#52 Lenny

Summary

Heavyweight Episode #52: "Lenny" – A Deep Dive into Friendship, Loss, and Healing

In Episode #52 of Heavyweight, titled "Lenny", host Jonathan Goldstein undertakes a profound journey into his past, revisiting a childhood friendship that shaped his early years and delving into the complexities of reconnecting with a friend facing the end of his life. This episode intertwines nostalgia, emotion, and introspection, offering listeners a poignant exploration of memory, regret, and the enduring bonds that persist despite time and turmoil.

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1. Childhood Bonds: The Genesis of Friendship

Timestamp [00:05] – [06:58]

The episode opens with a playful exchange between Jonathan and his childhood friend, Lenny, highlighting their shared love for questioning and recording life’s moments. As young boys, Jonathan and Lenny bonded over their mutual passion for tape recorders, using them as a buffer against the world and a tool for managing life's chaos.

Jonathan Goldstein ([00:06] – [01:38]): "Back when I was a kid, I often carried around a tape recorder. An outstretched mic created a buffer between me and the world. Recording was my way of managing life."

Their weekends were dedicated to creating elaborate radio plays in Lenny's basement, fostering a sense of companionship and creativity. This shared hobby not only provided solace but also cemented their friendship, making them inseparable.

Lenny ([05:10] – [05:19]): "We take you to Flip. Flip is going to introduce you. Flip is taking you to Will. Okay, Will. Now Will is taking you to Flip. No, back to you, Will."

These early interactions showcased their collaborative spirit and imaginative endeavors, laying the foundation for a deep-seated bond that would last into adulthood.

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2. Growing Apart: The Drift of Time and Change

Timestamp [06:18] – [14:38]

As Jonathan and Lenny transitioned from childhood to adolescence, the dynamics of their friendship began to shift. The once unbreakable bond started to fray due to diverging interests and personal struggles. Their conversations became strained, marked by disagreements and misunderstandings.

Jonathan Goldstein ([06:24] – [07:00]): "We haven't spoken in nine years and at the moment, for some reason, we're discussing Russia's role in Ukraine. [...] The Last time I saw Lenny was back home in Canada."

A pivotal moment occurred when Lenny, redefined by his disheveled appearance and stern demeanor, suggested they smoke a joint together. Jonathan’s refusal to engage in this activity led to an acrimonious parting, effectively severing their long-standing friendship.

Jonathan Goldstein ([09:24] – [10:00]): "At least stand outside with me, Lenny said, and keep me company. But I dug my heels in and Lenny grew angry. We parted on bad terms that evening almost ten years ago."

The physical and emotional distance between them widened, with Lenny remaining in Chamody Laval, never leaving his childhood home, while Jonathan moved away. This divergence deepened over the years, making their eventual reconnection more poignant.

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3. Reconnecting Amidst Adversity: Lenny’s Illness

Timestamp [14:38] – [28:46]

Nearly a decade later, Jonathan learns that Lenny is battling pancreatic cancer, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, and has recently undergone extensive surgery. Despite their tumultuous history, Jonathan feels compelled to reach out, driven by memories of the supportive friend Lenny once was.

Jonathan Goldstein ([16:11] – [17:51]): "Lenny is dying of pancreatic cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. [...] I continue to spend my evenings talking to Lenny because somewhere in the back of my mind is the memory of the kid from my childhood."

Their reconnection is fraught with tension as they navigate conversations filled with pain, anger, and lingering resentment. Lenny’s suffering exacerbates their interactions, often leaving Jonathan feeling helpless and conflicted about his role in Lenny’s final days.

Lenny ([37:32] – [37:40]): "Love more, fight less fighting. For."

Through these interactions, the episode delves into the complexities of rekindling a fractured friendship under the shadow of mortality, highlighting themes of forgiveness, regret, and the human desire for closure.

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4. The Weight of Regret: Jonathan’s Inner Struggle

Timestamp [29:20] – [36:37]

As Lenny’s health deteriorates, Jonathan grapples with intense feelings of guilt and sorrow for not being present during his friend’s final moments. The absence of closure haunts him, leading to obsessive thoughts about what Lenny’s last days were like and whether reconciliation was ever possible.

Jonathan Goldstein ([29:20] – [36:37]): "In the months after Lenny's death, I'm unable to let go of how I wasn't there for him in his last days. I obsess over what his final moments might have been like."

Jonathan’s journey is further complicated by personal struggles, including his battle with depression, which he attempts to manage with ketamine as recommended by his therapist. This period of self-reflection brings forth vivid memories and a deeper understanding of how his friendship with Lenny influenced his life choices and emotional well-being.

Jonathan Goldstein ([34:14] – [35:22]): "It filled me with vertigo to the question of what one owes a childhood friend. In my case, I owed Lenny everything."

