Part One: Halloween Special: Spooky Stories

Margaret reads Prop two horror stories she wrote.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cools Media. Hello and welcome to cool People did cool stuff,
or as it should be called this week. Margaret didn't
come up with a funny title for spooky Week. That's
that's what it's called. That's what my show is called.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
You are, in fact the cool person who did something cool.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Oh. Thanks, because it's spooky week. And also I'm on
tour and so I didn't write a script. Instead, I'm
going to read you all stories. And by you all,
I mostly mean my friends Prop and Sophie. Hi, how
are you all? Hi?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hey Mac Paisy make the blood sport look easy? It's
going down.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I have been listening. For anyone who doesn't already listen
to Hood Politics with Prop, you're missing out. It is
my favorite keeping up with what's happening in the political
world thing.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I've been telling everyone about this piece you did about
the future of coffee. Yes, all, it could happen here. Yeah,
and how like there's like what twenty seven years left
of coffee? Spot it and that episode covers everything that
people who I don't know people might have already heard it,
but if they, if you haven't, I should go out
and listen to it because it covers everything about like
how the problem was formed, basically everything that's wrong with capitalism,

(01:14):
and almost all of the ideas about how we get
out of that problem, which usually involves like supporting worker
cooperatives in the global South.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, it's all there, dude. Thanks. That was like it's
been simmering for a while because I feel like with
this is this is me continuing to be vulnerable. I
just feel like with like the like it could happen
here team, and you also in a lot of ways,
y'all are like actual writers and journalists. Like I'm a

(01:44):
poet that can rap and just knows a lot of things.
So I'm like, I was always like nervous to be like,
oh okay, So I was like, let me, I better
be thorough if I'm gonna do something for y'all. So
like I I and it was like something that you know,
obviously I'm like super passionate about it. But you're right,
it's like here's here's a microcosm of all that's wrong

(02:07):
with capitalism, colonialism, right, consumerism, you know, all of it,
and then the solution being the shit we've been trying
to say is the solution the whole time just yeah,
cooperates fort each other. Stop seeing people as resources.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
It's almost frustrating how simple the problems really are at
the core of it, because then we still can't do them. Yeah,
you know, like on the large enough scale. Yeah, but
Sophie's our producer. Hi, Sophie, I hey look one to Oh.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Huh, I know, I know.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
It's a great it's as of this recording. It feels
really good.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
It feels really good. We're talking about the Lakers.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
I figured it was a sports thing.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's sports ball.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
It feels really good today.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah at this moment.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Hell yeah. I just keep watching those span atits of
JJ's timeouts and huddles versus Darwin Ham's, and I like
feelverly warm and fuzzy inside.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
So he is now a cool person who did a
cool thing.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Because like, the thing is he took a time out.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yes, the thing is like for the last few years,
we've had a coach who just feels like, just play through,
like and you guys will find your rhythm. So, but
what you normally do.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Is like we never did, we never did.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
What you normally do is like if the other team
is like dog walking you and just like running the
scoreboard up. You try to stop their momentum by calling
a time out like okay, well stop stop stop stop stop,
you know, and hopefully that breaks their zone and then
gives you a chance to like regroup and maybe get
some momentum back. He just never did it. So we

(03:42):
were like so many times yelling at the TV call
a time out, like he's already dead. We're already like
you said. So just in game one while we were
winning beautiful, we just he was like, oh my god,
he called a timeout like I already love you. Just
air missing they won and they won.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, so so all I can say JJ salute man.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I was I have my I have my concerns, but
like you have a suage to my concerns. With one
game one.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Time, we were like, oh are we oh he different?
Are we slightly? Are we slightly safer?

