WEBVTT - #52 Lenny 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:05.800 Huh. 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:10.120 Do you wear shoes with shoelaces? You or you wear Velcrow? 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:13.240 Did you come up with these questions by yourself? 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:15.600 No, I have a writer's room. No, I'm just curious. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:17.799 I remember you used to like Velcrow. You said that 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.040 anybody who is foolish enough to have to stoop down 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:25.000 and tie their shoelaces deserves what they get. That shoelaces 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.760 get covered in urine and bile, and that velcro is 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.080 the fabric of the future. That's what you'd always say. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.600 You have shoes with shoelaces, right, shoes shoelaces? 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:35.000 Yes? 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.599 Do you always double not them? No? 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.920 You don't any other compelling questions, Johnny, that you have. 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.960 If you showed up to a bowling alley with a watermelon, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:58.160 you think they'd let you bowl. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:11.600 this is Heavyweight Today's episode, Lenny, right after the break. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:18.480 Back. 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:20.840 When I was a kid, I often carried around a 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.800 tape recorder and outstretched mic created a buffer between me 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:33.279 and the world. Recording was my way of managing life, 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:41.800 and so I recorded everything, my parents' arguments, their phone calls, 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:46.240 and I'm telling you thro fish my mom pretending to 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:50.800 audition for soap operas Amanda Darling, how are you today? 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.760 Mostly though I recorded myself, I made radio plays. 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:12.520 Rich Stone Productions present the Adventures of Nedley with no 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:14.799 one to share in my love for a medium do 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.000 o way since the Truman administration. 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.000 I put on the plays alone, all the voices performed 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:25.480 by me for an audience of zero. Our story opens. 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.440 Up where Nedley is about to get off. 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:34.639 Oh what a lousy day. That's our Nedley. Nedley was 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.679 an eleven year old spitfire who did as he pleased. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.240 Since I myself was an eleven year old rule following 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:43.520 nerd Nedley was my id. 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:51.360 Here comes boom boom, She's my dream. 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:58.280 High Needy Hi he boom boom bom, and the whole 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.960 psychodrama played out as one man show. 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.960 This movie was directed by Jonathan Goldstein, screenplay by Jonathan Wilsey. 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.000 All voices in it are done by Jonathan Goldstein. This 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.079 is a Jonathan Goldstein production whom. 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:18.040 It was all just me and my microphone until the 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:25.079 day Lenny came along. I was twelve years old when 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.400 we were first introduced at a birthday party. Immediately Lennie 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:34.200 asked me what blood type I was oh, I said, uncertainly, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:39.200 me too, he shouted, genuinely excited to find some small 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.720 thing we shared. I was an aloof kid, but was 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.040 quickly won over by Lenny's goodness and the fact our 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.040 mothers were already best friends made our best friendship feel faded. 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.480 Plus that Lenny proved as obsessive about recording as I 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:59.640 was sealed the deal. The weekends revolved around our recording 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.560 radio plays. Lenny and I would sleep in the same 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.360 foold out in his parents' den. His dad, Izzy, a 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.440 large man with a thick Polish accent, would make us 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:13.000 breakfast in just his underwear, his undershirt tucked into his 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.400 jockeys like it was some style imported from the Old Country. 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.080 One time, trying to explain to Izzy how I liked 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.960 my eggs and having no success with Fried, I described 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.440 two sons and a Cloud. Lenny loved that so much 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.920 that he started ordering his eggs that way too, Two 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:41.320 Sons and a Cloud. After breakfast, we'd head to Lenny's bedroom, 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:46.560 shut the door, and record all morning. We were a 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:53.960 gang of two Golden Lennox presents. The Lennox was from Lennie, 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:57.640 the gold from Goldstein for the first time, I no 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.640 longer felt alone. Together. Lenny and I recorded prank phone 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.919 calls our parents' dinner parties, and we made radio play 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.920 after radio play, creating characters like Flip and Will, two 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.680 burned out radio DJs. We take you to Flip. 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.279 Flip is going to introduce you, Slip is taking you 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.880 to Will. Okay Will, No Will is taking you to Slip. 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:19.760 No Beck, you will. 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.080 As a part of the Flip and Will radio show, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:34.960 we did live phone outs to our quote unquote listeners. 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.240 In the eighties, dialing a phone was so arduous it's 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.560 surprising people even bothered. But without driver's licenses or money, 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.839 Lenny and I made the effort. The phone brought us 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:47.599 a sense of freedom and adventure. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:48.760 Okay you three? 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:52.599 Three? 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:57.720 Hello? 