Becoming Patrick: A Memoir
By Patrick McMahon
Copyright © 2011 by Patrick McMahon.
Smashwords Edition
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Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Direct all inquiries to:
Deep Root Press
P.O. Box 161082, San Diego, California, 92176 USA
Portions of this book appeared in a slightly different form in: Pieces of Me, Who Do I Want To Be? EMK Press, 2009
San Diego Writers, Ink Anthology, A Year In Ink, Volumes 1, 3, and 4
Library of Congress CIP Data Available
ISBN 978-0-9828019-2-5 (eBook)
ISBN 978-0-9828019-0-1 (Paperback)
Edited by: Mona Ray
Cover design: Jay Budai
Book layout design: Anton Khodakovsky
Author photo: Lori Martin
Cover & interior photos: Patrick McMahon
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Author's Note
Some people's names in this story have been changed to protect their privacy. Otherwise, it's all true.
For your reference, there is a family tree in the back of the book, as well as family photos and adoption information resources.
Terminology is important. Over time, the words to distinguish relinquishing parents from adopting parents have changed. In 1976, Lee Campbell formed Concerned United Birthparents, thereby coining the term that has prevailed since then. Recently, other terms have evolved here in the US and around the world. First mother, original father, natural family, and biological parent are some of these. Each has its connotations and its problems. In this book, I have used many of these terms in ways that fit the context of the writing, but also recognize that no term is ideal.
Dedication
for my two mothers
Praise for Becoming Patrick: A Memoir
"A moving memoir of life and how it surprises us and our loved ones, Becoming Patrick is a fine and very much recommended read, not to be overlooked." —Midwest Book Review
"Be prepared for a rare treat. For it is rare to have a memoir by a male adoptee, especially one so sensitive to the many issues around being adopted. A quintessential adoption story that is essential for everyone, adopted or not."—Betty Jean Lifton, author of Journey of the Adopted Self
"Any adoptee in search of his or her original parents, indeed anyone searching for themselves, will, after reading this book, realize that such a mission into a shadow past offers equal doses of self-doubt and self-determination. Were I on such a mission, I would have McMahon's memoir as my guide."—Tom Larson, author of The Memoir and The Memoirist
"I liked this book so much that I read it twice. Patrick McMahon has a wonderful, lyrical writing style. As he searches for his identity and a more authentic life, Patrick is especially articulate and honest in expressing his thoughts and feelings. This is an intelligent, smooth-flowing story which I highly recommend it to one and all."—Nancy Verrier, author of The Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self
"Patrick McMahon is a brave pioneer in the quest for understanding and wholeness around his adoption. His story is important to read and to contemplate. And his writing strikes me as both relatable and poignant. Read his work!"—Jennifer Lauck, author of the New York Times bestseller Blackbird and its sequel Found
Acknowledgments
Someone once told me, "Writing a book is like building a house - all by yourself." Well it may be true that the author writes every word, but for me, guidance from a myriad of other people was instrumental.
I will forever be grateful to Nancy Beckett for convincing me that I had a house to build, and providing the land. Her insight and persistent prodding, along with the input from her other dedicated memoirists at the Lakeside Writing Studio in Chicago, became the foundation. Thanks especially to Connie Kiosse, Adagio Micaletti, Georgia Roulo, and Rosanne Nordstrom.
Several more writing groups followed in San Diego. Deep gratitude goes to writing mentors Judy Reeves, Roger Aplon, and Tom Larson for their wisdom, probing feedback, and inspiration. Each member of those groups helped to shape my writing, especially Jeanne Peterson, Suzanna Neal, Sarah Zale, Steve Montgomery, Sue Norberg, Steve Gallup, Linda Hutchison, Chi Varnado, Joan Mangen, Ollie McNamara, Zoe Gharemani, Bryna Kranzler, Paula Margulies, John Van Roekel, and Dave and Katherine Porter.
Also crucial were all the other brave souls who volunteered their time to provide feedback in one form or another, from an offhand comment to reading the entire manuscript. In particular, Carolyn Muelstein, Dave Goodsell, Jerry Gaschen, David Cohen, Darlene Gerow, and Roger Aplon.
My house took a long time to build. Thanks to my editor, Mona Ray, whose patience and finishing touches made it into a home, ready to move into.
I harbor a deep well of appreciation and love for all the family and friends who, knowingly or not, supported and encouraged me, or simply put up with my gnashing or rambling or inflicting of moods. This long list begins with my two mothers and continues with Jay Budai, TJ O'Donnell, Lori Martin, Leslie Perrino, Jodi Brisebois, Randy Walsh, and Stephen Wagner. Thanks to Milly McKune for the shoulder and the book title. You are sorely missed.
Also vital to my sustenance over the years have been numerous folks in the US and international adoption communities, especially those in Concerned United Birthparents and the American Adoption Congress. Thanks to the Chicago and San Diego CUB groups in particular: Bonnie B., Bonnie S., Betsy, Bill, Brigid, Carlos, Darlene, Dena, Ginger, Jodi, Jody, Jon, Joyce, Karen, Lynne, Mary, Pam, Paula, Sally, and Sharonfaith. People in other groups contributed as well, such as, Arts Anonymous; Artist's Way workshops; San Diego Writers, Ink; DimeStories; financial supporters; and the corner gang at Twiggs Coffeehouse.
Last but not least, I am grateful for the guidance from within, from wherever it may come.
