Transcript of 899: Reaching Out

Hey there, it's Ira with a quick message before we start. I'm gonna be doing a live show onstage this Friday with Vic Michaelis. And you can watch it live for free online. What the show is gonna be is basically, I'm gonna be telling stories onstage. And then after each story, Vic and this crack team of incredibly funny comedians are going to improvise scenes. Vic and I did a version of this show once at a small theater in New York. It was completely—

it was So funny.

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Here's today's show. A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. I recently heard this podcast that was so exciting to hear because it felt like the people who did it invented something completely new. Which is so rare. And it's like, I feel like they took what shows like ours do and then just pushed it further and further until it became something else. And I want to play you some of that show today. It's by somebody who I had never heard of before. His name is Sara Quevedo. And the series is called Reaching Out. It's made by Futuro Studios. And as you'll hear, like, at some point years ago, it seems like Sara started recording nearly all of his personal conversations, including, like, These especially, like, passive-aggressive conversations with his twin brother that get more interesting and complicated the further you get into the series. And it's just, I don't know, real messy life captured on recordings in a way that is rare to hear.

And then Sarah also invented this way to do narration that at first when you hear it, you're like, what's happening? And then, I don't know, I really came to love it. And the show is ambitious. I don't know if I've heard another podcast that tries to capture a person's life as completely as this one does. And, like, just what it feels like to be alive right now. So, we're gonna excerpt some of the show today. That's gonna be the whole hour. And I just wanna say, stay with it. I guarantee it pays off. Here's Sarah.

On February 15th, 2020, Connor calls you to ask if you want to look for your birth father. You do not record this conversation. This is notable, if only because so much of your life has been recorded. Moments far less consequential than this. You're on Connor's 4th birthday.

Hand me a rubber nose.

Can you guys say that?

Mm-hmm. Dad, hand me a rubber nose.

A school performance. You play a scared rabbit. Your only line. I think we're lost. Don't worry, we'll just go back the way we came.

Which way did we come?

A house party when you were 16, when you first began to record yourself. There are a few people that I talk to them about whatever I'm recording about. And since it's about, like, me and it's about things I do, like, I figure I should record this. There is a price for what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget. If you had known how this would all turn out, maybe you would have recorded everything. Or if you'd known the cost, maybe you would not have recorded anything at all. On February 15th, 2020, your brother calls you to ask if you want to look for your birth father, but there is no record of that call. There is, however, a recording of the call you make a few days later.

Hi, Mom.

Hello? Hey, brother. Hey, what's up? Nothing. My phone is at 10%, by the way. Oh, that's cool. I don't— I can't— I don't feel like talking on the phone very long.

I'm tired.

So I'm recording. I hope that is okay. Oh, really? Okay.

Yeah.

All right, that's cool. Are you recording because you want to talk about dad stuff? Yeah, well, not just because of that, but yeah. I thought that's what you wanted to talk about. I have other things on my mind, but I mean, yeah, that's just like a very An intense conversation. Can I tell you something crazy that happened today that has nothing to do with him?

These days, you rarely know where Connor is until he's already there. You call and he's in Washington with his girlfriend. You call again and he's barely got service. He's trimming weed in Arcata, or he's hopped the train to the Midwest, or he's crashing on a friend's couch in Oakland. Right now, Connor is partying in New Orleans with his girlfriend. Right now, You are pacing around your room in Harlem, staring at a whiteboard where you have scribbled a list of vague to-dos.

Today, me and Claire were walking to go get my bike, and we walked by this guy who apparently used to live here. We keep walking, and all of a sudden, I, like, hear weird steps, and I look behind.

Connor does not like it when you point out your differences, but contrast is the rightful and unavoidable dominion of twins. There are superficial distinctions, the kind of differences strangers point out when you inevitably pull up a photo of Connor after they learn you're a twin. Your tightly coiled curls, Connor's loose wavy hair. Connor's growth spurt at 16. Your 5'7, which you say is 5'8. But nothing makes you feel more different from your brother than when he tells you these kinds of stories.

And I, like, turn around, and the fucking guy is, like, a block away from us.

Whoa.

