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Get Off the Grid
Saul Goodman's Guide To Staying Off The Radar
By Saul Goodman St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2017 TM
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-9141-8
CHAPTER 1
Why Would Anyone Do This?
Whatever it is, it's hit the fan and the stink's in circulation. Clock's struck midnight on your old life and it's time to go, pumpkin.
You might be a criminal: no judgment from the counselor, here. Maybe you were selling some fresh green ganja, some fine-ass Purple Urkel laced with Alice B. Toklas, and a deal went sour. Or — still in that malefactor vein — it could be that you're the brawn who tags along to ensure the deal works to your boss's advantage, and there was a tragic misunderstanding. People got hurt, and you need to run. From everyone.
Or maybe you're not a criminal! Perhaps you're falsely accused, or just good people with bad troubles. Fine. As bad luck could have it, there's a chance you're a victim. You've got a roommate with a head full of steam who doesn't appreciate when you forget to do the dishes, and you've noticed recently that the Gatorade in the fridge has been tasting a little antifreeze-y. Or you just discovered the nest of RGB cables in your bedroom's air-conditioning vent that feeds from cameras hidden in all crannies of your condo, and you're not looking to be one man's private reality show.
Next stop on the ominous train, maybe you're a lone survivor. You got a look at the devil's face and know he may come for you before the good guys (cops, in this case) ever even get close.
Any of these situations justly and naturally warrant a fresh start. The moment has come for you to strip off the heavy shell of you-ness and get a new beginning, a new name and a new life. It's time for a little karmic remodeling.
I will now state the obvious (for posterity): once you get to this point, you'd better know exactly why you bothered.
I, Saul, the man with the plan and the best friend you could have standing next to you before a no-nonsense New Mexico judge, didn't shoulder the burden of anonymity lightly. Not to give too much of the farm away (I'm going to act as if those acres of attorney-client privileges still apply, even if they don't), but I had life-preserving reasons for renovating my existence.
So let's lay down a little list of possible motivations any dear reader might have for following Mr. Low Profile's winding path to the sensibly khaki-clad life of an average civilian.
Legit Logic
There are plenty of reasons to walk (or sprint) away from an established "you," and although necessary, some of those reasons are unpleasant.
A disappearance at times begins as an "accident." You might recall some version of a news story that goes something like this: Miss Jane Doe ventured out for a drive on a winding mountain road on a cold winter's night. Alas, something — presumably fog and ice — prevented the lovely Miss Doe from arriving at her destination. Worst-case scenarios are often crafted by a sprinkle of pessimism and a dose of common sense. Customary earnest and hurried searches ensue, but Miss Doe has become a ghost of the mountain, at one with the mist in the pines.
Most likely, Miss Doe's car will be recovered from a river a couple years later, her skeletal remains still sensibly seat-belted in place, phalanges yet clutching that "World's Greatest Auntie!" travel mug that never quite fit its holder. It's grim, but more commonplace than it should be. Bad things happen to good people, and there's not always someone in the forest to hear the sound of the tree falling. But as often as legitimate accidents occur, there are also plenty of "accidents" orchestrated by folks who are desperate to win the ultimate game of hide-and-seek.
No matter the circumstances, let's assume you need a brand-new bag. You, of your own volition, have chosen to make a change.
Getting off the grid is not for the half-hearted. Even the fully hearted might find this process intimidating. That's why it's normally — if such a thing is ever entirely normal — within the purview of feds and spies. If the government decides you're a pivotal witness in a federal case, you'll be masterfully transitioned right the hell out of your old life and into an untraceable new one. Intelligence services are the million-point "ASS" top score on the Centipede machine-style champs at this kind of thing.
Here's an example: a few years ago, a guy called Mahmoud was assassinated in a Dubai hotel. He was involved in some military operations far from the Israeli stamp of approval. Sure enough, the couple dozen suspects in Mahmoud's death were allegedly Israeli intelligence agents. They'd managed to acquire stolen British, Irish, German, French, and Aussie identification documents. The case remains unsolved because those intel agents (or whoever they were) vanished into the ether with their purloined passports.
There will be times here when it will feel like we're talking about spy-craft; some of the behaviors required by this leaving-the-grid thing are fantastically furtive. Though you won't be assassinating anyone in Dubai. I hope.
To be crystal clear — and this is my inner counselor talking — this stuff isn't exactly all that legal, in the end. There may be gray areas, but generally it's safe to assume that the things we're discussing would not be recommended by our pals who live to protect and serve.
There's a big "but!" here. Dodging many of the obligations an intentional disappearance leaves behind may create a sticky wicket or two as far as the law's concerned, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it when and where the proverbial rubber meets the road.
