Hi there, everybody. IRA Glass here we are commemorating this American Life's 25th anniversary on the air by putting ITW favorite shows from over the years into our podcast feed.

And at this point, like over the years, we've done a lot of episodes where a bunch of us kind of descend on one location and try to document what is happening in that one place. And then we spend the whole hour in that one place. We've done this at a car dealership and at a rest stop and at aircraft carrier during the very beginning of the war in Afghanistan.

We did it in New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward, a decade after Hurricane Katrina to go get kind of weather and how it had been rebuilt.

But this is a very first time we tried it and we never heard of any radio show trying to document like a day in one place.

And it wasn't clear actually how to organize all of us to do it or how to structure the program.

Once we had the tape.

And just like it wasn't clear how to make the thing.

And our show's longtime senior producer, Julie Snyder, figured all that out.

Years later, she invented the structure and the production model for the podcast Serial and Southtown with Sarah Koenig Ibraham Reed.

But everything that you're about to hear in this hour, it really was this experiment at the time in how to make something for the radio.

Anyway, here it is. There's certain things you should really only say to your best friend, this is probably one of them, you would just shut up and just listen to somebody. That's it out there, brother. You're already does.

Tom and Scott on an all night diner around midnight. Scott is disheveled and tired. He's been working all night as a bartender at a Chinese restaurant, serving lots of free drinks on the sly to Tom and Tom in response, seems astonishingly ungrateful. Here is the kind of sass that Tom keeps throwing Scott's way.

You are the one who needed the food and the beers and all that stuff like that to calm down after your dramatic night stealing from your employer.

Really, just at that moment, a man in a Hawaiian print shirt, khaki pants, walks by their table. He hears the word employer, mistakes it for the word lawyer, and then turns to Tom, your lawyer.

No, no. Do you want to be friend who brought up lawyer to start with? You just came in. No, I did not at all.

He didn't say lawyer thought that you heard something and then you let your mind take over and then it got you a lawyer.

So that's probably why I might have thought that. But you know what? I'm trained in the art of listening. And that's when you said you wanted to be a lawyer.

I definitely wouldn't hire you because you heard completely wrong.

Well, yeah, there's some conversations that you ever hear, and it's hard not to want to keep listening or to butt in, even though everybody knows that it is not the right thing to do. What? Sunday morning, a while back, I was sitting in one of the booths in this very diner, the Golden Apple in Chicago on Lincoln Avenue, and looked around the restaurant, the table next to me, a family was taking their teenage daughter out to knock wood glass breakfast where she shipped out with the military.

They were dressed up people who'd come in from the church across the street and young couples who'd stumbled in with the paper and were working on the crossword together.

And I thought if only somebody could interview every person at every table in this restaurant, that would be amazing. You get such a wide variety of different kinds of stories from different kinds of people. We decided to try it one Friday night, a big group of us took shifts starting at five a.m. and going to five a.m. the next morning during quiet hours, it was just one of us on duty recording and interviewing people during the busiest hours, which means late night, three or four of us work the tables.

The first broadcast today's program all the way back in 2000, and we'll be running it again today.

WBCSD Chicago Today show 24 hours at the Golden Apple, This American Life. I'm IRA Glass.

Stay tuned for. It's five o'clock in the morning, my name is Spetz, I work from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. and I want to have the taxi drivers and the cops, you know, come up here for a cup of coffee until six o'clock this morning.

Crowds is going to be in Peets, one of the three owners of this restaurant, along with Nick and Tom. All three are Greek and one of them is always there 24 hours a day restaurants. It's one of those intersections where three streets come together not to show every one of the corners in the intersection is wedge shaped, which means that the restaurant itself is wedge shaped with booths along the windows on two sides of the wedge. There's a counter with stools in a larger room, with tables in the back.

There's oversized laminated menus that go on for pages. Pages with pictures of the food by the door is one of those revolving dessert cases an octagon made of glass? Three shelves of cream pies and melon slices and cakes lately have been nothing but trouble. Here's Nick, another one of the owners supposed to be turning.

It's not turning because the model broke. Jimmy supposed to come out like three days ago. He's still coming, if you can figure this one out.

But the pie case is not turning. And believe it or not, is not selling is good. That's that's true with dessert.

Sales are down, he says by half ever since it broke, people just like desserts more. When they're in motion, it catches the eye. You know, when it's turning, it catches the eye and it sells. Over the course of 24 hours, the staff of the Golden Apple changes the regulars who come in change and the atmosphere changes. Quiet and early morning, crazy hectic, late at night and the bars in the neighborhood got out. Nancy Updike took the first shift of our 24 hour surveillance mike in hand from five a.m. to 10 a.m..

This is Eddie. He comes to the Golden Apple a few times a week in the mornings and plays the harmonica in the middle of the restaurant for a few minutes. He's in a pale blue shirt and hopping lightly from foot to foot.

