He Slept in a Train Station and Still Showed Up for School: A Story of Unbelievable Resilience with Rich Dunning

Welcome And Rich’s Story Setup

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Anne. Today we're joined by Rich Dunning, author of Silence Was My First Language. By the way, I love the title. And Rich grew up in the Bronx, surrounded by poverty, violence, and abuse. He learned early that survival meant recognizing danger, protecting his siblings, hiding his emotions, and making himself as invisible as possible. Despite everything happening in his life, he continued pursuing his education. There was even a period when he was homeless, sleeping in an abandoned train station, getting up in the morning for high school, by the way, going to school to shower, continuing his day while nobody knew where he had slept the night before. He graduated from high school, went on to college, and eventually built a successful career, but the childhood that he survived still lived within him. It didn't simply disappear like the secrets that he had to keep. The fear, anger, and behaviors that he developed to survive followed him into adulthood, affecting his relationships, his struggle with alcoholism, and the family that he had worked so hard to build. Today we're talking about what Rich endured, the people who helped Rich find another way forward, the difficult work of recovery, and what it means to find your voice after spending so much of your life believing that silence was the safest way to survive. So, Rich, welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Ann.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Thank you for having me, Ann. And wow, what an introduction. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Well, before we continue, I have to say something. More than your pain, more than what was done to you, more than the alcoholism and the choices that you made in order to numb the past. I have to tell you that you are one of the strongest people that I ever met. I mean, I would never let the things that we choose to do in order to survive, which did linger too long, you know, it we all do it. Yeah. I wouldn't allow it to shame us because you had to learn differently. You had only known one way. And shedding all of that and allowing yourself to be seen and shed the layers of pain and face them without alcohol is brave. And I applaud you for the steps that you made while you were vulnerable and raw.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Wow. Yeah, yeah, it's gosh, I don't even know what to say after that. It's um you definitely got the book. It does sit with you. Um, it is uh, you know, it was something that I was really, really traumatized as an adult about that I just bottled up and never healed from for a long time. Um silence,

Scarface Arrives And Fear Begins

SPEAKER_01 3:40

what kept me silent as a child, became my armor as an adult. I mean, I couldn't, I didn't trust anyone. I lived in paranoia and the drink was my best friend.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Well, for our listeners, before we get into everything that happened with your girlhood, and you know, because there were there was good reason that you were like that, but you were just three years old when your dad, and it's all complicated, but when he left, and then Hector, your stepfather or Scarface, however you want to refer to him, came into We'll address him as Scarface. Scarface is fine with me. I don't even know if he deserves that. I but okay, so Scarface came into your life soon afterward, and what followed were years of poverty, fear, and abuse, and you learn to recognize his footsteps, anticipate his moods, know when he was on coke or whatever, when he was amped up, know when to hide. I mean, you witnessed your mom and siblings be hurt, they were being hurt, you were being a victim of violence. There were times when you had very little food or heat, and you slept in a basement, roaches, rats. What was life like for you growing up under his rule and in all the houses that you were in?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

You know what I find so fascinating for spive of the human brain is that I've had such vivid memories as early as three years old. That's number one. I mean, I can see the room, where everything was, what everything looks like. My mind, it's just incredible. I recently went back with my daughter. We did a whole, it was very cathartic. We visited every place I lived, and um to see it all these years later, it really broke me. But yeah, it really broke me. Um, things looked a lot smaller than they did when you were a child, that's for sure. Right. But yeah, so in regards to those memories, you know, it was almost like a permanent tattoo that was inscribed on my body, whether it was physical, emotional. I mean, there there are chapters in this book that I couldn't put in the book at first that are not in the book, that are just so out there that people would be shocked. I mean, I watch, I remember something that happened to me at nine years old that's not in the book, for example. You know, we were supposedly having a Father Sunday, not that there were any of those, but he just wanted to go drinking and play basketball, street basketball in New York City, which can be very physical. So I'm sitting at the end of the court holding his six-pack, and as they're playing, he gets into a confrontation with two opposing players, and they go out and have this full-on fist fight to the point he comes over to me, breaks, takes one of the balls, breaks it, and repeatedly stabs both of these guys. To this day, I don't even know if they're alive, I have to be honest. But, you know, you hear the sirens, everyone takes care takes off, and no one says anything. You would think that something as dramatic, as traumatizing as this, that we would go directly home or what have you. No, we actually went to what we call the uh bodega, which is a convenience store in the city, and he was chatting it up with the clerk as if nothing happened, buying another six-pack. Oh my. That's an example of things that are not even in the book that are just so crazy. But the first time he put his hands on me, and I'll never forget that. I um, you know, I grew up in a home before him that was full of poverty, yes. And as you mentioned earlier, if you didn't conceal yourself in this broken down basement, which was essentially three rooms, and cover yourself at night when it was cold, you had bite uh rats biting on you, roaches crawling on you. We would use the oven, um, the furnace to turn them on to keep us warm.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

