Part 1: Nascent

0:00JACK: [Music] Death is easy. Life is hard. [Russian Lullaby Singing] ZACHARIAH: Wow, I’m surprised to hear that song. My mother used to sing it to me, and I’ve not heard it in so long. I’m surprised I remember the words. JACK: Yeah, I was listening to a lot of Russian lullabies, and that one stuck out to me. I was gonna play it at the beginning of this show because I figured we’ll start with the absolute beginning, like the day you were born. ZACHARIAH: It’s crazy you picked that one, though, since I know that one well.

1:03Do you know what it’s saying? JACK: No. Tell me. ZACHARIAH: It’s a lullaby that mothers sing to their babies in Russia, and it’s like, sleep my darling or else the wolf will come by your side and bite you and drag you into the forest. Sleep or he will come for you. JACK: That’s not a lullaby; that’s a horror story. Sleep or a wolf will come eat you. Man, they're really toughening up Russians early on, aren't they? ZACHARIAH: There are all kinds of songs like that.

1:32There’s another lullaby which is about a witch that will come for you. I think there’s one about a child’s funeral. They're creepy when you think about it. JACK: Yeah, wow. Here I was, concerned about rock-a-bye baby in the treetop. Like, what’s it doing in the treetop? And then it’s like, when the branch breaks, the baby will fall. So, now you're picturing babies falling out of trees in that song. So, I guess our lullabies aren't any better. ZACHARIAH: That’s funny.

2:02JACK: What did you think of when I played that song for you just now, when you remembered that your mom used to sing that song for you? ZACHARIAH: It makes me remember how my mother used to love me when I was small, but also how hard it’s been for me all these years to try to remember that. You know, maybe that’s the one thing that keeps me from becoming a ghoul. When everything is dark, I look for love somewhere, anywhere. I think hard, I try to remember where I’ve seen it, how it must feel.

2:36If I can find even a small piece of love, even if it’s far away in the past, it’ll pull me back and stop me from being taken by the darkness. So, when you played that song, I remembered what love was like, and I’m gonna try to remember that when I need to calm down. JACK: What year were you born? ZACHARIAH: I was born in 1999. JACK: Where? ZACHARIAH: In Southern Russia, a city called Samara. It’s near Kazakhstan. JACK: So, should we get started? You ready?

3:09ZACHARIAH: Yeah. Let’s do it. JACK: I mean, I’m like — I wonder how you would answer just a basic question like how are you or how’s life been treating you? ZACHARIAH: People ask me that and I usually just say I’m good, but I think with you I’ll tell you the truth. Life is hard. JACK: What do you mean? ZACHARIAH: Life’s a burden. JACK: A burden? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. Like, the choices we have to make, it’s just really hard to know what’s right. The choices I’ve made in the past, they all stuck with me, and I can't seem to get away from them.

3:46When you're constantly under this pressure to make some serious life choices that you know will stick with you forever, you don't feel free. You feel trapped. JACK: Do you know The Beatles? ZACHARIAH: No. JACK: It reminds me of this Beatles song which is, boy, you're going to carry that weight, carry that weight a long time. They're talking about the weight being your head and how it’s a heavy burden to carry around with you everywhere. ZACHARIAH: I like that.

4:17JACK: But listen; that’s the beauty of it, though, the freedom to choose your own path. That’s not a burden. That’s a gift. Yes, you have to live with your consequences, but you also live with your own victories and the pride of things you accomplish and stuff. So, why not fill up your life with things that you're proud of? ZACHARIAH: But that’s the lie. You think freedom is about choosing paths. No; all our paths lead to the same place. [Music] You know how it ends.

4:44You are going to die. Where’s the freedom in that when we all have the same fate? Real freedom comes when you realize there is no winning move. You have no choice in all this, and your fate is sealed. You're doomed in the end. Freedom comes when you look doom dead in its eyes and decide what to do next. Most people close their eyes. They can't take the intensity of life, but you don't have to. Maybe that’s all the freedom we have, to embrace doom or not.

5:17If that is all I get, then I’m gonna side with doom because you wouldn't believe how free it feels to make peace with doom. JACK: Many of us follow a path that we never chose. It’s like our life is crafted by those around us. The voices and the images that swirl into focus as we grow up tell us what our future should be. You know the story since it was told to you, too; grow up, study hard, get a job that pays well, find someone to love, someone safe, someone sensible.

6:04Buy a house with clean floors and mortgage payments. Have kids. Work, retire, then fade out quietly, but try to be important enough to someone that they hang a portrait up of you and have fond memories of you. Society will tell you that that is what life’s about. That’s where you'll find happiness and fulfillment. That’s what good people do. There’s no manual to life, but they act like they've read it, and when they tell you about it, it’s filled with shiny distractions, borrowed dreams, glowing screens, polished cars, curated homes that look like pages torn from a magazine, perfectly-folded linens, 401k plans, staged family photos, good parking spots.

6:58But those aren't your dreams. They're props in a story that someone else wrote for you. They think life is some kind of checklist. Gym membership; check. Cell phone plan; check. Dental insurance; check. Electric kettle; check. Standing desk; check. Two-week vacation; check. College degree; check. It’s not a checklist, though. Life is a storm. It’s a riot of contradictions, light and shadow tangled together. They don't tell you that you can experience joy so fierce that it could break you, or grief so tragic that it takes a piece of your soul away.

