#55 Toby AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Heavyweight

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Episode: #55 Toby

Author: Spotify Studios
Duration: 00:49:42

Episode Shownotes

After his father’s death, Toby found a box of cassette tapes in his dad’s house. These private recordings tell the story of how his parents’ relationship fell apart—a story that Toby never knew, and might not want to know. CREDITS Heavyweight is hosted and produced by Jonathan Goldstein. This episode

was produced by senior producer Kalila Holt, along with Phoebe Flanigan. The supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Production assistance by Mohini Madgavkar. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Alex Blumberg, Max Greene, Blythe Terrell, and Jackie Cohen. The show was mixed by Bobby Lord. Music by Christine Fellows, John K Samson, Blue Dot Sessions, Saigon Would Be Seoul, and Bobby Lord. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary

In episode #55 titled 'Toby' of the podcast 'Heavyweight' hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, Toby discovers a box of cassette tapes belonging to his late father, which unveil the complexities of his parents' relationship during their divorce. As he listens to the recordings, Toby reflects on his childhood and the emotional distance he experienced with his family, particularly with his mother, who struggled with alcoholism. The episode explores themes of familial relationships, self-discovery, and the impact of the past on present identities, ultimately prompting Toby to confront painful truths about his history and relationships.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (#55 Toby) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:03 Speaker_19
Yeah, what do you need?

00:00:05 Speaker_15
Okay. My foot fell asleep.

00:00:08 Speaker_02
Pardon?

00:00:09 Speaker_15
My foot fell asleep.

00:00:12 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:00:12 Speaker_15
From a medical perspective, is it better to rub it or just to ride it out, keep it still?

00:00:19 Speaker_19
I think maybe, like, cutting it off.

00:00:22 Speaker_15
Bye. Wait, no. Hello? Jackie? I can't walk and I can hear the ice cream truck. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Toby. Right after the break.

00:00:59 Speaker_21
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00:01:12 Speaker_21
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00:01:22 Speaker_00
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00:01:30 Speaker_12
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00:01:56 Speaker_18
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00:02:03 Speaker_20
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00:02:06 Speaker_18
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00:02:10 Speaker_20
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00:02:16 Speaker_03
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00:02:17 Speaker_20
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00:02:27 Speaker_15
In 2012, Toby's father died suddenly of a heart attack. Shortly after the funeral, Toby cleaned out his house.

00:02:35 Speaker_03
You know, you just find stuff, find relics of a life, like, oh, hey, here's this, you know, pocket watch that's labeled 1912. Whose would this have been, you know?

00:02:45 Speaker_15
Toby and his dad, Doug, weren't especially close. So going through his stuff felt oddly intimate.

00:02:51 Speaker_03
It's funny, I didn't know my dad ever smoked weed, but I found weed. Oh, wow. I was like, oh, OK. It was really old, I think.

00:03:00 Speaker_15
Toby says there were thousands of decisions to make.

00:03:02 Speaker_03
What to donate, what to try and sell it in the state sale, and what to keep. Pocket watch, keep.

00:03:09 Speaker_15
Old weed, discard. It was while sorting through Doug's old suit jackets and books that Toby found a box. A box containing 21 audio cassette tapes. Toby read through the labels.

00:03:27 Speaker_15
They had titles like, Phone Conversation, Terry, 9.30 p.m., Terry, March 3rd, 1987, Phone Conversation, and Terry's Call. Terry was Toby's mom. She and his dad divorced when Toby was four.

00:03:42 Speaker_15
And judging by the dates on the labels, the tapes were recorded around the time of their split. Why did these tapes even exist? Toby wasn't sure. He put the tapes in the key pile. As Toby understands it, his parents were never an obvious match.

00:04:04 Speaker_15
Doug was the button down type and Terry had a wild hair. They got married young and seven years into their marriage, Terry surprised Doug by picking up all her stuff one day and moving out.

00:04:17 Speaker_15
From there, Terry married a biker dude named Randy and spiraled into years of wild living and hard drinking. Toby's memory of those years is like a series of snapshots, hugging his mom and knowing even at 12 to smell her for alcohol.

00:04:32 Speaker_15
The time his friend told him he couldn't sleep over at his house because quote, my mom doesn't like your mom. And the night Terry took him and his little sister Heidi to a bar and kept drinking and drinking.

00:04:45 Speaker_03
My mom was, like, unable to stand up, essentially. And... me being seven or eight, knowing, like, oh, you're not supposed to drink and drive, and asking a random dude at the bar, like, hey, can you drive us home?

00:05:02 Speaker_03
I remember being confused because I had asked the question, and then my mom still drove us home. My sister was, I think, old enough to know something wasn't right. She was probably kindergarten. In the backseat, Heidi reached out for Toby's hand.

00:05:17 Speaker_03
And we held hands while she was driving home.

00:05:31 Speaker_15
Eventually, Toby and Heidi went to live with their dad, Doug. Things were a lot more emotionally stable there, but Doug wasn't exactly warm and fuzzy. Toby can't remember a single time he ever told Toby he loved him.

00:05:43 Speaker_15
That just wasn't part of our, that wasn't part of our vernacular. You never heard, I love you.

00:05:50 Speaker_03
Not that I remember.