Crawling along the tomb-like tunnel, I could only see darkness, as if darkness is indeed visible. I slithered like a snake, resolute, knowing I would not stop until coming to the end. It was damp, but I felt no temperature. Then the light appeared. A speck. A twinkle. It grew as I continued to squirm. I reached it. The opening was a hole in the side of the Grand Canyon. A vast expanse spread before me, challenging me to take it all in. I could barely hold myself back, so I didn't. I jumped and soared and glided and dove, sharing the sky with its accustomed inhabitants: the clouds and the birds.
Dream, 1990
Part One
Submergence
Chapter 1
September 1990, Kansas City, Missouri.
"Mom, what can you tell me about my adoption?"
The question is out. For all my life, it's been a hammer that could shatter a glass house with a tap. After approaching the brink many times during her visit from Chicago, after years of the relentless inner chant, Who am I? I've sat her down in my living room and finally spilled it out.
Her face registers little, maybe a hint of anxiety, or is that relief? She stands, sighs, and leaves the room. Surely she's coming back. Surely the glass house was only in my mind, which now races out of control. Yes, the ground-breaking talks about Dad's alcoholism and their divorce went well, but this is indeed new territory. Somewhere deep inside, I quiver. And yet, I know my mother is strong, a survivor. She'd do anything for her two sons. She's accepted me as a gay man. All I'd written in the letter before her trip was, "There's something I want to talk about when you visit."
A clock ticks. A train whistles in the distance. After an endless minute or two, she emerges from the bedroom and slowly sits down in the chair next to the couch, her face calm, yet apprehensive. In her hand are some envelopes, and in an instant, I know what they are, even though I've never seen them. She leans forward to hand them to me, creating a moment of suspension and lake-bottom quiet as I look into her eyes and accept the bundle without a word.
Savoring this gift, yet wanting to rifle like a child in a Christmas-morning frenzy, I begin to sift with deliberation. Soon my world reduces to the emerging papers in my hands. I see letters from the State of Illinois Department of Public Welfare, a Notice of a Birth Registration with my name on it, and three typed pages on that thin, waxy, crinkly paper. The words "Petition to adopt" jump off the first page, but my eyes are pulled to the most official looking document, sheathed in a baby blue, thick paper cover with one typed word in the middle: "DECREE."
My heart pounds as I unfold it to reveal five more legal-sized pages. My eyes try to take it all in at once, but soon words and phrases begin to jump out. Otto Kerner...Acting Judge...1958...Petitioners to adopt BABY BOY SHIELDS. Baby Boy Shields. Is that me?
I scan down. "That Richard Shields is the father, and Barbara Mizer a/k/a Barbara Shields is the mother of the said child." My God! They have names! I silently mouth Richard and Barbara.
I flip the waxy page and read on. "That Richard Shields, the father, abandoned and deserted his said child...That Barbara Mizer a/k/a Barbara Shields, the mother, is unable to maintain her said child, and she abandoned and surrendered her said child to the petitioners herein."
The floor drops from beneath me. Of course I've known that in order to be chosen, I had to be un-chosen. Surely every adopted child figures that out. But now here it is, all official. Two people with real names deserted, surrendered, and gave me away.
As sadness stirs in my gut and the word "abandoned" sinks into my bones, I read through to the final paragraph: "IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DECREED that from this date, Baby Boy Shields, a minor, shall be to all legal intents and purposes the child of the petitioners, Leonard Patrick McMahon and Joan Marie McMahon, his wife...and it shall be the same as if he had been born to them in lawful wedlock. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the name of the said child shall be changed to Patrick James McMahon."
Staring at this last phrase, I have to remind myself that this document pertains to me, not someone else. It is me, sitting here in my funky, antiquated apartment in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, who was born in Chicago as a Shields, abandoned and re-forged as a McMahon.
My thumb bears into my temple as I stop and look up. My mother's petite frame sags and her dark brown eyes are etched with worry. I see more clearly the tinges of gray in her short, jet-black hair. This alone causes me to realize just how terrified I've been of losing her, as if asking about my adoption might be a betrayal, might result in banishment or the loss of everything I've ever known as family. After all, it is Joan Marie McMahon who has raised me as her own, loved me, protected me, sacrificed for me. She is who I've always seen as Mother, while since age five knowing of another.
But now here I sit with that other mother's name for the first time. A name that's been sitting in a drawer or box for thirty-two years, that Mom has known and I have not. I can barely take a moment before asking the next question, the second tap against our glass house. "So Mom, how did it all happen?"
Braced, surely prepared, perhaps even rehearsed, she begins to release the story of my origins. "Well, we'd been married ten years and there was still no baby, so we filed for adoption. It wasn't long after that Ann Einarson approached us saying she knew of a woman wanting to have a baby adopted. She asked if we were interested."
"Ann Einarson? Our next-door neighbor?" Does she notice my rising pitch and eyebrows?
Mom clears her throat. "Yes. Well, anyway, the woman was a patient of her mother's doctor. The doctor was quite reputable, well known, had even been on TV a couple of times." She pauses as I note her emphasis on "reputable." "We weren't quite sure about doing this without an agency involved, but he told us private adoptions were really quite common. So we decided to go ahead with it. But then the woman changed her mind. She decided to keep the baby."
"Wait, so that wasn't Barbara? That wasn't me?"
"No, but strangely enough it was only a few months later that Ann approached us again. This same doctor had another patient wanting to find a home for a baby. Naturally, we wondered about this doctor. You know, was he part of some sort of black market or something."
I feel my jaw drop as she continues.
"So your dad and I met with the doctor again, and he assured us it was just a coincidence to have two patients wanting to find homes for their babies. We felt he was telling the truth, so we looked for an attorney. As it turned out, one of our neighbors down the street was a lawyer and agreed to handle all the legal work. Howard Parsons. I don't think you ever knew him. They moved away when you were still a baby."
