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Transcript

Heavyweight Short: Jesse & Tori · Heavyweight

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Stevie Lane. Hello, it's fair to say that you know
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: me as something of a storyteller.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I would say that's fair.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: No, I spin yarns. But you know, I have to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: say sometimes I get a little tired of it.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: What gets tired? Is it just your mouth?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Sometimes this storyteller longs to be a story listener. Now
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I understand you have a story for me to listen to.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I do you just have to open up those years?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I shut my big fat yeah.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to give your mouth a rest.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Today's have you wait?
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Short Jesse and Tory right after the break, Hello, Hello,
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Our story today begins with a man, a man named
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Jesse James.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is he.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Right off the bat, Jesse James and I have something
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: in common.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I appreciate this is he.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: But every time I say it, like to my friends,
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: like this is she, they're always like, you're an asshole?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which you know.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: I hope you don't think I'm calling you an asshole.
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: No, of course not. But I am an attorney, so
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: I am, in fact an asshole.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Jesse, not in fact an asshole? Is here to tell
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: me the story of his first love. He was in
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: middle school twenty two years ago in West Virginia. As
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: a kid, Jesse had a big personality, was always kind
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: of the class clown. But in sixth grade he was
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: going through a hard time.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: My dad he had got deployed in Afghanistan in the
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: wake of nine to eleven, and my best friend Keith
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: had moved away. I was kind of looking for stuff
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: to grab onto. I was kind of rootless, didn't have
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: any real close friends.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Then one December day, a new girl showed up in
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: his science class.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: She had a particular smile that was really great. It
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: was more like a smirk, like she knew something that
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: you didn't.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Her name was Torri. She was from Ohio, Tall, with long,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: dark hair. Jesse had a crush immediately, so to get
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: her attention, he devised an elaborate plan. Since his best
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: friend Keith had just moved away.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: I declare that I need a new best friend, so
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: I hold a contest. I ask for written applications.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, but not really.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: No, I did. I'll set up a contest. I'll rig
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: it so she wins, and we'll right off into the sunset. Wow,
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: are you impressed with the brilliance of this plan?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Brilliance wasn't necessarily the word I would have chosen.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: But uh, I think there may have been a talent portion.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: Now I'm certain there was a talent portion. There's no
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: way there wouldn't have been.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Jesse made a questionnaire, Tory took one home and filled
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: it out. Jesse says she really aced one particular question.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: If I was hanging off the side of a cliff
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: with one hand, you know, slipping, what would you do?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Wow? High stakes?
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I remember that she wrote nothing. It was
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: like she saw through the ridiculousness of it and it
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: was like a wink.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: So it's like you can do better than that.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Jesse's plan worked. He and Tory became best friends for
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: the next few years. They sat together every day at
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: lunch and on the bus ride home after school from
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: their separate houses. They call each other up on the
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: phone and watch movies like Misery and Sixteen Candles all
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: night long. Jesse would show off for Tory, play piano,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: entertain her with his impression of Sean Connery. Tory didn't
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: even know who Sean Connery was, but she laughed anyway.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Jesse was in love.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: On the day of Tory's thirteenth birthday, Jesse decided to
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: make his big move. They were going to the movies
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: to celebrate.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Do you remember the movie? Oh?
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I could never forget. It was The Day after Tomorrow.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: There's bad movies, but it's bad in a special way.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: But whatever. I wasn't even watching the movie half the time.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: I was more looking at Tory, thinking about what do
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: I need to do to be able to put my
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: arm around her. I did the old classic yawn, but.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: To a surprise, Tory shrugged me off, and I thought, hmm,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: maybe I've miss read some of this.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Jesse was confused.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: He'd been trying to show Toy in many small ways
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: how he felt about her, and she seemed to like him,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: but she kept shooting him down. Jesse recalls one day
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: in school when he saw Tory carrying a big bouquet
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: of balloons, balloons from some other admirer. He thought of
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: all the other guys who might actually be putting their
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: arms around her at the movies. He was jealous, wounded,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: and afraid of being hurt, so he pulled away. No
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: more watching movies over the phone, no more sitting on
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: the bus together. Jesse began treating Tory like any other
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: girl in his science class. To fill the Tory sized
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: hole in his life, Jesse, now in eighth grade, threw
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: himself into the school musical. He was playing the lead
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: in the music Man, and rehearsals were a welcome distraction
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: from Tory with a capital T and that rhymed with
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: B and that stood for broken hearted. On the night
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: of the show, everything went great and Jesse was riding
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: high until he came out to take his bow from
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: center stage. Jesse saw Tory sitting smack in the middle
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: of the front row, beaming at him, and then she
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: held something up for him and all the school to see.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: She had made a sign on a large piece of
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: poster paper, and it said, Jesse, will you go out
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: with me?