I might fall down and he heads to the back of the restaurant to play there.

No one is complaining. No one is rolling their eyes. In fact, a few people are smiling and saying Hi, Eddie is not an outsider here.

He's a regular. Early morning at the Golden Apple is like that, a profoundly democratic place, early morning welcomes the night shift workers, the unemployed, the retired, the confused, the disappointed, the slightly off, the people who work for themselves and the people who don't work at all anymore but crave a little morning routine every morning.

I'm here between four thirty and five. I love the Golden Apple. They're wonderful people. They've got good food and that's it.

This is how Joe Mollica ends every sentence and that's it. Or sometimes that's all I could tell you. Joe's not used to talking about himself.

His story comes out bit by bit. Our entire conversation takes place in a different era. He's completely unselfconscious about calling me honey. He bangs on his coffee cup with his spoon to get the waitresses attention for a refill. Please don't try this at home. But he gets away with it.

I do construction, remodeling, rehab, and that's what I do. I retired. I'm 78 years old, and I gave the business to my two sons and that's it. How did you start that business to my dad? My dad done the same thing when I was, I don't know, maybe ten, eleven years old. I started working for him who would pay me a dime on our own and that was it. Clean up, sweep up the floors that he's working on.

What else you want to know?

At five thirty in the morning, almost everyone is sitting alone by choice. It seems Joe's friend Bob is sitting in his own booth behind Joe. No one's talking much, but it's a comfortable silence. When you're up this early. It's hard not to feel some sense of community with everyone else who's awake, but you don't necessarily want to talk to them. As it gets lighter and lighter outside, more people trickle in. A guy with thick, dark blond hair and a face that looks like it could use another six hours sleep sits down at the counter.

His name is Scott Johnson, and he says he usually comes in around three a.m. but today's different.

It's about twenty after seven. How did you start coming in the Golden Apple? I own a bar right down the street. It's called Wits and I own another one on talking hotel called Jak's. How did you get into the bar business? Oh, boy. Well, about eight years ago I turned thirty, quit my career, got a divorce and bought a bar in the same month.

Oh, my God.

I took the Etch a Sketch and shook it to students, threw it upside down and shook it real hard and changed my life forever.

It's completely light outside now, commuter traffic is picking up, the golden Apple isn't crowded, but all the front booths are taken and most of the counter, Nic, keeps getting deliveries, orange juice, potatoes, and his butcher comes by John Service. John is a big man in that way. That's the norm in Chicago. Not fat. Just Big John has been eating at the Golden Apple and supplying its meats for 10 years. When he was eight years old, he became famous for being the youngest butcher in Illinois back in 1979.

I was interviewed by Fakie Flint. I don't know if you remember back in 1979, Fakey Flint was a well-known newsman right here on Channel seven News before he died in 81. I was the youngest butcher in Illinois in 1979. And yeah, I know I've met Governor Thompson. Don Randolph, who was my father, was in the retail business store on Randolph Street, and that's how I started learning how to cut. So I've been doing this for I'm thirty three now and by since I was like eight years old.

Butcher when you were eight. Well, yeah, I've been involved, you know, cleaning tables in about 12 years old. I started cutting meat on a bandsaw.

How do you remember the first piece of meat you cut. Pork piece of pork loin? I slice it. I remember very well like it was yesterday, a real long absence of pork chops. Pork was like 18 pounds. First thing I did is cut it down a little and start from the middle. The trick is at the end not to cut your hands when it comes to really small. And you've got to use a special kind of thing that's underneath the bandsaw, that's put your hand in it because the pencil doesn't have any friends.

I mean, if it's going to grab your hand, it's going to cut it. The front of the Golden Apple is the smoking section sitting there is a grayish woman with a fleshy face and wavy hair in one of the small two person booths. Her name is Alice DeLuca.

I work at a purification center. Just sign Ranjini Vitamins and minerals. It's a program to rid your body of cats and radiation. Wow. Have you done the program yourself? Yes, I have. Now to the naked eye. It looks like you're smoking and drinking coffee and about to have some sausage. So how does that square with the whole toxin's thing? Well, I'm trying to wake up. You need some toxins to wake up, I guess.

The restaurant never gets crowded this morning. Turnover is slow, people linger over their coffee or their conversation. It's a weekday, so there's no impatient brunch crowd waiting for tables to open up. And if you don't have an office, you need to get to. Why Rush? Donna, the waitress is finishing up the night shift and getting ready to go home. She's been on since 11 p.m., but you would never know what to look at her.

She's six feet tall and looks like Catherine Deneuve. She's one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in person. How long have you been working here?

Oh, 26 years. Wow. How old were you when you started?

