Speaker 1: Let's play truth or dare? Okay, go ahead, No, Jackie,
Speaker 1: you cut out. You cut out. I couldn't hear if
Speaker 1: you said truth or dare? Which one did you say?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not willing, I'm not interested. I don't want
Speaker 2: to play.
Speaker 1: Have you ever have you ever peed in a shower?
Speaker 1: Tell the truth? Have you ever peed in a shower? John, Jackie.
Speaker 2: That's just not a question, John.
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 1: Because the answer is yes?
Speaker 2: Affirmative?
Speaker 1: Okay? Have you ever peed in a bathtub?
Speaker 4: Negative?
Speaker 1: You've never peed in a bathtub.
Speaker 2: That's disgusting.
Speaker 4: Why would you pee on yourself?
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I did.
Speaker 5: You did?
Speaker 1: You just said no, I didn't. Okay, Okay, you can.
Speaker 6: You're surprised because.
Speaker 1: I'm not in the hot seat. You are, You're.
Speaker 2: Not at We're having a conversation.
Speaker 4: I want to have asation.
Speaker 1: We are having a conversation. Okay, you could do you
Speaker 1: want to get conversation from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein
Speaker 1: and this is Heavyweight Today's episode.
Speaker 5: Scott. Okay, we're rolling.
Speaker 1: So Scott, first of all, thank you. Maybe the thing
Speaker 1: to do would go on if you're lucky. The mistakes
Speaker 1: you make as you move through life, are small and harmless,
Speaker 1: calling your teacher mommy, leaving gum in your jeans in
Speaker 1: the wash, or talking over the person you're trying to
Speaker 1: talk to. No, no, sorry, sure, hang on a second, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me, tell me more, Scott. But the mistake Scott
Speaker 1: made wasn't the small kind. It was the big kind.
Speaker 1: Big because it hurt his dad, one of the people
Speaker 1: Scott loves most, and he's been trying to fix that
Speaker 1: mistake for the past eight years. For Scott, the story
Speaker 1: all begins when he was a kid, which is when
Speaker 1: he first discovered drugs.
Speaker 7: The first one was weed, you know, that was when
Speaker 7: I was thirteen, and then alcohol, and then it quickly
Speaker 7: kind of descended from there. So I first did cocaine
Speaker 7: when I was fourteen fifteen, first did meth when I
Speaker 7: was about fifteen, and then I was around that same
Speaker 7: time that I found opiates.
Speaker 1: Scott's mom suffered from chronic pain and there were always
Speaker 1: pills in her medicine cabinet, stuff like OxyContin and fentanyl.
Speaker 7: It is this feeling of like finding a missing piece
Speaker 7: to a puzzle. All of a sudden, my anxiety was gone.
Speaker 7: I didn't have as much self doubt, and I was
Speaker 7: able to speak my mind and connect and talk and
Speaker 7: approach girls. And at the time it really felt like
Speaker 7: a cheat code that I would have for life.
Speaker 1: And for a while it worked. Scott graduated high school,
Speaker 1: then college and found his way into job as a
Speaker 1: well paid graphic designer, but he was still using drugs
Speaker 1: the way he always had to manage his anxiety and
Speaker 1: make friends, like the friend who got him to shoot
Speaker 1: Heroin for the first time.
Speaker 7: And I say friend now, but looking back on it,
Speaker 7: we weren't necessarily friends at all. But he said, if
Speaker 7: you can give me a ride to go pick up
Speaker 7: some drugs, then I'll give you some for your trouble.
Speaker 7: And so we're driving down I seventy. He's in shotgun.
Speaker 7: I'm in the driver's seat with my arm extended out
Speaker 7: over the middle part of the car as he shoots
Speaker 7: me up for the first time and I instantly passed
Speaker 7: out and kind of swerved across three lanes before he
Speaker 7: grabbed the wheel, and then I kind of came back
Speaker 7: to a foot away from hitting a guard rail that
Speaker 7: right there just threw gasoline onto the fire. It went
Speaker 7: from you know, doing it on the weekends once or
Speaker 7: twice a month, to doing it every weekend, to doing
Speaker 7: it every few days every other day.
Speaker 1: Within a year, Scott lost his job and moved into
Speaker 1: his dad's basement, back into his childhood home in Colorado.
Speaker 1: He still needed to get high every day and now
Speaker 1: had no money. There were boxes in the basement filled
Speaker 1: with old jewelry and silverware, stuff that had belonged to
Speaker 1: Scott's mom before she passed away. So Scott started stealing
Speaker 1: stuff from the boxes to bring to a pawnshop down
Speaker 1: the road. He figured an item or two wouldn't be missed,
Speaker 1: but pretty soon it became a daily thing.
Speaker 7: All the while, the voice in the back of my
Speaker 7: head was still there, knowing what was right and was wrong,
Speaker 7: and so I felt immense guilt.
Speaker 1: Soon the boxes were empty, and Scott began to eye
Speaker 1: other things, things right out in the open, things that
Speaker 1: belonged to his dad.
Speaker 7: So like a radio on the shelf, just right there
Speaker 7: in the living room, taking that, and then a baseball
Speaker 7: signed by the early thirties New York Yankees, you know,
Speaker 7: Babe Ruth and Louke Rig and everything like that.
Speaker 1: Did your dad know what was going on?
Speaker 7: I mean, my dad is a very unique person. He's
Speaker 7: kind of like chronically petrified of direct conversations.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: I remember, even as a kid, he would have me
Speaker 7: order the pizza, you know, when we were ordering a
Speaker 7: pizza or something like that, because he didn't want to
Speaker 7: talk to the person on the phone.
Speaker 1: So Scott's dad never brought up the missing stuff until
Speaker 1: Scott started taking money.