00:05:53 Speaker_15
Although the divorce's aftermath had a profound impact on Toby, for the most part, he tries to avoid thinking about it. He tells me he tends to shut out heavy emotions.

00:06:03 Speaker_15
In fact, this tendency came up just the other day when Lauren, his wife of 15 years, brought up the box of tapes.

00:06:11 Speaker_03
But then I saw something very quickly change the subject. And she's like, this is what I'm talking about. Like you, anytime it starts to get deep, you immediately find a bright, shiny object to change the subject.

00:06:24 Speaker_22
He said, hey, look at that silver car over there. That's been parked there for a while. This is Lauren. He's pretty avoidant of getting to those like raw, vulnerable parts.

00:06:37 Speaker_15
21 cassette tapes from the exact spent so long avoiding might really bring out those raw, vulnerable parts. Which is why, almost 10 years after taking them home, the tapes remain unplayed, hidden away in a credenza.

00:06:58 Speaker_15
Maybe there's nothing even on the tapes. Maybe they've been recorded over or warped with time. But maybe they form an unlikely door to Toby's past, to his childhood and his parents' relationship.

00:07:13 Speaker_03
There's so much that I don't know. My dad's gone, my mom's gone, I don't have any way to find out what was actually happening in my life.

00:07:21 Speaker_03
This is the last piece of them that, like, it'd be new, new information, but don't know that I'm ever actually gonna listen to them if I don't have an excuse forcing me to listen to them.

00:07:35 Speaker_15
And so, I, Jonathan Goldstein, have become that living, breathing excuse. Toby has come to me with the tapes in order to help him face his past and his feelings head on. What's the ideal version of what comes next?

00:07:51 Speaker_03
Like, part of me is like, send you guys the tapes and you tell me what's on them and what's interesting and what's not, you know, like almost outsourcing.

00:08:00 Speaker_14
Like create a curated, we've done a highlight reel.

00:08:04 Speaker_03
Yeah, here's how your life changed dramatically through no fault of your own. Here's the highlights. After the break, the highlights.

00:08:26 Speaker_15
Kalila Holt.

00:08:27 Speaker_19
Yeah.

00:08:28 Speaker_15
I used to work at a radio show called This American Life.

00:08:32 Speaker_19
I know. It's the show that inspired me to follow this line of work.

00:08:36 Speaker_15
If you've never heard of This American Life, they're like, I think they describe themselves, if I'm not mistaken, as being like little movies for the radio.

00:08:45 Speaker_19
Yes. The best. It was my favorite show as a kid all the way to it's still my favorite show.

00:08:51 Speaker_15
And how many things can you think of that are like that, that have been going for 25 years and have just maintained the level of quality that This American Life has? Truly, like, I mean, even things that you end up loving, like, I love Star Wars.

00:09:06 Speaker_15
I watched three episodes. That was plenty for this American life. It just, in some ways, it gets better. It expands its universe and the things that it tries.

00:09:16 Speaker_19
We talk about it like every week. Yeah.

00:09:18 Speaker_15
It's meaningful to us. Yeah. And I would say if you love heavyweight, you're going to love this American life. Would you say that?

00:09:28 Speaker_19
I would say that.

00:09:29 Speaker_15
Should we say it in unison?

00:09:31 Speaker_19
Sure. If you like heavyweight, okay, you're not saying it in unison.

00:09:35 Speaker_15
You're going to love- You know what? I don't know that saying things in unison really sells something. It's not like, no, no, no, really, they said it in unison. It really imparted to me just how true this was. Yeah.

00:09:49 Speaker_15
But it is true that This American Life continues to experiment every week with what radio storytelling can be, and it drops every Sunday night. So listen wherever you get your podcasts.

00:10:03 Speaker_12
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00:11:02 Speaker_03
I mentioned to my six-year-old, I was like, yeah, I'm talking to Jonathan Goldstein. And he said, who is that? Is that an old man you're talking to about another old man?

00:11:12 Speaker_15
He's basically nailed heavyweight in a sentence. I've started to go through the cassettes, which amount to about 23 hours of audio.

00:11:21 Speaker_15
And while there are work calls, calls to the video store, a fair bit of Fleetwood Mac taped off the radio, a large portion of the tapes is exactly what the labels promised, phone calls between Toby's parents.

00:11:35 Speaker_15
It seems that during the divorce proceedings, Doug had been meticulously recording his phone calls, possibly as a precaution in case of a custody battle. Toby has a busy schedule. He works a full-time job and is raising two kids.

00:11:49 Speaker_15
So we set aside an hour a week to go through the tapes, a little at a time. Our check-ins usually occur during breaks in Toby's workday. Oh, hey. Hello. Toby. Hello, can you hear me? Oh, hello. Hello.

00:12:03 Speaker_15
The labels on the tapes span a couple of years, and we decide to go through in chronological order. The earliest tapes are from after Doug and Terry have separated, but before the official divorce.

00:12:14 Speaker_15
I press play, and for the first time in over a decade, Toby hears his parents' voices.

00:12:19 Speaker_06
Did you pay Joanne? I couldn't get hold of her.

00:12:21 Speaker_15
Uh-uh.

00:12:22 Speaker_06
You didn't pay her? No. Why not?

00:12:24 Speaker_15
In this recording, Terry wants to know why Doug hasn't paid their babysitter, Joanne.

