as much as technique. And I had never kissed anyone before, so I didn’t have technique. And so, I choked and didn’t kiss her.

But that was okay, because like four hours later, I was on a little stone bridge in front of Cinderella’s Castle as fireworks exploded over our heads. It was perfect, and I choked and did not kiss her. So, I decided that I would kiss her the next day, New Year’s Eve, on the dance floor at midnight. When the clock struck 12:00, I would kiss Laura and we would have the perfect kiss.

That morning, we snuck out of our hotel rooms and went down for breakfast early before anyone woke up. We sat and ate muffins, and Laura told me how she wanted to be just like her father when she grew up. She wanted to own her own business and raise two girls, just like he had done. And I told Laura that I wanted to be a writer someday. It was a dream I had, but I had never said it out loud in my life. She was the first one to hear it. And when we had finished our muffins, we went back to our room. But rather than taking the elevator, we decided to take the stairs in case the band directors were up. It was 14 flights up a Pasadena Holiday Inn stairwell that was sort of gray and smelled like urine and tacos, and it was already hot.

We were up ten flights when Laura told me to stop. I turned around, thinking that she was tired, that she needed to take a rest. But as I turned, she grabbed my face and pulled it to hers and kissed me. When she broke, she looked at me and said, “Can we get on with things now?”

And we did. For two years, we were like the disgusting high school sweethearts, perfect in every way. And if the things that don’t break up couples at the end of high school didn’t break us up, we might be together today. But we kept our promise, the one we made on those steps, and we stayed friends. We took care of each other.

Laura became a business owner and had her two little girls, Ava and Tess. And I became the writer that I wanted to be. Three years ago, Laura called me and said she needed my help. So, I came back to our hometown. We went right back to those steps at our high school, and Laura told me that she had cancer. She told me that she was dying of cancer, and she asked me to be the person who would tell Ava and Tess someday the stories of her teenage years, the time that we spent together.

I promised her I would. I told her that the writer I had become would write down her stories, that we would get together, reminisce, and I would capture every memory she wanted and put it down so I could share it when the girls were old enough someday.

And then, for the next two years, I did not keep my promise. I saw Laura once, but I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing my high school sweetheart wither and die away. I’m looking at Facebook and I see a post from her sister Elena that says, “Laura’s back in the hospital again, and she’s not doing well, but they’re hoping she’s going to get out in time for Easter to celebrate.”

And that’s the moment I decide, “Dammit, I need to do the right thing and keep my promise.” I’m going to go back to my hometown and spend the time I need to capture her stories.

Laura dies two days later. They bury her in a cemetery where I once taught her to drive, on a hill where we once had a blanket and sat, talking about our futures. And I’m terrified to think that Laura wondered if I was going to keep my promise when she was dying. And I’m terrified to think that she died wondering if Ava and Tess would know the things she wanted them to know.

So, I’m going to keep the promise that I made on that day, 25 years ago. And every time a thought of Laura comes into my mind, it gets written down. I just pray to God that I can remember all the ones that she wanted me to remember. And when I meet Tess and Ava someday, I’ll tell them their stories. The first one I’m going to tell is about a hot and stinking stairwell in Pasadena, California, and my first kiss—our perfect first kiss.

---

Disclaimer: this transcript is a product of Youtube-auto-generated transcript and simple ChatGPT cleaning, and I do not own any intellectual property in any shape or form mentioned. The content on this blog is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. While every effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, I make no guarantees about the completeness, accuracy, or reliability of any content. Any actions taken based on the information provided here are done solely at your own risk. I am not liable for any losses, damages, or consequences arising from your use of this blog or its content. Please consult with a qualified professional before making any significant decisions.

This is a transcript of Matthew Dicks’s story, A Mop Sink and Maybe God, at a Boston Moth GrandSLAM.

I’m standing in a mop sink in a tiny closet in the police station in Bourne, Massachusetts. The door is closed, and there’s no light in the closet, so it’s pitch-black. It’s 1993, I’m 22 years old, and I’m about to confess to a crime I didn’t commit.

