2026 Update: Skye

(upbeat music) - Pushkin. - Hi. - Hello. - I think people probably know the drill. We're gonna revisit an old episode and we're gonna have an update. - That's not good broadcasting. - Oh, you don't say to people they know the drill. - Okay. - You tell them the drill. You use your powers as a storytelling. - Hi everyone, here's the drill. - And drills are exciting. Think of a fire drill when you were in elementary school. How great was that? - You're getting in a class. - Especially if you were in gym, like you ran outside in the winter snow in your shorts. (laughing) - It was great. So yeah, here's the drill. - Today, we're gonna re-listen to an episode called Sky. - Oh, it's a classic episode. - You know, we get a lot of pitches about being cut out of friend groups about being bullied in some way. I think it's unfortunately like a pretty common story that a lot of people can relate to. But what we really liked about Sky's story is that we really liked that it involved her son and that she was doing it at the encouragement of her son. - And now that same son from the story, get this, this is a bit of a spoiler alert. He's now an adult. (laughing) - Yeah, a young adult. - That's what time will do to you. - Yeah. - A little kid, a young man, make an old man like me and even older man. - Yep. - Sad, really. - You remember the Joey episode? - I do, of course. - Do you remember how you did Sky and Joey on the same trip? - Oh yeah, that's right. - You did just like a week of knocking out people's problems. - So productive, so helpful. - Yeah. - I should have a private jet. And on the side, it would say, Mr. Helpful. - And when you took off, people would clap like Superman and they'd say, thank you, Mr. Helpful. - Do you think there's room in the Marvel universe for Mr. Helpful? - It's not the catchiest name. - The power of helping people. - Well, sit back, enjoy, and then we're gonna hear from Sky at the end. - Oh, but first, a word from our sponsors. - This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. - Welcome, global here. My new book, The American Way of Killing investigates America's gun violence crisis. Why is the richest country in the world plagued by such lethal violence? Through a series of stories, interviews, and archival tape, I confront one of today's most urgent moral dilemmas and examine why the US has never quite understood its own problem and why you can't fix what you refuse to see clearly. Get the American Way of Killing at pushkin.fm/audiobooks or at audible, Spotify or wherever audio books are sold. - Hi podcast friends. As regular listeners know, I try to run a family friendly-ish podcast. But because it's integral to the plot, in this episode of Heavyweight, we drop the f-bomb and unprecedented nine times. If they were giving out pee bodies for swearing, maybe I'd get one. Also, as long as I'm giving advisories, I also pronounce the word garage as garage. I encourage you to listen anyway. - Hello? - Did you get a message from me a couple months ago? A phone message was on your birthday. I was wishing you a happy birthday. - It's possible. - I didn't hear anything back, so I was concerned. - Yeah. - When someone leaves your message, on your birthday, you have no obligation to return that message. - Oh, good, good. - But that said, it would have been nice to get. I'm not saying a thank you card, but, you know. - So if I was under no obligation, why are you now giving me suggestions as to how I should have responded? - Some things in life aren't obligatory, but we just do a, you know what I mean? - Absolutely, like picking up the phone when I just saw that you called me. - Exactly, like, hey, wait a minute. (upbeat music) From Gimlett Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Sky. (upbeat music) Sky and her son Clark have a ritual. - Well, I don't know about you, but every night after his teeth are brushed and he's all tucked in, right before Clark goes to sleep. Sky sits down on the edge of his bed, and they talk. - What was your favorite part of that movie? - Probably, like, the end was a good ending. - I feel the helicopter scene was good. - Clark's 11. So naturally, there's a lot of discussion about comic books and movies. - I don't think it was movies. - You know, the original tomaji was not funny. - But there's something about the stillness of nighttime that also frees Clark up to speak in a way that he doesn't normally. Not only does he tell Sky about what he's watching and reading, he tells her about his feelings. He shares stories about what's going on at school. (upbeat music) - And Sky shares stories too, stories from her childhood. Some story she tells just to entertain Clark, but other stories she tells to impart a