October 21, 2021 • 35 mins
Growing up, Justine’s father always told her unbelievable stories about his life: that he was a big winner on Jeopardy; an outlaw who robbed banks armed only with flowers. But now, as an adult, Justine has started to question—are her father’s stories so unbelievable because none of them are true? In the process of fact-checking her dad’s life, something surprising emerges that neither Justine nor Jonathan ever saw coming.
Credits
Heavyweight is hosted and produced by Jonathan Goldstein.
This episode was produced by senior producer Kalila Holt, along with Stevie Lane and Mohini Madgavkar.
Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Blumberg, Sharon Mashihi, Connie Walker, and Marie-Claude.
The show was mixed by Bobby Lord.
Music by Christine Fellows, John K Samson, Blue Dot Sessions, Ben Alleman, Bauble, Chris Zabriskie, Shanghai Restoration Project, and Bobby Lord. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, Mary Cloude.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
But Jackie's not answering the phone, so you're college.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
That's why I was phoning. I know this sounds totally paranoid,
but do you think has Jackie been avoiding my calls?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
She's avoiding your calls?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Why?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
She has life and children and maybe she wants to
spend a few minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, she gives her children.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
I'm supposed to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
You don't think this is like some kind of cry
for help that she's kind of like isolating and everything. Yeah, well,
I just had a couple questions that I was going
to ask Jackie, but maybe since you guys are such
good friends, maybe you can answer them.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, it's literally four o three I need to leave,
So this is okay.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I was just going through my bar mitzvah rs vps
and I noticed that Jackie did not attend.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Do you know why did you read your barmst phone
the same Saturday as a very popular kid and everyone
went to his yes steadiers Eric Leidenheim.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Where she was?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, I guess at least she was at Temple from
Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode.
Justine right after the break, This is me, this is
(01:39):
your daddy.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Okay, I love you more than anything.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Okay, You're the.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Greatest thing, says Slice Bread. You're the greatest thing since
can beer.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
In two thousand and seven, Gary recorded himself onto a
series of dictaphone cassettes, which he gave to his daughter Justine.
Ever since Justine was a kid, he's worked as a
mattress salesman. But he'd always tell Justine's stories about the
wildlife he once led.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
And I kept saying to him, like, you need to
write a memoir, Like you can't just end your life
as a mattress salesman.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Gary said there was no way he could write a memoir.
He'd get too caught up in every little detail, and
titles can be such a hassle. What would he even
name it?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
And he goes, but I'll compromise. What if I'd just
tell my life story into these tapes and you can
have them.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Gary's life, as he tells it, is one full of heroism, debauchery,
and brushes with fame.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
He got into Georgetown from high school.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
My room was the same room that President Bill Clinton
had when he was a freshman.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
But then he got there and realized it was all bullshit,
dropped out.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Of Georktown after getting straight a's the first semester there, was.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Bored, so he transferred to Antioch.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
At Antioch in nineteen sixty nine, Gary fell in with
a revolutionary crowd and began protesting Vietnam in a revolutionary way.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Robbing banks and giving the money to anti war causes,
and got in legal trouble because of that stuff. I
mean seven years in the federal penitentiary. He says.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I'm going to give you the actual story of just
say it with flowers, banded bank rapper. The only reason
why I called that because the newspapers called.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Gary says, sure he was a bank robber, but he
never used a gun. Instead, he'd walk into the bank
with just a bouquet of flowers and use hypnosis on
the teller to get what he wanted, like.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Using his powers of persuasion, which supposedly he learned on
an ashram.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Gary says he broke out of prison, auditioned for the
game show Jeopardy, got on, won the game, and then
got arrested. On the flight back home.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I went seventeen thousand dollars, so I kicked ass and
I want to fucking at the La fucking airport and
they fucking drive me off the plane.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Once he was back in prison, Gary says he won
a prison bridge tournament with his partner H. R. Haldeman.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Was HR. Haldeman, who was the chief of staff of
the Nixon Weisshause, the second most powerful man of his country.
Labor Day bridge tournament in September of nineteen seventy six
at Lompoke Federal Penitentiary.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
The tapes are filled with hour after hour of stories
like this.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Later on, I lived in the cave, I went to
spy school, and I bought a horse.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Gary stories were out there, but he had this magical
quality that made anything seem possible. He could get justine
tickets for sold out concerts, appointments with doctors who were
booked solid.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
She idolized her dad, and all my friends knew how
cool he was. I was always talking about my dad.
It's so silly. I have this one memory of when
I was in high school. So I was dreaming, like
from my dad's point of view, that he was driving
over a bridge, like on accident. And I was awakened
from that dream by my dad calling me on my
(05:10):
cell phone at like two in the morning and I
picked it up and he had a dream that I
was dying, and I couldn't wait to tell my friends
because it was just like, we have this cosmic connection,
me and my dad.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
But there are other things about Gary that, looking back
on as an adult, Justine has a hard time reconciling
with the dad she's so adored. For one, they're cosmic connection.
Gary would often tell Justine that the two of them
were different than everyone else, different than her mom, who
divorced Gary when Justine was only three, and different from
(05:44):
her brother Stephen. She and Gary were a gang of two.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
We are smarter, we get it. We were different from them.
And then when I became a mother, I just felt like,
you know, it's kind of inexcusable. I was just able
to zoom out a little bit and see some of
the inappropriateness of things. He is an addict, and sometimes
(06:19):
he would be completely wasted driving us, which was like
scary for me. I remember crying a lot in the backseat.
We would go to restaurants and there were times when
the patrons of the restaurants would call the police because
they were concerned about our welfare and I would be
like making jokes to the waitress to try to like
(06:40):
diffuse the situte. Like he would be really embarrassing and
obviously drunk, and I would say, hey, can we get
the guy some milk? You know, like just a nine
year old trying the smooth things over.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
If the kids needed a babysitter, Gary would find the
neighborhood teenager and pay them in marijuana. Other times he'd
leave the kids to their own devices. Justine and her
brother Stephen would wander over to the Lowe's hardware store
beside their apartment complex and occupy themselves for hours playing
hide and seek among the appliances. Justine says Gary would
(07:11):
often drop her off at elementary school with her hair
unbrushed and a half eaten Big Mac wrapped in tinfoil
for lunch, and when middle school rolled around.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
He would like show up drunk in the cafeteria during
lunchtime to come talk to me in.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Did you at this point did your friends still think
that he was cool?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
What was it that made them feel that way?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
He would bring me money, which was you know cool?
