Transcript of Chapter 3: Between the Acts

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I don't know about you, but I've dated a few Brazilians in my day, and let me tell you, there is only so far flirtatiously saying phrases like, I don't know how to speak in Portuguese, but I really want to, will take you.

That's where Rosetta Stone comes in.

Stone comes in. They've just come out with their biggest launch in over a decade called Rosetta Stone Sapphire. It has lots of cutting-edge features, making it easier than ever before to go from knowing a couple of phrases to speaking confidently. Reaching Out listeners can get 20% off their Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when they sign up today. This gets you access to Rosetta Stone Sapphire in 25 languages.

Check it out. You write your message on a blank sheet of printer paper torn in half. Of all of your attempted correspondences, this one is the most to the point. Name and intention. Why bother with anything else? Hi, you write. We're your sons. We've tried reaching out to you. We'd like to meet you. We've booked your 5 o'clock appointment. We'll be waiting across the street in front of the cafe and would love to speak. Connor and Sayer. I'm gonna write his name on the front. Yeah.

I mean, the thing is too, is what if he's right there?

I mean, I'm gonna—

we're gonna hand it to him.

Yeah.

So he is gonna be right there.

How are you gonna do that?

You have booked your birth father's last appointment of the day at his barbershop. When he calls you up for your haircut, you'll hand him the note telling him to meet you across the street.

How are you gonna do that?

Walk up to him and go, be like, hi, we're your 5 o'clock.

I'm your 5 o'clock.

One of us will have to do it.

I'm your 5 o'clock.

Hand it to him and then we'll walk out.

Do you want to do that?

I can do it.

Do you want to do it?

No.

Okay.

Not at all.

It's spring of 2022 in Los Angeles. You are 29 years old. It's been nearly a year since you first sent your email to your birth father asking to meet. Nearly 2 years to the day since Connor first called you and asked to look for your birth father. Now your brother is here in front of you, hunched in front of the mirror, pulling his hair into 2 loose braids.

Reaching out.

Reaching out.

Reaching out.

Reaching out.

It's 4:23 PM.

Um, yeah, we should get going because we're gonna need time to park and stuff too. You ready, Connor?

Yeah.

Let me just make sure I have everything.

How are you feeling?

Uh, kind of stressed out.

Because of the time, or—

No, just in general. The time thing doesn't matter too much to me. I don't know. The closer it gets, it feels like I'm having to— I'm having to, like, step into reality a bit more. I feel like the stress is coming from me expecting something of this. I gotta remember that there's a chance that nothing will come of this.

All right, let's go.

You go ahead.

You're both quiet as you walk out the door. The afternoon light is sherbet and soft. Constellations of white jasmine bloom along the fence around the parking lot behind your apartment building. The clouds in the distance billow in place, untouched by high winds. The world is still for a moment, which is a respite before you and Connor must acknowledge where you are going. I'm going to the park. And what is about to happen. You can get in.

Okay. Okay.

How are you feeling?

I'm scared. I'm nervous.

Yeah.

What are you nervous about?

That he's gonna be mean?

Yeah. Well, he doesn't really have the right to be mean.

Yeah, but that doesn't stop anyone from being mean.

No, I know, but I don't know. I mean, I have— I mean, I feel defensive of you. So if he was mean to us, I'd think about it as he's mean to you, where I'd care more. I guess.

That's mostly what I'm— I'm afraid of him being mean to you too.

I don't really care what he says to me.

I don't want him to hurt you.

Same here.

You pull down the driveway and onto the mile that separates you from your birth father. This street is ordinary to you now. In the nearly 2 years you have lived here, you have driven it hundreds of times, walked it drunk, sweaty, in the rain. You've kissed strangers on this street. At midnight. Mouth full of ash. Time widens the aperture. Certain features pass flat against the windshield as you drive. Others stay inexplicably in the fore. The laundromat that you went to the day you arrived here. The bar with the barnhouse facade, which you will never step inside of the entire time you live in Los Angeles. The white house with bus lines across the roof. And a headless angel in the yard. The psychic's front porch. What time is it?