I came to this police station two weeks ago after a seven-thousand-dollar deposit disappeared at the McDonald’s where I work. After three days of frantic searching, my boss and I determined that it was not going to be found, and I was responsible for it. I accepted responsibility and said I’d pay back what was lost. She said no. She said it’s company policy that you don’t pay it back, and it’s not the first deposit that’s ever gone missing, so don’t worry. I’ll lose about a year of promotions, but I’m a rising star in the McDonald’s managerial career, so she says I’ll be fine. But we have to go to the police station to report the loss for insurance purposes.

So that day, we go, and we meet a police officer. He’s a tall guy, he’s old, and he’s got steel-gray hair. I tell him what happened. I say I brought three deposits to the bank, and only two ended up in the night drop. I don’t know where the other one went. He listens and then says, “We need to go back so I can ask you some more questions.” My boss jumps in and says, “No, no, we don’t think he stole the money. We’re just here to report it for insurance.” He says, “I understand, but we still need to go out back.”

So I go to the back room with him, and I’m in this tiny room with a metal table and chairs. He pushes a piece of paper across the table. It’s my Miranda waiver that I need to sign, which means I’m going to be questioned without an attorney. I’m going to accept that, and I do, because I didn’t do anything. Innocent people don’t need lawyers, is what I’m thinking. So, I sign my Miranda rights away, and he starts to question me. Almost immediately, he gets right to drugs.

He asks, “What drugs do you use, and are you selling?” I tell him I’m not using drugs. In fact, I’ve never used an illegal drug in my entire life. He does not believe that. And I want him to believe it because it’s true. I’ve been on my own since I was 18 years old, and it’s been really hard for me. I don’t have parents, and I don’t have family. I’m living without a safety net. I feel alone in this world, and I made a decision when I was young that I wasn’t going to use drugs because if I had a problem, no one was going to be able to save me. But he doesn’t believe me, and I can see it in his eyes.

But after an hour, he says, “You can go.” As I’m leaving the police station, my boss leans in and says, “What the hell was that?” I say, “I don’t know, but I’m just glad it’s over.” But it wasn’t.

Two weeks later, the police officer calls me again and says he needs me for more questions. So I go back to the police station, and I’m back in that little room with the metal table. Now, there’s another police officer there too. He’s a younger guy, and he’s smiling when I walk in. He gives me a cup of Sprite, and I like him right away. He says things like, “Take your time, it’s fine, think about it.” I get that. I understand. And I’m looking at him, and I start talking directly to him. I think, “He’s such a good cop. He’s not like this bad cop.”

I’m literally thinking good cop, bad cop, and it’s going right over my head, like hundreds of hours of criminal drama, and I’m missing it completely. They’re right back at drugs. “What drugs are you using? That’s the only way you spent seven thousand dollars in the last two weeks.”

I’m telling them again and again, and three hours of questioning go by. Then they say, “We’re going to take a minute,” and they leave the room. When they come back in, they say, “We have no more questions for you. We’re going to arrest you. You got to be arrested for grand larceny.” And they tell me they have a deal. The deal is, I confess to the crime, and I get no jail time. But if I don’t confess, they’re going to push for five years in prison. They tell me I am going to be convicted.

So I decide I’m going to confess. I’m going to confess to a crime I didn’t commit. But there’s a sticking point. They need me to tell them what I did with the money. And I know what they want me to tell them. They want me to say I used it on drugs, and I would if I could. But I don’t actually know where to buy drugs. I don’t even know how much drugs cost.

I don’t know whether to say I bought a gram of cocaine or ten pounds of cocaine. I don’t even know what drugs look like—like which ones come in blocks and which ones come in baggies. Whatever lie I make up about drugs is not going to sound right, and they’re going to know I’m lying. So I’m panicking because I can’t think of a lie. I can’t lie to make these people believe that I’m telling the truth when I’m really lying.

I ask the cops if I can have a minute to think. I think they’re going to leave the room, but they don’t. They bring me down a hallway and put me in a little closet with a mop sink in the floor. They have me stand in that mop sink, and they close the door. I’m in the dark, and I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life. I think there are two people in the world who know I’m in this police station right now, and they’re standing on the other side of the door. They want me in prison.

