Welcoming Heavyweight

Pushkin.

Hello, Hello Revisionist History listeners. We're having a very exciting week here at Pushkin. You know that I'm Canadian, right, We actually fly a big maple leaf flag here at Pushkin HQ. Well, this week we added another Canadian. The great Jonathan Goldstein, native of Quebec, has brought his acclaimed narrative series Heavyweight to the Pushkin Network.

Oh Canada, our home and native land, true patrid love, in all our hearts command.

Jonathan and the Heavyweight team represent everything we believe in here at Pushkin. The power of storytelling, the value of intelligence and emotion, the belief that Canadians can and should dominate all aspects of American culture. Heavyweight examines personal histories and resentments. It tries to heal old wounds, and then the process reminds us of our shared humanity. Yes, it's

Yell from Gimblet Media. This is Jonathan Goldstein. Your old pal is that.

Was called Gimblet Gimblet Media.

That's correct.

It sounds like giblets, the inside of a chicken, like all the innerds.

Well, everybody loves giblet.

You Oh shit, they're my kids.

Hey guys, I'm up here. Do you know what my new podcast is about.

I know, I don't know anything about it.

Each week, I travel into people's past to help them repair something that's been troubling them. I'm sort of like a therapist.

Like a therapist.

So yeah, do you find out? Do you find that funny? I supportive? That's the laughter of support.

I think it's great.

I think it's great. Do you have any questions for me about what my show is and what it's going to be? Like, what's the name of your show?

What's the name of your show?

Yes, we're gonna go now, but Johnson's just about tell me the name of his new show.

As soon as he tells me, I'm going to bang down on him in five Remember to do that, Yes.

To hang up the phone on each other? Okay, ready, Yes, the name of the show is Heavyweight Heavyweight, you get it too one. Hello. Hello from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight today's episode.

But hello, hey Dad, Hi Johnny.

Hey, how you doing good? You good good good yum tiv Shanapova oximea O.

What's that meaning?

I'm not sure. Oh, this is my father Buzz. I'm calling him at his home in Montreal. And the reason we're talking crazy talk is because it's young Kipper the Jewish day of Atonement, which seems as good a day as any to talk with him about forgiveness. So I wanted to I wanted to ask you something and I just wanted to gauge your interest. Yeah, how how would you feel about paying your brother Sheldon a visit?

I have no feelings by I'm not really interested. You're not. No.

My father Buzz is eighty and his brother, Sheldon, his only sibling, is eighty five, and for the past forty they've pretty much been on the outs. My father lives in Montreal and Sheldon lives in Florida, and the last time they saw each other over twenty years ago was at their mother's funeral when they had a fight over the details of the arrangements. Since then, they've hardly spoken. It worries me because there's not a lot of time left,

Yeah, time's passed. He hasn't shown much interest, so I'm respecting that and I leave them alone.

What he did do was he called you on your eightieth birthday not so long ago, and you felt good.

About it to him on his eightieth birthday.

This kind of tit for tat accounting is what always gets in the way. There's been a competition between the brothers since I was a kid. I remember how in my grandmother's small New York kitchen, Sheldon and Buzz got into an argument about who could do the most push ups, and the next thing I knew, my father was pulling off his shirt and dropping to the kitchen floor in

You know what it is at this point with him, I'll tell you what it is. I don't think it's even anger. He's past anger, and he's past any feelings of Animosity's he just doesn't care. Yeah, you know, that's apathy. I mean, sometimes at least hate or love their emotions. Apathy is nothing. Yeah, you know what. Johnny as a child, even when I was ten, when I was nine and eight, I was crazy about him. We had a great you know, I loved him. He was the older brother.

He was hello, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm listening.

You know.

I just looked up to him, and he had older friends. Sometimes he'd take me along with him and he was good. Somebody trying to somebody trying to call here, binging me here.

