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Spartan Hall

GLYNN WASHINGTON, HOST:

Now then, it was one summer when I had to leave my university and go to a summer job. And I needed a place to stay. I needed a place to stay, and I saw this spot. It was called Spartan Hall. It's great. I went and checked it out, signed the lease, started moving in. It was this big huge dorm-ish looking building, kind of had a communal kitchen and everything like that, communal restroom. And I was moving in, and this woman comes in. And she has this wire, and she takes it and she starts threading it through her eyebrow. And she starts screaming. And I tell her - I tell her that's going to hurt, if you do that. And she runs off down the hall. I go to the kitchen, and there's a woman there sobbing. She tells me she's locked her soul in a bottle of ketchup and can't get it out. I open it up. She's thankful. I leave. I go next door. I knocked on the door, and a woman comes out. What's going on at Spartan Hall? Oh, I see. Well, the owners used to own a halfway house, but the government closed that.

So they moved everyone into Spartan Hall. So it's a halfway house? Kind of, without the counselors and the medicine. Hope you got cheap rent. I did get cheap rent. So once I understood it, it was kind of cool. I got used to what was going on. And maybe it was a holdover from the halfway house days, but every night, people got together on the porch and did what they called counsel. You kind of throw your problems in the middle, and everyone would discuss them. And I only went occasionally. I tried to give my own advice. You know, maybe you should reach out to your mother. You know, don't let someone who calls themselves your boss slap you and pull your hair. That's not right. So one night, I came back really, really, really late. It was 11:30 - 12 at night and everyone was on the porch. I said, what's going on? And Frankie (ph), he told me - he said, look, people really like what you were saying so they wanted to wait 'til you got here.Frankly, I was touched. I didn't know I was part of the group. So I started putting more time into the council. And I would give the best advice I could. Yeah, your son would like to hear from you. Even if you do hear something that you thinks not there, even if you do see something that might not exist, you still deserve to be treated with respect. And I was - I felt good about participating in this. It was the good thing of that summer. Well, that summer, it wasn't all counsel and work. I actually met a girlfriend. Way, way out of my league. She was cool, she was pretty, she was smart, funny. She was all that. And, you know, I was impressed. I thought, you know, I might start have to make long-term plans with this one here. And one night, she came by my place at three in the morning, which normally would be fantastic. But in Spartan Hall, three in the morning is something called the Magic Hour where everyone would just start screaming and hollering and barking at 3:01 sharp.

And this could be very off putting if you'd never heard it before. What are they doing? Why are you here? Oh, you know, maybe we should just join in. No, we're not joining in. What's wrong with you? We need to move out of here. Well, I wasn't moving anywhere. I really liked it there. And sometimes, in fact, I'd tell her I have to work late. The truth was I was at counsel. And she started to suspect. And it went on like this for a while. And one night - one night, though, at counsel, Frankie said, look - look, you put into this a lot, but you don't take out. He's telling you - tell us what's going on in your world. And I didn't feel comfortable sharing like that. I just went silent. I didn't say anything. And then one day, I was in counsel. Come on. Tell us what's going on.So I told. I said, you know, Frankie, everybody, I'm, sorry, but my girlfriend wants me to move out of here. Why? She thinks you all are crazy in the head. And he looks at me and the entire council looks at me. And Frankie says, we are crazy. We are crazy, but us crazy people, we're thinking. We got to thinking maybe it's time you got rid of that girlfriend. Awe, no. I appreciate it, but no, I don't think so. I won't be doing that. Turned out I didn't have to. She got rid of me. She said that I was living exactly where I was supposed to be, which was ironic 'cause it was the end of the summer. It's time for me to move out, go on back to school. I left. I left 3:45 a.m. on a Saturday night, right after Magic Hour. Where I went, I held hands, I screamed, I shouted, I cried together, for the very first time.

(APPLAUSE)

WASHINGTON: SNAP JUDGMENT. This is NPR. Peace out. Thanks for coming out.

See the full version of this show in Technicolor magic at snapjudgment.org. Big thanks to KPCC, PRX and the Nokia Theater at LA Live. Peace out. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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