Latest / Question Everything / Introducing: Reaching Out

Transcript

Introducing: Reaching Out · Question Everything

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Brian. I'm excited to share something special
0:03
Speaker 1: with you today. It's a moving, one-of-a-kind podcast that stems
0:07
Speaker 1: from a simple question. If you'd never met your biological father,
0:11
Speaker 1: how far would you go to find him? That's the
0:14
Speaker 1: heart of Reaching Out, a new podcast from Futuro and KCRW.
0:18
Speaker 1: It follows Sarah Cavado's search for his father, along with
0:21
Speaker 1: his twin brother, a father neither of them has ever known,
0:25
Speaker 1: and everything that search starts to reveal about their family.
0:28
Speaker 1: The first two episodes are out right now. Be sure
0:31
Speaker 1: to find Reaching Out in your podcast feed and follow
0:33
Speaker 1: it to get the rest of the episodes weekly. And
0:35
Speaker 1: keep listening right now for episode one. Here's Reaching Out.
0:39
Speaker 2: Join Futuro Plus for early access to the whole season,
0:42
Speaker 2: ad-free listening, and exclusive bonus content for Reaching Out. Go
0:47
Speaker 2: to futuromediagroup.org backslash join plus to get access today. Futuro.
1:01
Speaker 2: On February 15th, 2020, Connor calls you to ask if
1:05
Speaker 2: you want to look for your birth father. You do
1:10
Speaker 2: not record this conversation. This is notable, if only because
1:15
Speaker 2: so much of your life has been recorded. Moments far
1:18
Speaker 2: less consequential than this. You're on Connor's fourth birthday. A
1:30
Speaker 2: school performance. You play a scared rabbit, your only line.
1:34
Speaker 3: I think we're lost.
1:35
Speaker 4: Don't worry, we'll just go back to where we came.
1:37
Speaker 2: Which way did we come? A house party when you
1:40
Speaker 2: were 16, when you first began to record yourself.
1:44
Speaker 5: These records were made because you or someone else thought
1:48
Speaker 5: the moment was worth keeping.
1:50
Speaker 6: A sort of prescient.
1:52
Speaker 2: Act, one that assumes that you might want to return,
2:03
Speaker 2: that what is captured here may hold some significance, that
2:06
Speaker 2: what is remembered may cohere somehow with the story of
2:09
Speaker 2: your life as you are meant to understand it. There
2:14
Speaker 2: is a price for what we choose to remember and
2:16
Speaker 2: what we choose to forget, for the story we make
2:19
Speaker 2: of it. If you had known how this would all
2:22
Speaker 2: turn out, maybe you would have recorded everything. Or if
2:25
Speaker 2: you had known the cost, maybe you would not have
2:28
Speaker 2: recorded anything at all. but you did not know, could
2:32
Speaker 2: not have known. On February 15th, 2020, your brother calls
2:38
Speaker 2: you to ask if you want to look for your
2:40
Speaker 2: birth father, but there is no record of that call.
2:46
Speaker 2: There is, however, a recording of the call you make
2:49
Speaker 2: a few days later.
3:12
Speaker 4: Hello?
3:14
Speaker 6: Hey, brother.
3:15
Speaker 7: Hey, what's up?
3:17
Speaker 2: Nothing.
3:18
Speaker 8: My phone is at 10%, by the way.
3:20
Speaker 6: That's cool.
3:22
Speaker 8: I don't feel like talking on the phone very long.
3:25
Speaker 7: I'm tired.
3:27
Speaker 3: I'm recording.
3:28
Speaker 8: I hope that is okay.
3:30
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
3:31
Speaker 7: Okay.
3:32
Speaker 5: Yeah.
3:33
Speaker 3: All right.
3:34
Speaker 4: That's cool.
3:36
Speaker 8: Are you recording because you want to talk about dad stuff?
3:40
Speaker 6: Yeah.
3:40
Speaker 8: Well, not just because of that.
3:42
Speaker 7: But yeah.
3:57
Speaker 2: These days, you rarely know where Connor is until he's
3:59
Speaker 2: already there. You call and he's in Washington with his girlfriend.
4:03
Speaker 2: You call again and he's barely got service. He's trimming
4:06
Speaker 2: weed in Arcata. Or he's hopped the train to the Midwest.
4:09
Speaker 2: Or he's crashing on a friend's couch in Oakland.
4:12
Speaker 8: Just fucking... So I'm in New Orleans right now, right?
4:16
Speaker 8: You know that? You're where?
4:18
Speaker 2: Right now, Connor is partying in New Orleans with his girlfriend.
4:23
Speaker 2: Right now, you are pacing around your room in Harlem,
4:26
Speaker 2: staring at a whiteboard where you have scribbled a list
4:29
Speaker 2: of vague to-dos. Dentist, student loans, respond to email, and clean.
4:35
Speaker 2: You do not bother to erase these tasks each week.
4:38
Speaker 2: The tasks will remain undone, or they will be rewritten.
4:42
Speaker 8: Today, me and Claire were walking to go get my bike,
4:45
Speaker 8: and we walked by this guy who apparently used to
4:48
Speaker 8: live here. We keep walking, and all of a sudden,
4:51
Speaker 8: I hear beer steps, and.
4:53
Speaker 1: I look behind.
4:53
Speaker 8: He's walking really quickly to catch up with us. He's walking,
4:58
Speaker 8: and he's like, you faggot. You can't bring females here.
5:04
Speaker 8: What the fuck do you think you're doing? I was like,
5:06
Speaker 8: it's my girlfriend. And then he kind of just Mean
5:10
Speaker 8: mugged and blank stared, and then he started walking back
5:13
Speaker 8: to his chair, right?
