Piper wrote:I worked with Bryan for a year a few years ago and we became relatively close confidants during that time because we stayed at the same accommodation, worked at the same school and were drinking buddies. Thus I feel I might add something to this thread and flesh out his character a bit. In doing so, I'm not sure I'm adding anything particularly new but I can certainly confirm some things and pass on some of my experience with the guy.

The poster Angsta only knew him a couple of months but to my mind he has a pretty good impression of the guy. I'm going to add more details to what he already said to support this so hopefully people get an idea of how he could have wound up dead in a dump in Cambodia.



It's a cliche that most racists claim they are not actually racist. Bryan used to say he wasn't racist, that he hated everybody equally and that he just called it as it was. It was certainly true that he would just as easily speak less than politely about anyone based on their background, fellow white southern state Americans included. I had long discussions with him about his racism. I get the impression it was partly cultural, him being from The South and all, but I feel his racism was also just a part of his general lashing out at everybody as the sobbing unloved child that he seemed to me to be. I also think it's why he bonded with me because, although I did not encourage his racism, I think he felt I was actually his friend in a world where he's had so few.

As a teacher he knew his stuff (to an extent), but it was old school, authoritarian and he was highly set in his ways. He posted on the Chinese job seeking site that he is a fun teacher, but at our school the students' parents put in complaints and some of the kids apparently found him scary. He certainly did have a good glare on him, though I think that glare had more power outside the classroom 'cos even most of those little prathoms knew he couldn't really hurt them. He tended to rub the Thais up the wrong way by sending notes to parents in red ink criticizing the kids' and their parents' lack of commitment to homework getting done or whatever.

An aggressive racist is not who I would choose to befriend but I was stuck with him. I was even forced to bunk up with him on an Ajarn-inspired teacher bonding trip up-country on an overnight sleeper train, at the resorts and in the minivans. I just couldn't get away from the guy and sometimes I got really sick of his prattle. And for such a character to get stuck with, he just had to snore really loudly as the icing on the cake to ensure not a moment's peace from the guy.

At the accommodation Thais complained 'cos he'd gone AWOL on a bender and left his alarm clock blearing for the weekend. You'd know if he was home 'cos you could hear his TV or he'd blast out his music, being one of those people happy to share such things with the world. He'd bang on my door at 2am before school the next morning 'cos two days before I'd told him I had a single bottle of beer in my room left over from a trip to town (I'm only a social drinker).

He was obnoxious and disrespectful when drunk. On the King's birthday he turned up at the accommodation half plastered and knocked my door for some reason or other. He proceeded to punch the wall and shout out "Fuck the king!" Another time we were on a night out in a Thai-style entertainment area. Bryan was a bit hyper and began kicking over Buddhist ornaments in the street outside some places. Does it need an international hit to explain what happened to a guy who could behave like this?

He also didn't learn much from his 13 years experience in Thailand around the culture. Because I had not been there so long he would say I "don't know shit" and would proceed to try to teach me to suck eggs about how I should wear brightly coloured shirts ('dayglow' as another former colleague described them), because "that's what the Thais like". Sure, Thailand is about appearance, but this was as if wearing a bright lemon or pink shirt would somehow help one get through being in Thailand more easily, as if the Thais were that stupid.
After 13 years he completely missed the fact that these kinds of colours are generally worn as uniforms (that dodgy school sweatshirt that must be worn on X day of the week) or related to Thai royalty, and that the Thais only usually choose to wear such garish colours for times like Songkran. His eyes were completely closed to the fact that the male Thai staff actually wore understated browns and greys on non-uniform days.
In truth though, I know he was genuinely trying to help me out, to give what he thought was good advice.

