Investigating the election fraud scheme

When Sarah was a kid, the number of movie stars who came to stay at their house was exactly one. And it was kind of a disaster. Redford ended up their house because he had heard about a book that Sarah's stepfather was writing. about Leonard Peltier of the American Indian Movement. It was still just a manuscript, and the stepfather didn't want to send copies of it around, so he told Redford that the only way that Redford could read it is if he would do it at their house, in Long Island. Redford agreed. Sarah says the atmosphere in the house when he arrived was completely different from any other time in her childhood. I remember mostly my mother like consciously trying to be very charming and being very charming and and uh talking to him a lot and asking all sorts of questions and laughing a lot at what he said and kind of flitting about the house in a way that I hadn't remembered her doing before. Robert Breford told stories even the simplest story about his trip to the house. Her parents nodded and smiled along with an enthusiasm that the stories did not necessarily seem to merit to 11 year old Sarah. I was really, um I was s sullen and I think I was making a really concerted effort not to be impressed. You know, now, twenty years later, um I think I was jealous. that he was suddenly the star of the house. Whereas I was used to being the star of the house. I was the youngest kid and, you know, I was sort of the one who amused my parents and, you know, here was this stranger coming in who had, you know, usurped my role. I remember when he came in, poor guy, the first night, um My mother made this special dinner and we ate we ate in the the kitchen. We had this big um wooden table and it was definitely fancier than usual or like one more coarse than we usually had. Maybe we had an appetizer or something which we never normally had. And she had put down these um placemats that were we only brought them out on special occasions. You know, it all looked really festive and nice and um and so he sits down and we start eating and and Robert Redford says Oh, do you always do you always eat like this? This is so nice. And I said, No and my mother at the same time said, Yes, we do It was bad and then another thing happened where the the seats at that table were these benches. So I was sitting on the same bench as Robert Redford and I started rocking. You know, kind of rocking. Knowing like partly unconsciously because I kind of always did that, but also just knowing I'm sure that it would be highly irritating to whoever's sitting on the bench with you. So there poor Robert Redford was like rocking back and forth, um, trying to eat his dinner, and my mother said, you know, Sarah stop Stop rocking, you know, and um sort of scolding me in front of Robert Redford. Next day a friend of Sarah's from down the street asked if she could come over and meet the house guest. So she comes over and um she's you know do she reacts the way you are supposed to react. Like she's just, you know, her eyes are open wide and she's just smiling and talking, you know, and saying I can I'm such a fan and I love your movies and can I have your autograph? And he's delighted, you know, finally some someone is showing the proper protocol. And he's like, sure, yeah, hey. And my mother's standing there smiling, you know, and how sweet and and she says, Sarah, would you also like his autograph? And I said, No. And sh that was like the crowning blow. Well it's it's it's it's like it's like somehow like if you picture your family as like this little solar system in and of itself, like with its own set of normal gravitational fields and all that. suddenly like like I I don't even know what, like another star, another planet entered in. Right. And it completely shifted everyone's orbit away from the way it normally is. Right. And I I I couldn't handle it. All my behavior I think was aimed at trying to get it back to the way I had wanted it or the way I was comfortable. 'Cause in the old solar system pretty much you were the son. Like you were the center. Right. And he was so clearly like a bigger son. You know, he was he was literally a star you know, he was a star. Today on our radio program, stories of what happens when an outsider arrives and changes everything. For better and worse. From WB EC Chicago, it's this American Life, I'm Aira Glass. Our program today in three acts. Act one. Psychic Buddha, Keska say The story of what happens to an average American family when mom, who is completely rational and charming and funny, starts to spend every day in direct contact with an ancient Buddhist monk who no one else can see, last walked the earth hundreds of years ago. Back to. Jackson 2. The story of a politician whose life is shadowed by two different men, both of whom share his same name. Act 3. Mr. Fun. Jonathan Goldstein and Heather O'Neal tell the true story of what happened when he first arrived in her life? and why her little daughter explained to him that he is the daughter's 19th favorite person in the world. like good or eyes. Stay with us. This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's show is a rerun. Act one. Psychic Buddha Kesk. Quick note before we start this next story. One of the people in the story, our reporter's mother, is completely deaf. She woke up one morning when she was twenty nine and her hearing was gone. And so to communicate with her, the family uses sign language and finger spelling. She can read lips if you talk very, very slow. It sounds like this. Can I have twenty bucks? Can you have twenty bucks? No. This is a story where another man shows up in a family. And the other man is an ancient spirit named Eren. Mom started channeling Erin years ago. Erin has been through lifetime after lifetime going back a couple thousand years. He instructs her in Buddhism and in meditation. Her son, Davy Rothbart, put together this story on what it is meant to have Erin around all these years in their family. But also when he went to interview everybody in the house that he grew up in, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He realized that they had never sat down as a family and actually discussed whether they thought was real. Whether they actually believed in Aaron. They got a chance to do that too. Here's Davy. I was twelve when Aaron showed up. My older brother Mike was fifteen. My little brother Peter was seven. I first found out about Erin by reading through my mom's journals when she wasn't home. What