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0:57

Okay, so whenever anyone

1:00

in my generation of the family gets pregnant

1:03

or, you know, get someone pregnant, when

1:06

the happy news is announced after

1:09

the cheers, the shouts, the congratulations,

1:11

the baby name suggestions, what

1:14

about aunties or uncles to always

1:16

say, watch out now, because twins

1:19

running our family. I've

1:21

always heard that. Always

1:24

knew that. In fact, when the doctor did the

1:26

ultrasound for my own children, I told

1:28

her, be sure to take a good look around,

1:31

you know, because twins run

1:33

in our family. Recently,

1:37

my cousin announces she's having a baby.

1:41

When folks start in with the twins thing, I think,

1:43

you know, what

1:47

twins? My

1:49

dad's not a twin. My uncles

1:51

are not twins. My aunties, my grandparents,

1:55

where are these twins? My

1:58

family is like. I don't

2:01

know. You just can't ask for

2:03

simple answers to simple questions. Everything's

2:06

got to be difficult. I

2:09

found the best

2:11

way to uncover something is

2:14

to act like you already know it. So

2:17

at a recent gathering after I see her drink,

2:20

her second glass of Moscato,

2:22

I slide over next

2:24

to my auntie.

2:26

Auntie, I can't decide which

2:29

one of us the twins would most resemble.

2:31

Now I'd say they they

2:33

really favor your uncle Eddie. Then

2:37

she scowls, angry, fuming,

2:39

because I actually tricked some

2:41

real information out. Won't

2:44

say another word to me. But

2:46

I get from my uncle, well them twins,

2:49

yeah. Your grandmother, she never

2:51

drove again, you know that?

2:53

You know after the accident? A nod.

2:59

Accident. It's

3:01

like with just a few words,

3:04

my entire

3:06

childhood shifts. I

3:12

certainly knew we lived

3:14

under a cloud, under a shadow. I

3:16

could see it in my grandmother's eyes

3:19

even when she

3:20

laughed. When

3:22

she hugged me. When

3:25

she kissed me, the darkness was always

3:27

there right next to her power. Right

3:32

next to her strength. I

3:36

just never knew what to call it.

3:40

And having something to call it, recalling

3:43

how she sometimes fought back tears

3:45

in order to be present with me. For

3:49

me. It makes

3:53

me love her memory all

3:55

the more. The

4:11

Dan Snapp Judgment.

4:23

We're searching for answers of an entirely

4:26

different sort. The

4:28

Dan Snapp Judgment probably presents the

4:30

medicine man. Now

4:33

my name is Lynn Washington and

4:36

I learned something incredible. Every

4:39

single time I pour my Auntie that extra

4:41

glass of Moscato, but

4:44

she gets very mad, very, very mad

4:46

when I spill the beans on

4:49

Snapp Judgment. You

5:02

see,

5:05

family

5:07

secrets are powerful

5:10

secrets. But today at Snapp,

5:13

we're sharing a mystery from our friends at WNYY's

5:16

The Pulse. Chris Lundy

5:19

became very ill when he was just 10 years old,

5:21

but the doctors, they couldn't figure

5:23

out what was wrong with

5:24

him. So Chris's family

5:26

turned to other experts to get the job

5:28

done. Afterward,

5:30

no one would talk about it. Now

5:33

Chris is in his 40s and Chris wants

5:35

to know what happened and

5:37

why what happened was

5:40

hidden from him.

5:42

Snapp Judgment. I

5:44

was 10 years old. I was almost 11.

5:47

I was living in Maryland with my mom

5:49

and my older sister. The year

5:51

was 1989.

5:53

As Chris Lundy tells it, he was a healthy

5:55

kid. Like to play outside, read comic

5:57

books. It was a normal day.

5:59

And all of a sudden I felt this cough

6:02

coming on and it was

6:05

intense. I

6:07

remember

6:08

feeling like I wasn't

6:10

qualified for this level of

6:13

pain. I mean, it came from the center

6:15

of my chest. I remember covering my mouth,

6:18

but removing my hand

6:20

and looking down and seeing blood all over my hands.

6:22

Afterward, he was sweating, curled up

6:25

on the floor.

6:26

The very next day, the cough came,

6:28

the same pain. It

6:31

started happening day after day.

6:33

This was summer and he was home a lot

6:35

by himself. Chris liked video games.

6:37

In most days, he would stay inside playing them

6:40

while he anticipated the cough. After

6:42

several more days, his mom took him to the

6:44

doctor. The doctor checked him out,

6:47

ran some tests, but couldn't say what

6:49

was going on. My mother seemed

6:52

calm, which made me

6:54

as a little more worried

6:57

than I would have been if I would have seen her fear.

7:00

The cough kept coming, just as painful,

7:02

just as scary. It continued

7:04

for a couple weeks until Chris's mom

7:07

came up with another plan. My mother

7:09

sent me up to New York. That's where most of

7:11

Chris's family's from. His mother

7:13

and her sisters were all born in Haiti and

7:16

everyone but Chris's mom had established

7:18

their lives in Brooklyn. Chris

7:20

didn't know why he was going there now, but

7:22

it seemed like there was something they weren't telling

7:24

him. Everybody was really,

7:27

really nice to me, overwhelmingly

7:30

and suspiciously nice. When

7:32

my aunts hugged me, the hugs were longer than

7:34

usual.