When you're in seventh grade, he would crack a lot
of like inappropriate jokes like he he would talk about
sex like there are absolutely no boundaries in terms of
what he felt was appropriate for kids. He just treated
us like adults.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I'm not sure I'm a good parent. I'm sorry for
everything I've done wrong. I'm sorry for well living the
incredible lifestyle I live.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
At this point in her life, Justine knows her dad
can be manipulative. She knows he's an addict, but she
still wants to believe that's not all he is. A
Part of her holds to that childhood belief that her
father's life truly was the stuff of memoirs. Those stories
feel like her inheritance. Yet at thirty one, she's forced
to ask herself, are those unbelievable stories about robbing banks
(08:29):
and winning Jeopardy so unbelievable because they're simply not to
be believed.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
As I get older and my childhood begins to feel
more and more alarming to me, like I realize that
I have to know what was true, Like I have
to know this is my dad we're talking about, and
if none of it's true, then that's completely insane and
(09:00):
I need to reevaluate everything. You know, if he's telling
these same lies in great detail, over and over, like
he's a fraud and a pathological liar. I just want
to I need to know that I started to discover
(09:25):
little things that he said that weren't so true, Like
there have been so many times when he's told me
that he's dying. I thought that he would never even
see me graduate high school, like I always have thought he.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Was dying after a lifetime of drug use and alcoholism.
Gary is in consistently poor health. It's just not clear
exactly how poor. Since he's been saying that he's dying
for over a decade, the prognosis is murky, like Justine's
fairly certain he does have hepatitis.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Oh, diabetes too, he got diabetes and that you like, Yes,
they had to like remove a toe, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And you've seen you've seen this, uh this missing toe.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yes, I was there in the hospital.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I'm sorry to have to ask that.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I mean, I haven't seen the toe, but I've seen
like the lack of a toe.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I've seen the lack of a toe. Okay, Yes, Gary
stuck to the same stories, often verbatim, for decades. So
at this point Justine doesn't feel like sitting down with
him to re examine, and requestion will yield new results.
She needs a neutral outsider to train an objective eye
onto Gary's stories and finally offer some clarity. And what
(10:38):
and what do you? What do you want me? You
want me to bring my powers of fact checking and
research to bear.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Or yes, you know, listen to the tapes. Maybe try
and pull out a couple of claims that you think
could be verifiable one way or the other. Yeah, start simple.
Did he go to Georgetown?
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Like?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Start there? Yeah, and then just see what we can
verify and what we.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Can't after the break the facts.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Listen, I'm not making this shit up. I don't have to.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
These tapes sometimes are incoherent, and I'm sober, I'm half drunk,
I'm totally drunk. But it's the real daddy.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It's the real meat, I must confess. As I begin
looking into Gary stories, I expect to quickly discover that
all of his stories are lies. I've met plenty of
Gary's in bars, on greyhound buses, and even at a
few public radio conventions, charming liars who lie to self
aggrandize or for no discernible reason at all. But as
(11:53):
I start the process of fact checking disproving Gary unequivocally
turns out to be more difficult than expected. I keep
phoning and emailing Georgetown, but no one gets back to me.
I look through an old Jeopardy archive, but it only
goes back to nineteen eighty five, years after Gary would
have been on the show. And while I do discover
(12:13):
that H. R. Haldeman was an inmate at Lompoke Federal
Penitentiary on the dates Gary said, I can find no
record of a Labor Day prison bridge tournament. Finally, though,
I alight upon one small claim I can weigh in
on with confidence. So I phoned Justine with the news scared.
Does it feel like stuff is getting real?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Is that okay?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Yeah? It's about time something got real.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Now the most underrated man on the history of the world.
Just so you know, a band called Buffalo Springfield has
Neil Young in it. Also Richie Fury, by the way,
who was a friend of mine in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Had Gary been friends with a member of Buffalo Springfield.
I'd gone to Fire's website and filled out a contact
for him that said it was for all inquiries. My inquiry,
I explained, was that I was trying to figure out
whether someone's dad was a pathological liar, and so might
mister Fiura be able to tell me if he remembered
hanging out with a man named Gary in Yellow Springs,
(13:19):
Ohio in the early nineteen seventies. The next day, I
got an email back from Richie Fire's manager David. He
said that Richie left Yellow Springs in nineteen sixty four
and does not recognize the name, so that that came
back negative.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Okay, I'm really happy right now.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Really? Why?
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yeah, I guess it's the clarity. Wow, that's one. I
feel a little bit lighter for some.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Reason, and like, Okay, learning your father is a liar
is never good news, but for just it's better than
the years of not knowing. To misquote the most underrated
band in history. Something's happening here and what it is
is becoming increasingly clear.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
The clouds are opening up a little.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Your dad did not know one of the members of
Buffalo Springfield.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
And so the cloud's part And now I feel lighter.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
It's great Buffalo Springfield is still bringing joy and meaning
to people. Justine mentions another musician story I should look into.
There's a local celebrity blues guitarist named Jean Deear, who
(14:43):
Gary always claimed to have discovered. They were great friends.
Gary said, until a big falling out.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Believe me, Christine, I've heard from so many people that
I'm an asshole for ever putting any money into Jean Dear.
I've sponsored him. I found him, pay for dental bills,
pay for home bills, fight it so much for him.
He just thinks he's God because he can play guitar.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Well, he may be a good person to contact. I'm sure.
I'm sure he's got information and stories.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
I would say as far as discovering me, I'd have
to give him a thumbs up on that.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
This is Jean Dear, and gen Deere says Gary is
telling the truth. Back when Jeane was twenty three years old,
he and his band were playing a small Indianapolis bar
one night when Gary just walked up to him.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
I'm on the stage. He got a fool stick under
his arm, a drink in that hand, and then the
other hand he's handed me for money. He goes, take this,
take this. I'm his first time I re saw him,
said take this. I want to record you guys. I
want to make you famous.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Gary financed and produced Jene's first album, and forty years on,
Gene is still making a living from his music alone,
all thanks to Gary, and Jane says. If there was
any drama in their friendship, it played out on Gary's
side alone.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
I hold it and in very high regard.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I hadn't expected Gary's story about Gene to be true,
and as I continue in my research, more of my
expectations are upended. Hello, Hey, justin Hi, So a couple
orders of business on the docket. I'd finally gotten an
email back from the communications office at Georgetown, confirmed by
(16:37):
our records. Said the email, Gary attended Georgetown in fall
nineteen sixty eight, And yet another surprise. Spend some time
looking into this say It with Flowers bandit. This is
what I was able to find. There was a robber.
