WEBVTT - I’m The Man You’re Looking For 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.000 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:08.480 I was five when I'd clung to Paul's legs like 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:13.160 a tree and called him Daddy. I was fifteen when 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.320 the father i'd waited ten years for, the one father 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.360 i'd believed in or thought i'd had a write to, 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:25.599 abandoned me, just like the others hadn't my other fathers, Gandhi, 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:30.920 though Frank Robert been building up to this one father 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.000 whose name I shared, who was supposed to stay for good? 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.160 Was I no longer a sky Horse? I was still 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.520 quote unquote Indian closing gearbook signatures the way I had 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.199 in seventh and eighth grades. Quote may the Great Spirit 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.040 guide you end, quote the same signature Paul use in 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:55.640 his letters. If I wasn't a skyhorse, the only part 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.680 of my identity I felt was quote unquote me. Then 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:04.520 who was I a Mexican who had no idea what 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:09.360 being Mexican meant? Pretending to be an American Indian in 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:15.200 name only, an abandoned son mourning his dead father who 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:17.800 wasn't dead and wasn't his father. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:26.200 That's Brando Skyhorse, writer, Associate professor of English at Indiana University, 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.920 an author of two novels, most recently, My Name is 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.399 Iris and the memoir Take This Man Brando's is a 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:40.120 story of identity, fantasy, mythmaking, deceit, and, more than anything, 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.000 a life shaped by the profound be longing for a father. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.400 I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.000 that are kept from us, the secret we keep from others, 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:06.559 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:15.359 The landscape of my childhood started in Echo Park, southern California. 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.120 She's a neighborhood adjacent to Dodger Stadium. I was born 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.440 in nineteen seventy three, so it makes me I guess 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.959 gen X. And I was about two or three years 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:31.640 old when my biological father left my family. And the 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.360 reason I'm hesitating there is because I'd always phrase it 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.239 as him leaving. Later I sort of reframed that understanding 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.360 was perhaps he was kicked out, perhaps there was an 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.440 aggressive move to eject him from our family household. And 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.240 both my biological parents are Mexican American, and my mother 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:53.560 decided to use that specific incident to essentially reinvent both 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.800 of us as American Indians. She created a persona for herself. 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.959 She created a persona for me. I didn't really know 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:03.520 that this had happened until I was about twelve or thirteen. 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.359 But that initial landscape, I guess was one of fantasy. 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.160 I suppose I was led to believe that I was 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.520 an American Indian. I was led to believe that I 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:15.960 was the son of an American Indian chief. You know, 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.079 so three, four or five, six years old, I'd been 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:23.680 told all of these really fantastical things, and I believe 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.000 them because when you're a child, you believe what your 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.440 parents tell you. My mother had this very specific idea 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:33.840 of how we, as American Indians were supposed to perform, 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.040 and she gave me this little speech that I was 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:40.480 supposed to recite, something along the lines of I don't 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:44.160 remember the exact words, but basically, because of this country's 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.320 treatment of our people, notice of the use of our there, 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.480 I cannot stand. I cannot salute the flag. And I remember, 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.960 you know, going into that classroom and everyone being asked 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:56.880 to rise with the pledge of allegiance. Because it was 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.480 again the early nineteen eighties, so that was the kind 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:01.400 of thing that just you know, that happened every day, 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.160 and saying it and sitting down and this is kind 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.280 of like this wave of like anxiety and fear and 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.320 doing it and feeling like in the moment, oh okay, 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.920 well I just sat down and nothing really happened, and 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.720 my teacher really not processing it in a way that 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.440 I guess i'd assumed she would, and her coming over 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.240 to me and laying hands on me and pulling me 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:28.720 out of my chair and forcing me to physically complete 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.400 the pledge of allegiance and then ejecting me from the classroom. 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.320 So that was first grade. So what yeah, eight years old, seven, 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:35.640 eight years old something around that. 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.880 And at that time that was still very much your 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.000 belief right that you were American Indian. 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.279 So it was my belief that I was an American Indian. 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:51.520 I think the idea of outwardly, you know, telling people 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:57.159 making those kinds of gestures certainly wasn't on my menu 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:58.960 for these are the things that I want to do 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:01.640 in a first grade classroom. But the thing that I 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.359 keep returning to is that, you know, essentially, I'm just 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.880 a child that wants to make my mom happy. And 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.279 this was a way that I believed, Oh, if I 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.120 do these things, if I act in these ways, if 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.200 I follow what my mom tells me to do in 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.479 these public spaces. My mom will love me, my mom 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:19.680 will take care of me. And that was I think 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.880 very important to me, living in a household where I 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.920 had no father figure, no father, no stable father figure, 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:27.680 and living in a household with just my mom and 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.640 my grandma. So I was very eager to please, very 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:32.320 very eager to follow what she suggested. 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.440 I do describe your mother a bit, the mother of 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:37.240 your childhood, the mother of those years. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.960 The only word I can grasp at is awesome. And 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.120 I mean that in that the larger sense of that word, right, 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:49.200 just like a force larger than anything else in my life. 