He came into my life about a year and a half after my mom divorced my biological dad, who was basically a deadbeat. Yeah. But life up to that point was great. I didn't speak a word of English, although I am a first-generation American. My mom was literally off the boat from the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic. And other than, you know, I remember the days of Elvis Presley and Freddie Fender playing, and that was it, you know, those were the moments that were warm. This thing comes into our lives, and and really within we were living in fear. Um, I remember going, we were getting ready for my first day of school, and I didn't want to go because I didn't speak English. Right. English was not my first language, it was Spanish. And we never had any outside relationships, we didn't go to pre-K or anything like that. So I'm crying, I am in my pajamas, I'm upset, and I remember I was kind of creating a fuss of some sort, you know, I was a free. And he took his fist, closed it, and struck me so hard across the side of my face that I literally peed my pajamas. And with that, the school was across the street from our basement apartment. I went to school in my wet pajamas and no one questioned it. And that was my introduction to violence. And school. And school, yes, and school.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

Yeah. Oh my gosh, how horrific. What a memory. You know, one of the other things that I do really have to talk about is this really hit me a lot. And I

Violence At Home Becomes Normal

SPEAKER_03 10:00

know that you went through so much horrific abuse that affects you deeply when you are abused. But one of the worst things, I think, and this almost makes me want to cry right now. One of the worst things is that Sophia. Oh. You know, I mean, it's one thing when you do experience all the abuse, but you handled it one way. You were quiet, you were, you know, invisible, you tried to be, but then Sophia, you know, she kind of had a little bit of a different way of handling things. And Scarface was not very nice to either of you. And when that incident in the basement, when you both were put down there, he had you uh take your clothes off. And then he secured your wrist to metal support poles with zip ties, and he forced you to kneel on uncooked rice for hours, and your knees swelled, and the rice broke your skin, and you know, the boiler was hot, and it was unbearably hot. And if you would even collapse, you know, he would pull you back up. But what stayed with me, and I mean, don't get that was awful. That was horrific. But when you know what you have endured, and then somebody younger, more vulnerable, more, you know, that it puts a helplessness in you when you know that they're going to be going through it too, and you can't do anything about it. You can't stop it. And that has to bring, I think, an ownership that was never meant for you to own. But I think it would put a whole different layer on it that actually makes it worse.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

It does. Um, you know, we we were young, and you brought up a very traumatic moment for my my sister and I. You know, we have I have step siblings as well, who are his biological children, who he never actually ever touched. Emotionally, they're just as broken, unfortunately. I lost my brother at the age of 29. Yeah, I mean, he passed away. Right. Um, that was about 15 years ago. But, you know, they still carry those emotional scars. Those days, I don't I mean, I can't even imagine how someone can come up with such a torture method when I think about it today. Let's gather uncooked rice and have these kids first of all, naked in front of your sibling is is shameful enough. Yeah, they're trying, yeah, and and you're trying not to look, obviously. And um and then you're tied to this young metal support pole that's the structure of the home in this furnace area, and he would be, as you guys joked earlier, he'd be coked up. So he was never tired. He was just, you know, pacing back and forth. The can the part that you might have missed was that before that torture started, and it would start at night, so it would gone on go on all night long, and he would prior to that, he would make us go out back in the trees and pull out what we call switches, but they're called they're actually vines.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

And his cruel method was if you for one moment bring your butt to your heels, you were gonna get whipped along your backside and along your butt for kneeling. So we would spend most of the night in this position um trying not to sit down uh and and rest because kneeling on, I mean, it's it becomes a very painful thing. When I look at Sophia, obviously I protected them and changed their names, but she definitely I got it really bad. She got she was she was treated like a man when it came to someone going through violence. She definitely got it worse than me. And you know, obviously you you read in the book that she took a little bit of a different journey as an adult and yeah, and still has her demons to fight, and that's her story to tell.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Yeah, yes. But the the part of it that, you know, my my adopted mom, she was um, she did a lot of the same things where she really hurt my sister a lot. And I would be in the next room and I would listen to what I would consider be torture. And you know, and and then she gave her to the system and told me to keep secrets, and I wasn't allowed to tell anybody. And so I really connected with that part of your story where you have to h you have to hold this. You you can't tell people, and then you have to go to school and have this like life and act as if it didn't even happen the night before, and then you also are holding what happened to your sibling. It's awful.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, we were expected to go to school that following morning. We were up all night. You're absolutely right. And I don't know if it was a sign of the times. I I again growing up wherever I grew up, wherever, because we moved so many times because we were evicted so often.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

