SF Pt.7 The River of Shit.

Where would writers be without the internet? Huddled over dusty tomes in public libraries that’s where. But now, thanks to the miracle of Google Earth it is possible to keep track of our favourite characters as they go about their daily activities. Expats are particularly interesting to watch. Here is one now trapped on a traffic island in the middle of Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok on his way to Soi 4. See how he looks anxiously all around, expecting to get run down any second, wait a minute...that’s no embassy official off for a bit of lunchtime hanky panky! It’s old Arthur on his way for a quiet beer at the Golden Bar.

So who is this awful old Arthur person and how did he come to be in Bangkok you ask? It’s a long story. But we might as well tell it. It will pass the time and parts of it are quite interesting. It may even serve as a cautionary tale for any young adventurers tempted to follow in his footsteps.

Where to begin? Arthur doesn’t actually live in Bangkok. He lives in a village way up in the North of Thailand about 3 hours by bus from Chiang Mai. Why? That too is a long story, which he fully intends to write one day, but while we’re waiting here’s a potted version.

We need to cast our minds back to simpler times, about 50 years back to a small market town in Surrey, England. Here we find young Arthur fishing in a stream for minnows, and the occasional roach. In a few short years, the stream will be diverted into a culvert in order to make way for the main terminal building at Gatwick Airport. But that’s in the future. At the moment it is winding its happy, albeit sluggish, way between primrose banks through fields and woodland, alongside roads and under bridges, on its way to becoming the River Mole (so named because it actually flows underground at Leatherhead during the summer months), after which it will join the River Ember at Molesey and eventually the Thames at Hampton Court.

Just across the stream from Arthur is an abandoned control tower, all that remains of the original airfield, where, during WW2, damaged Spitfires and Hurricanes were hurriedly cannibalized for spare parts so that fearless young men who looked like Kenneth More could hurl themselves skywards against the invading Hun. This accounts for the various bits of metal and barbed wire that clog the stream in places and make catching minnows so challenging. It was a racecourse for a while too but that’s enough history.

This is Arthur’s fishing spot. He comes here often on his bike, a metallic blue Raleigh 3 Speed with drop handlebars and a bit of cardboard in the spokes that makes a clicking sound, in order to be alone with his thoughts. He’s what they call an introspective child. Not anti-social particularly. He just prefers his own company. Mother’s didn’t worry too much about their children riding off across the fields in those days. In fact the only known pervert was Sidney, the local milkman. Kids were not supposed to accept sweets from Sidney or go too near his horse.

Trains rush past not far away on shiny metal rails close enough to make the ground shake. This is the Southern Railways London to Brighton Line. Arthur has traveled on the line quite often with his parents. Up to London for Christmas shopping, museum visits, and to take in places like Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and Westminster where serious decisions are made and serious horse guards ignore the citizens of a far flung empire trying to make them laugh. Down to Brighton with its rusty pier(s), peppermint rock, rude postcards, pavilions and other Regency follies, its once fine hotels now given over to something called ‘dirty week ends’. People in London have a firm grasp on things; they know what’s going on. People in Brighton sit on pebbles gazing out to sea. Where London is grand and intimidating Brighton is slightly seedy and dilapidated. The message is clear. Up for the finer things in life, down for decadence. Thus it is that the ups and downs of the London to Brighton Line became forever fixed, physically and metaphorically, in Arthur’s impressionable young mind.

What else is going through young Arthur’s neatly trimmed head (short back and sides 1/6d.) as he carefully molds a piece of bread onto a size 12 hook and adjusts his goose quill float? He is alone but he feels fine. Mainly he’s just happy to get out of range of his parents and anything to do with the upcoming Eleven Plus Examination.

Behind him the Brighton Belle, the blue and white Pullman version (you can set your watch by it - London to Brighton 58 minutes non-stop), streams past with a long pealing whistle and another load of hedonists. Arthur stares at the water. It seems to be changing consistency, getting darker, more sluggish. It is slowly becoming an evil-smelling open sewer, a river of piss and shit. Turds, scraps of plastic, car tires, condoms, things that might be body-parts are drifting along in a vile chemical stew. Then suddenly Arthur gets a bite. He jerks his rod upwards to find something black and ugly, a catfish or one of those toothy monsters from the ocean depths he’d seen in an encyclopedia. A nasty alien-looking creature. He doesn’t want to touch it. Fortunately it drops off the hook and lies flapping in the grass beside him, snapping at his feet. But now there are others, crawling up the bank on claw-like flippers, showing solidarity with their frantic fellows.

River of Shit? Bloody hell...where does he get this stuff? He hasn’t even heard of William Burroughs at this point. In fact Burroughs isn’t even writing much. He's taking potshots at his missus in Mexico City.