Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, Khalila Holt, don't scare me like that. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: my god. Welcome to the studio.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So now that we find ourselves at our new home
Speaker 1: at Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 2: Like you're reading it for the first time.
Speaker 1: We're celebrating some of our past accomplishments in the form
Speaker 1: of encore presentations. Encore Ravisimo. Today we're going to be
Speaker 1: listening to the very first Heavyweight. Yeah, an episode called
Speaker 1: Buzz and it's.
Speaker 2: An episode that's personal to you.
Speaker 1: It's spoiler alert, Sorry, yes it is. It is Buzz
Speaker 1: is my father.
Speaker 2: I really enjoy your dad. Whenever I get to hear
Speaker 2: from him, it warms my heart.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so nice. Yeah, my father has well I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say that my wife married me because
Speaker 1: of my father, but I'm sure it didn't hurt because
Speaker 1: she's a very big Columbo fan Peter Falk, and my
Speaker 1: father sounds a lot like he's of that generation. In fact,
Speaker 1: he would have grown up in Brooklyn around the same
Speaker 1: time as Peter Falk. But anyway, Yeah, this was the
Speaker 1: blueprint for Heavyweight. And it was out of this episode
Speaker 1: that I thought maybe I could use my powers of
Speaker 1: interlocution to help others as I was helping my family,
Speaker 1: why not spread the wealth?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you thought I'm so good at this that I
Speaker 2: got to do more.
Speaker 1: When you have mammoth gifts like that, I mean you
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to share it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So well, without further ado.
Speaker 2: Let's listen to the episode and stick around after for
Speaker 2: an update from your dad.
Speaker 1: But first, oh, but first, a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 2: Thank you sponsors, Miss Holt.
Speaker 1: Before you go, if I could just ask you one
Speaker 1: more thing. That's very interesting that you wear combs Ye
Speaker 1: from Gimblet Media. This is Jonathan Goldstein, your old pal.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 3: You, oh ship, they're my kids.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I'm up here. Do you know what my
Speaker 1: new podcast is about. I know, I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about it. Each week, I travel into people's pasts to
Speaker 1: help them repair something that's been troubling them.
Speaker 4: M hmm.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of like a therapist, like a therapist, So yeah,
Speaker 1: do you find out? Do you find that funny? I supportive.
Speaker 1: That's the laughter of support.
Speaker 4: 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, Like, what's
Speaker 1: the name of your show?
Speaker 4: What's the name of your show?
Speaker 1: Yes, we're gonna go now, but Johnson's just about tell
Speaker 1: me the name of his new show. As soon as
Speaker 1: he tells me, I'm going to bang down on him
Speaker 1: in five.
Speaker 4: Remember to do that.
Speaker 1: Yes, to hang up the phone on each other. Okay, ready, Yes,
Speaker 1: the name of the show is Heavyweight, Heavyweight, you get it?
Speaker 6: Two one.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 1: Hello from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is
Speaker 1: Heavyweight Today's episode.
Speaker 7: Buzz.
Speaker 4: Hello, Hey Dad, Hi Johnny.
Speaker 1: Hey, how you doing good?
Speaker 4: You good?
Speaker 1: Good?
Speaker 4: Good? Yum Tivova, what's that?
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
Speaker 1: to I wanted to ask you something and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to gauge your interest. Yeah, how would you feel
Speaker 1: about paying your brother Sheldon a visit.
Speaker 4: I have no feelings, die, I'm not really interested.
Speaker 1: You're not no. My father, Buzz is eighty and his brother, Sheldon,
Speaker 1: his only sibling, is eighty five, and for the past
Speaker 1: forty years they've pretty much been on the outs. My
Speaker 1: father lives in Montreal and Sheldon lives in Florida, and
Speaker 1: the 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 no not a lot of
Speaker 1: time left, and I don't want my father to have regrets.
Speaker 1: When the subject of his brother comes up, as it
Speaker 1: often has over the years, my father feels competing things.
