My official status as a bastard.

My mom and dad never got along. They were married in Aug 68 and I came along about 14 months later. I don't remember many happy family together times but from my limited frame of reference it was not abnormal.

All of my friends parents were divorced. I actually didn't know anyone who had a mother and father both living in the same house.

I was the weird kid with the intact family. People would point and stare when we were in public "look! that kid and his mother have a strange big man walking with them! call 911!"

Since I was weird in other ways this didn't phase me all that much.

Around 1986 my parents informed me that they were getting a divorce.

I knew they were unhappy, everything was all fucked up anyway and this news didn't even phase me one bit.

My dad moved out and I spent a lot of time over at his apartment. When my dad was away from mom he was a much happier, fun and cool person. We were able to bond much better without her evil omnipresence mucking things up.

Yeah, it sucked living alone in a house with my mother. I tried to avoid her whenever possible. Her wild mood swings and new found single lifestyle were things I wanted to avoid at all costs.

My mom started dating some old guy named Arthur. He was a nice, kind widower about 20 years older than my mom. I soon got the feeling she was dating him to punish me.

She tried to flaunt public displays of affection with Arthur and throw it in my face. Never batting an eye, I always smiled and shook his hand. He would come over and do projects around the house and I would help him.

The fact that Arthur and I got along so well infuriated my mom. She had to find a way to get me to disapprove.

I really wanted to tell Arthur to run away as fast as he could and not look back. Just for his sake.

Frustrated at my lack of teenage angst against her new boyfriend, she dumped him.

He was crushed. I felt really bad for him but I knew it was in his best interest.

My mom started drinking, smoking and partying like a wild woman. This didn't bother me except for when she got drunk and obnoxious and tried to humiliate me in front of her friends.

Of course this backfired too, because when everyone saw what a mean crazy drunk she was, they didn't want to hang with her anymore.

For some crazy fucked up reason my mom and dad got back together. For my sake, you ask?

Fuck if I know. Now instead of having a cool dad and fucked up mom I had two fucked up miserable people living in the house.

Luckily, I was nearing time to move away. Soon after I moved out, my parents split up once again, this time for good. Since they were divorced anyway it was no big deal.

Soon after, my mother called me over one day and informed me that she had gone back to the Catholic church.

"That's nice..." I said.

She informed me that her church would not accept her as a divorced woman.

"OK....." I replied.

"So I'm getting an annulment from the top levels of the Catholic church. They only charge 1500 dollars for the process."

I asked her if was really necessary for her to pay some Roman guy in a pointy hat to sign his name saying her marriage never existed and that I was born out of wedlock.

Infuriated, she began screaming something about me mocking her and not standing behind her faith and whatnot.

I told her that I really didn't care and it was her money.

At the time, I was working, living in my own apartment and putting myself through school. This left me with about 10 dollars a week for groceries. She was basically going to flush what would then pay for almost 2 years of public college down the toilet.

I had to let it go. Her money would have too many strings attached anyway.

About 6 months later, my mother showed me a fancy certificate signed and stamped by some Vatican muckety mucks that proved and confirmed that she was never married.

Weird.

When I was growing up I took pride in agreeing with people who called me a sonovabitch.

Now, I could legitimately be called a bastard as well.