571: The Heart Wants What It Wants

Ira Glass

This man is 76. I'm not going to say his name here on the radio, because he's hoping that the woman that he wants to marry is not going to get tipped off by some radio or podcast listener that he's about to ask her. And he doesn't know what she's going to say. He doesn't know. Which is not usually how that goes down, right? Usually, you ask somebody to marry you, you kind of know. He's totally shooting in the dark, anxious about what she's going to say. And this is somebody who he's had feelings about for a long time.

Ira Glass

But nice, he says, really nice.

Ira Glass

But that experience changed him, he says. When he met his wife, he totally went for it. Didn't want to make the same mistake again. He and his wife were together for nearly 47 years, had children, who are now grown. And when his wife died eight years ago, after some time passed, he checked in with this woman from high school. Well, her husband had died. And so this man started flying to the other side of the country to visit her, where she lives now. He stays in the guest room at her house.

Ira Glass

OK, ladies and gentlemen, I know what you're thinking. This does not sound promising at all. And, oh my God, what love struck creatures we all are, wandering around this earth, right? Here is a 76-year-old man, a father, a grandfather with the same logic defying feelings dominating him that a teenager has. He told me that back in July after years of wondering with this woman, OK, are we always just going to be friends? Is this ever going to be more than that, he finally told her, OK, look, we're going on a date. We're going on a date. It's going to be a real date. Are you up to have a real date with me? And she said yes.

Ira Glass

Honestly, over the course of this conversation, I went from thinking that it was a terrible idea for him to ask this woman to marry him next week, to thinking he should totally do it. He totally convinced me that he needed to hear yes or no once and for all. And maybe he was going to get what he wanted, or maybe he was going to be set free, but either one of those was going to be better than just floating around her like he's been, wanting this thing to happen.

And then, OK, we talked the next day on the phone. And I learned that a weird thing happened in that conversation that he and I had had the day before, which is we switched positions. He had completely convinced me that he should ask her, but I had completely convinced him that he should not, because she wasn't showing enough signs that she loves him, because it seemed doomed on its face.

So the next day, Tuesday, this week, we got on the phone and he told me his new very pragmatic, very sober plan. He's not going to ask her to marry him next week. He's just going to tell her his feelings, and see if she's open to being in a real, actual, committed relationship.

Ira Glass

So he flies to his fate this weekend. He's asking her Wednesday, he thinks. "The heart wants what it wants." Emily Dickinson wrote that. Though depending on how old you are, you might associate it with Woody Allen or Selena Gomez. Today on our program, people who get stuck on somebody, whether that's a good idea or not, whether they want to or not, people who get stuck, even when the signs are not looking so very good for them at all.

From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

Act 1, Jesse's Girl. So here's a great example of the heart wanting what it wants against all reason. It's the story of a con that lasted for over two decades. And when the con was discovered, there was a trial. And incredibly, some of the people who had been conned testified on behalf of the man who scammed them. They defended the con in court. Which is to say, that even after the con was over and the truth was revealed, people still bought into it. NPR's social science correspondent, Shankar Vedantam was so curious about why and talked to some of the victims, including a man who says he got a lot out of being conned. Here's Shankar.

Shankar Vedantam

So here's how the con worked. Guys around the country signed up for a pen pal service. It would put them in touch with women they could befriend and correspond with. And then they'd start to receive letters.

Shankar Vedantam

Jesse is a sweet, soft spoken man with thick, plastic aviator glasses. He started receiving the letters in 1985, when he was in his 30s. Back then, he was overweight. He'd never had a serious girlfriend, always lived with his parents. After his mother died, he spent most of his time taking care of his sick dad and working at his family's restaurant.

Jesse's favorite letters came from a woman named Pamela.

Shankar Vedantam

Jesse had never met or talked to Pamela, but he was curious. He wrote back, telling her a little about himself. And Pamela replied again and again. The letters were typed in a girlish font and signed in a blue pen with big loopy letters. In another letter, Pamela wrote, "Just before I sat down to write this letter to you, I was thinking how lucky I am that in this great, big, crazy world I found you. I hope I can be part of your life for a long time, Darling, and I hope, as time goes by, I'll be able to make you happier and happier."

This mystery woman seemed to know him. She made Jesse feel understood. She made him feel loved.

Shankar Vedantam

This was Pamela. He was middle aged, balding, and had a small, gray mustache. His real name was Don Lowry.

