"I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people." —Jack Handey

Money Can't Buy You Love or the Truth, but it Can Get You Mugged

Liberty City is your typical cookie cutter town. Seems like everybody here is a knock off of somebody else, which is kind of weird when you start thinking about it, especially if you notice hardly anyone that lives here ever gives it much thought. I got lucky one day about a year ago, and kind of figured it out myself.

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I was driving around in my little Manana coupe and I waved at a guy on the corner who lives in the apartment below me. He waved back. When I got to the next corner, there he was again. So I waved at him. He waved back. I drove a little further, and blinked. There was my same neighbor again. So I waved at him and he waved back. This is downright spooky even retelling it, but would you believe this repeated itself for the next twelve blocks?

At first, I thought my neighbor had developed the super power of ubiquity, but then I happened to notice some other things. Half of the ladies on the street were wearing the same hairdo and make-up, and the other half could have passed for super twins as well with their blonde hair and high heels. And then I started getting a really weird feeling in the back of my neck. I pulled over and watched people walk past me for a good twenty minutes. All the dock workers looked the same. The gang-banger Diablos, with little variation, all had the same exact swagger and dress. There were business men, women, you name it—all of them—twins, quadruplets, hextuplets.

I started getting nervous. They couldn't have all gotten ubiquity, could they? And then I saw what I had begun to dread. A cold terror crept up my spine as the dark figure of a man came around the corner down the block and began walking up the sidewalk toward the Manana. There was something familiar about him, the way he walked and how he was dressed, but I couldn't tell for sure until he got closer. When his face came into focus, I threw that transmission into reverse, and punched the gas pedal to the floor. My Manana spun around into the wrong lane of rush hour traffic, and in the rearview as I sped away I noticed a multiple-car accident piling up, but I didn't care. I had to get out of there.

You guessed it. The guy I saw, it was…me.

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Have you ever noticed when you buy a particular kind of car, because it was cheap, or because the person selling it to you made it seem like something you just had to have, the next thing you know, you start seeing the same car everywhere? You never noticed it before, but now it seems like everyone out there is driving one. Same model, same year, same color, even the same license plate number? You might think I'm exaggerating, but in Liberty City, that feeling is, like, magnified a hundred times. It could just be me, but I really think it might be the city.

The same sort of thing happens to a person when they wake up to a new realization the way I did. I started noticing that everyone I knew was just a copy of someone else. Heck, I even started noticing that half the people in my apartment building look just like me—even got that birthmark under their left ear, right there. It kind of makes me feel…oh, I don't know…kind of bad, I guess. Like, I always wanted to fit in before, but now that I do, I sort of wish I could go back to being just a mindless clone, unaware of the truth.

After that, I went through a period of depression, completely absorbed in my own despondency. Felt like just another bland face in the crowdful of bland faces. Even my Rice Krispies seemed to be only saying "Snap," to me.

My view of the world improved slightly one hazy afternoon. I was out driving in my Manana again, or maybe it was Harvey's Manana this time. Harvey is one of the people who live in my building. This is going to sound terrible, but to tell the truth, after a while I stopped caring whose car I drove out of the parking lot, just so long as my key fit the ignition. That day, the radio happened to be on a station I don't normally tune in to. Looking back, this further supports my suspicion it might have been someone else's car. Either that, or one of my look-alikes accidentally drove my car by mistake and changed all the presets.

Anyway, so I start the car and this guy named Lazlow is suddenly talking, and the realization hits me like a floodlight from Heaven—there may actually be a number of unique people in Liberty City. For instance, there is only one Lazlow. My mood perked up immediately, and I think I heard harp music. How many other people are there like Lazlow out there? That's a rhetorical question, by the way. The answer is, none.

Picture this. I start looking around more carefully again, you know, scrutinizing people's features. This time, I was trying to pick out unique faces. Before long, one of those smoky chrome Mafia Sentinels drives past with someone inside who I rarely see on the street. I am pretty sure it was Joey Leone. He once fixed my car for me after it got all shot up and destroyed by the Triads. The initial bill was pretty high, and I was terrified at first because there was no way I could afford it, and also because someone told me Joey is connected with the Mafia, so I was somehow going to have to pay it. Imagine my relief, then, when Joey himself made me an offer I "could not refuse," as he put it. In lieu of payment for the shop services, all I had to do was deliver this little brown package to a guy who was eating at a diner. I went there—and it was lucky I arrived and left again when I did, because—next day—I read in the paper, only a few minutes after I drove away from that diner, somebody blew up that diner. Boy, luck can sure be a funny thing sometimes.

Anyway, when I started thinking about Joey, I recognized him as a unique person. I began compiling a list of other unique people who live in this town. Every time I see one of them, I write down their description in my notebook. I follow them home.

And then...I watch them.