899: Reaching Out

A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. From WBZChicago, it's this American life, I'm Ira Glass. I recently heard this podcast that was so exciting to hear, because it felt like the people who did it invented something completely new, which is so rare. It's like I feel like they took what shows like ours do, and then just pushed it further and further until it became something else. I want to play you some of that show today. It's my somebody I had never heard of before. His name is Sarah Kovato, and the series is called Reaching Out. It's made by Futuro Studios. And as you'll hear, like at some point, years ago, it seems like Sarah started recording nearly all of his personal conversations, including like these especially passive-aggressive conversations with his twin brother that get more interesting and complicated, the further you get into the series. And it's just, I don't know, real, messy life captured on recordings in a way that is rare to hear. And then Sarah also invented this way to do narration that at first when you heard you're like, "What's happening?" And then I don't know. I really came to love it. And the show is ambitious. I don't know if I've heard another podcast that tries to capture a person's life as completely as this one does, and like just what it feels like to be alive right now. So we're going to exert some of the show today. That's going to be the whole hour. And I just want to say stay with it. I guarantee it pays off. Here's Sarah. On February 15th, 2020, Connor calls you to ask if you want to look for your birth father. You do not record this conversation. This is notable, if only because so much of your life has been recorded. Moments far less consequential than this. You're in Connor's fourth birthday. You're in the rubber no, can you guys say that? A school performance. You play a scared rabbit. You're only lime. I think you're a lot. Don't worry. We'll just go back. We're okay. We're okay. We're okay. There's a price for what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget. If you had known how this would all turn out, maybe you would have recorded everything. Or if you'd known the cost, maybe you would not have recorded anything at all. On February 15th, 2020, your brother calls you to ask if you want to look for your birth father. But there is no record of that call. There is, however, a recording of the call you make a few days later. Hey, brother, hey, what's up? Nothing. My phone is at 10% by the way. Oh, it's cool. I don't, I can't. I'm very talking on this. I'm very tired. I'm recording. I hope that is okay. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. All right. That's cool. Thank you. Are you recording because anyone talked about dad? Yeah. Well, not just because of that, but yeah, I thought that's what you wanted to talk about. Sorry about the things on my mind, but I mean, yeah, that's just a very intense conversation. Can you tell you something crazy that happened today that I'm nothing to do with him? These days, you rarely know where Connor is until he's already there. You call and he's in Washington with his girlfriend. You call again, and he's barely got service. He's trimming weed in Arcada, or he's hopped the train to the Midwest, or he's crashing on a friend's couch in Oakland. Right now, Connor is partying in New Orleans with his girlfriend. Right now, you are pacing around your room in a Harlem, staring at a whiteboard where you have scribbled a list of vague to-dos. Today, being clear, we're walking to get my bike. And if we walk by this guy, who the family is to live here, we keep walking and all of a sudden, I like to hear your steps and look behind. Connor does not like it when you point at your differences, but contrast is the rightful and unavoidable dominion of twins. Their superficial distinctions, the kind of differences strangers point out when you inevitably pull up a photo of Connor after they learn you're a twin. You were tightly coiled curls, Connor's loose, wavy hair. His growth spurt at 16. Your 57, which you say is 58, but nothing makes you feel more different from your brother than when he tells you these kinds of stories. And I like turn around and the fucking guy is like a block away from us. Well, I just had fucking like these knives in his hand, and like polishing his knives on his shirt and like looking at us. The critical difference between you and Connor is this. Being a go without realizing it, you chose a kind of freedom, the kind that imparts stability and safety and that you pay for in unsubsidized loans, quarterly job reviews, happy hours with co-workers, boring party conversation, conferences with field practitioners, mid-century modern furniture, boxing classes and dental checkups. And Connor chose a kind of freedom that comes with land projects, one off jobs at Biker festivals, wide open mountain ranges from the Union Pacific line, and that he pays for in a persistent smokers' cough, weeks on remote weed farms with fish fans, and being pursued in New Orleans by a guy with a knife. You're just like psycho-ass move, so yeah, that was crazy, that's why I was talking to you. Your brother thinks you are a judgmental normie, and you think he is a judgmental hobo. This is the shared cost of your divergent freedoms. You both pay for your choices, with the degree of distance it puts between you. But you do love each other, and you are trying to be better, to be nicer, to be closer. This routine