some people call dirty snooping, I call being curious. And I was a curious kid. I remember reading about Aaron this, air and that. And all these long incredible conversations my mom and Aaron had had. For a while I thought was some dude my mom was sneaking around with. Then one morning in the dining room she explained to me and my brothers about Erin. She's always meditated every morning and and I guess this one time in winter, while she was sitting quietly in the living room, she felt the presence of someone. Then she saw him, a biblical looking figure with blue eyes and a long white beard. At first my mom thought she was hallucinating. She asked the guy who he was. He said his name was Aaron. He's never gone away. I feel his presence there constantly. But it's like sitting in a room with somebody and you're reading a book and they're reading a book and you don't always have to talk to each other. You just feel the other person's presence and if it's somebody you really love, there's a comfort in that presence. Is he your best friend, kinda? Mm it's not that kind of relationship. Yes, he's a friend, a very dear friend, but it's more a revered teacher than a pal. Do you and Dad still knock boots? Should we still be making Make em with the love. What does Airwind do? What does Airwind do when my glove? I've noticed he averts his games. It's the one time that he's really not around. Although if my callboard him he wouldn't be but I think feel his present energy. When Eren showed up, one of the first things he did was dictate to my mom a piece of 2500 year old Buddhist scripture called the Satipattana Sutra. My mom says she'd never heard of it before. Erin kept teaching her more scriptures and coached her in meditation in the Buddhist traditions. After a while, a couple of my mom's friends wanted in on the teachings, so she started showing how to meditate and began channel Erin for them. It was strange, my mom and Erin became these gurus, and more and more folks started coming by. Every night of the week we'd have a crowd of new age types in the kitchen, grazing on vegan cookies and foraging through our herbal teas. My mom and Aaron would lead meditation sessions out in our converted garage. Gently bring your attention to the touch of the rip. Wherever my mom was, so was Aaron. And if you're wondering what it was like growing up in a house like this, the only way I can describe it is it felt completely normal. Erin was just another member of the family. We'd be at breakfast or driving in the car, and my mom would tell us things that Aaron was saying to her. It was like he was an old college friend of hers who we all knew well. He had a weakness for puns and dumb jokes. He was always marveling at new things that hadn't existed in his last lifetime. I remember how intrigued he was one time by the sight of a Ferris wheel at a school carnival. When kids from school came over, me and my brothers always explained about our mom and Erin. But we never really felt embarrassed or weird about it. This was Ann Arbor, the Berkeley of the Midwest. Our friends' parents were ex hippies and liberal professors. Nobody thought channeling was that strange. Not long ago, on a winter weekend, my brother Mike was in town visiting and we went for a walk to the elementary school playground near the house. I wish I could remember exactly the point where I started to believe that that it really was channeling and not just Mom going slightly psycho. You know what I remember? I just remembered There was that Shirley McClean movie on TV. I don't know. I don't know. I remember. But it was just the worst sappy silly stuff ever. My mom loved it and wanted us all to watch it. Yeah, she was like eating it up. And it was soon after that she like met Erin. And I was like, that's convenient. Mike is thirty years old and married now. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He's a professional photographer, and he's into the outdoors. Out of me and my brothers, he's probably the most spiritual. When Mike started getting into Aaron and his teachings, I wasn't sure what to make of it. You and me and Peter used to all like make fun of the Like mom students and stuff like that. Well mostly mostly you and Peter used to make fun of them. Okay, yeah, me and Peter used to make fun of these weird people that come over the house. But sometimes like you would try to like sort of be down with me and Peter. And you would like try to make fun of them too. But then you were up there. Like doing all the voodoo stuff along with the rest of them. I used to feel torn that I didn't wanna be Be accepted by you and Peter. But I was really interested in what they were what they were doing. Of everyone in the family, Mike has turned to Aaron the most. In his freshman year of college, Mike basically had a breakdown. What happened was he started dealing with the fact that he'd got molested by a neighbor when he was little. The emotional weight of that started tearing him apart. You couldn't function. At first I felt felt like I was sinking. Like like in a pit. Just sinking further and further, getting depressed. Not doing much of anything. And then I don't know w I just basically eventually just got so bad that I just called mom. and asked her for help and She said, Well basically she said, Well I'll put Erin on the line. Right. What can what can Aaron say that's that uh like I mean like after what she went some dude like touched you improperly and I mean that seems pretty f What can Aaron say to make that better or go away there? You can't like take it back. It can't I if I wish Aaron was more like the punitive type of spirit. And like if you said some dude like improperly touched me, and he would he would No, he would just like put like a bolt of lightning and like You know, we read about it in the paper the next day. Then I'd be like, yeah. Right. But basically when I would call it. I'd explain how I was doing and Erin would just really help me to see things from a more universal perspective. Like here I was, you know. More that my problems were temporary. I remember when Mike would call from school to talk to my mom and Erin. She didn't have a deaf telephone back then, so Mike could talk to me, and I'd translate into sign language from my mom. And I remember there'd be long stretches where I'd just do the sign for crying. running my finger down my cheek. Again and again. Over the past twelve years, I've watched my mom and Erin help literally thousands of people. Folks come to them in so much pain. And