This American Life - 212: The Other Man

Episode Date: April 5, 2026

What happens when a new guy comes on the scene and changes the way everyone relates to each other? Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks with Sarah Koenig about the first and only time a movie star came to her family's house when she was a kid. It didn't go well, for the celebrity or for her. The star was Robert Redford. He arrived and immediately stole all the attention her parents usually lavished on her, their youngest. Worse, they were nervous and strange around him, not themselves at all. Young Sarah was not pleased. Robert Redford paid the price. (6 minutes)Act One: Davy Rothbart's mother is funny, rational, and by most measures, pretty normal. Except that she spends every day in the company of an ancient Buddhist monk named Aaron, who no one else can see. Davy talks to his brothers, father, and eventually his mom, and asks the question they've somehow never managed to discuss: do any of them actually believe he's real? (26 minutes)Act Two: Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. had always lived in the shadow of his father's name. But just before his primary, an aide delivered strange news: a second Jesse Jackson had appeared on the same ballot — a retired truck driver with no political experience. Ira reports on whether it was a coincidence or mischief orchestrated by the Congressman's rivals. (9 minutes)Act Three: Jonathan Goldstein and Heather O'Neill tell the true story of a man trying to wedge himself into an idyllic family of two. For the first few years, Heather's daughter Arizona was not very fond of Jonathan. He ranked nineteenth on her list of favorite people, behind the neighbor's dog and the plumber. (15 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

When Sarah was a kid, the number of movie stars who came to stay at their house was exactly one, and it was kind of a disaster. Robert Redford ended up at their house because he had heard about a book that Sarah's stepfather was writing, about Leonard Peltier of the American Indian movement. It was still just a manuscript, and the stepfather didn't want to send copies of it around, so he told Redford that the only way that Redford could read it is if he would do it at their house in Long Island. Redford agreed. Sarah says the atmosphere in the house when he arrived was completely different from any other times.

time in her childhood. I remember mostly my mother, like consciously trying to be very charming and being very charming and talking to him a lot and asking all sorts of questions and laughing a lot at what he said and kind of flitting about the house in a way that I hadn't remembered her doing before. When Robert Redford told stories, even the simplest story about his trip to the house. Her parents nodded and smiled along with an enthusiasm. and the stories did not necessarily seem to merit to 11-year-old Sarah. I was really, I was sullen,

and I think I was making a really concerted effort not to be impressed. You know, now, 20 years later, I think I was jealous that he was suddenly the star of the house, whereas I was used to being the star of the house. I was the youngest kid, and, you know, I was sort of the one who, amused my parents and, you know, here was this stranger coming in who had, you know, usurped my role. And I remember when he came in, poor guy, the first night, my mother made this special dinner. And we ate in the kitchen. We had this big wooden table. And it was definitely fancier than usual,

or like one more course than we usually had. Maybe we had an appetizer or something, which we never normally had. And she had put down these placemats that were, we only brought them out on special occasions. You know, it all looked really festive and nice. And so he sits down and we start eating and Robert Redford says, oh, do you always, do you always eat like this? This is so nice. And I said, no. And my mother at the same time said, yes, we do. It was bad.

And then another thing happened where the seats at that table were these benches. So I was sitting on the same bench as Robert. And I started rocking, you know, kind of rocking, knowing, like partly unconsciously because I kind of always did that, but also just knowing, I'm sure that it would be highly irritating to whoever's sitting on the bench with you. So therefore, poor Robert Redford was like rocking back and forth, trying to eat his dinner. And my mother said, you know, Sarah, stop. Stop rocking, you know. And sort of scolded me in front of Robert Redford. The next day, a friend of Sarah is from down the street asked if she could come over.

and meet the house guest. So she comes over and she's, you know, she reacts the way you are supposed to react. Like she's just, you know, her eyes open wide and she's just smiling and talking, you know, and saying, I'm such a fan and I love your movies and can I have your autograph? And he's delighted, you know, finally someone is showing the proper protocol. And he's like, oh, sure, yeah, hey. And my mother's standing there smiling, you know,

and how sweet. And she says, Sarah, would you also like his autograph? And I said, no. And that was like the crowning blow. Well, it's like, it's like, it's like somehow, like if you picture your family is like this little solar system in and of itself, like with its own set of normal gravitational fields and all that, suddenly like, like, I don't even know what, like another star, another planet entered in. Right. And it completely shifted everyone's orbit away from the way it normally is. Right. And I couldn't handle it. All my behavior, I think, was aimed at trying to get it back to the way I had wanted it

or the way I was comfortable. Because in the old solar system, pretty much you were the sun. Like, you were at the center. Right. And he was so clearly, like, a bigger son. You know, he was literally a star. You know, he was a star. Well, today on our radio program, stories of what happens when an outsider arrives

and changes everything for better and worse. From WBEC Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Our program today in three acts. Act one. Psychic Buddha Keskase. The story of what happens to an average American family when mom, who is completely rational and charming and funny,

starts to spend every day in direct contact with an ancient Buddhist monk who no one else can see who last walked the earth hundreds of years ago. Act two. The Jackson 2. The story of a politician whose life is shadowed by two different men, both of whom share his same name. Act 3. Mr. Fun.

Jonathan Goldstein and Heather O'Neill tell the true story of what happened when he first arrived in her life, and why her little daughter explained to him that he is the daughter's 19th favorite person in the world, and not likely to rise. Stay with this. It's His American Life for Myra Glass. Today's show is a rerun. Act 1. Psychic Buddha Kesskase.