And I’m just standing there trying to think of a way that I spent seven thousand dollars and have nothing to show for it. And I’ve got nothing. Standing there, I start to think, and I say, “God, should I confess to a crime I didn’t commit?” I’m not a person who believes in God. I’m one who wants to, but can’t. But when I say those words out loud, and I hear them out loud, I realize how insane it is to say I did this thing. For the first time in two weeks, my body fills up with something—like, this is not going to happen to me.

And I push the door open, and I look at that steel-gray-haired man and I say, “No, I didn’t do it, and I’m not going to say I did.”

So they arrest me, and they send me to jail. It’s a long two years before I’m sitting in a courtroom and I’m found not guilty. But that is not my victory day. My victory happens in that mop sink, in that dark closet, when I call out to a god that I don’t really think exists, and he maybe gives me the answer I needed to hear. And somehow, I think in that dark space that maybe I’m not alone.

---

Disclaimer: this transcript is a product of Youtube-auto-generated transcript and simple ChatGPT cleaning, and I do not own any intellectual property in any shape or form mentioned. The content on this blog is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. While every effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, I make no guarantees about the completeness, accuracy, or reliability of any content. Any actions taken based on the information provided here are done solely at your own risk. I am not liable for any losses, damages, or consequences arising from your use of this blog or its content. Please consult with a qualified professional before making any significant decisions.

This is a transcript of Matthew Dicks’s story, Lemonade Stand, at a NYC Moth StorySLAM.

---

My parents didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up. My mom was a disabled pharmacist and my evil stepfather was a psychiatric social worker, which actually enhanced his ability to be evil but did nothing for his earning potential. But I was lucky as a kid because, when it came to managing the meager sums in our house, my parents were exceptionally irresponsible. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, and it was. In a lot of ways, it destroyed our lives and our futures. But at the time, I was a boy, and boys are like goldfish— we can only see nine seconds ahead. So, all of my parents’ irresponsible decisions totally made sense to me at all times.

We were hungry growing up. There wasn’t always a lot of food. I was a free lunch kid, surviving on government cheese. But while we were hungry, we had five dogs at all times. The town limit, I think, was four, but we had five. As a boy, this was great because the only thing better than a dog is a lot of dogs. I loved that we had In Poco, Rags, Meiselmen (who was named after the doctor who did my father’s vasectomy), Polly (who was always getting knocked up by the Pomeranian across the street), and Pac-Man (who was named after my mother’s favorite video game, which she played on the Atari 5200, the most advanced game system at the time). But it was attached to the only television in the house, which was a 13-inch black-and-white TV that, on good days, got three channels. Things just didn’t make sense, but they seemed so right to me.

When I was 10, the furnace broke—like, really broke, like it can’t get fixed—and my parents’ solution was, “We will be cold.” And that worked. They were right; it worked, and we were cold. Then, the pipes started to freeze. The kids were already freezing, but the pipes started to freeze too. Eventually, they had to spring for a furnace. And for the next year, I just remember that birthdays were nothing, there was less food, and the electricity was getting shut off.

So, when I was 11, I decided I was going to take things into my own hands. I was going to change my dad. I was going to earn money for myself, so I opened a lemonade stand. My goal was to earn $100 by the end of the summer, which, at that time, would have been like a million dollars for me. I charged 10 cents a cup, which, if you do the math, means I needed to sell 1,000 cups of lemonade over the course of two months. But things weren’t going well. I lived on a street where cars go by at 50 miles an hour, so they barely stopped.

But one day, a father and son stopped. As I was pouring the lemonade, the kid saw my brother’s X-wing fighter at the top of the driveway. It was Star Wars, and it was the early ‘80s—Star Wars was everything. The kid tells me that he’s collecting action figures and is looking for Bossk. Now, Bossk is a bounty hunter from The Empire Strikes Back. He appears for like one second on screen, has no lines, but he has an action figure. And my brother has it. My brother has every action figure. I’m wearing my cousin Russell’s hand-me-down underwear, and he’s too big, so it’s like a lifetime of chafing for me, but my brother has every Star Wars figure in the world, because priorities are with my parents.

