Latest / Heavyweight / #32 Vivian

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#32 Vivian · Heavyweight

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Jackie.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Hello, who calls it six thirty on Friday night?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Wait? Wait?
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: What?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I wanted to say one thing? Hello?
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you do you know that a new season of
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: my show is starting?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I had no idea Listen.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I wanted to wash you great luck. Is this a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: kiss off?
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: From Gimblet Media.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Vivian
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: right after the break. This story begins back before the quarantine,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: a time when people didn't start conversations with how are
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: you holding up? During those innocent days. We started with
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: the weather.
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: It was minus forty last week minus forty. My front
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: door froze shut. I had to use like a hair
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: dryer to get out of the house.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Vivian lives in Canada, and while I'm always happy to
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: talk about Canada, white Horse is beautiful.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I once had an opportunity to go there.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: It's not the reason why we're here. Vivian's reached out
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: to talk about something that happened twenty five years ago
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: that she still has questions about the death of her
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: uncle Ellio.
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: I grew up in Winnipeg. There's like nothing that sexy
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: about Winnipeg and my uncle it was like he had
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: just like breathed off of like a film set, Like
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: you wear this black leather jacket. He's like tight jeans,
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: and he smoked cigarettes and he just emanated coolness. I
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: don't really know how other to say it than he did. Yeah,
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: this swagger.
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Ellio lived in New York City. He was a journalist
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: and had friends who were artists and writers. He gave
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: Vivian her very first journal, which he still carries around
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: to this day. In Vivian's memory, there was a lightness
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: about Elio. Everything was always for a laugh, Like the
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: time they were back visiting their family in Brazil and
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: Elo had Vivian and her brother full dozens of paper airplanes.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: He was staying on the ninth or tenth floor of
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: this apartment building and it was like this really beautiful
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: sunny day and we like walked out onto the balcony
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: and just like shot off like one hundred of these
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: airplanes into the sunshine. It felt like electric and so
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: like free.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: On the inside of Vivian's arm is a tattoo of
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: a paper airplane. It's there to remind her of the
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: freedom and lightness she felt that day. It's there to
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: remind her of Elli Oh. November seventh, nineteen ninety two,
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Vivian was nine years old. It was her brother's birthday
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: and the family was heading out to celebrate when the
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: phone rang. It was Elyo's roommate, a man named Marcello.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: And Marcello just said straight up like Elu had a
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: seizure that's related to AIDS and he's sick, and that
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: was how the family found out that one that he
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: was gay, in too, that he had AIDS.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: Ellio was in his mid thirties and had never told
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: his family he was gay. In fact, he often spoke
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: of wanting to find a wife and settle down. Over
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: the next few years, the illness advanced rapidly, so Vivian's
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: family planned out visit. Vivian remembers one trip in particular,
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: her dad packed her and her brother into the car
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: to drive from Winnipeg to New York, a twenty five
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: hour road trip to.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: My dad's little Honda Civic with no air conditioning.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: This is Vivian's brother, Eduardo. He's three years older than
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: Vivian and has clearer memories from the trip down.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: It was like hottest summer on record.
• 4:33
  Speaker 6: Along the way.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: We had to stop in convenience stores and supermarkets just
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: to cool off.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: Eduardo says. His father brought along a video camera and
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: entered ELO's tiny apartment on Lafayette Street already rolling. Elio
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: was lying prone on the couch, not wanting to be recorded.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: She turned his head from us, kind of pulling the
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: blanket off over his sighs his head and being like
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: embarrassed at how he looked.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: Elio was thin and frail and hooked up to IV tubes.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: Vivian's grandparents had flown in from South Paulo. Watch them
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: with their son.
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: I remember them not touching him because presumably they were
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: afraid to get sick. And I remember thinking that was
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: like really just like really weird and really sad. The
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: family didn't really help. They didn't help, like when when
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: Ali was sick. I guess my dad's conception of health
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: thing was like, oh, I'm going to bring the kids
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: for like five days and we'll come visit. But no
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: one like stopped their lives to like come look after him.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: While the family paid for all of Elio's medical bills,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: the person who actually did stop his life did come
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: look after Eli. Oh was the man who made the
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: phone call that November day in nineteen ninety two. Marcello
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: has almost no memories of Marcello, and Eduardo's memories are vague,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: Marcello moving about the apartment, always in the background, referred
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: to by ellioh only as a friend. Growing up, the
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: name Marcelo meant nothing to Vivian. It was only later,
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: as a teenager that she learned Marcelo had been partners
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: with her uncle for thirteen years.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: And I think part of it is because, you know,
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: unlike an aunt, like say Ellie was heterosexual, on dating
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: a woman, his partner would have been introduced in that way, like, oh,
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: well this is your aunt or this is a more
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: important person in your life.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Right, Elliot couldn't say, hey, this is your uncle exactly.
