← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
Friendship!
00:58:15
On this show, host Meg Wolitzer gets friendly, and shares three stories about friendships of all kinds. Kelly Stout’s zinger “Let’s Get Drinks,” offers up the perils of conducting a social life via hyperbolic texts, which are hilariously performed by Jane Curtin and Jane Kaczmarek. Next, “True Friendship,” by Jorge Hernandez, describes a life-long friend who’s almost too good to be—true. The reader is Michael Urie. And three misfits fit together in Anthony Marra’s “The Last Words of Benito Picone,” performed by John Turturro. A brief interview with Turturro follows the story.
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- [00:08]
Meg Wolitzer
Tired of staring at your partner or squabbling with your family? That's where friends come in. On this edition of Selected Shorts, stories of friendship in all its glory, hosted by me, Meg Wolitzer, featuring real life pals Jane Curtin and Jane Kaczmare. You're listening to selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. Did you know there's a friendship day? Yeah, first Sunday in August. Better order your friendship cake at the bakery now because they sell out fast. All right, maybe they don't, but they should. We have some smart listeners. So maybe you already knew about Friendship Day, but I suspect most people know almost nothing about this Hallmark holiday. We know you're up on those other ones. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, even that emotionally stirring day of national celebration, Groundhog Day. Point is, we take a lot of time out of our schedules to celebrate our family, our partners, and that cranky shadow searching arbiter of spring, Punxsutawney Phil. Yet there aren't a lot of occasions to celebrate our friends. So either we wait for Friendship Day and try to convince our friends that there really is a friendship day, or we invent an occasion ourselves. On this selected Shorts, we're opting for the latter. We'll be listening to stories that celebrate all kinds of friendship. Best friends, frenemies, acquaintances, one offs, you name it. When I was 13, I had a friend. Well, sometimes she was a friend who painted a giant list on her wall of the names of her friends in order of preference. So you would get really nervous as you walked into her room to see if you were her current best friend or if you'd fallen down to number two or, God forbid, number. It was pretty terrifying. She was a real alpha girl, and she changed her mind a lot. So she kept having to cover over the names as her feelings changed. Her room always smelled of fresh paint. I think about that list a lot and how it mattered to all of us in that friend group. How friendship still matters, hopefully with less competition in the mix, but in ways that we may not celebrate as much as we should. To me, my friends are everything. I might not see one of them for months or years or even sometimes decades, because, you know, life. But the bond remains. I think you probably know what I'm talking about. The first story we'll hear is by Kelly Stout. She's been published in Esquire and the New Yorker, where she's been writing humor pieces since 2014. This conversation between two old friends via text message is short but not exactly sweet. I'm not going to give away the premise, but you'll see what I mean performing it. Two actors who are true friends of the Shortz family and are friends in real life. Jane Curtin began her career with the original cast of Saturday Night Live and continues to delight even today in films including Queen Bees. Jane Kacmarek does plenty of tv, including the series Malcolm in the Middle, but loves theater too. She shows up and plays on both coasts, including Long Day's Journey into Night. And here are the Janes giving it their playful best in this reading of Kelly Stout's Let's Get Drinks.
- [03:32]
Jane Curtin
Hey girls. So great to see you at Mike's party on New Year's. You free this week? Want to grab drinks?
- [03:39]
Jane Kaczmarek
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Yo. Sorry it took me so long to respond. I am the worst. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to. First round is on me because I am so terrible.
- [03:52]
Michael Urie
Tuesday.
- [03:53]
Jane Curtin
Ah, Tuesday is my friend Rachel's birthday. I am the actual worst. What about Wednesday works?
- [04:02]
Jane Kaczmarek
Let's email next week about where to go. Yay. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Oh my God. I am total garbage at scheduling. Forgot that we were supposed to meet tonight. Could you do Monday? I'm so sorry. I feel terrible.
- [04:20]
Jane Curtin
Oh, omg. Do not feel terrible. You're not as bad as I am. If you're garbage, then I'm like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Cause Monday doesn't work. What about tomorrow?
- [04:31]
Jane Kaczmarek
I am worse than the global food crisis. No, no, no. Tomorrow's no good. This is embarrassing, but I signed up for a yoga workshop. I know. I roll. Anyway, hopefully I get my shit together and stop being the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami by next week. Xo. Tick tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Hey, we both totally dropped the ball on this. Our bad. We are like the subprime lending crisis of hanging out, right? You around Wednesday? I want to go back to that tapas place we went to on the 4th of July.
- [05:06]
Jane Curtin
Shoot. Wednesday doesn't work. My mom and stepdad are in town so I have to take them to dinner, which is going to be worse than the rollout of healthcare.gov, but whatever. I have to do it. Hmm. Dare I say Friday?
- [05:23]
Meg Wolitzer
Oh, shit.
- [05:25]
Jane Kaczmarek
Friday's no good. I am literally Operation Rolling Thunder mixed with the NFL's policy on domestic violence. But whatcha gonna do Monday?