Shankar Vedantam

Don died in 2014, but I met him in 2011, in a rundown house in Butler, Pennsylvania. He was 82. If you have trouble understanding Don's voice, it's because he was a lifelong heavy smoker. The desk in his living room was covered with ash. His sofa smelled of smoke. Don told me he always wanted to be a writer, but his real talent was in being a hustler. He always had a scheme going.

In his early 30s, Don visited Mexico and wrote a traveler's guide where he explained how American men could live cheaply there, pick up women, and get by with rudimentary Spanish.

Shankar Vedantam

It didn't sell. And then he tried something most writers would never consider. He changed the name of the book's author to a woman's name. Sales skyrocketed, he said. Apparently, lonely American men didn't want tips from a guy. They wanted tips from a girl. Don realized there was a market waiting to be exploited. He rented mailing lists from magazines that catered to single men and started writing letters to them, posing as different women. Men like Jesse were invited to join a club, where in exchange for a small fee, they could receive love letters.

In a moment of inspiration, Don decided to call the women who wrote the letters angels, Angel Linda, Angel Kristina, Angel Pamela. He purchased stock photos of models and printed catalogs with photos and bios for each angel. Angels came in different flavors. Some were compliant, helpless, and pure. Others were raunchy and sent nude photos of themselves. Most were young and all were eager to please. Dream women for a certain kind of man, dreamed up of course by another man.

In one brochure, Angel Linda Scott is pictured in a one piece swimsuit on her hands and knees. Angel Kristina looks like an idealistic woman. She's shown hugging a tree and holding a flower. I prefer a certain type of man, Kristina says. "He can pick up a handful of dark, rich soil and feel a kind of reverence and joy. But he's awfully hard to find."

Don mailed these brochures to men like Jesse. If a man wrote back, Don began sending letters to him as Angel Kristina or Angel Linda. Don told me he didn't want members who were just looking for sex. He wanted men looking for meaningful relationships, who would be in it for the long haul. He thought this would be better for business and better for the marks.

Shankar Vedantam

After a few letters to Jesse, Pamela let him know that the only thing she wanted was a little help. "Darling, I want you to know that I really love writing you every day. It has filled a great need in my life and I know I'd be very sad if I had to stop writing to you and being your friend. I hope you feel the same way about me and my letters to you. I think it's fair and reasonable for me to ask you to help with the expenses of paper, envelopes, postage, photos, and the other things I'll be sending you. If you could send me just $10 a week for my letters, I could continue writing every day as I have been.

Jesse was fine with that. He figures he sent in $4,000 or $5,000 between 1985 and '88. It wasn't a big deal to him.

Shankar Vedantam

Pamela often sent Jesse stories about the two of them for a little extra money. In one, Pamela and Jesse go on a picnic together. In another, he literally rescues her, as a knight in shining armor. There's one story that has them both lying on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace. And of course, it goes where you think it will go, if two people are lying on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace. But it's romantic, not explicit. The language is tame.

The letter concludes, "I lay beside you and whispered good night, my sweet Darling. Let us drift away to paradise in our dreams and wake up together to a new and wonderful day. I kiss you gently and fall asleep in your arms." OK, obviously cheesy. Don Lowry was not a gifted writer, but he was a gifted manipulator. When I first heard about the story, I assumed the men who signed up for the letters from the angels must have been such easy marks, so naive. Who else would buy such absurd fantasies?

But then I read the dozens and dozens of letters that Pamela sent Jesse. He saved them in a large binder, each letter in its own plastic sleeve. And as I read the letters, I started to understand the power of the psychological tools Don used to hook men like Jesse. Most of the letters aren't epic fantasies. Most are about the minutiae of Pamela's life. She goes to the bank. She talks to co-workers. She tells Jesse her thoughts on televangelists.

Over and over, Pamela tells Jesse how much he means to her. She praises him, encourages him. When you read the letters one after the other, like Jesse did day after day after day, it paints a picture that feels real. I felt the Pamela in the letters was a real person, and I knew Don was writing them.

There were other tricks. In one letter, Pamela asked Jesse to keep a picture of hers nearby as he read her letters, so he would feel she was in the room with him. Jesse put up two photos of her on the wall. She once sent him a dime. In that letter, she told Jesse she had just had a strange day. Another driver bashed her car but didn't leave a note.