5:15
Speaker 2: Connor does not like it when you point out your differences,
5:18
Speaker 2: but contrast is the rightful and unavoidable dominion of twins.
5:23
Speaker 2: There are superficial distinctions, the kind of differences strangers point
5:26
Speaker 2: out when you inevitably pull up a photo of Connor
5:29
Speaker 2: after they learn you're a twin. Your tightly coiled curls,
5:32
Speaker 2: Connor's loose, wavy hair. Connor's growth spurt at 16. Your 5'7,
5:35
Speaker 2: which you say is 5'8. But nothing makes you feel
5:40
Speaker 2: more different from your brother than when he tells you
5:43
Speaker 2: these kinds of stories. Because it is in these stories
5:46
Speaker 2: that your critical difference becomes most obvious.
5:49
Speaker 8: And then we keep walking. It's about like a mile
5:52
Speaker 8: and a half or so back to the house. And
5:55
Speaker 8: I like turn around and the fucking guy is like
5:58
Speaker 8: a block away from us.
6:00
Speaker 4: Whoa.
6:01
Speaker 8: I just had fucking like these knives in his hand.
6:05
Speaker 8: And like polishing his knives on his shirt and like
6:07
Speaker 8: looking at us.
6:08
Speaker 2: The critical difference between you and Connor is this. Long ago,
6:13
Speaker 2: without realizing it, you chose a kind of freedom. The
6:17
Speaker 2: kind that imparts stability and safety, and that you pay
6:20
Speaker 2: for in unsubsidized loans, quarterly job reviews, happy hours with co-workers,
6:25
Speaker 2: boring party conversation, conferences with field practitioners, mid-century modern furniture,
6:31
Speaker 2: boxing classes, and dental checkups. And Connor chose a kind
6:35
Speaker 2: of freedom that comes with land projects, one-off jobs at
6:38
Speaker 2: biker festivals, wide-open mountain ranges from the Union Pacific Line,
6:42
Speaker 2: and that he pays for in a persistent smoker's cough,
6:45
Speaker 2: weeks on remote weed farms with fish fans, and being
6:48
Speaker 2: pursued in New Orleans by a guy with a knife.
6:51
Speaker 8: It was just like a psycho-ass move. So yeah, that
6:54
Speaker 8: was crazy. That's why I was talking to you.
6:58
Speaker 2: You do not return to the subject of your birth
7:01
Speaker 2: father tonight. You talk about your mother. who left her
7:04
Speaker 2: apartment in Oakland after they raised the rent a few
7:06
Speaker 2: months ago. She's dog-sitting for strangers now to save money.
7:10
Speaker 8: She's, like, talking to me about how she's, like, bouncing
7:14
Speaker 8: around a bunch right now.
7:16
Speaker 2: Yep.
7:17
Speaker 8: Living that nomadic lifestyle, am I right?
7:21
Speaker 7: Uh-huh.
7:22
Speaker 2: You wrestle about timing for your next call.
7:24
Speaker 8: Yeah, probably can't talk tomorrow, but I can talk sometime
7:28
Speaker 8: in the next few days.
7:30
Speaker 7: Tell me what time.
7:33
Speaker 8: And Dave, dude, I don't have a schedule.
7:36
Speaker 2: Your brother thinks you are a judgmental normie, and you
7:39
Speaker 2: think he is a judgmental hobo. This is the shared
7:42
Speaker 2: cost of your divergent freedoms. You both pay for your
7:45
Speaker 2: choices with the degree of distance it puts between you.
7:49
Speaker 2: But you do love each other, and you are trying
7:51
Speaker 2: to be better, to be nicer, to be closer. This
7:55
Speaker 2: routine of phone calls, which began a few months ago,
7:57
Speaker 2: is your attempt.
7:59
Speaker 8: I want to drink water and eat meals.
8:05
Speaker 9: It's unlikely you speak about your father again, but it's
8:15
Speaker 9: hard to say for sure.
8:17
Speaker 2: There are no records of phone calls with Connor that
8:19
Speaker 2: week or the next. You assume his impulse to look
8:21
Speaker 2: for your father is a passing one. You doubt you
8:25
Speaker 2: follow up. You went through your phase, of course, the
8:28
Speaker 2: one that you imagine most fatherless teenagers go through. in
8:31
Speaker 2: which your father's absence took on an outsized significance, in
8:35
Speaker 2: which your adolescent brain dissected and disassembled its meaning in
8:38
Speaker 2: relation to your sense of self? Was your fatherlessness, while
8:42
Speaker 2: you felt so apart from others, was his abandonment a
8:45
Speaker 2: sort of permanent wound on your psyche? Only one way
8:48
Speaker 2: to find out. Write a lot of shitty poetry. None
8:54
Speaker 2: of those poems are recorded, thank God. But one vestige remains.
8:59
Speaker 2: a play about two boys waiting to meet their father
9:01
Speaker 2: at a cafe. You wrote it when you were 17.
9:05
Speaker 2: It was called, perhaps a little over-precisely, Waiting to Meet
9:09
Speaker 2: Your Father, and was haltingly, painfully acted out by two
9:13
Speaker 2: fellow art students.
9:15
Speaker 6: What if he doesn't show?
9:17
Speaker 5: He will.
9:18
Speaker 6: And if he doesn't? I'll be okay.
9:21
Speaker 3: I'll be okay.
9:26
Speaker 2: The central tension of the play is that the two
9:29
Speaker 2: boys are waiting at a cafe to meet their father
9:31
Speaker 2: who they've never known. But he is running late, or
9:34
Speaker 2: maybe he is standing them up. The brothers argue about
9:37
Speaker 2: whether or not they should wait to find out which
9:39
Speaker 2: one it is. One boy is sure it won't be
9:42
Speaker 2: worth it. The other is adamant they stay.
