Saul Goodman - Get Off the Grid! - Saul Goodman's Guide to Staying Off the Radar

There are out-of-the-big-box solutions for everything, though. This one comes with a buyer beware: you probably need to have the means to buy stuff to do it. I’m not saying you need to have a few million vacuum-sealed and stuffed in a climate-controlled storage facility. Maybe just the cash payout from selling your modest suburban home, say $150–$200,000. That might be enough to purchase an RV.

We’ve all been driving down the highway, rocking out to the Artist Currently Known as Prince on the stereo, only to see one of those giant recreational vehicles cruising down the pavement ahead. And the general consensus reaction, without fail, is usually fear. After all, the soul behind the wheel of that slickly paneled road whale is probably old enough to make you wonder how she got the day pass from the elder home, much less access to a vehicle that rivals some semitrailers in size.

The fascinating thing about RVs is that some folks, old and young, manage to live year-round in the things. These nomads simply navigate campground to campground. North in the summer, south in the winter. Rent a site, maybe even hook up temporary water and electricity.

It’s a little bit of a digression, but it occurred to me: is there any solution that might involve dropping out of sight without completely ditching all the other stuff? A slightly less complicated thing? Sure there is. There are plenty.

RV living is one solution. It’s best for people who are not running away from a crime, whether as culprit or crime victim.

There have been cases where someone who wasn’t a fugitive or in fear of another slipped off the grid. I can think of a couple of guys who lived with fake IDs, had apartments full of enough guns to arm a small militia, and seemed like generally secretive, sketchy dudes. Eventually they fell afoul of the law. Cops dug into their backgrounds expecting a trail of murder and mayhem, only to find… not much. Traffic tickets, maybe. These dudes were simply paranoid, and they didn’t want to live an easily identifiable life.

This is just a little side road to acknowledge that some people don’t exactly have anything to run from, but they still want to go. Fine. Sell the house, buy that giant van, and hit the road.

With the advantage of not needing to hide from the law, you have all the legit papers you need. A post office drop is no problem for you. You and your partner, if you have one, can plan an unpredictable crisscross of the country. If you’re clean enough to have a passport, you can even thumb your nose at international borders, too, all while driving your own damned home around and keeping watchful eyes guessing at your next move.

It doesn’t even require an RV—the more modestly endowed (financially speaking) could manage with one of those sharp-looking Sprinter vans. The kind with space-age tinted glass and high ceilings. You could cruise around the country in a swanky Mercedes, albeit a passenger van that can hold somewhere from twelve passengers to your entire mobile life.

I’m half-kidding, but as I touched on when we began, actually leaving the grid—which is way more of a frustrating funnel-style spiderweb—is only for the truly committed. To be that into the idea, the motivation has to be much stronger than merely getting tired of staying rooted to one place.

Unless the wolves are at the door or the creditor’s hired repo predators are just around the corner, don’t bother with all the dead kid birth certificate shenanigans, or with hiring some operator who can perfectly fake this stuff. Just buy a spacious vehicle and head out on the highway with your heavy metal thundering self.

Plans can be laid as carefully as precisely cut stones meant to fit together without cement. Ducks in a perfect row, exact increments between their sizes from the big mama duck down to the tiniest duckling. A scheme plotted out on paper with mathematical precision, however, is still going to end up with some gaps between checkpoints.

If you’ve gotten this far and are still serious about dumping your old life down the drain like expired milk so that you can revamp and re-up for a few more decades under the radar, it might be a good idea to examine your plans for warps, woofs, and total calamities. There will be one or more of all these.

I’ve been steady all along with pointing out the rainbow of reasons your whole scheme might end up blown to smithereens, with you either in jail, dead, or wishing you were so lucky to be either. Let’s zero in on that.

There are many paths to absolutely screwing over a new life endeavor. One fun one to mention again, in case it wasn’t clear every other time I jumped up and down on the point: talking. Loosening your lips for anyone is a big no-no, even if he or she is your soul mate, confidante, or co-consul of the secret ministry of secret administering.

YOU:Granny, I’m gonna go away, just wanted to say good-bye.

GRANNY:Oh no, where are you going?

YOU:Now don’t tell anyone, but I’m faking my death in the desert then beginning life anew as Brad, an itinerant manicurist, in Shingle Rock, Idaho. Let’s keep it a secret, okay?

Not even the sharpest grandmother out there works that way. As tempting as it is to open your flap and spill, the number one rule of thumb is NO, you absolutely Cannot-with-a-Capital-C. Tell. Anyone.

I do think I handled the sticky issue of paving over old habits and haunts with new. Hopefully a plan to relocate completely—since an attempt to do this within the same city you previously occupied, no matter how big, could be doomed at the outset—will help a lot with keeping your lips zipped.

Some other perils that may arise and bump us out of our happy little hidey-holes? If you’re escaping a criminal act, the answer is obvious. Police in even relatively small cities have an alarming number of resources at the tips of their fingers with which to try and track you down. If you’ve given them sufficient motivation, the other thing you can guarantee is they won’t ever stop.

Violent crime, of course, will be top-lined. A murder file might get back-burnered after a year or two, but it really goes without saying (I hope!) that some enterprising detective with a hole in his or her caseload will one day pick that puppy back up again. The folks at the senior center tuning into CBS aren’t the only ones who can get invested in a Cold Case .

In fact, if you’re a (suspected, alleged, whatever other qualifier you care to add to make yourself feel better) murderer or any kind of violent criminal—especially a chronic violent criminal—then I probably should have said this at the outset: I’m not sure how much help this book will be to you. Of people who have targets on their backs, you will always be wearing the brightest, biggest, neon sign of a target. Simple measures for the average alleged embezzler or drug trafficker will not necessarily apply for you, my unfortunate friend.

For those accused of lower-echelon misdeeds that still might garner some prison time, now we’re in the ballpark. For many of you, some of the heat might subside and stay at a simmer.

With noncriminals: Good Samaritans who ran afoul of gangs, dealers, killers, stalkers—the motivation of whoever is after you is just up in the air. In a way, it’s in your best interest to sift through your plans and make sure they seem ironclad, so you’re prepared to expect the unexpected. There’s no good way to gauge how financially and emotionally invested any given private citizen might be in tracking you down. Best to stay light on your toes!

That in mind, I’ve assembled a list of simple principles. Write these down and refer to them daily. Hourly, even. Take them with you wherever you go. Sticking with these basic methods of operation could ensure you minimize those worrisome chinks in the armor you wrap around your plan to stay ghosted forever.