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: In the romantic comedy version of his life, this would
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: be the moment when Jesse would leap from the stage
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: and swoop Tory into his arms. But instead, I was
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: so embarrassed, Jesse froze. It was everything he'd wanted, but
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: all he felt was fear. Everyone in the art auditorium
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: was looking at him expectantly, and he had no idea
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: what to say. He was just thirteen years old, an
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: age when even a kiss on the cheek from.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Your aunt might make you blush?
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Was he really supposed to profess his love for Tory
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: for all his friends, family, and classmates to see. The
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: applause died down and the lights came up. The audience
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: filed out, and the rest of the cast went backstage.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: In Jesse's memory, it felt like he and Tory were
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: the last two people left in the auditorium, all alone.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: Tory was still holding the sign, Jesse, will you go
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: out with me? But Jesse couldn't even meet her gaze.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: He walked off stage and left.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: I couldn't face my fear. I can be honest with
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: myself about how I fell the I very very very
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: much loved her. I didn't even understand the full shit scope.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: After the music man, Jesse and Tory didn't talk about
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: the sign.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: In fact, through the end of middle.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: School then high school, they didn't talk at all. They
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: were in separate classes and avoided each other in the
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: halls until four years later, at the end of senior year.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Jesse recalls it was right around graduation. Tory's younger sister
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: was a friend of a friend of Jesse's, and so
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: one day, by chance, he found himself hanging out with
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people at Tory's house. He walked by
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Tory's room and, seeing her, stopped in the doorway to
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: say hi. They began chatting casually, and Jesse sat down
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: on the carpet. It was bizarre, after years of no
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: contact to suddenly find himself right outside her bedroom. They
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: weren't talking about anything serious, but to Jesse it felt sacred.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: It suddenly hit him he was still in love with Tory.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: It didn't really make any sense to me. Why because
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: it's over and you shouldn't still feel anything like that,
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: But I did.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Jesse resolved to tell Tory how he felt, to finally
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: rectify the mistake he made in ignoring her. After the
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: music man and with high school coming to a close,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: it was now or never. The night of graduation, he
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: went over to her house, but before he even got
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: to the front steps, he saw Tory and her boyfriend
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: at the time standing outside on the lawn yelling in
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: the middle of a big fight. There was no opening.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: For the second time. Jesse said nothing and left. It's
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: not unusual for your first love to make an impact,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: but for Jesse, his first love left a crater. It's
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: been twenty years since The Music Man. Jesse's dated other people,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: was even engaged for a while, but he's never stopped
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: thinking about Tory.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: I tried to convince myself that kids think that they're
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: in love all the time, it's no big deal, But
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: subsequently I never felt the same.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Jesse has a scar in his palm that Tory gave
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: him with her fingernail by accident. He looks at it sometimes,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: grateful to have proof. He says that he and Tory
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: were ever close.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: In twenty nineteen, I was in West Virginia talking to
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: my best friend over a can of cors Light or two,
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: and I had narrowed down exactly one regret, only one.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: If you could go back in time and change one thing,
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: I knew what it was, don't freeze. After the music
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: Man performance, tell Tory, I felt, yes, just tell her something.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: He was so dear to me.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: He was.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: My best friend.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: This is Tory, she's an artist now living out West.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: I call her to ask how she felt about Jesse.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: But he meant more to me than that. Also, he
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: was really my first love.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: And so Tory remembers all the same moments of their
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: relationship that Jesse does science class, the long late night
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: phone calls, the balloons, which, as it turns out, were
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: not from some middle school casanova, but from her dad,
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: and of course she remembers going to see the day
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: after tomorrow.
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: For the record, I did not hate it.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Tory says that when Jesse put his arm around her,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: she might have shruckd him off, but secretly she was thrilled.