The narrative poignantly captures the essence of missed opportunities and the lingering impact of unresolved relationships, emphasizing the profound effect friendships can have on one’s life trajectory.

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5. Voices from the Past: Perspectives from Mutual Friends

Timestamp [26:23] – [33:42]

To provide a more comprehensive understanding of Lenny’s character and struggles, Jonathan includes interviews with individuals who knew Lenny intimately. Louise, Lenny’s ex-girlfriend, and Dimitri, a high school acquaintance, offer insights into Lenny’s personality, his battles with loneliness, and the underlying causes of his anguish.

Louise ([26:50] – [32:29]): "I remember he just. There was this depth about him that I recognized immediately and it just automatically attracted me to him."

Dimitri ([28:13] – [36:13]): "He was lonely. He used to talk about how it would have been nice if he had a girlfriend and some kids or he had a kid."

These testimonials reveal Lenny as a deeply troubled individual, struggling with feelings of neglect and abandonment from his adoptive parents and compounded by substance abuse in an attempt to cope with his internal demons.

Dimitri ([28:30] – [29:20]): "Leonard used to like to take acid, a lot of acid. And just trip out in his room in the dark Alpha. Whatever works, bro."

The contributions of Louise and Dimitri add layers to Lenny’s story, painting a picture of a man who, despite his outward anger and bitterness, was yearning for connection and understanding.

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6. Final Conversations: Lenny’s Last Words and Reconciliation

Timestamp [36:37] – [38:14]

In one of the episode’s most moving segments, Jonathan receives a video message from Dimitri, capturing Lenny’s final words. In this moment, Lenny articulates a poignant message of love and peace, albeit fragmented and delivered amidst pain.

Lenny ([37:32] – [37:40]): "Love more, fight less fighting. For."

This message encapsulates the essence of what Lenny struggled to convey throughout his life – a desire for love over conflict and an acknowledgment of the futility of anger. It serves as a climax to Jonathan’s internal battle with guilt and his quest for forgiveness.

Meanwhile, Jonathan’s personal life is also in turmoil, with his wife, Emily, entering palliative care due to her own health struggles. This parallel narrative of loss and impending death deepens the episode’s exploration of mortality and the human condition.

Emily ([16:08] – [18:46]): "It’s getting harder and harder to function at home. [...] Nothing. I lived. I lived as well as I could in my capacity."

The intertwining of Jonathan’s professional and personal grief creates a rich tapestry of emotion, emphasizing the universal nature of loss and the importance of human connection.

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7. Reflections and Insights: The Legacy of Friendship

Timestamp [29:20] – [40:02]

As the episode draws to a close, Jonathan reflects on the profound impact Lenny had on his life. Through their shared memories and the unraveling of Lenny’s final days, Jonathan gains a deeper appreciation for the significance of their friendship and the enduring impact of unresolved emotions.

Jonathan Goldstein ([35:25] – [37:23]): "In the months after Lenny's death, I'm unable to let go of how I wasn't there for him in his last days. [...] How could Lenny have ended up living out his last days in the very place he despised most?"

The narrative culminates in Jonathan’s realization of the intricate connections between past and present, underscoring the episode’s central theme: the weight of memory and the enduring bonds that define us.

Jonathan Goldstein ([34:14] – [35:22]): "It was through knowing him in those early years that the base of the tower was formed. [...] I wanted Lenny to know that while our personalities might have driven us apart, a deep rooted love brought us back together."

Ultimately, "Lenny" serves as a heartfelt meditation on friendship, loss, and the quest for redemption. It challenges listeners to ponder the significance of their own relationships and the ways in which the past continues to shape their present.

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Notable Quotes

• Jonathan Goldstein ([00:06] – [01:38]): "Back when I was a kid, I often carried around a tape recorder. An outstretched mic created a buffer between me and the world. Recording was my way of managing life."

• Lenny ([05:10] – [05:19]): "We take you to Flip. Flip is going to introduce you. Flip is taking you to Will. Okay, Will. Now Will is taking you to Flip. No, back to you, Will."

• Lenny ([37:32] – [37:40]): "Love more, fight less fighting. For."

• Dimitri ([28:13] – [28:46]): "He was lonely. He used to talk about how it would have been nice if he had a girlfriend and some kids or he had a kid. It would have been nice. She was always alone."

• Louise ([26:50] – [32:29]): "I think there was this depth about him that I recognized immediately and it just automatically attracted me to him."

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Conclusion

"Lenny" is a compelling installment in the Heavyweight series, masterfully blending personal narrative with universal themes of friendship, regret, and the human struggle to find closure. Through Jonathan Goldstein’s heartfelt recollections and the shared testimonies of those who knew Lenny, the episode offers a nuanced portrayal of a friendship tested by time and tragedy. It invites listeners to reflect on their own relationships and the lingering echoes of the past that continue to shape their lives.