- [05:36]
John Turturro
Stop it.
- [05:36]
Jane Curtin
You're fine. I, on the other hand, am seriously, Vermont's Heroin epidemic Multiplied by Bill Cosby. I can't do Monday because I have to help my roommate pick up a kitchen island she bought on Craigslist. Long story.
- [05:51]
Jane Kaczmarek
Tick tock, tick tock. Tick tock, tick tock.
- [05:54]
Jane Curtin
I can't believe we never scheduled this. I miss you. I'm gonna stop being broker's fees atop a cake made out of unlicensed plastic surgery and say Tuesday.
- [06:07]
Jane Kaczmarek
Jesus. I am like the Spanish Civil War riding in a subway car with broken ac, seated between Kim Jong Un and the phrase said no one ever. But I could do coffee like midday on Tuesday.
- [06:23]
Jane Curtin
I'm sorta kinda trying to get off caffeine. I know, I know. I'm worse than the Hobby lobby verdict dancing with Vladimir Putin on Elaine Stritch's grave while the Vietnam War plays all about that bass on the didgeridoo. But lunch would be great.
- [06:42]
Jane Kaczmarek
Omg don't worry about it. I am the one who should be apologizing. I'm a smoothie blended in an Amazon fulfillment center containing you two's songs of innocence, Reaganomics and old hot dog water. Seriously, I cannot believe I forgot that you quit. Coffee. Lunch it is. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. I'm so happy about our lunch today. Oh, our lunch today. We're at 12:30. Huh?
- [07:13]
Jane Curtin
This is basically just a joke at this point, but I have this dumb meeting about records retention or something that got pushed back to one. You don't have to tell me that I'm mercury poisoning hooking up with the crusades in the bathroom at trans fat's wedding to voter suppression, because I know. Oh, sorry.
- [07:32]
Jane Kaczmarek
Don't worry about it, dude. How's tonight? Oh, wait.
- [07:35]
Michael Urie
Shit. Shit.
- [07:37]
Jane Kaczmarek
I'm sorry to be Aaron Sorkin eating toothpaste straight from the tube. I forgot that my writing group meets tonight and then tomorrow I have this thing. It's too hard to explain. And on Friday I have dinner with some work people, so. Oh my God. You're gonna think I'm the Salem Witch Trials giving Osama bin Laden a massage at a spa run by the California drought. I'm pretty busy next week, but how about the ninth, though?
- [08:02]
Jane Curtin
The ninth floor is great.
- [08:04]
Michael Urie
Yay. See you.
- [08:17]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Jane Curtin and Jane Kacmarek with Kelly Stout's story. Let's get drinks. It's definitely getting harder and harder to make real life plans. Or not make them. We all need an assistant just for that. Someone to help us prioritize. Someone to say sorry. I'm afraid Ms. Wolitzer can't meet you at that cafe on the 24th. No, no particular reason. Except if you look at the fren list on her wall, you'll see you've dropped down to number nine. My friend, the humor writer Patricia Marks, who has chatted with me on this show, has it all worked out. If we ever have dinner plans, she says to me a few days before, now, if you need to cancel, don't worry about it. In fact, I'll be happy if you cancel. I don't take it personally. I get it. We love seeing our friends, but we're all just so busy. A free night is a free night. As for no hassle, guilt free, last minute canceling, now that's friendship. If you've ever casually thrown a friend under the bus, blaming them for your late arrival home, say this next piece is for you. It's by writer Jorge F. Hernandez. He's the prolific author of essays, short story collections and novels, including a title that translates in English to A Floating Forest. The story was read by the very warm, very funny actor Michael Urie. He performs on stage in shows such as Buyer and Seller, as well as on screen in series including the New Shrinking. And now here's Michael Urie with True Friendship, written by Jorge F. Hernandez and translated by Anita Sagostegui.
