Classier Tunnel was discovered in Toronto, a secret tunnel. Basically, a conservation official was walking through a rooted ravine in the city, and stumbled upon this thing. It was described as sophisticated by police, telling us to stand in 33 feet long with support beams, a plywood ceiling and walls, water-resistant lighting, a generator and sump pump to pump out groundwater. At the end of the tunnel, two little rooms were still under construction.
Intriguingly, nailed to a wall with a rosary and a plastic red poppy, can they use the poppy to commemorate fallen soldiers? I remember to stay up there. Here in the States, I've got a little bit of coverage, but in Canada, there's big news. No one knows who dug the 30-foot long tunnel near the site of this year's Pan-American Games in Toronto.
It was our tunnel down near one of the venues where the upcoming Pan-Am Games has worked fears of an imminent terror attack. Rarely has a dirt tunnel received so much attention. No one knows why it was created. Do you think someone told their kid to dig to China and the kid actually tried?
It's not just a sophistication that police say is troubling, with a lack of suspects or a motive. It's something unexplained like this happens. Of course, people go nuts speculating about what it could be, that's actually what our program is about today. In this case, the media pondered whether the tunnel would be used to plant a bomb at the upcoming Pan-Am Games nearby.
The Pan-Am Games are going to go into Olympics for North and South in Central America. Police somebody was going to build a meth lab in the tunnel, or an operation in Grand Marijuana, or they would use the tunnel to hide foreign athletes from the Pan-Am Games who might want to stay in Canada illegally, on Twitter it was hashtag terror tunnel. But the truth of what was going on in that tunnel, and what's purpose was, was nothing like any of that. And the way the Canadian police figured it out, okay first of all, can I say, sometimes one is reminded of what a very different country of Canada is from the United States.
It's part of the manhunt for whoever built the tunnel, a policeman tweeted, if you build a tunnel near the Rexall Centre in Toronto, give us a call, okay? The Toronto Police pointed out that it is not illegal to dig a hole, apparently no law was broken. They said they saw no evidence of terrorism, and they did not want to jump to conclusions. For instance, there's an exchange between then Toronto Deputy Chief Mark Saunders and reporters after he showed him a photo of that rosary and plastic poppy.
This was found inside the actual tunnel itself, and it was nailed on the on the wall. What did that tell you? That tells me that this was nailed inside the tunnel on the wall. The police basically went on TV and showed pictures of the stuff that they found in the tunnel, a ladder and the generator in the sumpum, and they asked the public, this job anybody's memory?
Anybody know anything about this stuff? And that turned out to be exactly the right move, because watching that coverage was a guy named Boko Merik. He sees that ladder. And I said to myself, they look exactly like my steplaria, and I bet you any money this is mine.
I bet you any money this is mine. And then I saw sumpum. I said, oh, oh, my steplaria and sumpum, but I couldn't believe, I couldn't believe, like, I couldn't believe myself. I couldn't sleep.
I was thinking about that. You couldn't sleep because he knew who he'd given the stuff to. Bob was a contractor, and he got that stuff to one of his favourite employees, his younger, his 22, Elton. What was Elton doing?
I come to think that Elton had been asking to borrow a lot of tools lately. He gave us a skinny or shovel, for pick, for another shovel, another tool, so many tools. I just would say, okay, if you need, take it. Boko loves Elton.
He goes it out as a great worker. He goes that, unlike other young people, Bob's worked with him past. Apparently, Elton always wants to learn. He asks lots of questions.
What do you do when you do the roof? How do you connect this? How do you put Joyce Hangers? What is this dance between that?
Can I do this instead of that? Is this going to carry this support? Unbelievable, you know? And I joke with everybody.
Everybody asks me, who is that guy? This is my adopted son, Elton. Always I used to sell. This is my adopted son.
So I would lend him any tools he wanted. So, morning after he sees the police pointing to a photo of his ladder in Sampamp on television, he goes to pick up Elton to bring him to work, like always. Elton gets on the truck. He brought two coffees for me and him.
