June 2, 2023 • 37 mins
The sleep of Dr. Mark Sturgis, a popular professor in a small, Midwestern university, is disturbed by a recurring nightmare the same hour as one of his graduate students is murdered in his office. Based on the intuition of a dogged by inexperienced local detective, Mark becomes the primary suspect. But is this a case of investigative tunnel vision that could let the real killer go free?
The first clues for the listener to piece together come with psychiatrist, empath, author and dream expert, Dr. Judith Orloff who discusses the importance of nightmares and Sitting Bull's great-grandson, Ernie LaPointe, who offers insight to the human condition.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Superstition and jealousy.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Superstition and jealousy.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Okay, okay them with your car, with your car.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
I'm on international frequently.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Come here, tell me what you want. I'll tell you
what you are.
Speaker 5 (00:33):
There was a time when eating class.
Speaker 6 (00:37):
Madison, stream of tune, sturdy first dam in any first
leven kids.
Speaker 7 (00:41):
Kid, do you indeed think that either there is life
on other planets?
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Stop?
Speaker 7 (00:46):
This would be more effective at midnight and pounding winds
and crushing thunder, And even then it wouldn't frighten anyone.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
The flames cleanse my soul of evil, of it's lust
for blood.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
My second.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Welcome to Ean Punnett's Vaudeville for the Frightened, a fresh
mix of audio, art, music, interviews and fiction that will
have you wondering what is there to be afraid of?
Here's the Deacon of the Dark, Ian Punnett.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
I'll be honest with you up front and tell you
this whole project is project is so messed up. It's
so twisted, twisted that it reveals to me that I
might be I might more messed up and more and
more twisted than I realized I realized. This podcast series
(01:53):
is deeply personal. It reflects how I think, how I
view the world, how I collect memories, and how I
process them. Few things motivate human beings more than fear.
Fear may be at its most potent when we're just
(02:13):
scaring ourselves. Open a door to a completely lightless room
and people will be reluctant to cross the threshold. Turn
on a light and show them that there is nothing
to be afraid of. Turn the light off again, and
(02:35):
then ask them to spend thirty minutes alone in that
room with the door closed, and very likely they still
won't do it, even though they know that nothing is there.
Recently I talked with Ernie Lapointe. He's the great grandson
of legendary Lakota chosen one the spokesperson Sitting Bull, credited
(02:59):
with being the inspiration behind the annihilation of General George
Armstrong Custer's troops at the Battle of Little Big Horn
in June of eighteen seventy six. Ernie described how he
used to be controlled by fear and how his Lakota
(03:19):
tradition helped him recover from the PTSD he carried with
him every day after he served in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
My mother told us stories about my great grandfather, his
life when he was a little boy and everything. She
always says, don't be like anybody, be like yourself and
never have fear. Don't fear anything. She says, if you
don't fear anything, you're gonna learn to be who you are.
So that's how I grew up as no fear, you know,
(03:51):
and learning from the elders. And then we went to
we moved to the city, and then I the rapid
city and then I was enrolled into school there. There's
so much atrocity that I had to go through, like racism.
People didn't like me because of who I was, right,
they didn't liked me because I spoke Lakota. I had
(04:13):
to speak English, you know. English is my second language.
We we our souls come in and habit this body.
Our body is a classroom and it's like, uh, we
have to balance the ecosystem and our bodies, which is compassion, generosity, humility, fortitude,
and humor. And you have fear too, but you don't
(04:33):
let that come override you. So but most of the
people that that I grew up around, the non native people,
they had more fear than anything else. Yeah, and again
later on I learned through ceremonies that when the American
the European encroachment came here, they come from all different
(04:55):
nations of their German, French, Spanish, right and all this,
but Dell car that carried the concept of fear with them.
That's why they started channel lipe usund you know, killing
us sure, because they feared us. They fear Emerty.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
By the end of these eight episodes, Bernie Lapointe will
share the vision he received for the future. By that,
I think you'll really need that.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
I know I did.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
But first, let's explore our fears with a fiction that
is based on a true story. Many true stories actually intertwined,
only with minor name changes and locations left out and
a few details added in, but all forced in one
way or another on top of the fear. And although
(05:49):
I am writing, producing and directing this series, I will
not be appearing as a voice actor very often in
my own collection of audio art, because I'm not tell
did that way. This main character is not me. It's
not even a.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Version of me.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
It might be an alternate version of me. I don't
know me in another universe, an alternate universe.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Fear and Justice are just two of the themes of
the Bottom of the Box. We'll get to the first
episode in the first series of this vaudeville for the Frightened,
performed by the Wildcat Community Theater of the Air, next.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Then Punts Bob Zory for the fronting usual yers to
Fight Your Fears Series one, the Bottom of the Bucks.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
And then the memory of that night came to me
in that dream again. It's night before Thanksgiving nineteen years ago.
Mal already had her doctorate and had been offered a
great new job, but I was still working on mine.
(07:39):
She's the genius, not me. Mal and I were heading
down on I seventy five south to Tampa from Atlanta
with our new baby, Alva, named after my wife's grandmother.
We called her Avi. It had been a tough pregnancy.
Avi was not short for Alva, as some people thought,
(08:03):
but rather the avocado, a funny nickname that Mal and
I started when she was a few months along and
beginning to show in those early years before the bills
began to pile up. Finding the avocado was our cheap entertainment.
(08:27):
Mal would lie on her back and I would rub
her stomach, looking for the avocado size bump that was
beginning to protrude. Months later, when Alva was born premature,
she was so small and slightly greenish that our little joke, well,
(08:48):
it just wasn't funny for a while. I swear there
was a moment when both of us wondered whether all
that joking about the avocado had resulted in Alva developing
avocado life characteristics. Seriously superstitious, I know, especially for two
egghead academics. But turns out the baby was born with
(09:09):
a slightly perforated intestine and needed emergency neonatal care, which
meant even more money. After that, I think calling the
baby the avocado again became our way of affirming that
everything was all right, our way of dealing with the
trauma we went through. But that's just us, that's just
(09:31):
how we did things. Inside. Jokes are our love language.