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Like yeah, it's like it's like you dating a person
that finally does the bare minimum of like yeah, no,
I'll cover to day, cover the meal, like what you
know what I'm saying it just really Yeah, you decided
to shower before we went out today, like you know,
like the.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Bar was on the floor and you lifted up your feet.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
The bars on the floor. It's like, oh, oh you different.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, Rory is our audio engineer. Everyon wants to say
hi to Rory. Hi, Rory.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Rory.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Our theme music was written for Uced by Unwoman and yeah,
spooky week. I'm on tour. I'm reading a bunch of
stories as I go around on tour, and it is
prop you've toured. I hear you talk about I have. Yes,
all I'm doing is like waking up, driving for many hours,
reading for a bunch of people, and then going to

(05:10):
a hotel and then going to sleep and then repeating
that yes and yeah. It's also very rewarding and I'm
enjoying the hell out of it.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
But it is. Yeah, there's no like there's no week
days or weekends. Yeah, it's just kind of now. Granted
you're not sweating and throwing your voice out, you know,
which is great, but that's true. Still You're just like,
how do I make this city, make them feel like
this was the first time I've done this? Yeah, And

(05:40):
because it's the first time, they're experiencing it, you know,
and trying to make it special. But it can be like,
you know, wait, what what state is this?

Speaker 1 (05:49):
And the end totally.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah. And then this you know, this Marriott that I'm
staying in with the just the free, the free Continental
egg breakfast that you might as well just flush down
the toilet, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's just gonna run
right through you. But like, yeah, no, I get it well.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
And then it's like I ended up at a you know, somewhere,
put me up in a hotel that I just like,
I just was like I don't belong here, Like I
shouldn't be in this place. Like I'm walking in with
like patched pants and a dog that's afraid of cars,
and just like and they're like, there's valet service. And
I have like this giant West Virginia pickup truck because
my van broke down before I left on tour.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
And I'm like, I don't sorry, guys, I.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Don't know how to I don't know how to do
valet service. And they're like, it's fine, just give us
the keys to your truck.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
And I'm like, like, I I apologize in advance for
when you get into this truck. And yeah, I was
not prepared for anyone else to get into this Corok.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, yeah, I've been I've been living in this truck
for two weeks, so you know, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah for us, it's like if you can climb over
the boxes of merch, yeah, you know, and bags of
sunflower seeds, then yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So all right,
I'm going.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
To read you a story today and then a story. Well,
I'm gonna read you two stories today, but the audience
will hear one of them today and one of them
on Wednesday. And this story, the first one I wrote.
I actually never set out to write horror. The first
time I really got into writing, and then slowly because
I don't watch well now I watch horror, but for
a long time I didn't watch horror because I lived

(07:18):
in a van alone in like the woods a lot
of the time. Yeah nah, I don't need to watch
people like me get murdered all the time. It doesn't
sound fun, you know. And then eventually I realized that
actually most horror movies are me murdering people instead. Because
I moved into like a black cabin in the middle
of the woods.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
You know, you are the yea, you are the fear.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
And then I could watch horror movies again, and and
so I started writing more horror, and this story is
a story I wrote a while ago now, and it's
the title story to my book We Won't Be Here
Tomorrow and other stories. Okay, a story is called we
Won't be Here Tomorrow. Okay. I turned thirty yesterday, and

(08:00):
the thing about being part of a teenage death cult
is you're not supposed to turn thirty. It was a
personal failure on my part, the kind of personal failure
that meant the ghouls of New Orleans were after me.
The night air was alive with the usual white noise
of gunshots and fireworks, and I stalked the cemetery, bouquet
in hand, past row after row of people who died young.

(08:22):
Some were at rest in their own above ground tombs,
others had been crammed into mausoleums. No one ever seemed
to ask why so many gutter rats and punks were
buried in relative luxury in a private graveyard within city limits.
We humans are a relatively non curious species. On the whole.
I laid thirteen white roses on Deirdre's grave. Deirdre didn't

(08:45):
like flowers, but I like flowers. What she doesn't like
doesn't matter, because she's dead, dead and eaten. Everyone I've
ever loved, really loved, not the like. The requisite and
insincere love of child for parent was laid out within
one city blocks worth of marble and cement. Janelle Mariette
Thompson nineteen ninety to two thousand and nine, the girl

(09:08):
I came to New Orleans for who broke my heart
by deciding she was straight after all. She died drunk
on a freight train before I had the chance to
forgive her, before I had the chance to tell her
there was nothing to forgive. Erica Freeman nineteen eighty eight
to twenty thirteen, the next straight girl after Janelle. We
stayed friends. We played in three bands together. The last