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: But in some ways, you know, even though it sounds
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: really weird, it's like he is kind of my uncle.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Hmmm, I don't think it sounds that weird.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: I mean it's sort of like, you know, if things
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: had been different, if your uncle had married him, you
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: guys would have had a formal connection, and instead there
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: isn't exactly a name for him, and as a result,
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: you've lost that person who was so good to your uncle.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. It was obviously so like shamed in my
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: family that you know, we couldn't even call ell you gay.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: The wound Vivian feels over the injustice or family did
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: to Elioh has only grown deeper over the years as
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: she's become better able to put herself in her uncle's shoes.
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: I didn't really clue into being attracted to women until
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: I was like twenty early twenties. I couldn't let myself
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: even think about that because seeing how the family like
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: treated my uncle, like, I'm sure it left this message
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: with me, you know that it wasn't a good thing.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: This month I turned thirty seven, I turned thirty seven,
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: which is the same year that my uncle passed away.
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: And so at this point in my life, if I
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: had this illness, like terminal illness, and I was living
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: on the other side of the world and my family
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: didn't come, you know, to help.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Me, as Marcela did.
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I don't even know him, like I can't
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: even remember like a visual of him, and yet like
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: I feel very connected to this person. I want to
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: find Marcello and I want to tell him thank you
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: for looking after Elu for that huge sacrifice that he made,
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: and I think I want to let him know that
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: I have spent, you know, so much time like thinking
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: about him.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: After the break the search for Marcelo, I don't have
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: much to begin my search for Marcelo. Vivian remembers that
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: back when he was living with elioh Marcelo worked as
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art, but
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: I can't find any record of his employment. When Vivian
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: told me about Elio's old group of artist friends, though,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: she singled out one artist by name, a very famous
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: usical composer. And while the composer's number isn't readily available,
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: I do happen to have his cousin's number. Hello, Ira,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: Oh shit, do we have an interview now? Potty mouth
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: broadcast or Ira Glass is cousins with minimalist musical composer
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: Philip Glass, the old friend of Vellios.
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: I seek sorry, sorry, sorry, be okay, give me a
• 10:35
  Speaker 6: second to turn on gear on my side.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Sure, okay, okay.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: You never want to bother the people you admire, but
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: in the back of your mind you think, okay, maybe someday,
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: in an emergency, I might be entitled to a favor,
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: and then you ask them to write a preface to
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: your experimental novella published by a small Canadian press, and
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: then you ask them to introduce you at your book
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: launch that's only attended by seven people. This is how
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: I felt phoning up to chop yet another branch from
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: the giving tree, which is I a glass. So I
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: just wanted to I wanted to ask you for a
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: phone number. Okay, a cousin of yours.
• 11:23
  Speaker 7: Keep going.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: Do you know who I'm talking about?
• 11:27
  Speaker 7: I assume you mean Philip.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: Being something of a storyteller, the mention of Philip prompts
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: Irah to tell the story of when he and his
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: wife vacationed with Philip and his girlfriend in Italy.
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: He was finishing up at one of his operas and
• 11:45
  Speaker 6: he had an electric piano brought in and they were
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: in a bedroom like down the hall from us, and
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: so we would be woken up by him composing, which
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: is crazy.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: And you were doing vocal warm ups, well he.
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: Was, Yeah, I was just practicing staying over and over.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: Stay with us, Stay with us, stay stay with us.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: Irah promises to reach out to Philip on my behalf
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: to see if he still has Marcella's phone number. Hey,
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: before you go, can I share with you a little
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: knock knock joke?
• 12:20
  Speaker 7: Sure?
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Knock knock, who's there? Knock knock?
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Who's there? Knock knock?