- [09:53]
John Turturro
True Friendship. You may still think true friendship is a lie, but then you've never met Bill Burton was a phrase often repeated by Samuel Weinstein. Indeed, you could consider it his motto. He would often use it with his wife as a justification for some forgotten thing. And with his co workers he tossed it around more than once as an excuse for falling behind. Most everyone knows that Weinstein began glorifying this unconditional friendship with Burton back when he was still living under his parents roof, a mere high school boy. His sister Rachel always doubted the sincerity of his declaration. And in fact it was she who was the only one to ever question Burton's very existence. For her, the supposed loyalty Sam displayed toward this enigmatic Bill Burton was nothing more than an ingenuous and quickly hackneyed cunning created to avoid all kinds of responsibility on Sam's part. Whether Samuel arrived home late for dinner or whether he decided to skip shul. Or maybe he just happened to be busy that Saturday morning. Everything had an explanation via Bill that Bill had invited him to a baseball game and they lost track of time. Or that it was Saturday and they had decided to study for an examination, concentrating so hard that Sam managed to forget that he had promised to wash the car or run an errand? Or that Bill Burton himself had asked Sam to miss shul in order to accompany him to New Jersey to collect some money owed his mother. Truth be told, Sam Weinstein's life is as normal as any and his biography, plain and simple, takes place within the confines of convention. Except for the recurring occasions involving Bill Burton. Notably all those times Sam tripped over his tongue trying to justify the significant and constant absence of his beloved friend, always calling upon his motto, you may still think true friendship is a lie, but then you've never met Bill Burton. Samuel Weinstein was born in New York in October 1926 to a Jewish family, second generation Lithuanian Albanian immigrants, their small fortune due to his parents hard work and tenacity, rather than to a comfortable inheritance or fiduciary abuse that afforded other friends and family such economic security. Sam was the first born son of Barouj Weinstein and Sarah Elbison, both of whom passed through Ellis island along with their respective families at almost the same time. Sarah, still a babe in her mother's arms, while Barouche had already started walking by the time he got off the boat, according to some old sepia photographs. Perhaps a psychoanalyst would peg the source of Samuel Weinstein's exaggerated devotion to his invisible friend on a traumatic event that happened at the tender age of four. Sam got lost among the vegetable crates and fish scraps somewhere along the dark and sordid alleys of the Bowery, having let go of his mother's hand for only a few seconds, loud enough for the stout Albanian to scream a lament at the top of her voice, quickly amassing an improvised rescue team. Four Orthodox Jews, six Chinese loaders, a gang of Irish stevedores, three semi inebriated Germans and a few policemen dressed a la Keystone cops, all turned to the task of combing every filthy inch of the area until finally a little Polish dressmaker found young Sam Weinstein huddled between trash cans, muttering what seemed like a lullaby to the dingy tatters of what at one time was likely a stuffed teddy bear. When Sam was five years old, his family welcomed his little sister Rachel, who had become the focus of his adoration and complete affection until he was well into his teen years. In fact, his adolescence coincides with the first instances of his coming home to exalt the exploits of the wondrous Bill Burton, a true friend. And that's no lie. Let it be known that from the very start of his obsession with Burton, both Sam's mother and father and even other family members suggested inviting the cherished friend home, urging Sam not to feel shame in his roots or in his creed. But for some reason or another, the opportunity to introduce Bill to the Weinstein clam never came up. As Sam's life unfolds, so too do the episodes with Burton. Though not with exaggerated frequency, his parents, sister and other family members begin accepting as truth the many anecdotes boosting Bill's stature. And on more than one occasion, perhaps after some long spell of Burton less stories, they themselves inquired as to what was new with Burton, asking Sam for any updates. Or maybe that he invite his friend over for dinner the summer before his freshman year at Wesleyan University, where but of course, his dear friend Burton had also accepted. Samuel chose to skip his annual family vacation to the beach, preferring instead to accept an invitation from Bill and the entire Burton clan to their cabin in the mountains of Vermont. It is at this point that the story takes a transcendental turn, for Sam came home not only with more Burton exploits to boast of, but with a photograph in which the two friends are seen smiling at the edge of an exquisite lake. Resembling an oil painting, the photograph, avidly passed from one curious Weinstein hand to another, affirmed Bill Burton to be the ideal American golden boy on par with film stars. Over six feet tall, towering over the smallish Sam, with a blond mane that topped his perfect facial features, inscrutable blue eyes and a half smile barely revealing enviable, perfectly aligned white teeth. Though Bill appears sheathed in a sweater with a huge W sewn on the front, all of us who have seen the photograph can tell he is nothing less than an athlete, proud of his pecs and perfectly sculpted arm muscles. The way Weinstein would tell it, those days in Vermont had been the best vacation of his life. Bill's family was not only one of the richest and most well bred, but lavish in hospitality and affectionate. Bill's sister was of an indescribable beauty and furthermore had brought along her best friend, a certain Jane Scheller, who managed to enamor and enthrall Bill Burton Weinstein confided to his father and the other men of the family once the women had gotten busy in the kitchen. That simply by witnessing the manner and form with which Burton succeeded to court Jane Scheller there among Vermont's breathtaking landscape, he, Sam, felt prepared to find himself a girlfriend. Still, it took him a while, and it wasn't until his junior year at Wesleyan University that Samuel Weinstein returned home to Manhattan with the news and photographs to confirm it of his new girlfriend, Nancy Lubisch. With whom he was totally in love and who would one day become his wife. Only two months after having shown her off in photos, Weinstein introduced Nancy in person, live and in full color. To the entire Weinstein clan, it's worth mentioning that Rachel provoked an enormous bout of laughter after dinner when she observed, with sarcasm in her penetrating gaze but obvious envy in her tone, that if Nancy also studied at Wesleyan, then surely you have had the honor of meeting