470: Show Me the Way

Ira Glass

OK, so there's this couple. They've been married for years, had two kids, when they decided to separate. They get lawyers, start to figure out custody and split the property. But they're still living in the same house, and the guy is hoping that they're going to work things out. They're going to marriage counseling. They're going to parenting classes.

And then one Saturday, the guy spots a text message on his wife's phone from another man to his wife saying, "I love you and miss you." And he's devastated. And he turns to someone he knows will be on his side, will help him make sense of this, tell him what to do-- his lawyer. The guy who represents him in the separation.

What he didn't know was that his lawyer was probably, at that moment, the single worst person in the world for him to be bringing this up with because, as he later learned, the man his wife was having an affair with was his lawyer. Of course, once the husband figures out the truth, he gets a new lawyer. The old lawyer ends up being charged with professional misconduct.

I have right here the transcript of that disciplinary hearing. Because the family's been through enough already with this, I'm not going to give their names here on the radio or tell you where this happened. They have moved on. I will just call them Mr. And Mrs. X.

And this transcript is an amazing document, because when you read it, you realize it's even worse than you would imagine. Like, it sounds bad, and the details make it even worse, because a lawyer, you know, is not just like a business consultant who you hire to deal with your paperwork. A lawyer is really a confidant.

The Monday after he learns of the affair, Mr. X goes to his lawyer's office and pours out his heart about what's happened. At that point, Mr. X doesn't know who his wife might be seeing but suspects a firefighter in town. This is from the hearing transcript.

Quote, "I'm sitting with the lawyer for an hour explaining to him how I can't believe she's having an affair, that I think it's the fireman. And he's looking at me right in the face. I'm in tears crying to him, you know? Because I never thought she would have an affair on me. And here, he's right in front of me. He's the guy that's having an affair with my wife."

The person questioning Mr. X asks, "What's he saying to you?"

Mr. X, "Nothing. He didn't say nothing. He didn't even seem to care I was there."

It gets even worse. Specifically, when they deal with the question of payment, which really boils down to if your attorney has an affair with your wife who is also, at the same time, the opposing party in the case, do you get a refund for that? The $1,500 that you paid your lawyer, do you get that back?

In this hearing, the lawyer was actually given a chance to question the witnesses himself, which led to a totally surreal moment in which, under oath, the lawyer actually cross-examined Mr. X, the client whose wife he had an affair with. The lawyer says to Mr. X, quote, "When we talked about returning the fee that you paid me, isn't it true that I said I was willing to talk about it?"

Mr. X-- "No. You said you earned every penny. You said, 'I had done a lot of work. And I feel like I earned all that money.' That's exactly what you said."

Lawyer-- "So you don't believe you recall hearing me say that I was willing to talk about it?"

Mr. X-- "No."

Lawyer-- "Do you remember that I tried to apologize to you?"

Mr. X-- "Yeah, I do remember that. I asked you, 'Don't you have something to say to me?' I said, 'For everything you've done, having an affair with my wife,' I said, 'don't you at least owe me an apology for all that?' And yes, you did. You said, 'I'm sorry for all that.' Does that answer your question?"

Lawyer-- "Did you at any point feel like you could bring yourself to accept my apology?"

Mr. X-- "It's going to take a long time. I have and I pray for you every day. And I hope God has mercy on your soul. I really do."

For his part, the lawyer said he never intended to hurt anyone. He was an alcoholic, he said, just coming out of a divorce himself, quote, "Lonely and not exercising good judgment." When he was asked about that moment in his office when Mr. X came in and cried, and he didn't say anything, he says, quote, "I remember feeling very awkward about it. In hindsight, I should have revealed the relationship sooner and withdrawn from the case. And I did say to her on several occasions, 'You know, I'm going to have to bow out of this case.'"

The person questioning the lawyer asks, "Well, why didn't you?"

The lawyer says, "Well, to be honest, it was very awkward. It was one of those things I just wasn't sure how to bring up or when to bring up."

Yes, that is an awkward thing to bring up with your client. And I think the most extraordinary part of this transcript is the part where the lawyer tries to explain himself by telling his own, sad story. Quote, "I found myself justifying aspects of the relationship in terms of positive intentions, if that makes any kind of sense at all. I hope I'm not rambling too much. I guess part of my-- part of my attraction to Mrs. X initially was that she was one of the first persons, one of the first individuals I had confessed my drinking problem. And she was just so understanding and so supportive. At the time, I couldn't believe it."