seemed to leave feeling so much calmer. I've always felt really proud of my mom for all the work she's done to help people through their darkest times. In fact, when Aaron first arrived in our house, Things in our family were pretty miserable. Both my mom and my dad say that when my mom went deaf It was incredibly for them. And then it began to tear them apart. Here's my dad. Just to show how tough it was. It was That's the way I felt every day, just about every minute, like screaming. Yeah. I think I did it frequently enough. When I first lost my hearing it was devastating. It was totally cut off. There wasn't no communication at all, just a sense of being totally isolated from the world. When my mom first went deaf, she didn't read lips or use sign language. She lost her job teaching sculpture at the university. She couldn't communicate with her friends. In fact, a lot of them just disappeared. My dad got frustrated and upset with her when she couldn't understand him. He says he felt like she was taken from him, like his wife was gone. And he didn't handle it well. It was a big shock. I mean I I never met anybody that was deaf. And I was concerned that uh maybe she had brought it on herself. 'cause we went to a mall in Detroit one time on a very cold and windy day and she refused to put on a jacket or a coat or anything. So I figured that was it was her fault. And I and I kept asking myself the question Seems strange now, but the question was Why is this happening to me? And Dad was totally overwhelmed by He couldn't talk to me. I could talk to him because he could hear me. He couldn't talk back to me. So he had so much egg. And his anger cut me out. I would get mad, I would curse at her, I would yell at her. She couldn't hear me cursing. But then she told me that, yeah, she could tell the expression in my face that I was saying something. It was like this for 15 years. We could never tell when my dad was gonna just blow up. A couple of times my mom packed me and my brothers into the station wagon, ready to leave. My mom says she was praying for some kind of relief. And then Aaron appeared. And after that, things began to change. My mom got a focus and purpose in her life. People looked up to her. She wasn't isolated anymore. And Erin worked with my dad to help him learn how to manage his anger. It's always seemed to me that my little brother Peter is the one in my family most skeptical of Aaron's existence. Growing up, me and him would tease our mom for talking to ghosts. We used to mess around and do imitation of Eren for our friends. My favorite thing was when salespeople called and asked for Aaron. Usually it's for Mr Erin Undetermined. Yeah. Is Mr. Aaron undetermined there? I have to explain to them that Aaron is Not of this world. Um Do you believe in Air? Um In what sense? Do I think that everything Mom says about Erin is real? I don't pretend to know. I don't I don't think it's important to me. Like Is Aaron really a higher spirit that tells mom and all this stuff? Or is she just like This is just some sort of imaginary friend that developed as like a psychological tool for helping her figure out her own problems. It's just like It doesn't seem like something I can really figure out. I gotta say, I completely understand Peter's agnostic stance. It's tough to start asking the question of whether or not Eren is real when either answer you get can be pretty unsettling. I mean, say Aaron is real, then all the stuff he talks about is real too. It means God exists and reincarnation, and that there really is this whole vast spirit world that most of us can't see. But alright, say Erin's not real. If Erin's not real, either my mom's lying or she's deluded. I know she wouldn't straight up lie about this, she clear believes in him. Which means if Erin's not real, then she's a crazy person. And that now she's snookered thousands of followers into bleating along. I decided I should just go to Aaron directly. I asked my mom if he would take a meeting with me. She was down and she said Erin was down. One snowy afternoon we went for a walk in the woods behind our house and sat down to talk on a big old fallen tree. I had a list of questions. Should I ask them one at a time or Or should I ask them all? Probably ask them one at the time. Okay. First um Can I ask Aaron? What other Kinds of humans has Erin been Start there. Start there. My mom leans back slightly and closes her eyes. She perches on the snowy log, breathing deeply and sitting completely still. I am I I have lived in every pillar of body. Beam it. Or take climb and drop it off. Desert. And so have you. But you don't remember. Aaron says he last walked to Earth in human form about five hundred years ago in Thailand. In that lifetime, he was a Buddhist meditation master. And my mom was one of his prized students. A man attacked Aaron with a spear, and my mom gave her life to protect him. Aaron says he and my mom have been together in many lifetimes as teacher and student. In a couple of lifetimes, he's even been her father. Isn't it possible that my mom invented you because she felt so alone. And isolated with her deafness. Oh my god I would not freeze it quite that way. First. I cannot uh prove that I'm real and it's not necessarily Certainly she could have invented me. In my experience. That's not what happened because I exist. Since it's not something one can prove either way. I tend to simply ask people whether she invented me or I to me. Yeah, the s little for c from some. Why did you smell? Make it Or the idea is what These are all baseball cars. Later that afternoon Mike and I went up into the attic to look for some old pictures and things. Where do you think here's your mom came up to help. She started telling about a weekend channel she gave a few years ago. She said that channeling is not some secret gift. That even my brother Mike had channeled once. Mike channeled Mike with. Is that hereditary? I thought channeling skips a generation. Okay. No I don't know My experience is that anybody can learn how to jump. As I said, it's like playing basketball. Doing it is easy. Doing it well is hard. Davy, that was journaling though. That was channeling? No True. That was journaling. You're pulling my yay. We had twenty people here on about eighteen of them ended up journaling by the end of the weekend. It's held down there. Help come on around here. Yeah. Okay. A word about my dad. He's a real performer. The kind of dad who will improvise Gilbert and Sullivan songs with new lyrics. Always