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Arriving at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel at ten in the morning to hook up with my estranged sister, I was immediately confronted by the fact that she was not registered under her own name. Using her husband’s name, I fared no better. “What the hell!” I thought aloud, startling the desk clerk. Dumfounded, I offered my sister’s description, adding the fact that she was traveling with her husband and child and was expected to arrive at the hotel early that morning.“I’m sorry, sir, but there is no party by that name or of the description registered at this hotel,” the desk clerk insisted, “but, I’ve only recently come on duty and probably not the best person for you to be talking with. Have you tried the Concierge? He’s been here since six.”Fortunately the Concierge recalled my sister’s arrival. “Was the child about six or seven years old?” he asked.“Eight, I think,” I said, “but small for her age.”“Then I believe they are not registered, but visiting a guest on the 12th floor. May I call them to let them know you are here?”“Of course,” I said, and was soon following a bellhop into one of the lobby elevators.The thickly carpeted hallway masked my approach, but upon knocking on the door to a suite a single time it was flung open, and I was greeted by my sister with an unanticipated barrage of excited hugs and kisses. Afterward I looked down and found my niece attached to one of her mother’s legs. She seemed a bit anxious.The formalities thus complete, we entered the living room and sat down. An awkward silence ensued during which I became aware of another presence in the suite. The door to a bathroom in the short foyer was closed when I entered and on passing I had heard a strange, mumbling emanating from within. This I assumed was my sister's husband and I waited quietly, and in some discomfort, for him to appear.Suddenly the bathroom door was flung open and a woman staggered in on us. Though tall, somewhat plump, and terribly disheveled, I could tell immediately tell that the woman had once been quite beautiful. Looking much like well seasoned Faye Dunaway, she stopped in the middle of the room where she adjusted an ill-fitted wig. Once done, she eyed me suspiciously. I rose at once and extended my hand, intent on introducing myself.Instead of taking my hand, the woman brushed past and plopped herself down in a seat. "Where's the champagne I ordered?" she shouted, obviously taking me for an errant employee of the hotel. In her defense, I was wearing a Brooks Brothers’ blazer and tie that looked somewhat similar in cut and color to the uniform required of the hotel’s staff.Rather than sort things out, I sat back down and waited for my sister to do the honors. Instead, she began to jab around in her purse, eventually coming up with a package of cigarettes and a lighter.As this surreal scene continued to unfold I began to recognize something vaguely familiar in the stranger’s face and in her strong and deliberate movements. This was not some random figure, no half crazed in-law or nanny brought along to care for my niece. She was somehow the principle player, and very much in command of the situation. Finally, glaring at me with bloodshot eyes, she asked, “Why are you still here, sitting like a lump on a log? Where the hell are the refreshments?!”Looking to my sister for explanation, I found instead a broad and slightly wicked grin playing on her face and I was of a mind that she was on the verge of losing control and breaking out into hysterical laughter, or tears.My niece by now was sitting on the arm of her mother’s heavily upholstered chair, one foot in front of the other, cocked like a sprinter in his block, ready to run at the first sound of a shot.Suddenly a light went on in my head and a single synapse brought the cacophony of sights and sounds together. “Where the hell are the refreshments?!” reverberated in my ear. Memories began to align, forming a lattice work of comprehension.But the woman was well ahead of me by then, and pointing a plump finger in my direction. Her mouth slightly ajar, she saw in me more of my father than there ever was when I was a child. “Mickey?" she gasped, more a supplicant now than a gargoyle.Well, God damn! No golden key could have turned the lock or released the memories that now flooded so painfully into my mind. It was a nickname I had not heard in twenty years, a code known only to the ruined woman who now stood before me, arms outstretched. Neither a sir nor given name, it was what I was called by all until age six, when both my name and my life were taken from me and I with them changed forever.I could not have been more surprised or shocked if this stranger had pulled a pistol from her purse and shot me dead, and for a time I sat dumbfounded, holding my breath, not knowing what to say or do. “Where the hell have you been?" I finally gasped, trying to control my anger, while failing to hold back the hide the moist