He just had fucking, like, these knives in his hand and, like, polishing his knives on his shirt and, like, looking at it.

The critical difference between you and Connor is this: long ago, without realizing it, you chose a kind of freedom, the kind that imparts stability and safety, and that you pay for in unsubsidized loans, quarterly job reviews, happy hours with coworkers, boring party conversation, conferences with field practitioners, mid-century modern furniture, boxing classes, and dental checkups. And Connor chose a kind of freedom that comes with land projects, one-off jobs at biker festivals, wide-open mountain ranges from the Union Pacific line, and that he pays for in a persistent smoker's cough, weeks on remote weed farms with Phish fans, and being pursued in New Orleans by a guy with a knife.

It was just like psycho-ass move. So yeah, that was crazy. That's why, that's why I was talking to you.

Your brother thinks you are a judgmental normie, and you think he is a judgmental hobo. This is the shared cost of your divergent freedoms. You both pay for your choices with the degree of distance it puts between you. But you do love each other, and you are trying to be better, to be nicer, to be closer. This routine of phone calls, which began a few months ago, is your attempt.

I want something to drink and eat meals. Yeah, we have a house. All right, I love you. We can cook and stuff. All right. Yeah, I know you're not like eating over a trash fire. Okay, I love you. Okay, there's nothing wrong with that.

You do not return to the subject of your birth father tonight. There are no records of phone calls with Connor that week or the next. You assume his impulse to look for your father Is a passing one. You doubt you follow up. You went through your phase, of course, the one that you imagine most fatherless teenagers go through, in which your father's absence took on an outsized significance, in which your adolescent brain dissected and disassembled its meaning in relation to your sense of self. Was your fatherlessness why you felt so apart from others? Was his abandonment a sort of permanent wound on your psyche? Only one way to find out. Write a lot of shitty poetry. None of those poems are recorded, thank God. But one vestige remains: a play about 2 boys waiting to meet their father at a café. You wrote it when you were 17. It was called, perhaps a little overprecisely, Waiting to Meet Your Father, and was haltingly, painfully acted out by 2 fellow art students.

What if he doesn't show?

He will.

And if he doesn't?

I'll be okay.

The central tension of the play is that the 2 boys are waiting at a café to meet their father, who they've never known, but he is running late, or maybe he is standing them up. The brothers argue about whether or not they should wait to find out which one it is. One boy is sure it won't be worth it. The other is adamant they stay.

Do you think about him a lot?

No.

Do you?

Well, sometimes. Like when we're about to fall asleep. It's usually while I'm not thinking that I think about him the most, you know?

It's—

it's one of those things where when my mind is just drifting, I'll suddenly start wondering about him, and then I'll have to make myself do something to take my mind off him. The more I think about trying to think about him, the more I end up thinking about him.

In the end—

Let's go.

Are you sure?

Yeah.

Their father arrives a few moments after they walk out the door. You turn 20. On the eve of this new decade of life, you decided it was not worth it to actively think about your birth father anymore. It was not cool to still feel hurt about it, and so you could choose to feel nothing. And you plan to continue to do so now. You will not sabotage your brother's efforts, but you will not help them either. So you do not follow up with Connor about looking for your father, and Connor does not call. But there are also no records of other calls either. If you had recorded everything, you would hear 3 sessions here with your new work-subsidized teletherapist. The first, an intake session. A concise, summarized biography of your life as it relates to your inner problems. You make radio documentaries. You won some awards for this last year.

Whew! Wow, hold on one second.

There are 2 parts to this speech, and I was gonna keep it short, but what the hell, I got gold, so— You crave the attention and acknowledgement, and it also repulses you. You work at the most famous newspaper in the world, at one of the biggest shows in the country. Lately, you've been leaving early to see if anyone notices. They don't. You were raised by a loving single mother in the Bay Area.

Yikes!

Ow, my finger!

You better be careful, there's alligators here.

You would hear yourself tell your teletherapist, That your birth father left before you were born and you've never met him. That you suspect, based on nothing more than an elementary understanding of Freud and a few Instagram therapy videos, that this is the root of some of your problems. Daddy issues. You have a twin brother.