A quick note before we start. this next story. One of the people in the story, our reporter's mother, is completely deaf. She woke up one morning when she was 29 and her hearing was gone. And so to communicate with her, the family uses sign language and finger spelling. She can read lips if you talk very, very slow. It sounds like this. Can I have 20 bucks? Can you have 20 bucks? No. This is a story where another man shows up in a family. And the other man is an ancient spirit named Aaron. Mom started channeling Aaron years ago. Aaron has been through lifetime after lifetime going back a couple thousand years.

He instructing in Buddhism and in meditation. Her son, Davy Rothbart, put together this story on what it is meant to have Aaron around all these years in their family. But also, when he went to interview everybody in the house that he grew up in in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he realized that they had never sat down as a family and actually discussed whether they thought Aaron was real, whether they actually believed in Aaron. They got a chance to do that, too. Here's Davy. I was 12 when Aaron showed up.

My older brother Mike was 15. My little brother Peter was seven. I first found out about Aaron by reading through my mom's journals when she wasn't home. What some people call dirty snooping, I called being curious. And I was a curious kid. I remember reading about Aaron this, Aaron that, and all these long, incredible conversations my mom and Aaron had had. For a while, I thought Aaron was some dude my mom was sneaking around with.

Then one morning in the dining room she explained to me and my brothers about Aaron, how he just came to her one day. She's always meditated every morning, and I guess this one time in winter, while she was sitting quietly in the living room, she felt the presence of someone. Then she saw him, a biblical-looking figure with blue eyes and a long white beard. At first, my mom thought she was hallucinating. She asked the guy who he was. He said his name was Aaron. He's never gone away.

I feel his presence there constantly. But it's like sitting in a room with somebody and you're reading a book and they're reading a book and you don't always have to talk to each other. You just feel the other person's presence, and if it's somebody you really love, there's a comfort in that presence. Is he your best friend, kind of? It's not that kind of relationship. Yes, he's a friend, a very dear friend, but it's more a revered teacher than a pal. Do you and dad still knock boots? Do we still be making...

...and... ...making? ...with the love. What does Aaron do... What does Aaron do when we make love? I've noticed he averts his game since the one time that he's really not around. Although if I called on him, he would be, but I didn't feel his presence or energy. When Aaron showed up, one of the first things he did was dictate to my mom a piece of 2,500-year-old Buddhist school.

called the Saty Patanosutra. My mom says she'd never heard of it before. Aaron kept teaching her more scriptures and coached her in meditation in the Buddhist traditions. After a while, a couple of my mom's friends wanted in on the teachings, so she started showing them how to meditate and began channeling Aaron for them. It was strange. My mom and Aaron became these gurus, and more and more folks started coming by. Every night of the week, we'd have a crowd of new age types in the kitchen,

grazing on vegan cookies and foraging through our herbal teas. My mom and Aaron would lead meditation sessions out in our converted garage. Gently bring your attention to the touch of the breath. Wherever my mom was, so was Aaron. And if you're wondering what it was like growing up in a house like this, the only way I can describe it is it felt completely normal. Aaron was just another member of the family. We'd be at breakfast or driving in the car,

and my mom would tell us things that Aaron was saying to her. It was like he was an old college friend of hers who we all knew well. He had a weakness for puns and dumb jokes. He was always marveling at new things that hadn't existed in his last lifetime. I remember how intrigued he was one time by the sight of a Ferris wheel at a school carnival. When kids from school came over, me and my brothers always explained about our mom and Aaron. But we never really felt embarrassed or weird about it. This was Ann Arbor, the Berkeley of the Midwest.

Our friend's parents were ex-hippies and liberal professors. Nobody thought channeling was that strange. Not long ago, on a winter weekend, my brother Mike was in town visiting, and we went for a walk to the elementary school playground near the house. I wish I could remember exactly the point when I started to believe that it really was channeling and not just mom going slightly psycho. You know what? I remember? I just remembered. There was that Shirley McLean movie on TV.

I don't know, William. And it was just the worst, sappy, silly stuff ever. Right, but mom loved it and wanted us all to watch it. Yeah, she was eating it up. And it was soon after that she met Aaron. And I was like, that's convenient. Mike is 30 years old and married now. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

He's a professional photographer, and he's into the outdoors. Out of me and my brothers, he's probably the most spiritual. When Mike started getting into Aaron and his teachings, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I just felt like, okay, like, you and me and Peter used to all, like, make fun of, like, like, mom's students and stuff like that. Well, mostly you and Peter used to make fun of them.

Okay, yeah, me and Peter used to make fun of these weird people that come over the house. But sometimes, like, you would try to, like, sort of be down with me and Peter, and you would, like, try to make fun of them, too. But then you were up there, like doing all the voodoo stuff along with the rest of them. I did used to feel, I used to feel torn that I didn't want to be cool or kind of be accepted by you and Peter.

Yeah. But I was really interested in what they were, what they were doing. Of everyone in the family, Mike has turned to Aaron the most. In his freshman year of college, Mike basically had a breakdown. What happened was he started dealing with the fact that he was, that he'd got molested by a neighbor when he was little. The emotional weight of that started tearing him apart. He couldn't function.

At first I felt like I was sinking, like in a pit, just sinking further and further, getting depressed, not doing much of anything. And then, I don't know, I just basically eventually just got so bad that I just called mom and asked her for help, and she said, well, basically she said, well, I'll put Aaron on the line. Right.