Speaker 7: I knew right where his checkbook was, you know, it
Speaker 7: was right there on the secretary by the front door,
Speaker 7: and I had a light table where I put down
Speaker 7: a piece of paperwork that i'd found with his signature
Speaker 7: on it, and then put the check over it and
Speaker 7: kind of traced over it.
Speaker 1: The checks were small, sixty dollars here and there, but
Speaker 1: soon the account was thousands of dollars overdrawn. So his
Speaker 1: dad had to make a decision. It was one thing
Speaker 1: for a clock to go missing, another thing entirely for
Speaker 1: his savings to disappear. So the man who couldn't bring
Speaker 1: himself to pick up the phone to order pizza, picked
Speaker 1: up the phone and reported his son to the police.
Speaker 7: So then they piled me into the back of the
Speaker 7: police car and then brought me to the jail.
Speaker 1: Were you scared at this point?
Speaker 7: I was petrified. I was petrified of the legal consequences
Speaker 7: I had, but I think I was equally or more
Speaker 7: petrified of the detox that I knew that was coming.
Speaker 7: I remember scrawling out the hours I was sober on
Speaker 7: a little jail house notepad that they give you, And
Speaker 7: you know, I was doing three hundred dollars a day
Speaker 7: of heroin at that point. So it was a really, really,
Speaker 7: really bad withdraw. There was just a series of horrible
Speaker 7: days where I just couldn't stop crying. I would have
Speaker 7: these kind of vivid dreams of seeing family or being happy,
Speaker 7: and then wake up to realize I'm still in a
Speaker 7: jail cell.
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks into his detention, a garbled voice
Speaker 1: came over the loudspeaker. Scott had a visitor.
Speaker 7: Nobody had visited me yet, and so I thought it
Speaker 7: was a mistake at first, And so I go up
Speaker 7: there and there's my dad come to visit me.
Speaker 1: But Scott's father wasn't there to offer support. He was
Speaker 1: there to present his son with a list of all
Speaker 1: the things he'd stolen. The radios, the watch collection, the
Speaker 1: family silver. It was two columns containing some fifty items,
Speaker 1: and at the very top of the page.
Speaker 7: His most prized possession, the Luger, this German pistol that
Speaker 7: my grandfather had taken off of a German in World
Speaker 7: War II. This gun was something that I knew was
Speaker 7: like his pride and joy. That was like the quintessential
Speaker 7: memento and the biggest piece that my dad had to
Speaker 7: remember his dad by. And so that was the one
Speaker 7: big thing that I had promised myself that I would
Speaker 7: never take, and I took it.
Speaker 1: Of all the things Scott had stolen from his dad,
Speaker 1: of all the mistakes he'd made, this is the one
Speaker 1: he regrets most.
Speaker 7: I've only seen my father cry when his dad passed away,
Speaker 7: when my mom passed away, and in that jail when
Speaker 7: he was telling me about him knowing about the gun
Speaker 7: being gone. You know, this was a piece of his
Speaker 7: father that he thought he would be able to hold
Speaker 7: on to for the rest of his life. And I
Speaker 7: sold for fourteen hundred dollars worth of drugs.
Speaker 1: For four months, Scott sat in jail awaiting trial. When
Speaker 1: he was finally sentenced, the judge decided to dismiss the
Speaker 1: charges if Scott completed this two year treatment program that
Speaker 1: was modeled on rehab programs from the seventies. Scott would
Speaker 1: have to shave his head and scrub the floors with
Speaker 1: a toothbrush, that.
Speaker 5: Kind of thing.
Speaker 1: The judge told Scott that the roughly three hundred people
Speaker 1: he'd sent there, none had made it through.
Speaker 7: So that was encouraging right at the very beginning. But
Speaker 7: as like, get me in, whatever I need to do,
Speaker 7: I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: After two years, Scott walked out of the facility and
Speaker 1: he's been clean since. He has a wife, two young kids,
Speaker 1: and a job at a residential treatment facility in Colorado
Speaker 1: where he works with addicts and their families. He's trying
Speaker 1: to make up for who he used to be by
Speaker 1: paying it forward. But there's one person he's never been
Speaker 1: able to pay back.
Speaker 7: I have all but forgiven myself for a lot of
Speaker 7: the things that I've done in the past, but this
Speaker 7: is one thing that, no matter the amount of counseling,
Speaker 7: it still bothers me on the deepest level that I
Speaker 7: did this to my dad.
Speaker 1: So about five years ago, Scott took his dad's list
Speaker 1: of the stolen items and set off to recover the
Speaker 1: luger along with everything else.
Speaker 7: So I went to the old ante stores that I
Speaker 7: used to go to. I went to the old sports
Speaker 7: memorabilia spot to see if I could track down the
Speaker 7: baseball that I had sold.
Speaker 1: He succeeded in getting some things back, a Crossley antique radio,
Speaker 1: a Ham radio, and that Christmas with his sister, all
Speaker 1: his aunts and uncles gathered round, Scott surprised his dad
Speaker 1: with the items he'd recovered. Scott was feeling pretty proud
Speaker 1: of himself until Uncle Bill piped up and.
Speaker 7: My uncle, you know, basically says, oh, well, he's the luger.
Speaker 7: In there is the luger, one of the things that
Speaker 7: you were able to get back.
Speaker 1: Uncle Bill was close with Scott's grandfather. Like him, he'd
Speaker 1: also served in the military. He believed the luger should
Speaker 1: have been his to begin with, not a little brothers.
Speaker 7: And I was like, no, no, I wasn't able to
Speaker 7: find that. And then that led to probably about a
Speaker 7: ten minute spiel of his about how important that gun
Speaker 7: was to him. And I remember the day when I
Speaker 7: found out that that was stolen. It still bothers me.