"If a girl meets a guy and finds out that he's a drunk, she should dump him, you know? Run not walk to get away from the situation. But she was very kind, very supportive. I know it looks real bad."

For what he did, he was suspended for practicing law for three years. But before the suspension was over, another case came up of professional misconduct, and he was disbarred. For his part, Mr. X always regretted his choice of attorney. He said, quote, "I've never had to deal with anything through the law in my life. And I hired him as my attorney. I expected him to represent me, and he did everything but."

The problem, of course, is when you sign up with an attorney or anybody else to give you advice, to be your guide, you have to trust them, right? And you put your life in their hands in some situations. And it is a huge leap of faith.

Today on our radio show, we have people who need help, who need advice, and who make some very unusual choices about who they take that leap of faith with. A kid runs away from home to get advice from somebody who he has never met in his life. A man in a terrible medical situation looks for a doctor and gets a world famous doctor who chooses to communicate with him only in rhyme.

From WBEZ Chicago, it is This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

Act One, Just South of the Unicorns. When I was a kid, I wrote to my favorite astronauts. I wrote to my radio hero who was this funny proto-shock jock in Baltimore named Johnny Walker. And I got responses. I got satisfying responses.

It doesn't seem so strange at that age to reach out to people who you idolize, no matter how far away they seem. Logan Hill has the story of somebody doing just that.

Logan Hill

In the winter of 1987, my middle school in rural North Carolina was preparing for an event called The Night of the Notables. For one night only, the members of the sixth and seventh grade would dress up as historic figures and mingle. The parents would try to guess who we were.

Each kid picked a notable-- Lincoln, Washington, Harriet Tubman. When it was my turn, the 12-year-old me said, "Piers Anthony." My teacher, Mrs. Beal, gently suggested I might want to pick someone a bit more, well, notable, because parents might not read as much science fiction and fantasy as I did.

But I would not be swayed. I was so obsessed with sci-fi and fantasy that, at my 12th birthday party, I was pulled off the roller rink for reading the sci-fi book I had just unwrapped while roller skating. I read Ursula Le Guin, and Ray Bradbury, and Harry Harrison, and Harlan Ellison, and Larry Niven, and Robert Heinlein. But at 12, the author I loved above all others was Piers Anthony, who cranked out four books a year filled with heroic adventures, goofy puns, wise-cracking ogres and sexy cyborgs. I loved all of it.

But what made Piers Anthony so different and so remarkable was that at the end of those books about alternate dimensions and apocalypses narrowly avoided, he would often write these rambling confessional author's notes. They'd run 30, sometimes 40 pages, and they'd rarely be about the novels.

Instead, Piers Anthony would write about everyday life at his Florida home and what he dubbed mundania-- his tree farm, his vegetarianism, his martial arts exercise routines. There were stories about his daughters, his wife, and the horse in his backyard name Blue that became the inspiration for a unicorn in one novel and a magical horse called The Nightmare in another.

The notes were personal, like a grown-up's diary-- clashes with publishers, family illnesses, daily responsibilities. I studied them to the point that I still remember when he upgraded his computer to MS-DOS and doubled his RAM from 256k to 512k. "When I write to you," he wrote once, "it is as if we are in privacy booth, and we are sharing things that neither of us would confess elsewhere."

I was sure Piers Anthony would help me impersonate him at the Night of the Notables. So I wrote him the first and only fan letter of my life. And he immediately responded with what seemed to be an Arc of the Covenant sized crate-- an amazing box filled with new books, his unpublished memoir, Bio of an Ogre, and a long, kind letter that wished me luck on my big night.

When that night came, I wore a fake beard cut from a scratchy carpet remnant, plus jam surfer shorts and flip-flops since I figured that's what they wore in Florida. In the school library, I told parents I was originally from England, but I built this awesome writing studio in my backyard. And my novel, Ogre, Ogre, was the first fantasy paperback original on the New York Times bestseller list.

I bragged that I'd written some 80 books, and I was so famous that my novels were on sale at the Walden Books across from the Food Lion. My teacher was right. Not a single one of these muggles could guess who I was. Steven King, one parent guessed. Star Trek, guessed another. That's not even a person, I thought.

Somehow, I don't remember being embarrassed in the least about my choice. I don't remember the slightest hint of regret. In fact, I remember sipping sparking apple juice through my itchy beard with a 12-year-old Harriet Tubman and feeling kind of smug about the whole thing. And if nobody knew who I was, that was their problem.

