Perpetual good or bad luck is something that seems to follow some people you meet on the traveler or expat circuit. It is not something all or even many possess, but a few seem to just be gifted or cursed with it.
Bernard was not a lucky man. Maybe not as unlucky as British Steve, but unlucky nevertheless. Nearly everything he did turned to disaster. Now some will say that luck – good or bad is something you make for yourself. And in Bernard’s case this may be true to some extent. Maybe it was his criminality that had an effect on this; maybe it was his belief in how smart he was that had an effect. It was true that Bernard thought he was smarter than most, and that he could always get one over on others. It was not, however, a trait that sprang to mind when others thought of Bernard whoever those others were. But one thing all would agree on, was that Bernard was unlucky.
*****
I first met Bernard when staying in the Khaosan Road area of Bangkok. Back in those days, as now, it was high on the list of destinations for the travellers, backpackers and lower end tourists. Back in those days, unlike today, it was an area where you could openly meet all kinds of dubious characters from many different countries and backgrounds. A place where you learned to be wary if you stayed longer than a few days before drifting off to Samui, Kathmandu, Bali or wherever it was that people were heading. For most of these, it was a place to refuel, get some rest, and plan the next leg of the great tour; a place to meet with others on the journey; a place to wash the clothes, see the dentist and refuel on comfort foods and alcohol; a place to wander to the post office to use the international phone, or to send an airmail letter written double sided on that thin blue paper; a place to smoke illicit drugs; a place to tell stories. For those who stayed longer, there was another side. Bernard was part of this although not the part that he thought or fantasised about being.
I cannot remember the first time I met him, but he was always around albeit not really hanging with the other groups, He was more of a loner or someone who would usually only sit and talk to you when you too, were on your own. I learned of Bernard from some of the others. He was never a big or important topic of conversation but something that sometimes just came out, usually when there was little else to talk about. Bernard was from New Orleans and had a love of music to such a degree that he could even sing many old time Thai songs. He had been in the Vietnam war as a medic I was told. But when I found myself sat at the same round stone table outside the guest house with him, he would sometimes allude to being a medic and at other times an infantryman. Bernard and what he told you was never something that could be considered reliable. That is not to say everything was lies or invention, but that some may have been and some was embellished heavily. So, it is best to just stick to what was known.
Bernard had after the Vietnam war not stayed home, but rushed back to Thailand as soon as he could. However, unlike Eddie, he had not just disappeared from his country’s consciousness and legal framework. Bernard had retained a US passport and contact with the country. He settled in Korat – the gateway to the northeast of Thailand for a decade or so, and little of what he was up to is known. He had a relationship there, which was certain and a child or two, although nobody ever met them. The story was that he had started the relationship while the war was on and it continued after. Whatever the story, that part of Bernard’s life ended when for some reason or other, and there are multiple accounts of why, Bernard ended up in Korat jail for a few years.
It was on release, and somehow avoiding deportation, that he turned up in Khaosan Road, first staying at the guest house in which I ended up going to a few short years after. Before my arrival, though, he had gravitated to the guest house next door after some difference of opinion about something nobody knew, with the owner. He would meander the area passing time on occasions with the various groups in the area. Those from Nepal, Africa, Europe, UK, Bangladesh, Israel, and even the Thai ones would be on the long slow list. Bernard was always looking for an angle to enrich himself, or at least to pay the next month’s rent or the arears he so often found himself owing. The daily rent of 40 Baht a night to sleep on the roof or 50 Baht to have a tiny windowless, airless room with partition walls so thin they shook when the door was closed, most of the time being far beyond what he could afford, and 80 to 100 Baht for a better room with space, windows and air remained only a dream for him except on odd occasions of sudden affluence from where, nobody knew.
*****
I was sitting at the usual round table outside the guest house alone. I was waiting for the usual crowd, or at least a few of them to turn up. It was too early to drift to Mr. Bow’s, so I sat trying to write a letter to an old friend and avoid having my sweat or the water running down my ice cold bottle of Sprite, drip onto the wafery thin blue paper and damage my missive. As I wrote and laughed at some comment I had made, I noticed someone had sat down. Oh great, I thought, now I have an excuse to stop! I looked up and Bernard was the one who had joined me.
Pleasantries were exchanged and then I noticed Bernard looking all around in an exaggerated furtive manner.
“Oh dear,” I thought.
Bernard moved closer to me and in a low voice asked:
“Do you want to make 3000 US?”
“Nah!” I said, “I don’t need the money.’ I could have done with the money, if truth be known, but knew enough to not encourage Bernard and definitely not to get involved in any of his schemes.
“Everyone needs money. Come on man. It’s easy money. Nothing to it.”