He's there!

But you're not identical. You probably make the same joke you always do. That you're sorry to disappoint your therapist. People are always more excited when they think there's some other version of you out there. Most relevant to your teletherapist, what you would like to fix about yourself. It is mostly one thing, which you are almost embarrassed to admit. You have the sneaking suspicion that you will never fall in love. Your last attempt officially ended the night of your 27th birthday, you and your ex shouting at one another beneath the rattling viaduct of the M Line, your ex saying, It's been 2 years. You need to get over me. I got over you in a week. I know, you said.

I know.

Even though you didn't know. That is as far as you get. Your therapist calls it quits at the start of the pandemic. You build fortresses of routine to keep the mania of your confinement from creeping in. You quit smoking. Start running. You record your phone calls. You tell yourself it's for a project you hope to make one day about this historic moment.

Hi, Lonnie, how are you?

Hello.

Your aunt and your mom have been living together in Portland since quarantine began.

I'm back. Your mom is back. She's here.

You're back.

She's here. So it's— does it go from bear to otter and then to something else? Or does it— is it just bear?

It's not like an evolution. It's just different groups.

Okay. Twinks are a totally different category, right?

This is your favorite kind of call. You get stoned and curl up in bed with the phone balanced on your cheek. You are still, at 27, like most children. You like to hear stories of the world before you were in it, of your mother before she was your mother, like when her and your aunt were strippers at the New Century Theater in San Francisco.

And what did you dance to? And what did my mom dance to?

I would dance to Bob Dylan a lot, actually. Believe it or not. But so did your mom. Well, yeah, but his Christian album. I'm going to scandalize your nephew now.

Your auntie did, like, the schoolgirl thing.

Let's just be honest. Let's just be honest. Yeah. Yeah.

Creepy, but I won't think about that.

I know. When you think about it, super creepy. I want to warn you that my phone is— you know what, I'm going to go upstairs and get the cord, but I have to look at this message from your brother. Okay, now's your chance, Sarah. Your mom's going upstairs.

Um, what, um, what is her—

what are her, uh—

oh, did you ever meet my birth father?

Yeah.

And what was your general impression?

Um, he was okay. I only met your birth father a couple of times. I remember I met him once at the Zeitgeist, and he was really hella tall, for one thing. He was cute. He was, like, handsome.

Your mother is not exactly withholding about your father. She answers the questions if you ask them. Which you did a lot when you were a teenager. Your origin story has remained consistent but unsatisfyingly brief. Your father was a line cook. He played in a rockabilly band. They met at a bar called the Zeitgeist, dated for a while. She got pregnant. He wasn't ready to be a father. She decided to keep you. For a while, she exchanged letters with his mother. But your mom says she was always justifying his choice to not be involved in your lives. So they stopped communicating. Your mother tells you his name, but says she can't remember how it's spelled.

Yeah, so I met him a couple of times. I thought— I mean, he seemed nice. He was nice to me. He was polite. He was, like, clearly trying to, like, make a good impression on me because I was, like, your mom's friend. Yeah. And he was just— he was very tall.

The pandemic inspires inexplicable life choices. Some friends buzz their hair. Others experiment with sobriety. You move to Los Angeles. You are surprised to find that your next-door neighbors, a young white couple, rarely return your greetings. You live in the heart of a gentrifying Central American neighborhood. When you speak to the cashier at the corner store in Spanish, she responds in English. You want to tell her that you're not like the rest of them. Your grandmother is from Santa Ana, You couldn't have afforded to live here a few years ago. You moved here to be closer to something. You're just not sure what or how. Connor is driving his truck up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. He's waiting to be called in to the wildfires. But so far, nobody has called, and he spent the summer sleeping in his truck. On April 18th, 2021, a little over a year after he first calls you to ask to look for your father, he texts you a series of screenshots. They're of an exchange between him and someone from a DNA testing website, a distant relative. You bought a kit for your family a few years ago and forgot about it.

In the exchange, Connor asks if there's someone in this distant relative's family with your birth father's name. Yes, in fact, says the stranger. A few days later, Connor receives your birth father's first and last name for the first time spelled correctly. When you search your birth father's name in public records, it returns a result in Los Angeles, in a suburb 40 minutes away from you.

