794: So Close and Yet So Far
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So, Valerie? Yes? You're a producer here on our show. I am. Your tone of voice betrays a lack of enthusiasm for the story you're about to tell me. Yes. I do not find this funny. I find this deeply uncomfortable. Valerie Kipnis is one of our younger and newer producers here. And it was other staff members who urged her to come into the studio with me and tell me this story last year when we first ran today's show. Because they thought it was funny. Even if Valerie didn't. Okay. It takes place in a subway.

Okay. Okay, so I get on the subway and I see this person I know on the same subway train. Well, that's a coincidence. It doesn't happen very often. No, I've never seen this person on the stop before. No.

And I'm like, I should say something to this person. And I'm like thinking in my head, I'm like, all right, I should say something. I should say something. And then he looks at me and he makes like direct eye contact. And I'm like, great, this is my chance. I'm going to say something right now. And I like open my mouth and I'm like, and then he starts looking at his phone. I'm like, okay, that actually wasn't direct eye contact. That was like staring through you eye contact. How far are you from him? Six feet. Six feet. So close, right? But so far?

She's by the subway doors. He's at the pole in the middle of the aisle. So then anyways, in my head, I'm like, okay, he'll probably get off on the next stop. It's not a big deal. He hasn't seen me. I'll just like pretend I don't see him. But then a few stops later, he has not gotten off and he comes to stand right next to me, like shoulder to shoulder. And I'm like, oh, he's definitely noticed me. He's going to say something. I should say something back.

And I'm like looking and he's just like frantically scrolling on his phone, reading something really important, listening to something. I don't know. And I'm like, OK, OK, I won't say anything again. Because you don't want to interrupt him? Yeah, because I'm like, if you wanted to talk to me, he would say something. She keeps thinking he'll get off any minute. After all, he went to stand by the door right by her.

But he doesn't get off. Not at the next station, or the next, or the next. And at some point she realizes... It's going to be a long ride. Like, this isn't one or two stops. This is like a 35-minute subway ride where this person that I know very well is sitting next to me and I'm not saying anything. And our shoulders are like next to one another's and the subway is like delting and I feel his shoulder on my shoulder and I'm like, he's going to notice. But it's too late to say anything at this point. Wait, wait, let me just pause on that because now...

The fact that you haven't said something makes it more awkward if suddenly you go like, oh, it's you. Exactly. But then it's in my head. I'm like, it's even more awkward if he turns to me and is like, has she been here the whole time and hasn't said anything? So in my head, I think this is a good idea. And like, I take out a magazine and.

And I flip it open like as if I'm reading it, but I go like this. So you're holding the magazine up to your face. Uh-huh. So he won't see me? Just so it's clear what we're describing here, Valerie is holding the magazine to her face so the top of the magazine is near her hairline. So she's like a nearly blind monk trying to squint at words in a Bible.

Or like an extra in an old musical where, I don't know, Sky Masterson or Annie Mame or whoever is going to walk into a subway car and everybody in the car has a magazine held up to his or her face so that they can pull them down on cue and start singing. The magazine is too close to her eyes to actually read it. Like, no normal human reads magazines in this way. And the whole time I'm thinking, he's going to notice that I didn't say anything. And why didn't I say it? And I keep thinking, should I have just said something? I don't know.

Do you think it's possible that he's having the same experience you're having? Absolutely not. Why? I just know it. How? Because I don't think people feel, I don't know, I don't think people feel this way. Do people feel this way? You're a person and you feel this way. But no, I don't think he notices me. Or if he does, that this makes us so much worse. Is this somebody who you're scared of? No. It sounds like you're scared of them. No, I'm not scared of them. But scared in a normal scared kind of way.

What do you mean by that? Well, this guy's my boss. Was it me? Yes. Are you serious? Yes, 100%. I absolutely did not see you. See, I knew it. But I, like, I was sweating underneath my winter jacket. It was, like, one of the worst 40 minutes of my life. Yeah, I didn't see you. If I had seen you, I would have said hello. But, okay, can I tell you another detail that's important? Yeah. You...

This is so weird. You weren't wearing a suit. And in my head, I'd never seen you without a suit. So I thought, maybe he doesn't want to be perceived. Like, I was just like, maybe this is Ira's private time. So it was like seeing a teacher outside of the classroom when you're in elementary school. It just seemed wrong that you were seeing me there without my uniform on. Yes, you were wearing sneakers. I'd never seen you wear sneakers. And I was like, I can't, I can't say anything now.

What was I doing? Frantically scrolling on your phone. When you say frantically scrolling through my phone, I was frantic for like a 30-minute subway ride. I think you were actually like reading something. It was like not frantic in any way, but in my head I was like he's frantically trying to avoid me, so he's scrolling. Did you think I would get mad at you? No, but I thought you'd be like annoyed. You'd be like, hey, I didn't say anything for a reason, Val.