It's 4:34. 4:34.

You hit every green light on the way over to the barbershop, a good omen in Los Angeles especially, though you feel yourself bracing against your instinct to read any of these as gestures from the universe. You find parking a foot away from the entrance. Another good omen to ignore.

Okay, well, we're outside of it.

Hmm.

This somehow got so much harder now that we're here.

You are now 20 minutes early, which gives Connor time to reconsider the plan entirely.

Do you think we should try— I know we plan on doing the note, but do you think that we should call him?

Yeah, but we already tried calling.

But we call his barbershop and be like, hey, I got an appointment for him at 5 o'clock. They'll say, yeah, sure, let me check.

And then what? Say exactly what's in the note? Say we're outside?

Hey, yeah, this is your son's What if he hangs up? Then we go in there.

And do what?

We'd say, fuck you. I don't know, I'm, I'm okay with doing that. I've always wanted to say fuck you to Dad. Do you want to go in together? Would that make you feel better about it?

I mean, if you want to, I'm done.

I want him to look at us in the case that he decides that he doesn't want to deal with it, so that he can at least do it once. If he decides to avoid conversation with us, at least going in there and him seeing our face, I can be like, hey, I'm here. And I see you.

Okay. 2 minutes.

1 minute till 5. Okay.

You ready?

Yeah.

As ready as I can be.

Okay.

The first words your birth father ever says to you: Do you have an appointment?

Yeah, 5.

You sit down and wait your turn. You can barely get yourself to look up at him. You fix your eyes first on the wine-colored tiles, then the client's sneakers slack against the footrest. The shapeless, oversized black barber's tarp. Then, your father's hands as he trims stray hairs, chatting easily over the jazz music playing softly over the speakers. The walls are lined with framed photographs of what you assume were once famous Hollywood actors, whose faces you do not recognize and names you do not know. In the corner, a cigarette machine and a magazine rack full of vintage Playboy magazines. Your birth father brushes clean his client's forehead and nape with a blonde duster brush, says goodbye cheerily. He glances over at you and Connor and then calmly walks to the back door of the shop. He disappears for 5 seconds, then 10, then 15. He returns with a broom and slowly, methodically sweeps the hair into a dustbin. And then the trash. You imagine everything leading up to this moment from his point of view. Today he woke up, probably had a coffee, kissed his wife goodbye, drove to work, attended to some regulars, made small talk about the relief of 70-degree weather or the impending invasion of Ukraine as he lined up their beards Took a quick lunch break, scrolled on Facebook on his phone.

10 minutes ago, he probably looked up at the clock, saw 2 young guys walk in, and felt a wave of relief. The last customers. As he finished sweeping the hair into a bin, he was probably hit with the feeling of relaxation that comes with knowing that the day is nearly done. Now he calls those boys up to the chair. One of them, the curly-haired one, who can barely look him in the eye, pulls a note from his pocket and hands it to him. His name is written on the front. And both boys walk out wordlessly. And now what has been up until this moment a very ordinary day has become a monumental one in just a few seconds.

I don't know about you, but I've dated a few Brazilians in my day, and let me tell you, there is only so far flirtatiously saying phrases like, I don't know how to speak in Portuguese, but I really want to, will take you. That's where Rosetta Stone comes in. They've just come out with their biggest launch in over a decade called Rosetta Stone Sapphire. It has lots of cutting-edge features, making it easier than ever before to go from knowing a couple of phrases to speaking confidently. Reaching Out listeners can get 20% off their Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when they sign up today. This gets you access to Rosetta Stone Sapphire in 25 languages. Check it out.

Forward momentum keeps you from turning to look at your birth father's face as he reads the note. This same force scuttles you across the street.

Did you say it would be across the street?

Mm-hmm.

Here, let's cross at the crosswalk.

