Fatherhood eluded me for a long, long time. I had started thinking about it in the late 1980s. Not that I was a prime candidate for parenthood—I wasn’t. But it would enter my thoughts from time to time, mostly in the form of baby dreams.
Margaret and I were in complete agreement from the start that we wanted a child and we began our quest the old-fashioned way. We were diligent and consistent, yet no urchin appeared.
A purely coincidental meeting with a friend one afternoon proved to be crucial. She and her wife were facing the same parenthood challenge, and they had found an attorney who specialized in adoption. We hadn’t considered this yet, but I was already in my sixties. I told Margaret, “If I’m going to be a papa, we’d better get this show on the road.” Our attorney, David, had been helping families find each other for almost 40 years. He was a combination of lawyer, family counselor, and spiritual guide.
I’d had deep, long-standing misgivings about fatherhood. Clearly, I didn’t have the best track record, and for a long time I wasn’t convinced that I could overcome my character defects and shortcomings sufficiently to be the father I wanted to be. I had been driven by self-seeking wants all my life, and now the idea of being accountable for another human being shook me to my core. My truncated experience with my own father didn’t imprint an intuitive grasp of how to be one, and I had spent my whole life avoiding the subject. My concerns grew as the possibility started to come into view.
One of the social workers we met with during the process asked what I wanted for my child. I told her I wanted our child to know he would always be safe. I wanted our child to know he could make mistakes and it wouldn’t be the end of the world. And I wanted our child to know there were boundaries that I would hold him to. She said, “So, you want to be the father you never had.” I burst into tears.
My greatest fear was that my child would follow my footsteps into addiction, prison, and rock & roll. I know ultimately that I will not be able to control these things, but that’s my fear. Margaret and I discussed it endlessly. We talked to friends and strangers who had traveled this road.
We decided to move forward. We had a deep desire to be a family with a mama and a papa and a child. We worked through our myriad feelings and fears, and concluded that we believed in ourselves enough to trust that we’d be good parents. If we didn’t do it now, then when? We wanted our child, and nothing was going to stop us from finding him. We were ready, willing, and able.
David introduced us to a young couple who were searching for a devoted mother and father because there was a baby coming. The two women hit it off and became close. When our baby was ready to arrive, we were right there to welcome him into the world. He went straight into Margaret’s arms and never left.
His name is Francis Maron Kramer. I loved the rhythm of it. Francis was the name of one of my dearest friends, and Margaret wanted to honor him with a namesake because he is family. We believe that family are the people who love and support us. The rest are just relatives. Plus, we discovered that Francis meant “one who is free.” What better aspiration for our boy? Maron, his middle name, comes from St. Maron, patron saint of the Maronite Catholics. This name was his connection to Margaret’s culture and traditions. I figured later, when he’s a little bit older, I will turn him onto Chuck Berry, Sun Ra, and Aristotle, so he’ll get to know my culture and traditions. And when he wants to know more about his ancestries, we will support him.
I wanted to experience fatherhood as a grown-up. I wanted to be a man who could meet all the challenges of full-on adulthood. A fully realized man who could weather the range of emotions, and persevere with dignity and a little grace. A man who could care for others before himself. A man who did what he said he was going to do. A man who could be depended on. I couldn’t wait to change dirty diapers, do midnight feedings, and rock a baby to sleep. I wanted to do everything that parenting required of me, and more. I believed I was ready to do this at last.
Francis will be five years old with the publication of this memoir, and he’s bursting with enthusiasm for life. He brings me joy every single day.
THE BEATS OF MY LIFE break down pretty simply: childhood, the MC5, crime, prison, sobriety, service, and family. I have tried my best to illustrate some of the major peaks and valleys truthfully and accurately. Putting it down in a linear fashion has been enlightening, and has helped me understand myself and what happened in these first 70 years.
There is much that can never be resolved, like the loss of so many people. My dear friend and partner of over 40 years, Mick Farren, died two weeks before my son arrived. He had moved back to England for the benefits of the National Health Service. Living in America, he couldn’t afford the medications he needed for his emphysema. He had been ill for a while. We wrote a lot of great songs together, and had many great adventures. We raged our way across the continents. He loved performing in bands, and died onstage playing a club date in London on July 29, 2013. He was a great writer and a great friend.
I have a good life today. Most of the time, I get to do the kinds of things I like to do with people I like to do them with. I adore my family. I am fulfilled in my work. I am at peace with my past. I am content to remain a student. My definition of success is being able to continue.
I created most of the hurt in my life. Most, but not all. Some of it I put squarely where it belongs, on the War on Drugs, which has caused me immense anguish. It is a catastrophic failure of public policy. Like most of the 2.3 million people now incarcerated, I didn’t need prison; I needed help.
This “war” is a misguided political atrocity that has been destroying families for generations. Drug prohibition has killed more people than drugs ever could.
I still live in the tension between the angel and the beast, and that is my lot as human. This struggle will continue until the day I depart. Mine has been a painful and beautiful experience, and I wouldn’t change any of it, even if I could.