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Production Credits:

This episode was produced by Jonathan Goldstein and supervising producer Stevie Lane, alongside Phoebe Flanagan. Senior producer Khalilah Holt and production assistants Mohini Mdowkar contributed to the episode, with special thanks to Lauren Silverman and Neil Drumming. Editorial guidance was provided by Emily Condon, and Bobby Lourd mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellowes, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, Katie Condon, and Bobby Lord. The theme song is by the Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. For more information and additional music credits, visit gimletmedia.com/heavyweight.

Follow Heavyweight:

• Twitter: @Heavyweight
• Instagram: @heavyweightpodcast
• Email: [e-mail]
• Spotify: Heavyweight on Spotify

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Transcript

[Louise]

Uh huh.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Do you wear shoes with shoelaces or you wear Velcro?

[Louise]

Do you come up with these questions by yourself?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

No, I have a writer's room. No, I'm just curious. I remember you used to like Velcro. You said that anybody who is foolish enough to have to stoop down and tie their shoelaces deserves what they get. That shoelaces get covered in urine and bile. And that Velcro is the fabric of the future. That's what you'd always say. You have shoes with shoelaces, right?

[Louise]

I have shoes with shoelaces, yes.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Do you always double knot them? No, you don't. Any other compelling questions, Johnny, that you have? If you showed up to a bowling alley with a watermelon, you think they'd let you bowl with you? Goodbye. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode Lenn right after the break. Back when I was a kid, I often carried around a tape recorder. An outstretched mic created a buffer between me and the world. Recording was my way of managing life. And so I recorded everything. My parents, arguments. She's good natured.

[Lenny]

There's a difference between stupid and good natured.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Their phone calls.

[Lenny]

Hannah, I'm telling you, it's rotten fish.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

But stuck my mom pretending to audition for soap operas.

[Lenny]

Amanda, darling, how are you today?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Mostly though, I recorded myself. I made radio plays.

[Lenny]

Rothstein Productions present the adventures of Nadley.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

With no one to share in my love for a medium DOA since the Truman administration, I put on the plays alone. All the voices performed by me for an audience of zero.

[Lenny]

Our story opens up where Nedley is about to get up. Oh, what a lousy day. That's our Nedley.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Neddley was an 11 year old Spitfire who did as he pleased. Since I myself was an 11 year old rule following nerd Nedley was my ID.

[Lenny]

Here comes boom Boom. She's my dream girl.

[Dimitri]

Hi, Nedly.

[Lenny]

Hi, hi, hi. Boom, Boom Boom.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And the whole psychodrama played out as a one man show.

[Lenny]

This movie was directed by Jonathan Goldstein. Screenplay by Jonathan Goldstein. All voices in it are done by Jonathan Goldstein. This is a Jonathan Goldstein production.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It was all just me and my microphone until the day Leni came along. I was 12 years old when we were first introduced at a birthday party. Immediately Lenny asked me what blood type I was. Oh, I said uncertainly. Me too. He shouted, genuinely excited to find some small thing we shared. I was an aloof kid, but was quickly won over by Lenny's goodness and the fact our mothers were already best Friends made our best friendship feel faded. Plus that Leni proved as obsessive about recording as I was, sealed the deal. The weekends revolved around our recording. RADIO PLAYS Lenny and I would sleep in the same fold out in his parents den. His dad, Izzy, a large man with a thick Polish accent, would make us breakfast in just his underwear, his undershirt tucked into his Jockeys like it was some style imported from the old country. One time, trying to explain to Izzy how I liked my eggs and having no success with fried, I described two suns in a cloud. Lenny loved that so much that he started ordering his eggs that way too. Two suns in a cloud. After breakfast, we'd head to Lenny's bedroom, shut the door and record all morning. We were a gang of two.

[Emily]

Golden Lennox presents.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The Lennox was from Lenny, the Goa'uld from Gouldstein. For the first time, I no longer felt alone. Together, Lenny and I recorded prank phone calls, our parents, dinner parties. And we made radio play after radio play, creating characters like Flip and Will, two burned out radio DJs.

[Lenny]

We take you to Flip. Flip is going to introduce you. Flip is taking you to Will. Okay, Will. Now Will is taking you to Flip. No, back to you, Will.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Back to Flip. Okay. As a part of the Flip and Will radio show, we did live phone outs to our quote unquote listeners in the 80s. Dialing a phone was so arduous, it's surprising people even bothered. But without driver's licenses or money, Lenny and I made the effort. The phone brought us a sense of freedom and adventure.

[Lenny]

Okay, it's Ring. He's playing.

[Emily]

Hello.

[Lenny]

What would you do if you had a million dollars? This is a television survey.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Give it off to you.