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:54.840 She was hypnotic. She was a fantastic storyteller. She was 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:58.400 the kind of person that you'd be transfixed, you know, 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.599 she would plant herself in front of you and you 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.800 would have this amazing, phenomenal conversation with her and think, 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.120 oh my god, like that's the most fascinating person that 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.000 I've ever met in my life. She was attractive, She 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:10.880 had long hair that would go down to her waist, 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.640 and just had this presence about her that, you know, 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.839 people wanted to talk to her. She drew people to 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.480 her and even as a young child, I was in 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.520 awe of her, but I also saw other people in 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.560 awe of her as well, which just adds to that 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.600 idea that, oh, here's this person who whom the world 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.280 is drawn to and circulates around. I think the result 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.159 of that was just giving her that additional credibility that 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.120 when she would tell me these things, was like, well, 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.239 of course they're true, because look at all the people 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:40.760 around her, look at all the people that are drawn 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:41.080 to her. 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.560 Yeah. The word that kept on coming to me as 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.880 I was reading about your mother was well, there were 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.320 a couple of words, but kind of a fabuloust and 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:55.479 a fantasist, yes, And the largeness of what she took on, 0:06:55.680 --> 0:07:00.760 what she did by changing not just your name and 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:05.360 not just her own name, but both of your identity. Yeah, 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:09.880 her name was Maria Teresa and she was Mexican, and 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.119 she changed her name to Running Deer. 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.760 Yes. It's amazing, isn't it. And it sounds so over 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.840 the top, right, But this was the late seventies, early eighties. 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.520 So this idea that you had this Mexican American woman 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.480 and this Mexican American child living in a predominantly Mexican 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.840 American neighborhood. But of course they're American Indians. And her 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.560 name is Running Deer sky Horse ed. This kid's name 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.040 is Brando s Cars. Of course that's more credible to 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.320 believe than there are actually. Oh, they're just two Mexican 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.680 American people who have adopted these personas. And I think 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.480 again that is a testament to, you know, my mother's 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.120 ability to get people to essentially fall in love with 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.120 her but also fall in love with her narratives. 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.920 In a striking passage from his memoir, Brando writes about 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.200 learning to talk fast and hide the truth. He learned 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:02.640 to stick to his mother's narrative. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:09.080 My father is Paul Skyhorse, my mother is Running Deer Skyhorse. 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.880 They are both full blooded American Indians. My father was 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:19.280 falsely arrested for killing two FBI agents. My mother was 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:23.440 a lawyer helping with his defense. I'm the son of 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:27.360 an Indian chief and will become a chief one day myself. 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.840 Any questions, I mean, it's just it's designed for there 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:33.559 to be absolutely no questions. 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.520 No, right, you're right, yeah, that's the thing. The idea 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.680 of you know, how much information, right, how much information 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.760 do you need to sell a lie to sell a narrative. 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.240 I think that's one of the reasons that I became 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.920 a writer, and one of the reasons that I'm fascinated 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.280 with the idea of how you structure a story, how 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.880 you structure not only a narrative, but one's life, one's 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.720 life's narrative. How do you put that together? What are 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:00.480 the things that draw people in, and what are the 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.800 things that you can leave out? And everything in that paragraph? Right, 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.480 it's like, wow, this is really all that. Wow a lawyer, 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.520 and you know, kill that behind. Really there's just enough 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:14.560 of these sorts of like nuggets of fantastical information that 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.280 again it's beyond belief and you feel like, well, who 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.760 would make up something so fantastical? Right, it must be 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.040 true because we've all met those people. So much of 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:31.120 your story, to my mind, is about longing, longing for 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:36.000 a father, longing for a father figure. There are many. 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.680 Contenders for this role over the years, quite a few 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:41.560 of whom fail spectacularly. 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.640 Yes, certainly, But that first. 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:51.800 Of these is indeed someone named Paul Skyhorse. That's right, 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.440 your mother brings you to see when you're four years old. 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.040 Yeah, And this is again that sort of nature of 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.320 how sort of fantastical or beyond belief this is, is 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.560 that in this larger than life experience or this larger 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.520 than life upbringing the idea of like, we're going to 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.760 meet your father, but you know, we're going to meet 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.240 him in this situation that you wouldn't necessarily think it 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.000 would be normal to take a four year old child 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.600 to There are two Paul sky Horses that I met. 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.439 One was in a courtroom or I saw behind glass 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:27.480 they really meet him. I waived in it, and one 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.960 in prison I get a visitation center, right, And so 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.080 again the way memory works is that you know, it 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.360 took me the longest time to realize, oh, those two 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.120 sky horses. Of course they couldn't have been the same person, 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.960 but there was one Paul sky Horse out in Los Angeles, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.880 one Paul sky Horse in the Midwest, and so as 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.040 a child, it just naturally felt like, oh, well, how 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.120 did this one person get over here? And then six 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.199 or seven months later they were over there? How did 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.840 that sort of like how did that work? And I 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.800 think that my mom was relying very much on the 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:04.920 fact that I was a child, that I wasn't going 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.680 to remember much that she could basically just shepherd me, 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:10.720 you know, or shove me in front of whomever she 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:15.199 was interacting with and say, well, that's Paul Skyhorse and 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:17.480 that's who your father is, and that I would just 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.160 accept it at face value. So in both of those memories, 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.200 the one in the courtroom and the one in the prison, 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.560 I think that my memory of both those instances is like, oh, 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.640 at last, here's my father, here's someone I'm connected with. 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:33.960 So I think in both those instances it was that 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.959 sense of relief. It was that sense of like, oh, 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.920 finally this question has been answered for me, when the 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.720 harsh reality of it is that my search was just beginning. 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:49.760 What do you think motivated your mother? What was she 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:56.400 hoping to accomplish by shedding this Mexican American identity by 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.600 coming up with these beautiful poetic names, I mean, Brando's Skyhorse. 