00:12:29 Speaker_07
Well, I'm going to end up having to pay you all the back payments.

00:12:33 Speaker_06
Back payments?

00:12:35 Speaker_07
On child support.

00:12:36 Speaker_08
I'm not asking for any back payments.

00:12:39 Speaker_06
I'm not vindictive. Not greedy.

00:12:42 Speaker_08
Just pay Joanne. I'm not going to ask for... Okay, well, I'll stop by there and pay her.

00:12:49 Speaker_03
My dad's voice, I recognize. But my mom's voice, if you had just played it and said, who is this? I would have... I didn't recognize her voice, which is pretty incredible to me.

00:13:03 Speaker_15
And what Toby also finds pretty incredible is hearing his parents speak to one another, and with so much civility.

00:13:10 Speaker_15
The only version of them that he remembers is two people with so much bad blood between them, they could hardly be in the same room together. Birthday parties were separate, and at his graduation, they avoided eye contact and didn't speak a word.

00:13:24 Speaker_15
But none of that acrimony is evident in these early tapes.

00:13:28 Speaker_06
So you want that stipulated in the papers that you would have him for a couple of months in the summertime, you know?

00:13:33 Speaker_15
In another recording from that time, Doug and Terry try to figure out how to split time with Toby and Heidi.

00:13:38 Speaker_08
What are you talking about? June, July? July, August? June and July. Well, Heidi's birthday's in July. We don't get to give her a birthday party together. We love our kids. We don't hate each other.

00:13:56 Speaker_15
Not only do they not hate each other, they're getting along exceptionally well. They're able to hash out their divorce agreement, just the two of them, without lawyers. They figure it all out at a Perkins restaurant one night.

00:14:09 Speaker_15
As Toby listens to his parents being so cordial, he feels a kind of dread, because he knows cordial is not how things will end. It's like listening to the beginning, he says, of a horror story. Hello?

00:14:23 Speaker_07
What are you doing? Oh, just doing some laundry.

00:14:25 Speaker_15
So how did things deteriorate so? How did they get so bad? With that question in mind, we forge ahead with the tapes. Yeah, so, okay, I'll play you.

00:14:36 Speaker_15
While Toby always knew his dad to be a pretty detached person, on the night the divorce becomes official, Doug seems genuinely lonely. The tapes capture him phoning a friend and getting a continuous busy signal.

00:14:48 Speaker_15
He calls back four more times until he can finally get through.

00:14:53 Speaker_07
What do you guys do? Sit around and talk on the phone all night?

00:14:56 Speaker_04
No, we leave it up the hook so people like you won't call.

00:14:58 Speaker_07
I hear ya.

00:15:00 Speaker_04
What's going on, Doug? Oh, it's final. What's final?

00:15:04 Speaker_07
The divorce.

00:15:05 Speaker_04
Already?

00:15:06 Speaker_07
Yeah.

00:15:06 Speaker_04
How could it be done so quick?

00:15:09 Speaker_07
All I gotta do now is live with it. It's still gonna take a lot of time to get over it. Sure, sure. One thing I learned, people are not supposed to get divorced. What do you mean? I was always taught that if something's broken, you should fix it.

00:15:27 Speaker_04
Oh, sure. Because, you know, I remember my parents would have fights so bad. But, you know, their thought of divorce just never came up. Yeah.

00:15:35 Speaker_07
Yeah, of course. You'll never know the whole story, just like Toby and Heidi will never know the whole story.

00:15:44 Speaker_03
It seems like he kind of intuitively knew that we would always have questions. And that thread continues today.

00:15:54 Speaker_15
As we continue on beyond the divorce, Toby's wife Lauren joins him to listen to some of the tapes, like this one.

00:16:00 Speaker_23
Hi, Dad.

00:16:02 Speaker_15
This is a five-year-old Toby on the phone with Doug. Adult Toby, hearing his own voice, exchanges a smile with Lauren.

00:16:09 Speaker_05
Hi, Toby. I don't really remember that kind of relationship with him. Like what kind of relationship? Silly and playful and...

00:16:38 Speaker_03
saying I love you when you hang up the phone. Like, I don't really remember that at all.

00:16:42 Speaker_15
The I love you's had existed. Toby had just forgotten them. The parents on the tapes are different from the parents Toby remembers in other ways, too.

00:16:58 Speaker_08
They had her bring along her Care Bear blanket, too.

00:17:01 Speaker_15
Not only are they working as a team, but Terry sounds clear-headed and on top of things.

00:17:08 Speaker_08
It's like a bedspread type.

00:17:11 Speaker_06
Yes, that's the one. Well, it goes on her little bed. Toby knows who Robert is. That's who he's bowling the doubles with. And make sure he gets a ten ball.

00:17:20 Speaker_15
Whenever Terry calls to talk to the kids at Duggs, young Toby runs to the phone. Mommy!

00:17:27 Speaker_23
Mommy! Toby! Mom, root beer!

00:17:31 Speaker_08
I suppose so.

00:17:33 Speaker_23
Okay, I'll just get through this one. I got some right here. There.

00:17:40 Speaker_08
Ooh, that was good.

00:17:42 Speaker_23
Want another can?

00:17:44 Speaker_08
Yeah, I'll take another can. I'm thirsty. There. Were you really gurgling? I really got some root beer.