willing to entertain. Did I have a channel? Yeah. Yeah, so you remember channeling? Sure. I took the channeling class through your mother. I channel? Oh yeah, I have a tape of it. I channeled one. I could probably do it again. Can you channel Monga right now? I'm asking Dad to channel manga. My dad stands there on the pull down attic steps and closes his eyes. Well my mom gets an increasingly worried look on her face. I would strongly suggest that you're not think being up on that challenge. I th I think I'm feeling I'm feeling his presence. I'm asking for respect for the process. Yeah. I I I could sit down. I if I sat down I'd have to be more comfortable. I think my mom hoped that that would be the end of it. The next morning I got my dad alone while he was shaving in the bathroom. How come mom wouldn't let you uh How come mom wouldn't let you channel manga earlier? Yeah. Here's my feeling about it. I think she felt that that it wasn't sincere, but it was real. It was real. How about uh new manga now? Uh can you try? Can you I mean I know sometimes it's you feel closer than others. I feel his present so I won't be able to shave, I have to stop shaving. Well yeah. But but I I I could do it. I feel in wrong. Yeah, I I have to close my eyes to kinda like concentrate a little bit. Hello. My name is Monga. And I I come from India. I'm here now. Now I'm speaking and Not to be disrespectful and not to focus on manga's accent. But I just didn't find this as believable as my mom's channel. Still though, there's my dad standing there at the sink in a bright green bathrobe. His glasses on and shaving cream all over his face. Channeling. Already this was turning into one of my favorite memories of my dad ever. Born April eleventh, nineteen seventy five. Right. Five foot eleven, one fifty two, I believe. One forty two. I I have these feelings about your Physical appearance. Mungo was like one of those carnival barkers. They try and guess your exact height and weight, or you win a giant pencil. Why didn't Eren ever entertain like this? I have no more to say and peace to all human beings on planet Earth. You probably I didn't really realize my dad was so cool with the whole spirit world thing. He was always a gracious host at all the meditation classes and channeling sessions, but sometimes he also seemed to resent how wrapped up in Erin and her work my mom had become. She was always going out of town to lead meditation retreats and workshops around the country. And I don't think he liked being home alone so much of the time. And sometimes my dad would get annoyed all the students constantly coming in and out of the house. Honestly, I thought was just something he tolerated. But listening to him in manga, I felt moved. Really, what could be a sweeter way for him to show acceptance of my mom's work than for him to channel his own spirit? Is Erin just a part of you? I have no idea. It's he I don't experience him as a part of me. There were still a couple of questions I had left for my mom. I know Aaron has dictated entire books to her. Interpretations of ancient Buddhist writings. Scholars who've read them have been impressed. With Erin's teachings, she's become a widely known and respected meditation teacher. Even the most established Buddhist bigwigs admit That the depth of her knowledge is astounding. Then there's sketchy things too. Like one time when Aaron said the thing he missed most about being an actual human being was his taste of cognac. Aaron's last lifetime was supposedly more than five hundred years ago. And I checked it out. Cognac was barely invented then, and the only people drinking it were a few dudes in France, not Buddhist monks in Thailand. Then there's the fact that Aaron says he can read minds and see the future, but then refuses to demonstrate these powers. Why won't he just prove himself. It's so easy. I have a number between one and a hundred. He says he would play that game? So he's not real. Does he know the number? He doesn't have to say it. I just want him to know the number. Does he know it? He's just he is a fruiting as us. He's choosing not to look. I'm begging him, please. I just want to know. And then I mean I know it doesn't matter. His teachings are pretty cool. It doesn't matter if he's real or not, but I just want to know. So Just look, just Aaron, I'm I'm asking you for one second. Just look. If you want to understand what having Erin in our lives has really done for my family, here's something that happened while I was home to work on this story. We went out to dinner on Valentine's Day. My dad met us at the restaurant, and when he walked in, he said, Happy Valentine's Day to my mom. But she had just turned away and didn't see him say it. My dad got kinda agitated, as though she was ignoring him by choice. He still hasn't fully gotten over her deafness. A minute later he said something else to her, but now he was sore at her, and he didn't use sign language, and barely moved his lips. My mom said, I can't understand you. And my dad, getting more upset, repeated himself even faster. Way too fast to lip breathe. This used to be how it would all start with them. My dad's anger at my mom's deafness would bring out her unhappiness over it. Soon they'd be shouting at each other. But Aaron's influence has changed everything. On Valentine's Day, when my dad started freaking out, my mom just smiled at him and shrugged, like, this is your problem, not mine. Things don't escalate the way they did before Eren came around. He's helped my mom discover a total sense of calm. Eren came in peace, and that's what he brought us. It now if Erin hadn't come along. I think that would've been the worst. I'm not sure. Maybe not I'm not sure. I understand why my mom believes in air. As for me, I think believing in Aaron is a lot like believing in God. I have a hard time having an unswerving faith in something you can't see or prove exists. But I do have that kind of faith in my mom. That's why I believe in Erin. You'll have to make your own decision. Davy Rothbard is the creator of Found Magazine and the author of a book of essays called My Heart is an Idiot. We first broadcast this story many years ago. Davey's mom and dad are now in their 80s. and still going strong, as are Eren and Munga. In fact, Eren celebrates the big 2100 this summer. Now, here's Davy's dad using his improvisatory powers. Hey Pete, hurry down, Dad's gonna sing. If you're a God fearing man and you're trying to answer all the personal questions that you can, I suggest you