There are a few days in my life that I'll never forget, that I can't forget even if I tried. They sneak up on me when my mind should be fixed on the present. But those days . . . events . . . find me when I'm alone, or trying to sleep, and they'll chase me in my nightmares until I die. And even then . . . will there ever be an end?

But April 2nd, 1979, was different. I wanted to remember it. I can never escape the curse of my heritage. But, for the first time ever, the human world wasn't the empty, lonely place where I had been avoiding the inevitable—the day she finds me.

This good day didn't start out as anything special. Imagine Gloucester, Massachusetts, on a lobster boat in early spring. Was it gray and miserable? You betcha. Drizzly, chilly, windy, choppy on the water? Yes, all of the above. But, as limited as visibility was, my view became a whole lot better.   

We had just docked after a brutal morning. I didn't mind the hard work. It kept my mind occupied. And more work meant more lobster, which meant more money. And I was stocking up on cash again. I had been working for Mad Cap Brady on and off for two years. He was crude and obnoxious, but he paid me under the table and didn't ask questions. That made him the ideal boss.

Even so, I had been in Gloucester too long. I was getting used to it . . . comfortable. I didn't go out much, never did, but people were starting to recognize me. They'd occasionally wave hello and speak my name in the streets. "Scott" is not my birth name, but I wasn't anonymous anymore . . . and that scared me.

Once I got the "all clear" for a break, I sat with my legs hanging over the edge of the boat and lit a cigarette. While I sucked in some relief, I pulled my wool hat low, my collar high, and considered where to head next. I was thinking someplace warmer—maybe a shrimping boat in the Bayou—when I spotted a school bus pull up next to the beach. At best, I thought they, whoever they were, would provide the bleak day with some color and perhaps a hint of excitement.

I was right about the color—plaid skirts, black stockings, pink ribbons, a fluorescent umbrella or two, and a striking red scarf on a small, plain girl—but I wasn't convinced of any impending excitement until the last person exited the bus . . . their teacher.

She had on a black coat and a matching beret on top of her long brown hair, wavy at the tips. The shamrock green of her turtleneck sweater demonstrated, even from afar, how Irish she was. I was willing to bet money that she had as many freckles on her nose, shoulders, and wherever else the sun may have kissed, as there were nighttime stars. 

"Scot-tyyyyy?"

I took a long drag and let it out slowly, barely conscious of the sound of my name plus the "y" I always found irritating.   

"Earth to Scott, earth to Scott, come in Scott."

"Huh?"

Mike, one of my crewmates, took a seat next to me and tossed a greasy brown bag into my lap. I had to fumble for my lunch so it didn't fall into the bay. 

"How much do I owe you?"

"On the house."

I suppose I could say Mike's a friend, the closest I have to one anyway. What's best, his mother's family owns a deli and they've made a life out of feeding people, and in my case, for free at least a few times a week.

"Oh," Mike mumbled with a wad of meatball sub in his mouth. "Now I see what you'wa scoping."

"I wasn't looking at her," I lied. I didn't want to provoke the why-don't-you-play-around-or-settle-down conversation. Attempting to answer would create a web of more lies that I might get caught up in someday. And then I would really need to skip town. A girlfriend, a wife, a family were all impossibilities. As hard as a life of solitude was to accept for me and for everyone else, it just had to be.

He gave me his wise-guy glance to call my bluff. But he didn't waste much viewing time on me. He fell into a dopey, wide-eyed trance that was worse than mine . . . I hope. "She is a bunny."

I chucked away the butt of my cigarette and pulled out my tuna salad sandwich. "I assume that's a good thing?"

Just then, Old Man Van Orden—I didn't even know if he had a real first name—sat close enough to hear us and pulled out a sandwich that looked miserably unappetizing. Other than a mean grunt now and then, he never spoke to us young folk. He always seemed to be around, though, whenever a topic of conversation veered away from lobster. And there was something about him—old, bitter, watchful, his eyes beady with malcontent—that made me want to pull my collar up higher on my neck. Like everyone else, I tried to pretend he wasn't there so I could carry on as normally as possible. But I knew he was listening.    