For a night, I'd walked in my favorite writer's flip-flops. And for years, I thought that had to make me his biggest fan.

10 years after the Night of the Notables, I first met my friend Andy. It was the summer of 1997. I'd gone to the coast of Georgia for a wedding. A bunch of friends of the couple, barely out of college, had gone out early to party.

I was wading in the ocean with this guy Andy, a friend of the groom. At some point, it came out that I was a writer. And Andy asked me who I read when I was a kid. I could've said some hip sci-fi author like Philip K. Dick or William Gibson, but I told Andy the truth, that I'd been obsessed with this guy, Piers Anthony, who wrote about centaurs and ogres and unicorns.

And Andy cut me off. "Me, too!" he said. "I was obsessed." This didn't happen very often, so I got a little competitive.

I said, "No, I was so obsessed I impersonated him." And Andy said he was more obsessed, really. And then, I one-upped him by talking about my special letter. We went back and forth, out-nerding each other until finally I blurted out, "What, you weren't the kid who ran away to his house, were you?"

Logan Hill

This is Andy. And the way I remember it is that after I said that, Andy just seemed sort of stunned.

Logan Hill

The fact was I had read about Andy in Piers Anthony's office notes many years before. He'd included a couple offhand sentences about a boy who'd run away from home and showed up on his doorstep. Andy had never seen this author's note himself, but the story had stuck with me. And if I'm honest, it was probably because I was a little jealous. That same winter, when 12-year-old me was proudly dressing up in Piers Anthony drag, 15-year-old Andy was crossing seven states by himself to seek out our idol.

Andy's story wasn't the high-spirited adventure that I'd imagined. He doesn't like to dwell on the details of his teenage years mostly out of respect for his family. But the basic facts of his life back then are probably familiar to lot of unhappy kids.

Andy lived in a suburb outside Buffalo, New York. His parents had divorced when he was young, and Andy lived with his mother, half-sister, and his stepfather. His relationship with his mom wasn't good. His relationship with his stepfather, a red-blooded, corporate, athletic alpha dude, was worse.

School was torture. Not only was he small, the smallest kid in his class even at 15, but he was weird. He liked to read books about elves. He says he had nobody to talk to, didn't have a single friend.

By his sophomore year in 1987, Andy had so little hope of fitting in that he gave up trying. He started wearing his grandfather's 1940s fedora to school and buttoning his shirts up all the way to his neck, sometimes imagining he was from some other country, some other planet. The worse he felt, the more he retreated into fantasy until finally, like Spock slowly dematerializing on the transporter, he was barely in high school at all.

Logan Hill

Like me, Andy loved Piers Anthony most of all, in part, because you never ran out of books because the guy just wrote so damn many. And also because of those long author's notes, which he read as closely as I did.

Logan Hill

Little by little, Andy says he found himself fantasizing less about the wild adventures of Piers Anthony's novels and more about the everyday reality of those notes. And at some point, he stopped sneaking into the magical land of Xanth or the futuristic planet Proton entirely. Instead, he begin to imagine another escape-- what life might be like on the small farm in the modest house he'd read about in those author's notes. To Andy, an ordinary, happy life seemed just as fantasical as the novels themselves.

Logan Hill

Right away, Andy faced an enormous obstacle. He didn't actually know where his favorite author lived. But Piers Anthony left hints inside his books. His bestselling series is the Xanth series, a 36-novel universe that takes its name from its location, the magical kingdom of Xanth, a land of wizards and goblins and flirting fairies.

Logan Hill

As any fan on the books knows, the hand-drawn maps of Xanth look exactly like Florida only Key West become Centaur Aisle, Gainesville becomes a deep, black void, and West Palm Beach is transformed into a literal gold coast where sand castles are sculpted out of golden nuggets.

As any fan of the author's notes knows, Piers Anthony lives in Florida. So Andy made a calculated bet-- that the capital of Xanth, that's where he'd find the real Piers Anthony.

Logan Hill

The two towns Andy had zeroed in on, Inverness and Floral City, were about seven miles apart in rural Florida. But Andy decided he could work that out if he got there.

First, he needed money for a plane ticket. Andy had been working a paper route for years. And his mother had been matching the earnings and depositing them into a college fund that Andy wasn't allowed to touch until after high school. But it seemed like his only shot. So on Thursday, February 19, 1987, Andy walked the half mile to the bank.