When even when we went out and moved out to Long Island to a part that was, you know, as bad as my city life, in terms of you weren't safe in the house, but you weren't safe outside either. And uh I think maybe the teachers themselves were fending for themselves, hoping to make it home to their own families, because our junior high school, our high school, was not a safe place. It it was not a safe place. I mean, there was never there was never a safe place for me to other than my grandfather's house initially, as you know, where I can call it was almost like someone coming home from war, where you know, my grandfather would have us back at the Dominican Republic for three months, and it was kind of a refuge where you didn't have to be, you didn't have to

Basement Torture And Sibling Helplessness

SPEAKER_01 16:30

wear the armor 24 hours a day because you didn't know what was to happen next.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

But when you were not at your grandfather's and you were living in that environment, I just can't even imagine because as you're explaining it, I mean, you really didn't even have any respite anywhere, it feels like to me. And you also felt responsible for your mom and your younger siblings, step siblings, Hecki and Layla. And there's a part of your book where you describe trying to make the basement a play place for them, for the youngers. And I have to tell you because like you had such a horrible association with the basement. And in everywhere that you lived, I mean, you had a fire, stabbings, you had so many things that happened that caused eviction, eviction, eviction, coke, your dad, your stepdad not being able to make payments and things like that. How did you come to see yourself not just as a protector of the family, but to create such a a playful place in the basement where there was such a horrible association with it?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

As horrible as it was, number one, it was also the only other safe place I knew. Again, going back to the name of the book, Silence was my first language. For me, that meant being invisible, being, you didn't want to be on anyone's radar. I I didn't, you know, I loved my mom. I did. I didn't trust my mom. My mom became my mom was a victim, absolutely. I don't the drama, the trauma that she has had in her life is incredible, but she used those tools to also be a master manipulator as well. And I still am, I I I still say that she was or she is an alcoholic. I don't know. I mean, I haven't spoken to them in probably over 10 years now. Um but for me, I took a parent role at the age of 10 and I was a child. I knew how to hustle, I knew how to find money. For your listeners, if you ever felt a sort of hunger and you and and feeling that for days on end, and you can't wait to go to school because you know then you're gonna get free breakfast. And you're just gonna eat as much as you can because you don't know when your next meal is coming. And then lunch comes around and you're thinking about what can I take to feed my younger siblings who may not even be in school yet. And again, here I am at 10, 11, 12 years old. My younger siblings at that time were two and one, excuse me, two and a newborn. But as I got older, I mean, we have my the the age difference between me and my youngest sibling is 14 years. So I was a dad to her. And then my my other sibling who passed away, we had a 10-year difference. So the things that I was doing in my teenage years was, you know, making sure that they could eat and so forth. Because all of our monies, uh, I've never met such a horrible drug dealer in my entire life, by the way. The guy never had money, right? Um all of my money when it wasn't taken from me, monies that I could hide went to buy food and to make sure that they had something to eat. Because my mom, I don't, I don't know. I think she was just fending for herself at this point. She she she was not a source of protection for for us. Definitely not. And you know, you'll have readers that will empathize with what she went through. And I don't discount I there is no there should be no reason for any man to ever hit any woman. There's that is a non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

But I truly believe that my mom knew how to use that to manipulate, manipulate, manipulate as well.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Well, both can be true.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Both can be true, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Yes. I did see that throughout your book with your mom. There were times that I did feel bad for her, especially when she was pregnant, being pushed down the stairs and things like that. Yes. I mean, that's horrific. But on the other hand, what she did and allowed with you and the kids was not okay. She was in the room a lot of times when those things were happening.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

And she looked the other way.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

She did. And that's, you know, it makes me ask the question if what our parents go through gives them any kind of an excuse for who they became or what they allowed as when they were parents.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

And I I really try, you know, my life is very different today, obviously, but I really try to understand her psyche. Um I I have a profound understanding for domestic violence, obviously, based on the buttons. And, you know, in my generation, uh, we know it as EBT today, and EBT is supplemental funds for folks who are really struggling, who can't make ends meet to buy food. Back in my day, our day, we would get actual currency in the form of a food stamp. Now, a food stamp can Only be used for food. You can't buy cigarettes, you can't buy beer, you can't buy other things. You can't go out and have a good time with it. So every first of the month, when these food stamps would arrive, it was my job per my mom. And her manipulation was if you don't do this, he's gonna find out about it, and we're all gonna suffer. You need to go to the local supermarket, stand outside, and sell these for US dollars. So, in other words, if I had $200 worth of food stamps back in the early 80s, I would be expected to home to bring home $100 in US dollars. So I'm essentially selling it for half so they can actually have dollars to buy other things like cigarettes and so forth. And the shame that I had doing that for them, I can't even describe it, especially when you would bump into someone you know and their families, and they see this person selling food stamps in the supermarket parking lot. That's the mother I knew as a teenager.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