7:34

When they talked to me, they talked

7:36

more gently than

7:39

usual. So the next day,

7:42

my mother shows up. I remember being

7:44

really happy to see her.

7:46

They

7:46

headed out together, the whole family.

7:48

The thing that floored

7:50

me was all

7:52

the aunts were there.

7:54

This was so unusual outside

7:56

of Christmas or Thanksgiving. They

7:59

arrived at a house. Chris didn't recognize.

8:02

We were greeted by this man and he brought

8:04

us downstairs to the basement. And

8:07

it was interesting because, one, it

8:09

was dark. It was all candles. There

8:11

was a tub with flower

8:14

petals. There was a statue

8:18

of the mother Mary. Chris's

8:20

mom and aunt sat in chairs lined up

8:22

along the wall. Chris and the man

8:24

sat in chairs across from each other in the center

8:27

of the room. The man told Chris

8:29

he had special

8:29

healing abilities that could help Chris.

8:33

He said, what question do you have for me?

8:36

And I asked him, how'd

8:38

you get your powers? And again, I

8:40

was big into comic books and things like that, so

8:42

my little 10-year-old mind, it framed it.

8:45

You know, it was like, what's your hero

8:47

origin story? The man told

8:49

Chris about a dream he had where an angel

8:51

visited him. Then he pulled out an

8:54

amber glass bottle with a dropper in it. He

8:56

explained that whenever I feel

8:58

the cough coming

8:59

on, to put

9:02

one drop of the liquid inside

9:05

on my tongue.

9:11

When I left, I was skeptical.

9:14

This was just another thing that we were going to do with no answers.

9:17

So that night, Chris heads back to Maryland

9:19

with his mom, amber bottle in hand. Next

9:22

day, she goes back to work. He goes back

9:24

to video games. Until he feels the

9:26

cough coming on. I found

9:28

the vial and

9:30

I put a drop on my tongue.

9:38

And the coughing sensation goes

9:42

away. Fuck,

9:44

I got to stop for a second because I know

9:47

how this sounds, man. Justin,

9:50

I'm telling you, it went away, man.

9:53

It went away. And

9:55

when you think that, like,

9:58

are you like, it's some sort of...

9:59

psychological thing or you're like, no, physically

10:02

it went. It went away.

10:04

Like physically. Physically.

10:06

The liquid in the vial worked the next day and

10:08

the next. The coffee days started

10:11

to stack up and Chris started to

10:13

believe there was something powerful to what the man

10:15

had given him. So one night the

10:17

coughing sensation came

10:19

again, as usual,

10:20

put a drop on my tongue. And

10:23

the coughing sensation kept

10:26

coming. OK, let me do

10:28

another drop. And then the cough hit. This

10:31

pain was completely off the charts.

10:34

It was the most pain I've ever been in, even till

10:36

this day. I was crying.

10:39

I was balled up.

10:40

But I think on top of the physical

10:43

toll that it took, I remember being

10:45

enraged because

10:47

I felt

10:48

betrayed by the guy.

10:51

I felt stupid for even believing that

10:53

to begin with. So

11:01

this is where the struggle really started for Chris,

11:03

between believing and doubting the remedy

11:05

the man had given him.

11:07

The next day came and I spent the

11:09

entire day anticipating

11:12

the cough. Is

11:14

it going to be as bad as last night?

11:16

Is it going to be even worse? And

11:18

as it got later and later, the cough

11:22

didn't come.

11:24

I remember going to sleep that night. It was

11:26

just a free day. So the day

11:28

after, I woke up worried.

11:31

But again, it didn't come. And so those

11:33

days of no cough became

11:35

a week of no cough, became a month.

11:38

I started to relax a little bit and I realized

11:40

that it was over.

11:43

As Chris got older, he wondered what

11:45

was in that amber vial

11:47

and if the man had actually cured him.

11:50

So over the years, it became clear

11:52

to me who that guy

11:54

was, who they sent me to, that he was

11:56

a voodoo doctor. You know, he was

11:58

a voodoo priest.

12:00

I'm Haitian, my family's Haitian. Part

12:02

of Haitian culture is voodoo

12:05

and voodoo practices. Chris found it odd

12:07

his family never talked about it. Like, his

12:10

trip to New York never happened.

12:12

He also wondered what had been wrong with him. His

12:14

condition was really serious. So

12:16

what made it go away? Chris actually

12:18

works in the medical field, selling medications

12:21

that coincidentally treat lung diseases.

12:24

But here I am with this experience

12:26

from childhood that stands in

12:28

the face of all that. There's this

12:31

conflict of intellect

12:33

and life experience.

12:38

A lot of the questions that I have could

12:41

have been answered in 10 minutes if

12:44

my mother was around. But she passed

12:46

away when I was 17. Flash

12:49

forward a few decades later, I

12:51

had a ton of curiosity around

12:54

what happened and what my mother's

12:57

life was like and what my mother's relationship

13:00

with her family was like.