sadness welling up in my eyes.At that the old woman broke down and tearfully made an awkward attempt at an impossible embrace, but my mind was not so quickly convinced or my heart to forgiving as my eyes were to recognize. I froze for a moment then raised both hands to hold her at bay. Slowly she backed away.A bit too quickly there were albums spread out on a coffee table, filled with photos of a me I could no longer recall, and of a man I had never known, but who looked more like me now than when I was a child.My mother’s memories of those times and of the tanned faces that looked so hopefully back at us were much clearer than mine. Still, there were hidden, unspoken truths in the prints themselves that spoke differently to the two of us. These were not trophies that had languished away in some dark attic, but treasures well worn and turned down at the corners from being lovingly handled every day of my mother’s life. In that there might have been some redemption, though for who remained unknown.I had my own memories and not just of a lost and lonely kid called “Mickey.” There were remained the soul wrenching sounds of streetcars screeching in the night as they vanished down dark and shiny rails; and of the howl of winter winds that whistled their merry way through mortar and stone. In many ways my memories were stronger than hers. Mine did not vanish with the dull “thump” of a book being closed. Mine were dulled by time or blind me to all else my mother might say.Like many children of adoption I blamed myself for my lost life. I was not good enough! I was not strong! I was not worthy of love or of feeling safe from the terrors that plagued my youth. And now, seeing my mother as she was, not as I remembered her, I could not escape the sins of my present or return to the heart of my past.Ultimately it was my mother's undeniable resemblance to my sister that proved her bona fides, that and my own clear genetic link to the man who stood beside her in so many of her tattered photos. In the course of half an hour I unwound the reel, forgave my mother, and resigned myself to hearing her out. Sadly, the absolution so quickly and freely given was not rewarded, and my burden increased tenfold by false and pointless justifications for allowing her children to slip away.I was offended by her need to insult me with lies she felt the need to tell. They insulted my own still clear recollections. The truth was, and will always be, that people do exactly what they want, what they need to do, and though they almost always say it’s because or for someone else, that on its own is a lie. A simple “I don’t know” or even “The devil made me do it” would at least warrant a smile. I know, because I’m no different. All of us barter our lives, and others, and settle for the lesser of evils. I can understand and forgive such weakness, because without forgiveness there is no hope for hope, or for happiness or room for love.For an instant I felt free as the knot came undone, but the cord suddenly snapped back when I ordered again to listen, and had to pretend to believe her lies. Her words were lost in a sea of “he” and “him,” the father who was never that to me, or husband to her. The story is not new, or even interesting, but for her necessary to reinforce her convoluted attempt to connect dots that went nowhere.God, how I despised my mother at that moment, for giving me up; and for coming back. I know how terrible that must sound, but if the truth be known one might better understand the how, why and what of me. This is not to blame her, but to explain me. In the end we are all the authors of our own existence. But given an excuse it is just that much easier to give up or take the easy way out. Not everyone has had the advantage of such misfortune and might profit from its telling. The path I chose was neither brave nor bold, and all too often traveled. But having taken it I offer advice to those who follow; a warning paved in words.In spite of all, I foolishly agreed to fly to Chicago at the end of the academic year and spend the summer with my mother and her new family, if for no other reasons than to see what she had said about my sister and me, if anything, since her search for us began. I knew her husband knew about us, because it was he who gave her the excuse and opportunity to free herself of my father, and all things that reminded her of “him.” Seeing her family would tell me how well things worked out for her, her husband and their two sons.In mid-June 1968 I flew from Boston to Chicago. Standing in front of the Delta arrivals terminal at O’Hare airport I waited for my mother to pick me up, but she never arrived. After an hour I called her home, but there was no answer so I assumed she was on her way. I decided to give her another thirty minutes and if she did not come, take a cab into the city and spend the night in a hotel. Exhausted and feeling a bit grungy by then, I thought it would be better to deal with unforeseeable after a bath and a good night’s