We often talk in a kind of code that we
developed over the years, just so we could crack each
other up inappropriate places. When mal was pregnant, I used
to draw the adventures of Avi the Avocado and her
(09:52):
little brother Rowley Guacamole on her stomach with a sharpie
before going to sleep, almost losing her. Though we decided
one kid was enough, and I got of a sectomy
almost right away. We actually mourned the loss of having
another child, but only because the thought of putting rolely
(10:14):
guacamole on a birth certificate would have been just so awesome. Anyway,
the memory that haunts my dreams started just after Avi
was born and everything changed. I really wasn't prepared to
be a dad yet anyway. I was afraid that I
(10:35):
wouldn't measure up as a husband or a father. I
would look at Mal and Avi and smile, but inwardly
I was panicking or feeling so detached that I just
wanted to move to the Yukon and start life all
over again. Ten percent of all new fathers experienced postpartum depression,
(11:00):
and I was the one. I just wanted out. Mel's
parents had bought a life insurance for us as a
baby present, which meant both of us who were now
worth more dead than alive. I don't know who this
guy was I was looking at in the mirror. I
(11:20):
just knew it wasn't me, and although I wasn't feeling it,
I knew intellectually that a good dad would keep his
wife and daughter safe. I could barely sleep for fear
that people would know my secret about how detached I
(11:43):
was with what was going on around me. I was
obsessed with appearances. Along with a gift of money for
my parents, we threw every penny, including our first house fund,
into a small old Volvo station wagon because I was
still finishing school, which was a drag in our finances,
(12:04):
and Mel's pregnancy, which kept her from being able to
start earning money, and all the bills about the surgery.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
I felt like a self pitying victim if I didn't
get my PhD, I didn't know what I was going
to do, and my dissertation wasn't coming together yet. It
was just all piling up on me so much that
we decided I really needed to see family, show off
the baby get a great meal. So we loaded up
(12:38):
this little station wagon with luggage, portable cribs, toys, play rugs,
a bascinet, a state of the art stroller, and a
car seat that looked like something that a pilot ejected
in from an F sixteen. We didn't have any money
(12:58):
for a hotel for the eight hour trip to Tampa
from Atlanta, so we just decided to take turns driving.
Because of all the luggage and the baby stuff, there
were only two places to sit, the driver's seat and
a small bed area in back that Mal had made
(13:19):
out of blankets and coats behind the back seat in
the station wagon. This way one of us could tend
to AVVI and catch some winks while the other one drove.
We got in a late start, and I'd been up
early working on my dissertation, so I only lasted a
few hours before I had to pull over and let
Mal drive for a while. We had promised my folks
(13:43):
that we would be there for breakfast, so we had
to hustle. The only place I picked to switch our
seating position seemed perfect at the time. Just north of Valdosta,
there's a turnoff on the highway with a lighted area
used to have a gas station, not anymore. As I
(14:04):
drove into that gravel and broken concrete, I could see
the remnants of some cement forms where the gas pumps
used to be. The remaining street light swayed just above
a pole that appeared to have once held a Texaco sign.
The whole area was surrounded by wild bushes covered by kudzu.
(14:29):
I took one more look around to make sure we
were alone. That opened to the driver's side door, stepped
out and stretched. Because of the way we had packed
the car with Avi's car seat in the middle and
stuff on either side to leave space for a tight
sleeping area behind the back seat, and our new station wagon,
(14:50):
Mal could not even open her door from the inside.
I had to open her door quietly so we didn't
wake the avocado, and Mal started the ginger process of
climbing out over her makeshift sleeping berth and stepping over
Avi's over large car seat and sliding out the side
door while I steadied her with my hand. Since we
(15:15):
had enough gas to make it to a formal rest
stop further down I seventy five, and neither of us
needed to use the bathroom, I handed Mal the keys,
stepped over Avi's car seat in a forward arching position
and sort of flopped quietly into the tight coffin squeezed bedspace,
(15:38):
and squirmed around to get comfortable. Mal shut my door
very slowly, essentially entombing the baby and me for another
leg of the trip. But then nothing happened. I was
expecting to hear the sound of the car driver's side
door shut and then start and for us to be
(16:00):
on our way, but there was nothing. The car dome
light was on, so I knew her door was still open.
So I sat up the best I could in that
cramp space, and I crooked my head over my left
shoulder so I could see where she was. And there
was mal five or six feet away from the Volvo
and walking toward a man in baggy clothes with a
bloody nose, which was visible under that old street light.
(16:27):
I have no idea where this guy came from. It
was like it was like he fell out of the
sky or was hiding in the kudzu. I didn't even
see another car yet he seemed to be mumbling for
whatever temporary insanity had overcome Mallet. Two in the morning,
at an abandoned, desolate gas station with a new baby
in the back seat. She was cupping her hand around
(16:49):
her left ear, leaning forward as she's walking toward the
guy who was bleeding profusely down his face and all
over his shirt. Get in the car, I said to myself.
I would have said it out loud, but I didn't
want to attract attention to the baby in me. And
I couldn't even have gotten out of the car. If
(17:12):
something had gone south, Mal, get in the car, I
whispered louder out her door, almost like a prayer. Mal
was it within like I don't know, like six feet
of this guy. When she turned around and started walking
back toward the car, that's when I finally understood what
(17:36):
was happening. Now that she was walking back towards me,
I could hear her through the open car door say, well.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
I don't know if I have a Kleenex, but I
might have a wet ones.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
I was incredulous, and I was trapped. Mal, Get in
the car, I said louder, and she kept muttering about
wet ones.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
Maybe I've got a Kleenex or some napkins, but I
definitely have a wet ones in the door.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Here, Okay, listen, uh, Mal, get in the car, Get
in the car, I repeated louder with every step she
took closer to the door.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Get in the car.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
And that's when I noticed the man in the baggy
clothed in the bloody nose was beginning to make his move,
whatever that was going to be. As he stepped more
into the light, I got a great look at his face,
and there was something definitely wrong with the way that
he was looking at her with mouth's back to him.
(18:48):
He slowly started to walk toward her, and this time
Mal heard.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Me, get in the car. What what are you doing?
Get in the car.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
And at that moment I broke whatever hypnotic spell she
was under. Mao looked back at me.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
And said, yeah, sure, okay, But it was too.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Late because I was so focused on keeping Mal closing
her door, starting the car, and driving us out of there.
I didn't see that that monster had pulled out a gun.