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.159 What would you do if you had to move a 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.240 television survey? 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:04.520 Why? 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:06.680 Thank you think you need it? 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:20.680 Why the Cold War is not over? It never was? 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.320 This is Lenny now, age fifty two. 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.360 John, What is not understandable about this? 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:29.720 Because I'm getting frustrated. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.880 Now I'm in Minnesota and Lenny is in Canada. We 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.320 haven't spoken in nine years, and at the moment, for 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.640 some reason, we're discussing Russia's role in Ukraine well. 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:43.839 Still there. 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:46.720 In our late teens, Lenny and I began to have 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.920 less and less in common and we drifted apart. Our 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.320 first conversation in almost a decade is not going well. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.400 I mean, I'm not sure that I fully get it. 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.640 You mean that, I mean it's not that complicated. 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.320 Yeah, we destroyed communism using their communism. 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.000 Now they destroyed capitalism using our capitalists. 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:08.400 I guess about your subject. 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.840 The last time I saw Lenny was back home in Canada. 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.040 Our mothers, who were still best friends, thought it'd be 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.440 nice for the families to get together. Lenny showed up 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.880 at the restaurant with a shaved head and thin chin 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.880 strap beard. With the way he kept his arms crossed 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.400 and his posture erect that evening, Lenny had something of 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.720 the dictator about him. He was living in the bachelor's 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.360 apartment and his parents' basement in Chamity Laval, the suburb 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.960 we grew up in just outside of Montreal. Lenny drove 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.120 a school bus for Orthodox Jews and said the Hasidim 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.360 had nicknamed him the Surgeon because of how he zipped 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:48.000 through narrow streets with such precision. At the end of 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.360 the meal, Lenny asked if I wanted to go outside 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.120 and smoke a joint, a for ole times sake kind 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.560 of thing. The idea of smoking a joint outside a 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.120 suburban strip mall restaurant while our aged parents waited in 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.640 side was unappealing, so I said no, at least stand 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.720 outside with me, Lenny said, and keep me company. But 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.280 I dug my heels in and Lenny grew angry. We 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.600 parted on bad terms that evening, almost ten years ago, 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.560 and that was the last time I saw Lennie or 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:23.560 thought too hard about him until now. The reason Lenny 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.320 and I are speaking right now is because he has 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:34.760 only months to live. Lenny is dying of pancreatic cancer 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.560 and his undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. He's recently gone through 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.560 eleven hours of surgery to keep the cancer from spreading, 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.479 but it was no use. Even though that first conversation 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.760 went poorly, I continue to spend my evenings talking to 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.640 Lennie because somewhere in the back of my mind is 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.199 the memory of the kid from my childhood, the kid 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.800 who stayed by my side tending to my adult sized 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.280 depression in the darkest hour hours of my teens. I 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.640 remember days and nights spent in Lenny's bedroom, just lying 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.320 in his bed under the black bulb of his light fixture, 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.640 listening to Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden. Too scared to 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.959 face the world. Back then, Lennie would reassure me, telling 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.120 me to think all the bad thoughts I could, to 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.000 get them out of my system, to exhaust them so 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.520 that eventually I'd only be left with the good ones. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.520 Being with Lennie was one of the few places where 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:36.280 I felt safe, and so I call him again and again. Hey, Lenny, 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:37.120 how are you doing? 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:38.840 H S shit? 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.400 Yeah. Our conversations usually occur at night, with Lenny still 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.440 in his parents' basement, the same basement where we spent 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:50.320 our childhoods, and me wandering the silent streets of my 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.480 midwestern neighborhood. During these phone chats, I never know what 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.959 to say. I struggle to find common ground, but always 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.240 come up short. When I bring up old mutual friends, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.000 Lenny speaks of them resentfully. With jobs, it's the same 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.520 the idiots at the trucking firm, the anti semites at 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:12.520 the refrigeration company. On the rare occasion, I raise something 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.400 personal about myself, it gets no traction when I tell 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:18.360 him how I'm now a father of a five year 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:22.240 old Lennie, a bachelor, says that people who have kids 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:27.000 only do it for ego reasons. Mostly we stick to 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.640 the subject of Lenny's pain, which is brutal. He can't 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.880 eat without pain, stand or even lie down without pain. 