Speaker 1: Yell from Gimblet Media. This is Jonathan Goldstein, your old pal.
Speaker 2: Is that is that was called Gimblet Gimblet Media.
Speaker 1: That's correct. It sounds like giblets the inside of a chicken,
Speaker 1: like all the innerds. Well, everybody loves giblets. You Oh shit,
Speaker 1: they're my kids.
Speaker 3: Hey guys, I'm up here.
Speaker 1: Do you know what my new podcast is about. I know,
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about it. Each week I travel
Speaker 1: into people's pasts to help them repair something that's been
Speaker 1: troubling them. M hm. I'm sort of like a therapist.
Speaker 4: Like a therapist.
Speaker 1: So yeah, do you find out? Do you find that funny?
Speaker 3: I just think supportive.
Speaker 1: That's the laughter of support.
Speaker 2: I think it's great.
Speaker 5: I think it's great.
Speaker 1: Do you have any questions for me about what my
Speaker 1: show is and what it's going to be?
Speaker 2: Like, what's the name of your show? What's the name
Speaker 2: of your show?
Speaker 4: Yes, we're gonna go now, but Johnson's just about tell
Speaker 4: me the name of his new show.
Speaker 1: As soon as he tells me, I'm going to bang
Speaker 1: down on him in five.
Speaker 2: Remember that, yes, to hang.
Speaker 1: Up the phone on each other. Okay, ready, Yes, the
Speaker 1: name of the show is Heavyweight Heavyweight, You get It?
Speaker 6: Two one.
Speaker 1: Hello. Hello from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this
Speaker 1: is Heavyweight Today's episode Buzz.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hey Dad, Hi Johnny.
Speaker 1: Hey, how you doing good? You good good good? Yum
Speaker 1: tip SAMEA.
Speaker 2: What's that meaning?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. This is my father Buzz. I'm calling
Speaker 1: him at his home in Montreal. And the reason we're
Speaker 1: talking crazy talk is because it's young Kipper the Jewish
Speaker 1: day of Atonement, which seems as good a day as
Speaker 1: any to talk with him about forgiveness. So I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you something and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to gauge your interest. YEA, how would you feel about
Speaker 1: paying your brother Sheldon a visit?
Speaker 2: I have no feelings by I'm not really interested.
Speaker 4: You're not.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: My father Buzz is eighty and his brother, Sheldon, his
Speaker 1: only sibling, is eighty five, and for the past forty
Speaker 1: years they've pretty much been on the outs. My father
Speaker 1: lives in Montreal and Sheldon lives in Florida, and the
Speaker 1: last time they saw each other over twenty years ago
Speaker 1: was at their mother's funeral when they had a fight
Speaker 1: over the details of the arrangements. Since then, they've hardly spoken.
Speaker 1: It worries me because there's not a lot of time left,
Speaker 1: and I don't want my father to have regrets. When
Speaker 1: the subject of his brother comes up, as it often
Speaker 1: has over the years, my father feels competing things. He
Speaker 1: grows angry or defensive, but other times he'll become sad
Speaker 1: and remorseful. And it's the sorrow and the remorse that
Speaker 1: I like best, because it's these feelings that I believe
Speaker 1: speak to his better self, the self I want to encourage.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised that you're not jumping at the idea,
Speaker 1: but I'm a little surprised that yours against the idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, time's passed. He hasn't shown much interest, so I'm
Speaker 2: respecting that and I leave alone.
Speaker 1: What he did do was he he called you on
Speaker 1: your eightieth birthday not so long ago, and you.
Speaker 2: Felt good about it to him on his eightieth birthday.
Speaker 1: This kind of tit for tat accounting is what always
Speaker 1: gets in the way. There's been a competition between the
Speaker 1: brothers since I was a kid. I remember how in
Speaker 1: my grandmother's small New York kitchen, Sheldon and Buzz got
Speaker 1: into an argument about who could do the most push ups,
Speaker 1: and the next thing I knew, my father was pulling
Speaker 1: off his shirt and dropping to the kitchen floor in
Speaker 1: his undershirt. My mother, not used to seeing the side
Speaker 1: of him, stood over my father, flapping a dishtowel hysterically
Speaker 1: while begging him to the point of tears to please stop.
Speaker 1: Now you go, my father said, rising from the floor
Speaker 1: when he was done. But Sheldon shook his head with
Speaker 1: a smile. It was like he didn't even think my
Speaker 1: father was worth the effort.