Well, you think I'm going to tell you that? Are you kidding? My kids don't even know how old I am.

Donna says she's actually not a night person, but she's worked the night shift the entire time, all 26 years. She came to Chicago from Oklahoma City in her early 20s with three kids.

I was divorced when I came here and I had married so young hematoma and no education and I had a little baby. That's why I started working nights. But this is a great job for that. I mean, working nights that way, you're with them during the day. You don't sleep much, but when they're sleeping, you're working. And I'm still working the night shift.

I don't know why, but I still in every Christmas Eve, Donna brings in a big tray of homemade cookies for the homeless guys and the old men and the taxi drivers. Anyone who shows up that night every once in a while on her afternoon off, she'll go see a play starring one of the actors who come in every night after their own shift waiting tables. Her customers give her tapes of the bands they're in, bringing their artwork for her to see, tell her about their successes and failures.

These are people she's known for years.

It's like home here to me and I when I think about, you know, going on a day job, I just can't it's almost I could be another, you know, a separation because you it's like home when you've been here this long.

Donna runs her shift at the Golden Apple with a lot of compassion and generosity. But like any good waitress, she's also ruthlessly practical. She can be direct when she needs to.

Early morning is no time to stand on ceremony. Honey, I got and get an experience in my work. All right. How are you doing? Anything to set up or clean out a check and see what I got to do. I just follow you around and you tell me what you're doing. I just like when I don't have anything more to do. I just didn't want to talk to anyone. No, I didn't want to be rude. No, no, I'm tired.

In the middle of the day, a muted light streamed through the windows through a haze of cigarette smoke. Now it feels like everybody is smoking at the Golden Apple, three industrial smoke eaters, a non-stop lunch. Some customers come in quickly and head back to work after just a half hour, but they're in the minority. Probably three fourths of the customers are regulars. Many of them stay for hours. Nick, the owner says sometime two or three times a day.

I mean, they go home and sleep, of course, but this is their base. We got Charlie right now, and there are some that comes twice, three times today, Floyd, which is right next to Mitch, Mitch with his son on the counter. He's a counter man. Mr. Harlan there with Stephen. They come twice a day. Russ comes about three, four times a day out to three times a day. At counter, a man who looks a little bit like the actor Harry Dean Stanton, Scruffy and Lean is here for the second time in 24 hours.

He gives me what he says is his nickname. Robert says he usually just comes for coffee, can't afford much else. So. So what if this is something to do for free time over here? Because I'm single. No wife, no girlfriend, no kids.

Robert is one of three different men who tell me that they come here in the afternoon to drink coffee. I talk to the waitresses at three, actually seem a little shy and intimidated by the waitresses. Robert is so bashful he has a hard time saying much of anything to them.

I never said more than hello, you know, Ogleby. As I said, I don't know what to do with a pretty girl and what to say. You know what she. At a table in the back, Manuel Hernandez is here for the second time today. He's a retired carpenter, came to Chicago from Mexico in 1965 as one of the workers who built the Sears Tower downtown, the tallest buildings in the world. He says when they got to the fifth floor, he was to win them up to.

After two guys, they fall down and then with these I don't I don't want to the next is the afternoon passes because every one of the waitresses, Sheri, and ask her for help reading a document that he got in the mail from an insurance company.

So I did some kind of scam. She reads it tells them now they've sent him a check. It's real. She says this kind of thing happens all the time. Some of these guys who has to they have to turn to. Out on the sidewalk when the weather's good, the restaurant sets up tables at one Alison Musgrave and her two kids are eating. He and his four, Madeleine is, too. Both are wearing their bicycle helmets at the table and eating the Mickey Mouse pancakes.

Three pancakes arranged in violation of U.S. copyright law, two ears and a head maraschino cherries, canned pineapple and whipped cream as the eyes and mouth covered with maple syrup. And you have a sugar concoction so powerful that four year old Ian literally cannot sit in his chair.

Ian, Ian, around here, please. Thank you.

I don't live far from here. And I do not think there is a four year old in a ten block radius who does not know the Mickey Mouse pancakes.

Turn around now and turn around, please. Restaurant has toys for kids in a corner inside one company. Mike and Liz tell us that they come here so often with a four and seven year old, feel so at home here that they've instructed the kids that if they're ever lost, this must find a policeman not to bring them home, bring them to the Golden Apple as Evening Falls, takes a while for the dinner crowd to show up in any kind of force.

It's a slow day. Everybody says it is Friday and couples start to arrive, some on dates, some just friends, some of that vague territory in between.

The topics of conversation in the room start to make an orbital shift toward a couple sorts of topics.

One of our producers, Susan Burton, notices one couple in particular, a man and a woman in their 30s sit down in a booth by a window.

The man's long hair is tied back with a bandanna.