9:44
Speaker 4: Do you think about him a lot? No.
9:48
Speaker 8: Do you?
9:49
Speaker 1: Well, sometimes.
9:52
Speaker 4: Like, we're about to fall asleep. It's usually while I'm
9:54
Speaker 4: not thinking that I think about him the most. You know,
9:58
Speaker 4: it's one of those things where when my mind is
9:59
Speaker 4: just drifting, I'll suddenly start wondering about him. And then
10:03
Speaker 4: I'll have to make myself do something to take my
10:04
Speaker 4: mind off him. The more I think about trying to
10:07
Speaker 4: think about him, the more I end up thinking about him.
10:10
Speaker 2: In the end.
10:12
Speaker 1: Let's go.
10:13
Speaker 9: Are you sure?
10:15
Speaker 8: Yeah.
10:16
Speaker 2: Their father arrives a few moments after they walk out
10:19
Speaker 2: the door. The poetry and playwriting phase was short-lived. When
10:29
Speaker 2: you were 20, you wrote a radio commentary, also over-precisely titled,
10:34
Speaker 2: Searching for Dad.
10:36
Speaker 5: Over the last couple of years, I've found myself at
10:38
Speaker 5: the computer googling my biological father's name. I'd sort through
10:42
Speaker 5: the different characters that came up. There was the pastor,
10:45
Speaker 5: the photographer, the game designer. I'd look at images and
10:49
Speaker 5: try to recognize parts of their faces and mine, see
10:51
Speaker 5: if anything about them struck me. I even had some
10:54
Speaker 5: numbers I found in online directories saved under his name
10:57
Speaker 5: in my phone, just in case I ever got the
10:59
Speaker 5: guts to call.
11:00
Speaker 2: You turned 20 the month before this commentary aired. On
11:03
Speaker 2: the eve of this new decade of life, you decided
11:06
Speaker 2: it was not worth it to actively think about your
11:08
Speaker 2: birth father anymore. It was not cool to still feel
11:11
Speaker 2: hurt about it, and so you could choose to feel nothing.
11:15
Speaker 2: Whether or not you truly believed that was beside the point,
11:18
Speaker 2: writing it down, recording it would remind you, and remembering
11:21
Speaker 2: it would make it true. Biology may connect us, but
11:25
Speaker 2: I'm a product of so much more than that. The
11:27
Speaker 2: decisions I make, the family and friends I choose to
11:29
Speaker 2: keep around me, those are the things that make me
11:32
Speaker 2: who I am. So for me, the new year means
11:35
Speaker 2: deleting those old numbers from my phone and spending more
11:37
Speaker 2: time searching not for my dad, but for myself. Again,
11:41
Speaker 2: a little over-precise, maybe even a little cliche. The reality is,
11:47
Speaker 2: most people spend their lives searching for their parents. You
11:50
Speaker 2: know people with dead parents who search for them through
11:52
Speaker 2: baby photos and old letters. You know people with living
11:55
Speaker 2: parents who search for them in tense dinner conversations. You
11:59
Speaker 2: belong to the special sect of seeking offspring. Boys without fathers.
12:04
Speaker 2: Connor wants to initiate you into the cult of boys
12:07
Speaker 2: who search for those fathers. This cult, historically, mythologically, tend
12:12
Speaker 2: towards self-destruction. Chariots shattered by thunderbolts, blinding themselves with golden pins.
12:19
Speaker 2: wandering into Arctic tundras to self-immolate. In choosing to give
12:22
Speaker 2: up your father at 20 to write the ending of
12:25
Speaker 2: your story, you are avoiding this fate, and you plan
12:28
Speaker 2: to continue to do so now. You will not sabotage
12:31
Speaker 2: your brother's efforts, but you will not help them either.
12:34
Speaker 2: So you do not follow up with Connor about looking
12:37
Speaker 2: for your father, and Connor does not call. But there
12:41
Speaker 2: are also no records of other calls either. If you
12:44
Speaker 2: had recorded everything, You would hear three sessions here with
12:47
Speaker 2: your new work-subsidized teletherapist. The first, an intake session. A concise,
12:53
Speaker 2: summarized biography of your life as it relates to your
12:55
Speaker 2: inner problems. You make radio documentaries. You won some awards
12:59
Speaker 2: for this last year. Wow, hold on, one second. There
13:03
Speaker 2: are two parts to this speech and I was going
13:05
Speaker 2: to keep it short, but what the hell, I got gold, so.
13:10
Speaker 2: You crave the attention and acknowledgement, and it also repulses you.
13:15
Speaker 2: You work at the biggest newspaper in the world, at
13:17
Speaker 2: one of the biggest shows in the country. Lately, you've
13:21
Speaker 2: been leaving early to see if anyone notices. They don't.
13:28
Speaker 2: You were raised by a loving single mother in the
13:30
Speaker 2: Bay Area. You would hear yourself tell your teletherapist that
13:41
Speaker 2: your birth father left before you were born and you've
13:43
Speaker 2: never met him. That you suspect, based on nothing more
13:46
Speaker 2: than an elementary understanding of Freud and a few Instagram
13:49
Speaker 2: therapy videos, that this is the root of some of
13:51
Speaker 2: your problems. Daddy issues. You have a twin brother. But
13:58
Speaker 2: you're not identical. You probably make the same joke you
14:00
Speaker 2: always do. That you're sorry to disappoint your therapist. People
14:04
Speaker 2: are always more excited when they think there's some other
14:06
Speaker 2: version of you out there. Most relevant to your teletherapist,
14:11
Speaker 2: what you would like to fix about yourself. It is
14:13
Speaker 2: mostly one thing, which you are almost embarrassed to admit.