7:40They don't tell you that life is way more strange than that. It’s mad, it’s dark, and it’s absurd. But here's the truth; life isn't something you just inherit. It’s something you create. If you don't take the pen from their hands, they’ll keep writing your story for you, filling it up with check boxes you didn't choose, scenes that you didn't want. So, rip up the manual. Burn it if you must. Step off the path they paved for you. Walk into the unknown, because the only life worth living is the one where you find out what it means to truly be alive, even if it’s messy, even if it’s terrifying.

8:34The storm is waiting. Step into it. I’m Jack Rhysider. This is LOW. Part 1, Nascent. This is the story of Zachariah, a young kid who grew up in the slums of Russia, and his life is more strange, more mad, and more dark than anyone I’ve ever met. Zachariah will tell us his story, but be warned; this one is gruesome. It’s gory. It’s filled with drugs. There is sex, like the sick and disgusting kind. It’s terribly violent, and I’m driving us straight into the gory graphic details of all of it.

9:23So what I'm telling you is this is a content warning. This is your one and only content warning actually. Don't @ me and say, hey, I didn't know we were going there. We're going there. So buckle up, because this is going to be a rough ride. I should tell you some stuff before we get started. Zachariah first contacted me around 2017, about a year after starting my other podcast, Darknet Diaries, which is a show I do about true stories from the dark side of the internet.

9:49He said he had a story for me, so we got on the phone, and our first call floored me. I think we talked for four hours. I could not believe the stuff he was saying. As I sat with it, I realized I had a million more questions. So, week after week, month after month, we kept messaging each other, and we’d have hours and hours of phone calls to go over every little detail, and go over it again and again. The were by far the wildest calls I've ever been on with anyone in my life and that's saying a lot since I've spoken with some pretty wild people in my other podcast Darknet Diaries.

10:26Every single time I'd end the call with him, I was just stunned for hours. I had to go on a long walk and just process what he told me and reset before coming back to doing the rest of my day. We would talk so long and just ramble on about nothing sometimes he actually fell asleep on a few of the calls and forgot he was talking with me. He would go dark sometime for weeks or months and I wouldn't hear a word from him and I never knew if he was coming back or not, but then he'd message me and then we'd have some more calls and talk some more.

10:56But the stuff he told me about was dark. It made me worry about him. And then one day he went silent again. Weeks went by with no response, which isn't entirely unusual. I kept messaging him over the course of months, hoping he could answer some more questions I had. But he didn't respond. Then months turned into years. I tried contacting him in other ways but no response any which way I tried. So I had no choice but to just wait and think more about this story.

11:288 years have now gone by since the last time I've heard from him. Something happened to him. And I have no idea what. I tried to forget about his story, but I couldn't. His story kept coming back up in my head, and I couldn't shake it. So finally, I've decided to release his story because he told me he wants the world to hear it. And he wanted me to tell it. He even told me, the worst thing that could possibly happen to him is for him to do all this and the story never gets told.

12:03So here I go. I'm going to try to tell it. But there's a few things you need to know. First, he didn't want his voice on this show and so I had to recreate his voice, what you're hearing isn't is actual voice and because we had such long chats over messaging apps and emails and hours and hours of phone calls that went into any direction and any topic, what you're hearing is a mash up of his stories and ideas. I tried hard really hard to meticulously piece together his story into a single coherent timeline and put in his ideas and philosophies in the places that made the most sense.

12:39Some of the things he told me I didn't quite understand it until years later. But I tried to tell his story as best I could with the resources I had. And the second thing you need to know is that I didn't feel like could tell this story at all. Because I simply don't know if any of it is true. I tried hard to get him to tell me any details that I could look up: names, places, dates. But he was very cagey about all of that. And I pride myself on fact checking things before I publish anything.

13:09Since I could not fact check this story at all, I thought it wasn't suitable to publish. And honestly I felt like I had no choice but to threw it in the trash. So I did and it sat there for years, and I tried desperately to forget this story exists. But this story refused to be thrown away. I couldn't kill it. It haunted me, and I never grappled with a story as much as I did with this one. I would call my journalist friends and I would talk to them about it and they would say, "No, you have to throw it out because there's no way to fact check it." But then I would hear a song on the radio that would remind me of this story and it would just make me cry because of how this story impacted me.

13:53The lessons I learned from it are so profound. And I just thought, how can I throw away a story that affects me so deeply, so emotionally? It changed the way I look at life. So I think this story is simply too good to be thrown away. I want you to understand something, I really don't care if you think this story is true or not. That is not the point here. Go ahead, classify it as fiction for all I care. Instead of worrying about if it's true or not, what I want you to take away from this is an appreciation for life.

14:27This story reminded me how precious life is and that is the main thing I want to try to give you too. I want you to walk away from this feeling more alive than you ever felt before. Are you ready? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. JACK: This is gonna be weird and awkward for both of us. I am gonna ask you some uncomfortable questions, and I know that your answers are gonna make me uncomfortable. But I wanted to start at the very beginning and then go over everything.

15:02ZACHARIAH: I never told anyone any of this. It’s weird for me, too. JACK: Okay, I’ll start with an easy one. What is your name? ZACHARIAH: You can just call me by my username, Zachariah. JACK: Is that your real name? ZACHARIAH: No, no, no. I barely even remember my own name. JACK: Do you have a father? ZACHARIAH: No, he died when I was young. JACK: Oh. How did he die? ZACHARIAH: Rebels killed him. JACK: Rebels? Oh, oh, like Chechen rebels. ZACHARIAH: Yeah.