Can I ask you a personal question? Yeah. Were you raised by people who didn't provide you a lot of reassurance that they liked you? Um, yeah. I'm like a Soviet immigrant, duh. It was kind of hard to get my head around it, that she and I stood next to each other on a train for half an hour, and our shoulders were knocking against each other, and I didn't notice her, and she said nothing, and held a magazine to her face like a force field, protecting herself.

I'm keeping it separate. Wait, Eric, can I ask this last question? Mm-hmm. Why didn't you see me? Oh, I can totally tell you why I didn't see you. Okay. I just really can shut out the world really, really well and just decide to focus on something. And then in like a work context, it's really handy. Like I can kind of write anywhere.

But in personal situations all the time, I don't know, I can be in the same room as somebody and be thinking about something or focused on something. I totally shut them out. Like they'll say something to me and I don't even hear it, which is bad. And the people in my life don't love this. And this thing on the train is an example of it. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. I feel the like exact opposite in a bad way. You're just always aware of others around you. Hyper aware to the point where I make up things maybe or I misperceive things.

That seems hard. Yeah. For today on our show, we have other stories of people who are so close, but so far. Back one is about two people in one of the closest relationships possible. They're engaged to be married, but they have this distance between them that they cannot make sense of. Back two, comedian Tig Notaro has a story of somebody as close as her actual bedside, and also, in another way, impossibly far away. I'm WBEC Chicago. This is American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.

Taquan, love and other exports. How much can you trust whether somebody who you think is close to you really is close to you? Saeed Tejan Thomas Jr. was thinking about that question after visiting with some of his childhood friends. Saeed was born in Sierra Leone, but moved to the States when he was little. The story starts in Freetown during a recent trip home. Heads up, the story acknowledges the existence of sex. When I left Sierra Leone at eight years old, I left behind a small group of friends I did everything with.

As kids, we would run around the city and play soccer at the beach. That's how we bonded. Now that we're grown, when I go back, we go to the gym. It's how we pick up what we left off. My friends have this one particular gym they like. It's called Sonics. One, two, three, and four, five, more, six, more, seven, go!

Sonics sits at the end of a dirt road in Freetown, a small space in a quaint green and yellow building. It has no air conditioning and relentless heat, so the guys are usually drenched in sweat like oiled up extras in 90s R&B videos. I come here almost every time I'm in Salon, but then the last time we went, I discovered that for many of the guys here, all their crunches and squats had a much deeper purpose than looking good.

The gym, my friends told me, possesses a special luck for young Sierra Leonean men who want to move to America or Europe. They believe that if you use the weights here to sculpt your body, make it beautiful enough, you will find a wife overseas. And that Sonics has a track record to prove it. A member named Savage told me about how foolproof this method has been for previous members. He's speaking in Creole, I'll paraphrase after. We don't ever get a situation where

We get member, we meet with JC, then they all make come up together. We've never had a Sonics member who dates someone visiting from overseas who doesn't end up marrying them. That's right. They make come up and they travel. You have a high success rate. Oh yes. Oh yes. We have barrage of them. Barrage of them.

Another member of Sonics, this guy with perfectly sculpted arms called Sultan, jumped in to name their legends. The guys they've heard found wives overseas. Success stories that get passed around at the gym. There was a driver who chauffeured a black American woman around Freetown while she was visiting, always making sure to look presentable doing it. He made a good impression. They got married and he just went to America a few months ago.

There was the handsome photographer who got a random phone call from a Sierra Leonean woman living in London. It was a wrong number, but he charmed his way into a conversation, sent her some photos of his biceps, and they got married last year. He's now living with her in London. I respected the hustle, but their plan somehow didn't sit right with me.

The idea of guys I grew up with, men in my country using their bodies to get overseas, it made me uncomfortable. But then I sat down with a few of the guys and we started to talk. And I realized beneath the surface, beyond all the muscles, confidence, and bravado, all of these men were carrying around a broken heart. Which brings me to the guy I wanted to talk to the most, my friend Mark. MC Mark, Mario Mark, Mario Mark.

How do I breathe? How do I breathe? Mark and I grew up in the same neighborhood, but we didn't really get to know each other until we were grown. He's a good-looking guy who's easy to talk to. Not the greatest singer, but we were hanging out one day and he decided to sing me his favorite love song. Feels so different being here. I was so used to being next to you. Life for me is not the same. There is no one to talk to.

Mario's "How Do I Breathe," one of my favorite songs, is a song about a guy trying to piece together his emotional life after losing the woman he loves. It's basically Mark's story. It's why he's the one of my friends who believes most fervently that finding love overseas is the way to go. The girl he's singing about is someone he grew up with.