[Lenny]

Why, thank you. This Stacy needs it. Bye. Bye.

The Cold War is not over. It never was.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Lenny, now age 52.

[Lenny]

John, what is not understandable about this? Because I'm getting frustrated now I'm in.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Minnesota and Lenny is in Canada. We haven't spoken in nine years and at the moment, for some reason, we're discussing Russia's role in Ukraine.

[Lenny]

Still there.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In our late teens, Lenny and I began to have less and less in common and we drifted apart. Our first conversation in almost a decade is not going well. I mean, I'm not sure that I fully get it. You mean that it's really simple?

[Lenny]

I mean, it's not that complicated. It's not?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Lenny]

We destroyed communism using their communism.

[Emily]

Now they're destroying capitalism using our capitalism.

[Lenny]

I'm sorry, John, I guess it's not your subject.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The Last time I saw Lenny was back home in Canada. Our mothers, who are still best friends, thought it'd be nice for the families to get together. Lenny showed up at the restaurant with a shaved head and thin chinstrap beard, with the way he kept his arms crossed and his posture erect. That evening Lenny had something of the dictator about him. He was living in the bachelor's apartment in his parents basement in Chamody Laval, a suburb we grew up in just outside of Montreal. Lenny drove a school bus for Orthodox Jews and said the Hasidim had nicknamed him the Surgeon because of how he zipped through narrow streets with such precision. At the end of the meal, Lenny asked if I wanted to go outside and smoke a joint. A for all time sake kind of thing. The idea of smoking a joint outside a suburban strip mall restaurant while our aged parents waited inside was unappealing. So I said no. At least stand outside with me, Lenny said, and keep me company. But I dug my heels in and Lenny grew angry. We parted on bad terms that evening almost ten years ago, and that was the last time I saw Lenny or thought too hard about him until now. The reason Lenny and I are speaking right now is because he has only Lenny is dying of pancreatic cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. He's recently gone through 11 hours of surgery to keep the cancer from spreading, but it was no use. Even though that first conversation went poorly, I continue to spend my evenings talking to Lenny because somewhere in the back of my mind is the memory of the kid from my childhood. The kid who stayed by my side tending to my adult sized depression in the darkest hours of my teens. I remember days and nights spent in Lenny's bedroom, just lying in his bed under the black bulb of his light fixture, listening to Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden, too scared to face the world. Back then, Lenny would reassure me, telling me to think all the bad thoughts I could to get them out of my system, to exhaust them, so that eventually I'd only be left with the good ones. Being with Lenny was one of the few places where I felt safe. And so I call him again and again.

[Emily]

Hey John.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Hey Lenny, how are you doing?

[Emily]

Same shit.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah. Our conversations usually occur at night with Lenny still in his parents basement, the same basement where we spent our childhoods and me wandering the silent streets of my midwestern neighborhood. During these phone chats I never know what to say. I struggle to find common ground but always come up short when I bring up old mutual friends. Lenny speaks of them resentfully. With jobs it's the same. The idiots at the trucking firm, the anti semites at the refrigeration company. On the rare occasion I raise something personal about myself, it gets no traction when I tell him how I'm now a father of a five year old. Lenny, a bachelor, says that people who have kids only do it for ego reasons. Mostly we stick to the subject of Lenny's pain, which is brutal. He can't eat without pain, stand, or even lie down without pain. Sometimes he'll put the phone down and I'll listen to him as he howls from the bathroom. There are drugs, some prescribed and some not. But no matter. There's always pain and anger at the pain and anger at what seems like me. On most nights, after a typical conversation, I come home and say to my wife, Emily, that maybe this is a bad idea. We drifted apart for a reason, I say. We're strangers. And yet, even though Lenny doesn't seem to even want to talk to me, we continue to talk night after night. I'm beginning to get the impression that maybe he has no one else.

[Lenny]

You don't mind if I eat while?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

No, no, no, of course not.

[Lenny]

Well, wish me luck.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Lenny says he wants to leave something behind. And so we record just like we did when we were kids. Back then we performed different characters. Now, ostensibly, we're just ourselves.

[Lenny]

Mmm. I really outdid myself with the rice. Lemon, lime, garlic and pepper.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Wow. Nice.

[Lenny]

Nothing complicated. And it is gorgeous.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Great. And how's your sleep been?

[Lenny]

I sleep like shit. What do you think? I have to take a med every two hours. A horrible life. When you spend your life vainly, the universe. I stop punish you. All the anger, all the hatred. What do you think we could get away with it?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Lenny is no longer the sweet, lonely kid who told me not to swat the housefly in his bedroom because he was his pet. The boy with whom I'd been so close that I'd run my hands through his thick black hair as though it were my own, smooshing it up into the air. I pretended I'd invented the latest in men's hairstyles, the Beethoven that Lenny seems to be long gone. Even though Lenny and I weren't in touch over the years, when I'd ask after him, my mother would always say the same thing. Lenny and his parents were fighting like cats and dogs. Lenny's father died about a year ago. Now it's just him and his mom. Do you. Do you. You see your mother every day?

