Kambri Crews: My Dad, Number 1133944

Kambri Crews attempts to smuggle a gift into prison for her father, who is deaf.

Kambri Crews once lived with her deaf parents in a tin shed in Montgomery, Texas. She now owns and operates the performance venue Q.E.D. in Astoria, Queens. Kambri is also a renowned storyteller and the author of the critically acclaimed and New York Times best selling memoir Burn Down the Ground (Random House). She has performed on The Moth (MainStage & radio), Women of Letters, Risk! and Mortified. In 2014, Kambri opened QED, a performance venue meets community and learning center. With over 100 events per month ranging from comedy, storytelling and music to classes like embroidery, cartooning and writing, there is something for everyone. Since its opening, QED has been featured on The Jim Gaffigan Show, NY1, The New York and LA Times and countless other media outlets. Performers have included the super famous like Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Janeane Garofalo, to the first-time performer and everyone in between. Also a public speaker, Kambri has given speeches for Girls, Inc., University of Texas, Texas Book Festival, University of Oregon, SXSW (South by Southwest), DeafHope, and many other schools, colleges, book festivals, and events.

This story originally aired on October 11, 2019 in an episode titled “Silence.”

Story Transcript

Hey, everybody. Hello. Before I tell my story, I would love to give you guys a fun little fact, a little bit of trivia, I guess. In prison, gum sells for a dollar a stick. It’s pretty impressive, right?

On the list of items that my dad, Number 1133944, wanted me to smuggle into him in jail, gum seemed pretty harmless. He'd also asked for a needle and a hundred dollar bill. No, I'll stick with the gum. Thanks, dad.

My dad’s prison is in Huntsville, Texas and it’s a lot less scary than I expected. Honestly, it looks like a junior high, just wrapped in barbed wire. Everyone there is really friendly in that stereotypical Texas friendly way, you know. For example, there's this one guard who inspects me in my rental car when I go to visit and he is straight out a central casting.

He's potbellied, has a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots and a big, white, handlebar mustache. He looks at my driver’s license and he goes, “New York City, huh. Get a rope.”

Yeah, I know. He just made a joke about hanging me at a prison that’s kind of famous for its executions. But he's really nice. He's really nice when he says it and he's really slow. He is like just that Texas slow, but also he's wearing cowboy boots. Like what would he do if somebody just busted through the gate? Like, really, what would he do?

But I guess he figures that somebody would never be a girl in high heels from New York City and she most definitely would not smuggle a jumbo pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit in the waistband of her slacks from Banana Republic. Not me, of course.

So he's inspecting me with his metal detecting wand and it screeches exactly where I've got the gum hidden and I’m like… I tense up and he goes, “Oh, don’t you worry, sugar. That’s just your belt buckle.” I’m not wearing a belt.

Juicy Fruit, however, is wrapped in foil. Not something I'd considered and, apparently, neither did he because he's like, “You have a nice visit with your daddy now,” and he just sends me on ahead.

I’m like, “All right. Great.” I got the Juicy Fruit safely tucked away.

And I go inside and I wait for my dad to come into view. And when he does, my God, my breath is just taken away. It shocks me to see him hunched over and in pain. It looks like he can barely walk. Like, my God, what happened to him? He had mentioned a couple of prison fights but this is not what I was expecting.

He's like in tremendous pain and I don't want to have him see me upset so I put on a fake smile. I’m like, “Hi. Hi, dad.” He just concentrates on each and every painful step and my heart just breaks. I think, “God, I've let my dad rot alone in prison.”

And the feeling overwhelms me and the tears well up in my eyes and I start to cry and that’s when my dad stops, stands perfectly upright and then starts dancing the jig. “Ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha.” And he signs in sign language, “Ha-ha, see what happens if you don’t visit me more. I’m an old man.”

Then he starts walking with his trademark strut, cockiness just dripping from every pore. Steel bars, they can’t cage charisma.

My dad, who’s in jail, is deaf and a prankster. So I mean, yay. Great, dad. Good job. I’m like, “You jerk,” and we give a big hug. Not a long one, you know.

“No touching.”

“Sorry. Okay.” And I hug my dad.

Yes, my dad is deaf, but also his sisters are deaf. My mom is deaf. My mom’s sister is deaf. Her parents, all her aunts and uncles, almost everyone on my mom’s side of the family is deaf. And this usually prompts a lot of questions so I will go ahead and answer the top three FAQs so we can just all stop thinking about them, okay?

One, yes, I know sign language. Two, I know how to talk because I’m not deaf. And three, nope, I don't know Braille. Sorry. That’s a fun menu. I like all the little bumps and stuff. No, I don't know Braille.

And another one people do want to know is that generational deafness on my mom’s side of the family, is it hereditary. Well, that’s actually quite rare. The statistic is 90% of deaf parents have hearing children and 90% of deaf children have hearing parents. So yeah, it’s very rare. Do the math. Like it’s a small anomaly. My mom’s family is an anomaly.

And then another one I hear all the time is like, “Oh, my goodness. Oh, I’m so sorry your family is deaf. Oh, your whole family? Even your mama too? Oh, bless your heart.”

Bless my heart, bitch? I said they were deaf, not dead.

Think about it for a second. You're a kid. Your parents don’t know what you're doing. The down side is what exactly?

Our trailer was the place to hang out. We could listen to music as loud as we wanted whenever we wanted. Sneaking out was walking out the front door. “Bye, mom, bye, dad. See you later.”

Sneaking back in, just as easy. As long as we didn’t vibrate the trailer, which was up on stilts, or shine headlights in their face or something they didn’t know what we were up to.