Mark says she was the smartest kid in their fifth grade class, but she was always approachable, and he liked that. He liked that they could joke together. After lessons, they would go to the beach and talk for hours, getting to know each other. He says she was the first person who taught him how to love. Like this one day, he walked home from prayers, and as soon as he opened the door, he saw her standing there with all his best friends from school, his family, everyone, singing.

She planned this elaborate surprise party for his 14th birthday, complete with all his favorite food and all the people he loved.

And on top of all that, she gave him a kiss. Was it on your cheek or your mouth? Or your lips? On my lips. In front of everybody. In front of my mama, in front of my grandma who adopts me, in front of my grandpa, my granny. The kiss was so special to me that all the kisses were never kissed me. So that was the most special kiss that you've ever had. That was like the best kiss you've ever had. Ever.

Neither of them came from money. Far from it. But Mark was growing up with a single parent. When his mother couldn't afford to care for him, he lived with his grandpa. But then his grandpa died. Then his mother died. And Mark became an orphan. He says his relationship with this woman was one of the few things in his life that felt stable. With her, he could dream. He could escape into one of their long talks about how sweet their lives would be in the future.

I reached out to her to get her side of this, but she didn't want to be involved with my story, and she wouldn't confirm anything Mark said. The way Mark tells it, though, they had decided. She would work in the energy industry. She would become a lawyer. They wanted three to four kids, a house in Ceylon. Maybe they'd travel sometimes. I love the way he describes the love he had for her. She was so real to me. If I get it or not get it.

She didn't care if I had money or didn't have money. She didn't care how I looked. It's love she had for me. And you thought to yourself, like, this is going to be my wife. After they graduated high school, she got a scholarship to attend university abroad. Mark says she tried to put in a good word for him to get the same scholarship, but it didn't work out.

Still, he encouraged her to go. And for three years, they continued their relationship via WhatsApp and Facebook. She told him she was one of the top students in her class. Back home, Mark was struggling. He had no money, no parents, no connections in a country with no reliable jobs for young people. His dreams of becoming a lawyer were fading. But word of his girlfriend's success was starting to get around the wider Sierra Leonean community. Guys were sliding into her DMs on socials.

And whenever that happened, she would tell Mark and then block them immediately. Until someone new approached her. One time when I was sitting down, she told me that I have this guy. The guy was a Sierra Leonean doctor. He had seen one picture of Mark's girlfriend and decided that she would be his wife. Mark says she tried to ignore him, but the man contacted her family and formally asked for her hand. She told Mark they were pressuring her to accept.

telling her that a marriage with this man could not only change her future, but her entire family's too. He watched as the nine years of their relationship unraveled over a short series of tearful WhatsApp calls. Nothing Mark could say, nothing he could do, nothing he could offer her or her family was enough to convince them to choose him over a doctor.

A few months later, he says she received the ring via DHL and was married to this stranger. A doctor who don't know where you are from, who doesn't know. After all the plans, after all the promises, disappointment. Love became disappointment. Yes. It changes everything because if you meet somebody who's not a doctor. I've got a woman who hurts me the most in my life.

The visionary feminist writer Bell Hooks says love is made up of seven parts. Wherever someone is practicing care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, and open, honest communication, there is love, even in an economically poor environment like Salon. But talking to Mark, I found myself thinking more about what love needs to survive. What conditions can make the act of loving easier or more difficult to sustain?

Mark felt like he couldn't compete because of money. And he was right. Not everyone has equal access to love. I feel like crying, but I'm ashamed to cry before you. You feel like crying, but you're ashamed to cry in front of me? You're not supposed to cry. I miss those moments with her. In the years since I left Salon, I had fantasies about the lives of people back home. Our country had been ravaged by years of war that left a lot of heartache, suffering, and poverty in its wake.

But I believe that through all of that, people had each other. That they had this unbreakable bond that was vital to our survival. But Mark was telling me that was wrong. I don't think true love is not here. If it is, it's like 10% or 5%. If it is, only 10% or 5% have true love. It wasn't just Mark. Almost every guy I talked to in Freetown told me the same thing. It felt like there was this lovelessness among the men in Salon.

Every time I raised a question and I talked to around 18 or 19 people, they'd launch into their own stories of heartbreak. I heard it from the taxi drivers, coconut salesmen, hotel bellhops, random guys on the street. Women too. The guys at Sonic's gym said they'd all gone through it and independently landed on the same math. I asked them what percent of people without money in Ceylon find true love.

When I ask my friends in America the same question about finding love without money, they say 60 to 80 percent. If love was like everything else these guys couldn't afford in Salon, if it really was a luxury, it made sense to me that they thought the best course of action was to look for it abroad. It was a way to solve two problems at once.

They could move to a country where poverty was less rampant and true love was more accessible. But I wondered about it. Where would it lead them? For Mark, it led him to the place most of us turn to for finding love these days: the internet. Let me see the first message you sent this person. This one is really long. Mark got on Facebook and he started sliding into as many DMs as possible.