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.400 Sometimes he'll put the phone down and I'll listen to 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.840 him as he howls from the bathroom. There are drugs, 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:44.720 some prescribed and some not, but no matter, there's always pain, 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.720 and anger at the pain, and anger at what seems 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:54.240 like me. On most nights, after a typical conversation, I 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.960 come home and say to my wife Emily, that maybe 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.480 this is a bad idea. We drifted apart for a reason. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.600 I say, we're strangers, and yet even though Lenny doesn't 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.280 seem to even want to talk to me, we continue 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.680 to talk night after night. I'm beginning to get the 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:16.760 impression that maybe he has no one else. No no, no, 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:17.280 of course not. 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:19.040 Well, wish me luck. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.480 Lenny says he wants to leave something behind, and so 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.120 we record, just like we did when we were kids. 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:31.439 Back then, we perform different characters. Now, Ostensibly we're just ourselves. 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:39.120 I really did my shouffle to rice, lemon, lime, garlic, 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:39.680 and pepper. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:45.480 Oh nice, nothing complicated and it is gorgeous. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:47.600 Great? And how's your sleeping? 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.040 I sleep like shit? What do you think I have 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:51.360 to think? 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:56.679 I met every two hours? 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:02.160 The horrible life when you spend your life, society of 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:07.640 the universe punish you all the anger, all the hatred. 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:09.920 What do you think you could get away with it? 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.320 Lenny is no longer the sweet, lonely kid who told 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.640 me not to squat the house fly in his bedroom 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.439 because he was his pet, The boy with whom I'd 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.040 been so close that I'd run my hands through his 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.400 thick black hair as though it were my own, smoohing 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.920 it up into the air. I pretended I'd invented the 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:33.120 latest in men's hairstyles. The Beethoven that Lenny seems to 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:42.280 be long gone. Even though Lenny and I weren't in 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.360 touch over the years, when I'd ask after him, my 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.320 mother would always say the same thing. Lenny and his 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:52.400 parents were fighting like cats and dogs. Lenny's father died 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.040 about a year ago. Now it's just him and his mom. 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.680 Do you see you see your mother every day? 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.280 Unfortunately, I make an attempt to treat her like a 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.840 human being, and every day she disappoints me. She's a 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:14.400 gross mind. My father too, he was gross, too gross. 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.760 You loved him, you loved your dad, Yeah, I did. 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.400 But he was a gross man who did everything that 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.640 makes his life easier in my life harder. 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.959 Lenny's parents had had another son before him, but because 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:34.000 of profound mental and physical disabilities, he was institutionalized. After that, 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.559 they adopted Lenny. Both Lenny and I were raised by 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.600 parents who saw screaming and hitting as the solution to 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.559 all of life's child rearing dilemmas. But from Lenny's perspective, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.640 worse than that was the neglect. Lenny's dad worked a lot, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:50.720 and his mom always seemed to have more time for 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.160 her friends than for him. It's something Lenny still can't 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:54.679 let go of. 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.880 It's called normal responsibility, you know what I mean? My 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:01.960 friends got it? How come I didn't? 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.080 Yeah? 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.559 Well, what's so unspecial about me that I get the 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.199 shitty fucking neglect? You know, I did my best. That's 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:11.120 my favorite line. 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:11.840 I did my best. 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:17.520 You know, if that's the best, maybe you should the boss. Yeah, 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.720 that's your best way I'll tell you the truth. I'm 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.280 looking forward having that one last week, knowing that it's 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:30.240 finally done, that I could just like yes, because it's 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.320 been a bitch. This life has been a bitch, and 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:36.320 it's most because people have been pitched and they remained bitches. 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.760 What does one owe a childhood friend, especially when that 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.920 friend seems to have changed so much over the course 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.640 of our phone calls. The question that keeps kicking around 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.680 in the back of my mind is whether all of 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:54.040 Lenny's anger has somehow eaten up the goodness. I continue 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.080 to phone Lenny over the next couple of months in 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:00.440 hopes of seeing it, feeling that goodness again, and so 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.200 we talk about the sex ed books at the Yamha Library, 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:07.360 watching The Love Boat on Saturday nights when his parents 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.440 were out with my parents, raiding his mom's freezer for 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:15.200 TV dinners, while playing Calleco vision. Mostly though, I just 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.800 listen and try to be there, and over time Lenny 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.600 grows softer with me, and I grow less afraid of 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:32.720 offending him, afraid of offending a dying man. And then 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.080 one night I receive a message. Listening to it now, 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.920 I'm struck by how much Lenny's voice had mellowed since 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:43.200 our first conversations. Instead of Jonathan or John, Lenny calls 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:45.760 me Johnny, just like he did when we were kids, 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.080 like he did when we were best friends. 