Don't you see, Buzz, it's father time? Who is bringing you here? And Buzz loses track of time. Air Conditioners remain boxed all through July, and expired coupons from the mid nineties make plump his wallet, so I worry he'll put off reaching out to Sheldon until it's too late. The most complicated question, the one I keep coming back to, is how did the bad blood begin? And there are

Said, you always working some kind of an angle, So he got furious. He got furious, He started screaming into the phone, go to hell, drop dead, bye bye bye. Was that was how that ended? But I feel he's the kind of guy that the gun he has angles like that, you know he has angles. I always felt I was on the up and up with him and he wasn't with me.

If you've got a stronger sense that he was interested in seeing you, then would you yet?

Yeah, you would be my I wouldn't stay at house though, that's out of the question.

Okay, quick sidebar. Anytime I've ever raised the prospect of visiting Sheldon, no matter how hypothetical the scenario, my father always makes a point of insisting, how no matter what, he would not stay in Sheldon's house, even if he was invited to which I should point out he never is.

I wouldn't stay it his house. How come you I wouldn't stay there? I mean, not my thing?

How come you always bring that up? I mean, normally, when someone goes to visit someone that they haven't seen in decades, don't stay at a hotel, you know.

I would stay at a motel or somewhere near ATel.

Yeah.

No, we'd get a place, you know, with an ice machine, and uh, you know why you want.

To you're interested in making a trip.

I mean, I'm interested. Do you think that there's anything to be gained in in seeing him?

Hmm?

I guess there's something then, you know, you share your common experience and talk about the old days, and there are things that only he and I can remember, you know, yeah, you know you What you could do is you could call him and see what what what? What his attitude is? You know, it depends on you, know how how how how you feel, what kind of receptions you get.

Yeah, I mean I would. I would be happy to do that.

I like your initial suggestion that you call him, feel him out, and see what he's like.

Okay, I didn't suggest that, but you you suggested that.

Yeah. I like that just because you'll give me an honest you'll give me an honest reaction.

I'm happy to do it. But I mean, what what what are you looking for from? What do you want to hear from him?

I missed my brother. I would like to see him. Okay, that's all. Okay, you understand, and you come back on me with an honest evaluation.

Hello, Sheldon, yes speaking Hi. That was quite a shock getting a phone call, you said, Johnath. Yeah, my hearing is not that great, okay, And when I heard the first message, I'm saying, who the heck is that? I don't know anybody by that name.

Sheldon now lives outside of Fort Lauderdale, but my few memories of him are from when he lived in upstate New York. I remember he lived in a trailer. I remember that he worked at a local prison, that he smoked cigars, that he looked a little like my father, but was hunched, like the world was weighing down on him. And he always wore this expression on his face that seemed to say, you gotta be kidding me. You're keeping okay, you're keeping occupied.

Yeah, I read a lot. I going to gym. I go shopping, you know, here and there, little things here and there.

And so you still go. How often you go to.

The gym three times a week?

Wow?

And what kind of stuff do you do there?

Well? I do him about twenty minutes of aerobics, uh huh, and then I do a little weight training. I try to flirt a little with the women there.

Oh yeah. My father also goes to the gym. That's a part of his routine. Also, he was happy to hear from you on his eightieth birthday.

Yeah.

Well he didn't call me on my eighty.

Fifth though, tit meet tat Yeah, like, so you know, maybe we could uh go out for dinner. I don't know that kind of thing.

Uh huh uh. Well, what what kind of time frame are we talking about here?

I don't know. Our lives have been much different. I don't know how much we have to have in common anymore. Yeah, we don't have. We don't have much in common anymore except the fact that we're elderly and retired. Other than that, I don't know what we have in common.

You have your past in common?

Yes, uh, I'll tell you honestly. I'm not a very sentimental person, and I being a pragmatist, I take things the way they are. I try not to dwell upon the past, and I try not to take people the way I remember them, but as they are.

Do you think that makes things easier?

Makes things easier for me?

Yeah? Do other people around you? Sometimes? Doesn't make it harder for other people around you ever.