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: Who's there?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Knock knock?
• 12:30
  Speaker 7: Who's there?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Philip Glass?
• 12:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I know that one.
• 12:35
  Speaker 7: I'm sure he knows that one too, Do you think so?
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's like, can I just say, like, that's
• 12:40
  Speaker 6: a level of fame that you or I cannot even
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: aspire to to have.
• 12:45
  Speaker 7: A knock knock joke named after you? Who gets that?
• 12:48
  Speaker 7: Who gets that?
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: You know?
• 12:50
  Speaker 7: Who gets that banana?
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: A week later, Ira writes back, Philip doesn't have anything,
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: which is to say, Ira concludes at the end of
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: his email, knock knock, who's there? Not Philip Glass? And
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: so the search continues. Vivian's dad, Jacques, doesn't have a
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: current number for Marcello. The last time he saw him
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: was five years after Elio died. Still feeling guilty about
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: the circumstances surrounding his brother's death, Jacques had sought Marcello out.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: I felt that the only person who could absolve me,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: Jacques said, was Marcello. But the encounter was fraught. Jacques
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: later spoke of it with Vivian, telling her he walked
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: away feeling like Marcello was angry with their family for
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: abandoning elioh hearing this, I wonder if Marcello is still angry.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Perhaps after all of these years, Marcello doesn't want to
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: be found. The only other thing I know about Marcello
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: is that he'd been involved in AIDS activism. After extensive googling,
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: I discover an article on an HIV resource site from
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: nineteen ninety eight written by Marcello's spelled with one L,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: not two, as Vivian had remembered, being so young at
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: the time. Maybe there are other details Vivian is misremembering,
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: And sure enough it's in a nineteen ninety four staffing
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: report for the Met not the MoMA, that I find
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: the one eld Marcello. He now lives in San Francisco,
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: and in my excitement, I leave him a rambling, incoherent
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: message about how I know this must be so weird,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: but I'm calling on behalf of Elio's niece, Vivian Marcello. Hey,
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: I'm so glad that you have the time to talk.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: The very next day, Marcello calls back, and right off
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: the bat admits that his feelings about Elio's family are mixed.
• 15:00
  Speaker 8: It's it's complicated, it's very complicated.
• 15:04
  Speaker 9: It's just really it's a complicated history.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: Marcelo unravels it for me, beginning at the same place
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: Vivian did November of nineteen ninety two. It was the
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: morning after Bill Clinton was elected.
• 15:19
  Speaker 9: We're sitting in a coffee shop reading the results of
• 15:21
  Speaker 9: the elections, and I had a grandma's seizure right in
• 15:25
  Speaker 9: front of me.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: They rushed to a nearby hospital, where tests were performed,
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: and for the next few days Marcelo walked around in
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: a stupor. When they received the official diagnosis, Marcello picked
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: up the phone and made the call to Vivian's house.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: The learning that Elio had AIDS was devastating. The disease
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: itself was all too familiar in New York City. By
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: that year, nineteen ninety two, AIDS had become the leading
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: cause of death in American men aged twenty five to
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: forty four.
• 15:59
  Speaker 9: You remember in the nineties an eight as you would
• 16:01
  Speaker 9: see people gone, can the sheikshare?
• 16:04
  Speaker 8: You know?
• 16:06
  Speaker 9: And so that was sort of like a certain look.
• 16:09
  Speaker 9: However handsome he was, he got that look. He had
• 16:15
  Speaker 9: lost control of his bomb movements.
• 16:16
  Speaker 8: He was in diapers, he was blind, he was I'm sorry.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Marcello was in his late twenties when it became Leo's
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: full time nurse. Ellio was sick for three years, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: just months before the AIDS cocktail became widely available.
• 16:36
  Speaker 8: He died very beautifully. He died very peacefully.
• 16:41
  Speaker 9: In those last moments. It was a beautiful night. There
• 16:47
  Speaker 9: was this blue sky, and there's stars and a crescent moon.
• 16:53
  Speaker 9: And as we looked up the sky, this airplane sort
• 16:56
  Speaker 9: of crisscrossed took the moon.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: As Marcello speaks, I'm reminded of Ellio in Brazil flying
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: paper planes off the balcony.