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:07.839 I mean what could be more just powerful and musical 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:12.120 and unforgettable than that? What was she doing by bestowing 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:16.720 that unto you and unto herself? So let me give 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:21.480 you the generous years of therapy response to that, because 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.040 I think that's important to keep in mind too. This is, 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.520 you know, I've had a lot of time, I've written 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.319 about this. I've had a lot of opportunities to reflect 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.480 on this, and I think that my mother suffered from 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.560 this idea that she was just some ordinary Mexican kid 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.560 from you know, a neighborhood near East Los Angeles. And 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:43.560 I think she had this idea that she wanted to 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.400 be more than that. She wanted to be famous, She 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.880 wanted to be a celebrity. She wanted to I guess, 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.920 interact in that world. Again. You know, it's a common story, 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.280 especially to people who live in Los Angeles, the idea 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.719 that you know, Hollywood is not as far from the 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:02.720 people in La as it is from other people who 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.160 you know, have been drawn to Southern California, drawn to 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.360 the idea of like stardom and movies, et cetera. And 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.600 so I think there was this sense that she could 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:18.160 reinvent herself and infiltrate this world of I guess political activism, 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.760 because that's the other thing too. In the seventies, in particular, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.840 the world of American Indian activism drew a lot of 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:29.400 stars Marlon Brando. There was the Skyhorse Mohawk murder trial 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.520 in Los Angeles in the mid to late seventies, and 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.040 I know that a number of you know, prominent Hollywood 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.680 celebrities came out for benefits and other such things. And 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.120 I think my mom saw, I guess in a certain way, 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.120 a way into that world, a way that she could 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.160 be more than who she was. And if I am 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:53.320 being really, really generous, I can say that she assumed, 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:57.200 by inventing this narrative, inventing this name for me, that 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.040 I would transcend my status as you know, just another 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.480 ordinary Mexican kid from LA I would be more than 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.760 when again, the reality is that if we had lived 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:12.040 in another part of the country, if we had lived 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:17.720 in say, Oklahoma, where there are stereotypes associated with American Indians, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.440 it would have been a vastly different enterprise. So I 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.000 think there is a sense of I want to transcend 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.080 my own station, and I want the same thing to 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.920 happen for my son too. That's the most generous interpretation 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:28.520 I can offer. 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.760 Brando's in his last year of elementary school, when he 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.560 learns quite abruptly that Paul Skyhorse is not his father, 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.760 his mother just kind of drops it into casual conversation 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:44.560 and proceeds to tell him the name of the man 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:46.240 who is his biological father. 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.000 It was roughly around, you know, when I was twelve 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.320 or thirteen, And you know, maybe it's because she felt 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:54.320 like I was getting older, I was getting more inquisitive 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.480 and really wasn't taking no for an answer, that she decided, Oh, okay, 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.400 now's the time in which I can acknowledge these things 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:04.640 that happened, which were that you know, oh, you know, 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:09.080 you are actually the son of this Mexican American and 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.400 you know we had a brief marriage and it didn't 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.000 work out for a variety of reasons, and he's actually 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.520 your father. And she was very specific that he abandoned us. 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.320 She was also very specific that he abandoned me. It 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.160 wasn't her he had left, It was me that he 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.080 had left. I think she wanted to hammer that point 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.560 very specifically, because I think even at that point, there 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.520 was this idea of, well, he certainly couldn't have left me, 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:39.000 given how fantastic an individual I am. So you must 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.760 have been the issue. If you hadn't been here, maybe 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:43.800 things would have worked out between us. But now that 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.080 you are here, and now that you know the truth, 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:51.880 you know, I want you to despise him as much 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.600 as I despise him, and I want you to keep 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.600 this a secret. This is a secret. This is something 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.280 that I just told you because you wouldn't leave me alone. 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:01.480 You kept harassing me about it. 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:01.920 You know. 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.480 She tells me, you have to be more like the mafia. 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.000 You have to like keep everything together for the family, 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.000 and you can't let other people outside the family know 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:15.440 our business because this is our business. And so as 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.640 I got that information, there was this pivot to, Okay, 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.640 now you know the truth, but now there's a responsibility 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.840 that comes with knowing that truth, which means you now 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.160 have to keep up the lie with me to whomever 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.360 you meet moving forward. You know, I was twelve, so 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.000 again it's like, oh, well, this is my mom, and 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.960 I guess this is how it is, and so that's 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:36.880 what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep up 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.440 the lie because that's what my mom asked me to do. 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:44.960 During this time, Brando and his mom are living with 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.880 his grandmother, June. Well, June doesn't exactly conform to the 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.960 facade created by Brando's mom. She doesn't discourage it either, 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.440 to some degree, she plays along. 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.000 I suspect that part of the reason that my grandmother 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:01.840 or didn't really challenge my mother on any of this 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.000 or kind of went along with this, was because there 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.280 was a lot of friction between the two. You know, 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:11.680 my mother, I've come to realize, had borderline personality disorder. 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.920 She was an incredibly abusive person physically and emotionally, and 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:17.960 not only was I on the receiving end of it 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.639 on a daily basis, but my grandmother was too. It 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.280 was like trying to fit a triangle in a circle. 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.359 And I think that there were instances where it was 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.159 simply easier to go along with my mom's schemes than 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.640 the challenger, because she just didn't want to deal with 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:39.560 the aggravation, the headaches, the abuse, the constant arguments, the toxicity. 