My woozy head manages to acknowledge. As the phrases black market, telling the truth, changed her mind whirl in the air, I can't help but register my mother's casual tone of voice, as if this is a story she's told on numerous occasions. And yet I can tell she's nervous. She's starting to say, "You know" more often.
"Anyway, he and Ann met with them a couple of times to sign some papers. I think Ann took them some things, you know, like blankets and baby clothes."
Even with these scenes swirling, the question forms, "Why did Ann go?"
"Oh, there had to be a witness. You know, someone to verify that the right people were there when it was time to adopt you."
Ann Einarson met my parents before I was born? My next-door neighbor? Who watched me grow up? I lean back with hands behind head, stare at Mom in disbelief, and try to resist the growing knot of agitation in my gut.
But she seems anxious to get it all out now, and anticipates my next inevitable question. "Ann said your mother and father seemed very nice. That they got along well, and had classical music playing when they were there. She also said they weren't married. That when your mother got pregnant, your father had plans to move to New York. He was a musician and wanted to, you know, pursue a career there, but your mother didn't want to move away. Apparently he left and then came back to be with her when you were born, so he must have cared about her."
My heart wilts for a moment. My father cared about my mother, but apparently not about me. But he went to New York? He was a musician? I glance over at the music stand displaying Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. Maybe that's why the lessons began in second grade. For an instant, I love the idea of my father going off to New York. How exciting. How courageous. And then I'm disgusted. That he would leave after getting her pregnant. With me.
Dazed, I scramble for pen and paper, as these questionable events become my origins. "Mom, can you slow down a little? I think I need to write some of this down." I can't seem to shake this notion that I might not get up the nerve to ask about this again.
Like a reporter with pen poised, I go on the next question. A big question. "So what actually happened after I was born?" This may be the closest I ever get to my birth story. The story most everyone else takes for granted. The story I've never heard.
She pauses, one clenched hand covered by the other, and takes a deep breath. "Well, I was sick with the Asian flu that was going around then and wasn't able to go to the hospital. Your Dad and Grandma and Ann went and picked you up. This was a few days after you were born. They brought you home; Grandma carried you in and then stayed to take care of you for a couple of weeks because I could barely get out of bed." She pauses, stares off for a moment. "It was hard not to..." Her voice cracks. "I didn't get to see or hold you much. I just didn't want to take a chance on getting you sick."
When she turns back with watery eyes, I crumple a bit, unable to write, moved by her sorrow. It's been a very long time since I've seen her upset, and the sight takes me back to the boy whose world was so easily shaken by it. How can I continue?
Yet the rush of the story floods and pushes me on. I realize I've always assumed she was there and could tell me what happened. Now the missing details seem important. What happened at the hospital? How will I ever find out? Grandma is gone. Dad is distant. Composed again, and as if she can hear my thoughts, Mom continues, "You may want to talk to Ann. I had lunch with her a while back and mentioned that you might be calling to ask about this."
"You did?" My mind bends into new shapes as I imagine her preparing for this from the moment she received my letter. It's both comforting and unnerving. I slowly spin out, "Well, yeah, I probably will want to talk with her."
This revelation transforms me into an eager interviewer. "Mom, when did Ann meet them? Where did they live? What else did they tell her?" It doesn't seem possible I've lived thirty-two years without asking so many basic questions. How did they come to the decision to adopt? How did they feel about finding a baby by word of mouth? How did the rest of the family feel about this? These queries fire like cannonballs, and I can see she's uncomfortable, rearranging herself in the chair once in a while, but she answers everything with no sign of feeling pummeled. That's all I need to keep at it.
"So you had to go to court to finalize the adoption, right?"
"Yes. That was about six months after you were born. Otto Kerner was the judge. You know, the one that was later convicted of corruption and spent some time in jail." I cringe as she takes on an air of fond memory. "I remember sitting in his huge office and holding you in my arms. Even your dad seemed in awe of him. I remember the judge leaning forward and saying, 'Now remember, this is not a toy. You must take good care of him.'"
Astounded by his patronizing tone, I want to ask more about it, but Mom looks so nostalgic, so I simmer down and move on. "Tell me about those first few months. Was I easy or did I cry a lot?"
Mom sits back, relaxes a bit, and seems to enjoy sharing how thrilled they were to finally have a baby, how she read Dr. Spock's books, how I was an easy child, especially compared to my little brother, adopted five years later. I'm not surprised. My brother and I could not be any more different. With warmth and pride, she tells me, "I used to put your crib by the living room picture window."
I'm grateful to know this, to feel loved and cared for, even as that scene begins to look like being on exhibit.
I sit back, stretch out my legs, and stare at the bookcase across the room, housing hundreds of my albums and books. I want to touch all of them and study each one to see if it still feels like me.
As the first lull ensues, my mother, drained of the tale she has held all these years, looks tired, unburdened, expectant. Part of me wants to forge ahead, or else hear everything she's said over and over, like it's a new bedtime story. But I know we're done for now.
"Well Mom, this is a lot. It's going to take some time to think about all this." Then I feel compelled to say, "But I am glad you brought it all. I'm glad you told me everything." As I sit up, I wonder if she's glad.
She smiles slightly. "Yes. Well, I guess you have a right to know." But then she sighs, and I can't tell if it's from relief or worry. "I think it's time I go to bed."
"Yeah, it's getting late." We both stand and fumble for a way to simply say good night. I lean over a little and give her a hug. "I guess I just wasn't ready to ask until now."
She holds on tight, then pulls away and gives me another small smile.
Neither of us finds words for our feelings, perhaps the most normal aspect of the entire evening.