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.600 Hi, I'm sorry to call you directly like this, without 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.760 signaling or anything, but in a development and I needed 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:57.280 to talk to. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.600 You as soon as you can. 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:08.400 Mhm mhmm, Yeah, John, is it too late? No? 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:09.920 No, No, it's okay. How are you. 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:12.480 Not well? 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:14.920 John? You know it's hard to tell you anything else. 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:19.040 I'm sorry, what's going on. 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.960 I'm just I'm weak. I'm gonna go into palliative care. 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.840 Okay, there's no other recourse. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.320 Yeah, it's getting harder and harder to function at home. 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:38.240 Yeah, because I'm not too good with pain. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.000 Johns Well, you've been dealing with so much of it. 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.080 No, I mean my whole life. I've never been good 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:49.640 with me. I'm a wider wis. I'm just a big words. 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:57.560 It's funny through everything, the pain's still there. Pain never ends, 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:00.520 even with drives. 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.560 Yeah, that's not bad. 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:03.920 Job. 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.000 I don't foresee getting better. 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.520 If I suddenly disappeared or you know, I can't talk 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:16.720 to you. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:24.439 No, I'm probably like you know gone. I had my 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:29.800 last drive yesterday. I travel around the the valve. Yeah, 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.359 just like one last highway ride. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:35.040 It's not a huge deal. 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.480 I've done a lot of driving my time. I play. 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:42.120 Need to remember I'm dying anyway. 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:44.679 Bigger things to think about? 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:46.840 What? 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.480 What did? What do you find yourself thinking about? 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:53.359 I thing I lived? 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:55.920 I lived as well as I could in my capacity. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:04.600 I had good experiences at least. Yeah, it wasn't the 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.480 best life well lived, but wasn't the worst either. 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.960 Could have been worse. That's the legacy of my life. 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:13.840 Could have been worse. 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:18.600 Just gonna. 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.479 I just want to enjoy looking at the sky, looking 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:22.360 at things new. 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.000 Yeah, reveling and be alive. 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.880 I remember the last lady, she was scary. 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.399 Who's this the last lady? 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.960 Which she has a little pudgy remember. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:48.000 Lenny would sometimes drift into delusions, imaginary flights that would 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.119 weave throughout our conversation, But other times the delusions were 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.359 mixed up with childhood memories, like time had collapsed and 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.000 Lenny was all ages at once dying, but also back 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:00.919 to an age when his parents and drove us to 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:02.919 the mall and they're cut less supreme. 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:04.920 So if you want the front Seaco grabbit. 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:09.320 Now, the delusions were tender and vulnerable, and observing them 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.840 was like standing over his bed watching him dream they 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:13.920 should just go home. 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:23.359 I'm dead tired for some reason. We're at the Why 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:24.280 taking a course. 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:26.520 We're at the Why. 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:28.560 We're at the hym Tree taking a course. 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.119 No, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I'll tell you 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:35.160 if I can't follow. 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.160 Well, that's so weird, though, that I would have such 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:38.800 a delusion. 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.720 Maybe it's a subconscious desire to visit. 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.879 With you in a normal way, in a normal setting. 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:47.080 Yeah. 0:19:47.440 --> 0:20:01.119 Yeah, we're visiting for holidays, normal, everything's normal. So or 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.120 when was it when we're going to see each. 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:08.639 Other in a couple of weeks. The plan is for 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.159 me to see Lenny during a visit back home, my 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.960 first since COVID that long. 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:21.040 Yeah, No, I'm serious. I'm not being facetious. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.000 Yeah, yeah, say it's. 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:28.920 Down to the wire. Maybe the last few weeks of things. 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.000 Mm hmm. Maybe I don't know. 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:35.480 I don't get. 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:36.640 Depressed or anything. 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.520 Lenny wasn't just saying I don't want to bum you out. 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:43.480 He was one of the few people who knew how 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.679 fragile I could be even now he was trying to 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:48.960 protect me, even as he was dying. 