(09:30):
one was Dead Girl, Suicide on stage, Blood on the Crowd.
I haven't forgiven her. Jorge Jefferson dead at twenty. Marcel
Smith made it to twenty four, Damian Polanski twenty eight,
Robert Lance, Heather Maria twenty three, each of them, Susie
Hamilton and Suzanne Lanover never saw twenty. Deirdre Hanson nineteen

(09:56):
ninety two to twenty eighteen. I was so sure she
was straight that she had to hit on me for
a year before I let her kiss me. The year
is a long time for people like us. The ghoul Sworn.
We finally kissed down on the levee at a place
called the End of the World. We were old then already.
I was twenty four and it was her twenty third birthday,

(10:18):
and what I got her was goods and services from
our sponsors. That's what you get. Ooho, yo, wild you.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
That was the best I would say in the history.
That was the you got. Because I was so in
this story. I was like, yeah, God, goods, it's wait
what oh like.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yo, take pride in my work.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
I was in like in that was wow, that was good.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Here's the ads and we're back. She spent her twenty
third birthday with me, with just me. Two days after
her twenty sixth she died in a house fire at
a party in the Seventh Ward, along with two other people,

(11:12):
one ghul sworn, one just unlucky enough to hang out
with the doomed. I would have been at the party,
but my truck wouldn't start and my bike had a
flat and I was feeling lazy. So she'd died without me,
and the Ghules put her here and every year on
the anniversary of her death, their back at her corpse
for another little bit of her soul. A knuckle here,

(11:32):
a femur there. They eat bones and they live forever.
And Deirdre was dead, like all of us. Ghulesworn were
supposed to be while we were still young, and our
essence was still strong in our marrow. There I was alive.
It wasn't long until dawn until the ghules would rise
with the sun and haunt me. Haunt me. Already, dogs

(11:54):
were howling, already, there was light on the horizon. One
day soon I'd be and the words Mary Walker were
going to be carved into stone. People go to New
Orleans to die. I didn't want to die anymore. I
had to get going. I had to track down ghosts
and rumors of those who'd escaped. I left the flowers

(12:15):
for Deirdre. Fuck you, Deirdre, Fuck you for dying. It
was Janelle who'd offered me the bargain. This would have
been where I should have done the ad transit anyway.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
N the way you did it was perfect.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
I hadn't been in the city for more than a week,
and she and I had been crashing on the roof
of an abandoned grocery store. That place as of whole
foods now might get torn down by bezos tomorrow. I've
outlived every derelict building I've ever known. Y'all go hard
down here, I told her, after an evening that involved
stealing drugs from a dealer, consuming those drugs, trying and

(12:50):
failing to steal more drugs from the same dealer, and
a roving party that moved through the darker bits of
the city with a generator and a sound system and
a shopping cart. Revelry had followed us like a cloud
overhead dancing debauchery. Sobriety was creeping up on me unwanted,
like a fever, and I wasn't entirely sure how we'd

(13:10):
made it back from the party to our tarped off
overhang on that rooftop. I was eighteen. I don't know
how to describe being eighteen, but you either remember it
yourself or you might live long enough to know. You
want to hear why, Janelle asked, Yeah, we can't go
to jail. What it's gonna sound crazy? She said, bitch,

(13:32):
I was born for crazy. Worse than that, I can't
tell you everything unless you join us. Whatever she was
going to say, I already knew I was going to
go along with it. I thought the sun shone out
of that girl's asshole. I would have followed her into
a wood chipper. Oh to be eighteen again. What's it involved?
I asked, a permanent get out of jail free card.