rest.On my return to the front of the terminal I was almost immediately confronted by a white Cadillac convertible that pulled abruptly to the curb right in front of me. In spite of the cold weather the top was down and I could clearly see the driver, a teenage boy looking much like what, two decades later, I described as Mickey Rourke in “Diner.” The crazy kid was well tanned and wearing a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to his navel, with the hint of black lipstick on his lips. Smiling from ear to ear, like Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat, the boy scooted over into the passenger seat and, leaning out the open window, tossed me his keys. "Looking for someone, sailor?" was all he said.I was not amused and certainly not in a mood to be hit on by some young raging queen, so I mumbled, "Fuck off!" under my breath, tossed his keys back, and walked away in the opposite direction of traffic flow to avoid further contact. Much to my embarrassment, the kid slid back into the driver’s seat, threw the car into reverse and backed up until he was moving slowly along, even with me. Fists raised, I took a menacing step in his direction.Up close I could tell that this strange creature was really quite young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, so I lowered my guard. Then, surprising and shocking me, the boy leaped out of the car without opening the door, threw his arms around my neck, and planted a big, sloppy kiss right on my lips. Stunned, I didn’t know whether to kick his ass, laugh or run like hell."I'm your brother Lance, ya big dummy," the kid said, a broad, sincere smile lighting up his face. "Throw your things in the back seat. Mom has a late meeting with Mayor Daley, so you’re spending the night at my place. She’ll pick us up in the morning and take us out to breakfast.”My half-brother, Lance, shared a comfortable Near North Side condo overlooking Lake Michigan, with a rookie Chicago police officer in his early twenties who was obviously my brother’s lover. The two boys treated me wonderfully well, introducing me to the best and worst of the Windy City, which proved to be far more entertaining and unconventionally sophisticated than I would have thought possible anywhere in the mid-west.In the town that beef built we ate sea food, a meal that proved equal to any I’d had anywhere else in the world. “It comes up the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Louis the up Route 55 to here,” Lance informed me.After dinner the boys showed me Chi-town’s nightlife, both gay and straight, which proved as varied and enjoyable as in any city in the country, including New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans, and, much to my surprise, I had one hell of a good time. On the way home we swung by Quartino’s on State Street, where I had my first and best Italian Beef sandwich, ever. “The best damn thing I ever put in my mouth,” I said, immediately regretting my words. But while both of the boys looked up from their meals and smiled, neither took advantage of my potential faux pas. During the course of the evening, both of the young men proved to be warm and outgoing hosts, while remaining accepting and respectful of the fact that my lifestyle was not their own.The following morning, my mother picked my brother and me up just after ten and took us for an early lunch at The Walnut Room on State Street. Surprisingly, my mother made no comment about her last minute changes in plans and unexpected absence at the airport the previous evening, or inquiries into our activities the rest of the night. After our meal we drove quietly south along the Dan Ryan Expressway toward Evergreen Park. Halfway to her house she finally began to speak, a bit nervously I thought. “I found it a bit difficult to explain you to my husband and sons,” she said.I thought that strange, because her husband was certainly always aware that she had abandoned two children, because it was at his behest, and Lance seemed singularly well informed and nonplussed at finding he had a stepbrother. There was also her early claim to my sister and me at the Waldorf Astoria that she had spent years and considerable money finding and arranging a reunion. “After years, I recognized your sister in the Washington Post society when they announced her debut,” my mother said. “The age was right and she looked so much like me.” Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I said nothing and simply took in the sights of the new and as of yet unfamiliar city. But I couldn’t imagine how such efforts and expenses could possibly have remained hidden from her new family, especially from her husband.As we drove along my mother tried to fill me in on the specifics of her situation at home. There was a second brother somewhere in the mix, but she wanted me to sort that out on my own. “He just turned 22 and a lot more like you than Lance, so you will probably get along.” That seemed to annoy Lance, but he took the hit like a champ and said nothing. By the time I arrived at my mother’s house I had completed my calculations and I realized two things: the first was that my mother was obviously pregnant by her current husband when she abandoned my sister and me; and the second was that she named that child Michael, the same name I had at the time. He however turned out to be such a black Irish bastard that he never acquired the nickname, Mickey.