Sometimes you've got to look out for numero uno. The following is a selection of motivations (appreciated but not necessarily endorsed by the former Saul Goodman) for jumping ship to the desert, the forest, or even the fine shores of the Missouri River:
• Escaping violence. Easily one of the strongest bases to light out for the provinces is the natural desire to get the hell away from some abusive buffoon. It's unnatural and unadvised to ignore pure survival instinct. While physical vengeance may seem more gratifying and perhaps simpler, it is by far the messier option. If anything here helps get someone out, out, and away from a sadistic prick, a savage clown, a nasty sociopath, a human skid mark, etc., I'll consider my mission accomplished.
• Letting your wild passion decide. When it comes to reasons for giving everyone who knows you the slip, escaping into the arms of your soul mate — über-bestie, side nugget, whatever the kids say now — is one of the most complicated of the bunch. You know the phrase "Hell hath no fury"? If you're reading up on ways to hightail it out of a marriage to get with the most desirable new stranger imaginable, just be aware that few are more motivated to find you and make you explain what you did than a jilted lover. It's not your fault that you've got such a magnetic personality! But think of the broken hearts that you're leaving in your wake as little paper clips: they're going to go chasing right after your attractive iron heart, and it won't be easy to repel them. So maybe save yourself the hassle and — instead of disappearing — go about ending things in a more straightforward way if you can? Then grab your new sweetie and move one town over — you probably won't get burned by any old flames at your new local grocery store.
• Dodging debts. Although I think skipping out on financial obligation is a semi-decent reason to dissolve your current existence, it sets you up for failure. There's a basic, inalienable desire among creditors of all kinds — the legal and the illegal — to hunt debtors down and make them pay. The law circumscribes a plethora of above-board action that creditors can take these days, but that hasn't quelled their Old Testament–style rage when the amount owed is massive and the borrower is missing. As we'll see, personal vanishing acts are costly enough without collectors in pursuit. With the legal kind of creditor, you may be able to get away with a few basic adjustments: changing your name, home address, and social security number might do the trick. Unfortunately, lenders can leverage the courts to send the law after you by filing suits that require you to appear in court. Some state laws are more aggressive than others. No show at court? A warrant goes out, and blammo! You're wanted. That said — they aren't high-priority warrants, unless you incurred a seriously huge debt and handled things in a suspicious way. On the flip side, there are illegal debts, which are another subject entirely. That leads me to ...
• Bad guys want to get you. You've heard tell of federal witness protection. There's many a true-crime miniseries about getting away from the tentacles of the cartel or the mob or the mystery book of the month club. Within all that drama and glamour is a rare but bare necessity. ... All too often, the tortoise-toed government might not be in a rush to whisk you away from that guy with a teardrop tattoo who's expressed an uncontrollable desire to fry you up in a nice butter sauce. You and the bureaucrats may not feel the same sense of urgency about the matter. Even if the feds are patrolling the block on your behalf, there are simply times when the wolves are way too close to the door and an extralegal extraction must be performed. Those times certainly do include the collection of deadly debts for drugs, for illegal services, for legal services. Sometimes, you just know too much and there's a guy who simply can't afford your existence anymore. My friend, I support your existence. If you have to vanish because a wolf in human form is at the door with a cleaver and a smile, then get thee gone with my blessing.
Shaky Ground
I hate to be the guy to bring the comedown. It's not my thing to pass judgment. If it had been, I might have wound up on the other side of the big oak bench. I might have been a less successful attorney-at-law and a more successful judge-at-large. But as it stood, my clients didn't pay me to judge. Evaluate, sure. Counsel, yes. Level with them when necessary, if needed? Of course.
And yet ... in the interest of covering as many bases as one man can (and I want to hit a homerun here!), even I have to admit that there are perfectly terrible reasons to disappear.
• Dead-beating the rap. In my legal practice, I was happy to be Albuquerque's very own inflatable Statue of Liberty. I'll take in those tired, poor, huddled masses. Even wretched refuse needs an attorney at some point. Still, I did sometimes get a little twinge of conscience if it seemed a client was trying to get out of paying for childcare or another dependent-related obligation. But still, it takes funds to pull this kind of thing off. My two cents is worth a lot more than advertised, and I'd like to offer that unless you have been breeding like a lecherous rabbit, the price of disappearing is going to be much greater than the price of child support.