I discovered several articles in a small Washington paper called
(16:58):
the Bellingham Herald, which covered the search for a say
It with Flowers bank robber. The robber had come into
a local bank wearing sunglasses, a pea coat, and a
stocking cab covering his hair. He stole eight hundred and
forty eight dollars and was never caught. There doesn't seem
to have been any hypnosis though, and the robber was armed,
which is a significant departure from Gary's telling, But all
(17:21):
the other details line up. The year is right, nineteen
seventy four, and the robber was Gary's age and Gary's height,
and he'd been carrying a bundle of white carnations, just
like Gary always said. Here's another telling detail. Have you
ever known your father to wear a beard?
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Always?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
What color would you describe as beard?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
As being pictures I've seen from like the eighties where
he had a very full, long, disgusting beard. It was
kind of like a reddish brown, but like growing up,
you know, he would keep it closer to the face
so then it.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Was like darker.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Well, according to this article, bank personnel said he had
quote British type reddish colored whiskers with about a five
day growth.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Like for me, this corroborates, like I feel like it
was true.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I mean, look like, is it not possible that he
read about this bandit who has never caught and took
credit for him. Maybe at the time. The reason I
sound skeptical is because I am. The job I've been
handed was to fact check, to allow the facts to
speak for themselves, But over the course of my research
something kept eating at me. I'm going to play something
(18:37):
for you from my first conversation with Justine that initially
I wasn't going to include.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
So this part, if it could please just remain off
the record.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Sure it's like really important, okay.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
But that might like might give you some insight into well.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Originally this wasn't something Justine wanted to make public. She
since reconsidered, so I'm sharing it with her. Permisis. When
she was very young, around seven years old, Justine says
her father told her a secret.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
He was like drunk and crying to me when I
was younger, and he told me this, And he said
to me that if I ever tell anyone that he
would wring my neck in public. When he met my mom,
she was pregnant with my brother, and my brother doesn't
know that he like my brother doesn't know that he
(19:27):
doesn't know who his dad.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Is, that is, Stephen doesn't know that Gary is not
his biological father.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Like according to the public knowledge would be that my
brother and I are siblings from my mom and dad,
that we are their two children. But the truth is only.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I am after his drunken confession. Gary never brought up
Stephen's paternity again, and until Justine mentioned it to me,
neither a. She she was terrified by her dad's threat,
so all the way into adulthood, she never told anyone,
not even her mom.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
And so my mom doesn't know that I know. Nobody
knows that I know. And it's like kind of a
painful thing because I feel like my brother should know.
But I just keep, you know, I try not to
think about it.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And so the secret made a silent home inside her head,
becoming a wedge between her and Stephen. But when Justine
first laid all this out for me, I was incredulous,
you know, given the fact that, like there's a lot
of doubts surrounding the veracity of the things that your
dad has told you. Have you ever questioned whether that
was that was the truth?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
WHOA, No, I never have.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I was thrown by Justine's reaction. If everything her father
had ever told her was suspect, why wasn't this story
about Stephen's paternity suspect too, especially since it seemed to
belie an agenda. I mean, you're saying that he had
all these techniques for like, you know, grouping yar you
two together against the world and everyone. I mean, that
(21:03):
seems to fit in with that.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, that's this is true. So there are a couple
of reasons why I think I never questioned it.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
For one, Stephen is pale with bright red hair. Well
Gary is dark complexion with dark hair. Plus garyot also
revealed a secret about a cousin's paternity, which did turn
out to be true. So from Justine's perspective, in the
secret paternity department, Gary was batting a thousand. But from
my perspective, none of that is definitive. So as I
(21:34):
updated Justine on Buffalo, Springfield and Georgetown and the say
It with Flowers bandit, I continue to obsess over the
story of her brother, Stephen's paternity. You have any further
thoughts about the business with your brother? Gary had saddled
six year old Justine with an albatross of shame and
secrecy that adult Justine still couldn't laid to rest.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
All of these couple decades, it's been like, number one,
do not do that.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
What's work?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
The secret she'd been entrusted with maybe wasn't even true,
So to me, proving it false would relieve a huge burden. Plus,
unlike some of Gary's other stories, there wasn't space for ambiguity.
He either was Stephen's dad or he wasn't, so proving
the truth about Stephen's paternity would inevitably shed light onto
(22:21):
everything else. Stephen's paternity was the master key. I ask
Justine if she's ever considered talking to her mom about it,
to see if the story is true. It's a new
idea for Justine, one that takes time to process. Until now.
(22:42):
She's always assumed she'd keep the secret her whole life,
But I keep nudging her. Have you continued to think about,
like talking with your mother? In February, Justine absolutely did
not want to talk to her mom.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
It's really not my place.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
But in March she was leaning towards maybe talking to
her mom.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
You know, I'm an adult now, so it's not like
I could get in trouble for bringing it up to her.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
In April, though, she was back to not wanting to
talk to her mom.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
I don't want to devastate her unveiling a secret that
she's been trying to keep from me, her whole life,
from everyone.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
But then three months after our first conversation, Justine realizes
there might be a workaround a way to fact check
her father's story about Stephen's paternity without confronting her mother.
In reevaluating her past, A dormant memory is rattled loose
years ago conversation that took place at her mom's house
with her cousin Rihanna.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
She had said something to me about Stephen's real dad.
I think I did block that out. I am really
honestly just now remembering that this happened. I think we
were looking through old photo albums that she had brought over,
Like I think maybe there was a picture of him
in this photo album. She was like, and this is,
(23:58):
you know, Stephen's real dad. Really don't remember many details
about that conversation other than that and I and I
was kind of uncomfortable, and I was like, yeah, yeah,
you know, like, oh, okay, cool, next picture.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
I can ask her about it if you want. Hello, Hey, hey,
it's just doing.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Justine told Rihanna she wanted to ask her something concerning
their family history.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Has to do with Stephen. Do you know what I'm
talking about? I'm bosing what you're talking about. You and
told me, am, okay. So when I was a lot younger,
like seven or eight. My dad told me that he's
(24:56):
not actually Stephen's dad. Correct. Okay, So when you say correct,
what does that mean? I mean that he's not. I
(25:19):
was told to keep my mouth shut, so was I Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (25:25):
So who told you my parents? Okay?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
It seems like it's not just Rihanna who knows the truth.
