Heavyweight - #15 Dina

Episode Date: December 7, 2017

During a visit back home, Jonathan’s mother inadvertently admits something that forces him to question his past. In this season finale, Jonathan turns the mic around on himself for one of the more personal episodes of the series. Credits Heavyweight is hosted and produced by Jonathan Goldstein. This episode was also produced by Kalila Holt. The senior producer is Kaitlin Roberts. Editing by Jorge Just, Alex Blumberg, and Wendy Dorr. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Emanuele Berry, Pat Walters, and Jackie Cohen. The show was mixed by Kate Bilinski.  Music by Christine Fellows and John K Samson, with additional music by Y La Bamba, Caspar Babypants, Michael Charles Smith, and Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Haley Shaw. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, hello. Why, hello. Now, what kind of greeting is that? You've got your radio voice on. Could you elaborate on what you mean by that? I know in the first second if I'm being recorded or not. How could you tell? Based on your inflections.

Well, I always talk like this, Jackie. Back to you. The way you're speaking with me now is never the way you would normally speak. Okay, wait. Hang on a second. I'm just talking normal. You're not talking normal. This is your radio voice. Hey, what's going on? It's still not. It's still not. It's still not. Hey.

No. Hey, Jackie. Try again. Jackie? No, you wouldn't say my name like that. How's it going? Too much energy. Hi.

I can tell. Anyway, it can't be a radio voice because I do a podcast. It's a podcast voice. All right, and welcome to the show. From Gimlet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Dina. Hello, hello. Okay. So we just got to Montreal. Oui, oui. What's that?

Isn't that how you say yes in French? Yeah, but you just say it once. You just say oui. Oui, oui. What's that? Isn't that how you say yes in French? Yeah, but you just say it once. You just say oui. Oui. My folks are about to meet us, pick us up at the airport to take us back to their place where we will be staying for the next five days. Five days. Five days in my childhood home

and the childhood bed I've not slept in in decades. My wife Emily and I are here for Passover, to sup upon the bread of affliction. Growing up, though, it was everything of affliction. Candy corn of affliction, road trips of affliction, bedtime stories of affliction. bedtime stories of affliction. I moved out when I was 19, but from age 1 to 18, what I remember most is the vague feeling of worry permeating the household. Worry that manifested as yelling.

Yelling through closed doors. Yelling across the kitchen table. My father yelling into a junk drawer desperately trying to find a working pen, my mother yelling into a clogged toilet desperately trying to make it go down. But more often than not, the yelling wasn't over anything at all. We were just a naturally loud, anxious family, a race of nervous giants shrunk into the bodies of little Jews. Man, when I move out of here, I'd say in my teens, I'm going to live like sting, peace and quiet, meditation, tea, and tantric sex. And now, after years of oolong rooibos and lemon rooibos, I'm home again, for my first trip back with Emily, and our five-month-old son, Augie.

Day one. There they are. My parents' Toyota pulls up to the airport pickup and passes us. Try to catch their eye. They don't see us. Here. We're right here. My mother jumps out.

She runs back towards us, pointing at Augie's ears. His ears are exposed. Hi. Hi, Emily. ears. His ears are exposed. Hi. Hi, Emily. His ears are exposed. My boys' old face aches all in the shot. Both my mother and father wear their woolen caps pulled down well past their ears.

In younger, stronger days, they might have stretched those caps right down over their feet. But they're old now. My mother, Dina, 72, and my father, Buzz, 83. I wanna drive slow, not too fast. I wanna go carefully here, okay? While Buzz is high-strung, Dina's intensity is capable of raising the emotional temperature

of any space she occupies. In elevators, walk-in pantries, and Toyotas, her powers are especially acute. I have like a funny feeling in my throat, like it's like really emotional. It's like a dream, you know, it's like a dream. Yeah, it's like such a weird feeling. I think the weird, elusive feeling

my mother is trying to describe is happiness. It's just wonderful to see him. I hope he's going to be warm enough. Did you bring him a little something? Home, sweetheart. Be it ever so hard. Walking through the door, I'm a 12-year-old again, home from school and looking forward to zoning out with Petticoat Junction.