But I get an idea. I go to my bedroom and get my brother’s Bossk figure, and I bring it down. I tell the kid, “Do you want to buy my Bossk?” I offer it for $2, which turns out to be a very low, low number. I didn’t know it at the time, but for me, it’s 20 cups of lemonade that I now don’t have to sell. He buys it, and I suddenly realize I’m not in the lemonade business. I am in the selling-my-brother’s-and-sister’s-toys-out-from-under-them business.

So, I get my brother’s action figures, strip all the Barbie dolls from my sisters, and get those clothes. I start selling the toys to the people who are stopping for the lemonade, and now I’m really making some money. When the inventory gets low, I go next door to my grandfather’s house because he has these great picnics on Saturdays. I start clearing the good food off the tables and bringing it down to the lemonade stand. The fried chicken is unbelievable, and people are buying it.

By early August, I have $100, and I can’t believe it. I put it in this little blue Cub Scout wallet and put it under my pillow for safekeeping. Two days later, I go into my bedroom, and the pillow is pushed aside, and the wallet is gone. I know what happened. I go outside, and an hour later, I find what remains of the wallet. It’s in the backfield, and the money is in shreds, just spread out around the grass. I find six dollars of the hundred. Pac-Man ate my wallet. He eats everything. And my wallet smelled like fried chicken. If my nose could detect the fried chicken, I knew Pac-Man’s could too.

The irony that it’s Pac-Man who eats my wallet is not lost on me. I cry. I cry like I have never cried before. My mom comes to me, and I’m weeping. She expresses the requisite sympathy, but then she reminds me that I still have six dollars, so maybe there should be like a $94 cry and not a hundred-dollar cry. She thinks she’s being funny, but I’m just crying. Then, she gets mad at me and says, “It’s only money. You’re being ridiculous.” She thinks I was saving the money for myself. She doesn’t know that that was like insurance money, that I was going to use that money the next time the furnace broke or the next time the electricity got shut off or the next time there just wasn’t enough at dinner for all of us.

And she’s mad at me because I can’t tell her that I’m trying to save money because I’m living with people who can’t always take care of me in the way that I think they should.

---

Disclaimer: this transcript is a product of Youtube-auto-generated transcript and simple ChatGPT cleaning, and I do not own any intellectual property in any shape or form mentioned. The content on this blog is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. While every effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, I make no guarantees about the completeness, accuracy, or reliability of any content. Any actions taken based on the information provided here are done solely at your own risk. I am not liable for any losses, damages, or consequences arising from your use of this blog or its content. Please consult with a qualified professional before making any significant decisions.

This is a transcript of Matthew Dicks’s story, The Pole Vaulter, at a Moth StorySLAM.

---

So, it’s the spring of 1986, and Coach Cronin has decided we need two more pole vaulters for our high school track team. We have Jimmy Dean, who’s our one pole vaulter. Jimmy is a senior and he’s a stoner, but he’s the best pole vaulter in all of Massachusetts in 1986. He can vault 17 feet and win every meet, but some meets are called relays, and those meets need to have three competitors. All of those competitors in pole vault need to clear opening height, or nothing counts. The opening height is seven feet, six inches.

So, in every one of those meets throughout Jimmy’s entire career, we’ve never scored any points. Coach Cronin decides he’s going to fix it. He’s going to find two new vaulters, so he takes all the mediocre sprinters and all the mediocre long jumpers, and he brings us all down to the pole vault pit to have a vault off.

Now, pole vaulting is an interesting sport. It requires strength, speed, and precision, but mostly, you just have to be crazy. You take a pole, about 12 feet long, and hold one end of it at the end of a runway. You run as fast as you possibly can for 18 steps. During the last three steps, you raise the pole over your head, jam the other end of the pole into a metal box set into the ground, throw your feet directly into the air, throw your head directly to the ground, and pull back on the pole. Theoretically, it throws you over the bar.

I did not vault that first day. I went left, wrenched my knee, and literally ended up in a gully. But the pole was still in my hand. I had not let it go, and therefore, I became a pole vaulter.

