318: With Great Power

we know that TV and movies you'll want to watch this summer.

I'm excited about this film.

“I just know suspense, intrigue, aliens, and I'm like,”

"All right, Spielberg, I'm in." Check out the summer guide from Pop Culture Happy Hour, listen on the NPR app, or wherever you get podcasts. Years ago, back when the movie "Shindongers Us" came out, I was friends with these two missionaries.

They worked with Chicago gang kids who they would meet in prison and try to bring to God. Anyway, one day I got a call from them, and they just had seen "Shindongers" list, and they wanted to talk about it,

because, you know, call your Jewish friend. The "Shindongers Us" that I was a Jewish friend. Anyway, so we got together, and what they said was,

first of all, we think we understand you better now.

Thanks to "Shindongers" list. And I think what that was about was,

“they knew about the Holocaust, of course, before this.”

But it was more of a historical fact. Like, you read about in a book. The reality of what happened in the Holocaust, I don't think ever had really hit them. You know, the emotional reality of it.

It just hadn't hit them in the gut, all those people dying. So we got together, and we talked about it, and they said the scene that touched the most was at the end of the film, and maybe you seen "Shindongers Us." It's a scene after the war, and it's this rich guy,

"Shindongers" who had been using his money during the war to save Jews from dying in the concentration camps. And he realizes that now the war is over, he could have saved so many more people. You know, he still had money, had news, he could have saved more people.

And there's a scene where he goes from person to person, saying stuff like, "I could have sold this pin, you know, and saved two more Jews. It's gold, or this car." "This car."

"Good, what about this car?" "Why did I keep the car?" "Then people write that." So we're talking about this scene, and my friends Jane and Glenn, the missionaries, say this thing a totally surprised me.

They said, "That's us." "That's our daily life, that scene, that's our life." This Saturday, for example, Bug Guns says, "He wanted to stay home and watch the ballgame on TV, you know, but he thought to himself, "No, no, I got to go out there,

and I got to save another kid, I got to try to save another kid." "You know, I got to go to the jail, I got to go to duty." And they both said that, "Okay, at the end of their lives, it's going to be just like that scene in Shindworth's list." They're going to go to heaven, and they're going to be called to account,

and it's going to be all, you know, you took this day off, and you pretended to be doing paperwork, and you could have been out there saving another kid, or, you know, you watched the double hitter with Cincinnati, and there was a teenager who was ready to hear your message and come to God. And they were going to be held to account.

“I think before this conversation, my understanding of Jane and Glenn's life”

was pretty much exactly like their understanding of the Holocaust. You know, like, I understood, like in my head, I understood intellectually, that they had given their lives over to serving God. I understood that as a fact, but what it actually meant had not totally penetrated me. Jane and Glenn, my friends, they were like superheroes.

You know, they had this incredible power, the power to save somebody,

to bring them to God, to turn somebody's life around. And I got to say, I met kids who lives were completely straightened out because of them. They did a really nice job. They did save kids. And with their great power, came great responsibility. A responsibility they tried really, really hard to live up to.

What's an air in our radio show, we have other people who feel that same sense of power and responsibility in their daily lives. And I'm not just talking here about judges and doctors and forestar generals and people who you would expect. And hope would feel the burden that comes with that amount of power. I'm talking about normal people. People you might not suspect.

Well, from WBC Chicago, it's a this American life, I'm Arrogas. Our program today, with great power, are showing in three acts. At one, objects inside of your mirror are trueer than they appear. Back to, unwelcome wagon. Act 3, waiting for Joe, in that act, show them how Slender has a tail of the being with more

power than any other and more responsibility. Stay with us. From Spider-Man to a new Steven Spielberg movie, we know that TV and movies you'll want to watch this summer. I'm excited about this film. I just know suspense, intrigue aliens, and I'm like, all right, Spielberg, I'm in. Check out the summer guide from Pop Culture Happy Hour,

listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts. Just American life today shows a rerun, act 1, objects inside your mirror are trueer than they appear. Well, the woman at the center of this next story has the power to change two people's lives.

She doesn't even know she has it. Alex Kotlitz tells the story.

“On this one August day in 1979, Carla Dimcalf learned something which shaped the rest of her life”

and the life of a complete stranger. And the thing about it is, it took 26 years for her to realize that. At the time, Carla was 19 years old. She was living in a trailer home in the small town of White Cloud, Michigan. When her father James Keller who lived in Tennessee showed up unannounced driving a motor home. Her father was a bit of a vagabond, someone who lived on the edge. So this surprise visit wasn't all that unusual. He did this all the time. He would,

he would basically abandon my mom and he would just take off for days at a time and he would end up

wherever he wanted and several different states. And this time he ended back up in Michigan. Carla was kind of at loose ends herself. She'd been raising a daughter alone. And the day her father arrived, Carla had gotten married to a man she'd met just a week before.

