by Ken Austin
When news of the Beetle’s arrest hit the forum, LSD was cool to the situation but didn’t hide the fact that he was always eager to increase readership numbers. And a thread like the one that was following the Beetle’s incarceration and legal wrangling was the most popular thread the forum had seen in years.
Some controversy erupted over whether the thread should be allowed to continue because of the overwhelming number of negative comments directed toward the Beetle.
While the forum was anonymous for the most part, because the arrest had been covered—though it was very low profile—in the media, anyone could now deduce exactly who the Beetle was.
LSD’s only criteria for allowing the thread to remain was the fact that the Beetle had apparently given his blessing via the forum members who were visiting him in jail, bringing him food and small amounts of money and passing on messages to the Beetle’s family, who were now all back in Australia.
The saga of the Beetle’s time in jail dragged on longer than anyone could have predicted. The legal back and forth continued and a number of preliminary trials were held and finally the Beetle was transferred to Bangkok. It was inevitable that he would be found guilty of the charge, serve a month or so more and then be deported from Thailand, never to return.
By the time the Beetle was released, four months had passed. This might not seem like a long period of time, but inside the unrelenting and brutal conditions of a Thai jail the four months felt like a lot longer to the Beetle. His health wasn’t great due to the chronic abuse of alcohol, and, at the age of almost 56, the Beetle had declined markedly during his time away.
Those last few days before he was loaded on a plane and sent back to Australia must have been bittersweet for him. Of course, he had no days of freedom to say goodbye to the friends he had made over the years. From the jail in Bangkok he was transported in a van to a holding cell at the airport, and then, with an escort from the Australian embassy, put on a plane for Sydney. As the plane took off, it really hit him how much he was losing. He could have seen himself living out his final years here. That was out of the question now. He would never be able to return. Barred for life.
Upon his return to Sydney, the Beetle was put up by a brother and he went through a period of strange euphoria followed by deep despair. He rode a wave of twisted celebrity amongst some of his long lost mates in Australia and his family, who were thankful that he was home in one piece. It was a few weeks before the Beetle logged into the discussion forum to see what was up. The thread discussing his incarceration was still at the top of the list.
When the Beetle posted on the forum for the first time following his ordeal, he was greeted with a round of welcomes and queries about how he was getting on now that he was back in the “real world.” He relayed some of the details that hadn’t come out about his arrest and jail time. He was still bitter about the fact that “the whore set me up.”
As the months went by, the Beetle logged into the forum less and less. He was struggling to find work and he grew angry about some of the comments that people had made. It dawned on him that it was too easy for anyone to determine his real identity based on the information that appeared on the forum and he asked LSD to remove the thread about his arrest and incarceration. LSD promptly refused.
He stated that no one had directly outed the Beetle and the thread was one of the most popular the forum had ever known. LSD had never made any bones about the fact that his main goal was to make the forum as popular as possible and reap the profits from advertising.
He wasn’t about to delete a thread that brought in so much traffic. Would he have deleted it if it had been about someone who he hadn’t fallen out with in recent months? Hard to say.
But LSD’s glee that he held the whip hand with regard to the fate of the thread was palpable.
The Beetle would never again log into the forum. Six months later he was dead.
The Beetle was Found Dead
The thread announcing the Beetle’s death appeared one day in early 2003. It was posted by LSD. LSD had been informed that the Beetle had been found dead in his apartment in Mexico by one of his fellow teachers. The Beetle had been bitten by the travel bug about six months after he returned to Australia.
After so many years on the road, he never really had a chance at finding something meaningful that would sustain him as he passed age 56. He had considered Korea but the complications arising from his arrest in Thailand meant that some countries were now out of the question. He decided on Mexico and when he arrived he plunged into the life and culture and had found a teaching job in no time.
It was anyone’s guess as to how he had died. The years of hard living and drinking had no doubt taken their toll. And the four months in prison were difficult on his mind and body.
LSD’s obituary thread had that energized tone that once again proved the truism that humans love being the bearers of bad news. There’s just something borderline thrilling about dropping the bomb that will leave people reeling. It’s usually not a sinister thing.
An outpouring of angst and emotion quickly appeared in posts on the thread. The majority of people posting on the thread had neither met the Beetle in person nor even been regulars on the forum during his heyday of posting.
But a handful of posters knew the Beetle quite well and their thoughts were moving and genuine. Still, there was the sense that surrounds anyone’s death, that much of the hand-wringing and grief was based on the acute realization of one’s own mortality.
Anger was directed at LSD because of his earlier dispute with the Beetle over the incarceration thread. LSD announced that the thread had now been deleted. The jabs against him continued, with some posters even suggesting that LSD had not been helpful when the Beetle had landed in jail.