the famous Bill Burton. Nancy, perplexed perhaps for not being in on the enduring family joke, answered between chuckles. The funniest thing is that anytime we go to Bill's dorm, or anytime Sam wants the three of us to go out, or the four of us whenever Bill's got a girl, someone or something always gets in our way. And in the 10 months Sam and I have been together, I've never met Bill in person. She said she had seen photos of him tacked outside the cafeteria, as well as a brief interview, apparently published by the school newspaper, regarding an economics essay that only increased his notoriety among classmates. But I sometimes feel like Sam's talking about a ghost. When the Weinstein clan took the train into Connecticut to the very doors of Wesleyan University to witness with pride Samuel's graduation, they were confronted by the awful news that Bill Burton's father had passed away the day before. Absolutely everyone old Barouj, the stout Albanian Sarah, even the incredulous Rachel all felt a sincere sadness at the loss, although their sorrow also lay in the once again thwarted opportunity to finally meet Bill Burton in person. At this point, there is another significant footnote. During the graduation ceremony, the rector of the university read aloud the name William Jefferson Burton. Among the graduates was an empty chair next to Sam Weinstein, and on it the students had solemnly placed a cap and gown. Furthermore, many said it was Weinstein himself, along with no small number of devoted classmates, who proposed lowering to half mast the red, white and black colors of their alma mater's flag as a sign of mourning and commemoration. This is considerable, for in the nearly 200 years since the founding of the distinguished Wesleyan University never had such a tribute of mass solidarity been paid to to any of its other esteemed graduates. So fine. Moving right along, what kind of life awaited the recent graduate Samuel Weinstein at the onset of summer 1951? Easy, easy, as well as obvious. First he announced his engagement to Nancy. Next he was hired as an assistant editor for a distinguished literary magazine in Manhattan, from which he would retire 40 years later. And meanwhile he continued to recite his mantra. You may think True friendship is a lie. But then you've never met Bill Burton. On the few but significant occasions that he was late in editing the magazine, Sam justified his errors before his boss, Smithers, by blaming Bill Burton. Maybe Bill had called him from Grand Central Station with just enough time to share a drink at the Oyster Bar since he was leaving on the first train to Philly on some complex business involving the Rockefellers. Or maybe they had bumped into each other on the corner of Lexington and 51st. And unable to persuade Bill to stray from his path, Sam couldn't help but accompany him. The same would happen at home. Nancy came to loathe Sam's absence at dinner time, usually punctuated by a call from him at some phone booth somewhere letting him know that he had run into Bill and that they couldn't waste a damn good night out on the town. One would think Nancy would be used to it by now, just as her stout Albanian mother in law was. Or old Barouj Weinstein, who died peacefully in his bed surrounded by loved ones, though not without mentioning that he was leaving this world never having met his son's best friend. Indeed, it would be careless to leave out the matter of Sam and Nancy's wedding day, an event for which the presence of Bill Burton seemed assured, especially since he was Sam's best man. Not only was the ceremony delayed for over 40 minutes, but the longed for ghost, Sam's unconditional friend, never arrived. Instead, the temple doors opened to a firefighter in full uniform coming to let Weinstein know that Bill Burton was wounded in a subway accident and that, before being taken to the hospital by ambulance, insisted that someone kindly inform his best friend Sam and his lovely bride. However, the firefighter wasn't able to say what hospital Burton had been taken to, nor what his condition was. For a few seconds, Sam considered postponing the wedding. And now, several years later, Nancy still couldn't tolerate or accept the recurring pretext or excuse spawned by Bill Burton's appearance, as if right out of the blue, to Sam and no one else, just as she had finished preparing a special meal, or right as she was about to suggest going to the movies, or when they had both agreed on inviting over their friends, the Mertzes, that evening, or the newlyweds that lived on the floor below. Over time, but of course, Weinstein made other friends with Nancy and their friends, the Mertzes, they made an unbeatable foursome at any Manhattan bowling alley. Many would swear that the friendships he established with his magazine colleagues until the very day of his retirement were of an intimate camaraderie. And yet, some evenings, right before falling asleep, or possibly on the taxi ride home from a pleasant night out with his other friends, he would turn to Nancy and utter, perhaps a little more slowly than before, his old motto. You may still think true friendship is a lie, but then you've never met Bill Burton. To make a long story short, Bill Burton, a convenient invention of Sam Weinstein and often cited not only by him but now by all those who were part of Sam's life, became a conventional and predictable myth. Anyone who had anything to do with Weinstein already knew that Burton was likely the best friend that ever was, but impossible to meet in person. Anytime he passed through New York, it was always in a hurry, with barely enough time to meet up with Weinstein. A fleeting beer at the edge of a bar stool, a quick cup of coffee at cafes for people on the go, never enough time to accompany Sam home to finally meet his family, his wife, or even little Barouge, who was born in 1956 and whose Bris the Weinstein clan insisted Bill Burton attend. Though everyone already knew not to count on the appearance of the most famous, mysterious true friend of mine. In reality, the story ends where it started. Samuel Weinstein became editor of Manhattan Letters and would have awaited his approaching retirement with resigned serenity and some satisfaction had it not been for an event that some would consider an epiphany. On the evening of September 27, 1996, a man entered Weinstein's office. He was of athletic build, tall enough for his head to brush the door frame impeccably. Dressed in an immaculate blazer, he sat in the green leather armchair, the one angled towards the window to make most of the magnificent Manhattan cityscape. The man lit a cigarette and through the first puff of smoke said, almost in a whisper, I'm Bill Burton. After a momentary silence, Weinstein began to sweat and stutter. Who let you in? What are you doing here? Who are you? This just can't be. Why is your name Bill Burton? And the man crossing his right leg brought his gaze from the window and, looking directly into Weinstein's eyes, answered, you tell me.
