Transcript of 881: I Want What I Want

A quick warning. There are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife. Org. There's a new film at the 10 Festival. It's called The Boys and the Bees. Just want to prize it Sundance. It's about a real family with two sons. The dad's a beekeeper in Georgia. I talked to the filmmaker, Ariel Knight. She pointed out the two boys are very different. Carver is six, Arrow is four.

Arrow is the youngest, and he's always bouncing around. He's comedic relief in the film. And Carver is the oldest, and he's a lot more serious. He's a lot more thoughtful.

Carver is the one who reminds his little brother what the rules are. Ero just breezes past them. And the way all this plays out in this family of beekeepers?

Ero has been stung many, many times by bees, and Carver has never been stung. And how do you explain I mean, Carver is probably always paying attention, taking his time, moving slowly. World's follower. Exactly. And the arrow just puts on his suit too fast, and there's a bee in there, or he steps somewhere where he shouldn't, or he's just… You know.

They are parents who have made a very deliberate choice to spend a ton of time with their kids, birdwatching and fishing and going through the woods and lifting up rocks to see what's underneath them, explaining everything about nature. There's a scene that Ariel captured on film of the boys with her dad, Nehemiah.

We were wrapping up filming for the day, and Nehemiah, usually in the evening, will check on the bees. So he's checking on the bees. He's lifting the racks of beehives out of their boxes, and then he gets done.

I got me. You boys back up, though. You all don't have a suit on you. And they just stung me, so I don't want you to get stung.

But what does it feel like? It hurts so bad.

I mean, you can handle it.

Carver creeps up to his dad and says something that I couldn't hear in the moment, but that Nehemiah repeats, and he says...

You want to get stung? Yeah.

Everybody been in my family got stung, except for me.

I don't know if mommy I would want you to get intentionally stung. It hurts, boy. It hurts.

I know that hurts, Carver says.

I can get the bee and put it on you and it can sting you.

Okay, can we just talk about that choice that he's making there?

So Nehemiah has said multiple times that growing up, he'd always wished that the adults around him had been more curious about the things that he was curious about, the kinds of adventures that he was interested in getting into as a kid.

And he also seems very awake to these little teachable moments.

He's a total teacher, and he's always trying to find the edge in helping his kids navigate things that are scary to them or that they've never tried before that they're curious about.

I can get the bee and put it on you and it can sting you.

All right.

Well, let's do it.

Mommy got stung. I got stuck. Daddy got stung.

You haven't got stung. So that's Arrow in the background.

Then Carver goes with dad.

I just don't want to get stung in my face.

Yeah, me either. That's the worst. We'll let you get stung right here.

So Nehemiah is pointing to Carver's forearm.

I'm telling you right now, son, look at Daddy. It's going to hurt.

Okay.

Okay? Sure, you want to do it? Yeah. Okay, my boy. I like it.

Carver is starting to look a little bit concerned right now, and gives his dad a really weak high five.

Uh-uh, Blackbinder. There we go. I like it. All right, let's do it. Which lucky girl are we going to choose for my son?

Oh, my God. So Carver is touching his arm where he's about to get stung. His dad goes off to get a bee.

You ready? Tell me when you're ready. When you lift your arm up, then you'll be ready.

So Nehemiah is holding a bee by its wings with the stinger pointed out.

And then Carver has his arm down, and his other hand is shielding it from his dad and the bee.

And he keeps wincing and jerking his arm away in anticipation.

You ready? Good job. All right. It's all right. Three. Don't jump, don't jump, don't jump. And I'm going to get it out, okay? I'm going to get it out. You sure you want to, son? You're acting like you don't want to now. I I know you're nervous. Just really nervous. All right, three. Relax, relax, son. You can't do that. You just have to let it happen, okay?

Something It's so funny he puts the bee on him, and the bee just won't do it.

She doesn't want to stay, yeah? Well, she didn't want to get... All right, let me get another one. Dang, you're just not a mean bee, huh? You're just a nice kind bee.

You don't want anybody to get stuck.

That's the younger brother again talking to the bee.

All right, here we go. Why are you playing with my son? Okay, okay, okay. Let me see. Okay. Oh, see? Now, let's get it out. Let's get it out. You want to see? Son, now you're making me feel He's so bad.

So Niomaya looks at me in this moment, and I can see that there's a little bit of doubt in his eyes. He's looking at me like, Oh, man, I don't know if I did the right thing here. But then you can see the moment he also snaps back into dad mode.

Come here. Let me see.

All right.

Now wipe your tears off. Wipe your tears. Let me see it. Let me see it. Let me see it. Let me see it. Let me see it. Where is it at?

Where was it? Okay, I got it out. Okay, good, good, good, good,way. Beekeepers get stung, right? You got your first one, my boy. High five? Now, let me see where it is. Now, let me see. I got it out, I promise. You want to make sure? Yeah, I got it out. Now. Yeah, that hurts. Do you wish you didn't do it?

I can't hear you.

You said what?

I still feel a little proud of myself.

You feel proud of yourself? Boy, I'm proud of you.