lesson. There's one story in particular, she's told Clark over and over again throughout the years. And lately, it's been coming up a lot. Recently, Sky told me the story. - So the story, in a way, the story starts when I moved. When she was 11 years old, Sky was best friends with a group of four girls. They wore a spree sweatshirts and watched loveboat on the weekends. They were the popular girls. - That was sort of the vibe of that group was like, we're exclusive and we're kind of the shit. - Yeah. - You know, how like in high school they have, most beautiful and most popular in all of those, we decided to make our own book of, you know, awarding people various prizes. We gave me best eyes. And I remember sort of having this pride in that. - They spent all of fifth grade together. Then summer came and with it, long days filled with lazy bike rides and trips to the candy shop. But early one summer morning, Sky woke up to find her yard had been teaped, covered in toilet paper. And there was more. Someone had written fuck you on our garage door. And we had a double garage and so fuck was on one and you was on the other and they were written in large white letters on our brown garage. - Sky's mom had seen the vandals make their getaway. The words fuck you had been written by none other than Sky's four best friends. - And they had been written in paint. I wish they had done it with something that had come off because I do remember this feeling of like being driven home day after day and seeing those words on the garage door. Teaping someone's house is one thing. It's sort of a common prank. But the fact that they wrote fuck you, that felt to me like it really came from anger. And they had to have brought the paint. There had to have been some thought put into this. Why had they done it? What were they angry about? Sky had no idea. - Did you ever see those girls again? - Well, I saw them again for sure. We all funneled into this junior high school that fall. And I think that I just avoided them. I never ever said a word to any of the four girls ever again. I pretended it never happened. - And when Sky tells Clark this story, here's where she delivers the moral. Awful things do happen. But in the end, everything turns out fine. Sky grew up, got married, has a job she likes and a family she loves. Her story she tells him has a happy ending. In the past, when he's heard this story, Clark's taken his mom's lesson at face value. But Clark is now the same age Sky was when her friends turned on her. He's starting to see his own classmates leave old friends behind for the more popular crowd. For the first time, he's able to imagine what it would be like if his own small group of friends suddenly cast him out, stopped coming over to his house to play video games, stopped speaking to him altogether. So Sky's moral, that everyone lives happily ever after, is starting to feel untrue. And so, Clark has a question for his mother. Why didn't she ever confront her friends about what they did? Why not then? But also, he asks Sky. Why not now? - Like, did they do it for themselves? Or because of you? Or was it because of something you did? Or something you did? - Clark brings up Sky's story during their bedtime ritual, asking for details, weighing the injustice, fantasizing about Sky, looking up her old friends, and confronting them with some questions. - I think you can't be like the person that you normally are where you're like Tim and little mommy. - Funny to me that you think of me as Tim and mommy, that's very interesting. - Yeah. - Well, I have like a lot of occasions to prove that. - Your New Year's resolution was to say no more often. That was your resolution 'cause you were too timid to say no to people before that. - Well, I like to think that it's less about me being timid and more about me being a can-do kind of person. (laughing) - There it is, right there! At school functions, Clark watches his mom try to accommodate the other parents and get steamrolled in the process. In restaurants, he sees his mom settled for the wrong meal rather than bother the waiter. For once, he wants Guy to stop worrying about everyone else's feelings. He wants her to focus on herself. - I would really love to know like why it's important to you. It's basically for me and more like my mom avenging that was people just wanted you to kind of like get your avenge. - My revenge? - Your avenge yourself, sorry, I'm using the wrong word. - You got to be like, you did this and do you remember why it happened and say sorry to me? - He said at the end, mom, you've got to figure this out. You've got to go for it. You have to have a chance to find out why this happened. - It's not just Clark who feels this way. There's