#49 Another Roadside Attraction

Hey, can I ask you? Can I ask you a question? 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:09.040 When we were back in elementary school, because we go 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.240 way back, would you have ever thought that one day 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:14.560 I would have a podcast? 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:15.760 Yeah? 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.320 No, I would not say that I foresaw a future. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:18.680 For you, Johnny. 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.040 Did you just say I didn't foresee a future for 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:24.640 you or I didn't foresee that future for you? 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:26.720 Oh, I'm at that future. 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:28.720 Did you really think I didn't have a future at all? 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.360 I was a good eater, stayed out of trouble, pretty 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:42.800 good at tether Ball, Remember from gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:49.239 Goldstein and this is Heavyweight today's episode another roadside attraction. 0:00:54.720 --> 0:01:04.399 Right after the break growing up, I spent a lot 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.840 of time in bookstores. At twelve, it was the science 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:12.000 fiction section that called to me. At fourteen, the poetry section. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.920 At fifteen, it was the biographies, so I could chart 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:21.160 the progress I was making towards greatness. If you're like me, 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.360 the mere act of being in a bookstore fills you 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.039 with the kind of wonder and overwhelm that comes with 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.320 looking at the stars at night. You feel the vastness, 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.679 You feel your mortality. How much of this can I 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:38.000 possibly read in a lifetime, you ask, gazing at the shelves, 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:42.360 and yet there's also this feeling of coziness. Books grant 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.160 you access to the secret lives and thoughts of people 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.920 you'll never meet, but whom you grow to care about 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.480 as you would close friends. And so in this spirit, 0:01:51.960 --> 0:02:02.000 I present you a book in three chapters. Chapter one, Stephanie, So, 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:02.560 I grew. 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.440 Up in this little town outside of Austin called Dripping Springs. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:09.200 We all call it Dripping Dripping for short, dripping. There's 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:14.040 a spring that drips. It's a very conservative religious town. 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.520 When I was growing up, this was a tiny town, 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.720 like going out to people's land to hang out in 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:22.280 the woods. 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.400 As a teenager growing up in Dripping, there really wasn't 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.840 much to do. So Stephanie started going to church multiple 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.200 times a week and reading all the books she could 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.560 get her hands on. Church and books became her two 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:40.360 great loves, and the two coexisted peacefully for years until 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.560 the day her beloved church decided to ban one of 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:49.799 her beloved books, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:52.560 The reason it was they were trying to get it 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.520 banned was one scene in the book, maybe two paragraphs long, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.160 and it is explicit, and it is an assault scene, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.519 and their reasoning was that young boys would be aroused. 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:06.720 Nobody had read the book who was trying to get 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:13.560 a banned. I took it upon myself to write a 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:18.040 speech like a manifesto against the censorship of The Handmaid's Tale. 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.639 At her high school, Stephanie went from classroom to classroom 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:24.720 reading her essay, and. 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:29.239 Scott the church very very, very mad, and they became convinced, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.640 some of the leaders, that I was more or less 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:34.840 being taken over by the devil. 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.080 The angrier of the church got, the more Stephanie started 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.680 to realize that she didn't agree with a lot of 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:42.800 what the church believed. 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.800 I got into a pretty big argument about homosexuality in 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.560 the Bible at the church, and at the time I 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:54.720 did not know that I wasn't straight, but I knew. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.520 That I didn't agree with the church. 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:03.160 I was questioning everything I'd ever known about religion and God, 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:09.640 and I started having panic attacks multiple times a day. 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.880 It was during this uncertain period of searching that while 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:17.479 out driving in her neighborhood, Stephanie noticed something new. A 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:21.200 small house surrounded by lush gardens and a pond and 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.760 most strikingly, atop the house's roof sat large scale replicas 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:27.479 of books. 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.640 It felt like it fell out of the sky. I 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:34.040 just remember when the sign went up. 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.920 I was very curious, what did the sign say? 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:38.760 Another roadside attraction? 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.920 Another roadside attraction, It turned out, was a bookstore tucked 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.000 within a tiny house. Stephanie began to frequent it regularly, 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.479 spending her babysitting money on Salinger and Vonnegut and Poe. 0:04:57.640 --> 0:04:59.800 There were no other bookstores in Dripping Springs at the 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:03.120 t barely any stores at all. It was as if 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.400 the bookstore appeared in answer to some secret wish Stephanie 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:06.840 had made. 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:13.120 It almost felt like magical realism, felt like opening a 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.839 curtain and going into another world, and like the moment 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.640 I stepped inside, it just felt like, I don't know, 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:22.719 it just felt like I belonged there. I never felt 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.760 like I fit in, And I think it was the 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:30.000 only place that I didn't feel judged, and it was 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.440 the only place that I didn't feel panicked. It felt 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.120 like a chapel almost. 