As Mom retires to the bedroom, I stand and watch her disappear, then sit back down on the couch, not anywhere near ready to throw sheets on the air mattress and attempt sleep. Raw and numb, I glance at all the opened envelopes resting on the end table and reach for one, as a hive of thoughts and feelings begins to buzz. So relieved she didn't freak out. Amazed she brought the documents with her. Worried about the aftermath.
In the dim light and stillness, I navigate through my childhood and search for surviving memories of anything that might be colored by what I've learned tonight. As I sink back into the cushions, a distinct scene plays out in my mind.
In bed. Lights out. Pillow fight with Brian. Dad comes in twice. "If I have to come in here one more time..." But we keep whispering. Then no more Brian. He goes to sleep so fast.
Mom on the phone in the kitchen. Using that "on the phone" voice. I wonder who she's talking to. Can't hear real well. Is it Grandma? Aunt Marilyn? Mrs. Einarson next door?
I hear my name. "Pat...yes, he's nine now...yes...fourth grade...oh, doing very well...mostly A's..." All the usual stuff. But what's that? "...had filed...were so lucky...brought him home when he was three days old..." She's talking about me being adopted. So what? Everyone knows.
But there's more. Can't quite hear. Maybe if I go crack open the door. No, Dad might come by. I'll put on my glasses. Can hear better with them on. But still, only bits and pieces. "To the hospital...talking with the doctor...Jewish...another family...preferred Catholic..." Wow! Never heard this before. And who's she talking to?
Happening so fast. Keep hearing "Jewish." Can't be me. I'm in Catholic school. My other parents? Some family I didn't go to? Wouldn't they tell me if I was Jewish? That might be cool. But would I have to switch schools?
"Yes...you too...bye now." She's done? That's it? Mom walking by the door. Heart pounding. Stomach hurts. Head feels full. I want to know more. Wish Mom would come in so I could ask her who my other parents are, and what happened when I was born, and if I'm Jewish. The stuff that's not in that book, "The Chosen Baby."
Gotta lie down. Gotta get to sleep. But I keep hearing Mom's voice. I know, ask tomorrow. But what if she gets mad? Or cries? Or she and Dad get into a fight about it? What if she just says, "That's for when you're older." Can't I know now?
Getting sleepy. Nope, better not ask. Too scary. Maybe hear more again someday. Have to pay close attention. Yeah, that's it. Listen more from now on.
With a start, I inhale deeply and wonder how many more times I wanted to ask. And why I blocked it all out. Mom was often my protector from a Jekyll and Hyde alcoholic, but was I really that terrified?
When I glance down, I see my hands holding the magical, potent decree, rub my thumbs back and forth over its cover, slowly unfold, and begin to read through it again. Something deep in my gut stirs. I have the beginnings of my beginnings, and I'm so excited I could dance, so sad I could curl up and weep, so confused I could pace all night long. But I continue to sit.
Barbara Mizer and Richard Shields. Just knowing their names makes me feel a little more like everyone else. As Barbara and Richard echo in my mind, they sound like names I've never heard before, and try to attach to something familiar, to become parents. Barbara...Barbra Streisand, Barbara Walters, my ancient Aunt Barbara. Richard...Richard Burton, Richard the Lionheart, Little Richard.
As I make the bed, I wonder what else I might have lost. I may have brothers and sisters, and grandparents, and aunts and uncles and cousins. Do I want to find them? Would they want to know me?
As I turn out the lights and stretch out, the notion grows that my life has been a play, scripted and cast and carried out. Only I didn't know I was on stage. All my life I've known of my adoption. All my life, I've not known that my next-door neighbor played a part in it. Just how would Mom and Ann have talked about this over their recent lunch? I imagine Mom visiting the old suburban Chicago neighborhood, virtually unchanged, most of the adults in my childhood still living there. I picture Mom chatting with Ann over salads and sandwiches in her kitchen, the same one I passed through countless times as a kid.
Would Ann have frozen? Dropped her fork? Said something like, "Oh, Joan. Really? After all this time?" Would Mom have been nervous? Clutched her cup of coffee? Responded, "I guess it was bound to come up sometime. Maybe it's that therapist he's been seeing. He'll probably want to talk to you." I can see Ann's perpetually youthful face in distress. I can hear the voice so firmly implanted into my brain. "Sure I'll talk to him, if it's okay with you. Should I tell him everything? I keep seeing all these reunions on Oprah and Sally. Do you think he'll look for them? Are you all right?" And Mom fully recovered, "Oh sure, it's okay. I'll be fine. I just don't want him to get hurt."
How much more don't I know? Ours was a close-knit neighborhood. Did any conversation over martinis at holiday cookouts result in the revelation of my origins? Did the Hartleys know? The Reillys? The Mochels? The Morleys, Fencotts, Nelsons, or Lithios? What about the families of school friends? Our doctor? Our dentist? I can't recall any of them saying anything, but did they ever look at me and see a child with mysterious or questionable beginnings? Probably not. But right now, all I can think is, others knew more than I did.
As I glance at various barely illuminated touchstones of the life I know now, my thoughts drift back to Ann. She saw me grow into a toddler, a young boy, a teenager. I must have been quite a curiosity for her. I wonder what she thought when my musical talent emerged, or when I displayed shyness or excelled in school or did silly, embarrassing things. Did she see either of my original parents in me? And did she have any regrets when Dad's drinking got bad?
What's clear to me is that my childhood now has a new veneer. Untold stories. Neighbors involved. People wondering, if not asking, where this baby came from. After all, Ann and Dad and Grandma apparently brought me home in broad daylight.