Justine's entire extended family does too.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Do you remember the Kirbys or you guys? You probably
you guys weren't around them, were you?
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Rianna and Justine are first cousins, but while Rihanna grew
up with a family called the Kirby's, Justine has no
recollection of any Kirbys. Rihanna explains why, and, in keeping
with the way she's been explaining everything so far, she's.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Blunt to my knowledge. What happened is your mom was
with one of them, and he didn't want to further
a relationship with your mom, so when she got pregnant,
she told her he didn't want anything to do with her. WHOA,
and does he know that Stephen exists?
Speaker 5 (26:26):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Well, I've always just felt like it's not my place
to say anything to anyone if it's not you know, yeah,
I think it would devastate Stephen. I do too.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Stephen is known as the sensitive one in the family.
Although he's fifteen months older than Justine, he's always felt
more like a younger brother to her. As a kid,
he was given to outbursts and tears, which made him
an easy target for bullies. Justine remembers leaping to his
defense and shouting down his tormentor. Just like when they
were kids, she still wants to protect her brother. As
(27:05):
the cousins sit in silence, trying to decide what to
do next, Rihanna offers to send some pictures of the Kirbies.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
I think, get them to you now. Okay, you're on
Wi Fi, right, mm hmm okay, hang I just got
the Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, and there he is Stephen's biological father. He has
red hair, a red goatee, and is the spitting image
of Justine's.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Brother that looks like exactly like him. And even in
the one with like that red shirt or whatever, the
orange shirt, that's like a face that he makes. Yes, sorry,
I'm just like staring. Wow. Well, thank you for the
(28:04):
pictures and the info. I mean, I would definitely.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Call that confirmation.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Once Justine hangs up with Rihanna. She and I talk. Justinekay,
how are you doing?
Speaker 4 (28:22):
I'm okay. It's a little painful to look right at
the situation, just like talking about this secret. I feel
a little bit guilty, so do I.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Justine in fact checked Gary's paternity claims, not because she
doubted them, but because I had I'm the one who
pushed this thing forward, but Gary wasn't lying.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
It actually does kind of relieve me to maybe come
to the conclusion that a lot of the stories were
based in truth. Mm hmm, Like it makes me feel like, Okay,
that's my dad.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
He's an alcoholic, Justine says, and a manipulator, but he's
not a liar, or at least not a total liar.
So having arrived at this conclusion, Justine and I decide
to shelve the mission. She feels like the next step
would be to talk to her mom, and she's not
ready to do that yet. About a month later, I
(29:33):
reach out to Justine to see what's new, and it
turns out a lot is new.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
So gosh, this has been so crazy.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
So my brother came over the week before Stephen had
come over to put up some outside lights, and while
he was there, he asked, Hey, so what's going on
with that whole endeavor to fact check dad?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
And Justine panicked, I was not prepared for this question.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I hadn't thought up, like what was I going to
tell him about why we were shelving it? So he
kind of caught me off guard.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
She knew she couldn't say, well, one of the things
we fact checked was your paternity, and since I didn't
want you to know that dad isn't your dad, that
kind of ended things. But instead of just making some excuse,
she was cryptic and vague, almost like she wanted Stephen
to keep digging. There's this one thing she told him
that I realized I wasn't ready to talk about publicly.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
And he said, well, you have to tell me, and
I said, look at me, you need to drop it.
You need to just accept the fact right now that
I'm never ever going to tell you, and he goes, am,
I adopted.
Speaker 7 (30:49):
So then he goes home and he says to my mom, am,
I adopted, and she's like, where is this com what
are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
But then he asked my mom's parents. She's like going
around asking the whole family and I adopted, and then
he comes back to me and he said, just seeing
I think I want to do like a twenty three
year or something. Everyone's being weird when I asked this question.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Then, early one morning, while feeding her son oatmeal, Justine
received a call from her mother, who wanted to know
why Stephen was asking all these questions.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
So I just said to her, like, do you want
to talk about this now? And she paused for a
long time, and she goes, I guess so, And I said,
I've known the big secret since I was six, And
then we just started talking about it.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
They decided to meet for lunch, where they continued to
talk about it for two hours.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Even the simplest of interactions with her before this, there
was a level of like falsehood. I guess. I just
really felt like I was able to be myself for
the first time.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Together, Justine and her mom, Lynn went through the whole story.
Lynn explained how as a teenager, she hooked up with
a childhood crush, a boy named Brian Kirby that she'd
been in love with since she was thirteen. While Lynn
had a curfew in rules set by her parents, Brian
was a free spirit who could stay out all night.
Their dates were basically impromptu makeout sessions and Lynn's backyard
(32:33):
treehouse where she was out of view from her parents,
And then at seventeen, she got pregnant. Brian ignored her calls.
Then Gary appeared. Lynn was working at her parents' gas station,
visibly pregnant when one day Gary drove up. The two
of them started flirting, and a few months later Gary proposed.
(32:53):
He promised Lynn that he would raise the baby as
his own. Lynn thinks he wanted to be a father
even more than he wanted her, so when they eventually
got divorced, Gary panicked that he might lose the kids.
He threatened Lynn, telling her he'd ever killed if she
ever revealed the truth about Stephen. Lynn says Gary knew
enough shady people to make it happen. For Lynn, that
(33:15):
threat was enough to keep her from ever telling a soul.
She was just as afraid of Gary as Justine was.
Lynn is always believed that one day she would talk
to Stephen about it. She just needed to wait until
Gary was dead so she'd be safe. But with Stephen
asking so many questions, Justine doesn't think they can afford
to wait. So what began as a need for Justine
(33:38):
to know the truth of who her father really is
has become a need for her brother to know the
truth of who his father really isn't. Justine convinces her
mother that, despite their fear, they owe it to Stephen,
and together they devise a plan and set a date.
And while they know telling Stephen the truth will have consequences,
what they don't know yet is just how big those
(34:00):
consequences will be.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Okay, let's end this and go on to the next side.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
On next week's Heavyweight Side B. This episode of Heavyweight
(34:28):
was produced by Senior producer Khalila Holt, along with Stevie Lane,
Mohemy mcgawker, and me Jonathan Goldstein. Special thanks to Emily Condon,
Alex Bloomberg, Sharon Mashihi, Connie Walker, and Mary Cloude. Bobby
Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
John K. Sampson, Ben Aliman, and Bobby Lord. Additional music
credits can be found on our website Gimbletmedia dot com
(34:51):
slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The weaker Thans
courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight
or email us at heavyweight at give fletmedia dot com.