I'm Daniel Romero Silva and I just got through playing a few sets of tennis in Grant Park and stopped at Healing Earth for a little incense and some good karma. And we decided to stop and grab a bite.

And you know, Sylvia and I have had this kind of weird history. She actually dumped me not too long ago and that's right all that long ago.

So she's she's now happily in a relationship. And I was telling her as we were driving here about how how lonely I am.

Actually, it's been three years since Danielle and Sylvia broke up. They met when they worked together at the same nonprofit organization.

So you're ready to settle down now? I am. And I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I actually when you first told me that, I actually wasn't sure. But coming to the wedding, I did I did tell you that I won't be participating there. You'll have my best wishes. We're friends. I still love you and care about you. Why can't you be there? Well, well, like it. It would just be weird.

I mean, you and I have a pretty significant history together, but I would I would still be happy for you and you'd have my my best wishes and I'll still buy you a toaster. A toaster. Oh. Okay. See, I think that that's unusual. I think I would be very happy for you when I have some feelings there. Yeah. Maybe there might be a little twinge thinking why why wasn't it me?

That's actually a Sex and the City topic a lot. Absolutely.

In case you've missed it. Sex in the City as a TV show on HBO, each episode circles around some central question like can you be friends with your ex? If Daniel and Sylvie and I were suddenly cast in our own episode of the show, this would be the moment where I would light a cigarette and flip open my power book and ponder what I'd seen. Daniel Sylvia began by talking about Sylvia's new boyfriend, but wound up discussing each other. And I started to wonder, when you talk about your ex's new relationships, are you really just talking about the two of you?

I didn't tell you this. You asked me how my love life was a little bit earlier. I did meet somebody about a week ago. Her name is Amy and she works at. Where does she work? She works at Supercuts. And she was with her her boyfriend, actually.

And she was hitting on you and she was hitting on me. She said to me, I want to go out with you. And I said, fine, let's go out. She says, well, you have to wait a month because I'm still going out with this idiot over here. I mean, and she's talking about, you know, so nothing happened. OK, but now with the woman who went to integrate her boyfriend that way, who would treat the guy that she's possibly dating that way, but I'm not going to marry.

I'm not going to marry this girl, you know?

I mean, you know, I mean, I wasn't interested in a lifetime commitment at that moment. I mean, I was much more looking for the immediate gratification.

That's what you're always looking for. That's not entirely true. That's not entirely true.

Each time Danielle brings up someone who's interested in Sylvia, gets exasperated with him for refusing to make a commitment. It happens when he mentions the woman. He's on a lounge chair by a pool in Las Vegas and the girl he's taken on a dozen dates but is pretty sure he wants to break up with. It turns out that this is a conversation they've had before.

At the end of their own relationship, I was ready for the next step and he was ready to back out any time I pressed forward. He went backwards a couple steps. You're right. You and I were in a place where you were frustrated because I couldn't move forward. I was frustrated because you were pressing so hard and and then right. Next girl and moved in with her after three weeks.

I think it's a hard topic for us both. Absolutely, absolutely.

It's just just, you know, the thought of, you know, it's like he trails off staring out the window.

I don't know.

It's kind of hard to.

It's kind of hard to kind of when two to go back outside on the sidewalk to girls with blonde hair and short skirts approach. They catch Daniel's eye. He mumbles as the girls stride by the window. He turns his head and follows them from one end of the glass to the other. The gesture seems to happen in slow motion. He does that all the time.

Yeah, but I'm not. But I know. I know. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that when we were together and you did that, that really hurts. Even even though it's just looking it says you're not interested in what's going on right here.

And that's exactly what you did. By doing that, you couldn't even formulate the sentence because your eyeballs were glued to that window.

Look, this is another this is this has been another topic on on Sex in the City. Just for the record, what actually happened in that episode, the woman got so mad at her boyfriend that she punched him in the face and then she realized she couldn't change him.

Everybody, the restaurant's front windows, which look out on Santa Francis Catholic Church, a huge building, sits K Frank, known to our friends as Katie Kane, 75 years old, dressed in a nice outfit, matching scarf. She's here because one of her longtime neighbors, another Golden Apple customer, is laid out dead in the funeral home right across the street. Shelley then pay her respects. She tells me that she's lived her whole life within walking distance of this very spot.

I was born and raised on Lakewood 75 years ago, went to Saint Alphonsus School. So this is my neighborhood for a long time. Wow. And it gives me a lot of pleasure to walk the neighborhood and say Margaret Kunst lived in that house. Was Lucille Sachiel lived in that house? I can still see all the things in my mind as I did in the 30s and 40s. Back then, for instance, a pharmacy was on this spot and her friends would come here after 11 o'clock mass.