Speaker 1: He grows angry or defensive, but other times he'll become
Speaker 1: sad and remorseful. And it's the sorrow and the remorse
Speaker 1: that I like best, because it's these feelings that I
Speaker 1: believe speak to his better self, the self I want
Speaker 1: to encourage. I'm not surprised that you're not jumping at
Speaker 1: the idea, but I'm a little surprised that yours against
Speaker 1: the idea Yeah.
Speaker 4: Time's passed. He hasn't shown much interest, so I'm respecting
Speaker 4: 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 4: 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 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 4: You know what it is at this point with him,
Speaker 4: I'll tell you what it is. I don't think it's
Speaker 4: even anger. He's past anger, and he's passed any feelings
Speaker 4: of animosity. He's passed that. He just doesn't care. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know that's apathy. I mean, sometimes at least hate
Speaker 4: or love their emotions. Apathy is nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what.
Speaker 4: Johnny as a child, even when I was ten, when
Speaker 4: I was nine, and I was crazy about him. We
Speaker 4: had a great you know, I loved him. He was
Speaker 4: the older brother.
Speaker 1: He was hello, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm listening.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know. I just looked up to him, and
Speaker 4: he had older friends. Sometimes he'd take me along with
Speaker 4: him and he was good. Hey, somebody trying to somebody
Speaker 4: trying to call here, binging.
Speaker 1: Me here, don't you see, Buzz? It's father time? Who
Speaker 1: is bringing you here? And Buzz loses track of time.
Speaker 1: Air Conditioners remain boxed all through July, and expired coupons
Speaker 1: from the mid nineties make plump his wallet, So I
Speaker 1: worry he'll put off reaching out to Sheldon until it's
Speaker 1: too late. The most complicated question, the one I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to, is how did the bad blood begin?
Speaker 1: And there are many versions. An ill fated trip to Montreal,
Speaker 1: where Sheldon felt slighted about having to stay in my
Speaker 1: father's basement, an ill fated trip to New York, where
Speaker 1: my father felt slighted about having to stay in Sheldon's
Speaker 1: attic rude word spoken to each other's wives. In one
Speaker 1: version of the story, Sheldon's refusal to bring a table
Speaker 1: to my brisk almost resulted in my being circumcised on
Speaker 1: an ironing board. But in the version being told today,
Speaker 1: my father was asked by Sheldon to pay more than
Speaker 1: his fair share for their mother's funeral, and I.
Speaker 4: Said, you always working some kind of an angle. So
Speaker 4: he got furious. He got furious. He started screaming into
Speaker 4: the phone, go to hell, drop dead, bah bah bayh.
Speaker 4: And was that was how that ended. But I feel
Speaker 4: he's the kind of guy that the gun. He has
Speaker 4: angles like that, you know, he has angles. I always
Speaker 4: felt I was on the up and up with him
Speaker 4: and 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.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, you would be my g I wouldn't play
Speaker 4: 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 4: I wouldn't stay at his house. How come you I
Speaker 4: 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, you.
Speaker 4: Know, I would stay at a motel or somewhere near hetel.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, we'd get a place, you know, with an ice machine.
Speaker 4: And uh, you know why you want to You're interested
Speaker 4: 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 3: Hm?
Speaker 4: I guess there's something. Then, you know, you share your
Speaker 4: common experience and talk about the old days, and there
Speaker 4: are things that only he and I I can remember,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, you know you What you could do
Speaker 4: is you could call him and see what what what
Speaker 4: what his attitude is? You know, it depends on you,
Speaker 4: know how how, how how you feel, what kind of
Speaker 4: receptions you get?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I would. I would be happy to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 4: I like your initial suggestion that you call him feel
Speaker 4: him out and see what he's like.
Speaker 1: Okay. I didn't suggest that, but you you suggested that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I like that just because you'll give me an
Speaker 4: honest 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 4: I missed my brother. I would like to see him. Okay,
Speaker 4: that's all. Okay, you understand, and you come back on
Speaker 4: me with an honest evaluation.
Speaker 9: Hello, Sheldon, Yeah, speaking hi that it was quite a
Speaker 9: shock getting your phone call, you said, Johnath. Yeah, my
Speaker 9: hearing is not that great, okay. And when I heard
Speaker 9: the first message, I'm saying, who the heck is that?