"Mmmm hmmm. You, my brotha, have this James Dean thing going fo'ya, but. . ." Mike slapped me on the back. "Dream on, man." 

"Gee, thanks."

"Well, look at me!" He held his arms out wide, but I didn't need to look. He was a stocky Italian guy and his only lasting love affair was with his mother's cooking. "She'd probably laugh in my face. Most of them BaH-ston girls do," he said with a more exaggerated accent than usual.

"No, she wouldn't." I glanced again at the smile that never seemed to leave her face. "She seems too nice for that." At this point, Miss Science Teacher had met up with her tour guide and was starting her lesson. Her enthusiasm made her riveting and her confidence kept her giggly prep-school girls in line without the need to raise her voice. I wished I could hear what she was saying. I lit another cigarette and watched her talk with her hands. She was so dynamic, I got the gist of what she was saying anyway. "And besides. . ." I sideways glanced at Mike as I offered him a cigarette. "You'll always have your mother."

He took that cigarette. But gave me the finger. I'd call that tame for him. We were surrounded by women and children, though. That could explain it. At least he knew when to hold back.  

We went back to work after that. And all afternoon, if Mike caught me glancing at the tour group, he'd start screeching, "Dream on . . . Dream on," and he was no Steven Tyler, not by a longshot.

https://youtu.be/sZfZ8uWaOFI

"Please. Don't sing!" I eventually yelled back. "Or you'll have every harbor seal from here to Maine bellowing with you. It'd be hard to catch anything with all that racket."

Then everyone on the boat turned toward a call for help. It was Miss Science Teacher. She was just beyond our dock explaining her situation to anyone who would listen. "She's small for her age, has black hair and glasses. She was wearing a red scarf. No one has seen her for a while . . . and . . ." She paused and bit her lip as if the worst information was yet to come. "She's asthmatic and doesn't have her medicine with her."

I was the first one off the boat and on the dock. Mike was close on my heel. As he caught up to me, he suddenly nudged me into the water.

Over his shoulder, he looked down at me and raised his hairy unibrow. "Watch'ya step." 

At that moment, I realized I had no friends. "You asshole," I mumbled through my clenched, chattering jaw.

I vowed to win this one at any cost. And I had my ways. . . .

When no one was looking, I ducked under water and swam farther out for a better vantage point. Then I closed my eyes. Earlier in the day, I saw that red scarf. And so, I imagined its weight, texture, the exact hue of red, its thread pattern. I could almost feel it, as if it were in my hands. It wasn't that far away. All I needed to do was lift it.

My eyes opened and there it was, the scarf, whipping in the air like a flag with no post. Caught in my metaphysical hold, it hovered above the deck of an out-of-commission cod boat four docks over.

With the help of the wind and my conjuring, it spiraled in my direction. I snatched it from the air before it landed in the water. Then I scissor-kicked toward the boat with the scarf over my head.

When I climbed aboard, I didn't initially see anyone. After my preliminary search of the deck, I began worrying that the girl lost her scarf somewhere and was therefore still in danger. But then I heard a muted sniffle and I realized it came from the pilothouse.

I tapped on the door with one knuckle before peering inside. The girl was sitting between two crates of useless nautical junk—wires, broken radios, yellowing maps, and so forth. When my one eye met hers, she gasped and wiped her tears from her cheeks with her gloved fist.

"Can I come in?"

She retreated into a ball beneath her coat and her eyes darted over to the cracked window. I could tell she was looking for an escape route.   

I inched the door open and showed her the scarf. "I found this. Is it yours?"

"Yes. That's mine." She reached out for it and I tossed it to her. "It was the strangest thing," she added. "Something pulled it right off my neck."

"The wind. It's pretty strong around here." I stepped inside, but kept my distance. "Your bus is leaving soon, preferably with you on it."

"I'm not going back."

Now that I can relate to.

"Do you want to tell me why?"