A few pages into the obituary thread, LSD unloaded and let his true feelings about the Beetle come out. He had felt barely contained contempt for the Beetle for some time because of the Beetle’s behaviour in the year leading up to his arrest. According to LSD, the Beetle had been a disrespectful bore, getting drunk in public and letting his drinking habits affect his teaching. He had borrowed money from other foreigners and never paid it back. And some other minor grievances.
Other posters suggested that it was hardly the place to criticize someone; in the online equivalent of a wake. But LSD was unrepentant. He was electrified at the knowledge that he was in control and could do whatever he pleased. He wasn’t aware of how gutless it appeared to others.
The question had to be in everyone’s mind: Why would he wait until after someone had died to air the harshest criticisms of that person? When that person was no longer around to respond?
But then, LSD had always come across as disingenuous to me. In many ways, he was a perfect choice as the administrator for a strange, dysfunctional discussion forum populated by anti-social lunatics who couldn’t make it in their home countries.
Had he treated him disrespectfully when he was alive, refusing to delete some information that could have given the Beetle a sense of well being as he tried to start over, and then further trashed him after he was gone, simply because the Beetle had suggested LSD’s wife could improve her personal hygiene?
To determine someone else’s motives, let alone your own, can be an impossible task. The litany of neuroses and layers of subconscious forces at work mean it is a fool’s game to even try. But one thing is certain: the Beetle touched many people with his approach to life, his humour in the face of obstacles, and his simple acts of kindness. He will be remembered by many people, even those he never met, for a long time.
Garvin the Meek
Thousands of expats live in Bangkok. Still, you can go weeks without having a normal conversation with someone who speaks English. As a result, you often end up spending time with people who you wouldn’t otherwise. You may even become friends with someone who you would never interact with in your home country.
Garvin was that kind of person. Younger than me and into the who
le clubbing scene, the only thing that I had in common with him was that I lived in the same condominium complex. He liked to feel plugged in to the buzzing, hectic lifestyle that involved constant outings and stringing along multiple women at the same time.
I sensed the first time he started talking to me next to the condo swimming pool, that he really wanted someone to rank himself against. To determine if he was living a more authentic and worthy expat experience. In turn, he provided observational fodder for me.
He was from Scotland and was working as a corporate English teacher. On the number of occasions I ran into him after the meeting at the swimming pool, he hinted that he was already thinking of moving on. He had been in Thailand for two years and wanted to go back to Scotland and upgrade his education.
He was lean, not unattractive to women and generally an affable person. I ran into him a couple of times over the next few months and exchanged pleasantries and meaningless small talk. Like many expats in Thailand, he had that compulsion to share with me what he thought was an impressive track record with Thai women.
A few weeks after my last interaction with him, Garvin phoned me at home and told me that he wanted to meet me at the swimming pool. This was back in the day when the only available Internet option was dial-up, and because of the amount of time I spent online, it was often hard for people to get a hold of me due to the fact that the phone line was busy. Also, I still didn’t have a mobile phone.
I walked down to the swimming pool and met Garvin.
“Listen, I’m moving on next week. I’m moving to a different place in Bangkok. And then, probably within the year, I’ll be heading back to Scotland.”
I felt a twinge of envy at hearing that someone had taken the appropriately short amount of time to get all they needed from this country.
“Probably a good idea,” I said as I wondered what he needed from me.
“I wanted to ask you a favour. I was hoping that I could store a few of my things at your place for the next three weeks or so.”
I hesitated for a minute. I had always taken great pleasure in casually saying no to people’s requests when they thought they had softened me up enough to guarantee agreement. Many people mistake politeness for weakness, and I loved offering up, with no explanation at all, a blank-faced “No.”
But, perhaps this was a relatively benign request.
“What kind of things?”
“Well, why don’t you come up to my place and I can show you. Some of the things you’re free to keep. It’s just that I really don’t have the means to transport everything to my new place. And, to be honest, I’m having a bit of a dispute with the people who own the condo.”
“Ah. You want to slip out unnoticed,” I said.
“Come on up and take a look.”
The inside of his apartment looked like a skid-row dive. Dirty clothes and plates were strewn around the room. The oily reeking miasma of rancid food hung over the kitchen sink that was piled high with dirty dishes. Numerous empty pizza boxes were among the detritus that cluttered the filthy rooms.
I looked at Garvin. He had one of those shit-eating grins on his face that people display when they think that others are somehow impressed with their repellent, self-serving behaviour.
“Classy,” I said.
The smirk fell from Garvin’s face as soon as I said that. In the handful of times I had interacted with him, I noticed that Garvin didn’t like to disagree with people or cause them any kind of discomfort. He quickly changed an opinion or modified his actions to suit the people he was with.
“Yah, I know,” he said in his Scottish accent, suddenly tinged with a hint of apology. “Me and my mate who was staying here with me kind of just let things get out of hand.”