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.320 There was always incense burning inside and music playing there 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.560 reminded Stephanie of the kind you'd hear in a spa 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.040 It all added to the feeling of dreaminess, and I 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:48.760 would always. 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.320 Kind of like shuffle past the register back to the 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.880 fiction section, which was behind the comic books. All the 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.600 books were wrapped in plastic. Practically, even if they were 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.760 like a dollar, it was all empty. I think I 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.520 can recall maybe one time when someone else was in 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.920 there besides me and the owner. 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.359 The owner. The owner was a quiet, stoic man, always 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.560 seated behind the counter, always the only one on duty. 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.800 He became a source of fascination for Stephanie. 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.520 I admired him in a way because I just thought, like, 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.960 anyone who has the guts to open a bookstore like 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.400 this in a little town off this little road must 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:33.159 be interesting. 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:35.520 Did you ever speak to him? 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:36.120 Not really. 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:38.640 I would like put my book up on the counter 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.839 and put my money up, and then like run out. 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:42.520 I felt so. 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.520 Nervous, but not in a bad way, crush like but 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:57.880 not romantic. I don't know if he knows, like how 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.960 important that was to me, just to have these little 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:02.880 moments of peace. 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:08.760 I don't know, It's hard to explain. It just felt. 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.040 It was a thing at a time where I really 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:13.680 needed to feel like there was going to be a 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.040 world outside of the one I was living in, where 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:18.920 I was going to be able to live a life 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:23.080 separate from my hometown. It made me feel like the 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:30.800 world was bigger and that there was something beyond what 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:31.800 I was going through. 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.960 Stephanie visited the bookstore all through the summer of her 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:40.280 sixteenth year, and then one day, without warning or notice, 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.800 another roadside attraction just vanished. 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.160 Drove by and there was like a closed sign in 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:52.600 the window, and just remember being like devastated. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:53.360 It was so. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:08:00.160 Fleeting, it was just like it's gone. 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.680 Stephanie's now in her mid thirties, she's gotten beyond the 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.240 world of dripping springs. In fact, she just recently moved 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.480 to la to pursue a career as a writer, but 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.440 she continues to think about the little bookstore that served 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.120 as her teenage refuge and about the man who opened it. 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.920 Did you get the guy's name? No, you don't even 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:21.400 know his name. 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:22.760 I don't know his name. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:24.600 What did he look like? 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.240 M It's sort of like when you have a dream 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.040 and you you see someone, but you just see like 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:32.440 a figure. 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:40.600 That's my memory of him. 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.600 Who was this man who opened a perfect place in 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.840 a tiny town, who carefully placed each book in a 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:48.800 plastic sleeve to keep it safe. 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:54.000 What led him to opening the bookstore? Why was it 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.200 open and closed so quickly? I just want to know, 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:00.640 like why dripping? Like why this little tiny town. 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.920 Because she doesn't know the owner's name, Stephanie has tried 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.760 googling the store over the years, but nothing much ever 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.520 comes up in the process, though she's realized that the 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:15.160 name Another Roadside Attraction is the title of a book 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.040 by Tom Robbins, an author she's come to love as 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:18.480 an adult. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.160 And then I thought, maybe we have the same taste 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:22.280 in literature. 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.199 The only other clue Stephanie's research has turned up is 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.920 an old business listing. It shows the store's address, she says, 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.040 but not much else. She pulls the page up. 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:33.520 To share with me. 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:37.840 Wait, there's a name here. 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.640 And in so doing, Stephanie notices something at the bottom 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.240 of the page. What is it? 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:45.040 Check? 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:46.680 And there's an old phone number. 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:46.880 Two. 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:48.920 Have you ever tried phoning the phone number? 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:50.040 I haven't. 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:51.800 Well, you know what we got to do? 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:54.400 Huh are you going to find him? 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.040 Well, we have to, gues I mean, I don't know. 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.840 I'll try to. But why don't we try to phone 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:10.520 that number. Okay, okay, here we go, nervous. Hello, Hello, 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.720 I'm not sure that I have the right phone number. 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.200 I'm looking for someone who is the owner of a 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.319 bookstore called Another Roadside Attraction. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.480 Nope, nope, sorry, you got the throwing number. 