• 17:05
  Speaker 9: And we waved at Alu and then we said goodbye,
• 17:09
  Speaker 9: and then he passed.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: True to Jacques's telling, Marcello was angry with the family's behavior,
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: especially during the last days of Elio's life. That's when
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: things grew complicated. The family had set aside funds so
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: Marcelo could pay for the embalming. It had to happen
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: as soon as Elo died before the body could be
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: sent to Brazil.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: For burial.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: When Marcelo knew Eleo only had a day or two left,
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: in the midst of so many other worries and so
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: much sadness, he phoned Eleo's middle brother, Vivian's uncle, so
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: arrangements could be made, but Vivian's uncle didn't believe him,
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: insisting Elyo had more time The.
• 17:53
  Speaker 9: Day before he was dying. You know, I said, listen,
• 17:55
  Speaker 9: I need your guys to release the money because this
• 17:57
  Speaker 9: is going to happen. And he suggested that I was
• 18:01
  Speaker 9: trying to talk at the money, and I lost it
• 18:06
  Speaker 9: at that moment.
• 18:10
  Speaker 8: That's just when Baalistic.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: The family had left Marcello the burden of caring for
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: elioh and now on top of that, they were accusing
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: him of theft. Marcello knew he wouldn't be welcomed as
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: a part of Elio's family, and so he did not
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: attend the funeral in Brazil. He would later learn from
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: friends who were present that he wasn't thanked. In fact,
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: there wasn't so much as a mention of his name,
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: not at the service nor in the death announcement, which
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: is to say Marcello's feelings are indeed complicated, but when
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: he looks up a photo of Vivian online and sees
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: her face, something is made simple.
• 18:49
  Speaker 8: She looks like al a lot.
• 18:51
  Speaker 9: She looks like you a lot.
• 18:52
  Speaker 8: She looks like of all the kids, she is the
• 18:55
  Speaker 8: one who looks like him a lot.
• 18:57
  Speaker 7: She looks like him.
• 18:58
  Speaker 8: That's incredible.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: By the end of our call, Marcelo has agreed to
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: meet Vivian in New York, where you can introduce her
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: to the people and places Elio loved best. Coming up
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: after the break, Vivian and Marcello stay with us, Stay
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: with us, Stay with us, Stay with us.
• 19:31
  Speaker 10: Stay with us.
• 19:48
  Speaker 9: So we would shop on these blocks on Broadway because
• 19:51
  Speaker 9: there are designtic source vintage clothing.
• 19:53
  Speaker 10: So this is this is are we walked around here.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: Vivian has flown to New York to deliver a thank
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: you that's twenty five years overdue, and Marcelo has his
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: own agenda to introduce Vivian to the real Elio. And
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: so we're in the village on a tour through l life.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: Marcelo points out their favorite hans and tells Vivian about
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: Eleo's career as a journalist, the time he profiled the
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: Beat poet Alan Ginsberg showing up for the interview. Eleo
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: found Ginsburg in the midst of writing a poem.
• 20:23
  Speaker 9: Alan Gisberg starts yelling at him, saying, you interrupt the
• 20:27
  Speaker 9: moment of inspiration.
• 20:28
  Speaker 7: This poem is gone. It's gone, gone, gone.
• 20:30
  Speaker 9: I won't remember a thing anymore. Held.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Marcello also takes Vivian to meet some of Ello's old friends.
• 20:41
  Speaker 11: You must be the niece, how are you?
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: Ruth was a well respected New York tattoo artist in
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: the seventies and eighties. Nowadays, her work is exhibited all
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: over the world. Her apartment is where Eleo's New York
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: memorial was held.
• 20:56
  Speaker 11: It was another aide's death. It was another terrible, terrible loss,
• 21:01
  Speaker 11: and everybody here had experienced it or nurses, somebody, you know.
• 21:05
  Speaker 11: To the end, I mean as young people as people
• 21:08
  Speaker 11: in the thirties.
• 21:09
  Speaker 8: Right, So you're very lucky anywhere, very lucky you didn't get.
• 21:16
  Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic that you didn't.