We'll be back next week with Part two and a
special message from my friend Jackie. Jackie, if you're listening,
please pick up the phone next week
Hello, Mary Cloude.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
But Jackie's not answering the phone, so you're college.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
That's why I was phoning. I know this sounds totally paranoid,
but do you think has Jackie been avoiding my calls?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
She's avoiding your calls?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Why?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
She has life and children and maybe she wants to
spend a few minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, she gives her children.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
I'm supposed to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
You don't think this is like some kind of cry
for help that she's kind of like isolating and everything. Yeah, well,
I just had a couple questions that I was going
to ask Jackie, but maybe since you guys are such
good friends, maybe you can answer them.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, it's literally four o three I need to leave,
So this is okay.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I was just going through my bar mitzvah rs vps
and I noticed that Jackie did not attend.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Do you know why did you read your barmst phone
the same Saturday as a very popular kid and everyone
went to his yes steadiers Eric Leidenheim.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Where she was?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, I guess at least she was at Temple from
Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode.
Justine right after the break, This is me, this is
(01:39):
your daddy.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Okay, I love you more than anything.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Okay, You're the.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Greatest thing, says Slice Bread. You're the greatest thing since
can beer.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
In two thousand and seven, Gary recorded himself onto a
series of dictaphone cassettes, which he gave to his daughter Justine.
Ever since Justine was a kid, he's worked as a
mattress salesman. But he'd always tell Justine's stories about the
wildlife he once led.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
And I kept saying to him, like, you need to
write a memoir, Like you can't just end your life
as a mattress salesman.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Gary said there was no way he could write a memoir.
He'd get too caught up in every little detail, and
titles can be such a hassle. What would he even
name it?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
And he goes, but I'll compromise. What if I'd just
tell my life story into these tapes and you can
have them.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Gary's life, as he tells it, is one full of heroism, debauchery,
and brushes with fame.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
He got into Georgetown from high school.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
My room was the same room that President Bill Clinton
had when he was a freshman.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
But then he got there and realized it was all bullshit,
dropped out.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Of Georktown after getting straight a's the first semester there, was.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Bored, so he transferred to Antioch.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
At Antioch in nineteen sixty nine, Gary fell in with
a revolutionary crowd and began protesting Vietnam in a revolutionary way.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Robbing banks and giving the money to anti war causes,
and got in legal trouble because of that stuff. I
mean seven years in the federal penitentiary. He says.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I'm going to give you the actual story of just
say it with flowers, banded bank rapper. The only reason
why I called that because the newspapers called.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Gary says, sure he was a bank robber, but he
never used a gun. Instead, he'd walk into the bank
with just a bouquet of flowers and use hypnosis on
the teller to get what he wanted, like.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Using his powers of persuasion, which supposedly he learned on
an ashram.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Gary says he broke out of prison, auditioned for the
game show Jeopardy, got on, won the game, and then
got arrested. On the flight back home.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I went seventeen thousand dollars, so I kicked ass and
I want to fucking at the La fucking airport and
they fucking drive me off the plane.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Once he was back in prison, Gary says he won
a prison bridge tournament with his partner H. R. Haldeman.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Was HR. Haldeman, who was the chief of staff of
the Nixon Weisshause, the second most powerful man of his country.
Labor Day bridge tournament in September of nineteen seventy six
at Lompoke Federal Penitentiary.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
The tapes are filled with hour after hour of stories
like this.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Later on, I lived in the cave, I went to
spy school, and I bought a horse.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Gary stories were out there, but he had this magical
quality that made anything seem possible. He could get justine
tickets for sold out concerts, appointments with doctors who were
booked solid.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
She idolized her dad, and all my friends knew how
cool he was. I was always talking about my dad.
It's so silly. I have this one memory of when
I was in high school. So I was dreaming, like
from my dad's point of view, that he was driving
over a bridge, like on accident. And I was awakened
from that dream by my dad calling me on my
(05:10):
cell phone at like two in the morning and I
picked it up and he had a dream that I
was dying, and I couldn't wait to tell my friends
because it was just like, we have this cosmic connection,
me and my dad.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
But there are other things about Gary that, looking back
on as an adult, Justine has a hard time reconciling
with the dad she's so adored. For one, they're cosmic connection.
Gary would often tell Justine that the two of them
were different than everyone else, different than her mom, who
divorced Gary when Justine was only three, and different from
(05:44):
her brother Stephen. She and Gary were a gang of two.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
We are smarter, we get it. We were different from them.
And then when I became a mother, I just felt like,
you know, it's kind of inexcusable. I was just able
to zoom out a little bit and see some of
the inappropriateness of things. He is an addict, and sometimes
(06:19):
he would be completely wasted driving us, which was like
scary for me. I remember crying a lot in the backseat.
We would go to restaurants and there were times when
the patrons of the restaurants would call the police because
they were concerned about our welfare and I would be
like making jokes to the waitress to try to like
(06:40):
diffuse the situte. Like he would be really embarrassing and
obviously drunk, and I would say, hey, can we get
the guy some milk? You know, like just a nine
year old trying the smooth things over.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
If the kids needed a babysitter, Gary would find the
neighborhood teenager and pay them in marijuana. Other times he'd
leave the kids to their own devices. Justine and her
brother Stephen would wander over to the Lowe's hardware store
beside their apartment complex and occupy themselves for hours playing
hide and seek among the appliances. Justine says Gary would
(07:11):
often drop her off at elementary school with her hair
unbrushed and a half eaten Big Mac wrapped in tinfoil
for lunch, and when middle school rolled around.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
He would like show up drunk in the cafeteria during
lunchtime to come talk to me in.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Did you at this point did your friends still think
that he was cool?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
What was it that made them feel that way?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
He would bring me money, which was you know cool?