00:17:56 Speaker_15
And whenever they say goodbye, Terry, just like Doug, tells Toby how much she loves him.

00:18:01 Speaker_08
I'll talk to you later. Love you. Bye-bye. Love you. Bye-bye. I love you. Love you too.

00:18:10 Speaker_03
It's a little bit sad knowing what happened in her life over the next 10 or 15 years. My memories of my mom don't have any of that lightheartedness or happiness to them. I remember a lot more of the bad stuff.

00:18:30 Speaker_15
The bad stuff continued into Toby's young adulthood. Not long before she died, Toby saw his mother at a family Thanksgiving. Toby was in college and had just dyed his hair black. Terry was so out of it that she didn't recognize him.

00:18:44 Speaker_03
And she looked at me and said, hi, and then like turned away and was like, where's Toby at? And then it's like, well, I'm right here. My hair's a different color, but I'm still here. And that's a core memory, I think.

00:18:58 Speaker_03
And I think that was the last time I saw her. You know that story, Lauren?

00:19:05 Speaker_22
I didn't remember that story.

00:19:07 Speaker_03
I don't know. It's not a fun Friday night conversation.

00:19:16 Speaker_22
I noticed today as we've been talking about stuff, like, you'll get choked up and then, you know, you've got to sort of diffuse it, like, you smile afterwards.

00:19:26 Speaker_03
I'm thinking of, like, what's a funny joke I could put in here now?

00:19:32 Speaker_15
Knowing how Toby tends to brush over difficult feelings, the next clip I play him feels like one of those origin stories you'd see in a superhero film.

00:19:40 Speaker_07
Toby, stop.

00:19:47 Speaker_15
Doug is on hold with Joanne, the babysitter.

00:19:50 Speaker_07
Act a little happier.

00:19:52 Speaker_05
The marching orders Toby would continue to obey all the way into his adulthood. But when Toby listens to the tape,

00:20:16 Speaker_03
I think it's funny.

00:20:17 Speaker_15
All he can do is laugh it off. Shall we continue?

00:20:20 Speaker_23
Yeah.

00:20:24 Speaker_15
This is Toby's sister, Heidi, asking Doug if he can have dinner with her at her mother's house.

00:20:30 Speaker_07
No, I don't think... I don't think so.

00:20:33 Speaker_23
Why?

00:20:34 Speaker_07
Well, I don't go over there anymore.

00:20:38 Speaker_23
Why aren't you doing something over here?

00:20:41 Speaker_07
Well... I don't need Tipper over there.

00:20:44 Speaker_23
Why?

00:20:45 Speaker_07
Because your mom and I are divorced.

00:20:47 Speaker_23
Why did you?

00:20:50 Speaker_07
Well, I don't know. Maybe we'll understand it better when we're older.

00:20:57 Speaker_15
In spite of Toby's being older, in spite of cassette tapes unspooling lives, there are many questions Toby will never have the answers to.

00:21:09 Speaker_15
One day, while going through the tapes, I come across one answer to a big question, how things between Doug and Terry got so bad. It happened after the divorce on one particular evening in April of 1988.

00:21:24 Speaker_15
Suddenly, I can see the whole arc of the relationship's downfall. The recordings are heavy and scheduling these tape listening sessions over Zoom during Toby's lunch breaks no longer feels appropriate. And so I have a new idea.

00:21:39 Speaker_15
I decide I'll travel to Portland, where Toby lives, so we can sit down together, and over the course of a dedicated weekend, play these last tapes in person. Oh, gosh. Okay. After the break, Portland.

00:22:12 Speaker_17
This year, Santa's bringing the power of Energizer into his workshop.

00:22:16 Speaker_23
Whoa, the Energizer bunny's got so much power. Wait, he's powered up all the toys. I think that means we're done for the year.

00:22:23 Speaker_22
I love this bunny.

00:22:25 Speaker_17
He's the hardest working helper the North Pole has ever seen. And he wants all your gifts to have the power of the number one longest lasting AA battery.

00:22:34 Speaker_17
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00:22:45 Speaker_15
Toby, Lauren, and I meet in a hotel suite in downtown Portland. Lauren and Toby sit next to each other on the couch. We all don our headphones to listen. So, we can start, if that's good with you guys. Yeah.

00:23:02 Speaker_15
And so, we dive into that pivotal evening from 1988. Wednesday night, April 26. For the first time, we hear Doug narrating directly into the recorder.

00:23:14 Speaker_15
It's because this is the moment when he knows he's not merely documenting as a precaution, but potentially preparing evidence. It seems that Terry left Toby and Heidi at home all by themselves one night, and Doug called the police.

00:23:36 Speaker_15
Toby remembers that night.

00:23:38 Speaker_03
We were at mom's house. Yeah. And she went, I don't know how long she was gone, but I was like five. I got scared. And I called my dad and I didn't know he was going to call the police or whatever.

00:23:50 Speaker_03
So my mom came home at some point and then like the police came by.

00:23:58 Speaker_15
Toby doesn't recall his dad talking to him about what happened, but it seems he did.

00:24:02 Speaker_07
Are you upset about last night? Yeah. See, I called the police because I don't think you guys should be left there alone. And I didn't know what else to do because I can't go in your mom's house.