She rolled her head back and forth against the wall a few times, a dramatic and unmistakable no. Then she peered at me with questions in her dark eyes. "Why are you soaking wet?"

I shrugged. "I went for a swim," I said nonchalantly as if I were a tourist in July.

She pointed her teenage contempt in my direction and it hit me hard. She reminded me of someone, and not someone good! But the look didn't linger. And the fury didn't either. Instead, the dejection floated to the surface and it swam to the window in front of her.

"Oh, you wanted the truth! I'll tell you, but you're going to have to answer my question."

Her head pivoted back toward me. "Fine. You first."

"I wanted to be the first one to help your teacher find you. But someone I work with had the same idea and pushed me into the water."

"That wasn't very nice."

"No, it wasn't. I would never have done that to him. Now go. Your turn."

"There are these girls in my class that said I wasn't pretty enough to find a date to this dance we're having."

"I don't care what those girls look like. Let me be the first to say that mean is never pretty. And I have the perfect example. There was once an evil fairy princess. . . ."

The girl sighed and her eyes rolled behind the dark frames of her glasses.

"No, hear me out! This will just take a minute. This fairy princess had all she could ever want. When she came of age, it was time for her to marry. Her father—just as mean, by the way—decided she would wed a fairy prince from a neighboring land, a peaceful, magical place by the sea.

"Did this king want his only daughter to marry for love? Absolutely not. He wanted her to have something better. More absolute. What was love compared to power? Now her intended groom, could he give her what she wanted? Yes, but he would never do so willingly. So the king and his daughter resorted to deception. They didn't like this fairy prince or his kind, and thought he was in every way beneath them. But they did want to understand his magic so they could use it against him, and rid the globe of his family and friends.

"The wedding went on according to plan. Though the young prince was initially captivated by the princess's beauty, the enchantment didn't last. He soon suspected the very worst and that's what he got. It was kill or be killed.

"The prince narrowly escaped, but it was too late. The war was already over. His home no longer existed. So to this day, the fairy prince wanders through the human world alone, and because of his gift and at the same time, his curse, he will never truly fit in anywhere. And he knows how angry the now fairy queen must be. She may have won the war, but she lost the two things dearest to her—her father and her beauty. The prince, in his fight for his life, took both away from her. She will scour the earth, kill and conquer, until the day the prince is found. So how's that for mean?"            

"You seem really nice, mister, and that was a nice story. . . ."

"Who ever said it was a story? Couldn't I be said prince?"

Her cheeks filled with color. "I'm too old to believe in fairy tales. But I get what you're trying to say. If you want to bring beauty into the world, do so with love and kindness. And that's something your metaphorical fairy princess, and the girls I know, would never understand."  

"Exactly. You're one smart cookie. So go thank a teacher. And I hope you're ready to go now because I'm freezing my princely you-know-what off."

I made her smile, and more importantly, she stood up and followed me out. I was quite shocked and proud of myself. I used to have four younger brothers and they loved my stories. But this girl—Sarah, I found out on the walk back—was a teenager and not my area of expertise. I thought maybe this meant I was better with women than my track record would suggest. Then I spotted her science teacher and had fierce doubts.    

"I guess you could look like a prince," Sarah said just as her teacher saw us. "I think it's the blond hair. You'd need a haircut, though, and to shave the beard. It's a little scruffy."

"Scruffy? I like my beard!" I rubbed my fingers across my rustic winter growth. "And it'd be hard to blend in around here without one."

And then Miss Science Teacher was upon us. Her relief went directly to Sarah. "I'm so glad you're all right!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Wakefield," Sarah said with fresh tears in her eyes. "It won't happen again. I wandered a little too far and couldn't find my way back."

I stepped back and turned with the intention of walking away, unnoticed. Doing a good deed was enough of a reward for me. I didn't need the gold star from the teacher even though it would have made my day . . . my week . . . okay . . . let's be honest . . . my year.  

"Wait!" the teacher called out. She sent Sarah to the bus and then jogged over to me. "Thank you, mister. . ."

"MacRae," my voice crackled. "Scott MacRae."