What can Aaron say that, like, I mean, like, after which you want, some dude, like, touched you improperly, and, I mean, that seems pretty f***. What can Aaron say that would make that better or go away? He can't, like, take it back. It can't, if I wish Aaron was more, like, the punitive type of spirit, and, like, if you said some dude, like, improperly touched me, and he would, no, he would just, like, put, like, a bolt of lightning and, like, you know, we read about in the paper the next. Then I'd be like, yeah. Right. But basically when I would call, I'd explain how I was doing and Aaron would just really help me to see things from a more universal perspective. Like here I was, you know...

Like your problems aren't really that big or like... More that my problems were temporary. I remember when Mike would call from school to talk to my mom and Aaron. She didn't have a deaf telephone back then, so Mike could talk to me and I'd translate into sign language for my mom. language for my mom. And I remember there'd be long stretches where I'd just do the sign for crying, running my finger down my cheek, again and again. Over the past 12 years, I've watched my mom and Aaron help literally thousands of people. Folks come to them in so much pain and seem to leave feeling so much calmer. I've always felt really proud of my mom for all the work she's done to help people

through their darkest times. In fact, when Aaron first arrived in our house, things in our family were pretty miserable. Both my mom and my dad say that when my mom went deaf, it was incredibly difficult for them, and that it began to tear them apart. Here's my dad. I think one way to characterize it would be just to show how tough it was, it was, that's why I felt every day, just about every minute, like screaming. And I think I did it frequently enough. When I first lost my hearing it was devastating. It was totally cut off. There wasn't no communication at all,

just a sense of being totally isolated from the world. When my mom first went deaf, she didn't read lips or use sign language. She lost her job teaching sculpture at the university. She couldn't communicate with her friends. In fact, a lot of them just disappeared. My dad got frustrated and upset with her when she couldn't understand him.

He says he felt like she was taken from him, like his wife was gone, and he didn't have. handle it well. It was a big shock. I mean, I never met anybody that was deaf. And I was concerned that maybe she had brought it on herself because we went to a mall in Detroit one time on a very cold and windy day and she refused to put on a jacket or a coat or anything. So I figured that was, it was her fault. And I kept asking myself the question, it seems strange now, but the question was, why is this happening to me? And dad was totally overwhelmed.

to bite. He couldn't talk to me. I could talk to him because he could hear me. He couldn't talk back to him again. So he had so much anger and his anger cut me out. I would get mad. I would curse at her. I would yell at her. Of course, she couldn't hear me cursing. But then she told me that, yeah, she could tell the expression in my face that I was saying something vile. It was like this for 15 years. We could never tell when my dad was going to just blow up. A couple of times my mom packed me and my brothers into the station wagon, ready to leave. My mom says she was praying for some kind of relief. And then, Aaron appeared. And after that, things began to change. My mom got a focus and purpose in her life. People looked up to her. She

wasn't isolated anymore. And Aaron worked with my dad to help him learn how to manage his anger. It's always seemed to me that my little brother, Peter, is the one in my family most skeptical of Aaron's existence. Growing up, me and him, tease our mom for talking to ghosts. We used to mess around and do imitation of Aaron for our friends. Our favorite thing was when salespeople called and asked for Aaron. Usually it's for Mr. Aaron undetermined. They ask.

Yeah, they ask. Is Mr. Aaron undetermined there? I have to explain to them that Aaron is not of this world. Do you believe in Aaron? Um, in what sense? Do I think that everything mom says about Aaron is real? I don't pretend to know. I don't think it's important to me.

Like, is Aaron really a higher spirit that tells mom and all this stuff? Or is she just like, is just some sort of imaginary friend that developed as, like, a psychological tool for helping her figure out her own problems? It's just like, it doesn't seem like something I can really figure out. I got to say, I completely understand Peter's agnostic stance. It's tough to start asking the question of whether or not Aaron is real when either answer you get could be pretty unsettling. I mean, say Aaron is real. Then all the stuff he talks about is real too.

It means God exists and reincarnation, and that there really is this whole vast spirit world that most of us can't see. But all right, say Aaron's not real. If Aaron's not real, either my mom's lying or she's deluded. I know she wouldn't straight up lie about this. She clearly believes in him. Which means if Aaron's not real, then she's a crazy person. And that now she's snookered thousands of followers into believing along.

I decided I should just go to Aaron directly. I asked my mom if he would take a meeting with me. She was down and she said Aaron was down. One snowy afternoon we went for a walk in the woods behind our house and sat down to talk on a big old fallen tree. I had a list of questions. Should I ask them one at a time or should I ask them all? Probably ask them one at a time.

Okay. First, can I ask Aaron, what other kinds of humans has Aaron been? Start there. My mom leans back slightly and closes her eyes. She perches on the snowy log, breathing deeply and sitting completely still. I am arid. I have lived in every color of body. Birth, female, Arctic climates and tropical, deserts, and wilderness of mountains.

And so have you. But you don't remember the idea? Aaron says he last walked to Earth in human form about 500 years ago in Thailand. In that lifetime, he was a Buddhist meditation master, and my mom was one of his prized students. One night, a man attacked Aaron with a spear, and my mom gave her life to protect him. Aaron says he and my mom have been together in many lifetimes as teacher and student.

In a couple of lifetimes, he's even been her father. I have a question for you, Aaron. Aaron, isn't it possible that my mom invented you because she felt so alone and isolated with her deafness. Emma, I would not phrase it quite that way. First, I cannot prove that I'm real and it's not necessary. Certainly she could have invented me. In my experience, that's not what happened because I exist.

Since it's not something one can prove either way, I tend to simply ask people whether she invented me or I'm going to kneel. The ideas that I offer come from someone. Are they useful to you? Forget me. Are the ideas useful to you? I pause. These are all baseball cards.