“Her father gave them $20 as a wedding gift and wished them well. Then they went their”

separate ways for the evening. Carla and her new husband got home around 2am. But her father was still out. He stayed out most of the night. When I got up the next morning, it was fairly early. I want to stay between seven and nine, 10am. He was in the driveway, walked outside and and I said, you know, "Hi, where you been?" And at some point he told me he had been at the lamplight bar for a little while. And I was kind of puzzled because the bars closed at 2.15 or 2.30.

And I wondered where he had been. The rest of the evening and I really never got an answer to that.

Even stranger was what he was doing in the driveway. He was repairing the side-view mirror on his motorhome. It had actually been broken off. And he was putting a whole new mirror on it. And he was just doing it in such a hurry and throwing parts into his vehicle. Which I thought was strange. Why throw all the junk when you were 10 feet from a dumpster into the motorhome? And he was just such a hurry about it. It just struck me out for a minute.

And the next thing I know, he said, "Well, I'm out of here." And he laughed and I didn't speak to him probably for several months to a year. It wasn't just that Carlis' father was a drifter. That makes him seem benign. He was by Carlis' recollection of violent man. Carlis remembers once he was slurping while eating spaghetti and he hurled the table on its side. But it was much worse than that.

When Carl returned to Levin, her mother told her that her father had molested a young girl. Carl had tried to protect others in the family and that brought her into direct conflict with her dad, like one of the times he went after her mother. I stepped into the middle of all that and he punched me in the jaw. And I ended up in the emergency room later that evening. How old were you? Around 16.

At that point, I became afraid physically of my father and emotionally of him. And I was afraid to be alone with him after that.

“This is all important to know in order to understand what happened next.”

Shortly after Carlis' dad drove out of town, Carlah picked up the times indicator, the local newspaper, and read that on the very same night her dad didn't come home just hours before she found him in the driveway fixing his busted-side view mirror. A 19-year-old woman had been killed on a nearby road, a deep gash in her head. In the article, the sheriff said, "We assume she was hit by an unknown vehicle, maybe by a mirror or some projection."

I just thought, "Oh my God, I had an overwhelming feeling that my father had killed someone." And I just needed to tell what I knew.

At first she went to her minister who urged her to go to the police, which she did the very next day.

She had a friend driver to the police station in town, where she learned that the detective and charge of the case was an end, so she left him a note. This is the letter I wrote to Detective Foster, and it says, "Mr. Foster, I would like to speak with you concerning the death of Christy Ringler.

it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Mrs. Tara."

That evening, there were two detectives that actually came out. They were dressed in plain clothes. They knocked on the door, they came in. I told them the whole story about my dad had been here. He had been gone all night. Gave them just a little bit of a history of my dad, not a whole lot of history, and they were like, "Okay, well, we have this information. Thank you."

I had to feeling when they came in the door that they thought they were wasting their time. I don't even think they sat down. They stood there, just kind of towering over me. And I was clearly intimidated by the whole situation, not really ever dealing with anything like this, and maybe I just made myself sound unsure. See, Carla laid out two possible scenarios for the detectives, one that her father accidentally

struck this girl while driving home from the lamplight bar. That seemed likely given his shattered side-view mirror and her zeagerness to get out of town. The other, well, she thought it was possible that her father had killed Christy Ringley on purpose. That knowing her dad, maybe he tried to flirt with Christy at the lamplight, that maybe she'd repelled his advances, and that maybe on the way home he saw her on the road and rammed her with his side-view mirror. Carla now believes

that the speculative scenario didn't sit too well with the detectives. They made me feel like a fool. Like I had a grudge to grind, or I was trying to get my father in trouble or something,

“and this is poor, trailer, park, person. Would you conscious about living in a trailer about being poor?”

Very, very, you know, I knew that wasn't the thing to do, and knew that's not where I wanted to be. So the detectives leave, and you know in your heart of hearts that you're dead, with somehow involved in this, in the death of this girl. What do you do with that knowledge? I bury it. When she looks back on it, this was the moment of truth. This was her opportunity to act,

and she feels like she just gave up without any kind of fight. Carla or Nerley didn't back down easily, but she'd been dismissed off and before. In seventh grade she went to a guidance counselor about her dad's alleged abuse, and all the

“counselor did was go tell her parents. Then remember the time she ended up in the emergency room?”

Well she told a doctor there that her father had punched her. Nothing came of that either. So when the detectives disregarded what she had to say, it felt familiar, like this was how it was

always going to be. Her dad would have looted any responsibility for what he'd done.

She wasn't about to confront her father, which he feared would physically hurt her if she did. And that's for the authorities. The thought of never occurred to me to go back to the police. I didn't want to feel that feeling again, of that intimidation, of just being dismissed. And that's really a selfish thought now that I think about it. The thing was though she couldn't keep it buried, at least emotionally. She thought about it all the time,

that her father had in all likelihood accidentally or purposely killed someone, and that she hadn't done enough about it. You know I had these horrible nightmares that this dead girl was walking down the street, trying to chase after me. Her body's all dismembered. And I got to the feeling in my dream that I felt like a nut.

“That she was chasing me. And I couldn't ever figure out why are you chasing me?”