Speaker 2: You know what it is at this point with him,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what it is. I don't think it's
Speaker 2: even anger. He's past anger, and he's passed any feelings
Speaker 2: of animosity. He's passed that. He just doesn't care. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, that's apathy. I mean, sometimes at least hate
Speaker 2: or love their emotions. Apathy is nothing. Yeah, you know what.
Speaker 2: Johnny as a child, even when I was ten, when
Speaker 2: I was nine, and I was crazy about him. We
Speaker 2: had a great you know, I loved him. He was
Speaker 2: the older brother.
Speaker 1: He was hello, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm listening.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know. I just looked up to him, and
Speaker 2: he had older friends. Sometimes he'd take me along with
Speaker 2: him and he was good, Hey, somebody trying to somebody
Speaker 2: trying to call here, binging me here.
Speaker 1: Don't you see, Buzz? It's father time? Who is bringing
Speaker 1: you here? And Buzz loses track of time. Air Conditioners
Speaker 1: remain boxed all through July, and expired coupons from the
Speaker 1: mid nineties make plump his wallet, so I worry he'll
Speaker 1: put off reaching out to Sheldon until it's too late.
Speaker 1: The most complicated question, the one I keep coming back to,
Speaker 1: is how did the bad blood begin? And there are
Speaker 1: many versions. An ill fated trip to Montreal where Sheldon
Speaker 1: felt slighted about having to stay in my father's basement,
Speaker 1: an ill fated trip to New York where my father
Speaker 1: felt slighted about having to stay in Sheldon's attic, rude
Speaker 1: words spoken to each other's wives. In one version of
Speaker 1: the story, Sheldon's refusal to bring a table to my
Speaker 1: brists almost resulted in my being circumcised on an ironing board.
Speaker 1: But in the version being told today, my father was
Speaker 1: asked by Sheldon to pay more than his fair share
Speaker 1: for their mother's funeral, and.
Speaker 2: I said, you always working some kind of an angle,
Speaker 2: So he got furious. He got furious, He started screaming
Speaker 2: into the phone, go to hell, drop dead, bye ba by,
Speaker 2: And that was how that ended. But I feel he's
Speaker 2: the kind of guy that the gun he has angles
Speaker 2: like that, you know he has angles. I always felt
Speaker 2: I was on the up and up with him and
Speaker 2: he wasn't with me.
Speaker 1: If you've got a stronger sense that he was interested
Speaker 1: in seeing you, then would you yes, yes, you would
Speaker 1: be my granting.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't play the house though, that's out of the question.
Speaker 1: Okay, quick sidebar. Anytime I've ever raised the prospect of
Speaker 1: visiting Sheldon, no matter how hypothetical the scenario, my father
Speaker 1: always makes a point of insisting, how no matter what,
Speaker 1: he would not stay in Sheldon's house, even if he
Speaker 1: was invited to which I should point out he never is.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't stay at his house. How come you I
Speaker 2: wouldn't stay there, I mean, not my thing?
Speaker 1: How come you always bring that up? I mean, normally,
Speaker 1: when someone goes to visit someone that they haven't seen
Speaker 1: in decades, don't stay at a hotel.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I would stay at a motel or somewhere near hetel.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, we'd get a place, you know with an ice machine,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know why you want to.
Speaker 2: You're interested in making a trip.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm interested. Do you think that there's anything
Speaker 1: to be gained in seeing him?
Speaker 7: Hm?
Speaker 2: I guess there's something then, you know, you share your
Speaker 2: common experience and talk about the old days, and there
Speaker 2: are things that only he and I can remember. You know, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know you What you could do is you could
Speaker 2: call him and see what what what what his attitude is?
Speaker 2: You know, it depends on you, know how how how
Speaker 2: how you feel, what kind of receptions you get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I would. I would be happy to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: I like your initial suggestion that you call him, feel
Speaker 2: him out, and see what he's like.
Speaker 1: Okay, I didn't suggest that, but you you suggested that.
Speaker 2: I like that just because you'll give me an honest
Speaker 2: you'll give me an honest reaction.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to do it. But I mean, what what
Speaker 1: what are you looking for from from? What do you
Speaker 1: want to hear from him?
Speaker 2: I missed my brother. I would like to see him. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's all.
Speaker 1: Okay, you understand, and you come back.
Speaker 2: On me with an honest evaluation.
Speaker 8: Hello, Sheldon, Yeah, speaking hi that it was quite a
Speaker 8: shock getting your phone call. You said, Johnath. Yeah, my
Speaker 8: hearing is not that great, okay, And when I heard
Speaker 8: the first message, I'm saying, who the heck is that?
Speaker 8: I don't know anybody by that name.