- [27:14]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Michael Urie performing True Friendship by Jorge F. Hernandez Translated by Anita Sagastegui Mysterious ending aside, I think we can all feel better about ourselves after that one. Sure. Maybe we've pointed the finger in the past. I mean, we'd never choose to drink that fourth glass of wine on our own. It's Aaron. Always Aaron. Or in my day, Lisa. Everyone I know had basically a dozen Lisas in their life. But Erin or Lisa is a real person. I mean, yes, she's an example I just made up, but you know what I mean. You have friends, Maybe. When we return, John Turturro and a beautiful, unexpected Friendship. I'm Meg Wolitzer. You're listening to Selected Shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide. Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. No road is long with good company, so the Turkish proverb goes. We couldn't agree more and we hope to see you in the coming months as we take Selected Shorts on tour. We're crisscrossing the country with stops in Dallas, Texas, Los Angeles, California, Huntington, Pennsylvania, Beaverton, Oregon, and Albany, New York. We promise there is nothing like seeing these great performances in person sitting next to your fellow Shorts fan. Head to selectedshorts.org ontour for venue and ticket information. We hope you'll join us. Our next piece is by Anthony Mara. Mara is the author of the novels A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and Mercury Pictures Presents, as well as the short story collection the Tsar of Love and Techno. The following story, about some serious oddballs who create their own perfect friendship, is performed by John Turturro. His film resume is an extensive one, including everything from do the Right Thing to the Big Lebowski sequel the Jesus Rolls, and he showed a very different side on the recent Apple TV hit Severance. Here to read Anthony Mara's the Last Words of Benito Piccone is John Turturro.
- [29:53]
Michael Urie
The Last Words of Benito Piccone. It began in a hailstorm in 1975 when Benito Piccone trotted across Market street with his briefcase gripped overhead, shielding him from both the falling sky and, inadvertently, the oncoming Buick. His legs buckled on the hood, his shoulders smashed a spiderweb into the windshield, and his arms pinwheeled. As all 296 pounds of Benito Peccone spun from the roof, he seized at the air. His briefcase burst into a cartoon flurry of papers. The fabric of his trench coat, suit coat, waistcoat and trousers beat with the flapping of a hundred waiters laying tablecloths. And amid the fireworks flowering in the dark skies of his consciousness, he did not once consider the shameful heft of his body. Weightless for the first time in his life, he torqued into a horrible arc of beauty and landed in darkness. When Benito woke My favorite things from the Sound of Music was playing on the radio. Crisp apple strudel doorbells, sleigh bells, schnitzel with noodles. And he realized that the personal hell to which his immortal soul had been rendered sounded an awful like Austria. But he wasn't dead. Not quite. A smock had replaced the herringbone three piece suit he still wore weekdays, even though two months earlier he had lost his office lottery pool, his temper and his job. In that order. The glossy bracelet on his wrist read St. Francis Memorial. Relief flooded the blue channels of his circulatory system. There was still time. He could still say his last words. Over the years, Benito had paid much thought to his death. He considered himself a philosopher. Others considered him an asshole. When he turned 30, he began a nightly habit of recording his last words on a note in case he expired in his sleep. The end is a ballet without music or dancing. The end is relief. Benito had something, many things in fact, to say about love and sorrow and pride and betrayal and forgiveness and beauty. The problem was that no one was the least bit interested in hearing them, which made his last words a final chance to convert his failures into a wisdom building exercises, a last gasp to save himself from who he was. Who wouldn't want to listen to the final dispatch from a man walking over the edge, whose ears wouldn't perk to hear one's soul's answer to the question mark that punctuates every life? Those who had never paid him a moment's thought would lean in to hear what he had to say as he crossed over. Knowing this, knowing that a good ending can redeem a bad story, Benito had struggled to cram the some self knowledge of his 39 years into a pithy single sentence serving of wisdom that proved once and for all to all his distractors that Benito Piccone did not live in vain. The end is a drizzly evening and I cannot take my umbrella with me, he said in Italian to the reticulated ceiling tiles. Not the most profound last words, but a good deal better than those of other great men. Conrad Hilton Leave the shower curtain outside the tub. That's no Spanish I've ever known. The sentence was pushed through the crooked maze of an east coast accent. It came from the adjacent bed, where a birdish woman propped on a half dozen pancake thin pillows observed him with her head at an inquiring tilt. She had the dazed parlor of a cave dweller dragged into daylight. Had Benito not just uttered his last words, he might have explained that Italian and Spanish were in the same language. But you could spend a lifetime writing what Americans got wrong. He had only moments left. Translucent tubes drew blood from one arm and streamed gray fluid into the other. A bleak epiphany. In the end, he was no more than a transit station for disturbingly opaque liquids. Beneath the gown, bruised continents had risen from his torso. His left leg lay in a splint and a fat foam noose half heartedly strangled him. His abominable organs were as tender as composting produce. What had happened? He could only summon a