(13:55):
Cops will look the other way, the courts will look
the other way. In exchange, you gotta die before you're thirty,
like someone will kill me, not unless you turn thirty.
I didn't expect to turn thirty anyway. The way the
world was and is who does survival didn't really seem possible,
so I refused to prioritize it. I'm in that morning

(14:20):
as a ketamine hangover started in on me. Janelle took
me to meet the Ghules for the first time. The
hot winter sun bore down on me, but I kept
my hood up, as if a ratty black hoodie offered
me any sort of anonymity or protection. In the kangaroo pocket,
I fingered my revolver snubnose. Shit for most purposes, good

(14:41):
for killing someone, point blank, good for killing myself. I
walked through the Upper Ninth and everything was weathered wood
and smiling people. Somewhere in the distance I heard the
horns and drums of a second line. This is a
city that knows how to celebrate death whenever. The Ghules
were going to catch me. When not if because I
was too much of a coward to hold that smith

(15:01):
and wesson to my temple. They weren't gonna kill me
so much as they were gonna let me die. I've
been to their dungeons. You lived a twenty five as
a ghule sworn, and they tap you for work down there, sometimes,
probably just to remind you of their power, probably just
to remind you to get on with dying. They were
gonna hang me from chains, and they were gonna cut

(15:23):
me open and remove every bone from my body, one
by one. They were gonna crack me open to the marrow.
They were gonna let me watch. It wouldn't work to run.
The Ghules owned the legal system inside and out. As
soon as I'd turned thirty, they'd set me up as
convicted of every crime they'd ever got me off of.
Once I got popped, there'd be someone in my cell

(15:44):
willing to take a full pardon in exchange for a
knife in my guts. I turned the corner and saw
the levee all handsome and full of birds. A few
dogs ran off leash, while a few happy people passed
a bottle on the grass. My finger found the trigger,
and I know it's bad, but I let it sit.
There no safety on that thing besides the hard pull

(16:04):
of a double action. I needed to die. I didn't
want to die. They live forever, and I was only
going to live a few more minutes or hours or days.
A seagull landed on the concrete ruin under its feet
in red spray paint. Someone had tagged the devil let us.
I stopped and watched that bird, because it was beautiful,

(16:27):
because it was worth the risk. After some time, it
flew off, and I went back to walking. Desmond lived
in a little fortress of an apartment in the heart
of a massive ruined factory, up on the fourth floor.
If you want a view of the water, or of
the city, or really just to see the sun or
the sky at all, you've got to leave that safety

(16:48):
and walk a few hundred yards across trash and needles
and rubble to look out any windows. Desmond says, the
privacy is worth it. Desmond is only twenty two, but
he's been sworn for a decade already. He's second generation.
His mother hanged herself when he was fourteen. I gutted
his father in an alley because I blamed him for
his mother's death. I might have been right. Ever since,

(17:12):
Desmond has been one of my best friends. He undid
about fifteen locks and alarms in active defense systems to
let me into his place. At least three or four
million dollars in stolen lab equipment was barricaded inside. Didn't
think I'd be seeing you again, he told me, from
where he lay on a ragged couch. His pupils had
eclipsed the brown of his eyes. His black skin glistened

(17:35):
with sweat. Despite the relative cool of the room. I
wasn't sure what he was on, But then again I
was never sure what he was on. A vape pen
dangled loose in his hand. The whole place was bathed
in dim lavender light. Even the dozens of led indicator
lights had been modified to glow pale purple. The walls
were wallpapered with flat screens. Most were broken. Some were

(17:57):
playing a carry Grant film. I perched on a milk
crate stool across from him. What do you want dead? Girl.
He didn't turn his face to look at me. You
can't hide out here. Won't work out for either of us.
You give a shit about danger. He took a drag
and let out a cloud of vapor. It smelled like jasmine.

(18:18):
Desmond scent coated his drugs. But I didn't remember there
being a jasmine one. I guess not, he said. His
hands dug into the ragged upholstery, tensing and releasing of
their own volition, and he gasped as something course through
his veins. I can give you something to get out
for good, he said, after his body came back under
his control. Painless euphorick. Even Danny took some last week,

(18:43):
said it was pleasant before she went under. I'm not
trying to die, I said. Life is a death sentence.
Not trying to die. Desmond turned his head and only
his head to look at me. His eyes seemed to
glow in the light. It's too late, dead girl, you
know that right. He turned back toward the ceiling. Avery

(19:04):
got out, I said. Avery was an old gender queer
punk who haunted ghoul sworn bars talking to No One
two years back, twenty nine years old. They'd disappeared. I
hadn't seen their grave, and I hadn't seen them in
the dungeons, dead in the swamps. Desmond said, Gator's got
to eat too. That's not what I hear, I said,

(19:24):
I hear you deal to them sometimes. I hear you
know where they are. He took another drag and convulsed
and filled the room with the scent of flowers. When
did you go coward? He asked? Wanting to live makes
me a coward. No, wanting to live makes you a hopeless,
idiotic optimist. Going to ground makes you a coward. It's

(19:46):
that or what just die?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Go out?