To be honest with you, I've been in the last few years. I've been a loner. You would basically almost call me a recluse. I don't social eyes with many people, and I really don't give a damn what anybody thinks. Yeah, and contrary to popular believe, I like being alone by myself. I get along with myself very well.

Yeah.

Look, I don't want to be rude. Yeah yeah, but I want to go have my lunch.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. That's fine, Sheldon. I appreciate your talking to me, and you would be amenable to spending some time.

Why not? We are brothers. I mean, we're not closer or anything, but you know we're not going to have a chance to see each other much in the future.

Yeah, is that anything that you think about?

Not much more?

And so I call my father back and let him know that Sheldon is amenable. And because I know that from my father, the days tend to pile up like unboxed air conditioners. I have my mother get on the phone to help nail down a firm travel.

Date and Dad.

He wants to go, if Dad wants to go, if he wants.

To go next weekend.

We don't have to go on the weekend. We can go during the week.

Yeah. Comes, as you know, you caught me off. God, how about it. I'll call you Wednesday or Thursday.

How's that today's Monday? Or yeah, or even if you feel like calling tomorrow, you can call me.

Yeah, okay, I'll probably I'll call you at the latest Thursday.

To get the Thursday.

At the latest, that's three.

Days from today. Yeah, okay, all right, you do what you want to do.

You call me, but I'll call you Thursday.

Coming up after the break Thursday, and so on Thursday, possibly with a little nudging from my mother, Buzz agrees. And then my father and I are off to Florida to visit my uncle Sheldon.

And then you have an address, Yeah, I do, okay.

My dad and I meet up at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. I flew from New York and my dad from Montreal. My father's all dressed up, wearing a faux Swaede sports jacket that I've never seen him in. We grab our airport rental and prepare for the two hour drive to Sheldon in the ninety degree heat. It's immediately made clear that faux swayed might not have been the best fashioned choice.

It's like we're on a safari.

On the road to Sheldon's. My father will experience a spectrum of feelings as we first set out, there's excitement.

You know, my brother was funny in a lot of ways.

I could laugh.

We're gonna have laughed with him, you know what I mean.

He's a very funny man.

A half an hour in and there's bitterness.

We invited him to your Moments and he returned a very cold card. Sorry, we will not be attending.

You know, it's so mean, you.

Know what I mean?

Even the writing.

An hour in and how is Buzz feeling.

I'm relaxed.

I'm kind of old to get anxious, you know.

What I mean.

Half an hour to Sheldon's a.

Little bit apprehensive.

Yeah, ten minutes to Sheldon's and Buzz is feeling all right, Yeah, he's feeling a little.

Uh.

It's gonna be strange. Yeah, it's gonna be very strange. I mean, the man is a stranger to me now, and yet he's my brother.

You understand.

It's a very strange feeling.

Yeah.

I wonder if he's getting nervous, maybe because he's waiting for us.

Right, Yeah, yell sat, Oh it's hot, it's really hot.

Yeah. Sheldon lives in the corner house on a quiet suburban street ring the bell.

I guess is this his door?

I'll double check, maybe because there is.

Yeah, thank you, I smell the good smell of cigar.

There I become a monk me.

And after all the years and the worry and the dread, things seemed to be going swimmingly. We sit down at Sheldon's kitchen table and my father gets right into it.

Now, there's things I want to know. You said that Rainy died.

The dead are a good place to begin as a subject. There, easily agreed upon and not likely to spark a fight.

The uncle died. The uncle died. He was the youngest brother. Oh, he died long ago.

He died.

Oh you know who died? Offfman, real prick. Yeah, I didn't know him that well, we didn't know. Yeah, nish shocking. Yeah, he was fat. He was fat, red head, red head right, yeah, nish.

Yeah.

Remember Johnny.

Johnny was a sex man.

Ye, john He would fuck a dog on the street, if you sort of dog. He tried to the dog. Can I get your guys a cold?

I'd like a beer, olive beer.

