CHAPTER 1: Shootout at the Not-So-OK Corral
People like to say that the conflict is between good and evil. The real conflict is between truth and lies.
– Don Miguel Ruiz
I knew there was a high likelihood the impending interaction with my mother wasn’t going to end well. Primarily because I didn’t want it to. If I had l learned anything throughout my years as a professional negotiator, it would be how to turn almost any situation into an emotional and intellectual briar patch for my adversaries. I was prepared to do so in this instance if I experienced an unreasonable level of resistance from her. I must admit I was anxious. Partly because I was loaded for bear and ready for a fight. Partly because I was going to confront my mother, who even at 80-plus years old, was no pushover. And partly because I had no idea where the next thirty minutes might take me.
Would this be a moment of reconciliation for a decades-long damaged mother-son relationship? Would I get the answers I was seeking? The answers I felt I deserved. Or would it be a Waterloo-esque shit show where we leave more damaged than before the meeting began? With my well-documented ‘level of intensity,’ as some would call it, this whole thing could go south in a heartbeat. It was also not beyond my mother to call the police and spin a tale of physical abuse or other heinous and arrestable offense. I’d witnessed her Oscar-worthy performances multiple times in the past. I had seen her do it to my dad. It was partly why I had such a negative opinion of her. Her mistreatment of my dad was one of the reasons our relationship had deteriorated over the years. She was truly the devil I knew.
I knew I would likely need some protection. I opened an audio recording app on my phone to capture the ensuing conversation “for posterity”–and as potential evidence for the defense. I placed my phone upside down in the pocket of my sport coat, as one might place a pocket square, with the bottom of the phone and its microphone extending innocuously out of my jacket. Not quite James Bond, but it would get the job done. I knew I might be too emotionally charged to remember everything that was said; therefore, a digital recording would help. Surely, knowing I was recording the event would be enough to keep my own emotions and words in check, right?
Yeah, I know, you’re not buying into it either.
Walking through the door of my childhood home was akin to crossing the river Styx. I held no fond memories of it. My home, from the age of nine until I left at 17, doubled as a temporary foster home to hundreds of troubled youths. It was far from a welcoming place and it held no positive energy for me.
I entered the family room where I found my mother, Barb, and my sister, Terry, awaiting my arrival. Terry was the only one of Barb’s five children who had any consistent contact with her at this point. I was the first to separate myself from her sphere of influence, with my other three siblings somewhere between extremely reluctant to visit her, and full-on estrangement. Barb and I haven’t had any meaningful communication in almost two decades. But now, I was back. Yeah, this couldn’t be good.
“Hello,” I said stoically. Barb barely turned her head to acknowledge me. Terry looked at me and responded with a similar quasi-non-salutation. “Terry, I’d like to speak to your mother privately.” I referred to her as ‘her mother’ as she had lost the right to be called my mother a long time ago.
I was sure my tone was more than direct enough for her to understand the time had come for her to exit the room.
“I’d like to stay,” was her monotone and unemotional response. Either I wasn’t clear in my intent, or she wasn’t that bright. I’m going to bet on the latter.
“I’d like for you to leave. It’s a private matter. This doesn’t involve you.” My patience with her was razor thin at this point. A wise person would get up and leave before my blood pressure rose another milligram, but I had to remember who I was talking to.
“I don’t know why I can’t stay,” she said, testing me. That was unwise.
Both my volume and tone jumped to a ‘let’s make everyone in the room uncomfortable’ level. “I said this is a private conversation. Do you not understand the word ‘private’? Get out.” If words could have a physical edge, mine would have stuck in the wall behind her head like a knife. They held an intentionally brutal, hostile, resonance. She reluctantly got up and left. It was obvious she was hovering just around the corner to listen to everything that might be said. Maybe she stayed close to try to keep her mom safe even though her mother would never be in any physical danger from me. Maybe she was just being as nosy as ever. I sat down on the edge of the couch opposite my mother with a small coffee table between us.
“Why are you here?” Barb asked calmly and in an almost detached manner. She was never one to show any weakness in any situation which might resemble a negotiation or conflict. She tried to mask her trepidation, but even our prolonged separation wasn’t enough to dull my ability to sense it behind her blind. She was fearful of the pending interaction whatever it might be. It was easy for me to detect. My first clue was my sister’s reluctance to leave the room. It was obvious Terry’s presence and resistance to leave were discussed before my arrival. Barb wanted a witness should things go sideways. Ironically, with their notorious and well-documented ability to alter the truth to suit their desired narrative, Terry’s actual presence was unnecessary. She and her mother were going to make up whatever they wanted anyway. Again, this was one of the primary reasons I was recording everything.