13:02

And his sister wasn't around much and can't

13:04

fill in the holes. Of the aunts

13:06

that were there, two have died. The

13:09

other two, Aunt Mille and Aunt Renette,

13:12

he hadn't spoken to in decades. There'd

13:14

been a bitter fracture in the family a while

13:16

back and Chris and Mille had

13:18

ended up on different sides of it. Beyond

13:21

that, there's always been an intense

13:23

discomfort discussing voodoo with the older

13:25

generation and his family. Chris

13:27

thinks it's a taboo topic.

13:29

It would be more than hard to

13:32

ask him. It would be

13:33

virtually impossible. There aren't

13:35

any medical records. So Chris had to turn

13:37

to other resources to answer his questions.

13:41

My search began with Auntie Leslie. She

13:43

was my mom's best friend. I

13:45

know she misses my mother every single day

13:48

and I know that talking to me sparks

13:51

memories of my mom. But I also know

13:53

that she loves hearing from me.

13:55

Even though she wasn't there, I expected her to

13:57

be able to tell me my mother's. state

14:00

of mind because they used to talk every day.

14:02

She came to see me

14:05

and I remember her saying that

14:08

you were sick, that you were really, really

14:10

sick. Do you remember them taking me

14:13

to that guy? What

14:15

guy?

14:18

She doesn't know where Chris was taken. She

14:20

said his aunt Miele would be the best resource,

14:22

the one Chris hasn't spoken to in years. But

14:25

Leslie also said Chris could try his aunt Mildred,

14:28

who in general knows a lot of the family

14:30

business.

14:30

Hello. Hi, little puppy.

14:32

He

14:37

catches up with her and he gets to his reason

14:39

for calling. Says he's been thinking about

14:41

that time he was really sick as a kid

14:43

and got sent to New York. Do you remember

14:46

any of that?

14:47

No. Oof. She

14:49

has no memory of the whole episode.

14:52

Still, Chris tells her,

14:54

we ended up going to see a voodoo

14:57

doctor. You too? She

14:59

explains it wasn't uncommon in the family

15:02

to visit a voodoo practitioner when they didn't

15:04

know why someone was sick. She'd been taken

15:06

too. What it told me is that

15:08

voodoo is a part

15:11

of not only Haitian culture, but my

15:13

family's culture. The older

15:16

aunts that, you know, were pretty

15:18

much adults when they moved from Haiti

15:20

to America, they were living

15:22

in this Haitian bubble

15:24

inside of Brooklyn. So they're

15:26

going to be more connected to voodoo

15:28

practices.

15:29

Mildred echoed that only Mille

15:31

would know the answers to Chris's questions, but

15:34

he still wasn't ready to go there.

15:36

Instead, he decided to seek, let's call

15:38

it a more traditional medical explanation

15:41

of what might have been going wrong with him. He

15:43

called up Chris Becker, a pulmonary and

15:46

critical care doctor at Mount Sinai

15:48

in New York. Dr. Becker jumped

15:50

into asking about Chris's symptoms surrounding

15:52

the cough. Would this be a daily occurrence?

15:55

Or were

15:57

you able to identify any triggers?

15:59

It was random. And

16:02

what was the color of it? They go on

16:04

for a couple minutes until Dr. Becker

16:06

feels he's gotten enough to offer some ideas,

16:08

which we should emphasize were not to be taken

16:11

as a diagnosis or medical advice. Hemoptysis

16:14

or coughing up blood is very

16:16

distressing. We usually take this

16:19

situation very seriously. Based

16:21

on Chris's description, Dr. Becker says

16:23

he was coughing up a moderate amount of blood

16:26

and it was pretty clearly coming from his lungs.

16:28

What you're describing is that you have this

16:31

warning, which is probably when the bleeding

16:34

starts and then there's a few seconds before

16:36

that causes you to cough as

16:38

the lungs realize that there's blood all of a

16:41

sudden. Chris's explanation

16:43

knocks a number of chronic illnesses off the

16:45

list of possibilities, like bronchitis

16:47

or fungal infections or tuberculosis.

16:51

This leaves mostly anatomical issues,

16:54

blood vessels in the wrong place. These arterial

16:56

venous malformations mean that

16:58

an artery connects to a vein without the

17:01

normal pathway, increasing the possibility

17:03

of spontaneous bleeding in the lungs. Dr.

17:06

Becker says that if Chris had been his patient,

17:08

he would have done imaging to look for these abnormalities,

17:11

see exactly where the bleeding was coming from.

17:14

That triggered a question I had. And a

17:16

spontaneous resolution would be possible with

17:18

some of those conditions? Well, that's

17:21

actually, in

17:21

general, that's a bit puzzling

17:23

is that this just spontaneously

17:26

stopped and never recurred.

17:28

I can't really fully reconcile

17:31

this because it wouldn't be the most common

17:33

scenario. This is the part that puzzles Chris, too. How

17:35

do you get better? Dr. Becker supports

17:38

patients seeking out different approaches to

17:40

their medical conditions, including

17:42

through religion. For a scenario

17:45

of significant

17:48

hemoptysis, in our scientific

17:51

view, they

17:51

will not be enough. Is it possible

17:54

Chris is forgetting some details? Does

17:56

he just remember it as worse than it was? Either

17:59

way.

17:59

So you were lucky that those episodes

18:03

always spontaneously stopped

18:05

for you, right? But what

18:06

if one of them hadn't?