15:36JACK: Was your father in the military? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. JACK: And how did he die? ZACHARIAH: He died in the Battle of Vedeno. Rebels ambushed him. I was only three when he died, so I don't really understand what happened. JACK: Did your mom ever talk about him? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, she’d tell me stories about him, and we’d look at old photographs of him sometimes. She gave me his pocket knife and his wristwatch. JACK: Was it just your mother who raised you, or was there other family members around?

16:07ZACHARIAH: My mother took care of me when I was young. Sometimes my grandfather was there. We did have some other family, but they lived out in the province. JACK: No brothers or sisters? ZACHARIAH: No, just me. JACK: Did you go to school in Russia? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, but it didn't really work. I got thrown out. JACK: What do you mean it didn't work? ZACHARIAH: I got in a lot of fights and didn't do schoolwork. I wasn't trying to get in fights. I didn't want to get in fights, but for some reason kids would start fights with me.

16:37JACK: Tell me about one of these fights you got into. How did it start? ZACHARIAH: There was always someone picking on me and calling me names. JACK: Why were they picking on you? ZACHARIAH: Oh, we were poor and we couldn't afford some of the other stuff students could afford, like taking school excursions. So, I would be teased for that. JACK: So, if they called you names, you'd fight back? ZACHARIAH: No, no, no. You might not believe me, but I’m very tolerant.

17:06Calling me names and teasing me doesn't bother me. I don't give a shit about that. I’d just ignore them and do whatever. JACK: Do kids in Russia have recess? Like, do you get a break and get to go outside and play? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, we have breaks. JACK: What did you like to do during recess? ZACHARIAH: Knockout was probably my favorite. JACK: What’s Knockout? ZACHARIAH: You have to throw a ball to try to hit someone and then also not get hit by someone else throwing a ball at you.

17:32JACK: Oh, that’s just Dodgeball. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s the same as Dodgeball. JACK: Yeah. I like Dodgeball a lot, too. I was really good at dodging and catching, but I sucked at throwing. My throws were accurate, but they were slow. ZACHARIAH: Oh, I was good at throwing. I liked hitting the slow and younger kids. Like, I’d knock kids over, and I loved that I could hit other kids without getting in trouble. JACK: Is that what started fights, you blasting some kid in the face with a ball?

17:59ZACHARIAH: No, no, no. [Music] I was telling you about those kids who were teasing me, right? Well, one day one of those boys took it a step further, and he grabbed my bag from me and threw it over the fence. When I ran up to the fence, he kicked me in the back. JACK: Man, what a jerk. ZACHARIAH: The thing I learned about myself back then is my body tells me when I’m about to go into a fight, and it somehow summons a lot of energy for me. It’s like I take a deep breath and then I bite down on my own teeth and I tense up everywhere, and then blank out the rest of the world.

18:38For just a moment everything is calm. Then I just explode. I felt all that happen, and the next thing I know, the kid’s face was all bloody. I guess I threw him against a tree and was hitting his head against the tree over and over, and it bloodied his face and he was crying. I got expelled for that. JACK: Sheesh. How old were you then? ZACHARIAH: Seven. JACK: What did your mom think of that? ZACHARIAH: I think when she came to get me, she said something like, I’m glad it wasn't you who got the bloody face.

19:19She never got mad at me about stuff like that. I think she figured that life’s a big struggle, and sometimes you have to fight it. She would tell me to do my schoolwork, but she was rarely home to enforce anything. JACK: Where was she? ZACHARIAH: She was at work a lot. She treated me more like a roommate than her own child. I had my own key and could just come and go anytime. I’d make my own food and stuff. JACK: What was your town like? I was trying to think of the name.

19:46Did you say Summer or something like that? ZACHARIAH: Samara, yeah. It was bad. It was real bad. JACK: What was bad about it? ZACHARIAH: At least where I lived it was bad. The winters were harsh, and it would get so cold for so long. The heat in our building wasn't very reliable, so you'd have to sometimes sleep with your jacket on. There was a lot of crime in my area. My mom got her bag snatched a few times, and there was a lot of drugs and a lot of corruption and police violence.

20:17JACK: [Music] Did you see any police violence yourself? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. I was walking through a plaza in town once, and this man, he was arguing with the police. The police were on horses. The man was trying to walk away, and the police kept asking him, hey, are you a city council member? They just kept asking him that over and over and over. He would — he was refusing to answer, and he just tried to walk away, but they got off their horses and grabbed him.

20:52He still tried to get away, so they handcuffed him, and they — I guess they didn't want him to run off or something, so they handcuffed him to the stirrup of the horse. But — I don't know what happened, but the horse suddenly ran off. This guy was handcuffed to the horse, and so, I saw him get dragged down the street by this horse that was running. JACK: Whoa. ZACHARIAH: Yeah. The man was getting trampled by this horse and was screaming, which made the horse more scared, and ran faster.

21:35It was trying to buck and stuff to shake the man loose, but he was handcuffed to it, so he was stuck. So, the horse just kept kicking him and stepping on him, and was running down the street. It was fucking awful. That guy died. JACK: Oh, damn. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, it was pretty bad. I guess a bunch of people got mad about it that the police killed this man and stuff, so there was protests about it. They were right; the police fucked up, but they wouldn't admit it.

22:09So, the police just started arresting the protesters and tried to act like it never happened. JACK: Did you say your mom got her bag stolen? What happened there? ZACHARIAH: [Music] Yeah, she said it happened when she was younger, like before I was born. Someone rode up to her on a motorcycle and grabbed her bag off her shoulder and then rode off. JACK: Oh, no. Did you say that happened more than once? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. Another time she sat on a bench and just set her bag down next to her, and somebody came and grabbed it and ran off.