14:18
Speaker 2: You have the sneaking suspicion that you will never fall
14:21
Speaker 2: in love. Then you would hear the second session. In
14:25
Speaker 2: this recording, you would hear your teletherapist say that she
14:28
Speaker 2: gets clients like you all the time, who have succeeded
14:31
Speaker 2: by every other metric in their lives except love. You
14:35
Speaker 2: would hear your equivocal, unsure if that assessment makes you
14:39
Speaker 2: feel better or worse. That your failure is not unique,
14:42
Speaker 2: but a species of pain felt by other people who
14:45
Speaker 2: pay for therapy offered on discount in podcast commercials. You
14:49
Speaker 2: can hear her fumbling plates beneath a running faucet in
14:51
Speaker 2: the background as you describe your last relationship. She tells you,
14:56
Speaker 2: you think, perhaps a little quick to the draw, that
14:58
Speaker 2: it sounds emotionally abusive. Then you would hear the third session,
15:03
Speaker 2: in which her voice sounds diffuse and distant. You will
15:07
Speaker 2: eventually figure out it is because she is speaking to
15:09
Speaker 2: you from her car and you are on speakerphone. You
15:12
Speaker 2: imagine her kids sitting silently in the backseat, listening in
15:15
Speaker 2: as you talk about this mysterious illness all over the news.
15:18
Speaker 2: Your job sent you home a few days ago. There
15:21
Speaker 2: are rumors there's going to be a state of emergency soon.
15:24
Speaker 2: She ends the call by telling you that she has
15:26
Speaker 2: decided to step away from her practice, to focus on
15:28
Speaker 2: her family in this uncertain moment. The memories of the
15:53
Speaker 2: first months of the pandemic are stored data points in
15:55
Speaker 2: your phone. Nike says you run 51.8 miles in the
15:58
Speaker 2: first three months. Quit smoking says you managed to stop
16:02
Speaker 2: for that same period of time. Otherwise, the only reliable
16:06
Speaker 2: testament of this time are the recordings you make of
16:09
Speaker 2: your phone calls.
16:10
Speaker 8: By the way, do you mind if I record our conversation?
16:12
Speaker 7: I'm recording all of my quarantine combos.
16:16
Speaker 8: By the way, I'm recording.
16:17
Speaker 3: I've decided I'm going to start recording all my conversations
16:20
Speaker 3: because this seems like a moment.
16:22
Speaker 2: You tell yourself that it is for a project you
16:24
Speaker 2: hope to make about this historic moment.
16:26
Speaker 7: Didn't touch my grandparents, obviously.
16:29
Speaker 8: Although I did.
16:30
Speaker 7: Find out that my grandpa went to 7-Eleven to get
16:33
Speaker 7: a Pepsi. I had kind of a panic attack and
16:36
Speaker 7: I realized that I had like a very small window
16:39
Speaker 7: of time to decide whether or not I was going
16:41
Speaker 7: to stay here or try to get home. Whatever, if
16:44
Speaker 7: you want to get sick, but homie, if you get
16:46
Speaker 7: my grandma sick, I'll kill you.
16:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's, uh, it's... You and.
16:53
Speaker 2: Connor call with the same tepid frequency as before the
16:55
Speaker 2: state of emergency Connor's back in Washington now with his girlfriend.
16:59
Speaker 2: He doesn't speak about looking for your birth father again,
17:07
Speaker 2: and you don't bring it up. Flights are almost completely grounded.
17:10
Speaker 2: You can't leave your house, much less the state. And
17:13
Speaker 2: in this moment, you are both more focused on making
17:16
Speaker 2: life bearable, building fortresses of routine to keep the mania
17:20
Speaker 2: of your confinement from creeping in. Also in the recordings,
17:30
Speaker 2: phone calls with your mom and her best friend, Michelle,
17:33
Speaker 2: who you call Auntie and Cat Head. Your mom has
17:36
Speaker 2: been living with Michelle in Portland since quarantine began.
17:39
Speaker 7: Hi, Mommy.
17:41
Speaker 6: How are you?
17:42
Speaker 7: Hello. I'm back. Your mommy's back. She's here.
17:45
Speaker 6: You're back.
17:46
Speaker 7: She's here.
17:47
Speaker 2: You think maybe you'll transcribe these recordings and complete a
17:49
Speaker 2: screenplay about Mom and Michelle's adventures as strippers in the
17:53
Speaker 2: 80s at the Century Club in San Francisco.
17:56
Speaker 7: So does it go from bear to otter and then
18:00
Speaker 7: to something else?
18:02
Speaker 8: It's not like an evolution.
18:04
Speaker 7: It's just different groups.
18:07
Speaker 3: Okay.
18:08
Speaker 7: Twinks are a totally different category, right?
18:11
Speaker 2: This is your favorite kind of call. You get stoned
18:14
Speaker 2: and curl up in bed with the phone balanced on
18:16
Speaker 2: your cheek. You are still at 27, like most children.
18:21
Speaker 2: You like to hear stories of the world before you
18:23
Speaker 2: were in it. of your mother before she was your mother.
18:27
Speaker 3: Tell me about what my mom was like when you
18:30
Speaker 3: first met her.
18:34
Speaker 7: We were just talking about this the other night, actually.
18:36
Speaker 7: I was working at The Century before she came there.
18:39
Speaker 7: And so she was new, so I was curious. And
18:44
Speaker 7: she seemed a bit reserved and a little standoffish. And so,
18:50
Speaker 7: so one day I finally got my ketchup and I
18:52
Speaker 7: was like, where are you from? And she goes, El Salvador.