You know, there's been times where I could not think about it, or I would be a wreck. Can you remember a particular moment? Yeah, I can remember one time driving in the car and just thinking about my life in general and all the things

that had gone on and it always ends up with Christy. And I often thought I could just stop thinking

David interview with Larry, Pat Souter, taking place in the Royal County Sheriff's Department.

President to center of view is Larry Pat Souter, Deputy John Sutton and Detective Charles Foster. Today's date is 827-79. The time is $1500. Carla wasn't the only person damaged by Christy Wringler's death. There was the Wringler family, of course. But there was also someone else. This 27-year-old truck driver named Larry Souter.

The tape you just heard is a tape police interview of Larry, a wiry-built man with a charming smile who liked a party. And while he didn't live in white cloud, the night of Wringler's death

he had been visiting a friend there. I don't think we drank at his house fire-member

corrective but we went down to what they call a lamp like bar which would have been south of town. And now it's sat there in drink. Maybe 3 hours in a bar. Larry met a woman at the lamp light. It was Christy Wringler. They caught each other's eye and when Larry and his friend went to party down the road, there was Christy as well. When you got to the house, went ahead and you got to the house, and Jim went in and said, "I don't know about 15 minutes. Why do you? I don't know."

She was out in front of my friend Staps and I went out in front of Staps and I went out in the front of the yard and there was a tree out there and we're kind of

“setting up there by the tree and stuff and kind of kissed them all a bit, isn't that?”

And then she got up and she walked off and started walking

towards town which would be back north towards Wyclowden. Larry, who had a good deal to drink, says he offered to try to find her a ride but she insisted she'd be all right. The last time Larry saw her, she was walking down the dark, too lane road by herself. Two days after Wringler's death, the police asked Larry to come down to the station for this questioning. The interview lasted an hour and 15 minutes. Larry didn't bring a lawyer. He didn't

feel it anything to hide. Okay, I've got nothing to hide. All right, this tape's going to be terminated in the 16-15 hours and 8-12 seconds. And then I don't think I heard anything from him for probably 12-and-a-half years. Larry returned to his life driving a truck and lane gas pipes. He got married to a woman named Melody and they thought about starting a family together.

Then one day. One day as I went to work which is November 14th and his user remember because it was a day before deers season and they came to work and they said

“that you're under a rush for her for help the murder. I think that's what I was.”

Did you know what they were talking about? I had no clue. This was in 1992. Like Larry said, 12-and-a-half years after Christie Wringler's death. A new sheriff had reopened the case and it quickly got a lot of publicity. Larry, who's quiet and reserved, felt deeply embarrassed. You know, my name is in the paper. My face is in the paper. It's like, oh my god, I mean,

I mean, this is emulation. Had you ever been arrested before? No, sir. But Larry assumed that justice would just find its way. This is Melody, his wife. They offered him a plea bargain for two to five years if he would admit he did it. And he refused to because he didn't. And did he come to you for advice? We were there together. What did you tell him? And I told him, you can't plead guilty to something you didn't do.

The prosecutors argued that Larry had bludgeoned Christie Wringler with a pint-sized

“bottle of Canadian club whiskey. Their key piece of evidence was the testimony by pathologists”

that the bottom ridge of the bottle matched Wringler's injuries. At the trial, no mention was made of Carlos' note and her subsequent interview with the detectives. The suitors believed the prosecution buried it. Larry was convicted and sentenced to 20 to 60 years. My world just came right out underneath me. You know, I mean, in total shock, it was a nightmare, straight up nightmare. There is, I suspect, nothing more confounding and debilitating than being sent to prison

for something you didn't do. And the years behind bars had their effect on Larry as well as on his wife's melody. Melody had a car accident after visiting Larry in prison and lost her factory job. She had to move back home with her parents, where she spent most of her time going

You know, I had to ask her out to me while he was in prison.

“So you gave that up as well. Yeah. And in the years, Larry was in prison. He struggled to sustain”

himself too. One of the ways he did that was to build these meticulously constructed western scenes out of toothpicks, law cabins, churches, saloons, covered bridges. He trimmed the toothpicks sometimes 2,500 of them for one model with a nail clipper so that they fit together with glue like cut logs. The hours upon hours spent constructing them help keep his mind off his case. The old years, Alex would tell you what, I mean, yes, I was very, very better in here, but you know,

I just try and say to myself, you know, I'm just, you know, let it go and they come day at a night.

Larry and Melody believe there had to be someone out there with some knowledge about what happened that night. And so Melody, along with Larry's sister, searched and searched and searched.

“We made trips to look for people. We went to Newego County when people told us we were crazy.”

We could get killed. And we interviewed people. We talked to people. We, you know, we did everything we could to try to, you know, find out what really happened to this girl. Of course, the person they were looking for was Carla, but they didn't know she even existed. And Carla was completely unaware of them as well. In the 26 years since Christy Wringler's death, Carla had gotten divorced and remarried to a college professor. She now lived a comfortable

life outside Grand Rapids in a spacious A-frame home on five acres of land. Her father had died in 1999 and all she could think about afterwards was he'd gotten away with it, completely, and that tore it her. And then one day in January of last year,

“she picked up a newspaper and read for the very first time about Larry's suitor.”