Logan Hill

With his envelope full of money, Andy prepared to leave the next day. But when he woke up, he chickened out. For three days, he sat on the money and went back and forth about the whole idea. And then finally, on Monday morning, he packed a backpack full of clothes.

Logan Hill

Andy walked up to the first ticket counter he saw and bought a ticket to Orlando for 300-some dollars. This would be his time on an airplane, his first trip anywhere without his family. He started to worry about his mom. So he bought a postcard with a picture of Niagara Falls on it, and he wrote something about how he had to go away for a while and might visit again in a year, maybe next Christmas. Andy hoped that would be reassuring, so he dropped it in the mail. Then, he got on the plane and hit Play on his Walkman.

Logan Hill

Andy touched down late in the afternoon of that Monday, beamed in from the icy cold of Buffalo to the tropical warmth of Florida. He couldn't believe that it had worked. There were no buses to Floral City until the next day, so Andy had to spend the night in Orlando. And actually, the next 24 hours tell you a lot about what Andy was like when he was 15.

He hired a cab, the first cab he'd ever taken. It was driven by a Jamaican guy, the first Jamaican guy he'd ever met. Because he was too young to check into a hotel, Andy paid the cabby $50 to get him a room at the Days Inn.

Then, on the way, Andy thought of the $900 in his pocket. He wondered, "Why not have some fun?" If you can, think of all the things a 15-year-old boy away from home for the first time with no parents might do with nearly $1,000 in cash. Andy turned to the cab driver.

Logan Hill

Andy spent the night alone in his hotel room drawing until he got hungry. Then, he walked over to a Pizza Hut. Until that point, Andy hadn't been very emotional. He remembers feeling nothing, really, just putting one foot in front of the other executing his great escape. But alone with his personal pan pizza in a restaurant that looked just like the one in Buffalo, he started to think about his mom again.

He pushed it down, didn't cry. 1,000 miles in, Andy decided he had to see it through. In the morning, he hopped a bus to Floral City and arrived in the town itself. Andy walked into the local drugstore and asked for the telephone book. He had based this entire journey on a hunch that Piers Anthony lived in the capitol of Xanth. Now, looking in the phone book under A, there was no listing for Piers Anthony.

But he didn't panic. Andy knew that Piers Anthony's full name was really Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob. He searched through the phone book and found a listing for Jacob, comma, P. Beside it, there was an address.

Next, Andy hitched a ride. And the very first car to come along, a red Cadillac, stopped. He told the nice guy who picked him up a story about how he's visiting his uncle, and then ended up having to keep this lie going for several hours because after looking and looking for Piers Anthony's address, they realized the name of the street had been changed. They asked around and drove some more and eventually ended up on a long road into the woods.

Logan Hill

Andy says he told Piers Anthony everything. He talked and talked. He remembers that Piers Anthony said very little. Mostly, he just listened as Andy laid out all the reasons why he was there that day. He told Piers about school, about how he had no friends, and about his home life and his stepfather, about how alone he felt. Andy doesn't know exactly how long they sat there talking, but he knows it was hours.

Logan Hill

Andy says that was the first time anyone had listened to him explain why he was so unhappy. And it felt like a fever or hex had broken. Afterwards, Piers Anthony called Andy's mother. And Andy remembers the sound of relief in her voice. They made plans to drive Andy to the airport the next day.

But first, Andy would spend the night in Piers Anthony's house. He'd get his wish for one day. That afternoon, Andy walked around Anthony's farm with Piers Anthony's teenage daughter. He saw the horse named Blue who became the unicorn in Xanth and the gnarled branches that twisted their way into the horror novel, The Shade of the Tree.

And though he didn't cook dinner for them as he'd imagined, he ate at the table with a family he'd hoped would replace his own. After dinner, Andy sat on the couch with the Anthonys and watched a bad cop show on TV. And he remembers that feeling good and normal.

After the show, Piers Anthony gave Andy a copy of his latest manuscript and set up a bed for him in the room of their older daughter who was away at college. Andy lay in bed reading about a young, Indian prince who gets recruited to become the god of war. With the world on the brink of apocalypse, the prince is the only one who can save it by learning how to turn back the hands of a doomsday clock. Comforted, Andy fell asleep, book on his chest.

