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The Imposter With Dark Glasses

R. M. Kozan

    I admit it started with the lost wallet I found but it wasn’t until almost a year later that the plan formed in my head. The picture in the wallet drew me. The man’s age and details approximated my own. Sure he was several inches taller and tens of pounds heavier. I imagined he was more imposing than my own not-quite-average height and slight frame allowed but there were similarities. The age was bang on, and the hair color was very close. There was something about his face that was familiar to me and it took a while for our close resemblance to register.
    You would think I should empathize with this figure, strive to return his wallet, limit the damages his carelessness will cause him. But no. Even though I did not have the plan fully formed in my head, I am sure it was gestating, in unicellular form, waiting for the exponential growth a little encouragement would bring.
    His name is Simon Laredo. It sounds a bit like a character in a television series or a book but now he plays the part I have given him. His identity is my fallback position. When I decided to jettison this life and start again, I needed a cut-out actor. An identity I could use for various activities leading up to the creation of my new persona, and then discard. If the shell of truthiness around my new life ever cracked, Simon would be the one revealed as pulling the strings behind the curtain of deception, not me, the name I will never again repeat.
    The wallet contained about two hundred dollars but that is not why I kept it. I needed his drivers license number, his social insurance number. With only a few items, one can rapidly build a new identity. It was not my intention to rip off Simon. As I morphed into his name and identity that July morning, I did not visit Futureshop and purchase a lot of electronic equipment. I did not hack his bank accounts. I had no intention of stealing anything from Simon but a security blanket of anonymity.
    It was Simon who rented the post office box, with cash. Simon who paid for hotel rooms, rented cars. Always with cash.
    My previous life did not leave much of a mark on the bureaucracy we call society. I had never been arrested, never been fingerprinted. There exists one photo of me, a driver’s license, but it was taken when I still had the full beard and luxuriant scalp cover of a fecund young man. Since moving to the city, I had let that license expire and never replaced it. Ever since leaving the commune where my parents raised me, I have not had the chance to drive. While I enjoyed frequent forays with various early models from among the fleet of decrepit vehicles held in joint ownership by my extended family, I have avoided the complications of car ownership since then. This was not by design, it was necessitated by poverty, but it worked out for the best. The bus provided my transportation needs.
    When I first arrived in the city, I felt like a blank slate. Everything that had gone before was to be washed away and a new layer of experience would serve to re-invent me. It did not turn out like that. I cannot deny that I knew there were problems back home. I had vivid memories of the abuse of my brothers and sisters, or more realistically, cousins. It was difficult to tell who was a sibling and who was a cousin at home. The word cousin denotes a bloodline but with my family there was no line in the blood. My brothers were half-brothers, or half cousins, or completely unrelated. The Family defined itself by itself, based on its own rules which were never defined until you accidentally defied them. Having invisible rules with unwritten consequences for infractions did not allow one the freedom to act even within constraints. I was simply paralyzed and that is why I left when I was eighteen.
    Ostensibly, there were no rules. The parents smoked a lot of weed, which they grew themselves, perhaps the whole reason for the commune in the first place. The children were allowed to puff on the chaff of the harvest, although I never liked it and avoided those pungent clouds as best I could. As well as drug use, sexual behavior was encouraged. Once a girl hit menses she was encouraged to learn about her body by interacting with older members of the group, sometimes very much older members. For whatever reason, I was pathologically shy, not able to form bonds with the girls my age and shunning the incessant attention and compliments of the older women. Much as they tried to molest me, I remained virgin.
    Whenever I was lectured on the importance of loving everyone, I argued that love should be special, intimate, not ubiquitous. The one thing I sought most was privacy. I found it in books. While the other kids played and smoked and humped, I hid in the woods and read the books that all the parents were so proud of displaying on their shelves but I doubt had ever actually read themselves. They gave lip service to intelligence. They respected certain academics, David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, but they were content to thinking the same unchanged rut that had brought them together back in the sixties.