“My husband, Steve, is the son of a prominent, but long deceased Irish mobster,” my mother said. However, after a short pause she added, “Unfortunately he is not half the man his father was and or ever able to fill his father’s shoes.”Again, Lance was annoyed, but this time piped up, “With Al Capone already in them I don’t suppose there was much room left for his dad, at age 14.” To this my mother wisely did not respond.My what: step-father? I don't think so, but under any other circumstance my mother's husband and I might have been friends, but for her. God knows he treated me well, much better than she ever did this second time around. My mother’s husband, Steve, was a quiet, self effacing man who survived violent abuse from a wife he loved by anesthetizing himself with alcohol. Steve was drunk when I met him and remained inebriated the entire time I knew him, a medication that would killed the average man, but necessary to survive the snake pit muck and madness of his marriage. The house was fortress, an Irish mini-mansion immaculately kept, but with an atmosphere within that was pure agua rigia, acid enough to dissolve gold.Sadly, my presence in Steve’s home only seemed to exacerbate his suffering and worsen his condition all around. My mother used my bullshit gentlemanly manners and my father’s pedigree to belittle her husband at every opportunity, as often as not in front of his sons. How she managed to pull that off I was never quite sure, because the picture she painted of my natural father was based upon a lie. Apparently when she was dating her current husband she described my father as a brute of a man who had “defiled” her when she was a child.From conversations my mother had with my cousins and the few girl friends she had when I was a child, and recent research I had done since our reunion I knew for a fact that she was the seventeen year old “political party girl” daughter of a ranking DC cop, and he was a nineteen year old sophomore at Queens College and a part-time tennis instructor at the Westside Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York, when they met at an amateur tennis match at the Kenwood Golf & Country Club in Bethesda Maryland. My mother, who was a junior high school student doing some sort of weekend work there at the time, was pregnant by the end of the academic year. She married my sister’s father three years later, while in the same condition. And she was pregnant, yet again, with Steve’s eldest son when she married him for the chance to reinvent herself as the chaste wife of a prominent politician and businessman in the “Windy City.”After an unexpectedly delicious and filling pot roast dinner I anticipated a good night’s rest before tackling things I had come to Chicago to accomplish. One of the primary reasons my mother gave me so much information about her family and my father was that she wanted me to track him down. The whole reunion thing was a sham. She had simply gotten to an impossibly unhappy point in her life, of her own making, and wanted to tie up some loose ends. Looking back I think she actually intended to find my father and marry him or kill him and/or herself.From my recent stay in a mental hospital I knew well the symptoms of a Bipolar Disorder and recognized at once that my mother was the ailment’s poster child. Years later I heard a joke about Jane Byrne, Mayor of Chicago, that always reminds me of my mother. Question: What is the difference between Jane Byrne and the Panama Canal? Answer: The Panama Canal is a busy ditch.My second day in my mother’s house literally started with a “bang.” Steve, my mother and I were sitting quietly eating breakfast when he dropped his fork. My mother, who was standing at the stove at the time and had just transferred bacon from a pan onto some paper towels, suddenly spun around and smacked her husband fully and hard in the side of his head with the hot pan she held with pot holder in her hand.“What the fuck!” I shouted as Steve hit the floor holding the side of his face which was already bright red.“The asshole’s a foot fetish,” my mother said as though that was my business or had anything to do with what just happened.As for Steve, he dipped his napkin in his water glass, applied it to his burned skin then went on with his meal.