And I said, Elton, tell me one thing. That Sampamp, I didn't even ask a full question. He said, Boko, yes I did. Oh my God.
Boko went to the authorities and made sure that Elton would not get arrested or go to prison for this. And then he turned him in. He said, please talk to Elton. Satisfied themselves, that Elton was not a terrorist or an evil or mastermind, but just some guy.
And they didn't even give him a fine. Though they suggested he not dig more tunnels. Canada. What's up?
Who is Elton? Why did he do it? Why go to the trouble? Well, Elton has not given many interviews.
Then we did a one reporter named Nick Kohler. He spent a couple days with him and his family to write this long story about them in McLean's magazine. And Nick was able to tell us a lot about Elton. It turned out our request for an interview.
Elton was maybe two minutes from the ravine and woods where the tunnel was found in a kind of rough neighborhood in public housing. Nick says both of his parents are from Jamaica. He lives with two sisters, an older sister and a younger sister, and they all live with their mother. Elton's quiet in the family.
Nick says everybody else is a big talker. And I think in particular his older sister, Enora, she has a lot of ideas about how Elton should be living his life. And she's not shy about kind of sharing that with him. She's a big fan of self-help books.
And so I think Elton is often in the position of listening to life talks as they put it. Advice. Advice. And Elton found refuge ever since he was a kid in the ravine.
In the ravine? There were no life talks. From the time he was a little Elton was this introspective kid who left a build to take machines apart and put them back together. He fixed up old lawnmowers.
He built club houses. And like I said in a short interview that Nick recorded for a video of the McQueen's magazine made, he'd go to the ravine. Okay, what I used to do when I was a kid is run around, play, hide and go seek. We play like Apple or we go fishing.
But I studied my first tunnel probably when I was in elementary school. I was going to the creek walk around. And this was something on my mind. I wanted to build a clubhouse.
I had five or six attempts and I think the sixth one was the huge one that I found. I've heard him call it sort of the future of club houses. Again, here's Nick. The tree house of the future that is underground because one of the fundamental things he wanted from this was that it'd be secret.
It was his secret place that he could go and just relax and be alone. And not always alone. I find Elton dig the tunnel and build it, excavating things, two dump trucks of dirt by hand. And once it was done they would go there together, watch movies, listen to music, barbecue.
Okay, I did this because something I always wanted to be doing. But I know I should have blown out of it. And I knew that, okay, if I build a tunnel, it came from childhood reasons. But at the same time, if I build it, who knows, I'd probably hang out there.
Turned that childhood dream into a man cave, a bunker, whatever you call this place to go, hang out. And if there was something happening like a natural disaster or something that could go there, there's a blackout. Turn on a generator, charge my phone, even make a small meal down there just to bring back up to my house. Back when Elton got to the tunnel, his sisters did not know exactly what he was doing, but they knew something was up.
Reminds why I was digging the thing. He would come home, just covered in dirt, tracking dirt everywhere. And or I thought he was building some kind of underground house and build him about it, but he wouldn't say. His other sister, Tracey Ann, found the rosary, actually sitting at a bus stop and gave it to Elton to protect him.
So the shunt, like, don't you give it to me? Like, our leader was already down there, I nailed it up. Every day, after that, every day where I would go there, I would sometimes make a prayer. Not every day, sometimes I would forget.
But sometimes I would remember to have a little prayer, just I'm safe and it's a piece of mind. Yeah. The reality of Elton's tunnel, it was so different from what people thought it was when it was first discovered by police. I think what that's about is, I think when we encounter something inexplicable or mysterious, our imaginations, we are such hacks.
You know, we go to the most standard, stock, seen in 100 TV shows version of what something probably is. Like, oh, it's a terrorist attack, oh, it's drug dealers, you know? When the reality of what this tunnel really was, it was this dreamy guy who just wanted a place to get away from his sisters and be alone for a little while. It's so much smaller, but so much less predictable and way more interesting.