18:12

Listening to Dr. Becker helps me

18:14

understand that my mother was scared. She

18:16

was afraid. Small

18:21

side street here. So

18:25

what did his mom think a voodoo priest could do

18:27

for her son? That's it right there? Okay.

18:31

We can't find the man who treated Chris all those

18:33

years ago. But in January of 2023,

18:35

we head to Queens to

18:38

see an ordained voodoo priestess named

18:40

Mambo Florence Jean-Joseph. Mambo Florence is

18:42

there and on the walls

18:45

there was a lot

18:47

of Haitian art.

18:54

They sat down at her dining table and started

18:56

talking. Mambo Flo explained

18:59

that many different people from the Haitian American

19:01

community come to her, teachers,

19:03

various professionals, even doctors.

19:06

Her services have recognized important

19:08

station families.

19:11

What she provides, in addition to religious

19:13

ceremonies, is like a counseling service

19:16

and she gives her advice according to what she sees

19:18

as basic voodoo principles. Voodoo

19:21

is like philosophy. Love yourself,

19:25

accept yourself the way you are,

19:27

being in harmony with nature, being

19:30

in harmony with humans, and

19:33

respect life.

19:34

She explains her advice is not in contradiction

19:37

to medical advice, but more like a supplement.

19:40

In fact, she encourages people to get checked

19:42

out by a doctor before they come.

19:45

After their talk, Mambo Flo

19:47

takes Chris down to the basement where she

19:50

conducts voodoo rituals.

19:58

back

20:00

when I was 10 years old.

20:02

He recognized the candles, the

20:04

altar, even the way the chairs were arranged.

20:07

Mambo Flo is welcoming and open

20:09

about her practice, though she acknowledges

20:11

a stigma Voodoo sometimes carries, even

20:14

within Haitian communities. It's like

20:16

Voodoo is for the uneducated

20:19

and all that. Even if we have

20:21

scholars who are Voodoo

20:24

initiates, but when they

20:26

write, they never refer to it

20:28

like I practice it.

20:30

It gave Chris an idea why his aunt doesn't

20:32

talk about it, and even why he feels

20:34

reluctant to discuss the whole episode.

20:36

Driving back from Mambo Flo's,

20:39

Chris returns to the questions that have brought him here.

20:42

What did I have? How did I get better?

20:45

And what happened when I was there? When

20:47

I was at that house, when I was in that basement, what

20:49

went down?

20:51

And one thing becomes clear to him. I

20:53

have to get

20:54

my questions answered and my aunt's the only one

20:57

who truly can. What

20:59

does his aunt Miele, he means, the one he's

21:01

been avoiding? So even though I think it'll

21:03

be a challenge,

21:04

I gotta make it happen. And Snap

21:06

returns.

21:22

Chris decides there's only one way

21:24

to get the answers he's been searching for.

21:27

Stay tuned. You know, I was

21:29

shocked when I learned how many

21:32

apps

21:39

and services I supposedly signed

21:41

up for and forgot about.

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But they didn't forget. They're charging

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me every month, and they could be charging

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23:15

Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Medicine

23:17

Man episode. When

23:19

last we left, Chris realized

23:22

there's just one person

23:24

who knows what ailed him as a child and knows

23:27

how he got better. But

23:29

talking to her, that's

23:31

another thing entirely. Snap

23:34

Judgment.

23:38

To get ready, Chris called up a person

23:40

he thought could counsel him on what he might

23:42

say to his aunt. Someone who knows

23:44

a lot about how Voodoo fits into Haitian

23:46

culture and who actually counsels kids

23:49

about reconnecting to that culture through her

23:51

organization, the Empowerment Network.

23:53

I am Dr. Charlene

23:55

Dazeer. I'm a professor at Nova

23:58

Southeastern University.

23:59

I'm an initiated Vodou priestess.

24:02

Dr. Dezier said she could discuss Chris'

24:05

childhood experience with him. But

24:07

you have to understand a little context about

24:09

Vodou. So Vodou was created

24:12

by kidnapped Africans. During

24:14

the Middle Passage, enslaved people

24:16

from all over Africa were taken to the island

24:18

of Hispaniola, which present-day

24:21

Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

24:23

The Pan-Africans

24:25

that were brought to Haiti from various

24:27

tribes, various classes,

24:29

various education levels,

24:32

created a system that

24:34

made sense to them for survival.

24:36

And that system was called Vodou.

24:39

Vodou is more than a religion. It's

24:41

a system, a way of life and understanding.

24:44

Academically, we call it an epistemology,

24:47

a way of knowing. And one of the

24:49

fundamental aspects of that was

24:52

health. So people

24:53

from all over Africa brought these

24:55

traditions and this knowledge about how

24:57

to heal the body using the natural resources

25:00

they had.

25:00

And this is our inheritance as Haitian

25:02

people. Chris asked why all

25:05

the aunts had to accompany him to the ungan,

25:07

the Vodou priest. Having the sisters

25:09

be there in alliance, it shows the love

25:12

that surrounded you. I don't know,

25:14

Chris, but I'm sure your family sought out

25:16

medical care. They sought off

25:19

medical care first. That's where you're going to go first.

25:22

If it doesn't work, then we have to

25:24

go to the other doctors.