Again, I refused and again he entreated me to reconsider. And maybe this went on a few times. It is hard to remember now time has passed.
“OK! Let’s have some fun,” I thought.
“So, Bernard, tell me the details. I ain’t saying yes or anything, but you are right. It is best to hear things before making decisions.”
“Yeah. Right. OK.” He seemed a little surprised, but continued
“You go to Japan. Don’t worry the tickets and hotel will be paid. You get all the 3000”
“OK”
“It is only a couple of days and you will be back. Easy. No problem”
“So, I just go to Japan, stay and come back. Why would anyone pay me to do that?”
“You will wear a pair of shoes and then leave them there.”
“What is this, Bernard? Drugs or something?”
“Just a little bit of cannabis in the heels. Nothing much. Nothing heavy. Nothing to worry about. An easy job”
So, there is me thinking,
“What the hell? How big will these heels have to be? If they want to pay 3000 dollars and then they want their cut, and there are others to pay… And he says it is Ganja… “
At that point a few of the others turned up, James and Chris I think, and Bernard went quiet before slipping off as they sat and ordered beers.
“What did he want?”
“Oh nothing. We were just talking bullshit.”
*****
Now that I was working, there was less time to go out and so a film at the end of the day was a good way to wind down. Now, Patpong back then was mostly famous for night entertainment – garish bars, shows, discos, etc. But there was another side – pirate gear. You could get everything from watches to films, cartoon, series on VHS to the latest English football shirts. So, there was I heading down to Patpong to try and pick up a few of the latest films on VHS for cheap. Entering the soi, there was the usual line of stalls on each side where you drifted down one side mingling with the aimlessly and seemingly randomly moving crowd, and then back up the other looking for what you wanted. No short cuts here because the VHS stalls were not together, and then there was the guy who would approach you and ask you what film you wanted, go somewhere and then return. Films could be found anywhere, or nowhere if a police raid was planned. There was money from somewhere meaning raids on those distributing Hollywood’s latest releases only mere days after they went to cinema, were conducted a little more often, a little more vigorously and of course with just as much advance warning as the other riads. That is unless you were the chosen mark to fall and show how dealing with piracy was taken seriously. Anyway, I was doing the circuit without much luck when I heard my name called. I turned to look:
“Hey Bernard! How are you? What you doing round here? It doesn’t seem like your kind of place.” The last one I cringed at after I said it because everyone knew Bernard had no money or in good times very little. But he smiled and seemed happy
“All is good. Everything is fine. It’s a wonderful day.”
I heard a thunder clap and thought , “it’s not now, while wondering if Bernard had been hitting the drugs – going on about wonderful days!”
“Hey Bernard, let’s grab a beer over there, it is going to piss down.”
We went to the Safari bar, a bar renowned for its loud but different music in those days. The rain was falling heavily and the thunder crashing. There would be floods and getting a taxi or tuk-tuk would not be easy it seemed, so there were Bernard and I stuck. I also knew that it would be me paying for the drinks considering his financial state. Oh well, just make the most of it. The rainy season downpours were best sat out. We started mostly by just talking about the place and the area and the town and how they had all changed. Bernard and I did not have natural shared interests. Time drifted by and one beer became two.
“Do you know why I am down here?” asked Bernard.
“No idea,” I said almost laughing at the idea of me knowing.
“I am going to make some big money.”
“Oh right…”, I said thinking – here we go, “how you going to do that?”
“These bars. They need girls.”
“Yeah, they always do,” I said getting a bit worried at where this conversation was going.
“Well, I was down the train station and got talking to some new girls who had come to Bangkok to find work. Bernard had quite good Thai after all his time in the country, and it had been a necessity to survive in jail back in his Korat days. They talked, but they did not trust me even with my knowledge and Thai. It was frustrating.”
I found myself feeling happy at the women’s sense. He continued:
“I had this great idea. The girls at the guest houses are at the age where they are desperate for it. I could do it for them, but I think, hey Bernard, why not bring them down here and sell them to a bar? Then the girls get what they want, the bar gets what it wants and I get what I want, and everyone is happy. We all win. So, I am looking for who I can talk to tonight.”
Stunned I realise that Bernard has totally lost it. The evil of the idea is one thing, but he doesn’t know the bar owners, the scene, and far more importantly the girls working in the guest houses are going to tell him where to go, as none of them respect or even like him. And his reputation will be even more damaged. His idea is utterly insane.
That night the rain ended suddenly and sooner than expected. That, though, is the way of the rainy season. You never can predict it totally. The water levels fell rapidly and I was in a taxi alone on my way home shortly after hearing Bernard’s plan. I relaxed thinking none of this will ever happen. Bernard is just getting deeper and deeper into his fantasy world of warped ideas and dreams of pulling off the big one.