Even though they're in their eighties, Sheldon and Buzz still possessed voices and temperaments suited to shouting out Brooklyn tenement windows, while my voice olive beer is best suited to asking a waitress if there will be a sharing charge the flight. I forgot about that.

Sorry.

Case in point this is Sheldon accidentally swiping a portable microphone receiver off the kitchen table and me trying to smooth things over like this.

It's annoying.

No, he just put it in the in your pocket.

There, just stake it off.

Over the next couple of days, my testes will flee like frightened cockroaches upward, ascending to heights not seen since the bar Mitzvah that Sheldon was not attending. And while we're on the subject of testes, here's Sheldon reminiscing about the time he was examined for a rupture by their family doctor.

Me and Wilie Rosen were joining the yep, say you how to be tested for a rupture?

Hey?

I remember he put his hand under my balls. I started left and so hot I pissed right.

In his hand.

Over the years, I've seen my father in the role of husband, uncle, and grandfather, but I've never really seen him in the role of younger brother. How odd to see it now? At eighty, he sits beside Sheldon with this expression I've never seen on his face. It's wide eyed, sweet and deferential. But as the day wears on, Sheldon and Buzz begin to squabble over their memories, fighting over every little detail.

Remember to Hallabaloo he had with the die haad dye, that heavy set.

Girl a manicurist. She was a head dying manicurist. No, she was a head dying. Here's what happened. She went over to Earth.

They even argue over the death of their grandmother.

I have found her body.

I opened the door. No, I My mother was across the street at Greenborough. I remember walk and I knew she was dead.

I never saw a dead body of my life, but I knew she was dead.

Sure, so wait till you found her, or you found her.

I remember looking in on a room to see how she do. I said it was awfully crop.

Quite I found them, but let him No, I'm not some credit.

The whole afternoon is like this. Every subject, even their dead grandmother, somehow becomes fodder for another pissing match. They're burning up all this time with small talk when what they need is some big talk. In particular, they need to address a story that I know who It's a great deal of meaning for my father. It took place in nineteen thirty nine, on the day their mother left them. I've only ever heard the story from my father, never

Well, I remember that time was one Pop was smacking Iran and she ran out in the hole in her.

Slip fighting in the hole.

He was smack smacking around. She ran out. Yeah, So what happened the next morning? In the next morning, Yeah, they're look in a closet, her clothes were gone. She left.

Oh what happened after this? And my father's telling is that his mother returned soon after she left with a policeman in tow.

And they came back to try to get you. They wanted you to come back with them, and where were you?

I was there, but she was. They were trying to drag you out of the.

House, and you weren't trying to grin Now, no, no, I could say my father.

And grandmother mother.

This is the point of the story. For my father. It proves once and for all how his mother loved Sheldon more than she loved him. Sheldon didn't move out with her, and after a year their mother returned earned and together, Buzz and Sheldon grew up under the same roof in the same bedroom, often sleeping under the same blanket, each knowing who the mother had chosen, and each having to do their best to carry on and live life

Who your wife? I didn't know about it either until you told me.

Yeah, I didn't I tell you.

Didn't know about it.

No, we didn't know. We didn't know.

She was sick about two years. Judy, well, when she got the diagnosis, she was already stage four. What did I know about cancer? So the surgeon, so he said, So, I said, well, doc, how did the surgery go? I always show you went very well? But the kansas in her living now spread. I said, it's in. No, I said what. And on top of that, I'm driving home, I'm all fucked up, and I'm space style and my driver windows open, and some kids pull up alongside me, a flip a lit cigarette into my car.

You know where I usually eat? I come in and buy myself by the ball. They got a waitress, Stair always waits on me.

He takes cook care for dinner. Sheldon takes us to a local outback steakhouse. As people walk by, he provides a running commentary of an elderly couple.

Don't get like that couple. Whatever you did, it's time.

For the execution of an overweight couple.

Fat people are fat today.

It's as though he's sharpening his wit, readying it for the main event. Teasing my dad about Canada.

I don't know how you could take Canada on your wife.