someone else who also wonders why this happened and has always wished Guy had had the chance to ask. (phone ringing) - Hello. - Is this Rachel? - Yes, it is. - This is Skye's mom, Rachel, the only eyewitness to what happened that night. And the person talking to her while chewing a hunk of monster cheese and chalabret because his boss, Alex, thinks taking lunch breaks as more of a bizzops thing is me. - I got out of my chair and I stood at the window and pulled back the drape and I see their bikes sort of going off into the night. The night the girl showed up around two or three in the morning. Rachel was reading in an armchair by the window. She's always up in the middle of the night. It's a habit that began in childhood. She tells me that her own mom, Skye's grandmother suffered from schizophrenia. She was unpredictable and the middle of the night was the only time the house was ever quiet and safe. It was during those calm nights alone that Rachel began writing poetry. And here I think I'm all this years later and I'm still still doing it. There's something holy about the middle of the night. Nobody's hassling you and you can really hear yourself from now. - But on the night the vandal struck. She could also hear four 11 year old girls making their getaway. When the sun came up, Rachel saw the fuck you on the garage and immediately she phoned up one of the girls and spoke with both her and her mom. While neither denied what had happened, nothing much came of the conversation. And after that, Skye begged Rachel not to make any more phone calls. The idea of confronting anyone just upset Skye more. So Rachel stopped calling and after a few days, things seemed to go back to normal. We saw that it was over and for her it really wasn't. It really took her being, I think, grown up for her to start saying to me, I think about this all the time and it was shocking to me. I had not understood that and I felt dopey that I hadn't understood that because I thought I was pretty well attuned to her and her feelings. It broke my heart. She always understood how to fit in with people completely unlike her parents. My husband, you know, was born in Finland and was a mathematician as PhD when he was 19 and I was a strange high school dropout poet. I mean, we were really odd and eccentric birds. And here was this kid who was just exquisitely normal and to us, he's always been a wonder. You know, like, who is this very social being? This was a kid who his first word was high and who, when she was small, literally sat in the front step all day and said hi to every person who passed on a sidewalk. And we left her for that and what happened with the girls had the effect of making her more, you know, pulling in her wings. And this is the person Clark sees today. Someone who keeps her wings tucked in so tight for fear of them getting in anyone's way that she's forgotten how to open them. Rachel knows that Clark has recently begun urging his mom to be less timid and she approves. There's something authoritative about a child. They haven't had, they're not all hammered by doubts and worries, but what they're saying. They're like, "Well, why didn't you do this?" Rachel had asked me to call at the end of her work night. It's now 7.30am, close to her bedtime. So we say our goodbyes. But just before putting down the phone, she offers a final benediction. As I was so beautiful the way he wanted her to figure this out, because she'll hear that from him in a way that she probably could never hear that from me. It has more of a chance to wake her up. And with that, Rachel heads off to bed, and I turn back to sky, who, with a little help from Clark, is still trying to wake up. He does have this sense of, but that's an unfinished thing. Yeah, like the good that this good ending hasn't fully happened yet. Yeah, the good ending hasn't happened. Now it's sort of turning into a different story, which is that it's kind of never too late to some encourage and do something that scares you. I guess in a way I want to live up to his, to who I think he'd like me to be, you know? I think like I need to show him that I can stand up for it. For myself. 