dream of flying geese. Then a silver Buick, his soul vacuumed into the sky. A nurse entered. Benito turned as much as the beefy foam headlock would allow. You're lucky to be alive, she said in a tone suggesting that she was not. But I'm dying, Benito clarified. He hadn't set out to die that day, but now that it was happening, he received it as the arrival of a long lost uncle he both loved and feared. He had no one on this side of the earth to say goodbye to, no one to write his obituary, no one to attend his funeral but a weak chin landlord who would probably reach into the casket to frisk his pockets for spare change. On the threshold now he looked back and saw that the life he was leaving looked a lot like his apartment. A windowless cube of despair. The oddly worded English emergency instructions alarmed through him. Proceed to the exit as quickly as possible. Please get a pen and paper, benito entreated. You must record my last words. The nurse didn't move. My vitality is seeping from me, he insisted. I see a bright white light. I should move toward it. No. The nurse flicked the wall switch and the ceiling light went. That better? She asked. No, it wasn't. The light at the end of the tunnel may well be a 60 watt incandescent, the nurse said. But it's not the one over your head. But I'm dying, he said. More wish than lament. The worst you got on you is a broken leg, generally non fatal among non equines, she said. But I was hit by a car, he protested. I was in serious collision. I shouldn't be alive in this hospital room. I shouldn't be alive. The next morning, to Benito's disappointment, he woke up. The woman in the adjacent bed stared at him. Were you watching me sleep? He asked. The TV's broken, she said. She introduced herself as Marie. They passed the next two days in quiet conversation. Marie had been an 11 year old orphan, a 19 year old widow, and was presently a 30 year old alcoholic and addict. She had no children and wanted none. After a childhood in Maryland and adolescence in New Jersey, the palm trees lining the Embarcadero never failed to amaze her. She had been picked up on the street the previous evening with alcohol poisoning, and the doctors were taking the opportunity to observe a cardiac condition. Her honesty unsettled Benito, who had suspected that mental well being depended upon a facility for selectively dismissing reality. At one point she asked him what it felt like thrown from the launch pad of a windshield, up into flight. Benito tried to recall the pain, the shock, the pristine panic of the moment. But all he could remember was an eerie weightlessness. Like swimming. Maybe swimming what I imagine swimming feels like. I never learned to swim. Wait, she said. You grew up on an island and you never learned to swim? Benito had already told her that as a boy he immigrated from Lipari, a Barren volcanic island 2 hours by ferry north of Sicily. My mother believed that superstition was the only logic of an irrational world, and learning to swim would invite drowning as certainly as visiting the doctor invites diseases. Her philosophy was that you had to surrender yourself to the Fates by not preparing for any disaster or misfortune, and that by offering your humility and powerlessness to them, they would keep you safe. And you still got hit by a car. In America, the Fates are more impressed with individual accountability. He readjusted his casted leg, but couldn't shake the memory of air, of weightlessness. He always wanted to learn to swim. A couple of times he signed up for lessons at the Procedo Y, and I'd once even gotten as far as the locker room. Do you swim? He asked. In one liquid or another, she said. By the third day, Benito conceded that his broken leg would only kill him if he was pursued by a large predator. The nurse informed the two patients that they would be discharged shortly. Neither had insurance, and they were required to appear at the billing office before departing. When the nurse left, Marie pulled the IV from her hand. She stripped her gown without turning away. Her whole body hung from her clavicles. Benito's shock when had he last seen a woman naked? Fermented to an excitement. When had he last seen a woman naked? That immediately diluted upon realizing that he was so insignificant a sexual being, Marie hadn't even thought to close the curtain between them before undressing. Let's boogie, she said. Benito was unaccustomed to disobeying authority figures in uniform, even a nurse's uniform. He was even less accustomed to receiving invitations to boogie. He grooved on after her. Hurry up, she held open the emergency exit for him. Benito gripped the hand rail and pogoed down on his good foot. Two legs were barely enough to support all of Benito when he was at his best, and he hadn't been at his best since 1954. His one good leg was, as his father had said often of Benito himself, just less than adequate. Marie wrapped his left arm over her shoulder. It seemed profane that she should place her lovely neck in the stockade of his unwashed armpit. At the bottom of the stairwell. She snipped their hospital bracelets with scissors swiped from the nurses station. Shall we? Marie asked, opening the door to a parking lot blotched in gray puddles. They stopped under a tree. The leaves shivered with the breeze, spattering droplets on them. Standing under a tree when it's raining keeps you dry. Standing under a tree when it stopped raining keeps you wet, benito said. That's some real deep shit. Marie rifled through her pocket, searching for bus fare. You got any change? She asked. Where are we going? He asked. He had almost said you instead of we. They had shared a hospital room, but he wasn't sure they were ready to share the intimacy of a personal pronoun. You got any change? She asked, again ignoring his question. His pockets were empty, save for his apartment keys and a cemented wad of partially used