I didn't see him pointed at Mal. I just suddenly
heard the gun go off and watched the interior of
(19:39):
the station wagon go crimson, with blood spraying everywhere. Just
as Mouth slumped over the center console. As Avy woke
up screaming crying, the man in the baggy clothes and
the bloody nose pivoted and locked eyes eyes.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
On me as I yelled, no, no, please, She's just
a baby, mel God no, and.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Then the killer looked at me while I begged, turned.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
And walked away.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Wake up, Mark, you're having a nightmare again. That's the
tenth time this semester. We're fine, I'm right here.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Oh God, it's just so real. It's just how I
remember it. I can still see his face and how
he looked at me, kind of confused.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Sh Except we didn't die, Mark, You saved us. You
saved me, You saved Avi. You didn't die. You kept
yelling get in the car until I came to my senses.
I closed the door, turned on, the ignition started, the car,
floored it, and we got out of there.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
I was just so powerless. It was moving so fast.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
Sh You weren't powerless. You played it just right. The
baby was never in danger. I don't know what came
over me that night. I think I just felt sorry
for the guy. But you kept your cool and you
saved us. Please stop torturing yourself for something that didn't happen.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
Okay, what time is it.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
Alexa, what time is it?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
It is two thirty eight d M.
Speaker 6 (21:44):
Can you get back to sleep. I need to get
back to sleep. And the Avocado's okay. You swear to me,
You swear to me. You're not dead, Mark, sweetie. If
I were dead, I wouldn't need to go back to sleep,
and either would you. Obvious is away at school. Everything
is fine, good night.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
I'm just so afraid of having that dream again.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
I can seeing Octopus's garden to you if that will help.
That usually helps.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Maybe later, if I can't get back to sleep.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
Then just keep telling yourself. My wife thinks I'm a hero.
My wife thinks I'm a hero.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
My wife thinks I'm a hero. My wife thinks I'm
a hero.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
M m.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
M hmmm.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
What now?
Speaker 5 (22:54):
I'm really sorry I woke you.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Fred?
Speaker 8 (23:03):
What's going on?
Speaker 7 (23:04):
Yeah, good morning at doctor Sturgis. It's not sorry for
the early hour. This is Detective Brody from town. Can
we come in and ask you a few questions?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Sure, Fred? But why all the doctor formalities all of
a sudden made something wrong with Avy?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
No?
Speaker 7 (23:23):
No, no, I'm sure Abvy's fine, Doctor Sturgis. Detective Brody
just has some questions.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Okay, does this have something to do with the university?
Speaker 8 (23:35):
Do you mind if we record this?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
What I mean?
Speaker 5 (23:40):
Sure, as long as you tell me what this is about.
Speaker 8 (23:43):
This is a recorded interview with doctor Mark Sturgis on
September twenty second, at six fifty two am. Doctor Sturgis
has not been mirandized. Doctor Sturgis, where were you last
night at two thirty am?
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa slow down. I just woke up.
I was sleeping next to my wife. Why do you ask,
doctor Mallory Sturgis.
Speaker 8 (24:06):
She's a professor of criminology on campus two. Doctor Sturgis's
on the same campus. This is going to get confusing.
Is your wife a light sleeper, doctor Surgis? Can she
confirm you were here all night?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
She can?
Speaker 6 (24:20):
And I am mark Is the heavy sleeper. Good morning, Fred, coffee.
Speaker 7 (24:25):
Good morning doctor Sturgis. Don't go to any trouble for me.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
Oh, doctor Sturgis, All of a sudden, no trouble. I'm
making a pot for myself, Sergeant Lueger, because I woke
up to a loud cop show in my living room.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
Apparently, well, Dr Sturgis, this is Detective Brody with Metro.
Speaker 8 (24:46):
She has some questions.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
Would you like some coffee too, Detective Brody?
Speaker 8 (24:50):
Doctor Sturgis, How can you be so sure that doctor
Sturgis was sleeping next to you last night? See that too.
Doctor Sturgis's thing is very confusing.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
Because he woke up around two thirty this morning screaming.
That was only four hours ago. I remember it like
it was just, you know, only four hours ago. How
about that I have a recurring nightmare about what It's
rather personal, he keeps dreaming I get shot in the head.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
I'll have some coffee too, thank you. Black is fine,
so doctor Sturgis, how often do you dream of killing
your wife every day?
Speaker 5 (25:30):
That would be an unfair characterization. It is a recurring nightmare.
I can barely get to sleep some nights for fear
of it coming back. It seems so real. I love
my wife. I would never dream of hurting. Well, okay,
and you know.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
What I mean.
Speaker 8 (25:48):
You once reported that a hunting rifle in your possession
had been stolen. Did you recover it and do you
still own a rifle?
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Yes, it was stolen out of my cabin on Box
Turtle Lake alone, along with some other items, and no,
I never recovered it.
Speaker 8 (26:04):
I love the Box Turtle Lake area. It's gorgeous up there.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
I was raised on a farm, but I'm a converted
city girl now. To me, rustic just means a lot
of work.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
I have not owned a rifle since Detective Brody. It's
just too easy a rifle and animals. It just wasn't sporting.
Speaker 8 (26:21):
But you still kill people in your dreams.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
People are animals, especially in faculty meetings on a college campus.
He's not the killer in the nightmare, Detective. Trust me,
He's the most loved professor on campus. No matter what
I do, no matter how long I've been here, I
mostly thought of as Mark Sturgis's wife.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
That's not fair, but Detective, I've tried to be cooperative,
but this has not started well and we're just not
getting anywhere. So here's how the rest of this is
going to go. Either you tell me everything that is
going on as your recorder runs, or I'll call a
lawyer and I'm pretty sure that he or she will
(27:02):
tell me that I shouldn't say another word.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
Here's your coffee? Should I put on another pot?
Speaker 8 (27:08):
Who is Mary Ka Campbell.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
One of my grad assistants? And you did not answer
my question?
Speaker 8 (27:17):
Thank you, doctor stir just this is great coffee.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
I'm still waiting for an answer, Detective Brody.
Speaker 8 (27:23):
How would you describe your relationship with Mary Kay Campbell?
Speaker 5 (27:28):
Professional? Encouraging, a vuncular, beneficial to the department. But watch me,
here's me getting up to find my phone orderline. Romantic,
not even close, and I think we're done here. Did
you want it to be romantic, mal can you have
(27:50):
me in my phone? What was the name of the
lawyer that helped us close your mother's estate?
Speaker 7 (27:54):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (27:54):
Wilson? Do you need the number?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
No?
Speaker 5 (27:56):
I saved it under contacts. I just couldn't remember her name.