35 years later, and Skye's finally decided she's ready. She just needs help reaching the girls, and not backing down when she does. So you want to do this? I think that I want to do this. Yes, I want to do this. You know, now I'll be able to say, I did what I could. And if you want to be able to say you did what you could, to save scads of cash with some truly great deals, here's the chance you've been dreaming of your entire life. Malcolm Gladwell here, my new book, The American Way of Killing. Investigates America's gun violence crisis. Through a series of stories, interviews, and archival tape, I confront one of today's most urgent moral dilemmas, and examine why the U.S. has never quite understood its own problem, and why you can't fix what you refuse to see clearly. Get the American Way of Killing at pushkin.fm/audiobooks or at audible, Spotify, or wherever audio books are sold. Sky and I get to work reaching out to the four girls, Sam, Nikki, Randy, and Tessa. We begin with Sam, because Sky already has her contact info. They'd run into each other at their 10-year high school reunion. Sky, Sam had said, it's me. It would have been the perfect opportunity to ask about the fuck you on the garage door, but Sky just couldn't bring herself to mention it. So instead, they made awkward small talk. And then she fronted me on Facebook, which practically made me laugh, but I. This sounds ridiculous, but I didn't want to be rude, and so I accepted her friendship. I help Sky write a Facebook message to Sam, saying she has some questions about the end of their friendship. But with no response, Sky follows up again and again. Eventually, Sam writes back, "We just naturally grew apart as life events progressed," she says. She concludes by saying that Skye's attempts to contact her are making her feel "overwhelmed and stressed" and "that makes Skye feel bad." Second is Nikki, who says that even though Skye's mom clearly remembers her being there that day, she absolutely wasn't. In fact, she says she and Skye weren't even that close. Third comes Randy. Randy's hard to get a hold of, so when we get no answer on her house phone, we try all the numbers we can find. We leave her repeated messages, but it seems like she's not even getting them. But as it turns out, she's gotten all of them, because she sent Skye an email to say that she's not happy about it. In fact, she's creeped out. Skye was at the grocery store when she received the email. I was in line and I completely was out of my body as I was reading it. I still forgot where I was, that someone had to say, "Are you in line?" And I was like, "No, I'm not." And I had to push my cart away from the check out stand because I could not focus. Skye went into damage control mode, writing back to Randy to say how deeply sorry she was. I ask her to read me what she'd send. Randy, I'm so grateful that you wrote me back. It makes me cringe to think about how semi-creepy and weird it must have seemed to get those messages. Uh, I'm kicking myself for letting that happen. I'm still hoping to talk to you privately and just explain myself. Would that be okay? You know, is there a kind of, like, do you feel like your default is to sort of apologize for having reached out? Yeah, I do, that has occurred to me. Later, Skye shares the email with Clark and it seems like it's occurred to him as well. I think you were over apologetic, if you sit yourself as the kind of character who is like, "Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, I shouldn't have done that." That automatically makes her basically, like, give us her power. Yeah, it puts her in a better spot than you're in, and that's bad. At Skye's insistence, Randy finally agrees to a phone call. But in the end, all she tells Skye is that she doesn't remember that night. She doesn't remember any toilet paper or a garage door. She doesn't remember anything at all. Of the four friends, only one remains, Tessa. The girl Skye's mom phoned directly after the incident. Over the next couple of weeks, I speak with Tessa several times. She can't decide if she wants to talk with Skye. For one thing, she says, "It was so long ago that she doesn't remember much." To which I rejoin, that she's all we've got. For another, she adds, "Getting contacted like this through a third-party interlocutionary international podcasting host is pretty weird, to which I admit that it is slightly unconventional." Finally, Tessa says, "She doesn't want to inadvertently drag the other girl's names through the dirt for something they did as kids." To which I say, "Well, let's change those names and draw some pseudonyms through the dirt." And once I agree to change the names of the four girls, Tessa, not her real name, agrees to sit down with Skye, still her real name, so she can finally have a conversation about the night in question. Both Skye and Tessa live in California, pretty close to where they grew up. I figure my presence at their meeting could be calming. Hopefully even, all Skye has to do is invite me out there to join her. I like California. I know, I love it. But because of her cursed at timidity, Skye just doesn't have the lima beans to ask, so I continue to offer her prompt. I haven't been there in some time. Well it's a lovely state. After several minutes of this elaborate dance, I get to the