I mean, how do you feel about it? I feel good about it. Yeah, I feel good about it. For me, I feel like the first day that We kind of got that info. I was like, I'm kind of excited.

It has been a long time since you've heard Connor excited about anything. It's sweet and unnerving. To say no would be disappointing for him, a betrayal of your attempts towards closeness. But the thought of meeting your birth father inspires very little feeling in you besides a nascent hope that you might finally finish a project.

I mean, do you feel like that Like if you met him, that you feel like you won't get anything out of it? I guess I'm just like trying to figure out like what, you know, like I feel like we're both almost 30, you know, where it's just like, you know, like what is this guy gonna tell us about ourselves that we don't already know? I hear you because it's like I'm not interested. It's like I don't really give a shit about— I mean, I do give a shit. I do give a shit about meeting him. I don't, I don't like Like, I don't know, do you ever like look in the mirror and like say like, like think about Dad? Or like Dad, but our biological dad? Yeah, yeah, definitely. You ever like— it's like I find myself always looking and being like, I don't even know what our family looks like. I have Mom to compare that to. I'm like, oh, it's like I have Mom's Based in a lot of ways, but I also wonder what our biological dad looks like.

You have tabs open to several potential fathers on Facebook, a series of white men in rimless or squared sunglasses with varied hairlines and gradient pallid shades. Your top contender sports a buzz cut and a pair of gas station sunglasses. He's an amateur photographer who takes pictures of animals at the zoo.

I found one picture of a person who kind of looks like he could be related to us, maybe. Yeah, I saw one that maybe did, but I was like, damn, he's pretty ugly. I don't know. Is it the guy with the black hair and the sunglasses on? Yeah, that guy. I was like, is that really Mom's type before she started dating really boring dudes?

You have not told your mother about any of this, and you're not sure you will. It is very different, you think, to ask questions about your birth father And I'm curious about what he's—

what his life is at.

Yeah.

I also hope he's ballin'. No, I'm just kidding.

Suddenly it's June again, almost exactly 1 year since you arrived to Los Angeles. One night, you will absentmindedly Google your father's name And Los Angeles. The screen will populate with the same buzzcut guy with gas station sunglasses. But now there are 2 new images. The first is a man standing beside a barber chair. He looks like he was ripped from a Time magazine article from the '50s. Tall, a pencil mustache, slicked-back hair. There's an interview with him. He owns the barbershop. He grew up in California, moved to Los Angeles in the mid-'90s. Before he was a barber, he says. He was a cook. The second image is of him standing in front of the shop. It looks familiar. You will type the address into Google Maps. You ate dinner across the street from the shop 2 nights ago. You will type in your address to measure the distance between you and this barbershop. A short, nearly straight line will appear. And an estimated arrival time from your apartment, 5 minutes.

Coming up, some decisions that need to be made. Stay with us. This is American Life. Our story today from Sarah Qavedo continues.

Hello?

You've read that there are several theories about the origins of language.

Yeah, so I'm gonna be in and out. I'm, like, in this weird bunker room right now. I think it's where Like, uh, people who work the crew of Amtrak sleep. Got you. So should you not be in there talking on the phone? No, I don't think it matters.

One theory suggests we learned to communicate by imitating nature. Another says we learned through song.

No, I just mean like, you know, to be considerate of other people. Oh, okay, well then that's fine. I wasn't sure if there were. Sorry. No one's— yeah, I'm not fucking— I'm not talking to you on the phone while people are sleeping. I'll talk to you soon. I'll talk to you soon if you're gonna be an asshole. Don't have that bad judgment of me. I'm not talking on the phone in front of people who are sleeping. That's a ridiculous thing to think. I know.

These theories of language suggest that either suddenly or over a long period of time, primordial grunts and hums evolved into words. And words allowed us to hunt and pass on knowledge, to gather food and stay safe, to share beliefs and traditions, to express feeling and connect.