Just when it looked like the day couldn't get any worse, she lost her purse. Depressed, Pamela spotted this very dime on the street. She picked it up, hoping it was a lucky charm. Later, a little boy showed up with her purse. A woman called and took responsibility for the car. Pamela told Jesse she was giving him her lucky dime. Here's Jesse reading from the end of that letter.

Shankar Vedantam

Like I said, Jesse's mother had recently died, and his dad had heart trouble. He spent a lot of time looking after him. He wrote letters to Pamela, confiding in her about his depression. She sent him heartfelt letters about bad relationships she'd had. And she told him about visiting her grandfather, who was suffering from dementia.

Shankar Vedantam

If Jesse had wanted to see it, there were plenty of signs the letters were mass produced. They looked typed, but the paper doesn't have the indentations that come from typewriter keys. The signatures looked like they've been stamped or printed. All the specifics in the letters are about Pamela's life.

Shankar Vedantam

In fact, when I read Pamela's letters to Jesse, she never mentions any of the things he's told her. When Pamela talks about Jesse's life, she switches into generalities. "I know you're sad. I know you're lonely. I know you're having a hard time." The only way the letters are personalized is that Jesse's name is sprinkled throughout, autofilled, like a madlib sheet. To Jesse, it didn't matter. He saw what he wanted to see.

Shankar Vedantam

At a certain point, Pamela became the thing that kept Jesse afloat when he had to work long hours, when he had to close his restaurant and rush his father to the hospital.

Shankar Vedantam

As Don went on, he realized his members were hooked and he could take the fantasy further, much further. He invented an epic world for his angels, with a magical backstory and a fantastic future. Here's how it worked. The angels supposedly lived together in a retreat, hidden away from the world. Most were lost souls, escaping drugs and bad men. These were women who needed a steady hand and a strong shoulder.

As he invented more angels, Don came up with interweaving backstories. Some angels were good, some bad. Angels helped one another, backstabbed each other. All the men who signed up to join the Lonely Hearts Club understood they were joining an organization of good hearted men who were devoted to taking care of the angels. The organization was known as the Call.

Don promised members of the Call that they would one day move with the angels to a valley paradise, into a giant building shaped like a naked woman lying down on the grass. This lady shaped building would house meeting rooms and auditoriums. The paradise was to be called Chonda-za. In exchange for their contributions, the members would have their needs looked after at Chonda-za, all their needs.

At the center of the entire fantasy was a matriarch, a saintly woman named Mother Maria. Maria collected and managed the money from the members, and she organized and disciplined the angels. She was said to have mystical powers and could revirginize fallen women. There were photos of Mother Maria. She was beautiful. Maria's photos were actually of a woman named Esther. She was Don's wife.

Not all the members of the Call believed in Chonda-za. Jesse stuffed the letters describing Chonda-za in the back pocket of the binder. He figured it was just some wacky idea Pamela had and just ignored it. But there were other fish who found this Hoque tempting.

Shankar Vedantam

This is Ken Blanchard. He's a big gentle man and was another member of the Call for many years. He was single when he joined, and he was still single when I met him in 2012.

Shankar Vedantam

Well--

Shankar Vedantam

Don got hundreds of new sign-ups every year. Millions of dollars flowed back to Don's headquarters in Moline, Illinois. He bought himself expensive cars, a Rolls-Royce and a Mercedes. He bought his sons and Esther everything they wanted. He got a big office in downtown Moline and operated a print shop. He hired assistants, salespeople, and ghostwriters to expand his operation. By the mid-1980s, Don was writing love letters to more than 30,000 men.

Shankar Vedantam

To exploit this growing market, Don constantly experimented with new schemes and products. He started selling cassette tapes, where the angels flirted with the men. He got into merch-- mugs, puzzles, commemorative coins, all with angels faces printed on them.

Shankar Vedantam

The members weren't just sending in cash and checks. They were sending gifts. Ken sent Angel Vanessa a windbreaker. Others sent coats and shoes, even gardening equipment so the angels could grow vegetables at their secret retreat.

Shankar Vedantam

This is Don's son, Rico Lowry.

Shankar Vedantam

A local police officer told me men from all over the country started showing up in Moline, asking where they could find the angels. If they found their way to the print shop, Don called the cops on them. Dumbfounded police tried to explain to the men that there was no Angel Vanessa, no retreat, no Chonda-za. But occasionally, if Don was in the mood, he'd actually allow them to meet female employees whom he had asked to pose as angels in photos.