point for both our sakes. So do you think that, uh, do you think I should come? That would be amazing. And so, it's off to California for some long overdue Q&A. Hi, good, how are you guys? Hi Clark, nice to meet you. Skye picks me up at the hotel. Clark's long too, to make sure his mom doesn't lose her nerve. Clark you can continue to navigate for me. I have like the way I see it. Clark sits in the passenger seat, leafing through a comic book. Alright, let me, I'm just going to throw this in here if that's okay, and then, uh, I toss my bag into the back of the hatchback, and we head off to meet Tessa. It felt great to be in San Francisco. It's just like the mamas and the papas saying, "If one is going to San Francisco, one should wear flowers in one's hair." As we speed down the highway, I close my eyes, lean back, and, wood that I had hair, enjoy the wind blowing through it. Wait, is the trunk open? It seems that in my excitement to hit the streets of San Fran, I'd left the hatchback door open. Which it turns out is the source of the San Franciscan breeze. I'm sorry about that, God. Skye finds a place on the shoulder of the highway to pull over, and shuts the trunk door. And with that, we were back on our way. That's why they call me Mr. Excitement. Actually, no one calls me Mr. Excitement. San Francisco is pretty. We're not in San Francisco. You know that, right? We're in. As we drive to meet Tessa, I ask Skye how she's doing. I feel, I feel nervous, which is the word that I am. When, when, if you use the word, nervous, I'd, uh, Clark. Like, before, like, baseball games and, like, stuff like that. I think I kind of feel nervous, I think. Nervous cited is a portmanteau word, like the way, say, romance, a word denoting an incestuous relationship between brothers is. Or, chillax, the act of chilling out with a bar of family-sized X-lacks. How do you feel about meeting. do you want to meet her? I really resist temptations to ponder over what she did. Clark is 11 years old. In the comic books he reads, that's how problems are solved, with punches, kung-fu chops. Writing the scales is a simpler business. It's one thing to hear stories about his mom being stepped on. It's another, to be in the same room with one of the people who did the stepping. Skye tries to tamp down his need for revenge. Well, as we were talking about last night, um, before you went to sleep. "Hey, you won't forgive us, forgiveness, we need to find the forgiveness." I wanted a quiet place for Skye and Tessa to talk, and it turned out that on the weekends, the local university had an unoccupied studio. "I think we're basically here." We pull in to the empty campus parking lot. "Clark, you want to look and make sure I'm within the lines?" "Yeah, I was in the lines." "Okay." "Let's get set up, um, so this is where Clark and I will, will sit." The studio is only big enough for Skye and Tessa, so Clark and I sit in the control booth, where we'll be able to eavesdrop on the conversation. There's a mic, so should the need arise, Clark and offer guidance that only Skye can hear through her headphones. "Hi, mom. Hi, Clark." "Okay, so you turn it on." "It's good to hear your voice." "Can you hear me, uh, Skye?" Sandy, the studio technician, helps us get set up and takes a level on Skye's voice by asking her an easy neutral question. "Tell me, um, how's it ride in today?" "How is the ride in?" "You don't have to shout into it." "It was easy, except for when we left the hatchback open on the freeway." "Laff it up, Sandy, the studio technician." "Laff it up." Tessa is running late, so Skye sits waiting in the studio by herself. Finally. "Which is here?" "Uh, okay, okay." Welcome, Glabo here. My new book, The American Way of Killing, investigates America's gun violence crisis. Through a series of stories, interviews, and archival tape. I confront one of today's most urgent moral dilemmas and examine why the U.S. has never quite understood its own problem and why you can't fix what you refuse to see clearly. "Hey, Antonathan, glad you made it, nice to meet you too." Tessa's stylish and, like sky, looks younger than her years. You can still see a trace of the popular girl. I show her into the studio where sky's been waiting. The two haven't seen each other since they were children. As they settle in, the mood is formal, a little stilted. If the room is only about the size of a small elevator, their knees practically touch. "You guys can start now." "Okay, thanks Clark. Clark says we can start now." "Okay, so I'm just going to go backtrack a little bit." "Yeah." "So my memory is that we were all in sort of a tight-knit group." "You know, is it too early for me to ask, like, why didn't you do it?" "Yes." "It can be a positive thing