of phone calls, which began a few months ago, is your attempt. You do not return to the subject of your birth father tonight. There are no records of phone calls with Connor that week or the next. You assume his impulse to look for your father is a passing one. You doubt you follow up. You went through your phase, of course, the one that you imagine most fatherless teenagers go through, in which your father's absence took on an outside significance, in which your adolescent brain dissected and disassembled its meaning in relation to your sense of self. Was your fatherlessness while you felt so apart from others? Was his abandonment a sort of permanent wound on your psyche? Only one way to find out, write a lot of shitty poetry. One of those poems are recorded, thank God. But one vested remains, a play about two boys waiting to meet their father at a cafe. You wrote it when you were 17. It was called, perhaps, a little over precisely, waiting to meet your father, and was haltingly, painfully acted out by two fellow art students. What if he doesn't show? The central tension of the play is that the two boys are waiting at a cafe to meet their father who they've never known, but he is running late, or maybe he is standing them up. The brothers argue about whether or not they should wait to find out which one it is. One boy is sure it won't be worth it. The other is adamant they stay. Let's go. Their father arrives a few moments after they walk out the door. You turned 20. On the eve of this new decade of life, you decided it was not worth it to actively think about your birth father anymore. It was not cool to still feel hurt about it, and so you could choose to feel nothing. As you plan to continue to do so now, you will not sabotage your brother's efforts, but you will not help them either. So you do not follow up with Connor about looking for your father, and Connor does not call. But there are also no records of other calls either. If you had recorded everything, you would hear three sessions here with your new work subsidized telotherapist. The first, an intake session, a concise summarized biography of your life as it relates to your inner problems. You make radio documentaries, you want some awards for this last year. "Whoo, wow, hold on, one second, there are two parts of this speech and I was going to keep it short, but what the hell I got gold, so. yeah. " You crave the attention and acknowledgement, and it also repulses you. You work at the most famous newspaper in the world, at one of the biggest shows in the country. Lately, you've been leaving early to see if anyone notices. They don't. You were raised by a loving single mother in the Bay Area. You would hear yourself tell your telotherapist that your birth father left before you were born and you've never met him. That you suspect based on nothing more than an elementary understanding of Freud and a few Instagram therapy videos. That this is the root of some of your problems. Daddy issues. You have a twin brother. But you're not identical. You probably make the same joke you always do. That you're sorry to disappoint your therapist. People are always more excited when they think there's some other version of you out there. Most relevant to your telotherapist, what you would like to fix about yourself. It is mostly one thing, which you are almost embarrassed to admit. You have the sneaking suspicion that you will never fall in love. Your last attempt officially ended the night of your 27th birthday. You and your ex shouting at one another beneath the rattling viaduct of the M line. Your ex saying, "It's been two years. You need to get over me. I got over you in a week." I know you said. I know. Even though you didn't know. That is as far as you get. Your therapist calls it quits at the start of the pandemic. You build fortresses of routine to keep the mania of your confinement from creeping in. You quit smoking, start running. You record your phone calls. You tell yourself it's for a project you hope to make one day about this historic moment. Hi, Miami. How are you? Hello. Your aunt and your mom have been living together in Portland since quarantine began. I'm back. Your mommy's back. She's here. Does it go from there to otter and then to something else? It's just different groups. Twinks are a totally different category, right? This is your favorite kind of call. You get stoned and curl up in bed with the phone balanced on your cheek. You are still at 27, like most children. I like to hear stories of the world before you were in it. Of your mother before she was your mother. Like when her and your aunt were strippers at the new century theater in San Francisco. And what did you dance to? And what is my mom dance to? I would dance about doing a lot actually. So did your mom. Well, yeah, but his Christian. Yeah, I'm going to scandalize your nephew now. Your auntie. Did like the schoolgirl thing. Let's just be honest. Just be honest. Yeah. Yeah. Creepy, but I don't think about it. I know. You think about it super creepy. I want to warn you that my phone is. You know what? I'm going to go upstairs and get the. Get the court, but I have to look at this message from your brother. Okay. Now you can't there. Your mom's going upstairs. No. What? What is her? What are her? So did you ever meet my birth father? Yeah. What was your general impression? Um, he was okay. I only met your birth father a couple of times. I remember I met him once at the Zeitgeist. And he was really