Later that afternoon, Mike and I went up into the attic to look for some old pictures and things. Where do you think yours are... Wait, what's this one? At one point, my mom came up to help. She started telling me about a weekend channeling workshop she gave a few years ago. She said that channeling is not some secret gift, that even my brother Mike had channeled once. Mike channeled? Is that hereditary?

I thought channeling skips a generation. My experience is that anybody can learn how to channel. As I said, it's like playing basketball. Doing it is easy, doing it will as hard. Davy, dad was channeling, Dave. Dad was channeling? No. True.

That was channeled. You're pulling my... You're a Yankee. We had 20 people here around about 18 of them ended up channeling by the end of the weekend. Ask Dad. It's hell down there. Hal, come on around here. What?

A.V. Favre. Okay. A word about my dad. He's a real performer. The kind of dad who will improvise Gilbert and Sullivan songs with new lyrics, always willing to entertain. Did I have a channel? Yeah. Yeah, see, you remember my channel?

Sure. I took the channel in class through your mother. I channel. You know what I'm telling you? You never told me about that? Oh, yeah. I have a tape of it. Who did you channel?

Who did he channel? Who did he channel? I could probably do it again. Can you channel manga right now? I'm asking dad to channel munga. My dad stands there on the pull-down attic steps and closes his eyes, while my mom gets an increasingly worried look on her face. I would strongly suggest that you're not to take deviing up on that challenge.

Not only sit down and meditating, get yourself into a stoop into place. Dad, just don't worry about it. She's crazy. She's challenged. I think I'm feeling his presence. I'm asking for respect for the process. Okay, I could sit down. If I said that, I'd have to be more comfortable.

I think my mom hoped that that would be the end of it. Hey, me, Papa. The next morning I got my dad alone while he was shaving in the bathroom. How come Mom wouldn't let you... How come Mom wouldn't let you channel Munga earlier? Here's my feeling about it. I think she felt that it wasn't sincere, but it was real. It was real.

How about... Could you do Munga now? Can you try? I mean, I know sometimes you feel them closer than others. I could do it. I feel his presence. I wouldn't be able to shave. I'd have to stop shaving.

Well, yeah. But I could do it. I feel him around. Hi. I have to close my eyes and kind of like concentrate a little bit. Hello. My name is Munga. And I come from India.

I'm here now. Now I'm speaking. Not to be disrespectful and not to focus on Munga's accent. But I just didn't find this as believable as my mom's channel. Still, though, there's my dad standing there at the sink in a bright green bathrobe, his glasses on and shaving cream all over his face, channeling. Already this was turning into one of my favorite memories of my dad ever.

Longer, this is Davy. And can I ask you? Davey is number two son, born April 11, 1975. Right. I, 5'11, 152, I believe, 142. I have these feelings about your physical appearance. Munga was like one of those carnival barkers. They try and guess your exact height and weight,

or you win a giant pencil. Why didn't Aaron ever entertain like this? I have no more to say, and peace to all human beings on planet, Earth, you call it. I never really realized my dad was so cool with the whole spirit world thing. He was always a gracious host at all the meditation classes and channeling sessions. But sometimes, he also seemed to resent how wrapped up in Aaron and her work my mom had become. She was always going out of town to lead meditation retreats and workshops around the country.

And I don't think he liked being home alone so much of the time. And sometimes my dad would get annoyed by all the students constantly coming in and out of the house. Honestly, I thought Aaron was just something he tolerated. but listening to him in Munga, I felt moved. Really, what could be a sweeter way for him to show acceptance of my mom's work than for him to channel his own spirit? Is Aaron just a part of you? I have no idea.

I don't experience him as a part of him. There were still a couple of questions I had left from my mom. I know Aaron has dictated entire books to her, interpretations of ancient Buddhist writings. scholars who've read them have been impressed. With Aaron's teachings, she's become a widely known and respected meditation teacher. Even the most established Buddhist bigwigs admit that the depth of her knowledge is astounding.

But then there's sketchy things too. Like one time when Aaron said the thing he missed most about being an actual human being was his taste of cognac. Aaron's last lifetime was supposedly more than 500 years ago, and I checked it out. Cognac was barely invented then. And the only people drinking it were a few dudes in France.

not Buddhist monks in Thailand. And then there's the fact that Aaron says he can read minds and see the future, but then refuses to demonstrate these powers. Why won't he just prove himself? It's so easy. I have a number between one and a hundred. He says he wouldn't play that game. So he's not real.

Let's figure it to suck. Does he know the number? He doesn't have to say it. I just want him to know the number. number. Does he know? He says, he is efforting as us. He is choosing not to look at it. I'm begging him, please.

I just want to know. And then, I mean, I know it doesn't matter. His teachings are pretty cool. It doesn't matter if he's real or not. But I just want to know. So just look, just err in. Aaron, I'm asking you for one second. Trust a look.

If you want to understand what having Aaron in our lives has really done for my family, here's something that happened while I was home to work on this story. We went out to dinner on Valentine's Day. My dad met us at the restaurant, and when he walked in, he said, Happy Valentine's Day, to my mom. But she had just turned away and didn't see him say it.

My dad got kind of agitated, as though she was ignoring him by choice. He still hasn't fully gotten over her deafness. A minute later he said something else to her, but now he was sore at her, and he didn't use sign language and barely moved his lips. My mom said, I can't understand you. And my dad, getting more upset, repeated himself even faster, way too fast to lip read. This used to be how it would all start with them.