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Like Terry Terry Williams nineteen seventy three to two thousand
and two. She'd set fire to a marine ghulhouse in
the middle of the day, then opened up on everyone
came out of the building with an impressive assortment of
fully automatic weapons. Terry Williams is why we know you
can't kill a ghoul with fire or bullets, I said.

(20:09):
She was also why we knew there were worse ways
to die than having your bones removed and eaten in
front of you. God had been satisfying, though, for a minute.
When she thought it was gonna work, the only way
to hurt them I can think of is to starve
them out. We all assumed they go hungry without us,
though there wasn't any proof. If they ain't eating you,
they'll be eating somebody else. He took another hit. This

(20:32):
time the convulsions kept going for a full thirty seconds.
You gotta try this, he said, offering me. The vape
doesn't have a name yet. It's a fast acting upper
shuts down your motor control intense while it's happening, but fuck,
when you come down, you come down solid, feel like yourself.
I'm good, I said, Live a little, he said, then
smiled at his own joke. I'm good. Here's what you do,

(20:57):
he said. I got it figured out. Let me kill you, which,
let's be real, you should let me do anyway, because
you killed my dad. Only fair. Then there's an old
cement mixer in here. I'll in case your body drop
you in the river. I get to kill you, you
get to die, and gules don't get to eat you.
Everybody's happy except the ghules. Fuck them.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Okay. I'm like, I don't know how to do this
version of the podcast because I'm just loving the story.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, you can interrupt if you want.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
But yeah, no, Like first question, huh, are like these
things exist, like these death cults exist? Like these are
a thing?

Speaker 1 (21:37):
No? No, this is my metaphor for a lot of
my friends in New Orleans have real hard in short lives.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Oh okay. I was like. I was like, if you
don't want to reveal yet, that's great. But I'm just like, yeah, yeah,
you have single handedly introduced me to parts of the
world I didn't know existed.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
I thought I've been pretty well traveled.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Killjoy is laid out a few things where I was like, oh, word,
that's a thing. So so I was like, maybe this
is a thing, you know, So okay, okay, cool?

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, no, no, I feel.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
A little less angsty right now.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah. No, that would be even darker than the reality.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
It'd be so dark. He's like, yeah, you know, I
was a part of one.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
With Yeah, all right, just tell me where to find Avery.
You really don't want to find Avery as a friend,
trust me. Just die. You don't fucking get it, I said.
Desmond shot upright so fast, it was like a movie
skipped some frames. He held a pistol aimed at me,
dead girl, you're the one who doesn't get it. We're friends,

(22:39):
I said, in as calm a voice as I could manage.
Adrenaline started my heart racing, and I knew a panic
attack was on its way if I lived that long.
We are, Desmond agreed. I'm not killing you. You killed
yourself a long time ago when you swore a pact
with demons. This is me just helping another friend not
make a rash decision. Shooting so some one is always

(23:00):
a rash decision. The panic attack hit like a wall
of sound, and it made me question my resolve. Death
felt preferable to panic. Three, he counted. He raised the
gun in both hands and aimed it at my temple
for a man stone beyond reason. He held it steady.
I wanted to vomit. Two I still wanted to live.
I tensed my legs under me. One I sprung at

(23:23):
the ground. He fired, missed. My ears rang. I shot upright,
closed on him, wrenched the gun from his hand, held
it to his temple. A dead girl. We're friends, he spoke,
loud like he could barely hear himself, which was probably
the case. My ears rang, Tell me where to find avery,
I said, just as loud. I won't tell you anything