I'm talking about first year, second year high school when you didn't go to the kiddie mass anymore at nine o'clock in the morning, this was like the hang out here. After us and this whole section here, they had a wonderful sort of fountain was right here where this would be see what I'm saying? She points at a section of booths because this neighborhood was all about which parish you belong to.

Santo fondness for the Germans, St. Andrews for the Irish and Italian, St. Joseph for the Polish to finally in the 1960s that ended case, five sisters and her parents moved away from the neighborhood. I'm the only one that stayed the neighborhood because we could afford to move out here. We bought our house in the mid sixty sixty four and everybody thought the neighborhood was going to change. So of course they're moving to the suburbs or farther north or farther west.

Change. You mean people thought it wasn't going to be white anymore. They thought yes. They thought it was going to go down. That's why people were scared and moved out so we couldn't afford to move. So we bought a house there for twenty seven thousand. I've got offers of five hundred five hundred fifty thousand for my house.

Meanwhile, one of our sisters who moved away to avoid the blight in this area, I moved to an area too expensive for her husband to afford to sell their house for only 200000. Gentrification, which spread through this neighborhood in the last 15 years. Has it made it out to where our sisters live? But around here, Southport and on and all over their little boutiques and several Starbucks, an expensive restaurant with fake European names, the neighborhood has changed a lot here, you know, a whole lot.

Some for the better, some for the worse. Yeah. Close by, we have our gay people, which we never had as a kid. They were around maybe, but we didn't know who they were today. You know who they are. My husband coming from the old school, we have the nicest neighbors we've ever had. Two gay men. They can't do enough for you. You cut your grass for you, they watered now that I'm older.

And when they moved in, my husband coming from way back. Oh, my God, you know, he didn't want really too much to do with them. Within a year, I'd say we saw that they were nice people, very clean, and when we had our fiftieth wedding anniversary party and some Guy Schenecker, it was our neighbors that went to the hall without any they wouldn't take a penny. They decorated their place like you wouldn't believe. Now, I mean, neighbors would do that for you, you know, so gay or not gay, they're really nice people.

So I think that the gays can be credited for being such a nice people. They swayed a lot of the whole time people into different thinking. There's still a lot of racial stuff, maybe if you had a black neighbor, here are one of the people would rent to a black person, I think that would be frowned upon a little bit. But if you went to a gay person today, it's OK. A lot of things that we think are should be this way, in that way as you grow up.

It's really not that we shouldn't be that way. So I don't feel that we should really judge him, you know, let the Lord judge him. Coming up, drunks, partiers, people on the make and lots of other people to try not to judge, I mean, we have not even gotten to the cops in a minute from Chicago Public Radio.

Warm up that coffee for you. When our program continues. It's this American Life, I'm IRA Glass. Today on our program, 24 hours at the Golden Apple.

If you're just tuning in, we tried to interview every person at every table of a 24 hour restaurant here in Chicago starting at 5:00 a.m. in the morning on Friday, July 14th, going to 5:00 a.m. the next morning that everybody said yes, not everybody could fit into a one hour radio show and the day is just heating up.

Let's jump ahead to midnight. One of the owners, Pete, is explaining something sort of surprising about a restaurant like this. To our reporter, Wendy Dorr.

Whenever we have another case, we've got another case. If you said it, those with no legs always open will never, never look at those.

Just at that moment, a young woman burst through the door. I think she swivels around and drunkenly tries to lock it, keep your two friends out. It takes a second before she realizes there are no locks to three Stumbo to a table. This is Kim.

I'm at the Golden Apple and I am. And I'm with Oscar and. But Oscar, Oscar, Nigerias.

Beth and I are riding in a cabin here like hot, and I've never met this guy. I need to order food. I'm a journalism major, by the way. Yeah. So I understand what you're doing right now. I work with Kim and Kim lives, I don't live downtown, I live in the suburbs and Kim was like, OK, we want to move downtown, though, right? I do. She lives in Chicago. It doesn't matter anyway.

So we go to this premiere party of the Star Wars exhibit at the Field Museum. Yes. It was so awesome. Kim, this is my look at my stars. Look. Yes, she's the Star Wars. I'm the most everyone here, as you can probably tell. So anyway, it's fine. I meet Oscar, we just meet him like standing at the party offers. He buys us a couple of shots. So we're like, you know, and we start talking to them.

We start talking to him. Oh, so I'm sitting there talking to him. All of a sudden I feel two hands on my back, two hands. I do not recognize two hands and I do not want my body. And I look. And who do I see? It is Oscar. And I don't even know your last name.

Do I have to say the Reagan?

I'll be honest. I will I will be honest with you. He paid for a lot of tonight. Like he paid for my drinks. OK, great. You know what? Don't touch me, but you can buy my drinks for me if you're going to happen to the cab and pay for it, you can have with me. That's fine. And he's probably going to buy our food here tonight, so that's fine with me.