I'm a 16-year-old, rushing to the bathroom to gargle out the smell of cigarettes. I'm a 48-year-old, a grown-ass man with a grown-ass ass. Parenting a newborn leaves a person with no time for squats, so don't judge, Alex. So nice in here. Wait, wait. I can't believe it. Normally the house, a modest, semi-detached bungalow,

has a certain storage unit bomb shelter vibe. Walls of toilet paper, a cold room full of canned fruit cocktail, needle points of biblical scenes and toreadors all leaned up against the walls for fear of pounding in a nail and regretting it forever. But today, the place looks positively sparse. Just don't open a closet or a drawer.

Everything will tumble on your head because when we heard you guys were coming, I threw everything into the closets and hid them. My mother grabs Augie and heads upstairs for a diaper change. Emily and I trail behind. I want him to be fresh and clean. Oh, he's so sweet. You're so sweet, my angel.

Where the frig is the bag? The friggin' bag contains the friggin' diapers that my mother bought for our visit. It turns out it's on her lap. I kept the bill because I wasn't sure if you want me to return them or not. Would you be able to return used diapers? Yeah. You know me. I could return anything.

I could return anything. You know that, Johnny. I do know me. I could return anything. I could return anything. You know that, Johnny. I do know that. Returning stuff is what my mother lives for. She sees it as a staring contest, a game of chess, but with yelling. I remember once going along with her as she returned a shirt she'd bought for my father, two years earlier. with her as she returned a shirt she'd bought for my father, two years earlier. It's missing a sleeve, she told the cashier. Holding up the article of clothing, the cashier

turned it around and around. It's not supposed to have sleeves, the cashier finally said. It's a poncho. A poncho? My mother repeated, as though it were a foreign word, which, in her defense, I suppose it sort of is. I don't care what it is. It's factory defective, and my husband can't wear it. Whenever she'd get this way, I'd adopt a stance meant to convey filial loyalty, peppered with a touch of what Vietnam vets call the thousand-yard stare.

I've stood next to my mother through countless exchanges, arguments, spectacles, and stinks, but this is the first time I've stood by her side as she diapers my son. Oh, look how much pee-pee he has. Oh, you made a lot of pee-pee, eh, baby? See, that's how I knew you were sick when you were a baby, Johnny. You weren't peeping. What was wrong with me? As a kid, it was easy to be embarrassed by my mother.

One time, a popular boy named Jordy showed up at our house. I wasn't home, but my mother answered the door. With her hair on fire. My hair's on fire, she screamed. The next day in school, Jordy showed the whole class how she screamed it. He wiggled his fingers in the air, looking as though he was about to fall to his knees.

That night, I asked my mother what had happened. It was the barbecue, she said. Your father wasn't home, and I was so in the mood for barbecued lamb chops. It seems that while examining the chops for signs of spoilage, she'd leaned her hairsprayed bouffant too close to the grill. While this explained the fire atop her head, it did not explain why she answered the door while nursing a fire atop her head, it did not explain why she answered the door

while nursing a fire atop her head. Growing up, this kind of stuff happened all the time, so I was always on high alert for humiliating emergencies. Being back home again, I feel the old muscle memory kick back in. What's that smell? Something's burning. Did you turn on the heater? Did you touch the heat? No.

It turns out that one of the rag dolls my mother had been hoarding somehow landed onto one of the old lamps she'd been hoarding and had begun to burn. I could have had a fire because I was so careless. The day plays out as a series of minor disasters averted. In the morning, my mother loses her cell phone. We find it in the night table. In the afternoon, a screw to my father's glasses falls out. We replace it with a twist tie. At dinner, a waiter charges my mother for a potato she claims she didn't order.