Not entirely feeling right about what I had heard, though, I soon after talked to Colin about what Bernard had said, but he reassured me that Bernard would not even dare try “such idiotic shit” as he was a pussy loser, whose mind had gone who had no contacts in the bar zones or mafias that ran it, and even if he did, he would be rejected by the women and probably face the police. Colin was one who would know about these things, so I relaxed and left it.
*****
For a long time, I heard nothing of, nor saw Bernard. I had moved out of the Khaosan area into Pratunam and I had more work, and was in a relationship now. My life had entered a new period. Even so, I still on occasions would take a taxi down to Tanao and see who I could find from among the shrinking group of friends and others I knew around the area, so I heard the gossip and sometimes even listened to it. Bernard was certainly not on a list I would go to look for or even want to sit with but from time to time, I would see him, in the distance, walking down one soi or another. He was still around, but seemed to drift out of the groups and their conversations. I wondered if my chat with Colin had caused Bernard to drift further?
The girls in the guest houses were still there too, unless they had gone home to see family.
*****
One day I was down the Khaosan again and I thought I would look in on the old guest house. The story of the day was stunning. Eddie had got himself sorted out. He had arranged a passport, and he had bought a new set of clothes – trousers, shirt, socks, shoes, the lot. This was quite a change for Eddie who usually wore no more than a pair of cheap nylon shorts hitched up high on his gut, and a pair of the cheapest rubber sandals. The story went that under some Vietnam war program related to lost soldiers or something, Eddie had received money and a passport to return home to the US. People were genuinely happy that Eddie had got his act together, looked a lot better and was off home.
*****
In the days and weeks that followed, I heard from someone or other that Bernard was off to Australia, I was told people suspected Bernard was running drugs into the country. He had had no money for a long time, and it was common knowledge he was sleeping on the roof of the guest house because he could not afford a room. On top of that he was no longer a young man, being in his late 50s or even 60s by now. Times were always tough for Bernard, but it seemed things had deteriorated.
I later heard that it was indeed a drug run and that several others of the Khaosan desperate had done the run first, and that it was safe because one went and then called back to tell the next one it was cool, after delivering – giving a green light to the next one to follow. This went on after Bernard. British Steve was another one I vaguely knew by name who was to go. British Steve never had any money. He had a tattooed wife, and two children by her, and both he and his wife were badly addicted to heroin bought from and taken in a guest house further down from the one I had stayed.
Now British Steve, on jetting in to Australia, never made a call back for two reasons. Firstly, there was nobody else left to do a run. Secondly, he was the last. Unfortunately for him, he was also the last to be caught and arrested on arrival by the police.
The story later came out. A gang had sorted out Eddie with a passport, and clothes and he had been first to go. He was arrested on arrival at the airport in Australia and offered a deal of less time if he called back to say all was good. He did so. Those that followed including Bernard all took the same deal. When it came to British Steve, there was nobody to turn in and no deal offered, so he got the longest sentence. That is why, earlier, I said that Bernard was not as unlucky as British Steve. But I may be wrong as there is a corollary to this story.
*****
Bernard got seven years. In August 2005, he was released and I heard that he had flown back to New Orleans, his beloved hometown, to make a new life.
On 26th August 2005…, well we all remember what happened then…
Nobody ever saw, or heard of, or from, Bernard again…
Good yarn. If Bernard’s military credentials were valid, of which I get the impression that they weren’t,the Veterans Administration could help him get sorted out.However interesting men don’t usually do well in their own home lands.Bernard, being a unique man in spite of his methods ,has no resume’.But I would value his acquaintance but I would be hesitant of affiliation .
Thanks again for a good story .
Thanks for the feedback and I am happy you enjoyed it!
It is funny when reading comments, how you react to them. This one got me thinking of a bunch of other characters and stories in a somewhat poignant way. Some of those I have written about with a few published and a bunch not published. Others remain to be written about, but maybe the ones most interesting are the ones that I would not write about either in a memoir or fictional rendition. memories.
You are never really sure of what people tell about their past. But once again thanks for the feedback and also for getting me thinking about other times and people.
A very good read. Were it to be a novel, I’d want more local color description and background on what Khao San Road was in the “good old days”. I have never set foot there, so can only guess. The characters are interesting and appealing in their own unique way.
Thanks for the feedback. I am not sure if the novel will ever see the light of day! I will dig around and see what else I have in terms of Khao San Road. It had an influence on my early days here and I still have the vivid memories although it has changed a lot now. I also have a lot more characters from those days. An earlier story – Jesus, was from that time too and I have Ghurka, the Olympian, A Man called Cake and probably a few others that fully or partially feature the road in that era. As for description of the road then, it is a good idea to build it and actually quite easy for me, so thanks for the suggestion.