(23:44):
when you got a gun to my head, he said,
matter a principle. He was right. I dropped the mag
and cleared the chamber. He lifted his vappen and I flinched.
He took another drag, a tiny one. His hands clenched
and unclenched. I sat next to him on the couch
and he passed me the vape. I took a hit,
and my panic intensified for a second before it dropped

(24:05):
away entirely. I was as calm as I'd ever been.
Sometimes that's the way through panic, same as danger. Don't
hide from it, embrace it. Avery's in the swamps, Desmond said,
and they're not dead because they've been living off of
the goods and services that support our podcast, including various
things that you can go vape. I don't know if

(24:28):
vape sponsor us or not. If they do, don't do it. Yeah.
If there are drugs that are being advertised, you should
trust your friends about drugs more than you should trust ads.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
These don't believe it.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Which is saying something because you also shouldn't trust you
friends about drugs.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Your friends have no idea what they're talking about.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, no, that's also true. Well, here's are the rest
of the ads and we're back.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Oh. This lady right was like I don't want to die. Yeah,
but one of the homies was like, but you promised, yeah,
And then he tried to do it, but she joked
him yep, okay, cool, I'm with it.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, and then was like, go tell me where this
person who didn't die, Go tell me where they are at.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Turns out they didn't die, okay, all right, yeah woo.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
The character of a city is shaped as much by
the wilderness around it as it is by its architecture.
The character of a city is shaped as much by
its closest wildlife as by its rulers. New Orleans is
as much a city of cyprus and cormorants as it
is of shotgun houses and ghouls. I cut through the
swamp and a stolen canoe, the white noise of traffic

(25:47):
and people replaced by that of water and wildlife. Avery
lived in a hunting shack built on piers, disguised from
all directions by trees. I parked at their dock, climbed
a few stairs, and knocked at their door. They answered
in aviators, A real tree punk vest and tight black pants.

(26:07):
They looked exactly like I'd seen them perched at that
bar every night for years, except they were paler than
I remembered, and they had a shotgun pointed at my belly.
Fuck you want Mary Walker to live? I said, go away?
How'd you do it? How'd you survive? I ain't survived,

(26:28):
for shit, not yet. I only got a year on you.
That makes you the oldest ghulsworn I've ever heard of.
I said. They couldn't hide their pride. When I said that, look,
can I come in just talk to you? We can
talk out here. They stepped outside and closed the door.
There were no windows. We sat on the dock, feet
dangling over. Their fingernails and toenails were painted the blue

(26:50):
of dead flesh. They spent a good moment lost in thought.
Maybe we can help each other. They said, we'd never
been friendly. Avery and I. Avery hadn't any friends as
long as I'd known them. Rumors said they lost most
of theirs in a gang fight and never bothered finding
new ones. So why the swamps? You know they're afraid
of water. What I've spent the last two years studying

(27:15):
the fucking things learned an awful lot. They need sunlight
to function. They're not just cold blooded, they're unblooded. They're
afraid of water, not because they'd drowned they can't, but
because they'd run out of energy down there where the
sun can't reach. It's over for them. Torpor forever. You're
in the swamps, because if you see them coming, you

(27:35):
sink their boats. Bingo. That's it. Then just hide in
the swamps by yourself, only come out at night. Let
me tell you how to stay alive, Mary Walker. You
cling to life. You claw at it until your fingers bleed.
You tell yourself every time you take a breath that
you're going to live to take another one, that you

(27:55):
will live forever, no matter what it takes, no matter
how much it hurts, no matter how much you hurt
anyone else. You sound like a ghoul in the distance.
Some animal called out like a human, quietly screaming. They
weren't always ghules. They became ghules, each of them individually.
How I asked, you know how the marrow of the

(28:16):
gul sworn. There's more to it than that, but it's
mostly the marrow of the ghul sworn. All the gulls
were once ghul sworn, how can that work? I don't know,
Avery said, it's the chicken in the egg. Chickens though
they eat eggs. Avery was going to try and kill me.
They were going to try to eat my bones. I