What a day in our program, what's going on in there? We have stories where people think that they know exactly what is going on in situations of various kinds, and we get inside and find out just how much more interesting the reality of all of it is. From W.B.E.E. Chicago, it's This American Life.
I'm out of glass. Stay with us. One, I can explain. The story is about a teenager in a situation where everybody in her life thought they knew exactly what was going on with her and what she should do, it seems so clear to everybody else, and she would not do it.
This teenager made a producer from Public Radio Station WNYC, producing a Courtney Stein two years ago, and Courtney works on this project called Radio Rookies. And the teenager, her name is Rainey, she was 17 years old at the time. She applied to be in the Radio Rookies program, she wanted to make a radio story, and she wanted to talk about how she had been an abusive relationship for a long time, and was trying to figure out why she stayed in it for so long. And Courtney, the radio producer, was not sure that Rainey was ready to tell that story, it just seemed so soon, but Rainey wanted to, and the school principal thought it would be a good idea, because it would give Rainey a reason to come to school, which at the time she needed.
So, when he said, okay, here's Rainey, back then. You recording? Yes, she's recording. I'm recording.
This is live recording coming from West Brooklyn's Community AC Office. I started recording the story in the fall of 2013. This is Radio Rookie, Lorraine reporting live. I hadn't really been going to school for over two and a half years, so I transferred to an alternative high school for kids who dropped out, but are trying to come back and graduate.
We all have assigned counselors, we call them ACs. Okay, so I'm here with my own AC, Elizabeth. They're checking with us every day. So, how have I been as a student?
The rain, when I first started, the rain was only a name on my roster, because she would never come to school, and now she's here every day. She's doing what she needs to do, and she's a potential June graduate. Definitely June graduate. Here I got up.
I quit that one up. Since I never came to school when I first transferred here, Elizabeth only knew me by my school ID picture. So, my first impression of you, I saw your picture. I saw a little girl in size with a black eye, so I thought to myself, what's going on?
I said, did you get into a fight? And you said, no, but you were like, huh, it's a long story. You'll get to know me. I had a black eye for the whole first week.
I thought people were thinking that I got beat up by a girl or something. I'm soft. Do the dance. Nicole's my best friend, but I call her my stepsister, because my mom and her dad used to date.
We all live together, kind of like a family. I'm the only one who calls her Nicole. Everyone else calls her by her nickname. My name's Nikki Boombox.
I don't know myself. She was with me when I first met. I don't want to use his actual name. What should his name be of my story?
Dude of Fame. I'm going to call him Tony, the guy who became my first serious boyfriend. I met him the summer after 8th grade. By the time we started dating, I was 14, and he was 21.
Six years, six months, and six days older than me. Six, six, six. It's creepy, right? And Nicole remembers when we met him.
But in the beginning, don't get me wrong. He fooled me too. He fooled all of us. I really thought he was actually really good.
I was like, oh my god, he's really nice. I would never expect him to actually ever lay a hand on you. So what do you think drew me to him in the first place? Like, what made me feel like him?
His looks. Cam denied the fact that he's older. He's short, with tanskin, big pretty eyes, and an Italian schnaz. He has tattoos and a clean cup beard.
When you think of that arrogant guy that all the girls want, that's Tony. He walks with confidence. He walks with confidence, dresses flashy, and wears big chains. But he also made you feel like you were special.
Like, you were wanted. He was actually putting some effort into it. He would text you back. He would pick you up from the school.
He didn't even try to kiss you the first time you hung out. The poems, the song, the rap he made on Facebook. He made a video of it. The lyrics went something like, don't worry, baby.
It doesn't matter about the age. Back then, Nicole took a video and watched it. I really couldn't stop smiling. Whereas, Nicole would say, she's an OD.
You're a cheese and OD and everything. She's like that. When we first got together, he liked that I was smart and young and pretty. He wanted to shape me into his perfect wifey.
Before I got to the age where he says, girls become whores. I was getting 90s when I started the ninth grade. I would show him my report card, but he didn't pay any money. He just saw high school as a place where guys the bad girls.