[Lenny]

Unfortunately, I make an attempt to treat her like A human being. And every day she disappoints me. She's gross. My mother. My father too. He was gross. Too gross.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You loved him. You loved your dad.

[Lenny]

Yeah, I did. But he was a gross man. Always did everything that made his life easier, my life harder.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Lenny's parents had had another son before him. But because of profound mental and physical disabilities, he was institutionalized. After that, they adopted Lenny. Both Lenny and I were raised by parents who saw screaming and hitting as the solution to all of life's child rearing dilemmas. But from Lenny's perspective, worse than that was the neglect. Lenny's dad worked a lot, and his mom always seemed to have more time for her friends than for him. It's something Lenny still can't let go of.

[Lenny]

This is called normal responsibility. You know what I mean? All my friends got it. How come I didn't? Yeah, well, what's so unspecial about me that I get the shitty fucking neglect? You know, I did my best. That's my favorite line. I did my best. You know, if that's the best, maybe you shouldn't have bothered. Yeah, that's your best. I'll tell you the truth. I'm looking forward to having that one last week. Knowing that it's finally done and I can just, like, rest. Because it's been a bitch. This life has been a bitch. And it's mostly because the people have been a bitch. And we mean bitches.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

What does one owe a childhood friend? Especially when that friend seems to have changed so much over the course of our phone calls, A question that keeps kicking around in the back of my mind is whether all of Lenny's anger has somehow eaten up the goodness. I continue to phone Lenny over the next couple months in hopes of seeing it, feeling that goodness again. And so we talk about the sex ed books at the YMHA library. Watching the Love Boat on Saturday nights when his parents were out with my parents, raiding his mom's freezer for TV dinners while playing Colecovision. Mostly, though, I just listen and try to be there. And over time, Lenny grows softer with me. And I grow less afraid of offending him. Afraid of offending a dying man. And then one night, I receive a message. Listening to it now, I'm struck by how much Lenny's voice had mellowed since our first conversations. Instead of Jonathan or John, Lenny calls me Johnny. Just like he did when we were kids. Like he did when we were best friends.

[Lenny]

Hi, Johnny. Sorry to call you directly like this, without signaling or anything, but it's been a development and I needed to talk to you as soon as you.

[Emily]

John. Is it too late?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

No, no, no, it's okay. How are you?

[Emily]

Not well, John. It's hard to tell you anything else?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm sorry. What's going on?

[Emily]

I'm just. I'm weak. I'm gonna go into palliative care.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Okay.

[Emily]

There's no other recourse?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Emily]

It's getting harder and harder to function at home.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Because I'm not too good with pain, Jonathan.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Well, you've been dealing with so much of it.

[Emily]

No, I mean, my whole life I've never been good with pain. I'm a whiner mouse. I'm just a big ones. It's funny, through everything, the pain's still there. Pain never ends. Even with the drugs. Yeah. It's that bad. Jordan, I don't foresee getting better, you know, if I suddenly disappear or, you know, I can't talk to you. No, I'm probably like, you know, gone. I had my last drive yesterday. I drove around the Laval. Yeah, just like one last highway ride. It's not a huge deal. I did a lot of driving in my time. I have plenty to remember. I'm dying anyway. I have bigger things to think about.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

What do you find yourself thinking about?

[Emily]

Nothing. I lived. I lived as well as I could in my capacity. I had good experiences at least.

[Lenny]

You know.

[Emily]

Wasn't the best life. Well lived, but it wasn't the worst either. Could have been worse. That's the legacy of my life. Could have been worse. Just gonna. I just want to enjoy looking at the sky. Looking at things new.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Revealing. It'd be my life. While I still am. I remember the last lady. She was scary.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Who's this?

[Emily]

The last lady witch. She was a little pudgy, remember?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Lenny would sometimes drift into delusions, imaginary flights that would weave throughout our conversation. But other times, the delusions were mixed up with childhood memories. Like time had collapsed and Lenny was all ages at once. Dying. But also back to an age when his parents drove us to the mall in their Cutlass Supreme.

[Emily]

So if you want the front seat, go grab it now.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The delusions were tender and vulnerable. And observing them was like standing over his bed watching him dream.

[Emily]

Maybe we should just go home. I'm dead tired for some reason. We're at the Y, taking a course. We're at the Y. We're at the YMHA, taking a course. Fuck. I'm really deluded.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

No, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. I'll tell you if I can't follow.