0:17:43.960 --> 0:18:02.000 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:09.240 Brando's childhood and teenage years are rife with fathers, surrogate fathers, stepfathers, 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.920 pseudo fathers, men he was supposed to refer to as fathers. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:15.960 First there's Frank, who's the first man Brando thought of 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.240 as a father. Then his mom takes Brando to meet 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:22.800 the man she tells him is really his father, Paul Skyhorse, 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.360 who is living in a correctional facility in Illinois. Quickly 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.280 Brando's little boy loyalties shift from Frank to this new 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:35.840 father or father figure, Paul's skyhorse. But that's not quite 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.560 right either. This begins a long period of time which 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:43.920 Brando's mom refers to as her man hunts. She simply 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.639 cannot be without a man, and Brando is her sidekick 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:48.760 in these man hunts. 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.960 It very actively includes me. To me, we had the 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.159 feel of like a seventies detective show. It was like 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.520 we were searching for the man with the one arm 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.199 or so, I know that's the fugitive, right, but like, 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.800 you know, we were like searching for someone. And so 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.480 every week it literally almost did it feel like every 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:08.680 week there was a new character, There was a new 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.240 person to talk to, There was a new guy who 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:16.480 could potentially be you know, my father, and traveling around 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.560 the country many times by train, sometimes by plane or 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.600 by bus going out and if you know, I describe 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.959 this to people, it's like, you know, this was the seventies, 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.760 and so again it's like there were no Google searches. 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:31.480 You couldn't check out like these people. The fact that 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.879 we survived meeting many numerous people just on the basis 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.000 of like here's a photograph here's an address. Oh, we've 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.800 got a phone number, and yeah, maybe that person will 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.520 be there. It's like it's astonishing, it's absolutely astonishing. But 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.120 I think there was this sense that to me, we 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.199 were on an adventure and at a certain point finding 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:53.920 a father figure, because it's the way she used to 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:55.199 sell it to me. It's like, well, I'm doing this 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.919 for you. I'm doing this for you, you know, like you 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.640 want a dad, like you know, you want someoneble that's 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.040 someone like Frank of course, who of course was reliable 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:04.840 and of course was in la and of course would 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.800 have been the obvious solution. Here's an opportunity for us 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.760 to like see the country and spend time together and 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.120 like find the right person. So I felt like, wow, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:18.399 how incredible a situation this is. To be included, to 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:23.560 be trusted, to be given the responsibility to make this 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.240 decision with my mom, to be essentially a caretaker that 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.520 was something at like five or six, At seven years old, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.800 it was like, wow, that's something that I want to do. 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.040 Yeah, of course, you know, it's reminding me a little bit. 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:37.800 I wasn't thinking about this when I was reading the book, 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:39.439 but it's reminded me a little bit of Ryan and 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:43.040 tatumonial in Paper Moon. Oh right, yeah, that's you know, 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.119 like just the like that's great little sidekick. 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.679 Yeah yeah, that's spot on. Yeah, I love that. 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.719 After a series of different father adjacent characters, when Brando 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.560 is around ten or eleven, he has his first live 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.760 in stepfather, Robert. Robert is around for a couple of years, 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.959 and in that time he and Brando play ball together, 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.520 a father son activity if there ever was one. But 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.400 when Robert leaves abruptly, Brando is done with playing ball. 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:19.240 He never picks up the mit or ball again. At 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.040 one point, grandmother June, almost seventy, having never held a 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.480 baseball in her life, says to him, hey, let's play ball. 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.760 This is the first moment Brando feels seen, even for 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:35.080 a minute. June notices and witnesses the loss that nobody 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:35.840 else is seeing. 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:39.679 She did see that loss. And you know, again, I 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:42.080 think about sort of the nature of memoir and how 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.400 like it's so important to be as candid as one 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.720 memory allows, and thinking of that memory of like how 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:51.840 I had this father figure who was certainly not ideal 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.399 for many reasons, for much of his I guess, illegal activity, 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:03.000 And then he's gone, and I'm disappointed in that. I'm 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.320 heartbroken at that. And then my grandmother sees me. She 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.439 offers to play with me, and I reject her. I'm like, oh, 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:12.800 I'm not going to do that. Why would I do that? Like, 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:14.679 you know, just like looking at her, I'm looking at 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:16.879 her as if she is the most absurd person in 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.119 the world. And again, I was ten. But also the 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:22.720 only way that moment works if I'm honest about how 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.639 I was in that moment, and you know, thinking about 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.040 this forty years later or so, I wish I could 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:29.679 go back. I wish I could go back. And it's like, 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.119 you know what, pick up the glove, ma'am, pick up 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:34.720 the glove, pick up the ball. Have a little catch 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:35.080 with her. 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:37.760 Yeah, but you couldn't because she wasn't a dad, and 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:42.880 what that whole business was about was throwing a ball. 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:45.800 As a dad. I think that's right. And understanding the 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.840 nature of just my circumstances to go back, you know, 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:51.920 the idea of like vetting my mom's boyfriends. I am 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.320 reminded of the fact that she would tell me frequently 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.440 that the primary reason she took me is for security, 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:00.359 because you know, it must have been a really ten 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:02.520 year old. But no, the idea is that if we 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:05.520 had somehow run into someone who would want to harm us, 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:10.040 because again, seventies eighties serial killers everywhere, it would take 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.720 a really specially messed up person to want to kill 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:16.760 a woman and her child. So I guess the logic 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:18.879 there is like, oh, well, if this person was to 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:22.280 hurt me, you're there, and he would be much less 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:25.840 likely to kill two people instead of one. So that's 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:28.600 my mom in a nutshell. 