That's yeah, that's sad. And now that I've become a

Becoming The Parent As A Kid

SPEAKER_03 23:20

parent, you know, I see it even a different perspective because I had a lot of those things happen to me, not necessarily what happened to you, but I mean a lot of things happened to me that there is no way that I would do that with my kids. Never.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

I know. I look at my kids today. I mean, they're all young adults now, and uh I'm so blessed every day for them to be part of my life. And but I think about them, especially my boys. I have two boys and a girl, and I look at them and I try to imagine when they were that age. Right. And I remember what their personalities were and their developmental stages were. I couldn't even imagine doing something like that.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

No, no, no. I mean, it scars you for life, it changes your whole trajectory, it makes Yeah. And while all this was happening at home, you continued to go to school. Yeah. You didn't miss, and you still tried to build a future for yourself. And there was a period, like I had mentioned in the intro, that you were living basically in a train station, and then you would go shower at school and attend classes and continue with your day, and nobody knew. How did you manage to keep showing up for school every day when you were homeless? And basically your life was very bleak.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Yeah, you know, and I I read about this a lot too. Um firstborn in this, and you know, with having this background that I do uh or this experience, we tend to be overachievers. The one thing I knew early on is I love to learn. I love learning about I didn't know anything at five years old, meaning, you know, when again, going back to my kids at how much they knew, and even as teenagers, when they would talk to me, I'm like, I don't think I knew that when I was your age. It's amazing the evolution in in their education when you take interest in someone's education. Yes. I could not get enough of science, I couldn't get enough of social studies. Um, it those sorts I I just loved it. And I was an athlete. And that was the other component to that. Yes. Um so I'm thankful that I did. The I think this the message there was for me was my grandfather, who was very affluent back in the Dominican Republic, my bot, my biological dad's dad was very respected, lived an affluent life. He was a man of conviction, and I just loved him. And I can't believe that his offspring was completely different, didn't finish high school. It was it's incredible to me because he was a man that I mean, gosh, is the other siblings were great, and just I couldn't understand it. But when we would go there on our summers, our again, refuge, I would learn so much from him in terms of what it takes to be productive as a citizen.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

And what you know, what this other life looks like, and that I never experienced. Um I knew I wanted that early on, that this was not going to be my path. I knew that. One thing that's not in the book is that my b my stepdad, Scarfix, would call me dog. That was my name from the day, you know, from five years old till I was like 17. I didn't have a name. It was dog do this, you're a dog, dog, dog, dog all day long. Oh my gosh. And that was almost kind of a no, I'm not. I'm gonna prove you wrong.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

See, it fuels you to be different than the what how they're treating you. It makes you want it even more.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

But going back to the homelessness component, that homelessness period lasted about nine months. It was in my junior going into my senior year of high school. And it took place after a severe beating that my mother took, as well as my cousin, who was now living with us, who came from the Dominican Republic, and under one of his coke fueled binges, he thought that my then 15-year-old cousin was sleeping with my mom. And he stabbed my cousin repeatedly, and I think really beat my mom to enters of her life that day. I wasn't there for the act. I came afterwards, and that was the first time that I inflicted violence

Selling Food Stamps For Cash

SPEAKER_01 28:30

on him in front of police officers.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

And I genuinely believe that the police officers let me get my licks in while he was handcuffed before they stopped it.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Um in turn, we were evicted yet again. He went up. This is the first time he would he would be incarcerated, by the way. Right, right. He only did a little more than a year, which again is I don't, this is where domestic violence how it lives, right? Yeah. She goes off to a shelter for, and I hate this term, battered women. I don't think it should be called a battered women's shelter. It's a shelter where women are just trying to find themselves and get get their lives together and and hopefully see a different path. They wouldn't take me because I was a teenager. My sister Sophia was already in the streets, live couch surfing. She wasn't going to school. And then my brother was seven, and my sister was four. They were allowed to go, and I assured my mom that I was gonna be okay. I didn't want her to suffer. I was able to couch surf a little bit until that got old with other families, and and I get it. I get it. Yeah. Um people, you know, sometimes just don't want to be involved. I I hope that that's not the case today. I chose to hit the streets. I knew that I could keep myself busy with school, practice, go on to work and make a couple of bucks. I couldn't even get someone to rent me a room. It's not that I didn't have money, but you know, especially in the in that town that I lived in, you can actually rent a room for like 40 bucks a week, I remember. I thought I could swing that. I was working at White Castles that that didn't play out. So I knew that this there were homeless people living at this abandoned train station. They had built another train station, and there were homeless people living there. And one night I made the decision. I was sleeping at White Castles, by the way, for a little bit. That's not the book. Okay. The manager would let me sleep in the back until school started, and then that was not okay either because of my age and so forth. And it was a 24-hour White Castles, if anyone knows what a White Castle is. So I um I decide to break into the that train station through a window up top. That's how people would get in, and I would sleep there. And it was the most horrible smell. The roaches. Yeah. There were men that um were dangerous, that were there, and I would just curl up in the corner. When I I would actually get by this time, I was a full-fledged alcoholic, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