Another example of his failure to get it was one night in a (Thai) bar and some kid came up with a basket of nuts for sale. This kid clearly had some kind of learning disability as well. Bryan told him no thanks but the kid didn't understand his English (and of course Bryan wasn't much of a Thai speaker). Now he would get told no thank you a second time, but being Bryan style it was The Glare, The Finger and "Oi, pee! NO!"
Pee? Bryan was older than this kid, was the customer and was supposedly the rich falang, at least three counts whereby he should have called the kid nong, if anything. Poor bugger got the message anyway, of course, but Bryan hadn't got the pee/nong system after 13 years in Thailand? Unless his 13 years had made him that much native he thought he was talking to a ghost but couldn't get the tone right out of fear.


Yeah, I was stuck with him at school and at home and would never have ordinarily gone near a guy like that but I also went drinking with him. Why? If we hadn't have been friends our professional relations would have gone distinctly downhill for one thing. If I hadn't befriended him I could have had problems outside school too. I figured the best way to deal with him was to look for his better qualities and see if I could honestly find something to like about him.

And I did.

Bryan said "I am the guy your mother warned you about" but all this I've said so far was only a part of his character. Yes he was a bad guy, but as it goes I do honestly think he was also the good guy. He was straight up, didn't mess you about with bullshit, you'd always know where you stand. I know for a fact if I ever had a problem off someone Bryan would have backed me up. He was also the sort of guy who would not stand for crap off some dickhead in a bar. Imagine some guy being out of order towards some girl in a bar. Bryn would probably given them a brief warning and likely straighten them out. I respected that in him. Some big guy picking on some innocent little guy? Bryan would be on the case. There definitely was good in him.

Someone mentioned his generosity. He was for sure. He was the only one of the 19 foreigners to give out Xmas presents and a Xmas hat for us all. I've still got a really good quality Swiss army knife he gave me, the USB drive he gave me, the Thai script Red Bull tee shirt he gave me, I don't care about the monetary value of these things. He also gave out loads of food from his chicken business. He'd know my door after returning from his wife's place and just lay loads of food on me. He'd say he's bored of it and it's too much for him to eat so here, have some. That would be down to his wife who in turn would load him up with stuff for his week at school. She may have ripped him off for the business but she certainly looked after his needs, did his washing, cleaned his room and clearly gave him more than he could eat.

As our former director said to me the other day upon hearing the news, she loved Bryan. But... she'd spent years searching for him down Patpong when he'd go off on his benders, to the extent that he couldn't go there any more, not because he was too well known there but because his wife was after looking for him and indeed getting him out of situations there.

The old drugged and robbed in a Thai hotel room malarky: Bryan had been drugged loads of times. He even got drugged again when he went briefly for an ill-fated job in Songkla after he left our school. He even took his chopper down there, his pride and joy, and ended up coming back without even that. One time in BKK his wife tracked him down drugged and robbed with nothing but his underwear.
Another time he slept on a floor in a mechanic's shop and had to help out for a few hundred baht a day until he got his shit together enough to get his passport replaced and get a teaching position because he'd been robbed of everything.

How the heck did he get into these situations? It's easy: I'll tell you about our adventures in the karaoke bars....

We went to a few places around town, Thai areas that are not on the radar to most foreigners. They're everywhere around BKK. I'm not talking about the obvious like Saphan Kwai, but otherwise unremarkable sois with rows of karaoke bars that light up at night if you know where to find them.
Having been here for 13 years Bryan was right up for exploring these kinds of places instead of the usual foreigner focused dross. As his wingman I would help with the Thai language, and of course he would be the big man, with a big personality, big money and a big cock (only for the first two weekends after payday though, until he was broke and borrowing money off his wife again).

I went for the experience, for the crack, to practice speaking Thai with Thais who have little English, both the girls and Thai guys who went there. In fact, I never actually went with a lady from any of these places, whore-mongering wasn't what I was after, I was after a Thai experience, whereas Bryan was one of these guys who go out with the intention of getting laid by the end of the night, and it was this that got him into most of his trouble.