tissues, but he patted them anyway. They had no money for a bus and took a taxi instead, hoping Marie's recluse neighbor would spot them the fare. As the taxi turned down Pine, Marie's last word jangled in his head. Change, change, change. A quartet of sharp knocks startled Joseph Lavrov from his nap. Marie, almost certainly. She was his only visitor. He didn't like visitors. The link of casuality between these two facts was as prominent on his horizon as the Golden Gate Bridge. I've brought company, marie announced as he slid away the security chain. The poor man at her side was a flight of stairs away from cardiac arrest. Marie made introductions before borrowing a few dollars to pay the taxi. My leg, benito said. I need to sit. The man locked eyes on Joseph's most prized possession, a rococo Second Empire style dining chair. Joseph has found it in the window of a Heath street consignment shop three months after his petition for political asylum had been cleared. Nothing better embodied how far he'd come from the featureless furniture of his homeland. He had lived for that chair his first year in America, saving one of the four hourly dollars he earned folding fortunes into fresh baked fortune cookies on the first anniversary of his Defection from the Soviet Union. Joseph went to the consignment shop and bought the chair with ones and fives. It was toward this treasured chair that Benito's wide posterior descended. Joseph closed his eyes. At the moment of impact, the chair hardly creaked, every bit the masterpiece the consignment store clerk had called it. Lovely old thing you have here, benito said with a light lilt to his accent that Joseph couldn't identify. Benito, this is what? Spanish? Why does everyone think I'm Spanish? Italian, as in Italy. Ah, yes, Joseph said, snapping his fingers. Of course, of course. With the pizza and the pope, Benito. Like Mussolini, Benito looked like he'd caught passing gas in a packed elevator. Joseph was delighted. I joke, I joke, joseph said. But tell you the truth, your father names you after the dictator, no? He wants you to become a strong leader. Brave man, yat size, big as oranges. Tell the truth. I am right. No, I was born in 1935, Benito said softly. Benito was a very popular name at the time. Joseph clasped his hands together, hardly able to contain himself. Okay, okay. You are named after Mussolini. In Italy this is maybe very good, but not so much in America. Why don't you name yourself a Benjamin or Benny? I considered it, ebenezer said. But your name is your name. I am named Joseph because my father had much respect for Joseph Stalin. Joseph confessed it wasn't the sort of thing he freely admitted, but he felt an instant affinity with this stranger who understood the weight of a tyrannical namesake. They discussed the merits and downsides of their namesakes for several minutes. Joseph surreptitiously peeked at his watch. Looks like Marie got lost on her way back, benito said. Joseph suspected that Marie had taken whatever change was left over from the taxi fare, if she paid the taxi fare at all, and had deposited at the corner liquor store. But he wasn't willing to deprecate his neighbor in front of a man named after Mussolini. So how did you get to America? Benito asked. Have you heard of Vyborg? No. It is at the Finland border. In Vyborg I was a bus driver. I was a very good bus driver. Everyone knew this. So one day the city transport director says, joseph, tomorrow you must drive around lackeys from the Ministry of Ferris Metallurgy. I do not want to do this. I am very uncomfortable driving lackeys. But I say yes. That night I am as frightened as a bird in a briefcase. What if the meetings go bad and they blame the bus driver? I do not sleep at all. In the morning I take a glass of brandy to sharpen my senses. It is no use. I doze off and I wake to a very big crash. Big blonde Vikings everywhere. Three broken road barricades. A mess. Wait. You. You drove into Finland? Benito asked. First into Finland, then into the customs house. Very embarrassing. So I have two choices. Confess that I fell asleep while driving. Important lackeys lose my job, maybe go to jail. Major international embarrassment. Or say I am defecting. Your yogi berra, he advises you. When you see a fork in the road, take it. So I take it. Here I am. Benito appeared genuinely impressed. My mother and me just took a boat to New York. In truth, Joseph had misjudged the military intelligence value of a municipal bus driver and the lifestyle he could expect in the West. He imagined America was filled with mansions and sports cars and fabulous wealth. It was, of course, they just didn't belong to him or anyone he knew. A few minutes later, Marie returned with a brown paper bag in one hand. Joseph's heart dropped a few centimeters. It was a lovely afternoon. The clouds were parting. This was no time to drink oneself to death. But when she opened the bag, all she removed was a white bakery box of pastries looped in barber pole twine. We're both named after dead dictators, benito said, a trace of wonder to his voice. It's important to find your people, marie said, and began distributing napkins. The three met again for pastries the following Wednesday, and then the Wednesday after, and the Wednesday after that. Over time, their Wednesday evenings became a small rise of elevation that their weeks ascended toward and sloped from. In 1977, Joseph tracked down the woman who had purchased the other five dining chairs from the Haight street consignment shop. He bought two chairs from her. They sat in those chairs the week Benito announced he had found work and the week he announced he had been fired. They sat when Joseph announced he had skin cancer, and they sat in the waiting room when dark hailstones of malignant tissue was removed. In autumn 1978, Marie believed she had bottomed out when she pawned her father's silver pocket watch