held at tall for one thing. He was cute. He was like to hang on some. Your mother is not exactly withholding about your father. She answers the questions if you ask them, which you did a lot when you were a teenager. Your origin story has remained consistent, but unsatisfyingly brief. Your father was a line cook. He played in a rockabilly band. They met at a bar called the Zeitgeist dated for a while. She got pregnant. He wasn't ready to be a father. She decided to keep you for a while. She exchanged letters with his mother, but your mom says she was always justifying his choice to not be involved in your lives. So they stopped communicating. Your mother tells you his name, but says she can't remember how it's spelled. Yeah. So I met him a couple of times. I thought I mean, he seemed nice. He was nice to me. He was polite. He was like clearly trying to like make you get impression on me because I was like your mom's friend. Yeah, and he used to see his very tall. The pandemic inspires inexplicable life choices. Some friends buzz their hair. Others experiment with sobriety. You moved to Los Angeles. You were surprised to find that your next door neighbors, a young white couple, rarely return your greetings. You live in the heart of a gentrifying Central American neighborhood. When you speak to the cashier at the corner store in Spanish, she responds in English. You want to tell her that you're not like the rest of them. Your grandmother is from Santana. You couldn't have afforded to live here a few years ago. You moved here to be closer to something. You're just not sure what or how. Connor is driving his truck up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. He's waiting to be called into the wildfires, but so far nobody is called and he spent the summer sleeping in his truck. On April 18, 2021, a little over a year after he first calls you to ask to look for your father, he texts you a series of screenshots. There are an exchange between him and someone from a DNA testing website, a distant relative. You bought a kit for your family a few years ago and forgot about it. In the exchange, Connor asks if there's someone in this distant relative's family with your birth father's name. Yes, in fact, says the stranger. A few days later, Connor receives your birth father's first and last name for the first time spelled correctly. When you search your birth father's name in public records, it returns a result in Los Angeles in a suburb 40 minutes away from you. I mean, how do you feel about it? I feel good about it. For me, I feel like the first day that we kind of got the info, I'm kind of excited. It has been a long time since you've heard Connor excited about anything. It's sweet and unnerving. The say no would be disappointing for him, a betrayal of your attempt towards closeness. But the thought of meeting your birth father inspires very little feeling in you. Besides a nasa to hope that you might finally finish a project. I mean, do you feel like that? Like if you met him that. Do you feel like you won't get anything out of it? I guess I'm just trying to figure out like what. You know, like I think it's in the bosom of 30, you know. What is this kind of going to tell us about ourselves that we don't already know? I hear you because it's like I'm not interested. I don't really give a shit about. I mean, I do give a shit about meeting him. I don't like like. I don't know. Do you ever like look in the mirror and like say like. Like think about dad or like dad, but our biological dad. Yeah, yeah, definitely. You ever like I think I find stuff always looking and being like. I don't even know what our family looks like. I have mom to compare that to you. I think I have mom's face in a lot of ways, but I also wonder what our biological dad looks like. You have tabs open to several potential fathers on Facebook. A series of white men and rimless or squared sunglasses with varied hairlines and gradient pallet shades. Your top contender sports a buzz cut and a pair of gas station sunglasses. He's an amateur photographer who takes pictures of animals at the zoo. I found one picture of a person who kind of looks like he could be related to. Yeah, I saw one that maybe did. I was like, yeah, he's pretty ugly. I don't know. Is this the guy with the black hair and the sunglasses on? Yeah, that guy. I was like, is that really mom's type before she started dating really boring to you? You have not told your mother about any of this and you're not sure you will. It is very different, you think, to ask questions about your birth father than to meet him. And I'm curious about what his life is at. Yeah. I'll tell you if he's falling. No, I'm just kidding. Suddenly, it's June again, almost exactly one year since he arrived to Los Angeles. One night, you will absent mindedly Google your father's name and Los Angeles. The screen will populate with the same buzz cut guy with gas station sunglasses. But now there are two new images. The first is a man standing beside a barber chair. He looks like he was ripped from a time magazine article from the 50s. Tall, a pencil mustache, slick back hair. There's an interview with him. He owns the barber shop. He grew up in California, moved to Los Angeles in the midnight. '90s. Before he was a barber, he says, he was a cook. The second image is of him standing in front of the shop. It looks familiar. You will type the address into Google Maps. You ate dinner across the street from the shop two nights