My dad's anger at my mom's deafness would bring out her unhappiness over it. Soon they'd be shouting at each other. But Aaron's influence has changed everything. On Valentine's Day, when my dad started freaking out, my mom just smiled at him and shrugged. Like, this is your problem, not mine. Things don't escalate the way they did before Aaron came around. He's helped my mom discover a total sense of calm.

Aaron came in peace, and that's what he brought us. Now, if Aaron hadn't come along. I think that and I would have been divorced. I'm not sure. Maybe not. I'm not true. I understand why my mom believes in Aaron. As for me, I think believing in Aaron is a lot like believing in God. I have a hard time having an unswerving faith in something you can't see or prove exists.

But I do have that kind of faith in my mom. That's why I believe in Aaron. You? You'll have to make your own decision. Davey Rothbard is the creator of Found Magazine, and the author of a book of essays called My Heart is an Idiot. We first broadcast this story many years ago. Davy's mom and dad are now in their 80s and still going strong, as are Aaron and Munga. In fact, Aaron celebrates the big 2100 this summer.

Now, here's Davey's dad using his improvisatory powers. Hey, Pete, hurry down, dad's going to sing. If you're a God-fearing man, and you're trying to answer all the personal questions that you can. I suggest you call A-A-A-R-O-N is the man that can solve your problems. Do you have any today? It's a way to live in the world today. Can you solve your problems if you can't? Let me remind you there's a wonderful spirit in the world

and his sayings are good as gold. Some are modern and some are pretty old. So my response to you... Coming up, the difficult task of running for Congress against someone with your exact same name. And a seven-year-old explains a few things to a grown-ass man. In a minute from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.

It's just American Life, a Myro Glass. Each week, of course, we choose some theme, bringing you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show is a rerun from years ago, The Other Man, stories in which some outsider arrives on the scene, disturbing the normal orbits of the planets, disrupting how everybody deals with everybody else.

We have arrived at the second act of our show, Act 2, the Jackson 2. So Jesse Jackson was a national figure for decades, protege of Martin Luther King, two-time presidential candidate, somebody who would show up on the news all the time. So imagine for a second, what would mean to grow up with the name Jesse Jackson

if you weren't the Jesse Jackson? Okay, you're with me so far? Now, imagine if you grew up with a name Jesse Jackson and you were Jesse Jackson's son and you wanted to go into public service of some kind. Your dad would forever be the other man in the room. His shadow would always be there, his presence, an invisible boulder in any room you walk into.

Run for office. There are going to be some people who love you, some people who dismiss you because of your dad, his name you share. Okay. So that is the thing that. the situation that Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., found himself in back in 2002 when we first broadcast today's show with this story, a story that's a kind of, I don't know, a classic, kind of hard-knuckled,

old-fashioned Chicago political brawl. Okay, so at the time, Jesse L. Jackson was a congressman for Illinois' second district in Chicago, and after 34 years of living with the name Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., and seven years of living as Congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Jesse L. Jr. was in a meeting with campaign workers when somebody told him about this strange turn of events. And he said, have you heard the news? Have you heard the news? I said, no, what's the news? He said at 1159, the last minute of filing for Congress in the second district of Illinois, you now have another Jesse L. Jackson running against you. I think at the first people were, you know, questioning whether there really was such a person. I didn't realize that there was an actual

question if he even existed. Yes. Mark Brown covered all this for the Chicago Sun Times. He says that the other Jesse L. Jackson turned out to be a retired truck driver who lived in a suburb called Robbins, 68 years old. No previous political experience. At first, we couldn't even find him. He was ducking everybody. And then they produced him for a little dog and pony show where he came out in front of the microphones and read a statement that said he really does exist.

indeed, you know, he was a real person and he, you know, he was just a regular guy who clearly had somehow been recruited to get into this race. But recruited by whom? Well, nobody was admitting anything, but for weeks, news reports were featuring gleeful quotes from two local politicians, Robert and William Shaw. They were twin brothers, old school operators who came up through the Brank and Fowl, the Black Democratic Organization, who reportedly resented the relative ease, with which Jesse Jr. became a congressman.

After all, he started at the top. It was his very first elected office. When he won that position, he beat out of a candidate that they had supported for the job. The Shaw brothers called Jackson a brat and a crybaby. And in 2002, as soon as this other Jesse L. Jackson appeared on the ballot, they were merrily telling reporters

and anybody who would listen that it only seemed fair that Congressman Jackson realized that he wasn't the only one. who could run for office on his father's name. The only way he got in public office is through his daddy's name. But this other Jackson have had the name long before. This young boy had it, the congressman.

Senator William Shaw talked to me from his office. You know, I'm so happy, looking back at history, that Andrew Jackson didn't come along in this time. He never would have been the president. ever had been left up to this car. Wait, wait, Andrew Jackson. Explain what you mean. You know, Andrew Jackson?

He was one of the presidents. Right, right, of course. He's on the money. But listening to Congressman Jackson, anybody with the Jackson name, he feels as though that they shouldn't run. This guy's out of his mind. He'd think he have a patent on the Jackson name.

And the congressman's point of view, this is all pretty much exactly what you do not want people talking about in the newspapers and on television. Again, imagine you have spent your whole life trying to get out from under the shadow of that other Jesse Jackson, your father, and now there is yet another Jesse Jackson.