(28:37):
put my hands in the pocket of my hoodie and
felt the revolver. I've told you how I survived. Avery said.
Their shotgun was in their lap, and they rested their
hand on the grip. Now you can help me. For
a half second, I considered waiting for them to move
to prove their intentions.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
I drew the revolver, held it to their throat, and
pulled the trigger. The wind caught the mist of the
blood and brought it to my face. I couldn't hear
anything in the wake of the blast. Their eyes drew
open wide, and they started to lift the shotgun because
they didn't know they were dead already. None of us
know when we're dead already. I stood up and kicked

(29:18):
them into the water, and they sank. You were right,
I told Desmond, it's usually best to lead with the apology.
You want me to put you down. We sat on
the roof of his squatted factory. The moon was waning
in the sky above us. I couldn't see many stars,
not as many as I'd seen paddling out from the
swamp with a stack of Avery's notebooks piled in the canoe.

(29:41):
But the lights of the city are stars of their own.
Each one holds a mystery and the promise of life. No,
not that part, I said. You were right about not
clinging to life so desperately. That's the ghoul's life. I'd
rather I wasn't caught up in any of the shit
at all. Sure, but I'd still rather be ghulesworn than
be a ghoul. That's my dead girl, Desmond said. He

(30:03):
took a drag from his pen. The air smelled like rose.
What's that one, I asked, Basically, just speed, he said,
has a worse come down than speed, though I'm still
working on it. You want to hit you're not selling
it well, So what's the plan If you're not gonna
let me kill you? But you're supposedly not afraid of
death anymore. Let's kill ghules, I said, How the fuck

(30:27):
do you kill ghoules? You got a cement mixer, right, Yeah,
it's not me. We're going to drop into the river,
I said. I like the way you think, dead girl,
stop calling me dead girl. I'll stop calling you that
when you're dead, which sounds like it'll be tomorrow. Yeah,
that's about my guess. If we're dead tomorrow, want to

(30:49):
get wrecked tonight? I took one long last look at
the stars of the city. Yeah, I said, yeah, I do.
And that's the story.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Dude. I used to think this this might be just
me being basic that I was like, I don't understand
how a book can scare you, you know what I'm saying, Like,
I was like I don't get it, but yo, you
had me in.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
I was like, thank you.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Where does this stuff come from? Man? Like, yo, like,
give me some game. What are we doing? Kill joy? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (31:23):
All right, So this story, more than anything else, it
comes from, like I think a lot of subcultures, like
like Punkstone, assume they're going to live to be very old, right,
very true, And so you have this thing where you're like,
you hit thirty and then you're like, oh that's cool
now what you know?

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (31:39):
And uh, and actually that's when life gets more interesting
and harder because you actually have to like succeed at
stuff and get things done and help people and yeah,
you know, but but you don't like know that, Like
I didn't know that when I was like riding trains
in my twenties and shit.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of the same with like kind
of like just like street life when you're like like
most most guys, Like even talking to one of my
close friends, he was like, I didn't think I was
going to live past twenty five. I was like, and
if I would, it'd be in jail. So like, I didn't.
I didn't have any plans after this, you know, it
was like, oh, I should get married, man, yeah, have kids,

(32:15):
but like, I don't know, I have no plans after this,
Like I didn't. I didn't think i'd make it.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, yeah exactly, Like oh I should get my teeth fixed.
I like, yeah, oh I didn't. Like I didn't think
I needed those, you know, I work out.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Be healthy, Like yeah, it's happening right now.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, yeah exactly. And a bunch of people I know
have died in New Orleans. And the worst of it
was that a friend of mine named Flee was just
shot kind of randomly, and and at his funeral, everyone
like celebrated in the squat and then slept there. And
then the squat burned down and like, I think seven
people died gosh, and it was just like and I

(32:51):
didn't know. I only knew the person whose funeral it was,
and I wasn't at the funeral. I didn't know the
people who died afterwards. But it was just such a like, oh, yeah,
like this shit's hard. Yeah yeah, oh man, and so
so yeah, no, this is my this is my my
grand metaphor for how a lot of people don't think

(33:12):
they're going to live to be old.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
H Yeah, that's okay, man, that's powerful. Thank you, thanks Magpie.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, I'm going to read you another story from the
same book, but I'm going to read it to you. Well,
i'll read it to you in a couple of minutes,
but I'll read it to everyone else because of the
magic of time, it'll be different time.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
But if folks want to check out more of what
you do, how can they do that?