He didn't care about age or race or religion, just anyone who was over 18 and overseas who might be interested in a relationship. Okay, so just tell me what you're saying in these messages. Just read them. Hello, Patricia. Patricia Lava. How are you doing there? And he said, okay. I said, okay, there. It's good to hear.

Then I said, I am Mark. Nice meeting you, dear. Then she replies, same here. So you're writing a lot. You're writing a lot. You're writing a lot. She's only responding with like one word, two word answers. In his search for a new relationship, Mark messaged over 150 random people on Facebook. I see Ture Wilson. She's in America. Salma Ahmed, America. Some messaged back. Adar Stel, I see. America. Come on to Conte.

Brazil. There was a single mom in Brazil who liked his muscles. The Sierra Leonean student in Sydney who talked to him because he reminded her of home. The nurse in London who thought he was good banter. Whenever he came across married women, he would keep it pushing, but he was hoping to connect with almost anyone overseas.

Listening to Mark, it was like I was watching an episode of 90 Day Fiancé. But seeing the side of the story I'd always wanted to see, the version where the hopes and dreams of the foreign spouse were finally center stage.

My friend Mark was eagerly searching for a love that could transform his life. He made a few connections, but most women weren't interested in a long-distance relationship with a guy all the way in West Africa. So Mark struck out again and again. At one significant day, I found Lottie. He found Lottie. Lottie Rebecca Beasley. Lottie Rebecca Beasley. She's my friend. She's my girlfriend. Because we don't get married to each other yet.

because of the distance. She's in America, I'm in Africa. Lottie Rebecca Beasley was a Black woman Mark met through Facebook. And he just loved how regal her name sounded. Lottie Rebecca Beasley. You gotta say all three. She had kind eyes, a warm smile, and she lived in this state that Mark had never heard of. Fairbanks, Alaska. In the morning there, here is midnight. 1, 2, 3 o'clock a.m. in the morning.

I usually wake up just to talk to Oloiti until 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock a.m. It's already morning hours. But the nine-hour time difference wasn't the only obstacle. There was another distance too. She was born 1949. She just turned 73 years of age this past September. And did you know that before you clicked on her profile? No.

A 70-year-old woman wasn't what Mark expected. Most of the guys at the gym who'd been successful had ended up with wives closer to their own age. But while Mark had been casting a wide net in search of a relationship that could change his life, he was also open to meeting a new friend. So he didn't overthink the age thing with Lottie. And she was calm about it too. In her very first message, she roasted him about how young he was. He said, hey, who are you little boy? Who are you little boy? What do you want? Ha!

I said, I'm not a little boy. I'm a man. How old were you when you met her? 21 or 22. Yeah, 21 or 22. Mark was young, but he's a good listener. Before long, Lottie was telling him all about her life. She'd gone through a lot of heartbreak too. She'd been married three times, had five children, and after one of her husbands had become abusive, she needed to get away. That's how she ended up in Alaska.

She'd made the best of it, started her own business caring for the elderly, and was moving on with her life. She wanted to know about Mark too. About my life. How I lost my father, I lost my mother. She said, "Oh, you're an orphan." I said, "Yes." And she was having this sympathy for me. She was feeling sorry for me. For Mark, this thing that began as a friendship was starting to grow.

He saw a potential for a romantic relationship, but Ladi struggled to see it, even though he felt like she wanted to. The age difference was too much. Mark says most people feel that way. So whenever you tell people about Ladi, about your relationship with this... They won't believe it. They won't believe it. This is scam. This is scam. It's normal, though. People get their own thoughts, get their own thinking. And life, people must talk. Anything you do in this life.

So if you stop by to listen to everyone, everyone that's there towards you, trust them, bro. You won't even achieve your goal. Sometimes I'll give them deaf ears. I gotta say, when Mark first told me about Lottie, I had questions too. Like I wondered, was my friend now a bona fide romance scammer or something? Because it is true that the way that he was looking for love gave him the silhouette of a romance scammer.

Scammers ask people questions about their personal life, send sweet messages. They try to earn trust before stealing your money and disappearing. But what Mark was telling me about his relationship made me believe that this wasn't that. Mark never asked for money, and he was putting in a lot of time with Lottie. When she's in the hospital, day and night, she has to check on her. I'm here. We're far in distance, but you are close to my heart. I'm here praying for you, day and night.

Months passed, and Mark and Ladi kept talking, developing a love ethic where they both showed up for each other. I said, what is breakfast? Yeah.

And I said, what is breakfast? I said, what do you mean breakfast? I said, okay. I said, no. I said, no. I said, please. I said, just so you understand. Here in Africa, our breakfast is for the politicians. For the president, politicians, first lady. I said, sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I don't even taste food until 12 p.m. or 3 o'clock. Sometimes even in the evening hours.