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:31.800 Right, speaking of serial killers. At one point, she alludes 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:34.920 to an encounter that she got away from with Ted Bundy. 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:40.680 That's right, and that was not true, right. I am 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:45.120 ninety nine point nine percent sure it was a fabrication, correct. 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:48.359 Yeah, But there always is that zero point one percent 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:50.560 right that you kind of have when you're with somebody 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:54.320 who is really truly a professional at deceit. 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:57.240 It's always the point one percent right. And I do 0:23:57.280 --> 0:23:59.199 feel like as I've sort of did my sort of 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:01.760 excavation to my mind mom's stories and like, you know, 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:04.960 discovering this tiny little kernel of truth that got exploded 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:08.359 into something massive. Talking about two Paul skyhorses. So there 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:10.359 was one in La and one in the Midwest, the 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:12.919 one in LA who was on trial for murder, and 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:15.080 you know, it was a very prominent trial. When I 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:16.760 started to do some dick and I was like, oh, 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:18.359 you know, like I think my mom was just one 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:20.679 of those courtroom junkies, you know, just kind of like 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:23.560 hung around and like told people, oh, this is Paul 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:26.000 Skyhorsus Sun, et cetera. I bet their past they ever 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:28.640 even crossed. And so I did a Freedom of Information 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:31.400 Act request. Six months later I got this, like basically 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:35.280 about almost two thousand pages, this massive sheet of documents. 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:36.560 I don't know what I was looking to find. I 0:24:36.600 --> 0:24:38.119 don't know if I was looking to find like, you know, 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:40.560 my mom's letters or you know whatever, right like, I 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:43.240 was looking for something somehow their past must have crossed. 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:47.399 And on the next to last page, like after hundreds 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:50.399 and hundreds of pages, I'm not exaggerating, I found a 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:54.159 visitor sign in sheet from nineteen seventy whatever, and lo 0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:56.920 and behold, there was my mom's name. There was her name, 0:24:57.000 --> 0:24:59.720 there was her signature. So she wasn't exaggerating at least 0:24:59.760 --> 0:25:03.000 about this. They had met, she had visited him, and 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:05.119 of course, because she was a beautiful young woman, you know, 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:06.960 I want to visit Paul Scard. Yeah, of course she. 0:25:07.160 --> 0:25:09.200 Of course she made her way in, and of course 0:25:09.320 --> 0:25:11.639 they had a series of conversations, and of course they 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:15.000 had maybe corresponded or whatever. But it then got blown 0:25:15.040 --> 0:25:19.359 into this much larger, more fantastical narrative when to me, 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:22.640 just the fact that she decided to reach out to him, 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:24.560 just that part of the story, that would have been 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:27.359 more than enough for a really incredible tale, right, But 0:25:27.480 --> 0:25:29.600 not for her, not for her, not for her. 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:35.440 At one point, Brando's mom takes on a new job, 0:25:36.240 --> 0:25:38.040 a very unconventional job. 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:42.200 So the way my mom tells it is that we 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:45.080 were watching the talk show Dona Hue. All right, remember 0:25:45.119 --> 0:25:47.080 Dona Hue, and like you know, always come around the 0:25:47.080 --> 0:25:50.200 same time in the afternoon, and he had a whole 0:25:50.240 --> 0:25:52.880 episode devoted to phone sex operators. So there were these 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:56.119 you know, women behind like a black screen, and we 0:25:56.119 --> 0:25:58.399 were watching it together. I guess it must have been 0:25:58.400 --> 0:25:59.800 summer time. I was home from school, or maybe I 0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:01.480 was home from school earlier or something, and she said 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:03.879 that I pointed to the screen and said, you know, 0:26:04.000 --> 0:26:07.520 you could do that because the show had like demonstrated 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:10.400 to audience. Oh, look, these are people who work from 0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:13.600 home and make large amounts of untaxed money. They kind 0:26:13.600 --> 0:26:16.639 of set their own schedule. I'm like, oh, sounds like 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:19.920 a good deal. And so supposedly I said to my mom, oh, hey, 0:26:20.040 --> 0:26:22.920 you could do that, and that was something that did 0:26:22.960 --> 0:26:26.080 I actually say that. I'm guessing probably not. I hope 0:26:26.119 --> 0:26:28.600 I didn't say that, because again, ten eleven years old, 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:31.280 but my mom decided she answered an AD was in 0:26:31.320 --> 0:26:35.480 the classifieds. And she then proceeded to start a career 0:26:35.880 --> 0:26:39.400 as a phone sex operator, initially working for a company 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:42.159 where basically it was almost kind of like a dispatch service, 0:26:42.200 --> 0:26:44.199 like she would get like a number and then this 0:26:44.200 --> 0:26:45.760 would be a number you would call and it would 0:26:45.800 --> 0:26:47.840 be like, oh, I want someone who looks like this 0:26:47.920 --> 0:26:49.800 and blah blah blah blah, and who has this kind 0:26:49.800 --> 0:26:53.439 of backstory. And then later as the nature of the 0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:56.639 service morphed, she went to working like one nine hundred 0:26:56.680 --> 0:26:59.800 numbers ninety seven six numbers, where it wasn't I hate 0:26:59.800 --> 0:27:01.880 to use the phrase high end, but it was more 0:27:01.960 --> 0:27:04.280 like just random people on the phone, as opposed to 0:27:04.280 --> 0:27:07.879 like catering to people with specific taste, specific desires, et cetera. 0:27:08.320 --> 0:27:10.640 She did that for a number of years long unto 0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:13.159 when I was well into high school, and you know, 0:27:13.200 --> 0:27:14.920 I would have to try to invent stories from my 0:27:15.000 --> 0:27:16.840 high school buddies because you know, my mom was always 0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:19.240 at home. The door was always closed, and you know, 0:27:19.280 --> 0:27:20.960 they'd be like, why is your mom always in there? 0:27:21.200 --> 0:27:22.840 I'm like, oh, she's working. It's like what kind of 0:27:22.840 --> 0:27:26.160 works she do? Telemarketing, you know, because I had heard 0:27:26.200 --> 0:27:29.880 that word somewhere. They're all from high school, so it's like, okay, 0:27:30.200 --> 0:27:32.359 kind of weird but whatever. But was like, it's not 0:27:32.440 --> 0:27:36.080 something I could just freely tell people. So it was 0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:40.800 another example of my mother's I guess, fascination with narratives 0:27:41.119 --> 0:27:43.680 and storytelling because that's basically what she was doing. 0:27:43.840 --> 0:27:46.119 Right well, and it may be if you did indeed 0:27:46.160 --> 0:27:48.720 say that, it would be a recognition that she would 0:27:48.760 --> 0:27:50.360 be good at that, at telling stories. 0:27:50.920 --> 0:27:54.639 I really like that interpretation, Danny. I really like that, 0:27:55.080 --> 0:27:57.400 So I'm gonna use that from now. I'm like, yeah, 0:27:57.400 --> 0:27:59.760 that's that must have been what I realized, Like, she's 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:02.680 a really a storyteller, so she'll just do that. It's 0:28:02.720 --> 0:28:08.000 not for everybody, No, it's for everybody. But yeah, I 0:28:08.000 --> 0:28:13.480 think my mom was only really happy, genuinely happy talking 0:28:13.560 --> 0:28:18.159 to strangers and telling stranger stories in whatever sense of 0:28:18.200 --> 0:28:20.960 that word, because once you've met her, once you knew her, 0:28:21.520 --> 0:28:23.959 then you kind of like lost whatever sort of novelty 0:28:24.080 --> 0:28:25.000 value you had to her. 0:28:27.359 --> 0:28:30.200 There are so many stepfathers who come in and out 0:28:30.240 --> 0:28:33.639 of the picture that Brando in his memoir creates a 0:28:33.720 --> 0:28:37.119 visual chart of sorts, a casting sheet, so the reader 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:40.200 can keep track all the way through his teenage years 0:28:40.240 --> 0:28:43.440 and well into high school. All these father ish figures, 0:28:43.800 --> 0:28:47.760 their comings and goings set off little nuclear bombs of 0:28:47.840 --> 0:28:52.080 longing in young Brando because there's always the possibility, the 0:28:52.160 --> 0:28:55.240 hope that somebody's going to stick around, or that someone's 0:28:55.240 --> 0:28:58.200 going to keep their promises, but none of them do. 0:28:58.960 --> 0:29:01.320 And what these father thinks gears also have in common 0:29:01.800 --> 0:29:04.000 is that they're often on the wrong side of the law. 0:29:05.800 --> 0:29:08.320 There were five step fathers total, I would say, four 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:10.160 of whom being on the wrong side of the law 0:29:10.320 --> 0:29:12.280 I think is an apt way to put it. And 0:29:12.320 --> 0:29:14.240 you know, the thing that I would love to be 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:17.400 able to say is that, oh, you know, I eventually 0:29:17.520 --> 0:29:20.680 outgrew that need, but like, I don't think I ever did. 0:29:20.720 --> 0:29:23.280 I don't think even now, I think there's still this 0:29:23.320 --> 0:29:25.600 desire that I have that you know, whenever I meet 0:29:25.640 --> 0:29:29.080 somebody who's older and kind of gives off that mentor 0:29:29.440 --> 0:29:31.200 kind of vibe, do you know what I mean, Like 0:29:31.760 --> 0:29:34.920 somebody who has bid around a lot likes to tell 0:29:34.960 --> 0:29:37.040 stories that there's always like kind of a romantic part 0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:37.240 of me. 0:29:37.240 --> 0:29:39.120 It's like, oh, I wish I had a dad like 0:29:39.160 --> 0:29:43.200 that Berando. That does not surprise me in the slightest. 