Sometimes Real Life Makes the Best Fiction: John McAfee
John McAfee in happier times, before full-blown eccentricity hit him.
I have a confession to make. As busy as I’ve been, I’ve still made time for a weird obsession with John McAfee.
If you haven’t been following this news story for the last month, I’ll try to get you caught up with the bare bones of it all.
Story
He’s the eccentric millionaire who created the anti-virus software of the same name. He was living an extravagant, kind of odd life in the tiny country of Belize. Had run-ins with the local authorities who, by most accounts, are corrupt. Argued with his equally rich neighbor over John’s dogs. Neighbor got shot in the back of the head. John, though claiming his innocence, went on the run, positive that he was being framed and that they would most certainly kill him if they caught him. (Despite their insistence that he’s not being charged and they just want to question him.)
Over the course of the last three or four weeks since he went on the run, the stories have become more and more bizarre. At this moment, he’s in Guatemala, having escaped Belize successfully. Or not. The folks in Guatemala arrested him and are planning to send him back to Belize–not because they think he murdered anyone or because he’s wanted for questioning. No, immigration picked him up for sneaking into the country. Cue the “heart attack” yesterday that turned out to be nothing. They put him back in his cell and he’s fighting extradition.
Interesting, but only in passing. What really makes this basic story spark is character and pacing.
Character
John’s crazy. As a writer who often creates eccentric characters, I say this in the most complimentary way. He’s done bizarre things. For instance, an elaborate hoax on a popular drug forum where he tried to convince the members there that he’d discovered a mythical aphrodisiac previously only heard of in urban legend. As a result of that prank over a year ago, the press came out in the beginning declaring him to be drug addled and dangerous because he was on bath salts.
Another prank he pulled in an interview with some super-serious woman led the press to report he used to run a retreat that taught “observational yoga” and that he claimed people benefited just as much from watching yoga as doing it.
He’s run around his beach with a gun and bodyguards, has a girlfriend 47 years younger than he is, dyed his hair black while on the lamb so he could walk around watching people raid his property, and has a tendency toward untruths when cornered. Or, as was the case with the drug forum and observational yoga joke, when bored.
Pacing
His blog The Hinterland gives the pacing a great up and down feel to it. He’s creating his own story, and when the action is too high (the police poisoned my dogs and arrested my caretaker!), he takes it back down with a heartwarming personal story about the people of Belize. Pacing, dude. That’s good storytelling.
He knows exactly when to raise the tension and bring it back down. He’s been on the run for weeks, reported raids, arrests, police closing in on him, friends in danger. Whenever it got too unbelievable or too tense, he’d take it back down. They made it to a friend’s house. Here’s a picture of them making sandwiches. Twists and turns, lies and truths, danger and love, all mixed together in perfect proportions for a solid story with great flow.
The whole thing is fascinating, hilarious, heartbreaking, and horrifying in turns. It’s the best story I’ve read in ages.
If he runs into a chupacabra in the jungles of South America, I’m totally stealing his story.