When you're in seventh grade, he would crack a lot
of like inappropriate jokes like he he would talk about
sex like there are absolutely no boundaries in terms of
what he felt was appropriate for kids. He just treated
us like adults.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I'm not sure I'm a good parent. I'm sorry for
everything I've done wrong. I'm sorry for well living the
incredible lifestyle I live.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
At this point in her life, Justine knows her dad
can be manipulative. She knows he's an addict, but she
still wants to believe that's not all he is. A
Part of her holds to that childhood belief that her
father's life truly was the stuff of memoirs. Those stories
feel like her inheritance. Yet at thirty one, she's forced
to ask herself, are those unbelievable stories about robbing banks
(08:29):
and winning Jeopardy so unbelievable because they're simply not to
be believed.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
As I get older and my childhood begins to feel
more and more alarming to me, like I realize that
I have to know what was true, Like I have
to know this is my dad we're talking about, and
if none of it's true, then that's completely insane and
(09:00):
I need to reevaluate everything. You know, if he's telling
these same lies in great detail, over and over, like
he's a fraud and a pathological liar. I just want
to I need to know that I started to discover
(09:25):
little things that he said that weren't so true, Like
there have been so many times when he's told me
that he's dying. I thought that he would never even
see me graduate high school, like I always have thought he.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Was dying after a lifetime of drug use and alcoholism.
Gary is in consistently poor health. It's just not clear
exactly how poor. Since he's been saying that he's dying
for over a decade, the prognosis is murky, like Justine's
fairly certain he does have hepatitis.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Oh, diabetes too, he got diabetes and that you like, Yes,
they had to like remove a toe, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And you've seen you've seen this, uh this missing toe.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yes, I was there in the hospital.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I'm sorry to have to ask that.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I mean, I haven't seen the toe, but I've seen
like the lack of a toe.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I've seen the lack of a toe. Okay, Yes, Gary
stuck to the same stories, often verbatim, for decades. So
at this point Justine doesn't feel like sitting down with
him to re examine, and requestion will yield new results.
She needs a neutral outsider to train an objective eye
onto Gary's stories and finally offer some clarity. And what
(10:38):
and what do you? What do you want me? You
want me to bring my powers of fact checking and
research to bear.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Or yes, you know, listen to the tapes. Maybe try
and pull out a couple of claims that you think
could be verifiable one way or the other. Yeah, start simple.
Did he go to Georgetown?
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Like?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Start there? Yeah, and then just see what we can
verify and what we.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Can't after the break the facts.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Listen, I'm not making this shit up. I don't have to.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
These tapes sometimes are incoherent, and I'm sober, I'm half drunk,
I'm totally drunk. But it's the real daddy.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It's the real meat, I must confess. As I begin
looking into Gary stories, I expect to quickly discover that
all of his stories are lies. I've met plenty of
Gary's in bars, on greyhound buses, and even at a
few public radio conventions, charming liars who lie to self
aggrandize or for no discernible reason at all. But as
(11:53):
I start the process of fact checking disproving Gary unequivocally
turns out to be more difficult than expected. I keep
phoning and emailing Georgetown, but no one gets back to me.
I look through an old Jeopardy archive, but it only
goes back to nineteen eighty five, years after Gary would
have been on the show. And while I do discover
(12:13):
that H. R. Haldeman was an inmate at Lompoke Federal
Penitentiary on the dates Gary said, I can find no
record of a Labor Day prison bridge tournament. Finally, though,
I alight upon one small claim I can weigh in
on with confidence. So I phoned Justine with the news scared.
Does it feel like stuff is getting real?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Is that okay?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Yeah? It's about time something got real.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Now the most underrated man on the history of the world.
Just so you know, a band called Buffalo Springfield has
Neil Young in it. Also Richie Fury, by the way,
who was a friend of mine in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Had Gary been friends with a member of Buffalo Springfield.
I'd gone to Fire's website and filled out a contact
for him that said it was for all inquiries. My inquiry,
I explained, was that I was trying to figure out
whether someone's dad was a pathological liar, and so might
mister Fiura be able to tell me if he remembered
hanging out with a man named Gary in Yellow Springs,
(13:19):
Ohio in the early nineteen seventies. The next day, I
got an email back from Richie Fire's manager David. He
said that Richie left Yellow Springs in nineteen sixty four
and does not recognize the name, so that that came
back negative.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Okay, I'm really happy right now.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Really? Why?
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yeah, I guess it's the clarity. Wow, that's one. I
feel a little bit lighter for some.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Reason, and like, Okay, learning your father is a liar
is never good news, but for just it's better than
the years of not knowing. To misquote the most underrated
band in history. Something's happening here and what it is
is becoming increasingly clear.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
The clouds are opening up a little.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Your dad did not know one of the members of
Buffalo Springfield.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
And so the cloud's part And now I feel lighter.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
It's great Buffalo Springfield is still bringing joy and meaning
to people. Justine mentions another musician story I should look into.
There's a local celebrity blues guitarist named Jean Deear, who
(14:43):
Gary always claimed to have discovered. They were great friends.
Gary said, until a big falling out.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Believe me, Christine, I've heard from so many people that
I'm an asshole for ever putting any money into Jean Dear.
I've sponsored him. I found him, pay for dental bills,
pay for home bills, fight it so much for him.
He just thinks he's God because he can play guitar.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Well, he may be a good person to contact. I'm sure.
I'm sure he's got information and stories.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
I would say as far as discovering me, I'd have
to give him a thumbs up on that.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
This is Jean Dear, and gen Deere says Gary is
telling the truth. Back when Jeane was twenty three years old,
he and his band were playing a small Indianapolis bar
one night when Gary just walked up to him.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
I'm on the stage. He got a fool stick under
his arm, a drink in that hand, and then the
other hand he's handed me for money. He goes, take this,
take this. I'm his first time I re saw him,
said take this. I want to record you guys. I
want to make you famous.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Gary financed and produced Jene's first album, and forty years on,
Gene is still making a living from his music alone,
all thanks to Gary, and Jane says. If there was
any drama in their friendship, it played out on Gary's
side alone.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
I hold it and in very high regard.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I hadn't expected Gary's story about Gene to be true,
and as I continue in my research, more of my
expectations are upended. Hello, Hey, justin Hi, So a couple
orders of business on the docket. I'd finally gotten an
email back from the communications office at Georgetown, confirmed by
(16:37):
our records. Said the email, Gary attended Georgetown in fall
nineteen sixty eight, And yet another surprise. Spend some time
looking into this say It with Flowers bandit. This is
what I was able to find. There was a robber.