As shadows reach across the room from blinds blocking streetlights, newly formed questions keep floating up like rubber balls released from the bottom of a pool, silently radiating circles of waves when they reach the surface. How many more are there? Where are they coming from?
As the waves eventually smooth out, I get up, tiptoe to the bathroom and splash cool water on my face. On my way out, I poke my head into the bedroom. She stirs. Of course she's awake. I whisper, "Good night. And thanks." I can barely see her as she softly replies, "No one will ever love you more than I do."
I feel a tear beginning to form. "I know, Mom. I know."
Chapter 2
Most weekday mornings for the past year and a half have been similar. I wake, shave, shower, have toast or cereal, climb into my five-year-old white Mitsubishi Montero, maneuver freeway traffic through downtown Kansas City, cross the bridge from Missouri into Kansas, glance at the winding Missouri River, and arrive at work about eight o'clock.
Today is no different except for the treasure I've brought with me. The manila envelope holding my adoption decree, lying inertly on the passenger seat, might as well be an extra passenger, perhaps a distant relative. Quiet and calm, he waits for me to initiate conversation, but I have no words for him yet.
As I coast down into industrial Kansas City, Kansas, most signs of this picturesque autumn morning - trees transformed to gold and rust, grass beginning to fade, bags of swept leaves left for disposal - disappear and are replaced by dozens of square miles of factories. As I pull into the familiar parking place near the front door of MidWest Chandelier, I catch the usual doughy whiff of the Sunshine Biscuit Company cranking out endless cases of crackers. When I'd first seen the ad, "New position: Industrial Engineer," I'd thought, How romantic. Improving the quality and production methods for chandeliers. I wonder if they have any famous clients. Sidney Lefkovitz, the current patriarch of this seventy-year-old family business, dispelled that fantasy during my first interview: "Oh, we switched to fluorescent lighting fixtures decades ago, but never changed the name of the company." Midwest Chandelier does not make chandeliers.
Today, this fact parallels how I feel: Pat McMahon is not a McMahon. Identity switched decades ago.
At my office door, I pause and wince. I suppose I should be enjoying this recent construction of new work spaces, but they're really about as comfortable as the back of a garage or basement. My surroundings at Westinghouse in California were not lavish, but plush in comparison. And my jobs there as project planner and quality engineer felt more prestigious, more substantial.
Every day I try to be grateful though. After all, I did leave engineering for several years to get a music degree. And then decided I didn't want to be a struggling classical musician. The familiar inner refrain begins again, You should be glad to have this job after the breakup with Daryle and moving back to the Midwest in a shambles to seek refuge with your oldest friend, Mark. You should be glad to have this job after months of rejection letters during an economic recession. You should be glad to have this job that has allowed you to move into your own place for the first time in eight years, even though the salary barely makes ends meet.
Yet more and more every day, I wish I were opening a different door, a door that might proclaim in red paint,
Home of Pat McMahon Artist
THERE ARE NO LIMITS
The door would lead into a funky downtown loft, not one of those new yuppified ones. It's a bare bones studio space, the real version of what I've tried to create in my dining room at home. There's a darkroom for printing from all the black & white film I've been shooting lately. There are dozens more lofts in the building, and on the main floor, a gallery, and around the corner more galleries and more lofts. I thrive here. I've become an artist in a community of artists who create work, hang out, put on exhibits of provocative, exquisite, or wacky photographs, paintings, and sculpture, and sell enough to live.
With an audible sigh, I enter my office and quickly close the door. The punctuated humdrum of metal stamping machines, power tools and production workers chattering in English, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian becomes muffled. The smell of grease and grime fades into an industrial mustiness. I glance at the half-dozen charts on the wall, documenting the ever-increasing productivity of the plant and justifying the value of my job as this company's first "efficiency expert."
After my morning tour of the plant, I sense a moment of opportunity and pull out the special envelope. From the moment I read my adoption decree weeks ago, momentum has been building. I've looked at it every day, and every day, fantasies, questions, and memories have been flooding, not receding. Yesterday, while sitting on the steps of the art museum, I might as well have been sitting at the ocean's edge in the rising tide, refusing to move, yet knowing some massive wave would eventually drag me out to sea or send me crashing. Names would not be enough. I decided to gather phone numbers and make a few inquiries.
I also decided this is to be a private endeavor that nobody at Midwest Chandelier will know anything about. Some people might be supportive, but I don't want to deal with potential uncomfortable remarks such as, "Why dig up the past? What about the folks who raised you? They're the ones who gave a bastard child a new home, aren't they?"
In this cell of an office, I open up my new Velvatone Stenographer's Notebook, write "10/17/90," and take my first step, with no clear idea where to begin. I pick up the phone, stop pencil tapping, and punch in the number garnered from the yellow pages for a Community Counseling Center. Eventually I'm connected with someone named Dr. Lovers.
Resisting the urge to ask if it's his real name, I sputter, "Uh, hi. I'm calling to, uh, find out about...well, you see, um, I'm adopted, and I've recently become curious about how I might locate my biological parents." There. That wasn't so hard. For the first time, I've stated to a complete stranger my adopted status and interest in searching. Yet the words don't feel solid. In fact, they feel subversive, like they're a first step into some sort of underworld.
"Oh, really? Well, that's very interesting, and a big decision. It takes a lot of courage." His words of support continue in a soothing, therapist tone, "Let me see what I can do. There are several directions I can point you in."
Dr. Lovers, who's apparently heard this before, has ideas. He suggests calling the Missouri Division of Family Services, and gives me their number. He also suggests calling a private investigator he knows, a woman whose pager number he'll have to look up. "And if it feels right, get back to me. I'd be happy to talk with you." He sounds like he would love to talk with me.
