Mystery of the Footprints

As we rang in the new year, all indications were that 2016 would be a normal year. 

 

That was, until 12:05 a.m. when a shadowy figure rushed by Clairebear and me, and firmly pressed a piece of paper in my hand. 

 

Tempted to drop it like an empty gum wrapper, the force of its delivery told me to look at it. 

 

 

"Hey man, what the heck is this?" I asked as I urgently looked for the figure who disappeared just as quickly as he appeared. Haunted by the message and my curious origins, CB and I packed our bags and headed to Johns Hopkins Hospital, birth certificate in hand. Would anyone remember Baby Boy Doe?  

As we stood in the lobby, paralyzed with uncertainty, a doctor hurried by. "What took you so long?  Follow the footprints in the snow," he said, and then he was gone. 

 

 

I pulled out my phone and Googled "1990 Johns Hopkins" and was shocked by a story about a baby boy - parents unknown, who was kidnapped from the hospital. Police tracked footprints to a Costa Rican restaurant that had mysteriously closed just days before when its owner Papi disappeared. 

The next day, CB and I boarded a plane for San Jose and made our way to Cartago.  We missed Papi by one day. 

 

 

He and his secret were on their way to St. Lucia, where we arrived later that week. 

 

 

Deep in the jungle, we found Papi.  I tried to explain who I was, hoping he would recognize me as the baby he may have once known. All he would say was, "Dos Alejandros. El halcon."

 

Confused, exhausted, and with nothing more to go on, we headed back to New York to submerge ourselves once again in bacon. And there it was during our layover in Atlanta - this guy was on TV talking about how he was born conjoined at the hip to his twin, separated by a famous neurosurgeon, kidnapped from the hospital and hidden away in the jungle for years.

 

 

We're back in New York now, albeit with more questions than answers.  And, as we regroup, our message is simply this:  "Eat more bacon," and . . .

 

 

xoxo

Xander