I started drinking at the age of seven, and here I am at 16, 17. That was my painkiller. And I knew if I took enough, I could handle it, and I would bring my baseball back. That's what I play. I played baseball in school.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

I would and early in the morning, I'd wake up severely hungover, sneak right back out, freezing cold, head off to school. I had access to the school gym because I'm an athlete and the showers and everything else.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Take my shower, try to put myself together, change my clothes, and head off to classic. I never miss school.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

That really needs to be commended. It really does. I know when you.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

No one you.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

You know, I I just it's an amazing strength.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

That is 1986-87.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

There is, and then we will move on past this part of your life, but there's a story that really struck me too, and it made me think of all the teachers that have kids sitting in front of them that are going through the same thing that you were going through. And like a message to teachers, you know, the hat story. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

If you could tell that that seems that chapter that you're referring to, is it My Blue Nikes? Um, and uh man, that chapter, alone, it could be its own book. It could be. Yeah. I commend teachers, teachers like Miss Terrace, and that's what we're talking about. Miss Terrace was an amazing person for me. She was my math teacher. She always took interest in me and other kids as well, in a place that otherwise was very dangerous. And she didn't know what was going on at home or anything like that. But she always treated me with dignity and and and so forth. And I had a crush on her, I'll admit it. In this particular case, I I'll I'll save the details for the book, but my stepfather decided to take a different tactic in terms of traumatizing me. Um,

Homeless While Still Going To School

SPEAKER_01 33:50

he had found out something that I did, which wasn't anything bad. I was simply protecting my siblings. And instead of his usual physical violence that I would have almost preferred this time around, he decided to take scissors to my head and just chop me up. And then those times, and what if anyone knows what a shag was, that's what I had. I had a shag haircut. Um and by the time he was done with me, I had just patches, and I was so traumatized by this. And my mom did nothing. And the next morning I was still expected to go to school and not look. At school, you weren't allowed to wear hats during that period. Um there was a lot of gang activity that was going on, and people would wear certain colors or what have you. I went to school with a hat on. And Miss Terrace was my first period. And I she would she walked in, everyone quieted down. I everyone noticed I had a head on. And she uh she's like, Rich, what's going on there? Or she would call me Richie and uh Richie, let's remove the hat. And I ignored her and I put my head down. And a couple seconds later she readdressed it, and I ignored her again. Then she walked over to me and she looked at me, and she consensus that there was something really wrong. She says, Okay, hey, and uh she said, I want you to come outside with me outside the doors. And he she told the students to do something else. So now we're outside, and she says to me, I want you to take off your hat, in a loving manner. I reluctantly did, and I started to tear up. Here I am 12 years old, and I could see the horror in her eyes, and she started to cry. She says, Okay, here's what I want you to do. She puts the hat back on me, she goes, I want you to sit in the teacher's lounge until third period and let everyone know. I'll let everyone know that you're there for a reason. And I will come get you third period. I do what she says. She gets back third period, she has this little bag, she opens it up, we're in that private room, and it's clippers. She proceeded to give me a haircut. She gave me what we would call a Caesar's haircut, a Roman haircut. And my hair was never that short before. And she treated me with such kindness and was so gentle with me. And she told me that I'm gonna love this haircut because her brother was in the ROTC and she used to do these all the time. She never once asked what happened. I can sense she knew. And then after that, I remember her tearing up again and just giving me this big hug. She goes, Yeah, I don't want to talk about it. I'm here for you. And that was the kindness of a teacher that day.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