Lottie asked about where Mark stayed, and he told her he shared one room with three other people, and most nights he would have to stand outside the house to talk to her so he wouldn't disturb his roommates. This is common. Most people in Ceylon live on roughly $2 a day. Mark had been making a little money playing soccer in some local leagues, but it wasn't enough to get by. Hearing about how Mark was struggling made Lottie upset, so she decided to start sending him money.

$200 covered rent for the entire year at a place all his own. She also paid for his grandma's funeral. It wasn't a huge amount, just what she could spare here and there. But it made her feel happy to help him. So when she used to call me, Mac, I said, yeah, lady. Yeah, sweetheart. I said, did you break fast? She said, yeah. Now is the time to have breakfast. She was like laughing. Oh, lady.

Whenever I talk about Letty, when I close my eyes, I just think like she's in front of me. What do you think you were providing her? What do you think you were giving her? How were you contributing to the relationship? Because she's contributing money and she's contributing financially. So what do you think you were contributing to the relationship? Love. Love and caring for her.

I could see that. A lot of relationships involve some kind of transaction. Each person brings what they can offer to the mix. With Lottie, it's money, at least partly. And with Mark, it's his time and care. But when I think about the contours of their relationship, the fact that they've never met in person and live thousands of miles apart, not to mention the difference in age and experience, it makes me a little uneasy.

So did you guys talk about sex? Like, did you talk about sex ever? We talk about everything. We talk about sex. We talk about everything. So how did that, how does that, if you don't mind me asking, so how do you... We make sex on the phone. Oh, y'all had, you guys had phone sex? Phone sex. Like, we'll talk, we'll lie down, climb onto my chest. Okay. Are you there? Can I put something there? Okay. Let me ask you this question, actually. Are you attracted to her?

Yeah. Yeah? Sure. What about her are you attracted to? Like, what turns you on about her? Even she's 73 years. Oh, she still have back. Her back is set. Just like Nicki Minaj. Okay, Nicki Minaj is... Okay, so you think when you and her meet in person, you have no issue having sex with her? I have no issue. What? If I'm being real, my worry for Mark isn't just about whether or not he's attracted to Lottie.

This is a darker place my mind wanders off to. It's hard not to see their relationship in the context of the exploitation that's happening in West Africa right now. Sexual tourism has been a growing problem in The Gambia, for example. Older women have been descending on the country and spending their money on sex with young African men. The phenomenon is so rampant that the Gambian government stepped in, demanding foreign visitors stop this practice. But it still continues.

I don't think that's what's happening with Mark and Ladi, but there are enough similarities here to make me question. And if half of me worried that my friend was being taken advantage of, the other half worried for Ladi. Because Mark talks so openly about what he hopes to get out of their relationship. What did you like about her? Like, what did you feel? Just like I told you earlier that I want to accomplish my dream.

Like I want to go to the United States or Europe. That's not feelings you have for her. That's feelings you have for your dream. Those are two different things. Yeah. If she's the one who's going to take me from here, then... Then the feelings for your dreams become your feelings for her. I've already said, if you take me out of here, trust me. It doesn't matter that it's different. I swear to my life.

So you told her, you told her, if you take me out of here, I'll love you forever, basically. So she knows that there's something that you want. She knows that there's something that you want beyond her. Yes, sure. I'd been reaching out to Lottie for weeks with no luck to get her side of all of this. Then finally, early one morning, around 3 a.m.,

Hello? Hello? Hello? She called me back, and we talked for a while. I didn't know what to expect, but Lottie was very open about her life. She told me more about her work caring for the elderly, the grandson who put her up in her own apartment when she got older. And then, of course, we talked about her feelings for Mark. I love Mark. I didn't know, I can't even understand how I fell in love with Mark.

Because I ain't never dealt with no young men. I was just talking to them as a friend. Lottie can be a little hard to understand sometimes. It's because of a botched intubation she went through years ago. But I have to say, despite that, she doesn't come off as the kind of person who doesn't have agency over her life. At 73, she can clearly hold her own. And I don't let nothing stop me. You see my picture on Facebook? Yeah, yeah, I've seen it.

Do I look like I'm 73 years old? My mother definitely taught me better than to comment on a woman's age, but I will say, in Lottie's profile picture, she has a very youthful energy about her. In our conversation, she confirmed all of what Mark said about their relationship and how intense their connection was from the start. I never experienced anything like this. I mean, I talk to, I used to talk to him sometimes 50 times a day. Wow.

When you and Mark met in that first year or so, what was going on in your life? I was like sad. You know, I wasn't happy. I was lonely. And from talking to him, that's how my heart grew to him. We talk about life together. I have dreams sometimes.