call A-A-R-O-N. Aaron is the man that can solve your problems. Do you have any today? It's a way to live in the world today. Can you solve your problems? If you can't. Let me remind you, there's a wonderful spirit in the world. And his sayings are good as gold. Some are modern and some are pretty old. So my response to you Coming up the difficult task of running for Congress against someone with your exact same name. And a seven year old explains a few things to a grown ass man in a minute. From Chicago Public Radio. When our program continues. Just American Life from Irow Glass. Each week, of course, we choose some theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show is a rerun from years ago, The Other Man. Stories in which some outsider arrives on the scene, disturbing the normal orbits of the planets. Disrupting how everybody deals with everybody else. We have arrived at the second act of our show, act two, the Jackson 2. So Jesse Jackson figure for decades. Protege of Martin Luther King, two time presidential candidate, somebody who would show up on the news all the time. So imagine for a second, what it would mean to grow up with the name Jesse Jackson if you weren't the Jesse Jackson. Okay, you with me so far? Imagine if you grew up with the name Jesse Jackson and you were Jesse Jackson's son. and you wanted to go into public service of some kind. Your dad. would forever be the other man in the room. His shadow would always be there. Presence. an invisible boulder in any room you walk into. Run for office. There are gonna be some people who love you, some people who dismiss you, because of your dad. His name is Cher. So that is a situation that Jesse L. Jackson Jr. found himself in back in 2002 when we first broadcast today's show. with this story. A story that's a kind of a I don't know a classic kind of hard-knuckled old fashioned Chicago political brawl. Okay, so at the time, Jesse L Jackson was a congressman for Illinois second district in Chicago. And after 34 years of living with the name Jesse L. Jackson Jr., of living as Congressman, Jesse L. Jackson Jr. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. was in a meeting with campaign workers when somebody told him about this strange turn of events. He said, uh Have you heard the news? Had you have you heard the news? I said no, what's the news? He said at eleven fifty nine, the last minute of filing for Congress in the second district of Illinois, you now have another Jesse L Jacks running against you. think at first people were, you know, questioning whether there really was such a person. Oh, they didn't realise that there was an actual question that maybe even existed. Yes. Brown covered all this for the Chicago Sun Times. He says that the other Jesse L. Jackson turned out to be a retired truck driver who lived in a suburb called Robins. sixty eight years old. No previous political experience. At first we couldn't even find him. He was ducking everybody. And then they produced him for a a a a little dog and pony show where he he came out in front of the microphones and read a statement that said he really does exist. Indeed, you know, he was a real person and he, you know, he's just a regular guy who who clearly had somehow been recruit to get into this race. But recruit by whom? Well nobody was admitting anything, but for weeks, news reports were featuring gleeful quotes from two local politicians. Robert and William Shaw. They were twin brothers. old school operators who came up through the bank and file of the Black Democratic organization, who reportedly resented the relative ease with which Jesse Jr. became a congressman. After all? He started at the top. was his very first elected office. When he won that position, he beat out a candidate that they had supported for the job. Shaw brothers called Jackson a brat. Cry baby. And in two thousand two Soon as this other Jesse L Jackson appeared on the ballot. They were merely telling reporters and anybody who would listen. It only seemed fair. Then Congressman Jacks realized that he wasn't the only one who could run for office. On his father's name. The only way he got in public office It's through his dad is me. This other Jackson have had the name long before. Uh this young boy had it. The Congressman? Senator Williamshaw talked to me from his office. You know, I'm I'm so happy. looking back at at history, that Andrew Jackson uh didn't come along in this time. He never would have been the president. If it'd been left up to this guy. Wait, wait, Andrew Jackson i i explain what you mean. He was one of the presidents. But listen to Congressman Jackson. Anybody with the Jackson name. He feel as though that they shouldn't run. This guy's this guy's out of his mind. He think he have a patent on on the Jackson name. From the Congressman's point of view, this is all pretty much exactly what you do not want people talking about in the newspapers and on television. Again, imagine you have spent your whole life trying to get out from under the shadow of that other Jesse Jackson, your father. And now there is yet another Jesse Jackson. And the main story about your reelection is not what you've accomplished for your district or what you hope to accomplish, but once again Did you get your job on your dad's name? You know, and that's that's um For someone who takes the process very seriously, it has been annoying. Uh in the last six years. I have had eight press conferences. Two of them have been on this subject. Uh to give you some idea that I don't run to the media. to show you some difference between me and my father. My dad might have had eight yesterday. Um anti-press, I'm prepared to do press, but when I do press, I want it to be about issues of concern to my constituents. And so rather than running a race on a third airport and peat tone or discussing oh hair expansion or how to get more jobs. I'm caught in a fight with people who aren't even running for Congress in my race. The people he refers to, of course, are the Shaw brothers. They deny having anything to do with Jesse Jackson Robbins, the truck driver, but Congressman Jacks started investigating the petition drive that put Jesse Jackson of Robbins onto the ballot. He found that many people who signed the petitions had been told specifically that they were signing for the congressmen. who enjoys a ninety percent approval rating in the district. Further investigations showed that those petitions were notarized by a political ally of the Shaw's. The 4,400 signatures