I discovered several articles in a small Washington paper called
(16:58):
the Bellingham Herald, which covered the search for a say
It with Flowers bank robber. The robber had come into
a local bank wearing sunglasses, a pea coat, and a
stocking cab covering his hair. He stole eight hundred and
forty eight dollars and was never caught. There doesn't seem
to have been any hypnosis though, and the robber was armed,
which is a significant departure from Gary's telling, But all
(17:21):
the other details line up. The year is right, nineteen
seventy four, and the robber was Gary's age and Gary's height,
and he'd been carrying a bundle of white carnations, just
like Gary always said. Here's another telling detail. Have you
ever known your father to wear a beard?
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Always?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
What color would you describe as beard?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
As being pictures I've seen from like the eighties where
he had a very full, long, disgusting beard. It was
kind of like a reddish brown, but like growing up,
you know, he would keep it closer to the face
so then it.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Was like darker.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Well, according to this article, bank personnel said he had
quote British type reddish colored whiskers with about a five
day growth.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Like for me, this corroborates, like I feel like it
was true.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I mean, look like, is it not possible that he
read about this bandit who has never caught and took
credit for him. Maybe at the time. The reason I
sound skeptical is because I am. The job I've been
handed was to fact check, to allow the facts to
speak for themselves, But over the course of my research
something kept eating at me. I'm going to play something
(18:37):
for you from my first conversation with Justine that initially
I wasn't going to include.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
So this part, if it could please just remain off
the record.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Sure it's like really important, okay.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
But that might like might give you some insight into well.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Originally this wasn't something Justine wanted to make public. She
since reconsidered, so I'm sharing it with her. Permisis. When
she was very young, around seven years old, Justine says
her father told her a secret.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
He was like drunk and crying to me when I
was younger, and he told me this, And he said
to me that if I ever tell anyone that he
would wring my neck in public. When he met my mom,
she was pregnant with my brother, and my brother doesn't
know that he like my brother doesn't know that he
(19:27):
doesn't know who his dad.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Is, that is, Stephen doesn't know that Gary is not
his biological father.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Like according to the public knowledge would be that my
brother and I are siblings from my mom and dad,
that we are their two children. But the truth is only.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I am after his drunken confession. Gary never brought up
Stephen's paternity again, and until Justine mentioned it to me,
neither a. She she was terrified by her dad's threat,
so all the way into adulthood, she never told anyone,
not even her mom.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
And so my mom doesn't know that I know. Nobody
knows that I know. And it's like kind of a
painful thing because I feel like my brother should know.
But I just keep, you know, I try not to
think about it.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And so the secret made a silent home inside her head,
becoming a wedge between her and Stephen. But when Justine
first laid all this out for me, I was incredulous,
you know, given the fact that, like there's a lot
of doubts surrounding the veracity of the things that your
dad has told you. Have you ever questioned whether that
was that was the truth?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
WHOA, No, I never have.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I was thrown by Justine's reaction. If everything her father
had ever told her was suspect, why wasn't this story
about Stephen's paternity suspect too, especially since it seemed to
belie an agenda. I mean, you're saying that he had
all these techniques for like, you know, grouping yar you
two together against the world and everyone. I mean, that
(21:03):
seems to fit in with that.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, that's this is true. So there are a couple
of reasons why I think I never questioned it.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
For one, Stephen is pale with bright red hair. Well
Gary is dark complexion with dark hair. Plus garyot also
revealed a secret about a cousin's paternity, which did turn
out to be true. So from Justine's perspective, in the
secret paternity department, Gary was batting a thousand. But from
my perspective, none of that is definitive. So as I
(21:34):
updated Justine on Buffalo, Springfield and Georgetown and the say
It with Flowers bandit, I continue to obsess over the
story of her brother, Stephen's paternity. You have any further
thoughts about the business with your brother? Gary had saddled
six year old Justine with an albatross of shame and
secrecy that adult Justine still couldn't laid to rest.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
All of these couple decades, it's been like, number one,
do not do that.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
What's work?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
The secret she'd been entrusted with maybe wasn't even true,
So to me, proving it false would relieve a huge burden. Plus,
unlike some of Gary's other stories, there wasn't space for ambiguity.
He either was Stephen's dad or he wasn't, so proving
the truth about Stephen's paternity would inevitably shed light onto
(22:21):
everything else. Stephen's paternity was the master key. I ask
Justine if she's ever considered talking to her mom about it,
to see if the story is true. It's a new
idea for Justine, one that takes time to process. Until now.
(22:42):
She's always assumed she'd keep the secret her whole life,
But I keep nudging her. Have you continued to think about,
like talking with your mother? In February, Justine absolutely did
not want to talk to her mom.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
It's really not my place.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
But in March she was leaning towards maybe talking to
her mom.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
You know, I'm an adult now, so it's not like
I could get in trouble for bringing it up to her.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
In April, though, she was back to not wanting to
talk to her mom.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
I don't want to devastate her unveiling a secret that
she's been trying to keep from me, her whole life,
from everyone.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
But then three months after our first conversation, Justine realizes
there might be a workaround a way to fact check
her father's story about Stephen's paternity without confronting her mother.
In reevaluating her past, A dormant memory is rattled loose
years ago conversation that took place at her mom's house
with her cousin Rihanna.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
She had said something to me about Stephen's real dad.
I think I did block that out. I am really
honestly just now remembering that this happened. I think we
were looking through old photo albums that she had brought over,
Like I think maybe there was a picture of him
in this photo album. She was like, and this is,
(23:58):
you know, Stephen's real dad. Really don't remember many details
about that conversation other than that and I and I
was kind of uncomfortable, and I was like, yeah, yeah,
you know, like, oh, okay, cool, next picture.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
I can ask her about it if you want. Hello, Hey, hey,
it's just doing.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Justine told Rihanna she wanted to ask her something concerning
their family history.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Has to do with Stephen. Do you know what I'm
talking about? I'm bosing what you're talking about. You and
told me, am, okay. So when I was a lot younger,
like seven or eight. My dad told me that he's
(24:56):
not actually Stephen's dad. Correct. Okay, So when you say correct,
what does that mean? I mean that he's not. I
(25:19):
was told to keep my mouth shut, so was I Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (25:25):
So who told you my parents? Okay?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
It seems like it's not just Rihanna who knows the truth.
Justine's entire extended family does too.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Do you remember the Kirbys or you guys? You probably
you guys weren't around them, were you?