Melody Larry's wife had convinced John Smith tank a former prosecutor to take Larry's case. A medical examiner who had testified at Larry's trial, now believed it was unlikely Wringler's wounds were caused by a whiskey bottle. I was sitting in here in the sliving room and my husband was in the TV room, and I read this article about Christy Wringler, and I'm like, oh my god, someone has been convicted of this. I'm telling you, I literally just

thought so on the floor. At that moment, it hit Carla because she had held onto the knowledge about her father's probable involvement in Christy Wringler's death. Someone had been sent to prison. The very next morning she called Larry's lawyer and spoke with his associate. I said to her, you might think, I'm a crazy woman or something, because I'm sure you don't get these phone calls all the time, but I know this Larry's suitor story that you're working on,

and I reported that my dead shall that girl. They did, in fact, worry she might be a crazy person. No one had ever seen anything from the police indicating that they'd interviewed Carla. So the attorneys quickly filed a freedom of information act request, and in a stack of police reports they received, they found the very note that Carla had left for Detective Foster, as well as half a page of

nearly indesisirable notes that Detective's took from an apparent phone interview with her father. One thing led to another, and within two months, Larry's suitor got word that the authorities

finally believed him. His conviction was vacated, and after 13 years and 18 days in prison,

on April 1st of last year, he walked out of free man. Carla had first asked the attorneys to keep her identity hidden, though that was impossible, because it was such a public case. Mostly, she felt she completely failed this man, this stranger, Larry's suitor. I cried for her, a long time, weeks. About two months after being released from prison, Larry told his lawyer that he wanted to meet Carla

so they agreed to have lunch at a local Applebee's, and Carla prepared herself for Larry's fury. My husband literally had to help me out of the car. I was trembling so much, and I knew who he was right away when I walked in, and we just both kind of collapsed in tears,

On a recent afternoon, Larry came by to seek Carla. So much surprisingly they've become friends,

“and in an act was to fate, they're both battling cancer and have helped each other out during”

the respective treatments. On this rainy afternoon, the two stood in the kitchen in a tight embrace, and as they held each other, Carla became overwhelmed with guilt and began to cry. Let's go, Larry. Carla can't help herself. Whenever she sees Larry, she breaks down and apologizes. There was even a period of two months when Carla wouldn't return Larry's phone calls. Because it you can only apologize so many times, and felt the need to do it all the time.

I just seem like you're awfully hard on yourself. I mean, you've righted something.

You've got to give somebody his freedom. I didn't give Larry his freedom. What he didn't do gave him his freedom. If I was going to give him his freedom, I would have given it to him 13 years ago, and I didn't do that, and that's where I failed.

“But I think he'd be so hard on yourself. You didn't know he was there.”

No, but I knew what the right thing at the moment was. In my heart of hearts, I knew what was happening, and I just let it go, and I don't understand a person that can do that. Here's the strange thing about all this. In certain ways, all of this has been harder for Carla to handle than for Larry. Sometimes you happen upon a moment. You're witnessed something on the street. Let's say a man threatening a woman or a parent hitting a child.

And the fate of a complete stranger rests on how you handle things. And you feel perilous to do anything. So you turn your head, you walk away, or as in Carla's case, you try to do something but not forcefully enough. Then you resume your life, though those

moments stay with you. Well, imagine if you got a second chance, Carla did, and she paid a

price for getting a second shot at it. Now she's even more tormented because it really is sunk in. The kind of power she held 26 years earlier, and so she feels ashamed. Larry, though, is

“she's at all quite differently. She's my angel. That's what he calls me as angel.”

Um, my effect. He brought me a gift a couple weeks ago, and it's um, a lawn ornament in the house and it lights up at night. I want you to know I go out in the middle of the night when I can't sleep and I look at it. Well, Carla spent sleepless nights staring at her angels remembering the past. Larry's trying to forget. Right after we got released, he and Melody built a bonfire to burn all the clothes and letters associated with this time in prison. Not long ago, as a gift,

Larry gave one of his toothpick instructions to Carla. She has it displayed in her living room. It's a log cabin with a chimney built with pebbles Larry collected from the prison yard. This, of course, is what Larry did to forget. But now Carla has it as a constant reminder. [Music] Alex Cottonowitz is the author of several books, most recently an American summer.

Today's show, like I said earlier, is a rerun from years ago, Carla died from breast cancer in 2008. Coming up, I found we wish this for years to get the power to defend themselves against the dangerous neighbor, and then they get it, and they have to decide if they want to use it. That's in a minute. Should I go about a good video? When I program continues. From Spider-Man to a new Steven Spielberg movie, we know that TV and movies

you'll want to watch this summer. I'm excited about this film. I just know suspense, intrigue aliens, and I'm like, "All right, Spielberg, I'm in." Check out this summer guide from Pop Culture Happy Hour, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.

