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Speaker 1: Huh.

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Speaker 2: Do you wear shoes with shoelaces? You or you wear Velcrow?

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Speaker 3: Did you come up with these questions by yourself?

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Speaker 2: No, I have a writer's room. No, I'm just curious.

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Speaker 2: I remember you used to like Velcrow. You said that

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Speaker 2: anybody who is foolish enough to have to stoop down

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Speaker 2: and tie their shoelaces deserves what they get. That shoelaces

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Speaker 2: get covered in urine and bile, and that velcro is

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Speaker 2: the fabric of the future. That's what you'd always say.

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Speaker 2: You have shoes with shoelaces, right, shoes shoelaces?

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Speaker 1: Yes?

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Speaker 2: Do you always double not them? No?

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Speaker 3: You don't any other compelling questions, Johnny, that you have.

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Speaker 2: If you showed up to a bowling alley with a watermelon,

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Speaker 2: you think they'd let you bowl. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and

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Speaker 2: this is Heavyweight Today's episode, Lenny, right after the break.

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Speaker 3: Back.

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Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I often carried around a

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Speaker 2: tape recorder and outstretched mic created a buffer between me

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Speaker 2: and the world. Recording was my way of managing life,

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Speaker 2: and so I recorded everything, my parents' arguments, their phone calls,

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Speaker 2: and I'm telling you thro fish my mom pretending to

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Speaker 2: audition for soap operas Amanda Darling, how are you today?

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Speaker 2: Mostly though I recorded myself, I made radio plays.

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Speaker 4: Rich Stone Productions present the Adventures of Nedley with no

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Speaker 4: one to share in my love for a medium do

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Speaker 4: o way since the Truman administration.

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Speaker 2: I put on the plays alone, all the voices performed

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Speaker 2: by me for an audience of zero. Our story opens.

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Speaker 5: Up where Nedley is about to get off.

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Speaker 2: Oh what a lousy day. That's our Nedley. Nedley was

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Speaker 2: an eleven year old spitfire who did as he pleased.

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Speaker 2: Since I myself was an eleven year old rule following

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Speaker 2: nerd Nedley was my id.

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Speaker 5: Here comes boom boom, She's my dream.

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Speaker 2: High Needy Hi he boom boom bom, and the whole

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Speaker 2: psychodrama played out as one man show.

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Speaker 5: This movie was directed by Jonathan Goldstein, screenplay by Jonathan Wilsey.

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Speaker 5: All voices in it are done by Jonathan Goldstein. This

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Speaker 5: is a Jonathan Goldstein production whom.

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Speaker 2: It was all just me and my microphone until the

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Speaker 2: day Lenny came along. I was twelve years old when

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Speaker 2: we were first introduced at a birthday party. Immediately Lennie

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Speaker 2: asked me what blood type I was oh, I said, uncertainly,

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Speaker 2: me too, he shouted, genuinely excited to find some small

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Speaker 2: thing we shared. I was an aloof kid, but was

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Speaker 2: quickly won over by Lenny's goodness and the fact our

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Speaker 2: mothers were already best friends made our best friendship feel faded.

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Speaker 2: Plus that Lenny proved as obsessive about recording as I

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Speaker 2: was sealed the deal. The weekends revolved around our recording

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Speaker 2: radio plays. Lenny and I would sleep in the same

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Speaker 2: foold out in his parents' den. His dad, Izzy, a

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Speaker 2: large man with a thick Polish accent, would make us

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Speaker 2: breakfast in just his underwear, his undershirt tucked into his

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Speaker 2: jockeys like it was some style imported from the Old Country.

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Speaker 2: One time, trying to explain to Izzy how I liked

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Speaker 2: my eggs and having no success with Fried, I described

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Speaker 2: two sons and a Cloud. Lenny loved that so much

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Speaker 2: that he started ordering his eggs that way too, Two

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Speaker 2: Sons and a Cloud. After breakfast, we'd head to Lenny's bedroom,

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Speaker 2: shut the door, and record all morning. We were a

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Speaker 2: gang of two Golden Lennox presents. The Lennox was from Lennie,

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Speaker 2: the gold from Goldstein for the first time, I no

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Speaker 2: longer felt alone. Together. Lenny and I recorded prank phone

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Speaker 2: calls our parents' dinner parties, and we made radio play

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Speaker 2: after radio play, creating characters like Flip and Will, two

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Speaker 2: burned out radio DJs. We take you to Flip.

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Speaker 4: Flip is going to introduce you, Slip is taking you

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Speaker 4: to Will. Okay Will, No Will is taking you to Slip.

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Speaker 4: No Beck, you will.

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Speaker 2: As a part of the Flip and Will radio show,

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Speaker 2: we did live phone outs to our quote unquote listeners.

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Speaker 2: In the eighties, dialing a phone was so arduous it's

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Speaker 2: surprising people even bothered. But without driver's licenses or money,

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Speaker 2: Lenny and I made the effort. The phone brought us

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Speaker 2: a sense of freedom and adventure.

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Speaker 4: Okay you three?

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Speaker 2: Three?

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Speaker 1: Hello?