Of me and Mark coming in the house one day and how happy I was. So you feel like he loves you for who you are? Yes. Lottie said that it had been a while since men her age gave her a chance. It had been more than 10 years since her previous relationship. And with Mark, she felt like she'd found something real. But some of the things she told me about her life were head-spinning.

She told me about a violent fight with one of her adult kids and how in a separate incident in 2002, she was convicted of child abuse and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. It made me worry for Mark a little bit. Like, does he really know this person? When I told him about what Lottie had said, he told me he wasn't aware of any of that stuff, but he didn't find it alarming. He said after all the good she's done for him, he's not going to turn his back on her now.

After six months of a long-distance relationship and countless marathon phone sessions, Mark got what he was looking for. Ladi agreed to marry him. The initial plan was for her to go to Salon, but her doctors told her the travel would be bad for her health. So instead, they decided to bring Mark to the States. Here's Mark. She even bought the ring, bought everything, my suits, everything for the wedding. She even chose my best man. She already chose them from the church.

Yes, and everyone was waiting for them to witness this marriage. Mark went ahead and applied for a visitor's visa to the U.S. Enladi wrote an official letter to the U.S. Embassy in Salon, inviting him to come. Next up was an interview with a woman at the American Embassy. She said to him, What is your name? I show her my name. And who is this to you? I say, she is my lover.

The interviewer asked a lot of questions, carefully grilling him about every detail of his plan. Mark was nervous, but he was prepared. He knew Lottie's address by heart. He felt like he'd answered every question right. Until the end, when the interviewer looked up at him. She said, well, I'm sorry. Better luck next time. She said that? She said, better luck next time? Yeah. I'm sorry. I cannot issue you this visa. Better luck next time. Wow. How did you, what did you say back?

It was like tears started falling down my eyes. Oh, you started crying right there? Yeah, I started crying right there at the embassy. I wasn't surprised that Mark didn't get it. It's always hard for someone like Mark, someone without a job or a house to tie them to their home country, to get a visitor's visa to America. Officials are afraid that people like that, basically poor people, won't have a reason to return. It's messed up, and I feel for Mark.

In an instant, all the physical and emotional labor he'd invested to get to this point was wiped away, erased by a stranger behind a desk. I've known a lot of folks in Salon who've been denied a visa. And Mark responded to his rejection the way they all eventually do, with optimism. Because what other choice is there in a situation like this? That is the happiest moment for me.

An official thing. It was very official. Yeah, for me to go to the, walk into American Embassy. Wow, American Embassy. For an interview. Wow, even when they don't issue me visa. I'm sad about that. I'm not happy. It hurts me. But at the same time, I'm happy because I went there for an interview. Because you got to touch a piece of America. Yeah, it's really, really a blessing to me. After the failed interview at the embassy, Mark and Ladi tried to regroup and come up with a different plan.

But her health worsened. Then one day last year, Ladi didn't answer the phone when Mark called. For weeks he couldn't reach her. Until finally, she messaged him on Facebook. She told him she'd been in the hospital. At one point her heart stopped. It took them eight minutes to revive her. When she got out of the hospital, Mark says, she was more isolated than before and her life felt more difficult. Things are really hard for her because she's all alone in her house.

Talking to Mark, I can tell that he's genuinely troubled by what Lottie's been going through. It's also true that since the downturn in her health, his circumstances have gotten worse. He says without the money she was sending, he got evicted. He doesn't always have money for food.

But he insists, even though Ladi has stopped supporting him, he still feels responsible for her. When she was supporting me, when she was like, she was okay, she was not sick. And now if she's like in this difficult time, she's not even walking, I think I should be with her too. And that's my duty, to look after her. Nothing does not, the love does not stop because I love her, because I've already linked to her, I love her. I've already built up a relationship, so I love her.

The way Mark is talking about Lottie here, it reminds me of a business person talking about sunk costs. Someone who's reluctant to give up on something they've invested in for a long time. It brings me right back to my initial worry. What does Mark actually feel? And what is he convincing himself he feels?

There's a part of me that believes you, but then there's a part of me that's still like, this doesn't look right. It doesn't feel right. It looks like you're using her and she's using you. It looks like she's lonely and she wants somebody to talk to. So she's using you for that. You don't have money and

You need somebody to fund you and take you out of this place. So you're using her for that. It looks like you guys are mutually using each other. And yeah, you guys love each other. You could very much love each other through that. But like, it still looks very obvious to me what's happening here. It looks very clear to me that you didn't use them. They didn't use you.

And I just want to know what you think about that, or what you think about me saying that. Nobody's not using anyone between me and loyalty. How many people are there in the United States? Billions. Okay, billions. Yeah, there are billions of people. But no one sees me here. Only loyalty. A 73-year-old woman sees me. It's really a blessing for me. The U.S. population is actually in the millions, but you get the point.