You and Connor find 2 seats on the patio of the café. The immediate giddiness of having executed your task gives way to a taut, Mute anticipation. From here, you can see the barbershop's front window, but at a slight diagonal, a sliver of the back wall of the barbershop. Occasionally, your father, or maybe his coworker, comes into view for a moment. But from this vantage point and at this distance, it's hard to tell who is who.

You think he's gonna chicken out?

I wouldn't be surprised.

Me neither.

I can see someone in the window.

You and Connor analyze and forecast from the minute details of your brief interaction. Was he going to run out the back door?

I didn't really see a back exit or anything.

I thought that's what he was going to do when he went into the back.

Did he know it was you?

He was looking at us a lot.

Could he tell you had the same eyes? Similar eyes.

Similar eyes.

You quickly run out of details to analyze. You were only inside for a total of 10 minutes and interacted with him for only a moment. You turn your attention to the barbershop. 11 minutes and 26 seconds since you left the note. A figure steps out the front door of the shop. The shop's dim fluorescents barely illuminate whoever is standing there in the doorway. The figure takes off his smock and then pulls the awning down. Another figure walks to the window. It's your father.

He's looking around a lot, but purposefully, I feel like, not Looking in this general direction.

15 minutes since you passed the note, a barista comes out of the café and furtively collects the foldable tables and chairs from around where you're sitting. Eventually, she can't avoid you.

Do y'all need something?

Oh, I'm sorry?

Do y'all need something?

Um, no, I'm sorry. We're, we're waiting to meet our biological father, so we're just chilling off.

Yeah, one of those situations. But we can move over to the bench if that's, you know, if you need to take this stuff. I will need to take it up if that's okay. Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's totally fine.

Appreciate it.

Thank you. Overshare.

You don't know why you tell the barista this. Maybe you think you'll buy more time with shock and awe, though your natural inclination is to share more than is necessary as a sort of defense mechanism. Or maybe it's just the consequential nature of things. You're inviting the barista to attend to this passing minute. It's the feeling that the shorthand is advancing, and try as you might, you cannot stop it. And so at the very least, it must be acknowledged before what is present becomes past, and what is past becomes fact, and what is fact must be managed on its own terms. 21 minutes and 39 seconds since you passed the note. The barista returns with 2 cups of tap water. There are many kinds of time. Hurried time, which chatters and contracts. Holy time, slow and full of light. Waiting time is the most clarifying. Why? Because waiting time is equal parts pleasure and pain, like life. Because life itself is a form of waiting time. Connor and you both have little tolerance for it. You manage the discomfort differently, though. It's been this way since you were kids. Babies even. You go quiet, disappear into yourself, try to smother your impatience by studying the inside of your head.

Connor, on the other hand, has to release his impatience somehow, which is why when you look up, he has left you on the patio and is walking up the street to stand right across the street from the shop.

Connor. Connor.

Uh, Connor.

So let's cover it here.

25 minutes and 30 seconds since you left the note. Connor has walked back to rejoin you at the table. The light is fading faster now. Your father not coming has always been within the realm of possibility. But this is the first time that it occurs to you that it may actually happen. It shouldn't surprise you, and yet it does. People do much worse things than not show up. They hurt one another for much less, in more exacting and disproportionate ways, with less and less reason than this. In some ways, you suppose, not showing up is the kindest way we can hurt each other. You find that you and Connor have less and less to say with each passing minute. You punctuate the silence with observation.

I think, I think the person on the right is TikTok famous. I guess I recognize their eyes.

So cool.

Anticipation has worn down Connor's tolerance for your idiosyncrasies, a tolerance which is admittedly already quite thin. And the same for you. Connor can't help but to shoot down your observations, and you cannot help but to comment on his persistent cough, which you hide beneath the thin veneer of concern.

Ow.

You need to stop smoking.

You need to—

Get you a cough drop? I know.

It's not even that funny.

