Scotty

The story begins with a message on Facebook: “I’m looking for Wayne Scott from the Baltimore area. A Navy veteran, about seventy-two or seventy-three. A relative of yours by any chance?” A phone call to my mother confirms that my father, whose name I inherited and who was close-lipped about his past, had dropped out of high school and joined the Navy when he was seventeen.

I write back to the stranger that I’m the oldest of Wayne Scott’s three sons and that he died of lung cancer fifteen years ago. “I wasn’t very close to him,” I confess, “but I am interested in any recollections you care to share.”