25:25

I know what the majority

25:27

of people think and believe about Vodou.

25:30

And it's like, how do

25:32

I explain that I had

25:35

this incredible illness and

25:37

that I went to an ungan and

25:40

then I no longer had that

25:42

incredible illness? Well, brother, you're telling

25:44

the whole world right now.

25:48

So you're ready. You've arrived. I

25:50

mean, it's very simple. I

25:52

went to a root doctor. I

25:55

went to an herbalist. We've

25:57

been denied our humanity for

25:59

so many. years, this is how we

26:01

survived slavery. Chris

26:03

asks why Voodoo has this stigma associated

26:06

with it. We've been miseducated,

26:09

miseducated as a community. My

26:12

thing is that we have a problem

26:14

of respecting things we don't understand.

26:17

Dr. Dezier says that Haitians have

26:19

been made to feel insecure about Voodoo because

26:22

of hiding it for so long for their own protection.

26:24

But given all that secrecy, what

26:27

should Chris say to his aunt Mille to

26:29

get her to open up about his family

26:31

experience? What is it you

26:33

want to know? You know

26:35

that you were healed. You

26:37

know that at some juncture,

26:40

despite what's happening now, that there

26:42

was a relationship

26:43

that you had with the women in your bloodline.

26:46

And you are a Haitian American

26:48

man. Point blank simple, you

26:50

are an African American man. You

26:53

are a Pan-African American man,

26:55

but your indigenous roots are Voodoo.

26:58

You're Haitian, spiritually

27:01

and culturally. I

27:05

think you just gave me everything I needed.

27:15

They hung up and something had shifted

27:17

in Chris. Something that Dr. Dezier gave

27:19

me and the thing that I walked away with was

27:21

this pride, like being proud

27:24

of the Haitian culture

27:26

and where Voodoo fits and where it came

27:28

from. He felt ready to talk to his

27:30

aunt.

27:31

It's

27:35

February 1st, 1130 a.m.

27:38

I'm sitting in my car. He's outside

27:40

his aunt Mille's house. His cousin Gabby

27:42

came with him for support. There's a lot

27:45

of anxiety, a lot of

27:47

reluctance. I'm looking forward to it

27:49

and I'm not looking forward to it all at the same time.

27:52

Yeah, I don't know what to expect. All

27:56

right, having been here

27:58

in...

27:59

I don't know, maybe 15 years. Ah.

28:06

Cold as day in here.

28:07

Oh man. I'm like, hi

28:10

Chris, how you doing? Stop, come.

28:12

They sit down together.

28:15

In the house, Chris remembers from his childhood,

28:18

the stairs where he played with his cousins, the

28:20

table where he ate cereal before going

28:22

to bed, and the talks going well.

28:25

They're sharing good memories, laughing. And

28:28

then Chris gets to why he contacted Miele

28:30

now. You know, there was a time,

28:34

I was gonna ask you that I got sick. I was coughing

28:36

and coughing up blood and stuff. Yes, blood, yes. Okay,

28:39

because my mother sent me to New York. Do

28:41

you remember

28:42

that? Yes, I remember that. I went to the

28:44

doctor. They said that there was something on your chest, your

28:47

pulmonary thing. They did

28:49

tests and everything. And after I went

28:51

to get the second opinion, what the first doctor

28:53

had seen, it was wrong. And

28:56

I said to Mark, she knows

28:58

exactly what he's talking about. She

29:00

confirms how sick he was, how

29:02

scared they were. He was going to die.

29:05

That's when Chris brings up the other part.

29:07

I remember we went to the Voodoo

29:09

doctor. You did? We went

29:12

with you. I don't remember. You don't remember that? Mm-mm.

29:15

She says she doesn't recall it. You were there,

29:17

my mother, Auntie Maya, Auntie Esther, Auntie

29:20

Janet, all in the room. I don't remember.

29:23

Again,

29:24

she says she doesn't remember. I never heard anything

29:26

after that. It got better. Maybe the

29:28

Voodoo doctor works. We

29:30

just got to clear

29:33

back that layer. Yeah, go away, Auntie, Auntie, you

29:35

go to the doctor. She remembered

29:37

the illness clearly. She remembers

29:39

me coughing up blood. She remembers me

29:42

coming to New York.

29:44

She just held to being

29:46

completely unfamiliar with

29:49

any Voodoo element

29:51

at all. That's it. You

29:53

go home, that's it. You

29:55

go home, that's it. There's something happened.

29:57

That's that. Still you're staying happy. They moved on.

29:59

talked about other

30:00

things. I felt cheated.

30:03

I had talked to everyone else.

30:06

Chris never got the background he wanted. He

30:08

figured it was for the reasons Dr. Dezier said,

30:11

the cultural discomfort. Even if

30:13

he'd gotten past it, it seemed

30:15

his aunt never would.

30:19

So

30:19

where I was at this point was, there

30:21

were some things that were confirmed. For example,

30:24

I was sick, it was really,

30:26

really bad. But there was still a mystery

30:29

in terms of how I got better. I

30:32

initially set out to get answers

30:35

to some factual questions.

30:39

I didn't get answers to all

30:41

of that. But what I did get was

30:43

answers to things that are far more important.

