9/01/10 Mindfuck: Orrin

Nothing could have prepared me for my encounter with Orrin even though Space and Iris had spoken at length about him. He's strange man from Oregon with a caustic personality and a nasty temper.  Orrin’s difficulties as an English teacher had apparently peaked when he beat up one of his students a while back.  Not surprisingly, he was running out of teaching opportunities.

Space and Iris place foreign residents in one of two categories: those who want to be here; and those who are here because they have nowhere left to go.  Orrin fell squarely within the latter group.

To look at him you wouldn’t know he’s a shit disturber.  A slight fellow, you could easily picture him as the leader of a spock of nerds.  Bright white running shoes, dark pants pulled high above his waist, tropical print shirt tucked sharply into his pants.  The problem is that he’s confrontational and prone to drinking heavily: a volatile combination.  Space and Iris go to great lengths to avoid him since he’s not worth the trouble that seems to follow him.

We ran into him while getting together for drinks with Rob, who Space describes as the last true hippie on the planet.  Rob had long grey hair, half baked eyes and a habit of finishing sentences with “man”.  If you close your eyes and listen, he kind of sounds like Tommy Chong.  It was Rob who noticed Orrin across the bar and the scratches on his face.  Rob asked him to take off his cap and glasses to get a closer look, and when he did it was clear that someone and a group of that someone’s friends had laid a serious beating on him.  He was stitched, bruised and puffy.

“You lead one strange life man” said Rob in the calmest of voices.

The strange thing about Orrin is that this is not the first time this has happened to him in Hualien; he regularly gets into fights and always gets beaten up.  He recently had to stay overnight in hospital for observation and lamented that he had no friends when nobody showed up to visit.

About Orrin, many have wondered: at what point does someone realize that they’re the problem and not simply victim of unfortunate circumstances.  For a guy who’s in Hualien because there’s nowhere else left to go, the answer might be never.

Orrin was getting worked up, so Space decided that it was time to go.  We were two extremely tall gin and tonics into things and needed to get home before they kicked in.  It had started to rain again so we put on our “shower curtains” and hit the road.  The fast way home down the coast road.  It’s surprising how fast you can get a 50 CC scooter to go…just employ the full tuck technique.

*****

Update

Orrin was less than genuine about the reason he took such a beating.  The truth has bubbled its was to the surface and its shocking; he punched a woman in the face.  Whatever twisted reason he had isn’t important (he tried to justify it), the fact remains that he punched a woman in the face.  Without a doubt, this guy takes the term asshole to a new level.