In 1982, I was the unwilling sales help for a potter. Each year for the past three years, this potter had gathered up all his rag-ends and attempted to sell them to customers at King Richard's Faire, the Renaissance faire on the Wisconsin border (it's now called Bristol Faire, for those who keep track). He filled his booth with the pots the public had most definitively rejected in the potter's co-op shop in Chicago, where he typically displayed his wares. These were all the very pots the faire goers were about to reject at King Richard's Faire.

This potter brought these orphan pots in boxes to the show, leaving his saleable items behind. Then he unpacked them and indifferently set them out on crooked weathered-wood shelving without regard for any sort of esthetics or color coordination. Rather than cope with the rejection, he coerced me into manning the booth in his place so that I, not he, could sit in a lacy little bare-shouldered wench costume and watch his sad pottery not sell. Then he went home. Buh-bye.

I coped with this job I did not want by purchasing copious amounts of beer, and placing it in a cooler in the shade between folding chairs. I sat there in my lacy little bare-shouldered wench costume and waited. This happy cooler of beer and I attracted many, so it unnecessary for me to leave my folding chair in the shade, except for forays abroad for food, or visits to the chemical privy. Occasionally I stood to answer the odd question about pottery, or to transact the odd sale before sitting down again and picking up my goblet. I paced myself, spreading my three-beer allotment over the course of the entire day, never getting actually drunk lest I become unable to protect my pottery ware from thieves, or count change. (That last part about protecting the pottery and counting change was me being ironical.)

My social life was astonishingly vibrant that season, as the patrons filtered in and out, not buying, but faire participants came to stay and visit with me, dipping into the cooler and helping themselves. They sat and we chatted, then they went back to work only to be replaced by others, who stayed and drank and chatted. The beer cooler and I were Miss Congeniality and The Prom Queen respectively, for the entire duration of the show.

Talk turned to the Unicorns, which were celebrity guests that year. The Unicorns were…goats … named Lancelot and Galahad. They were goats with one horn, and their "creator", Otter Zell, was happy to explain to you that unicorns had ALWAYS been goats and had NEVER been horses. That way you wouldn't feel let down when you forked over the $2.00 they required for you to see them. That way you could fully appreciate the specialness of Lancelot and Galahad, and sneer at the historical inaccuracy of the typical unicorn depictions. Pwah! You were to say. Only goats! No horses! Goats good! Horses baaaa-aaad.

Otter was mystical and mysterious about the process behind the creation of unicorns, but hinted it had something to do with moonlit circle dances, magic spells and chanting. When one brought up the subject of surgery, Otter became coy and switched the topic to the history of unicorns, and how they had always been goats, never horses. Furthermore, unicorns would win in a battle with a lion because their one horn was so strong…and so forth.

Otter was a very organic, longhaired and natural fiber kind of guy. He traveled with this other guy who appeared to be as organic as he was, though not as longhaired. The two of them ran the Unicorn Show, which involved taking money from people, then permitting the people from whom they had taken money to walk through ropes and touch the unicorn's horn, or take pictures of themselves.

Otter's partner was a handsome guy, friendly, outgoing and genial. He was the guy girls flirted with and guys slapped on the back. When the two of them stood side by side, Leonard was the guy I trusted, while the oddly organic and mystical Otter somehow lifted my hackles and set off my alarms.

If it weren't for that strange Otter, I thought, I'd hang out around the unicorns and flirt me up some Leonard! (As it happened, I met someone else and never did.)

My nephew, Seamus (who is always most delighted and eager to point out to people that his name is pronounced "Shay-miss" and not "See-miss") was 12 that year - and coincidentally pondering the wisdom of changing his name to "Scott". He was a strapping lad, and it was my pleasure as his aunt to bring him with me for a weekend. It was also my pleasure to bring his friend John along, to keep Seamus company. I felt a job for the boys would be appropriate, to keep them busy and occupied productively while I watched the shop.

What better job than to work with THE UNICORNS??? Tres cool, indeed! So I marched myself over to the unicorn booth, flounced my lacy wench outfit in all directions, smiled and tilted my head with a bare shoulder pointed in their direction, and offered a sales pitch to Otter and Leonard. Two boys! Hard workers! Great kids! I told them.

Sold in a heartbeat. Both boys were hired on as gophers and crowd control. And they worked hard. They periodically ran past on some urgent mission for matches, or vegetarian fare for Leonard or Otter. Hullo! No time to stop!

It was great fun for the kids. But that Otter... I started having second thoughts. Weird guy. Bad vibes. I dunno. "You both be back here at closing," I ordered the boys. "I mean it. NO LATER."

They were five minutes late, and I was on the verge of a meltdown. I didn't know why. Bad vibes.

"Otter. That guy is weird. I don't know about this," I said to whoever was in the folding chair at the time. I believe I said it in succession to a number of folding chair people. "I'm freaking out. There's something wrong about this, and I don't know what it is. I can't put my finger on it." Were those two hot for young boys? I didn't know what my instincts were screaming, but they wouldn't let up.

Then Seamus and John ran in, each waving a five-dollar bill for a job well done. They headed off my meltdown seconds before it had been about to erupt and unleash.

So I let them go back to work the following day. The rule stood: BACK BY CLOSING. NO LATER. I didn't tell them I had a strange bad feeling. But the unicorns were gone anyway, off to the next show, and that weekend became a fond family memory.

So this is how one would hope things would stay: A happy memory of a happy season with happy boys working a fairy tale job with real live unicorns.

And then.

Years later I met someone who had known Otter and Leonard in those years. I shared the fond family memory of my strapping nephew Seamus and his friend John, who had worked for the unicorns. What a fond family memory that was! It was the crème de la crème of fond family memories, wasn't it? Working for the unicorns? How many people can claim a first job that entailed WORKING FOR A UNICORN?? Huh? Tres cool.

This person agreed, except for the fact that Leonard was a serial killer.

"Leonard? Leonard was all right - Otter was the weird guy!" I protested.

No, she assured me. Otter was perfectly fine. He was a great guy. Leonard, however, was a serial killer.

"Leonard Lake. You never heard of Leonard Lake?"

No. I had never heard of Leonard Lake. I googled him (http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/ng/call_1.html) and…there he was. Leonard Lake, unicorn keeper, serial killer, and my strapping nephew's first employer.

I don't know really how to end this blog entry – how to make it be a lesson for all of us. My instincts were in play, but they were aimed toward the wrong guy. Why did I know, but not know WHO? Why didn't anyone ELSE know? I was assured by the person who enlightened me about Leonard Lake that absolutely no one suspected there was anything wrong with him.

"He seemed like a nice guy."

The important thing is that Seamus and John both survived the experience.

But what do we learn from this? Leonard Lake had evidently gone to the Ted Bundy School of Charm. No one who knew him suspected he bound and shackled women in a hidden room, then tortured and killed them. He was delightful and outgoing, and he inspired my trust with two 12-year-old boys. He was NOT the guy one would describe as "a quiet man who kept to himself," and who then later erupted in a storm of bullets. When he stood side-by-side with Otter, Otter was the one with the odd looks and mannerisms that set off my alarms.

It doesn't pay to be paranoid. I might have gone my entire life with a happy memory and no suspicion that I had come dangerously close to flirting me up some serial killer. I could have gone my entire life thinking Otter was a creep, when I'm assured he was not. I never had to know that I flirted two boys into a job with a murderer.

As it is, I know now, and have chewed on it since.

But what do I make of it all?