18:56
Speaker 7: But then I said, oh, well, like you're so pretty
18:59
Speaker 7: or something. And then she goes, oh, well, you're really
19:02
Speaker 7: pretty too.
19:04
Speaker 2: You've learned your mother's story in pieces over years of
19:06
Speaker 2: your adulthood. And then all at once when you made
19:09
Speaker 2: a documentary about her a few years ago. Her schizophrenic mother,
19:13
Speaker 2: her alcoholic father, her molester grandfather. She ran away. And
19:18
Speaker 2: so she has no records. No photo albums, no videos,
19:21
Speaker 2: no trace of her childhood, and no family to ask.
19:25
Speaker 2: Michelle is the closest witness that you have to her life.
19:29
Speaker 7: The thing I remember also is that she was kind
19:31
Speaker 7: of the grown-up out of all of, like, the girls
19:34
Speaker 7: that I knew and hung out with. She'd been on
19:36
Speaker 7: her own longer, too, because, like, I left home at 17,
19:38
Speaker 7: but she was, like, on her own at 15.
19:41
Speaker 2: Your mother's life is a constellation. Points of interest float
19:44
Speaker 2: out there in the vast darkness. She or Michelle, at will,
19:48
Speaker 2: pluck these details from the void. And they become images,
19:52
Speaker 2: and then stories. Like the expensive condo she lived in
19:55
Speaker 2: before you were born. Her twin Siamese cats, Hades and Persephone.
19:59
Speaker 7: Or the aquarium full of exotic fish, shattered by the
20:02
Speaker 7: earthquake in 89.
20:09
Speaker 2: Or the other dancers, the girlfriend of a famous rock star,
20:13
Speaker 2: a girl cruelly nicknamed Pincushion for her favorite vice. Or
20:17
Speaker 2: Lady T, who wore a steward's uniform for her set,
20:21
Speaker 2: plane crashes projecting behind her as she danced.
20:24
Speaker 8: And what did you dance to?
20:25
Speaker 2: And what did my mom dance to?
20:28
Speaker 7: I would dance to Bob Dylan a lot, actually. So
20:31
Speaker 7: did your mom.
20:32
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, but his Christian album. I'm going to scandalize
20:36
Speaker 6: your nephew now. Your auntie did, like, the schoolgirl thing.
20:42
Speaker 6: Let's just be honest.
20:43
Speaker 7: Let's just be honest.
20:44
Speaker 4: Yeah.
20:45
Speaker 8: Yeah. Creepy, but I won't think about that.
20:50
Speaker 3: I know.
20:51
Speaker 7: When you think about it, it's super creepy. I want
20:54
Speaker 7: to warn you that my phone is.
20:56
Speaker 8: You know what?
20:56
Speaker 7: I'm going to go upstairs and get the cord.
20:59
Speaker 6: But I have to look at this message from your brother.
21:02
Speaker 7: Okay, now's your chance, Sarah. Your mom's going upstairs.
21:06
Speaker 2: No, Chris.
21:10
Speaker 8: What is her, what are her, oh, did you ever
21:17
Speaker 8: meet my birth father?
21:18
Speaker 7: Yeah.
21:20
Speaker 3: And what was your general impression?
21:24
Speaker 7: He was okay. I only met your birth father a
21:27
Speaker 7: couple of times. I remember I met him once at
21:30
Speaker 7: the Zeitgeist, and he was really hella tall, for one thing.
21:37
Speaker 7: He was cute. He was, like, handsome.
21:40
Speaker 2: Your mother is not exactly withholding about your father. She
21:44
Speaker 2: answers the questions if you ask them, which you did
21:46
Speaker 2: a lot when you were a teenager. Your origin story
21:50
Speaker 2: has remained consistent, but unsatisfyingly brief. Your father was a
21:55
Speaker 2: line cook. He played in a rockabilly band. They met
21:58
Speaker 2: at a bar called the Zeitgeist, dated for a while.
22:01
Speaker 2: She got pregnant. He wasn't ready to be a father.
22:04
Speaker 2: She decided to keep you. For a while, she exchanged
22:07
Speaker 2: letters with his mother, but she was always justifying his
22:10
Speaker 2: choice to not be involved in your lives, so they
22:13
Speaker 2: stopped communicating. Your mother tells you his name, but can't
22:17
Speaker 2: remember how it's spelled.
22:19
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I met him a couple of times. I thought,
22:21
Speaker 7: I mean, he seemed nice. He was nice to me.
22:22
Speaker 6: He was polite.
22:24
Speaker 7: He was, like, clearly trying to, like, make a good
22:25
Speaker 7: impression on me because I was, like, your mom's friend. Yeah,
22:29
Speaker 7: and he was just, he was very tall.
22:31
Speaker 2: What you've learned by this point, having just turned 27
22:33
Speaker 2: a few months ago, is that the stories most adults
22:36
Speaker 2: make of their lives are brief and unsatisfying. Because most
22:40
Speaker 2: adult lives are full of false starts, abrupt endings, and
22:44
Speaker 2: omissions both purposeful and accidental. And so that your aunt's
22:48
Speaker 2: recollection comes down to, tall and nice, is not exactly surprising,
22:53
Speaker 2: as much as fairly consistent with the blunted, uneven shapes
22:56
Speaker 2: of most people's lives.
22:58
Speaker 8: You're not feeling depressed there?
23:01
Speaker 3: Mm-mm.
23:04
Speaker 6: Okay.
23:08
Speaker 2: Weeks and months pass like this, signals bouncing back and
23:11
Speaker 2: forth across phone lines and cell towers and fiber optic cables.