Speaker 1: Sheldon now lives outside of Fort Lauderdale, but my few
Speaker 1: memories of him are from when he lived in upstate
Speaker 1: New York. I remember he lived in a trailer. I
Speaker 1: remember that he worked at a local prison, that he
Speaker 1: smoked cigars, that he looked a little like my father,
Speaker 1: but was hunched, like the world was weighing down on him.
Speaker 1: And he always wore this expression on his face that
Speaker 1: seemed to say, you gotta be kidding me. You're keeping okay,
Speaker 1: you're keeping occupied.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I read a lot. I going to gym. I
Speaker 8: go shopping. Hi, you know, here and there, little things
Speaker 8: here and there.
Speaker 1: And so you still go. How often you go to.
Speaker 7: The gym three times a week?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: And what kind of stuff do you do there?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 8: I do about twenty minutes of aerobics, uh huh, and
Speaker 8: then I do a little weight training. I try to
Speaker 8: flirt a little with the women there.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. My father also goes to the gym. That's
Speaker 1: a part of his routine. Also, he was he was
Speaker 1: happy to hear from you on his eightieth birthday.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well he didn't call me on my eighty.
Speaker 1: Fifth though, tit meet tat Yeah, like, so, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we could go out for dinner. I don't know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing.
Speaker 9: Uh huh.
Speaker 8: Well, what kind of time frame are we talking about here?
Speaker 9: I don't know. Our lives have been much different. I
Speaker 9: don't know how much we have to have in common anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't have.
Speaker 9: We don't have much in common anymore except the fact
Speaker 9: that we're elderly and retired.
Speaker 7: Other than that, I don't.
Speaker 9: Know what we have in common.
Speaker 1: You have your past in common?
Speaker 10: Yes, I'll tell you honestly. I'm not a very sentimental person,
Speaker 10: and I think, and I being a pragmatist, I take
Speaker 10: things the way they are. I try not to dwell
Speaker 10: upon the past, and I try not to take people
Speaker 10: the way I remember them, but as they are.
Speaker 1: Do you think that makes things easier.
Speaker 7: Makes things easier for me?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Do other people around you? Sometimes? Doesn't make it
Speaker 1: harder for other people around you ever.
Speaker 9: To be honest with you, I've been in the last
Speaker 9: few years. I've been a loner.
Speaker 7: You would basically almost call me a recluse. I don't
Speaker 7: socialize with many people, and I really don't give a
Speaker 7: damn what anybody thinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 9: Contrary to popular believe, I like.
Speaker 7: Being alone by myself. I get along with myself very well.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Look, I don't want to be rude. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 9: I want to go have my lunch.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. It's fine, Sheldon. I
Speaker 1: appreciate your talking to me, and you would be amenable
Speaker 1: to spending some time.
Speaker 9: Why not. We are brothers. I mean, we're not closer
Speaker 9: or anything, but you know we're not going to have.
Speaker 7: A chance to see each other much in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that anything that you think about?
Speaker 9: Not much now?
Speaker 1: And so I call my father back and let him
Speaker 1: know that Sheldon is amenable. And because I know that
Speaker 1: for my father the days tend to pile up like
Speaker 1: unboxed air conditioners, I have my mother get on the
Speaker 1: phone to help nail down a firm travel date.
Speaker 2: And Daddy wants to go.
Speaker 1: If Dad wants to go, if he wants.
Speaker 2: To go next weekend.
Speaker 1: We don't have to go on the weekend. We can
Speaker 1: go during the week.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Comes, as you know, you caught me off. God,
Speaker 2: how about it. I'll call you Wednesday or Thursday.
Speaker 1: How's that today's Monday or yeah, or even if you
Speaker 1: feel like calling tomorrow, you can call me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'll probably I'll call you at the latest Thursday.
Speaker 1: To get the Thursday at the latest. That's three days
Speaker 1: from today. Okay, all right, you do what you want
Speaker 1: to do. You call me, but I'll call you a
Speaker 1: Thursday coming up after the break Thursday, and so on Thursday,
Speaker 1: possibly with a little nudging for my mother, Buzz agrees.
Speaker 1: And then my father and I are off to Florida
Speaker 1: to the at my uncle Sheldon too, and then you
Speaker 1: have an address, Yeah I do, Okay. My dad and
Speaker 1: I meet up at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. I flew
Speaker 1: from New York and my dad from Montreal. My father's
Speaker 1: all dressed up, wearing a faux Swaede sports jacket that
Speaker 1: I've never seen him in. We grab our airport rental
Speaker 1: and prepare for the two hour drive to Sheldon in
Speaker 1: the ninety degree heat. It's immediately made clear that faux
Speaker 1: swayed might not have been the best fashioned choice.