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:31.240 Is your name, Chepe number? Okay, okay, thank you so much. 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.640 He was giving me the bums rush he was. 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:37.439 He sounded like a Texan. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.000 And so, with our one lead deader than Texas buzzard bait, 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.440 I let Stephanie go, telling her that once I'm able 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.800 to learn more, I'll be back in touch. But I 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.200 won't be back in touch for another year and a 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.720 half because, as it turns out, the story of Another 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.560 Roadside Attraction would prove to be far more complicated than 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:06.040 any I could have imagined. After Stephanie and I dialed 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.000 that wrong number, I found an address for Chat and 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.640 sent him a letter, but I never got a response. 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.280 So I kept digging, and in the process I found 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.720 Another Roadside Attractions old business registration. It was there that 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.559 I learned the store was actually listed under two names, Chats, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.679 but also his wife, Pam's. I figured that through Pam 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.760 I'd be able to reach chat. So I found a 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.480 mailing address for Pam and sent a letter to her 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:38.079 home explaining the situation. And this time I received a response, 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:42.320 an email with the subject line the story behind Another 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.880 roadside Attraction. But the email wasn't from Pam. It was 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:52.440 from a woman named Megan Hi. Megan wrote, where do 0:11:52.600 --> 0:12:14.080 I begin? Chapter two? Megan, Hello, this is Megan Hi. 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:15.640 This is Jonathan Goldstein. 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:16.360 Hi. 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:17.000 Jonathan. 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.440 Megan's a close friend of Pam's, and wrote me back 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.640 on Pam's behalf. In my letter, I'd asked how I 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.480 could get in touch with Chet. I wanted to ask 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:30.720 him about the magical appearance and sudden disappearance of his bookstore, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.840 but Megan corrected me on this point. The bookstore was 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.320 not Chet's. She said it was Pam's. That place was 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.480 her baby. Over several emails and a long phone call, 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.720 Megan would tell me the story of another roadside Attraction. 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:51.040 In her telling, it's the story of Pam, a chronicle 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.800 of her dream and its loss. Megan says she wishes 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.760 she had a happier story to share, but it turns 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.960 out that five years ago, died by suicide. Megan begins 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:06.600 the story many years earlier, back when she first met Pam. 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.800 Megan was only twenty one at the time and Pam 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.640 about a decade older. The two worked as bank tellers together. 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:15.839 It was a funny little bank, you know. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.800 It was a single wide trailer that had been rocked in. 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.719 We didn't wear shoes, you know. We would go back 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:24.720 behind the teller line and not put shoes on, and 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:26.600 sometimes we would walk out into the rest of the 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:27.760 bank without shoes on. 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.160 Megan was raised in Dripping Springs by strict religious parents, 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.640 and so it was very conservative. Pam, on the other hand, 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.800 was the kind of person who didn't mind rocking the boat. 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.720 She was unlike anyone Megan had ever met. 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.080 She was just really punk. 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.640 She always wore sort of long, kind of hippie dresses 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.320 with tribal patterns on them and a lot of dark 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.000 velvets and embroidered you know, things that you might see 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.719 women wearing. It a Tom Petty concert. 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.319 As different as they were, though and Meghan became friends. 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:06.520 Megan endeared herself with imitations of their coworkers, Debbie's southern drawl, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:11.040 Cheryl's obsession with pens. She cracked Pam up and she. 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.560 Had this laugh where she would shoot smoked, so it 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.559 was a very unique laugh for one thing. And then 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.400 she would bend forward and kick her foot, and that's 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:20.120 when you knew you really got her, was when she 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:20.520 did that. 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.200 To Stephanie's question about how the bookstore came to be, 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.640 Megan explains that when Pam was younger, she spent many 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.640 years working in bookstores. It was her dream to open 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.480 one of her own someday. Megan remembered the bookstore fondly, 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.640 the little fish ponds on the porch, the garden in 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.320 the back, the incense burning inside. 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.400 It was almost like a little tropical oasis with this 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.280 tiny little cave of a bookstore, and she just always 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.000 was trying to make it a. 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:59.200 More enjoyable and more welcoming place to visit. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.960 So, if, like Megan says, Pam was the one behind 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.440 the bookstore, why was it that Stephanie doesn't remember ever 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.680 seeing her there. Why was it only ever chat behind 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.360 the counter? According to Megan, Pam had to work at 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.080 the bank to provide the cash flow necessary to keep 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.160 the bookstore afloat, And while she was at the bank, 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:23.640 Chet was living her dream in her beloved bookstore, surrounded 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:24.920 by her beloved books. 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.080 She loved everything about books. She loved the way they smelled, 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.800 the way they felt. She loved organizing them on a bookshelf, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.480 and I swear sometimes. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.320 It was a meditation to just hold them. 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.400 Sometimes when she would show them to me, she'd just 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.600 kind of press them for a second before ever describing them. 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:50.400 Her favorite book is Barbaricing Salver's Poisonwood Bible. She had 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.640 her favorite authors, and of course another roadside attraction. The 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.800 name of the bookstore is an allusion to her her 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:58.360 favorite author, Tom Robbins. 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.640 I believe yeah her life. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.080 To the question of why the bookstore had closed so abruptly. 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:14.960 It seems that in spite of how hard Pam worked, 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.040 she couldn't afford to keep it operating. 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.600 She was immensely proud of it, and it was such 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:25.000 a painful experience for her to lose. 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.720 It, And that was just the beginning of her losses. 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.560 The store's closing happened among a slew of other tragedies 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:32.480 in Pam's life. 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.360 It's hard to remember what came first, because it was 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:39.080 really just a whirlwind of loss for her. Her father 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.960 was very ill, and then pretty soon after that, her 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:47.080 younger brother, he went in to have an absess looked at, 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.360 and it turned out he had cancer all. 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.200 Over his body. At that point, already. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:56.120 Her younger brother died, her father died, and then Pam's 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:57.560 mom fell very ill. 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.560 And Pam's the only one left to deal with that, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:07.600 and she felt helpless and scared and small, and I 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.359 just remember there being a tone in her voice that 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:11.800 had never heard before. 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:14.560 And the person who should have been there to support her, 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:19.399 her husband, Chat, was instead pulling away. Pam related to 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.679 Megan a story about a Thanksgiving dinner from around that time. 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.840 She got drunk on red wine because she was sad 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.080 and drank a little too much red wine, and so 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.040 when she went to go back in to get something, 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.200 with her wine glass in her hands, she ran into 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.000 the sliding glass door and cut her head. She was bleeding, 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.560 and she turned around with an astonished look on her face, 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.760 and one of her friends ran to help her, and 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.720 Chet stood there with what she described as a disgusted 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.520 look on his face, and she said that was. 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:49.760 The moment she knew that their relationship was over. 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:56.080 Shortly after that, Chet and Pam divorced, and Chet left town, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:01.040 leaving Pam alone. She'd lost chat, her family and her dream. 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:03.800 She didn't seem to ever recover from that. 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.520 I mean, when I met her, she was sarcastic and 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.680 kind of had a dark sense of humor. But after 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.480 all of the loss that she sustained, it became like 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.680 a deep synicism, you know, and it just got deeper 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:19.760 and deeper, and she would describe it as the dark, 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:24.359 slimy hole, with me trying to convince her that everything 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.560 could be okay and her trying to. 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:28.280 Convince me that it couldn't. 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.080 And that went on for ten years. 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.520 For ten years, Megan tried to be a positive force 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.879 in Pam's life. She was young and in over her head, 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.399 but she'd go over to help fix things around the 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.000 house or to mow the lawn. She'd spend time with Pam, 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.840 watching movies or listening to music with her. Pam tried 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.760 going on a few days. She tried therapy briefly, nothing 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:52.520 seemed to help. 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:57.359 I can say that I was frustrated at certain points. 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.560 That my attempts to bring her some kind of peace 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:02.280 never worked. 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.240 But it wasn't a frustration with her. 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.879 And then, you know, sometimes there are frustrations involved with 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.760 a person who is very depressed. Sometimes she would speak 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.560 harshly to me, and I remember telling her one time, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.240 you know, spending time with you can sometimes feel like 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.040 cuddling up porcupine, And she immediately apologized. She knew what 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.600 I was talking about, and I said, I know, you 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:25.600 don't have to apologize. 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.240 I just need you to know I'm on your team. 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.640 On top of everything else, Pam had lived her whole 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.200 life with a degenerative eye disease, which meant that as 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:40.160 time went on, her great love reading was becoming increasingly difficult. 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.760 She bought a kindle so as her eyesight worsened, she 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.919 could keep increasing the font size. In the lead up 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.760 to the twenty sixteen election, it was on her kindle 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.440 that Pam read massive amounts of news. It provided her 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.080 with further confirmation of the thing she already knew. The 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.800 world was a terrible place to be. Pam stopped leaving 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.679 the house, spending most of her time shut in a 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:08.320 warning that from here Pam's story deals very explicitly with 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.600 the topic of suicide. Take care when listening. 