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Speaker 6: What would you do if you had to move a

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Speaker 6: television survey?

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Speaker 7: Why?

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Speaker 2: Thank you think you need it?

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Speaker 8: Why the Cold War is not over? It never was?

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Speaker 2: This is Lenny now, age fifty two.

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Speaker 8: John, What is not understandable about this?

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Speaker 9: Because I'm getting frustrated.

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Speaker 2: Now I'm in Minnesota and Lenny is in Canada. We

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Speaker 2: haven't spoken in nine years, and at the moment, for

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Speaker 2: some reason, we're discussing Russia's role in Ukraine well.

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Speaker 8: Still there.

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Speaker 2: In our late teens, Lenny and I began to have

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Speaker 2: less and less in common and we drifted apart. Our

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Speaker 2: first conversation in almost a decade is not going well.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not sure that I fully get it.

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Speaker 2: You mean that, I mean it's not that complicated.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, we destroyed communism using their communism.

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Speaker 8: Now they destroyed capitalism using our capitalists.

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Speaker 9: I guess about your subject.

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Speaker 2: The last time I saw Lenny was back home in Canada.

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Speaker 2: Our mothers, who were still best friends, thought it'd be

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Speaker 2: nice for the families to get together. Lenny showed up

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Speaker 2: at the restaurant with a shaved head and thin chin

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Speaker 2: strap beard. With the way he kept his arms crossed

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Speaker 2: and his posture erect that evening, Lenny had something of

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Speaker 2: the dictator about him. He was living in the bachelor's

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Speaker 2: apartment and his parents' basement in Chamity Laval, the suburb

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Speaker 2: we grew up in just outside of Montreal. Lenny drove

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Speaker 2: a school bus for Orthodox Jews and said the Hasidim

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Speaker 2: had nicknamed him the Surgeon because of how he zipped

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Speaker 2: through narrow streets with such precision. At the end of

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Speaker 2: the meal, Lenny asked if I wanted to go outside

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Speaker 2: and smoke a joint, a for ole times sake kind

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Speaker 2: of thing. The idea of smoking a joint outside a

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Speaker 2: suburban strip mall restaurant while our aged parents waited in

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Speaker 2: side was unappealing, so I said no, at least stand

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Speaker 2: outside with me, Lenny said, and keep me company. But

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Speaker 2: I dug my heels in and Lenny grew angry. We

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Speaker 2: parted on bad terms that evening, almost ten years ago,

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Speaker 2: and that was the last time I saw Lennie or

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Speaker 2: thought too hard about him until now. The reason Lenny

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Speaker 2: and I are speaking right now is because he has

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Speaker 2: only months to live. Lenny is dying of pancreatic cancer

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Speaker 2: and his undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. He's recently gone through

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Speaker 2: eleven hours of surgery to keep the cancer from spreading,

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Speaker 2: but it was no use. Even though that first conversation

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Speaker 2: went poorly, I continue to spend my evenings talking to

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Speaker 2: Lennie because somewhere in the back of my mind is

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Speaker 2: the memory of the kid from my childhood, the kid

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Speaker 2: who stayed by my side tending to my adult sized

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Speaker 2: depression in the darkest hour hours of my teens. I

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Speaker 2: remember days and nights spent in Lenny's bedroom, just lying

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Speaker 2: in his bed under the black bulb of his light fixture,

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Speaker 2: listening to Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden. Too scared to

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Speaker 2: face the world. Back then, Lennie would reassure me, telling

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Speaker 2: me to think all the bad thoughts I could, to

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Speaker 2: get them out of my system, to exhaust them so

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Speaker 2: that eventually I'd only be left with the good ones.

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Speaker 2: Being with Lennie was one of the few places where

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Speaker 2: I felt safe, and so I call him again and again. Hey, Lenny,

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Speaker 2: how are you doing?

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Speaker 1: H S shit?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Our conversations usually occur at night, with Lenny still

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Speaker 2: in his parents' basement, the same basement where we spent

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Speaker 2: our childhoods, and me wandering the silent streets of my

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Speaker 2: midwestern neighborhood. During these phone chats, I never know what

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Speaker 2: to say. I struggle to find common ground, but always

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Speaker 2: come up short. When I bring up old mutual friends,

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Speaker 2: Lenny speaks of them resentfully. With jobs, it's the same

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Speaker 2: the idiots at the trucking firm, the anti semites at

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Speaker 2: the refrigeration company. On the rare occasion, I raise something

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Speaker 2: personal about myself, it gets no traction when I tell

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Speaker 2: him how I'm now a father of a five year

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Speaker 2: old Lennie, a bachelor, says that people who have kids

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Speaker 2: only do it for ego reasons. Mostly we stick to

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Speaker 2: the subject of Lenny's pain, which is brutal. He can't

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Speaker 2: eat without pain, stand or even lie down without pain.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes he'll put the phone down and I'll listen to

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Speaker 2: him as he howls from the bathroom. There are drugs,

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Speaker 2: some prescribed and some not, but no matter, there's always pain,

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Speaker 2: and anger at the pain, and anger at what seems

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Speaker 2: like me. On most nights, after a typical conversation, I

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Speaker 2: come home and say to my wife Emily, that maybe

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Speaker 2: this is a bad idea. We drifted apart for a reason.