Andy returned to mundania the next day. His family picked him up at the airport in Buffalo, relieved that he was back. Andy embarked on a crazy quest and actually pulled it off. He studied cryptic maps and pieced together clues, faced down dogs at the gate, and fought his way to the oracle. In a fantasy novel, when a quest is completed, everything changes in an instant. The zombies turn to ash. The aliens disappear into the mother ship.

But Andy was right back where he started. He still hated school. He still struggled to make friends. He still flunked every class. In fact, he'd have to repeat the 10th grade all over again like some accursed time traveler.

If anything, his relationship with his stepfather actually got worse. Even so, something was different. Something had shifted. After Florida, Andy felt for the first time like there was a better world out there somewhere and he could find it.

Logan Hill

In the 25 years since Andy's adventure, he often thought of getting back in touch with Piers Anthony if only to thank him, to let him know that he turned out OK. But he never got around to it. So we set up a call.

[PHONE RINGS]

Logan Hill

Andy was worried that Piers Anthony might not even remember him. But he did.

Logan Hill

Actually, Piers Anthony remembered nearly everything.

Logan Hill

They talked for an hour. Andy thanked Piers Anthony for his kindness that day. And what became clear to me as I listened to them was that Piers Anthony had seen a lot of himself in the 15-year-old Andy. He said he'd had a rough childhood of his own-- divorced parents, bed wetting, bullies at school, lousy grades, all of it.

Logan Hill

Piers Anthony is 77 years old now. But really, he was just an angry kid who'd muddled through like everyone else, which surprised Andy. In the author's notes from his book Fractal Mode, book two of his Mode series, he writes, "One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not, we who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs or seem to seek them, who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors, we're not that way from perversity. And we cannot just relax and let it go. We've learned to cope in ways you never had to."

Ira Glass

Logan Hill. He's a senior editor at GQ magazine.

Coming up, no grime, mimes, or chimes, no organized crime, no vines to climb, just rhymes in one minute's time from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's program, Show Me the Way, stories of what happens when you turn to unusual people or maybe even the wrong person for advice. We've arrived at Act Two of our program. Act Two, Oh, the Places You Won't Go.

In this act, like in the first act, somebody needs help. And instead of turning to those nearby, he writes a letter. The correspondence is read by Jonathan Goldstein and David Rakoff.

Jonathan Goldstein

Herr doctor, I find myself, for reasons inexplicable to me or my loving family, to have woken up this morning transformed into a cockroach. I am reasonably certain this is not a dream. Can you help?

I am usually in very fine fettle in the morning. But as a result of my new condition, I find myself unable to go into work. And while my life has never been what you might call a bed of roses, this unfortunate turn of events has certainly made it worse.

By way of example, this letter has been composed by painstakingly mashing my antenna into the keys of my father's typewriter. It has taken me close to four hours and has left me with a horrendous migraine. I write to you because I have heard of your brilliance and your keen appreciation for the absurdity of this world. Please help. Yours, Gregor Samsa, Prague.

David Rakoff

Samsa, I've only just opened your letter. Fear not, worry neither. We'll soon have you better. You might feel like a freak, but I'll make you quite well. Your problem's unique, yet your name rings a bell. A silkworm I knew used to live in a trillium. I think his name was Samsa. Or was it Fitzwilliam?

Oh, well. Please forgive me. My mind is a haze. One really meets so many faces nowadays.

If you ooze like a slug or you prick like a cactus, every ill-feeling bug finds his way to my practice. Whether dozens of styes mar your 100-eyed face, whatever your ailment, you're in the right place. Not to brag, but I've never yet failed to determine whatever root causes were vexing a vermin.

Rest assured, I'll endeavor to glean and deduce. You'll be better than ever or my name isn't Seuss.

Jonathan Goldstein

Dear Dr. Seuss, perhaps you do not understand. And for this, I am probably to blame for not having made this point more clear. While I am now a cockroach, I was not always one. I was born a man and am now a bug.

Do you see? Is this even pertinent to my case? I mention it only in the interest of aiding your diagnosis. I hope I have not offended you with my quibbling. If I have, the only defense I can offer is that I have not been myself.

I feel that time is of the essence in this matter because without my being able to go into the office, I fear my whole family will all too soon wind up in the poor house. To migrate embarrassment, my father has already taken to eating his meals with lesser employees of the bank. Very sincerely, Gregor Samsa.