    The parents were one amorphous group, swapping partners and shuffling live-in groups every few weeks it seemed. Dad was a position, not a person. The eldest male living in that cabin was Dad. Who my biological father was, I cannot say. My Mother was a woman called Carole, although one night when she was very high on mushrooms she admitted to me that she might have me confused with the other Brian, one year younger than myself.
    When the time came I was finally old enough to leave the commune by myself, I did not return. I was alone and penniless in a giant city, but finally I had gained true privacy.
    I didn’t ask for much, just an opportunity to work and live quietly, without harassment. In the city no one asked me about my background and I kept my head down. I worked hard, mopping floors, washing dishes, working alongside immigrants who spoke only a few words of English. I made progress. Soon I had my own room at a local long term hotel and even a telephone, which turned out to be a mistake.
    All went well for about a year until one of my loosely defined sisters arrived. I had no idea if she was my blood sister of course and neither did she but that did not stop her from coming on to me. An advance I repelled. She had found my name in the phone book and as soon as she arrived, my troubles began.
    Being completely free of sexual mores, she began to work as a prostitute. Very soon the super was angry at me. My building was not a place where this type of business was encouraged. There were places where the sex trade was welcome, but this was not one of them. He demanded that I pay much more for the room or get out. She paid me and I paid him that first week but I was not happy. When another sister showed up and they both obtained cell phones and began to make ‘dates’ at all hours, I knew I had to leave.
    One afternoon, after finding all the laundry in a horrific, stained state, I cancelled my phone and gathered my meager possessions. That night I paid my rent for the rest of the week, gave notice directly to the front desk and, under cover of darkness, fled. If my sisters wanted the room, they would have to deal with the rules makers themselves. All I wanted was a quiet life.
    I took a room in a suburban house and worked in a restaurant. The house was close to a public library and I made good use of that facility, reading what was available and ordering interesting books from other locations. The librarians were generous and open hearted. None of them tried to sleep with me or choke me with intoxicating smoke. In my mind, they became my parental figures.
    I worked doggedly, saved my money, and kept reading. Slowly I learned the art of identity creation. One night I found Simon’s wallet and the plan began to finally form in my head. Simon would be the cutout. I would use his identity as cover for all the activities required to create my new self. If things were ever to go wrong, an investigation would point back to that Simon, not to this Brian.
    I rented a post office box and there received tools and illicit information for mastering identity theft. I purchased a laptop with cash and used Simon’s identity to obtain internet access. My search and my learning accelerated. Within a year I was ready. I had found my target: Brian Wetherall. I shared his first name, but otherwise our stories were divergent. He was apparently from a middle class family and had just graduated with a degree in agriculture. I spent a few weeks watching his house and then when he was out one night I broke in and gathered the final pieces of information I needed, including his University of British Columbia student identification number.
    I had chosen Wetherall because of his physical resemblance to me. Beside the facial familiarity, there was height and weight similitude. The only fly in the identity theft ointment was his eye color. Unlike mine, his eyes are brown.
    Using his student number I was able to send transcripts of his degree to my desired employers. Although he was university educated, I myself had a long education in agriculture, especially hydroponics, and was also well read on recent issues in the field. I went so far as to buy used copies of some of the textbooks I noted on his shelves. A future in agriculture management is within my grasp.
    I enjoy working with plants and I do not require the constant interactions, interruptions and eruptions of a large dysfunctional family or high population workplace. My time in the city is finished. It has served its purpose. I will move back to the country, but this time on my terms. I will make my own rules.
    The only thing I worry about is my eyes. They are not brown.
    These days, with the dwindling ozone and increased UV radiation at ground level, everyone but especially those who work outdoors must wear proper eye protection.
    I favor dark sunglasses for both these reasons. I have become accustomed to wearing them indoors as well, except at home. If people ask, I say they are prescription.
    Most people will never know, but my eyes are a deep, melancholic blue.

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