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Speaker 2: I say, we're strangers, and yet even though Lenny doesn't

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Speaker 2: seem to even want to talk to me, we continue

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Speaker 2: to talk night after night. I'm beginning to get the

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Speaker 2: impression that maybe he has no one else. No no, no,

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Speaker 2: of course not.

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Speaker 9: Well, wish me luck.

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Speaker 2: Lenny says he wants to leave something behind, and so

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Speaker 2: we record, just like we did when we were kids.

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Speaker 2: Back then, we perform different characters. Now, Ostensibly we're just ourselves.

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Speaker 9: I really did my shouffle to rice, lemon, lime, garlic,

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Speaker 9: and pepper.

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Speaker 1: Oh nice, nothing complicated and it is gorgeous.

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Speaker 2: Great? And how's your sleeping?

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Speaker 9: I sleep like shit? What do you think I have

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Speaker 9: to think?

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Speaker 2: I met every two hours?

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Speaker 9: The horrible life when you spend your life, society of

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Speaker 9: the universe punish you all the anger, all the hatred.

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Speaker 9: What do you think you could get away with it?

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Speaker 2: Lenny is no longer the sweet, lonely kid who told

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Speaker 2: me not to squat the house fly in his bedroom

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Speaker 2: because he was his pet, The boy with whom I'd

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Speaker 2: been so close that I'd run my hands through his

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Speaker 2: thick black hair as though it were my own, smoohing

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Speaker 2: it up into the air. I pretended I'd invented the

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Speaker 2: latest in men's hairstyles. The Beethoven that Lenny seems to

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Speaker 2: be long gone. Even though Lenny and I weren't in

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Speaker 2: touch over the years, when I'd ask after him, my

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Speaker 2: mother would always say the same thing. Lenny and his

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Speaker 2: parents were fighting like cats and dogs. Lenny's father died

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Speaker 2: about a year ago. Now it's just him and his mom.

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Speaker 2: Do you see you see your mother every day?

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Speaker 9: Unfortunately, I make an attempt to treat her like a

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Speaker 9: human being, and every day she disappoints me. She's a

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Speaker 9: gross mind. My father too, he was gross, too gross.

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Speaker 2: You loved him, you loved your dad, Yeah, I did.

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Speaker 9: But he was a gross man who did everything that

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Speaker 9: makes his life easier in my life harder.

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Speaker 2: Lenny's parents had had another son before him, but because

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Speaker 2: of profound mental and physical disabilities, he was institutionalized. After that,

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Speaker 2: they adopted Lenny. Both Lenny and I were raised by

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Speaker 2: parents who saw screaming and hitting as the solution to

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Speaker 2: all of life's child rearing dilemmas. But from Lenny's perspective,

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Speaker 2: worse than that was the neglect. Lenny's dad worked a lot,

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Speaker 2: and his mom always seemed to have more time for

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Speaker 2: her friends than for him. It's something Lenny still can't

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Speaker 2: let go of.

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Speaker 9: It's called normal responsibility, you know what I mean? My

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Speaker 9: friends got it? How come I didn't?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 9: Well, what's so unspecial about me that I get the

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Speaker 9: shitty fucking neglect? You know, I did my best. That's

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Speaker 9: my favorite line.

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Speaker 3: I did my best.

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Speaker 9: You know, if that's the best, maybe you should the boss. Yeah,

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Speaker 9: that's your best way I'll tell you the truth. I'm

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Speaker 9: looking forward having that one last week, knowing that it's

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Speaker 9: finally done, that I could just like yes, because it's

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Speaker 9: been a bitch. This life has been a bitch, and

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Speaker 9: it's most because people have been pitched and they remained bitches.

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Speaker 2: What does one owe a childhood friend, especially when that

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Speaker 2: friend seems to have changed so much over the course

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Speaker 2: of our phone calls. The question that keeps kicking around

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Speaker 2: in the back of my mind is whether all of

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Speaker 2: Lenny's anger has somehow eaten up the goodness. I continue

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Speaker 2: to phone Lenny over the next couple of months in

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00:14:56,160 --> 00:15:00,440
Speaker 2: hopes of seeing it, feeling that goodness again, and so

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Speaker 2: we talk about the sex ed books at the Yamha Library,

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Speaker 2: watching The Love Boat on Saturday nights when his parents

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Speaker 2: were out with my parents, raiding his mom's freezer for

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Speaker 2: TV dinners, while playing Calleco vision. Mostly though, I just

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Speaker 2: listen and try to be there, and over time Lenny

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00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:21,600
Speaker 2: grows softer with me, and I grow less afraid of

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Speaker 2: offending him, afraid of offending a dying man. And then

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00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:36,080
Speaker 2: one night I receive a message. Listening to it now,

240
00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:38,920
Speaker 2: I'm struck by how much Lenny's voice had mellowed since

241
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:43,200
Speaker 2: our first conversations. Instead of Jonathan or John, Lenny calls

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Speaker 2: me Johnny, just like he did when we were kids,

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Speaker 2: like he did when we were best friends.