Anyway, back in prison with my dad, we go out into the prison visiting yard and I notice my dad has a new tattoo. Like, “Where did you get that?”

He says, “Oh, a boy in the textile mill gave it to me for my 60th birthday.”

“Oh, really?” It’s a Tasmanian devil with his tongue sticking out doing the ‘I love you’ sign. Like, oh, my God. Real mature. I guess his decisions, like he's in jail so he didn’t have good decision-making qualities, I guess.

‘But speaking of birthdays, I have a surprise for you. I have gum.”

And he's like, “Whooh, gimme, gimme.”

I’m like, “Dad, calm down. Calm down.” I look around to make sure the coast is clear and I slowly pull it out of my waistband. And he just rips it out of my hand, tears it open and starts chomping on a piece of gum with his remaining front teeth, his back teeth having been knocked out from those aforementioned prison fights but also the dental system in prison isn’t topnotch like they all advertise.

So he looks like a cow chewing cud. He's like num, num, num. And it only takes a couple of num, num, num for the taste to overwhelm him. He hasn’t had gum in years.

He closes his eyes and he leans back and he puts his arms out like he's praising Jesus. He's like, “Whooh, long time. Wow. Tastes different. Long time, I guess.”

And then out of nowhere, just starts shoving sticks of gum in these secret pockets that he's cut in his shoes, right? His Converse sneakers he's got little hidden pockets between the cushion and the soles of his shoes and he's shoving stick after stick of gum.

I’m like, “Dad! Dad, what are you doing?”

He says, “I can sell these for one dollar a stick.”

“Oh, my God. What?” And he starts shoving stick after stick of gum in his other shoe. And he's being really obvious about it, doesn’t seem to care if anyone is noticing.

I’m like, “Oh, that is why he wanted a jumbo pack.”

He specifically was like, “Jumbo. Don’t forget jumbo pack.”

I’m like, “Gosh, he really likes his Wrigley’s.” I thought like he wanted a fresh piece every 30 minutes or something. I don't know.

No, I’m a mule. That’s what it is. I am a mule and I’m freaking out. I look around to see if anybody has paid any attention or seen what’s going on and that’s when I notice this really big, beefy inmate to my left who’s got a horrifying facial disfigurement. Part of his skull is missing. His eye is missing. His mouth is drooping and saliva drips out and he has to mop it up with a handkerchief.

I’m like, “Oh, my God. What happened to him?”

He says, “Oh, him? He killed his wife and his kids and then tried to kill himself but it didn’t work. Good man. Quiet.”

‘Quiet’, says my deaf dad. And good? Well, it’s all relative if the disfigured murderer is a good man in my dad’s eyes, because, if he isn’t, I mean, well, what does that say about dad? Judge not lest ye be judged. That’s kind of how you get by on the inside.

And I’m really contemplating that and I’m getting overwhelmed by the fact that I’m a mule. He's smuggling gum inside and this disfigured murderer. What’s happening?

That’s when I hear a loud shout from across the room. “You!”

It startles me and I flinch. My dad, being deaf, doesn’t hear it but he sees me flinch and he says, “What’s wrong?”

I said, “I don't know. I heard someone scream.”

And that’s when I hear it again. “You!”  

And I look across, it’s a man in a beige suit, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, Texas. I recognize his face from the portrait on the wall. He's the warden. He's pissed and he's looking at me? Or him?

“Him. You, come here now!”

My dad gets up, saunters over like no big whoop. I’m like what the hell is happening?

The warden knows my dad is deaf but he screams anyway, like that’s going to help. He's like, “What’s in your mouth?”

My dad opens his mouth and shows him this wad of chewed gum on his tongue and the warden is like he's going to pop a gasket. “Where did you get that?”

My dad, without hesitation, points right to me. “Her.”

I’m like, “Oh, my God. He's just ratted me out quicker than a wink.”

The warden makes him spit the gum out and my dad comes over like, yeah, this happens every day, just like junior high. You know, you can’t have gum in school.

And I am freaking out and the warden, his eyes are just boring down at me. So I just pretend like I’m deaf. I’m like, “What’s wrong?”

And my dad says, “Oh, you're not supposed to have gum.”

And I’m like, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know.” Fuck, I got to get out of here.

So I've never really been in trouble my life and I’m shaking. I wish I were exaggerating. It was like this. So I grab my Dr. Pepper and I’m dribbling Dr. Pepper down the front of my shirt.

My dad is like, “Are you shaking? You scared? Pussy.”

For those in the side who are listening to the podcast, imagine a horse’s vagina. That is the sign for pussy.

Yeah. Yes, I am shaking and, yes, I am scared and, yeah, I guess that makes me a pussy. But you know what else I am? Free. And I’m getting the ‘F’ out of ‘D’.

“See you, dad. Good luck with that strip search you got coming. I’m getting out.”

And so I’m just like, “Bye, everybody. Bye, bye, bye,” and I speed walk across the parking lot, because you don’t want to run in a prison.

So I’m just like, “Bye. Bye. Gotta go, bye.”

And everyone is still just slow as molasses. “Oh, bye.”

And I don't know what’s going to happen with my dad in the strip search. And because he's deaf, I have to wait for a letter. A few weeks later, I get a letter from dad.

“Surprise, I still have the gum. I kept some for myself, I sold some others, and I paid off some debt,” because he has debt in prison.

He goes, “Next time, I want you to sneak in a Dairy Queen Cheeseburger.”

“Okay, sure. Where am I going to hide that?”

Thank you.