22:38JACK: Man, that’s rough. ZACHARIAH: In a way it was good, though. Like, she told me these stories a hundred times, and she taught me how to keep my stuff safe. She taught me to never wear a backpack since someone can just unzip it and reach in and grab your stuff. It’s better to wear a bag that’s strapped around your body, and you keep the bag in front of you, like on your chest, and always make sure that it’s closed with a zipper or a strap or something.

23:03This way if someone wants to get in it, you can push them away or whatever. Because it’s strapped to you, they can't grab it and run off easily. Sometimes she would even tie my belt onto my bag to keep it extra safe. She would tell me to always keep my eyes on everyone. Like, she had this sixth sense about people, and she always wanted me to be aware of who’s around me. So, she’d quiz me. Like, what color was that guy’s hat that just passed by us?

23:27Or, was he wearing glasses? She said it was important to make eye contact with everyone, too, because people often prey on people not paying attention, and it’s just good to be aware of your surroundings, because if you get a sense of something’s not right, just leave. JACK: Tell me more about her sixth sense. ZACHARIAH: One time we were on a bus going somewhere, and she said we have to move. She made me get up and sit somewhere else on the bus. I looked back at our old seat, and some guy was puking on it.

23:58I was like, how did she know that someone was gonna puke on her seat? I thought she was amazing for knowing that. JACK: What else do you remember about her sixth sense? ZACHARIAH: She tried to teach it to me. A few times we’d be waiting for a bus in a busy area, and she’d sit close to me and point out all the suspicious people she sees. She’d say, that man over there is too close to that lady. I remember I said to her, wait, how do you know it’s not her boyfriend or something?

24:24She said, no, they came from two different directions. She hasn't made eye contact with him yet. He’s standing too close to her, like he’s going to pickpocket her. She’d tell me to look at everyone’s eyes and never trust anyone who doesn't look you in the eye when they talk to you. We saw a guy who was looking around erratically, and she said, he either just committed a crime or was about to. I said, well, maybe he’s just curious or looking for his friend or something.

24:52She said, no, he’s not making eye contact with anyone, and he’s looking at what people have; their jewellery, their bags, and whether or not they're looking at him. She said his focus was in the wrong places. She always told me reasons why I shouldn't trust certain people, too. Like, I brought a friend over once and she told me not to bring him back, 'cause she didn't like the way he asked questions. She thought he might steal something from the apartment.

25:17Once she met my teacher, and she told me she doesn't trust him since when she shook his hand, his hand was cold and sweaty. Once someone dropped some coins in the street, and her immediate instinct was to grab me and grab her bag and get away. JACK: Why? ZACHARIAH: She said that’s a trick used to distract people to steal things from them. I guess a few coins is worth losing if it’s a good distraction to steal something that’s worth a lot more. JACK: She sounds pretty smart.

25:48ZACHARIAH: Yeah. When she was going out, she was always very vigilant, always looking over her shoulder and trying to be aware of everyone around her. She never wore high heels or anything. She always wanted us to have sturdy shoes in case we had to run away or step on broken glass or something. She never wore flashy jewellery and she tried not to draw any attention to herself. She was really good at blending in, too. She would wear basic clothes and nothing fancy.

26:16JACK: Did you ever see your mom commit any crimes? ZACHARIAH: Not really. I mean, I don't know. Here, I’ll tell you a story and you tell me if this is illegal. When I got kicked out of school, she forged some documents saying that we lived somewhere else to try to get me into a better school, but that didn't work. Is that illegal? JACK: That’s against the rules, but I don't think that’s illegal. ZACHARIAH: We would sometimes get really cheap milk from the government, like welfare milk, and then she’d sell it to people for more money than what she paid for it.

26:59JACK: Man, that one’s questionable. I’m not sure. Gosh, your whole life is ambiguous. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, it really is. Okay, here's one, and I still do this today, actually. My dad fixed it so the electricity wires skipped the meter to our apartment, so we would get free electricity since it never showed on the meter that we used any. JACK: Yeah, not only could you get in trouble for that one, but that’s extremely dangerous. Electricity can kill you.

27:32ZACHARIAH: One winter the power went out, and someone came to check on the electric in our apartment and saw that, and they fixed it, so we had to pay again. But mom put a big magnet on the meter and said that would slow down the spinning of it. I don't know if that worked or not. But where I’m living now, we jumped the meter and we're getting free electricity here. JACK: I want to — that’s really interesting, but I want to save what you're doing now for later.

28:01Did you do much stealing yourself when you were a kid? ZACHARIAH: No, no, no. I don't like stealing. I don't like taking someone else’s stuff because I don't want my stuff stolen, you know? But I did other things. JACK: Like what? ZACHARIAH: I got drunk when I was eight years old. I took it on the roof and drank it. JACK: How’d you get the alcohol? ZACHARIAH: I bought it. My mom gave me a little money sometimes, and so, I’d save up. I went to the store and asked for a bottle of beer.

28:31The attendant took it from the shelf and looked at me and saw I was just a kid, and she didn't want to give it to me, but she didn't say anything and I didn't say anything. So, I just added some more money to the counter, and she handed it to me and said, get the fuck out of my store. JACK: Isn’t it illegal for kids to buy beer in Russia? ZACHARIAH: Yes, it’s illegal, but people are so desperate for money they’ll take it even if it is illegal. They’ll do anything for money.

