Flyman

EDIT- 24/09/12   I wrote this over 4 years ago now. Yesterday, I met my father and some extended family for the first time. While once I had no desire to meet him and he seemed little more than a hazy, ethereal 'character' my heart changed and I went to look for him. It was a beautiful experience and I feel nothing but a surprising love and compassion for him and I want to give their family a chance to tell their side of the story. I was more than surprised to find out how much Mum and I meant to them and how much they have thought of us over the last 30 years. I have a cousin NAMED after me!

Anyway, I remembered that I wrote this blogpost and realized how this perspective might hurt them. They have gone from being a vague, stranger-than-fiction part of my history to real flesh-and-blood people who have their own story to tell and deserve the grace, understanding and compassion of God. My Uncle Greg, who knew my father, pointed this out to me before I knew them (that it was harsh).

Having their life (given to me through the perhaps skewed and biased perspective of my family whose sole intention was to protect me and justify why I didn't have a father) splashed into the public like this may not be the best. However, I have decided not to remove this post, as I want it to remain as an accurate representation of my PERSPECTIVE and thoughts about the father's side of the family at that time. It's not necessarily the absolute truth, but what I had been led to believe at the time. It may also help the Mustafays understand where I was at and why I didn't pursue my father earlier. Now I know that they were counting the years waiting for me and my father was preparing himself to look for me as he thought I was old enough to be able to talk maturely about what happened. He knew and feared that I thought the worst of him. I never even considered this possibility. Thankfully, I found him first.

I am so glad I found him and instantly knew that I want not only him, but their whole family in my life. It's a sad fact that though my step-dad embraced me, I feel that my step-dad's side of the family never truly accepted me. They were always warm towards me, but the feeling was I was still somewhat of a passenger in Mum and Dad's new family. I feel nothing bad towards the Skinners and understand their perspective. My Step-Father has been incredible towards me and offered to adopt me. I said no and I never understood why. But I did take his last name.

Anyway, here is the blogpost I wrote 4 years ago. It comes from a different place and a different heart and I hope this edit helps make things clearer.

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On a more serious note, I'd like to continue to introduce myself and let you in on my story a little.

I don't know my real Dad, or my 'sperm donor' as my Mum would call him. He's out there somewhere, if he's still alive. I only know a few details about him. One of my uncles, when I was a baby, burnt all the photos my Mum had of him, with good intentions apparently. I once saw a hazy picture of him in a newspaper article when I was a teenager. I was into adulthood by the time my Grandfather one day nonchalantly informed me he had a photo of him with my Mum and proceeded to go and fetch it from his study. He placed it in my hands and I was gobsmacked. He seemed to not realize the gravity of his actions. I stared at it for hours. I now have it framed. It's small, about 5cm x 5cm, but it's something. I'd never really felt anything for him until then.

Mum fell pregnant with me when she was 19. She was swept of her feet by a charismatic, charming and exciting guy (by her description) in his mid-twenties. His first line to my Mum was 'hello beautiful' said in a deep, breathy, smooth tone, saturated in an exotic European accent. I know this because when Mum told me, I tried to impersonate it, and she was freaked out about how accurate it was. He was from a family of gypsies, and also a family of liars, so they may not actually have been gypsies (Gypsies are apparently liars anyway ;) LOL) More on that another time......

By Mum's hazy description, my Dad was half Albanian and half Turkish. Which makes me 1/4 Albanian, 1/4 Turkish and 1/2 'moy eh-ncestors were on the first fleet mate' Aussie. My father's family were a dodgy bunch apparently. They were once owners of a famous nightclub in Brisbane which got burnt down in suspicious circumstances. I think I was told that they were apparently pretty 'in' with the criminal underworld scene- drugs and brothels and all that, it's all hard to remember. One of the cousins, I think, was later revealed to be a police informer.

My father was not the nicest of characters. He was addicted to gambling- betting on horse racing in particular- and would steal to feed the habit. He would get himself in trouble with debts from shady characters and Mum would bail him out. He would beat the hell out of her for her trouble- something about his honor or some garbage....

He was a successful amateur boxer and was a drummer as well. He had left early in high school to work but was quite intelligent according to Mum. He was apparently not the angry scary woman basher type, but the remorseful, bawling his eyes out, 'take me back' woman basher type.

When Mum fell pregnant with me he was excited, she tells me. He wanted to marry Mum, to be my Dad and even had a name for me- Yasmin. I would have been named Yasmin Mustafa. I even had the engagement ring he gave my Mum- I wore it- until a few years ago when it was stolen in a house break in (I'd cut it off because it was too tight. I might also add that it looked more like a wedding ring so it wasn't girly).

But his ensuing fatherhood didn't change him. He still couldn't control his impulses to gamble, to lie, to steal, to lash out at my mother, and perhaps even more. So whilst Mum was pregnant with me, he still bashed her- even in the stomach. It could have killed me.

So Mum did the smart thing. She ran. She came to Sydney, where the rest of her family had moved, and moved back in with her parents. I always ached for a Dad as I grew up. But I knew that I didn't want to know my real one. And I always respected my Mum's decision to run and raise me on her own. He probably would have done the same terrible things to me. "He would have broken your heart," Mum would say with a trembling voice.

Many people told my mother to abort me. Mum was brought up under a reasonably strict Catholic upbringing. A young, single mother doesn't fare too well in that context. Other things happened too, which I can't get into here, that sought to come against my very existence. I was born in fetal distress, the cord wrapped around my neck several times. I would be born and grow up in the affluent Anglo-Saxon Sutherland Shire, where the nuclear Anglo family was the norm. I would be literally, pardon my French, a poor mongrel bastard.

So half my heritage is a mystery to me. I have a whole bunch of family out there somewhere that probably look like me and it's possible my real father may still think about me. Him, or someone who knows him, may even run into this blog. His name is Ismet Mustafa (I'm not sure if that's how it was spelt). People called him 'John'. I've never thought too much about it before, and some people have been quite taken back at my lack of desire to find him. But as I write this, I can't help but wonder...... it's all so surreal and vague. And I also don't want to dishonor my stepfather who I consider my real father (he came on the scene when I was 10). He says he doesn't mind. All of my family are supportive of me if I want to look for him.

One final note- you're probably wondering why I called this log 'Flyman'. Here's where it gets interesting, and it starts to sound too weird to be true. My father was a cat burglar of sorts, and was pretty good at it too. There was a man who became notorious in Brisbane in the 80's for scaling hotel building walls and breaking in. In the papers he was known as 'Flyman'. That was him- he went to jail for a while a little later, but I'm not sure if it was for that. It's all a bit mysterious and vague, but the older members of my extended family remember it and had the paper clipping- I don't know what happened to it unfortunately.

I had a very brief job for a company selling security systems. I was on training and in the car with my partner, and he was telling me some of the stories they say to emphasize the importance of security. He told me of this guy in Brisbane, in the 80's, that they used to call 'the Flyman'. And how he used to scale hotel buildings etc etc. If I was eating something at the time, I would have choked on it!

Truth can be stranger than fiction. Hope it helps you continue to get to know me a little better.

Thanks for reading,

Ben