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Speaker 10: Hi, I'm sorry to call you directly like this, without

245
00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:56,760
Speaker 10: signaling or anything, but in a development and I needed

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00:15:56,800 --> 00:15:57,280
Speaker 10: to talk to.

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Speaker 9: You as soon as you can.

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Speaker 1: Mhm mhmm, Yeah, John, is it too late? No?

249
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Speaker 2: No, No, it's okay. How are you.

250
00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:12,480
Speaker 9: Not well?

251
00:16:12,560 --> 00:16:14,920
Speaker 1: John? You know it's hard to tell you anything else.

252
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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, what's going on.

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Speaker 1: I'm just I'm weak. I'm gonna go into palliative care.

254
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Speaker 7: Okay, there's no other recourse.

255
00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:33,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's getting harder and harder to function at home.

256
00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:38,240
Speaker 7: Yeah, because I'm not too good with pain.

257
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Speaker 2: Johns Well, you've been dealing with so much of it.

258
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Speaker 7: No, I mean my whole life. I've never been good

259
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Speaker 7: with me. I'm a wider wis. I'm just a big words.

260
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Speaker 7: It's funny through everything, the pain's still there. Pain never ends,

261
00:16:59,520 --> 00:17:00,520
Speaker 7: even with drives.

262
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not bad.

263
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Speaker 4: Job.

264
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Speaker 1: I don't foresee getting better.

265
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Speaker 7: If I suddenly disappeared or you know, I can't talk

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Speaker 7: to you.

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Speaker 1: No, I'm probably like you know gone. I had my

268
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Speaker 1: last drive yesterday. I travel around the the valve. Yeah,

269
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Speaker 1: just like one last highway ride.

270
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Speaker 3: It's not a huge deal.

271
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Speaker 1: I've done a lot of driving my time. I play.

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Speaker 1: Need to remember I'm dying anyway.

273
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Speaker 2: Bigger things to think about?

274
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Speaker 3: What?

275
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Speaker 2: What did? What do you find yourself thinking about?

276
00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:53,359
Speaker 1: I thing I lived?

277
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Speaker 7: I lived as well as I could in my capacity.

278
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Speaker 7: I had good experiences at least. Yeah, it wasn't the

279
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Speaker 7: best life well lived, but wasn't the worst either.

280
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Speaker 1: Could have been worse. That's the legacy of my life.

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Speaker 1: Could have been worse.

282
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Speaker 9: Just gonna.

283
00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:21,479
Speaker 1: I just want to enjoy looking at the sky, looking

284
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Speaker 1: at things new.

285
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:26,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, reveling and be alive.

286
00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:34,880
Speaker 1: I remember the last lady, she was scary.

287
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:39,399
Speaker 2: Who's this the last lady?

288
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Speaker 1: Which she has a little pudgy remember.

289
00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:48,000
Speaker 2: Lenny would sometimes drift into delusions, imaginary flights that would

290
00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:52,119
Speaker 2: weave throughout our conversation, But other times the delusions were

291
00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:55,359
Speaker 2: mixed up with childhood memories, like time had collapsed and

292
00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:59,000
Speaker 2: Lenny was all ages at once dying, but also back

293
00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:00,919
Speaker 2: to an age when his parents and drove us to

294
00:19:00,960 --> 00:19:02,919
Speaker 2: the mall and they're cut less supreme.

295
00:19:03,119 --> 00:19:04,920
Speaker 1: So if you want the front Seaco grabbit.

296
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:09,320
Speaker 2: Now, the delusions were tender and vulnerable, and observing them

297
00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:12,840
Speaker 2: was like standing over his bed watching him dream they

298
00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:13,920
Speaker 2: should just go home.

299
00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:23,359
Speaker 1: I'm dead tired for some reason. We're at the Why

300
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:24,280
Speaker 1: taking a course.

301
00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:26,520
Speaker 7: We're at the Why.

302
00:19:26,640 --> 00:19:28,560
Speaker 1: We're at the hym Tree taking a course.

303
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:34,119
Speaker 2: No, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I'll tell you

304
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:35,160
Speaker 2: if I can't follow.

305
00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:38,160
Speaker 1: Well, that's so weird, though, that I would have such

306
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:38,800
Speaker 1: a delusion.

307
00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:42,720
Speaker 7: Maybe it's a subconscious desire to visit.

308
00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:45,879
Speaker 1: With you in a normal way, in a normal setting.

309
00:19:46,600 --> 00:19:47,080
Speaker 2: Yeah.

310
00:19:47,440 --> 00:20:01,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're visiting for holidays, normal, everything's normal. So or

311
00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:03,120
Speaker 1: when was it when we're going to see each.

312
00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:08,639
Speaker 2: Other in a couple of weeks. The plan is for

313
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:11,159
Speaker 2: me to see Lenny during a visit back home, my

314
00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:13,960
Speaker 2: first since COVID that long.

315
00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:21,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I'm serious. I'm not being facetious.

316
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:24,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, say it's.

317
00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:28,920
Speaker 1: Down to the wire. Maybe the last few weeks of things.