23:15
Speaker 2: July now, and you've stopped running, started smoking again. Most
23:19
Speaker 2: of this time is spent getting high, masturbating, and scrolling
23:24
Speaker 2: on Instagram.
23:25
Speaker 5: How did we drink all of that aguardiente and I
23:28
Speaker 5: felt like completely sober and hugely hungover the next day?
23:32
Speaker 2: If you're not alone, you're drinking on your roof with friends.
23:36
Speaker 9: I haven't showered in days.
23:39
Speaker 1: I was that way this morning, and.
23:40
Speaker 2: Then I finally took a shower. The new world permeates
23:43
Speaker 2: daily life, but more as a passing gesture. It makes
23:47
Speaker 2: me feel better.
23:47
Speaker 1: I have no sense of smell, so I can't smell you.
23:49
Speaker 2: You got the Rona? No, I didn't have a sense
23:51
Speaker 2: of smell.
23:52
Speaker 8: You got the Rona, you fucker.
23:54
Speaker 9: I ain't gonna let you go that easy.
23:59
Speaker 1: You can't say you love me too.
24:02
Speaker 2: But to get that love. Your life is reduced to
24:06
Speaker 2: a crude hierarchy of habits, routines, and immediate pleasures. Strangely,
24:12
Speaker 2: it feels no different from your life before. Only smaller. Yeah,
24:16
Speaker 2: fuck it with your head.
24:19
Speaker 9: Don't you miss your ex now?
24:24
Speaker 2: The last time you saw your ex was on your
24:26
Speaker 2: 27th birthday. You were shouting at one another beneath the
24:28
Speaker 2: rattling viaduct of the M-Line. The high of the evening's drugs,
24:33
Speaker 2: long worn into a bleary, agitated kind of attention. Your
24:37
Speaker 2: ex shouting, it's been two years. You need to get
24:40
Speaker 2: over me. I got over you in a week. I
24:43
Speaker 2: know you said, I know, even though you didn't know.
24:46
Speaker 2: He texted you recently to ask how you're holding up
24:49
Speaker 2: in lockdown. You told him you need space, but not
24:54
Speaker 2: that you have decided to move to Los Angeles. By
24:57
Speaker 2: the end of July, you found an apartment there. You
25:00
Speaker 2: quit your job, You pack your belongings into seven 24x18
25:04
Speaker 2: cardboard boxes and load them onto a Greyhound bus. You
25:08
Speaker 2: leave what won't fit or isn't worth the charge for
25:10
Speaker 2: extra weight. On the curb in front of your apartment,
25:14
Speaker 2: talismans of regret. The skateboard you bought with your ex.
25:18
Speaker 2: A wilting palm tree you forgot to water. A stack
25:20
Speaker 2: of books you never got around to reading. A friend
25:24
Speaker 2: once told you that in a good story, the ending
25:26
Speaker 2: feels inevitable. that by the time you arrive there, you
25:29
Speaker 2: have this feeling that the events preceding it and where
25:31
Speaker 2: they lead could not have happened any other way. This
25:35
Speaker 2: is how you feel the night before you leave New
25:37
Speaker 2: York City. You have reached your inevitable end here, which
25:41
Speaker 2: means you might actually have a chance to start again.
26:07
Speaker 2: In the first two months of your arrival to Los Angeles,
26:10
Speaker 2: katabatic winds, dry lightning, a gender-reveal pyrotechnic, and an arsonist
26:15
Speaker 2: ignite a series of fires that turn the sky's slate
26:18
Speaker 2: with ash. Every surface is slick with a fine film,
26:22
Speaker 2: including the sun, which is now a matte red hole
26:25
Speaker 2: in the sky. You learn that here in Los Angeles,
26:28
Speaker 2: seasons are divided between dry or wet. which makes it
26:31
Speaker 2: harder to distinguish the passing of time. The shorthand of
26:35
Speaker 2: the world stutters in place, but you trace the nearly
26:38
Speaker 2: imperceptible movement of the long hand by observing the pomegranate
26:41
Speaker 2: tree outside your living room window. When you arrive in July,
26:46
Speaker 2: the bulbs are pink, dwarfed by pale crowns. By the
26:49
Speaker 2: end of September, they are ruby red and fat, branches
26:53
Speaker 2: sagging under their weight.
27:06
Speaker 3: Hey.
27:08
Speaker 4: Hi.
27:08
Speaker 2: Hey, can you hear me?
27:11
Speaker 7: I can.
27:11
Speaker 2: Okay, cool.
27:14
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I didn't call you earlier. I totally set
27:17
Speaker 3: my mind.
27:19
Speaker 2: Connor is driving his truck up and down the Pacific
27:21
Speaker 2: Coast Highway. He's waiting to be called into the fires.
27:25
Speaker 2: You ask him to start recording himself while he's waiting.
27:28
Speaker 2: You think maybe he'll make a project about seasonal firefighters.
27:31
Speaker 3: Do you want to record me right now instead of
27:33
Speaker 3: me doing everything?
27:35
Speaker 2: I'm recording you right now.
27:38
Speaker 4: Oh, you are?
27:38
Speaker 6: Yeah.
27:39
Speaker 4: Oh, good.
27:41
Speaker 8: Because I didn't want to do it.
27:45
Speaker 6: Well, you should still record.
27:46
Speaker 7: I still want you to record yourself.
27:48
Speaker 1: It can be very therapeutic, you know.
27:50
Speaker 8: Yeah, I know.
27:52
Speaker 2: If Connor is lucky, he'll get a call and spend
27:54
Speaker 2: a few weeks or months digging long ditches, lines to
27:58
Speaker 2: contain fires. But so far, nobody has called, and he's
28:02
Speaker 2: spent the summer sleeping in his truck.