Speaker 2: It's like we're on a safari.
Speaker 1: On the road to Sheldon's. My father will experience a
Speaker 1: spectrum of feelings. As we first set out, there's excitement.
Speaker 5: You know, my brother was funny in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: I could laugh.
Speaker 5: We're gonna have laughed with him, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: He's a very funny man.
Speaker 1: A half an hour in and there's bitterness.
Speaker 5: We invited him to your Moments and he returned a
Speaker 5: very cold card. Sorry we will not be attending. It
Speaker 5: was you know, so mean, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Even the writing.
Speaker 1: An hour in and how is buzz feeling.
Speaker 4: I'm relaxed.
Speaker 5: I'm kind of old to get anxious, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm meaning.
Speaker 1: Half an hour to Sheldon's.
Speaker 4: A little bit apprehensive now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ten minutes to Sheldon's and buzzes feeling all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's feeling a little.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: It's gonna be strange. Yeah, it's gonna be very strange.
Speaker 5: I mean, the man is a stranger to me now,
Speaker 5: and yet he's my brother.
Speaker 4: You understand.
Speaker 5: It's a very strange feeling.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I wonder if he's getting nervous, maybe because he's
Speaker 6: waiting for us, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: You all set?
Speaker 11: Yeah, Oh it's hot, it's really hot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sheldon lives in the corner house. On a quiet
Speaker 1: suburban street.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 5: Is this his door?
Speaker 11: I'll double check, maybe, because there is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 5: I smelled the good smell of cigar.
Speaker 4: They had become a monk.
Speaker 1: And after all the years and the worry and the dread,
Speaker 1: things seem to be going swimmingly. We sit down at
Speaker 1: Sheldon's kitchen table and my father gets right into it.
Speaker 4: Now, there's things I want to know. You said that
Speaker 4: Rainy died.
Speaker 1: The dead are a good place to begin as a subject.
Speaker 1: They're easily agreed upon and not likely to spark a fight.
Speaker 4: The uncle died. The uncle died. He was the youngest brother. Oh,
Speaker 4: he died long ago.
Speaker 5: He died.
Speaker 4: Who died? Real prick.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I didn't know him that well, he didn't know Yeah, yeah, shocking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was fat. He was fat, red head.
Speaker 5: Red head right, yeah, yeah, remember Johnny. Johnny was a
Speaker 5: sax man.
Speaker 4: John He would fuck a dog on the street if
Speaker 4: you sort of dog and try to fuck the dog.
Speaker 4: Can I get your guys a cold beer? I'd like
Speaker 4: a beer, olive beer.
Speaker 1: Even though they're in their eighties, Sheldon and Buzz still
Speaker 1: possessed voices and temperaments suited to shouting out Brooklyn tenement windows. Well,
Speaker 1: my voice olive beer is best suited to asking a
Speaker 1: waitress if there will be a sharing charge. I forgot
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 7: Sorry.
Speaker 1: Case in point this is Sheldon accidentally swiping a portable
Speaker 1: mike her phone receiver off the kitchen table and me
Speaker 1: trying to smooth things over.
Speaker 4: This off. Well, it's annoying.
Speaker 1: No, he just put it in the in your pocket there.
Speaker 4: Just take it off please.
Speaker 1: Over the next couple of days, my testes will flee
Speaker 1: like frightened cockroaches upward, ascending to heights not seen since
Speaker 1: the bar Mitzvah that Sheldon was not attending. And while
Speaker 1: we're on the subject of testes, here's Sheldon reminiscing about
Speaker 1: the time he was examined for a rupture by their
Speaker 1: family doctor.
Speaker 4: Me and Walie Rosen were joining the weightlifting Yeah, say,
Speaker 4: how to be tested for a rupture? Hey, I'm being
Speaker 4: put his hand onto my balls. I started left and
Speaker 4: so hot, I pissed right in his hand.
Speaker 2: Hey.
Speaker 1: Over the years, I've seen my father in the role
Speaker 1: of husband, uncle, and grandfather, but I've never really seen
Speaker 1: him in the role of younger brother. How odd to
Speaker 1: see it now? At eighty, he sits beside Sheldon with
Speaker 1: this expression I've never seen on his face. It's wide eyed,
Speaker 1: sweet and deferential. But as the day wears on, Sheldon
Speaker 1: and Buzz began to squabble over their memories, fighting over
Speaker 1: every little detail.
Speaker 5: Remember the hallabaloo we had with the diet haaddyet that
Speaker 5: heavy set.