were gathered by men who came from a homeless shelter, one of whom has testified that they got the jobs gathering signatures one day when Senator Shaw's chief of staff came by and took them to the Shaw's office at 144th Street. In an affidavit, this man said that both William and Robert Shaw were there in the room. and sent them out to get the signatures. Not only there and sent them out, but they're eating catfish. And sent them out. And specifically said, go help the congressman. We don't get along with the congressman. We don't care much for the congressman, but we're gonna help him get back on the ballot. Now the now the congressman is saying that he's got affidavits from people who went around and got signatures uh to get this other uh Jesse Jackson the one from Robbins under the ballot. He says he he's got affidavits from some of those people saying that that they met, they were organized in Shaw headquarters. What do you all say to that? I I don't say anything, you know, anything might have happened. You know, I have hundreds of people in my uh headquarters. Coming in and out. We involved on a campaign here. And uh To my knowledge. I don't know anything about that. And I think that uh the congressman You know, he's drinking some water probably out of D C. We have better water than that in Chicago. Wait, and what does the water from D C do to you? That's what I think. For a while there were not only two Jesse L. Jacksons on the ballot. The Shaw Brothers officially supported a candidate in the primary named Yvonne Williams. And at some point, another Williams turned up on the ballot as well. Anthony Williams. And of course, this happens on ballots all over the country. If you're running against an Irish politician, you get another Irish name on the ballot. If you're running against a woman, you get another woman. If you're running against Jesse Jackson you get another Jesse Jackson. Again, William Shaw. Yeah, that has happened uh many, many times. And uh uh people just uh take it with a grain of salt. It's it's not such a big deal. Yeah, yeah. I was I was wondering if if if you think we should uh think it's uh tragic or just funny. Well, I don't know I guess it's fun of everybody but the Congress. Well it is kind of funny. Again, Congressman Jackson. But there are political forces in my congressional district that are notorious for election uh shenanigans, uh, for deceiving voters, and even having the reputation of stealing voters. And after deploying seven lawyers, two private eyes, and $150,000 to investigate how Jesse L. Jackson Robbins got under the ballot. Congressman pursued legal action. He tried to prove that the Shaw brothers intentionally deceived voters. Intentionally. Tried to convince voters that they were signing petitions for the congressmen. Fact. They were signing for the other Jesse L. Jackson. If you could move that, it would move this entire incident out of the category of political prank. and into the rather more serious category of political fraud. It is a criminal offense. Uh rabbit hunting is fun until the rabbit gets the gun. And so what happens when you come up against another big bear in politics who has the resources uh and the capability of pursuing it to the nth degree of the law and starts demanding justice? And I saw the same Eddie Murphy movie that they saw, and I'm determined not to let it happen in our district. The Eddie Murphy movie being The Distinguished Gentleman. A gentleman who gets elected to Congress by the name of Jefferson Johnson after the Congressman dies, his name is Jeff Johnson, he runs for Congress and he gets elected. He's a felon, by the way. You think actually they saw the movie? I'm pretty sure someone saw it, and I think uh what's also becoming uh clear is that many people forgot how the movie ended, and that is that some people went to jail. When Ellis finally got to court, the Cook County judge refused to bring in the Shaws to testify under oath. Congressman Jackson's lawyers then threatened to make William Shaw a defendant in the case, that is to sue him directly. And not long after that, after several weeks on the ballot, Jesse L. Jackson Robbins dropped out of the race. Congressman Jacks went on to win that election by a huge margin. Five more after that. until he ended up in prison, on charges of improperly using campaign funds for personal purchases. His political troll, William Shaw, died in 2008. Jackson his time, and just this year ran once again for his old congressional seat. this time Voters did not come out, but named Jesse Jackson. Jackson lost. Eck three, Mr. Fun. We have this story on what it is like to intrude on a perfectly happy, perfectly idyllic family of two when one of the two falls in love with you, and the other most definitely does not. Heather O'Neal and Jonathan Goldstein explain what happens. I was twenty years old when Arizona was born. I thought I could just put her in a little suitcase and that would be her bed. I figured now that I'd given birth the hard part was over. I moved into a big building over a laundry mat where they didn't ask for any references. People left their apartment doors open and waved to you from their couches when you walked down the hall. The apartment was our own cozy little universe of porcelain dolls, posters of Hong Kong, and tiny colorful paper umbrellas. It was a universe of two plates, two cups, and two toothbrushes. until I met Johnny. I was introduced to Heather by some friends over drinks. I was impressed by how fast she drank her beer, and she was impressed by the fact that there was only one arm on my eyeglasses. From the side you look like a cartoon doctor, she said. She looked like she was from some bygone era where women worked with their hair tied up in kerchiefs on assembly lines to help the war effort. By all of this, I mean to say that I was smitten by her. I knew that Heather had a little girl, and I also knew that I wasn't very good with children. Ironically, my job at the time was teaching after school magic classes to kids in elementary schools. I wasn't that great a magician to begin with, and kids made me nervous. My hands were always sweaty and I was always dropping coins all over the place. One time I was really losing the attention of a classroom of six graders while teaching them the jumping rubber band. So I told them that if they listened quietly, at the end of the class I would walk through a wall. Immediately, they all shut up. At the end of the class, I took about two full minutes where I just stared