30:46

I learned about my mother. I

30:49

think

30:49

that the longer my mother was in

30:51

America, I think that she was becoming

30:53

more and more Americanized,

30:56

bringing me to the voodoo doctor. In

30:58

that moment, my mother was Haitian,

31:01

full on Haitian.

31:11

I think that my mother would have went down almost any

31:13

road to try to get me better. My

31:16

mother passed away, she was 39 years old, and

31:19

I was 17 years old. So when she passed,

31:21

I still saw her as Ma. But through

31:23

this journey, I think I have a clearer

31:26

picture of who she was as a

31:28

woman and who she was as a parent,

31:31

as a protector. And

31:33

I love her for it. And

31:36

I know that she loved me.

31:42

And as far as how Chris got better, I

31:45

am more comfortable sitting with the mystery of it. I'm

31:48

never gonna know why I got better. A

31:50

voodoo priest would say I got better

31:52

because of the potion that I took.

31:55

Western medicine doctor would say

31:58

I'm missing some facts.

31:59

I think what

32:02

matters is what always mattered, and that is,

32:04

I got better.

32:10

Big thanks to WHOY's

32:12

The Pulse who originally

32:16

aired this story. Your

32:31

podcast features stories about people and places

32:34

at the heart of health and science.

32:38

Chris Lundy is a storyteller who's performed

32:40

at First Person Arts, RISC, USA

32:42

Today's Storytellers Project and lots more.

32:45

The story is produced and reported by

32:47

Chris Lundy and Justin Cramon. It

32:50

was edited by Mike and Scott and

32:52

Lindsay Lazarski, with sound design

32:55

by Mike and Scott, engineering by

32:58

Charlie Kyer. Little

33:00

thanks to Dhu Naryal Shree for

33:02

his help on the story.

33:22

After the break, you're in the Army

33:24

now, and the Army doesn't

33:27

want to hear your excuse.

33:29

Stay tuned.

33:41

Welcome back

33:43

to Snap Judgment, the Medicine Man

33:45

episode. My name is Gwen Washington.

33:48

Today, real stories from real people

33:51

wondering if the doctor is in. Now,

33:55

you've asked, we have answered.

33:57

Our next storyteller snapped us a long time ago.

34:00

friend of the show Ray Christian

34:03

and aside from being a storytelling legend

34:06

Ray's an army man. Snap

34:08

judgement. Music

34:25

In 1984 I was a 22 year

34:28

old young sergeant assigned to an

34:30

airborne infantry battalion.

34:32

We were paratroopers. I

34:36

was stationed at Fort Bragg. We'd

34:38

conduct night combat equipment jumps

34:41

that would involve thousands of paratroopers

34:44

at once.

34:45

The training was dangerous and it wasn't

34:47

unusual for us to have guys severely

34:49

injured or even killed during these training operations.

34:54

We had young soldiers in the company that

34:56

were grenade vets and our senior

34:58

NCOs a lot of them were Vietnam vets.

35:01

Our young soldiers who were just chomping at the

35:03

bit to get a chance at combat.

35:05

Guys start doing drugs, guys

35:07

start drinking, guys have problems with

35:10

their wives, their girlfriends.

35:13

Morale in the company was starting to drop

35:16

and this added up to so much stress we

35:18

had a few guys go AWOL.

35:25

Me and Sergeant Ronnie were assigned to inventory

35:28

the soldiers locker and equipment who

35:30

had went AWOL. It was uniform,

35:32

civilian clothing, radio cloth

35:35

and in the corner there's this little folded

35:38

bundle of aluminum foil.

35:41

Unfolded and I saw inside

35:43

were two small stamps with stars

35:46

on them. Whoa,

35:49

acid? Nah. So

35:52

I took one of the stamps out and I said hey Ronnie put

35:55

one of these in your mouth. He

35:57

looked at me and he said what is this acid? I

35:59

figured

35:59

that was acid, but I wasn't gonna

36:02

really take one. I was just fooling

36:04

around with him, you know, put it in your mouth, just kidding

36:06

with him.

36:08

He looked at it for a second and said, why

36:10

not, and put it in his mouth, and I laughed.

36:15

["The Super

36:24

Military." He was kind of strict.

36:27

He had a high-pitched voice, pretty

36:29

by-the-book kind of guy. He

36:31

looked at me and said, so what are you gonna do? He

36:35

must know something I don't know. He wouldn't take

36:37

acid.

36:38

I just knew when he put it in

36:40

his mouth, it had to be fake. Then

36:43

he looked at me and said, what are you gonna do? He

36:45

said, hey, okay, blame as you. I

36:47

put one in my mouth.

36:52

We take the inventory sheet, we turn it into

36:54

supply.

36:55

We started heading out, and as we were

36:57

walking across the parking lot, the battalion

36:59

sergeant made a yell out, hey, you two guys,

37:02

what are you doing? Where you going?

37:03

Oh, my God, the sergeant made it.

37:06

We said, we're heading out, sergeant made you heading home? He

37:08

said, oh, no, you're not. Get your gear. You're

37:11

going on the jump. Because

37:13

we had the additional duty of inventorying

37:15

this guy's equipment, we

37:18

believed that we weren't gonna be involved in the jump. But sergeant

37:20

made you, I think he cut me off. We

37:23

need to get these chutes filled. Let's go. Let's move

37:25

out. So

37:29

I'm starting to think about all the things that go wrong. What

37:33

if I get decapitated by a suspension line? What

37:37

if I get decapitated

37:39

by a suspension line? What if I get towed behind the

37:42

aircraft? What if I hit some equipment

37:44

on the ground? I was starting to immediately

37:46

feel fear and apprehension.