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:18.400 For many years, she wasn't open about her desire to die, 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.280 but there came a time where she felt like she 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.639 couldn't not be honest about it anymore, and she started 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:26.439 telling her friends. 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.840 There was a progression to the way Pam talked about 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.199 taking her own life. Initially, she spoke of it in 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:34.479 an abstract. 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:36.080 Way, I just can't believe the world is the way 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:37.680 it is. Who wants to live in a world like this? 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.280 And then it was I really don't think I can 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.560 do this much longer. And then it became I'm not 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:48.840 going to do this anymore. And so for a couple 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.600 of years she worked on getting her affairs in order. 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:53.920 She figured out how she was going to do it. 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.840 Pam did extensive research online about the best way to 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.520 take her own life. She was methought, inner planning. She 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.000 talked to an attorney, and took care of her banking. 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.840 She didn't want to cause any unnecessary logistical stress after 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:09.280 she was gone. 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.959 And of course everyone was saying, we love you and 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:13.879 we want you here, and you just stick around. 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.800 You know, did you feel like she meant it? 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:21.719 I knew she meant it, But I also knew that 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.439 she was scared, and I thought I was hoping that 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:26.560 the fear would keep her around long enough for there 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.600 to be something that would come along that would be 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:32.200 the thing that would pull her out of that hole. 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:36.359 I think I found the journal here. 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.439 While on the phone with me. Megan had been searching 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.200 the house for a journal Pam was keeping around this time. 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:46.080 October twenty seventh of twenty fifteen, so this was a 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:51.160 couple of years before she passed. Like everything else I've 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.119 ever written, this will just be a rambling, incoherent mess. 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:56.800 But at the urging of a couple friends, I'm going 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.240 to try to put my thoughts during this final time 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:02.000 to paper. I want to be very clear that this 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.080 is the most well thought out thing I've ever done 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.560 in my life, the most sensible, logical, and rational. There 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.159 are those that will disagree with that. Looking at you, friend, 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:16.520 I won't say her name. I do not yet have 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.000 an actual exit date set. I kind of want to 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:22.800 stay through the election just for its epic train rep value. 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.160 I'm thinking roughly a year or so from now. 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:29.240 Megan reads me another journal entry from roughly a year 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:30.680 and a half later, on. 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:35.359 February nineteenth of twenty seventeen. She says, still here, but 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.960 wrapping things up. Still no doubt, but some occasional fear, 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:40.920 mostly about failing. 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:44.199 Pam always said that she didn't want to die at 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:46.919 the house for fear it might scare her dog and cat. 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:49.720 So on the weekends, in what came to feel like 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.159 a fire drill, she'd ask Megan to come over to 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:53.320 pet set, and. 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:55.359 She would kind of make it seem like I needed 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:57.480 to stay with the animals because maybe she wasn't going 0:22:57.520 --> 0:22:59.159 to be coming back. But then we would just spend 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.760 time together and that weekend would go by and there 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:04.159 would be other weekends, you know. 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:06.800 So then when the weekend of July. 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:11.040 Thirty first, twenty seventeen came along, it was the same story. 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:13.040 You know, I need you to come stay with the animals. 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.359 The only difference this time was she wanted to go 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:18.040 to the store and buy some food and stuff for 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:23.480 me for the weekend, and while we were there, she 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:28.240 went down the aisle where the adult diapers and things 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:30.480 like that are. This is the level of research that 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:33.119 she had apparently done. She knew what was going to 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:37.399 happen in the moments after she stopped breathing, and she 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.080 did not want to make any extra work for anybody. 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:42.280 She didn't say anything to me. 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:46.200 She just got a big package of adult diapers and 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.000 brought them back over to me, and she kind of 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:51.119 mumbled to herself, fourteen bucks and. 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:53.600 I'm only ever going to wear one of them. And 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:54.680 I had to think. 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:57.040 Quickly because I knew that I couldn't respond with like 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:01.920 surprise or like discussed or anything like that, because she 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:04.359 would It would really upset her. She'd already told me, 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:07.639 if you go against me on any of this, I 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:10.800 will take it as a betrayal of our friendship. And 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:13.640 so I said, well, I guess you could just put 0:24:13.640 --> 0:24:14.720 several of them on at once. 0:24:15.600 --> 0:24:16.199 She laughed. 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:19.240 She did the kick forward, bend over laugh and I 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:22.080 almost cried. I had to turn around because I hadn't 0:24:22.119 --> 0:24:23.200 seen her do it in a while. 