And the main story about your reelection is not what you've accomplished for your district or what you hope to accomplish, but once again, did you get your job on your daddy's name? You know, and that's for someone who takes the process very seriously, it has been annoying. In the last six years, I have had eight press conferences.

two of them have been on this subject to give you some idea that I don't run to the media to show you some difference between me and my father. My dad might have had eight yesterday. I'm not anti-press. I'm prepared to do press, but when I do press, I want it to be about issues of concern to my constituents.

And so rather than running a race on a third airport in peatone or discussing O'Hare expansion or how to get more jobs, I'm caught in a fight with people who aren't even running for Congress in my race. The people who refers to, of course, the Shaw brothers. They deny having anything to do with Jesse Jackson of Robbins, the truck driver, but Congressman Jackson started investigating the petition drive that put Jesse Jackson of Robbins onto the ballot. He found that many people who signed the petitions had been told specifically that they were signing for the congressman, who enjoys a 90% approval rating in the district.

Further investigations showed that those petitions were notarized by a political ally of the Shaw's. The 4,400 signatures were gathered by men who came from a homeless shelter, one of whom is testified that they got the jobs gathering signatures one day when Senator Shaw's chief of staff came by and took them to the Shaw's office at 144th Street. In an affidavit, this man said that both William and Robert Shaw were there in the room and sent them out to get the signatures. Not only there and sent them out, but they're eating catfish and sent them out, and specifically said, go help the congressman. We don't get along with the congressman. We don't care much for the congressman, but we're going to help him get back on the ballot.

Now the congressman is saying that he's got affidavits on people who went around and got signatures to get this other Jesse Jackson, the one from Robbins, under the ballot. He says he's got affidavits from some of those people saying that they met. They were organized in Shaw headquarters. What do you all say to that? I don't say anything. You know, anything might have happened. You know, I have hundreds of people in my headquarters coming in and out. We involved in a campaign here.

And to my knowledge, I don't know anything about that. And I think that the congressman, you know, he's drinking some water probably out of D.C. We have better water than that in Chicago. And what is the water from D.C. do to you? The water is making him delirious. That's what I think. For a while, there were not only two Jesse L. Jackson's on the ballot. The Shaw brothers officially supported a candidate in the primary named Yvonne Williams

And at some point, another Williams turned up on the ballot as well, Anthony Williams. And, of course, this happens on ballots all over the country. If you're running against an Irish politician, you get another Irish name on the ballot. If you're running against a woman, you get another woman. If you're running against Jesse Jackson, you get another Jesse Jackson. Again, William Shaw. Yeah, that has happened many, many times. And people just take it with a grain of salt.

It's not such a big deal. Yeah, I was wondering if you think we should think it's tragic or just funny. Well, I don't know. I guess it's funny to everybody, but the congressman. Well, it is kind of funny. Again, Congressman Jackson. But there are political forces in my congressional district that are notorious for election shenanigans, for deceiving voters, and even having the reputation of stealing voters.

And after deploying seven lawyers, two private eyes, and $150,000. to investigate how Jesse L. Jackson of Robbins got under the ballot, the congressman pursued legal action. He tried to prove that the Shaw brothers intentionally deceived voters, intentionally tried to convince voters that they were signing petitions for the congressmen, when in fact they were signing for the other Jesse L. Jackson. If you could prove that, it would move this entire incident out of the category of political prank and into the rather more serious category of political fraud, which is a criminal offense. Rabbit hunting is fun until the rabbit gets the gun.

And so what happens when you come up against another big bear in politics who has the resources and the capability of pursuing it to the nth degree of the law and starts demanding justice? And I saw the same Eddie Murphy movie that they saw, and I'm determined not to let it happen in our district. The Eddie Murphy movie being... The Distinguished Gentleman, a gentleman who gets elected to Congress by the name of Jefferson Johnson after the congressman dies,

his name is Jeff Johnson. He runs for Congress and he gets a little. elected. He's a felon, by the way. You think actually they saw the movie? I'm pretty sure someone saw it, and I think what's also becoming clear is that many people forgot how the movie ended, and that is that some people went to jail.

When all this finally got to court, the Cook County judge refused to bring in the Shaw's to testify under oath. Congressman Jackson's lawyers then threatened to make William Shaw a defendant in the case, that is, to sue him directly. And not long after that, after several weeks on the ballot, Jesse L. Jackson of Robbins,

dropped out of the race. Congressman Jackson went on to win that election by a huge margin, and five more after that, until he ended up in prison on charges of improperly using campaign funds for personal purchases. His political troll, William Shaw, died in 2008. Jackson served his time, and just this year ran once again for his old congressional seat. This time, voters did not come out of the name Jesse Jackson. Jackson lost. Act three, Mr. Fun. We have this story on what it is like to intrude on a perfectly happy, perfectly idyllic family of two when one of the two falls in love with you and the other most definitely does not.

Heather O'Neill and Jonathan Goldstein explain what happens. I was 20 years old when Arizona was born. I thought I could just put her in a little suitcase and that would be her bed. I figured now that I'd given birth the hard part was over. I moved into a big building over a lawn. where they didn't ask for any references. People left their apartment doors open and waved to you from their couches

when you walked down the hall. The apartment was our own cozy little universe of porcelain dolls, posters of Hong Kong, and tiny colorful paper umbrellas. It was a universe of two plates, two cups, and two toothbrushes. Until I met Johnny. I was introduced to Heather

by some friends over drinks. I was impressed by how fast she drank her beer, and she was impressed by the fact that there was only one arm on my eyeglasses. From the side, you look like a cartoon doctor, she said. She looked like she was from some bygone era where women worked with their hair tied up in kerchiefs on assembly lines to help the war effort. By all of this, I mean to say that I was smitten by her.