PS, pardon me if this is a rude question, but I must ask. Is metrical rhyme an American mode of correspondence? If so, I apologize for not responding in kind. Were circumstances different-- that is, were I not a bug-- I would have very much enjoyed the challenge. As it is, though, typing even the simplest of prose taxes me for hours.

David Rakoff

The way that I speak gets a comment each time. Some people have accents, while I like to rhyme. Just as those who I treat might have thorax or a stinger, but nothing that ever resembled a finger, it's simply my way. I mean nothing by it. If you'd digits to type with, I'd tell you to try it.

But still, this attempt to be merely convivial can backfire sometimes and make me seem trivial. And then, I am forced to make mollifications by dryly reciting my qualifications.

See, I'm a doctor who chiefly helps insects particular, a recap just briefly of my vitae curricular. One patient of mine, a tubercular chigger, was referred by a june bug who'd shrunk, then got bigger. I made the arrangements and booked him a trip to a mulberry thicket for that flea with the grip.

And there did he rest and sip syllabub tea. But the thicket's the ticket for curing a flea. A potato bug who would eat nothing but onions, a millipede suffering from 2,000 bunions. A night crawler who could crawl only by day, a mantis who lost the volition to pray. A fruit fly whose flying resisted fruition are just a short list of the kinds of conditions I've treated. And all were made well double-quick. I'm the one who they call when a crawly is sick.

But cockroach to human, or vice or verse? What a mystery, a new one confounding. What's worse is I've leafed through the pages of yellowing journals. Through thoughts from the sages I've sifted for kernels. And no one, it seems, has devised an approach for how to return to a man from a roach. For the nonce, I'd advise some geranium juice. But stop if it turns your extremities puce. And I will consult with my college chum Bruce. Till then, stay strong, Samsa. Your loyal friend, Seuss.

Jonathan Goldstein

Dear Doctor, please forgive me for my presumption. But I fear you may not appreciate the gravity of my situation. I am a hideous monster, and I'm only getting worse. Earlier today, my own father lobbed a basket of apples at me, one of which is still embedded in the soft flesh of my back. Our charwoman, too, has grown weary of my grotesque, physical appearance.

And whereas once she entered my room with good-natured shouts of, "Come out, you old cockroach!" when I hid beneath the couch, now she threatens to crack me on the crown with a chair when I crawl too close. At your word, I am prepared to have my dear sister, the only one who seems to be able to stomach me, pack me into a wooden crate with air holes and ship me to your office.

My fate rests in your hands. Please, doctor, you are my only hope. Yours, G Samsa.

David Rakoff

Oh, Samsa, descriptions like that are invidious. It's human and callous to call yourself hideous. I reckon among those of similar breed, you're actually handsome, quite handsome indeed.

Remember when tempted to heap self-reproach that he who formed lilies created the roach. But now to this new factor with which I must grapple. You say you've been wounded, that now there's an apple that's currently making its home in your back. Is it in the soft tissue? Did your carapace crack?

I've questioned my colleagues and asked my attorney about your perhaps maybe making the journey to see me and thereby see your problems ended. Alas, the consensus is not recommend.

The trip is too long, and they would not allow a cockroach through customs. Plus, I don't see how it would any way help ease your suffering and pain. The cost of the postage alone is insane.

But do not lose hope. Disregard the above. I have news. I've engaged the services of a carrier jubjub bird flying to you and in his beak berries, one green and one blue. Chew the blue 30 times, and the green 30, too. In a week's time, you'll see that you'll be good as new.

Now, rest and eat lots of magnolia custard and rosehip souffle and some dew drops with mustard. And pay special mind if you're starting to blister. Wash the area daily. You mentioned a sister? Is she the one there who might broker a truce? Samsa, please take good care. Concernedly, Seuss.

Jonathan Goldstein

Dear doctor, I feared at the beginning of this ordeal that I was no longer me. And now, I know this certainly to be the case. At first, I thought my change had to do merely with the physical, with this horrifying metamorphosis. But now, I see that it is much deeper than that.

I used to wonder in my idle moments in a train carriage or an unfamiliar hotel bedroom when I was still traveling for my work, what might I do if ever my scant good fortune ran out? "Well, Gregor," I used to think to myself, "that would be easy. If I ever became a burden to the family, I would simply walk out the front door and throw myself in front of a team of carriage horses."

You have told me to stay strong, not to give up, as if the two were opposite things. But I'm afraid you are mistaken. We both are. Sometimes, to give oneself up one must be strong.