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:31.960 After the grocery store, just like usual, they spent the 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:36.119 evening at Pam's watching movies that night, one of Pam's favorites, 0:24:36.600 --> 0:24:40.520 Night Mother. In it, Sissy's BASIC's character explains to her 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:44.080 mom why she wants to kill herself and ultimately she does. 0:24:45.000 --> 0:24:48.280 Megan slept over in the next day. Pam hugged her 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:50.200 goodbye and walked out of the house. 0:24:51.160 --> 0:24:52.920 You know, I was supposed to wait to hear from her, 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:55.679 and it was the police that I heard from On 0:24:56.680 --> 0:25:00.679 I think it was Sunday afternoon and they asked me, 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:05.720 do you know why we're here? And I said, is 0:25:05.760 --> 0:25:14.720 Pam dead? And they said yes. She ended up picking 0:25:15.520 --> 0:25:18.960 this hotel called the knights In Hotel. 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:22.399 Pam chose a ground floor room so that it would 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:25.119 be easier to carry your body out. She left one 0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:27.160 hundred dollars tip for the hotel staff. 0:25:27.720 --> 0:25:31.080 And I know that the last thing that she did 0:25:31.400 --> 0:25:34.600 from the history on her kindle was watched the Peter 0:25:34.720 --> 0:25:39.840 Gabriel music video for Salisbury Hill, you know, and it 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:45.440 says They've come to take me home, and my heart 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:53.480 going boom boom boom. 0:25:53.600 --> 0:25:56.639 Megan received my letter because she's now living in Pam's house. 0:25:57.000 --> 0:25:59.560 Pam left it to her, and along with the house 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:03.040 came the shoves and shelves of books, inside thousands of 0:26:03.080 --> 0:26:06.359 them with little notes explaining which ones Megan should read 0:26:06.440 --> 0:26:10.359 and why. Among them was the journal. Stuck to the 0:26:10.400 --> 0:26:14.439 cover was a small burned orange postead that read from Megan. 0:26:15.160 --> 0:26:17.080 Megan reads me the final entry. 0:26:17.520 --> 0:26:20.600 On seven nine seventeen. 0:26:22.680 --> 0:26:28.520 She writes, my darling, sweet Megan, I hope this is 0:26:28.560 --> 0:26:32.080 all not too much of a burden for you, and 0:26:32.119 --> 0:26:34.280 I hope this gives you a little financial freedom. 0:26:34.440 --> 0:26:36.000 Try to have some joy and fun. 0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:40.439 Quote Listen, being dead is not worse than being alive. 0:26:40.680 --> 0:26:43.400 It is different, though you could say the view is larger. 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:47.160 End quote. And that's from the Poison Wood Bible. You've 0:26:47.160 --> 0:26:49.320 been a good friend to me, Megan, maybe the best 0:26:49.320 --> 0:26:52.640 friend I've ever had. I love you, honey. I don't 0:26:52.640 --> 0:26:54.640 have any more words of my own, so I will 0:26:54.760 --> 0:27:00.000 end this with more of Barbara King's solvers quote Liten 0:27:00.160 --> 0:27:03.600 and slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. 0:27:04.320 --> 0:27:06.840 You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. 0:27:07.520 --> 0:27:11.560 You will forgive, and remember think of the vine that 0:27:11.680 --> 0:27:15.280 curls from the small square plot that was once my heart. 0:27:15.480 --> 0:27:18.880 That is the only marketer you need. Move on, walk 0:27:18.960 --> 0:27:25.800 forward into the light. And then she wrote love Always, Pam. 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:29.000 And then there's just tons of pages behind that that 0:27:29.080 --> 0:27:29.560 are blank. 0:27:35.840 --> 0:27:40.399 Sorry, that just hurts me heart. 0:27:42.480 --> 0:27:45.440 After speaking with Megan, I reached back out to Stephanie 0:27:45.720 --> 0:27:46.760 to relate what I learned. 0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:48.960 I don't even know this woman, and I just feel 0:27:48.960 --> 0:27:50.200 for her deeply, and I feel for. 0:27:50.200 --> 0:27:52.639 Everyone around her. 0:27:54.200 --> 0:27:58.000 It's about it's almost exactly one year of me losing 0:27:58.040 --> 0:28:08.200 someone to suicide. 0:28:12.200 --> 0:28:14.600 Megan isn't in touch with Chet, nor does she know 0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:17.680 anyone who is. She says is split from Pam was 0:28:17.720 --> 0:28:20.720 pretty complete, but she sends me some photos of the 0:28:20.760 --> 0:28:23.760 two of them from around Pam's house. Pam and chat 0:28:23.800 --> 0:28:27.120 on their wedding day, Pam and Shed on vacation in Mexico, 0:28:27.520 --> 0:28:30.720 his arm around her waist. Once I know what Ched 0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:33.640 looks like, I'm able to locate him among the dozens 0:28:33.680 --> 0:28:37.320 of Facebook profiles bearing the same name, and from there 0:28:37.560 --> 0:28:41.040 I find an email address. So I write the stoic 0:28:41.120 --> 0:28:44.840 man behind the bookstore counter, the man Stephanie's been wondering 0:28:44.880 --> 0:28:49.480 about for two decades, and he responds with his own 0:28:49.560 --> 0:29:09.360 version of the story of another roadside Attraction, Chapter three. 0:29:09.720 --> 0:29:10.480 Chet. 0:29:14.360 --> 0:29:18.760 No, Hi, Chet, this is Jonathan Goldstein speaking Nothing. 0:29:18.880 --> 0:29:21.240 Nice to meet you. Finally, how nice to talk to you. 0:29:21.880 --> 0:29:24.360 When I first reached out to Chet by email, I 0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:27.760 mentioned Pam's death. It turned out that my telling him 0:29:27.920 --> 0:29:30.560 was the first he was learning of it. I'm crying 0:29:30.560 --> 0:29:33.840 as I write this. Chet responded, we were married for 0:29:33.880 --> 0:29:36.840 nearly ten years. That news has hit me very hard. 0:29:37.560 --> 0:29:39.280 Give me a few days and I will get back 0:29:39.280 --> 0:29:43.120 to you. It's now been about a week. Chet asks 0:29:43.160 --> 0:29:45.440 me to tell him what I know about the circumstances 0:29:45.480 --> 0:29:49.640 surrounding Pam's death, and so I do, explaining it was 0:29:49.640 --> 0:29:53.200 a suicide. And as I speak, Chet is silent. 0:30:00.160 --> 0:30:02.560 I haven't seen her. I hadn't seen her since I 0:30:03.160 --> 0:30:05.560 left Dripping Springs when I divorced her in two thousand 0:30:05.560 --> 0:30:10.160 and five. SO called her once about a couple of 0:30:10.160 --> 0:30:13.960 months or so after I left, and she wasn't very 0:30:13.960 --> 0:30:17.760 happy with me. So I knew that didn't make any 0:30:17.800 --> 0:30:21.360 sense trying to call her again. I loved them dearly. 0:30:21.560 --> 0:30:27.040 I mean, I can't even put in words. I can't 0:30:27.120 --> 0:30:28.959 even put in words how much I love her. 0:30:30.360 --> 0:30:33.760 Like Megan, Check begins the story of another roadside attraction 0:30:34.240 --> 0:30:36.880 with the story of Pam how she first entered his 0:30:36.920 --> 0:30:38.320 life in nineteen ninety seven. 0:30:43.200 --> 0:30:46.000 The way Pam and I met was about as happenstance 0:30:46.080 --> 0:30:48.520 as it gets. When I first moved to Austin, I 0:30:48.520 --> 0:30:51.360 wanted to go out check out Sixth Street. Now Sixth 0:30:51.400 --> 0:30:53.440 Street if you don't know anything about it is a 0:30:53.480 --> 0:30:55.880 big place that a lot of the UT students hang 0:30:55.920 --> 0:30:57.880 out at. It's a big college town here again. 0:30:58.440 --> 0:31:00.760 So Check got a beer on Sixth Street and started 0:31:00.840 --> 0:31:03.240 chatting with a guy at the bar. But after a 0:31:03.280 --> 0:31:06.160 while they began to feel out of place, too old 0:31:06.160 --> 0:31:07.800 among the student crowd, and. 0:31:07.760 --> 0:31:09.680 I noticed two women walking across the street, going in 0:31:09.680 --> 0:31:11.880 the opposite direction, so I yelled to them because they 0:31:11.880 --> 0:31:13.160 looked like they were around their age. 0:31:13.800 --> 0:31:15.920 The two women were Pam and a friend of hers. 0:31:16.240 --> 0:31:19.000 It was their first time on Sixth Street. Two the 0:31:19.040 --> 0:31:21.560 group all headed to a club together and Pam and 0:31:21.640 --> 0:31:23.280 Chat got to talking. 0:31:23.400 --> 0:31:26.440 And we wound up talking until the bar closed. We 0:31:26.480 --> 0:31:28.120 wound up going to a hotel room. We wound up 0:31:28.160 --> 0:31:31.120 talking there till about four thirty in the morning. She 0:31:31.200 --> 0:31:33.720 was very easy to talk to you. I didn't feel 0:31:33.760 --> 0:31:35.600 like I had to try to impress her, and she 0:31:35.600 --> 0:31:37.080 didn't feel like she had to do that with me. 0:31:37.160 --> 0:31:38.200 It was really natural. 