This American Life - 70: Other People's Mail

Broadcast on: 25 Jul 1997

This story of voyeurism innocent voyeurism starts off simply enough Pete was supposed to meet a friend when she got off from work. He arrived two hours early. So to kill two hours I was just wandering around in the alleys digging through the dumpsters around there seeing what there was in them and As much as I like to look through dumpsters. I there's not a whole lot that I'm Excited about finding I'm not real big on eating food out of dumpsters so that the one thing that really gets me excited is finding other people's mail. I Love reading other people's mail I actively look for it on the streets and in in people's garages in dumpsters at post office

On this particular day, Pete found a big bag of letters. Maybe a hundred pieces of mail written over a year and a half He's excited. It seemed like hours of reading. They were in no chronological order. So I just had to open the first one that that I could grab and read one after another that way and which was kind of confusing at first because I jumped right into the middle of What appeared to be a relationship between a woman and a man? But it's slow. I slowly put it together as a puzzle Here's the picture that emerged as you put this puzzle together The woman lived in another country the guy lived in the United States and while visiting her country staying in a hotel there He slept with this woman once. She wanted to see him again. I realized him wanted to come visit him But none of these trips ever seemed to happen Pete only had the letters that she had written her side of the story But sometimes in her letters she repeated things that he said And over the course of the correspondence all sorts of things happened This woman went to jail and then lied about it to the guy and then finally admitted the whole thing She lied about a daughter of her. She actually said that a daughter of hers had died and Then finally admitted. No, no, I was just lying about that And over the course of these letters this woman slowly puts her life in order. She goes to school. She gets a new job Often taking advice from the guy. I think it's just that she never had somebody to to really lean on and And to seek advice from or just to tell her problems to and or at least nobody who was stable And so Yeah, he says it's gonna be platonic and she says oh, that's fine. That's fine, but When you read between the lines she just wants to see him and maybe once they reunited then the sparks will fly again As you read Pete started to feel protective of this woman The guy seemed to be sending mixed messages the guy to him seemed like a total jerk really He was always making her think that he might want to see her But then he would always quash any plans that they had to actually get together And this is the thing about reading other people's mail as You read you cannot help but read between the lines anybody with any heart any half sense of empathy Fills in the details that are missing. You're thrown into this role. That's part fiction writer and Part detective I had to keep in mind that he had just thrown these letters out apparently and so No matter how important she may say that he is to her At some point he puts it behind him. These letters now are in the dumpster Welcome to be easy Chicago and public radio international. It is this American life I'm I wear a glass each week on a program of course we choose some theme when you documentary stories original fiction radio essays Anything we can think of on that theme today's program other people's mail stories of people reading stuff. They're not supposed to see in the first place and

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