0:29:43.240 --> 0:29:45.120 I would be surprised if you didn't feel that way, 0:29:45.160 --> 0:29:47.920 because you know, there's there's a moment in your book 0:29:48.080 --> 0:29:50.640 that I underlined and it's just one sentence, but it's 0:29:50.920 --> 0:29:54.840 I'm intact. But the scars are there, of course they are. 0:29:55.120 --> 0:29:58.600 I mean, it's a myth to think that scars go away. 0:29:59.080 --> 0:30:01.640 You know, they can be healed over and they can soften, 0:30:01.760 --> 0:30:02.840 but they're there. 0:30:07.680 --> 0:30:08.520 We'll be right back. 0:30:23.840 --> 0:30:27.080 The human spirit's capacity to reach toward the light, like 0:30:27.120 --> 0:30:29.520 a hardy weed pushing its way through a crack in 0:30:29.560 --> 0:30:34.520 a sidewalk never ceases to amaze me. Against the backdrop 0:30:34.600 --> 0:30:38.320 of the sketchy non father figures and his mother's violent, 0:30:38.440 --> 0:30:42.800 mercurial nature, Brando knows he's going to college. And not 0:30:42.880 --> 0:30:45.440 only is he planning to go to college, but he 0:30:45.520 --> 0:30:48.800 quietly applies to some of the best universities in the country, 0:30:48.840 --> 0:30:52.400 telling no one, and he's admitted to Stamford University. 0:30:53.720 --> 0:30:56.320 There's an acquaintance of mine who calls Stamford today the 0:30:56.360 --> 0:31:00.479 no factory because basically, yo, no, you're not getting in. 0:31:00.520 --> 0:31:02.200 So I will say, let's just say, for the sake 0:31:02.240 --> 0:31:03.920 of argument, it was the early nineties, maybe it was 0:31:03.960 --> 0:31:06.040 a little easier for me to get in. I will 0:31:06.080 --> 0:31:08.480 also say, because this is a conversation I've had when 0:31:08.640 --> 0:31:11.000 students asked me about this, It's like, oh, well, what 0:31:11.040 --> 0:31:12.040 did you apply as? 0:31:12.880 --> 0:31:13.040 Right? 0:31:13.080 --> 0:31:14.760 What did you apply as? Because again it was like 0:31:14.800 --> 0:31:16.720 you were living your life as this American Indian. What 0:31:16.800 --> 0:31:19.720 did you apply as? And you know, I'm completely honest, 0:31:19.760 --> 0:31:21.640 It's like, okay, well, I was living my life as 0:31:21.640 --> 0:31:24.600 an American Indian, even though I did not know. This 0:31:24.760 --> 0:31:26.960 was like a story. I wasn't supposed to tell people 0:31:26.960 --> 0:31:29.440 that I was actually a Mexican American. So that's what 0:31:29.520 --> 0:31:31.160 I told. That's times like, I'm living my life as 0:31:31.160 --> 0:31:33.320 an American Indian. So I told the Emissions Committee that 0:31:33.320 --> 0:31:36.760 I put in my application I'm an American Indian, but 0:31:36.920 --> 0:31:39.720 also wrote about everything that I've written about in the book, 0:31:39.720 --> 0:31:41.640 which was, you know, meeting this person who I believe 0:31:41.720 --> 0:31:44.040 was my father, all those things. Those things actually happen. 0:31:44.600 --> 0:31:49.600 But you know, the implication under that, of course, is well, 0:31:49.680 --> 0:31:53.240 you really didn't earn your way in, right, you really, 0:31:53.480 --> 0:31:55.480 you know, you were put in the American Indian pile. 0:31:55.640 --> 0:31:57.200 And so what I have to remind people is like, oh, 0:31:57.360 --> 0:32:00.360 so if you're saying I benefited from affirmative action, it's like, well, 0:32:00.400 --> 0:32:03.920 I'm actually Latino, so I probably would have been put 0:32:03.960 --> 0:32:05.960 if that's your argument, I would have been put in 0:32:06.000 --> 0:32:08.920 the same pile, just if we're gonna be honest about this, right. 0:32:09.240 --> 0:32:11.680 But you know, to me, the bigger sense of this 0:32:11.800 --> 0:32:15.840 location is going to a place like Stanford, and because 0:32:15.880 --> 0:32:19.760 I checked American Indian on the box is that I 0:32:19.800 --> 0:32:23.280 was immediately routed to the American Indian students who are there. 0:32:23.800 --> 0:32:26.160 And so I felt like, well, I can't interact with 0:32:26.200 --> 0:32:28.880 these students because somehow that would be unfair, that would 0:32:28.920 --> 0:32:31.600 somehow be unfair to perpetuate this lie to them. But 0:32:31.720 --> 0:32:34.960 at the same time, it's like, well, I'm Latino, but 0:32:35.040 --> 0:32:37.160 I got this name sky Wars, Well, what are the 0:32:37.240 --> 0:32:39.080 Latinos gonna think? You know what I mean? So, like 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:43.120 it left me in this very funky situation where I 0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:46.800 got in and expected it to be this transformative experience 0:32:47.360 --> 0:32:51.160 and it wasn't. And it wasn't because in part I 0:32:51.360 --> 0:32:54.640 was never able to just have that honest conversation with 0:32:54.840 --> 0:32:58.440 myself and say, this is who I am, this is 0:32:58.480 --> 0:33:01.040 my identity. I didn't choose, it was chosen for me, 0:33:01.200 --> 0:33:03.160 and I'm going to make the best of this situation. 0:33:03.360 --> 0:33:05.440 That's probably a lot to ask of an eighteen year old, 0:33:05.440 --> 0:33:08.640 though I was basically walking around in this dank fog. 0:33:09.120 --> 0:33:11.520 And I remember one of the first meetings I had 0:33:12.000 --> 0:33:14.000 with an advisor if I submitted this paper and it 0:33:14.040 --> 0:33:16.280 was like a three page aside and all Greek nts 0:33:16.440 --> 0:33:19.920 or something or other. And this person was a resident fellow. 0:33:20.080 --> 0:33:22.120 And so at Stanford, like these professors they live in 0:33:22.160 --> 0:33:24.080 the dorms, right, so you can go to their apartment 0:33:24.120 --> 0:33:27.200 and it's meant to create this sort of atmosphere of 0:33:27.200 --> 0:33:29.920 conviviality that like, you can eat dinner with your professors. 0:33:30.080 --> 0:33:32.120 So I remember walking down this hall because I had 0:33:32.120 --> 0:33:34.440 submitted like an eight page paper, I'll blow him out 0:33:34.480 --> 0:33:38.040 of the water. And I remember going into his apartment 0:33:38.160 --> 0:33:41.120 and my paper was on the table and I looked 0:33:41.120 --> 0:33:43.280 at the papers blank, like there's no red marks. I'm like, 0:33:43.280 --> 0:33:44.640 oh my god, this is going to be easier than 0:33:44.680 --> 0:33:47.360 I thought. And he sits down and he turns to 0:33:47.360 --> 0:33:49.280 me and he says, Okay, did you have problems writing 0:33:49.280 --> 0:33:52.560 in high school? And it was like one of those 0:33:52.600 --> 0:33:54.800 like telescopic moments in a movie where it's just like 0:33:54.920 --> 0:33:58.920 everything is shattered. It's like, oh wow, I'm really terrible 0:33:58.920 --> 0:34:03.160 at this. I'm trouble now. How do I figure this out? 0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:05.880 And every week I was there, there is this sense 0:34:05.880 --> 0:34:09.040 of I'm a fraud. I don't belong here. I should leave, 0:34:09.400 --> 0:34:12.640 and getting that message reafferred by my mother, who had 0:34:12.680 --> 0:34:15.640 a I mean possible time letting me go and was 0:34:15.680 --> 0:34:18.080 constantly on the phone with me saying just come on home, 0:34:18.160 --> 0:34:20.239 come on home, you know, like there's no shame in this, 0:34:20.360 --> 0:34:22.759 just you don't belong there. And so, yeah, that first 0:34:22.800 --> 0:34:25.200 quarter was a really really challenging time, the first couple 0:34:25.239 --> 0:34:26.680 of quarters of particular. 0:34:26.880 --> 0:34:31.040 What do you think kept you from doing just that? So, 0:34:31.520 --> 0:34:32.839 for whatever reason. 0:34:32.719 --> 0:34:36.480 I stuck around fall quarter I came back home and Danny, 0:34:36.520 --> 0:34:38.480 I'm sure you've had this experience where, perhaps you know, 0:34:38.760 --> 0:34:42.120 going back to a childhood home and just everything seemed 0:34:42.200 --> 0:34:45.480 so much smaller, almost like a miniature version of things. 0:34:45.920 --> 0:34:50.200 And I remember leaving that September and just feeling like, oh, 0:34:50.280 --> 0:34:52.520 this was my home. What am I doing? Every sort 0:34:52.520 --> 0:34:54.799 of like attachment in the world is here, and then 0:34:54.800 --> 0:34:56.920 coming back and feeling like I'm like an actor on 0:34:56.960 --> 0:34:59.279 a stage, almost like this is completely foreign to me, 0:34:59.760 --> 0:35:03.879 these connections, this house, everything felt like shrunk down, and 0:35:04.160 --> 0:35:06.359 there was this realization was like, oh, I'm gonna move 0:35:06.440 --> 0:35:09.839 back into this. This doesn't feel right. So I went 0:35:09.960 --> 0:35:13.120 back that winter semester, and again i'd had a different professor, 0:35:13.120 --> 0:35:16.800 somebody who I think was aware of where my interests 0:35:16.800 --> 0:35:19.480 were and perhaps where my talents were and worked with 0:35:19.480 --> 0:35:21.480 me in a way that helped me get over that hump. 0:35:21.680 --> 0:35:23.520 By the time I got to nearly the end of 0:35:23.719 --> 0:35:26.600 winter quarter, I was turning excellent work, not just for me, 0:35:26.880 --> 0:35:30.200 work that was acknowledged by my Stanford professors like oh, 0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:32.560 this is really great, believe provocative thesis. And I think 0:35:32.600 --> 0:35:35.600 it was just that acknowledgment that I know what's down 0:35:35.680 --> 0:35:38.640 that road. I know that my mom and my grandmother, 0:35:38.760 --> 0:35:40.920 having lived in that house for many, many, many years, 0:35:41.320 --> 0:35:44.120 I know what's down that road. It's me taking my 0:35:44.200 --> 0:35:47.239 place in that house alongside them. And I knew that 0:35:47.400 --> 0:35:49.279 wasn't what I wanted, and so I just had to 0:35:49.280 --> 0:35:51.080 dig out. I just had to dig out and just 0:35:51.160 --> 0:35:53.600 hunker down and hang in there. And I know it 0:35:53.640 --> 0:35:58.839 sounds incredibly cliche, but time time to I guess acknowledge. 0:35:59.360 --> 0:36:02.200 This is not going to be something that happens overnight. 