37:54

If

37:54

we would have said something like even slightly hesitant

37:56

about being on a jump, it would have seemed so

37:58

bad. suspicious. We

38:01

call people who are not on jump status legs

38:04

and that's a dirty word. I

38:06

would rather have died and turned

38:08

down being on a jump. I wasn't going to be a leg.

38:10

I was going to jump.

38:13

I looked at Ron and I said, man,

38:15

how you feel? He

38:16

said, man, I don't feel nothing, but this

38:19

is bad anyway.

38:26

When we were on the trucks headed to the

38:28

pack shed, this is at the Air Force Base,

38:31

I started having this feeling right then

38:34

and there that everybody

38:36

on the truck was staring at me and I knew, oh,

38:39

it's starting to kick in now.

38:42

We all pour inside

38:44

the rigger shed, all 500 of us

38:47

and one at a time we're issued parachutes

38:49

as we enter inside. Once

38:51

you've got your parachute on and you got

38:53

all your equipment hooked up, you stand in

38:55

line for the Jumpmaster's inspection.

38:59

Open your rip core, protect it flat, hold,

39:02

squat hold, recover,

39:04

turn, bend, arch

39:06

your back, tick, tap, tap,

39:09

tap, tick, tap, tap, turn,

39:11

turn, squat hold.

39:13

I actually started saying that out loud, you

39:15

know, squat, hold, squat. I

39:17

was just saying it because I thought I

39:20

should

39:21

and then I started thinking, wait a minute, if I do

39:23

that, people will think I'm high, but if I act

39:25

like I'm not high, they'll think I'm high.

39:36

Slowly all the guys in line started

39:38

getting their parachutes inspected and

39:40

we take a seat. I wanted

39:42

to sit down, but I kept standing up, I

39:44

kept walking around and that was unusual.

39:48

I started to think about how many thousands of

39:50

paratroopers have been in this building preparing

39:52

for a jump and I was inspired

39:55

to just yell out for everyone to hear, how

39:58

many paratroopers have been in this place? I

40:01

started thinking about there were ghosts,

40:03

maybe, still impregnated

40:06

in the memories of the building and in the walls. And

40:08

I yelled

40:09

that question out, too. Are there

40:11

any ghosts in the walls? When

40:14

I was startled by two, well,

40:16

what looked to be two World War II

40:19

era paratroopers coming out of the walls. I

40:22

couldn't help but walk closer to it, but

40:24

on closer inspection was just a pattern

40:26

of old paint scuffs on the wall.

40:31

That's when I started to notice that other people were

40:33

starting to stare at me, staring

40:36

at them, and a few even laughed at me.

40:39

And that's where I saw Ronnie.

40:40

He was already rigged,

40:42

sitting on the floor, crying,

40:45

tears

40:46

coming down his cheeks.

40:48

To me, it was like a river of water.

40:55

I asked Ronnie how he was doing. Ronnie

40:58

looked at me, and he just started to

41:00

cry. And people noticed. I

41:03

went to him and I said in a soft, loud voice, Man,

41:05

get yourself together. You

41:08

are an American paratrooper. Do

41:10

you know what our brothers have

41:12

done before you? Act like a damn man. Get it together.

41:17

And I started singing. And I'm not a singer. And

41:20

I'm singing these corny airborne songs

41:22

that they force on us.

41:25

Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die. Gory,

41:27

gory, what a hell of

41:29

a way to die. Gory, gory,

41:31

what a hell of a way

41:33

to die. And he ain't

41:36

gonna jump no more. And I remember somebody

41:39

yelling out, Oh, that's pretty damn appropriate, son. Christian,

41:42

that's really appropriate. Ronnie stared. I

41:46

reached out and I wiped his eye. A

41:48

little tear was coming from him, and

41:50

I helped him up.

41:52

And then he assisted me in rigging my shoot.

41:56

Once everybody's inspected, we stand up.

42:00

and we all march out toward the back of the

42:02

airplane. The

42:13

only thing you can see inside of C-130

42:16

at night like that is just the red

42:18

jump light above the jump door

42:20

and down on the floor and there's this hum

42:23

of the plane. I

42:28

didn't see the guy asleep but I didn't. I was just

42:31

focused on the light. I mean it was beautiful

42:34

and the air-fought pilot turns on the green

42:37

light go.

42:40

Door opened up and the wind

42:43

rushed in. Normally you

42:45

really feel the impact of

42:47

the prop blast hitting you and you twist

42:49

into the night sky but I don't

42:52

know I had the sensation that I just jumped into

42:54

a big old marshmallow cloud and I just floated

42:56

out.

43:03

The stars

43:03

were starting to twinkle. Moon

43:07

smiled at me. The

43:10

parachutes billowing across the drop zone.

43:12

They looked like ghosts. They were just floating

43:15

and dancing and

43:19

I could hear everything. Their sound

43:24

threw my arms out and looked up like

43:28

Jesus. Started

43:31

contemplating the nature of the universe.