28:59JACK: Okay, so, you were saying you took this beer up on the roof? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. I’d sometimes hang out with my friends on the building rooftop. There was a trick to get up there, like a little secret. You had to be real quiet or else someone would catch you and then send you away. So, you had to switch staircases and go through an unmarked door. But once you got up there, nobody would ever bother you. JACK: How tall was this building? ZACHARIAH: I think ten stories high.

29:28It was real chill up there. JACK: And that’s where you got drunk. ZACHARIAH: Yeah. So, I took the bottle up there and I drank it on the roof. It was so gross. I remember wondering if mine was rotten or something, but I just kept drinking it. I got so sick. I fell asleep up there, and I woke up — I woke up on the other side of town in the street. I have no idea how I got there. We went on that roof a lot, actually. I have a lot of memories up there.

29:59There was — that was the first time where I smoked a cigarette, too, and I found it really peaceful being up there. I liked how big I felt standing up there, you know, looking down and seeing how small everyone was below. It just didn't seem like their problems were important anymore. The wind that would blow up there made us feel like we were flying with the birds. The city seemed so frantic and peaceful at the same time. Like, everyone was working so hard to go from one place to another.

30:27I wanted to tell them, just chill and enjoy life. But people were rushing everywhere and it just seemed like such a struggle. I wondered if they were aware of their own behaviors since it all seemed so predictable watching it from way high up like this, or if they were just on autopilot. JACK: What other crimes did you do when you were eight? ZACHARIAH: Man, you think my life is just all crime? JACK: It’s just that your life is so different than mine.

30:51My mom taught me how to knit and plant flowers, you know? ZACHARIAH: That sounds like you had a great mom. JACK: No, I don't get along with her, actually. ZACHARIAH: Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry. JACK: Thanks. It’s fine, though. I’m over it. ZACHARIAH: What was your mom like? JACK: No, I don't want to get into it. I want to hear the crimes you did when you were a kid. ZACHARIAH: I just don't see it as crime like you do. To me it’s more like surviving.

31:19It’s like cutting up a potato. The knife is sharp. One wrong move and you're in a lot of pain. So, it’s a risk to cut up potatoes, but you don't avoid cutting up potatoes because knives are sharp. You learn how to be careful with it. It’s the same with crime. The world doesn't hand you what you need. You have to take it. Just like with the knife, if you're not careful, if you don't respect the risk, you're the one who gets cut. JACK: So, cut or be cut.

31:52ZACHARIAH: No, I’m not saying that. It’s like when you find money on the ground. Someone else lost that, right? So, their unluck is actually good luck for you. If you were to leave that, someone else is going to find it and keep it. So, you have to think, if I leave this money here, it’s the same as if I’m just giving it to the next stranger who walks up. Do I want to give money to a stranger? No. I’d rather keep it. You've gotta jump on the opportunities when they come up.

32:23JACK: Do you believe in karma? ZACHARIAH: No. What’s that? JACK: It’s the idea that the universe keeps score. Like, if you do something good to someone, you'll be rewarded with something good somewhere else. ZACHARIAH: That sounds like some made-up bullshit. Look, nobody cares what you do, much less the universe caring about the tiny speck of dust that you are in it. If you wrong someone and you feel bad about it, it’s on you to make it right. Don't leave it to the universe to sort out your problems.

32:55JACK: Alright, fine. Then, did you wrong anyone when you were a kid? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, I guess I wronged taxi drivers. [ JACK: Music] How so? ZACHARIAH: Most of my clothes were shit, and I didn't have an easy way to wash them, so I had to re-wear dirty stuff a lot. But I saved up some money and I got a nice outfit. It was really just a clean shirt and some shoes. I saved up a long time to get it. I had a broken cell phone, too. I found it on the street.

33:25It looked nice but it didn't work at all. Sometimes I’d put this outfit on and try to convince a taxi driver to take me somewhere. I’d hold up the phone and I’d say, my mom is worried about me and asked me to get a taxi home, and she’ll pay me as soon as I arrive. The taxi driver would see my nice clothes and cell phone and think I had some money, and would drive me wherever I needed to go. But just before arriving where we were supposed to be going, I’d jump out at a red light or something and run off without paying.

33:53JACK: What about school? Did you wrong anyone at school? ZACHARIAH: I broke the teacher’s ankle once. JACK: What? You broke the teacher’s ankle? How — was this on purpose? ZACHARIAH: I was being a jerk in the back of class, not paying attention or doing any work. There were like forty kids in this class, though. It was impossible for the teacher to care for us all. But for some reason this teacher really wanted me to pay attention, and he started yelling at me to sit up and watch him.

34:23I just had my head down on the desk and not paying attention at all. He stomped over to me and shouted at me to focus. I ignored him. Then he kicked my desk to get me to sit up. He kicked it so hard he knocked the book off my desk. But I kept my head down. He grabbed my shoulder and forced me up. I don't like people touching me. I sat up, I pushed his hand away, and I stared at him. He shouted at me some fucking bullshit question, like are you trying to get in trouble, son?

34:56I just stared at him and stayed quiet. He asked me some other shit, and I just sat there. I just wanted him to leave me alone. Go teach the kids who want to learn. I’m not gonna listen to your fucking lesson anyway, so focus on the kids who like being here. But he grabbed my fucking ear and he started dragging me to the front of class. He grabbed it so hard I thought he was gonna rip my fucking ear off. I felt that wave of energy come through me.