Speaker 7: And it was just like in the middle of Christmas
Speaker 7: morning and we're handing out presents and every word that
Speaker 7: he said, just like, ugh, it felt like a kick
Speaker 7: in the gut.
Speaker 1: And how do you think it made your father feel.
Speaker 7: Very uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But he's.
Speaker 7: Not the type of person that would toss it back
Speaker 7: in my face.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: That's kind of my uncle's style, but not necessarily his.
Speaker 1: Although Scott's dad didn't say anything, Scott understood that his
Speaker 1: dad felt the same way as Uncle Bill, that it
Speaker 1: was nice to have all those items returned, but the
Speaker 1: only one he really cared about was the luger and
Speaker 1: it was gone all because of Scott.
Speaker 7: I know that there's still trust issues there. I know
Speaker 7: that there's still pain there, and I've told him over
Speaker 7: the years that I'm going to do what I can
Speaker 7: to try and get it back. And I know by
Speaker 7: the glean in his eye that that would matter quite
Speaker 7: a bit, and that if I am able to track
Speaker 7: this down, it would be seismic.
Speaker 1: No matter what Scott accomplishes in life or how good
Speaker 1: he feels, there's always that nagging voice that cries out,
Speaker 1: what about the luger? Were you able to get that back?
Speaker 1: Even when Scott is relaxing in front of the TV,
Speaker 1: if anything about World War two comes on, he has
Speaker 1: to change the channel, and so Scott's come to me.
Speaker 1: He wants to find his grandfather's luger and has no
Speaker 1: idea where to begin. My first thought is why me?
Speaker 1: Why not the guys from Firearms Chat podcast, The Reloading Podcast,
Speaker 1: Wasted Ammo Podcast, Socialist Rifle Association Podcast, Concealed Carry Podcast,
Speaker 1: New Shooter Canada, or gun Girl Radio, the Firearm show
Speaker 1: for the Second Amendment. Woman, I'm more the wistful type
Speaker 1: than the pistol type, more the pun type than the
Speaker 1: gun type. Do you think we'll have to go to
Speaker 1: a gun show?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 7: Oh, I think it just kind of depends on where it.
Speaker 1: Ended up, like the thing that's a little scary. And
Speaker 1: maybe I'm completely like out of line with thinking this,
Speaker 1: but is it possible like that these guns can filter
Speaker 1: back into like a kind of nether world.
Speaker 7: Of like Nazi sympathizer people.
Speaker 1: Exactly like, yeah, it's possible. Yeah, I don't abide by
Speaker 1: Nazi sympathizers, but I'm rapidly becoming a Skatzi sympathizer. As
Speaker 1: Anton Chekhov once said, if a gun shows up in
Speaker 1: the first act, it must be fired in the second
Speaker 1: and that's a lot of presh. But as Jonathan Goldstein
Speaker 1: once said, if a gun's to be fired at all,
Speaker 1: please don't let it hit me in the wallet, because
Speaker 1: that's where I keep the charge card I use for
Speaker 1: purchasing quality products like the ones coming your way. Not
Speaker 1: knowing where to start, I spend several hours on a
Speaker 1: gun collector's discussion board run by someone named Jan with
Speaker 1: an iron cross for an avatar. I introduce myself to
Speaker 1: my fellow gun nuts and announce that I'm looking for
Speaker 1: a gun. Right away, an Internet pop up pops up,
Speaker 1: telling me that my content has been blocked and to
Speaker 1: quote see administrator. Immediately after the Gimblet Media HR department
Speaker 1: confiscates my computer, I unholster my weapon of choice, the telephone.
Speaker 1: I dial gun dealerships all over the country to seek advice.
Speaker 6: It's going to be almost impossible.
Speaker 1: There may not be any type of record.
Speaker 3: Because it could just be in some private collector's collection.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be hard for you. I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: straight up.
Speaker 4: Do you know when it was sold?
Speaker 8: Do you have any type of serial number?
Speaker 1: Of course a serial number. Scott doesn't know the serial number,
Speaker 1: but he admits there's one person who.
Speaker 7: Might Uncle Bill, my dad's older brother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mister Christmas Morning himself. Are you in touch with
Speaker 1: your uncle?
Speaker 7: I am, I mean not a ton, but I am.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So maybe he would. He would be a place
Speaker 1: to start.
Speaker 7: Now, I'm uh, I mean, of course, there's a cloud
Speaker 7: of anxiety. My chest starts tightening when I think about
Speaker 7: actually doing it.
Speaker 1: Shortness of breath would come next, then burning in the
Speaker 1: chestel region. It was sounding to this reporter like the
Speaker 1: healing process had already begun.
Speaker 7: But maybe we could both do it. Yeah, we could
Speaker 7: do a three person call.
Speaker 1: So with me on the line as this emotional defibrillator,
Speaker 1: Scott dials up Uncle Bill.
Speaker 2: Bill Good. After that Bill, Hello, Uncle Bill, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good, mister Goldstein.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hi. After Scott and I jockey over who will
Speaker 1: hide behind who's petty coats? Scott boldly peers out from
Speaker 1: behind my petty coats and asks Uncle Bill about the
Speaker 1: serial number.
Speaker 2: I believe it had a fairly low serial number, but
Speaker 2: unfortunately we never took a photo of the writing on
Speaker 2: the inside of the holster.
Speaker 1: So you don't have the serial number.
Speaker 5: I do not.
Speaker 1: But the moment we bring up the gun. It's Christmas
Speaker 1: Morning all over again.
Speaker 2: It's a piece of history of his history. That was
Speaker 2: part of what formed him to be the man that
Speaker 2: I knew. And that's about all we have from him
Speaker 2: from that era, and now we don't have that.