When I talked to Lottie, she also seemed to question how to think about the relationship. You know him very well, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think he loves me? Do I think he loves you? Yes. I got the sense that a lot of people in her life have asked her the same thing for years. And honestly, it was a hard question to answer.

I think Mark loves you the way you love him, if that makes sense. It didn't make sense. So later, she asked me again. Do you think Mark really loves me? I've asked him the same question, Lottie. I've asked him the same question up, left, down, right, and center, and he says yes.

And I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't believe him either because of the age difference, because of the cultural difference, because of the distance. So I didn't believe him. But he keeps saying yes. He keeps saying he swears up and down that he loves you. So I kind of have no choice but to believe him. Do you think he loves you? I feel he loves me. In my heart, I feel he loves me.

Ultimately, I don't think it's my place to decide whether or not two people love each other. That's a call only they get to make, the way everyone else gets to. But I do know both Mark and Lottie have been through plenty of heartbreak. And I know heartbreak is just love without a place to call home.

The fact that two Black people were struggling to find that home on damn near opposite ends of the earth, both from two vastly different cultures and generations, says a lot about how hard it can be for Black folks to love and be loved in this world. For us, there's a whole host of historical, political, and economic forces that can send our search for partnership down wayward paths. And after years of wandering, Mark and Lottie felt like they'd finally landed on something.

But what I want for them is what I want for a lot of us. Ease. Mark deserves to be in a relationship that's free from people's judgment. Maybe that comes with a partner closer to his age, in Ceylon or in America. And Lottie deserves a relationship where she doesn't have to worry about whether someone's using her and whether she's loved. What they have now is not simple. It's not easy. But then again, when has love ever been that?

Said Tejan Thomas Jr. used to be the host of the podcast Resistance. These days, he's getting his MFA in acting from New York University. His story was produced by Elise Spiegel. About a year after we first aired this story, Lottie's niece texted Mark saying Lottie had died. Mark told Said he's still sad about that and still looking for love over the internet without much luck. Most people, he says, think he's trying to scam them. Telling his friends that it's real To make it special

Coming up, Tig Notaro and a love that dare not speak its name. That's in a minute. This is Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This is American Life from our glass. Today's program, so close and yet so far. Stories of people who feel so near to each other and yet are kept apart. And before we move to Act Two, we heard about one instance of this kind of thing in a story Jake Offenhart did on the website Gothamist.

And basically what happened is, a few days before we finished this episode, the New York City Fire Department received this emergency call. In the sewers.

Five kids, Staten Island. You know, a normal Tuesday night. How did you guys get in there? They went through the tunnels. The dispatcher hands over the call to another dispatcher, Marlon Taxialiu. Hey, did you guys go in from Broadway or Martling, the main entrance? It's like close, like... Where? In the parking lot? No, no, no. You know where the cemetery is? Okay, I know a cemetery. Cross Street, yeah?

Yeah. Can we just step back and admire this dispatcher who seems to know every sewer entrance on Staten Island? Okay, but what do you mean by a sewer? Is it like a grate? It's like a tunnel where all the pipes are. It's like a tunnel where all the pipes are. We call it like a tunnel. Listen to me. I know the area. Listen to me. Hey, I know the area very well. I'm trying to ask you, how did you get to the sewer? You walked through the cemetery, right? Yeah.

Did you go right or left at the end of the cemetery? I need you to guide me. No, we went like down. You went down. Okay. Very quickly, they figure out where the kids are. See, I'm not lying. I'm going to get you some help, okay? I hear sounds. Hang on. I hear the sounds. Yeah. It sounded like they went past us. Hold on. We're going to get you. Yeah.

Yeah, now you can scream as loud as you can. They want you to scream and yell. They can hear you, so scream. These kids, it's like they went through a trap door from regular New York to underground New York. It was going on all the time, of course, under the city. Sewers and tunnels and water mains. Literally just shouting distance away. And shouting is all that it'll take now for them to tap the ruby slippers three times and get home. Call for help, guys. They hear you. Call for help.

If you listen very closely, it sounds like one of the kids actually laughs a little on that last scream. Like, it is so weird an adult is asking them to do this.

The kids were rescued pretty quickly. None of them were hurt. Keep screaming, guys. Keep screaming. I want you guys to scream as loud as you want. Which brings us to Act 2. Where we have another kind of rescue, another fire department. Act 2, Fire Sale.

So comedian Tig Notaro has been on our show many, many times talking about her random encounters with pop star Taylor Dane. Or memorably, she was diagnosed with stage two cancer and went up on stage that night and did a stand up set about it that we played here on the show. And sometimes when she goes on stage, she talks a lot about her wife, Stephanie, and their two kids, Finn and Max, and their home life together.