“Holly shit,” I thought to myself “what the hell have I walked into?”Unbelievably, my mother did not exhibit the least bit concern, shame or embarrassment over this incident. But what really disturbed me was that when the meal was over, Steve cheerfully went about washing the dishes.An hour or so after breakfast my missing half-brother, Michael, with his young son, from a previous marriage, and his African American girlfriend dropped by just long enough to look me over, check me out, and make the point that I was not welcome in his mother’s house. My Black Irish brother, and by that I mean colorless eyes, black hair and a dark disposition, was six years younger, six inches shorter, and 20 pounds lighter, but quick on his feet. He was also hostile, aggressive and menacing; and reminded me in many ways of Bob Steele’s character in the original movie version of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” a dark hearted, bully of a little bastard, who absolutely loather me at first glance.On sitting down in a chair opposite and facing me, some ten feet away, I noticed that Michael had a black anodized Gerber Mark II fighting knife strapped, handle down, on the inside of his left leg just above his short-top boot. This told me a couple of things about him. For one thing he was right handed, for another he wasn’t carrying the weapon for show. He was comfortable and probably skilled with it weapon and obviously willing to use it. The whole damn place was a mad house and everyone in it out of their minds. This was nothing at all like the world I was raised, though I felt strangely comfortable with the cold directness of everyone, where in mine I never knew what anyone was thinking.My final take on Michael was that he was a thoroughly confused little man who feared his mother, despised his father, and was totally without humor, a lethal combination that left him a miserable, crippled caricature of a man. But of one thing I was certain: at some point he was going to challenge me; his choice, not mine.Michael worked for the City of Chicago, in some sort of no-show patronage job, but spent most of his time raising money, running guns and breaking bones for NORAID, the newly founded Irish Northern Aid Committee, a front for the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Almost the moment I finished defining Michael in my mind his cold resolve suddenly collapsed and he screwed up the courage to call me out.While I was gauging my brother, he had been gauging me, but his evaluation was based on my outer appearance and obvious state of calm. Unknown to him I had the advantage, the same advantage that had seen me through most of my unguarded moments since childhood. No one ever saw me coming. I have always been at my beat, most comfortable and at complete ease when in the greatest danger. But Michael had misinterpreted my prep-school boy appearance and demeanor: Yes, I was tall, quite thin, had blond and blue eyes and was well mannered and spoken, but, unknown to him, I had been born and raised in exactly the same world of crime and violence as he had.My only question was whether to deal with him in private or mete out the requisite and appropriate pain, punishment and humiliation I thought he deserved. On exiting the house I suggested some rules. “Michael, if you throw a punch at me I’m going to kick your ass. Anything else will be met in equal proportion.” He stopped in his tracks on hearing that and what I have always called the. “Boy this is going to be fun grin.”“I just wanna see what ya got,” he said, preceding me to the lawn. Of course he waited until I had removed my tie and dropped it on the grass then began to take off my jacket then he came at me.I had very deliberately slowly removed my jacket without clearing either arm and as he closed on me I looped my jacket and caught him cross body and flipped him onto the ground. Nonplussed, he slowly got to his feet completely unaware that my action had been deliberate. In his mind he had simply miss stepped somehow. Still grinning I went into a crouched stance, knees bent and hands mid-torso and open, awaited his next move. When it came his attack was familiar and fully anticipated.On his second pass my right arm went up under his left armpit and I simply body rolled him. But while his feet were at the apex, high in the air, I stepped away and allowed him to fall straight down, full force on his back and shoulders, driving the breath from his lungs. Then I stepped away and to the side, slightly out of his direct view, and awaited his next move. My brother’s grin was gone then, replace by a familiar “what the fuck” look.Of course he went for the knife and was actually shocked and confused to find it gone. I had remove his weapon with my left hand behind my back almost the moment his feet left the ground and now I displayed it before him loosely, in a nonthreatening presentation in my open hand. This really unsettled him and I knew he was through. After that he seemed to morph right in front of me and much to my surprise actually accepted his defeat and I knew at once, though we would never be friends, we could coexist.Just then, however, a friend of his appeared out of nowhere aboard a Harley-Davidson Super Sport. Thinking it might be reinforcements, I immediately