Speaker 1: When Uncle Bill speaks to the gun, it's as though Scott,
Speaker 1: the person responsible for its disappearance, isn't there, even when
Speaker 1: he pipes up to defend himself.
Speaker 2: The gun disappeared to help beat his habit, and I
Speaker 2: was royally pissed at him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I paid off every cent.
Speaker 2: I'm happy with his dad either.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like I was going to go and beat
Speaker 2: him up or anything, but I was pissed that he
Speaker 2: felt the need to quote, keep it safe, and then
Speaker 2: he didn't keep it safe.
Speaker 1: Do you still feel like you fault your brother for that?
Speaker 2: Somewhat?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 2: The reality of World War two vents is that they
Speaker 2: didn't really like to talk about the war. We didn't
Speaker 2: have PTSD as doss. The damage was usually doubtless with alcohol,
Speaker 2: and he a loveful lot of them drank too much,
Speaker 2: and that's how they self medicated.
Speaker 1: After the war. Scott's grandfather became an alcoholic. He spent
Speaker 1: his days in an easy chair with a glass in
Speaker 1: his hand, and in the evenings he kept a bottle
Speaker 1: of whiskey on the nightstand to make sure he didn't
Speaker 1: wake up in a withdrawal Like the Luger. It seems
Speaker 1: addiction has also been a part of Scott's family for decades.
Speaker 1: Before getting off the phone, Uncle Bill does offer a
Speaker 1: couple helpful bits of information. He tells us that the
Speaker 1: Luger was a mouser and that returning World War II
Speaker 1: soldiers were often issued something called bring back papers, documents
Speaker 1: detailing any items they took home. If he could find
Speaker 1: those papers, Bill says there's a chance the gun's serial
Speaker 1: number might be there. He also says that if anyone
Speaker 1: has the bringback papers, it'd be Scott's older sister, Mary,
Speaker 1: the family record keeper and also one of Scott's biggest supporters.
Speaker 7: She's a good person and an honest one.
Speaker 1: When Scott was in jail, Mary was the one who
Speaker 1: visited most, gave him money for the commissary, and helped
Speaker 1: him with his court case. When I explained the length
Speaker 1: Scott's going through to get their dad's gun back, Mary
Speaker 1: becomes emotional. The whole thing reminds her of a story
Speaker 1: from when they were kids. Mary Scott and their dad
Speaker 1: had gone out shopping.
Speaker 4: He accidentally stole a bookmark from the store, just because he.
Speaker 5: Thought we had paid for it and we hadn't, and
Speaker 5: he cried all the way home and.
Speaker 3: Made us go all the way back to the store
Speaker 3: almost an hour away, to return it.
Speaker 1: Mary still sees her little brother as the same well
Speaker 1: meaning kid who's trying to make things right. She's not
Speaker 1: sure she has the bringback papers, but wants to help,
Speaker 1: so over the weekend she digs through their grandfather's old stuff.
Speaker 1: She finds wartime postcards, letters to their grandmother, photos of
Speaker 1: their grandfather and his army buddies huddled in fox holes.
Speaker 3: And then she found the actual document, the Bringback Papers.
Speaker 1: Holy cow, Okay, so.
Speaker 2: What and now it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's yellowing with it almost looks like it as
Speaker 3: a coffee stains right through the middle. And then it
Speaker 3: has just written in underneath it Luger pistol cerial number
Speaker 3: four five nine.
Speaker 1: WOWI hi Giovanni, how are you Johnson? I'm good? How
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 8: I'm doing well, doing well?
Speaker 1: I get Giovanni's number from another gun dealer who tells
Speaker 1: me that if I'm looking for a World War two
Speaker 1: era luger, Giovanni is my man. Giovanni owns one of
Speaker 1: Colorado's largest historical firearm shops and is something of an
Speaker 1: expert in lugers, and so armed with the serial number,
Speaker 1: I get ready to make some headway. The serial number
Speaker 1: is four or five nine?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 2: No, you have any incomplete? Say on them.
Speaker 1: Giovanni explains that luger's serial numbers have both numbers and letters,
Speaker 1: so there could be a four five nine, A four
Speaker 1: five nine B and so on. I re examined the
Speaker 1: scan Scott sent me.
Speaker 5: But no letter.
Speaker 1: How many four five nine serial number guns are there?
Speaker 4: Probably out there lugers probably about.
Speaker 5: It could be one hundred.
Speaker 1: Hoping to narrow the pool, I tell Giovanni it wasn't
Speaker 1: just any luger, It was a mouser. Does that give
Speaker 1: you an okay? So, in giving you that serial number,
Speaker 1: it's not like you can look it up in a
Speaker 1: database or anything.
Speaker 5: No, oh, absolutely not.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 1: What would you do if you were trying to track
Speaker 1: down this gun?
Speaker 5: I will get up.
Speaker 1: Before hanging up, Giovanni says, there's one last thing we
Speaker 1: could try retracing the gun's path, go back to the
Speaker 1: pawnshop clerk to see if he has a record of
Speaker 1: who he sold the gun to. Giovanni says the clerk
Speaker 1: has no obligation to reveal that information, but it's worth
Speaker 1: a shot. The clerk's name is George, and he and
Speaker 1: Scott were friendly back when Scott was living with his dad.
Speaker 1: They're still connected on Facebook. So Scott messages asking if
Speaker 1: George might be willing to talk to us, and George says.
Speaker 3: Yes, and then he calls me back a couple minutes later,
Speaker 3: just in tears.
Speaker 1: It turns out that when George bought the gun from
Speaker 1: Scott eight years ago, he intended to keep it for himself.
Speaker 1: At the time, George and his wife were expecting a baby.