Thank you.
Speaker 8 (28:00):
Okay, here's the story. The campus is closed until further notice.
Mary Kay Campbell was shot last night, probably by an
AR fifteen, while she was sitting at your desk in
Francis Hall. Nobody heard anything except the window glass shattering.
The bullet appeared to have come from the woods behind
your building on Metro property. It smashed through the window,
(28:23):
then sliced through your high back leather office chair and
ripped through her body. We found the round lodged in
one of the boxes on the floor, and we'll be
rushing that through the crime lab today for preliminary results.
She was dead before her head hit the desk. The
email she had just started on her laptop was to you.
(28:43):
She only got as far as dear mark. She had
struck I on the keyboard when she was killed.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
Is that all that was in the email? Sorry? That's
the criminologist in me.
Speaker 8 (28:54):
I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Did do you think she knew who her killer was
too early to tell.
Speaker 8 (29:00):
I guess we could interrogate the gray matter that we
pulled out of the bottom of the boxes in front
of your desk. Maybe it knows something.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
Has anybody called her parents? I think I should be.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
The one to do that.
Speaker 6 (29:11):
Do you have any idea who could have done this?
Wouldn't it have been some yokel poaching deer with a
flashlight in the woods behind campus.
Speaker 8 (29:18):
We don't think it was random because it was a
perfect sniper shot and nobody heard the gun go off.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
So other than the name and the email, and she
was sitting at my desk, what does any of this
have to do with me?
Speaker 7 (29:31):
Yeah, well, we got an anonymous call this morning at
campus security. This tipster suggested that, well, that you might
have been involved.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
That's absurd.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
Fred Mary Kay was a great kid. We never had
any conflicts between.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
Us romantically involved. The tipster implied that it was well
known on campus that two of you were having an affair.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Okay, that is ridiculous. I'm happily married. Everybody knows that
I'm a respected member of the campus community.
Speaker 8 (30:03):
That's a non denial denial.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
To be clear, then I completely deny the insinuation.
Speaker 6 (30:11):
Mark.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Okay, look, I have no idea what they're talking about.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
You know that.
Speaker 8 (30:17):
Really, then, it's just a coincidence that at the exact
time last night you were dreaming of your wife being
shot in the head, your girlfriend actually was.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Okay, girlfriend, you bastard. This interview is officially over. Get
out of my house.
Speaker 8 (30:36):
We'll leave. But you should know that you're giving off
this very weird, defensive guilty vibe.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
You do not know me well enough to make that judgment.
Now get out before you do give me something to
feel guilty about.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
Another non denial denial, just between us.
Speaker 7 (30:53):
What's he supposed to say?
Speaker 5 (30:59):
That's episode one of the Bottom of the Box. So far,
I count two boxes. I mean, if you don't count
the box Turtle. There's the box into which part of
the victim was ejected in Mark's office, and then and
then there's getting boxed in by an investigator's questions that
(31:21):
can too easily lead to the worst kind of box,
the ones with bars on the windows. Ernie Lapointe thinks
that boxes are just another way of understanding fear. Next
on Vaudeville for the Frightened.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
He in Punts bob Zeries for its fronting usual ers
to Fight Your Fears Series one, The Bottom of the Box.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
Ernie La Pointe thinks that boxes are just another way
of understanding fear.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well, you know, that's one of the basic messages that
have is fear, because if you can't, you know, it's
really hard. I know, I know, I've explained it to
some guys. I have a friend of mine I explained
it to. And you know, when when you're older, it
(32:34):
gets harder. You have to start them when you're young,
like I was, you know, and let them grow into fearlessness.
Don't fear anything. As long as you don't have fear,
you know, there's nothing that that any dark energy is
not going to affect you because they're going to be
afraid of you. I mean, they're not going to mess
(32:56):
with you. And we have a we have a term
of this entity we call a sacred evil, which capitalizes
on fear of human beings when their spirits and all
of us knew each other in the spirit, well one
time we all were positive. We come to learn. But
(33:16):
somewhere along the road, maybe your parents, your grandparents, your peers,
or somebody put fear into you. When your parents came here,
they brought the square with them. Everything is square, the
houses are square. Their their religions comes from a square
They learned items come from a square book. The American society.
(33:38):
When they die, they're buried in a square a hole,
you know, a square box because the mother nature the
hardest to break through that box and get their nutrients
to renew life.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
You know, need more boxes than I care to count.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Well.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
Having to choose between recurring dreams so scary fear going
to sleep or living a nightmare from which you cannot
wake is its own kind of box, if your pardon
the cliche. Imagine being the deer caught in the headlights
of an oncoming car. Which do you regret most, Jumping
(34:18):
into the middle of the road or being unable to
jump to the other side as your fate comes at
you at one hundred miles an hour. Coming up next
on Vaudeville for the Frightened, Doctor Mark Sturgis finds out
firsthand just what there is to fear about our justice system.
(34:40):
Plus About ten years ago, I had a Christmas Eve
conversation with my friend doctor Judith Worloff, while I was
wrapping presence Jesu a psychiatrist, an author, an EmPATH and
dream interpreter, and Judy once told me that we can
learn more from our our nightmares than we can from
(35:03):
our dreams.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
And I feel that the subconscious is very compassionate in
that it keeps giving us the same dreams to wake
us up. And then my message tonight is I hope
everyone could take the opportunity you know too, even though
they're scary. We're so discomfort phobic in the society. It's
anything that's uncomfortable people right from.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
But we need, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I encourage everyone to stick with it. I work with
my nightmares, my own nightmares. Everyone has nightmares, and I
think it's the healing power of the body to purge
the dark.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
In episode two of the Bottom of the Box Spatter Matters,
you can always reach the Deacon of the Dark on
Twitter at Deacon Punnett, D.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
E A co O, N p U and N E.
Speaker 6 (35:54):
T T.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
I'd love to hear more about your fears. This episode
of Vaudeville for the Frighten featured Andrew and Jen Smith,
Gabrielle Warrender, and our friend and announcer Ed Weigel Plus
playing the part.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Of Alexa was sirie Go Figure.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
The theme for Vaudeville for the Frightened was written by
Andrew Clark and performed by Ryan Winters and Pistol Beauty.
Original music by Colby Van Camp, engineered by Jacob Cummings,
Dawson Wagner, Colby Van Camp, Mason Kamara and Adolfo Blanco.