But after ten minutes of Camp David-style negotiations, it's dropped from the bill. Before bed, my father can't find his passport. Why do you need a passport, I ask. You always need a passport, he says. We find it in the night table. In the past, having someone witness all of this would have made me feel anxious. But now, having Emily here makes me feel like I have an ally.

Turning to her in the midst of some crisis is like looking directly into the TV camera and winking at the audience. Good night, Aki. Day two. Good night, Auggie. Day two. Good night, Auggie. After we put Auggie to sleep, Emily and I lie in bed. I ask for her thoughts and reflections on the trip so far. No comment. Oh, come on.

Come on. No comment. How could she resist? Look at how my mother acts with Augie, I say, trying to get Emily going. I saw her put a pocket mirror under his nose while he was sleeping to see if he was still breathing. After every spoonful she feeds him, she asks if he's choking. You realize, though, that you say all that about Augie now, too. Like, just a tiny little cough, and you are doing it.

Is he breathing? Can he sit like that? Can he touch that thing? Can he eat that? Can he do that? Is he supposed to be doing that? What's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? What's he doing? What's he doing? Is he choking? What's wrong? You do a lot of that kind of thing. I concede to Emily that maybe I do just a little of that kind of thing,

but I wasn't even in the parking lot of the ballpark of Adina Goldstein. You, one day you dropped, you dropped Augie off, and you called me right afterward because you were so worried. Do you remember this? I do remember this. It was Augie's first week of daycare. He shares a babysitter with two little sisters. But on that particular morning, when the babysitter opened the door, she was alone.

She told me the girls were napping in another room. You called me and said she was there alone. She said they were in bed. I don't know, maybe she killed the whole family and now she's going to kill Augie. And you weren't joking. Like, you knew it was a crazy thought, but you needed me to tell you she didn't kill their family.

She's not going to kill Augie. I did not need you to tell me that. You're misremembering. You were freaked out. You were freaked out. I thought I was very stoic. You called me and said, I think the nanny is going to murder our child and that she murdered the whole family that we do daycare with. I don't consider that stoic.

All right. I mean, I'm just imaginative. That's one way to look at it. Yet another way to look at it is that I'm also crazy, just like my mom. Well, set my hair on fire and open the front door. In the days after Augie was born, I couldn't stop thinking terrible thoughts. Things I couldn't speak, not even to Emily. With this new overwhelming love for my son came new overwhelming fears. For his safety, his heartbreaks to come. for his old age, his loneliness. So I started seeing a therapist. I explained how worry was the lingua franca of my childhood. I wasn't allowed a paper route because it was a good way to get abducted,

no barefooting because of rusty nails, and I didn't even learn to swim until junior high because water, that's where people go to drown. Worry and fear were how my mother communicated love, I said to my therapist with a shrug. But love is love. The important thing is that we feel it. But my therapist's response troubled me. She said that love was the transcendence of fear. That you might even say, fear was the opposite of love.

Sitting at my childhood desk, with Auggie's toys scattered at my feet, my therapist's words returned to me. If I was becoming my mother, would Auggie someday become me, someone weighed down by fear and worry? Was our genetic line nothing more than an inglorious chain of Russian dolls? Should my therapist save the notes from our sessions so I can send Augie to her at a discounted rate? I didn't want my son becoming me,

and there were only two people who could help me understand how I became me. One, who charged New York therapy rates that might leave me bankrupted before I'm cured. And the other, my mother. Day three. As a child, I felt trapped and embarrassed by my mother. As an adult, I came to be amused by her.

It's only as a freshly minted father visiting home for the first time that I'm beginning to see that I am her. How much do you pay for apples? $79 a pound, but if I'm desperate... This is what we normally talk about. Where to get the best price on paper plates, where to get the best price on honeydew melon. Dina, what do you pay for a bottle of water?

I get like $24 for $1.88. Bottled water. Coke's 24 for $6.49. What do you pay for a loaf of bread? But after dinner, after Augie's gone to sleep, my mom and I sit down at the kitchen table to have a different conversation. Emily's reading in bed, and my father's watching TV in the basement. It's just us.