I knew that Heather had a little girl, and I also knew that I wasn't very good with children. Ironically, my job at the time was teaching after-school magic classes to kids and elementary. school's. I wasn't that great a magician to begin with, and kids made me nervous. My hands were always sweaty, and I was always dropping coins all over the place. One time, I was really losing the attention of a classroom of six graders while teaching them the jumping rubber band, so I told them that if they listened quietly, at the end of the class, I would walk through a wall. Immediately, they all shut up. At the end of the class, I took about two full minutes where I just stared at the wall at the back of the classroom. If any of them said a word, I would reprimand them

for breaking my concentration and start all over again. Finally, I slowly started walking towards the wall. The way the kids were looking at me, all open-mouthed and expectant, I almost felt like I could actually pull this off. When I smacked into the wall, I turned to them and said, You didn't really think I could walk through a wall, did you? They all looked at the wall, Then they looked at me. Then, slowly, reluctantly, they all shook their heads, no. I hoped I would have better luck with Heather's daughter. Over drinks I had told Johnny that Arizona had shoved our TV set off the coffee table,

and now, surprise, surprise, here he was, carefully winding his way up the staircase to our house, with an old RCA in his arms, the old-fashioned antennae still attached and dragging down. behind him on the floor. When he came in, Arizona was over at the neighbors, a Greek family who liked to give her a good bath every now and then. It was a family event for them with shish kebabs and an uncle who played accordion on the

closed lid of the toilet. As me and Johnny sat on the couch, Arizona walked into the apartment freshly scrubbed smelling of baby powder in Greek food with four bows in her hair. Johnny kept clapping his hands together and going on about how she looked just like Shirley She stopped dead in her tracks and gave me a confused look. Before he left, he asked me if I wanted to come to his house for dinner that weekend, and I said, sure. I called my sister and asked if she would babysit. She begged me not to have another boyfriend.

In other words, no babysitting. So I took Arizona along on my date with Johnny. I stood on my front steps waiting for her to get that. there, and when I saw her coming down the street pushing a stroller, I wondered if I had any juice in the house. We sat down at my kitchen table, and I brought out a big pot of curried vegetables and rice. Arizona climbed up on the table, opened the lid, and wrinkled her nose. I picked her up and put her back down in her chair, but as soon as I did, she would get right back up and roll around all over the plates, most of the time while pointing at me with an angry look on her face.

She wasn't like Shirley Temple at all. She was like the Muppet baby Joe Pesci. After dinner, Johnny walked into his living room and saw the word Arizona written in pen with the backwards R on his desk. At first I was sort of delighted. It was the first time she'd ever written her name without me coaching her. But I kind of felt for Johnny, whose apartment was all full of neatly arranged furniture and superhero figurines that stayed exactly where they had been placed. Johnny walked around the apartment with his head down and an expression on his face like he was a seven-year-old reviewing times tables in his head.

He tried to ease into our lives with grace. After the first time he slept over, he got up in the morning before Arizona woke. He put on his jacket and went outside into the hallway and knocked on the front door, pretending he had just arrived. We don't want to damage the child's psyche, Johnny said. Arizona's bedroom was closest to the front door, so she got up and let him in.

Hi, he said, I was just in the neighborhood. He walked in without shoes and his belt undone. He dropped onto the couch and fell back asleep. Arizona looked at him. Why do you even come by? she said angrily, if all you're going to do is go to sleep. Johnny and I had very different ideas about the environment in which one should raise him. a kid. The stove needs to be fixed, he complained. You can't cook meals over a hot plate. Ratsurizzo cooks meals over a hot plate. And who in God's name puts laundry out on the line at

midnight? Children need discipline. They like it. Was a favorite banner of Project Goldstein. Heather called all of my domestic tips bourgeois. How is cleaning the crisper bourgeois? I asked. How in the world is keeping your child from running naked through the halls of the apartment building wearing my boots a symptom of the bourgeoisie? Arizona could tell that Johnny was trying to change things and everything between them became a battle of wills. She would reach over and squeeze the Indigo Blow button on his watch

and he would chastise her, telling her that Indigo was used only in emergency situations, like if you're in a blackout or stuck in a cave. But as soon as his head, was turned, she'd pushed the button again. In what I considered a bit of cultural exchange, I had to sit on the couch and listen to the soundtrack from Fiddler on the roof. Arizona, all of six years old, turned to me in the middle of if I was a rich man and said,

That's what you do all day long. You biddy, biddy bum. She paused for a moment, and then, just to make sure the point wasn't being lost on me, she added, that means you're lazy. When the three of us walked down the street, Arizona. Arizona would say, my mom's shadow is longer than yours. That means you're short. She was starting to like him less and less.

One day, he made her list all the people that she loved most in order. And who do you love next best, he would ask hopefully. And the next? And the next? He came in at number 19. He actually ranked below the neighbor's dog, and the plumber who drank two gallon bottles of Pepsi while he worked and let Arizona hand him wrenches.