We're going to have a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show,

“with Great Power. Stories about ordinary people who find themselves with the superheroes dilemma,”

with Great Power comes great responsibility. We've arrived at Act 2 of our show, Act 2, unwelcome wagon. There's a kind of a power that only means something if you don't use it. Like for example, threatening to use a nuclear weapon. This story is about something like that. Except instead of taking place in the desolate borders of rival nations who hate and fear each other, it occurs entirely on a quiet street in the suburbs between next door neighbors.

We've changed the names of everybody who are going to hear from in this story as we go along. You'll see why. It begins years ago, with a woman who we're going to call Betty and her husband, when they decided to move from the inner city to a quiet suburban neighborhood. The kids were

young. At first it was great, but then the next her neighbor decided he was going to build a fence.

And what he thought was the property line. And he kept saying, "I know where the property line is. I've lived here 12 years, and I'm putting my fence on it." Then my husband said, "Well, we should get a survey because our deed doesn't show it there." So we asked him to do a survey and he refused. This is Betty's daughter. He's now grown up. He'll call Julia. So we had a survey done anyway? Of all things, the survey gave even more land to the neighbor than

he thought he'd had. Which we'd think would have made him happy. But in fact, Betty, until you say, "It just made him mad because he had not waited for the survey to start building this fence." And now, thanks to the survey that he had not wanted, his yard was actually bigger and he had to move the fence. He was very angry and he was going to sue us because he said, "We made him put his fence in the wrong place. It all started from that." And so how much of the

“fight was actually about the property and how much was it that he just didn't like the look of you?”

You know? I'm guessing about 10% about the property. 90% didn't like us. The word that they used often about us and very often was, "You people ain't from here. We were just different, I guess." Then we were liberals. Yeah, we were liberals. We looked different. We acted different. After that things started happening. And they started small. When they Betty was on the phone and she looked at the window

towards the neighbor's yard, each of the two houses had a long driveway coming back from the road. And the two drivers were nearly side by side. The neighbor's truck was in his driveway, near the two houses. I could see cigarettes being re-lit out in his vehicle and I realized that he sat in his vehicle and watched us. So we watched us for hours into our living room, which had these big picture windows. And I can't think of anything more boring than watching us,

but yeah. That was the beginning. Wait, so he was just different hours. You guys are like coming in and out of the family room with a bowl of popcorn and you're sitting in front of the TV and like that's exactly. Exactly. And we didn't go to anybody because, you know, he can see it out

in his truck. He wants to. It's a little strange. I've never said we could do just lose interest and

stop. But he didn't stop. Other things started happening. They got crank calls. For a while, every time they sat down to dinner, they got a call. The guys didn't split disappeared. The lights outside their house were shut out with a BB gun. They called the cops. I'm going to be told that if they wanted to build a case, they needed to capture the crimes on the video tape. Which they tried to do. And more interest at than anything else, every time they left the house,

it seemed like the neighbor was waiting for them. We could not go outside without some interaction,

“about him yelling or insulting us in some way. And what would he yell?”

Oh, well to me, it was always the same. Okay, I'm just going to stop the tape right there.

For a quick warning to listeners. A nice other thing I think is about to get a little salty. Oh, well to me, it was always the same. Get your ugly old ass out of here. You ugly old bitch. You old bitch shouldn't be on this earth. To my husband, it would be you, you ain't no man. There's nothing to you. You're you're worthless. You let your wife wear the pants in the family. And he sat there with popcorn, watching us and mocking us and saying, oh, y'all are putting

on a big show. Y'all want some popcorn and offered it to my dad. Wait, and what were you all doing? Just going into the garage, maybe to get a bike, or to get some old furniture out from storage. It's such a commitment to messing with you.

bitch and horror, literally carved into their lawn in giant block letters. Once that was up

“by the house, the other set down by the curb. And they were done with some type of very strong”

weak killer that would last a year. Yeah, we would either have to have them dug out and dig down like two feet or they were going to be there for a year and they were there for a year. And so and so people would drive by your house for a year and the word horror would be down on the lawn. The bus would pick me up for school in eighth grade and it would be there. No one would say anything though. There was also a picture. We interpreted to be a dog

doing an obscene act with a woman. Wait, you mean he drew it on the lawn? With the weed killer. Yes. A dog and a woman. It was it was good enough that neighbors knew what it was. And did you have the feeling that the entire neighborhood was against you? Yes.

“Yes. Really, like everybody sided with him. I don't know that that would”

go so far to say they sided with him. But more of the feeling that you've stirred up something in the neighborhood that we didn't want stirred up, that we set him off somehow and that was our fault. They have other stories. The neighborhood played chicken with her car. He pointed his headlights into their house for hours, flashed him on an off. When the went away on vacation, he would drive under the lawn, spin the tires. When Julia's little brother went out on his bike,

the neighborhood get on a bike himself sometimes, and circle a little brother, and lunch at him. So it would fall off. He was only eight. It was strange, I say, I feel that somebody hated them so much. It's some point that he started going after your pets. Yeah. This was a very emotional thing for me. I mean, we didn't tell Julia about it until, I guess, this past year, not all the details. I was an animal lover as a kid.

