This is the first episode in a series on what happened to me many years back. Nothing has been altered or edited for entertainment value or convenience. This tale is as intact as when it took place.
Of all of the places in this universe to be entangled in a great mystery, I wouldn’t have considered a mall in Escanaba, Michigan one of them. In fact, I didn’t know Escanaba had a mall until I walked into it. I came across it accidentally and crossed into a 14-year long tangle of historical knots and perplexing events, not what I would expect from a mall.
I had road buzz, that zombie feeling one might get after hours of concentrated driving. My brain was turned to oatmeal and I decided to stop by a mall to for a walk and postcard. My hunt brought me to a card shop and soon thereafter, down a side aisle with a book in my hands. It was large, though not thick. Bound in hardcover, it held photographs of ships, crews, lighthouses and maps.
I flipped though it, forcing my slushy brain to identify what I was looking at. In my thumbing I came across a pair of pictures, black and white and speaking of earlier days at sea. The larger was a white, steel ship tied up and at rest. Her engines were quiet and a handful of curious townsmen mingled on the dock. A few seemed to be engaged in conversation with uniformed men on deck. The caption read: “…the iron-hulled Marigold was launched at Wyandotte, Michigan in 1890. After she was taken out of service in 1946, her hull was used to build the dredge Miss Mudhen II.”
Below that was “…a 1916 photo of the crew from the Marigold.” Four men in identical, dark uniforms and peaked hats looked somberly at the camera. They were on deck standing behind a white lifering mounted on the railing. The shortest had the look of a ship’s master, vastly experienced of sixty years and a fair leader. Beside him was a man thirty years his junior. His gaze was professional and wise. Next to him was the tallest. A man also in his thirties with hands in pockets and a determined stare. The last officer was in his forties was caught in a blink. He held a weathered polish, denoting lifetime at sea. All had the distinctive appearance of having just pulled into port after battling horrendously long hours on duty. Their bodies were bleary and worn, yet their uniforms were meticulous.
I glanced across this page, like any other really, and in an instant my zombie mind solidified. It wasn’t the ship or gathering of officers. It was one man. When my eyes came upon his they locked tight. Stare to stare, the only words that came to mind were, “I know you…why do I know you?” I was fixed upon the tallest, the gent with his hands in his pockets. The officer was as familiar to me as the morning mirror, yet a complete stranger. I knew him both intimately and not at all.