43:32

God

43:36

it was just beautiful. It was

43:38

probably the best jump I ever had. I

43:40

loved it. I loved it. It

43:42

seemed like it took me forever to reach the ground.

43:49

I landed in a sandy

43:51

pile amongst the pine trees and

43:54

thickets. The guy landed close

43:56

to me and he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes

43:58

and he gave out an oomph.

43:59

And I just yelled

44:02

out across the old drop zone, this

44:04

is beautiful. And

44:08

it just echoed. I know everybody heard

44:10

that, but I couldn't help myself. It

44:13

was beautiful like those other parachutes that were billowing across the drop

44:15

zone. It looked like a woman

44:17

in a dress.

44:19

And I just felt it. Through

44:27

the darkness, I heard this sound, and

44:30

I recognized it as the sound of vomiting.

44:33

And instead of going to the assembly area, I followed

44:35

that sound, and that led me to

44:37

Sergeant Ronnie. And

44:39

there he was, sitting on the ground, vomiting.

44:43

And he was crying softly.

44:46

And I was thinking to myself, he must

44:49

be having a bad trip. And

44:51

that's when I decided I wanted to sing to him.

44:54

We're all Americans and proud

44:56

to be Guardians of

44:58

Honor and Liberty Some

45:01

flying gliders to the enemy

45:03

Some come

45:05

down as paratroopers The

45:12

next morning when I woke up, the

45:15

company commander who I always try

45:17

to avoid because of his manner, when

45:19

he saw me, he said to me, you know you

45:22

need to go see the battalion commander. He wants

45:24

to talk to you about your behavior, pre-jump

45:28

and on the drop zone. So

45:30

the battalion commander doesn't speak to me. People

45:33

in my rank don't usually get a chance to talk to him.

45:36

And I go into the battalion commander's office.

45:41

All the senior officers in the battalion were

45:43

present. That kind of

45:45

a group usually means something bad. You're

45:48

getting some kind of an ugly reprimand. And

45:51

I was scared as hell.

45:56

And he said, never have

45:59

I seen him. such an unselfish act

46:02

as a man motivating his fellow

46:04

paratroopers,

46:05

sticking with a scared nervous man

46:08

during every phase of the operation, even

46:10

on the drop zone. Sergeant

46:12

Christian, you are the personification

46:15

of an American paratrooper. Keep up the

46:17

good work. Airborne. I

46:20

say thank you, sir. Airborne.

46:28

I can remember shaking my head as I was walking

46:30

away from his office going, damn, I

46:33

was completely dumbfounded. What

46:37

just happened? It was

46:39

like the blade didn't cut my head, but it fell.

46:48

In the mornings when all the units are

46:51

doing physical training and they've run up

46:53

and down Ardennes Street, they're

46:56

the loud speakers where they

46:58

play nothing but nonstop military

47:00

martial music. And these old

47:03

airborne songs are the ones

47:05

that you hear. And when they would come across

47:07

the speakers, we would all start singing

47:09

them really loud to Sergeant Ronnie,

47:12

and you know, much to his chagrin.

47:16

Sergeant Ronnie, you was scared on the drop zone,

47:19

man. Sergeant Ronnie, what's up? You

47:21

lost your nerve. You was having problems,

47:23

Sergeant Ronnie?

47:25

He'd be running with his butt cheeks

47:27

really tight.

47:29

He was too stiff and too anal to respond.

47:33

Up to that point, everything, all of our

47:35

encounters were always serious. They really

47:38

didn't have anything to joke about. There was nothing

47:40

funny.

47:41

I had my boys back again. They

47:44

were back in their spirit.

48:11

Big

48:12

thanks to Ray Christian, who

48:14

is a storyteller living in Boone, North Carolina.

48:16

Now do yourself a favor, subscribe to

48:19

his podcast, What's Ray Say?

48:22

It'll be available on our website or wherever you get

48:24

your podcasts, snapjudgment.org.

48:28

To do that, the original score and

48:30

sound design was by Leon Morimoto. That

48:33

story was produced

48:34

by Ediza Egan. Now,

49:07

when you're looking for a gift to give that special

49:10

someone, do you know what's better than socks, better

49:13

than a tie, better than a bottle of

49:15

cheap perfume? I'll tell you what

49:17

they really are,

49:19

a story. You can

49:21

give the gift of story by sending your friends

49:23

and your enemies a little taste of the Snap Judgment

49:25

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49:28

I promise. What

49:30

did I mention? The Snap's Evil Twin

49:33

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49:36

That's two for one, players. Snap

49:39

Judgment is brought to you by the team

49:41

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49:59

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50:02

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50:07

of course you may have heard this is not the news.

50:10

No way is this a news. In fact, after pouring

50:12

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50:15

could coax your auntie into revealing that

50:17

yes, yes it is true,

50:20

that she did cut you out of her last real

50:22

intestine. And that's exactly what you

50:24

get for asking all those crazy questions,

50:26

Mr. Snap Judgment Radio Man. You

50:28

happy now?

50:30

Huh? Huh? Do

50:32

that. And you would still, still,

50:35

not

50:36

be as far away from the news as this

50:38

is, but this is

50:42

PRX.