So I always took on the cat on the side of the road and had a little black cat named Phoenix.

And he killed it. He killed it. One day we found Phoenix beside the fence, but just pushed through the bottom of the fence on our property. And if you look to crosses driveway at the end of his house, there was a big metal baseball bat leaning against the house. Well, by that time we had attorneys, and they said, take the cat and have it off top, said, and we did, and it had been killed by a blow to blows to it. But that was a part of him. He not only killed the cat, but he wanted you to

know how he did it. And by leaving the bat, we knew what happened. He had left it out by the driveway for me to find when I waited for the school bus, but it was a snow day that day. So my parents were the ones who found it. And so did you not find out about it for years later? I just knew he died. We just couldn't tell her. They thought about moving, but even put their house on the market. After the words, "Bitch and Horrid" grew back in the lawn, of course. But the economy wasn't so great,

and the house didn't sell. So they stayed, valuing not to let them ever get to them. This wasn't

easy. By now they were in the middle of basically an all-out war that were restraining orders and

counter-estrating orders and court charges and counter charges. But this time both sides were video-taping each other. Betty and her husband trying over and over to get some proof that would finally

“incriminate the neighbor and stop him and never getting it. So that's how it went for over two years.”

And then a fateful pile of garbage was dumped into the lawn. The pile of garbage that was actually able to change the balance of power, giving Julian Betty and her family both great power and great responsibility. The neighbor had to enthrash him the property before, must have little things, can cigarette butts, nothing interesting, nothing useful. But one day we went out and there was a whole lot of stuff. It was papers, letters, bank statements, mortgage, it had everything about them.

That series of numbers that you know makes us the person we are in America. You mean you mean

so security number? He's so security number. Yes, he and his wife's. I always suspected it was maybe

in that pile of stuff, letters from the daughters saying, oh mom, you know, sort of like daddy's terrible and you're good and personal things as well as business type things. I mean you photo copied a few of these incentive to us. I have to say how many of them here. They're so unbelievably personal. You feel embarrassed to read them. You do. I mean one of them, you know starts with a

sort of caveat. I hope you never read this letter because if you do, it means that you know

things are just very bad between us and you know another one, one of the daughters sort of says like well I'm writing this letter while you and dad are fighting over some silly stuff and you just it's so hard break guy. It is. He was so mean and that showed what his family thought of him, how he had raised him to be, what his wife thought of him. You know we were a family that loved each other, we had dinner together and you know. Yeah. We still laughed and had fun. So suddenly you guys had

his social security number and all these bank numbers and all that and you've saved it? Yes we have we have a briefcase and it's it's our little treasure chest. So really suddenly you had like a

“tremendous leverage over him. I mean you could really do some damage. Did you think about it?”

Oh yes. We talked about it. What did you think about doing? Oh um closing up his business and bank account posting all his information in some truck stop or in many truck stops across the southeast so that somebody could steal it. Just like posting his social security number. Yeah. Making him a child porn person so he couldn't ever live anywhere comfortable again. Put him on a sex-a-fender list you know. He could join NAMBLA. Any of those type things would

be be good. That's the joy in your voice as you're saying. So now they had a great power to

mess with their neighbor to punish their neighbor. He would never know what hit him. He would have

no idea it was them. And despite what I have to say clearly hours and hours of this been talking about the revenge fantasies they held the fire. They showed restraint. We had the thoughts that we never did anything. Oh well so it was just nice to hold on to them in the special

“brief case as a sort of secret weapon. Yes like we have a little piece of him in this brief case”

and at any time we could do something with it. When I weigh in the main thing that finding all these papers that it gives you it's like a gift because it helps with the one thing you've got which is being able to fantasize about revenge. Right. That's true. And if we ever used it, that would be gone. I mean if we put it out in the truck stuff or did something on it in it, that would be gone. We had to have done our thing and you know we still can fantasize. Yeah.

Yeah. But it would be different if we didn't have these things because you know saying if you have no power then not using power means nothing but we have the power to do something but we choose

not to. I don't guess that's control over him and control over him in a way we never had when

he was tormenting us. Eventually the neighbor moved away, stopping back to harass them on the occasionally. Julia and Betty and their family moved later. After all these years they've kept that briefcase for the papers. You never know when it is that you're going to need your secret super power. Like three, waiting for Joe. Well in this act we make a little shift. This is going to be a story

about somebody with great power, but the story is going to be told from the point of view of the powerless. When you're powerless you spend a lot of time speculating about those above you.