ago. You will type in your address to measure the distance between you and this barber shop. A short, nearly straight line will appear, and an estimated arrival time from your apartment. Five minutes. Coming up, some decisions that need to be made, stay with us. This American life, our story today from Saracovato, continues. Hello. You've read that there are several theories about the origins of language. Yeah, so I'm going to be in and out. I'm like, this weird bus per room right now. I think it's weird like people who work the crew of Amtrak, sleep, got you. Sir, should you not be in there talking on the phone? No, it doesn't think it matters. One theory suggests we learn to communicate by imitating nature. Another says we learned through song. No, I just mean like, you know, to be considerate of other people. Oh, okay. Well, then that's fun. I wasn't sure if they were. No, I'm not talking to you on the phone while people are sleeping. I'll talk to you soon. If you're going to be an asshole, they don't have bad judgment. I'm talking on the phone and better people are sleeping. That's a ridiculous thing to say. These theories of language suggest that either suddenly or over a long period of time, primordial grunts and hums evolved into words and words allowed us to hunt and pass on knowledge, to gather food and stay safe, to share beliefs and traditions, to express feeling and connect. Connor, I was making, I was just trying to be lighthearted. You don't need to be such a drama queen about it. I think you were, thank you. I was. But, Connor, I'm over it. If it's small things, small things, small things, drop it. Yeah, small things, if you drop it, if you drop it, if you drop it, you drop it. I am dropping it. Good. I'm dropping it too. Do you want to hear about all the work that I did for you or what should we move on? It's hard to believe that this conversation between you and Connor is the culmination of epochs of human development. And that's because a stubborn, critical defect is demonstrated in your and Connor's exchange that no matter how language evolves, no matter how we choose to use it, there's always a chance that somewhere between thinking, speaking, and hearing our intention and meaning will be lost. It's not, it's not a big deal. And, and, okay, let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move on. We both apologize. Let's move on. Okay. On your computer screen are seven discrete tabs tucked next to your work email. They've been open since last night. The first tab, the article about your birth father's barber shop that you found yesterday. You said the shop is nearby. Do you know what kind of shop he had? It's, uh, it's a barber shop. He's a barber. The second, third and fourth tabs are a mosaic of images from Google, Facebook, and Yelp. There's your birth father standing behind the barber chair or behind the wheel of a classic Cadillac. There he is in a teaky bar or squinting into the sun, his pencil mustache, his eyebrows, and the slits of his eyes, creating five distinct planes across his face. His pompador catches an errant sunray. Yeah, I mean, he's like a rock ability, dude, which, which is a big red flag to me just in general. The fifth tab is the map with directions to his barber shop. A short, nearly straight line measures the distance between you. Five minutes. He's right there. Next to you. That's so wild. Actually, it's, it's kind of like baffling. The sixth tab is the barber shop sale reviews and which your father is rated from a scale of 0 to 5 stars with additional notes included. He averages about 4.1. According to the anecdotal evidence in these reviews, he is either the nicest or the worst man they've ever met. He's unforgiving of lightness, condescending, rude, a "complete asshole" or vestidious, a perfectionist, the best men's barber in town. Here's a really good picture of his face that I can get close. The one where he's standing behind the barber chair. Wow. Wow. That's our daddy right there. I see. I see you in him. Thanks for doing all the hard work finding all that. No, thank you. I love you. You're welcome, I guess. I don't know what you're thanking me for. Well, you're the one who found the name, so I mean it's not all, not all my work. I know it's not, but thank you. All right. Yeah, I love you. All right. I love you to your brother. Let me get the tag in the loop. Yeah, I'll text you tonight. Bye. Okay. All right. Love you. Bye. It's summer in Los Angeles, 2021. You are 28 years old and you have a routine. You wake up, you answer an endless stream of quirky mouths and slack messages, which fill you with an unearned rage and dread. You smoke weed, which relaxes you or puts you on edge with no in between. You cook chicken and coconut rice and eat it standing at the wall mounted table in your narrow kitchen. Sometimes your friend Sarah picks you up and you drive around LA attempting to commit to memory the geography around you. You forget it by the time you've walked through the front door. You smoke a cigarette in the parking lot behind your apartment. You scroll on Instagram. You swipe on dating apps. I'm going to record myself on Tinder because that is what I have been doing lately. You can't say exactly what you're looking for. It's easier to say what you are not. Fire says I can come a gym. Five, nine, no, thousand miles away. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want a date and artist to earnest. You don't want a data banker or a real estate agent. And frankly, bankers and real estate agents don't really want to date you either. Your teeth are slightly crooked. You have never in your adult life seen your apps without yanking the patch down on your stomach. Also, you're bad with money. His job is entrepreneur, which the fuck is entrepreneur? I'm not saying no. No athletes. You smoke and drink and do drugs that keep you from waking up before sunrise. Patrick, what's going to hike and then eat what we just burned off? The person was like, I love having fun. Who doesn't like having fun? You don't want to date anyone who makes regular pilgrimage to Disneyland or feels affiliation with any of their characters or Harry Potter. This turns out to be particularly damning criteria in Los Angeles. I mean, yes, but not with them. You don't want to date someone who only has white friends, but you're also afraid to date someone who is so connected to their cultural background that you feel like a white person in comparison with your unplaceable face, afro, and gaelic name. Far left is progressive. Oh shit. Okay. And how would you? Oh far? Well, this is the funniest part, too, is that like you get all in your head about saying, yeah, saying no, and then they never, they never swiped for you. So it's sort of a useless exercise. I'm loving you. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I'm doing good. I saw your brother yesterday was super sweet. There you are. Hello. Yeah. Yeah. So how are you feeling about what he wants to do? The truth is you don't feel anything about meeting your father. You know that in theory this is big. You're about to meet someone. who once meant something to you, and now means something else. But you won't be sure what until he's in front of you. I don't know. It's cool. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. It's hard to say, you know? Well, I love you guys, and I hope that you get what you need from it. And yeah, I'm glad you're doing it together. You find an email address on the Barbershops website. You click into the Always Open email tab on your computer and start a new message. Your first words to your birth father will forever be archived in your inbox between updates to your credit score, calendar reminders of work deadlines, and your lease renewal. The cursor ticks and even measure on the blank draft. This blank space must be filled with something specific. A particular alchemy must take place. A certain tone struck. Whatever fills this space must be firm, but not aggressive. Humble, but not shrinking. Do you have any idea how to start? How about hello? I know this is a bit out of the blue. But I'm sending this message on behalf of my brother. And I, we think you are our biological father. Start with that preface thing you're talking about. So we're not looking to get anything from you. How about this? I know this is a bit out of the blue, but I'm sending this message on behalf of my brother and I. We think you are a biological father. We're not. That sounds so formal weird. We don't need anything from you. We're not asking for anything that I want to ask for something. I'll be okay. You pay for my schooling. Connor, please don't ruin this before we've even had the chance to meet him. Please. Well. Yeah. It still sounds formal. It still sounds like. What do you. You'd be like. We think that you might be our biological father. Whatever. We're really hoping that we could meet you and. Fill in the blank. Something personal. We're both. Nearly 30. Yeah. And. Have. Always wonder. About who you are. Yeah. That sounds good to me. Does that sound good to you? Yeah. I'm sending it. All right. Ready. Three. Yeah. Mass that motherfucking button. Sorry. Yeah. I'm ready. You can count down if you want. What should I put as the object lines say. Like. Happy Father's Day. How about can you hear me? No. Are you my. That's a long lost kid in search of. Biological father. So long subject. I'll just. Dad. Question mark. I'm just going to put a hello from Connor and Sarah. How about that. Reaching out. All right. One. Two. Three. All right. I did it. Nice. Now we wait. Our story continues after a break from Chicago Public Radio. When our program continues. It's American life. We are in the middle of excerpts from Sarah Cavado's new series. Reaching out. Let's pick up what we left off. You wait four days to hear back, but nothing. There's no way to know the message was received. That it didn't end up in his spam folder. Or that a coworker didn't delete it. Assuming it was a fishing scam. But the notion of these possibilities is enough to convince you that it's worth reaching out once more. So you call the shop. Hello. Hello. Hi. He's in the bathroom. Says the voice on the other end of the line. So it's there. S-A-Y-R-E. Yeah. And Connor. T-O-N-N-O-R. You leave your names and number. Sure. It's 510. What do you think? Do you think he's actually in the bathroom? I don't know. It seems it sounds like one of the things that could be true, but it also could be a really lame excuse. And it's hard to know. Yeah. Well, if he calls you tonight, he'll send me now. Yeah. I will. You don't hear back and you don't call back either. You and Connor don't even discuss it. It seems to go without saying that to reach out a third time with no response would be pathetic. Sometimes in the weeks after, you find yourself driving past your father's shop. You peer through the window hoping to catch his face. It's not that it particularly matters to you. You've just become