Speaker 4: Girl a manicurist. She was a head dying manicurist. No,
Speaker 4: she was a head dying. Here's what happened. She went
Speaker 4: over to Earth.
Speaker 1: They even argue over the death of their grandmother.
Speaker 4: I found her body.
Speaker 5: My mother was across the street a Greenborough, I remember,
Speaker 5: and I knew she was dead. I never saw a
Speaker 5: dead body in my life, but I knew she was dead.
Speaker 1: Sure, so wait till you found her, or you found her.
Speaker 5: I remember looking in on the room and see how
Speaker 5: I said, it was awfully whet.
Speaker 4: I found her, but let him no, I'm not some credit.
Speaker 1: The whole afternoon is like this. Every subject, even their
Speaker 1: dead grandmother, somehow becomes fodder for another pissing match. They're
Speaker 1: burning up all this time with small talk when what
Speaker 1: they need is some big talk. In particular, they need
Speaker 1: to address a story that I know who. It's a
Speaker 1: great deal of meaning for my father. It took place
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine, on the day their mother left them.
Speaker 1: I've only ever heard the story from my father, never
Speaker 1: from Sheldon. I wanted to ask what you remember, what
Speaker 1: your perspective?
Speaker 4: Well, I remember that time was when Pop was smacking
Speaker 4: Iran and she ran out in the hole and her.
Speaker 5: Slip fighting in the hole, he was smacking around.
Speaker 4: She ran out. Yeah, So what happened the next morning?
Speaker 4: The next morning, Yeah, they look in a closet, her
Speaker 4: clothes were gone. She left.
Speaker 1: Oh what happened after this? And my father's telling is
Speaker 1: that his mother returned soon after she left with a
Speaker 1: policeman in tow.
Speaker 5: And they came back to try to get you.
Speaker 4: They wanted you to come back with them, and where
Speaker 4: were you? I was there, but they were trying to
Speaker 4: drink you out of the house. You weren't trying to No.
Speaker 5: No, I can say with my father and grandma and mother.
Speaker 1: This is the point of the story. For my father.
Speaker 1: It proves once and for all how his mother loved
Speaker 1: Sheldon more than she loved him. Sheldon didn't move out
Speaker 1: with her, and after a year their mother returned and together,
Speaker 1: Buzz and Sheldon grew up under the same roof in
Speaker 1: the same bedroom, often sleeping under the same blankets, each
Speaker 1: knowing who the mother had chosen, and each having to
Speaker 1: do their best to carry on and live life with
Speaker 1: the burden of that knowledge. A couple times during the
Speaker 1: day I asked them why they haven't spoken in so long,
Speaker 1: and they both insist, maybe out of embarrassment, that they
Speaker 1: do talk, just not often. But it isn't true. In fact,
Speaker 1: my father learned of Sheldon's wife's death many years after
Speaker 1: the fact, and then only from me. Sheldon's daughter got
Speaker 1: in touch through Facebook and we made a phone date
Speaker 1: where she caught me up on her life in Sheldon's
Speaker 1: and a few nights later, while over at my parents
Speaker 1: for dinner, I told my father of his sister in
Speaker 1: law's death. There was a terrible look that fell across
Speaker 1: his face, one of sadness, but something else too, maybe
Speaker 1: shock over just how far he and Sheldon had drifted.
Speaker 1: I found out about Judy, about her death. Who your wife?
Speaker 4: I didn't know about it either until you told me. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I didn't I tell you. No, you didn't know about it. No,
Speaker 4: we didn't know. We didn't know she was sick about
Speaker 4: two years here, Judy, Well, when she got the diagnosis,
Speaker 4: she was already stage four. What did I know about cancer?
Speaker 4: So the surgeon, so he said, So, I said, well, doctor,
Speaker 4: how did the surgery go? I always show you. I
Speaker 4: went very well. But the cancers in her liver, now
Speaker 4: I spread, I said, it's in he'll liver. I said what.
Speaker 4: And on top of that, I'm driving home. I'm all
Speaker 4: fucked up and I'm spaced out, and my driver windows open,
Speaker 4: and some kids pull up alongside me and flip a
Speaker 4: lit cigarette into my car. You know where I usually
Speaker 4: might commented, buy myself on the ball. They got a
Speaker 4: waitress there always wait time.
Speaker 1: It takes cook Canada for dinner. Sheldon takes us to
Speaker 1: a local outback steakhouse. As people walk by, he provides
Speaker 1: a running commentary of an elderly couple.
Speaker 4: Don't get like that couple. Whatever you do, it's time
Speaker 4: for the execution.