318
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,000
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Maybe I don't know.

319
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:35,480
Speaker 9: I don't get.

320
00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:36,640
Speaker 1: Depressed or anything.

321
00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 2: Lenny wasn't just saying I don't want to bum you out.

322
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:43,480
Speaker 2: He was one of the few people who knew how

323
00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,679
Speaker 2: fragile I could be even now he was trying to

324
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Speaker 2: protect me, even as he was dying.

325
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Speaker 7: It's hard to say that I wish you were here.

326
00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:04,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. Recently my therapist recommended ketamine to me, a drug

327
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:08,440
Speaker 2: sometimes prescribed for untreatable depression. In my case, she thought

328
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:12,080
Speaker 2: it might help shift my perspective, which still tends towards darkness.

329
00:21:13,080 --> 00:21:15,800
Speaker 2: A day after Lenny and I had this conversation, while

330
00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:18,720
Speaker 2: taking several hits for my ketamine Inhaler and about to

331
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,680
Speaker 2: go for a Saturday morning run, I was suddenly overcome

332
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:25,280
Speaker 2: with sobbing and a feeling of unreality. As a man

333
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:29,960
Speaker 2: in newer to epiphanies, I was shaken. Like most, I

334
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:33,639
Speaker 2: don't often see my existence on Earth approximating anything close

335
00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:37,919
Speaker 2: to a quote unquote arc. Instead, things come in flashes.

336
00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:41,199
Speaker 2: I'm four years old, eating a chocolate bar at my

337
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,800
Speaker 2: aunt Tilly's house, taking such tiny bites that Tilly calls

338
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 2: me the mousey. My theory is that if the bites

339
00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 2: are small enough, it will last forever. I'm six, regretting

340
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:56,880
Speaker 2: having told my father about my kindergarten crush, because he's

341
00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:00,080
Speaker 2: just told a table full of relatives about it. I

342
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:04,160
Speaker 2: will never trust this man again. I think I'm fifteen

343
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:07,760
Speaker 2: and seeing a breast for the very first time. European

344
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,920
Speaker 2: sunbathers are at the same beach as me. The image

345
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:13,959
Speaker 2: will clod's way into my thoughts over and over for

346
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 2: the next ten years. I'm sixteen getting turned down to

347
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:22,159
Speaker 2: prom on a city bus. Lorraine Kaufman is telling me

348
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:24,800
Speaker 2: that only I would ask someone to prom on a

349
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:29,680
Speaker 2: city bus. Then, for some reason, I'm fifty and moving

350
00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:33,080
Speaker 2: to Minnesota. While waiting at JFK for the flight that

351
00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:35,359
Speaker 2: will take me and Emily and our then two year

352
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:38,399
Speaker 2: old son Aggi to our new life. Oggi walks up

353
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:41,439
Speaker 2: to a stranger and hugs his legs, and I burst

354
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 2: into tears. A smell a meal, a day at the beach,

355
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:54,760
Speaker 2: and so goes a life without the record button pressed down.

356
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:58,600
Speaker 2: Life is fragmented and fast and nearly impossible to make

357
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:02,320
Speaker 2: sense of. It helps me to shed light, but always

358
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 2: in retrospect. With the ketamine coursing through me, though, I

359
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:10,640
Speaker 2: saw the dots illuminate and connect, each handing off with purpose,

360
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 2: one to the other, like a succession of dominoes, tracing

361
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 2: the seemingly useless years that got me to where I

362
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,399
Speaker 2: was with the wife, the child, the job. It all

363
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 2: felt so precarious, like I was standing on a narrow

364
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 2: column of shoe boxes. It filled me with vertigo to

365
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:31,199
Speaker 2: the question of what one owes a childhood friend. In

366
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 2: my case, I owed Lenny everything. It was through knowing

367
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:37,679
Speaker 2: him in those early years that the base of the

368
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 2: tower was formed. It was in making tapes together in

369
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:43,919
Speaker 2: his bedroom that I discovered a feeling i'd pursue towards

370
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:47,919
Speaker 2: a career. Suddenly I could see how everything counted, that

371
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 2: Lenny counted, that my love for Lenny counted. I wanted

372
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 2: Lenny to know this. I wanted him to know that

373
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 2: while our personalities might have driven us apart, a deep

374
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 2: rooted love brought us back together. But later that day

375
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,119
Speaker 2: I got a call from my mother informing me that

376
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 2: Lennie had died. In the months after Lenny's death, I'm

377
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 2: unable to let go of how I wasn't there for

378
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:25,199
Speaker 2: him in his last days. I obsess over what his

379
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:29,119
Speaker 2: final moments might have been like. I begin accidentally calling

380
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 2: my son by Lenny's name. I do this so often

381
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 2: that eventually my son begins to ask, who in the

382
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 2: world is Lenny I try to answer him, but never

383
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 2: know quite how. We were best friends when I wasn't

384
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 2: much older than you, I say, and then I get

385
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 2: COVID and I isolate in my basement. I watch all

386
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,159
Speaker 2: the old movies. Lenny and I used to watch Animal House,

387
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 2: Monty Python, any Hall, but instead of laughing after each punchline,

388
00:24:57,119 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 2: I cry. Lennie had an older cousin named Betsy, who

389
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,360
Speaker 2: had taken on the task of cleaning up Lenny's basement.