habituated to looking for him. You've gone out alone again tonight. And the month since quarantine was lifted, this has become your weekend routine. You stay at your neighborhood bar until close, with your back to the wall and your eyes on the door. You're waiting for someone to walk in. We'll change the course of your evening. Hours pass like this. Lost continents floating at the bottom of your pine glass. At an interval of every hour, you ask the universe for a sign that it's time to go home. But if it's sent, you're too busy watching the door to notice. All right. I am walking home. I'm drunk. Last call is over. Now you're stumbling home, feeling bad for yourself, of course. Thought that stupidly thought that if I went to the nearby gay bar next to my house, that I might need someone, but no. You're on Santa Monica Boulevard now. The leather bar you visit on other nights, sometimes the same night, is to your left. You won't go in tonight. You're already too drunk. The circuit is your bermuda triangle. And somewhere along the vertices, you block out. The only evidence of whoever's navigating your body is in these recordings. Nothing is nothing. It's all bullshit. All of it. To attempt to intuit what bullshit you are referring to from this side of the veil is impossible. Could be anything. The bullshit of this age, this time. The bullshit of leaving your home only to find that the world is exactly as you left it. But with more rules, more distance, more death and indifference. The bullshit of risking disease waiting for someone to notice you at a bar. The bullshit of knowing that's a waste of time. The bullshit of wanting it anyway. The bullshit of stealing yourself against disappointment by expecting nothing. Only to find yourself still disappointed when nothing is exactly what you receive. And then this. Whatever this is. Tomorrow's headache creeping in as you piss behind a tree. Same bullshit, your bullshit. Followed by a bean burrito at 7/11. Same bullshit. Every day. Same shit. Every day. Nothing matters. Connor and you know there's only one option left. You have to go and meet your father in person. But you haven't talked much since calling your father's shop. And choosing a date is an overturn your conversation with no resolution. Okay. Okay on. What are you doing? Good, I just woke up and better go up. take a shower. Oh nice, you just woke up? A little bit ago. It's 130. I know. It's crazy. You've never set me dates. I know because a bunch of things happened. Which why I was calling you about. Anyway, I'm really distracted. I'm sorry. I don't know what did you call me while you were doing something else. You can tell. Just call me. Yeah, so just, just do one thing and then do the other. Don't do both. Okay, then tell me. Just choose one thing and then do the other. Here can be. Oh, I'm going to. Not my fault. It's not your fault, but don't call people while you're doing other things. You want to talk at a better time when you're less hungover. I've been trying to get a date. I've been trying to get a date from you for like the last two weeks. I know. Well, Sarah, it's really fucking hard with what I do for work. I don't think you really understand that. And I don't blame me for it. It's just like there's like an understanding of seasonal work that I don't think you get. But it's like you really like you just like kind of put your life on the line and really hope that you get work. You know, I don't have as much freedom as you in some sense. I probably can't make it down. At least until December, which I'm totally okay with doing. If you want to, but I'm going to be out of town in December. So I can't do it then. Okay. What do you want to do January? I mean, do you want to do it? I guess like that's the thing I want to figure out. Do I want to? Yeah. I mean, you want to do it. Like I guess we have to see him. Like I don't know. Like what are we going to do? Like go up to him. Like what are we going to get out of that? You know? I don't know. I mean, I just want to talk to him. I want to meet him. I want to know. I want to know his health problems. I want to know his family's shit. You know, I don't know. There's basic things like that. See what he's like. It's a gift. He's cool. He likes to party. I don't know. You don't know. Definitely a story. What do you want out of it? Connor wants to meet your father on the most physical plane, cash, genetics, ancestry. You're not sure what you want. It's hard to say without knowing what you can ask for. I don't know if I want anything out of it. Yeah. I think that's the KTF. But you know, I guess if you don't want to do it, I'm not going to do it either. You know, I'll do it if you want to. No, I'm. No, I'll do. I want to do it because you want to do it. So I said, I guess we'll both do it. One day, you find yourself standing across the street from your birth father's shop. You don't intend to show up. It's as if you've come out of a trance. You look up and you're there. The fall's high sun beats down on your shoulders as you stare through the window. Did you see that? I spoke to cigarette and watched him work. What was that like for you? You watch what you believe is your father's silhouette. His hands working over the client's head. Four months since you emailed. Four months since you called. And all you have to show for it is this impotent act. And I felt sort of like you can't do. You know, I'm like, you don't, you're not. You can't affect me. You can't stop me from being here. You