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