[Emily]

So weird, though, that I would have such a delusion. Maybe it's a subconscious desire to visit with you in a normal. In a normal setting.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah, yeah, that.

[Emily]

We're visiting for holidays, normal. Everything's normal. So when was it? When were we going to see each other?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In a couple weeks. The plan is for me to see Lenny during a visit back home. My first since COVID Hope I last that long.

[Emily]

No, I'm serious. I'm not being facetious.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]

So it's down to the wire. Maybe the last few weeks of things. Maybe. I don't know. Don't get depressed or anything.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Lenny wasn't just saying, I don't want to bum you out. He was one of the few people who knew how fragile I could be. Even now, he was trying to protect me even as he was dying.

[Emily]

It's hard to say that, but I wish you were here. You know, the nicest would have been.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah. Recently, my therapist recommended ketamine to me, a drug sometimes prescribed for untreatable depression. In my case, she thought it might help shift my perspective, which still tends towards darkness. A day after Lenny and I had this conversation, while taking several hits from my ketamine inhaler and about to go for a Saturday morning run, I was suddenly overcome with sobbing and a feeling of unreality. As a man inured to epiphanies, I was shaken. Like most, I don't often see my existence on earth approximating anything close to a quote unquot. Instead, things come in flashes. I'm four years old, eating a chocolate bar at my Aunt Tilly's house, taking such tiny bites that Tilly calls me the Mousie. My theory is that if the bites are small enough, it will last forever. I'm six, regretting having told my father about my kindergarten crush because he's just told a table full of relatives about it. I will never trust this man again. I think I'm 15 and seeing abreast for the very first time. European sunbathers are at the same beach as me. The image will claw its way into my thoughts over and over for the next 10 years. I'm 16, getting turned down to prom on a city bus. Lorraine Kaufman is telling me that only I would ask someone to prom on a city bus. Then, for some reason, I'm 50 and moving to Minnesota while waiting at JFK for the flight that will take me and Emily and our then two year old son Augie to our new life. Auggie walks up to a stranger and hugs his legs and I burst into tears. A smell, a meal, a day at the beach. And so goes a life without the record button pressed down. Life is fragmented and fast and nearly impossible to make sense of. Narrating it helps me to shed light, but always in retrospect. With the ketamine coursing through me, though, I saw the dots illuminate and connect, each handing off with purpose one to the other like a succession of dominoes tracing the seemingly useless years that got me to where I was with the wife, the child, the job. It all felt so precarious, like I was standing on a narrow column of shoeboxes. It filled me with vertigo to the question of what one owes a childhood friend. In my case, I owed Lenny everything. It was through knowing him in those early years that the base of the tower was formed. It was in making tapes together in his bedroom that I discovered a feeling I'd pursue towards a career. Suddenly I could see how everything counted. That Lenny counted. That my love for Lenny counted. I wanted Lenny to know this. I wanted him to know that while our personalities might have driven us apart, a deep rooted love brought us back together. But later that day, I got a call from my mother informing me that Lenn. In the months after Lenny's death, I'm unable to let go of how I wasn't there for him in his last days. I obsess over what his final moments might have been like. I begin accidentally calling my son by Lenny's name. I do this so often that eventually my son begins to ask, who in the world is Lenny? I try to answer him, but never know quite how. We were best friends when I wasn't much older than you, I say. And then I get Covid and I isolate in my basement. I watch all the old movies Lenny and I used to watch. Animal House, Monty Python, Annie Hall. But instead of laughing after each punchline, I cry. Lenny had an older cousin named Betsy who'd taken on the task of cleaning up Lenny's basement. I reached out to see if Betsy could set aside some of Lenny's art or photos for me. But she said that wasn't something I should pursue. It's not a situation where I don't think you'd want any of his coveted items. That place was a hoarder's paradise. It was filthy. That place has not been cleaned in 40 years. Easily. And there was vermin. It probably could have been condemned. Betsy says that Lenny had taken the baseboards off the walls with an eye towards renovation. But then he let the project go and never put them back, which allowed mice into the house and the mice got into everything. My dad had stopped by to do an errand for Lenny's mom and had the same kind of. It was like going into a dark subterranean world, he said. My father described Lenny's room as cluttered with books and DVDs from floor to ceiling. The windows blocked out so the sun couldn't get in. How could anyone live under those circumstances? My father said. How could anyone? And especially how could Lenny? I keep thinking about how when we were kids, winding up in our parents basements would have been our worst nightmare. How could Lenny have ended up living out his last days in the very place he despised most?

[Louise]

That was always the thing that he never wanted to happen.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Lenny's ex girlfriend, Louise. Lenny and Louise dated in their 20s. I first met her at a bar one night after having not seen Lenny in years. They were coming from a KISS concert and both Lenny and Louise's faces were painted. Louise as Peter, Chris and Lenny as Ace. Freely. They both wanted to go as Ace, but Lenny said that would have been ridiculous.