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:54.560 It's hard to say that I wish you were here. 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:04.080 Yeah. Recently my therapist recommended ketamine to me, a drug 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:08.440 sometimes prescribed for untreatable depression. In my case, she thought 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:12.080 it might help shift my perspective, which still tends towards darkness. 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:15.800 A day after Lenny and I had this conversation, while 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.720 taking several hits for my ketamine Inhaler and about to 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:21.680 go for a Saturday morning run, I was suddenly overcome 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.280 with sobbing and a feeling of unreality. As a man 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:29.960 in newer to epiphanies, I was shaken. Like most, I 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.639 don't often see my existence on Earth approximating anything close 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.919 to a quote unquote arc. Instead, things come in flashes. 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.199 I'm four years old, eating a chocolate bar at my 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.800 aunt Tilly's house, taking such tiny bites that Tilly calls 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.080 me the mousey. My theory is that if the bites 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:53.520 are small enough, it will last forever. I'm six, regretting 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.880 having told my father about my kindergarten crush, because he's 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:00.080 just told a table full of relatives about it. I 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:04.160 will never trust this man again. I think I'm fifteen 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.760 and seeing a breast for the very first time. European 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.920 sunbathers are at the same beach as me. The image 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.959 will clod's way into my thoughts over and over for 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.800 the next ten years. I'm sixteen getting turned down to 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.159 prom on a city bus. Lorraine Kaufman is telling me 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.800 that only I would ask someone to prom on a 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:29.680 city bus. Then, for some reason, I'm fifty and moving 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.080 to Minnesota. While waiting at JFK for the flight that 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.359 will take me and Emily and our then two year 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.399 old son Aggi to our new life. Oggi walks up 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:41.439 to a stranger and hugs his legs, and I burst 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:45.520 into tears. A smell a meal, a day at the beach, 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:54.760 and so goes a life without the record button pressed down. 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:58.600 Life is fragmented and fast and nearly impossible to make 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:02.320 sense of. It helps me to shed light, but always 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:06.520 in retrospect. With the ketamine coursing through me, though, I 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:10.640 saw the dots illuminate and connect, each handing off with purpose, 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:14.760 one to the other, like a succession of dominoes, tracing 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:17.320 the seemingly useless years that got me to where I 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:20.399 was with the wife, the child, the job. It all 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:23.280 felt so precarious, like I was standing on a narrow 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:28.240 column of shoe boxes. It filled me with vertigo to 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:31.199 the question of what one owes a childhood friend. In 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:35.320 my case, I owed Lenny everything. It was through knowing 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:37.679 him in those early years that the base of the 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:40.800 tower was formed. It was in making tapes together in 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:43.919 his bedroom that I discovered a feeling i'd pursue towards 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:47.919 a career. Suddenly I could see how everything counted, that 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:51.920 Lenny counted, that my love for Lenny counted. I wanted 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:54.560 Lenny to know this. I wanted him to know that 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:57.920 while our personalities might have driven us apart, a deep 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.800 rooted love brought us back together. But later that day 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:05.119 I got a call from my mother informing me that 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:20.320 Lennie had died. In the months after Lenny's death, I'm 0:24:20.359 --> 0:24:22.280 unable to let go of how I wasn't there for 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:25.199 him in his last days. I obsess over what his 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:29.119 final moments might have been like. I begin accidentally calling 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:32.520 my son by Lenny's name. I do this so often 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:35.720 that eventually my son begins to ask, who in the 0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:39.040 world is Lenny I try to answer him, but never 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:42.040 know quite how. We were best friends when I wasn't 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:45.280 much older than you, I say, and then I get 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:48.960 COVID and I isolate in my basement. I watch all 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:52.159 the old movies. Lenny and I used to watch Animal House, 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:56.960 Monty Python, any Hall, but instead of laughing after each punchline, 0:24:57.119 --> 0:25:04.840 I cry. Lennie had an older cousin named Betsy, who 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:07.360 had taken on the task of cleaning up Lenny's basement. 0:25:08.240 --> 0:25:10.439 I reached out to see if Betsy could set aside 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:13.119 some of Lenny's art or photos for me, but she 0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:15.120 said that wasn't something I should pursue. 0:25:15.800 --> 0:25:18.400 It's not a situation where I don't think he'd want 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:19.960 any of his coveted items. 0:25:21.160 --> 0:25:24.520 That place was a hoarder's paradise. It was filthy. 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:27.360 That place has not been cleaned in forty years easily, 0:25:28.240 --> 0:25:29.199 and there was vermin. 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:33.400 It probably could have been condemned. Betsy says that Lenny 0:25:33.440 --> 0:25:35.640 had taken the baseboards off the walls with an eye 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:39.119 towards renovation, but then he let the project go and 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:42.200