00:24:19 Speaker_23
OK, but they said we might get taken away if we go to your house.

00:24:25 Speaker_15
They said we might get taken away to go to your house.

00:24:28 Speaker_07
I don't think you will, because I don't think your mom will leave you alone anymore. And that's good, because when you're older, I think you guys need to be left alone. But not when you guys are this young.

00:24:41 Speaker_23
I'm sick.

00:24:43 Speaker_07
I know. I know. But you were scared. And I was scared for you.

00:24:49 Speaker_15
Terry, on the other hand, didn't think there was anything to be scared of. When she calls Doug sometime later to talk to the kids, Heidi brings up that night, and Terry explains it this way.

00:25:00 Speaker_23
Mom, how come one time you left us when nobody was there?

00:25:06 Speaker_08
Because I had to go check on my work and I was gone for 15 minutes. Haven't you ever been left alone before? No. You were asleep, you didn't even know it. And if Toby had been asleep, do you know what?

00:25:18 Speaker_08
I would not have left at all, but I thought Toby was old enough that he could sit here for 15 minutes by himself and watch the movie he was watching without freaking out. But obviously not.

00:25:34 Speaker_03
Pretty shitty to put that on me, a six-year-old who got scared.

00:25:39 Speaker_08
So now, that just caused a big, that caused a big, big, big, big problem. You slept through the whole thing, Heidi. Toby knows all about it. And from now on, your dad better never leave you guys alone, either. Never, ever. In a few days, you call me.

00:25:55 Speaker_23
How come you didn't tell me?

00:25:58 Speaker_08
Because, honey, you were asleep for the night.

00:26:01 Speaker_23
What if the house caught on fire?

00:26:04 Speaker_08
The house wasn't gonna catch on fire. We got about, how many, we got two smoke alarms downstairs here, don't we? And besides that, the house wouldn't catch on fire unless you guys play with matches. Are you guys gonna play with matches?

00:26:15 Speaker_23
What if the electricity caught on fire?

00:26:18 Speaker_08
We got all new wiring in this house.

00:26:27 Speaker_15
Because of what happened that night, family services paid a visit to Terry's house, but nothing came of it. Legally, that was that. Still, Terry felt betrayed by Doug. Here they are later that week, relitigating.

00:26:42 Speaker_08
Are you trying to fight for full capacity? Are you going to be on my back for something or what? I want you to straighten your act up is what I want. Straighten my act up? My act has been more than straightened up. She didn't sound sober.

00:26:57 Speaker_07
I think my sister and I were there with her at that point.

00:27:03 Speaker_08
Like, she was taking care of us.

00:27:22 Speaker_07
What was Toby doing up at 11 o'clock on his school night?

00:27:25 Speaker_08
Well, we did it because we was busy.

00:27:29 Speaker_07
How come the other day you said you were going to kill yourself if I had custody of your kids?

00:27:36 Speaker_08
I would never kill myself. I don't know what the hell. You don't have religion. Why would you start?

00:27:42 Speaker_15
What begins as anguish hardens into anger. A few weeks later, Terry phones Doug and accuses him of being out at a bar called Windy O'Leary's.

00:27:52 Speaker_08
Yeah, this is Terry. Where are you hanging out, Wendy O'Larry's? Should I call the cops on you? Your children want to talk to you. I think that's a little bit of neglect. I didn't really call a bitch or anything, but what I do want to say is this.

00:28:04 Speaker_08
I don't like you standing on my front porch spying. I told you to park in front of the house, and that's exactly what I meant.

00:28:11 Speaker_08
And if you can't get an answer with the honk, then you just better start hollering in the door, Toby and Honey, because as far as I can see, it was to listen to what was going on in the house.

00:28:20 Speaker_08
So, yeah, I'm a little upset, and I've been upset, and I've been holding it in. And that's just the kind of mood I'm in, and that's just the kind of mood that I have been holding within.

00:28:29 Speaker_08
So, why don't I just give a call, we know Larry's in, see if he'll answer. Goodbye.

00:28:42 Speaker_13
So this next clip is the last tape between them. It's a long one. Let's listen if you're ready. I think so.

00:29:00 Speaker_15
The month of June. This is where the argument begins. Doug has custody in June, but Terry has registered Toby for summer softball. Doug says the problem there is that he and the kids will be out of town for two weeks in June. So Terry says, well, great.

00:29:15 Speaker_15
If Toby's going to miss that much softball, he'll probably end up with some horrible position like right field and his self-esteem will be shot to hell.

00:29:22 Speaker_07
You know that the kids come here in June, and you just scheduled it.

00:29:26 Speaker_08
The damn league scheduled it, Dad. Well, you didn't contact me, and you knew he was gonna be here. Okay, but Toby can never participate in any summer sports. Is that what you're saying?

00:29:35 Speaker_07
What's that?

00:29:36 Speaker_08
Toby can never participate in any summer sports his whole life till he's 18.

00:29:39 Speaker_07
No, I didn't say anything like that. I said I would like to know about it.

00:29:43 Speaker_08
Okay, fine, Dad. Let's let the child be just, uh, invalid at home, be a vegetable all summer. What?

00:29:49 Speaker_15
Terry wants to change the custody agreement so she can take Toby to the softball games. But Doug says he's already booked the child care he'll need for the whole month.