All truth. So I'm just I'm just honest. I'm not going to go home with you. My name is Oscar.

I bought some I bought them a drink or two, a bottle of three hundred dollar champagne. OK, I'm successful so we don't even have to pay or anything like that. I'll be completely honest with you. My goal is to share about tonight. Yeah, I'm, I'm at a party. Doesn't matter which one it's just to sure about. He just wants to get some play basically. Is that what you're saying Oscar. And I'll bet you if you follow us home, one of them too will be in bed with me that.

Would I be sitting here talking to you if you make any breakfast with them, if I was not going to go home with either a complete moron or or I know something that, you know, I will ask you right here.

Understand, you have a lot of hormones and that's fine. I mean, you're just not going to be able to act on them tonight with me. I don't know about you, but I mean, either, unless it's paid by food, where the hell is the waitress? I don't know. I just know the waitress. By one o'clock, the diner is at capacity and it feels like one big party. A woman sits in a booth in the back with a friend.

She's in her early 40s, grew up in the neighborhood.

My name is Nancy. Where am I and what time is it? I don't think I'm really here. I think that I'm I'm doing like a two dimensional kind of thing. So there's part of me that's here and then there's part of me that's somewhere else. The future me. So what time is the earthly time? It's one 15 a.m. and there's no time where my future self is. You know, how you when you go to sleep and you dream, how you can bend and shape the events that take place in that dream?

Well, then what if that were your reality? And what if this were the dream? You know, you can actually paint your future and you can make everything that's ever happened is happening and will happen has already happened. It's shapeshifting time and events so that you know why your soul is here. And that's the purpose, to know why you're here, to know why you came back. I know one past life. I was a cowboy and I was shot by accident.

And I've met two of my four buddies that I was with together here. And we've we we agreed to come back on some kind of subliminal basis. So, yeah, I was a cowboy in one lifetime, probably right before the turn of the century and my other lifetime, I really don't know. But I know I was crushed and I don't know by what, but probably a large building. I haven't identified the time yet. I'm still working on that.

Can I have can I have a short stick, please? That's all right. Thank you.

I am not far away in another boot, said Danielle, who's 17, and Alison, 18. They're best friends. A month ago, because of problems at home, Danielle moved in with Alison's family. They both live in the basement. They're now they've been driving in from the suburbs to the Golden Apple. Hang out, meet friends, guys.

Mostly we're sitting here waiting for this guy, Jeff, who's hopefully going to come. We've just been coming here for the last three nights, about midnight, one o'clock, just sitting here waiting for random people to show up. She kind of has a crush on this guy. And so we kind of come here and hopes to find him. It hasn't worked yet. Yeah, I paged him and told him to come here, paged him. No answer, because again, no answer and no answer.

So basically we have no life. So we come down here and wait for people to make phone calls. Yeah, I have the number. All right. Give me money. All right. I am calling this guy Jeff and I'm going to make him come here because my best friend wants him do.

All right. And it's still ringing.

Hi, Jeff. We are at the Golden Apple, and I am wondering if you're at all coming because Alison kind of wants to see you. And I'm not going to stick around here all night because I have to sleep.

So hopefully you'll be here by like two. If not, call Allison tomorrow. All right. Bye. And he'll be here. He'll be here.

Heard six messages on his machine at home. I just called you up and told him that he's not here to see me. I still think he will come. I just don't know when. See, the thing that makes this a big deal is the fact that I think he actually might like me back, which doesn't happen ever. So that's why I want to see him again. I know the really weird thing about us is she like hates herself. She never likes anyone, ever and ever.

Anything goes right. She freaks out. It's usually like you say that there's so many people that like you, but how many times has it actually ever worked out? It's not hard for you because you just like this massive guy magnet, you know, and you act sometimes like you don't see it, you see it. You've got to see it because we go somewhere and it's like Bush and everyone's there by you and not even just guys. Like you're just like people like you.

You know, it takes no effort. Just wrong, though, because it's not like I just get them like that. It's OK. I'll give you sometimes just I don't know why, but sometimes it happens like that. And it's the fact that I talk and I'm not like boring and I don't just sit there. No, I'm not saying you're boring. I'm just saying that that's what I'm not. People, like I said before, our robots and they're going to want to follow the life of the party.

That's how people are.

If you put an idea in their head, like if one person says you're a good kisser, you are deemed a good kisser forever and ever and ever since, like, you have this thing where, like, you just like radiate positive vibes, you know, and you're always, like, upbeat, you know, when I've been, like, really outgoing or trying to be, you know, and like almost imitating you to see if it works. It doesn't work for me.

And, you know, we're best friends, especially now that you live with me. It's like you're just always there. So the issue is always there. When you didn't live with me, you know, sometimes I'm not even thinking about it. I don't care. But now you're there all the time.