0:31:38.960 --> 0:31:41.560 Chet called Pam the next day, and very soon after 0:31:41.600 --> 0:31:44.920 that they started dating. Eight months later, he moved to 0:31:45.000 --> 0:31:47.800 Dripping Springs to be with her, and a month after 0:31:47.840 --> 0:31:50.840 that they were married. So it was a bit of 0:31:50.840 --> 0:31:56.760 a whirlwind. Yes, yes, Chet says he knew immediately that 0:31:56.840 --> 0:31:59.840 this relationship with Pam was destined to be different than 0:32:00.000 --> 0:32:01.640 anything he'd experienced before. 0:32:02.240 --> 0:32:04.320 I think we all had this void in our lives 0:32:04.320 --> 0:32:07.360 where we get into relationships and they're really nice, we 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:09.719 fall in love, but we're always missing something. And I 0:32:09.760 --> 0:32:11.920 was like, well, that person's just not feeling this void. 0:32:12.280 --> 0:32:14.720 And then they go to another relationship. You're no, they 0:32:14.720 --> 0:32:17.520 filled that void, but now they're missing this. Fams seemed 0:32:17.520 --> 0:32:19.200 to come into my life and I came into her 0:32:19.280 --> 0:32:21.600 life at a point where we were able to fill 0:32:21.600 --> 0:32:24.800 that void for each other, the void I've always looked 0:32:24.800 --> 0:32:27.720 to have filled. She did it. She did right in there, 0:32:27.800 --> 0:32:30.400 and it was like a glove. Even though she and 0:32:30.480 --> 0:32:32.840 I were polar opposite in a lot of way. We 0:32:33.000 --> 0:32:35.200 didn't like the same music, didn't like the same foods, 0:32:35.240 --> 0:32:38.360 didn't like the same dress, didn't let me that one 0:32:38.680 --> 0:32:42.440 aspect of our relationship outweighed it all. We had a 0:32:42.600 --> 0:32:44.000 great rapport. 0:32:44.680 --> 0:32:47.560 And an important part of that rapport was their shared 0:32:47.600 --> 0:32:48.600 love of books. 0:32:48.880 --> 0:32:50.680 The title of the book of her favorite book was 0:32:51.040 --> 0:32:55.000 Barbara King Salver's book The Poison Wood Bible, right right, 0:32:55.040 --> 0:32:57.640 and I read that book and I swear to God 0:32:57.720 --> 0:33:00.600 I fell in love and that it now my favorite 0:33:00.600 --> 0:33:03.320 book as well, even though her favorite author was Tom Robbins. 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:07.120 Right, and isn't the bookstore named after named. 0:33:06.920 --> 0:33:09.560 After the title to his books that was her favorite author. 0:33:09.680 --> 0:33:11.280 Was her idea to come up with a title. I 0:33:11.280 --> 0:33:16.000 thought it was brilliant, Huh. Pam was an avid reader. 0:33:16.040 --> 0:33:18.720 When I say avid reader, I'm talking about three books 0:33:18.760 --> 0:33:22.280 a week, easy, sometimes more. Absolutely love books, and we 0:33:22.320 --> 0:33:24.400 would find ourselves going to the store all the time 0:33:24.440 --> 0:33:25.400 to buy books. 0:33:26.040 --> 0:33:29.920 Unlike Megan, Chet doesn't talk about another roadside attraction as 0:33:29.960 --> 0:33:33.040 a lifelong dream of PAMs so much as a project 0:33:33.080 --> 0:33:37.360 he initiated. He explains it this way. After being deployed 0:33:37.360 --> 0:33:40.720 to Grenada and Beirut with the Marines, Chet returned home 0:33:40.760 --> 0:33:44.960 suffering from PTSD. He'd always worked in restaurants, but his 0:33:45.080 --> 0:33:47.400 doctor told him he needed a break from the stress. 0:33:47.960 --> 0:33:50.400 So when he arrived in Dripping Springs, he was at 0:33:50.400 --> 0:33:53.560 a loss for what to do. At first, he tried 0:33:53.560 --> 0:33:55.040 building a model railroad set. 0:33:55.440 --> 0:33:58.040 After I finished a model train thing, I just I 0:33:58.080 --> 0:34:01.040 got bored, and that's when I threw the idea her. Hey, 0:34:01.680 --> 0:34:03.880 how about if I build you a bookstore. We don't 0:34:03.880 --> 0:34:07.239 have to go out and buy you books anymore. I 0:34:07.320 --> 0:34:09.799 just wanted to do whatever I could do to make 0:34:09.840 --> 0:34:10.360 her happy. 0:34:11.480 --> 0:34:14.560 In Megan's telling, the store was a monument to Pam's 0:34:14.560 --> 0:34:18.200 love of reading. In Chet's telling, it was a monument 0:34:18.239 --> 0:34:28.560 to his love of Pam. Did Pam ever feel frustrated 0:34:28.600 --> 0:34:31.640 that she didn't get to work in the bookstore more? 0:34:32.600 --> 0:34:34.760 No, not really. She was glad that I had something 0:34:34.800 --> 0:34:37.040 to do, and that was more for pamlet the bookstore 0:34:37.160 --> 0:34:39.399 was just a place where she could get any book 0:34:39.480 --> 0:34:41.359 she wants to read when she wants to read. 0:34:42.200 --> 0:34:45.279 Chedd explains how Pam liked working at the bank, liked 0:34:45.280 --> 0:34:48.399 her boss and the customers, and of course she must 0:34:48.440 --> 0:34:51.800 have loved seeing Megan every day because, according to Chad, 0:34:52.239 --> 0:34:55.200 Pam did not need the money. This is a very 0:34:55.200 --> 0:34:58.200 different story than the one Megan presented of a woman 0:34:58.239 --> 0:35:01.280 single handedly trying to keep her living bookstore in the black. 0:35:01.920 --> 0:35:05.759 Her mother was a financial genius, Emily was a millionaire, 0:35:06.000 --> 0:35:07.680 but you wouldn't know it to meet her. I didn't 0:35:07.680 --> 0:35:08.480 know it when I met her. 0:35:09.360 --> 0:35:12.600 Speaking with ched and Megan is like reading two different authors, 0:35:12.920 --> 0:35:15.800 each with their own take on the same beloved main character. 0:35:16.560 --> 0:35:19.800 I wonder if the truth lies somewhere between both their takes. 0:35:20.400 --> 0:35:22.880 Although Pam's dream had been to have her own bookstore, 0:35:23.320 --> 0:35:27.360 maybe that dream evolved over time. Maybe another roadside attraction 0:35:27.719 --> 0:35:29.960 came to be a place she valued for the refuge 0:35:29.960 --> 0:35:38.080 it offered someone she loved. Ched was the one who 0:35:38.080 --> 0:35:42.000 built the bookstore. He added the deck, repaired the termite damage, 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:45.960 and constructed the shelves encounter. Each day, he opened the 0:35:45.960 --> 0:35:48.120 store at ten in the morning and closed it at 0:35:48.200 --> 0:35:51.439 nine at night. Cheed was there all day every day. 0:35:52.000 --> 0:35:54.640 He maintained the garden and the fish ponds, and kept 0:35:54.640 --> 0:35:57.480 a recliner behind the counter where he could watch football 0:35:57.560 --> 0:35:59.920 on a little TV when there weren't any customers. Or 0:36:01.200 --> 0:36:04.360 Chet only stepped away from another roadside attraction when his 0:36:04.440 --> 0:36:08.040 marriage to pam ended. Was there anything working against you? 0:36:08.080 --> 0:36:11.279 Guys like that just sort of ended up, you know, 0:36:11.360 --> 0:36:13.880 being destructive or lead to a divorce. 0:36:14.520 --> 0:36:21.200 Yeah, Demila had some vices. That's do well, but these 0:36:21.280 --> 0:36:24.279 vices were becoming dangerous. She drank it off a lot. 0:36:24.680 --> 0:36:26.600 She was a wine drinker, but she drank other things 0:36:26.640 --> 0:36:29.239 as well. There was a like it didn't habit there. 0:36:29.280 --> 0:36:33.160 So initially they weren't a big issue with me. The 0:36:33.200 --> 0:36:35.520 positive in our relationship fore outweighed any of that. 0:36:36.640 --> 0:36:40.760 But Chet says, as Pamela's tragedies stacked up, her vices 0:36:40.800 --> 0:36:41.360 grew worse. 0:36:42.080 --> 0:36:45.080 After the deaths of her family. These things began to increase, 0:36:45.120 --> 0:36:46.840 and that's what it began to get difficult. 0:36:47.640 --> 0:36:49.439 He says that when he tried to talk to Pam 0:36:49.520 --> 0:36:52.160 about cutting back, she refused to engage. 0:36:52.400 --> 0:36:54.920 Demilo was very strong willed. You couldn't get her to 0:36:54.920 --> 0:36:58.440 do anything. She didn't want to do, period, period. And 0:36:58.480 --> 0:37:01.120 it was clear to me at one point that there 0:37:01.160 --> 0:37:02.799 was nothing more I can say or do that was 0:37:02.800 --> 0:37:06.400 going to help this issue, you know. And my fear 0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:10.520 was that I would wake up one day and find 0:37:10.520 --> 0:37:14.080 her lying in bed next to me dead, and that 0:37:15.640 --> 0:37:17.160 there was not trying to blame that on me. 0:37:18.880 --> 0:37:21.000 Why did you think that you would be blamed? 0:37:23.040 --> 0:37:24.480 Well, I don't know if you know or not, but 0:37:24.960 --> 0:37:28.120 Pema and I are an interracial couple. I'm black, she's white, 0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:32.279 and Derby Springs is an all white town. There are 0:37:32.360 --> 0:37:34.160 no bide. I was the only blined person that lived there. 0:37:34.800 --> 0:37:37.640 And a lot of the reason why I heard through 0:37:37.640 --> 0:37:39.919 the Great Vie from other regular customers, why we weren't 0:37:39.920 --> 0:37:44.000 getting as much business as we should have because people 0:37:44.040 --> 0:37:45.799 didn't like to come, didn't want to do business with 0:37:45.880 --> 0:37:47.480 us because we were in a racial couple. 