Speaker 9: 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 9: Yeah, I read a lot. I going to gym. I
Speaker 9: go shopping. Hi, you know, here and there, little things
Speaker 9: here and there, and so.
Speaker 1: You still go. How often you go to.
Speaker 9: The gym three times a week?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 1: And what kind of stuff do you do there?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 9: I do about twenty minutes of aerobics, uh huh, and
Speaker 9: then I do a little weight training. I try to
Speaker 9: 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 happy to
Speaker 1: hear from you on his eightieth birthday.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Well he didn't call me on my eighty fifth though.
Speaker 1: Tit meet tat Yeah, like, so, you know, maybe we
Speaker 1: could go out for dinner. I don't know that kind
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 9: Uh huh. Well, what kind of time frame are we
Speaker 9: talking about here?
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 10: Our lives have been much different. I don't know how
Speaker 10: much we have to have in common anymore.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we don't have We don't have much in common
Speaker 7: anymore except the fact that we're elderly and retired.
Speaker 3: Other than that, I.
Speaker 10: Don't 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, makes.
Speaker 10: 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 10: To be honest with you, I've been in the last
Speaker 10: few years, I've been a loner. You would basically almost
Speaker 10: call me a recluse. I don't socialize with many people,
Speaker 10: and I really don't give a damn what anybody thinks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and.
Speaker 10: Contrary to popular believe, I like being alone by myself.
Speaker 3: I get along with myself. Well yeah, look, I don't
Speaker 3: want to be rude. Yeah, yeah, but I want to
Speaker 3: 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 10: Why not. We are brothers.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're not closer or anything, but.
Speaker 10: You know, we're not going to have a chance to
Speaker 10: see each other much in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that anything that you think about.
Speaker 3: 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 and
Speaker 1: Dad he wants to go, if Dad wants to go,
Speaker 1: if he wants.
Speaker 4: To go next weekend.
Speaker 1: We don't have to go on the weekend. We can
Speaker 1: go during the week.
Speaker 4: Yeah, comes, as you know, you caught me off. God,
Speaker 4: 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 4: Yeah, okay, I'll probably I'll call you at the latest Thursday, to.
Speaker 1: Get the Thursday at the latest, that's three days from today. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, you do what you want to do.
Speaker 4: You call me, but I'll call you a Thursday.
Speaker 1: 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 visit my uncle Sheldon too.
Speaker 5: And then you have an address, Yeah, I do Okay.
Speaker 1: My dad and I meet up at the Fort Lauderdale Airport.
Speaker 1: I flew from New York and my dad from Montreal.
Speaker 1: My father's all dressed up, wearing a faux Swaede sports
Speaker 1: jacket that I've never seen him in. We grab our
Speaker 1: airport rental and prepare for the two hour drive to
Speaker 1: Sheldon in the ninety degree heat. It's immediately made clear
Speaker 1: that faux swayed might not have been the best fashioned choice.
Speaker 5: It's like we're on a safariy.
Speaker 1: You on the road to Sheldon's. My father will experience
Speaker 1: a 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 4: 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 11: We invited him to your baments and he returned a
Speaker 11: very cold calld. Sorry we will not be attending, you know,
Speaker 11: so mean, you know what I mean? 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 mean?
Speaker 1: Half an hour to Sheldon's a.
Speaker 5: Little bit apprehensive.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, ten minutes to Sheldon's and buzzes feeling all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's feeling a little.
Speaker 5: Uh No, it's gonna be strange.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's gonna be very strange. I mean the man
Speaker 6: is a stranger to me now, and yet he's my brother.
Speaker 8: You understand.
Speaker 6: It's a very strange feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I wonder if he's getting nervous, maybe because he's waiting
Speaker 6: for us, right, yeah, yell set yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh it's hot, it's really hot. Sheldon lives in the
Speaker 1: corner house on a quiet suburban street ring the bell.
Speaker 8: I guess is this his door?