Speaker 1: Of an overweight couple.
Speaker 4: O fat, people are fat.
Speaker 1: It's as though he's sharpening his with readying it for
Speaker 1: the main event. Teasing my dad about Canada.
Speaker 4: I don't know how you could take Canada when your white.
Speaker 4: So you got nice neighbors.
Speaker 5: It's nice.
Speaker 4: It's okay. Uh. I wasn't gonna say, you're living in
Speaker 4: the same place for rom.
Speaker 5: Oh about thirty five, thirty eight years, something like that.
Speaker 4: I'm happy here. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: For my father, I know this is a touchy subject,
Speaker 1: believing as he always has, that Sheldon looks down on
Speaker 1: him for the dinkiness of his Canadian life and home.
Speaker 1: It's like a constant reminder of just who is second best. Later,
Speaker 1: my father will repeat Sheldon's words. You're still living in
Speaker 1: that same place, He'll say, for how many years? But
Speaker 1: just then I watch my father clench and unclench his
Speaker 1: jaw as he does when he is brooding. I know
Speaker 1: he's trying to take the high road, trying not to
Speaker 1: ruin the evening what two.
Speaker 4: Hundred dollars and thirty cent said.
Speaker 1: I pudd Sheldon invites us back to his place for cookies,
Speaker 1: but my father says he isn't up for it.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: As we walk through the restaurant parking lot to the car,
Speaker 1: my father is silent. I find myself feeling protective of him.
Speaker 1: After midnight, lying awake in our hotel, well, my father
Speaker 1: insisted we stay at one, I lay in bed thinking
Speaker 1: about that day in nineteen thirty nine when my grandmother
Speaker 1: came back for Sheldon, not my father. For my father,
Speaker 1: not only did it push him away from Sheldon, making
Speaker 1: him feel jealous and resentful, but it also cast a
Speaker 1: shadow over the rest of his life, causing him to
Speaker 1: always feel passed over. He's mellowed with age, But as
Speaker 1: a kid, I saw it come out in all kinds
Speaker 1: of ways, always sensitive to slights, ready for a fight
Speaker 1: at the smallest perceived defense. I wonder if there's a
Speaker 1: different way for my father to see things, If there
Speaker 1: is the only living person in this world who can
Speaker 1: help is Sheldon. When their mom left, Sheldon was nine,
Speaker 1: my father five. Sheldon would have understood a lot more
Speaker 1: than my father. Yesterday, Buzz and Sheldon talked like a
Speaker 1: couple of kids who used to play stickball in the
Speaker 1: old neighborhood. Today, if me and my big fat meddling
Speaker 1: Yap have any sway, they'll have a chance to talk
Speaker 1: as men, as brothers, ye, because if not. Now when
Speaker 1: day two, this.
Speaker 4: Is a damn good cigar, Oh, Dominical Republic.
Speaker 5: They make a damn good cigar in Dominical Republic.
Speaker 1: Despite the difficulties of last night. The coin is flipped
Speaker 1: back to the good side. Sheldon offers my father a cigar,
Speaker 1: and with a cigar, some cigar talk, some pretty foul
Speaker 1: cigar talk.
Speaker 4: We're riding on Queen's Boulevard. Johnny's in the back seat
Speaker 4: with the whole He's got his naked ass up in
Speaker 4: the air and he's well, the funny thing. We had
Speaker 4: to stop for a light and there's a trunk driver
Speaker 4: sitting in the cab bump high. Was funny.
Speaker 1: If you guys missed each other, do you miss each other?
Speaker 4: You know? He asked the weirdest question, What is he abroad? No?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. That's you know, eager to
Speaker 1: prove to my uncle Sheldon that in spite of the
Speaker 1: fact I'm wearing my wife's travel deodorant, I am indeed
Speaker 1: not abroad. I allow them to return to more pressing matters.
Speaker 1: They're Prostates, that said Jesus.
Speaker 4: He says, your prest feels like the moon craters. And
Speaker 4: there he said, I said, thank you, doctor complimenting.
Speaker 1: So if I could steer this away from the Prostates.
Speaker 1: So my father said that it's significant to him to
Speaker 1: have come.
Speaker 4: What do you say, I agree with whatever he said?
Speaker 1: But what about you?
Speaker 4: I said, I agree with whatever he said? Do you
Speaker 4: want to written?
Speaker 1: I know, i'my. It feels like I'm getting a taste
Speaker 1: of what growing up with Sheldon might have been like.