After hanging up, I anxiously look at what he gave me. A Missouri agency is probably useless. Why didn't I tell him I was born in Chicago? Not serious yet? And then a number for a private investigator? Images of an office smaller and scruffier than mine come into view, with a tough broad behind a desk, cigarette dangling out of her mouth, leaning forward and mechanically asking lots of personal questions, then sitting back to assess whether or not she wants to take the case. Is this what searching is all about?
During the rest of the day, I manage a couple more illuminating calls. An "Adoption Investigator" at the Missouri Division of Family Services advises me to write to the adoption agency for non-identifying information, such as the parents' medical history, ethnic background, physical descriptions, and religious affiliations. She tells me in a pleasant, perky voice that the court will do a search, but I have to get written consent from both of my adoptive parents. So basically, in Missouri, even as a thirty-two-year-old adult, I need a note from Mommy and Daddy to look for the people who created me.
Shifting to the actual state of my birth, I place the second call to the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. A nasally bureaucrat informs me all adoption records, including original birth certificates, are impounded, it costs hundreds of dollars to try to get a court to open them, and that rarely happens, only under the most dire of circumstances. As the word "impounded" bites like a rabid dog, I wonder if grasping for any sense of roots or identity qualifies as dire circumstances.
By the end of the day, I am educated and agitated. Even though I don't need to see my original birth certificate to get my original parents' names, I find myself tapping a pencil at a machine gun's pace. This apparently dangerous document, which non-adopted people barely think twice about, is locked away like stolen goods and protected more fiercely than a bank vault.
Rattled, I pull out the birth certificate I do have. The amended one. The one that Mom sent me seven years ago because I needed an official copy to apply for a passport. I sit and study it as if I didn't know I was adopted, looking for clues. The top announces a "Certificate of Live Birth." Mom and Dad's names are listed as mother and father. The name of the hospital is missing, but it does indicate my birth took place inside the city limits of Chicago. If I read this as my real birth certificate, which perhaps some adoptive parents tell their kids it is, I just might ask myself why a woman living in a western suburb would travel all the way into Chicago to have a baby. And why was the bottom quarter of the document obviously covered when copied?
As I hunch over and swivel slightly at my desk, the knot of anger pulls tighter. My understanding is that birth certificates are amended to protect a child from the stigma of illegitimacy. But times have changed, and now, as an adult who is not allowed to see the original one, I see it as a cover-up, a lie. What about the millions of adopted people who don't have their birth parents' names, and can never get them? Why should state laws prevent that?
I read through to the bottom of this amended certificate. Under the official State of Illinois embossed seal are the words, "I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT the foregoing is a true and correct copy of the record of birth as made from the original certificate of birth for the child named therein...(signed) Roland R. Cross M.D., Director of Public Health, State of Illinois, August 26, 1958."
Well, if it were Dr. Cross barging into my office instead of the plant manager, I would stand up and declare in a strong, steady voice, "Dr. Cross, you sir, have committed fraud."
On my way home, I decide to stop at the Asian grocery store north of downtown. As I approach the Grand Boulevard exit, I notice that construction has begun. Grand Boulevard is being re-paved. It's going to be challenging to get to River Market, one of my favorite areas of Kansas City. This is where the large Farmer's Market spreads out every weekend, where run-down, red brick warehouses are transforming into all manner of lofts, where a few galleries eke by during gentrification, where my fantasy life might well take up residence. Before its demise in the late seventies, this area was called River Quay. It was the Barbary Coast of Kansas City, filled with nightclubs and taverns and revelers. Heterosexual ones, that is.
My Barbary Coast, for which I drove two hours from the University of Missouri in Columbia to make my first explorations into gay culture, started back down around Twenty-Eighth Street and went south on Main to Country Club Plaza. I now live a few blocks from the razed site of the Dover Fox, a club where, in December of 1978, my world was shaken up and sifted out.
My friend Mark had taken me there shortly after my twenty-first birthday. Even though I'd occasionally explored with guys for many years, I sat in the car before going in, practically praying to the God Who Does Not Discriminate, "Please give me some sort of sign if this is where I'm supposed to be, if this is who I really am." After a few hours in this small gay club, after dancing "in public" with my best friend and others to Donna Summer's "MacArthur Park" and Sister Sledge's "We Are Family," after flirting, meeting someone, and for my first one-night stand, spending a passionate night in a freezing-cold trailer, I drifted through the next day barely able to function. Hazily yet adequately fulfilling my duty as a dedicated marching band member, I high-stepped and pivoted and performed show tunes in twenty-five degree cold at a Kansas City Chiefs half-time show with emotions in spin cycle. When Mark suggested I stay over another night at his place rather than ride the band bus back to Columbia, I did not hesitate. In his living room, after hours of me spilling out years of doubt, confusion, fears and dreams, and with piercing truth and cleansing tears taking turns, the wafer-thin wall firmly in place since puberty crumbled. I knew down to my bones that I was gay. I knew who I was. And I never looked back.
But today, a dozen years later, with a job at a factory where I'm making clandestine phone calls, I don't have that feeling. I'm not sure who I am. An engineer? A musician? An artist? A McMahon? A Shields?
As I exit the interstate and approach Grand Boulevard, I see orange signs everywhere. "Grand Detour," they announce. I follow the signs and see more and more of them, pointing up and left and right, mixed in with highway signs and one-way signs. "Grand detour," I begin to say out loud every time I see one, until laughter comes. I am indeed on a grand detour, looking for signs, direction, a way around obstructions. Left, right, forward, this way, that way. Is the detour this job, this time in Kansas City, the years on the West Coast, my family's move to Missouri? Maybe the detour was my entire childhood in Chicago. Maybe the detour began when I was three days old.