Speaker 1: I'll double check maybe because there.
Speaker 12: Is, Yeah, thank you, I smell the good smell of cigar.
Speaker 8: There had become a monk may.
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 8: Now, there's things I want to know.
Speaker 5: You said that 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 8: The uncle died, The uncle died. He was the youngest brother. Oh,
Speaker 8: he died long ago.
Speaker 1: He died.
Speaker 8: Oh you know who died, real prick.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I didn't know him that well, he didn't know Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Nish.
Speaker 8: Shocking. Yeah he was fat.
Speaker 1: He was fat, red head.
Speaker 8: Red head right, yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: Remember remember Johnny, Johnny was a sax man.
Speaker 8: Ye, Johnny, he would fuck a dog on the street
Speaker 8: if you sort of dog. He tried to fuck the dog.
Speaker 8: Can I get you guys a cold beer?
Speaker 5: I'd like a beer, olive beer.
Speaker 1: Even though they're in their eighties, Sheldon and buzz Stop
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 8: Sorry.
Speaker 1: Case in point this is Sheldon accidentally swiping a portable
Speaker 1: microphone receiver off the kitchen table and me trying to
Speaker 1: smooth things over.
Speaker 8: This off. Well, it's annoying.
Speaker 1: You just put it in the in your pocket there.
Speaker 8: Just take it off, please, thank you.
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 8: Me and Wilie Rosen were joining the weightlifting Yep, say
Speaker 8: you how to be tested for a rupture? Hey, I
Speaker 8: remem being put his hand onto my balls. I started
Speaker 8: left and so hot, I pissed right in his hand.
Speaker 4: 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, head diet.
Speaker 5: That heavy set girl a manicurist. She was a head
Speaker 5: dying manicurist. No, she was a head dying. Here's what happened.
Speaker 5: She went over to Earth.
Speaker 1: They even argue over the death of their grandmother.
Speaker 5: I have found her body. My mother was across the
Speaker 5: street a Greenborough. I remember walk and I knew she
Speaker 5: was dead. I never saw a dead body of my life,
Speaker 5: 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 I found them.
Speaker 8: 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 8: Well, I remember that time was when Pop was smacking
Speaker 8: Iran and she ran out in the hole in her
Speaker 8: slip fighting in the hole, he was smacking around. She
Speaker 8: ran out. Yeah, so what happened the next morning?
Speaker 5: The next morning, Yeah, look in a closet, her clothes
Speaker 5: were gone.
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 8: They wanted you to come back with them, and where
Speaker 8: were you? I was there, but they were trying to
Speaker 8: drag you out of the house.
Speaker 5: You weren't trying to grin Now, no, no, I can say,
Speaker 5: with my father and grandma.
Speaker 1: And mother, this is the point of the story. For
Speaker 1: my father, It proves once and for all how his
Speaker 1: mother loved Sheldon more than she loved him. Sheldon didn't
Speaker 1: move out with her, and after a year their mother returned,
Speaker 1: and together Buzz and Sheldon grew up under the same
Speaker 1: roof in the same bedroom, often sleeping under the same blankets,
Speaker 1: each knowing who the mother had chosen, and each having
Speaker 1: to do their best to carry on and live life
Speaker 1: with the burden of that knowledge. A couple times during
Speaker 1: the day I asked them why they haven't spoken in
Speaker 1: so long, and they both insist, maybe out of embarrassment,
Speaker 1: that they do talk, just not often. But it isn't true.
Speaker 1: In fact, my father learned of Sheldon's wife's death many
Speaker 1: years after the fact, and then only from me. Sheldon's
Speaker 1: daughter got in touch through Facebook and we made a
Speaker 1: phone date where she caught me up on her life
Speaker 1: in Sheldon's and a few nights later, while over at
Speaker 1: my parents for dinner, I told my father of his
Speaker 1: sister in law's death. There was a terrible look that
Speaker 1: fell across his face, one of sadness, but something else too,
Speaker 1: maybe shock over just how far he and Sheldon had drifted.
Speaker 1: I found out about Judy, about her death, your wife.
