How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found by Doug Richmond (e book free reading TXT) 📗

My seatmate on the bus out of Nogales was a quiet, unprepossessing gentleman in his mid-forties who introduced himself as "Capa." What hair he had left was shot with gray and he wore a mustache of a type very common in Mexico but seldom seen in the U.S. since silent movies went out. I was standing behind him in the ticket line in Nogales and was amused that he spoke fluent Central American Spanish with a Southern U.S. accent.

We passed small talk between us as the bus began its long journey. I couldn't help the feeling that something about this fellow was very unusual. For one, he pointedly did not say where he lived or what sort of work he did--two of the first bits of information usually exchanged between travelers. Then there was the name "Capa." It means, among other things, cloak, pretense, mask, cover, that which hides. It is not a common name for someone of Spanish descent.

Then there was the accent. When I casually commented on this he glanced at me sharply and I thought I had offended him. Then he smiled and said, "Thanks, I didn't realize that. Where I live I doubt if anyone would recognize a regional American accent. The information is deeply appreciated. I'll have to watch out for that in the future."

We had a difficult time conversing without having to shout over the two redneck drunks sitting in front of us. They were off on a fishing excursion and passed the time comparing notes on their nagging wives and thinking up schemes for breaking away from their dreary lives. When their conversation turned to disappearing and creating new identities I noticed that Capa, who until now had seemed annoyed at the louts, took a keen interest in their discussion. They concluded this wasn't a practical scheme because of the web of paperwork the U.S. citizen is subjected to. The discussion continued along these lines until they reached Las Mochis and got off the bus.

I was glad to see the drunks depart because it meant that I could hold a civil conversation with Capa, who seemed a most interesting and mysterious man.

As the bus started out of the depot, Capa turned to me and said, "Those drunks were full of shit, you know."

"In what way?" I asked.

"About disappearing and taking on a new identity. It is done all the time in every country of the world, and most countries have much, much more paperwork to contend with than the United States."

He sounded very authoritative on the subject, and I could tell it was of particular interest to him. I thought of the stories I had read in the papers about fugitives who had changed identities to escape the law and how they seemed to always get caught. "I imagine it's a very difficult feat to pull off," I said. "Probably something used only by criminals and the like."

"Not at all," he replied. "It's much easier than you think. A good friend of mine once pulled it off and I don't believe he'll ever be discovered. It is a most interesting story, if you care to hear it."

I told him I did. This was my first encounter with the ubiquitous "friend" I would encounter over and over again while researching this book. What follows is the story he spun as reconstructed from the notes I made in Mazatlan while waiting for the ferry to La Paz.

"I had a friend who lived in one of those textbook examples of a sleepy Southern town that still exist here and there. Let's call him 'Paul,' which is not his real name, of course.

"Paul came from one of the so-called 'leading families' of the South, complete with the bronze statue of an ancestor on the courthouse lawn. He married the daughter of another of the town's 'leading families'--a second cousin, as a matter of fact. They were not really 'in love.' They had married because they were expected to marry. They had two kids who eventually became the only thing holding them together. As time passed, Paul's wife became more involved with establishing herself in local society and Paul escaped more and more into his love of boats.

"Paul and his wife began to argue frequently, and their fights seemed to center around his love of boating. His wife resented his hobby and felt it kept him from participating in the social events she was constantly arranging. She refused to ever join him on his little day sailer. As their quarrels grew more violent he consented to sell the boat to keep peace in the family. From that day forward he kept his hobby sheltered from his wife.

"He continued to read everything he could about boats and single-handing, but the magazines and books now came to his office instead of his home. He taught himself navigation through a mail order course, bought himself a plastic sextant and measured the height of every building, chimney and telephone pole he could see from his office window. But his relationship with his wife only seemed to get worse.

"Then one day the inevitable happened. He began to dream about disappearing, about changing his identity and buying a boat. Then he could spend the rest of his life gunkholing around all the places he'd read about for so many years. Of course, he never had the slightest intention of actually doing it. He had always done the conventional, expected things and could be expected to go on that way for the rest of his natural life.

"One balmy May afternoon Paul took off work early and went down to the river to see if any boats were coming in. It turned out to be a lucky day because there was a sailboat headed into the dock--a rare occurrence on an inland river. Paul hopped out of his car and went over to help the lone sailor tie-up. To his delight, the skipper invited him aboard for a mug-up.

"The skipper was amazed by the