Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India

'Are you going to the party tonight?' he asked.

'Where is it?'

'At Bombay Brian's. On Joe Banana's hill, third house from the sea.' THUMP. A Frisbee slid by. George scooped it up and ran to the shoreline to throw it back.

'Want a drag?' asked a guy offering me a joint.

Though I'd smoked marijuana during my teens, lately both it and hash made me confused and paranoid. I accepted the offer but tried to inhale as little of the smoke as possible.

In the States one takes a drag of a joint and passes it on, but I'd noticed in India, with hash abundant and legal, one held onto it as long as possible, even if it meant finishing it off. I took another hit, this time trying to blow out instead of in. That made the end glow and look like I'd inhaled.

'Do you five around here?' I asked him, looking at the joint that, unfortunately, was only a third gone.

'At the other end. And you?'

'Just down from here,' I answered. 'You can see it. That white house over there. As I turned my face to point, I faked another drag. I could already feel the effect of the little I'd smoked. I didn't like it. 'That's Ramdas's house. How did you get that? It's almost impossible to rent on the beach end of Anjuna.'

'Ran into him on his way to Poona. Guess that means I was meant to live here.'

I took another minipuff and figured I could appropriately hand the joint hack now. It seemed to take him forever to pry it from my fingers. Then he said something I couldn't understand. 'What?' I asked. It made no more sense when he repeated it. 'Water; swim,' I said standing up besides confusing me, hash affected my ability to form grammatical sentences.

I headed down the—now enormous—distance to the sea. I swam out past the other swimmers, then turned and surveyed the beach. Not a leaf moved on the palm trees. Only three houses could be seen, one of them mine. I lay on the water, closed my eyes, and floated.

I must have stayed there quite a while. By the time I swam in, the ends of my fingers were pruny and I could think straight. When I returned to the beach, I found George lying on his  lungi. Adorable. A baby face topped his thin Body, tanned dark bronze. I sprinkled water on him.

'Oh, feels good,' he said. He wet his hand on my leg and patted it over his chest.

'Like it? Here's more.' I leaned over to throw drops on his back.

He watched me. 'Want to go with me to Joe Banana's for a coconut milkshake?' he asked. 'Then Show you my house. It's behind those trees.'

'Sure.'

He wrapped his  lungi around his hips to form a sexy wrapping that hung halfway to his knees. After putting on my dress, I opened the parasol, lifted my hem, and followed him toward the trees. Eeh, ah, oh—hot sand. I ran ahead and waited for him in the shade. In that form. I must have looked like the cartoon Road Runner charging forward, a tourist with virgin soles. How long would my feet take to adjust? We headed inland.

 Joe Banana's, no more than a glorified shack, formed the center of  Anjuna Beach activity. The mail went there. Since there were no street names or house numbers, a mailman couldn't do anything more complicated. I joined Saddhu George in his letter-by-letter search through a cardboard box hanging from the roof, though there could be no mail for me yet. There was none for him either, and we sat at a rickety table on the porch.

As I sipped a milkshake and waved at the fly trying to Land on my glass, a continuous flow of people browsed through the letter box. Many stopped by our table to offer gossip and report the contents of their mail. News of the party passed from nationality to nationality.

'Who's that?' I asked George as a tall, beautiful blonde with a pink flower behind her ear mounted the steps for a postal search.

'That's Norwegian Monica. Hi, Monica!'

'Hi, George,' she answered in a tuneful accent.

'You just get in from Ibiza?'

'Yup.' The beauty found herself an aerogramme.

'There's a party tonight at Bombay Brian's.'

'Hoo, boy! I can say hello to everybody I haven't seen since last season.'

After a while we left for George's place. The soft earth coated my feet with red powder. The air was hot and dry, and I felt very comfortable as I swirled my parasol, its wooden handle rotating against my shoulder. I was ready for George.

He lived in a tiny house above the beach where we'd been sunbathing and shared it with someone named Amsterdam Dean. I asked for the toilet.

He turned and pointed inland. 'Go straight and keep walking. You'll find it. Here, take the  loti.'

He filled the brass container from a clay tub of water in front of the house. I took the  loti, though I had no intention of using it—I had a roll of toilet paper in my bag. The sewage system of Anjuna Beach consisted of raised platforms with holes over which one squatted. Disposal came in the shape of a pig that had its own passage to the underside of the hole. Whatever went through the hole was to be eaten by the pig. From the day I'd arrived in Goa, I'd been reminded PIGS DO NOT EAT PAPER. We were supposed to use water to clean ourselves, not toilet paper. I tried it once. Not for me. I didn't care if paper was bad for the environment: some vestiges of civilization I had no intention of giving up. In this regard, let them call me tourist, barbarian, or JAP. I preferred industrial society's way.

George's toilet was quite a trek away and had only three walls. This left the front open to every passing eye. I tried to string my piece of material across it. I looked around. All was empty and still. So I climbed in and lifted my skirt. Before heading back, I emptied the  loti and felt only slightly guilty about leaving the wad of toilet paper.

I found George sprawled on a bright, satin-covered mattress on the floor. The room was strictly Anjuna decor—walls cloaked in Afghani and Indian tapestries and Tibetan paintings; mattresses overflowing with satin pillows; and a floor of straw mats over dong.

'Hi.'

'Hi.'

I dropped my belongings in a corner and sank into his arms. His skin was sun-warm and soft. My leg fit perfectly around his. When he turned his head downward to meet mine in a kiss, a scratchy lock of his matted hair fell over my shoulder. My fingers felt the flaky residue of salt water as they traced the inside of his leg. Mmmm . . .

We separated so I could take off my dress, and he removed his  lungi with a twist and a fling. Before he leaned back over me, he took the front strands of his hair and tied them in a knot behind his head. Then he pressed himself against me again, and I heard the sound of his knee crunch on the straw mat.

We'd only been lying, locked and still, a few moments when Amsterdam Dean came through the open doorway.

'Pharaoh got in last night. You should see the speakers he brought.

Man! New tapes too. Hello.'

'Hi,' I answered, lifting a leg off George's back to wig my foot at him. George disentangled from me and went outside. I could hear him scoop water from the clay tub and wash.

'Want coffee?' Dean offered, kneeling in the corner over a kerosene burner.

'No, thanks.' I dressed and told George I'd see him later at the party.

I returned to the beach to find that most of the group had left. I met an  American named Richard sitting cross-legged and nude, concentrating deeply on a Chinese game called Go,  and a slinky French-Vietnamese named Georgette.

I felt glorious as I ran into the sea to wash the sticky mess from between my legs. What an existence. This was the life I'd been bred for—relaxed and self-indulgent. I could do this forever. Back on the shore, my new friends tried to talk me out of going home to change.