at the wall at the back of the classroom. If any of them said a word, I would reprimand them for breaking my concentration and start all over again. Finally, I slowly started walking towards the wall. The way the kids were looking at me, all open-mouthed and expectant, I almost felt like I could actually pull this off. When I smacked into the wall, I turned to them and said, You didn't really think I could walk through a wall, did you? They looked at the wall. Then they looked at me. Then, slowly, reluctantly, they all shook their heads no. I hoped I would have better luck with Heather's daughter. Over drinks, I had told Johnny that Arizona had shoved our TV set off the coffee table, and now, surprise, surprise, here he was, carefully winding his way up the staircase to our house, with an old RCA in his arms, the old fashioned antenna still attached and dragging behind him on the floor. When he came in, Arizona was over at the neighbor's, a Greek family who liked to give her a good bath every now and then. It was a family event for them with Shishk Bobs and an uncle who played accordion on the closed lid of the toilet. As me and Johnny sat on the couch, Arizona walked into the apartment freshly scrubbed, smelling of baby powder and Greek food with four bows in her hair. Johnny kept clapping his hands together and going on about how she looked just like Shirley Temple. She stopped dead in her tracks and gave me a confused look. Before he left, he asked me if I wanted to come to his house for dinner that weekend, and I said sure. I called my sister and asked if she would babysit. She begged me not to have another boyfriend. In other words, no babysitting. took Arizona along on my date with Johnny. I stood on my front steps waiting for her to get there, and when I saw her coming down the street, pushing a stroller. I wondered if I had any juice in the house. We sat down at my kitchen table and I brought out a big pot of curried vegetables and rice. Arizona climbed up on the table, opened the lid, and wrinkled her nose. I picked her up and put her back down in her chair, but as soon as I did, she would get right back up and roll around all over the plate. Most of the time while pointing at me with an angry look on her face. She wasn't like Shirley Temple at all. She was like the Muppet baby Joe Pesci. After dinner, Johnny walked into his living room and saw the word Arizona written in pin with a backwards R on his desk. At first I was sort of delighted. It was the first time she'd ever written her name without me coaching her. But I kind of felt for Johnny. whose apartment was all full of neatly arranged furniture and superhero figurines that stayed exactly where they had been placed. Johnny walked around the apartment with his head down and an expression on his face like he was a seven year old reviewing times tables in his head. Try to ease into our lives with grace. After the first time he slept over, he got up in the morning before Arizona woke. He put on his jacket and went outside into the hallway and knocked on the front door, pretending he had just arrived. We don't want to damage the child's psyche, Johnny said. Arizona's bedroom was closest to the front door, so she got up and let him in. I he said. I was just in the neighborhood. He walked in without his belt undone. He dropped onto the couch and fell back asleep. Arizona looked at him. Why do you even come by, she said angrily. If all you're going to do is go to sleep. Johnny and I had very different ideas about the environment in which one should raise a kid. The stove needs to be fixed, he complained. You can't cook meals over a hot plate. Ratzerizo cooks meals over a hot plate. And who in God's name puts laundry out on the line at midnight? Children need discipline, they like it, was a favorite banner of Project Goldstein. Heather called all of my domestic tips bourgeois. How is cleaning the Crisper Bourgeois? I asked. How in the world is keeping your child from running naked through the halls of the apartment building wearing my boots a symptom of the bourgeoisie? Arizona could tell that Johnny was trying to change things, and everything between them became a battle of wills. She would reach over and squeeze the Indiglow button on his watch and he would chastise her, telling her that Indiglo was used only in emergency situations. Like if you're in a blackout. or stuck in a cave. But as soon as his head was turned, she pushed the button again. In what I considered a bit of cultural exchange, I had to sit on the couch and listen to the soundtrack from Fiddler on the Roof. Arizona, all of six years old, turned to me in the middle of If I Was a Rich Man and said, That's what you do all day long. You biddy biddy bum. She paused for a moment, and then, just to make sure the point wasn't being lost on me, she added, That means you're lazy. When the three of us walk down the street, Arizona would say, My mom's shadow is longer than yours. That means you're short. She was starting to like him less and less. One day he made her list all the people that she loved most in order. And who do you love next best? he would ask hopefully. And the next? And the next? He came in at number 19. He actually ranked below the neighbor's dog, and the plumber who drank two gallon bottles of Pepsi while he worked and let Arizona hand him wrenches. Every time I tried to kiss Arizona, she would pull back, insisting that my beard was too scratchy. It got so that I was shaving twice a day, but still, she would wave me off. I would stand in front of the mirror like an obsessive compulsive, desperately scraping the blade across my cheeks. The word scratchy ringing in my head like the Ravens nevermore. One time we had some friends over at Heather's and someone started playing the guitar, and Arizona started to dance. It struck me as one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Everyone stood around and clapped their hands while Arizona spun around with her arms over her head. Before I knew it, I was walking over and taking her hands to dance with her. I wasn't the type to dance with kids, or to even dance at all for that matter, but I just couldn't help myself. When I touched her, she whipped her hands away and stopped cold. I retreated back to my seat as the music continued to play. All the while, Arizona stared me down like her prison bitch. He tried buying her love with really inappropriate gifts, things that he liked that he thought she might learn to like. He bought them matching wallets and a mood ring