Identity Thief

by JP Bloch

  You see, Sabrina had her own burden to bear. She had a boyfriend named Colton Cole who neglected to tell her he was HIV positive. He convinced her to have unprotected sex. And now she was HIV positive herself, or POZ, as the young people say. Fortunately, she was doing well, though her life would never be the same. It was a terrible, terrible thing to do to someone against her will. I knew her father could not handle knowing this. But as we dug further into things, we found a way to deal with Colton Cole.

  There was a missing young man named Biff— a rich bum, from what I understand. He didn’t look exactly like Colton Cole, but he was the same general type. The real Biff, Sequoia eventually told me, had been murdered, though she did not specify how or by whom. She said she did this to protect me. Legally, the less I knew, the better. I took her word for it. But it did involve the identity thief—I imagine he killed him—and as part of the ruse, she encouraged her loving husband to shift the blame of the identity theft onto the missing Biff. Eventually, the real thief staged a trip to the island—getting him to help our cause was like shooting ducks in a barrel—and he came back all beaten up from God knows what. Sequoia said she thought he did it to himself. He certainly was weird enough to have done something like that.

  Naturally, her father, Jesse, was not about to take this lying down. So Sabrina pretended to forgive Colton and said she’d meet him on the island. She said that they’d be using a room being loaned to them by her old friend Biff, so to check in as Biff. Colton said wasn’t that the guy who was missing or dead? Sabrina said that he was trying to get away from his family, and it would all be straightened out soon. She also intimated that it was in Colton’s best interests to help Biff finish what he started, as there would be a reward at the end of the rainbow. Like most cruel people, Colton wasn’t really very bright, so he went along with it.

  We expected Jesse to beat him up. Killing him was like an added bonus. We paid off the corrupt island police to get rid of the body with no questions asked. It was quite a pay off, but it was worth it. The whole episode brought Sabrina and Sequoia much closer together. I can’t tell you how it moved me, finally seeing my lovely daughters be true sisters. We can only wonder if Colton got a chance to tell Jesse who he really was, though Jesse probably wouldn’t have believed him anyway. He always had a terrible memory for names. Not that we really care. But Jesse certainly cannot say we never did anything to help him. He murdered someone, for God’s sake, and we cleaned up his mess.

  There isn’t too much else to tell. Scotty did accidentally shoot his whore mother, and we try not to dwell on that. Sequoia wasn’t shot at all. Jesse, the big dope, called to say he was on his way over there. Thinking quickly, Sequoia told Scotty to help her make it look like she’d been shot, too, and to say that he did it. She promised him a special treat if he cooperated, but he is such a cooperative boy anyway. I imagine they had to scoop up the other woman’s blood, but I choose not to think about it. Though Sequoia did do an admirable job of holding her breath to seem dead. She said she learned a special way of doing this in a drama class in Paris. I was so proud of her. She inherited her mother’s smarts. We paid some—shall we say—less-than-ideal young men to clean up the mess.

  We’d long orchestrated it for Jesse to think it was Sabrina who was involved with his identity thief, saying just enough here and there for him to believe this. Jesse was such a stupid man. It’s like his other daughter didn’t even exist to him. So again, we wanted to teach him a lesson. But again, Fate had something else in store. He ended up thinking his beloved Sabrina had been killed. When he first was arrested, Jesse told his lawyer that Sabrina was dead, but his lawyer said that was ridiculous. He had spoken to Sabrina himself. Jesse let the matter drop, dumbfounded as ever. It was immeasurably funny watching Jesse go crazy when Sabrina led him on about being at the bank robbery and seeing that awful man get shot. But you see, we had to confuse him as much as possible.

  Really, the only mistake we made was that smelly old bulldog, Jeremy. Sabrina thought it best that he get a different home, in case she got sick. So she brought him to the pound, and in exchange for a donation, we were allowed to arrange for Sequoia and Scotty and that other creep to adopt the animal. When Sequoia knew Jesse was coming over, she was going to take the dog with her when she left. But Scotty made such a fuss, she felt sorry for him. Fortunately, the dog didn’t make any difference one way or the other. God was on our side.

  Neither of Jesse’s daughters has been to see him or has had any contact with him. From what I’ve gathered, it hasn’t occurred to him to even ask about Sequoia, and he’s still afraid to ask about Sabrina. Despite her years of being pampered, Sabrina cannot forgive her father for what he did to Sequoia and to me, for I have shared with my daughters at least some things about their father.

