How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, Doug Richmond [a court of thorns and roses ebook free txt] 📗

want their friends or relations to know about it. In this light it is interesting to note that a man can do his stretch under any name he chooses provided the authorities can't make a positive identification. Although the identity change is genuine, the disappearance would have to come under the heading "involuntary" and hence is beyond the scope of this book.

Amnesia

Genuine amnesia is extremely rare, not nearly as common as one would be led to believe by TV and newspapers, and even rarer as a factor in a prolonged disappearance and identity change. The true amnesiac is often badly confused and either seeks help or is picked up by the police because he is unable to care for himself. It is not so rare, however, for a disappearee to

plead

amnesia upon returning to the family fold. And the family readily accepts this flimsy explanation because it is a convenient way out of a situation embarrassing to all concerned.

Rebellion & Adventure

Although I talked to no disappearee who vanished as a gesture of rebellion against "the system" per se, many of the respondents had nothing but contempt for the maze of forms and petty regulations used by business and government to control the masses. I found it amusing that their contempt stemmed from the fact that they found the vaunted controls so easy to subvert.

One man I spoke with was perfectly confident that he could disappear successfully because back in WW II he had found it an absolute cinch to con the United States Army into giving him an honorable discharge during his first six months in the service. He resolved to do the deed after a pot-bellied superior gave a speech to the effect that bilking the Army was a physical impossibility and anyone attempting to do so would spend the rest of the war in the stockade. His only regret is that he didn't put enough effort into the charade to wind up with a lifelong, tax-free pension.

Apparently there are a few romantically-inclined individuals who disappear simply for the hell of it. Most of them are probably younger people who would otherwise have no pressing need to go through the considerable trouble of effecting an identity change. The disappearees I talked to were aghast at the very idea of it, taking the attitude that anyone who disappeared for a lark, given the difficulties of establishing and documenting a new identity, ought to have his head examined!

HOW - THE MECHANICS OF DISAPPEARING

"An adventure is usually the penalty for lousy planning."

Jenkins, Miner & Prospector, Durango, Mexico 1943.

The way a disappearance is begun usually determines how it will end. The person who blows out one night without any preparation or planning is likely to return soon, either brought back by force or an inability to withstand the rigors of anonymity. On the other hand, the most successful vanishers are those whose disappearance was planned well in advance and painstakingly executed.

Most disappearances fall between the extremes of the careful planner and the spur-of-the-moment drop-out. Many of the disappearances that look on the surface like whimsical undertakings are actually the result of years of detailed and methodical planning even though the person doing the planning may not actually realize it at the time. Let me explain this phenomenon.

THE "UNPLANNED" DISAPPEARANCE

One of the more popular and conventional forms of daydreaming, especially for men, is the wishful contemplation of getting away from it all. How many of us would like to chuck the humdrum, boring existence we lead and exchange it for exciting, perhaps dangerous, adventure? The banker may want to be a Northwoods guide, the chemist a cowhand in New Mexico, the chain-store executive a big-time magazine photographer.

Most men have such fantasies but how many ever realize them? Merely hinting at such secret desires earns the dreamer the ridicule of family and peers who scoff at the idea of changing occupations and locations late in the game of life. Spouses may be afraid to take the risks of reducing the family income or leaving a community they have grown comfortable in. Co-workers may find it impossible to imagine such a radical change in lifestyle; their greatest fear may be of the realization that a large and exciting world exists outside the confines of their nine-to-five routine.

And so the dreamer keeps his fantasies to himself. He may buy maps of South America, guidebooks to arctic Alaska, magazines on single-handed boating. He may have these delivered to where he works to keep his family from scoffing at him. He goes on dreaming about the lifestyle of a carefree traveler, but he never breathes a word about it around work or home.

Then one day something happens. Maybe it's a bad argument with his wife about their finances, or he misses out on that promotion he thought was his for sure, and something inside him snaps. That's when he realizes he's gone through this journey a thousand times in his head--why not live it out? What's holding him back now? After dinner one night he goes out for a pack of smokes and never returns. While he never "planned" to disappear, his years of "aimless" dreaming provided him with most of the materials he needed, particularly a mental blueprint of where he would go and what he would do once he got there.

The disappearee who originally piqued my interest in the subject was an example of an unpremeditated disappearance. He realized that it was just fantastic luck that made his disappearance possible. But he had a quick mind and took advantage of the opportunities that arose and enabled him to live incognito. His name was "Capa."

Capa

A few years ago I had an assignment to do a magazine article that entailed my going to La Paz, Mexico. As it was Easter Holy Week and all the flights to that part of Mexico were booked, I had to catch a flight to Tucson then take a bus from Nogales, Arizona to Mazatlan where I could catch a ferry