There was one area we visited a few times that was riddled with mafia and the girls were bouncing off the walls on meth. One time Bryan had fucked off somewhere then come back looking for me but I was sitting with some girl, pretty much the only left as the place was going to close. Bryan ended up sitting and bonding with the mafia guys who ran the place.

What usually happened though was a routine that pretty much went like this: we go out and set up at one of the bars, usually this favourite place we used as a start or base. He would have whichever girl he chose to sit with him and towards the end of the night he'd get a taxi with her to a nearby hotel. The next day I would get the story....

* Back at the hotel room the girl would want him to pay for some ice (meth) and he would partake as well and then thanks to the meth he couldn't get it up.
* She would have a friend show up and he would fuck them both and end up seeing the second one quite regularly until he fucks it up and goes with a new girl from the same bar who is younger than her and new at the bar, therefore making his previous girl lose face.
* Sometimes the girl would take the meth money then disappear and he would end up sleeping alone in the hotel room.
* I'd get a call the next afternoon: "Hey, it's Bryan. Well, I've got no idea where I am but I am sitting outside a mom and pop shop drinking a Leo. That girl last night [fucked him off in some way] so I hailed a taxi and told him to take me where I can get lady for boom boom. I've had a row with my wife 'cos I asked her to transfer money into my bank 'cos I've only got 100 baht left."
* "Hey, it's Bryan. I'm sitting outside an amazing upmarket fishbowl in [whatever] part of the city. I got a taxi to take me for boom boom and the place was closing but I kept banging the door 'til they let me in and then they called out this lady for me. You should come here next time, they do really good food and everything...."
* "Hey, it's Bryan. Sorry if you're in bed already but how much did you pay for the tab when you settled up 'cos they reckon I need to give them [whatever] and if they think they can rip me off I'll tear this place up...."
* "Yeah so last night they had to lock us in 'cos there was this fucking pinhead Thai scrounging beer and so I told him to fuck off and then his mates turned up so they shut the doors and I just carried on drinking, no problem."



Thing is though, although he did meth with the girls sometimes I always felt it was just a part of his bender ways rather than any real interest in the drug itself. He certainly wasn't into weed. I never saw or heard anything to think he would have produced meth back home in the US. He did however have high blood pressure and was mostly at his most chilled and smiley when he was doped up on Valium to help his temper.


He was a self-confessed alcoholic and that was his big thing. Every Monday his students would be asking "Where's teacher Bryan?" and get told "Teacher Bryan mai sabai" when really he was on another weekend and a day bender. Sometimes they would last for a week. His wife suffered that for years. He'd go AWOL whoring and drinking until he ran out of money and go back to her or have her pick him up.


He was also a big fantasist and seemed to believe his own nonsense. It was bizarre how he and I had only been at the school for a year, the whole thing was falling apart around us as the director had lost faith in him, he'd threatened another teacher, the ajarns were watching him and he invited me to his room and over a beer or two asked me how I'd feel if I was given the job of head of prathom whilst Bryan took over mathayom, since Bryan had (undisclosed) connections towards the top and the director would soon be out. He'd only been there for a year and at the time I was still a relatively inexperienced junior member of the team. Bizarre. And the guy he threatened he also claimed to have dug up FBI records about or something or other.

I do think there was an amount of truth in some of what he said. He told me in his younger days back in Alabama he was a bare-knuckle fighter for cash and never lost in nearly a hundred fights. I dare say that was something of an exaggeration but I can imagine he probably did get involved in it to some extent.

Yes, he also told me about an incident at Roi Et bus station or wherever it was. He also apparently attended a dinner with Thaksin whilst he was in Isaan. He was a big Thaksin supporter and a drunken night of argument about red vs. yellow seemed to be what sparked the worst of his threats to that other teacher.

As to myself, earlier on he was being a dick towards me over morning coffee in front of both foreign and Thai colleagues so I quipped something back at him and later he assaulted me in a school corridor. The director asked if I wanted to inform the ajarns and press charges but I said to leave it. That seemed to change our relationship. Bryan knew I saved him trouble there and after that he became extremely generous towards me, put up with a lot I'd say to him that I don't think he'd hear from anyone else without violence ensuing, and I think he just appreciated he might actually have found a friend in this world.