Hello, hello. Go ahead and talk. Here I am. Why do you say here I am? Well, where should I say there I am? Tonight, I want to talk about the fear, that thing my family lives inside, like a snowsuit with a broken zipper, that can no more be removed than our own flesh. I want to talk about the nameless thing that binds all Goldsteins, that ignites us, propels us, and ultimately paralyzes us. Well, I think about this stuff now because, you know, I have a son, and I think... Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem. But I think...

He's so beautiful, and I saw those blue eyes, like... My mother's not talking crazy talk. She's talking Yiddish. Yeah, what does that mean? The bad eye shouldn't hurt them. The bad eye, the evil eye, the belief that merely saying something positive

is enough to invite evil forces to snuff the good thing out. So even bringing up a normal son-to-mom question about good parenting is enough to attract the eye. On the day of my bar mitzvah, my mother carefully sewed a red ribbon into my underwear. In this way, she reasoned, do that evil eye stuff? It's not only me. The Moroccans are evil cuckoo.

But you say it's cuckoo. I know it's cuckoo, but I can't help it. But then that's a superstition. I don't know. Everybody does it. I've never met anybody who puts red ribbons in their underwear. I'm saying I personally have never met anyone who does that. So you can't say everybody puts red ribbons in their underwear. But what is it supposed to be warding off?

The evil eye. But what is the evil eye? I don't know. This is how conversations with Dina often go. They derail, hit dead ends. So when I ask her, why was our home the way it was, I expect more of the same. But instead, my mother grows quiet. I worry. Yeah, I do too. I was afraid of this,

afraid of that. I was irrational. I wasn't thinking right. And I have a chance to redo mine a little bit, not with you, but with Augie. She stops talking and stares into her lap. For a while, we just sit there. I look upon this as a second chance. I want to correct my mistakes, Johnny. I want to redeem myself. That's it. My mother doesn't usually talk this way.

If something's causing her grief, she returns it to the store, sends it back to the kitchen. And so, talk of second chances and redemption, the words sound weird coming out of her mouth, and I don't know how to respond. Where's all this coming from, I ask? Are you thinking of something specific? The words sound weird coming out of her mouth, and I don't know how to respond. Where's all this coming from, I ask? Are you thinking of something specific?

It's too painful. I don't want to. Maybe if you talk about it, you won't have to anymore. No, I don't want to talk about it. I can't. I don't think it could be anything that bad. I can't. I can't talk about it. Don't press me. Please. Well, I don't want to force you. I don't want to make you feel bad. I can't. I can't talk about it. Don't press me. Please. Well, I don't want to force you. I don't want to make you feel bad.

I'm ashamed of myself. Let's change the subject. And with that, the conversation ends. I'd gone to my mother for answers about my childhood, but instead she's left me with questions I didn't even know I had. What had happened that was so bad she couldn't even talk about it? What was she so afraid to tell me? After the break, I find out.

Hello, hello. So Mom's upstairs with Emily. Do you have any insight... Day four. I sit down with my father to see if he has any idea what the second chance is that my mother's talking about. He's hesitant to talk because that goes against his strategy of staying out of the drama. In fact, most of my childhood memories of him

are of a man in bed, napping, with a large volume of World War II history splayed open on his chest. This retiring nature might be the secret to having stayed married to my mother for more than 50 years. What is the thing that she is carrying around with her? She's a very private person, and she feels she doesn't want to be intruded upon. Don't take it the wrong way. So you have no inkling you don't know what's going on? She doesn't even discuss it with me. I don't know what guilt.

I don't know what she's talking about. You don't find it odd or intriguing in a way? It's a touchy subject for her, and she's very reluctant to talk about it. Talk about it? What's the it? I don't know. You have to ask her, and she's going to shut down. She's going to shut down. She's going to shut down.

