A tale of a disguise that worked.

IN OUR STORY, which is purely a product of the imagination, he sometimes said he didn't have a clue why he became a detective. He abhorred violence. Death scared him. He liked solving problems, and he had a particular method, general semantics, that he used.

He felt that, in a way, he personified certain general semantics formulations, especially those of non-allness and non-identity. Born at sea aboard an unregistered smuggler's craft, of a white mother and a black father, he was neither black nor white. For years, he'd had no citizenship, and he'd felt a stranger wherever he lived. The study of general semantics had changed him; he came to accept that everyone was unique, a stranger in some respect--and that the pursuit of "normality" was the pursuit of an illusion.

This particular case required a visit to Georgia and he was feeling nervous about the South. His "mixed blood" look had occasionally brought him trouble. Or was it a combination of his questioning manner and his mixed appearance? These days, older, supposedly wiser, he tried to go with the flow. This seemed an opportunity to practice some camouflage skills useful to an investigator. Before leaving San Francisco, the detective had decided to use his pass-for-white disguise. So far, he'd only experimented with this ploy at night, in situations where it didn't matter if it failed.

On the plane, he reclined his seat, closed his eyes, and began to worry about the idea of trying to pass for white, and the reverse. In our society, we think mostly in either-or categories: you belong exclusively to one category or the other, with few in-betweens. If you come from a white mother and a non-white father, you can easily pass for non-white. Since you don't look a hundred percent white, you must be a hundred percent non-white.

But when you come from a white mother and non-white father, and try to pass for white, something different happens. People perceive non-white characteristics and they think they see a person of color. Sometimes people use terms that are less than polite.

Could he successfully pass for white in daylight under close inspection? A disguise takes skill, art, science, and theater. In certain places, you might go to jail for this exercise in illusion. Or get killed.

He had light-brown skin coloring, and facial features that seemed somewhat multiracial. In his investigative work, he'd discovered he could make himself appear as a member of various races and cultures. You hold the mouth a certain way, squint or widen the eyes, flare or pinch the nostrils, push out the lips or clench the teeth. You stand tall or crouch a bit. You move smoothly or stiffly. You slouch, hunch, look proud or downtrodden. You might place the palms of your hands together, or bow a little--all to create the illusion of another character of another culture or "race."

Occasionally, the detective did stand-up comic impressions at the local improv. This had provided grist for his mill. Perhaps detective work and show-biz had more in common than people generally believed.

At Atlanta airport, the detective ate breakfast, and then went into a men's room to complete his disguise. He wore black pants and a charcoal dress shirt, which, in contrast, made his skin look lighter. Cowboy boots added height to his six foot two. In front of the mirror, he toned down the brightness of his teeth with a temporary stain. Instead of white makeup, which can show from up close and run when you sweat, he used a cream that reddened his skin slightly and gave him an outdoors look.

He put on a wig of reddish sun-streaked hair, and inserted blue contact lenses. In the mirror, blue eyes gazed back, giving him an uneasy feeling. With his black cowboy hat perched squarely on his head, and horsy belt buckle pushed down below his waist, he completed the picture. When people look at you, they often see stereotypes. Supposedly, only a white person can be a redneck. As well as creating a stereotype, he wanted something to challenge it, to increase credibility. Instead of a bolo tie, he put on a silk tie with palm trees and girl in a bathing suit.

Waiting to rent a car, he felt his impatience rising as the long line moved slowly toward the counter. Would it be in character for him to make a scene? He decided not to draw attention to himself. Eventually, he reached the counter, and along with the rental documents, he got a small map with advertisements on it that he shoved in his pocket as he hurried to the parking area. He found his car, jumped in, and roared away from the airport, searching for the signs for Savannah.

After driving for a while on Interstate 75, he thought he'd do what he should have done before leaving: study the map. He looked for a rest area, but none appeared, so took an off ramp, pulled over to the side of the road, and unfolded the rental company map. He searched up and down the coast of Georgia looking for his destination but couldn't find it. He'd assumed that it was by the sea because he'd seen news footage related to the case with pictures of water and yachts. He'd left home in a rush, and, uncharacteristically, he had failed to do his research.