know. And I guess maybe a little hurt to like the feeling of like, oh wow, like you're just like living continuing to live your life. Like you always have. You know, like I did think about the fact that we like spending an email and let good McCall and left our number and that he's like, you know, still gets delivered to life like he's like nothing is different, you know. The reason language so often fails us despite eons of development is not that we fail to choose the right words or that other stop short of hearing and then comprehending us. But that another more honest meaning is forged between and apart from what we say in silence. Silence unlike language cannot be improved upon. It has its own clarifying syntax. It reveals what we are too afraid to put into words. It is in these ellipses that our full intention and meaning are revealed. And perhaps it is our unwillingness to accept what silence declares where our suffering truly begins. So you want to confront him. What is it that you want to what do you want to achieve with the confrontation? I just want him to know that we exist and that yeah, I know it hurts that he didn't acknowledge us but also that we'll be fine without him. By saying those things you feel like what? Like what will happen? I don't know. I guess in a weird way like I feel like I will be able to like get over my issues. You know like I feel like yeah I feel like it'll be like I you know it's like I can finally move past that one thing you know. So do you think that's actually true? I mean that that you know that makes what makes sense to me. You know that that that you would think that that would happen. You confront the thing that hurts you. You tell it. You end it. The question is does it really end it? That's the question. Does it really end it? You write your message on a blank sheet of printer paper torn in half. Of all of your attempted correspondences, this one is the most to the point. Name and intention. Why bother with anything else? How are you right? Where are your sons? We've tried reaching out to you. We'd like to meet you. We've booked your five o'clock appointment. We'll be waiting across the street in front of the cafe and would love to speak. Connor and Sair. I'm gonna write his name on the front. Yeah. I mean the thing is too is what if he's right there? I mean I'm gonna we're gonna hand it to him. Yeah. So he is gonna be right there. How are you gonna do that? You have booked your birth father's last appointment of the day at his barber shop. When he calls you up for your haircut, you'll hand him the note. Telling him to meet you across the street. Walk up to him and go like, "Hi, I'm your five o'clock. One of us will have to do it. I'm your five o'clock. Hand it to him and then we'll walk up." Do you want to do that? I can do it. Do you want to do it? No. Okay, not at all. It's spring of 2022 in Los Angeles. You are 29 years old. It's been nearly a year since you first sent your email to your birth father asking to meet. Nearly two years to the day since Connor first called you and asked to look for your birth father. Now your brother is here in front of you, hunched in front of the mirror pulling his hair into two loose braids. It's 4.23 pm. Yeah, we should get going because we're gonna need time to park and stuff too. You ready, Connor? Yeah. Let me just make sure I have everything. You're both quiet as you walk out the door. Okay, how are you feeling? I'm scared. I'm nervous. Well, you nervous about. That he's gonna be mean. Yeah. Well, he doesn't really have the right to be mean. Yeah, but that doesn't stop anyone from being mean. No, I, but I don't know. I mean, I have, I mean, I feel defensive of you. So if he was mean to us, I think about it as he's mean to you. - Yeah. - Right, right, here and more. I guess. That's mostly what I'm afraid of from being me and to you too. I don't really care what he says to me. I don't want him to hurt you. Same here. You pull down the driveway and onto the mile that separates you from your birth father. This street is ordinary to you now. In the nearly two years you have lived here, you have driven it hundreds of times, walked it, grunk, sweaty, in the rain. You've kissed strangers on this street. At midnight, mouth full of ash. Time widens the aperture. Certain features pass flat against the windshield as you drive. Others stay inexplicably in the fore. The laundromat that you went to the day you arrived here. The bar with the barnhouse facade, which you will never step inside of the entire time you live in Los Angeles. The white house with bus lined across the roof and a headless angel in the yard. The sidekicks front porch. The time is 8. It's 4. 4. 4. 34. 4. 