maneuvered myself so that I could not be caught between the two and attacked from both sides at once. But the only interaction with either potential combatant after that was an unexpected request from my brother for a reenactment of our last interaction for his friend. For some reason neither of them could understand how such a “straight” looking guy could manipulate one of them with such ease.As things turned out the only reason our shared mother contacted my sister was to locate me. And the only reason she wanted to contact me was to locate my natural father. Had she ever contacted him, they both would have been worse off than either could have imagined. The saddest thing about the whole reunion and interaction with my “family” was that at about the same time my mother was choreographing the final scene of her elaborate charade the object of her angst was lying in a hospital bed in Forest Hills, New York, dying of lung cancer brought on from a lifetime of heavy smoking. And by the time I finally located him he was dead and a month in his grave.What followed on the heels of my mother’s and my shared disappointment was an absolute nightmare. She suddenly turned on my sister and me, demanding that we reimburse her for her time and expenses in locating us and my natural father. Of course she had no legal grounds for such a reimbursement, a demand my sister I simply ignored, but I not so much. Bundled with the proposed financial burden were thinly veiled threats to interfere with and invade the privacy of my adoptive family. As I had hurt my father simply by entertaining the suggestion of such reconciliation with my natural parents I now felt it was my duty to protect him as much as possible by settling the matter once and for all and entirely on my own. God knows he had warned me of the possible consequences.Because my mother was proving so litigious I immediately sold my house on Riverside Drive, in Manhattan, which I had been renting out ever since the nighttime home invasion that had cost a stranger his life and me, at least momentarily, my sanity, and deposited the revenue in an account under one of my many previous nom de guerre identities at a midtown Chase Manhattan bank. Then I settled into a small Near North Side apartment for what I knew would prove to be a long and drawn out battle with a mad woman with a hefty war chest and strong political, and thus strong legal, connections. Only by staying and fighting in this foreign territory was I going to be able to keep the conflict from spilling over into my adoptive father’s family and life.Immediately I applied for several engineering positions and was finally hired on as a summer intern with the Teletype Division of AT&T located in Skokie, Illinois. On rainy days I drove to work in about 30 minutes, but on clear and sunny days I often took the “L,” the Chicago rapid-transit (CTA) rail and bus system which took me about 45 minutes.Most of the other interns were in their late teen or early twenties. I, being the oldest and most experienced, and holding a SAP-byeman security clearance, spent most of my time with seasoned engineers who did me the courtesy of teaching me all I needed to know to manage the manufacturing of their intelligence and counterintelligence “Operation IV” CONUS Telex and TWX systems machines, and by the end of summer I was offered a permanent position and was promoted to a R&D Engineering Manager serving in a liaison position between Bell Laboratories and the Motorola Corporation, who were cooperating at the time on a classified encrypted hand-held FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) satellite communications system based on a device invented by beautiful actress and kleptomaniac Hedy Lamarr, who also invented a radio guidance system for torpedoes used in World War Two.In spite of my dark reason for being in Chicago I enjoyed almost a decade of “normal life” in a city I found enjoyable and often exciting. In fact the only stress I experienced while there was the continued close proximity to and all too often adversarial courtroom juxtaposition with my mother, but my now complete indifference and her occasional attempts at reconciliation remained completely at odds, one with the other; each rebuff resulting increased threats, blackmail and extortion. I could have easily paid her off and been done with the matter, but I knew well that the legal actions were never intend to increase her wealth, and the duress and inconvenience to her was well worth the satisfaction it gave to me, for mine. Besides, I have never given in, given up or quit in my life.In late fall of 1977 my mother ran out of money or simply ran out of time, interest or options to continue her legal actions against me. Thus far each had ultimately been adjudicated as being “without merit,” and all of her attempts at harassing had proved unsuccessful in their intended purpose of resolution or conclusion from my mother‘s point of view. As for me, she finally no longer existed in my life.