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: In my mind, it was like I was going to
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: have more chances somehow, like he had made a move,
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: and I confirmed that he liked me, and then we
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: could go forward from here.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: It never occurred to Tory that she was sending Jesse
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: mixed signals until it was too late.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: I had been too reserved with my feelings. I had
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: held them too close, and I lost him. And I
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: felt like, if only I could show him the extent
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: of my feelings, he would come right back. And I
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: think to myself, this needs a grand gesture.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: And so Tory made a sign.
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: It was all caps in black sharpie on a white
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: poster board. You know, I had to catch attention.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Which it did from everyone, it seemed, except the person
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: she wanted it to.
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: Other students. All my classmates see me and Jesse won't
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: look at me. I thought, wow, I fucked up. And
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: from that day Jesse and I did not speak.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Tory moved on, She made other friends, dated other people,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: like her boyfriend. Senior year, Tory remembers the argument they
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: were having on her front lawn the night of graduation,
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: and who.
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: Shows up with Jesse And he's standing there on the driveway.
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: I don't know what he wanted to say. After graduation,
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: I move all over the United States and I get married.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: It is devastating I find out that she was married.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Why is it because on some level you still had hope.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: It was even more complicated than that. It was that
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: I didn't feel like I was good enough for her,
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: but this guy definitely wasn't.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Over the years, Jesse and Tory would occasionally exchange messages
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: on social media. They talk about jobs and moves and relationships.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Two old friends catching up. Jesse tried not to think
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: about what might have been. Are you confident that if
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: you had had the chance that night, graduation night to
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: talk with her things would have been different?
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Timing is everything. When Tory was ready to declare her
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: love for Jesse, Jesse felt ambushed. When Jesse was ready
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: to be honest with Tory. She had moved on. It's
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: like Tory and Jesse have been playing a decades long
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: game of phone tag. Last December, Jesse and Tory were
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: both home in West Virginia at the same time. By
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: this point, they were in in their early thirties. Tory
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: was divorced and Jesse's engagement had ended. Jesse suggested they
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: meet up. They spent the whole evening together, Jesse playing
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: songs for Toy on his guitar, making her laugh the
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: way he used to. There was a feeling of expectation
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: in the air, a subtext to everything said, and yet
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: still the whole night, Jesse couldn't bring himself to confess
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: his feelings, never mention the music man. When it got late,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Tory went home. Once again, they'd missed their moment. This
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: is the point in a normal heavyweight story where I'd
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: step in to create that moment. I'd get Tory and
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Jesse together and awkwardly nudge them into a conversation twenty
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: years overdue. They'd say the things they didn't have the
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: words for when they were kids, and I'd say something
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: stupid like, Jesse, can you do your Sean Connery impression
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: for us. But in this story I don't have to
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: do any of that because at midnight that night back
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: in December, after Torri got home her cellphone, rang.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: I told her everything that I had meant to for
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: the past twenty two.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Years, which was what.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: That was really shitty of me to do what I
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: did to you in eighth grade. I apologize for that.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: I don't know if this is obvious, but I love you.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: It was one of the best moments of my life
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: to catch you up to speed for what's happening now.
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: We are getting married in December this year. It will
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: be our twentieth anniversary of when we met.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, is there something that's almost frustrating that
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: it had to take this long.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: Yes, we had many conversations about why did we why
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: did we play this game? And I think we both
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: had a lot of growing to do. And I think
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: if we hit stay together, I think we would have
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: had a whirlwind relationship. It would have been crazy highs
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: and lows. Maybe, but I don't think we could have
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: stood the test of time. This is our time.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: The wedding data set, but there's not yet been an
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: official proposal Tori says she's going to make Jesse a
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: sign on white poster board with big black letters written
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: in black sharpie that says Jesse, will you marry me?
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: And this time Jesse won't freeze. This time He's going
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: to tell her Yes, Jesse, can you do your Sean
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Connery impression for us?
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Well, let's clear it up.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Much rain at the moment.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she's quite lovely.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Did you eat anything for breakfast?
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: French toast?
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: This Heavyweight short was produced by Moheemy mcgouger and me
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Stevie Lane, along with Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Khalila Holt. Production help from Domiana Marqutti. Special thanks to
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, and Sonya Desani. Bobby Lord mixed
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Sampson, Ben Elleman and Bobby Lord.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Additional music credits can be found on our website gimlipmedia
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: dot com slash Heavyweight, Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: or email us at Heavyweight at gimlipmedia dot com.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: We'll be back with a new episode next week.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: This Heavyweight short was produced by Mohemy mcgowker and Me Jonathan,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: oh my god,