• 21:20
  Speaker 9: The irony had said, twenty five years we'll talk about
• 21:23
  Speaker 9: a virus, and twenty five years later, celebrating out of here,
• 21:25
  Speaker 9: we are talk about a virus again.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: It's early March twenty twenty, a few days after the
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: first confirmed case of COVID nineteen in New York. It's
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: that one weird week when we thought bumping elbows would
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: solve everything. In fact, here we are on a social call,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: playing it quote safe by eating the snacks Ruth made
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: from individually prepared bulls. Just days later, schools across the
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: city would be closed, Restaurants, stores and offices all shut.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Like with the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, our government
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: would again fail in its response, our medical system would
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: again prove ill equipped, misinformation would abound, and doctor Anthony Fauci,
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: who decades earlier led tactical charge against the AIDS outbreak,
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: would be back on TV picking up the slack. In
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: contrast to the religious service in Brazil, Ruth says that
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: the memorial at her place for Elio that day was
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: a raucous affair, you know.
• 22:27
  Speaker 9: With a conga line announcing the conga around this apartment.
• 22:30
  Speaker 11: Well, all these good looking guys in one room. You know,
• 22:33
  Speaker 11: it wasn't going to stay sad for two.
• 22:39
  Speaker 12: It was the best funeral ever anywhere.
• 22:43
  Speaker 8: I remember being drunk and stoned.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: We also pay a visit to Ken, an artist and
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: an old boyfriend of Ellio's. The artist's life has been
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: good to Ken. He looks far younger than his seventy
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: five years.
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: You haven't seen the clothes off.
• 22:58
  Speaker 12: Gravity tends to do very nasty things to budys.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Ken tells us about the trip he and Elio took
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: to Mexico early on in their relationship. Ken had been
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: going through a phase at the time where he was
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: wearing green contact lenses. Elio had never seen Ken without them.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: I would always tell Ken how much he loved his
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: beautiful green eyes.
• 23:18
  Speaker 12: I said, shit, how am I going to tell him
• 23:22
  Speaker 12: that these beautiful green eyes are fake?
• 23:25
  Speaker 8: So I decided I'm not going to tell him. What
• 23:28
  Speaker 8: the hell?
• 23:29
  Speaker 12: So we go to Mexico and I got something in
• 23:33
  Speaker 12: my eyes and they started bleeding.
• 23:35
  Speaker 8: We have to go to a hospital. We got to
• 23:40
  Speaker 8: the clinic.
• 23:41
  Speaker 12: The guy patched my eyes up, said you'll be blind
• 23:44
  Speaker 12: for twenty four hours. So the next day I took
• 23:49
  Speaker 12: the patches off, and then Eliot's looking at me and he.
• 23:52
  Speaker 8: Goes, oh my god. I said, what he said, your
• 23:57
  Speaker 8: eyes changed color?
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: So I tell this is perfect.
• 24:01
  Speaker 8: I looked in the mirror and said, oh my god,
• 24:03
  Speaker 8: they did. So that ended that.
• 24:07
  Speaker 12: I don't know if he ever found out.
• 24:16
  Speaker 8: Elliot melted everybody down that he met.
• 24:20
  Speaker 12: He was so charming. I never met anyone you couldn't
• 24:23
  Speaker 12: be mad at him. I tried so hard to be
• 24:27
  Speaker 12: mad at him so many times, and you couldn't be
• 24:29
  Speaker 12: mad at him.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: Ken directs his gaze at Vivianne.
• 24:33
  Speaker 8: You're lucky, You're lucky to have had an uncle like Elleo.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: Vivian is basking in Ken's praise of her uncle. The
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: room feels warm and friendly until Ken opens his mouth again.
• 24:47
  Speaker 8: I have to say his family.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: Was horrible, Ken says his but he is still looking
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: at Vivianne. He might as well have said your your
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: family was horrible. Ken is being honest, but it sucks
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: the air out of the room.
• 25:02
  Speaker 12: Truly horrible. It was shocking to me. It was really
• 25:07
  Speaker 12: shocking to me. When his mother came. She was so
• 25:10
  Speaker 12: cold and so distant from l e Oh.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: I know, of course, Vivian knows. It's why she's here.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Come on this way, Vivian, Marcelo and I are at
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: my office all day long. Marcello's been playing to her
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: guide to Eleo's old life. But I want him and
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: Vivian to get a chance to connect one on one.