Garvin pointed out the things that he wanted to store in my place.
“And you can have this washing machine,” he said. It was a semi-manual washing machine. You added the water with a bucket and then took the washed clothes out of the drum when they were clean and put them into a separate spin container. There were a few pieces of small furniture, a guitar, and a wooden crossbow, of all things. Not a lot really. I could push it all into one corner of my place and still have plenty of room.
“OK, sure,” I said. We spent the next 45 minutes carrying everything across the complex into my building. Despite the relatively small amount of work, we were both soaked because of the oppressive humidity.
“So, you’ll phone me when you want to swing by and pick up everything?”
“Yes, exactly. It should be about two or three weeks.”
The weeks came and went and I didn’t hear anything from Garvin. I hadn’t taken his phone number because the onus was really on him to pick up his things. When the few weeks he had predicted turned into three, four, and then six months, I was getting ready to throw out the bulk of the worthless things he had left in my apartment. As if he sensed from afar that I was pissed off at his lack of contact, he phoned me.
He told me he would arrive the next evening at 6:00 in the evening with his Thai friend who owned a truck.
“Ah...that won’t work. This condominium complex is strict about move-in and move-out times. They won’t let anyone move after 5:00 in the evening.”
I heard Garvin’s muffled discussion with someone in the background. He came back on the line.
“My Thai friend says it will be OK.”
“Uh, and why does your Thai friend think it will be OK?”
“He says it will be OK. Just come down when I give you a call, OK?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. I was annoyed. Who the hell was this moron friend of his?
The call came an hour later. When I came down, I was met by a sheepish looking Garvin and a young Thai man with glasses.
“They won’t let us move the things out,” said Garvin.
“No kidding. That’s exactly what I told you.” I looked at Garvin’s friend with a sneering sense of victory. I could read him instantly. A son of rich Thais who was used to getting his way. He picked up on my contempt and his body language said he wanted out of there.
Garvin assured me that he would get back to me soon.
I didn’t hear from him for another year.
During that time the things that he had left became part of the surroundings in my apartment. I used the washing machine that he had left, but most of the other things were worthless knick-knacks and a few pieces of unwieldy wicker furniture.
One day I received a call from Garvin.
“Where the hell have you been?” I asked.
His uncomfortable voice came over the line.
“Sorry, I haven’t been able to get a hold of you. Your line is always busy.”
It was true. I spent a lot of time online and because it was dial-up, it would be hard for people to get a hold of me.
“So, are you going to pick this stuff up or not?”
“Yes, when can I come by? I’m finally heading back to Scotland in a few weeks.”
The signal that someone was else was phoning sounded. Perhaps this too was a call that I shouldn’t miss.
“Can you hold on for a minute? I’ve got another call,” I said.
“OK,” came Garvin’s sullen response.
It was the office of my condominium complex with some questions about work that they planned on doing in my unit in the next few days. I answered their questions and then clicked the switch-hook to return to Garvin on the other line. There was only a dial tone. He had hung up or been disconnected. I realized that I didn’t know what his number was. It had been so long since I had phoned him and if I ever had written his number on a scrap of paper, I didn’t know where it was now.
I assumed that he would phone back, but he never did. He must have thought that I was trying to avoid him or that I wanted to keep his things.
Life carried on and Garvin faded into the background as just another interesting character that you get mixed up with when you are living as an expat in Thailand.
I
left the condo complex and lived in different regions of Thailand. Then I returned to Canada for a number of years. Finally, I gravitated back to Thailand and after a few years even returned to the same condominium complex.
I was walking through the local supermarket one day and passed a lumbering western lummox and a not unattractive Caucasian woman. I continued on with my shopping. But as I was in the checkout line, the lummox approached me and asked if I remembered him. I’m sure I had that deer in the headlights look momentarily, but I instinctively knew that it was Garvin.
“Yes, you are the one who left all the things at my place,” I said. It would be foolish not to have mentioned the single thing that was the focus of our brief friendship, if you could even call it that. I thought I sensed a momentary glimmer that told me Garvin wasn’t satisfied with the way things had played out seven years earlier. But no, he didn’t pursue it. We both seemed kind of pleased with this coincidence, the kind that pops up in most people’s lives every once in a while.
Garvin wasn’t fat per se, but he had filled out. Simply grown up was probably a better way to describe it. He was in Thailand on his honeymoon and the woman I had seen with him was his new wife. He also informed me that he was working on completing his PhD in Scotland. It looked like things were working out well for him, though I’m convinced people like others to think they are happier than they really are. Still, on the face of it, he had got out at the right time and was making a decent life for himself.
We didn’t exchange e-mail addresses or talk about meeting up for dinner. We had barely known each other. Any attempt at socializing would have been awkward and artificial. We shook hands and I wished him good luck.