Can I say I just really love how Carver, after he gets done, is just not totally sure that he's glad he did it. And then he sits there and it stews in his brain for a couple of seconds, and then he decides, I'm going to declare victory.

You should feel proud of your sofa that. I've never met any kid. I've never met any kid that said, My whole family been stung, and I haven't. I want to get them. Look at mine. You see that? He's right there?

So the rest of the evening, they go on to have dinner. Carver keeps glancing down in his bee sting. Sometimes he gives it a little stroke, and it's starting to swell up a bit at this point, but he's beaming at it. He's a real beekeeper now. And like his dad said, beekeepers get done.

When you decide to do something that other people do not do, it makes you feel big. Today in our program, we have people choosing to do things that most of us, not only will we not do these things, most of us actively avoid these things, the way that we avoid beast things. We have stories today of oysters, of love. We have a courtroom drama. From WVEZ Chicago, Cis American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Stay with us. This is American Life. Act One, Lessons in Shelfishness. John Tateh has been thinking a lot about people who make personal life choices that are different from most. He did a whole show inspired by a man like that. A show where he talks about that man and tells a personal story also. Tateh is a comedian. He's a British comedian. Quick note before he starts, he refers to two things in this story that not everybody knows about here in the States. He mentions the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. That's this big three-week-long performance festival in Europe where he happened to do this show. And he refers to Russler's Burgers, which Brits, I guess, know about. They are microwaveable, budget-priced, ready-made frozen burgers on bun.

Here's John Tate.

Hello. How are you all doing? You all right? It's so good to be here. Of course, we've got to talk about Edward Dando, haven't we? Do we know about Edward Dando? Who? Edward Dando, the celebrated 19th century oyster glutton, Edward Dando. How do I tell you about Edward Dando? Okay, right. You know how on Wikipedia, If you look something up on Wikipedia, Wikipedia has to purport to be objective, but to a fault. Wikipedia will be like, Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician. You think, Yeah, get on with it. Do you know what I mean? But if you look up Edward Dando on Wikipedia, Wikipedia says, Edward Dando was a British thief. It's like, Okay, cancel my appointments for the afternoon. Edward Dando was a minor celebrity in about the 1800s. Completely forgotten about now, but he was famous in his day for frequenting oyster restaurants. This was at the height of a Victorian London's obsession with oysters. Oysters just came out of the Thames. Londoners couldn't get enough oysters. Edward Dander would go to these oyster restaurants and he would order dozens of oysters at a time. I mean, 200, 300 oysters at a time.

Then he would draw a crowd and he would performatively eat all of them along with loaves of bread and kegs of ale. Then when the bill arrived, Edward Dando would swear to God he thought it was free. He claimed in court not to know how restaurants worked. In these magistrates courts, he would always insist on representing himself. In his testimonies, he would always begin by saying, your worship I was peckish, and I refuse to go hungry in a land of plenty. Of course, harsh 19th century justice. He'd be thrown into jail, often for months on end. When he was in jail, he was thrown into solitary confinement because he kept eating the rations of the other prisoners. And then, and this is the clincher, Edward Dando, every single time on the day of his release, not the day after his release, on the day his release, Edward Dando would walk from the prison gates to the nearest oyster restaurant, and he would do it again. That is a man who is free. That is a man who knows himself. I love the story of Edward Dando, because for me, the story of Edward Dando reminds us of how much there is to be gluttonous for in the world.

I love living in the modern world. I adore it. I like the modern food that other people pretend to hate. I eat things like Russell's Burgers. Do you know why? Because I love it. I really love it. People go, What are you talking about? What do you love? All of it. But do you know what I mean? Drinking, I love it. But even sitting, Oh, I love it. I really love it. The irony that I'm a stand-up comedian. It's just the one hour of the day I'm not sat on my ass. I love it. I really, really love it. I feel that very strongly. It's interesting to me that greed and gluttony are separated in religious teaching. I don't think that gluttony belongs on that list of seven deadly sins. I don't think so. I think greed does, but I think gluttony is different. I think that gluttony is something of a virtue, and I think it should be celebrated. But they are different, aren't they? We don't live in an age of gluttony. Not really. Gone are the days of Edward Dando. Gone are the days of the medieval feudal Lord who throws feasts and bakes pies that are birds within birds within birds and that thing.

It's over. Nowadays, the modern day equivalent of a feudal Lord is just anyone in a fringic group who owns a printer. Tragic. I mean, the stranglehold they have over the rest of us It's unbelievable. But we don't live in an age of gluttony. We live in an age of appalling greed. We live in an age of the cruel, scheming, evil greed. But it's the greed which up close looks very moderate. It's no surprise to me, our modern day Silicon Valley overlords. They're not gangreness Henry the eighth, are they at all? They're gym bros. Mark Zuckerberg is a gym bro. That guy, Brian Johnson or whatever, he's a gym bro. Jeff Bezos is a bit of a gym bro. They take their vitamins, they take their supplements, they optimize their daily routine. They go to the gym, they cut the small talk. They want to expand their territories. They want to live forever. It's terribly egotistical, greedy behavior. Whereas at least gluttony, it's not selfless, but it's humble, isn't it? Do you think Edward Dando liked going to prison? Of course not. But Edward Dando had the humility to say, I don't matter. My life doesn't matter as much as the celebration of these oysters.

