This piece is stunning! One of the most raw, real, complex pieces I have heard in a long time... maybe ever. Listen, and you will realize how often you don't hear the darkest, deepest parts of ourselves being explored in an edgy and honest way on the radio. Derrick is 14 and his piece is about the anger, aggression and violence he experiences (and perpetrates) in his daily life, within his family, against his younger siblings. I am not sure it would be possible for him to fully comprehend how MUCH he probes in this piece. I could never have done such a thing, about such a topic, at the age of 14, and definitely not now!
The piece starts with a devastating tale of Derrick coming home to find that his brothers have killed his pet fish by putting them in a bathtub with alcohol. It goes on to talk about how much anger and frustration he feels within his family, and the piece shows us this aggression in action. Derrick is whacking his little brother at one point with his microphone. I can't reveal or re-tell all of the details, there are so many. Derrick seeks out a child psychologist to gather "information" about his own emotions and behavior. The scenes with the psychologist are just incredible. And one of the best endings I have heard in a long time - Derrick talking to a friend about what kind of father and husband he is hoping to be....
Perhaps this piece stunned me the way it did because I am a mother with two young boys, and I am thinking so much these days about anger and aggression that they sometimes act out on each other, and the anger and aggression I often feel at them too. It's so complex, and I think so human and so real, how hard it is to find ways to live with and really be consistently kind to the people that you love the most. Natural and normal feelings of anger and aggression, frustration, that most people experience, I think, are not dealt with very often in real and open ways in our culture. It seems to me that this contributes to some of the crazy and dark ways that these emotions get expressed and acted out. My congratulations to Derrick for his honesty, his willingness and ability to go right for the heart of this subject, this story. The piece itself, like the content, is kind of raw. Mic noise in places (intentional and necessary in some of those spots). It does not sound like something you would hear in a local cutaway during Morning Edition or ATC. But I encourage stations to find a way to give this piece a place where listerns can listen.