00:29:58 Speaker_08
— Child care?

00:29:59 Speaker_07
— Yeah, Terry, now I— — I'm not following you. — No, wait a second. Let me talk, okay? Joanne and Caprice have scheduled their time around when they can watch my kids. — Our kids. — Caprice? — Our kids. — Okay, I'm sorry.

00:30:15 Speaker_15
So Terry turns it back on Doug. OK, she says, if I can't see the kids in June, then you won't see them in July.

00:30:22 Speaker_08
Yes, I will see them. How? Maybe my Memphis sold out.

00:30:27 Speaker_07
I can see them on weekends, my normal visitation.

00:30:31 Speaker_08
OK, I'll have to look that up, because I do tend to look every little thing up.

00:30:36 Speaker_07
Are you going to look up about the school that you pulled them out of? Oh, don't worry about that.

00:30:41 Speaker_15
In those early calls, Doug and Terry tended to resolve their disagreements in just a few minutes. But now, they go on fighting for over half an hour straight. Terry begins to leap from one unrelated grievance to the next.

00:30:53 Speaker_08
The other day, goddammit, Jonathan walked Toby home from kindergarten. Yeah, Caprice went too. Caprice did not take them home. Toby told me this.

00:31:04 Speaker_07
That's not true.

00:31:05 Speaker_08
Oh, then Toby lied. You know, Toby, he's not a liar. When I go over there also to talk to the kids Friday afternoon, Caprice kept saying, get off the phone, get off the phone, kids. Get off the phone, get off the phone.

00:31:17 Speaker_08
Because I always make a point of calling them on Friday and Saturday, which I don't see you making a point of calling the kids during the week. But when I call, I don't appreciate the babysitter telling the kids to get off the phone.

00:31:27 Speaker_08
And I don't appreciate also you standing on my front porch hearing what's going on inside of my house. To me, that is spying and low down and dirty. You were standing with one foot on the

00:31:38 Speaker_15
And then, finally, Terry raises the thing that really underlies her rage, the night of the police.

00:31:44 Speaker_08
When two weeks ago, when the cops were here, you couldn't even come up and check on your own son's welfare when you were supposedly so damn concerned. So what's the difference? I mean, either you're going to do it or you're not going to do it.

00:31:56 Speaker_08
That's kind of double standard.

00:31:57 Speaker_07
Because I don't think it would have been a good idea to make a big scene.

00:32:01 Speaker_08
Oh, make a big scene. When your son's taken upstairs and talked to by the cops, you don't, four policemen, you don't consider that a big scene? Four cops, right, that's what Randy says, four cops is a big thing.

00:32:15 Speaker_07
What I consider big was leaving the kids alone by themselves.

00:32:19 Speaker_08
You don't know our lifestyle, you don't know our situation.

00:32:22 Speaker_07
Now wait a second, lifestyle has nothing to do with it. You don't leave a four-year-old and a six-year-old in a house alone in the middle of the night, let alone in the middle of the day.

00:32:31 Speaker_08
Has it ever happened before? No. And another thing that happened still is that you did

00:32:37 Speaker_08
Doug, was you sitting around, actually, sitting around, actually, nobody can believe this, in your suit, tie, your jacket, your dress pants, your dress shoes and all that at 11 o'clock at night? Yeah, I was, as a matter of fact.

00:32:50 Speaker_08
As you were, as a matter of fact?

00:32:52 Speaker_07
No, I didn't have a tie on, no.

00:32:54 Speaker_08
You had a tie on when you was out here in front of my house.

00:32:56 Speaker_07
No, I didn't.

00:32:57 Speaker_08
I had a... Well, how could we see you when you were so far away? You wouldn't have come up here to check on Toby.

00:33:02 Speaker_07
I had a shirt on.

00:33:03 Speaker_08
I mean, do you talk so serious with the kids? Do you guys ever laugh? I know you do a lot of things with the kids. I know you guys go to the zoo. I know you guys go boating.

00:33:12 Speaker_08
And I know the kids enjoy it, but I also know they're getting these spoiled little burger butts over a lot of things, too. They're getting expected a little bit too much out of life, I think.

00:33:21 Speaker_08
But is there any humor and laughter in their life, or is it all materialism and soberness? I don't know what's going on, but why is it the other day Toby didn't, for the first time, Toby didn't want to go to your house?

00:33:37 Speaker_08
And why did Toby draw a picture of the devil and say it was you? Heidi had a bad dream last night and it was at your house, that's what the dream was. What is going on? I am really concerned.

00:33:48 Speaker_07
Yeah, I don't know. The kids hold a lot of anger.

00:33:51 Speaker_08
They don't hold a lot of anger here. Everything's hunky-dory here. And matter of fact, last two nights the kids have woke up with bad dreams and both nights have been dreams had something to do with the house.

00:34:04 Speaker_07
Well, they don't wake up with bad dreams over here. They sleep well.

00:34:06 Speaker_08
That's their dreams from over there. They're not dreams here. You know, I'm thinking, is there perversion going on or what?

00:34:15 Speaker_07
Well, I think that's a pretty strong allegation. I don't want to hear that.

00:34:18 Speaker_08
That is a pretty strong allegation, but I wonder.

00:34:21 Speaker_07
Exactly what are you trying to say?