He didn't tell me to skip school. He just punished me when I went. He'd ignore me after I came back. Or show up at school and flirt with girls in front of me.
So, I just hung out with him. In his room. All day. Instead of going to class.
I didn't want to think I was cheating. I wasn't even talking to Nicole. Everything you thought was just about him. You'd just completely stop caring about everything.
He really had that control over you. How did I look? You look like a ghost. Completely dead, skinny as hell.
You still look good. You still had that dead look in your face like you weren't happy at all. He was very abusive. Way before he became physically abusive.
He talked to me so nasty that I could feel it. The bruises clear up. But the words stick with you. And they change how you act.
He would tell me you're boring. You're awkward. You're the weirdest of the weird. You'll never fit in anywhere.
And I believed him. I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere. I didn't talk to anyone anymore. Including my mom.
I lied to her about how old he was. I started coming home late. Or not at all. I was livered.
I wanted you home. This is my mom. She used to be a drug addict but she's been clean for ten years now. She's pretty ditzy and forgetful but she's definitely there for me.
What were you doing then? Where are you? Cursing. Yelling.
At me. At him. Try punishing me. Take my things away.
Punishment. Taking things away. Didn't matter. Nothing she did worked.
Because I wouldn't let it. She was the only one that could stop myself from seeing him. The first time he hit me was because I was looking through his Facebook. I called him messaging his ex so he slapped me across the face.
He was yelling at me. Telling me to get out. It escalated from there. Then one night two years into our relationship we went to his friend's birthday.
And he got really drunk. I went to sleep at his place. I woke up to him pouring water on my face. And dragging me out of bed by my hair.
He was yelling and calling me names. Like a dirty whore. And a slut. And a piece of trash.
He slapped me and grabbed things from around the room. Like lighters. And medicine bottles. And threw them at me.
He was screaming that he hopes my mom dies. I had choke marks on my neck. But he wasn't really choking me to cut off oxygen. It was more like choking me to grab me and throw me around.
After he did that I went over to Nicole's. My mom showed up there and started freaking out and crying when she saw me. So I walked down the block to my friend Stephen's house. Came and then I seen you.
Once I just felt bad. Then you started crying and you told me you didn't see it yet. So I brought you in my bathroom and I made you look. And you didn't want to look at it.
So I told you we weren't leaving until you looked at it. When I looked in the mirror I saw face covered in tears. Red and swollen with blue marks on my cheeks, under my eyes, on my neck, and on my arms. I just couldn't believe I was looking at my own reflection.
And when he hit you I wanted to have my rest did but you wouldn't let me. My mom promised me she wouldn't have called the police. But it was a trick. Because she knew my brother would.
They came, they tried to talk to you. But you wouldn't give him up. I saw the cop car outside so I hid in the bathroom. The cop stood outside the door and kept asking me if I got hit.
He was like just say yeah, that's all you have to say. I said no. So I didn't press charges. But you guys followed or reported something?
Would you guys know? No, they wouldn't let us file for court. We tried to any which way, get him for something. And we couldn't.
Because you were over 16. There's no proof that he was having sex with you before that age. So I couldn't have arrested. They told me I needed to go to the DA.
So I called the DA. And they didn't want to be bothered with it. Because it was consensual. Which isn't the law.
The law is that he's an adult and he shouldn't have been having sex with you. That's the law. And he should have went to jail. After that happened, he and I didn't talk for a week.
Then he showed up at my school. He had this really sad face on. He brought me a burger. He doesn't know how to say sorry, so I guess the whole act was kind of like an apology.
We walked around the neighborhood for a couple of hours. He played one of those toy vending machine games with an arm and he got me a baby blanket. With a dog head and tail. It wasn't much, but the look on his face was just so sad that.
I don't know. They convinced me to go back. He was overly nice at first. Extra big smiles, longer kisses.
But then you started talking about how you got to put your girl in her place. He kept accusing me of cheating on him. And I just had enough. So after two months, we finally broke up.
And I moved back out to my mom. How do you feel since I came back? Oh, so relieved. Then I had my baby back.