And, you know, we've been, like, going out more and it's it's always there it is. One twenty five almost. OK, I am calling my friend Marianne in hopes that he is up.

OK, are you sleeping. You are. We're just at the restaurant and waiting for people and no one's coming. So we were wondering, do you want us to come pick you up SEIUs to come back here. Just say yes. No say yes. So don't go to sleep. Oh come on. You know you love me. Thank you. I will be there to pick you up in like two minutes five.

So we're here. I'm sorry, but I can't go anywhere, you can't go anywhere. Get in the car.

Oh, my God. I'm as convinced me to stay my go tell her that you have to come back to the restaurant.

I can't I have to wake up at 8:00 tomorrow morning and I'm going to go beat you up.

Then you, whoever does not do such a good job convincing them with your fists. Actually, she doesn't try. She won't come.

She comes back into the car, head back to meet. Allison is waiting back at the Golden Apple.

OK, me and Allison, I think that she feels like we're growing apart because I. I've kind of been mean lately. Not like not like to mean, but like she's my best friend. She will always be my best friend. It's just like now that we live together, we have constant each other and it's just like we realize the things that we could overlook before our actual issues now, like we're complete opposites. She doesn't like people. I love people.

She likes staying home and reading. I can't stand staying home and I can't stand reading. And I mean, I don't I don't like thinking it's like thinking is something you do in school and then when you need to. And she's not like that, and that's that's very cool. I mean, it shows that, you know, she's not a robot or whatever, you know, but she's 17, she's only 17. And she acts like she's 23.

She's, I guess, above, you know, the normal teenager. She thinks of things. She she cares, you know, and that's what people in college do. And that's, you know, older people. But me and most of all, my friends, we're not ready. We're not we don't want to do that. You know, we want to we want to just sit back and have fun. I mean, she just needs to find the right people to hang out with.

And for right now, it's not my thing. This is this is my thing. I like this scene where it's just like we're going to sit back and have fun, we're going to laugh. We're just going to let everything go, you know, just like. All right. Golden Apple scene. Yeah. When she's back in the restaurant, after all this, thinking about how she and Alison so different, she heads over to her best friend who started a band together called Mixed Emotions, just the two of them, Alison plays guitar.

They both sing and they do one of their songs together. Now for the microphone ready.

OK, so much for things, so much fun loving you, so much for everything, it's only with you, so much for love. You won't believe in me, so much for all the times you say you never leave.

I needed you and I thought you'd be there. But now I see the change in you and now you just don't seem to care. And so much more faith, so much love, and you talk to each other, as they say, Allison sitting, Danielle standing, leaning in, close you, and then the thing that they have been waiting for all night finally happened.

So I don't really have to. Yes, that's what he's got to face, really is. OK, here it is, two 15. And they have finally arrived. Yeah. Like when we've given up all hope they're here. It's I told you I knew it. I never gave up.

And they all sat down together. I say the guy who they've been waiting for, who they called six times, Jeff, he never arrived time. But there is another Jeff with this group. Mallison transfers across to Jeff number two.

At some point, Danielle drugs are outside the diner to confer. They stand on the sidewalk just on the other side of the plate glass window and Jeff number two and everybody else, Alison reviews the facts of the case.

Well, it's just like, OK, he's you know, he's into some of the supernatural stuff too. And and we have a lot of things in common, like we're both Big Tim Burton fans. And so I know I actually had something to talk to, you know, about four hours now. And but then again, it's like, what's the point of liking him if he doesn't like me?

So. I ask him. No, I'm just going to talk like, OK, here, look, I'm trying to hook her up and don't, OK? I was wondering I'm trying to set Alice and I'll be slick. It'll be fun for you. Yeah, I'll give him a flower. Come on. It'll be fun if he says no, we just won't come out here ever again. Please.

Whatever else it might do for Alison, if you hooked up with somebody, it might just reduce the general level of tension between her and Danielle. And Danielle does not take no for an answer. She gives the flower to Jeff, no to saying it's from Alison. He smiles a big no to smile. Then he and Alison sit alone at a table and talk for a while until Danielle comes over.

Are we leaving now? Yes, we made and we left. And I put the rest of the change in this little box here. And now we're live and Research in Motion. It was fun. We got here like eleven thirty and it is now three fifteen and it is time to leave. So we'll be back tomorrow. Bye bye. By 4:00 a.m. Saturday morning, things are finally starting to die down once again, like when we arrived the day before, it's mostly cab drivers and cops.

What was that show? Florence was on with Mel's Diner, with his name on the show? Alice, No.

These two police officers are sitting in a booth in front, even on a break. They are required to wear 18 pound bulletproof vests. They call over their waitress, Donna, to help settle this question.