Yeah. She didn't allow any shame. She didn't allow any embarrassment. She handled this privately. You know, that says so much about who she was as a teacher. And it is a lesson, I think. There are so many kids, so many kids. I mean, I have friends who are educators, and especially nowadays, you know, there are so many kids that are being abused or living in their cars, or what I mean, they just have such awful stories, and they're going to school and trying to learn. So those kind of teachers are just really, it's amazing that they can reach the kid where they are. Because honestly, I'm assuming that even though that you were a sponge, that it's hard to learn when you come into the classroom like that.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Oh, you're you're always on, that's for sure. You the the I always call it the armor. The armor never comes off. Um the level of anxiety never really dissipates. Um any noise you might hear can startle. I remember even as an adult. I was never into it. Yeah. I can never I'm not good in real public places where it's loud or there's loud music or things like that. I don't care about it very well. I'm more sensitive today more than ever at my age, even though I've dealt with a lot of my trauma. It's something that I still can't kind of bring to peace, for example. Like my wife, you know, we do intimate things, meaning in intimate settings, like uh small concerts or whatever. But oh, hey, let's go to uh a big event or you know, I love sports. I I don't I don't find it comfortable going to a big arena or a football stadium or anything. It's it puts me in a in a really alert, uh kind of anxious, and I don't feel anxiety anymore, but it it it level it it raises my level of awareness. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I I understand. One of the things though that really helped get you through was baseball. Yeah. And I was so glad that you had something for you, you know. I think that that was just so important. What did baseball give you?

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Yeah, you know, I loved baseball, and um for the folks that will read silence was my first language, will understand why I love baseball. It's one of the places I got to spend a good seven months in when I was homeless as a 11-year-old, I believe. Um during one of our many evictions. But um, through him, I really gained a love for baseball and learning how to play baseball fundamentally. I never thought that I got a partial baseball scholarship as a result. And I that scholarship saved me in a sense. That did. And I was able to keep that after my severe injury of year two, which you guys would read about. Um I was able to keep that scholarship. So baseball meant a lot to me. Um, you know, I had this grandiose vision that I was gonna be this great baseball player or whatever, and I was gonna make it, and that was the right I was gonna take. Um, it wasn't the case, but it gave me an education that could never be taken away from me. Right in terms of my college education.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Right. It gave you what you needed, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

I wouldn't have a life today if it wasn't for that piece of paper. Yeah, that's for sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Well, and the fact that you did graduate from high school, just even high school. I mean, you did go to college, but the fact that you graduated from high school and then your family wasn't even there, which does the first one to go to I was the first one to go to high school

A Teacher’s Quiet Act Of Rescue

SPEAKER_03 41:10

and college.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Um my parents never graduated from high school.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

You didn't need them there.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Yeah. Yeah, they didn't even understand what that meant in terms of it. It was another way of them trying to minimize what I accomplished, I thought. Right. Because I think when he looked in the mirror, when, like, for example, when he called me dog, I think he was kind of referring to himself, maybe he was projecting.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

Maybe definitely.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Yeah. Um, well, you know what I think about it? Because I try to understand, I haven't forgiven, and I don't think I ever will, but I try to understand what that psyche looks like, what that makeup looks like in a person like that in general. How did that per I mean, obviously there's been repetitive repetitiveness in terms of generational cycles and abuse. That's happened. And it seems to be the MO for a lot of um people that inflict pain on others, whether you're narcissistic or violent, etc. Right. I try to understand it, but doesn't mean I have to accept it or forgive it. At least that's the way I feel.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

I would think that there would be some degree of jealousy.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 42:25

Yeah, because here you were young, smart, athletic. You had so much. And he didn't.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

No.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

Of his own doing. I mean, he he had lost his chance in life, really, at that stage. And he wasn't turning it around. And I think he might have been jealous and trying to ruin your life too and say, hey, you know, look where you come from, you're gonna be just like me. And I think you as with some of the things that he did with you when you were younger, trying to teach you what what a real man was. Um, yeah, I think he was trying to create that.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. Because he would never let me forget that I will always be nothing.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Yeah, well, I but you were, and you did have other people in your life, and that's what I want to get to because there were people in your life that were you know dropping seeds. And I think that that all those along with baseball, all and yourself, because you were a key component in this, um, to being able to survive, but you did have quite a few people that were put in your path. Frank and Miriam uh were two, and they lived upstairs from you, and they showed you a kindness. And I think that they were maybe some of the first people that you saw. Wow, you know, adults can be kind.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Yeah, they were they were kind of like surrogate grandparents. Yeah. To me and my sister early on. Um and kind of a little, you know, my mom when obviously when she was single during that short time frame, you know, she was working her tail off, just trying to make things work because I had a deadbeat father, essentially. Two of them at the end when you really look at it, but um, they would watch us, they wouldn't ask for anything. It was it was always a pleasant moment that they would treat us like human beings. And that was yeah, those those were fond memories when I was a small child, you know, between the ages of three and maybe six.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

And those are important. And Monica's Monica's family, uh, they welcomed you after the fire, and

Baseball As Refuge And A Scholarship

SPEAKER_03 44:50

her dad even declined for you to pay rent. I mean, they really did show you what a family, how a family lives.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

And he gave me the he's the gentleman that gave me the love for for sports and for baseball specifically.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