As to his wife, she is also a red. She is not a bargirl. Her family are not particularly rich and they ain't hi-so but she does have a degree as far as I know. I think he drove her up the wall, but she is Thai of course and their minds move in mysterious ways. So being Thai and being Bryan's wife she is hot-blooded and crazy and they seemed to make a perfect pair of a crazy farang-Thai couple who can neither live with or without each other, until death do them part. Bryan often called her a fat ugly cow and said it was a marriage of convenience so he could set up a business for his retirement. Note the previously posted email he wrote. There's more I could say but it might get me in trouble, and anyway, this is just to give a picture of the sort of guy he was and the kind of relationship he had with his wife and colleagues and surrounding culture so people can understand how his fate has quite likely the most simple explanation.

I already said he gave me a Swiss army knife. He told me to carry it at all times because you can't trust the Thais. He had a bigger version which he often had with him on nights out. I'm not sure how much faith I have in his ability to successfully pull it out since he constantly lost his stuff in all his combat shorts pockets.


About observations that he was a creature of habit at his guesthouse in PP, I would say that's almost certainly 'cos he was running out of money. Prior to PP he'd failed to hold down a position in China after just six months. Prior to that he'd barely stayed at Angsta's school. Prior to that he'd relocated to Songkhla for what turned out (according to him) to be a scam job and he'd come back without his nice motorbike and having been robbed again.

He couldn't possibly have gone to Cambodia with much money and his wife was probably helping him out like she often did.

But more than anything, knowing Bryan as I did, I highly doubt he'd have been a creature of habit there for very long unless he had no way to buy beer, 'cos once Bryan and beer get together everything becomes random, in random locations until such time as he's passed out and ran out of cash.


Finally, one last anecdote: we were at a karaoke bar one time and it was all good until Bryan starts complaining to me about some Thai guy giving him the eye. I said there's no bad atmosphere here and he should forget it and enjoy himself, no need for trouble. Bryan says he knows the sort: that the Thai thinks he's an alpha male and recognizes the same in Bryan and that there might have to be "a reckoning", so if things kick off I should get out quick and ride off on my bike 'cos he doesn't want me to get involved.
Anyway, Thai has left. Then a bit later Bryan is seething. Says he's going out looking for that guy. I say what the hell is the point of that? So he tells me that later (after the alpha male bullshit had blown over) that Bryan had approached this guy to get some drugs (though I don't remember it being meth, I thought it was Valium or other downer he was after). Then the guy takes his money and fucks off with it never to come back.

Jeeze Bryan. So one minute he's exchanging the evil eye with the man and the next he's giving him money to go get drugs and after 40+ years on the planet including 13 of them in Thailand he's angry the guy went off with his money! That night also resulted in a long bender with time off school after he couldn't find the guy and so went off to get a whore and proceeding to have a skinful for days on end.


Bryan man, what the fuck were you doing you idiot? You know this ain't me bad mouthing you, I'm saying it as I see it is or was. Mate, you weren't all bad, you were self-destructive to an extreme; you were selfish sometimes and you were obnoxious when drunk sometimes but I saw the good in you and I really enjoyed our conversations about Asia, movies, life and everything and I am glad I was able to be your friend for a short time in this life. There were times when you were the most civilized and decent guy at the school and I admire your passion. Sure it was misplaced but nobody is perfect and you didn't deserve to go out like that there.

I know you'll be raging wherever you are now but maybe pigs'll fly and the US and Cambodia will sort some of this out, not that it's much consolation to you. Should have got a hobby dude and you know it and said it. Rest in peace, brother. I got your stuff and your pictures and you won't be forgotten for as long as I'm still kicking.

So here's back at ya mate, you dickhead.