“Much more than the other way around I think. The people about us, they do not care. They don't”

notice you and me, not in the same way. But we think a lot about them. Our parents, our bosses, our bosses bosses, the people who run our government, the people around the big companies that shape our daily lives. The way it is going through their heads we think. Why are they acting this way? And there's one figure, I think, that we wonder about more than any other.

and has this story. In the beginning, he was always on time. But it had been a long time since the

“beginning, longer than either donut or Danish could remember. I don't get it. Complain Danish isn't”

it time. It's time. Answered donut. It feels like it's time. It's time. Danish paced anxiously back and forth. Of course it was time. He knew it was time. He didn't need donut to tell him that it was time. So where is he then? Asked Danish. If it's time, then where is he? I don't understand. Either he knows that it's time or he doesn't. Does he know that it's time? Donut set curled up inside their cold empty feeding bowl, focused intently on the donut of the apartment front door,

believing with all of his heart that at any moment the donut would turn, the door would open, and Joe would appear. We came out pretend to think that we know what Joe knows and what Joe doesn't know, pronounced donut with a sharp twitch of his nose. We must only believe with all our heart that Joe knows. I bet he doesn't know, said Danish. He rose up on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass walls until he became exhausted. Breathing heavily, he lumbered over to

the water bottle that hung in the far corner and drew a few drops into his mouth. Hugh non-believers are all the same, scoffed donut. He pushed some dry cedar chips into a small comfortable mound and settled down upon it. As if you were the first hamster to ever doubt him, he said, the first rodent to ever think, really. Who else but you, with your keen intellect, your contrary and inside your moral bravery and conviction, who else could possibly come up with,

what if Joe doesn't? What if Joe can't? Joe knows who believes Danish and Joe knows who doesn't.

Joe is here, Joe is there, Joe is simply everywhere. What if he never comes back? What if he's

forgotten us? What if he's died? You look around at all your plastic tube highways and your fabulous

“habitat trail and think you're special. But to ants not build ant hills, do bees not build hives?”

It is not what we build that makes us unique. It is what we believe. It is that we believe at all. Doubt my dear Danish is no great achievement. It is faith that sets us apart. Besides, at a donut, he left his wallet on the front table. He's got to come back. He did, asked Danish. He stood up on his back legs and squinted through the glass. Where? donut walked over and stood beside Danish. There on the table. Where? There?

That? Yes. That's not a wallet you idiot. Of course it's a wallet. It's a book said Danish. It's not a book. Sure it is said Danish. I can read the spine. A long came a spider by James Patterson. He dropped down and shook his head. Oh no, he does not. Don't let squint at a moment longer. Damn. It was a paperback. Why would Joe abandon them? Why would he leave a sign for them right there on the four-year table

“and then make it not a sign? And why James Patterson? What did it all mean?”

He does not read James' freaking Patterson cried Danish. Our salvation, our provider, we must be out of our minds. It's a test donut said as he curled back up in his bed. He's testing our faith. Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass wall until he became exhausted. He took a drink of water, climbed up into the plastic treehouse, and curled into a tight angry ball. I happened to find Patterson thought provoking in

suspenseful donut said after a moment. You what, as Danish, did you just say you find James Patterson thought provoking in suspenseful? Jesus Christ, open your eyes donut. Don't you see what he's doing to us? Holding our food over our heads like this, dangling our fate before us like a banana raisin nut bar tied to the end of a stick? Look at you donut. Are you so desperate to believe that you're actually defending James Patterson? I thought cat and mouse was a taught psychological

thriller said donut. "Oh, bite me," said Danish. Donut closed his eyes. Hunger stepped sharply

at his stomach, but he would never admit it to Danish. Where the hell was Joe? Danish rummaged

world. He isn't coming, he said, looking for even a sliver of a husk of a shell of a seed. He isn't

“coming. Donut nestled deeper into his bed, eyes shut tight in fervent concentration.”

May he, who has fed us yesterday, be prayed. Feed us again today and tomorrow and forever. Amen. Yes, Danish suddenly shouted, "Ya ha!" He pulled a brown chunk of apple from beneath a small mound at the back of the cage and raised it victoriously overhead. Without even stopping to knock off the stray bits of cedar and pine needle that stuck to its sides, Danish opened his mouth wide

and dropped it in. He made quite a show of chewing it, ming and owing, and I finally swallowing it with

a loud, dramatic gulp. He smiled, padded his stomach, and burped, a deep long belt of satisfaction. He watched it down with a few drops of water and slid down to the floor with a contented sigh. Donut watched Danish, a sour mix of jealousy and disdain on his face, his stomach groaned,

“where the hell it was Joe. Donut stood up and stomped over to Danish, who looked up at him lazily.”

"Well, demanded Donut?" "Well, what?" "Well, maybe you could give a little thanks," said Donut. "Thanks," asked Danish. "To who?" "To Joe, Danish, to Joe." "For what?" "For the apple he gave you." "The apple he gave me," asked Danish. "I found that apple myself." "Do you think the apple just grew there?" Donut shouted. "How did the apple get there, Danish?" "We searched this cage

a thousand times and never found a thing." That apple was a miracle, a gift. Joe heard my prayers

and he brought forth upon this cage a holy apple. His stomach grumbled. Danish belched again and rubbed his belly with pride. Except Donut that you didn't get any food. "You asked," I received, seems like a strange system to me.