Special thanks to Marjorie Punnett Corney, Cole, Lisa Lyon, Chris Borrows,
(36:39):
Bill May, Tom dan Heiser and Julie Talbot and as always,
thank you Joe Bradmeyer. This has been a fourth Down
and Ten productions.
Superstition and jealousy.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Superstition and jealousy.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Okay, okay them with your car, with your car.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
I'm on international frequently.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Come here, tell me what you want. I'll tell you
what you are.
Speaker 5 (00:33):
There was a time when eating class.
Speaker 6 (00:37):
Madison, stream of tune, sturdy first dam in any first
leven kids.
Speaker 7 (00:41):
Kid, do you indeed think that either there is life
on other planets?
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Stop?
Speaker 7 (00:46):
This would be more effective at midnight and pounding winds
and crushing thunder, And even then it wouldn't frighten anyone.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
The flames cleanse my soul of evil, of it's lust
for blood.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
My second.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Welcome to Ean Punnett's Vaudeville for the Frightened, a fresh
mix of audio, art, music, interviews and fiction that will
have you wondering what is there to be afraid of?
Here's the Deacon of the Dark, Ian Punnett.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
I'll be honest with you up front and tell you
this whole project is project is so messed up. It's
so twisted, twisted that it reveals to me that I
might be I might more messed up and more and
more twisted than I realized I realized. This podcast series
(01:53):
is deeply personal. It reflects how I think, how I
view the world, how I collect memories, and how I
process them. Few things motivate human beings more than fear.
Fear may be at its most potent when we're just
(02:13):
scaring ourselves. Open a door to a completely lightless room
and people will be reluctant to cross the threshold. Turn
on a light and show them that there is nothing
to be afraid of. Turn the light off again, and
(02:35):
then ask them to spend thirty minutes alone in that
room with the door closed, and very likely they still
won't do it, even though they know that nothing is there.
Recently I talked with Ernie Lapointe. He's the great grandson
of legendary Lakota chosen one the spokesperson Sitting Bull, credited
(02:59):
with being the inspiration behind the annihilation of General George
Armstrong Custer's troops at the Battle of Little Big Horn
in June of eighteen seventy six. Ernie described how he
used to be controlled by fear and how his Lakota
(03:19):
tradition helped him recover from the PTSD he carried with
him every day after he served in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
My mother told us stories about my great grandfather, his
life when he was a little boy and everything. She
always says, don't be like anybody, be like yourself and
never have fear. Don't fear anything. She says, if you
don't fear anything, you're gonna learn to be who you are.
So that's how I grew up as no fear, you know,
(03:51):
and learning from the elders. And then we went to
we moved to the city, and then I the rapid
city and then I was enrolled into school there. There's
so much atrocity that I had to go through, like racism.
People didn't like me because of who I was, right,
they didn't liked me because I spoke Lakota. I had
(04:13):
to speak English, you know. English is my second language.
We we our souls come in and habit this body.
Our body is a classroom and it's like, uh, we
have to balance the ecosystem and our bodies, which is compassion, generosity, humility, fortitude,
and humor. And you have fear too, but you don't
(04:33):
let that come override you. So but most of the
people that that I grew up around, the non native people,
they had more fear than anything else. Yeah, and again
later on I learned through ceremonies that when the American
the European encroachment came here, they come from all different
(04:55):
nations of their German, French, Spanish, right and all this,
but Dell car that carried the concept of fear with them.
That's why they started channel lipe usund you know, killing
us sure, because they feared us. They fear Emerty.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
By the end of these eight episodes, Bernie Lapointe will
share the vision he received for the future. By that,
I think you'll really need that.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
I know I did.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
But first, let's explore our fears with a fiction that
is based on a true story. Many true stories actually intertwined,
only with minor name changes and locations left out and
a few details added in, but all forced in one
way or another on top of the fear. And although
(05:49):
I am writing, producing and directing this series, I will
not be appearing as a voice actor very often in
my own collection of audio art, because I'm not tell
did that way. This main character is not me. It's
not even a.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Version of me.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
It might be an alternate version of me. I don't
know me in another universe, an alternate universe.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Fear and Justice are just two of the themes of
the Bottom of the Box. We'll get to the first
episode in the first series of this vaudeville for the Frightened,
performed by the Wildcat Community Theater of the Air, next.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Then Punts Bob Zory for the fronting usual yers to
Fight Your Fears Series one, the Bottom of the Bucks.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
And then the memory of that night came to me
in that dream again. It's night before Thanksgiving nineteen years ago.
Mal already had her doctorate and had been offered a
great new job, but I was still working on mine.
(07:39):
She's the genius, not me. Mal and I were heading
down on I seventy five south to Tampa from Atlanta
with our new baby, Alva, named after my wife's grandmother.
We called her Avi. It had been a tough pregnancy.
Avi was not short for Alva, as some people thought,
(08:03):
but rather the avocado, a funny nickname that Mal and
I started when she was a few months along and
beginning to show in those early years before the bills
began to pile up. Finding the avocado was our cheap entertainment.
(08:27):
Mal would lie on her back and I would rub
her stomach, looking for the avocado size bump that was
beginning to protrude. Months later, when Alva was born premature,
she was so small and slightly greenish that our little joke, well,
(08:48):
it just wasn't funny for a while. I swear there
was a moment when both of us wondered whether all
that joking about the avocado had resulted in Alva developing
avocado life characteristics. Seriously superstitious, I know, especially for two
egghead academics. But turns out the baby was born with
(09:09):
a slightly perforated intestine and needed emergency neonatal care, which
meant even more money. After that, I think calling the
baby the avocado again became our way of affirming that
everything was all right, our way of dealing with the
trauma we went through. But that's just us, that's just
(09:31):
how we did things. Inside. Jokes are our love language.