• 25:40
  Speaker 8: Sit down, Okay, sit here, yeah, thank you.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Marcello sits on the couch, knees pressed together. Vivian is
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: seated across from him in an armchair, hands tucked between
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: her thighs. She's been waiting all day, all day, and
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: twenty five years for the chance to thank Marcello, and
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: so she stumbles her way forward, beginning with the ways
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: in which her family let Elo down.
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: I feel like the family, I feel like there was
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: like kind of like this like internalized shame. I don't know,
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: It's like that side of the family couldn't really see
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: past that that he was gay, and that was like
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: that lasting memory was like that shape.
• 26:21
  Speaker 9: Yeah, but I also feel like.
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: Marcello interrupts Vivian before she can get very far, but
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: almost immediately trails off. He looks down at his hands
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: in his lap and adjusts his feet on the carpet.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: When he speaks again, he speaks softly.
• 26:42
  Speaker 9: I feel compelled to say something. It would be simplistic
• 26:49
  Speaker 9: to say that just because the family didn't accept his
• 26:55
  Speaker 9: being gay, this difficulty is not all on your family side.
• 27:01
  Speaker 9: That was also Elia's inability to be who he was
• 27:05
  Speaker 9: fully really yeah.
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: According to Marcello, Eleo never fully embraced his own gay
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: identity and so was never honest with the family about
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: who he was.
• 27:16
  Speaker 9: He was gay, had a partner for ten years, you know,
• 27:19
  Speaker 9: he was HIV positive, So all of that sort of
• 27:23
  Speaker 9: came out for the family side and the worst possible way.
• 27:29
  Speaker 9: So there's a lot here of broken trust.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: Marcello's own family knew he was gay by the time
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: he was in his late teens, knew that Eleo wasn't
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: just a roommate. Marcello had been wanting Eleo to be
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: more transparent with his family for years. Instead, when the
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: family was around, Marcello says, Elo made him feel like
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: a mistress, like he had to disappear. So as much
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: as the family didn't acknowledge Marcello, Eleo didn't acknowledge Marcello
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: to the family either. Although they were a couple, Eleo
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: refused to fully commit to Marcello, continuing to date other
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: people like Ken. It was painful for Marcello. In fact,
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: Marceau admits that he'd been on the verge of breaking
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: up with Elio when they found out he had AIDS.
• 28:15
  Speaker 10: But made aue this ray of light.
• 28:19
  Speaker 9: Being joyful also made him more difficult to pin down
• 28:24
  Speaker 9: and taking responsibility and ownership for things that you do
• 28:30
  Speaker 9: as you become a grin up. So I want to
• 28:34
  Speaker 9: sort of take a bit of the weight from your family.
• 28:37
  Speaker 9: Just there's a little bit on his side as well.
• 28:42
  Speaker 8: There was his.
• 28:43
  Speaker 9: Own like internal internals, paral boughs. So I think there's
• 28:50
  Speaker 9: the dartful value, and there's the chicken Alio. There is
• 28:54
  Speaker 9: all of this a sort of wrapped and this fantastic
• 28:58
  Speaker 9: human being, you know, and he's just a person.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: I think I relate to maybe the chicken val. Like
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: in my early twenties, like I started dating women and
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: it was something that I shared with my dad and
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: my brother. My mom was actually like going through some
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: difficult stuff like in my twenties, And to be honest,
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: she actually still doesn't know, but I guess she soon.
• 29:30
  Speaker 9: Well, yes, listen, if you have white stuff, it's faster
• 29:36
  Speaker 9: than you. But if you address it, it's a way
• 29:39
  Speaker 9: of connecting, connecting.
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: Marcella was encouraging Vivian to not hide who she is
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: the way Alio did until he got sick.
• 29:48
  Speaker 9: He's softened, He softened you know.
• 29:51
  Speaker 13: I it might sound a little sanctimonious or piles on
• 29:56
  Speaker 13: my part, you know, but I loved him throughout, thick
• 30:01
  Speaker 13: and thin, and when he got sick, he allowed me
• 30:07
  Speaker 13: to love him in a way that he couldn't before.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: We really.
• 30:14
  Speaker 9: We're a couple in a way that we had never
• 30:17
  Speaker 9: been before.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: From Marcelo, those last days offered some of his happiest
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: memories of their relationship. Dying allowed Elio to finally grow up.