[Louise]

I think I was 18 years old when I met him. Oh, I remember he just. There was this depth about him that I recognized immediately and it just automatically attracted me to him. I remember being on the back of his motorcycle and being scared shitless every time, holding on to him so tight. I remember his dog Max and how much he loved that dog. Yeah, I mean, to know that he did. He finished Bears in the Basement. Why?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Not only did Lenny hate the basement, he hated the whole suburb of Chamody. We both did. We attended Chamody High, nicknamed Comedy High because it was so bad it was laughable. Pipe bombs in the bathrooms. A geography teacher who was a flat earther and a music teacher who married a student. I eventually left Chamody, but Lenny never did. Never even left his childhood home. How could our lives have diverged?

[Dimitri]

So he was very unhappy.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Dimitri, a high school acquaintance who Lenny reconnected with on Facebook in the last year of his life. Dimitri was the person Lenny saw most during his illness. He works at a local Greek restaurant and would bring Lenny salads at the end of his shift.

[Dimitri]

He was lonely. He used to talk about how it would have been nice if he had a girlfriend and some kids or he had a kid. It would have been nice. She was always alone. I never saw him with anybody, ever.

[Louise]

He would.

[Dimitri]

He would like. He would ask me to hug him A lot. When he was sick, he would always ask me to hug him. I think Leonard didn't feel really much love in his life, man.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Dimitri also knew that Lenny didn't want the basement for his home, let alone his final home. When I tell him how I've been trying to make sense of how it happened, he has a theory.

[Lenny]

Drugs.

[Dimitri]

Drugs.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

When you say drugs, you mean pot?

[Dimitri]

Pot, mushrooms, lsd. Leonard used to like to take acid, a lot of acid. And just trip out in his room in the dark Alpha. Whatever works, bro. Whatever keeps the demons away. There. But that's a little fucked up.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Ending up in the basement solely because of drugs doesn't ring true to me. While the drugs might have helped with the demons, they didn't create the demons. Plenty of people smoke pot, take lsd, and still leave the house. Travel the world.

[Lenny]

Lenny, I'll kill you.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Among my childhood cassettes is another of my mother's performances. But this one wasn't a soap opera audition. It's of my mother pretending to be her best friend. Lenny's mom, Hannah. I'll kill you.

[Lenny]

I'll take that boy and I'll kill him.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

During those last conversations, Lenny confessed to not only feelings of resentment towards his own mother, but towards my mother too, for taking up so much of his mother's time. Time she could have spent on him. As for his dad, Lenny saw Izzy as a constant threat. This is from another flippin will tape.

[Lenny]

Okay, the lines are open. Now.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In the play, I perform the part of Lenny's father who crashes straight into the flippin will show.

[Lenny]

Oh, shit. What is this?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Stupid. What?

[Emily]

Come up, you stupid ass.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Izzy would get physical on occasion, but our parents weren't so different. My father favored the belt, while Izzy delivered what he called pachkas or slaps. And in terms of our mothers, if Hannah had been so often absent because of her friendship with my mother, then it meant my mother was absent too. So was Lenny just more sensitive than I was? Or was he dealing with more than I knew?

[Louise]

Okay, you just jogged in memory.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Louise again, Lenny's ex girlfriend with another theory. Louise recalls a day in college when she stumbled upon what felt like a key. A key that predates the drugs, me and Lenny's friendship. It even predates the upbringing he received from his parents.

[Louise]

It was my class for developmental biology, okay? And we were studying the brains of children at that point, between zero and 12 months. And we were looking at separation anxiety. And we were studying that. And I remember being appalled when I Learned that at 7 months that is when a child's separation anxiety develops. That's when they know what their mother's face looks like. And that's when they start crying when you're handed to another person. And I remember being appalled because I remember Lenny telling me that he was adopted when he was like six months old.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Louise]

And that his mom told him that all he ever did was cry. And I remember coming home that day after school and going, oh my God, no wonder you cried all the time. Because you knew that this wasn't your mom.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

To heal from the loss of his biological mother, to help him deal with just being a sensitive kid, Lenny could have used extra support. But instead he got less.

[Lenny]

Just before his mother was kicked out of the convent, he was christened Andy Asphelt.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Just as I had created the alter ego of Nedley to feed my id, Lenny created an alter ego named Andy. That fed Lenny with something I could never put my finger on. But re listening to the numerous Andy tapes we recorded all these years later, Andy feels like an expression of Lenny's vulnerability, his desperate need for more love from a parent.

[Lenny]

Through the years he was raised with fellow orphans, he never knew the meaning of mother or father. All he knew the meaning was of hate. All the kids would nickname him.