Speaker 3: And about two weeks after I had sold him that gun,
Speaker 3: he found out his wife had brain cancer. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: really aggressive brain cancer, and she ended up having to
Speaker 3: go undergo really aggressive radiation, and so because of that,
Speaker 3: they ended up losing the baby.
Speaker 1: Just months after buying the gun from Scott, George sold
Speaker 1: it to pay for his wife's medical bills.
Speaker 3: And then she passed away a number of months after that,
Speaker 3: and It just brings up these kind of horrible memories
Speaker 3: that he's trying to avoid diving back into.
Speaker 1: Each time the gun has changed hands, it seems it's
Speaker 1: been in the midst of violence, desperation, and personal tragedy. Well,
Speaker 1: George doesn't want to talk. He does remember the name
Speaker 1: of the person he sold the gun to, the owner
Speaker 1: of a rare coin and gold boullion shop, a man
Speaker 1: named Klaus.
Speaker 4: I just keep my collecting interest private. You know, some
Speaker 4: people think just because you buy Nazi guns that you
Speaker 4: are na seen.
Speaker 1: When I first phone Klaus at his store, he's reluctant
Speaker 1: to talk. He's nervous about being judged for his hobby.
Speaker 4: I'm a collector, but you know, some people associated collecting
Speaker 4: World War two German and mirabilia with you know, Nazism.
Speaker 1: I reassure Klaus that that's not what I think, But
Speaker 1: over the course of our phone call, I become less
Speaker 1: sure of what I think.
Speaker 4: I have a Luger serial number seven. What makes it
Speaker 4: so interesting that Hitler's party pen number was number seven,
Speaker 4: so he was, you know, the party member number seven.
Speaker 4: I have a number seven Luger.
Speaker 1: How did you acquire something like that?
Speaker 4: Ah? I have some things that are very, very unusual.
Speaker 4: You know, I came I'm an immigrant.
Speaker 2: I came from Germany.
Speaker 4: My grandfather was a Nazi officer, and my father was
Speaker 4: was in the youth.
Speaker 1: I have many questions for Klaus. First and foremost, why
Speaker 1: are you telling me Jonathan Goldstein about your familial ties
Speaker 1: to the Nazis. But I'm not here to interrogate Klaus.
Speaker 1: I'm here to find Scott's gun. So I try to
Speaker 1: steer us back on track. I tell Klaus that I'm
Speaker 1: calling on behalf of a man named Scott, whose grandfather
Speaker 1: once owned a Mauser Luger that George sold to him
Speaker 1: some years ago. Klaus tells me that's not possible. He
Speaker 1: tells me he never bought a gun from George. He
Speaker 1: doesn't even know who George is. And besides, he says
Speaker 1: he's never owned a Mauser Luger. Maybe you're mistaken. I say,
Speaker 1: all these guns kind of look alike, black, shiny shooty.
Speaker 1: Maybe you lost track of it, maybe it fell behind
Speaker 1: the couch. Klaus tells me he'll look around, but he's noncommittal,
Speaker 1: just trying to get off the phone. Then at eleven
Speaker 1: thirteen PM, I get a text Hello Jonathan. It reads
Speaker 1: call me at your convenience, and speaking of convenience, no
Speaker 1: need to so much as move a muscle, because I'm
Speaker 1: about to march right over there and dump a truckload
Speaker 1: of savings directly onto your face.
Speaker 5: This.
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Jonathan Goldstein speaking. How are you well.
Speaker 1: I have some news for you. I found the gun?
Speaker 5: What Yeah, are you kidding me? No?
Speaker 6: No, are you kidding me?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: Oh my god?
Speaker 5: Yeah? You found it? Yes?
Speaker 6: Wow, Yeah, I'm blown away.
Speaker 1: It's a matter of whether we'll be able to get it. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's still in Klaus's possession.
Speaker 6: So did you talk to him?
Speaker 1: I did, and uh, it was an interesting conversation. So
Speaker 1: you found you found the gun?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I was surprised last night. It took
Speaker 4: a look and I went into my vault room and
Speaker 4: I found it.
Speaker 1: The luger was still in the original holster. Attached to
Speaker 1: it was a tag with Scott's grandfather's name. Would you
Speaker 1: be open to the idea of selling it back to him?
Speaker 4: Well, my first thought is probably not. It's just that
Speaker 4: I legally purchased the gun, and I mean, I'm a collector,
Speaker 4: and you know I paid for it.
Speaker 1: So I mean, would you would you say that his
Speaker 1: grandfather paid for it with his service.
Speaker 4: I mean it's war bounty that someone brought it over
Speaker 4: from Germany. You know, he didn't pay for it.
Speaker 1: From Klaus's perspective, the gun Scott stole was already stolen property.
Speaker 4: He took it off as a German officer. And you know,
Speaker 4: as we spoke prior, my grandfather was an officer in
Speaker 4: World War Two, and you know, my thoughts were a chia.
Speaker 4: You know, could that gun been here? At this point,
Speaker 4: I'm not really compelled to let go of the gun,
Speaker 4: but I still give it some thoughts.
Speaker 1: So the way that we left it was he said
Speaker 1: that he'd think about it.
Speaker 6: Okay, well, I won't start celebrating yet, but we know
Speaker 6: who has it, we know where it is. So now
Speaker 6: it's just kind of tactfully figuring out what it's going
Speaker 6: to take to get it back.
Speaker 1: I really do respect your optimism. I don't think we're
Speaker 1: going to get the gun back. Personally, I'm going to try.
Speaker 6: We're going to get that gun.
Speaker 1: Since Scott's not ready to admit defeat, I suggest he
Speaker 1: tried making his case directly to Klaus in a letter.