35:19I tensed up and exploded on him. I punched him in the ribs, and when he let go of my ear, I stomped on his ankle, and I saw it bend in a way it shouldn't have. I think I broke it. I got expelled for that one, too. JACK: Dang. Yeah, you really didn't do good in school. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, I never did the assignments and I got in a lot of fights. I just didn't care. But that teacher was a miserable prick anyway. JACK: Because he yelled at you and stuff?

35:50ZACHARIAH: No, it wasn't just me that he hit. He would slap other kids with a ruler, and when they'd complain, he said like, his father would hit him with broomsticks, and a slap with the ruler is nothing compared to what he got. But some other kids told me that his wife was really mean to him. I guess someone saw them both going down the road once to their house, and for some reason he was walking down the road while she was driving slowly behind him, and he looked exhausted like he had been walking for ages, and he was really thirsty.

36:22He asked her, can I please get in the car? But she yelled at him, no, keep walking, pig. I guess it was some form of punishment that she was doing to him. JACK: Oh, gosh. I guess it makes sense now. He felt powerless with his father and his wife, and he goes on power trips with the students because he’s got authority there. ZACHARIAH: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. JACK: Sheesh, that’s messed up. ZACHARIAH: Yeah. JACK: The thing about your story is I can relate to so much of it.

36:56I also didn't do well in elementary school. I would screw around and not do assignments either, especially when it came to reading. I hated reading. I probably just hated the subject of the books. They were stupid stories that they would make us read that was just to practice reading, and it was nothing actually interesting at all in these stories. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, I know what you mean. There was this book that was like, the cat drinks milk. It was just so pointless.

37:26JACK: Yeah, okay. So, when it was my turn to read out loud, I would just make up my own words and say that instead. Then the teacher would get mad at me and be like, no, that’s not it. Say it right. I would just make up some words again, and then they'd just skip me. But then later it would be my turn again and I would just make up words again. So, eventually they just stopped asking me to read entirely in class. ZACHARIAH: That’s funny. JACK: But I never stomped on the teacher’s ankle.

37:52ZACHARIAH: Well, did your teachers ever hit you? JACK: Yes, actually. In fourth grade I screwed up once too many and I was sent to the principal’s office. I had been sent there a few times, and they told me, if you come back one more time, you're gonna get the paddle. Do you know what the paddle is? ZACHARIAH: No. JACK: It’s a big, flat, wooden stick that the principal had hanging up on the wall, and it was to hit kids who are bad. I guess the thought is if you hit bad kids, it’ll make them good.

38:28The last time I was at his office, he pointed to it on the wall and said, the next time you come here, I’m gonna have to use this on you. So, when I was sent to his office this time, I left the class and I was walking there, but I got too scared and just went around the corner and just hid there for like, ten minutes. I think I went in the bathroom for a while. Then I came back to class acting like I had gone to the principal’s office and now I’m back.

38:59It took a few days, and — but then the teacher found out that I never went to the principal’s office, and I got in way more trouble. She got the gym coach to escort me to the principal’s office, and the gym coach held me down while the principal gave me a hard whack on my butt with the paddle. ZACHARIAH: Fuck, man, that’s not even legal in Russia. The teachers aren't allowed to hit the students. JACK: Well, it’s not legal here anymore, either. Principals would get fired for doing that now.

39:30But it used to be allowed in schools to hit the kids. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, that’s fucked up. I don't know what I would have done if two grown men tried to hold me down and hit me like that. Fuck. How did that affect you? JACK: How did it affect me? Dude, I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking questions here. ZACHARIAH: Okay. JACK: Honestly, I think it was so traumatizing for me that I blocked it out of my memory entirely for decades, and only recently, like last year, the memory came back to me.

40:00I just totally forgot that it even happened. Anyway, I’m trying to remember where we were. Oh yeah, I was — what was it that made you not want to do the schoolwork? I think for me I was just bored, but what was it for you? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, I was bored, too, but I also didn't feel like I had control of my life. JACK: What do you mean? ZACHARIAH: Well, military is mandatory in Russia. So, no matter what I’d do, I’d still be sent there. I didn't want to go to the military, but I had no choice.

40:29I just didn't like that someone else got to choose my life for me like that. So, acting up in class at least felt like I had some kind of choice of the things I was doing. But there weren't any good role models, either. I would see adults doing stupid shit, you know? The school director got in trouble for accepting bribes. He was taking money from parents and then changing the grades for those students so that they'd get good grades even if they didn't do any work.

40:50I heard stories of famous athletes cheating, too. I didn't really understand the point of school. Like, it felt like they wanted us all to be the same. They didn't want you to be you. They wanted you to learn how to take orders and follow directions. Like, if I failed a test, I would hardly get in trouble at all. But if I didn't listen to directions, I would get yelled at real bad. It seemed like the most important thing for the teachers to make everyone follow directions.

41:16But even our governor got in trouble. He was taking state money and then giving it to his friends and then claiming it was for a construction project, but then that project would never get done. He was fired for being a piece-of-shit governor. The news was always talking about how there’s so much crime everywhere; robberies, drugs, fraud, murder, corruption. So, because I didn't see anything good in my future, I didn't see the point in doing good in school.

41:43JACK: Okay, let’s flip it around. You made me feel bad earlier when I asked you what other crimes you did, and you were like, what, do you think my life is all crime? So, I’ve heard you — how you've wronged people, but now tell me a story about how you did something right to someone, right? Like, did you do anything to someone just because you wanted to be kind? ZACHARIAH: I had an elderly neighbor. [Music] I remember how slow she would go up and down the stairs.