390
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:10,439
Speaker 2: I reached out to see if Betsy could set aside

391
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 2: some of Lenny's art or photos for me, but she

392
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 2: said that wasn't something I should pursue.

393
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:18,400
Speaker 5: It's not a situation where I don't think he'd want

394
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 5: any of his coveted items.

395
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 2: That place was a hoarder's paradise. It was filthy.

396
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,360
Speaker 10: That place has not been cleaned in forty years easily,

397
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:29,199
Speaker 10: and there was vermin.

398
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 2: It probably could have been condemned. Betsy says that Lenny

399
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:35,640
Speaker 2: had taken the baseboards off the walls with an eye

400
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:39,119
Speaker 2: towards renovation, but then he let the project go and

401
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 2: never put them back, which allowed mice into the house,

402
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:46,160
Speaker 2: and the mice got into everything. My dad had stopped

403
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:48,360
Speaker 2: by to do an errand for Lenny's mom and had

404
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,400
Speaker 2: the same kind of report. It was like going into

405
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 2: a dark, subterranean world, he said. My father described Lenny's

406
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,439
Speaker 2: room as cluttered with books and DVDs from floor to ceiling,

407
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 2: the windows blocked out so the son couldn't get in.

408
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 2: How could anyone live under those circumstances, my father said,

409
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,440
Speaker 2: How could anyone, and especially how could Lenny. I keep

410
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 2: thinking about how when we were kids, winding up in

411
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 2: our parents' basements would have been our worst nightmare. How

412
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 2: could Lenny have ended up living out his last days

413
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,600
Speaker 2: in the very place he despised most.

414
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 3: That was always this thing that he never wanted to happen.

415
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 2: This is Lenny's ex girlfriend, Louise. Lenny and Louise dated

416
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 2: in their twenties. I first met her at a bar

417
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 2: one night, after having not seen Lenny in years. They

418
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 2: were coming from a kiss concert and both Lenny and

419
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 2: Louise's faces were painted, Louise as Peter Chris and Lenny

420
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 2: as Ace Freely. They both wanted to go as Ace,

421
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 2: but Lenny said that would have been ridiculous.

422
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 3: I think I was eighteen years old when I met him. Oh,

423
00:26:54,119 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 3: I remember. He just there was this death about him

424
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:06,679
Speaker 3: that I recognized immediately, and it just automatically attracted me

425
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 3: to him. I remember being on the back of his

426
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 3: reorcycle and being scared shitless every time, holding on to

427
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 3: him so tight. I remember his dog, Max and how

428
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,439
Speaker 3: much he loved that dog. Yeah, I mean to know

429
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 3: that he did. He finished there in the basement.

430
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 2: Why not only did Lenny hate the basement, he hated

431
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 2: the whole suburb of Shamedy. We both did. We attended

432
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 2: Charmedy High, nicknamed Comedy High because it was so bad

433
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 2: it was laughable, pipe bombs in the bathrooms, a geography

434
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,159
Speaker 2: teacher who was a flat earther, and a music teacher

435
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 2: who married a student. I eventually left Chomedy, but Lenny

436
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 2: never did, never even left his childhood home. How could

437
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:55,120
Speaker 2: our lives have diverred?

438
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,400
Speaker 10: So he was very unhappy.

439
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:02,199
Speaker 2: This is Dimitri, high school acquaintance who Lenny reconnected with

440
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 2: on Facebook in the last year of his life. Dmitri

441
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 2: was the person Lenny saw most during his illness. He

442
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 2: works at a local Greek restaurant and would bring Lenny

443
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 2: salads at the end of his shift.

444
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,920
Speaker 10: He was lonely. I used to talk about how it

445
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 10: would have been nice if you had a girlfriend and

446
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 10: some kids, or if he had a kids, it would

447
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 10: have been nice. She was always alone. I never saw

448
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 10: him with anybody ever. Would like She would ask me

449
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 10: to hug him a lot. When he was sick. He

450
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 10: would always ask me to hug him. I think Leonard

451
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 10: didn't feel really much love in his life.

452
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 2: Man Dmitri also knew that Lenny didn't want the basement

453
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 2: for his home, let alone his final home. When I

454
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 2: tell him how I've been trying to make sense of

455
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 2: how it happened. He has a.

456
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,959
Speaker 10: Theory drugs, drugs.

457
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 2: When you say drugs, you into a pot.

458
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 10: Pot, mushrooms, LSB. Leonard used to like to take acid,

459
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 10: a lot of acid and just a trip out in

460
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 10: his room in the dark. I'm a tall look for

461
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 10: whatever works, for whatever gets the demons away there. But

462
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 10: that's a little fucked up.