Speaker 1: So Scott writes from the heart. He explains the full
Speaker 1: story of his addiction, his time in jail, and his
Speaker 1: guilt about his dad. My greatest regret was that I
Speaker 1: would never be able to get this heirloom back in
Speaker 1: the hands of my father, Scott writes, But now, for
Speaker 1: the first time, that seems like a possibility. Eight years ago,
Speaker 1: I was so addicted to Heroin that I was pretty
Speaker 1: sure I was going to die. That fact has since
Speaker 1: been replaced with another, more hope filled one second chances
Speaker 1: are real. Klaus receives the letter but offers no response.
Speaker 1: Two weeks go by and still we hear nothing, so
Speaker 1: I send another email. Klaus's answer is short. I have
Speaker 1: considered Scott's response and I have decided to not sell
Speaker 1: the gun at this time. If my position ever changes,
Speaker 1: I will contact you, Klaus.
Speaker 6: That's just ridiculous. Settling on the fact that we know
Speaker 6: where it is and not getting it back. That's just
Speaker 6: like super frustrating. I mean, there's got to be something
Speaker 6: we can do.
Speaker 1: Scott says he's willing to pay whatever Klaus wants for
Speaker 1: the gun, so again I contact Klaus. It's not a
Speaker 1: money issue. Klaus responds, almost immediately. I am just not
Speaker 1: interested in selling a gun to an individual. I can't
Speaker 1: figure out what exactly Klaus means by an individual. Maybe
Speaker 1: in the past he sold guns to organizations or museums.
Speaker 1: When I write him back, he responds with this, based
Speaker 1: on the background information, I would not sell this gun
Speaker 1: back to Scott. So it's not really an individual per se,
Speaker 1: it's this individual. Scott's letter hadn't made Klaus feel sympathetic.
Speaker 1: It made him feel nervous. Like with Scott's criminal past,
Speaker 1: A gun and a second chance might not make for
Speaker 1: a great combo. If there was any hope, it's now gone. Well,
Speaker 1: I have an update.
Speaker 5: Update. Okay.
Speaker 1: A couple days later, I catch Scott at work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have another update. Uh huh, it looks like Klaus
Speaker 1: is willing to sell the gun.
Speaker 6: Oh you're kidding me.
Speaker 1: No, you were right. You were right to be hopeful.
Speaker 1: I did not think that I was going to be
Speaker 1: reporting this back to you.
Speaker 3: What brought it about?
Speaker 6: What changed his mind?
Speaker 1: I'd asked Klaus the same question. It seemed as though
Speaker 1: over the weekend you had a change of heart.
Speaker 4: I figured you were going to haunt me until I
Speaker 4: finally get it back to the guy.
Speaker 1: I probably would.
Speaker 4: I just thought, you know, it seems like the guy
Speaker 4: really wanted that item back, So yeah, I just didn't
Speaker 4: want to be haunted about it.
Speaker 6: So oh, I can't even believe it.
Speaker 1: But there was still one thing that Klaus hadn't changed
Speaker 1: his mind about, and I feel bad having to tell Scott.
Speaker 1: He is saying that he is willing to sell the gun,
Speaker 1: but he won't sell it to you. Klaus doesn't trust
Speaker 1: Scott bottom line.
Speaker 6: I mean, he doesn't know me. He doesn't know that
Speaker 6: it's become a contributing member of society.
Speaker 1: After everything Scott's done to redeem it himself, the rehab,
Speaker 1: the good works. Klaus's judgment stings, but Scott gets it.
Speaker 1: It's something he's experienced before. People accusing him of theft
Speaker 1: when things go missing, women breaking things off when they
Speaker 1: learn he was once an addict. The world still sees
Speaker 1: Scott as a bad bet, but he sweeps aside his
Speaker 1: feelings to address the more pressing question, who can we
Speaker 1: get to buy the gun? The first person that comes
Speaker 1: to my mind is the person who's always believed in
Speaker 1: Scott most. What about your sister?
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely no, she would be totally open and willing
Speaker 6: to do that, oh, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Well, it looks like we're going to be buying a gun.
Speaker 3: Let's buy a gun.
Speaker 1: That's right, except we don't. After looking into Colorado's complicated
Speaker 1: gun laws, we learn that because Mary's not a full
Speaker 1: time Colorado resident, it's illegal for her to buy the gun,
Speaker 1: so we discuss options. Scott's wife could buy it and
Speaker 1: give it to his dad, but that's also illegal in Colorado.
Speaker 1: Only blood relatives can gift each other guns. We consider
Speaker 1: Uncle Bill totally legal, but Scott's worried he'd buy it
Speaker 1: and then want to keep it for himself. Out of
Speaker 1: viable family members, we consider getting a middleman to buy
Speaker 1: the gun from Klaus, then sell it to Scott, who
Speaker 1: can then give it to his dad. But as it
Speaker 1: turns out, there's a term for this, a straw purchase,
Speaker 1: and it's a federal felony. It's been nearly two weeks
Speaker 1: of phone calls with Scott, with lawyers with the Colorado
Speaker 1: Firearms Unit, and with each passing day, I become increasingly
Speaker 1: nervous about Klaus changing his mind. So I present Scott
Speaker 1: with what might be our last remaining option. His dad
Speaker 1: win Scott falls silent for the first time in the
Speaker 1: course of this quest. He seems defeated. The thought of
Speaker 1: placing his father, Win, the man of afraid of the
Speaker 1: crack voiced pizza boy, in a room with Klaus, the
Speaker 1: man with the gun vault, and the luger that may
Speaker 1: or may not have belonged to Adolf Hitler, makes him
Speaker 1: wonder if maybe it's all just gone too far. But
Speaker 1: at this point it's the only way to get the gun,
Speaker 1: so Scott agrees Win will buy the luger. After the break,
Speaker 1: Win and Klaus.