The Corner Restaurant is my neighborhood diner. Its nondescript, no-frills decor might just be unappealing if the large windows did not afford a view of Westport, Kansas City's hippest shopping and partying district. It also might be unappealing if it didn't showcase local artists or attract an eclectic clientele, especially on weekends, especially on Sunday mornings when after a long wait for a brunch table one might find a New York Times left behind. However, no matter how hip during the day, by evening time, The Corner feels more like "Mom's comfort food kitchen."
As its warmth envelops me, I order hot tea and feel an odd mix of peace and anxiety. Here I am, two days after Halloween, waiting for a dinner companion I've never met. A blind date of sorts. Set up by my therapist. During last week's session, as I gnashed about the agitating phone calls and deciding whether or not to search for my birth parents, and then complaining about not knowing anyone involved in adoption, she began jotting something down. She told me about a former client who recently found her birth mother. She said this client told her it would be okay for me to give her a call. Sounding a little more insistent than usual, she leaned forward, handed a slip of paper to me and said, "You two should talk."
As I squeeze the last drop of honey out of its packet and stir well beyond its dissolving, I can't help but wonder why a total stranger would be so willing to do this. While keeping one eye on the door, I sip tea to soothe nerves, and compile a mental list of questions. One of these I ask of myself. As an adult, have I ever really had a conversation about being adopted with another adopted person? I rack my brain. My brother and I don't talk about it. Was there no one at Westinghouse? At music school? No one among friends and theater people? No, I can't think of one person. In a strange way, I've been like someone who doesn't think they know anyone who's gay.
I recognize her right away from her description (fortyish, stocky, short, dark-brown hair). She ambles over to the table with a big smile and extends her hand. "You must be Pat."
I stand, smile and respond in kind, but feel awkward. "And you must be Safia." By the time we sit ourselves down and get past introductions, however, her low-key demeanor and southern drawl have relaxed me. I sit back. "Well I can't say I've ever done this sort of thing before."
She laughs. "Well, me neither. But if LeAnn thought it was important, I respect that." Safia goes on to tell me how our mutual therapist helped her through some tough times, including when she looked for her mother.
When the server appears out of nowhere, I order what I'm craving. "Turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy. Does that come with cranberry sauce?" As Safia orders and the server leaves, I glance around, note the close proximity of other patrons, lean forward, and lower the volume of my voice just a notch. "So Safia, if you don't mind talking about it, how did that go?"
She leans back and responds in full voice. "Aw, I don't mind. It's nice to tell the story once in a while." Apparently as comfortable talking about the most personal of matters as digging into her instantly arriving salad, she begins, "Well what I did was to hire a private investigator."
There it is again. Investigator, detective, murky underworld. From this pleasant, jovial person, it's jarring. "Really? Why?"
"I just didn't have much time for doing all the legwork. And there was the matter of my folks. I didn't really want them to know what I was doing."
"Why not?"
"Well, they're older now and it might just hurt them. It's just not something they need to know about."
It's shocking to me that anyone would keep this from their parents, and as I listen to her talk about her relationship with them, I wonder how many other searching adoptees do the same. I don't think I could. At least not from Mom.
After our dinners arrive and we start in on them, I inch the story forward. "So the private investigator found your birth mother?"
"Yep, he found Loretta, oh, about a year ago. Turns out she was living about ten blocks away from me at the time."
I put my heaping fork of mashed potatoes back down. "Ten blocks?"
"Yeah, apparently we'd been living close to each other for quite a while. Maybe it's homing instincts."
It takes a moment to formulate the next question. "So was she happy to meet you?"
"Well, yes, I believe so. You see, it turns out that Loretta hasn't had much of a life. She's had a rough time. Kind of explains some of what I've gone through."
She goes on to tell me of finding a woman in her seventies who roams the neighborhood, drinks in the local bars, is known by all the bartenders. She tells me of finding a woman barely able to take care of herself, often relying on the kindness of neighbors and her bar buddies Safia calls "rummies." It sounds heartbreaking to me, even scary, but she tells the story as if she's found the most precious treasure buried in a scruffy, well-worn chest. As I listen and wonder what she's gotten herself into, I become amazed by how she's forged a relationship with this woman, her other mother. She visits, helps out a bit with money, talks with her. She's embraced her without becoming a savior. She has not judged her. She speaks of her like a sweet, helpless, lost relative with whom providence has now connected her. "I kind of look at it like, well, I'm here, she's here, I might as well help out." Safia speaks with no regret and always with the sense that it's been good for both of them.
This is the first story of mother and child reunion I've heard face to face. I'm enraptured, my heart aching for Safia, longing for my own mother, yet wondering what I might find, maybe just ten blocks away. A successful, self-supporting woman? A life-long wife and mother? A struggling loner waiting for someone to take care of her?
Picking up my fork again, I hear Safia speak of slowly learning about the rest of her birth family, and recently finding a sister and some cousins. She tells me of encouraging her adoptive sister to search. "I just thought she should get the chance to feel what I've felt."
"And what is it that you've felt?" I ask gingerly.
"You know, it's hard to describe. It's just sort of a...a settling, like things make sense now. Like I can get on with my life." She looks so peaceful when she says this. I think it's a look I'd like to have. Maybe worth digging for.
She leans in and whispers, "So you know what I want to do?"
"What?"
She sits up and slaps the table. "I just turned forty and I want to buy myself a piece of land, somewhere out in the country. I want a place I know I can go that's all mine, even if it's just to pitch a tent on."
"A safe place to call home?" My gut stirs with a vague yearning.