He drove along a back road looking for somewhere to buy a better map, and eventually the trees thinned and shacks lined the road. Ahead he saw a gas station: a dusty dirt yard, a weathered wood hut with faded metal cola signs in the windows, two very old pumps, and some cannibalized rusting cars sitting in the weeds. He pulled in and shut off the engine.

An old man shuffled out. His short white hair and white stubble contrasted with the ebony black of his complexion. His stooped posture and downcast gaze saddened the detective, who thought, empathetically, why don't you stand tall?

"Do you sell maps?"

The old man shook his head minimally, moved slowly to the rear of the car, removed the filler cap and topped up the gas tank.

At the car window, accepting payment, the old man didn't look the detective in the eye.

A little whirlwind of dust and dead leaves swirled across the yard; a hot gust blew gasoline fumes into the car. The detective took off his cowboy hat and wiped sweat from his forehead. His stomach had a knot in it; he didn't know why.

The old man had gone through the motions, filled the tank, politely accepted money, but he had a quiet attitude that said the other person did not exist. Not once did he make the little flicker of contact that acknowledges the common humanity that two people share. The detective felt diminished, as if he'd done something wrong, perhaps something too horrible to mention.

He took off his sunglasses. He desperately wanted the old man to see his face, to connect as another human, to acknowledge their commonality. His vision blurred, reminding him of his blue contact lenses, and increasing his sense of alienation. As the old man gave change, the detective smiled a thank you. The old man's tired brown eyes flicked across his face and away, and his expression remained utterly indifferent.

The detective fought rising panic. What does the old man see in me that makes him treat me like I'm not here?

He glanced at himself in the mirror--and saw himself through the old man's eyes: a nervously smiling, sunburned, red-haired, blue-eyed stranger.

The detective shuddered.

He had passed for white.

And in the process he'd acquired the centuries of social history that came with the privilege.

He didn't like someone thinking of him as white. It seemed almost as full of misery as when people thought of him as black.

He'd tried hard to separate his core sense of self, what some people call their "identity," from his appearance, body, gender, and color. He'd tried hard to separate his sense of self from what he owned, his job, his tastes, the expectations of his friends and relatives.

The old man trudged away, a little puff of dust rising with each footstep. He entered the old hut and slowly shut the door. The detective rolled up the window and sat motionless, hands on the wheel. He felt sweat trickle down his spine, into the small of his back.

His mother had given birth to him at sea, beyond national boundaries. Because for years he'd had no specific nationality, he'd found it natural to not identify his self worth with a particular country. Because he'd had a white mother and a non-white father, he did not identify with a specific race or culture, even though some people tried to pigeonhole him. For a time, he'd felt inferior because he'd had no national identity. Then, as he studied general semantics, he'd begun to feel an exhilarating freedom from the prison of such categories.

He'd worked hard to achieve non-attachment to identities. He'd come to believe that one must break away from the slavery of self-inflicted categories in order to perceive accurately, think clearly, feel freely, and achieve a liberty of spirit necessary for human happiness. The process is ongoing, he thought as he started the engine; there will always be more to learn.

Without freedom from classifications that identified him as this or that, he would habitually categorize and judge himself, and have no inner piece. He'd continue to pigeonhole others and judge them accordingly. Without inner piece, he could not treat others with the respect and kindness they deserved. Until he'd achieved some inner stability, he couldn't treat others well and he'd often treat himself badly.

So he believed, and so he tried, and so he failed to do at times. At least he kept on trying. He put the car in gear, and gazed blankly through the windshield. The rusting pickup on cement blocks, the unpainted wood shacks, the weeds and pine trees, all were a blur.

Why had we humans invented "race," another category to split humanity apart? According to some, the grouping has no scientific basis. Its social usefulness does not seem to offset its cost in human misery.

But he was working on a case. He needed to get on. He drove slowly away from that rundown gas station and through the pine trees, wishing we all lived in a better world.

But, this is a story, a product of the imagination; it never actually happened.

PAUL DENNITHORNE JOHNSTON*

* Paul Dennithorne Johnston, recipient of the J. Talbot Winchell Award for services to general semantics, has authored and co-edited several books and published many articles and short stories. He serves as Editor of ETC. Copyright [c] 2005 Paul D. Johnston.