I think that these are the possibilities:

1. There was a Gus and his name was Guy Straley and he was as he described himself and he is dead, and the fact that we cannot locate any evidence of his existence is just freak chance. (This strikes me as vanishingly unlikely, but possible.)

1a. There is a Gus and his name is Guy Straley and everything he said about himself was true (but strangely unverifiable) and he's still alive. (Which means either Gus is Kimi, or Kimi is lying for his/her own purposes.)

2. There was a Gus and his name wasn't Guy Straley but everything else was true, and that's why we can't find any evidence of him. And he's dead. (This requires explaining why Kimi said his name was Guy Straley.)

3. There was a Gus and his name wasn't Guy Straley and not much else he said was true either, and he's really dead. (See above: why insist his name was Guy Straley?)

4. There is a Gus and his name wasn't Guy Straley and not much else he said was true and he's still lying because he's not dead. (I like this one the least, because there's lying, and then there's lying; I can handle a certain amount of obfuscation on the internet.)

5. There never was a Gus, he's the product of a group performance art project, and what are we arguing about anyway? (I think we can set aside the possibility of mass hallucination at this stage.)

I'm not trying to be facetious, or hurt anyone's feelings. I liked Gus a lot: and if he lied about himself, well, I don't know why he needed to, because he was funny and quick and flirtatious and knew a ton about a lot of things. I will mourn him honestly even if it turned out he wasn't who and what he said he was, for what he brought to this place.

But I'm gonna like him a lot less if I find out he faked his own death just to get a rise out of us.

Deena, where did you see a G. Straley in WI? I saw a big list on Intellus, but nothing in that state. Am I blind?

Why not the possibility that:

Gus's real name is/was Guy Straley, he lives in Wisconsin, but not much else of what he claimed about himself was true. In other words, if he were a mechanic in small-town Wisconsin, or a baker, or worked at Kmart, he might not be very Googleable, and it would certainly explain why there's no record of his PhD or his work or his novel or anything else.

I'm putting this out there because he did interact with brenda and ... someone else I'm forgetting while using the name Guy Straley, since she sent him a check and worked with him (right, brenda?). My gut says that's his real name, but the stories about his scientific research and travels and heritage were probably fabricated for effect.

Dude! I called his fictional nature! GusSue!

Seriously, though, if he just made up a lot of "himself", it sucks, but whatev--a little irksome, given the amount of time he participated here and the nature of this community, but I'd get over it. If he made up the "dead" thing, and made people here grieve? Not cool. Ay.

Intelius says the telephone number listed with WHOIS is from Ashland WI.

If you search Intelius for Straley in Wisconsin, result #46 is Guy Straley in Cameron WI. They have an address, but no phone number, and 70 total public records they will provide for $7.95.

.

And AmyLiz explains my post a lot better than I could.

Amy, I'm believing he's real, and that he may or may not be dead, and that he was smart enough, and witty enough, to make us believe a lot of stuff he couldn't sustain--maybe he got in too deep and couldn't figure out a way to extricate himself, or maybe he had cancer and preferred the explanation of a weremonkey bite over the more mundane reasons for chemo.

Um...

First, from Wikipedia:

In the United States death certificates are considered public domain documents and can therefore be obtained for any individual regardless of the requester's relationship to the deceased.

For Cameron, WI, this information would be handled by the Barron County Register of Deeds. Among other things, they handle "Vital (Birth, Marriage or Death) Records." [link] [link]

I'm planning on calling them and asking if a Guy Straley of Cameron, WI has passed away in the last month. If they can't tell me, I think I will request a death certificate.

If you search Intelius for Straley in Wisconsin, result #46 is Guy Straley in Cameron WI. They have an address, but no phone number, and 70 total public records they will provide for $7.95.

Well heck. I'll do it for that. If it will serve to make anyone on this board feel better, it's worth it to me.