See, see, all these little nuggets that became big, and then Chris with the music. And, you know, I think that he gave you one of the biggest gifts, and it took me back to that goodwill hunting kind of message. If you've ever seen that movie where Ryan is taking Matt Damon and saying, you know, it's not your fault, it's not your fault. So here, Chris is saying, You don't belong to Hector.

unknown 45:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

I mean, Mike Mic Drop.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Yeah, he's very much in my life today. Oh, good. One of my biggest cheerleaders. Um, my book, Silence was my first language, was recognized. I know it's still a pre-sale, but it was recognized as um, I was recognized as a distinguished author for 2026 by the International Book Impact Awards. And the gala is next year in Arizona and uh or in Jangarin. And he, I invited him and his wife to be there because I want to honor him. He had a major part in saving me in those teenage years where I was I was doing a lot of the right things, but I was also taking a lot of left turns and fighting and and and acting out.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

He he he saved you from what was happening to you, but he also called you out.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

Tough love.

unknown 46:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Tough love he gave me.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

I mean, what he gave you was such a gift, and he loved you really regardless of what he still does. That's so great.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Unconditional, like the the the big brother I never had, always checking in again, my biggest cheerleader. My biggest cheerleader.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm I'm so glad that you have that because he I think gave you part of your life back uh from what everybody else was trying to rob you of. But then now I want to I have to talk about this. I have to talk about the five days with your grandfather because this to me changed me, and he's not even my grandfather.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

So it's I tell you, this man, it was incredible.

SPEAKER_03 47:16

I wrote it all down because his words, he was so wise. Is he still with us? I'm sorry if I No, he passed away.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Um, it's in the book. He did pass away um when uh just after I was married. Um that's right, that's right. The will, all that stuff. That's yeah, yeah, I remember now. He's such a wise man, and he would always it was like I always can I always like referred to him to like Confucius or something, because it was always a question, not necessarily telling me what to do, but planting the seed. And I love it. He he was just a master of that, you know. That last time really was the last time that we had that intimacy together. Something very unfortunate happened, you guys will read about it in the book. But essentially the bottom line was I was out of baseball, school became my number one focus, and in those days, um, I had I needed, I still had my partial scholarship, but I still needed financial aid. And you still needed your parents, whether they were or weren't parents, to sign off on it. And in those days, they would send the money directly to your home, and then you would take it to the person or's office and so forth. So I start getting these nasty grams at

Adults Who Showed Real Kindness

SPEAKER_01 48:40

school and about 14k that's not been paid, and where's the money? I'm like, it hasn't come. This is how naive I was the last thing I would think is that my parents, my stepfather and my mother would ever steal my money, they stole $14,000 for me and essentially almost ended my college career at year three. If it wasn't for my grandfather providing those funds, I don't know that I would be here. He had to pay off, he had to pay off school, and then we were still responsible for the financial aid debts. On top of that, right? I had to pay that off as an adult because essentially he was under my name with a parent co-signature.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

Right, right. Yeah. Thank God for your grandfather in so many ways. And his words, okay, I wrote some of these down. His words, a journey is long only when you carry what has already ended. Fatigue is not always from distance, it comes from holding an identity past its usefulness. The body grows tired when the mind refuses to release what no longer protects it. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

That is that is verbatim. I never forget that. I can recite that all the time. It is that that was him. That was just oh my gosh. Might drop, as you said earlier. Yeah. Right, right. And it would just resonate with me. I was like, what did you just say? And I was like, oh, okay. I don't have to do this. Yeah, it's um it's just an amazing man. What an amazing man. I can't believe that his son came from him, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 50:30

He also said that you um confuse endurance with struggle, and endurance is what you survived, strength is what you build. What did that distinction mean to you? What did you take from that?

SPEAKER_01 50:45

You know, for me, strength two re two different one was a negative because at one point I took that quote and I viewed strength as power. I was no longer gonna have anyone power be powerful over me. I was gonna be powerful other over others, and even if it hurt them, you know. Not in the physical sense, but in a manner of I'm going to challenge everything. But the I think the the other side of that, the strength and endurance side is for me, it's like making sure that you can put your head on that pillow at the end of the night and not taking anything for granted that's been given to you. Um and those those very thoughts, even when I was drinking, remain, that ethic uh remained um to just I'm gonna outdo anyone, I'm going to prove everyone wrong on every day, I'm going to be the standard. Right. That's that's what kind of it meant to me at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03 51:57

You, I think, exemplify so much of your grandfather.