We often talk in a kind of code that we
developed over the years, just so we could crack each
other up inappropriate places. When mal was pregnant, I used
to draw the adventures of Avi the Avocado and her
(09:52):
little brother Rowley Guacamole on her stomach with a sharpie
before going to sleep, almost losing her. Though we decided
one kid was enough, and I got of a sectomy
almost right away. We actually mourned the loss of having
another child, but only because the thought of putting rolely
(10:14):
guacamole on a birth certificate would have been just so awesome. Anyway,
the memory that haunts my dreams started just after Avi
was born and everything changed. I really wasn't prepared to
be a dad yet anyway. I was afraid that I
(10:35):
wouldn't measure up as a husband or a father. I
would look at Mal and Avi and smile, but inwardly
I was panicking or feeling so detached that I just
wanted to move to the Yukon and start life all
over again. Ten percent of all new fathers experienced postpartum depression,
(11:00):
and I was the one. I just wanted out. Mel's
parents had bought a life insurance for us as a
baby present, which meant both of us who were now
worth more dead than alive. I don't know who this
guy was I was looking at in the mirror. I
(11:20):
just knew it wasn't me, and although I wasn't feeling it,
I knew intellectually that a good dad would keep his
wife and daughter safe. I could barely sleep for fear
that people would know my secret about how detached I
(11:43):
was with what was going on around me. I was
obsessed with appearances. Along with a gift of money for
my parents, we threw every penny, including our first house fund,
into a small old Volvo station wagon because I was
still finishing school, which was a drag in our finances,
(12:04):
and Mel's pregnancy, which kept her from being able to
start earning money, and all the bills about the surgery.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
I felt like a self pitying victim if I didn't
get my PhD, I didn't know what I was going
to do, and my dissertation wasn't coming together yet. It
was just all piling up on me so much that
we decided I really needed to see family, show off
the baby get a great meal. So we loaded up
(12:38):
this little station wagon with luggage, portable cribs, toys, play rugs,
a bascinet, a state of the art stroller, and a
car seat that looked like something that a pilot ejected
in from an F sixteen. We didn't have any money
(12:58):
for a hotel for the eight hour trip to Tampa
from Atlanta, so we just decided to take turns driving.
Because of all the luggage and the baby stuff, there
were only two places to sit, the driver's seat and
a small bed area in back that Mal had made
(13:19):
out of blankets and coats behind the back seat in
the station wagon. This way one of us could tend
to AVVI and catch some winks while the other one drove.
We got in a late start, and I'd been up
early working on my dissertation, so I only lasted a
few hours before I had to pull over and let
Mal drive for a while. We had promised my folks
(13:43):
that we would be there for breakfast, so we had
to hustle. The only place I picked to switch our
seating position seemed perfect at the time. Just north of Valdosta,
there's a turnoff on the highway with a lighted area
used to have a gas station, not anymore. As I
(14:04):
drove into that gravel and broken concrete, I could see
the remnants of some cement forms where the gas pumps
used to be. The remaining street light swayed just above
a pole that appeared to have once held a Texaco sign.
The whole area was surrounded by wild bushes covered by kudzu.
(14:29):
I took one more look around to make sure we
were alone. That opened to the driver's side door, stepped
out and stretched. Because of the way we had packed
the car with Avi's car seat in the middle and
stuff on either side to leave space for a tight
sleeping area behind the back seat, and our new station wagon,
(14:50):
Mal could not even open her door from the inside.
I had to open her door quietly so we didn't
wake the avocado, and Mal started the ginger process of
climbing out over her makeshift sleeping berth and stepping over
Avi's over large car seat and sliding out the side
door while I steadied her with my hand. Since we
(15:15):
had enough gas to make it to a formal rest
stop further down I seventy five, and neither of us
needed to use the bathroom, I handed Mal the keys,
stepped over Avi's car seat in a forward arching position
and sort of flopped quietly into the tight coffin squeezed bedspace,
(15:38):
and squirmed around to get comfortable. Mal shut my door
very slowly, essentially entombing the baby and me for another
leg of the trip. But then nothing happened. I was
expecting to hear the sound of the car driver's side
door shut and then start and for us to be
(16:00):
on our way, but there was nothing. The car dome
light was on, so I knew her door was still open.
So I sat up the best I could in that
cramp space, and I crooked my head over my left
shoulder so I could see where she was. And there
was mal five or six feet away from the Volvo
and walking toward a man in baggy clothes with a
bloody nose, which was visible under that old street light.
(16:27):
I have no idea where this guy came from. It
was like it was like he fell out of the
sky or was hiding in the kudzu. I didn't even
see another car yet he seemed to be mumbling for
whatever temporary insanity had overcome Mallet. Two in the morning,
at an abandoned, desolate gas station with a new baby
in the back seat. She was cupping her hand around
(16:49):
her left ear, leaning forward as she's walking toward the
guy who was bleeding profusely down his face and all
over his shirt. Get in the car, I said to myself.
I would have said it out loud, but I didn't
want to attract attention to the baby in me. And
I couldn't even have gotten out of the car. If
(17:12):
something had gone south, Mal, get in the car, I
whispered louder out her door, almost like a prayer. Mal
was it within like I don't know, like six feet
of this guy. When she turned around and started walking
back toward the car, that's when I finally understood what
(17:36):
was happening. Now that she was walking back towards me,
I could hear her through the open car door say, well.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
I don't know if I have a Kleenex, but I
might have a wet ones.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
I was incredulous, and I was trapped. Mal, Get in
the car, I said louder, and she kept muttering about
wet ones.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
Maybe I've got a Kleenex or some napkins, but I
definitely have a wet ones in the door.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Here, Okay, listen, uh, Mal, get in the car, Get
in the car, I repeated louder with every step she
took closer to the door.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Get in the car.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
And that's when I noticed the man in the baggy
clothed in the bloody nose was beginning to make his move,
whatever that was going to be. As he stepped more
into the light, I got a great look at his face,
and there was something definitely wrong with the way that
he was looking at her with mouth's back to him.
(18:48):
He slowly started to walk toward her, and this time
Mal heard.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Me, get in the car. What what are you doing?
Get in the car.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
And at that moment I broke whatever hypnotic spell she
was under. Mao looked back at me.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
And said, yeah, sure, okay, But it was too.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Late because I was so focused on keeping Mal closing
her door, starting the car, and driving us out of there.
I didn't see that that monster had pulled out a gun.
I didn't see him pointed at Mal. I just suddenly
heard the gun go off and watched the interior of
(19:39):
the station wagon go crimson, with blood spraying everywhere. Just
as Mouth slumped over the center console. As Avy woke
up screaming crying, the man in the baggy clothes and
the bloody nose pivoted and locked eyes eyes.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
On me as I yelled, no, no, please, She's just
a baby, mel God no, and.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Then the killer looked at me while I begged, turned.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
And walked away.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Wake up, Mark, you're having a nightmare again. That's the
tenth time this semester. We're fine, I'm right here.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Oh God, it's just so real. It's just how I
remember it. I can still see his face and how
he looked at me, kind of confused.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Sh Except we didn't die, Mark, You saved us. You
saved me, You saved Avi. You didn't die. You kept
yelling get in the car until I came to my senses.