Speaker 1: So again I make my move. So I have some
Speaker 1: questions just about because the stories that I know from
Speaker 1: my father. But I'm curious your take is because you
Speaker 1: were older, do you remember what was going on when
Speaker 1: your mom when your mother left? Originally like what what?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 1: And what was going on?
Speaker 4: Didn't you cover this ground before yesterday?
Speaker 1: But from my father's perspective, the way I understood it
Speaker 1: was always you were the favorite. Did you did you
Speaker 1: feel that way? At this point, Sheldon's face suddenly softens.
Speaker 4: I always felt that I got the short end of
Speaker 4: the stick.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you have you were kind of a favorite
Speaker 5: with my mom.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Maybe with mom, of course maybe temperamentally we were
Speaker 4: closer than I was with my father. My father never
Speaker 4: gave me spit. Did you ever get any money from
Speaker 4: my father? I can't remember. You never got a line now,
Speaker 4: I can't remember, yeh never. One time I sprained my
Speaker 4: ankle so biget that was? That was terrible. I laid
Speaker 4: in that bed my hand. He was, He says to me,
Speaker 4: you lazy bum. Yeah, man, he went off on me
Speaker 4: that time. He took Sheldon.
Speaker 5: Once Sheldon happened to say the word fuck.
Speaker 4: He came in with that fucking strap, swinging with the.
Speaker 5: Bucket, and you know, I can understand it, leaving a
Speaker 5: feeling of resentment and dislike.
Speaker 4: Hey, yeah, that was his way of communicating with us.
Speaker 4: Smack smack, and then what a way? Yeah it was
Speaker 4: he easier on you. You think, uh, it wasn't that easy.
Speaker 5: But he was tough on Sheldon was.
Speaker 4: I know you were closer to him than I was.
Speaker 4: A lot of things that went on. You didn't understand
Speaker 4: really what was going on, So you had a different take.
Speaker 1: Why are you surprised by But I was a kid.
Speaker 4: I didn't understand it.
Speaker 1: But you didn't know that Sheldon was getting it so bad.
Speaker 1: In Buzz's telling, their father was always a more or
Speaker 1: less benign, childish figure, incapable of expressing his feelings and
Speaker 1: so given to temper tantrums. For Buzz, it was their
Speaker 1: mother who was the manipulator, the woman who played the
Speaker 1: brothers off each other. But hearing Sheldon's take. It sounds
Speaker 1: like maybe their mother didn't come to take Sheldon because
Speaker 1: she loved him best, but simply because he needed more
Speaker 1: protecting from their father. For the first time during our trip,
Speaker 1: I can see my father considering Sheldon's point of view,
Speaker 1: actually taking it in. I know it's intense for him
Speaker 1: because he can't even meet Sheldon's eyes. Instead, he looks
Speaker 1: at me, addresses his comments to me.
Speaker 5: You know, it said that my father's such a negation
Speaker 5: of impact on him, you know, just awful because he
Speaker 5: had so much going for me. He was a wonderful son.
Speaker 5: He worked hard, he was a good boy.
Speaker 4: He went to school talking like I'm a failure in life. No,
Speaker 4: you weren't a faith That's what I'm saying. You learn
Speaker 4: a faith.
Speaker 5: But all I'm saying is that emotionally he left an
Speaker 5: impact on you.
Speaker 4: It took a long time for me to get out
Speaker 4: of that emotion. And now I'm at peace to myself.
Speaker 4: I can talk about him and laugh about it.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 4: I want peace quiet. I'm happy living by myself.
Speaker 2: Are you lonely?
Speaker 4: Sheldon?
Speaker 1: The last time my father saw my grandfather in full health,
Speaker 1: my dad was visiting from Canada, my grandfather asked my
Speaker 1: father to drive him to the semin Harry to visit
Speaker 1: his parents' grave, and once there, my grandfather wept inconsolably.
Speaker 1: Later that day he would succumb to a stroke, and
Speaker 1: shortly after we moved to a nursing home, with Sheldon
Speaker 1: being more local. The burden of my grandfather's care fell
Speaker 1: mainly to Sheldon. It seems like a lot of the
Speaker 1: family's burdens fell to Sheldon.
Speaker 5: They put a lot of a lot of the responsibility
Speaker 5: on him. That my dad should have been taking that responsibility, and.
Speaker 4: He shouldered that. Well, who was going to take car
Speaker 4: of you? Who is going to take you to school? Meet? Yea,
Speaker 4: I remember one time I was later or something. You
Speaker 4: stood outside that right, I said, mousy, I'm here, I'm here.
Speaker 4: He was good to meet a lot of times me.
Speaker 4: You know, you were.