Speaker 7: Hell.
Speaker 1: Scott and his dad Win meet me on the way
Speaker 1: to see Klaus. Mary's here too, She's come along for support.
Speaker 1: Klaus told us to meet him at a gun shop.
Speaker 1: He knows where they can run the necessary background check.
Speaker 1: We all get into Scott's.
Speaker 5: Car, people with microphones and stuff.
Speaker 1: Scott's dad, Win is seated up front. He's brought along
Speaker 1: the luger's empty case, which sits on his lap. When
Speaker 1: is bride eyed and smiley, but knowing from Scott how
Speaker 1: shy and nervous his dad can be, gives his jolliness
Speaker 1: a slightly forced quality.
Speaker 8: All the road work.
Speaker 1: Case in point, when our eta gets pushed back due
Speaker 1: to roadwork. Win bursts into song o work or this
Speaker 1: is when, as Scott tells us about his day, is
Speaker 1: pretty dark day? When is the one giggling in the background.
Speaker 8: I got four people into detox programs this morning, so
Speaker 8: a lot of distraught parents and overdosing teenagers to deal
Speaker 8: with this morning.
Speaker 1: The destination is on your left. Maybe you can even
Speaker 1: pull in. Oh what is a private parky? We pull
Speaker 1: into a parking lot and we all get out of
Speaker 1: the car, all except for Scott. After the way Klaus
Speaker 1: responded to his letter, he's afraid if he goes in
Speaker 1: he'll blow the whole deal.
Speaker 5: Who We'll be right back? Cool?
Speaker 8: Well, have fun?
Speaker 5: Yes, all right.
Speaker 1: From behind the windshield, Scott watches as his father ambles
Speaker 1: towards the gun shop, empty gun case in his hand.
Speaker 1: I can imagine how Scott's feeling. Scott already believes he's
Speaker 1: failed his dad in so many ways. Sending him to
Speaker 1: buy back his own gun in a rundown looking gun
Speaker 1: shop with bars on the windows must feel like one
Speaker 1: more failing. Let's buy ourselves a gun.
Speaker 4: Time to buy a gun.
Speaker 1: At the door, a large man wearing sunglasses and a
Speaker 1: holstered gun silently greets us wind Ducks. Inside the walls
Speaker 1: and shelves of the gun shop are full of Nazi metals,
Speaker 1: Nazi helmets, Nazi hats, uniforms, guns, and Swastika armbands. And
Speaker 1: at the center of it all is Klaus, who is
Speaker 1: at present chummily talking to a large tattooed clerk with
Speaker 1: a white goatee. They quiet down when Win, Mary and
Speaker 1: I approach. Klaus appears to be in his sixties. He's
Speaker 1: a slight man with thinning, slick back hair. Winn walks over,
Speaker 1: smiling nervously as Klaus turns to greet him, and then
Speaker 1: the grandson of a Nazi officer shakes hands with the
Speaker 1: son of an American soldier. As Mary and Klaus introduce themselves,
Speaker 1: I adjust the levels on my recorder. The goateed man
Speaker 1: has a look about him that says I don't listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts just the same. I take a deep breath,
Speaker 1: scoop my testes out of my MPR tote bag, and,
Speaker 1: in my best vocal approximation of Ira glass manned my
Speaker 1: journalistic rights.
Speaker 5: Uh, and.
Speaker 1: Would it be okay if we were to be recording
Speaker 1: for the thing they we're doing in the background. Absolutely no, okay,
Speaker 1: absolutely no.
Speaker 5: Cut it.
Speaker 1: The luger sits on a glass display counter. Winn walks over.
Speaker 1: That's it, he says, his father took it off of
Speaker 1: my grandfather. Klaus jokes to the goateed man, the gun
Speaker 1: is pristine. Mary and I take turns holding it. It's
Speaker 1: heavier than we expect. Win hands a driver's license over
Speaker 1: for the background check. While we wait, there's an awkward silence.
Speaker 1: I consider asking if anyone seen Mama Mia too. Here
Speaker 1: we go again, and if so, whether they thought the
Speaker 1: closing super Trooper number at the Hotel Belladonna was a
Speaker 1: bit much. But before I can clear my throat of anxiety, mucus,
Speaker 1: the background check is complete. After all the hoop law
Speaker 1: it took all of ten minutes. Wind gives Klaus the
Speaker 1: money and Klaus gives Win the gun. For perhaps the
Speaker 1: first time ever, the luger changes hands without incident. Klaus
Speaker 1: watches as Winn carefully places the gun back into its case.
Speaker 1: Don't let it get out of the family anymore, he says.
Speaker 1: As the goateed man watches us wind our way to
Speaker 1: the exit on the right back. Everyone is quiet I
Speaker 1: imagine Scott is feeling relief Mary Pride and her brother,
Speaker 1: but watching Win in the front seat, staring out the window,
Speaker 1: gun case at his feet, it's hard to say what
Speaker 1: he's feeling.
Speaker 8: God, this is crazy to see.
Speaker 1: At Mary's apartment, we all huddle around the dining room table.
Speaker 1: Scott's grandfather's gun has been placed at the center. Scott
Speaker 1: and Mary marvel at it, but I'm amazed at the
Speaker 1: tag is still on it. Yeah, and it has a number.
Speaker 8: Four or five nine?
Speaker 5: Look at that. This is crazy.
Speaker 8: You understand how crazy this is.
Speaker 1: If Winn does understand how crazy it is, it's hard
Speaker 1: to tell. There's something muted about his response. In fact,
Speaker 1: since we've entered the apartment, Wind hasn't seemed interested in
Speaker 1: his father's gun at all. When Scott asks him if
Speaker 1: he'd like to hold it, he declines, Well, Scott and
Speaker 1: Mary passed their grandfather's gun between them. Winn sits silently.