"Yeah, something like that."
Now bonded beyond any expectation I had before dinner, we relax with more tea and talk more openly. She asks about my life, and sensing common ground in other areas, I talk about dating a guy living two hours away in Columbia.
With no hesitation, she replies, "That's got to be a little tough. My current sweetie is pretty special. She moved in with me a while back."
We both smile. So we are both adopted and we are both gay. No doubt this was the reason for the extra emphasis from my therapist. With a whole new avenue open, we chat about our steadies, past loves, and coming-out stories. Eventually it occurs to me that she had to consider coming out to her birth family. The thought of working up the courage to go through the whole drama once again seems overwhelming. It'd be hard enough to say, "I'm the son you gave up for adoption," without adding, "By the way, I'm gay." What if they couldn't handle it? What if they walked away? After a brief turkey-induced lull, I look at Safia thoughtfully. "So does Loretta know?"
She sighs. "Well, I don't talk about it directly with her, but I don't really edit my life either, if you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I think I do." As I look around and notice we are now just about alone in the restaurant, I begin to realize what a significant layer being gay adds to this picture. It seems to me that most anyone is at least somewhat aware that gay people deal with alienation, shame, secrets, lies, separation from the mainstream, coming out, forming an identity. But I suspect that most people are not aware of what I'm beginning to realize. Being adopted can create a similar experience. Both as a gay person and an adopted person, I've had to ask myself, "What do I reveal, and to whom?"
As these thoughts ferment, Safia asks what it was like for me growing up adopted. I reach for something deeper, but out comes my standard reply. "Oh, I always knew, from as early as I can remember. Nobody said much about it though, and my brother and I hardly ever talked about it. At school, people knew, but didn't say anything. I guess it never really bothered me that much."
Before these words are out, they sound like the story I've told others and myself all my life. And now here I am at age thirty-two, still reciting it. Even with this fellow adoptee. Even with this fellow gay adoptee.
I pause and let out a deep sigh. My body relaxes. Deep inside I know. It's time to look for answers. It's time to surrender. "Actually Safia, I have my birth parents' names and I want to know more." Another sigh. "I want to know everything."
Her supportive smile opens the road. "Well, great. Let me know if I can give you a hand. Call me anytime."
"I will. Thanks for telling me your story. It really helped."
"You know, talking to another adoptee helps me too. Other people just don't get it. Sometimes not even your therapist."
I walk home from the Corner Restaurant in brisk November air, planning my phone call to Mom to announce I am going ahead with a search.
Chapter 3
Sunday mornings I try to relax. I might pick up a Times of New York or London, make some Mandarin Orange Spice tea, cook some French toast the way Mom made it, and spread out on the living room powder-blue carpet warmed by winter sun. This particular Sunday morning, however, I can't do that. It's too frigid to go out for a paper. I'm out of tea and eggs. The sun has decided to play hide-and-seek.
So I sit at my recently painted dining room table now functioning as a desk, and reflect on the concept I have of an ideal life, in which I love my work, my friends, my home, and sharing it all with the man of my dreams. But as my eyes come to rest on the Stenographer's Notebook, which is becoming a search journal of sorts, the ideal life fades into real life. I hate engineering work and love photography. I enjoy my friends, but few feel close, and most live in other cities. My home is a quaint, second-story flat in a leaning, one hundred-year-old house. Landon, a beau of sorts for the last five months, is a medical student at the University of Missouri in Columbia, a two-hour drive away. We see each other once or twice a month.
With a sigh, I flip open the notebook and record yesterday's research.
3Nov90 Sat
Kansas City Public Library
book on names: nothing under Mizer
Mizerski: Polish - a wretchedly poor person
Shields: English - a maker of armour
McMahon: Irish - a bear
Breyer: German - a brewer of beer
With pen between teeth, I muse, so those who bore me are from protectors of the poor, and those who raised me are from bearish beer brewers.
I go on to document dinner with Safia and then some jittery thoughts about the next step, informing Mom of my decision to search. By noon, the jitters have taken hold. Rooted in nothing that has happened or would likely happen, they cling nonetheless.
I approach the white phone sitting starkly on the black desk, take a deep breath, and pause. Sweet childhood memories flash one after another. Mom reading to me every night, stroking my hair when tucking me in and talking about the day, humming when cooking or cleaning, sipping hot chocolate with me and telling ghost stories around the fireplace, decorating the Christmas tree, dancing to the music Dad would put on after dinner, opening the dining room table for big family gatherings, playing Scrabble for hours on end, snuggling up for a nap...
What if she's hurt? Or worse, what if she's hurt and never tells me? Will I be able to explain that my life is a book that begins on page ten? That I need to I know the set-up for the rest of it to make sense?
I attempt to scatter these thoughts with a wave of my hand, then pick up the receiver and dial. A short greeting and recent news summary settle my nerves enough to pause and release the balloon. "Well Mom, I've decided to go ahead and search."
She does not pause. She knows what I mean. "Uh-huh. Well, great."
Her tone is genuine, but when she does not go on, I instantly feel stronger undercurrents than a riptide. Is she saying, Well, great. I completely understand. I wholeheartedly approve of and support your endeavor. Or is she saying, Well great. I only changed all your diapers, nursed you through sickness, bought you nice clothes, sent you to good schools, supported you, loved you, shielded you from your father when you needed it. You go ahead and find that woman who wouldn't take care of you. Maybe she can take over now.
I continue with, "Yeah, I think I really need to do this." I don't want secrets and lies. I am not being a bad son. I don't want to hurt you. I listen to her response with the ears of a child who learned to react to the slightest of voice inflections.