0:36:02.719 --> 0:36:05.600 My integration into this world is going to take work 0:36:05.640 --> 0:36:07.920 and it's going to take time, but that I owe 0:36:08.000 --> 0:36:09.719 myself the benefit of both. 0:36:10.239 --> 0:36:12.480 Yeah, that's beautiful. It reminds me of I saw a 0:36:12.560 --> 0:36:15.200 play recently, really good play on Broadway called The Hills 0:36:15.200 --> 0:36:18.480 of California, and there's this moment where there's this one character, 0:36:18.600 --> 0:36:21.640 this daughter, who has never left home, and you know 0:36:21.680 --> 0:36:24.120 they're all adults, and one of the sisters turns to 0:36:24.200 --> 0:36:26.439 her and says, you just could never find the door. Hmm. 0:36:27.200 --> 0:36:27.880 Well, I love that. 0:36:31.400 --> 0:36:35.600 Growing up reading had been Brando's refuge. Reading had been 0:36:35.640 --> 0:36:40.839 his escape into narrative, and interestingly enough, away from narrative too, 0:36:41.360 --> 0:36:44.839 away from the stories. Spun by his mother, and as 0:36:44.880 --> 0:36:48.120 he moves through college he discovers he's not only a reader, 0:36:48.440 --> 0:36:52.959 but a writer. After finishing undergrad he goes directly into 0:36:52.960 --> 0:36:57.840 the academically rigorous MFA program at Irvine University of California. 0:36:58.239 --> 0:37:00.960 This is a big move found his door. 0:37:02.800 --> 0:37:06.200 So the idea, I think was either find a way 0:37:06.239 --> 0:37:10.000 to write for a living or become an entertainment lawyer. 0:37:10.120 --> 0:37:12.080 And I think maybe that's because I watched a lot 0:37:12.120 --> 0:37:14.399 of LA law growing up. Maybe that was it. I'm 0:37:14.400 --> 0:37:16.799 not really sure. I was really like drawn to those 0:37:16.800 --> 0:37:20.920 big houses and fancy cars. But I had this wonderful 0:37:21.040 --> 0:37:24.200 associate instructor named Ray. He was a Stagner fellow, and 0:37:24.400 --> 0:37:26.480 I was talking to him about applying to law school, 0:37:26.480 --> 0:37:28.640 applying to you know, MFA programs, because I really want 0:37:28.640 --> 0:37:30.680 to write. And he's like, look, if you go to 0:37:30.760 --> 0:37:32.479 law school, you're gonna get in a lot of debt. 0:37:32.600 --> 0:37:36.120 So find an MFA program that will give you, you know, 0:37:36.200 --> 0:37:38.640 a fully funded degree, and go do that because you 0:37:38.640 --> 0:37:40.759 can always go do law school afterwards. And he had 0:37:40.840 --> 0:37:42.880 like it was another person. You know, there are always 0:37:42.880 --> 0:37:45.560 these people along the way who are like, oh, hey, 0:37:45.680 --> 0:37:47.680 I really like what you're doing, keep at it. You know, 0:37:47.680 --> 0:37:49.239 I think this is something that you could probably make 0:37:49.280 --> 0:37:51.480 a living at. I think maybe he even mentioned the 0:37:51.520 --> 0:37:53.360 fact that Irvine had a program, because you know, this 0:37:53.440 --> 0:37:55.960 wasn't something that I was very knowledgeable about, and so 0:37:56.040 --> 0:37:58.440 I think the idea is like, oh, I can do this, 0:37:58.760 --> 0:38:00.719 and it's only going to be two year and let's 0:38:00.760 --> 0:38:03.520 see what comes of it. So getting to Irvine and 0:38:03.560 --> 0:38:06.440 then hitting the ground running and realizing oh, this is 0:38:06.480 --> 0:38:09.799 something that you know, I really enjoy doing and really 0:38:09.880 --> 0:38:14.360 appreciate doing it just felt like there was a piece 0:38:14.640 --> 0:38:17.560 that I felt in myself. Because again this is before 0:38:17.600 --> 0:38:19.560 therapy and for everything else, there was a piece that 0:38:19.600 --> 0:38:23.919 I felt in myself when I was writing, and it's 0:38:23.920 --> 0:38:26.480 still every time I sit down, every time I turn 0:38:26.560 --> 0:38:29.880 off all the distractions and it's just me and the work. 0:38:30.920 --> 0:38:34.280 Everything else disappears, and there's this enormous sense of peace 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:38.759 and tranquility that happens. It's like going almost into a 0:38:38.800 --> 0:38:43.200 fugue state, and it feels very comforting, it feels very protective, 0:38:43.920 --> 0:38:48.080 it feels like tons of possibility. And then of course 0:38:48.120 --> 0:38:50.200 obviously when you finish writing, like in the revision and 0:38:50.239 --> 0:38:51.920 all that other stuff, it's like, oh, you know, like 0:38:52.520 --> 0:38:54.160 if I could just skip all of this part right, 0:38:54.200 --> 0:38:56.640 But I think, to me, the reason why I write, 0:38:56.800 --> 0:39:01.200 it's that sense of possibility and comfort and protection. 0:39:02.280 --> 0:39:07.440 That's why I write. After graduating from the MFA program 0:39:07.480 --> 0:39:11.000 at Irvine, Brando and his girlfriend move east to Jersey City. 0:39:11.800 --> 0:39:15.240 They're just settling into their new place when Brando receives 0:39:15.239 --> 0:39:19.680 a message from his latest stepfather with some very intense news. 0:39:22.000 --> 0:39:26.839 I get the call and it's a stepfather number five 0:39:27.600 --> 0:39:29.680 who tells me that my mom had passed, and it 0:39:29.840 --> 0:39:33.479 was sudden. My mother had gained a lot of weight 0:39:33.520 --> 0:39:36.880 over the years and had become fixated with trying to 0:39:36.920 --> 0:39:40.880 lose that weight. Tried a number of these ridiculous powders 0:39:40.920 --> 0:39:43.040 and all the other stuffers the eighties and nineties zero 0:39:43.040 --> 0:39:47.480 were just awash and all of these infomercials, and unbeknownst 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:51.000 to me, she had started taking drugs to lose that weight. 0:39:51.239 --> 0:39:53.880 She started taking speed, which she had dabbled with, you know, 0:39:53.920 --> 0:39:55.880 throughout much of her life, and then she also started 0:39:55.880 --> 0:39:58.480 taking fen fenn. This was before was off the market, 0:39:58.480 --> 0:40:00.759 Forest taken off the market, and she start to cocktailing 0:40:00.760 --> 0:40:05.319 the two a very very dangerous combination, and her heart 0:40:05.320 --> 0:40:07.520 just gave out when she was fifty years old. I 0:40:07.520 --> 0:40:10.000 didn't handle it well, I remember at the time, just 0:40:10.080 --> 0:40:13.480 not really processing it, just kind of like robotically saying, Okay, 0:40:13.520 --> 0:40:16.439 my mom passed away, hanging up the phone. I didn't 0:40:16.480 --> 0:40:18.640 go back for the funeral because I had this sense, 0:40:18.640 --> 0:40:21.879 because I was on the East coast now, that if 0:40:21.920 --> 0:40:24.480 I went back, I would end up, you know, to 0:40:24.600 --> 0:40:27.080 use the language you describe, I would end up back 0:40:27.080 --> 0:40:29.480 in that house, not finding the door. I would end 0:40:29.560 --> 0:40:33.080 up back in the house taking my mom's place. I 0:40:33.120 --> 0:40:35.560 just knew that's what would happen, and it terrified me. 0:40:35.920 --> 0:40:38.160 Should have gone back for the funeral, didn't go back, 0:40:38.680 --> 0:40:43.799 and spent many many years basically trying to process this, 0:40:44.000 --> 0:40:47.239 trying to process our relationship, trying to essentially figure out 0:40:47.280 --> 0:40:49.799 an ending for my mother and I because I think 0:40:49.880 --> 0:40:52.920 I believed at a certain point, you reach a certain age, oh, 0:40:52.960 --> 0:40:54.040 my mom and I are going to come to some 0:40:54.080 --> 0:40:56.719 sort of reconciliation, right, There's going to be some sort 0:40:56.760 --> 0:40:59.560 of movement or some sort of whatever. And it just 0:40:59.680 --> 0:41:02.520 was like cutting off a tree, Bram. She was just like, basically, 0:41:02.960 --> 0:41:06.239 my mom is forever frozen as a fifty year old 0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:09.399 like I'm now older than she is, and so there 0:41:09.520 --> 0:41:12.439 is that sense of what could have been, what would 0:41:12.480 --> 0:41:15.359 have happened. Would we have found a way to reach 0:41:15.440 --> 0:41:19.520 some sort of understanding between us? And I hate to 0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:22.239 be cruel about it, but it's like, I don't know 0:41:22.280 --> 0:41:24.719 if that's possible, and maybe in a certain way for me, 0:41:26.040 --> 0:41:29.200 you know, her passing, her sudden passing, allowed me to 0:41:29.239 --> 0:41:34.839 do the work without additional damage being added on top 0:41:34.880 --> 0:41:35.120 of it. 0:41:35.760 --> 0:41:37.120 What year did your mother die? 0:41:37.800 --> 0:41:42.000 She died in nineteen ninety eight. January sixth, nineteen ninety eight, 0:41:42.080 --> 0:41:44.960 says If I needed other reasons to remember that day today, 0:41:45.000 --> 0:41:48.799 I'd never forget. And my grandmother passed away a year 0:41:48.840 --> 0:41:50.840 after that in ninety nine. About a year and a 0:41:50.880 --> 0:41:51.760 half after that. 0:41:56.040 --> 0:41:59.840 In twenty ten, Brando finds and contacts his biological father, 0:42:00.480 --> 0:42:06.960 another father, the og Father. His name is Candy Uyoa. 0:42:07.160 --> 0:42:09.840 I reached out to him for the best of reasons, 0:42:09.840 --> 0:42:13.000 which was I had a book contract to write a memoir, 0:42:13.480 --> 0:42:17.359 So what better time, right, you know, writers, writers, man? 0:42:17.600 --> 0:42:21.160 So I just published my first novel, which I think 0:42:21.200 --> 0:42:23.239 went well. I was pleased with the experience. It was 0:42:23.239 --> 0:42:26.759 a two book deal, and I was putting together the 0:42:26.800 --> 0:42:28.719 sort of the outline for this book, and I had 0:42:28.760 --> 0:42:31.360 trouble beginning it. And again, you know, I'm assuming you 0:42:31.440 --> 0:42:35.360 understand as somebody who's written many wonderful, beautiful memoirs yourself. 