Connor, I was making— I was just trying to be lighthearted. You don't need to be such a drama queen about it. I don't think you were. I think you're being judgmental. I was, Connor. But Connor, I'm over it. It's a small thing. It's a small thing. It's a small thing. Drop it. Yeah, just a small thing. Can we drop it? Can we drop it? You can drop it. You drop it. I am dropping it. Good, I'm dropping it too. You want to hear about all the work that I did for you, or what? Should we move on?

It's hard to believe that this conversation between you and Connor is the culmination of epochs of human development, and that's because a stubborn critical defect is demonstrated in your and Connor's exchange: that no matter how language evolves, no matter how we choose to use it, There's always a chance that somewhere between thinking, speaking, and hearing, our intention and meaning will be lost.

It's not, it's not a big deal. And, and no, okay, let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move on. We both apologize. Let's move on.

So, um, basically, on your computer screen are 7 discrete tabs tucked next to your work email. They've been open since last night. The first tab, the article about your birth father's barbershop that you found yesterday.

You said the shop is nearby. Do you know what kind of shop he has? It's a, it's a barbershop. Oh, he's a barber.

The second, third, and fourth tabs are a mosaic of images from Google, Facebook, and Yelp. There's your birth father standing behind the barber chair or behind the wheel of a classic Cadillac. There he is in a tiki bar or squinting into the sun, his pencil mustache, his eyebrows, and the slits of his eyes creating 5 distinct planes across his face. His pompadour catches an errant sun ray.

Yeah, I mean, he's like a rockabilly dude, which, which is a big red flag to me just in general.

The 5th tab is the map with directions to his barbershop. A short, nearly straight line measures the distance between you. 5 minutes.

She's right there next to you. That's so wild, actually. That's— it's kind of like baffling.

The 6th tab is the barbershop's Yelp reviews, in which your father is rated from a scale of 0 to 5 stars with additional notes included. He averages about 4.1. According to the anecdotal evidence in these reviews, he is either the nicest Or the worst man they've ever met. He's unforgiving of lateness, condescending, rude, a, quote, complete asshole. Or fastidious, a perfectionist, the best men's barber in town.

Here's a really good picture of his face that I can see up close.

Mm-hmm.

The one where he's standing behind the barber chair. Wow. Wow. That's our, that's our daddy right there. I see, I see you in him. Thanks for doing all the hard work finding all that. No, thank you. I love you. You're welcome, I guess. I don't know what you're thanking me for. Well, you're, you're the one who found the name, so I mean, it's not all, not all my work. I know it's not, but thank you. All right. Yeah, I love you. All right, I love you too, brother. Let me keep you in the loop. Yeah, I'll text you tonight. Bye. Okay. All right, love you.

Love you. Bye.

It's summer in Los Angeles, 2021. You are 28 years old and you have a routine. You wake up, you answer an endless stream of work emails and Slack messages which fill you with an unearned rage and dread. You smoke weed, which relaxes you or puts you on edge with no in-between. You cook chicken and coconut rice and eat it standing at the wall-mounted table in your narrow kitchen. Sometimes your friend Sarah picks you up and you drive around LA attempting to commit to memory the geography around you. You forget it by the time you've walked through the front door. You smoke a cigarette in the parking lot behind your apartment. You scroll on Instagram. You swipe on dating apps.

I'm going to record myself on Tinder because that is what I have been doing lately.

You can't say exactly what you're looking for. It's easier to say what you are not.

Bio says hiking, calm, gym, 5'9.

No.

1,000 miles away?

No.

Uh, no.

Meh.

A little vanilla.

No.

No. No.

You don't want to date an artist. Too earnest. You don't want to date a banker or a real estate agent. And frankly, bankers and real estate agents don't really want to date you either. Your teeth are slightly crooked. You have never in your adult life seen your abs without yanking the pouch down on your stomach. Also, you're bad with money.

His job is entrepreneur, which— what the fuck is an entrepreneur? Uh, I'm gonna say no.

No athletes. You smoke and drink and do drugs that keep you from waking up before sunrise.

Uh, Patrick, let's go on a hike and then eat what we just burned off.

Nah.

This person was like, I love having fun.

Like, what?

Who doesn't like having fun?