I'm so done with it. I'm just like... I feel like I feel like I feel great. Like, it feels good not to feel bad.
Thank God, thank God. This is Nicole again. I still hate him. I always hate him.
Like, he'll be the one that I would kill. I would keep his boxes on, but cut him up into little pieces. Put some in a body bag. Dump him down in the ocean.
And just smile. And just smile. And just smiley, woman. The monster is gone.
Yeah, get rid of these monsters. I'm just hanging. I'm going to be the one. I'm going to be next there.
She's confessing murder. Actually, just because this is recorded, I'm kidding. Anyway. So, I'm looking through my old diary.
I mean, I had like, diary entries from like the very, very beginner. A star means you're gone to an argument. Heart means it's a good day. The circle means you ignore me all day.
Good things about breaking up at Tony. I get to hang out with Nicole. I get to go back to school. Bad things about breaking up at Tony.
I'm alone. I feel like I just need someone to distract me. To take my mind off things. And I don't have anyone now.
Even on Christmas. My mom was at her boyfriend's house, so I was on my own. I was just in my bed looking at Facebook. Tony posted the status saying how Christmas will never be the same.
He obviously meant that for me since it was our anniversary. My heart stopped for a second. When he's in my life. I don't know.
It's like, it's the one thing that just gets me going. Like really gets me going. I just wanted him to understand that he was wrong about everything he accused me of. So I decided to try it all in a letter.
I included a playlist with an even number of F-U songs and I miss U-Songs. And a weird little purple rock I got from the Museum of Natural History. We started talking, but only over Facebook. I wanted to keep my distance.
For a couple of weeks we went back and forth. He wasn't being pushy. He was actually being really sweet. So I agreed to see him.
And I ended up saying the night. This is Courtney, Rainey's radio rookies producer. Rainey was working on her story with me for about a month before she disappeared. She stopped her turning my texts at Christmas time.
When school started again in January, Rainey wasn't there. Then, a few weeks into the semester, her English teacher Erin emailed me. Rainey was back. I met her after school and set her up to record a diary.
I'm just going to put it on a phone. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to do anything.
You're supposed to play when I want to record? Or is it recording ready? Okay. Okay.
Oh, gosh. I have teachers. You know, I don't think it's supposed to be in this room. I hope I'm going to be in here anyway.
So, I've obviously got back with my ex. I've been on the lookout for abusive behavior to see if he's going to revert back to his old ways. I mean, at first, he was, you know, kind of expect sweet, gentle, nice, caring, all those things. But I've noticed some behavior that I don't like about a week, two or three weeks ago.
He told me to shut up in a nasty way. I mean, it's not that big video, but I felt like it was a sign that the pattern might reemerge. I mean, he, he, he's rough, just by nature. I don't have to be so good.
I think that's just how he is. But that's how I don't really like it. I know that in a lot of ways, he's a really bad person. But I know that he could be a good person.
No one's all about. We slip back into our old routine of me never going home or going to school, almost immediately. He became slowly more disrespectful and then violent again. I was surprised because I really hoped it was going to be different this time.
I remember being 13 and just being like, I just want to be 17. When I'm 17, that's going to be the perfect day to just, and I get to 17. And he's like, wow, this is what 17 looks like. And so my 17 looks like.
Rainy barely showed up to school for the rest of the year. She was supposed to graduate but didn't. From the beginning, Rainy told me she wanted to tell this story so she could try to understand herself and figure out why she was ever with him. She said that if she understood, that might help her leave.
So over the course of the next year, Rainy would re-emerge for a day or two, go to school, record a bit, and then be gone again. I insisted that if we were going to keep producing this story together, that she meet with someone from an organization called Day One. They work with young survivors of intimate partner violence. I brought her to meet with their community educator, Sarah Gonzalez.
Okay, so my first question is, what are the signs of teen dating abuse? So what's extremely common in teen relationships is the forced absence from school, right? I'm affecting your grades, which will then affect how you graduate, if you graduate, when you graduate. That's actually exactly what happens to me.