So he got nice. Neighbor's nice. It's okay.

Uh.

I wasn't gonna have to say, you're living in the same place for am.

Oh, about thirty five, thirty eight years, something like that.

I'm happy here. Yeah. Yeah.

For my father, I know this is a touchy subject, believing as he always has, that Sheldon looks down on him for the dinkiness of his Canadian life and home. It's like a constant reminder of just who is second best. Later, my father will repeat Sheldon's words. You're still living in that same place, He'll say, for how many years? But just then I watch my father clench and unclench his

Two hundred dollars and thirty cents.

Sheldon invites us back to his place for cookies, but my father says he isn't up for it, thank you, and I'll get cold. As we walk through the restaurant parking lot to the car, my father is silent. I find myself feeling protective of him. After midnight, lying awake in our hotel, my father insisted we stay at one. I lay in bed thinking about that day in nineteen thirty nine when my grandmother came back for Sheldon, not

Day two, this is a damn good cigar he sent me well, Dominica Republic. They make a damn good cigar in Dominical Republic.

Despite the difficulties of last night, the coin is flipped back to the good side. Sheldon offers my father a cigar, and with the cigar some cigar talk, some pretty foul cigar talk.

We'll ride Mount Queen's Boulevard. Johnny's in the back seat with the who. He's got his naked ass up in the and he's well. The funny thing, we had to stop for a light and there's a truck driver sitting in the cab bump high.

So if you guys missed each other, what do you miss each other?

You know?

He asked the weirdest question. What is he abroad? No?

I mean, I don't know. That's you know, eager to prove to my uncle Sheldon that in spite of the fact I'm wearing my wife's travel deodorant, I am indeed not abroad. I allow them to return to more pressing matters. They're prostates, that said Jesus.

He says, your prestate feels like the moon craters in there. He said, I said, thank you, doctor, complimenting me.

So if I could steer this away from the prostrates, and so my father said that it's significant to him to have what do you say?

I agree with whatever he said?

But what about you?

I said, I agree with whatever he said. Do you want to written?

I know.

I'm happy.

It feels like I'm getting a taste of what growing up with Sheldon might have been like. So again I make my move. So I have some questions just about because the stories that I know from my father. But I'm curious what your take is because you were older. Do you remember what was going on when your mom when your mother left? Originally like what?

What? Why?

And what was going on?

Didn't you cover this ground before yesterday?

But from my father's perspective, the way I understood it was always you were the favorite. Did you did you feel that way? At this point, Sheldon's face suddenly softens.

I always felt that I got the short end of the stick.

You were you were kind of a favorite with my mom.

Yeah, maybe with mom because maybe temperamentally we were closer than I was with my father. My father never gave me spit. Did you ever get any money from my father? I can't remember.

You never got a line.

Now I can't remember you never one time I sprained my ankle so bad.

That was that was terrible.

I laid in that bed my ankle. He was He says to me, you lazy bum. Yeah, man, he went off on me that time.

He took Sheldon once.

Sheldon happened to say the word fuck.

He came in with that fucking strap, swinging with.

The bucket, and you know, I can understand it, leaving a feeling of resentment and dislike.

Hey, yeah, that was his way of.

Communicating with us. Smack smack, and then what a way?

Yeah? Was he easier on you? You think it wasn't that?

But he was tough on Sheldon.

Was I know you were closer to him than I was. A lot of things that went on you didn't understand really.

Well it did going on, So you had a different take.

Well are you surprised.

By But I was a kid. I didn't understand it.

But you didn't know that Sheldon was getting it so bad. In Buzz's telling, their father was always more or less benign, childish figure, incapable of expressing his feelings and so given to temper tantrums. For Buzz, it was their mother who was the manipulator, the woman who played the brothers off each other. But hearing Sheldon's take, it sounds like maybe their mother didn't come to take Sheldon because she loved him best, but simply because he needed more protecting from

You know, it said that my father had such a negative impact on him, you know, just.

Awful because he had so much going for me. He was a wonderful son.