In time, Don even set up events for his most loyal members to meet the angels. He called them gatherings. At a gathering in Chicago, an advice columnist offered dating suggestions. A comedian told jokes. Angels in yellow green dresses leapt around onstage in an interpretive dance.

Jesse went to the Moline gathering. He was excited to finally meet Pamela. She looked just like she did in her pictures. In fact, she was one of Don's employees and her name really was Pamela. She greeted Jesse warmly. But Jesse's excitement was tempered by the fact that there were a dozen other men at the gathering. Jesse was shocked to find that every man thought he was in a personal relationship with Pamela too. They crowded around her, vying for her attention.

Shankar Vedantam

Jesse knew that Pamela liked music boxes, so he bought her an expensive one with a tiny record on it that played When the Saints Go Marching In. Pamela loved it. He says she stared at it and let the record play. It went on and on and on. The other men stood around them and looked at Jesse. They looked at Pamela, then back to Jesse. He liked that he was making them jealous.

Jesse didn't blame Pamela. He wasn't exactly sure how the scam worked, but he was sure that the woman standing before him was the same woman who wrote to him, that she was the one who had read his letters. The proof? Pamela's dog jumped into his lap.

Shankar Vedantam

We got in touch with Pamela to see if she remembered any of this, but she declined to be interviewed on tape for the story. She did confirm that she hadn't written the letters. Jesse made friends with a couple of other men at the meeting, particularly two guys named Lenny and Al. They were all like strangers who had independently watched the same soap opera for many years.

Shankar Vedantam

In other words, they asked about all the personal stuff Pamela never asked about. Lenny and Al stayed in touch until they died. What finally brought Don Lowry's scam to an end was a woman named Susan Rosseau. She was a model that Don had worked with. She'd gotten into a car crash and called Don for help. He showed up at the hospital with a photographer. They unbandaged her wounds and took pictures. They sent these to all the men who were corresponding with the angel Susan and asked them for help in paying her medical bills. But Don didn't give Susan the money. She went to the cops.

Shankar Vedantam

This is Lieutenant Kenneth Rexroth of the Moline police department. He'd been aware of Don Lowry for years. He turned away many men who would come to the police station in search of the angels. And he'd been looking for a way to lock Don up.

Shankar Vedantam

But thanks to Susan Rosseau, the police finally had evidence to obtain subpoenas. They raided Don's print shop. They found out that some men sold everything in order to give their life savings to the angels. One man lived out of his car and forwarded his social security check to his angel. When the police got in touch with these guys, many of them realized for the first time that their treasured letters were written by a man.

Shankar Vedantam

Again, this is Ken Blanchard, who spent years receiving letters from Angel Vanessa.

Shankar Vedantam

Don's lawyer said that if members believed the angels were real, that was on them. As Don told me many years later.

Shankar Vedantam

Don and Pamela were charged with mail fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering. The press mobbed the trial. Don was shamed in the press, called a snake oil salesman in People Magazine. Which brings me back to what got me interested in the story in the first place, the thing that really surprised me. Many members flew from all over the country to show up at the courthouse in defense of the Call. Some stood outside with picket signs, defending the brotherhood.

Jesse and his friend Al were both there. As they waited outside the courtroom, Jesse saw Pamela come up. He rushed over to her.

Shankar Vedantam

Members testified on the stand and said the Call had been a critical, beautiful part of their lives. One man said letters from the angel saved him from alcoholism and thoughts of suicide. Jesse testified too. This is him reading a court transcript of what he said on the stand.

Shankar Vedantam

Don and Pamela were both found guilty. Pamela served two years in prison. Don was in prison for 10 years. When I met Don, I asked him whether he felt he did anything wrong.

Shankar Vedantam

Jesse lives alone now with his dog Chewbacca. He's in his 60s and is still single. He's had some complications from diabetes recently, and had parts of his foot amputated. It hasn't been easy. My producer, Stephanie Foo, visited him at his house in Texas.

Shankar Vedantam

Jesse still has the little wooden lighthouse Pamela sent him. It's on his dresser in his bedroom. And he still has two photos of Pamela in his den, one on the wall, one on his desk. In one, she's sitting in an office chair, hands in her lap, not glamorous, or sexy, or anything. Jesse says she's just sitting there, being herself. It's just a little something to say "I made a friend."