28:04
Speaker 7: Well, I guess I'll let you go.
28:08
Speaker 1: Are you sure?
28:08
Speaker 8: Are you feeling okay?
28:11
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm fine. I fixed my radio yesterday.
28:17
Speaker 3: Well, are things going okay? They're okay.
28:26
Speaker 8: It's fine.
28:26
Speaker 7: It's okay.
28:30
Speaker 3: Okay.
28:30
Speaker 2: Love you, brother.
28:31
Speaker 3: Love you, too.
28:32
Speaker 4: Bye.
28:39
Speaker 2: By October, the birds have hollowed out the pomegranates. The
28:42
Speaker 2: empty shells sway lazily on the branches like paper ornaments.
28:46
Speaker 2: You are surprised to find that your next-door neighbors, a
28:49
Speaker 2: young white couple, rarely return your greetings. You live in
28:52
Speaker 2: the heart of a gentrifying Central American neighborhood. When you
28:56
Speaker 2: speak to the cashier at the corner store in Spanish,
28:58
Speaker 2: she responds in English. You want to tell her that
29:01
Speaker 2: you're not like the rest of them. Your grandmother is
29:04
Speaker 2: from Santa Ana, You couldn't have afforded to live here
29:06
Speaker 2: a few years ago. You moved here to be closer
29:09
Speaker 2: to something. You're just not sure what or how.
29:14
Speaker 9: I just thought about.
29:15
Speaker 2: The fact that I'm hungover and in a pandemic. Friends
29:23
Speaker 2: visit on occasion, but mostly you are alone.
29:29
Speaker 4: Anyways.
29:31
Speaker 2: Your ex is dating someone new. You see on Instagram
29:34
Speaker 2: that they've adopted a dog. There's no one to share
29:37
Speaker 2: this news with. Your friends think you're over it. which
29:40
Speaker 2: you are. But he's your only ex, which gives the
29:43
Speaker 2: possibility of his happiness without you a cold clarity. Maybe
29:47
Speaker 2: the reason you will never fall in love is that
29:49
Speaker 2: your ex saw something in you which made love impossible.
29:54
Speaker 2: That you needed it more than other people.
29:57
Speaker 8: Happy birthday.
30:02
Speaker 2: You turn 28. The pomegranate tree dormant in your window.
30:15
Speaker 2: The long hand of the world lurches forward, and the
30:18
Speaker 2: short one trembles. On April 18th, 2021, a little over
30:52
Speaker 2: a year after he first calls you to ask to
30:54
Speaker 2: look for your father, Connor texts you a series of screenshots.
30:58
Speaker 2: They're of an exchange between him and someone from a
31:00
Speaker 2: DNA testing website, a distant relative. You bought a kit
31:04
Speaker 2: for your family a few years ago and forgot about it.
31:07
Speaker 2: In the exchange, Connor asks if there's someone in this
31:10
Speaker 2: distant relative's family with your birth father's name. Yes, in fact,
31:14
Speaker 2: says the stranger. A few days later, Connor receives your
31:18
Speaker 2: birth father's first, middle, and last name. For the first time,
31:22
Speaker 2: spelled correctly. When you search your birth father's name in
31:26
Speaker 2: public records, it returns a result in Los Angeles, in
31:30
Speaker 2: a suburb 40 minutes away from you.
31:33
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you feel about it?
31:35
Speaker 9: I feel good about it.
31:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel good about it.
31:39
Speaker 8: For me, I feel like the first day that we
31:42
Speaker 8: kind of got the info, I was like, I'm kind
31:45
Speaker 8: of excited.
31:47
Speaker 2: It has been a long time since you've heard Connor
31:49
Speaker 2: excited about anything. It's sweet and unnerving. To say no
31:54
Speaker 2: would be disappointing for him, a betrayal of your attempts
31:56
Speaker 2: towards closeness. But the thought of meeting your birth father
32:00
Speaker 2: inspires very little feeling in you, besides a nascent hope
32:04
Speaker 2: that you might finally finish a project, something you failed
32:07
Speaker 2: to do with your pandemic phone calls or your stripper
32:09
Speaker 2: screenplay or seasonal firefighter project.
32:13
Speaker 3: I mean, do you feel like that, like if you
32:15
Speaker 3: met him, that you feel like you won't get anything
32:18
Speaker 3: out of it?
32:18
Speaker 8: I guess I'm just trying to figure out like what,
32:24
Speaker 8: you know, like I feel like we're both.
32:26
Speaker 7: Almost 30, you know? You know, like, what is this
32:29
Speaker 7: guy going to tell us about ourselves that we.
32:31
Speaker 4: Don't already know?
32:32
Speaker 3: I hear you, because it's, like, I'm not interested. It's, like,
32:35
Speaker 3: I don't really give a shit about... I mean, I
32:39
Speaker 3: do give a shit.
32:39
Speaker 5: I do give a shit about meeting him.
32:40
Speaker 3: I don't, like.
32:43
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm so much more ready to, like,
32:46
Speaker 3: confront this kind of thing because we're almost 30. It's, like,
32:50
Speaker 3: meeting him is not going to, like, necessarily affect me,
32:53
Speaker 3: I don't think, in some, like, crazy way. I think
32:58
Speaker 3: it's just going to, like, really, for me, I feel
33:01
Speaker 3: like I'm going to have some closure of, like, knowing what, like,
33:08
Speaker 3: I don't know. Do you ever, like, look in the
33:10
Speaker 3: mirror and, like, say, like, like, think about dad or, like, dad,
33:14
Speaker 3: our biological dad?
33:18
Speaker 8: Yeah.
33:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely.