And she has this story of being so close to somebody and yet so far from them that she recorded at the comedy club Largo in Los Angeles. This happened one night when she and Stephanie went to a film and got home late. She fell asleep immediately. And I was up. I was having some pain in my stomach. And because she fell asleep right away, I thought, well, I'm not going to wake her up. So I was lying there thinking, I'm sure this is nothing, you know.

all of my medical issues usually aren't anything, so this is probably another one of those situations. And three hours pass, and I'm worse and worse. And I finally tapped her and I said, "I am in so much pain right now." And she said, like completely groggy, just, "Do you think it's all the popcorn that you ate tonight?" And I said,

I don't. I don't. I've been eating popcorn for almost 50 years now. Not consistently, but this is not popcorn pain. And she said, well, we should probably be safe and just go to the emergency room. And I was like, oh my God, that's so dramatic. And she said, well, you know, we shouldn't take any chances, so why don't you get up and get dressed and we'll go. And I said...

"Well, the thing is, is I don't know if I can even walk. I'm in so much pain." And she said, "Oh my God, you can't walk? Well, then I'm calling 911." And I was like, "Oh my God, that's so dramatic. There's gonna be lights and sirens flying down our street. What if this is nothing?" She calls 911, and this gigantic fireman appears at our bedroom door. I mean, he's huge.

And he has rubber boots to here, he has fireman pants on, muscles out to here, suspenders, no shirt. And I'm lying there in bed, so, I felt so vulnerable because I was in so much pain and I'm in my nightgown and of course I don't wear a nightgown. You know me better than that. You think I wear a nightgown.

I could feel the tension in the room. And you're like, "She wears a nightgown? That's..." No, I don't wear a nightgown. I think the last time I wore a nightgown was probably 1977. Probably had a little Pooh bear on the front, scooping honey out of a clay pot. Anyway, I was lying in bed,

Totally feeling vulnerable. And he got down next to me and he said, listen, I understand you're in a lot of pain. And I just want you to know that there's an ambulance outside if you need. And I said, I appreciate it. I just really don't want to waste anybody's time if this is nothing. And he said, it's up to you. It's there. And I said, okay.

I don't know if I can walk. And he said, that is not a problem. And he scooped me up in his arms. I'm telling you, in that moment, I was just like, oh, I could get used to this. Bada bing, bada boom.

I mean, truly, I was like, oh, I get it now. If you think you're surprised, think how I felt in that moment. I have never been more confused. I was like, he was holding me and I was just dangling in his arms with my nightgown flowing. But let me tell you what really surprised me when I found out this was my tie.

Here's what I didn't know I was into. He had a mustache. I was like, yes, please. That'll do just fine. That is my type. I didn't know. Here's the thing, is you can fall for and be attracted to anybody. It can happen at any time. I always thought, okay, if I'm ever into a guy, here's what I thought my type would be. I was like...

It's probably gonna be a singer-songwriter. Probably gonna be a poet. Probably gonna be a painter. Have a slight build. We'll share a wardrobe. I did not think that this gigantic fireman was gonna be what it was all about for me. So he's carrying me in his arms.

We're going down the hall, and I said, listen, when we pass this door, if you could just be extra quiet, because if my kids wake up, come out and see this. This is going to be confusing on so many different levels. And he was great about it. You know how he is. He's just... He's the best. Classic him, you know? He's just...

tiptoeing past their bedroom. We go down the stairs, and Stephanie's father lives with us, and he carries me past my father-in-law, and Stephanie opens the door, and we walk past her, and I just turned and was like, goodbye, old life! We get out to the ambulance. He gently...

Places me on the gurney, kisses me on the forehead, and pushes me into the back there and then shuts the doors and then, "Wouldn't you know it?" I was like, "Oh, God." Apparently my roommate... is worried about me and wants to join us. Thanks a lot, Stephanie.

Total buzzkill. But as I suspected, it ended up not being anything too serious. I was just bleeding internally. But a couple of weeks later, I was at a party, and I was talking to some people about the fireman. I was like, this guy was so incredibly hot. You know, just muscles, mustache, and I was going on and on. Stephanie walks up.

and overhears this, and she has this look of disgust on her face. And she's like, "I'm sorry, but you thought that fireman was hot?" I was like, "Um, yeah. This is not up for discussion. This is not a matter of opinion. This is a matter of fact."

And I don't know if any of you have experienced this or not, but there is nothing more awkward than finding out in a social situation that you and your wife have completely different tastes in men.

to be closer

Thank you.

Help on today's rerun from Henry Larson. Special thanks today to Alden Young, Mariam Amansure, Vicki Ramos, Sherry Rickson, and Diane M. Stewart, the author of Black Women, Black Love, America's War on African American Marriage.

Our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can stream our archive of over 800 episodes for absolutely free. Also, there's lots of other stuff there. Videos, lists of favorite shows. Again, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. You know, he has a new pickup line.

Uses it every time he's in a bar now. The visionary feminist writer Bell Hooks says love is made up of seven parts. I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of this American life.