I closed the door, turned on, the ignition started, the car,
floored it, and we got out of there.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
I was just so powerless. It was moving so fast.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
Sh You weren't powerless. You played it just right. The
baby was never in danger. I don't know what came
over me that night. I think I just felt sorry
for the guy. But you kept your cool and you
saved us. Please stop torturing yourself for something that didn't happen.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
Okay, what time is it.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
Alexa, what time is it?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
It is two thirty eight d M.
Speaker 6 (21:44):
Can you get back to sleep. I need to get
back to sleep. And the Avocado's okay. You swear to me,
You swear to me. You're not dead, Mark, sweetie. If
I were dead, I wouldn't need to go back to sleep,
and either would you. Obvious is away at school. Everything
is fine, good night.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
I'm just so afraid of having that dream again.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
I can seeing Octopus's garden to you if that will help.
That usually helps.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Maybe later, if I can't get back to sleep.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
Then just keep telling yourself. My wife thinks I'm a hero.
My wife thinks I'm a hero.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
My wife thinks I'm a hero. My wife thinks I'm
a hero.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
M m.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
M hmmm.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
What now?
Speaker 5 (22:54):
I'm really sorry I woke you.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Fred?
Speaker 8 (23:03):
What's going on?
Speaker 7 (23:04):
Yeah, good morning at doctor Sturgis. It's not sorry for
the early hour. This is Detective Brody from town. Can
we come in and ask you a few questions?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Sure, Fred? But why all the doctor formalities all of
a sudden made something wrong with Avy?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
No?
Speaker 7 (23:23):
No, no, I'm sure Abvy's fine, Doctor Sturgis. Detective Brody
just has some questions.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Okay, does this have something to do with the university?
Speaker 8 (23:35):
Do you mind if we record this?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
What I mean?
Speaker 5 (23:40):
Sure, as long as you tell me what this is about.
Speaker 8 (23:43):
This is a recorded interview with doctor Mark Sturgis on
September twenty second, at six fifty two am. Doctor Sturgis
has not been mirandized. Doctor Sturgis, where were you last
night at two thirty am?
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa slow down. I just woke up.
I was sleeping next to my wife. Why do you ask,
doctor Mallory Sturgis.
Speaker 8 (24:06):
She's a professor of criminology on campus two. Doctor Sturgis's
on the same campus. This is going to get confusing.
Is your wife a light sleeper, doctor Surgis? Can she
confirm you were here all night?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
She can?
Speaker 6 (24:20):
And I am mark Is the heavy sleeper. Good morning, Fred, coffee.
Speaker 7 (24:25):
Good morning doctor Sturgis. Don't go to any trouble for me.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
Oh, doctor Sturgis, All of a sudden, no trouble. I'm
making a pot for myself, Sergeant Lueger, because I woke
up to a loud cop show in my living room.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
Apparently, well, Dr Sturgis, this is Detective Brody with Metro.
Speaker 8 (24:46):
She has some questions.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
Would you like some coffee too, Detective Brody?
Speaker 8 (24:50):
Doctor Sturgis, How can you be so sure that doctor
Sturgis was sleeping next to you last night? See that too.
Doctor Sturgis's thing is very confusing.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
Because he woke up around two thirty this morning screaming.
That was only four hours ago. I remember it like
it was just, you know, only four hours ago. How
about that I have a recurring nightmare about what It's
rather personal, he keeps dreaming I get shot in the head.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
I'll have some coffee too, thank you. Black is fine,
so doctor Sturgis, how often do you dream of killing
your wife every day?
Speaker 5 (25:30):
That would be an unfair characterization. It is a recurring nightmare.
I can barely get to sleep some nights for fear
of it coming back. It seems so real. I love
my wife. I would never dream of hurting. Well, okay,
and you know.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
What I mean.
Speaker 8 (25:48):
You once reported that a hunting rifle in your possession
had been stolen. Did you recover it and do you
still own a rifle?
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Yes, it was stolen out of my cabin on Box
Turtle Lake alone, along with some other items, and no,
I never recovered it.
Speaker 8 (26:04):
I love the Box Turtle Lake area. It's gorgeous up there.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
I was raised on a farm, but I'm a converted
city girl now. To me, rustic just means a lot
of work.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
I have not owned a rifle since Detective Brody. It's
just too easy a rifle and animals. It just wasn't sporting.
Speaker 8 (26:21):
But you still kill people in your dreams.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
People are animals, especially in faculty meetings on a college campus.
He's not the killer in the nightmare, Detective. Trust me,
He's the most loved professor on campus. No matter what
I do, no matter how long I've been here, I
mostly thought of as Mark Sturgis's wife.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
That's not fair, but Detective, I've tried to be cooperative,
but this has not started well and we're just not
getting anywhere. So here's how the rest of this is
going to go. Either you tell me everything that is
going on as your recorder runs, or I'll call a
lawyer and I'm pretty sure that he or she will
(27:02):
tell me that I shouldn't say another word.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
Here's your coffee? Should I put on another pot?
Speaker 8 (27:08):
Who is Mary Ka Campbell.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
One of my grad assistants? And you did not answer
my question?
Speaker 8 (27:17):
Thank you, doctor stir just this is great coffee.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
I'm still waiting for an answer, Detective Brody.
Speaker 8 (27:23):
How would you describe your relationship with Mary Kay Campbell?
Speaker 5 (27:28):
Professional? Encouraging, a vuncular, beneficial to the department. But watch me,
here's me getting up to find my phone orderline. Romantic,
not even close, and I think we're done here. Did
you want it to be romantic, mal can you have
(27:50):
me in my phone? What was the name of the
lawyer that helped us close your mother's estate?
Speaker 7 (27:54):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (27:54):
Wilson? Do you need the number?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
No?
Speaker 5 (27:56):
I saved it under contacts. I just couldn't remember her name.
Thank you.
Speaker 8 (28:00):
Okay, here's the story. The campus is closed until further notice.
Mary Kay Campbell was shot last night, probably by an
AR fifteen, while she was sitting at your desk in
Francis Hall. Nobody heard anything except the window glass shattering.