to both of us." But then had also written, "Fuck you on the garage door." And then from that point on, we never spoke again. And it's something that has always stuck with me because I don't know why it happened. So, I guess I'd love to know what your memories are. Clark's got this look on his face. Love to know what your memories are? From his perspective, his mom's doing what she always does. That is, exactly what he told her not to. She's being overly sensitive to Tessa's feelings. But even after 35 years of waiting to ask the question, "Sky, just can't help being Sky," Tessa takes a sip of water. "Sorry, I'm just my throat is dry, yeah, no problem." Sky smiles warmly and gives Tessa a moment to collect herself. "Take your time." So, I have a vague recollection, it's really vague. But what really stands out is that we were just going teeping. We went teeping a lot, you know, not just on that night. And we literally just stumbled upon your home. Clark furrows his brow. He wants his mother to push harder, be more aggressive. "Mom, ask why you weren't invited to go toilet paper with him." That's a really good question. We watch a sky waits patiently for Tessa to finish speaking. He wanted me to ask you why I didn't come with you that night, teeping. "Why weren't you invited, not why I didn't come?" Why I wasn't invited. I, in my mind, we had drifted apart by then. Inside the control room, Clark shakes his head. "I think there's more to the story." He slumps back in his seat and crosses his arms. He seems frustrated. "I remember your mom calling my mom, and for my mom, it wasn't a big deal either. My mom first of all didn't even know what teeping was, I had to explain it to her." "Oh, okay." I did not realize, until maybe now, that it was more of a big deal for you. "Yeah, and I feel like you're being very, very honest, and I really, really appreciate that." When Tessa and I last spoke, she'd mentioned how odd this whole undertaking seemed to her. A woman she hadn't heard from in 35 years wanted to talk to her about a random night from their childhood. "Oh, and she also wanted to bring along her 11-year-old son, and his 48-year-old sidekick. Both of whom would be communicating with Sky through a secret microphone." "Mom, can you hear me?" "Let's wait, so she can talk to you." "Mom!" "Wait, wait, wait." Inside the control room, I watched Sky perform a delicate balancing act. She's aware that Clark is watching, so she's trying not to be too timid. But she also wants to set a good example for how to behave. And through all that, she can't help seeing it from Tessa's perspective, how weird and uncomfortable this must be for her. Sky wants to help Tessa feel safe, and so, she treads lightly. "I mean, I think being the parent now of a child, I understand how quickly things can get confused, and it really was the word that that's what seemed to communicate to me. I've done something terrible. I must have, I must be responsible for this in some way, you know? And so I wondered, did I do something?" You can see the Tessa is weighing her response. She doesn't quite know what to say, but with Sky being so gracious and open, it's like she feels the least she can do is try to meet her halfway. And so tentatively, she offers a thought. Maybe we're a little different than them, in what way? Again, Tessa searches for the right words, all the while, never saying us or we, but always they. They were, like, they were a little mischievous, you know, they were, they were a little rebellious and wanting to do something bad, and I was, and maybe you weren't. Maybe you didn't want to go along with what they were doing. Well, you know what's interesting about that is the whole tea-peeing thing. I remember that being a thing, but I remember, I actually remember not wanting to do that. Would you say that maybe I was more like a goody-two-shoes type? Compared to them, yeah. According to Tessa, if Sky had stayed friends with those girls, it would have meant a summer of drinking alcohol and pulling off semi-alegal pranks after dark. All things Sky wouldn't have wanted. Even back then, she didn't want to upset anyone. To her friends, that made her seem like a goody-two-shoes. To a goody-two-shoes who thinks they're better than you? What could be more of a fuck you than a literal fuck you? The words large and clear emblazoned across her family's garage door. I turned to Clark to see what he makes of all this, because there's something that you feel like we're just kind of missing or we're not getting at. Clark's stare straight ahead, watching his mom. I can see he's thinking something through. He makes him move towards the mic, but then shies away. He's antsy, rising from his seat, settling back. Eventually, I