containing in its glass display the only image of her mother she had ever seen. You think you are the precious snowflake, joseph told her, a heaviness to his voice that didn't suit his second language. But you are just water. It took Marie all of 1979, 1980, and 1981 to string together a month of sobriety. On December 13, 1982, the anniversary of her first year sober, Benito and Joseph gave her the pocket watch they bought back from the pawn shop. Marie opened it. The hazy photograph of her mother stared back. But it was not her mother's love she felt in that room. I didn't believe I was deserving of this, she said, unable to meet their eyes. It's just a watch, benito said. She looked to the two men perched on chairs fit for beheaded French aristocrats. I don't mean the watch, she said. Together they went to movies all night, diners, and once, in the balmy breezes of May 1988, to Reno, where they played penny slots and drank free fountain cola from plastic cups. In 1990, Marie taught Benito, at the age of 55, to swim while Joseph heckled from the bleachers. The cancer that had been removed from Joseph's arms reappeared in 1999 and had already colonized bone, blood, and brain before it was discovered he died in the St. Francis cancer ward two months later. Benito and Marie were just arriving as he left. His last word was hello. For an extra $800, the gravedigger buried him upright and uncasketed, enthroned in his favorite chair. Benito spent his mornings walking aimlessly through neighborhoods that seemed to get younger, richer, and whiter by the year. Youth, he believed, was a disorder generally cured by time. Regarding the latter two, he was open to suggestions. The year, decade, century, millennium all turned over with a swipe of a second hand. He was 65 years old and had never used a computer. He was 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, and he had still never used a computer. Wasn't life supposed to have a progression, building towards something? Wasn't there a measurement beyond years to account for his time on Earth? He didn't know, and that not knowing felt sunken in him, like the footprints of something certain that had fled long ago. On april morning in 2015, Benito and Marie went to Pier 39 and watched sluggish sea lions spill into the water, their slick heads domed in sunlight. What time is it? Marie asked. Benito glanced to his watch but couldn't speak. Invisible boulders pressed against his ribs. He raised a hand. The earth peeled away. Blue sky everywhere. He was on his back now. Marie kneeled over him. She was pounding at his chest. He couldn't breathe. He must speak. He must say his final words. He'd been waiting his whole life for the opportunity. When he tried to speak, he found that her lips had sealed his. She was blowing air into his lungs. She was trying to breathe for him. It was such a strange and unexpected sensation. He forgot whatever words he might have said it nearly brought him back. Don't go, don't go, don't go, she pleaded. In all his years, he hadn't imagined that the last words of his life would be spoken by someone else. He hadn't imagined he would die so loved. All around, Japanese tourists flash photos of the white haired woman holding the dead man on that otherwise fine April day.
- [55:03]
Meg Wolitzer
That was John Turturro performing the Last Words of Benito Piccone. By Anthony Mara. Backstage at Symphony Space, Turturro talked about Mara's intuitive understanding of friendship.
- [55:14]
John Turturro
He's really inventive, very humorous and insightful. He's a really good writer. You know, it's all about mortality and loneliness and how people connect over the strangest things. And I think that as you get older, that becomes something that you appreciate, even if it's a fleeting encounter. Yesterday I was on the subway and these two ladies were talking to each other and they were friends, obviously, and they were arguing about baseball. The woman said, well, baseball's so boring. And the other said, no, it's not. But I sort of got involved in the conversation between them and it was such a nice thing to have. Like, actually, oh, we're having an encounter and people are stuck, you know, on their phones. And it was just like a great little encounter. And I think in the story this happens and it continues on.
- [56:00]
Michael Urie
So I like that.
- [56:02]
Meg Wolitzer
That was John Turturro backstage at Symphony Space. You see, people named after dictators aren't bad guys. They might just be oddballs hoping to find friends and to be buried upright in their favorite chairs. I'm a fan of Mara's 2013 novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, which is set in wartime Chechnya. But even in the midst of hell, his characters were vivid and memorable. I think strong, truly etched in characters tend to anchor a story. They're often what or rather who you think about later. But to be more specific, we think about characters in connection with one another. These three friends and their differences. They remind me of how kids on a playground, total strangers, just start talking, getting to know each other, even though they might have nothing in common. And without even making it clear, suddenly they're looking out for one another. Suddenly they're on the same side. After hearing all of these stories about friendships, even the hard or strange ones, I really want to reach out and tell my friends I love and appreciate them. I urge you to do the same. And maybe don't wait for Friendship Day. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for joining me for selected shorts, selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivienne Woodward, and Magdalene Wrobleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our mix engineer for this episode was Dennis Jacobson. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deardorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony.