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Congratulations, big.

Happy Bar Mitzvah and mazel tov and all that kind of stuff.

Say to Jason, as long as you stay a Yankee fan

have a happy Bar Mitzvah.

[Jason] As far as I knew, I had a pretty good childhood.

May he be as proud of his future as he is today

and may he be as happy as he is today.

[Jason] My grandparents, my mother, and I

were a pretty close-knit family,

and even though I only met my father a couple of times

I felt like a normal kid growing up in the Bronx.

Jason, this is Arnie. Good luck, good health.

Your father loves you, and he's sorry he can't be here.

[Jason] I can probably count on both hands

the number of times I saw my father during his life.

This is a photograph of Joe Charnick

in his uniform, in early 1942, with his short stay in the army.

I'm Arnie Charnick, one of his two sons.

His other son's name is Ray Charnick.

I'm 50, and Ray is 46.

It's 1997.

[elevator bell dings]

[Jason] In 1997, my uncle recorded the last time

I would ever see my father alive.

He was dying of AIDS, a disease he caught

from a lifetime of IV drug use.

-We're bringing you your son. -[Ray] Oh yeah?

-How you doing? -Oh, man. Good.

-Oh, man. -What's up?

-How you been? -Good, I didn't think I would see you again.

Oh, man, it's been a long time for this.

[Jason] I knew so little about my dad,

and what I found out later would shatter

everything I thought I knew.

Yeah, well, look at me now, this is me.

I held you when you were born.

I saw you when your ear came out of the birth canal, man.

Big guy, kid.

Ain't nobody gonna mess with him.

-[Arnie] No. -[indistinct] Wow, you're a monster, man.

-[Arnie] The monster lives. -I just never pictured this...

Oh, yeah, this just came in about a year, two years ago...

I'm bugging out over here. I can't believe it.

Move the chair over.

You know your own strength.

Wow, man.

[Jason] My father died shortly after our meeting.

When my mom died nine days after my father, I was devastated.

It was a much deeper, much more personal thing to me.

I didn't have anyone to ask for advice.

Nothing was clicking, and I couldn't get any forward momentum

going in my life and my career,

so, I was just going through the motions at that point.

New York just wasn't working for me anymore.

Before leaving, my Uncle Arnie handed me 18 hours of tapes

of my father's last days.

See if we can get his story on tape,

a legacy maybe for his son, Jason.

[Jason] I packed them with the rest of my boxes and headed west.

LA wasn't any better than New York. I still felt alone.

I just had a real hard time being just a mid-20s guy

who was getting his career started

who didn't have many friends and... because I was alone,

and I was trying to find

people to share my life without here,

and it was just really, really tough.

I also had to acknowledge that I have the same

-addictive nature as my father. -Wow, you're a monster, man.

[Jason] The biggest battle I've had in my life

has been my addiction to food.

When I had last saw my father I had bloomed over 320 pounds.

I finally decided to look at the tapes.

My life was a bit shiftless for a while.

I started filling it up by watching these tapes,

and once I started watching them I couldn't stop.

I was up watching and transcribing these tapes

at one, two, three in the morning,

all throughout the night for, like, two weeks straight.

What my father said in these tapes would redefine

everything I knew growing up.

It's like I'm appearing on the John Leno show or something.

[Arnie] Just start anywhere you want.

I've probably been running the streets

and using junk and in and out of prison

for possibly the last three decades, about 30 years.

Let me try to clarify this the best I can.

Being on parole for the four to eight,

I violated parole, I went back upstate.

While on parole, I again violated parole, same parole officer.

I got a two and a half to five-year sentence...

...that brings us to 1992.

I was out a short period of time,

and I got an unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

Another one was for missing a parole report... I was discharged.

It was right across the road to Comstock Station.

...and I started getting high immediately.

He violated me again.

While I'm out now I get pinched for the robbery

that occurred in my brother's apartment.

My brother had been in Mexico, and I had been paroled,

and I tried to extort them for as much money as I can

when I found out that they didn't have any kind of paper

saying that they are renting an apartment.

Police busted me a couple of days later doing my laundry,

and I got a four to eight sentence.

[sighs]

You know, it's funny, I, uh...

I'm in my own house, and I'm a little bit nervous

to talk to the camera, say some things.

I've been talking out loud for... [chuckles]

a couple of weeks now as I'm watching through these tapes,

and, uh, you know, it's weird.

You hear your father talk about certain memories,

things that you remember,

that he remembers these same things as well,

and I'm going back through my mind,

and I hear my dad talk about times

that we would go visit him in prison.

[Ray] My wife came up to visit,

told me she had about a quarter of an ounce

of reefer to give me... to get me so-called started.

I remember trying to figure out how I would get this

wrapped in Saran wrap, tight,

you know, the size of my finger, passed to me.

I mean, you're not allowed to have your hands on the table.

You're not allowed to hold hands.

No kissing before or after.

The idea came to me we got to do this now.

I'm gonna put my leg as far as I can,

let her put it in my boot.

I went to the bathroom which is the first cell on the flats,

and I greased up, so, they say, which means

I put some Vaseline on my ass

that was brought down ahead of time behind my ears,

and I keestered the object, the reefer.

They picked me up on the 45th day,

and I went to Sing Sing to await transfer.

At that time, my wife had come and brought me

a balloon full of Valiums.

It must have been between 60 and 90 Valiums,

and Sing Sing is very loose.

It was no problem getting the Valiums in.

-And, uh... -[Arnie] Up the keester again?

Yeah.

It's weird 'cause I'm redefining all these memories

that have been going on in my head.

My mom would smuggle him drugs.

Ninety Valium here, a quarter ounce of marijuana there.

Who brings drugs to a prison in the first place?

Why would you lug along your child

and take the risk that you would get caught

with those kinds of drugs?

I can't imagine what my mother

could have possibly have been thinking.

I mean, these memories are really very vivid in my mind.

[Ray] I went from Clinton to Comstock.

Ninety days after you go into the institution...

without any disciplinary action

you can get a family picnic program in the trailer.

My father is speaking about... he got approved for this program,

and one time he speaks he says it only happened one time

that my mom and I went to visit him.

[Ray] Yeah, she came up with the kid.

He was a couple of years old.

Yeah, he didn't know where he was. He had a ball.

I was probably around four years old, and he goes,

"Ah, the kid didn't know where he was. He had a ball."

One, just a little throwaway line about it.

Well, he got it half right.

I did have a ball, and to this day,

I am 36 years old now, and guessing that it was

about 32, 33 years ago,

it has been one of the most vivid, vibrant memories

in my life, in my mind, for the past 30, 32, 33, years.

It was me and a bunch of other kids,

and we would go out into this little center courtyard and play.

It was one of those things where the kids hang on,

and it's like a little spinning wheel.

[theme music plays]

[Jason] I remember being inside

watching the Superman TV program in color.

I remember seeing the opening credits

with Superman flying through the air.

Actually, he was just there and the background was moving,

but he says that I had no idea where I was,

but I remember it so vividly.

In fact, my wife was still on methadone program.

I remember now, she had to leave her bottles

with a civilian right outside the trailers

and each day pick up her dose, drink it there,

and come back in.

Getting drugs was absolutely no problem

on the family reunion.

I mean, forget it. You're all alone.

You're kinda looking under the lamps for bugs.

[Arnie] Did she you bring any?

Yes, she brought about 90 Valiums, I think.

Ninety Valium. Ninety Valium.

How she would even come about 90 Valium

is astounding to me.

[TV announcer] With powers and abilities

far beyond those of mortal men...

[Jason] I could very well have been,

you know, staring at the television just like that watching Superman

while they were inside popping Valium.

[soft chuckle]

Um... I guess I must have been a real tough kid to deal with

that the one time we go up to see him

that they need to just pop pills.

[Ray] I got out where I told my wife to meet me

by the tower at the big wall, and she was there, new car.

[Arnie] With the kid?

[Ray] No, not with the kid. She was there herself.

I remember getting in the car in the front,

you know, giving her a hug, getting close,

and the first thing I did was take some Valiums out of her pocketbook

and I had three, ten milligram Valiums.

So actually, probably within seven minutes

of my release from prison I'm already high.

I don't know how much longer it was.

It might have been just a day or two

when I said to my wife,

"Listen, I'm going to cop. I'm going to get high."

And, she said she was clean,

but I went through the projects at Marble Hill to cop,

and of course, she told me to get her one too.

[Arnie] Jason is just, he's there though?

He's in his crib? He's a kid, how old?

-He's got a bed. -[Arnie] He's got a bed?

He's in his own room.

[Arnie] How old is he at this time?

He's like two or three years old or four?

[Ray] No, he's...

Five years old, something like that.

[Arnie] How did you feel about him at the time?

Oh, I felt great, but ill at ease around him.

I didn't know what to say, I didn't know how to be a father.

He's watching TV or Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory,

I remember the show.

[Man] Hurry up, Violet.

[Charlie] This way, grandpa.

♪ There is no life I know

♪ To compare with pure imagination ♪

He comes up to me and says, "Hey, Jason,"

while I'm watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

He says, "Hey, Daddy."

But he didn't seem too excited about me being there anyway.

I was like, "Yeah, Dad, you know, whatever.

I'm watching TV,"

which if you know me now

only makes sense that I would have been watching TV.

Uh...

But I felt...

as soon as I heard him say it,

I felt... a guilt.

I... I don't know how you can place the blame

on a little five-year-old kid, but I felt guilty.

It would have been nice if I had a welcome home sign on the door

or a little party or something.

I just spent four years in prison.

I mean, that's what most people get when they get released.

Their families are happy to have them back.

At the time I was too busy watching TV

to maybe turn around and give him a hug and be like,

"Hey, Daddy, I haven't seen you in god knows how long. Let's hang out."

[Ray] These are the tracks of my tears.

[Jason] He made his decision to live this kind of life,

decided that sticking a needle in his arm

was more important than me, and I don't hold it against him.

Maybe a little bit, [chuckles]

but, you know, I can't imagine if he was straight,

if he was not on drugs at all,

he would have made a different decision, if he was around.

You know, I think I would have been a fun kid to be around to raise.

[Ray] My wife who has a big problem getting a hit

and able to send it into her vein,

she doesn't want to be bothered,

so usually she goes off into the bathroom.

Our little son is running around the apartment,

I'm on parole, I just got paroled,

knock on the door, no answer.

"Janet, come on.

You're in there too long, Janet.

Would you come on, please? We got to go."

Now I'm bugging out.

"Janet?"

I break the bathroom door down.

I kick the door in, my in-laws' house,

I actually broke the wooden door.

My wife was on the floor. She had OD'd seriously.

I did not know what to do at all.

I mean, I was like... [whooshing]

[Arnie indistinct]

Well, you know, I can't leave her,

but I'm going back to jail if I don't leave her.

It's just so fucked up to me.

It is so fucked up that A,

my parents were stupid enough,

foolish, fucking mental to put needles in their arm

in A, my grandparents' house and B, while I was there, running around.

What are you sticking needles in your arm for

when a little child is running around?

I can't... I don't know.

And, she's blue.

And, finally I got her out of it.

Janet opened her eyes, like, slowly,

and the first thing she said was,

"Can I get my shot now?"

Unbelievable. The shot she had just did almost killed her.

She opened her eyes and didn't move.

She was in the same position laying on the floor,

and said, "Ray, can you hook up my shot for me?"

But, that's what happens.

I cannot get across plainly enough

how vivid this memory is in my mind,

that I've had for 30 years, 30 plus years,

of my mother slipping and hitting her head in the bathroom

in my grandmother's house, my grandma and grandpa's house,

of her slipping and hitting her head in the bathtub,

and my father, during one of the brief periods of times we was home,

breaking the door down and saving her.

'Cause it was a heroic moment to me, I suppose.

You know, being a kid, and you see your dad storm in

and break the door down, and "I'm going to save your mom."

I can count on both hands the number of times

I saw my dad in my entire life,

and to have this one main memory of him,

saving my mom from-from hitting her head in the bathtub...

and to now know that she OD'd on heroin...

We used to call it not overdosing, but I would say,

"Man, that dope was good. I went out."

"I fell out."

It's just fucked up, man, to learn that this heroic image

that I had of my father was actually,

he had just gotten high by sticking a needle in his arm,

and my mom was getting high, and she put in too much,

and she fell out, she OD'd.

And, it's just really fucked up to know...

To have one of your oldest memories

redefined right before your eyes

is a really, really intense, twisted,

weird, strange feeling.

My mom was also a stone-cold drug addict when I was a child.

She had also, at least for a brief period of time, chosen drugs over me.

Well, I don't know if I can say anything could hurt more.

[Ray] You could call it a game when I started using drugs.

The possibility of hurting somebody didn't exist.

It was get over getting the money,

get over copping the drugs without getting busted,

and get over in shooting it and getting a decent bag.

That's it. Now you're resolved.

That was a good day,

but the getting over did not work.

I ended up with AIDS, I live in a nursing home,

and there's no way can I equate...

a possible win with getting over.

[Jason] Clearly, there's a lot of things that I'm learning right now

that I had not known before,

like my mom was also a pretty hardcore heroin user,

my father's life, you know, crimes that he committed,

things... deeds that he did to live, to survive.

A lot of stuff that I didn't know.

Part of me feels like I should be a different person.

I do feel something is changing inside of me right now.

I was totally just ignorant.

You know, my mother did a very good job of shielding me

from what was going on.

I was going to school, I was doing my own thing,

and he was living his own life, and I had no idea what that was.

[Ray] When the mind starts asking questions about...

How come I can't remember earlier than, like, fifth and sixth grade,

when I'm talking to people who remember

when they were four, five years old.

I start to get a little scared,

but as you put more things together,

such as the memory, and the neighborhood,

and moving, and school,

some kind of anti-administration settled in.

I did get into some problems at Brooklyn Tech, you know,

forging notes to try to get around my lateness of the day,

or whatever, until that added up to three years of that.

[Arnie] So, you're telling me your first scam was forgery?

Yeah, yeah.

Who are you to tell me I can't go home?

This is a free country.

[Jason] To get more of a grasp on his existence

outside of me

for all those years

I see our paths now

as some sort of parallel,

not necessarily that our lives were in parallel,

but to see that we were both going through our lives

together on these separate paths.

My mother is passed away now.

I don't have anyone else to call upon...

and I still have a lot of questions.

The only person I could turn to is my Uncle Arnie.

It was time to go home.

There's more to me than there was a month ago, a week ago.

There's more to who I am, there's more to where I'm from,

and there's more to come as well.

Like, there's things I don't even know yet.

I realize now how important it is

for me to come and reconnect with this place.

It's really hard to verbalize it.

It's my heart, it's my soul, it's where I belong,

but at the same time I know I can't be here.

I'm trying to keep that spark of a sense of community

and connectedness and...

you know, and just that New York heart and soul alive in me

'cause if I let it die, and I let that connection to this place die...

I can't have it. I can't have it.

This is where I'm from. This is where I'll always be from.

Being back in New York for the first time in 15 years

it felt like nothing had changed.

New York is like that, and Arnie was still living here,

still living in the same apartment he'd called home for the last 40 years.

It seems fitting that I'd stay there, too,

in the same exact room my father had crashed in all those years ago.

[Arnie] I used to find it very difficult to watch the tapes.

My reaction to it within about eight to ten minutes

of viewing the tapes was to fall asleep.

It was some kind of emotional escape or something, I guess.

[Jason] It took me 15 years to watch them in the first place,

and I couldn't be more of a procrastinator about that.

Every time... I couldn't do it, couldn't do it.

What made you decide to want to record those videos?

-'Cause of the timing. -[Jason] Was it 'cause he was close?

The timing was 'cause he was near death,

so, something had a jig.

I pride myself on getting creative ideas on something

sometimes under a little deadline thing or something... come up with an idea.

[Jason] So, you got some equipment from some people...

Because I had the idea

it coincided with the luck that he was at

the Cardinal Cooke Center for dying AIDS patients.

You're still in jail, but you can leave for two hours every day.

So, it really was quite a... altogether time there.

[Jason] Do you remember that day at all when I showed up?

Sure.

The last time I saw you was in Goldwater.

-[Jason] Five years ago, yeah? -[Ray] Five years ago.

-You look good. -So do you.

He seems real solid, but obese at the same time.

-[Arnie] Right. -You know what I mean?

[Arnie] You wouldn't call him fat.

You call him solid, solidly obese.

I was shocked when I said,

"Listen, I'll get you McDonald's."

He said, "No."

When I was living back with Janet and him,

she said, "Before you finish the hamburger..."

He's, uh...

I think he'll be all right. I think he'll lose that weight.

[Arnie] He's gonna have to commit himself to it.

Yeah, it's not too healthy to be that heavy.

-Hmm? -[Arnie] Look, Joe was a gambler,

we're drug addicts, and he's an overeater.

Everybody's got there problems.

I will hint that our household

and our life in the Bronx during our boyhood

was unique and different and odd,

and I did not find out the answers to why our family

was so different from others

until I was about 15 years old, Ray was 11 years old.

It might be that one right there.

-That's it. -Right where it pushes in the corner of the wall.

Just look at the number, but I'm trying to do it by feel.

-1147. -[Ray] That's it.

[Arnie] My grandfather, Izzy, planted this tree in something like 1967.

[Ray] About 40 years ago.

[Arnie] This tree is about 40 years old.

Lots of baseball we played here.

Slug.

That was Chinese Handball.

-Slug, we used to call it. -[Ray] We never called it slug.

I called it slug, same thing I call this.

Here's the question, who lived here?

[Ray] Who lived here? Great important friends?

I wouldn't call 'em great importance whatsoever, but here's the hint--

[Ray] The only guy that I know was there was Jushy.

[Arnie] The hint was mom would say,

"Go get your father. He's over Jushy's house," the bookie.

This is where dad would hang out with his card players.

[Ray] Probably one of the only Jewish bookies around.

I remember going into the apartment,

and I was hanging out... and one of the older guys says,

"Your father will be with you in a minute.

Go wait in the room," and when I went into the room

there was a good eight to ten shortwave radios

with horse races coming over here,

and about four or five phones going off at the same time.

Jushy and Schmeny and Pussy and Private Joe.

[Arnie] Private Joe...

Private Joe was my father.

Now, I inherited a bit of a gambling thing.

Matter of fact, I have a poker game at my house tonight. Did you, uh...

[Ray] I have a poker game today, too, to be honest with you.

You have to hustle.

So, both of us are playing poker tonight.

We can't lose. Where I am, we can't lose

because you don't put anything in,

but you get a dollar for every hand you win.

My father had the cheapest radio made in this solar system,

and it would be such a tinny sound.

[Arnie] Staticky, tinny.

[Ray] Staticky, tinny.

[Arnie] I see that as his escape.

He just disappeared into that staticky world.

[Ray] Like zombies, that's the way it was, when I was a kid.

When I was younger, I didn't analyze things.

I wasn't into psychology.

He was definitely what they call 7:30 material,

and that's to determine whether he's criminally insane or not.

We're sitting in front of 1147 Manor Avenue in the Bronx

where we were kids together.

We lived with my mother and father

in this apartment on the first floor.

Someone else lives in there right now,

but they're not home, so we can't go into the apartment,

and right upstairs in the top apartment

my grandmother and grandfather, Izzy and Ida, lived,

and they owned the building.

Did you feel like I did?

That there was something a little different?

[Ray] Oh, yeah, I definitely felt there was something

-missing in the puzzle, but... -We didn't know what it was.

[Ray] I can't... Right.

[Arnie] In 1962, when I was 14 and you were ten,

mom opened the door and there were two military guys,

military MP's, military policemen, standing at the door,

and they were looking for Joe, for dad.

And, he in fact was, for lack of a better word,

hiding from being caught for desertion from the army.

He basically hid here with his mother and father.

He just stayed as a young man.

He lived with them, so he didn't have to work,

and he continues to do very little

except take little under the table jobs

and get paid very, very little money.

He wasn't hiding in the closet,

but he was doing as little... the most minimum, minimum

low prior life that he could possibly get

because he was afraid if his name should pop up somewhere,

if he was to buy a car, if he had a credit card

or whatever you got to do, social security pop up,

his name would be registered

as a guy who was being looked for.

I've always operated on that that was a pretty,

maybe down pat, but pretty good answer

for, uh, the fact that you, perhaps,

have skirted the edge of society in your criminal way,

and I have skirted the edge of society in my artistic way.

I've never carried identification.

It seems to me that that relates to, like, I don't want to be identified.

I don't want any credentials.

I've never had a credit card, never even written a check.

Even though I'm 50 years old, and I'm somewhat successful in my own field,

I'm respected for my talent,

I've lived it in almost a folk hero, romantic notion

of the artist as a rebel, outside of the picture,

outside of the framework.

This is how I understood that because of what dad did,

the hiding, it affected our lives.

[Ray] It's not as easy as all that.

What is not as easy as all that?

[Ray] Patting me on the back, and saying,

"Listen, I found the answer

to why I hop on a plane and go to Bohemia,

and you hop on a boat to go to the Lower East Side.

And I'm doing my artwork in Jamaica,

And you're shooting dope on Avenue C.

I got the reason why we do that, and here's what it is.

We don't have to be doing that anymore."

No, untrue.

[Ray] No, I know once we were locked into it

there'd be no changing it.

You were already on your mission.

I wish there was a wand where they can...

Wave the wand and then say,

"Okay, I wish the drug scene stops.

I wish the whole...

the entire criminality and abandoned building living

and everything so crazy stop," But there is no wand.

It's not like I lived every day since I'm 14 thinking,

"Well that's the answer to my life. That's the answer.

That's why I'm having trouble getting into the picture,

why I'm on the outside looking in

because of how we were raised."

♪ I'm on the outside looking in ♪

♪ I want to be I want to be ♪

♪ Back on the inside

♪ With you

Yeah.

[Jason] We are on our way to Manor Avenue

to the childhood home of where Arnie and Ray grew up.

We can't even get into the building.

Oh, yes, we can.

Oh, there it is.

That's the apartment right there in the front.

None of these gates were here.

I got to pee so bad, I hope they let us in.

So do I.

It's a different door, literally, but the same doorway.

Grandparents lived right above us.

Let's see if he's here.

[doorbell rings]

Yeah, look at this. Wow, this is a weird feeling for me, man.

See, this was the place, bathroom over there,

little kitchen here.

This was the room I shared with my brother.

[Jason] So, it's just a one-bedroom apartment? Two-bedroom?

-[man] Two bedroom. -[Arnie] Two bedrooms in the front.

This is the room I shared with my brother,

so, I'm sitting right over here.

-Okay. -You see the doorway?

Right. All right, so you're here.

I'm sitting there watching the TV and somebody opens the door,

and there's two military police standing there, come looking for my father.

[man] Your father? Why were they looking for him?

-'Cause he deserted the army in 1942. -[man] Oh, okay.

[laughs]

They didn't find him 'til 20 years later.

The whole time I'm living here as a kid

with my brother and my mother,

we didn't know that my father was hiding.

And my father never spoke,

-and he always just sat in that room. -Sat in that room.

And, I never knew why.

But, on that day, the next day, when my mother

was telling me the story why

I started to know that we were hiding the whole time.

When my father was finally free of the army,

my grandmother and father sold the building, moved to Florida,

Then my family moved to the projects across town,

Marble Hill projects, and that's where my brother...

I was already out of the house, I was living my life as a 20-year-old,

my brother was 16 and started doing heroin,

and he just went off in the '70s.

In the '70s and '80s.

And, here's the key. You ready for this?

[man] Ready for what?

If you add up the times

my brother spent in prison,

he was a junkie and a thief, conman,

-all of that, for 30 years. -[man] Wow.

-But for 20... 20. -[man] He was hiding?

-Twenty, no, 20 of those 30 years -[man] Uh-huh.

he was in prison. Not... not for a 20-year sentence,

but as a repeat offender, two to four,

four to eight, he'd do two years.

And, the total amount of time he spent in the system

was 20 years...

-Which is exactly... -[man] Twenty years...

Which is exactly the 20 years that my father was hiding.

The point is, somebody had to pay the dues.

My father got off.

He didn't go to prison or get shot,

of course, he's mentally disturbed 'cause of how he lived.

But somebody... it's like,

Okay, somebody's got to pay the fucking dues.

Somebody's got to pay the price here.

-And my brother... -[man indistinct]

And my brother... My brother, he paid for the sins of the father.

He did 20 years. I think, "Well, how could that be?

That's 20 years, 20..."

It's like a story. You can't write the script.

[man on PA indistinct]

I got some info from a buddy of mine

who I went to elementary school with in the Bronx.

He's a lawyer now, and he gave me the name and number

of someone to speak to at the Bronx County Courthouse

to get some more information on my dad's criminal record,

so I'm gonna go inside and see what they have.

Any drug addict's wrap sheet will explain,

or you can look at it and know just when he went off

and started really abusing,

because you don't get enough money

with the con game that I used to use in the beginning

'cause I'm not really conning anybody.

They're happy to give me three dollars,

and I'm happy to take it, period, end of story.

So, I just came out of the courthouse,

spoke to a guy in there, uh, in their microfilm room.

He said they didn't have the records on microfilm,

but he looked it up by hand, and they got...

The earliest one they got is April 3rd, 1971.

He was indicted in robbery in the first degree,

plead guilty to attempted robbery,

and got five years probation.

They gave me the indictment number, 21-85-71.

If I didn't get these...

breaking points by going to prison,

whatever the length of time was,

I can be pretty sure I would have been deceased already.

You see the front here and the back,

a lot of light, a lot of space.

It's my apartment and my studio for the last 34 years.

So, this was the place where there were NYU students living here once?

[Arnie] This was the apartment that I sublet

to three NYU students, once in the winter

when I went to Mexico with my girlfriend, Sherry,

and Ray didn't barge in.

He simply said to them he was my brother,

and they figured, "Well, his brother needs to get something

out of the apartment," standard routine,

which is to turn into a menacing, menacing...

All of a sudden, he can be...

He's got his teeth in, he's smiling,

and he seems like a jovial, affable chap,

and the next thing you know he's holding his back pocket

as if he's gonna take out a knife...

or his coat pocket and snarlingly, menacingly says,

"Please don't make me do something to you

I don't want to do," as if he would hurt you

or stab you or maim you if you don't give him what he requires.

And all three students gave up whatever they had. They were scare shitless.

If you see the irony, he told them that he was my brother,

so he had a record, and the police simply

went looking around for the description of the guy who was my brother.

Once he showed up as Ray Charwick

he was put back in for another two to four, or something like that.

I don't remember what. I get all the prison and the parole times mixed up.

It happened over a 30-year period.

[Jason] There's a lot of stuff in there to get confused about.

[Arnie] If you're starting me on a litany of the people that Ray ripped off,

close friends and me, then that would be a whole rap in that direction

that I don't have to necessarily start, so...

[Jason] You don't want to talk about that?

-It seems like you remember. -Part of me wants to spew about it, sure...

-[Jason] Go ahead. -to say that he robbed me, but saying those words alone.

He robbed my closest friends, yeah.

[Jason] How many times would you say he robbed you?

Well, that depends if robbing my friends

is not robbing me of their trust and all of that.

A friend of mine trusted him

to sell Christmas trees one winter.

Sam would front the money for the Christmas trees,

and Ray would sell the trees, get cash all the time, and give Sam his cut.

Ray did that for a couple of weeks for Sam,

blew my mind, made some money, seemed to stay straight.

And then when it was over,

within three days later, he... burst his way

into Sam's house and stole an overcoat

worth a lot of money, and cash,

by threatening and intimidating Sam,

his complete, trusting padrone.

When you called me in I think '87,

probably shortly after you were diagnosed with HIV,

this was after a couple of years

-where I had finally cut you off. -Mm-hmm.

I felt that the haunting, get rid of the haunting,

the rip-off, gonna rip me off a few times,

you were haunting my mind, you were always there.

I couldn't figure you out... 'cause you were lying to me all the time.

I was convinced that you were a pathological liar

in terms of the whole drug, survival thing,

so I had to cut you off, so I cut you off.

I stopped visiting you in prison,

and I stopped seeing you.

So, when you called me and told me that you had HIV, I didn't believe you.

-[Ray] Mm-hmm. -To me it was like a last-ditch effort.

-[Ray] A last con, yeah. -Or, the last con.

That I couldn't think of anything else to use.

[Arnie] You had run out of every scam.

That's it. The only thing I could have used was that.

[Arnie] It was the last final plea.

And, I understand you feeling that way very easily.

All I'm pointing out when I'm rapping about this

is that when one is the victim or subject to a pathology of lying,

one starts to not believe anything anymore.

All this stuff that is thrown right in my face,

I had blocks against it.

All I can tell you is that for many years

I felt a victim of the ultimate conman.

The ultimate conman had me in such a defensive place

that it actually made me look at the whole world differently.

Every new thing that happens I think,

"Are they getting over on me? Is this getting over on me?

Don't get over. I don't want to hear it anymore,"

and in a way you set me up for my skin being thickened.

Every lie that you told me,

my skin got thicker and thicker and thicker, my psychic scale.

I would have actually appreciated

if I could de-thicken my skin a little bit,

so I could be a little more sensitive to the world.

I do remember he did call me to tell me

that he was allowed to go to the federal penitentiary

for a year down in Talladega and spend a year there.

So somehow, he was smart enough to finagle that

which was pretty amazing.

I finally made it to Talladega, Alabama...

and I met a couple of guys from the state system, in fact.

I was a little scared at first because I didn't know the way their system was run,

number one. Number two...

you know, being in a state where

I didn't even know the way they would take

a junkie from New York City.

You know...

They weren't too fond of it, put it that way.

I found out pretty quick.

Well, let me tell you what happened

while I'm working in the rec shack.

The last 30 game winner, pitching, Detroit Tigers,

Mr. Denny McClain, a baseball player in the '60s,

an excellent pitcher, was doing time in Talladega also.

Talladega was a college campus, it really was.

Except for the fact that you couldn't go home,

you wouldn't be able to tell it from a college campus,

and they had a lot of people in that place, a lot, a lot of people.

The humorous aspect of it that I remember

was that Denny McClain loved to drink Pepsi,

and Ray had a connection to swag Pepsi.

Ray was smart enough to make some connections along the way for some things.

[Ray] I used to get, I think it was,

a case and a half of Pepsi a day.

Sometimes Denny would come to me

as if I was a guy selling heroin.

The guy needed a fix.

He was certainly hooked on these Pepsis.

You never saw him without one,

and it was a good financial arrangement for me.

[Jason] So, what are your initial thoughts after you see that?

Do you remember anything specifically?

I saw you had an instant reaction

to Pepsi being your heroin.

First of all... I hope you know your dad was a bookmaker in jail.

[Jason] It wouldn't surprise me.

He was the main guy in jail

because he had all the access to all the units,

someone had to be, so he was the local bookmaker.

Of course, in that environment you pay with Pepsi,

you pay with cakes, you pay with cookies,

peanuts, tuna fish, whatever the hell it is.

And, um, so, he was the guy, and he had a whole crew

that would move his paperwork around for him,

take care of the bets, and he paid those guys, too.

Did he tell you about burning the cell?

They burnt him out of his cell once.

I'm coming out of this sleep.

I don't know really what's happening,

and I'm in the cubicle that's on fire.

They left a sign on my cell.

You know...

"Do not let out. AIDS infected human being."

That's what it was. They found out he had AIDS.

[Jason] And, they found out he had AIDS.

And, nobody understood AIDS at the time,

so they figured he was gonna spread it to everybody.

People found out, and hey,

if we got somebody next to us with that

we just run 'em out of town.

They didn't want to take a chance drinking at the same fountain.

I think the real culprit... mission of these people

was to get him out of the pod because they were scared.

Davey, hey, hi, how are you?

-Jason. -Good to see you again.

-So, this is... -[Arnie] Hey, Dave.

You might remember...

You don't look too familiar to me.

But, it's only 50 years, give or take.

It's good to see you. Hey, come on in.

Awesome, awesome. Come on in, and we'll chat a little bit.

[David] All right, all right.

It's like the other side of the world here,

that's for sure, but I'm still curious

how'd you get in touch with Dave?

Oh, well, actually... I'll let you tell the story.

-He found me on Facebook. -He found you?

He found me on Facebook.

I'll let you tell the story.

-You found him? -Yeah.

This summer, my daughter who's 25,

just happened to need a tonsillectomy

'cause she'd been getting a lot of sore throats.

She lives about 50, 60 miles from here,

but I was visiting and hanging out with her

and trying to tell her stories to cheer her up

'cause she wasn't feeling real well,

so I was telling her some stories of my childhood

and some of the weird things kids did to each other,

some of them a little unprintable,

but you know how weird we were in the Bronx

-with some of the other kids. -From the old neighborhood?

From the old neighborhood, from grade school,

from whatever, or as we called it, public school.

And my... Her mother, my ex-wife,

says to me, just literally out of the blue,

'cause I'm talking about people and giving names

she says, "You know, is there anybody from your childhood

who you haven't had any contact with

that if you could you'd like to find?"

And, I guess it was fate or something,

because it's not like I think about it all the time.

The first name, and a picture of his face

popped into my head, and I said Raymond Charnick.

My brother was the first name?

[Dave] First name that came out.

The only name, the only thing I said.

[Jason] Why was he so memorable from those days?

What I remember about your father was one,

he had the palest blonde hair, beautiful.

[Arnie] Almost albino.

[Dave] He always combed it, and he dressed much nicer

than we did as kids.

Ray always looked nice, and even as a kid,

girls seemed to like him, even as a ten and 11-year-old.

-[Arnie] He was a very good-looking kid. -[Jason] A ladies' man?

As Dave said, he always looked nice.

We were poor, but Ray his whole life,

-'til the end, -Well, neatness...

had a thing about neatness and orderliness.

-And, you remember that? -Yeah.

-It just was... -He just always looked nice.

...something noticeable, and he had a little bit of presence

related to that, but he was a nice boy.

-He really was a very nice, sweet kid. -He was a sweet kid.

And, the word I use, which you didn't think of then,

but I would use now was calm.

Some of us were a little nutsier, I think.

[Jason] Well, I mean, you're 12 years old,

you're running around just being boisterous.

[Dave] He really wasn't that way,

and that was something different.

So, we could spend time and hang out and do whatever.

[Jason] So if you guys, especially if you shared a backyard,

were you at their house a lot?

Were you at my grandparents' house?

He says he doesn't remember.

I was around the house, more in the front.

[stutters]

You know, my recollection is there wasn't a lot of inviting into the house.

[Arnie] There wasn't. I told you, my family was not exactly a social family.

So, it was never like, "Oh, Ray, tell Davey...

Ray would come over for lunch and dinner."

We always went somewhere. People hardly ever came to us.

It was actually more the other way around.

-Okay. -I don't even remember any contact with your father.

My father was hiding from being caught

for desertion in World War II.

I was probably about 17 years old

when I went into the park and had Melvin Brown

get me off with a shot.

But to sit here...

To sit down and try to use every cell I have

to figure out why I did that...

It is virtually impossible to understand

why somebody would leave their room in the projects,

go downstairs, walk across the street and shoot heroin.

[Arnie] Let me ask you a question.

-That room that you left in the projects... -Yeah.

across the street, was anything happening in that room?

Well, my brother used to have a bed in that room at the same time,

but I don't think he really ever lived there.

-[Jason] You leave the city entirely... -Yep.

and then he decides to go into this stuff.

And, then he decided to go into the stuff.

[Jason] And, then he goes into the park and meets with Melvin.

Pretty much it seems to be--

Everything is empty after that point.

That's what I... pretty easy to say.

He kept coming home to a very empty life in his apartment

-once I was officially gone. -[Jason] Did you... do you...

I felt guilty about that for 20 years,

'cause I feel like I abandoned my brother,

and that was the color of my 20s, 30s, and 40s.

There wasn't anything happening in that house.

There wasn't anything happening on that block.

In fact, nothing was happening.

Even if something bad happened, it would have been good, I think,

because you need more stimulation

than to just go to school and come back.

It's hard to picture this,

but the household that I lived in

in the Bronx with my brother and my mother and father

was devoid... devoid of culture in any way.

There were no books, no record players,

nothing like that at all.

Black and white TV that didn't work that good at all.

My mother used to go back behind there

with her screwdriver and somehow get the snow

to clear up a little bit.

We didn't even get it until about 1961 or something,

and so, one memory my brother and I share

is that very, very little happened in that apartment.

So, when I went to music and art high school in 1960

and met kids whose parents played at the Philharmonic with jazz musicians,

or actual artists who were raising their kids in Manhattan,

uh, it was a total blast of...

cultural information

that intrigued me enough to just want to be involved in that only.

And I can't remember what was going down in our lives,

but I can remember him and me playing in a box

with two holes cut out of it in a bedroom.

It was an empty stove box or refrigerator,

and that was our little fort.

Why I can remember that particular thing, I don't know.

It was just because there's no reason

to remember things that far back

or all the pain tries to cover up those years.

[Jason] What would drive someone to do that? You know, so...

Well, let's talk about this for a second.

Your father was vulnerable.

He was and had to be wildly insecure.

[Jason] Sure, absolutely.

Terrified on some level that he would be caught.

So, had he not been in the Bronx

he may not have been near a park,

and he may not have had access to someone who offered him heroin.

He may have grown up in Kansas City or South Bend.

He might have gone into a bar,

and he might have started a long career drinking,

but once he did accept it,

what the heroin did was it removed his anxiety...

-[Jason] Absolutely. -...and his stress.

-[Jason] He says as much. -Yeah, of course.

I mean, that's what it's about.

You're suddenly whole and well and comfortable,

and you're 17, and probably for the first time in his life

those horrible voices that were in his head,

that were in his heart, that were in his soul were gone.

So, I have a lot of sympathy and tenderness for him...

-[Jason] Mm-hmm. -...and all those who suffer, you know?

[Jason] Making this movie, seeing, you know...

learning more about just what the mind of an addict

is all about and why they make the choices that they do

-and how they're not made in a vacuum. -He didn't have a choice.

[Jason] Yeah, the choices are not made in a vacuum,

and then you learn that they're not really choices.

-He didn't have a choice.

[Jason] That's when you start to learn...

[Stuart] He was a poor boy who got caught up in something

that was much bigger than him,

and he was not offered a way out.

It's not that we don't want to change,

and it's not that...

we don't know how to change, it's just that we can't.

I'm not one to place blame, and I'm not one to hold grudges.

Right, and you've always felt compassion

for the fact that Joe didn't have much of... or any life at all.

[Ray] Yeah, of course. I'm as sensitive as the next guy.

When you hear the guy's a fiend, a dope fiend, a drug addict,

it doesn't mean that he has no feeling.

He might have too many, too much... too many...

-He's got to get rid of some by masking it with the drugs. -[Arnie] Right.

[Jason] You see it every step of the way

as a choice that you just make,

and you don't see all the other stuff around you.

You don't fill in that picture,

and that's why I wanted to speak to you and see that side.

I was intrigued when you called me by this

because I immediately recognized how...

powerful this conversation you're having with yourself could be.

I say to myself if I know what I want to go back to...

why don't I just do it?

And, the reason is, is that I hadn't done it...

for 17 years,

and after a period of time you just cannot...

revert back, and you...

You hurt because you've changed so much,

and the people around you see it,

and you realize it, and it doesn't matter who you talk to

or what you do... it never goes away.

I don't make moral judgments about this.

People become dependent on it, and it takes over.

The brain is now saying, "I need this for my survival,

and I will kill, I will screw,

I will do anything that's necessary

for me to get what I need."

And, this is happening on a subliminal level.

So, you're talking about individuals who

will be making choices that are geared towards getting what they believe they need.

[Jason] This is 2861 Exterior Street.

We're in the Marble Hill projects in the Bronx.

This is where my dad moved with my grandparents

after Arnie moved to Cooper Union for school.

Uh, supposedly, my dad one day just came out into the park,

and it's probably this green area right here,

which is funny, because even though I lived

maybe five minutes back that way,

I've never been in this central area.

All the buildings for the Marble Hill projects

are all in one big circle,

and they said that he walked into the park one day

and asked big bad Melvin Brown to hook him up,

and they were living here.

I always thought the park, I figured he went to a park somewhere,

but this is probably what was happening.

There's all these benches around.

He was probably sitting on the bench,

and he probably went up to wherever

big bad Melvin Brown was on one of these benches

and probably did his first shot of heroin right here.

It's a different vibe here than Manor Avenue,

there's no doubt about it.

Already with a house with no love and no emotion,

and here you are with just gray, drab, red buildings.

You lose your sense of identity. There's garbage everywhere.

I mean, this green area should be gorgeous and beautiful,

rain or shine, and there's bags in the trees,

and garbage, pizza boxes, beer boxes.

It's probably the same way back in the '50s,

so why would anywhere care?

Why not escape?

Why wouldn't you want to walk into this area

and be anywhere else but here?

So, stick a needle in your arm,

you can go anywhere while still not having

to leave the confines of this block.

So, I do, actually...

This is the first time I've ever been here, like I said.

I can understand a little bit more

why he would feel that way, why he would do that.

I don't know why he would go from zero to heroin,

but I can definitely at least understand

why there would be a sense of disconnect.

I feel sorry for my dad because he never got the opportunity to break out.

He was already in prison, so I understand it.

I feel sorry that that's the life that was given to him, you know,

and hopefully I can do a little part

to try to break out of that and do something different

for my family and my future and not restrict them.

This is not the same Bronx. This is not my Bronx.

This is his Bronx. I love my mother.

I miss my mother more than anything else right now

'cause she must have tried her God damnedest

to keep me out of this type of shit,

to have heroin users ten minutes from your doorstep.

Let's get out of here.

I mean shit, look at that. There's a dead bird right on the ground.

What does that tell you about this place?

Anxiety is pain. Pain creates anger.

All of these things are horrible things to live with,

and what makes it go away?

Another fix, and it's easy,

and there's no instruction manual necessary,

no psychiatrist, no psychologist, no group work.

-[Jason] Right, right. -You know?

You're a kid.

Even the smart choice on some level.

So, do you think he knew it wasn't a good idea? Of course.

So, yeah, that's about five, six months

before he passed away.

-[David] How old was he? -[Arnie] He died at 47.

[Jason] So what happened, I had actually just graduated from college,

and I came back and visited him, showed him my college diploma.

Nobody in our family's ever got a college degree.

[Arnie] It's pretty amazing, right?

I did two, about two and half years.

[overlapping chatter]

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology?

[Jason] Yeah, psychology.

Shaking me out, dude.

[laughs]

Oh, man, with all the honors and everything.

[Jason] And then one day just took off from there.

[Arnie] They found crack vials under his bed.

So, what did he use? All sorts of things?

He started as a heroin... and he confessed to me--

-That was the '60s still? -Right, and he said--

-[Jason] That was... that's only... -He made that face, right?

No, no, that's pretty much how he was.

[David] I mean, the eyes. Oh, God.

I was his health proxy...

making decisions about keeping him on any life support,

and I was driving across country,

and when I got to Bisbee, Arizona,

where my kids' mother lives,

I got a call from the prison hospital at Bellevue

asking me what to do 'cause he was ready to go,

and I said, "Of course, pull the plug."

So, the next day I called the medical examiner's office in New York,

and the receptionist who answered the phone,

she said, either blurted it out, she said,

"You know, sir, if you don't claim a body in New York

we will bury the body on Hart Island,"

and it's off of City Island in the Bronx.

That's an uninhabited island where they bury the bodies

of unclaimed people.

And when I heard her say it was Hart Island,

I took it quite personally in a good way, because we...

My brother and I used to play on Orchard Beach in City Island

and look out and see this island,

but not know what it was all about when we were kids,

so I thought that was a perfect, complete circle

for Ray to be buried by the state on an island

off of where we used to play when we were kids.

So, I agreed to that.

I said, "Lady, I'm not coming to New York.

I'm not gonna have anybody pick up his body

to have it cremated or anything.

I'm not gonna claim the body.

Bury him on Potter's Field in the Bronx."

[train rumbling]

[Jason] So, we're going on Wednesday.

So, I'm gonna get a chance to visit the island.

[Arnie] This is springtime.

It's supposed to be lovely weather,

and you'll see a beautiful place.

Because, without prompting you too much,

if I remember right, at the time,

you would have not made the decision that I made,

to bury... as his son, if it was your decision,

you probably would not have gone with the unclaimed body to Potter's Field.

[Jason] No, no...

Since I'm actually telling you the whole story

and still trying to convince you.

How many times do I have to tell you the story to convince you?

-[Jason] Listen, I would be lying... -It doesn't matter.

[Jason] If I, you know... [stuttering]

I'll tell you the truth, and I'll be honest with you,

I don't know if I've told you this before.

Be honest with me.

[Jason] It's... I'm not upset at you or anybody in our family

that made that decision, and ever since, you know,

like you said, I've heard the story a few times.

That's the last time I'm gonna tell it.

-[Jason] And it's a good story. -No more takes.

[Jason] And... it makes sense, and I like that reason.

The only thing that still, to this day upsets me,

if anything, is nobody asked me.

-What can I expect from this? -What can you expect?

How the hell am I supposed to know what you're supposed to expect?

[chuckles] I have no idea.

[man] What's going through your head right now?

I'm just anxious. I'm anxious to see what it looks like,

what the island looks like, and what the area is.

I've never been to City Island before.

Coming up on the island, Hart Island where my dad is buried,

and it's very tranquil, isolated.

It's gorgeous.

It really is.

It's not nearly as dark as you would imagine it to be.

It's a beautiful place. I get it now.

Yeah, I'm... I'm pleased.

The escape thing, I've always equated the two together,

jokingly calling myself the escape artist,

because I was technically an artist with the paint,

so the obvious play of word there, the escape artist...

And Ray I used to call the con artist

because he was always conning people to get over on them,

but... at one point I sorta thought

it was really the other way around

because Ray had been covered for 30 years.

He was either high and didn't care,

or he was in prison where they were taking care of him with three meals.

And so he sort of escaped the responsibility of life,

so, in a sense, I still have to think of him as the escape artist.

I was this artist making paintings, trying to sell to people.

So, in a way I felt I was conning them

into buying something I was making,

so the whole thing flipped around,

and I became the con artist, and he was the escape artist

'cause he really escaped responsibility.

And, in fact, of being a father.

How did you feel about your father, Joe?

Do you remember how you felt about him?

-No feelings about my father. -[Arnie] No feelings.

Did you feel like you had a father?

-[Ray] No. -[Arnie] You know he was there, right?

[Ray] No.

[Arnie] You wasn't sure if he was there or not?

[Ray] I wasn't sure whether I was even adopted or not.

I questioned that a lot, yeah.

[Arnie] You felt that you could have been adopted?

Mm-hmm.

I even asked my mother that last year for the first time.

[Arnie] Really?

Yeah, because I just felt out of the picture.

[Arnie] There never seemed to be a connection? There never seemed to be a...

[Ray] Other than... Other than knowing we're all related,

but not acting or feeling related.

I know you're my brother. I know she's my grandmother.

She knows dad's her son, all these things,

but that's all it is, is that...

-[Arnie] Detachment? -You know...

It's a scary thing to not remember your childhood.

I really believe that something happened to me,

and I might have been in a coma. Nobody just forgets.

You know, your brain is capable of so many functions.

How do you forget everything that you grew up?

I mean, I have no connection at all.

[Jason] To say that I was disconnected

from my friends and family when I started this journey

would be an understatement.

Without my parents, without a family,

I felt alone in this world yet again,

but as I was finally getting the chance to know my dad

and learn more about him and who I was

and where I came from, the funniest thing started to happen.

I ended up meeting the love of my life,

got married, and not only reconnected with my uncle,

but the rest of my extended family as well.

People I practically abandoned when I moved to LA,

returned to my life closer than ever before.

And as the next chapter in my life is just getting started,

the void I had when I first watched these tapes

has now been filled with a love and a happiness

I have never known before.

[Arnie] Do you mind that we're doing this?

I don't like it, it hurts.

It hurts, it's... because...

It hurts because it's scary.

-[Arnie] But even though... -Because...

[Arnie] You're intelligent, and if we keep talking about it,

-and we kept an understanding-- -See, you say I'm intelligent,

and I know I am intelligent, but maybe I'm so good,

so good at conning people,

maybe I'm conning you about my intelligence.

Maybe I actually don't know what I'm talking about,

but I'm such a good con artist

that I have you believing that I'm intelligent,

but actually, I'm using all my energy now

to make everything up, so you would think I'm intelligent.

I'm just trying to show you how the lack of love

and the manipulation and the con games

and the prison and the drugs

do not set up for a good life experience.

I don't think anybody will understand

that I hurt 25 hours a day.

There is no let up.

It's not good for a person with my physical maladies right now.

I am stressed out 25 hours a day...

because I'm always busy analyzing why I feel the way I do.

When I feel really good, I question whether I'm on my way...

I'm dying, because I'm not supposed to feel good.

How the... how can I feel good?

I get scared that I'm dying

because I don't associate feeling good.

For the last 30 years I have not felt good,

so that feeling now is too hard to deal with.

It's so far removed that I got myself convinced

I'm not supposed to feel good.

[Arnie] I see your pain, and I'm feeling it for sure.

I told Sky in the beginning it was all an experiment.

I said it can either be... this whole thing could be good for you,

or it can drain you and it can be bad for you.

So far, well, I understand.

[Arnie] I don't want to put you through it.

Right now, it's doing both.

It's... making me feel good that I'm understanding more

about my life experiences and family,

and it's also draining me emotionally at the same time.

[Arnie] Any recurring kinda dreams?

I dream about things that are prison related.

[Arnie] Being hung out on a limb?

No... [Arnie] Being hung out on a limb, or...?

I had a recurring dream... when I was very young.

-It was a long time ago. -[Arnie] What was it?

You don't have to give detail, but what was the essence...?

That I was able to fly, that's... you know.

[Arnie] You were flying?

[Ray] Yeah, I had my arms out and I'd run down Manor Avenue,

and I'd take off, and I'd fly above, you know, calm.

Yeah, no, I see myself being relaxed and chilled,

and then I knew I was gonna run out of gas,

so I got to come down.

[Arnie] With your case, that might relate to getting high,

but you know that standard psychology behind a flying dream

is that you feel free and in your life you're actually free.

[Ray] It was recurring enough.

[Arnie] How old were you, do you remember, generally?

[Ray] I have no idea, but I know it was up until not long ago that I got 'em.

[woman] Did it make you feel good when you had that dream?

[Ray] Yeah.

[Jason] I have to thank my uncle for the great gift of these tapes.

I only met my father five times,

and now I've spent more time watching his interviews

than ever talking with him,

but to see him convey at least some regret,

some self-awareness, and to know that

as all these things were happening

and as this evil gripped him,

he still had some love in his heart.

He had something that heroin could never touch.

I get that he loved me.

It didn't take everything.

And for me, it has to be enough.