It's why you brought that up. I should be senior now and I'm still not graduating. So I am usually looked at as someone who could be considered a strong female. I don't let guys mess with me.
I don't put up with stuff like that. But then somehow I'm in this relationship and I allow myself to get stepped over. The only thing that I would change in that is the allowed part, right? People, even with good intentions, unintentionally blame victims or survivors, right?
So we say things like, if that person just had self-esteem, it would be okay. What that tells someone is that it's your fault because you don't have the esteem to leave. When that's not really the case. On average, it takes seven to nine times for someone to leave.
So just because someone went back doesn't mean that they're never going to leave. I mean, every time we end to fight and things start getting really bad, I'm just sitting there like, you should be leaving right now. You need to get your stuff. You need to get out the door.
You need to go home. And I never do it every single time. And every single time I blame myself. Because I have feet, I can walk if I want to, but I don't.
Have you ever, like, asked yourself the other question? Like, what makes me stay? Or what keeps me here? I mean, I do.
And I don't understand the answer. Because it doesn't make sense why being happy five percent of the time makes you stay. You know, you do love your partners, right? And so a lot of times what you really want is just for the abuse to stop, but you still want to be with your partner.
I mean, we have happy times. We'll cuddle and laugh. Sometimes even cooks. Or makes us tea.
You can say, okay, I should be leaving. And if you don't, it's just like today wasn't the day that I was leaving. Right? As opposed to blaming yourself, because then I might keep you there a little longer.
It's like, okay. It didn't happen today, but it can happen tomorrow. I mean, what are you doing with your life? I know you're at that boy's house.
My sign counselor hasn't leave any boys' house. I never even listened to him. Don't shut down because you're with this boy. We already spoke about this.
The weather was bad. You don't do snow. I know all your excuses in the book. But right now, the weather's better.
So you should have been here today. So obviously, I'm a few later. That means it's not good. Okay?
So call me or I'll show up. Bye. When the news cycle started, I told him I had to go back to school. And I even five minutes later, he held me down and started sucking on my neck.
I was like, get off, babe. You're hurting me. He didn't do it for very long. But he did it hard enough to leave a huge, dark purple mark.
I guess he was shining to market territory. When you haven't gone to school in a really long time and you're coming with a hickey, that looks bad. I tried to cover it up. I felt like my teacher's going to look at me so disappointed.
Testing, testing, Courtney Courtney. Hello. School just entered about 15 minutes ago. And today's the first day I've been in school for at least past month.
That's something I'm very proud of. I'm sure you're thinking, who the hell stays with someone like him for this long? Believe me. I get it.
I think I'm an idiot. I don't know what makes me stay. I mean, one time I was trying to leave and he took my sweater into the bathroom and peed on it. He spit in my face, in front of company, more than once.
There's some things he's done to me that are just so embarrassing. I've never told anyone. I don't want people to look at me and say, you allowed him to do that to you and you're still with him? So I just shut down and don't talk to anybody, including Nicole.
This is what she thinks of the situation. I feel like basically you don't leave because that when you come home there's really no one here. She means that my mom works a lot and spends weekends on her boyfriends. So she's not always home.
Personally, you really have nobody. I feel like that's the real reason because you're used to that environment. Always being with them every day. I know it's hard for you to always say it's hard for you to make new friends.
Meanwhile, it's really not that hard. I mean, I didn't have that much of a hard time making friends when I was younger. I don't know when it changed or how it changed. Because you shut down your whole confidence.
It's hard to come back when you don't talk to anyone. Or interact with a person in like, well, how long? And you expect to interact with me? Yo.
Hello? Hi. What are you doing? Nah, are you drunk?
You promise? Nah man. Did you talk about your twisted? Why are you laughing?
You're laughing at some idiot? I'll think about all the stuff he's done to me. What? And just be like, I hate him.
I hate him. What? I hate him. What are you talking about?
You're gonna put me on nothing. I must have you in the face. Nah, chew. Bye bye.