Ira Glass

Shankar Vedantam, he's NPR's social science correspondent and host of a brand new podcast called Hidden Brain about the world of unconscious bias in human behavior. You might check out especially episode three about poker and women. That's Hidden Brain episode 3, wherever you get your podcasts.

Coming up, romantic feelings popping up aggressively, undeniably in Times Square, on the 405 in Los Angeles. They are everywhere. That's in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program, The Heart Wants What It Wants. What happens when you find that whether you like it or not, you're having feelings, big feelings for somebody who is giving you signs that it really might not work out? We first broadcast this show a year ago. We have arrived at Act 2 of our program, Act 2, My Love is Blue.

Elsa Waithe is a stand up comedian, young, moved to New York City not that long ago. Two years ago, after the policeman who shot Michael Brown was not indicted for killing him, she felt like, OK, that is not right. And she decided to join the protesters who were out demonstrating about the decision and about police behavior. And at her very first protest, this thing happened she did not expect. She got a very inconvenient crush on somebody she had no desire to have a crush on. And of course, as we have heard this hour, that is something you cannot control.

She talked about this on stage in a storytelling show about crushes. We have a recording from that show that is a little janky but it is totally audible with, as you will hear, a very enthusiastic audience. If you're listening online or to the podcast of our program, I want to say before we start, we have unbeeped a few curse words here in this online version of the program. If you prefer the beeped version of our show, maybe you're listening with little kids, you can get that it's thisamericanlife.org. Anyway, here's Elsa.

Ira Glass

Elsa Waithe, she hosts a monthly comedy night in New York called Affirmative Laughter. On Twitter, she is elsajustelsa. She has recorded a monthly storytelling event called Tell at the Bureau of General Service Queer Division on 13th Street.

Ira Glass

Act 3, Unbreak My Heart. So this last story starts in exactly the way you would expect if you were even half paying attention to today's program.

Ira Glass

That's Julia. A few years back, when she was in her 20s, she dated this guy who lived in England. She was in Los Angeles. She loved thinking about marrying him and moving to England and raising little babies with British accents who'd call her mummy. And then one day, she was at work.

Ira Glass

And he dumped her, not even on video. He text dumped her.

Ira Glass

She couldn't concentrate on work anymore. Her life was wrecked. No more babies calling her mummy in the future. And as she drove home, sitting in traffic--

Ira Glass

So packs a bag. Overpacks, actually, because who knows how long she'll be staying. Maybe the rest of her life? Lands in England, gets off the plane, then it hits her.

Ira Glass

He asks her, how long are you going to be in the country? Standard question. But this sets off a huge cry, because of course that is the biggest question in her whole life at this moment. The answer depends entirely on the boyfriend. She spills the whole story to the British customs agent.

Ira Glass

She did not end up with the guy. When he sees her, he does not propose. He doesn't know. You are not the one. She flies home the next morning.

Ira Glass

Julia Lillis, she now has a baby who calls her mommy, and a second one on the way, and a husband who does not have a British accent but apparently has other good qualities to compensate.

Our program was produced todayy by Zoe Chace, Robyn Semien and me with Sean Cole, Neil Drumming, Stephanie Foo, Chana Joffe-Walt, Miki Meek, Jonathan Menjivar, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Our senior producer for this show is Brian Reed. Our technical director is Matt Tierney. Production help from Emmanuel Dzotsi. Our staff includes Elise Bergerson, Emily Condon, Kimberly Henderson, and Seth Lind.

Research help today from Christopher Swetala and Michelle Harris. Music help today from Damian Graef and Rob Geddis. Special thanks today to Nancy Bermeo, Michael Dodge Weiskopf, Paul Rest, Carol McGuirk Allison, Maggie Penman, Anne Gudenkauf, Jefferson Bites.

This show first aired a year ago. The 76-year-old man that you heard at the beginning of the program did not get a yes from the woman that he flew across the country for. He has moved on. He says he has no regrets. He's glad he tried. Our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks as always to our programs co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia. You know, he got a new puppy, puts him to sleep every night with these words.

Shankar Vedantam

Good night, my sweet Darling. Let us drift away to paradise in our dreams and wake up together to a new and wonderful day. I kiss you gently and fall asleep in your arms.

Ira Glass

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