463
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 2: Ending up in the basement solely because of drugs doesn't

464
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 2: ring true to me. Well, the drugs might have helped

465
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 2: with the demons, they didn't create the demons. Plenty of

466
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 2: people smoke pot, take LSD and still leave the house,

467
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 2: travel the world, kill You. Among my childhood cassettes is

468
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 2: another of my mother's performances, But this one wasn't a

469
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 2: soap opera audition. It's of my mother pretending to be

470
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 2: her best friend Lenny's mom, Hannah kill you. During those

471
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 2: last conversations, Lenny confessed to not only feelings of resentment

472
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 2: towards his own mother, but towards my mother too, for

473
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 2: taking up so much of his mother's time, time she

474
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 2: could have spent on him. As for his dad, Lenny

475
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 2: saw Izzy as a constant threat. This is from another

476
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 2: flip and will tape o kij lines a rouping now.

477
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 2: In the play, I performed the part of Lenny's father,

478
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 2: who crashes straight into the flip and will show, oh.

479
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 4: Watch it what knock it up?

480
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 2: Izzy would get physical on occasion, but our parents weren't

481
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 2: so different. My father favored the belt, while Izzy delivered

482
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 2: what he called patchka's or slaps. And in terms of

483
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 2: our mothers, if Hannah had been so often absent because

484
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 2: of her friendship with my mother, that it meant my

485
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 2: mother was absent too. So is Lennie just more sensitive

486
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 2: than I was? Or was he dealing with more than

487
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 2: I knew? Okay?

488
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 3: You just jogged in memory.

489
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 2: This is Louise again, Lenny's ex girlfriend, with another theory.

490
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 2: Louise recalls a day in college when she stumbled upon

491
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 2: what felt like a key, A key that predates the

492
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 2: drugs me and Lenny's friendship. It even predates the upbringing

493
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 2: he received from his parents.

494
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 3: It was my class for developmental biology, okay, and we

495
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 3: were studying the brains of children at that point between

496
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 3: zero and twelve months, and we were looking at separation anxiety,

497
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 3: and we were studying that, and I remember being appalled.

498
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: When I learned.

499
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 3: That at seven months that is when a child's separation

500
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 3: anxiety develops. That's when they know what their mother's face

501
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 3: looks like, and that's when they start crying when you're

502
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 3: handed to another person. And I remembered being appalled because

503
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 3: I remember Lenny telling me that he was adopted when

504
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 3: he was like six months old, and that his mom

505
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 3: told him that all he ever did was cry. And

506
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 3: I remember coming home that day after school and going, oh,

507
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 3: my god, no wonder you cried all the time because

508
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 3: you knew that this wasn't your mom.

509
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 2: To heal from the loss of his biological mother, to

510
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 2: help him deal with just being a sensitive kid. Lenny

511
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: could have used extra support, but instead he got last.

512
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 6: Just before his mother was kicked out of the convent,

513
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 6: he was christened Bandy aass felt.

514
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 2: Just as I had created the alter ego of Nedley

515
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 2: to feed my id, Lenny created an alter ego named

516
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 2: Andy that fed Lenny with something I could never put

517
00:32:57,360 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 2: my finger on. But re listening to the news handy

518
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 2: tapes we recorded all these years later, Andy feels like

519
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 2: an expression of Lenny's vulnerability, his desperate need for more

520
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 2: love from a parent.

521
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 6: Through the years he was raised with fellow orphans. He

522
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 6: never knew the meaning of mother or father. Well, he

523
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 6: knew the meaning was of hate. All the kids when

524
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 6: nicknamed him, name him.

525
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 2: You're a bastard. You have none.

526
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 6: Andy was the only four year old child in the

527
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 6: orphanage who every day would sit down in his bed

528
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 6: and contemplate suicide.

529
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 2: Oh no one loves me. Everyone hates me. What did

530
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 2: I do? I've gotta wave.

531
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 8: I gotta get.

532
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 2: Out of it.

533
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 9: I gotta get out of here. Somehow, well, I knew

534
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 9: by ah I was in trouble. I knew by age

535
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 9: twelve that life's going to be a little harder than

536
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 9: I thought. And I knew by the time I was

537
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 9: eighteen nineteen that I got to get out of here

538
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 9: and then stay out, and just you know, I'd already

539
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 9: learned helplessness.

540
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:17,800
Speaker 2: So I guess I've always wanted to write a book,

541
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 2: Lenny said during one of our late night conversations, where

542
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 2: everything the hero does is wrong. I think a lot

543
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 2: of books are like that, I said. A lot of

544
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 2: lives are like that. You don't understand, Lenny said, And

545
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 2: maybe I didn't. Perhaps a lot of what we take

546
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 2: as a life choice is already encoded in us at

547
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 2: a very young age, younger than we can even remember.

548
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 2: And by then it's already too late. The moments are

549
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 2: already handing off one to the other, like those dominoes

550
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 2: that cannot be stopped. Supposedly, Lenny's biological mother was a

551
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 2: fifteen year old girl who eventually came to realize she

552
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 2: couldn't raise him on her own. Who knows what those

553
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 2: first six months were like for Lenny and how they

554
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:08,840
Speaker 2: dictated the life to come. Maybe Lenny was wrong, Maybe

555
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 2: his paralysis, his inability to leave the nest, wasn't, as

556
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 2: he said, learned helplessness. But innate, helplessness, the kind of

557
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 2: baby feels. Maybe for Lenny, the feeling just never faded away.