• 30:34
  Speaker 9: Sometimes he would hallucinate and he would go to parties
• 30:38
  Speaker 9: in his hand. I remember this one that was a
• 30:41
  Speaker 9: party by the Russian embassy, and he was talking about
• 30:46
  Speaker 9: all the people he was meeting at the Russian embassy,
• 30:49
  Speaker 9: and he was in bed and he would do.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: This Marcello minds smoking a cigarette.
• 30:55
  Speaker 9: But in that state. I remember one moment that is
• 30:59
  Speaker 9: the most precious moment of all days before he died,
• 31:04
  Speaker 9: I said to him, I love you, and he was
• 31:09
  Speaker 9: he had no cognition, his smile like year to year,
• 31:17
  Speaker 9: and I never forgot that.
• 31:20
  Speaker 8: So I love.
• 31:22
  Speaker 9: Him very very very much, and he loved me back.
• 31:28
  Speaker 9: And I had doubts from time to time, but in
• 31:32
  Speaker 9: that moment I felt it, do you want.
• 31:45
  Speaker 10: To commit.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: I feel like not a lot of people would go
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: to that length, you know, I mean my family didn't.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: But like I even wonder, like.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: Vivian struggles for the right words for the first time
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: during the trip, She's trying to put herself not in
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: Elio's shoes, but in Marcello's if.
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: The rules were reversed, Like, do you think Elie would
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: have done that for you?
• 32:29
  Speaker 9: It's all as a question for me, ALA's ask that
• 32:35
  Speaker 9: I don't know. I don't know.
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: The fact that you like moved in and took care
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: of him is it's it is really incredible in it.
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: I think it just shows like how compassionate and like
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: how loving of a person you are that you were
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: able to do that. So yeah, thank you, thank you.
• 33:09
  Speaker 9: I didn't expect to feel the wam feeling right now.
• 33:13
  Speaker 9: That held a grudge for a while, and I was
• 33:15
  Speaker 9: proud of the grudge. I was proud of being spurned,
• 33:20
  Speaker 9: and I think I grew attached to that.
• 33:23
  Speaker 7: I held that.
• 33:25
  Speaker 9: As a kind of a badge of honor in a way,
• 33:29
  Speaker 9: and I don't anymore. Also, I'm ready to receive it.
• 33:36
  Speaker 9: I don't think I was so thank you. I really
• 33:40
  Speaker 9: really appreciate that there's a poem by John Ashberry which
• 33:48
  Speaker 9: I'm going to completely destroy and bustardize. But there's an
• 33:52
  Speaker 9: image that I really love. He says, Somewhere someone is
• 33:58
  Speaker 9: running desperately towards you, and I have this image of you, like.
• 34:06
  Speaker 8: Not desperately, but sort of.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: Like when slow. I feel that too, because of you know,
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: the nature of everything that had happened. It was like
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: I didn't get that opportunity to have you, as you know,
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: an uncle in my life. So can I claim you
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: as my uncle?
• 34:37
  Speaker 10: Okay?
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: All right?
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: Twenty five years ago it had been Marcelo asking to
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: be let into the family, but now it's Vivian who's
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: doing the asking. Marcelo moves forward to embrace her. In
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: the end, Vivian receives an uncle as amazing as the
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: one she always imagined.
• 35:07
  Speaker 10: Remember you were I need?
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Did a girl?
• 35:11
  Speaker 9: Remember your her was blondish?
• 35:15
  Speaker 10: Would you like to remember your tiny.
• 35:45
  Speaker 14: Now that the fernures returning to its good will home,
• 35:55
  Speaker 14: Now that the last month's rent is skating with the
• 35:59
  Speaker 14: damaged bottle.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Take this moment to deserve.
• 36:05
  Speaker 10: If we mess him and we tied felt for far
• 36:14
  Speaker 10: from the Thames at Acid and leave.
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Stevie Lane along
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: with me Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Khalila Holt.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Caitlin Kenny, mime,
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: O'Donnell Lydia Polgreen, Rayhan Harmansey, Nobille Chalmpott, and Jackie Cohen.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, Michael Hurst, Hailey Shaw,
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: our website, Gimbletmedia dot.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Com slash Heavyweight.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Our theme song is by the Weaker Than's courtesy of
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Hailey Shaw.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. We'll be back with the
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: new episode next week.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Ba and