The celebration of life. In a similar way, I promise you, my bank balance does not matter as much as the celebration of a domino's pizza. Do you know what I mean, though? I'm trying to make the point that it's just gluttony, it's over. The greedy men have won. It drives me mad because I'm flying the gluttony flag out here. I believe in gluttony, and I took gluttony to a whole new level last year. Shocking. Okay, last year, to fund my Edinburgh Fringe run, I went on a clinical trial. I went on this trial where they gave me malaria. This is true. I've never got a laugh before. But there's something for everyone in this show. No, seriously, I promise you. I went on this clinical trial that gave me malaria, and actually it got a bit out of hand. It resulted in a It was a near-death experience. I bring this up because I really felt like last year, after everything that happened, I felt like I really earned my time at the Edinburgh Fringe. I was hungry for life. I wanted to do my show. I wanted to watch other people's shows. I wanted to hang out.

I was having a great time. In the spirit of triumph, on about day five of the Edinburgh Fringe, I thought to myself, What would Edward Dando do? I got myself the modern day equivalent of oysters. I got myself some cheesy chips. I love cheesy chips. And I ate these cheesy chips slightly too close to going to bed. I woke up, unsurprisingly, I woke up in the most extraordinary pain. It was this horrible, dreadful stomach ache. It was like someone was lying on top of me, which they were, got them off. But it was awful. Stomach ache, nasty A headache, a fever it was. It was dreadful. I remember lying there in bed and thinking, Okay, I just need to get myself to the bathroom, and I will eventually pass these cheesy chips. I'm in a lot of pain. Actually, I phoned 111, and they said, How bad is the pain? I said, It's pretty bad. It's not as bad as malaria. They said, What an incredibly strange thing to say. They He said, Look, if it's manageable, the chances are you've probably got food poisoning. I thought, Fine, food poisoning? I don't need to cancel any shows because of food poisoning.

I've had malaria. I've had a proper disease. I've been looking forward to the Edinburgh Fringe for months and months and months. I really want to do my show. I'm not going to cancel a show because of food poisoning, for God's sake. So I went on stage. But over the next few days, as I was doing these performances, basically, my body started to shut down, basically. So I would sleep for hours. I'd sleep for 18 hours or whatever. I'd wake up, I'd take all available pain relief. I'd go and do the show. Straight afterwards, I'd collapse, and I'd sleep for another 18, 19, 20 hours. About five days into the illness, I remember phoning up my mom and saying, This is really bad now. This is the worst pain I've ever been in. She said, How bad is it actually? I remember saying to my mom, I feel like I want to die. I feel like I want to be dead. And she said, You said that two weeks ago when you lost your phone, and I did.

I'm not a reliable narrator of any of this next bit.

Okay, take this with a pinch of salt. Now, I went to this pharmacy to get more laxatives, which was a five-minute walk away, and I did that walk in 45 minutes. So I thought, Okay, I'm going to have to go to the hospital. And hospitals are difficult environments, aren't they? Because also the hospital as an adult is a place where you have to advocate for yourself, which basically means doing an impression of your own mom. That's adulthood, isn't it, sadly? You go around as an adult doing impressions of your own parents until eventually it sticks. Then the other day, I roastered a chicken. It was like a drag act or something. What the fuck is going on here? Am I in the opening number of a musical or something? It's bizarre. I went into this A&E waiting room and eventually, I said, Right, the doctor will see you now. And this doctor, she took me into a curtained off area. She said, Look, I don't know what's wrong with you, but... She said, The good news is for things like abdominal pain, she said, You've left it a very long time to come in. I'd left it seven or eight days, something like that.

She said, Because you've left it so long, it's unlikely to be anything that serious. With these abdominal things, if it's something like an appendicitis or if it's a perforated bowel or something like that, she said, You'd have been dead by now. She said, Actually, the fact that you're still here means it's probably quite mild. It'll be an infection. We'll figure out what it is. We'll give you some tablets and you can go home. You can probably do your show tonight, if not tomorrow. Great, fine. Took me for a load of scans, figure out what was going on. She came back with quite a confused, quite grave look on her face, and she said, Okay, you're not going to believe this, but it is appendicitis. I said, Oh, isn't that funny? And she said, No.

In her words, she said, Your appendix has not just become infected.

She said, It hasn't even just ruptured, which is the usual worst-case scenario for appendicitis. She said, Your appendix ruptured days ago, and your appendix has now, in her words, obliterated. She said, Your appendix has completely fallen apart, and it is now floating around your body. She said, You are in a state called intra-abdominal sepsis. She said, We need to operate on you in the next few hours or you're going to die. She said, We need to get you to the theater right now. I said, That's what I've been trying to tell you. Get me to the theater. But look, I'm not going to pretend it wasn't scary because obviously it was scary. Because suddenly it was a real-life emergency. They put me in this hospital bed and they bumped me up the urgent surgery list and stuff. I woke up from the surgery and the surgeon said, this is an exact quote, he said, Yeah, when we opened you up, we were all a bit like, Yikes. Now, they don't know what causes appendicitis. It's been suggested that excessively fatty diets might lead to appendicitis. I was essentially almost killed by my own glatiny. Then he told me off, basically.

He got cross with me. He said, In my 25-year career as a general surgeon, he said, I've never seen someone come in that late with appendicitis because of this dogged attitude I had to doing the show every day. I didn't want to cancel it. He said, That was dangerous, and it was stupid, and it was reckless, and it was immature. He said, If you'd have left it one day more, you'd be dead. You wouldn't be here, and that'd It's really, really hard to hear that and not think he's saying that I came in at exactly the right time.

They're saying, Yeah, so I was right not to cancel yesterday's show.

Thank you. My timing's immaculate. I was incredibly lucky. I feel incredibly He'd be lucky to survive. Anyway, right. Edward Dando. Edward Dando died when he was my age. Edward Dando died when he was 29 years old. He was also a man of timing, actually, because He died just as oysters were starting to become over farmed and they were falling out of fashion in London, and oyster restaurants were starting to close and go out of business. It'd be really easy to think of the story of Edward Dando as the story of a man who never learned his lesson. But I don't think that's true. I think Edward Dando did learn his lesson. I think Edward Dando resolved every single time to continue doing the thing that he absolutely loved more than anything else. As I lay there in that hospital bed, anxious to come back to the Edinburgh fringe, I thought of Edward Dando in solitary confinement, and I hope that every single time he thought to himself, When I get out of here, do you know what I really fancy? I hope that for him, every time it was worth the wait, because I can promise you from the bottom of my heart, this certainly has been.

I beg you, please be an Edward Dando. Eat the cheesy chips, drink the champagne, refuse to go hungry in a land of plenty, even if a thing like sepsis or prison gets in your way. For God's sake, let's go and get some oysters. Thank you very much.

John Tateo. I should say the historical record is sparse on Edward Dando. So John took a few liberties to fill in the gaps. He got the gist right. As to whether a fatty diet can cause appendicitis, like they say, more research is needed. John's show was directed by Alex Cartlidge and Katherine Crayg-Mile. He's on tour right now across the UK. You can find details on his Instagram at John Tothill, producer of Aviva de Kornfeld from our show, helping him to adapt this story for our program. Back to the Joy of Ex. Okay, so sometimes you break up with somebody and you still talk, you're friendly. Some exes you never speak with again. It's harsh, but everybody understands it when somebody's feelings are crushed. It's not unusual. What is unusual is somebody wants to be in touch with all their exes. I mean, all of them, even the ones who never want to see his face again, the ones who feel really hurt and disappointed. Evan Roberts is a person who wants to reach out like that and become friends with the most hostile of his exes. It's a weird mission that one of our producers to Tobin Lo, was curious about.

Evan made a list of 17 exes. By the time he and I met, he had talked with 16 of them over the last several years. It was nice to catch up, get their side of the story. But the more the thing had gone on, the more he realized this whole mission was actually just about X number 17, someone he referred to as the Big X, a guy named Keith, who even when Evan reached out, did not want to talk. They'd broken up around New Year's. It was 2010. A couple of weeks after.

I was on my bike and I was going through the little atrium of the apartment building and getting the mail, and I got this card from Keith. And Keith repurposes cards and envelopes and put stickers on them and stuff. So I opened it up at the mail. I'm blocking the door, I'm sure. I opened it up at the mailbox. And it is on the cover is a winter scene. And there's some blue dotted stickers he has on it. And where the sentiment of the card should have been was just a ripped out hole.

Keith had torn out the part where there should have been Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays.

It was a void. It was like... And I saw through the hole onto my shoe on the floor.

On the opposite flap, Keith wrote a note about how he thought he and Evan should stay away from each other. I think most people receiving a holiday card with the heartfelt sentiment surgically removed would think, Message received. I will also cut you out of my life, ex-lover. That would be my response anyway. I will be honest, the first time I heard about the fact that you had interviewed all of these exes, I was horrified by that. I'm such I don't talk to any of my exes, not out of ill will or anything, but it's not a thing I've ever done.

Why don't you keep in touch with them? Is it just done? It's toast, and you can't make toast bread.

I feel like the relationship we had exists very much in the time that we were together. And so to revisit it, to me, feels like going to past life. I don't know the value of that, I guess, for me personally.

I just want... I would challenge you, I guess. There are so many other ways that it could be. And this dead version is the least interesting. And what I realized through some of these interviews is if there was love there once, it's always there for me.

Just to say, Evan has been in a happy relationship with his boyfriend for over a decade. But ever since he and Keith broke up 16 years ago, he's wondered, why the card? Why did Keith never want to talk to him again? Why not be friends? Had he missed something when they broke up, done something bad without realizing it? Evan and Keith met in their early 30s. They dated long distance. Evan lived in San Francisco, Keith and Austin. Evan loved who he was with Keith, said he felt like himself at a higher octave. Keith helped him apply to film school, which he'd he's dreamed about. Keith was outgoing. Funny. One time when Keith was visiting Evan, Evan came home to find him fake passed out in the living room with a message spelled out in matchsticks. T-t-o-y-m-m-h. The thought of you makes me hot. But long distance was hard on them. They broke up a couple of times, would always get back together. They were on one of those breaks when Keith moved to San Francisco, said, Look, we can make a real go of this now. Let's make this work. Evan was surprised, taken aback.

Instead of jumping in feet first, he said, Okay, but let's take our time, not rush things, which Keith did not take well.

His face changed. Something about his whole body changed. And it did feel like a door closing.

And did that surprise you?

Only because I didn't know that what I said would have that impact.

Keith broke up with Evan for good. Afterwards, Evan felt like he was walking around in a fog.

It felt like I was stuck on the wrong timeline. I just felt in a different parallel universe that I wasn't supposed to be in.

Almost immediately, Keith got into a different, very serious relationship, which has only further puzzled Evan. They'd both moved on. Why not become friends now? But Evan's reached out a couple of times over the years, and Keith has always been chilly. It's vexed Evan so long, it's him a joke with his friends. One of them was in Keith's neighborhood recently and texted Evan about it. His friend joked that he should go take a selfie in front of Keith's house. Evan looked up Keith's address on his computer, copied and pasted into a text to his friend, hit Send. Then he realized he had accidentally texted Keith's address to Keith. I screamed when Evan told me this. He thinks he saved it by quickly editing the text to a period, pretending it was an accidental butt text. Did you know you can edit texts on an iPhone? I didn't. Recently, he wrote to Keith one last time, asking if he would talk.

I see the email. Keith responded. Oh, my God. Yes. Count me in.

Keith was game. What the fuck? They talk over Zoom, Keith he's calling in from Brooklyn. I'm with Evan in his apartment in San Francisco, sitting at his dining room table.

Oh my God. Hello.

Hello.

Can you hear me? I can hear you.

Oh my gosh, you sound good.

You sound good, too.

It takes a minute for them to figure out where to start. The usual awkwardness of a Zoom call is made even worse when it's a man talking to his ex-boyfriend. Evan brings up the last time they talked to see if Keith remembers.

Do you remember the last time that was?

Well, Was it on Burnel Hill?

No. Or no? No. Since then. Do you want to guess again?

It wasn't on Burnel In hell with my dog?

Yeah, that happened. I remember that was... But we've had dinner since then.

Oh, really?

Mm-hmm.

This happens a bunch of times. Whatever Evan brings up, Keith only remembers. Or doesn't remember at all. Like when Evan brings up the time Keith spelled out a secret message in matchsticks, one of his favorite memories of their time together.

It was the thought of you makes me hot. Was your new one?

Really? Wow, that's a good one.

Keith doesn't remember it. What's worse than having someone be angry at you, never want to see you again? I'll tell you what's worse, finding out they don't think of you at all. Then they get down to business, start talking about the night of their breakup. Keith explains he'd hoped that at the end of the night, with them finally in the same city, they could really do the thing, be together. But Evan showed no excitement. In fact, Evan told him, Whoa, slow down one step at a time.

I think my impression was that you wanted to be together, but you wanted to be friends. It felt like that's what you wanted. Only.

Only.

And that was really hard. I didn't want that. I wanted you to feel the same way about me that I did about you. I wanted you to like, rush over and want to embrace.

You wanted the rom-com. You wanted us running to each other in the airport.

Yeah, totally.

That night, Evan actually thought he was saying yes to Keith, but just asking to ease into things. Keith had taken it as being friend-zoned. They both admit that they didn't do a good job of just saying that to each other. Classic. But as much as Keith remembers that moment, he admits he doesn't really remember what happened after that night.

Did I just ignore you? Please tell me I didn't just ignore you.

There was a breakup card that you sent in the mail with a hole in Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, I remember that. Oh, Lord.

It's your masterpiece.

Oh, my God. Will that be in my retrospective? I mean, I'm not proud to admit this, but I probably wanted to hurt you. I'm sorry, that's not a great card to get. Particularly one where I put stickers on the outside. That seems like a psychopath. Like promising one thing and then being another. Like, Hey, this is going to be a fun card. It's been a little weird between us. But guess what?

Evan and Keith talk for over two hours. At times, their conversation feels a little polite, like two Two well-therapied gay men talking about their trauma while being recorded by a third well-therapied gay man. But at least Evan has the answer to why Keith had sent the card, which clears the way for Evan to do the thing he came here to do, make his case that they should have been friends all along.

Yeah, I just feel like I wish that we could have figured out how to be friends. That's all. This whole time.

Yeah.

Do you wish that was possible?

I just hadn't really thought about it. As a compartmentalizer, I think until you pose that question, I don't think I've really considered it.

Evan just keeps trying to convince him that he's got it all wrong.

I don't understand. For me, when I connect with someone, when I have the experience I had with you and with other loves of my life, it feels like I'm not doing it. I'm investing for a reason, and I want someone still in my life. I have wanted you in my life since we broke up. I have needed you. You okay?

Yeah.

Keith huffs a couple of times, eventually wiping away some tears. He seems overwhelmed, like he wasn't expecting this depth of feeling from Evan.

I feel sad. I feel sad about how I handled it, how I communicated, and that I was hurtful to you. I also just sad for me and who I was then. So it just is placing me in that small room I paid $300 for or something with no furniture and wanting my life to be something that it wasn't. Also, it makes me sad that you… I think what you said, I have needed you as a friend and a person in my life just makes me feel like… Just what a waste of time.

Evan is also taking it in. It seems flustered.

It's so weird. It's so weird to be right here now, Keith. I never thought. I never thought I'd ever hear any of these things come out of your mouth.

Keith asks if they can take a break. When we get back on the Zoom, I remind Evan, we have one last piece of business, the accidental text.

Okay, so you can imagine how- Evan tells him about how his friend had texted him he was in Keith's neighborhood.

Their joke about taking a selfie in front of his house.

So I copied the address and I texted it to him. And then I realized that I'd sent it to you.

Really? Oh, my God. Are you serious?

Yes.

Keith gets out his iPhone.

Oh, God. There it is. See the period?

See where it says edited? Yeah. You can actually press that and see what- Keith taps on the screen, which lets him see the original unedited text with his address.

Oh, my God. See, this is the good thing about stalking somebody who doesn't understand their phone.

The way they're laughing, they sound somewhat like, dare I say, friends. The tension in the room is released. They're more relaxed. Evan, to my surprise, admits that maybe this all was a little bit much.

There's all these other little details that I have stuck in my head, but I think part of this also is I might just need to let go of some things, too. I just might... I don't need to hold on to so many details.

Yeah, you're a holder on her.

I'm a holder on her, for sure.

About most things in your life, right? Or like- Just you.

Just kidding. Just kidding.

That's good.

You're a holder honor.

Such an intimate observation. Maybe Evan was right. Maybe digging up all this old stuff with your exes isn't just a masochistic exercise. They say they'll get dinner the next time Keith is in town. The call ends, leaving Evan and me in the apartment. I'm shocked.

You are?

Yeah. I really came in today worried for you. Or not sure what was going to happen. And I feel genuinely convinced that this was a worthwhile exercise, which I'm surprised by. I don't know. I just wanted to say that.

I'm so glad you feel that way, actually. I feel vindicated that I convinced you.

I talked to Evan again recently. He said, Keith came through town. They didn't get dinner, but he's okay with it. He doesn't have any more questions for him.

Tobin Lowe is a producer in our program. Coming up, a shirt makes judicial history. Did it commit a murder? Did it embezel funds? Did it violate the Clean Air Act of 1970? Answers in a minute from Chicago Public Radio, When Our Program Continues. This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's program, I Want What I Want. Stories of people deciding to do things that most of us Choose not to do. We have arrived at act three of our program, act three, the lawyer, the judge in the wardrobe. Our show today is about people making unusual choices. We turn out to a judge making a decision this week That everybody who hears about it seems to agree it was a very eccentric decision, not the decision one usually sees. This happened in a big federal trial in Texas, the Antifa Trial of the Century, in fact, a landmark case for the Trump administration. One of our producers, Zoe Zoe Chase was there for the first day of the trial on Tuesday. You can't record in this federal courtroom, but Zoe took notes on that first day when they were picking the jury, the part of the process that's called voir dire.

In Texas, by the way, everybody calls it voir dire, but our Yankee correspondence, Zoe Chase has no interest in cultural appropriation and is going to stick to her native way of saying it, voir dire. She now tells us what happened in that courtroom. It was eventful.

Judge Mark Pitman sweeps into the room. All rise. Here's the judge. He's a Trump appointee from the first Trump administration. He's a bit of a showman, charismatic and exciting to hear from. He has a very strong Texas twang. He welcomes in everybody. He's like, You should know I have a pet peeve of people who make fun of jury service. I like to quote Frederick Douglass, he says, We have three boxes that preserve liberty and justice in this country. The ballot The box, the cartridge box, and the jury box. D dramatic pause. When they get to the part where you're supposed to start questioning the jurors, the voir dire, he goes first. He leads it. I'm in the overflow room, so I can't see the jury, but there's 75 or so of them. There's a big group of them.

They're going to pick 12 people and I guess a couple of alternates, right?

Right. Twelve jurors, three alternates. The judge starts asking questions to the jurors to see potential bias in the jurors. He asked them, What experience do you have with law enforcement? Which is not an unusual question in a trial like this. Then he goes, Do you have strong feelings about what ICE has been doing? Are you pro or con?

Let me just say he's asking about ICE because this particular case has, is it nine defendants, Zoe?

Yeah, at this point.

They were protesting ICE's actions. They were at an ICE facility.

Right. I mean, the government would say that they went to attack an ICE facility. In fact, one of the defendants did shoot a local police officer, and that officer was wounded. The government's arguing that these defendants were organized. They're part of an Antifa cell. This is the government's big case where they're hoping to show that there is an Antifa. It's a domestic terror group, and you can win big convictions on that.

We should say the defense says none of this is true. They say they were not a group. They say these people were not planning an attack. They said they were protesters, protesting ICE.

Right. The judge is asking these potential jurors, What are your feelings about ICE? The way he asks, it's like, Do any of you have strong feelings about what ICE is doing? Pro or con is what he says. He has people raise their hands. But juror after juror is raising their hand and they're saying, Yes, I am very upset about what ICE is doing. I do not like what ICE is doing. This is Tarrant County, Texas. It's like a purple district in the middle of the country. This is the definition of a random sample of people. But at least according to people around me, like local reporters and people who live in the area, this doesn't sound like Tarrant County, Texas to them. Just person after person saying they're upset about ICE. I don't know, the judge did bring up Minneapolis, and since Minneapolis, a majority of Americans don't approve of what ICE is doing. Maybe that's what this is an example of.

Wait, wait. Did anybody, when they raise their hand, did they say, Yes, I have a strong feeling about ICE that President Trump is finally delivering on his promises, and I'm very much in favor of what ICE is doing? Does anybody say that?

No, it's Just person after person, no ice, boo ice. The judge was very focused on this follow-up, which was, Okay, can you put aside your feelings about ice? However strong they are, Can you leave them outside the courtroom?

Which does not seem like a bad question.

Not at all. But a lot of times they would be like, I don't know if I can. I will try, but I am really upset. The judge, which seems honest, the judge would push them, so does that mean you can't follow my instructions under the Constitution to consider only what's in front of you? And then they would eventually be like, Yes, I can follow your instructions. Most of them ended up saying yes after some pushing from him. And he kept using as an example, he kept being like, I'm an aggie, so you know how I feel about the University of Texas. But if the University of Texas was on trial, I could put my feelings aside and judge the University of Texas fairly. If I can do that, can you do that? Finally, one of the potential jurors in the back and forth said, So, respectfully, a college rivalry is not the same as human rights.

Wow.

This anti-ICE stuff comes up again then when the prosecution gets a chance to ask their questions. One woman just starts out saying, I don't think I can be on this jury. I have two family members who have died after being deported. Another one is like, ICE's tactics, the conditions in the detention facilities are horrific. I don't know if I could put my feelings aside. The government attorney is like, I'm sorry, could you repeat that? She's like, Horrific.

So things are not going so great for the prosecutors. What happens when the defense attorneys get up and get to ask their questions of the potential jurors?

Yeah, the defense comes up and right away, things go awry. The story really changes here. The first defense attorney comes to ask her questions. This is defense attorney Marquita Clayton, and she brings a poster board to help with her questioning morning, and the judge sees this and he freaks. He's like, What is that? Has the prosecution seen that? I haven't seen that. You are not allowed to bring props in here. Maybe in state court, this is federal court, he's very upset, and the poster board is hastily put away. Then she's asking some questions about whether or not you can bring a gun to a protest, what the potential jurors think about that. It's a bit of a confusingly phrased question, to be honest, and it's taking a while because she's going juror by juror. The judge interrupts. He's impatient. He just goes, Defense counsel, is this really how you want to use your time? Something like, I've been the most generous federal judge in the history of the world. Given you guys 90 minutes, this has been going on for 22 minutes. I really think you should consider whether this is a good use of your time, something to that effect.

I want to note this attorney he's rebuking is a Black woman. She's the only Black woman attorney, as far as I can see in a room full of attorneys, the Judge, White guy. So that's the scene. And then he goes, In fact, you all better have a little visit and think about whether this is how you really want to proceed or something to that effect.

You mean you defense attorneys, get together, have a time out, talk about whether this is what you want to do?

Because I'm here to tell you it's not. So there's this little recess, and then when he comes back, he's hot, he's upset, and he just starts right into what he's upset about. And he's like, There are very clear rules in this court about having demonstratives in the courtroom.

Demonstrative is is the poster board.

Right. Bringing any prop with you to the courtroom. And also about what you're wearing in the courtroom. And this attorney, I have just realized, is wearing a shirt.

This attorney means the defense attorney.

Yeah. And indeed, this attorney is wearing a shirt, just wearing a blazer over it that I happened to see earlier in the bathroom. So I saw it up close. It's checkered. It's these little squares, smaller than a cigarette packet of civil rights leaders. Martin Luther King is on there, and it's iconic images of the civil rights movement. And when I saw it, I was like, Oh, she put that on because Jesse Jackson just died. We just got the news he died that morning. So it's a shirt honoring protesters, and the judge is like, We've been talking about peaceful protests for 20 minutes, and you're wearing a shirt with peaceful protesters on it, and the jurors can't unsee that. You can't use your clothing to influence the jury. He says that shirt has a politically charged message. It's as if the prosecutor were wearing ice friendly pins or a shirt with Donald Trump on it, riding an eagle, flying an ice flag. I'm sure the defense would go ballistic if that happened. This is why in England, they wear black robes and wigs. I don't think this can be corrected by any type of instruction to the jury.

And so I have No choice but to declare a mistrial. Everyone is like, What? Because this is a crazy turn of events. That's like a nuclear bomb to just drop the entire trial and start it over because of this woman's shirt?

Wait, and what do people do?

Well, everyone's just surprised. Everybody is stunned in the room, and the judge is like, I'm going to see what all the attorneys think about this. I should say also the jury is not back from the break. It's like the potential jury is not seeing this whole back and forth. Anyway, the judge pulls all the attorneys like, Do you guys think there should be a mistrial? And even the government who case was supposedly hurt beyond repair because of this shirt, they seem taken aback. They seem surprised by this turn of events, and they say, Basically, I don't know. They don't cosign the mistrial.

They don't ask for a mistrial. Trial.

They don't ask for a mistrial. Okay, it is against the rules of the courtroom to wear a shirt like this, a shirt with a message on it. I talked to a federal prosecutor from the same district who agreed with the judge that it could undermine the whole trial. She said, If you're going to throw out the whole case and restart it because of a shirt, this was just the first day. You're not losing much. Someone else I talked to, a federal defense attorney in Texas, said she'd never wear a shirt like that to court. But she also said, I don't agree with the judge that there was no other option besides mistrial. There are lots of options. You can sanction the lawyer. You could find them. You can tell the jury to disregard what they've seen. You can ask the jury if they even saw it.

So mistrials are rare.

Mistrials are extremely rare. The judge himself said he'd never called one before in his whole career. Then the judge, it's not over. He says he needs a break to go review the law, and he sweeps out of there. I go back into the hallway and I see one of the defense attorneys, and I'm like, Dude, what is going on? Is there going to be a mistrial because of her shirt? And he's like, It's not the shirt. The judge doesn't like the jury panel. And I'm like, Why? And he's like, Because they hate ice. And that the shirt is the McGuffin in order to restart this whole thing and get a new jury pool to choose from.

Do you think that might be true?

I mean, that is pure speculation. That is not what the judge said. That's not the stated reason for calling a mistrial. And later, that defense lawyer pulled it back. He was like, I really don't know. But it was a significant thing how many people were against ICE over and over, and people saying they wouldn't be able to put their feelings aside over and over.

How many people was it?

It was 18 to 20. I know we're talking about a jury pool of 70 plus people. But the way the process works, the prosecution would not necessarily be able to block all the jurors who hated ICE if that's what they wanted to do, just because of the rules of the game.

But if the judge, in fact, is doing this because he doesn't want people who have strong feelings against these law enforcement figures to be on a jury that's about these law enforcement figures, that's not so strange. It seems like that would happen in any courtroom for any trial involving law enforcement figures.

Yeah, that's not a weird goal at It's potential bias, their feelings about ICE. It's not strange the judge would want that at all. But it is strange to call a mistrial. There is a clue that something else was going on with this judge, which was at the end of this strange day in court, he calls the jury back in and he gives this little speech, and it comes out of nowhere. He talks again about how much jury service matters and the It should be a place where you can set your personal politics aside. Then he says, I'm disgusted by where America is today, how hopelessly divided we are over politics. In the 1850s, Abraham Lincoln said, A house divided against itself cannot stand. I don't want my sons to fight in the next Civil War. We have to find a way to turn down the anger and the hatred.

Wait, what?

I know everyone around me was looking at each other What was that? I think he was frustrated by how impossible it seemed to create a room right now that is what a courtroom is supposed to be. Neutral ground. He said over and over during the whole day how important it is to get an unbiased jury that only considers the facts in front of them to have a room with no politics in it. The shirt violated that, and possibly the juror's answers about ICE. But of course, the problem in trying to create an apolitical trial is the very premise of this trial is so political. It's about this stuff being debated literally every day all the time. It's ICE, Trump, Antifa, Antifa versus ICE. Maybe there's a room somewhere you could discuss it objectively. I just don't know if that room exists in the United States.

Okay. So Zoe, I think what you're saying is, I think your big conclusion today is you're saying we are a very divided country You heard it here first. Zoe Chase is one of the producers of our program.

If you want, want, but you want, want, then you want it.

You can't hide what you desire, once you're on it.

You can't fake, but you can't break up with. If you understand that a few years on the racing might The program is produced today by Diane Wu.

The people who put together today's show include Fia Bennett, Dana Chivas, Michael Comette, Daniel Joci, Ronan Jopfe-Wald, Valarie Kipness, Molly Marcello, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Ryan Rummery, Laura Stochesky, Ruthie Petito, Frances Swanson, Christopher Sottala, Julie Whitaker, and Nancy Opdike. Our managing editor, Sara Abderhamen. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks to Jaiung Fan, Telawani Osi Bemouwo, Steven Monticelli, Chris Impy, and Arnaud Mokros. The family of the Bs that we had at the top of the show from the film The Boys and the Bs, Nehemiah Ray and his kids and wife. They are active on Instagram. You can find them @rayesdwild. The spelling is specialized here. It's the name Ray, R-A-Y-S-D, then the word wild. @rayesdwild. Our website, thisamericanlife. Org. Where you can listen to our archive of over 850 shows for absolutely free. This American Life is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co founder, Mr. Tori Maletia. Tori, he is the master of Swapme. Any deal you're offering, he is completely stone-based.

I don't know the value of that, I guess, for me personally.

I'm Eric Lass. Back next week with more stories of this American life.