You are 3 years older than the last time you saw each other in person, but your dynamic, one of criticism, of undercutting one another in small, mostly meaningless ways, is largely the same. The sky's pretty.

Yeah.

You know, sunsets only exist— like, the amount of colors in sunsets only exist because of pollution.

It's a silver lining.

Yeah, I guess so.

Atomize a day into discrete moments, and it becomes clear that even the briefest duration contains a measurable life. That must be why we divide the year into months, then days, and the days into hours instead of minutes or milliseconds. Because if we could feel every passing moment and its significance, we would probably lose our minds. You dissect your life into fine granular units, and it becomes manageable. A story like this. 2 years ago, your brother called you to ask to look for your birth father. A year and a half ago, you moved to Los Angeles. 9 months ago, you emailed your birth father. 9 months ago, you called. 6 months ago, you stood across the street from him and watched him work. 4 months ago, you and Connor turned 29. 3 months ago, you stopped drinking, but it feels like 5. One month ago, you visited New York City. 3 weeks ago, you invited your ex out for coffee and ended up kissing him by the door of his new apartment, blocks away from the rattling viaduct of the M line where you last screamed at each other on your 27th birthday. His new apartment, where he lives with the dog he shares with his now ex.

Kissing him, part of you hoping you would realize that you still loved him, which would affirm that you had ever loved him at all, which would affirm that you were capable that you had known love and could recognize it if you saw it. Because if what you shared was not love, then you are still waiting for something that you are not sure exists, which means you might be waiting for something that will never arrive at all.

It's like 44 minutes ago we were inside, and then you handed him the thing like 10 minutes after, or like 5 minutes after you were in there. I don't think it takes an hour to close a barbershop.

Oh, the lights just went off.

Your birth father's coworker comes out. You recognize his shape now. He pulls the gate across the front of the shop and walks up the street without looking your way.

Maybe we should have specified, hey, we're your kids.

Twins.

We did.

Twins.

We did. We said, we're your sons. That was the first— the first line of the note.

We're your twin sons. We're your sons, but—

The shop is indifferent beneath the streetlight.

Yeah, I think he's gone.

I think he left.

Yeah.

What a little punk ass.

Are you gonna go back and get it?

Well, there's always Monday.

There is always Monday. Do we want to? I mean...

Hey guys, we gotta go.

I don't know.

Connor walks ahead of You stand, side by side, peering into the barbershop one last time. The interior is illuminated a pale green. From here, it looks like an underdeveloped photograph. You stand across the street, taking in the light, the still room, the nameless faces on the wall, the illegible clock, the idle barber's pole, smoking a cigarette like you did many months ago. Only now, there's nobody inside. And it's dark. And Connor is here. For a moment, you are struck by a sudden clarity of awareness. Life is happening all around you. Couples laughing over drinks. Tourists bouncing on their heels, waiting for their Ubers to arrive. A guy in a baseball hat and a backpack smiles as he walks by, points at your cigarette.

Mota's better.

Weed is better, he says.

Oh yeah, I know. I agree.

What? He said, he said, there, he said, he said mota's better. Oh yeah.

You look up. Suddenly, your father is crossing the street towards you.

I think he's coming.

I think he's coming.

Can't wait for the next episode? Join Futuro+ for early access to the whole season, ad-free listening, and exclusive bonus content for reaching out. Go to futuromediagroup.org/joinplus to get access today. Reaching Out is an original podcast from Futuro Studios in partnership with KCRW. It is written, produced, and narrated by me, Sarah Quevedo. Editing by Maria Garcia, with additional editing help by Marlon Bishop, Fernanda Chavetti, and Sam Leeds. Special thanks to Sarah Rattay Maloney for editorial feedback. Our production managers were Jessica Ellis and Victoria Estrada. Mix by Stephanie LeBeau. Scoring by Lucy Little. Show art by Simran Chawla. Executive produced for Futuro Studios by Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia. Our marketing team included Anela Reyes and Luis Luna. Futuro Media was founded by Maria Hinojosa.