42:11I hated being behind her on the stairs because she was just — she would take forever. I would just sit down and wait. Like, she took up the whole stairwell somehow and would just move so slow. So, I would just sit there and put my chin in my hands and just wait for her to finish. Anyway, one day she got sick, and I saw her trying to leave the apartment. She was coughing and moaning. I asked her, what are you doing? She’s like, I’m going to the pharmacy to get some medicine.

42:40I told her, it’s snowing out and you look sick. Why don't you let me get that for you? She said no, but then she tried to lock her door and her bag spilled and all her shit went everywhere. I watched her struggle to pick it up, and so, I started helping her. I told her again, let me go to the pharmacy for you. So, she said, okay, fine. She gave me the money and a list of things to get. JACK: How old were you then? ZACHARIAH: I was probably ten then.

43:11JACK: This does sound like a nice story. Go on. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, well, I go outside and it’s fucking freezing. Like, it’s the dead of winter. I had a thick jacket and gloves on, but the wind made my face freeze, and walking through the snow was really hard. It made my legs burn. I had to stop and catch my breath sometimes. I saw a sidewalk on the other side of the street, and it was clear. So, I ran over there, but when I jumped onto the sidewalk, I slipped and fell and I hurt my elbow because the sidewalk was covered in ice.

43:44JACK: Ouch, falling on ice hurts. ZACHARIAH: Yeah. I was worried that I lost some of the money she gave me when I fell, so I took my gloves off and counted it to make sure. My hands were shivering. It was just so fucking cold. I had to restart the count a few times because I couldn't concentrate. But it was all there. The sidewalk was so fucking slippery. I could not walk on it. So, I had to just crawl down the street on my hands and knees to get past this ice.

44:17It took me forever to get to the pharmacy, but when I finally did, I pulled out the list, and it was all smudged from the snow, and I could not read it. So, I asked the clerk, what does this say? He said, I don't know. I didn't want to buy the wrong fucking thing, you know? So, I decided just to walk all the way back and have her rewrite it. So, I walked back home. By the time I got to the apartment, my fingers were frozen and I wanted to warm them up at my place.

44:51So, I was going up to my place, but when I got there, the fucking neighbor was there yelling at my mom. Your son stole my money; he’s a little thief. I guess I took a long time, and she was mad that I had taken so long, and she thought I was never coming back. Then my mom asked me, do you have her money? I was like, yeah, I’ve got it right here. I pulled it out and I showed her. The lady just snatched it out of my hand and went back into her apartment.

45:21JACK: Oh man, that’s so frustrating. ZACHARIAH: Yeah, I showed my mom the smudged list and said, I didn't steal anything. But the lady was already gone and the whole thing was over. My mom told me, next time, don't bother. People will always find a way to twist your kindness against you. JACK: Okay, so tell me more about your mom. What did she do for work? ZACHARIAH: She worked in an office. I don't remember the name of the job, but she did things like verifying signatures, reviewing contracts, confirming legal transactions.

45:53One of the ladies that worked there got fired, so my mom had to work two shifts. She worked twelve hours straight, and sometimes I wouldn't see her for days. JACK: And there was no boyfriend or any male role model in your life? ZACHARIAH: My mom had boyfriends. Sometimes they'd stay the night, but they never wanted to talk with me or do anything with me. I didn't get along with them. JACK: I mean, I can see that. Not all boyfriends want to be dads.

46:19ZACHARIAH: Yeah, but they didn't need to be scary. JACK: Did your mom have a scary boyfriend? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. JACK: Is there a story there? ZACHARIAH: Yes. JACK: Should we get into that story? ZACHARIAH: I’ve never told anyone this one before. Fuck, when I e-mailed you I was not thinking we were gonna talk about this. But fuck it, let’s do it. JACK: Okay, let’s start at the beginning. Do you know where they met? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. He did business with my mom.

46:54I guess she handled some papers for him, and that’s how they met. JACK: Do you remember when you first met him? ZACHARIAH: No. It was probably in our apartment, 'cause that was the only time I ever saw him, was when he came over. JACK: What was he like? ZACHARIAH: He was tall and fat. JACK: Okay, now when you say fat, do you mean like Russian fat or American fat? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, you're right; Americans are really fat. He was just a big guy, and he was older than my mom.

47:22I could hear them talk through the door, and he had a wedding ring on and he had two kids. JACK: He was married? ZACHARIAH: Yeah. He had to lie to his wife about where he was. He was a jealous person. I could hear him and my mom arguing sometimes, and he was always accusing her of cheating on him, yet he was the cheater. JACK: Hm, listening to our parents fight is always awkward, isn't it? ZACHARIAH: Yes, it was. It was none of my business, but they were so loud I couldn't ignore it.

47:54Sometimes I’d get worried about my mom, you know? Like, when his voice would change from just asking loud questions and being rude to anger, I could sense the change in his tone and I learned to hear the difference between angry and rude. If he was rude I didn't interfere, but angry — I thought, I’m the only guy that my mom has. I should protect her, you know? So, I grabbed a bat and went in to where they were. [Music] I told him, get out or I’ll hit him.

48:31JACK: Did you hit him? ZACHARIAH: No, no. He left when I came in, that time, at least. JACK: Well, that’s a scary thing for — well, how old were you then? ZACHARIAH: I was eleven then, but it wasn't scary. I wasn't scared. JACK: I mean, a confrontation with a dude way bigger than you and you're swinging a bat at him, yelling at him, that sounds scary. ZACHARIAH: I wasn't scared. I knew he wasn't gonna hit me. It would have been the end of him coming over, you know?

