The Ugly One in the Middle

Almost every time I told friends about stuff that I did or experienced, they said, “you did what?” I also got a lot of “why the hell are you still alive?”  Actually, some of this stuff is funny…now. Some of it is scandalous. Then there’s the part about never giving up. Almost brings tears to your eyes, doesn’t it? For most of my life, I searched for two people. So, I embarked on a serious never-give-up quest to find my birth mother, and the ideal perfect, angelic, woman of my dreams. Kind of romantic, right? Hey, romance is good. Plus, there’s mystery and intrigue. I love that word intrigue. I’ve never used it before.

This is almost like a self-help book with stuff that your counselor won’t tell you, like, don’t screw around with the sheriff’s wife or date a woman who murdered her husband. Don’t get drunk on the radio. If a guy, who looks suspiciously like Adolph Hitler commands you to help put a guy in a coffin, salute and run. If your father invites a dying man to sleep in your bed, move. If a nun tells you that masturbation weakens your character, remind her about the eyes. If your wife forces you to choose between her and Shania Twain, don’t do as I did.

On the positive side, I didn’t kill anyone, as far as I know.  (I wasn’t sober all the time)

As a lone adoptee growing up in a do-it-yourself funeral home on Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia, my goals were simple…get drunk and sing Gaelic songs, romp naked with a pretty girl, be a radio star, and sit on a porcelain toilet. But, not necessarily in that order.

A week before I got my driver’s license, Aunt Patsy let it slip that Mom and Pop did not conceive me. Well, come on! The thought of my parents doing…never mind. Unlike in the movies, I did not fall into a wailing, whining abyss of depression and raging anger. It wasn’t important then. What’s more, my adoptive Mom erupted into full-throttle panic mode whenever I brought up the subject of my adoption. She knew something dark, but she wasn’t talking. Never mind. My top priorities of the day were drowning my bashfulness with putrid home brew and wine, laced with rubbing alcohol, and losing my virginity. Nothing worked. I threw up and fell down a lot.
I was obsessed with the vision in my head of that special girl. The other quest was for the woman who gave birth to me. Even through decades of searching from Cape Breton to the Arctic to Nashville, and on to Hollywood, through four marriages, adulterous flings, odd romantic, but potentially deadly relationships, I continued to daydream about both of them…the perfect girl and meeting my real mother.
In the search for my origin and the mystery of my two mysterious birthdates, I encountered brick walls, until my saintly adoptive mother, Tena died. After her funeral, a woman, whom I did not recognize, handed me a scrap of paper with a phone number scrawled on it. It was signed, Georgina. I stuffed it into my pocket and forgot about it. Four years later, I discovered it in a stack of papers destined for the trash. I called.
Georgina opened a door to astonishing answers and a shocking sibling surprise. I was convinced that Tena, the only mother I knew, pulled some strings in her heaven to solve two mysteries, destroy a devil, and identify the ugly one in the middle.
The search for my Mom and the love of my life revealed staggering surprises, one of which changed my life forever.

First, I wrote an actual 408-page book about all of this, and now…the audio book. The movie must be next.