Every time I tried to kiss Arizona, she would pull back, insisting that my beard was too scratchy. It got so that I was shaving twice a day, but still, she would wave me off. I would stand in front of the mirror like an obsessive, compulsive, desperately scraping the blade across my cheeks, the word scratchy, ringing in my head like the Ravens Nevermore. One time we had some friends over at Heather's,

and someone started playing the guitar, and Arizona started to dance. It struck me as one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Everyone stood around and clapped their hands while Arizona spun around with her arms over her head. Before I knew it, I was walking over and taking her hands to dance with her. I wasn't the type to dance with kids, or to even dance at all, for that matter,

but I just couldn't help myself. When I touched her, she whipped her hands away and stopped cold. I retreated back to my seat as the music continued to play, all the while, Arizona stared me down like her prison bitch. He tried buying her love with really inappropriate gifts, things that he liked that he thought she might learn to like. He bought them matching wallets in a mood ring that wouldn't fit her

for at least another five years. He got her a pop-up book of nightmare analysis that included a chapter on giving birth to aliens. In the best of time, she treated him as something that made me happy, and she quietly tolerated him, like the way she sat through a Hitchcock documentary at the museum. But then sometimes she would just explode. One day at Burger King,

he refused to let me bring her hamburger back to the counter for a third time to ask for even more pickles. And she started screaming. She pounded the hamburger with her fists. I can't stand him, she said. Why did we have to go out with him today? Tell me why. He's my friend, I said, and you have to pretend to like him.

She had a little friend who would come over and bite his own toes while they watch TV, and I never said a thing. I figured it was the least she could do for me. One day I was trying to finish my dad's income tax in Arizona was bored. She was whacking the wind chimes with a broom. She was all out of ideas when Johnny asked her if she wanted to take a walk with him. She sighed and got her jacket. Before they left, he explained that the plan was to walk to a bank to cash his check,

and then find a barber that would cut his hair for a reasonable price. We were walking along when Arizona came to an abrupt stop, and so I stopped too. She looked up at me, and in this tone that I had never heard her use before, she said, this isn't what you'd do to have a good time. It was like she had summoned up every little bit of maturity she had, and some she didn't even have, and she used her words to let me know something that she felt was really important for me to know, that I just wasn't any fun.

And she told it to me in this way that was like, maybe it just wasn't something I knew, and that maybe I just had to be told, and then everything would be okay. Like maybe it could all be that easy. We went back to the apartment and got our bathing suits. Arizona wanted to go to the beach. Arizona treated me like I had never been to a beach.

before. This is sand, she said. And people like to dig in it. Beside the sand is the water, but it's not the drinking kind. She treated me like she was nursing me back to health. For my part, I tried my best to live up to what a six-year-old's vision of fun would be. I bought every single thing the vendors had to offer. I even got us these overcooked mushy corncobs on a stick that were smothered in butter and mayonnaise. Mayonaze. And when she went into the water, her knees, I bit my fist and kept my panic to myself. At the end of the day, Arizona persuaded me to buy a watermelon that some men were selling off the back of a truck. As we rode the buzz back home, tired, looking out the windows in silence, Arizona suddenly turned to me and said,

Why did I ever marry you? I sat there, completely tongue-tied on so many levels. Tell me why, she demanded over and over, getting louder and louder, until the six or seven people on the bus turned to hear how I was going to defend myself. Why did I ever marry you? All the way home, the question just sat there, big and awkward, like the watermelon on my lap, that we would have for dessert that night. Around that time, Johnny and Arizona invented this game, where they pretend to be two old-time vaudeville partners who can't get along.

She is always the wiser, burnt-out one, and he is always the mincing bootlick who wants to please the producers and the audience. They pretend they're backstage yelling at each other as the audience hollers for them to come out. Let's get out there, Johnny yells. They're waiting for us. They paid a lot of money for those seats. We'll be sued, damn it.

We'll be finished in this town. This is my last show, Arizona says every time, shaking her weary head. And then I'm through. I can't do this anymore. They come out into the hallway nervously. They stand in front of the record player, Arizona on top of a Webster's dictionary to be taller. Johnny starts singing, a bicycle built for two. And Arizona is supposed to be the bicycle bell and sing, ding ding, but she doesn't.

Johnny starts the song over again. Still, Arizona ignores her cue, staring blankly ahead in the throes of a showbiz meltdown. The audience starts throwing tomatoes in Arizona ducks behind Johnny. He holds out his arms to protect her from the crowd. She crouches in back of him, laughing her head off as the angry mob covers him from head to toe in imaginary rotten fruit. Heather O'Neill is the author of many books. Her latest is the capital of dreams. Jonathan Goldstein is the host of the podcast, heavyweight. And Arizona O'Neill, these days, all grown up, her debut graphic novel is called Opioids and Organs. Well, today's program was produced by Jonathan Goldstein and myself with Alex Bloomberg, Wendy Doran, Starly Kein,

senior producer for today's show was Julie Snyder, Elizabeth Meister, ran our website at the time, production help from Todd Bachman and Maria Schell. Help on today's rerun for Mike Comite, Adrian Lilly, Molly Marcello, Catherine Raimondo, and Stone Nelson. Special thanks to Mark Brown for helping us with our Jesse Jackson story for the rerun. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. If you like our program, I want to help us to make it the way we have been making it. You can become a This American Life partner. You get bonus You listen ad-free. You get a special greatest hits archive in your podcast feed.

We hope it's great for you. It helps us. You can do this at thisamericanlife.org slash life partners. That link is also in the show notes. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Troy Malatia, who describes what it was like the first few years, hearing us talk about them like we do here at the end of the program. I think one way to characterize it would be just a shock.

How tough it was, it was... I'm Eric Glass. Back next week, with more stories of This American Life. Next week on the podcast of This American Life, the most famous Black American in the 1950s was Paul Robson, an icon of the Harlem Renaissance, an actor, activist, singer, athlete, family man. Little known fact about Paul. One day he said to his wife, We both said we want an unconventional relationship.

Why don't we open up our marriage? The messiness of our ancestors. Next week on the podcast or on your local public radio station.