Victor Caca
The Shitty Truth About Identity Theft
A while back, I got an email from a hacker informing me they had gotten a hold of my personal data. This is not the kind of email anyone wants to receive. It said they had captured images of me from my webcam masturbating while watching porn. And unless I paid the oddly specific amount of $19,350, these images would be sent to all my contacts.
Realistically, I knew this person had nothing on me. I mean I’m a mood person. I like soft lights, maybe some candles and little Marvin Gaye or Bryan Ferry, say. Yet, as I read the words I was gripped with an irrational fear. All these scenarios started running through my head. Maybe I did this and had forgotten? And there’s AI software out there capable of deepfakes that might get people wondering. Just ask Nancy Pelosi.
I soon came to my senses, reported them to Google and I never heard from the creep again. But it got me to thinking about identity theft. I had my identity stolen way before the digital age. Now that I’m versed in both, I can tell you analog is worse. I’d say digital theft is akin to watching someone smash up your car with a sledgehammer while analog theft feels like being punched in the face.
It happened years ago. I’d recently graduated with a liberal arts degree, so not surprisingly I was waitressing. I worked the lunch shifts at this cute little French bistro. I really liked my job. It expanded my food and wine knowledge, and I could be myself with my fellow misfit co-workers.
My favorite came to be Gerard, the lunch manager. As French guys go, Gerard was a bit of a cliché, but I was secretly scared of him at first. He always looked rumpled and hung over. His smile was more like side-eye avec raised eyebrow. He didn’t talk much and when he did, he mumbled. When I realized it was all a pose to hide a speech impediment that made him sound like Elmer Fudd, I took it upon myself to make his life easier whenever possible. If he was at the far end of the bar nursing a brandy and customers walked in, I’d grab some menus and escort them to their table, so Gerard didn’t have to be disturbed.
It was a fun and carefree time of my life — at least until I started getting phone calls from a woman with a thick accent — definitely not French — asking for someone named Victor. I’d tell her she had the wrong number and she’d respond with a meek Oh.
But she kept calling and soon I got annoyed. That time, when she asked for Victor, I said: Look, I keep telling you there is no Victor here. You have got to dial more carefully. That’s when she flipped like a light switch. In one aggressive torrent, she said, No, you stop lying. Her kids needed their father, she screamed, and I should find my own husband.
The way she commandeered my anger for herself was so discombobulating that I momentarily questioned who the wronged person really was. After a few seconds of self-doubt, I yelled something back and hung up.
I thought about changing my phone number — it was so easy back then — but she called again before I had a chance. This time she was armed with evidence. She ticked off details about me that she should not have known, like my phone number, my address, which was alarming because I was unpublished. Worse, she knew where I worked and how much money I made on my measly paycheck every week.
My head was swimming. I needed to take this seriously. I softened my voice to try to extract information from her. We didn’t get far. What’s your name? I asked. Maria, she said. And this Victor, what’s his last name?
And that’s when she said it: Caca. Victor Caca. What could I do? She handed me the punchline on silver platter. “Well, that would make sense because you’re both full of shit!” I usually think of the best comeback once the moment is lost. I was proud of my quick comeback. Momentarily.
Remember that tone your parents took when you’d gone too far? The one that told you that you didn’t know how or when, but at some point, you were in for some pain? That was the tone Maria took with me. It was dark. It was ominous. It was utterly confusing. I spent the rest of that day trying to figure out who was gaslighting me. I slept poorly that night, ruminating on “When a Stranger Calls,” specifically the scene when Carol Kane is told that the calls are coming from inside her house.
The next morning, I woke up to a phone call, except this one was from another crazy lady, my mom. Suddenly she was throwing hysterical accusations at me, too. Despite my innocence, even now I can call up the foggy feelings of shame I felt as she cried madly into my ear. We didn’t raise you this way…You’re going to give your father a heart attack…How are we supposed to ever face our friends ever again?
The story she told me had all the earmarks of Maria’s wrath. The night before, while my parents were in their backyard visiting with neighbors, a woman pulled up in an old beater filled with kids. She got out of the car holding the youngest, a crying baby, and like a Save the Children poverty-porn commercial she started telling my parents — in front of everyone — that their daughter was taking the food out of the mouths of her kids, that she was going to have to take them back to the Philippines if things didn’t change. Her husband would stay out all night. They had to convince me to stop seeing him, she cried. She may have gotten down on her knees or pulled on the hem of my mom’s dress.
At first, I rightfully tried to brush the whole thing off as nonsense. It was nonsense, wasn’t it? But my reptilian brain again took charge. It makes me wonder how many of those poor girls in Salem went to their deaths feeling bafflingly guilty forcrimes they didn’t even commit.
By now, it had gotten late. I got dressed for work with the phone cocked in the crook of my neck, as my mom cried, and my dad thundered in the background. I left for work a hot mess.
I’d already told my co-workers about all the phone calls from Maria, but that day my latest news dominated the conversation. As we all sat around having coffee and pâté sandwiches while folding napkins before the restaurant opened, I relayed my story, starting with the best part: his name. Victor Caca.
We were a crew made up of actors, singers, dancers, writers — entertainers all. You can imagine the scatological humor. Maria would scare the crap out of me too, one said. She’s such a party pooper, someone else contributed. I’d tell more, but the rest mostly stunk. We were laughing so hard that Gerard took notice. The more I rehashed details, the more his ears perked up. Even now, in my mind’s eye, I can see him leaning against a wall, arms folded, eyes narrowing and listening closely when I mentioned how Maria knew, to the cent, how much money I made on my paycheck.
That was it, until Monday morning when I returned to work. I was in a better mood than I’d been in a while because the entire weekend had gone by without a single call from Maria. I’d somewhat smoothed things over with my parents, knowing that, at least for a while, they’d probably look at me, wondering if their daughter was leading a sleazy double life. I resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to struggle internally to maintain my innocence whenever I was around them.
As I passed Gerard, he stopped me and asked how my problem was going. No calls! I took his terse Good as high compliment that he cared about me. Life was looking up. But as he started to walk away, I had the urge to pursue his question further. I doubled back. Gerard, do you know something about this?
That’s when he laid it all out, like one of those TV detectives with a bulletin board full of mug shots, post-its, push pins, and lots of string. Apparently, someone named Victor called the restaurant frequently, asking to speak to one of the female office employees upstairs. Turns out she was the same employee responsible for generating our payroll checks, which Gerard handed out. He told me one week when she handed him my check, he noticed the stub was missing. When he asked her about it, she said it must have fallen off. She’d find and return it. He now realized she never had.
He began to put the puzzle pieces together the day I shared the story with my co-workers. The detail about my paycheck tipped him off, he said, like the stub from my paycheck that Maria could find in Victor’s pocket, if she was inclined to search her husband’s belongings in search of secrets. Gerard thought this employee, who I had seen but never met, was randomly using my identity to get Maria off her trail.
He told me he decided to wait for this woman to leave work. He watched her approach a guy behind the wheel of an old beater. She’d gotten in and Gerard had followed and spoke to them. I fired her, he told me. And I told them if they didn’t get this guy’s wife to stop calling you, I’d have them both arrested.
Can you really do that? I asked. Gerard just shrugged and shambled off.
It was over. I was free. Victor Caca, and his mistress had been outed by a French guy with gumshoe instincts who couldn’t pronounce his Rs but believed in me even when I couldn’t. Now Maria was their problem.