  I did finally go see Jesse myself. There were no greetings or recriminations. He merely sat down in the visiting area, picked up the telephone, and through the sheet of glass between us he told me, “I used to watch those true crime shows on TV and think how crazy it was when some serial killer would say how now his life was in a much better place. But I understand it. Something is better. Nothing anybody does makes sense. But you live as best you can until you die.” Then he got up and went back to his cell. I never saw him again.

  Sequoia was never pregnant. That was part of the scheme to make her husband more nervous about getting caught. Had he not been hit over the head and fallen into a coma, she would’ve faked a miscarriage down the road. As it was, the doctor said he’d never wake up, so as his wife, Sequoia pulled the plug. The three of us toasted with champagne. Why pay money to keep someone like that alive? We all felt a little bad for Scotty losing both his mother and father. But really, with parents like that, aren’t you better off being an orphan? We were disappointed, though, that the scumbag died knowing so little of what really happened and how much damage he did.

  It wasn’t hard to convince Scotty’s paternal grandmother to let us have custody over the child. And yes, we made it a joint, three-way custody, in case anything should happen to any of us. So he has Sequoia Mom and Sabrina Mom and of course, Grandma Esther. He is such a bright boy, witty and sensitive and polite. Yet he had a screwball teacher who said she was worried about him, that he didn’t fit in with other children and supposedly displayed violent tendencies. If she only saw how devastated he was after shooting his mother, she would’ve known better.

  “I don’t have to listen to this,” I told the teacher. “Boys will be boys, and Scotty couldn’t be nicer most of the time.”

  “Everyone is nice sometimes,” said the impertinent teacher. “Adolph Hitler was nice sometimes. That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “If you’re comparing my grandson to Hitler, he has no place in your classroom. We’ll homeschool him, since clearly we’re the only people who appreciate all he has to offer.”

  The teacher said that wasn’t what she meant, but it made no difference. We started homeschooling Scotty the next day. He keeps us company all the time. Some awful, obnoxious new neighbor accused poor Scotty of poisoning her cat. I assured this know-nothing that Scotty loved animals. He and that bulldog are inseparable.

  The last thing I’ll say is that because the McShrink column had done so well, the three of us made an effort to keep it going. But the readership dropped off. When we lost sponsorship, we called it quits. One of the former advertisers said that McShrink had lost his touch. Now he was telling people to try to talk out their differences with other people, and nobody wanted to hear . . . I might as well say it. He said nobody anymore wanted to hear a bunch of nice shit. Nice, he said, was out of style. Only self-survival mattered now.

  I don’t believe a word of it and neither do my daughters or my grandson. We are four nice people. The nicest people you’d ever want to meet. I expect we’ll be around a long, long time.

  SPECIAL THANKS to Michele Orwin of Bacon Press and my editor Lorraine Fico-White of Magnifico Manuscripts, for taking on the daunting ta
sk of trying to understand me.

  Thanks also to the many people who taught me that their identities were not worth stealing, whereby I was stuck with my own.

  JP BLOCH has a PhD but hopes people won’t hold it against him. His last name is pronounced “Block,” not “Blotch,” but he’s gotten used to it. He has been called far worse. He has lived all over the country, and so far the feds have not busted him. He finally settled in Connecticut, where he is an indentured servant to his dog. JP writes on his king-size bed with the fan on. His hobbies include eating cashews while watching TV and overdosing on film noir favorites.

  Doc Bloch, as he affectionately calls himself, teaches criminology, gender, and other things. He has appeared on TV and radio numerous times. Having grown up in different households, he became interested at a young age in the fragility of self-identity. On his own since age 15, he also developed a lifelong interest in finding food and shelter. Thus he hopes you will buy this book. He has discarded many identities himself over the years before sticking with chocolate mint chip. JP is also a victim of identity theft, which is ironic since he has no money.

  He enjoys people who have gained wisdom from hardship, and ask questions more than they assume answers. His turn-offs include Brussels sprouts, bigotry, and people who think life is simple.

  Besides novels, he writes poetry, nonfiction and scholarly articles. JP’s paintings have been hailed as naïve folk art. Tumultuous skies are preferred over sunny ones.