49:01My mom wouldn't allow somebody who hit me to come back over, you know? And who’s gonna hit an eleven-year-old boy? Anyway, that happened a few times. He would come over and he’d get into a fight with my mom, and I would chase him out with the bat. My mom would tell me not to do that, but I told her, I’m just protecting you. Anyway, one time he came over drunk and they were fighting. [Music] I grabbed the bat and started yelling at him to leave again.

49:25This time he wasn't leaving. He started yelling back at me. He looked at me and he snatched the bat out of my hands, and he raised it over his head like he was gonna swing it at me, but I knew he wasn't going to. I didn't even flinch at all. I just started pushing him and hitting him and yelling at him, go, get outta here. So, he fucking took the bat and left. JACK: Geez, that guy needs to get a hint. ZACHARIAH: He was yelling at my mom all the way out, and she was upset, but she had to go to work, so she just got dressed and left.

49:54She didn't come home that night. The next day her boyfriend came over when I was home alone. He had the key to our apartment. Well, he knew where the key was; it was above the door outside, so he just got the key and came in. I was the only one home, and I just went into my room and I closed the door. But he came in my room and started apologizing to me, saying how he was wrong to yell at my mom like that, and sorry about what happened. I didn't know what to say, so I just looked down at the floor and waited for him to go.

50:29I told him to go, but he kept saying he wanted to make it right. I sat on my bed, and he came and sat next to me, talking about how he’s going to take better care of my mom. [Music] Then he put his hand on my thigh, and this felt wrong. I didn't like the way he was touching me. I don't like when anyone is touching me, so I swiped his hand away, but he put it right back on my thigh. This time it was a little higher up. Like, his fingers were between my legs.

51:12I started to move away from him, but he turned and put his other hand on my shoulder to keep me from moving. I somehow remained calm through this because in some way I could not believe what I thought he was doing. I was just looking down at his hand on my thigh, staring at it. I could see his fingers slowly sliding up higher, and I was feeling very uncomfortable. He then leaned me back on the bed and was making me lay down. Then he got on top of me and put his knee on my fucking shoulder so I couldn't get up.

52:01Then he started untying his belt. I knew for sure then he was gonna rape me, an eleven-year-old boy. He had a look of determination in his eyes, too. He was unreachable. I felt my body tensing up. I felt my breathing get faster. I was having a hard time seeing. Things came in and out of focus. I didn't know what to do. He had my shoulder pinned down and he was on top of me. I kept looking around for anything I could grab. On the bedside table was a glass bottle.

52:44I grabbed it. It had water in it. I squeezed it tight. I tensed up my whole body. He was trying to get on top of me. He was looking down and he didn't see it coming. I swung it at him. The bottle hit him in his forehead and knocked him backwards. He sort of stumbled backwards away from me. He was standing there holding his head, stunned, looking down. He was kind of swaying back and forth. I quickly stood up on the bed, still holding the bottle in my hands.

53:15I was taller than him, and I was looking down at him. A full-body rage came over me. I somehow felt three times stronger. Standing there on the bed I felt three times bigger, too. I took a deep breath. I clenched my jaw. I swung the bottle as hard as I fucking could. I really tried to hurt him. The bottle smashed into his face and broke. It knocked him backwards and he fell straight back like a tree falling over. He was a real big guy, too. As he fell backwards, his head hit the edge of a table and bounced off it.

53:54He fell to the floor, and he wasn't moving at all. I was just standing on my bed staring at him with wild eyes, out of breath, holding the neck of the bottle. The rest of it was broken in his fucking face. I was staring at him, breathing heavy. I could see the glass was smashed into the side of his face, and he wasn't moving. He was just laying there totally still. It’s like the room went quiet. Then the blood started to come out of his head. A stream of dark red was growing underneath him.

54:36As I saw the blood, I realized what I had done, and I snapped out of the frenzy I was in. [Music] I said, oh fuck, I have to get outta here. I have to go. He wasn't moving at all, even after pushing him around and stuff. All I could think of is I need to get the fuck outta here. So, I grabbed a bag and I just started packing shit in there. I didn't want to fucking freeze, so I put a sweater in there. I put my pocket knife in there and my dad’s wristwatch.

55:01I was walking back and forth in the house, and I had no fucking idea what to take with me. I grabbed a toothbrush for some reason, took all the money that I knew was in the apartment; I had a stash for myself, but then I also knew where mom kept some of her money, but then I saw him and I wondered if he had money. So, I reached under him and I grabbed his wallet out of his pants, and I took all his money, too. I was shaking the whole fucking time.

55:22I was in a panic. I was pacing around the apartment trying to think, what else, what else, what else? I grabbed some bread. I couldn't think what else to take. I kept just saying to myself, I have to go, I have to go, I have to go. So, I strapped my bag around my chest and I ran out the door. Our apartment was on the second floor, and I swear I didn't touch a single stair on the way down. I just flew down those stairs, and I ran all the way out to the street.

55:43I looked left for a bit and then I looked right. I didn't know where to fucking go. Nobody would suspect I would go right, since that’s where the homeless is, and it’s a shitty part of town, and to the left was the city center, and that was a little nicer, but I had no fucking clue where to go. [Music] But I chose left and just started running. JACK: Do you think he died? ZACHARIAH: Yeah, I’m certain of it. There was just too much blood. I fucking ran and ran and ran, and I never spoke to my mother ever again.