34. Okay. Well, we're outside of it. This has somehow gotten so much harder now that we're here. You are now 20 minutes early, which gives Connor time to reconsider the plan entirely. Do you think we should try? I know we plan on doing the note, but do you think that we should call him? Yeah, but we already tried calling, but we call his barber shop and be like, "Hey, I got an appointment for him at five o'clock." We'll say, "Yeah, sure. Let me check." And then what? Say exactly what's in the note. Say we're outside. Hey, yeah. This is your son's. What if he hangs up? Then we go in there and do what? We'd say, "Fuck you." I don't know. I'm okay with doing that. I've always wanted to say, "Fuck you to dad." Do you want to go on together with that make you feel better about it? I mean, if you want to, I'm done. I want him to look at us in the case that he decides that he doesn't want to deal with it, so that he can't at least do it once. If he decides to avoid conversation with us, at least going in there and seeing our face, I can be like, "Hey, I'm here, and I see you." (Music) Okay. Two minutes. One minute. Two, five. (Music) (Music) Okay. Are you ready? (Music) That's ready as I can be. (Music) The first words your birth father ever says to you. Do you have an appointment? Yeah, five. You sit down and wait your turn. You can barely get yourself to look up at him. You fix your eyes first on the wine-colored tiles, then the client's sneakers slack against the footrest, the shapeless oversized black barbers tarp. Then your father's hands as he trims stray hairs, chatting easily over the jazz music playing softly over the speakers. The walls are lined with framed photographs of what you assume were once famous Hollywood actors whose faces you do not recognize and names you do not know. In the corner, the magazine rack full of vintage Playboy magazines. Your birth father brushes clean his client's forehead and nape with a blonde duster brush, says goodbye cheerily. He glances over at you in corner and then calmly walks to the back door of the shop. He disappears for five seconds, then ten, then fifteen. He returns with a broom and slowly, methodically, sweeps the hair into a dustbin and then the trash. You imagine everything leading up to this moment from his point of view. Today, he woke up, probably had a coffee, kissed his wife goodbye. Drove to work, attended to some regulars, made small talk about the relief of 70-degree weather, or the impending invasion of Ukraine as he lined up their beards and hairlines. Took a quick lunch break, scrolled on Facebook on his phone. Ten minutes ago, he probably looked up at the clock, saw two young guys walk in, and felt a wave of relief, the last customers. As he finished sweeping the hair into a bin, he was probably hit with the feeling of relaxation that comes with knowing that the day is nearly done. Now, he calls those boys up to the chair. One of them, the curly-haired one, who can barely look him in the eye, pulls a note from his pocket and hands it to him. His name is written on the front. And both boys walk out, wordlessly. And now, what has been up until this moment, a very ordinary day, has become a monumental one in just a few seconds. [Music] I was walking through the pole, as the sky was growing dull, it was hard not to remember how I love to start it all. They were simple times back then when you took me and said you would love me till the end, but I got one last word to say, read my letter. So, what you just heard was made of excerpts in the first three episodes of reaching out. The podcast comes from Fruturo in KCRW. We are right now leaving off the story in the middle of episode three and I really encourage you to go here. What is about to happen? Some big, big turns are right ahead. It's very satisfying. Then episode four comes out later this week and you can actually listen to all six episodes right now if you subscribe to Fruturo Plus. And if you dive in that way, maybe go back to episodes one and two. They contain stuff you have not heard in our excerpts today. Reaching out has produced written and sound designed by Sarah Cabedo, editing by Maria Garcia, original music by Lucy Little, mixed by Stephanie Cabo, executive produced by Maria Garcia and Marlon Bishop. The people who put our show together today include Nadia Raymond, who produced this episode, Adrian Lilley, Tobin Lowe, Andrea Marx, Stone Nelson, Ruthie Petito, Anthony Roman, Ruby Schwartz, Chloe Sullivan, Francis Swanson, Christopher Sotala, Joey Whitaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editors Sarah Abderon and our senior editors David Kessenbaum and Nancy Updike, our executive editor is Emmanuel Barry. And just one last reminder that we are doing a live show this Friday, coming right up October 9th. And we are going to be live streaming this. For all of our this American life partners, you have to be a life partner to see this that night. I will be telling stories on stage and then this group of amazing comedians convened by the very funny Vic McAilless are going to improvise scenes based on the stories. We did this once before it was really, I have to say, completely incredible. It was so fun. If you want to watch this live, sign up right now. Do not delay. Do not miss this show. It's coming right up on Friday. You can do this at thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners. When you do that, you'll also get access to all of our bonus episodes. You'll get ad free listening. You get all kinds of other stuff. And of course, don't just do this out of selfishness. And when you get, hopefully some part of you will take pleasure in supporting what we are doing here by helping us fund it each week. Again, thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners do it before Friday. To get access to the show, that link is also in the show notes. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks as always to our program co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. You know, whenever he returns some lunch, this is what he says to me. I don't know what to make of it. I'm back. Your mommy's back. Thanks, I guess. All right, our glass. Back next week for the more stories of this American life. ♪ And I'll let 'em, let 'em lead you know ♪