He worked hard, he was a good boy.

He went to school talking like I'm a failure in life. No, you aren't a fail that I'm saying. You weren't a faide.

But all I'm saying is that emotionally he left an impact on you.

It took a long time for me to get out of that emotion.

And now I'm at peace to it myself.

I can talk about him and laugh about it. Now I want peace quiet. I'm happy living by myself.

Are you lonely?

Sheldon O?

The last time my father saw my grandfather in full health. My dad was visiting from Canada. My grandfather asked my father to drive him to the cemetery to visit his parents' grave, and once there, my grandfather wept inconsolably. Later that day he would succumb to a stroke and shortly after be moved to a nursing home. With Sheldon being more local, the burden of my grandfather's care fell mainly to Sheldon. It seems like a lot of the family's burdens fell to Sheldon.

They put a lot of the responsibility on him, that my dad should have been taking that responsibility, and he shoulded that.

Well, who is going to take car of you? Who's going to take you to school?

Meet ya?

I remember one time, hours later or something, you stood outside that cry. I said, mosy, I'm here, I'm here. He was good to meet at times me, you know, just you were.

My older brother used to knock the ship out of me sometimes, but you know that's the way it is with brothers.

Well, yeah, I was good in some way some way that I was mean.

Who's who was not? Who's not who is not?

So if you feel like you were compelled to see each other now because you knew that. You know it's an hour and never kind of thing. Then it means that it was important to you both right to see each other.

You want to take that easy answer, yes, yes, because we're not getting any younger. I mean, what's what's down the road.

I'm eighty he's eighty five. I mean because the there's.

A lot of water under the bridge, and we want to close that bridge. Now, I want to feel easy. Now, I want to say, now he's going to be eighty six, I want to call him on his birthday and say happy birthday to him. Now, I'm not going to stand any fucking ceremonies anymore.

As my father speaks, as per his brother's example, dropping f bombs like he's in a Guy Ritchie film, Sheldon keeps his arms crossed and his eyes shut tight. He's quiet for several seconds, and then he reaches out to pet his cat.

Should I leave you a cat in my will if anything.

Happen, if anything out, I'll take care of the cat.

I'll take care of the cat.

I'm happy I can't to see you.

That I am. I'm happy it can't here. That's good, very good.

Why I want to buy a house.

When it's time to leave, Sheldon walks us outside, but before we get into the rental, he points across the lawn to his neighbor's house. He tells my father that it's for sale, and then he tells him the asking price, and my father says that doesn't sound bad at all. And Sheldon says that, what with Canada being so bloody cold, my father should consider moving to Florida, and my father says maybe he will. They don't get too emotional, they

All right, you take care of the bridge, sank trip both this, Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, we'll speak.

We'll speak.

Turn right on Northwest, Man for drawing. Oh my god, it feels so different now.

You know that this has taking a lot off my shoulders idea.

You know.

As we ride to the airport, my father says that the thought of Sheldon all alone in that house with just a cat makes him sad. Do you really think he isn't lonely, my father asks. I assure him that Sheldon seems okay with being alone. But my father doesn't seem so sure. After all these years, the burden of having lost his brother has been replaced by a new burden, one that might be heavier to bear. Now that the furnitures returned to its goodwill.

Home, now that the last month's raft is scheming.

With the damage, the possum take this moment to do so.

If we ment, If we talk.

Were felt around for.

Far too.

From the thaus it accidentally Talk.

Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan Goldstein. This episode was also produced by Wendy Dore, Chris Neary, and Khalila Holt, editing by Alex Bloomberg and Peter Clowney. Special thanks to Caitlin Kenny, Starle Kine and Rachel Ward. The show was mixed by Hailey Shaw. Music in this episode by Christine Fellows, with additional music and ad music by Hailey Shaw. Our theme song is by The Weaker Bands,

We used to call him Mitchie, little Bitchy, the older brother, the oldest one.

He was.

Hey, well lucky we turned out as good as we did.