Madam. I feel like I'm gonna take you serious. He doesn't. You don't scare him.
I think this wouldn't have happened with some of my own age. I mean, Tony was the first guy I was ever seriously with. I didn't know anything really about being in a relationship. So I trusted him on how he thought things should be.
In the beginning, I was always worried that he would break up with me. I remember the first time he did. I was just shivering, literally shaking. I didn't know how to be without him.
I can't believe that I've been with him for five years now. That's over a quarter of my life. The first 50% of my life, I was probably pissing my pants and my mom was on drugs. So I blocked a lot of it out.
Then I was back for the next five years. Then I have this s***. I'm wasting my life. Oh, you've made it.
Yep. So, another diary. It just comes to the point where I'm pretty much unhappy all the time. I can't do this much longer.
I get told all day, every day, that I'm an evil monster. And then, men's are the one that made the horizontal porridge. This loves me. This means that's me.
Women are evil. And if you're born with a vagina, you deserve to suffer. And yells at me and tells me that I'm not learning. Because I don't agree.
How would I agree that I need to be punished because I was born? The longer I live with him, the more angry I get. He won't let me express my emotions. He won't let me cry.
He won't let me yell. Some girl kept coming around. She would not leave him alone. I wanted to beat her up.
But then, she started telling me it was actually going on. That she'd been seeing him on and off for the past two years. This isn't the first time she did on me. But, she's the youngest.
She just turned 15. And Tony's 25 now. He's doing the same thing to her that he did with me. I always felt like I needed this huge epiphany or something crazy big to happen to end the cycle.
But something just broke inside me. I switched turned off. And that was it. I'm done with him.
I want you to be as truthful as possible and don't let me get mad at you for anything you say. I haven't really been home since I got together with Tony. I haven't had a chance for my mom to baby me. I feel like I missed out on that.
For a lot of my life, actually. What did you say when I said mean him or breaking up this time? I said thank God. Did you believe me?
I prayed so. Yeah. I wanted to believe you. Yes, absolutely.
Are you wondering your truth down? Maybe just a little bit because I got mad at you last time you said that? Yeah. You did get mad at me last time I said that.
Last time you said, um, I told you so. Oh, I said that we were broken up and you said, for how long this time? Two weeks are going to be back together, something like that. Is that how you really felt?
Well, that's how it's been, basically. I mean, the longest you've broken up so far, six months. Do you think my relationship with him is like a drug or like an addiction? Absolutely.
Yes, I do. I think it's a drug that you can't seem to stop. You know what's no good for you when you want it. You want to caress it.
You want to hold it. You want to be in your body, to be next to your body. You don't want to suck in every minute thinking it's life. And then when it's over, you feel that it's not.
Does my behavior remind you of any way of your own? Absolutely. Just like me. Only mine was with the drugs and I couldn't stay away.
Do you think I was in any way more susceptible to being in abuse relationship because of how life was growing up? I actually didn't see that coming, but I do see it was a caretaker. You want to take care of a man and I'm kind of the same way. You're also going to take care of pop up like he's your child and you take care of me like I'm your child.
Pop up is my grandpa. You're not a child anymore. If this could record my face. Yeah, so I don't know if there's anything else I'm supposed to ask here.
I'm glad you're not with him now. Summer. And I love you. All of my heart.
All of my being and all of my body. I don't want to see with him. I really know what I... I hope you can find somebody, a better somebody that you deserve, someone that deserves you.
So far into the recording. Do you believe this is the last time? From your lips to go out to yours, yes. I'm going to believe.
Definitely power and prayer. Alright. We asked one down that note. Since I had completed this story, she's graduated high school, she hopes to attend college.
She's moved out of state and has no plans to reconcile with her ex-boyfriend. We did get a hold of the ex-boyfriend of Tony. And we asked him for an interview, which he didn't want to do. We told him it was in the story.
He sent back a short response saying that many of her claims were inaccurate, but he did not specify which ones. He also said that, in a couple of cases, she got things out. Rainy Story was produced in partnership with Radio Rookies at WNYC and their staff. Courtney Stein, Andrew Mambo and Kari Pitkin.