33:20
Speaker 3: You ever, like, I think I find myself always looking
33:23
Speaker 3: and being, like, I don't even know what our family
33:25
Speaker 3: looks like. I have mom to compare that to. I
33:29
Speaker 3: have mom's face in a lot of ways, but I
33:34
Speaker 3: also wonder what a biological dad looks like.
33:40
Speaker 2: You have tabs open to several potential fathers on Facebook.
33:44
Speaker 2: A series of white men in rimless or squared sunglasses
33:47
Speaker 2: with varied hairlines and gradient, pallid shades. Your top contender
33:52
Speaker 2: sports a buzz cut and a pair of gas station sunglasses.
33:55
Speaker 2: He's an amateur photographer who takes pictures of animals at
33:58
Speaker 2: the zoo.
33:59
Speaker 3: I found one picture of a person who kind of
34:01
Speaker 3: looks like he could be related to us, maybe.
34:05
Speaker 8: Yeah, I saw one that maybe did.
34:06
Speaker 6: I was like, damn, he's pretty ugly.
34:08
Speaker 2: I don't know.
34:09
Speaker 7: Is it the guy with the black hair and the
34:11
Speaker 7: sunglasses on?
34:13
Speaker 8: Yeah, that guy.
34:14
Speaker 3: I was like, is that really mom's type before she
34:17
Speaker 3: started dating really boring dudes?
34:19
Speaker 2: You have not told your mother about any of this,
34:22
Speaker 2: and you're not sure you will. It is very different,
34:24
Speaker 2: you think. to ask questions about your birth father than
34:28
Speaker 2: to meet him.
34:29
Speaker 3: And I'm curious about what his life is at.
34:33
Speaker 5: Yeah.
34:35
Speaker 3: I also hope he's falling. No, I'm just kidding.
34:41
Speaker 2: A thought occurs to you now as you listen to
34:43
Speaker 2: this recording. A series of questions, really, unavailable to you then.
34:47
Speaker 2: Without experience, we are blind to the nature and intention
34:51
Speaker 2: of our own impulses and actions. To know why we
34:54
Speaker 2: do the things we do, We have to know ourselves,
34:56
Speaker 2: which at this time, you do not. But a hint
35:00
Speaker 2: lies in the contradiction between thought and action. Here's yours.
35:05
Speaker 2: You don't care about your father, so then why record?
35:08
Speaker 2: What do you think you will find when you return
35:10
Speaker 2: to this moment? If you record moments to keep them,
35:13
Speaker 2: to collect them, to cohere them in the story of
35:16
Speaker 2: your life, but you also believe that you have already
35:18
Speaker 2: written the end of this one, then what is it
35:20
Speaker 2: that you think you will find here?
35:22
Speaker 8: I am just really curious.
35:25
Speaker 7: Who he is.
35:27
Speaker 2: Not knowing what you know now, you only think, it's
35:31
Speaker 2: a good story. I'm recording a good story. Two boys
35:35
Speaker 2: search for their father. They receive the answers they need
35:38
Speaker 2: to relieve them of whatever weight his absence still carries
35:41
Speaker 2: for them. Yes, that's good. That will do. Suddenly, it's
35:50
Speaker 2: June again. Almost exactly one year since he arrived to
35:53
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. the pomegranate tree is blooming again. This time,
35:58
Speaker 2: you will manage to pluck one for yourself and eat
36:01
Speaker 2: it before the birds come to harvest the seeds. One night,
36:06
Speaker 2: you will absentmindedly Google your father's name and Los Angeles.
36:11
Speaker 2: The screen will populate with the same buzzcut guy with
36:13
Speaker 2: gas station sunglasses. But now there are two new images.
36:17
Speaker 2: The first is a man standing beside a barber chair.
36:21
Speaker 2: He looks like he was ripped from a Time magazine
36:23
Speaker 2: article from the 50s. Tall, a pencil mustache, slicked back hair.
36:28
Speaker 2: There's an interview with him. He owns the barber shop.
36:31
Speaker 2: He grew up in California, moved to Los Angeles in
36:34
Speaker 2: the mid-90s. Before he was a barber, he says. He
36:37
Speaker 2: was a line cook. The second image is of him
36:41
Speaker 2: standing in front of the shop. It looks familiar. You
36:46
Speaker 2: will type the address into Google Maps. You ate dinner
36:50
Speaker 2: across the street from the shop last night. You will
36:53
Speaker 2: type in your address to measure the distance between you
36:55
Speaker 2: and this barbershop. A short, nearly straight line will appear
37:01
Speaker 2: and an estimated arrival time from your apartment. Five minutes.
37:11
Speaker 4: Five minutes.
37:25
Speaker 2: Reaching Out is an original podcast from Futuro Studios in
37:28
Speaker 2: partnership with KCRW. It is written, produced, and narrated by me,
37:30
Speaker 2: Sergio Quevedo. Editing by Maria Garcia. with additional editing help
37:56
Speaker 2: by Marlon Bishop, Fernanda Chavity, and Sam Leeds. Special thanks
38:01
Speaker 2: to Sarah Rattay Maloney for editorial feedback. Our production managers
38:05
Speaker 2: were Jessica Ellis and Victoria Estrada. Mixed by Stephanie LeBeau.
38:10
Speaker 2: Scoring by Lucy Little. Show art by Simran Chawla. Executive
38:16
Speaker 2: produced for Futuro Studios by Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia.
38:20
Speaker 2: Our marketing team included Anelo Reyes and Luis Luna. Futuro
38:25
Speaker 2: Media was founded by Maria Hinojosa. Special thanks to Elen
38:29
Speaker 2: Cohen for feedback on the opening of this episode.