Speaker 1: I try to draw him out. Did you put any
Speaker 1: hopes in ever getting that gun back?
Speaker 5: I thought it was unfortunate that it disappeared, but I
Speaker 5: pusn't saying darn. I wish I could find that gun.
Speaker 5: It's just a material object.
Speaker 1: No one is sure what to say. Sure, it's a
Speaker 1: material object, but it's a material object that carries great meaning.
Speaker 1: It's a material object that connects him to his dad.
Speaker 5: I was not as close to my dad as I
Speaker 5: would like to have been, the guy with a glass
Speaker 5: of Scotch whiskey in his hands, sitting in the easy chair,
Speaker 5: tossing out criticisms as needed. The way you grow a
Speaker 5: better son is to criticize him for.
Speaker 1: The first time all day when isn't cracking a silly
Speaker 1: joke or smiling.
Speaker 5: My main memory of my dad was being afraid of him. Remember,
Speaker 5: one of my early memories is that I'd somehow succeeded
Speaker 5: in getting a bruised bone on my shin. And I
Speaker 5: was like three years old, and my mother was sufficiently
Speaker 5: concerned that she took me to the doctor and had
Speaker 5: an X rayed, and it was, oh, in the world
Speaker 5: the world did a little teddy that was me then
Speaker 5: get a bruise on his bone? And I think what
Speaker 5: it is is that I think I got kicked by
Speaker 5: a guy wearing size twelve wingtips.
Speaker 1: Scott's never heard this story before, and it seems almost
Speaker 1: like he doesn't want to believe it.
Speaker 7: Were there good parts about your relationship with him, if
Speaker 7: you had to name, if I.
Speaker 5: Had to name, hmm, I don't know. He was just
Speaker 5: kind of scary all the time.
Speaker 1: Wynn explains that his relationship with his father wasn't the
Speaker 1: same as Bill's relationship with their father.
Speaker 5: I think I felt criticized mostly for not being as
Speaker 5: good as my brother. He always did well in school,
Speaker 5: and I wasn't always so wondrous, and I always saw
Speaker 5: myself as a little more plump and a little less athletic.
Speaker 1: Bill was always the louder voice in the room. So
Speaker 1: that Christmas, when Bill lectured Scott about the significance of
Speaker 1: the luger, Scott had assumed Bill was speaking for his
Speaker 1: dad too, but he wasn't.
Speaker 7: I saw it as this treasured possession that linked to
Speaker 7: you to the good parts of Grandpa. That your relationship
Speaker 7: with him is complicated and different than I even knew.
Speaker 1: Scott was right in believing that the gun was a
Speaker 1: reminder of Win's father and that it carried a lot
Speaker 1: of meaning for Win. He just misunderstood the nature of
Speaker 1: that meaning. To know that Scott had been thinking about
Speaker 1: it all these years, even maybe past year having thought
Speaker 1: about it. How does that make you feel?
Speaker 5: It makes me feel loved that he would make it
Speaker 5: a part of his life to try to track it down.
Speaker 5: It feels like maybe I was at least part successful
Speaker 5: in not being like my dad. Yeah, that I was
Speaker 5: somebody he could run over to and climb up in
Speaker 5: the lap of when he was little and stick his
Speaker 5: fingers up my nose. He still liked to do that.
Speaker 5: I could never stick my fingers up my dad's nose.
Speaker 1: Winn looks over at his son.
Speaker 5: Don't let it bother you anymore. The greatest prize that
Speaker 5: I got out of this whole thing was the fact
Speaker 5: that even though all this crap disappeared, I got to
Speaker 5: get my boy back. The funeral plot that I had
Speaker 5: bought for myself to be next to your mom. I
Speaker 5: thought I was going to have to bury my son
Speaker 5: in it, and I am delighted that I never had
Speaker 5: to do that. That's ever so much better.
Speaker 1: Maybe eight years ago, during Whinn's visit to Scott in jail,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the missing gun that had made him cry.
Speaker 1: It was missing his son. But now the gun tells
Speaker 1: a different story.
Speaker 5: The gun has grown, so it's not just my dad anymore.
Speaker 5: It has a whole story to tell about my son,
Speaker 5: and it's back returned by this guy here. Thank you
Speaker 5: for doing all that.
Speaker 1: Of course, a few weeks later, I get this text
Speaker 1: from Scott the other night. It reads, I stumbled upon
Speaker 1: a World War II documentary and for the first time
Speaker 1: in eight years, Scott didn't changed the channel. Now that
Speaker 1: the fern ures raft turning to its goodwill home, Now
Speaker 1: that the last month's rant is scheming with the damaged post,
Speaker 1: take this moment to dissolve.
Speaker 4: If we met him, if we talked, never felt around
Speaker 4: for far too.
Speaker 1: Famous at Accident Leeks. This episode of Heavyweight was produced
Speaker 1: by Stevie Lane and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Khalila
Speaker 1: Holt and Ba Parker. The show is edited by Jorge
Speaker 1: just Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Nathan Foster,
Speaker 1: Jacob Eppler, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode
Speaker 1: with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Samson, Blue
Speaker 1: Dot Sessions, Michael Hurst, Hailey Shaw, and Bobby Lord. Additional
Speaker 1: music credits can be found on our website Gimletmedia dot
Speaker 1: com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker
Speaker 1: Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is
Speaker 1: by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or
Speaker 1: email us at Heavyweight at gimltmedia dot com to see
Speaker 1: photos from this week's episode. You can follow the show
Speaker 1: on Spotify and check out our show page on the
Speaker 1: Gimlet Media website. We'll be back in two weeks with
Speaker 1: a brand new episode of Heavyweight
Speaker 4: Bo