Speaker 8: I didn't know about it either until you told me. Yeah,
Speaker 8: didn't I tell you? You didn't know about her? No, we
Speaker 8: didn't know. We didn't know she was sick about two years. Yeah, Judy, Well,
Speaker 8: when she got the diagnosis, she was already stage four.
Speaker 8: What did I know about cancer? So the surgeon, so,
Speaker 8: he said, So, I said, well, doctor, how did the
Speaker 8: surgery go? I always show you. I went very well.
Speaker 8: But the cancer is in her liver. Now, I was spreading.
Speaker 8: I said, it's in he'll liver. I said what? And
Speaker 8: on top of that, I'm driving home, I'm all fucked up,
Speaker 8: and I'm Space style and my driver windows open, and
Speaker 8: some kids pull up alongside me and flip a lit
Speaker 8: cigarette into my car you know where I usually, I commented,
Speaker 8: buy myself on the ball. They got a waitress there
Speaker 8: who always waits on me. He takes Cook.
Speaker 1: Canady for dinner. Sheldon takes us to a local outback steakhouse.
Speaker 1: As people walk by, he provides a running commentary of
Speaker 1: an elderly couple.
Speaker 8: Don't get like that couple. Whatever you did, it's time
Speaker 8: for the execution.
Speaker 1: Of an overweight couple.
Speaker 8: 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 8: I don't know how you could take Canada on your life.
Speaker 5: So you got nice neighbors, it's nice, It's okay.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 8: I wasn't gonna say, you're living in the same.
Speaker 11: Place about thirty five, thirty eight years something like that.
Speaker 8: I'm happy here. Yeah. 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.
Speaker 8: Two hundred dollars and thirty cent said, I kidd.
Speaker 1: Sheldon invites us back to his place for cookies, but
Speaker 1: my father says he isn't up for it. Thank you,
Speaker 1: And as we walk through the restaurant parking 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, my father insisted
Speaker 1: we stay at one. I lay in bed thinking about
Speaker 1: that day in nineteen thirty nine when my grandmother came
Speaker 1: back for Sheldon, not my father. For my father, not
Speaker 1: only did it push him away from Sheldon, making him
Speaker 1: feel jealous and resentful, but it also cast a shadow
Speaker 1: over the rest of his life, causing him to always
Speaker 1: feel passed over. He's mellowed with age, but as a kid,
Speaker 1: I saw it come out in all kinds of ways,
Speaker 1: always sensitive to slights, ready for a fight at the
Speaker 1: smallest perceived defense. I wonder if there's a different way
Speaker 1: for my father to see things, if there is the
Speaker 1: only living person in this world who can help is Sheldon.
Speaker 1: When their mom left, Sheldon was nine, my father five.
Speaker 1: Sheldon would have understood a lot more than my father. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: Buzz and Sheldon talked like a couple of kids who
Speaker 1: used to play stickball in the old neighborhood. Today, if
Speaker 1: me and my big fat meddling yap have any sway,
Speaker 1: they'll have a chance to talk as men, as brothers
Speaker 1: even because if not. Now when day two, this.
Speaker 5: Is a damn good cigar, he well, Dominican Republican. They
Speaker 5: 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 8: We're riding Mount Queens Boulevard. Johnny's in the back seat
Speaker 8: with the whole He's got his naked ass up in
Speaker 8: the air and he's hum Well, the funny thing is
Speaker 8: we had to stop for a light and there's a
Speaker 8: truck driver sitting in the cab bump high.
Speaker 1: So if you guys missed each other, what do you
Speaker 1: miss each other?
Speaker 8: You know? He asked the weirdest question, what is he abroad?
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I don't know. That's you know, eager
Speaker 1: to prove to my uncle Sheldon that in spite of
Speaker 1: the fact I'm wearing my wife's travel deodorant, I am
Speaker 1: indeed not abroad. I allow them to return to more
Speaker 1: pressing matters. They're prostates, that said Jesus.
Speaker 8: He says, your prestate feels like the moon craters in there.
Speaker 8: He said. I said, thank you, doctor, complimenting.
