Sometime today, Mr. Marvin Doppler, the terminally drunk climatologist and inventor of the Doppler radar system, will present a phony letter to a Greyhound bus driver and attempt to freeload his way to New York City.

Dated, addressed and printed, the letter reads with virtuosic luster.

This is Jesse Domenech’s latest scheme.

‘I don’t have any money,’ Domenech said. ‘I travel frequently. I’m a student and a musician, so I’m kind of broke.’

People often think only certain people’s stories are worth telling – athletes, celebrities, politicians.

But here’s Domenech, a former Syracuse University student visiting friends for the weekend. He is the prototypical drifter, vagabonding from place to place. He never plans his future, and often concocts elaborate schemes on a whim. And his story is almost surreal.

Domenech seems hardly distinguishable from any of his convoluted characters. And all his plans sound like they were extracted from a hallucination-induced novel.

His latest one – impersonating a fictitious character he made up to earn a free ride home – is only a sliver of his persona. With $2 in his pocket, Domenech’s trip started Thursday night. With some impromptu ingenuity, Domenech turned to another one of his fake personalities to take him aboard.

Starting in Southampton, where he goes to school, Domenech arrived at the Hampton Jitney, a bus that rides from Southampton to New York. Domenech, who frequents the bus, pretended to be the son of actor Roy Scheider, another frequent rider who the company knows well.

‘I said I was Will Scheider, son of Jaws actor Roy Scheider,’ said Domenech, assuming that’s really his name and not another fake character. ‘They bought it. They ate every piece of cake I served them.’

Once Will Scheider reached New York, he resumed his birth name (Domenech), jumped the subway turnstiles and ended up at his friend’s place in New Jersey. (Domenech has friends littered all over the place, where he sleeps, eats and solicits rides.) The two drove to Syracuse for the weekend.

Domenech originally planned to return Sunday with said friend. But the multiple-personalitied vagrant met a girl Saturday at a party his band played.

‘This party was just starting,’ Domenech said. ‘It was packed. This girl sees me, sorta smiles. I had seen her before. The second I entered that room I could tell she was the most beautiful looking girl I’ve seen in a long time, bar none.’

After he played, Domenech talked to her for the rest of the night. Having more or less fallen hard, he couldn’t just depart Sunday and leave his newly found love behind. He figured he’d hitchhike home later, as he’s done so many times before.

The former Syracuse student hatched his plan – the phony letter.

‘This letter is in regards to Mister Marvin Doppler,’ the letter begins, ‘who is likely standing before you at present. We have spoken several times, and due to his previous interactions with Greyhound and his dissatisfaction with our services and our breaches in our portion of the satisfaction agreements, et cetera; I am requesting that you facilitate his riding to and from the following cities and/or destination without a prepaid ticket.’

The ensuing list includes New York, New Orleans and Syracuse, among others.

What if they ask for ID?

‘Well,’ Domenech says, ‘I’m sure Mr. Doppler will think of some elaborate story.’

He always does.

Scott Lieber is a junior magazine major. E-mail him at smlieber@syr.edu.

Published on March 7, 2005 at 12:00 pm