“As I said on the phone,” I opened my portfolio and reached for the pictures within, “I have something I think belongs to you.” I slid a picture across the table of a man who looked strikingly similar to me when I was in my late twenties.
My opening salvo was, “You got anything you want to tell me?” I asked the question sharply to communicate the fact I knew who was in the photo. I was fighting back the anger within me. At the same time, it crushed me knowing what that picture meant. We had arrived at the moment of truth, the moment where she might possibly tell me the truth, the moment where we might be able to have something that resembles a relationship again. She picked up the picture and scanned it for less than four seconds. Her eyes moved between my face and the photo quickly, multiple times. Then she dropped the photo on the coffee table as if it were flaming pornography. Her next words were said in rapid fire succession.
“I don’t know who that person is. Who is that supposed to be, your father?” she said dismissively. Wow! She certainly went there quickly. I thought we might have a gentle prelude of semi-truths and subtle evasiveness before the full-on lying began.
“Is that my father?” I fired back in an incredulous tone. “Really? Of all the questions you could possibly ask about that picture, you ask, ‘Is that my father?’ Why would you ask that question? That’s a stupid question. Of course, that’s not my father. My father is Jack Osborne, right, Barb? I mean, isn’t he?” The tone of my mock inquiry was hateful and slathered in heavy sarcasm. Yeah, I was right, this wasn’t going to go well.
***
The Stories We Were Told
To make sense of my DNA Orphan story, I suppose I should take us back to the genesis–the beginning–if you will. Not of our family, but of a story that our mother used to tell her children. An innocent, entertaining story that my siblings and I heard over and over. We believed it, we embraced it–and why shouldn’t we? It was told to us by the most trustworthy person in our life, a loving Pentecostal woman of God, whose words were law to us. Throughout the years, the story she told would set into motion a series of random thoughts, casual comments, insignificant actions, and seemingly inconsequential decisions that in the end would change me, us, and our family’s relationships forever.
When we were young, our mother, Barbara Condo, would tell me and my four siblings a story. What you’ll discover, dear reader, is these siblings were only four of the 14 total siblings I had in some way, shape, or form. More on that later. The story my mother would tell us was a fun story, an exciting story. It was a story that centered around the fact that we were descendants of two Native American tribes, Blackfoot and Cherokee. Not only were we genetically part Native American, but we descended from the tribal chieftain or princess.
For a seven-year-old like me, this was quite an intoxicating story . I’m not sure that any of the five of us ever really believed the chieftain/princess part–it seemed a bit too over the top to me. But the general concept of being part Native American was easy to accept and ultimately internalize. It became part of who we were. After all, most of my siblings have a markedly dark complexion. Most of us have very dark, if not black, hair. In fact, my oldest sister looked like she could be Cher’s sister and we believed that Cher was part Native American. We know now she’s not; she’s Armenian.
Likely the most convincing aspect was that my dad, Jack Osborne, looked very Native American. He had a dark complexion with a strong reddish tinge. His face was broad and he boasted a full head of hair until the day of his death. Physically, he made an almost undeniable case for me having a Native American genetic component. My mother also had the physical characteristics of someone who was Native American, dark skin, long black hair. In fact, whenever the occasion presented itself, like Halloween, Barb would dress up as an ‘Indian’ with braided and beaded hair.
I emphasize the “genetic” element of being Native American because we certainly weren’t culturally Native American. Any Native American culture I had experienced was what Hollywood had put on my TV or movie screen (and we all know how accurate that was).
No, we were lower-middle class, white, suburban Americans. We were a mix of God-knows-what European genetic material. And in the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s, it really was “God-knows-what,” as home DNA test kits weren’t available. There was no DNA analysis, and no way to truly discern your biological lineage other than what you were told and perhaps what you could find in limited public records.
So, as it was, my ragtag collection of siblings and I strode through life without giving much thought to our tribal origins, other than simply believing that we had a good amount of it. Whenever anyone posed the question, “What is your background,” I would answer, “German and English with some Native American mixed in there somewhere.” I was not sure how much was Native American. I didn’t know if I was a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth or what. I just knew we had some…because my mom told us so.
The story stuck with us so well and for so long, that after a while it became a part of who we were. It became how others often viewed us, so much so that my in-laws gave me the nickname “Chief.” I could never tell if that was an acknowledgement or a joke. I’m guessing it was a little of both.
As I have learned, Life is strange, and Fate can be malicious.