Speaker 1: So if I could steer this away from the prostrates,
Speaker 1: and so my father said that it's significant to him
Speaker 1: to have come. What do you say?
Speaker 8: I agree with whatever he said?
Speaker 1: But what about you?
Speaker 8: I said, I agree with whatever he said. Do you
Speaker 8: want to written?
Speaker 1: I know it feels like I'm getting a taste of
Speaker 1: what growing up with Sheldon have been like. So again
Speaker 1: I make my move. So I have some questions just
Speaker 1: about because the stories that I know from my father.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious what your take is because you were older,
Speaker 1: do you remember what was going on when your mom
Speaker 1: when your mother left? Originally like what, what?
Speaker 8: Why?
Speaker 1: And what was going on?
Speaker 8: 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 8: I always felt that I got the short end of
Speaker 8: the stick.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you have You were kind of a favorite
Speaker 5: with my mom.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Maybe with mom, of course maybe. Temperamentally we were
Speaker 8: closer than I was with my father. My father never
Speaker 8: a me spit. Did you ever get any money from
Speaker 8: my father? I can't remember. You never got a line? Now,
Speaker 8: I can't remember you never One time I sprained my
Speaker 8: ankle so bad. That was that was terrible. I laid
Speaker 8: in that bed my hand. He was He says to me,
Speaker 8: you lazy bum. Yeah. Man, he went off on me
Speaker 8: that time.
Speaker 5: He took Sheldon once Sheldon happened to say the word fuck.
Speaker 8: He came in with that fucking strap, swinging with.
Speaker 5: The bucket, and you know, I can understand leaving a
Speaker 5: feeling of resentment and dislike.
Speaker 8: Hey, yeah, that was his way of communicating with us.
Speaker 8: Smack smack, and then what a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was easier on you.
Speaker 5: You think, Uh, it wasn't that easy. But he was
Speaker 5: tough on Sheldon.
Speaker 8: Was I know, Oh, you were closer to him than
Speaker 8: I was a lot of things that went on. You
Speaker 8: didn't understand really well it did going on, so you
Speaker 8: had a different take.
Speaker 1: Well, are you surprised.
Speaker 8: By But I was a kid. 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 had such a
Speaker 5: negative 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 8: He went to school talking like I'm a failure in life. No,
Speaker 8: you aren't a fail. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: You weren't a faith But all I'm saying is that
Speaker 5: emotionally he left an impact on you.
Speaker 8: It took a long time for me to get out
Speaker 8: of that emotion. And now I'm at peace to myself.
Speaker 8: I can talk about him and laugh about it. Yeah,
Speaker 8: now I want peace quiet. I'm happy living by myself.
Speaker 8: Are you lonely, Sheldon?
Speaker 5: No? No.
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 cemetery to visit his parents' grave,
Speaker 1: and once there, my grandfather wept inconsolably. Later that day
Speaker 1: he would succumb to a stroke and shortly after be
Speaker 1: moved to a nursing home. With Sheldon being more local,
Speaker 1: the burden of my grandfather's care fell mainly to Sheldon.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of the family's burdens fell
Speaker 1: to Sheldon.
Speaker 5: They put a lot of responsibility on him, that my
Speaker 5: dad should have been taking that responsibility and he shouldered that.
Speaker 8: Well, who is going to take Carria, who is going
Speaker 8: to take you to school? Meet you? I remember one
Speaker 8: time I was later or something. You stood outside that
Speaker 8: right I said, mousy, I'm here, I'm here. He was
Speaker 8: good to meet a lot of times me. You know,
Speaker 8: you were my older brother.
Speaker 5: He used to knock the shit out of me sometimes,
Speaker 5: but you know that's the way it is with brothers.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, I was good in some way some way
Speaker 8: that I was mean? Who was not?
Speaker 5: Who is not?
Speaker 8: 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 8: You want to take that sure?
Speaker 5: I'm easy answer, yes, yes, because we're not getting any younger.
Speaker 5: I mean, what's down the road.
Speaker 8: I'm eighty he's eighty five.