You don't want to date anyone who makes regular pilgrimage to Disneyland or feels affiliation with any of their characters or Harry Potter. This turns out to be particularly damning criteria in Los Angeles.

He plays golf with his friends.

Yeah, we're—

this is not gonna work. Just a picture with no bad vibes today text over it. No, thank you. No, he's a singer. No, thank you. He looks like he's got big arms that he could wrap around you, but I'm gonna say no. Okay, Guys Being Dudes is the name of this one. Come get sandwiched between 2 men. Mm, no, thank you. I mean, yes, but not, not with them.

You don't want to date someone who only has white friends, but you're also afraid to date someone who is so connected to their cultural background that you feel like a white person in comparison with your unplaceable face, afro, and Gaelic name.

Far leftist progressive. Oh shit, okay. And hella cute. Oh fuck. Uh, wow. This is the funniest part too, is that like you get all in your head about saying yes, saying no, and then they never, they never swipe for you. So it's sort of a useless exercise.

Hello, David.

Hi, Mama. How are you?

Good. How are you doing?

I'm doing good. I saw your brother yesterday. It was super sweet.

There you are.

Hello? Yeah.

Yeah.

So how are you feeling about what he wants to do?

The truth is, you don't feel anything about meeting your father. You know that in theory this is big. You're about to meet someone who once meant something to you. And now means something else. But you won't be sure what until he's in front of you.

I don't know. It's cool. I don't know.

I don't know how—

I mean, how do I feel about it? It's hard to say, you know?

Well, I love you guys, and I hope that you get what you need from it. And, um, yeah, I'm glad you're doing it together.

You find an email address on the barbershop's website. You click into the always-open email tab on your computer and start a new message. Your first words to your birth father will forever be archived in your inbox between updates to your credit score, calendar reminders of work deadlines, and your lease renewal. The cursor ticks an even measure on the blank draft.

I'm sorry.

This blank space must be filled with something specific. A particular alchemy must take place, a certain tone struck. Whatever fills this space must be firm, but not aggressive. Humble, but not shrinking.

Do you have any idea how to start? Uh, how about, hello, I know this is a bit out of the blue, but I'm sending this message on behalf Of my brother and I, we think you are our biological father. Start with that preface thing you're talking about. We're not looking to get anything from you. How about this? I know this is a bit out of the blue, but I'm sending this message on behalf of my brother and I. We think you are our biological father. We're not— That sounds so formal and weird. We don't need anything from you. We don't— we're not asking for anything. I might want to ask him for something. I'd be like, hey, can you pay for my schooling? Connor, please don't ruin this before we've even had the chance to meet him, please. I won't, I won't. Yeah, it still sounds formal. It still sounds like, what do you— we'd love to talk, blah blah blah. But if you could be like, uh, We think that you might be our biological father, whatever. We were really hoping that we could meet you and fill in the blank, something personal. We're both nearly 30 and have always wondered about who you were.

Yeah.

That sounds good to me. Does that sound good to you? Yeah, I'm sending it. All right, ready?

3.

Yeah, smash that motherfucking button. Sorry. Yeah, I'm ready. You can count down if you want. What should I put as the subject line? Say, um, like, Happy Father's Day.

Papa, can you hear me?

No. Um, are you my daddy? Long-lost kid in search of biological father. It's a long subject. Uh, how about just, Dad? Question mark. I'm just gonna put hello from Connor and Sarah. How about that?

Reaching out.

All right. 1, 2, 3. All right, I did it. Nice. Now we wait.

Our story continues after a break. From Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues. This is American Life. We are in the middle of excerpts from Sarah Qavedo's new series, Reaching Out: Let's pick up where we left off.

You wait 4 days to hear back, but nothing. There's no way to know the message was received, that it didn't end up in his spam folder, or that a coworker didn't delete it, assuming it was a phishing scam. But the notion of these possibilities is enough to convince you that it's worth reaching out one Once more. So you call the shop.

Hello? Hello?

Hi.

He's in the bathroom, says the voice on the other end of the line.

Um, so it's Sayre, S-A-Y-R-E? Yeah. And Connor, C-O-N-N-O-R?

You leave your names and number.