The bullet appeared to have come from the woods behind
your building on Metro property. It smashed through the window,
(28:23):
then sliced through your high back leather office chair and
ripped through her body. We found the round lodged in
one of the boxes on the floor, and we'll be
rushing that through the crime lab today for preliminary results.
She was dead before her head hit the desk. The
email she had just started on her laptop was to you.
(28:43):
She only got as far as dear mark. She had
struck I on the keyboard when she was killed.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
Is that all that was in the email? Sorry? That's
the criminologist in me.
Speaker 8 (28:54):
I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Did do you think she knew who her killer was
too early to tell.
Speaker 8 (29:00):
I guess we could interrogate the gray matter that we
pulled out of the bottom of the boxes in front
of your desk. Maybe it knows something.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
Has anybody called her parents? I think I should be.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
The one to do that.
Speaker 6 (29:11):
Do you have any idea who could have done this?
Wouldn't it have been some yokel poaching deer with a
flashlight in the woods behind campus.
Speaker 8 (29:18):
We don't think it was random because it was a
perfect sniper shot and nobody heard the gun go off.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
So other than the name and the email, and she
was sitting at my desk, what does any of this
have to do with me?
Speaker 7 (29:31):
Yeah, well, we got an anonymous call this morning at
campus security. This tipster suggested that, well, that you might
have been involved.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
That's absurd.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
Fred Mary Kay was a great kid. We never had
any conflicts between.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
Us romantically involved. The tipster implied that it was well
known on campus that two of you were having an affair.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Okay, that is ridiculous. I'm happily married. Everybody knows that
I'm a respected member of the campus community.
Speaker 8 (30:03):
That's a non denial denial.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
To be clear, then I completely deny the insinuation.
Speaker 6 (30:11):
Mark.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Okay, look, I have no idea what they're talking about.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
You know that.
Speaker 8 (30:17):
Really, then, it's just a coincidence that at the exact
time last night you were dreaming of your wife being
shot in the head, your girlfriend actually was.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Okay, girlfriend, you bastard. This interview is officially over. Get
out of my house.
Speaker 8 (30:36):
We'll leave. But you should know that you're giving off
this very weird, defensive guilty vibe.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
You do not know me well enough to make that judgment.
Now get out before you do give me something to
feel guilty about.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
Another non denial denial, just between us.
Speaker 7 (30:53):
What's he supposed to say?
Speaker 5 (30:59):
That's episode one of the Bottom of the Box. So far,
I count two boxes. I mean, if you don't count
the box Turtle. There's the box into which part of
the victim was ejected in Mark's office, and then and
then there's getting boxed in by an investigator's questions that
(31:21):
can too easily lead to the worst kind of box,
the ones with bars on the windows. Ernie Lapointe thinks
that boxes are just another way of understanding fear. Next
on Vaudeville for the Frightened.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
He in Punts bob Zeries for its fronting usual ers
to Fight Your Fears Series one, The Bottom of the Box.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
Ernie La Pointe thinks that boxes are just another way
of understanding fear.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well, you know, that's one of the basic messages that
have is fear, because if you can't, you know, it's
really hard. I know, I know, I've explained it to
some guys. I have a friend of mine I explained
it to. And you know, when when you're older, it
(32:34):
gets harder. You have to start them when you're young,
like I was, you know, and let them grow into fearlessness.
Don't fear anything. As long as you don't have fear,
you know, there's nothing that that any dark energy is
not going to affect you because they're going to be
afraid of you. I mean, they're not going to mess
(32:56):
with you. And we have a we have a term
of this entity we call a sacred evil, which capitalizes
on fear of human beings when their spirits and all
of us knew each other in the spirit, well one
time we all were positive. We come to learn. But
(33:16):
somewhere along the road, maybe your parents, your grandparents, your peers,
or somebody put fear into you. When your parents came here,
they brought the square with them. Everything is square, the
houses are square. Their their religions comes from a square
They learned items come from a square book. The American society.
(33:38):
When they die, they're buried in a square a hole,
you know, a square box because the mother nature the
hardest to break through that box and get their nutrients
to renew life.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
You know, need more boxes than I care to count.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Well.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
Having to choose between recurring dreams so scary fear going
to sleep or living a nightmare from which you cannot
wake is its own kind of box, if your pardon
the cliche. Imagine being the deer caught in the headlights
of an oncoming car. Which do you regret most, Jumping
(34:18):
into the middle of the road or being unable to
jump to the other side as your fate comes at
you at one hundred miles an hour. Coming up next
on Vaudeville for the Frightened, Doctor Mark Sturgis finds out
firsthand just what there is to fear about our justice system.
(34:40):
Plus About ten years ago, I had a Christmas Eve
conversation with my friend doctor Judith Worloff, while I was
wrapping presence Jesu a psychiatrist, an author, an EmPATH and
dream interpreter, and Judy once told me that we can
learn more from our our nightmares than we can from
(35:03):
our dreams.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
And I feel that the subconscious is very compassionate in
that it keeps giving us the same dreams to wake
us up. And then my message tonight is I hope
everyone could take the opportunity you know too, even though
they're scary. We're so discomfort phobic in the society. It's
anything that's uncomfortable people right from.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
But we need, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I encourage everyone to stick with it. I work with
my nightmares, my own nightmares. Everyone has nightmares, and I
think it's the healing power of the body to purge
the dark.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
In episode two of the Bottom of the Box Spatter Matters,
you can always reach the Deacon of the Dark on
Twitter at Deacon Punnett, D.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
E A co O, N p U and N E.
Speaker 6 (35:54):
T T.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
I'd love to hear more about your fears. This episode
of Vaudeville for the Frighten featured Andrew and Jen Smith,
Gabrielle Warrender, and our friend and announcer Ed Weigel Plus
playing the part.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Of Alexa was sirie Go Figure.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
The theme for Vaudeville for the Frightened was written by
Andrew Clark and performed by Ryan Winters and Pistol Beauty.
Original music by Colby Van Camp, engineered by Jacob Cummings,
Dawson Wagner, Colby Van Camp, Mason Kamara and Adolfo Blanco.
Special thanks to Marjorie Punnett Corney, Cole, Lisa Lyon, Chris Borrows,
(36:39):
Bill May, Tom dan Heiser and Julie Talbot and as always,
thank you Joe Bradmeyer. This has been a fourth Down
and Ten productions.
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