In thanks for your friendship, I have composed for you a rhyme. It's the first one I've written since my boyhood. And you'll have to pardon me if it isn't very good.

You shall be remembered as the doctor who tried to determine what turned Gregor Samsa to vermin. Forgive me. I was not able to get any further. Goodbye, dear Dr. Seuss. Samsa, I am-sa.

David Rakoff

I read your last letter with no small alarm. It sounds like you're fixing to do yourself harm. I know that you feel like you've got nothing left, like your time has run out, you're abandoned, bereft of all hope, that you've been forced to bear it in silence, your family's scorn, their indifference, their violence.

I take it the jubjub bird failed to arrive. So how, my dear friend, will we keep you alive? I'd recommend exercise, plenty of fruit, but finally cede that such bromides are moot. Samsa, I need you to martial your will. There isn't a purgative, poultice or pill or anything else on the pharmacy shelf that will make you so healthy as much as yourself.

You think your new body has made you a bother. You hold yourself guilty while blameless your father. Gregor, we'd all die if physical beauty was needed for others to render their duty.

Ever since our first letter, I've had this strange notion that I'd make you better, ignoring the ocean that makes up the distance that renders you Seussless. But despite my persistence, I've been worse than useless. I'm astonished at times when I think of the past, of my thousands of rhymes, of how life is so vast. I'm left, then, to wonder how anyone gleans a purpose or sense of what anything means.

It's not ours for the knowing. It's meaning abstruse. We both best be going. Your loving friend, Seuss.

Grete Samsa

Dear doctor, I found your letters among my brother's things when my parents and I were cleaning out our flat in preparation of moving. It is my sad duty to inform you that Gregor died some three weeks ago, perhaps from his injury, an act for which my father blamed himself for days on end, although I doubt it.

I think Gregor may well have starved himself to death. When the charwoman found him, she pushed at his body with the handle of her broom, and he slid across the floor with no more weight than a dried leaf. Before our charwoman disposed of him, I took one last look and saw that Gregor's shell had cracked open. And just underneath were little wings. He was a beetle, not a cockroach as we had feared. A beetle, nothing more. Even the word is lovely.

I know that ever since his childhood, Gregor had always had very vivid dreams of flight that left him happy in the morning. If only he himself had known, I kept thinking. At any rate, dear doctor, I thought you should know what befell my poor brother and to thank you for all your efforts in his behalf. If you should find yourself ever in Prague, please consider yourself most welcome in our home. Sincerely, Grete Samsa.

Ira Glass

That story was written by David Rakoff, who was Seuss, and Jonathan Goldstein, who was Samsa. David has got a new book coming out next year, a novel written completely in rhyme. Jonathan's new book, I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow, comes out in October.

Ira Glass

Our program was produced today by Sarah Koening with Alex Blumberg, Ben Calhoun, Jonathan Menjivar, Lisa Pollak, Brian Reed, Robyn Semien, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Our senior producer's Julie Snyder. Seth Lind is our operations director. Emily Condin's our office manager. Music help from Damien Graef and Rob Geddis, production help from [? Tariq Fudha ?].

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]

Our Dr. Seuss/Gregor Samsa story was produced by Jonathan Goldstein and Mira Burt-Wintonick with Cristal Duhaime. It first aired on CBC's great program WireTap, which is distributed in the United States by PRI, Public Radio International. It's also available for download online.

A program note, last week here on the radio show, we asked you to email, phone, or tweet at your local movie theater to ask them to book our upcoming film, Sleepwalk with Me. Thanks to you, we have now added 24 new theaters-- nearly doubles the number of theaters that we're at. We jumped from 34 theaters to 58, which means that we only need another-- hold on, let me-- 4,291 theaters to catch up to The Avengers.

You can see the trailer at our website. See it for yourself. The film was written and directed by and stars Mike Birbiglia based on a story that he did here on the radio. It's sincere. It's really funny. It killed at Sundance, came home with an audience award. We would love for you to be able to see the film with a crowd, which is the best way to see any comedy, in a theater. A list of where we are booked now and the phone numbers, email addresses, and Twitter handles of theaters near you where we want to be is at our website, thisamericanlife.org.

This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International. WBEZ management oversight for our program by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia. You know he took a tour of the White House this week. And incredibly, there in the hallway, he actually met Barack Obama.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

Announcer

PRI, Public Radio International.