This means she'll try to change the subject or start to yell. But today I don't care. I just want to know what the big secret is. I wonder what it is, I say to Emily. Who knows, she says while brushing her hair. So many things about your mom are a mystery to me. Like why is the kitchen faucet always running full blast? And why does she keep offering me paper towels?

I think, she says, you should just let it go. But of course, I can't. What had my mother done that she wanted a second chance at? Was it for the time she bought me a shirt for my birthday that she later admitted was actually a dress? Did she want to redo the time she dropped me off at a birthday party and hollered out the car window, Have fun, but if you get diarrhea and someone's on the toilet,

just make in the bathtub. Diarrhea is not a time for pride. Of course, I now see the wisdom, but as a child, her words were a source of shame. I need to know, so I invite my mother out for a Sunday stroll with Augie and me. Maybe if she can just relax, it'll come out. Like diarrhea.

Talk. What diarrhea. Talk? What should I say? Let me just take your mobile. So tell me, um... So do you find walking with Augie relaxing? Very relaxing. So nice. It's a pleasure to walk with my little friend. To start things off, I lob her an easy question.

Cocktail party stuff. What's your first memory? Kindergarten. And we lived on Colonial, 4039 Colonial. And I remember my father used to play pinochle. And he had a thumb that was, the thumbnail was very cut off and all of a sudden I thought of it and I started screaming and crying and carrying on

and worrying oh I remember how old are you must have been four or five so an early memory is being at kindergarten and remembering your father's thumbnail and starting to cry? Yeah. What was it that upset you about it? I was worried about it because it wasn't like a regular thumb. I was worried crazy. I try to guide her towards happy reminiscences, but all her memories are awful. Rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, her mother slapping

her in Woolworths for whining about a balloon she wanted, waking up in the middle of the night to find a wall in the kitchen covered in moths. Then I remember my mother's pressure cooker in that house hit the ceiling and pea soup was splattered everywhere. I'll hear memories. Let's hear another memory. With the small talk exhausted, I trepidatiously bring the subject back around to the do-over. I don't know, Johnny. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to remind myself

the way I felt doesn't conjure up good memories, please. And that's the end of it. I don't want to go into details. Nonetheless, for the rest of the day, I can't stop myself from asking for details. Here we go. I ask as she puts away the breakfast dishes. I don't want to think about things. I have nothing more to say, Johnny. Leave me be. I ask as she cuts coupons while watching Judge Judy with Emily.

In broad strokes. Please, Emily, take him off me. And while she peels boiled eggs for lunch. Leave me alone! Later, we all sit down for dinner, and with it, some wine. What's wrong with me? I think I'm on off my rocker. My mother rarely drinks wine. Oh my God, how did I get like this?

Mom, you just had a glass of wine. I'm going to be okay. As she drifts off into an inebriated slumber, I give it one last try. Mom, good night. Is there anything you need to tell me? No. Any secrets to reveal? No.

I was getting nowhere. Day five. All right, you want to change him? What, honey? It's our last day, and I've decided to give it a rest. I stop asking weird questions, and we all just hang out. We talk about the price of things. We yell from room to room.

We search for lost cell phones and grow pleasantly bored with each other's company. Overall, it's pretty nice. But while putting Augie down for a nap, my mother has a question for me. Johnny, what was it that you were hoping to get from me? Oh, I really just want to be able to have a conversation, that's all. I don't want to cause you distress. You're not causing me distress. It's what it was. I don't even want to talk about all the painful stuff. I...

What, sweetheart? What? She lays Augie down. She stands over the crib. She starts to say something, but then trails away. What were you saying? No, not when the thing is over. Why?

No, no. Why? Because I'm not equal. All right, I'm going to turn it off then. I was not adopted. I had no secret twin. And my mother had no secret family. There were no murders, no affairs.

It turns out that my mother's big secret, the thing that was so hard for her to say, was that she was sorry. For a lot of things. Some small, some not so small. Some I remember. Some I don't. Calling me names, screaming at me a lot.

