-1Imitation Is Not Always Flattery

The scar cut deep and diagonally through his aged flesh from above
his right eyebrow to the edge of the left side of his chin. The blade had
nicked his right eyelid, flapped open his right nostril and split both lips
into a zee snarl. However, it was the freedom in his laughter, the
sound of a man delighted with life that drew Dan Philser to him.
Incongruous, Dan had thought. How could anyone that disfigured be
happy?
Dan introduced himself intent on doing a personal interview, a
special interest story for the local blog he maintained.
"What's your name," he asked with the naïve innocence of the
ignorant after displaying his credentials. Tell me about yourself was set
to roll off Dan's tongue when their eyes met and the movement in the
disfigured man's casual stare stopped Dan's query.
"Trent Loker," he said and extended a smooth soft hand that looked
as if he kept it tucked in his pocket except for the occasional
introduction.
A moment of stifling silence could have told Loker more about Dan
than an answer to Dan's unspoken question might've briefly taught
Dan about him. The sight of the scarring got Dan thinking about a
pedophile that had once asked him to help find a lost cat. Dan's child-
like curiosity had given him the courage to disobey his parents and talk
to a stranger.
Who loses a cat, he had wondered. Cats never get lost.
They walked hand in hand down to the park, calling for the missing
cat, a name Dan no longer recalled, until it became obvious to his
youthful mind that the friendly man had something less honorable
planned for the afternoon
"Why'd you stop to bother me?" Loker asked, to Dan's relief
interrupting the memory.
"I heard you laugh." Dan spoke guiltily, stepped under the
bookstore's awning to get out of the sun. "Stupid reason, I guess."
"Why would that be stupid?"
Dan did not have an answer. Curiosity is never stupid, but
sometimes dangerous. Again, he thought of the missing cat again, his
abductor's cold clammy hand on the back of his neck, the explanation
for the scar that gave him the sinister look of a pirate that, at first,
thrilled Dan's young soul. He almost shivered with the memory.
"Well you stood here alone, but sounded really happy."
Loker grinned, appeared ferocious and dejected, but Dan suspected
that he could not be both. "Was talking to old Joe. He just opened his
bookstore."
Dan didn't see Joe or anyone else within a block of them. "You come
here every morning?"
Loker nodded ponderously as if an answer required serious
2

contemplation. Then he pointed over his shoulder, twisting at the

waist.
"Every day. Live right upstairs."
A glint of metal at Loker's hip kept Dan's gaze from following his
gesture.
A Bowie knife, seriously illegal, Dan thought, but quickly felt unsure,
fought against the recollection of his childhood attacker who had
brought a knife to his throat as Dan prepared to cry out for help. That
time the blade had seemed to materialize from the biting breath filled
with spearmint his abductor exhaled across Dan's face when he leaned
closer to feed on Dan's fear.
Loker settled into a well-worn wood straight back chair and folded
his hands on his lap.
"I’d offer you a seat, but I wasn't expecting company." He laughed
bawdily like a tavern drunk who knew the joke but would not share the
punch line.
"I'll stand," Dan said. "I've only got a couple minutes to spare."
"What do you want to know?"
"Why you carry that knife." Dan swallowed hard, felt the thrill of fear
the thin press of steel had embedded in his mind when his abductor
replied to Dan's weak query about locating the missing cat.
"Hate the damn animals," he had said with a frightening scowl.
"They're evil demons that steal baby breath."
Dan's boyhood mind stumbled across the image the harsh words
created and knew he would never think of his cat Rosy the same way,
always wonder if she had tried to capture his, or might one moonless
night.
Loker flipped back the leather strap that held his knife secure and
slipped the long blade free. It whispered against the sheath, a sound
like a snake shedding skin.
Dan felt his hands shaking, and jammed them into his pockets as
Loker presented the knife the way Lee had passed his sword to Grant.
"It won't hurt you, boy, take it." Loker grinned and shook his head,
replaced the knife when Dan did not move to accept his offer. "How the
hell does a reporter write good stories if he's so afraid to interview an
old man with a knife?"
"Guess he couldn't. Glad I don't interview old men with knives every
day." He took his hands from his pockets and pointed to the knife. "May
I?"
Loker removed it and passed it to him. Dan's fist encircled the hilt,
and he ran a finger along the sharp edge, was surprised he did not see
blood stream behind his caress.
Dan's abductor had drawn a long bead of blood that felt torrential
as it warmly dripped into the pocket of his breastbone. After that
realization, Dan's young mind had mercifully erased every memory
until it stumbled across his being found undressed under a pile of blood
3

soaked leaves with a heavy weight above him, sirens and shouting
voices, hands lifting him, someone saying, "Oh, my God. Look at what
he did."
Resisting the need to trace the thin scar at the base of his neck,
Dan passed Loker his knife.
"You worried about being attacked at night?"
"Something like that, or in the woods. But, suppose I say, I just like
the feel of its weight against my hip. That make some kind of sense to
you, boy?"
"Yeah," Dan said with a happy smile. "Yeah it does." He turned and
walked away, no longer interested in the interview.
"Hey?" Dan heard the call from behind him before he reached the
end of the block.
He spun around. Loker was gone. A well-dressed man stood in the
doorway into the bookstore, holding a long sheathed knife. He waved it
in Dan’s direction. "You dropped this. Didn't you hear it fall?"
"No I didn't," Dan said. "You must be mistaken. That belongs to Trent
Loker."
"Who?"
"The old man who lives upstairs." Dan looked as he pointed and saw
no second floor, just a flat roof.
He stormed back and snatched the knife from him. "You tell anyone
I was here and I'll return tonight, Joe."
Joe, eyes wide with disgust, stepped back into his store. "You need
help, sir."
"No," Dan replied. "Loker needs help, not me."