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Rianna and Justine are first cousins, but while Rihanna grew
up with a family called the Kirby's, Justine has no
recollection of any Kirbys. Rihanna explains why, and, in keeping
with the way she's been explaining everything so far, she's.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Blunt to my knowledge. What happened is your mom was
with one of them, and he didn't want to further
a relationship with your mom, so when she got pregnant,
she told her he didn't want anything to do with her. WHOA,
and does he know that Stephen exists?
Speaker 5 (26:26):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Well, I've always just felt like it's not my place
to say anything to anyone if it's not you know, yeah,
I think it would devastate Stephen. I do too.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Stephen is known as the sensitive one in the family.
Although he's fifteen months older than Justine, he's always felt
more like a younger brother to her. As a kid,
he was given to outbursts and tears, which made him
an easy target for bullies. Justine remembers leaping to his
defense and shouting down his tormentor. Just like when they
were kids, she still wants to protect her brother. As
(27:05):
the cousins sit in silence, trying to decide what to
do next, Rihanna offers to send some pictures of the Kirbies.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
I think, get them to you now. Okay, you're on
Wi Fi, right, mm hmm okay, hang I just got
the Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, and there he is Stephen's biological father. He has
red hair, a red goatee, and is the spitting image
of Justine's.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Brother that looks like exactly like him. And even in
the one with like that red shirt or whatever, the
orange shirt, that's like a face that he makes. Yes, sorry,
I'm just like staring. Wow. Well, thank you for the
(28:04):
pictures and the info. I mean, I would definitely.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Call that confirmation.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Once Justine hangs up with Rihanna. She and I talk. Justinekay,
how are you doing?
Speaker 4 (28:22):
I'm okay. It's a little painful to look right at
the situation, just like talking about this secret. I feel
a little bit guilty, so do I.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Justine in fact checked Gary's paternity claims, not because she
doubted them, but because I had I'm the one who
pushed this thing forward, but Gary wasn't lying.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
It actually does kind of relieve me to maybe come
to the conclusion that a lot of the stories were
based in truth. Mm hmm, Like it makes me feel like, Okay,
that's my dad.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
He's an alcoholic, Justine says, and a manipulator, but he's
not a liar, or at least not a total liar.
So having arrived at this conclusion, Justine and I decide
to shelve the mission. She feels like the next step
would be to talk to her mom, and she's not
ready to do that yet. About a month later, I
(29:33):
reach out to Justine to see what's new, and it
turns out a lot is new.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
So gosh, this has been so crazy.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
So my brother came over the week before Stephen had
come over to put up some outside lights, and while
he was there, he asked, Hey, so what's going on
with that whole endeavor to fact check dad?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
And Justine panicked, I was not prepared for this question.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I hadn't thought up, like what was I going to
tell him about why we were shelving it? So he
kind of caught me off guard.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
She knew she couldn't say, well, one of the things
we fact checked was your paternity, and since I didn't
want you to know that dad isn't your dad, that
kind of ended things. But instead of just making some excuse,
she was cryptic and vague, almost like she wanted Stephen
to keep digging. There's this one thing she told him
that I realized I wasn't ready to talk about publicly.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
And he said, well, you have to tell me, and
I said, look at me, you need to drop it.
You need to just accept the fact right now that
I'm never ever going to tell you, and he goes, am,
I adopted.
Speaker 7 (30:49):
So then he goes home and he says to my mom, am,
I adopted, and she's like, where is this com what
are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
But then he asked my mom's parents. She's like going
around asking the whole family and I adopted, and then
he comes back to me and he said, just seeing
I think I want to do like a twenty three
year or something. Everyone's being weird when I asked this question.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Then, early one morning, while feeding her son oatmeal, Justine
received a call from her mother, who wanted to know
why Stephen was asking all these questions.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
So I just said to her, like, do you want
to talk about this now? And she paused for a
long time, and she goes, I guess so, And I said,
I've known the big secret since I was six, And
then we just started talking about it.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
They decided to meet for lunch, where they continued to
talk about it for two hours.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Even the simplest of interactions with her before this, there
was a level of like falsehood. I guess. I just
really felt like I was able to be myself for
the first time.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Together, Justine and her mom, Lynn went through the whole story.
Lynn explained how as a teenager, she hooked up with
a childhood crush, a boy named Brian Kirby that she'd
been in love with since she was thirteen. While Lynn
had a curfew in rules set by her parents, Brian
was a free spirit who could stay out all night.
Their dates were basically impromptu makeout sessions and Lynn's backyard
(32:33):
treehouse where she was out of view from her parents,
And then at seventeen, she got pregnant. Brian ignored her calls.
Then Gary appeared. Lynn was working at her parents' gas station,
visibly pregnant when one day Gary drove up. The two
of them started flirting, and a few months later Gary proposed.
(32:53):
He promised Lynn that he would raise the baby as
his own. Lynn thinks he wanted to be a father
even more than he wanted her, so when they eventually
got divorced, Gary panicked that he might lose the kids.
He threatened Lynn, telling her he'd ever killed if she
ever revealed the truth about Stephen. Lynn says Gary knew
enough shady people to make it happen. For Lynn, that
(33:15):
threat was enough to keep her from ever telling a soul.
She was just as afraid of Gary as Justine was.
Lynn is always believed that one day she would talk
to Stephen about it. She just needed to wait until
Gary was dead so she'd be safe. But with Stephen
asking so many questions, Justine doesn't think they can afford
to wait. So what began as a need for Justine
(33:38):
to know the truth of who her father really is
has become a need for her brother to know the
truth of who his father really isn't. Justine convinces her
mother that, despite their fear, they owe it to Stephen,
and together they devise a plan and set a date.
And while they know telling Stephen the truth will have consequences,
what they don't know yet is just how big those
(34:00):
consequences will be.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Okay, let's end this and go on to the next side.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
On next week's Heavyweight Side B. This episode of Heavyweight
(34:28):
was produced by Senior producer Khalila Holt, along with Stevie Lane,
Mohemy mcgawker, and me Jonathan Goldstein. Special thanks to Emily Condon,
Alex Bloomberg, Sharon Mashihi, Connie Walker, and Mary Cloude. Bobby
Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
John K. Sampson, Ben Aliman, and Bobby Lord. Additional music
credits can be found on our website Gimbletmedia dot com
(34:51):
slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The weaker Thans
courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight
or email us at heavyweight at give fletmedia dot com.
We'll be back next week with Part two and a
special message from my friend Jackie. Jackie, if you're listening,
please pick up the phone next week
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