Sure, it's 510— What do you think? Do you think he's actually in the bathroom? I don't know. It seems— it sounds— it's like one of those things that could be true, but it also could be a really lame excuse, and it's hard to know. Yeah. Well, if he calls you tonight, just let me know. Yeah, I will.

You don't hear back, and you don't call back either. You and Connor don't even discuss it. It seems to go without saying that to reach out a third time with no response would be pathetic. Sometimes in the weeks after, you find yourself driving past your father's shop. You peer through the window, hoping to catch his face. It's not that it particularly matters to you. You've just become habituated to looking for him.

You've gone out alone again tonight. In the months since quarantine was lifted, This has become your weekend routine. You stay out at your neighborhood bar until close, with your back to the wall and your eyes on the door. You're waiting for someone to walk in who will change the course of your evening. Hours pass like this, lost continents floating at the bottom of your pint glass. At an interval of every hour, you ask the universe for a sign that it's time to go home. But if it's sent, you are too busy watching the door to notice.

All right.

I am walking home.

I'm drunk.

Last call is over. Now you're stumbling home, feeling bad for yourself, of course. Thought that— stupidly thought that if I went to the nearby gay bar next to my house that I might meet someone.

But no.

You're on Santa Monica Boulevard now. The leather bar you visit on other nights, sometimes the same night, is to your left. You won't go in tonight. You're already too drunk. This circuit is your Bermuda Triangle, and somewhere along the vertices, you black out. The only evidence of whoever is navigating your body is in these recordings. Nothing is nothing. It's all bullshit.

All of it.

To attempt to intuit what bullshit you are referring to from this side of the veil is impossible. Could be anything. The bullshit of this age, this time. The bullshit of leaving your home only to find that the world is exactly as you left it. But with more rules, more distance, more death and indifference. The bullshit of risking disease waiting for someone to notice you at a bar. The bullshit of knowing that's a waste of time. The bullshit of wanting it anyway. The bullshit of steeling yourself against disappointment by expecting nothing, only to find yourself still disappointed when nothing is exactly what you receive. And then this, whatever this is. I think I'm gonna pee here. Tomorrow's headache creeping in as you piss behind a tree. Same bullshit, your bullshit, followed by a bean burrito at 7-Eleven. Same bullshit every day. Same shit every day.

Nothing matters.

Connor and you know there is only one option left. You have to go and meet your father in person, but you haven't talked much since calling your father's shop, and choosing a date is an overture in your conversation with no resolution.

How's it going? What are you doing? Good, I just woke up a bit ago. I'm gonna take a shower. Oh nice, you just woke up? A little bit ago.

It's 1:30. I know.

That's crazy. You never set me dates. I know, because a bunch of things happened. Um, which— why I was calling you about anyway. Uh, fuck, dude. I'm really distracted, I'm sorry. Um, I know, why did you call me? Why are you doing something else? You want to just— you can tell, just tell me. Yeah, but just, just do— finish one thing and then do the other. Finish one thing and then do the other. Don't do both at the same time. Just choose one thing and then do the other.

You're grumpy.

I am grumpy. It's not my fault. It's not your fault, but don't call people while you're doing other things. You want to talk at a better time when you're less hungover? No, I wanna— I wanna— I've been trying to get a date. I've been trying to get a date from you for like the last 2 weeks, so just tell me.

I know.

Well, Sarah, it's really fucking hard with what I do for work. I don't think you really understand that, and I don't blame you for it. It's just like There's like an understanding of seasonal work that I don't think you get. But it's like you really like, you just like kind of put your life on the line and really hope that you get work. You know, I don't have as much freedom as you in some sense. Like, I probably can't make it down at least until December, which I'm totally okay with doing if you want to. But I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be out of town in December, so I can't do it then. Okay, well, do you want to do January? I mean, do you want to do it? I guess like that's the thing I want to figure out. Do I want to? Yeah, I mean, do you want to do it? Like, I guess we have to see him. Like, I don't know, like, what are we gonna do, like go up to him and like, what are we gonna get out of that, you know? Uh, I don't know. I mean, I just want to talk to him.