that wouldn't fit her for at least another five years. He got her a pop-up book of nightmare analysis that included a chapter on giving birth to aliens. In the best of time, she treated him as something that made me happy, and she quietly tolerated him. Like the way she sat through a Hitchcock documentary at the museum. But then sometimes she would just explode. One day at Burger King he refused to let me bring her hamburger back to the counter for a third time to ask for even more pickles. And she started screaming. She pounded the hamburger with her fists. I can't stand him, she said. Why did we have to go out with him today? Tell me why. He's my friend, I said, and you have to pretend to like him. She had a little friend who would come over and bite his own toes while they watched TV, and I never said a thing. I figured it was the least she could do for me. One day I was trying to finish my dad's income tax and Arizona was bored. She was whacking the wind chimes with a broom. She was all out of ideas when Johnny asked her if she wanted to take a walk with him. She sighed and got her jacket. Before they left, he explained that the plan was to walk to a bank to cash his check. And then find a barber that would cut his hair for a reasonable price. We were walking along when Arizona came to an abrupt stop, and so I stopped too. She looked up at me. And in this tone that I had never heard her use before, she said This isn't what you do to have a good time. It was like she had summoned up every little bit of maturity she had, and some she didn't even have. And she used her words to let me know something that she felt was really important for me to know. That I just wasn't any fun. And she told it to me in this way that was like, maybe it just wasn't something I knew, and that maybe I just had to be told, and then everything would be okay. Like maybe it could all be that easy. We went back to the apartment and got our bathing suit. Arizona wanted to go to the beach. Mm. Arizona treated me like I had never been to a beach before. This is sand, she said. And people like to dig in it. Beside the sand is the water, but it's not the drinking kind. She treated me like she was nursing me back to health. For my part, I tried my best to live up to what a six-year-old's vision of fun would be. I bought every single thing the vendors had to offer. I even got us these overcooked mushy corn cobs on a stick that were smothered in butter and mayonnaise. mayonnaise. And when she went into the water past her knees, I bit my fist and kept my panic to myself. At the end of the day, Arizona persuaded me to buy a watermelon that some men were selling off the back of a truck. As we rode the bus back home, tired, looking out the windows in silence, Arizona suddenly turned to me and said, Why did I ever marry you? I sat there, completely tongue tied on so many levels. Tell me why, she demanded over and over, getting louder and louder, until the six or seven people on the bus turned to hear how I was going to defend myself. Why did I ever marry you? All the way home, the question just sat there, big and awkward, like the watermelon on my lap that we would have for dessert that night. Around that time, Johnny and Arizona invented this game, where they pretend to be two old-time vaudeville partners who can't get along. She is always the wiser burnt out one. and he is always the mincing bootlook who wants to please the producers and the audience. They pretend they're backstage yelling at each other as the audience hollers for them to come out. Let's get out there, Johnny yells. They're waiting for us. They paid a lot of money for those seats. We'll be sued, damn it. We'll be finished in this town. This is my last show, Arizona says every time, shaking her weary head. And then I'm through. I can't do this anymore. They come out into the hallway nervously. They stand in front of the record player. Arizona on top of a Webster's dictionary to be taller. Johnny starts singing A Bicycle Built for Two. And Arizona is supposed to be the bicycle bell and sing ding ding. She doesn't. Johnny starts the song over again. Still, Arizona ignores her cue. staring blankly ahead in the throes of a showbiz meltdown. The audience starts throwing tomatoes and Arizona ducks behind Johnny. He holds out his arms to protect her from the crowd. She crouches in back of him, laughing her head off, as the angry mob covers him from head to toe. an imaginary rotten fruit. O'Neal is the author of many books, her latest is The Capital of Dreams, Jonathan Goldstein is the host of the podcast Heavyweight, and Arizona O'Neill, these days. All grown up, her debut graphic novel is called Opioids and Organs. Hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, bend the shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens I can tell that we are gonna be friends Well today's program was produced by Jonathan Goldstein and myself with Alex Bloomberg, Wendy Doran, Starlene Kine. Senior producer for today's show was Julie Snyder, Lisb Meister ran our website at the time, production help from Ty Bachman and Maria Shell. Helping today's rerun from Mike Comite, Adrian Lilly, Molly Marcello, Catherine Marimondo, and Stone Nelson. Special thanks to Mark Brown for helping us with our Jesse Jacks story for the rerun. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. If you like our program, I want to help us to make it the way we have been making it, you can become a This American Life partner. You get bonus episodes, you listen ad-free. You get a special Greatest Hits archive in your podcast feed. We hope it's great for you. It helps us. You can do this at thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. That link is also in the show notes. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Troy Malatia. Describes what it was like the first few years, hearing us talk about 'em like we do here at the end of the program. I think uh one way to characterize it would be uh just to show how tough it was. It was Back next week with more stories of this American life. Next week on the podcast of This American Life, the most famous black American in the nineteen fifties was Paul Robson, an icon of the Harlem Renaissance. An actor, activist, singer athlete, family man. Little known fact about Paul? One day he said to his wife, We both said we want an unconventional relationship. Why don't we open up our marriage? The messiness of our ancestors. Next week, on the podcast, or on your local public radio station. Yeah.