Speaker 5: My older brother used to knock the shit out of
Speaker 5: me sometimes, But you know that's the way it is
Speaker 5: with brothers.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I was good in some way some way
Speaker 4: that I was mean? Who was not?
Speaker 5: Who is not?
Speaker 4: Who is not?
Speaker 1: So if you feel like you were compelled to see
Speaker 1: each other now because you knew that, you know, it's
Speaker 1: an hour and never kind of thing. Then it means
Speaker 1: that it was important to you both right to see
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 5: You want to take that sure yes, easy answer, Yes, yes,
Speaker 5: because we're not getting any younger. I mean, what's down
Speaker 5: the road. I'm eighty he's eighty five. I mean because
Speaker 5: there was a lot of water under the bridge and
Speaker 5: we want to close that bridge.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: I want to feel easy. Now, I want to say,
Speaker 5: now he's going to be eighty six. I want to
Speaker 5: call him on his birthday and say happy birthday to him. Now,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to stand any fucking ceremonies anymore.
Speaker 1: As my father speaks, as per his brother's example, dropping
Speaker 1: f bombs like he's in a Guy Ritchie film, Sheldon
Speaker 1: keeps his arms crossed and his eyes shut tight. He's
Speaker 1: quiet for several seconds, and then he reaches out to
Speaker 1: pet his cat.
Speaker 4: Should I leave you at a cat in my will?
Speaker 4: If anything happened.
Speaker 5: If anything out, I'll take care of the cat. I'll
Speaker 5: take care of the cat. I'm happy I can't to
Speaker 5: see you.
Speaker 4: That I am. I'm happy it can't here. That's good,
Speaker 4: very good. Wherever I want to.
Speaker 9: Buy a house.
Speaker 1: When it's time to leave, Sheldon walks us outside, but
Speaker 1: before we get into the rental, he points across the
Speaker 1: lawn to his neighbor's house. He tells my father that
Speaker 1: it's for sale, and then he tells him the asking price,
Speaker 1: and my father says that doesn't sound bad at all.
Speaker 1: And Sheldon says that, what with Canada being so bloody cold,
Speaker 1: my father should consider moving to Florida, and my father
Speaker 1: says maybe he will. They don't get too emotional, they
Speaker 1: don't even hug it by, They just shake hands. And
Speaker 1: with that, it feels like Buzz has forgiven Sheldon, and
Speaker 1: Sheldon has forgiven Buzz.
Speaker 4: All right, you take care of under the bridge. Safe
Speaker 4: trip both, thank you, Yeah, thank you. We'll speak. M'll speak.
Speaker 11: Turn right on Northwest drawn.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it feels so different now, you know.
Speaker 5: This has taken a lot off my shoulders idea.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: As we ride to the airport, my father says that
Speaker 1: the thought of Sheldon all alone in that house with
Speaker 1: just a cat makes him sad. Do you really think
Speaker 1: he isn't lonely, my father asks. I assure him that
Speaker 1: Sheldon seems okay with being alone, but my father doesn't
Speaker 1: seem so sure. After all these years, the burden of
Speaker 1: having lost his brother has been replaced by a new burden,
Speaker 1: one that might be heavier to bear.
Speaker 3: Now that the fern ures returned into its goodwill home,
Speaker 3: now that the last month's rent is skating with.
Speaker 1: The damage to pos take this moment to dissolve.
Speaker 4: If we mentage, if we tried felt around for fuck
Speaker 4: to from the bank said accident.
Speaker 1: Lee Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan Goldstein.
Speaker 1: This episode was also produced by Wendy Dore, Chris Neary,
Speaker 1: and Khalila Holt, editing by Alex Bloomberg and Peter Clowney.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Caitlin Kenny, Starley Kine and Rachel Ward.
Speaker 1: The show was mixed by Hailey Shaw. Music in this
Speaker 1: episode by Christine Fellows, with additional music and ad music
Speaker 1: by Hailey Shaw. Our theme song is by The Weaker Bands,
Speaker 1: courtesy of Epitaph Records. A version of the story appeared
Speaker 1: on This American Life, and we had a lot of
Speaker 1: help from the folks there, Ira Glass, Julie Snyder, Jonathan
Speaker 1: men Heavar, Sean Cole and Robin Semeon a very special
Speaker 1: thanks to Emily Condon. Follow us on Twitter at heavyweight.
Speaker 1: We'll have a new episode next week.
Speaker 4: We used to call him Mitchy, little bitchy, Remember the
Speaker 4: older brother, the oldest one. He was kind of hey,
Speaker 4: well lucky we turned out as good as we did.