558
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 10: I was with him all the way to the end.

559
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 2: This is Dimitri again.

560
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 10: I remember the lats of day. There she goes to me,

561
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:32,439
Speaker 10: he calls me up, he goes, and he goes. Look,

562
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:34,359
Speaker 10: he goes, can you come over and be with me tonight?

563
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 10: He goes, because I'm going to die. She said it

564
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 10: as a shut up my life, where you're gonna die.

565
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 10: He goes, No, he goes, I'm gonna die. He goes,

566
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 10: I'm going to die night. He goes, Can he just

567
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 10: come and be with me? He goes, I don't want

568
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 10: to be alone, you know. I'm like, yeah, you know,

569
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 10: of course I'm And I stayed with him and we

570
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 10: smoked a couple of joints together, had a couple of drinks,

571
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 10: a couple of it's a whiskey I did, and I

572
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 10: was just telling him, you know, Leonard, I go, it's okay,

573
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 10: you know, you can, you can go if you want,

574
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 10: you know, don't worry about it, you know, just she

575
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 10: need to go.

576
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 2: Just go. Because I never made it to Shamani before

577
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 2: Lenny died, because I wasn't there to hug him or

578
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 2: to just hold his hand. I'm left with a terrible

579
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 2: sense of loss. Of the many questions I have about

580
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 2: Lenny's last days, the one that weighs on me most

581
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 2: heavily is about Lenny's anger and whether it ever subsided.

582
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:33,800
Speaker 2: Do you do you remember what his state of mind

583
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 2: was on that last day when you went there? Did

584
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:37,839
Speaker 2: he Oh?

585
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, he was completely at peace. He wasn't worried

586
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 10: or scared at all. I think he had accepted his faith.

587
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 10: I think he was just honestly, I think he was

588
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 10: just tired. I think he wanted to just go. She

589
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 10: seemed to really okay, though he wasn't nervous, he was

590
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 10: just quite. I have a video of his last words,

591
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 10: Oh wow, I go. What message do you want to

592
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 10: share with everybody? Girl about you're at the end?

593
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 2: Dmitri sends me the video he took, and when I

594
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 2: hit play, I gasp. I knew how sick Lenny had been,

595
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 2: but I guess irrationally, I've been imagining him on the

596
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 2: other end of the phone line, looking more like the

597
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 2: last time i'd seen him at the restaurant with his parents.

598
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 2: In the video, though Lenny looks cadaverous.

599
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 10: If you have one message for the world, what would

600
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 10: that be? And he sat for about Ben Saxons. He

601
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 10: thought a bit, and he.

602
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 7: Goes love more, fight less, fighting desiccation.

603
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 2: For love more. Fight less. Fighting doesn't get you far,

604
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:54,240
Speaker 2: nor does anger. In one of our last phone calls

605
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 2: in the final days of his life, Lenny said that

606
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:58,879
Speaker 2: he was so weak he could hardly lift himself from

607
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 2: the toilet without his mother's aid. I asked if, in

608
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 2: general his mother was being helpful.

609
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: She's trying, She really is trying. Oh well, how to

610
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 1: hear she's succeeding too. She's the only help I got

611
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: I need her.

612
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:16,759
Speaker 2: It was the first I'd ever heard Lenny acknowledge his

613
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 2: mother's effort, which is to say, it's the closest I'd

614
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 2: ever heard Lenny come to forgiving her. I knew Lenny

615
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 2: in the beginning and can only speculate about the middle.

616
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 2: But I do see that in the end, in spite

617
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 2: of the pain and the delusions, he allowed his sweetness

618
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 2: to shine through. Well. I may never know where Lenny's

619
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 2: anger came from, I do know where it went. He

620
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 2: laid it down at long last to rest.

621
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 4: Now that the fernentures returning to its.

622
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 2: Goodwill home.

623
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 5: Now that the last month's rent is scheming with.

624
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 2: The damage to post, take this moment to the solve.

625
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:48,760
Speaker 9: If we meant it, if we.

626
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 5: Tried, never felt around for far too.

627
00:39:55,880 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 2: From things that accidentally tal This episode of Heavyweight was

628
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:08,280
Speaker 2: produced by me Jonathan Goldstein and supervising producer Stevie Lane,

629
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 2: along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our senior producer is Khalila Holt.

630
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 2: Production assistance by Moheiney mcgauker. Special thanks to Lauren Silverman

631
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 2: and Neil Drumming. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Bobby Lord

632
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 2: mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson,

633
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 2: Blue Dot Sessions, Katie Condon, and Bobby Lord. Additional music

634
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,800
Speaker 2: credits can be found on our website, Gimbletmedia dot com

635
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 2: slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker Bands,

636
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 2: courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast.

637
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 2: Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast,

638
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 2: or email us at Heavyweight at gimbletmedia dot com. You

639
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 2: can also follow our show on Spotify and tap the

640
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 2: bell to receive notifications when new episodes drop. We'll be

641
00:40:53,440 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 2: back next week with a new episode. It don't st