I want to meet him. I want to know— I want to know his health problems. Um, I want to know his family's shit. Um, you know, I don't know, just basic things like that. See what he's like, if he's a dick, if he's cool, if he likes to party. I don't know. You don't know? Definitely a story. What do you want out of it?

Connor wants to meet your father on the most physical plane. Cash, genetics, ancestry. You're not sure what you want. It's hard to say without knowing what you can ask for.

I don't know if I want anything out of it. Yeah, I think that's okay too. But, you know, I guess if you don't want to do it, I'm not going to do it either, you know. I'll only do it if you want to do it. No, I'm— no, I'll do— I want to do it because you want to do it. So I said, I guess we'll both do it.

One day, you find yourself standing across the street from your birth father's shop. You don't intend to show up. It's as if you've come out of a trance. You look up and you're there. The fall's high sun beats down on your shoulders as you stare through the window.

Did you see him? Mm-hmm. I smoked a cigarette and watched him work.

What was that like for you?

You watch what you believe is your father's silhouette, his hands working over the client's head. 4 months since you emailed, 4 months since you called, and all you have to show for it is this impotent act.

And I felt sort of like, you can't do shit to me, you know? I'm like, you don't, you're not, you can't affect me. You can't stop me from being here, you know? And I guess maybe a little hurt too, like the feeling of like, oh wow, like you're just like living, continuing to live your life like you always have. Um, you know, like I did think about the fact that we like sent him an email and left, gave him a call and left our number and that he's like, You know, still gets to live his life like he's— like nothing is different, you know?

The reason language so often fails us, despite eons of development, is not that we fail to choose the right words, or that others stop short of hearing and then comprehending us, but that another, more honest meaning is forged between and apart from what we say, in silence. Silence, unlike language, Silence cannot be improved upon. It has its own clarifying syntax. It reveals what we are too afraid to put into words. It is in these ellipses that our full intention and meaning are revealed. And perhaps it is our unwillingness to accept what silence declares where our suffering truly begins.

So you want to confront him. What is it that you want to— what do you want to achieve with the confrontation?

I just want him to know that we exist and that— yeah, and that it hurts that he didn't acknowledge us, but also that we'll be fine without him.

By saying those things, you feel like what? Like what will happen?

I, I don't know. I guess in a weird way, like, I feel like I will be able to, like, get over my issues. Um, you know, like, I, I feel like— yeah, I feel like it'll be like I, you know, it's like I can finally move past that one thing, you know?

So do you think that's actually true? I mean, that, that's, you know, that makes perfect sense to me, Katie. You know, that, that, that you would think that that would happen. You confront the thing that haunts you, you tell it, you end it. But the question is, does it really end it? That's the question. Does it really end it?

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 café 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, 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. 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's make sure I have everything.

You're both quiet as you walk out the door. 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, right? Where I'd care more, I guess.

That's mostly what 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 busts lined 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. 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.

That's ready.

As busy as I can be. 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 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 and hairlines.

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 think I was growing dull. It was hard not to remember how our love started off. They were simpler times back then when you took me in and said you would love me till the end. But I got one last word to say.

So what you just heard was made of excerpts from the first 3 episodes of Reaching Out. The podcast comes from Futuro and KCRW. We are right now leaving off the story in the middle of episode 3. And I really encourage you to go hear what is about to happen. Some big, big turns are right ahead. It's very satisfying. Then episode 4 comes out later this week. And you can actually listen to all 6 episodes right now if you subscribe to Futuro+. And if you dive in that way, maybe go back to episodes 1 and 2. They contain stuff you have not heard in our excerpts today. Reaching Out is produced, written, and sound designed by Sarah Quedo. Editing by Maria Garcia. Original music by Lucy Little. Mixed by Stephanie LeBeau. Executive produced by Maria Garcia and Marlon Bishop. The people who put our show together today include Nadia Raymond, who produced this episode, Adrienne Lilly, Tobin Low, Andrea Marks, Stone Nelson, Ruthie Petito, Anthony Roman, Ruby Schwartz, Lily Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Christopher Sotala, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor, Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editors, David Kestenbaum and Nancy Updike. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Barry.

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Thanks, I guess? I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.