And this time she goes, oh, no, you. What's a TV show that we're here in the diner with? A diner with flowers, the red horse, the one waitress and Alesandro and Vera. Yeah, it was Mel's Diner.

The dark hair fellow was the Western. And then Alice was the one from New York. Yeah, it was.

Oh, no. Oh no. It was. I think it was Alice. And I'm stoked and I won't be able to sleep today till I find out what the name of that show was. I'm Officer Norman Knudsen and is my partner, Officer Clark Eichman. We work 1922 tonight in the 19th District. We're on a personal level that we were allowed as many persons as we want for coffee break, shoes to wash and whatever. And it's almost five o'clock in the morning, a.m., OK, all 500 hours.

It's off this district normally is slow, but on the weekends, it's like any other district, gun calls, fights, narcotic, it's it's real busy for two days a week in real slow for fighting with all the bars on Lincoln and Clark and even further north on Lincoln, you can go from one job to another, one fight after fight. Have to fight it to fight. Well, we had a bar fight over it.

Irish eyes are going to need plastic surgery. Yeah, it's got to get enough Berenstein in the face. You know, Sox fans versus Cubs fan. The Cubs fan got in the face with a stain and then we had another brawl over at the cubby bear where we made three arrests and we just got done with all the paperwork. And it's been, what, a half hours on the paperwork? Yeah, yeah. Total four arrests, more arrests. First time to sit down and have a cup of coffee and relax and unwind.

This is my regular hangout here, the Golden Pancake, you come here all the time. Know come here all the time. You know, two nine seven one Lincoln Mike is always hanging around and there's. Well, Bob over there. Hey, Bob. How are you doing, Dana. Mary Dave. The one cab driver. I've come here quite a bit.

You know what it felt like. Ninety nine p.m. Bell and three men standing on the street. Here's one three blocks away. Three guys with a gun three blocks away. I'm getting description of the male white male white T-shirt.

They're heading towards Berry Woods. In this way, they can break our personal if they want our lunch break. They're not supposed to. But if it's a hot ball like this, one might even be bonafied. Probably eight out of every ten calls are garbage. They're not. Another two calls now might be legitimate. One thing that happens is when you get a regular partner, even some you work for the first night, you learn a first name, not just the last.

And then where you were before, are you married? He collects hockey cards. I collect massive memorabilia models. I do model collecting. I collect a couple of guitars. I play the guitar and then young things. But you create a bond, you'll even tell some intimate secrets, you know, things that even the wives don't know about. But Ukrainian people don't realize that 90 percent of the job is you and your partner in the car. You can be a long night or it can be a lot of fun.

The other thing is, if you don't feel like doing anything and some nights you don't have to, you might not get a call until I drive around, you know, just kind of be off in a haze and it doesn't really matter. Yeah, well, daughter, and it's almost five o'clock in the morning a.

Three more hours. If we don't get a lay to rest. One nine to two is back with you. They head toward the door. I know it was you guys Manetta want us to go. Bye bye, says Donna, over by the counter nearby in 1991.

I see guys all over the damn sun is coming up already. The damson streaks, it's damn light through the cursed windows, gonna straightened things up a little, surveys the restaurant. She's the waitress that we first interviewed a full day before when he drinks and cookies on Christmas for everybody. Jeyes The morning regulars at the tables.

Well, it's now five o'clock Saturday morning. I got one hour and 45 minutes. And I know it sounds a little corny, but I really do enjoy it. Soon as the stars get daylight, I start to feel good and the day people come in, the I smell nice clothes, you know, this kind of wore off on the night people. But the day people are so fresh, it's nice, refreshing. Everybody else is getting sleepy. And I'm starting to wake up because I'm a day person that's been working nights for 26 years.

But I'm handling it all right. Program is produced this week by Julie Snyder and myself with Alex Blumberg, Buscemi and Jonathan Goldstein are the people who took shifts recording at the Golden Apple include Mary Wittenberg, Joe Richman, who recorded Daniel and Alison Wendy Door, recorded the policeman Oscar and the two drunk women who would not go home with him, Tom and Scott and the lady who explained earthly time. Nancy Updike story was produced with a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as part of Hearing Voices Dotcom.

Many thanks to Tom and Nick and Pete, the owners of the Golden Apple and dozens of customers that we interviewed over the course of the day. The show was recorded in July of 2000.

The Golden Apple still stands at Lincoln Avenue, where it hits Southport. My recommendation is the Fed a cheese omelet, additional production for today's program by a vote of Kornfeld, St. Nelson and Matt Tierney. Our website, This American Life Dog, This American Life, is devoted to public radio stations by PUREX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks as always. Your program's cofounder, Mr Malatya, is always reminding me.

I'm a journalism major, by the way. Yeah, so I understand what you're doing right now. I'm IRA Glass, back next week with more stories of this American life.