One of the great things I can claim in my life is that I've been threatened by a pirate. Liana acknowledges my life was indeed threatened by a pirate, but insists my sweet, sweet booty had nothing to do with it.

I disagree. Given the correlation between global warming and the declining number of pirates worldwide, I feel incredibly lucky.

Click on the graph on the sidebar for proof.

I forget why I was at Harborside. It might have been because the Newagen was closed for a Knitting / Quilting conference for the week (True story), and/or I would have had to park in Robinson's satellite lot; an unacceptable 15-second walk away from the bar.

I did my usual thing. I sat at the far end of the bar, away from everyone and opened up my laptop.

The bar started to fill up. I slid down to the very end of the bar next to the column when a couple wanted to consolidate seats. They talked to each other and I worked on my "stupid stuff." We left each other alone.

Enter "The Pirate" on the other side of The Couple.

He didn't have an eye-patch or a parrot or sword or any jewels or anything like that. He just told The Couple he was a pirate. He wasn't a pirate of yore, he assured them. Pirates of the current day had grand experiences and rarely decapitated folks, and / or stole their booty. I'm sure he had some kind of official card from The Modern American Pirate Association, but he was obviously reluctant to show it to the common rabble.

The Couple was on vacation and apparently in the mood for some free entertainment.

The Pirate was chatty. He drank warm Pabst-Tall-Boys he pulled from a backpack. He wore a wifebeater. The Couple asked him all kinds of questions and he responded with a bravado that was proportionate to the vat of Pabst his brain was swimming in.

I typed away. I felt like I was making progress towards being humorous. Then again, I might have only been humorous to people who had 6 whiskeys in under an hour. And that was an unacceptably small market. I had to do better.

Eventually, all the warm Pabsts convinced The Pirate that The Couple was not a large enough audience to contain his hilarity and vivacity. He gauged that the large, ribald party of five to his right would be hard to enchant. His eyes fell upon me.

Poor, defenseless me.

"Hey! You come all the way up here on vacation to work? Loosen up!" he shouted across the bar.

I knew this was coming. The whiskey made it surprisingly easy to ignore him. Then again it made the bile rise to the back of my throat when some transient identified me as a tourist in my own town.

When some people see me at the end of the bar on my laptop, they assume I'm writing about them. Others think I'm deficient. Yet others read it for what it is: some kind of social incompetent or I need someone to reach out and draw me out of my shell. Pure codswallop. If you're interesting, I'll engage you. If not, I'll politely brush you off.

I toasted him politely with a head-nod and a "Salud." I went back to my writing.

The Pirate turned to The Couple and said, "Can you believe that guy!?!?"

I ignored him. I wanted nothing to do with him. I was in a writing groove. The Couple was looking at me quizzically, like I was some kind of summertime Ebeneezer Scrooge. Or at the least they thought I was a "special" kind of guy.

The Pirate leaned over the bar and yelled, "Where are you from?!?!"

"Oh Boy! Here we go again," I thought. "There's no stopping it now." I ignored him as best I could and typed away.

"Where do you work... Besides here!?!" He looked at The Couple gleefully, like he caught a fish and needed their approval. Or at the very least he caught me in some unsolvable conundrum or lie.

I took another pull off my whiskey. "It's none of your business. Leave me alone...."

The blunt rejection set him back a bit, but the Pabst was flowing through him like The Force. He continued trying to get a response from me.

Finally, I looked him directly in the eyes and said flatly and with finality, "Just leave me alone... I don't want to be part of your circus act."

That set him off, and he started yelling not-at-all nice things at me over The Couple. They became very distressed.

I smiled at the pirate sardonically. I even blew a kiss at him and winked at him. I knew I was escalating things and egging him on. I couldn't help it. Things were cascading out of control because he couldn't tolerate my indifference to his self-cultivated happy-go-lucky Pirate character that he was ramming down my throat.

He threatened to beat me up in the parking lot. Then he offered to beat me up in the restaurant. I started shouting back. I just wanted him to leave me alone. And for those of you who have never met me, allow me to say I have a very loud, deep voice that is ideal for shouting over heavy machinery on large civil construction sites. I did not hold back, and everyone in Harborside heard me.

My adrenaline was surging. I just remembered bawling at The Pirate over and over, "JUST SHUT UP AND GO AWAY YOU STUPID PIRATE!!" And my ass never left the bar seat.

I hadn't been in a bar fight in over 30 years. The ones I remembered were pretty lame affairs over some dull girl, a mistaken gesture, or one party or the other having too much to drink. All I remembered about fighting was to body punch with my left and go for the head with my right. I also vaguely remembered what a terrible fighter I was.

After an embarrassing couple minutes of this back and forth, the staff "escorted" the now Screaming Pirate out of the building with his warm-Pabst-laden backpack. Once he was outside, Harborside was completely silent. All eyes were on me. I stole a sideways look at The Couple. They both had their arms crossed and were staring at the bar. The man had his credit card out. Luckily, the adrenaline made me lucid.

"Enjoying your stay in Boothbay Harbor?"

The Couple chuckled. Things got back to busy in Harborside. I apologized to them. They were dismissive. I bought them a round. There were no hard feelings.

They asked me what I did. I owned the pet store in town. I asked them where they were staying. They said a place called The Coal Shack.

I smiled and told them that my wife and I owned it.

They've rented it every year since then. And every year I put an authentic certificate in there that says, "This Rental is a Pirate-Free Zone."

~ Don (Not a Dog)

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