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah? Prop hip hop dot com has all the things.
The politics will Prop is the podcast, and it's been
quite spicy, and I've had to really work hard to
make it real spicy, giving how boring the political landscape
is these days. So, oh, what do you think is
going to happen.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Wait can I actually wait? So when is this going
to come out? Before the election? Yeah, before the election.
What do you think is going to happen? Not like
necessarily who do you think is gonna win? But like,
what do you think is going to happen? Yeah, closer landslide?
Closer landslide.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
My my thought is it'll be not a landside, but
not as close as we think it's gonna be. And
I think, no matter what, our holidays will be full
of protests and riots. Yeah, Like I just think that, Yeah,
the holidays are they're just gonna suck this year, and

(34:30):
it's just there's going to be chaos and pending doom,
yeah for most of November and December, and no matter what.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
That's the that's the wildest part is that, Yeah, you're like, yeah,
no matter which one of them wins, it's just yeah,
people are gonna be real mad and people aren't gonna
believe it.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
And yeah yeah, and uh I wish it would be
like somebody just gets a whiff of like, you know,
smelling sense and they're just like whoa, yeah what happened? Man? Like, yeah, dude,
I had this horrible dream, you know, like this you know,
be rad if that went down.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
But I don't remember when like the old Republican Party
was the normal enemy that we were all used to.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Well, they're just yeah, like they're just so quaint now when.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
They say cuddly, you know. Yeah, yeah, but they had
to pretend they weren't racist in public, at least at
least they.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Was at least yeah, yeah, they pretended they weren't racist,
and their racism was a type of racism that I
could at least comprehend. Yeah, like you know, like, oh
I comprehend your type of racist. Yeah, you know, you
don't you know what I'm around your kids? Yeah, got it?

Speaker 1 (35:38):
And I'll say actually again for that's just I really
like props podcast that's probably come across, But like you
do a really good job of presenting different people's perspective
on something.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Man.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
You know, I was listening to one you did recently
where it was about this. I actually don't remember the
name of the episode, but you were just like you're
being like, this is what they think they're doing when
they say we hate gay people, or this is what
they say they think they're doing. You did a really
a job of that.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Thanks, Like I really pride myself in that, like like
again being vulnerable, Like I I'm as a in my
own way, a storyteller, Like you have to be able
to articulate multiple perspectives in multiple and that means getting
in those shoes understanding at least, you know, and then

(36:26):
and then to me, the proof of understanding is being
able to say it back, you know. So like you know,
the the jd vance phenomenon. I'm like, obviously I feel
the same way you do, where I'm just like, this
is a douchebag frat boy like that, you know. And and
he's not even like a cool one. Yeah, Sometimes douchebag
frat boys you could be like they're kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Like yeah, drink, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Still he's still kind of fun, you know.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Like, but this dude, I'm like, but I get why
y'all like him, you know, I get why you chose him,
you know. And he's doing the thing like and I'm like, oh,
I see why this resonates, Like because you feel about this,
you know. Now, I don't understand why you fall in
for it. Yeah, but yeah, I understand why you like it.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah. So that's something that like I try to I
try my best to be able to say you know.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, no, and it's it's good and honestly like not
enough of what not enough of what I listened to
does that and does it well?

Speaker 2 (37:23):
And so dude, thank you.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah, anyone who's listening, go check out hood politics. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
So at least you could tell your your uncle Dave, like, no,
I get it, you're dead wrong, Yeah, I get it,
you know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
All right, Well, we will see you all on Wednesday,
and oh, if you're anywhere on the let's see by
the time this comes out, I will be speaking in
Portland in a couple of days on November first with
Robert Evans at Powell's and then I don't have the
rest of my tour dates lined up yet, but I
will be going through California and then through the South
and then up through like probably Tennessee, stuff like that.

(38:00):
So you should check out my substack or my Instagram.
I'll be posting those dates and or saying them on
the show. Want to get them figured out, and we'll
see you all on Wednesday. Cool People Who Did Cool
Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website. Foolzonemedia dot com,

(38:24):
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.