0:42:35.400 --> 0:42:38.080 For me, as far as this memoir, I just didn't 0:42:38.080 --> 0:42:40.200 know where to begin. It seems so massive, the story 0:42:40.200 --> 0:42:43.120 seems so overwhelming. It's like, what's the door in? How 0:42:43.120 --> 0:42:45.960 do you walk into this story? Because there's just so 0:42:46.000 --> 0:42:49.160 many twists and turns. And my ex girlfriend, the one 0:42:49.200 --> 0:42:51.320 who actually I moved out with to the East Coast, 0:42:51.520 --> 0:42:54.040 we were still in contact. She's like, Yo, why don't 0:42:54.040 --> 0:42:56.200 you see if you can find Gabby though? And I'm like, 0:42:56.239 --> 0:42:58.080 come on, you know what I mean? Like girls, I 0:42:58.120 --> 0:43:00.000 was thinking, like the movies, I can't afford a private 0:43:00.160 --> 0:43:02.560 I'm gonna hire like what Barnaby Jones or something like 0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:04.400 I don't know why all my references are seventies and 0:43:04.400 --> 0:43:07.000 it's maybe that's where my head is. But she was like, no, like, 0:43:07.040 --> 0:43:08.680 you know, just use the internet see if you could, 0:43:08.680 --> 0:43:10.640 like maybe you know, find somebody who could do some 0:43:10.760 --> 0:43:13.520 online research for you or something. And so I figured like, okay, 0:43:13.560 --> 0:43:15.640 that seems like a reasonable idea, and I thought I 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:19.000 would write about my inability to find him. That was 0:43:19.040 --> 0:43:21.120 the ankle. That was how I was going to structure 0:43:21.120 --> 0:43:22.920 because I was like, that seems like an interesting way, right, 0:43:23.040 --> 0:43:25.239 empty computer screen or whatever, So I'm gonna have to 0:43:25.239 --> 0:43:28.600 white pages. Dot Com typed in his name and I said, oh, 0:43:28.600 --> 0:43:29.920 we have a result, but you have to pay ten 0:43:29.960 --> 0:43:31.600 bucks ord or whatever. It's like, okay, let's see who 0:43:31.600 --> 0:43:34.719 this non person is. And it was his name complete 0:43:35.120 --> 0:43:40.239 GANI though Garcia Yoa and it had an address in California, 0:43:40.520 --> 0:43:44.400 and I'm like, all right, well, let's get this a shot. 0:43:44.680 --> 0:43:47.399 I wrote him a letter, a simple one page letter, 0:43:47.440 --> 0:43:49.879 and I had my friend translated into Spanish, because again, 0:43:50.480 --> 0:43:52.719 having been raised as a Mexican American, it's one of 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:55.200 the things that I lost, and people think about passing 0:43:55.280 --> 0:43:57.680 right now. It's passes an American Indian. People think about, oh, 0:43:57.719 --> 0:43:59.759 you gained this, or you gained that. Nobody thinks about 0:43:59.760 --> 0:44:03.920 what you lost. I lost this whole identity of mine. 0:44:04.520 --> 0:44:06.640 I should know Spanish, I should be able to speak 0:44:06.640 --> 0:44:08.799 Spanish better than I do. So I had a friend 0:44:08.840 --> 0:44:11.080 translated for me, and I included a couple of photos 0:44:11.239 --> 0:44:13.799 color zeroxis of some photos. I'm like, I think you're 0:44:13.920 --> 0:44:17.680 my father. Here's a letter, and he received it and 0:44:17.880 --> 0:44:20.680 his wife had already known about my existence, but his 0:44:20.840 --> 0:44:24.480 children didn't. And so when the letter arrived, his wife, 0:44:24.520 --> 0:44:27.520 a wonderful woman named Dorora, went to him and said, 0:44:28.200 --> 0:44:31.480 your son is looking for you. Here's his letter. You're 0:44:31.480 --> 0:44:33.840 going to contact him. And when she said are you 0:44:33.920 --> 0:44:37.319 going to it really wasn't a question, it was a statement, like, 0:44:37.600 --> 0:44:40.560 you're going to contact him? And a week later I 0:44:40.600 --> 0:44:43.560 got a message on my voicemail short message with a number, 0:44:43.760 --> 0:44:46.640 called him back and he immediately started speaking to me 0:44:46.680 --> 0:44:49.480 in Spanish and I'm like, no, no, that somebody else 0:44:49.480 --> 0:44:52.359 wrote that letter. I don't understand what you're saying. And 0:44:52.400 --> 0:44:54.840 he's like, oh, you know, Spanish was so well written. 0:44:55.040 --> 0:44:57.520 He's like, I'm the man you're looking for. Didn't say 0:44:57.560 --> 0:44:59.680 it was my father said I'm the man you're looking for. 0:45:00.360 --> 0:45:00.560 You know. 0:45:00.640 --> 0:45:03.120 One of the things I think about about writing memoir, 0:45:03.440 --> 0:45:08.560 writing creative nonfiction when it's personal and therefore scary, that 0:45:08.640 --> 0:45:11.839 there's also this way in which I'm curious what you think, 0:45:11.880 --> 0:45:14.920 because I know for me, I think that it has 0:45:15.000 --> 0:45:21.360 given me the permission to be brave and write the 0:45:21.480 --> 0:45:24.000 letter or make the phone call in a way that 0:45:24.520 --> 0:45:27.000 I don't think I would have dared to do in 0:45:27.040 --> 0:45:29.560 any other way. But because it was for my book, 0:45:29.680 --> 0:45:33.520 for my job, because it was for the story, it 0:45:33.600 --> 0:45:37.200 allowed me to push past my own fear, you know, 0:45:37.239 --> 0:45:39.120 because you're framing it, and maybe it's true for you, 0:45:39.160 --> 0:45:41.040 but you're framing it as you know, well, writers, we 0:45:41.080 --> 0:45:42.720 want what we want if it's good for a story, 0:45:42.880 --> 0:45:45.839 which I also think you know is very valid and 0:45:45.840 --> 0:45:48.640 certainly for me in other ways. But I wonder whether 0:45:48.680 --> 0:45:51.320 you think you ever would have done that regardless. 0:45:51.960 --> 0:45:55.239 So I really like the way you frame it, in 0:45:55.320 --> 0:45:58.959 part first because it's much less cynical, but my take, 0:45:59.440 --> 0:46:03.720 which is a very very cynical take, right, But more specifically, yeah, 0:46:03.760 --> 0:46:08.560 this rationalization that hey, like, I have permission to knock 0:46:08.600 --> 0:46:12.680 on doors and do a little gumshoe sleuthing and figuring 0:46:12.719 --> 0:46:15.319 things out because this is what I do. It's for 0:46:15.400 --> 0:46:17.960 the project, it's for the book. It's a sense of 0:46:18.320 --> 0:46:22.400 I'm giving myself permission because I think that given the 0:46:22.440 --> 0:46:25.759 way that you have told me you venerate books and 0:46:25.800 --> 0:46:28.799 the way that I venerate books, right, like books save 0:46:28.920 --> 0:46:32.440 my life, right, And here's a chance to create a book, 0:46:33.000 --> 0:46:36.640 to create a narrative that might impact someone's life in 0:46:36.680 --> 0:46:40.400 a positive way. That somebody might have this crazy upbringing 0:46:40.440 --> 0:46:42.200 and they read my book and they're like, oh wow, 0:46:42.239 --> 0:46:45.239 like maybe I feel less alone. It's like that sense 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:47.360 of oh, I have permission to go and knock on 0:46:47.400 --> 0:46:49.040 this door. I have permission to send this letter. 0:46:52.760 --> 0:46:57.160 When Brando connects with Candy, he also learns something extraordinary. 0:46:57.640 --> 0:47:00.560 Not only has he finally met his biological thoughts, but 0:47:00.640 --> 0:47:02.520 he also has three sisters. 0:47:04.440 --> 0:47:07.120 Growing up, I think I had often long for siblings, 0:47:07.120 --> 0:47:09.399 but for a very selfish reason, and that there would 0:47:09.440 --> 0:47:12.719 be multiple people to absorb my mother's abuse, in my 0:47:12.760 --> 0:47:15.600 mother's my mother's anger, there would be like, you know, 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:18.600 more bodies, I guess, to go around. But also I 0:47:18.640 --> 0:47:21.120 think the sense that having siblings would have validated that 0:47:21.239 --> 0:47:24.000 experience so much more, the idea of like, hey, wasn't 0:47:24.040 --> 0:47:26.040 that crazy what she just did? Or wasn't that crazy 0:47:26.080 --> 0:47:28.000 what she just said? I would have had much less 0:47:28.040 --> 0:47:30.400 of this, the sense of that I was experiencing and 0:47:30.440 --> 0:47:34.560 absorbing all of this trauma on my own. But to me, 0:47:34.719 --> 0:47:38.040 the wonderful thing about having these sisters and these siblings 0:47:39.000 --> 0:47:41.719 is well twofold, you know. Number one, just knowing that 0:47:41.960 --> 0:47:43.880 there are people out there like me who are just 0:47:43.960 --> 0:47:46.000 kind of experiencing the world to me again, like I 0:47:46.000 --> 0:47:48.840 still marvel at that. That's still amazing to me. But 0:47:49.200 --> 0:47:53.560 the fact that after a single conversation, one conversation where 0:47:53.680 --> 0:47:56.680 essentially my eldest sister asked me like, okay, well, who 0:47:56.680 --> 0:47:58.480 the heck are you? I met them in La like 0:47:58.520 --> 0:48:00.120 who are you? What are you doing here? Right? And 0:48:00.160 --> 0:48:03.239 once I explained to them what I've just told you, 0:48:03.400 --> 0:48:07.319 once they understood the situation, they're like, oh, okay, well 0:48:07.640 --> 0:48:11.080 you're our brother, simple as that. So we don't even 0:48:11.200 --> 0:48:14.040 use the half designations like oh well technically, oh he's 0:48:14.080 --> 0:48:17.520 a half brother. Half they're my sisters and I'm their brother. 0:48:18.360 --> 0:48:21.440 And the fact that one of the conversations I had 0:48:21.480 --> 0:48:24.640 with Frank after I discovered them is that, you know, 0:48:24.680 --> 0:48:28.640 he said, they were clearly waiting for you. They were 0:48:28.640 --> 0:48:31.200 waiting for you. They somehow they didn't know you existed, 0:48:31.640 --> 0:48:35.080 but they were waiting for you. And that's your family. 0:48:35.520 --> 0:48:38.040 It's not how all families work, but this is how 0:48:38.080 --> 0:48:39.200 your family works. 0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:44.479 Well, and Candy also lets you know that he did 0:48:44.480 --> 0:48:45.319 not leave you. 0:48:46.239 --> 0:48:50.000 Yeah, he wanted to make that clear, that that narrative 0:48:50.040 --> 0:48:53.479 that I'd had drilled into me for years and years 0:48:53.520 --> 0:48:56.279 and years, that he wanted to stay, he wanted to 0:48:56.320 --> 0:49:00.080 find a way to make this work and that. But 0:49:00.280 --> 0:49:03.480 you know, essentially I was never far from his thoughts. 0:49:03.560 --> 0:49:06.680 I don't think he would say that he acted perfectly 0:49:07.000 --> 0:49:09.759 in all of the subsequent situations. But when I took 0:49:09.800 --> 0:49:12.480 him out to lunch, this was a few years ago. Now, 0:49:13.040 --> 0:49:15.560 he tells me, oh, I'm getting a new email address, 0:49:16.040 --> 0:49:17.719 and this is the first time in as many many 0:49:17.800 --> 0:49:20.080 years that you know, he had an email address. It 0:49:20.120 --> 0:49:22.520 would have to check into a computer and they say, well, 0:49:22.520 --> 0:49:25.719 you're going to need a password, and you know the 0:49:25.760 --> 0:49:28.720 password is obviously, that's the one word you never give anyone. 0:49:28.760 --> 0:49:31.400 That's the one Never share your password, never tell anyone 0:49:31.400 --> 0:49:34.320 what that password is. And he looks at me very earnestly, 0:49:34.360 --> 0:49:38.239 and he says, my password is Brando, And somehow that 0:49:38.320 --> 0:49:40.560 seems wholly appropriate. 0:49:56.520 --> 0:50:00.680 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Zaccor is the 0:50:00.719 --> 0:50:05.200 story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer. If 0:50:05.239 --> 0:50:07.680 you have a family secret, you'd like to share, Please 0:50:07.760 --> 0:50:09.960 leave us a voicemail and your story could appear on 0:50:10.000 --> 0:50:13.520 an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight eight 0:50:13.800 --> 0:50:17.920 Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also find 0:50:18.000 --> 0:50:22.520 me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd like 0:50:22.560 --> 0:50:24.920 to know more about the story that inspired this podcast, 0:50:25.320 --> 0:50:27.200 check out my memoir Inheritance. 0:50:47.840 --> 0:50:52.080 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:50:52.160 --> 0:50:54.200 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.