0:37:48.600 --> 0:37:51.000 Jess says there had been one other black person in town, 0:37:51.360 --> 0:37:54.040 a woman who worked at the gas station, but she'd 0:37:54.040 --> 0:37:56.760 moved away because you couldn't take the kinds of things 0:37:56.800 --> 0:37:57.879 people would say to her. 0:37:58.160 --> 0:37:59.600 Did. I used to have people come to my storre 0:37:59.680 --> 0:38:02.480 just say to my face. You know, it was insane. 0:38:03.360 --> 0:38:04.600 What would they say to your face? 0:38:04.680 --> 0:38:08.200 Oh? I had a woman come in once. She called me. 0:38:08.239 --> 0:38:10.399 It was in Christmas time. It was just about five 0:38:10.440 --> 0:38:12.680 o'clock in the evening. Some was just going down and 0:38:12.760 --> 0:38:14.560 she called and asked for a certain book and I said, yes, 0:38:14.600 --> 0:38:15.960 we have it. She says, okay, I'll be on my 0:38:16.040 --> 0:38:17.960 way there. And when you open the front order of 0:38:18.000 --> 0:38:19.799 the bookstore, you see the front kind of right there 0:38:19.840 --> 0:38:22.480 to your right. I'm looking right at you, and she 0:38:22.560 --> 0:38:24.440 looks at me, and she didn't even come inside. And 0:38:24.520 --> 0:38:27.080 it was clear to me she was sloppy, drunk. You know, 0:38:27.280 --> 0:38:30.279 her eyes were bloodshot. You can smell the alcohol in 0:38:30.280 --> 0:38:34.120 her breath. She goes, what are you doing here? And 0:38:34.640 --> 0:38:35.960 you can tell by the way she said it what 0:38:36.000 --> 0:38:38.520 she meant. And then she just closes the door and 0:38:38.520 --> 0:38:39.880 walks right back out again. 0:38:44.239 --> 0:38:48.160 All those books carefully wrapped in plastic weren't enough to 0:38:48.239 --> 0:38:52.080 keep the world of dripping springs from encroaching. Moments like 0:38:52.160 --> 0:38:55.360 these were what colored Chets fear, what made him worry 0:38:55.400 --> 0:38:57.920 that he might be the one blamed if Pam died. 0:38:58.440 --> 0:38:59.960 And I can see it easily happened because these sort 0:39:00.160 --> 0:39:02.960 things happen all the time in this country. Yeah, you know, 0:39:03.040 --> 0:39:04.560 they were just going to say all this white guys 0:39:04.600 --> 0:39:07.480 wanted to take her money because she's a millionaire. I mean, 0:39:07.480 --> 0:39:08.879 there are so many ways they can try to put 0:39:08.920 --> 0:39:10.400 it all together and say I had something to do 0:39:10.480 --> 0:39:13.520 with it. So and I tried to explain that to 0:39:13.560 --> 0:39:17.560 her and those exact words, and it just didn't seem 0:39:17.600 --> 0:39:20.560 to click. I just couldn't watch her kill herself anymore. 0:39:20.600 --> 0:39:23.360 Let's just put it that way. And that's when I realized, 0:39:23.400 --> 0:39:26.239 you know, my life's at risk, my freedom's at risk. 0:39:26.760 --> 0:39:30.200 I can't do this anymore. I have to get out 0:39:30.200 --> 0:39:33.239 of her. It was the hardest decision I ever had 0:39:33.239 --> 0:39:35.239 to make my life, because I promised her that I 0:39:35.239 --> 0:39:37.919 would never leave her. And I still suffer from having 0:39:37.960 --> 0:39:40.880 made that decision, even though I stand by the reasons 0:39:40.920 --> 0:39:42.520 I was forced to make that decision. I wish I 0:39:42.520 --> 0:39:45.440 had made another one. And I say these things because 0:39:45.560 --> 0:39:47.440 I'm trying to come off to saying, is Pam's a 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:50.160 bad person? She's not. It did nothing bad at all, 0:39:50.360 --> 0:39:53.960 nothing nothing, you know. I just I was forced to 0:39:53.960 --> 0:39:55.520 make a decision that I have to do with my 0:39:55.600 --> 0:39:58.879 freedom versus my love for her, and my freedom won out. 0:40:00.840 --> 0:40:03.840 Hearing all this, I recall the story Megan told me 0:40:04.280 --> 0:40:07.320 about Pam getting drunk on red wine and cutting her face. 0:40:07.880 --> 0:40:10.759 That looked Chat had given her. Maybe it wasn't one 0:40:10.760 --> 0:40:14.160 of disgust, but rather the look of a man realizing 0:40:14.400 --> 0:40:24.920 the impossible situation he was trapped in after the divorce. 0:40:25.400 --> 0:40:30.280 Chat like Pam never had another serious relationship, never anything 0:40:30.320 --> 0:40:32.279 long term, never anything real. 0:40:33.040 --> 0:40:36.799 I've always in my back on my mind, had it 0:40:36.800 --> 0:40:38.279 in me that I was gonna jump up in and 0:40:38.320 --> 0:40:41.000 see if I can find her and talk to her. 0:40:41.440 --> 0:40:43.560 I guess in a way, I was kind of reserving myself, 0:40:43.640 --> 0:40:46.160 saving myself for one day maybe running into her again 0:40:46.200 --> 0:40:50.400 and having things get back together again. And when I 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:54.040 read that that shit, I felt like, Okay, well that's 0:40:54.080 --> 0:40:56.480 never going to happen. Time to move on. 0:41:04.400 --> 0:41:07.279 At the end of our call, I tell Chet about Stephanie, 0:41:07.560 --> 0:41:09.560 the person who set me off down this path to 0:41:09.560 --> 0:41:13.400 begin with. Chet tells me he remembers her, the teenager 0:41:13.440 --> 0:41:16.480 who came in all the time that summer. Back when 0:41:16.480 --> 0:41:18.960 I spoke with Megan, I told her about Stephanie too. 0:41:19.640 --> 0:41:21.440 She said Pam would have been moved to know what 0:41:21.520 --> 0:41:24.400 the store had meant to her. In spite of Pam's 0:41:24.440 --> 0:41:27.640 passing five years ago, Megan says she still speaks to 0:41:27.680 --> 0:41:28.400 her all the time. 0:41:28.920 --> 0:41:32.240 I talked to her immediately and was like, see, people 0:41:32.280 --> 0:41:34.600 loved you, You made a difference. You really did do 0:41:34.719 --> 0:41:37.600 something that made life better for someone else. 0:41:46.719 --> 0:41:47.640 Should I open it? 0:41:47.920 --> 0:41:51.120 So yeah, I'd ask Megan if there might be something 0:41:51.120 --> 0:41:54.200 in Pam's house she could send to Stephanie a keepsake 0:41:54.280 --> 0:41:58.320 to prove the bookstore had once existed, And so Megan 0:41:58.360 --> 0:42:14.680 mailed Stephanie an envelope male ASMR. Stephanie pulls out an 0:42:14.680 --> 0:42:19.319 old bookmark with maroon lettering. It reads, used, unused and 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:33.560 unique books. Another roadside attraction. Oh Wow, in a bookstore, 0:42:33.880 --> 0:42:37.680 you'll find page after page, book after book of people 0:42:37.719 --> 0:42:40.759 trying to make meaning, trying to parse through feelings you 0:42:40.840 --> 0:42:44.359 thought were yours. Alone like you, These books tell us 0:42:44.800 --> 0:42:48.120 I too have felt trapped, I too have felt hopeless. 0:42:49.239 --> 0:42:52.160 A bookstore is where you can seek refuge from the world, 0:42:52.840 --> 0:42:55.439 but if you're lucky, it can also offer a way 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:59.279 into it. Stephanie's writing a solo show while shopping around 0:42:59.320 --> 0:43:03.160 TV scripts in la In a small way, She's carrying 0:43:03.200 --> 0:43:06.520 on the legacy of that strange little bookstore that appeared 0:43:06.520 --> 0:43:09.080 out of nowhere and felt as though it had shown 0:43:09.160 --> 0:43:12.080 up just in time and just for her. 0:44:00.680 --> 0:44:10.200 Now that the Ferniters returned to its goodwill home, now 0:44:10.239 --> 0:44:15.040 that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage 0:44:15.120 --> 0:44:21.120 to Posle, take this moment to do so, if we 0:44:21.320 --> 0:44:22.480 meant it, if we. 0:44:22.560 --> 0:44:32.160 Talk felt around for far too from things that accidentally to. 0:44:36.760 --> 0:44:40.040 This episode of Heavyweight was produced by senior producer Khaleila 0:44:40.080 --> 0:44:44.319 Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Moheiney Micguger. Our 0:44:44.320 --> 0:44:48.600 Supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Production help from Domiano Marquetti. 0:44:48.880 --> 0:44:53.720 Special thanks to Emily Condon, Sonia Dosani, Lauren Silverman, Caitlin Kenny, 0:44:53.840 --> 0:44:58.640 Brendan Klinkenberg, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode 0:44:58.680 --> 0:45:01.760 with original music by Chris Dean, Fellows, John K. Sampson, 0:45:01.840 --> 0:45:05.480 Michael Hurst, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be 0:45:05.480 --> 0:45:09.480 found on our website, gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our 0:45:09.520 --> 0:45:12.600 theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records. 0:45:12.719 --> 0:45:15.480 Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at 0:45:15.480 --> 0:45:18.560 Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com. We'll be back with a 0:45:18.600 --> 0:45:20.520 new episode after Thanksgiving.