My Witness Protection Saga: It Keeps You Running

You don’t get to where I’ve gotten in life without having to bend the truth once in a while. Like the time I called Rush Limbaugh’s show and identified myself as Audry from Kansas City (the Missouri one). See, I’ve never been to Missouri. So that’s one lie I can’t take back. There’re more. There always re. If I wasn’t who I am, if I was somebody else – which I have experience with too, well, maybe I’d just run for office. I could do it. I spend every day of my life now running from this shadow, that familiar haircut, the dreams… I could win an election, I bet, since I’m so good at hiding my past.

And that’s what got me recognized. Funny, huh? I’ve changed my face, my hair color, my walk, my taste in wardrobe, and I still got the call.

The first one took place a few years ago. Fella in the FBI was sitting in my car one morning. Of course, I saw him there before I got in. This isn’t a life where you can ever let your guard down. I’m not the person to see somebody in my backseat for the first time through my rearview mirror. I have a system and it works. This FBI fella learned part of my system real fast. When he awoke, he rubbed the knot on his skull and identified himself as a fella from the FBI, which I’d already known from plunging my hand into his wallet and seeing his ID badge and ribbed (unused) prophylactic. He was there to ask me, well, tell me, our government had requested my services. I told him no. Last time I’d helped the government, I had to get a nose job three hours later. He told me I was one of the few in this country (the rest termed as “in an overseas capacity”) who was qualified. So I said ask the other two. He had. They weren’t available. Something about loose stool. I was the only one left.

It’s hard to be the best at something. A-Rod has the pressure of $250 million expectations. Hanks has to win an Oscar every time. As for me, I have to live with the fact that I’m only alive because I’m good – no, the best – at hiding my identity, eluding my adversaries, and covering my tracks.

So how did this FBI fella find me if I’m so good? I keep in touch with my sponsor, who today we’ll call Sting. As independent as I’ve become, I hate to admit that I still have to trust someone other than myself. Sting knows how and where to pay me. (Part of my original deal is I get a monthly stipend, handed to me, by Sting, once a quarter.) It took some time for Sting to gain my trust (hours of therapy and one unforgettable team-building exercise in the wilds of Detroit), but it’s worked out so far. Seeing my breath every October morning is proof enough for me.


I couldn’t believe my ears while hearing the request from the FBI fella: Infiltrate a drug-peddling, violence-prone gang that was creeping westward (suburban sprawl was to blame) and determine the gang’s leaders. There was reason to believe they were becoming more organized and setting their sights on gaining more power and expanding from small-time drug thuggery into arms smuggling and, eventually, domestic terrorist activity.

I lifted my jaw off of the ground and reattached it to my upper mandible. Then I reminded the man that I was, and probably still am, a glorified tattle tale who’s spent the last X number of years running away every time I heard someone clear their throat in a crowded movie theater.

Plus, that there was just too much to do – grow my hair long and dye it, diet, brush up on my 2nd generation Americanized Spanish, learn how to play soccer and care about the World Cup, become a cocaine addict, experience the fun of going cold turkey, and get a few skull and crossbones tattoos from a large man named Diko who currently thinks I’m dead. I was the wrong guy for the job.

“It pays $500,000,” the FBI fella said.

In my next post, I’ll describe how I tricked Diko into thinking I was former Tampa Bay Devil Rays shortstop Julio Lugo.