They were podcasts where you can check out more of their stories, find out more at wnyc.org slash shows slash rookies. Coming up, getting a chance for the first time to really truly find out what somebody has been thinking of you all these years. That's in a minute. From Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.
This is American Life from our class. Today in our program, what's going on in there? Stories where we go into situations where people think they know what's going on. We find out what's really happening.
We arrived at Act 2, our program at Act 2, our S.V. Pa. So Larry's 20 years old. He's a student.
And he's wondered what's going on in there his whole life about his own father. Larry's dad immigrated from Fujian Province to America before Larry was born, came in with nothing, worked 15 hours a day at a Chinese takeout restaurant that he owned. So Larry never saw him until I don't talk to him. Larry's parents never tried to teach him Chinese.
So Larry only speaks English. His dad only speaks Chinese. Which Larry says is something that happens in the Fujianese community. Some of his friends can't talk with their parents either.
In Larry's case, he has always wondered what was going on in his dad's head. Bianca Gaver has a story. Larry's dad spoke to dialects of Chinese. Fujianese and Mandarin.
Larry could barely tell the difference between the two. Larry's mom spoke to him in English. She felt that since he lived in America, learning English was his first priority. And she assumed that he'd just pick up Chinese.
He didn't. So without anybody meaning for it to happen. Larry wound up completely unable to speak to his dad. They've never had a single conversation.
I can't even hold eye contact with him. It's just so hard. It's so awkward. It's like when you're on the subway and you think you saw someone that you know.
Take a quick glance. You meet eyes and you look away as quick as you look away because it's awkward. Larry's dad worked so late. Sometimes Larry would go days without seeing him.
And even when they did have a rare chunk of time together, it wasn't exactly quality father's son time. It was actually the opposite. Especially if we're like having dinner together or something and my mom's at home. He'll calm me down and I'll set the table and we'll just both be picking up the food and not saying a word.
And then it would be complete silence the entire time you guys are eating. Yeah, definitely. Can you list off the things that he would say to you that you can understand? It really just came down to whether I was one healthy or two hungry.
And if I was not hungry and if I was healthy, then I was good. That's definitely upsetting, especially growing up. But I think it got to a point where I just didn't really register that feeling anymore. I just started feeling nothing for him when I would see him.
It would just be basically a wall to me. It's like a third wall and it's like I walk right past him. When Larry was eight, his little brother was born and his parents sent his brother to Chinese school. And as he grew up, his brother could talk to his dad.
The two of them got along great. Larry would watch the two of them making jokes with each other, laughing, smiling. Before that, he said he didn't even know his dad could laugh. And Larry's feeling shifted.
He remembers thinking, oh, I was the testing ground. I was a mistake. He figured that his dad realized his blunder, not teaching Larry Chinese, and made up for it with his little brother. Which was great for them, except he didn't make much of an effort to fix his relationship with Larry.
I just really felt angry at my anger towards him. I just felt like just strong resentment. Because in my head, I thought that he definitely does not love me. And so I'm not going to care about who this person is.
When Larry was 14, the construction business that Larry's family owned in China took off. It was making more money than the takeout restaurant. So Larry's dad moved back to China in order to send more money home. He wrote Larry Letter to say goodbye.
So it's about six pages long. On the left side, it's the Chinese on the right side. It's the English that my aunt translated. Larry got the letter after his dad had already gone.
Here are some excerpts read by Larry. Son, I remember the days after you were born. I was thankful because your arrival brought me a brilliant outlook in life. When I wrote this letter, I struggled tremendously.
However, it is a father's duty to mentor his son. I cannot communicate with you. Time flies. In the blink of an eye, I would turn 40 years old.
In another two or three years, you will leave mom and I to attend college. Learn the necessary skills, be independent. Sorting and organizing your books to keeping your desk clean will leave a good and lasting impression on others. Before you go to school every morning, remember to eat something.