00:34:22 Speaker_08
I had it happen to me. Is there a friend of yours that you are maybe think that's a good friend of yours who may not be a good friend, did you think?

00:34:32 Speaker_07
Well, I think you're wrong.

00:34:33 Speaker_08
No, that's not, that's not impossible, Doug. It's not impossible.

00:34:42 Speaker_07
How can you comprehend leaving a four and a six year old at home alone?

00:34:46 Speaker_08
For 15 minutes, and you know what, the DCFS worker died laughing. She said, Toby, do you know why I'm here? He says, yes, because I have no sense of time. He'll tell you I'll be right back. I ran three blocks. I was right back.

00:34:59 Speaker_08
Well, you don't leave a four-year-old and a six-year-old alone. Okay, don't you ever do it either, because by God, the first time, there won't be no cops involved.

00:35:06 Speaker_08
It'll be me and my family involved, because nobody in my family can believe they said right or wrong. They can't believe that you called in the outside.

00:35:17 Speaker_07
Your family thinks it's okay to leave kids alone.

00:35:20 Speaker_08
No, but they think you should have come over yourself. But no, you can't even come up on the front porch!

00:35:26 Speaker_07
Terry, the police... the police did not want me to come up on the front porch.

00:35:31 Speaker_08
The police didn't want you to come talk to your own son? Did they say that? Terry... No, did they say that?

00:35:39 Speaker_07
They got the information they needed. They told me they thought it would be best if I left.

00:35:43 Speaker_08
Did you say, well, I would like to talk to my son? Did you take the police advice? Terry, I'm not going to argue with the police. No, I want to know. I want to know how much you care about Tubby. You took the police advice over your own son's welfare.

00:36:00 Speaker_08
I personally, I don't know, maybe it's the maternal instinct, I would have said, well, can I at least see my son or talk to him? OK.

00:36:06 Speaker_07
This is kind of going.

00:36:10 Speaker_08
Because you decided against, you took the police advice. when the police got thousands and thousands and thousands of calls to make, and you have only one son.

00:36:19 Speaker_07
My own concern for Toby is why the police were at your house. You don't leave a four-year-old at a six-year-old.

00:36:29 Speaker_08
Why didn't you just track your suit, tie, shoes, and your jacket over here in the first place? I did. You would have been here before they would have been here. I was. You was here before they was here?

00:36:42 Speaker_08
You know, that just goes to show me that your concern is not what your son is, but how it looks reflects on you. First time I ever, ever left the kids. They told that lady that. They told the policeman that. They told you that.

00:36:58 Speaker_08
I can't even begin to tell you my anger about this. Well, that's good because I'm not going to allow you to do that. You're not going to allow me to kiss my ass.

00:37:07 Speaker_07
I don't.

00:37:07 Speaker_08
It ain't ever going to happen again.

00:37:09 Speaker_07
I don't regret calling the police when you left the kids alone.

00:37:11 Speaker_08
You don't regret calling the police. Okay, fine. Anything ever happens, I call the police on you, then neither one of us have children. How do you like them apples? You want to call in outside organizations? That's

00:37:27 Speaker_15
Tape cut off? Tape cuts off. It's not at the end of the cassette. The tape abruptly cuts off in a way that suggests Doug had pressed stop. For all of his rigor and scrupulousness in recording, it's like this moment was just too painful to document.

00:37:46 Speaker_15
In the end, Doug never needed the tape for evidence, as there was no court case. Terry agreed to allow him full custody without contest. When Toby was in the third grade, he and Heidi went to live with their dad for good.

00:38:00 Speaker_15
Toby sits in silence, taking in what he just heard. Lauren studies his face.

00:38:05 Speaker_22
The thing I just get pulled back to again and again is, like, that's my person in the middle of it. It's really hard. I wish there were, like, better words. I'm sorry.

00:38:30 Speaker_15
Toby's always been grateful to his dad for taking him out of a bad situation.

00:38:34 Speaker_15
But hearing this conversation, he says he suddenly understands the extent of what his dad was dealing with and why it might've been so important that Doug remain the stolid one. In the face of so much intensity, perhaps someone had to be.

00:38:48 Speaker_15
My mom was being awful. Just being pretty awful.

00:38:53 Speaker_11
Terry and Doug, they were happy. They were happy until she wasn't.

00:38:58 Speaker_15
This is Toby's aunt, Tracy, Terry's sister. I reached out to her to try to get more context for some of the things Terry says in the tapes. Specifically, Tracy was able to explain the abuse that Terry referenced.

00:39:11 Speaker_11
My parents' best friends that mom and dad ran around with all the time, it was that man, that husband. And Terry never told because she absolutely loved the lady and loved going over there and hanging out with her. She just loved her.

00:39:28 Speaker_15
It wasn't until well into Terry's adulthood that the truth came out. She called her parents one night and told them what their friend had done to her all those years ago. Her parents didn't know what to do, so they did nothing.

00:39:41 Speaker_15
Terry's boyfriend at the time convinced her to phone the man's wife. They called together.

00:39:45 Speaker_11
And they told her, these people are still married. And I guess In a day or two, found out that she had confronted the man and he committed suicide.

00:40:01 Speaker_15
Just a few days later, the husband died by suicide. Told her it was true, he committed suicide. Oh my.