How she could have been nicer to my girlfriends. How she used to pull my hair. Hit me. Hitting kids was like the hula hoop back then, I say. A fad. Everyone did it. It wasn't right, she says. Back then, people didn't know better, I say

I should have known better, she says I forgive you, I say I don't forgive myself So I forgive her again And I mean it And then, I turn the recorder back on I love you, honey You made it a little easier for me, thank you. I love you too, mom. When you become a parent, your whole life changes, but you forget that some things stay the same.

I'd been so focused on becoming a better father that I forgot I was still a son. And maybe learning to be a better son is how you become a better dad anyway. I want him to be safe. On the last morning of our visit, my mother and I head to the park. As a kid, the park was someplace I usually went with my grandfather or father.

One of the only times I remember going with my mother, two collies appeared out of nowhere and began chasing us. I remember we separated and the dogs chased her while I hid behind a tree. I look around the playground. From my own childhood with her, I knew most things were out. Sandbox, because someone could have peed in there. Same for the swings, monkey bars, teeter-totters, and merry-go-rounds. But then something surprising happens.

Picking Augie up out of the stroller, my mother says, I'll take him down the slide. He's never gone down the slide. Come with Bobby, honey. We'll go down the slide together, okay, honey? You're going to go with him down the slide? Well, what do you think? I'll put him himself. You're not afraid to go down the slide?

Why would I be afraid? I don't know. Okay, be careful. Do you want me to carry him to you? Yeah. Now you've gotten nervous. I wasn't afraid. Be careful.

But what's getting you afraid? I don't nervous. I wasn't afraid. Be careful. What's getting you afraid? I don't know. My mother hands me back Augie, and, holding onto the railing, she carefully climbs the steps to the top of the slide. When she gets there, I climb up too and hand Augie back to her. With hesitation, she positions him onto her lap, and I run around to the bottom of the slide to await their arrival. And you stand there and catch us.

And then, Dina lets go. I'm going to go down. He's having fun, huh? So much fun, in fact, that my mother decides to do it again. And so, again, she climbs up the steps, all three of them, to the top of the ladder. And from the grand height of three and a half feet, my mother and son descend the toddler slide once more. Sliding, sliding, down the slide.

Woo! Woo! Oh, yes! I did it! Oggie loves it, so they do it again. A third chance, a fourth, and even a fifth. Then we move on to the bouncy caterpillar, the rope bridge, and the swings. Swingy, swingy, Oggie's going swinging. bouncy caterpillar, the rope bridge, and the swings.

Parenthood is like a redo of your own childhood. And grandparenthood is like a redo of that. That's all life is, learning and relearning the same lessons over and over. All of us, like those itsy-bitsy spiders, crawling up endless water spouts, trying to make just a little more progress each time we set out. There's comfort in knowing that no one ever gets it right, no matter how many chances we get.

But hopefully, at least a few things go right. A few purely kind gestures somehow get through. And for everything else, we ask for forgiveness. And if we're lucky, we'll receive it. And if we're luckier, we'll forgive ourselves, too. See? I love you. And the horrors of Bayes eggs all in the shore. ស្រូវានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលានដែលា� guitar solo Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home

Turning to its goodwill home Now that the last month's rent is scheming With the damage deposit Take this moment to decide If we meant it, if we tried Or felt around for far too much From things that accidentally touched Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me, Jonathan Goldstein, along with Kalila Holt.

The senior producer is Caitlin Roberts, editing by Jorge Just, Alex Bloomberg, and Wendy Tor. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Emanuel Berry, Pat Walters, and Jackie Cohen. The show is mixed by Kate Balinski. Music by Christine Fellows and John K. Sampson. Additional music credits for this episode can be found on our website, gimletmedia.com slash heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records,

and our ad music is by Haley Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight. This is our last episode of the season, but we're already looking for stories for Season 3. So if you have one, email us at heavyweight at gimletmedia.com. And if you see fit, punch in some stars for us on iTunes. Thanks for listening. I'm Ted White.