Two of us didn’t let go, and so that day, the pole vaulting team, probably the best name for a team ever, was Jimmy Dean, Jack Daniels, and Matthew Dicks.

Fast forward to the first relay. I’d been practicing for about six weeks with Jack, and I’m occasionally reaching opening height. I know all the pressure is on me. Jack is older than me, and I want to be good, because the real secret to team sports is you want to beat your opponent, but what you really want is your teammates to like you. The only way you can get them to like you is to either perform at a very high level or perform higher than the mediocre people on your team. I cannot perform at a high level, so my goal is to beat Jack and hope that he’s mediocre.

I don’t like Jack to begin with. He’s better-looking than me, he’s faster than me, and his name is Jack Daniels, and my name is Matthew Dicks. People look at me and go, “Oh, Dicks?” And I go, “No, it’s like more than one penis.”

And I’d like to complain about my name, but my father, hand to God, is named Leslie, and he goes by Les. I have two uncles named Harold, and they both go by Harry. So, I don’t complain about my name very often.

However, in pole vaulting, there’s a lot of waiting. You wait to vault, and they need to let you know because, like Jimmy, some people aren’t paying attention. So, the way they let you know is the official will announce, “Smith up, Jones on deck, Peterson in the hole.” For me, I would hear, “Dicks up, Dicks on deck, Dicks in the hole,” and it breaks your concentration when you’re getting ready to vault.

I had a lot going against me that day. So, Dicks was up. He was at the end of the runway, and by some miracle of miracles, I made opening height on my first vault. At that moment, I realized I was going to be Mr. Dependable. I was going to be better than Jack, no matter what.

And when Jack missed his first vault, I can’t tell you how good I felt. Then Jack missed his second vault, and for a moment, I thought the sun had come out and shined upon me. But then I realized that if Jack makes his third vault, he becomes Mr. Clutch. And Mr. Clutch is damn well better than Mr. Dependable.

This son of a [__]! I believed, at that moment, had set it up so that all the drama and all the attention would be on him. On his third and final attempt, he would achieve opening height, stealing my win and not allowing me to be better than New Yorker.

So, Jack ran down that runway, and I begged. I pleaded with all my mental energy. I just hoped that Jack would lose. I didn’t want the pole to break, because then he would have an excuse. I wanted something bad to happen.

And it did. On his way up, Jack’s foot kicked the bar, and he failed. I was happy.

Then something terrible happened. My team won the meet, and they won by like 50 points. Jack missing the pole, missing the bar—it didn’t matter anymore. Nobody cared because we beat the team by 50 points.

What I wanted was for us to lose by one point. I wanted to step onto that bus being the guy who cleared opening height, and everyone’s staring at Jack, knowing that I was better than Jack. But because we had crushed the team so badly, nobody paid any attention to me.

So, I learned three very important lessons that day. Number one: Although the world does revolve around me, not everyone notices. I’m sort of trapped like the sun in this pre-Copernican world where everyone refuses to acknowledge that it revolves around me, and I’m just going to have to accept that.

Number two: I learned that while I’ve got my little mind games going, trying to become better than mediocre, everybody else has a mind game too. Some of them actually have noble mind games, like, “I want to win, I want our team to do well, and I want to support our teammates.” And while they’re doing all that crap, nobody pays attention to the rest of the mind games. So, while you’re thinking that the world is revolving around you, it really is only revolving around me, and everybody else isn’t paying attention.

And the third, and really the most important lesson is: You don’t get attention in life by being the best of the rest. You really need to be the best of the best. And that day, and for many subsequent days, I was not.

---

Disclaimer: this transcript is a product of Youtube-auto-generated transcript and simple ChatGPT cleaning, and I do not own any intellectual property in any shape or form mentioned. The content on this blog is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. While every effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, I make no guarantees about the completeness, accuracy, or reliability of any content. Any actions taken based on the information provided here are done solely at your own risk. I am not liable for any losses, damages, or consequences arising from your use of this blog or its content. Please consult with a qualified professional before making any significant decisions.