Disappearing act… life imitates art and vice-versa

The plot of any number of stories (the best twist on which being in  Joseph Hansen’s “Steps Going Down“) — guy fakes his death to live a “simple life” in Mexico — has made a small appearance in the “real” news (er, the gossip columns).

Some guy named Patrick McDermott had his fifteen minutes of fame several years ago as the boyfriend of then-famous pop singer Olivia Newton-John.  McDermott supposedly fell off a boat while fishing off the California coast in 2005 and his body was never recovered.

Weeeeelllll… a few details surface later.  Like a lot of people in the film industry   “Patrick McDermott” was an assumed name, and the guy had a second passport in his original name.  And he’d cleaned out his bank accounts shortly before his “accident.”  And he had a shitload of debt.

According to the New York Daily News:

In the most recent fax, McDermott’s supposed rep wrote, “Pat has asked that I portray to you his innocence. Pat has committed no crime. Pat simply wishes to be left alone. Let him live his life in peace and harmony. He is safe and has started anew again in a new place both physically and mentally. Stop this search immediately.”

The investigators believe McDermott is currently working as a deckhand in the small Mexican fishing town of Sayulita.

Nothin’ wrong with that.

Although now and again there’s a tendency to lump all disappearing U.S. citizens with foul play (or with the narcotics trade, as Clinton era “Drug Czar”  General Barry McCaffrey did as late as March 2009) the truth is a lot of people come to Mexico to be left alone, for any number of reasons.

There’s an estimated million plus  residents of just the United States in Mexico, and an unknown number of other “first world” types.  Not all by any means are the folks who write blogs about their life in Fulanititlan, or query local message boards looking for English-speaking plumbers.

It used to be kind of a given that most of us were some kind of rogue, or liked to think we were.   I am just enough of an old-timer to have once been asked directions by a  slightly disoriented tourist from Minnesota, who — when he figured out I lived in Mexico City — didn’t ask  “what DO you do?” in the sense of my life in Mexico, but “What DID you DO?”  that I had to live in Mexico.  It was soooo tempting to say something about … oh… machine guns, the Contras and a pesky federal indictment.

The tale of past wrong-doing isn’t all that unusual among those who have semi-disappeared.  Unlike the folks who take a “border promotion” along the lines of transforming the article they wrote for a church magazine about their mission trip to Juarez into a career as a former international correspondent, seeking to make themselves better than they were “at home”, there are those who seek to make themselves worse. Better to be thought in some kind of witness protection plan than skipping out on bills.  They are unlikely to be extradicted, but friends don’t like to see even slighly odd compatriates end up in cement overshoes, and won’t press the issue.

I once got an e-mail from a woman claiming to be an old high school flame of some guy who had a short story  published in some U.S. literary magazine. The lady said she knew he worked at a pool hall in Mexico City and wanted to see if I’d track him down (I need to be more anonymous myself!).    Anyone who lives in Mexico City knows what a daunting task that would be, and it was more than a simple matter of looking up telephone numbers in the yellow pages… besides which, I had no way of knowing if she was a high school sweetheart — or a sweetheart with years of back child support, or an IRS agent, or a private eye.  Hell, maybe he’s got a boyfriend. Besides, he’s a writer, and a semi-recluse by definition.  It’s not my place to intervene.

People like the pool-hall literati are not really “disappeared”, but they came to Mexico for a reason, and — if they want a break with their past — are entitled to it.  He probably is a lot like I am: not in hiding (and no real reason to be hidden),  but having made a radical break with my old life, able to chose whom I stay in contact with.

Most of the disappeared, of course, are alcoholics (as in Hansen’s novel) or guys fleeing a dysfunctional family, or a bad relationship (or seeking a good one) or bad debts.   Some just want to be “off the radar” (former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura lives over near Cabo somewhere, jealously guarding his privacy).  Its difficult to completely disappear, as “Patrick McDermott” did (having two passports, and two names certainly helped), but not all that rare… nor necessarily sinister.

Sayulita — where the guy formerly known as  Patrick McDermott supposedly lives — isn’t the dark side of the moon, exactly.  It’s just down the road from Puerto Vallerta — one of the major resort communities on the planet, with shopping malls, and neon lights and chain stores galore.  There’s buses and roads and all the other accourtrements of modern life.

And — in our increasingly complicated society — where every transaction seems to require you provide some third-party proof you are who you are, there needs to be a place for those who are not who they are.  Maybe it’s even admirable that a modern country like Mexico is still a place where one can have pretty much everything one has in the United States — but still live off the grid, or even disappear.  And be who they want to be.