Middlemen

Host Ira Glass talks with Chris, who worked for a company that helped deaf people talk over the phone with hearing people. The deaf person would type what they wanted Chris to say, and Chris would say it, then type back the response from the hearing person on the line. As the man in the middle, Chris was privy to intimate moments in people's lives. He was the middleman on drug deals, breakups. Occasionally, desperate mothers would appeal to him directly to talk sense to their stubborn deaf children with words that they themselves did not possess. As the job wore on, Chris found it more and more impossible to just be a neutral go-between. (7 minutes)

Sal Princiatta is a New York fireman whose unit lost a lot of men on September 11th. Beth Landau was a friend of Sal's, and a couple months ago, she orchestrated a trip to Memphis for Sal and the other guys at the firehouse. She thought it would take their minds off things. In Memphis, they were cheered and feted everywhere they went. People asked for autographs, gave them gifts. Sal realized that as New York fireman, he and his colleagues were acting as a very particular and unusual kind of middleman for the people they met. This story was put together with the help of Lumiere Productions in New York City. (9 minutes)