Grandfather’s Wisdom And Stolen Aid

SPEAKER_03 52:01

Uh and one of the things that he also said, which I think I'm going to use on my kids, um, is responsibility is not the same as shame. Shame immobilizes. Responsibility allows movement. And if you are capable of choosing wrong, then you are capable of choosing differently next time.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

I wish I would have learned that lesson a little bit sooner, though. I I I heard that one. I didn't listen to that one, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 52:31

I know, but that is so good. I have thought about that so many times since I read that and wrote it down. Um I mean, it's it's something that I will remember for my own self and I will say it to my kids.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Can I can I share with you why that one took a while to adopt? There there is always this constant tug of war between two human beings with inside me. One that that one that was full of shame, um, imposter syndrome, um, one that didn't feel like he wasn't good enough for anything. And then there was another one that could take on the world. I'm gonna prove everyone off you know, prove everyone wrong. When it came to that quote, I think the person that was going through all of that was winning, and that's why he wouldn't let that change or responsibility take take its full effect.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:37

Well, and I mean, I think that what happens to us when we're kids, I mean, when there's so much trauma like what you went through, I mean, it lived in you, it was living in you. And when you thought that you would let go of some of it, and then Hector actually ended up being released from prison, and I can't imagine why your mom, you know, I I don't want to judge, but it it was very hard to watch Reed her allow him to come back into your world again, even though he wasn't allowed to be in your house, really. I mean, technically, the lease even said that he's not allowed on the property, but she allowed him back. But then eventually, you know, it started to continue again. The the beatings and the different things, his his old behaviors came back. Of course, of course they did, but your old behaviors also came back with that as well. You know, I mean you froze, you still you still became you started to become that kid again. And I think that that happened so many times. What happened inside you when you heard Scarlet becoming violent again? And what did that experience help you recognize within your own self?

SPEAKER_01 54:52

It's interesting because you know, here is a college kid whose physical stature was I mean, I was I towered over him in a sense from a from a physical standpoint, and he was definitely weaker, and because I was so emotionally trained, I never saw myself as a stronger man, as someone that could overtake him, and you know he did some tough things during that time, as you know, including the raping my mother and taking her against her will. Yeah and I sat there and did nothing, and that crushes me to this very day. I didn't protect her because I was scared. Here I am, 20 years old, um, strong, but I was weak. I was weak.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

There's times in my life that I have not moved when I should have. I did not speak up when I should have, because of my old trauma. And I can blame myself for it. And I'm sure maybe there was something in me that could have moved, but I

When Trauma Freezes You As An Adult

SPEAKER_03 56:05

also really believe that trauma can keep us frozen when it is just like what we went through when we were kids, and it it just it silences us, silences just like the title of your book. It it does, it it silences us in all ways.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

It totally is. You just you go back to that child, you really do.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

You do, you do, you do, and you were not a 20-year-old man standing there when that was happening. I just want you to know that. I I know I hear some of the blame within yourself still for that, but you were probably uh a very small child standing there while that was happening.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

He owned my mind.

SPEAKER_03 56:51

He did.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

He did. Now it's that conditioning, right? Yeah, you're conditioned to to being in a certain way or performing or behaving in a certain way. Uh, I was conditioned to fear that man.

SPEAKER_03 57:05

It's really interesting how when you see somebody, maybe it's been even 20 years, you when you see them again, you become that person that you were when you were across from them.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

That's happened a couple of times because when I first cut him off, I'll cut the family off. There were a couple of times where, yeah, I mean I don't even know if I want to say I would try to make it work or whatever. Uh, but each time I saw him, I kind of got this little knot in my stomach. The fact that they're still together is just crazy. That's mind-blowing. I can't even believe that. Because I know the violence continued for many years. I don't know that that's true today, but it did continue for many years afterwards. I mean, these they're they're older folks now. I mean, they're in the mid-70s, but unbelievable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:51

I just can't even believe that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 57:54

Now I want to switch gears a little bit. Sure. You were building a successful career in the medical device industry. And you were managing people, making important decisions, and functioning in high pressure environments while privately struggling with things that other people might never have suspected.

Alcohol Question And Part Two Tease

SPEAKER_03 58:15

I mean, the numbing and the things that protected you were now really full-blown blowing up. Alcohol, of course. And you grew up witnessing the effects of Scarface's alcoholism on the family. But as you got older, alcohol became part of your own life. And it actually you did start pretty young, like you pointed out earlier. What did alcohol give you in the beginning? And then what happened? Uh, did you begin recognizing that your drinking was becoming a problem? We're going to stop here for this week, but Rich's story is far from over. We've heard about a little boy growing up in the Bronx, enduring horrific abuse at the hands of his stepfather, and eventually finding himself living in a train station simply trying to survive. But next week we're going to talk about what happens after you survive. How do you carry experiences like these into adulthood? How do you learn to trust, to love, and to build a life when so much of your childhood taught you that the world wasn't safe? And maybe the biggest question of all, how do you keep what happened to you from becoming who you are? He was very strong and brave. What he endured is unbelievable. Rich's story continues next week in part two of Real Talk with Tina and Anne.