make a suggestion. Do you just want to go in there? Yeah, totally. Clark gets up, leaves the control room, and makes his way to the studio to talk to his mom and person. Watching him, I have no idea what he's up to. Oh, Clark is here. Clark enters the room. What was that? But it's not his mom he's addressing. It's Tessa. I take a deep breath, as Clark begins to speak. Did you feel in any way like dragged into it like to toilet paper people's houses? I don't know if I would say dragged, but I would say definitely I was a follower. I'm not exactly surprised by Clark's question. It's the same one he's been asking since the beginning. Essentially, why did you do this to my mother? But I am surprised by the way he's asking it. Not with anger, but with sympathy. For the first time, Clark's trying to see it all from Tessa's perspective. He's following. knowing as mom's example. Sometimes you're with friends because those are the ones you have, so you'll stick with your friends even though you see things that you don't like in them, you know, that you just don't want to be alone. Okay, thanks. Okay, thanks, Claire. And because Tessa didn't want to be alone, she continued to hang out with the girls for several more years before eventually finding a new group of friends. Tessa turns to Skye. Honey, you freaking dodged a bullet, that's what you did, not being with those girls, I have to say. Skye tells Tessa that there's still one thing she's been wondering about. Why did Tessa agree to talk with her at all? It would have been easy to say no. Everyone else did. Why, I said yes, yeah, truthfully the call was so out of the blue, of course, you know, at the beginning I said, yeah, sure, you know, like, and then I talked to my daughter and she was like, no, like, don't do that. How old is your daughter? My daughter is almost 13, okay, yeah. What was she worried about? She kind of said, like, what's in it for you? You know, she was kind of worried that like, I would come out as a bad person or something. How is she feeling right now that you're here? She's mad. She is. Yeah, she's mad. But, you know, I told her, like, not everything we do in life is for us, it's for other people as well. So, she'll be fine. Whereas Skye set out to show her son that she has the courage to stand up for her own needs, Tessa wants to show her daughter, that she has the courage to stand up for someone else's. I'm sorry that I didn't the thought of you thinking for 35 years that you had done something wrong is like, oh, I really don't think that you did anything. I really don't. I'm sorry that you felt like that, you know, I wish that you hadn't. I'm so glad I'm hearing it now, I'm glad too, so I'm really glad. And it's really good to see you and you literally look exactly the same. Maybe your hair's a little shorter, right? And blonde hair? No. Can you trim them, Michael? Do you, oh, yeah, go ahead. Was that dramatic hug? Oh, you wanted dramatic hug? That's glad. I think we have to have the dramatic hug. Because the room's so small, when they stand, they're already almost touching. They look at each other for a brief moment, and then Skye opens her wings. Oh, that's good to see you, so good to see you. After the meeting with Tessa, Clark didn't have much to say. But at night, back in his room, in that space where he feels free to open up, Clark's eager to talk about Tessa. Honestly, I didn't know that person, so I thought they might still be the bully, stobling you, and I didn't want you to feel like scared or anything in that situation, so I was kind of anxious. But then I met Tessa, and she was like, super nice. She was. Super nice. And I feel like you weren't timid, Mommy. You were brave, Mommy. Tonight, there's no talk of avenging. Through his mom's example, Clark's learning that one can be kind without being timid. The kindness can carry its own strength. If he had not had that night where you had said you have to figure this out, Mom, I really honestly don't think I would have done it, so thank you. You're welcome. There's a lot more coming for Clark, moments when he'll have to make difficult decisions. Some of them he'll talk about with Sky, and some he won't. But for now, they keep talking. Neither of them quite ready to go to sleep, just yet. Remember when you said that there was an international tomato day? It was an international dream. Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is a dream. Hello. Hi. Hi. How are you? You guys can't see me. It looks like. Yeah. I think I just clicked there. There you are. Hello. You know, as I was waiting for you to pop up, you know what, word entered my mind? What was that? Nervous. I did. Oh my gosh. Jonathan. Nervous. I still use that word. Do you really? I mean, I use it regularly. I mean, I feel like it should be an actual word. Yeah. Totally. It's a perfect portmanteau. I feel like also it's come up recently for me as it does occasionally. And I think of, I think of you, I think of Clark. Yeah. That's great. So let me ask you some real, you know, meat and potato questions here. All right. Bring it on. So did you ever hear from Tessa or the other girls after the episode came out? I never heard from any of the other girls. And then Tessa and I kept in touch for a little while and I actually, when I knew that we were going to be having this conversation, I reached out to her and I told her that I was going to be talking to you and what I wanted to know mostly from her was how her daughter felt about it now. Oh. And actually, she texted me, should I read you what she wrote? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So here's what she said. We did go back and listen to the podcast together. She, she's referring to her daughter. She did not remember being mad at me and she said she was thankful and happy that I took part in that. Seven years makes a huge difference. She also said, middle school sucks. Oh, man. Wow. It really does go full circle. Yeah. And speaking of which, so back then Clark was 11, so that would mean that he's what, 18? No. He's 19, actually. 19? Yeah. Isn't that insane? It's insane. He's a freshman in college. Wow. So what is he studying? He's studying political science. That seems to make sense. I mean, even from just what I knew of him at the age of 11. Yeah. Like standing up for himself, standing up for the little guy. Yeah. Like standing up for the little guy and sort of also like this sense of like, justice must be served. You would hope that that Clark would learn from the episode's mission. Like basically you wanted to show how to stand up for yourself, but to do so with kindness. And do you feel like he took those lessons with him through the rest of middle school and high school? Okay. Let me be perfectly honest with you, Jonathan. He was really grateful just like I am. I think he felt fondness for Tessa for showing up. But I do have to also tell you as far as the other three girls who didn't show up go, he's still really mad at them. Yeah. He feels like they didn't take accountability for what happened and that's really still frustrating to him. So, you know, I sort of at first when he said to me, you know, I'm still mad at those girls, there was a part of me that felt disappointed because like I don't feel that way. Yeah. You didn't feel that way even afterwards. No. Immediately after. Yeah. I think the warm feelings, the sense of fondness that I developed. for Tessa during our conversation, like really eclipsed these old painful feelings that I had had, and also in the meantime, I've raised two teenagers too. And maybe, I don't know if Clark will have children, but if he does have children, like maybe then his perspective on how he feels about the girls who didn't show up, maybe it will change then. We're always evolving, we're always changing, and I can't argue with him about his feelings. His feelings are valid, and I want to respect the way that he feels about it, and so I feel great about how things have evolved since then. Good. Um, well, you know, if, if Clark was so inclined, it would be really cool if he wanted to send a voice message just saying hi. Oh my gosh, he sounds so different. [laughs] Yeah, that would, I'll ask him. Ask him. Hey guys, it's Clark. I think it's really cool that you guys are doing this episode to revisit the podcast that we did all those years ago. Uh, that's a really cool memory for me that I really cherish, you know, kind of helping my mom get closure about a story that she used to tell me when I was growing up before we even thought of trying to write in and see if people would be interested in listening to it. Uh, I'm often college now, it's been quite a while, but, uh, I just like to thank everyone who was involved. It was a really great time, uh, great experience, and I'm glad to have had it. [music] To piggyback off of Clark's words spoken in a, surprisingly, uh, base baritone, I'd like to thank everyone who helped put the episode together. And we'll be back once again with another exciting update in two weeks, but before then, might I direct your attention to our free newsletter? Maybe you've heard about it, maybe you haven't. If you have not, please sign up at patreon.com/heavyweight. [music] Welcome, Gladwell here. My new book, "The American Way of Killing" investigates America's gun violence crisis. Get the American Way of Killing at pushkin.fm/audiobooks, or at audible, Spotify, or wherever audio books are sold. This is an "I Heart" podcast. Guaranteed Human.