• Fraud gone bad. Even in my unusual circumstances, I don't mind declaring that fraud is mostly unpropitious. Though, let's face it, some forms of fraud are slightly understandable. Hypothetically, let's say you laundered money for drug dealers and made it a habit to skim a bit. You're a modern-day Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. The poor, in this case, being yourself. Who could blame you? One day, a contact seems more suspicious than usual. You get the feeling that it's time to take your stash and run, and more power to you.
Or, perhaps you're "in the game," but you're not the type to play at the high-stakes table. There are low-yield frauds that take from the rich insurance companies and give to the poor slip-and-fall artists, though those situations rarely rise to the level of slipping out of life as you know it.
Don't read me wrong — little seeds of fraud can grow into giant, uncontrollable beanstalks. I read about a guy — we'll just call him John Woe — who teamed with his wife in a doozy of a life insurance fraud. They took some clothes out of John's closet and played dress-up with a corpse they'd acquired, stowing John Woe's deceased doppelganger inside a soon-to-be-burned-out car. When ole Johnny came up "missing," Mrs. Woe received an impressive payday from her hubby's life insurance company. Unfortunately for the Woe-ful duo, the insurers tested the corpse's DNA and discovered the deception. As the icing on this morbid cake, the grieving Mrs. Woe promptly got a new boyfriend who was a not-so-dead ringer for her recently deceased husband, and the jig was up. Look, if you're going to try to fake your own death so that someone else can collect the insurance money, you've got to be okay with never, ever touching a penny of that sweet payout yourself. Your fake death only works if it operates on the same prevailing characteristic of your real death: it's permanent. So unless you were looking to get separated and you're feeling especially charitable toward your soon-to-be ex, don't try this one at home.
• In a word, murder. If sending a guy or gal a one-way ticket to Belize seems like the most direct solution to some very thorny problems, you'd better be geared up to weather the subsequent shitstorm. There was a Foreign Service officer in the '70s who had killer language skills and a boatload of degrees. A regular Man from U.N.C.L.E. Oh, and he offed his entire family with a hammer and then disappeared from the face of the earth. He had the skill set and the lead time on the cops to get the hell out of the United States and begin a new life elsewhere, speaking any one of the five dialects he knew as fluent as a native would. If you have a talented tongue and a ride out of town, by all means — you do you. But why not just disappear, and skip the gruesome part?
* * *
Now, my friend, is the time to grab another cup of coffee or your choice of energy concoction. We're getting off the stick. Like the old Morning Zoo Deejays used to scream, we're locking into this channel now and breaking the knob off.
Imagine that I'm about to upend a big old tub of Lincoln Logs and we're going to take a look at each one. By the time we're done, we'll have a built you a sturdy new life, your old self left behind. That shiny, newly named you will go striding off into the future.
Ha. No, seriously: best-case scenario is you get to the other side alive. You will be one lucky son of a gun or daughter of fortune if that wobbly toy house doesn't fall apart in the first breeze. But see, that's part of the fun — figuring out how we get to the end, so we can begin again.
A Plan, a Man, Something About Panama
Lawyering took an eye for details. I had to be able to spot a misplaced decimal on a shady accountant's spreadsheet the way a keen '49-er could see a fleck of gold in ten pounds of sand.
I can guarantee that if someone disappears, a focused acumen as sharp as mine will come knocking on your door. Thorough and patient peepers will absolutely find that one detail that you glossed over in your hurry to trip the light fantastic out of town before the villagers arrived with their torches.
Here's some tough love: you are going to forget something. Doesn't matter if you're an astrophysicist or actress — particulars necessary to getting off the grid will fly right through your nervous brain.
Let's start by ticking off a number of things that might help anyone find you if you up and run tomorrow. I'm talking about seemingly everyday items you probably don't think too hard about as you glance at them in your wallet: credit cards, driver's license or state-issued ID, passport if you ever had one, and your good old social security number.
The short list of documents that validate your existence as a semi-functioning adult? They offer a formidable set of obstacles on the journey into a new life. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. And if you're starting over? These papers are the tip of a digital iceberg of interconnected information. You definitely can't use them to set up your new life. You've got to start from scratch.
What You Leave Behind (Spoiler Alert: Everything!)
I'll assume by this point that you're totally clear on why you're doing this in the first place. That's settled business. Moving on to plan proper.
Feels kinda exciting, doesn't it? Woo-hoo! A new you! But before you dive into the deep end and start swimming to shores unknown, take a very hard look at the life you have right now, as you sit here. We've got to examine what we're leaving so we can understand how to get gone.
Those everyday marks, the hoi polloi in the streets drinking bubble tea and taking selfies with their dogs, don't realize they are happy little flies caught in a black widow's web.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Get Off the Grid by Saul Goodman. Copyright © 2017 TM. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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