[Emily]

You're a bastard.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You have none.

[Lenny]

Andy was the only four year old child in the orphanage who every day would sit down in his bed and contemplate suicide.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Oh, no one loves me.

[Lenny]

Everyone hates me. What did I do? I've gotta leave. I gotta get out of here.

I gotta get out of here. Somehow I Knew by age 6 I was in trouble. I knew by age 12 that life's gonna be a little harder than I thought. And I knew by the time I was 18, 19, that I gotta get out of here and then stay out. I'd already learned helplessness.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I guess I've always wanted to write a book, Lenny said during one of our late night conversations, where everything the hero does is wrong. I think a lot of books are like that, I said. A lot of lives are like that. You don't understand, Lenny said. And maybe I didn't. Perhaps a lot of what we take as a life choice is already encoded in us at a very young age, younger than we can even remember. And by then it's already too late. The moments are already handing off one to the other, like those dominoes that cannot be stopped. Supposedly, Lenny's biological mother was a 15 year old girl who eventually came to realize she couldn't raise him on her own. Who knows what those first six months were like for Lenny and how they dictated the life to come. Maybe Lenny was wrong. Maybe his paralysis, his inability to leave the nest wasn't, as he said, learned helplessness, but innate helplessness, the kind a baby feels. Maybe for Lenny, the feeling just never faded away.

[Dimitri]

I was with him all the way to the end.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Dimitri again.

[Dimitri]

I remember the last day there. She goes to me. He calls me up. He goes. He goes, look. He goes, can you come over and be with me tonight? He goes, because I'm gonna die. He said it. Shut up. I go, you're gonna die. He goes, no. He goes, I'm gonna die. He goes, I'm gonna die. He goes, can you just come and be with me? He goes, I don't want to be alone. You know? I'm like, yeah, you know? Of course. Then I stayed with him and we smoked a couple of joints together, had a couple of drinks, a couple shots of whiskey. I did. And I was just telling him, you know, Leonard, I go, it's okay, you know, you can. You can go if you want. You know, don't worry about it. You know, just. If you need to go, just go.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Because I never made it to Shahmody before Lenny died. Because I wasn't there to hug him or to just hold his hand, I'm left with a terrible sense of loss. Of the many questions I have about Lenny's last days, the one that weighs on me most heavily is about Lenny's anger and whether it ever subsided. Do you remember what his state of mind was on that last day when you went there? Did he?

[Dimitri]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. He was completely at peace. He wasn't worried or scared at all. I think he had accepted his fate. I think he was just. Honestly, I think he was just tired. I think he wanted to just go. He seemed really okay, though. He wasn't nervous. He was just quiet. I have a video of his last words.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Oh, wow.

[Dimitri]

What message do you want to share with everybody, bro, now that you're at the end?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Dimitri sends me the video he took, and when I hit play, I gasp. I knew how sick Lenny had been, but I guess, irrationally, I'd been imagining him on the other end of the phone line, looking more like the last time I'd seen him at the restaurant with his parents. In the video, though, Lenny looks cadaverous.

[Dimitri]

If you had one message for the world, what would that be? And he sat for about 10 seconds. He thought a bit, and he goes.

[Emily]

Love more, fight less fighting, dissipation. For.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Love. More fight, less fighting doesn't get you far. Nor does anger. In one of our last phone calls, in the final days of his life, Lenny said that he was so weak he could hardly lift himself from the toilet without his mother's aid. I asked if, in general, his mother was being helpful.

[Emily]

She's trying. She really is trying. Well, I have to get her out. She's succeeding, too. She's the only hope I got. I need her.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It was the first I'd ever heard Lenny acknowledge his mother's effort, which is to say, it's the closest I'd ever heard Lenny come to forgiving her. I knew Lenny in the beginning and can only speculate about the middle. But I do see that in the end, in spite of the pain and the delusions, he allowed his sweetness to shine through. While I may never know where Lenny's anger came from, I do know where it went. He laid it down at long last to rest.

[Emily]

Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home, now that the last month's.

[Lenny]

Rent is scheming with the damaged deposit.

[Emily]

Take this moment to decide.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

If we.

[Emily]

Meant it, if we tried or felt a around for far too much from things that accidentally touch.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me, Jonathan Goldstein and supervising producer Stevie Lane, along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our senior producer is Khalilah Holt. Production assistants by Mohini Mdowkar. Special thanks to Lauren Silverman and Neil Drumming. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Bobby Lourd mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellowes, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, Katie Condon and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on our website gimletmedia.com heavyweight our theme song is by the Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast. Follow us on Twitter Heavyweight on Instagram @H heavyweightpodcast, or email us@ heavyweightimletmedia.com you can also follow our show on Spotify and tap the bell to receive notifications when new episodes drop. We'll be back next week with a new episode.