00:40:07 Speaker_11
Yeah. I think that was one of Terry's demons. I think that his mom lived with a lot of regrets. I think she died with a lot of regrets. I mean, it's sad. I look back and how sad it is that the kids didn't have her growing up.

00:40:33 Speaker_11
Anybody that's in addiction don't want to be in addiction. Their addiction was always stronger than hers. I believe with my whole heart, if she could come back today and go, OK, let's do this over, it would have been an amazing mom.

00:40:58 Speaker_15
The argument about the police was the last tape between Toby's parents, but there are two other tapes, tapes that were not recorded surreptitiously. They were recorded explicitly for Toby.

00:41:08 Speaker_10
This is the tape that Terry made recounting the story of Toby's birth directly to him. Doug and I got a full viewing, I could see it. Doug was, your dad was crying. I was just so happy.

00:41:27 Speaker_15
Because this tape was found among Doug's things, because Terry sounds so young and optimistic, you can tell that this was recorded years before the divorce, back when things were different. Terry explains how she and Doug got into a spat.

00:41:41 Speaker_09
We were in a band. We had a sweat argument.

00:41:44 Speaker_15
But then, swore to never argue in front of Toby again.

00:41:47 Speaker_09
All these years later, it's hard for Toby to picture his parents as people who were once in love, who could argue and then make up, who cared about him in tandem.

00:42:10 Speaker_15
In 2003, Terry died from complications due to addiction. The lasting image Toby has of his two parents finally sharing the same room took place at her funeral. Toby was surprised to see his dad seated at the back of the church.

00:42:25 Speaker_15
Doug left as soon as the service was over, and Toby could never figure out why his father had shown up at all. Maybe it was for the Terry he used to love. Maybe it was for their kids. Me and you now, kid. No Mr. M. Let's get this sleeper on you. Come.

00:42:42 Speaker_15
The final tape I play for Toby is one of Toby himself as a baby with his parents. You got the hiccups? No, you got the hiccups. It's pretty tricky getting these clothes on you with you squirming all around.

00:42:58 Speaker_16
I know, I know.

00:43:01 Speaker_15
In another part of the tape, Terry sings to a baby Toby.

00:43:05 Speaker_23
I didn't want to put a kid through what I went through as a kid.

00:43:30 Speaker_15
Even back when he was just a kid himself, Toby remembers thinking, when I'm an adult, it won't be like this. When I have my own kids, I'm going to do things so much differently. And now he does have kids, a six-year-old and a nine-year-old.

00:43:45 Speaker_03
Something that has always been important to me is like stability. That's something I've intentionally built into my life. Yeah. Because I knew what it was like to be a kid and not have that.

00:43:56 Speaker_16
Hmm.

00:43:58 Speaker_03
And I think we've built a really good life for us and our family and our kids.

00:44:10 Speaker_22
Toby had told me a story from when he was a kid. He wanted to do BMX racing and You should tell the story, honey. It's your story. Okay.

00:44:21 Speaker_03
About your dad calling. Yeah. So I wanted to do BMX racing really bad. I'd seen it on TV. I was like, that's the coolest thing ever. I want to do this. And so my dad called the one bike shop in our town and was like, is there any BMX around or whatever?

00:44:38 Speaker_03
And they're like, nope. And then I never got to do BMX. But, um, Our six-year-old really is into it, and so... Like, I've got him a BMX bike at work. Sorry. We're like, I'm going to a skate park all the time, and he's in mountain bike classes, and yeah.

00:45:15 Speaker_03
Doing the stuff for him that, like, It's clear to me that my dad went the extra mile in the ways that he could. I want to do that for my kids.

00:45:36 Speaker_22
Toby doesn't get emotional very often. This is the most I've ever seen him emotional. And we've been through some life together. You're gonna sleep good tonight, buddy. Like, you know, this type of emotional work. It's exhausting. Yeah.

00:45:55 Speaker_15
Maybe, said Doug, we'll understand it better when we're older, which is something that people just say. But in this case, Doug inadvertently left something behind to make that understanding possible.

00:46:08 Speaker_15
And yet, to become the dad that he is, to give the things that he didn't get, Toby didn't need the tapes at all.

00:46:21 Speaker_22
Just really proud of you, Toby.

00:46:26 Speaker_03
Thank you, because I know that you feel that way.

00:46:55 Speaker_02
Turning to its goodwill home Now that the last month's rent Is scheming with the damage deposit Take this moment to decide If we meant it, if we tried

00:47:28 Speaker_15
This episode of Heavyweight was produced by senior producer Khalilah Holt and me, Jonathan Goldstein, along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Production assistance by Mohini Midgaukur. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon.

00:47:41 Speaker_15
Special thanks to Alex Bloomberg, Max Green, Blythe Terrell, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, and he himself, Bobby Lord.

00:47:52 Speaker_15
Additional music credits can be found on our website, gimletmedia.com slash heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Heavyweight is a Spotify original podcast.

00:48:04 Speaker_15
Follow us on Twitter at heavyweight, on Instagram at heavyweightpodcast, or email us at heavyweightatgimletmedia.com. You can also follow our show on Spotify and tap the bell to receive notifications when new episodes drop.

00:48:18 Speaker_15
We'll be back next week with a new episode.