“He sucked a piece of apple lined out from between his teeth. "Hmm, not that I'm complaining.”

You know what? Next time wanting you ask him for a carrot, I simply must start getting more fiber." Joe grants food to those who need it most, replied Donut bitterly. Danish tired quickly of Donut's lectures, particularly when he was hungry, which he suddenly was. Again, he got back up and began searching again through the rough cedar chips that covered the floor. Donut dragged himself weirdly back to bed. The miracle of the apple had made him

ravenous. Donut would never admit it. He was ashamed to even think it, but lately he'd begun to doubt.

Lately, Joe and his mysterious ways were beginning to tick him off. It was the same thing with him every damn day, begging, thanks, begging, verse, chorus, verse. "Why me," wanted Donut. He must have been his own fault. He must have sinned. He must have angered Joe. Just last week, he had questioned why their litter wasn't changed more frequently. Perhaps there's a cedar shortage. He'd asked Danish sarcastically. "It is a hard one, you know."

He had even complained aloud that their cage was too small. The Hutspa. Some hamsters didn't even have a cage, let alone a habit rail and an exercise wheel. How could he have been so ungrateful? He barely even used the blessed exercise wheel. A beautiful exercise wheel that any hamster would love and Donut had only ever used it once. He was ashamed of himself. No wonder there wasn't any food. Why should Joe give him anything more

if he couldn't appreciate what he had already been given? Donut closed his eyes and silently thanked Joe for starving him in order to show him the error of his ways. Forgive me, he prayed. And with that, Donut hurried out of bed and climbed onto the exercise wheel. He ran as fast as he could, huffing and puffing, regret and retribution, nipping at his heels. Danish, meanwhile, was going mad. He'd been tricked, tricked by Joe. He was even hungry or now

than he'd been before he'd eaten Joe's cursed apple. Oh yes, very good Joe. Yes, quite witty. Shouted Danish. Well done, old boy. Two Shay. Back on the exercise wheel, Donut could run no more. He stumbled back to bed. Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass walls until he became exhausted.

The apartment door did open and Joe did appear.

“Danish peed an excitement. Donut crapped in fear. Joe was thin and pale and he wore a rumpled”

brown suit. The badge hanging from his chest pocket red male room.

There was a woman with him too, a woman Danish and Donut had never seen before.

She had thin hair and thick glasses and she and Joe wrestled their way through the doorway as one, groping and feeling and rubbing each other as if each had somehow lost the keys in the other's pants pockets. Joe groaned and tore open her blouse. Danish and Donut pressed their noses to the glass. Their better be apples in there said Danish. Forgive me, Joe, for doubting you. Prayed Donut. Joe lifted the woman into his arms.

To hell with dinner, he whispered. She threw her head back and laughed and as they headed down the

“hallway toward his bedroom. Joe switched the living room lights off with his elbow.”

Darkness. Donut looked at Danish. Danish looked at Donut. We have brought this upon ourselves,

said Donut. Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed useously at the glass walls until he became exhausted. Donut prayed. Should I mouse render? His story, waiting for Joe, his promise collection, beware of God. His most recent book, is fair. I'm there more. If you don't love me, what am I supposed to do? I'll take the help of you.

Well, program is produced today by a we speak on myself with Alex Bloomberg, Diane Cook, Jane Marie and your weary Lisa Pollack and Nancy Updike. Senior producer for today's show is Julie Snyder, Elizabeth Myster ran our website back when we did this show. Production helped him Seth Wind and Kathy Han, music up today from Jessica Hopper, help him today's rerun from Adrian Lily, Molly Marcello, Catherine May Mando and Stone Nelson,

special thanks day to Davey Rothbart, John Smith Tinker and Anne Buckleiter. Thanks today to this American life partners, Joe Moon, Windy Epstein and Nicole Valentine, our latest bonus episode. As a graduation speech that I gave, I gave very reluctantly, I will say, a speech that includes some deeply personal information, and also the true story of the day that my nice Jewish grandmother, Grandma Frieda, met eight off Hitler, no kidding, and happened in 1932.

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by PRX, the public radio exchange, thanks as always to a program's co-founder, Mr. Tory Melitea, who wanders into the studio while we're on the air, hands full of snacks. Oh, y'all are putting on a big show. You know, y'all want some popcorn? I'm Hara Glass, back next week with more stories of this American life. Next week on the podcast of this American life, there have been so many efforts by the Trump

administration this year to prize certain people away from their jobs and their communities, the lives they've built. One family decided to respond with an unexpected secret weapon. Pull it up and you should just pull out this spreadsheet. I can do that. It's beautiful, it's excellent. It's a thing of beauty. Garrett and Chrissy and their magical spreadsheet. Next week on the podcast, her on your local public radio station.

From Spider-Man to a new Steven Spielberg movie, we know that TV and movies you'll want to watch this summer. I'm excited about this film. I just know suspense, intrigue aliens, and I'm like, all right, Spielberg, I'm in. Check out this summer guide