Speaker 5: I mean because there was a lot of water under
Speaker 5: the bridge and we want to close that bridge.
Speaker 8: 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 8: Should I leave you at a cat in my will?
Speaker 8: If anything happened.
Speaker 5: If anything out, I'll take care of the cat.
Speaker 8: I'll take care of the cat.
Speaker 5: I'm happy I can't to see you.
Speaker 8: That I am. I'm happy it came here. That's good,
Speaker 8: very good. Wherever I want to 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 hugo by. They just shake hands. And with that,
Speaker 1: it feels like Buzz has forgiven Sheldon, and Sheldon has
Speaker 1: forgiven Buzz all right.
Speaker 8: You take care of sankot this. Thank you, Yeah, thank you,
Speaker 8: we'll speak. I'll speak.
Speaker 4: Turn right on northwest, mad for drawing.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, it feels so different now.
Speaker 5: Do you know that this has taken a lot off
Speaker 5: my shoulders idea?
Speaker 1: You know, as we ride to the airport, my father
Speaker 1: says that the thought of Sheldon all alone in that
Speaker 1: house with just a cat makes him sad. Do you
Speaker 1: really think he isn't lonely? My father asks. I assure
Speaker 1: him that Sheldon seems okay with being alone, But my
Speaker 1: father doesn't seem so sure. After all these years, the
Speaker 1: burden of having lost his brother has been replaced by
Speaker 1: a new burden, one that might be heavier to bear
Speaker 1: now that the Fernuers returned to its goodwill home, now that.
Speaker 4: The last month's rent is skeeting.
Speaker 1: With damage to pot take this moment to deced.
Speaker 5: If we if we too felt from from the.
Speaker 1: Things an accident And so you know why I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know you wanted to talk to me, but
Speaker 5: you know about what I have no idea.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to revisit. Do you remember the story
Speaker 1: that I made about you and your brother? Sheldon.
Speaker 8: Sure.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, back then you were in your I think
Speaker 1: you were eighty and I think Sheldon was eighty four
Speaker 1: or eighty.
Speaker 5: Five, right right right, Yeah, I was eighty.
Speaker 1: You just turned ninety Yeah, yeah, December. Did you get
Speaker 1: a phone call from Sheldon?
Speaker 5: Yes, I did, of course. Oh yeah, he welcomed me
Speaker 5: into the Big nine.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 5: He'll be ninety five in July.
Speaker 1: So do you guys talk on all of your birthdays?
Speaker 1: Are just on the big one birthday? Every birthday?
Speaker 5: I call him, he calls me, yeah, and we talk
Speaker 5: a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we just talk.
Speaker 1: So what do you guys talk about? Would you talk
Speaker 1: about when he called you up for your ninetieth.
Speaker 5: How he's feeling. Does he still go out to eat?
Speaker 5: Does he still drive a car? Is you know things
Speaker 5: like that? Is he getting around and he goes out?
Speaker 5: He's got got the steakhouse that he goes to. It's
Speaker 5: like the outback, the outback, and he goes, hey, he
Speaker 5: has his seat or stool and yeah.
Speaker 1: Does he still smoke his cigars and drink beer?
Speaker 5: Oh? You know, he said he stopped that because he
Speaker 5: developed a cough, so he stopped.
Speaker 1: Even though you know, you only speak to Sheldon a
Speaker 1: couple times a year. Do you feel like your life
Speaker 1: is enriched by having him in it?
Speaker 5: Yes, He's important to me in a lot of many ways. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I feel he's my mortality. In other words, as long
Speaker 5: as he lives, I'm okay, if do you understand that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's like this is a bond we have in a
Speaker 5: certain way, that we have this long life, and it's
Speaker 5: kind of a gift and it's kind of a magic
Speaker 5: to it. As long as he keeps on living, I'm okay. Wow,
Speaker 5: you know, he's ninety five. I can go yet, you know,
Speaker 5: a few more years.
Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone who helped put this episode together, We'll
Speaker 1: be back next week with another encore presentation of Heavyweight,
Speaker 1: and with it, another update from our guest