with my fiance, an entomologist. I figured that since etiologists voyaged to strange places in search of strange insects, it would seem plausible that one's fiance had visited the countries stamped on my Passport. I'd once hitchhiked with an entomologist in Israel, from Tel Aviv to Nueba. He had stopped every few miles to scamper through the bushes with a butterfly net. It took two days to make a journey that could have been done in hours. A memorable character.
Crossing borders in the past, I'd always carried my portfolio of modelling pictures to give myself legitimacy. Now I added the part about helping my fiance by accompanying him in his work and drawing pictures of his insects. Every day I went to the library to look up bugs and copy them. By the time we were ready to leave Bangkok, I had a booklet of them, intricately drawn and coloured, neatly catalogued and described. There was
John and I did stay in Bangkok longer than absolutely necessary. But after Goa, one always desired to indulge in the luxuries of civilization: Peking dock, Toblerone, cheese fondue, air conditioning. Now THAT was living. John and I capered through the American-style supermarkets like tourists at the Louvre. We'd stop and poke—picking up an instant mix, a pretty jelly, a flashy box. Squeezing, smelling, shaking. Look at this! Wow! What a cute label. So many brands of cereal. Oo, oo ketchup!
Thailand also had American TV programs dubbed in Thai, with the English soundtrack on the radio. 'M.A.S.H.' on TV and ketchup on my hamburger—now that was civilized. John and I cackled over a new American sitcom called 'Soap.'
Finally it was time to leave the comforts of Bangkok. With the paint kit filled to capacity, John sealed the hole with glue and covered it with a circle of green felt designed to stick to the bottom of lamps to prevent them from scratching table tops. The kit looked good, really good. Still reasonably light, and if you knocked on it, it sounded hollow. Perfect.
But we had a large amount of dope left over. What to do with it?
'We can't take it with us, and we don't want to throw it away.'
'Maybe we could leave it somewhere for next time. And the bhong. What do we do with the bhong?'
'Could we hide it?'
We looked around the room for inspiration. Hmm. Behind a curtain? Under the bed? The hotel maid was sure to stumble across it. John checked the bathroom 'Hey, c'mere. Look at this,' he said. He'd found a compartment in the wooden frame encasing the bathtub. A door in the wood opened to the space beneath the tub. 'How about leaving the dope in there?' he asked.
'The inaA might find it.'
'Why would anyone look inside this thing?'
'What if the tub clogs or something?'
'The pipes aren't under here. There's nothing but dirt. We could push it way in the back. It's so dark down there you'd only be able to reach it by feeling around. It's better than throwing the stuff away. Even the bhong will fit in there.'
'We must remember what room this is.'
So we left the bhong and a couple ounces of dope stashed beneath the tub of room 409 at the Royal Hotel. Instead of heading directly to it we thought it would be more cool to go via Nepal. I'd never been there and looked forward to seeing the place Petra and my old boyfriend Chic from Bali considered home. We'd fly separately to Kathmandu, with me leaving first and John arriving a day later. I booked a flight at a time of day deemed advantageous for passing through the airport without being hassled.
As usual I thrilled at visiting a new country. The mountains! They rose unbelievably high. As we neared Kathmandu, though the plane was above the clouds, one mountain in the distance rose higher than the plane. Hey, wow—I'm in the Himalayas!
I checked into the Woodlands Hotel and set out to find Freak Street, which I'd heard about. For transportation I took a bicycle-rickshaw, sitting on a tarn plastic seat as a Nepalese pedalled through town. We passed under an arch painted with one large eye, a religious symbol. A compound of
I waited for John. A few days went by. Then a week. Where was he? Every day I checked Poste Restante. Nothing. Every day I checked Reception. No calls. No inquiries. No telegrams. My personal stash ran out, and I had to break into the paint kit for more. Then I ran out of cash. Shit, I'd have to sell some dope to pay for the hotel. Where was Applecroc?
I'd met few people. My best contact was an American woman, Nikki, who lived in a guest house with her sexy Nepalese boyfriend. I sold Nikki a couple of grams. Sometimes I hung out in her room. But actually, Kathmandu seemed dead to me. Where was that great Freak scene I'd heard about? Maybe this was the wrong season? What had happened to John? I was worried.
Another week went by, bringing with it a crazy holiday where people threw red paint and water out their windows. Two blocks from the hotel an entire bucket of water landed on my head. I didn't find it nearly as amusing as the people in the street, my rickshaw driver, and the desk clerk at the hotel. Applecroc, where are you?
Finally, after I'd begun to panic over John's disappearance, I spotted his familiar braids bobbing down the street. 'APPLECROC!' I yelled, jumping on him and taking a bite of pigtail. Oh, my Applecroc. 'Where've you BEEN?'
'I was delayed in Bangkok waiting to hear from Lisa,' he told me, 'but I've been in Kathmandu three days. The desk clerk at the Woodlands said you weren't registered there. I've been looking all over for you.'
'The moron! How typical.'
'Bastard!'
John had a room in another hotel, and I moved in with him.
'I brought you a surprise from Bangkok,' he said, pulling his taps recorder out of a suitcase.
'What, what?'
'I taped the last episode of 'Soap' for you. Wait till you hear. They arrested Jessica for murdering the tennis pro.'
John had been in Nepal before, so he knew the scene better than I did. He took me to a suburb called Swayambuh, where the Freaks hang out. Now Kathmandu was much better.
For my birthday we went to the fancy Yak and Yedi Hotel. A fountain bubbled outside, and John handed me a Nepalese coin. 'Here, make a birthday wish.'
'Oo, okay.' I hell the coin and considered what I wanted. What could I wish for? I had everything. Everything I'd ever wanted—a wonderful home in a fantasy paradise, a wonderful Freak community to belong to. My life was the best. To wish for more would have been greedy. I gave the coin back to John. 'Applecroc, I already have it all.'
Soon I was on the move again. While John flew directly to Bombay, I returned to India by way of Benares, the most sacred spot in the country and an inconspicuous point of entry. In my role as tourist I stayed a few days.
Interesting place. Benares was where, if possible, Indians went to die. No bigger than a large village, its streets were lined six deep with dying bodies. Some lay side by side on cots; some sat up, holding themselves as if in pain; others coughed thickly. Many of those prostrate in the sun looked as if they'd already made the transition to corpse. Matter of fact, they looked liked they'd been dead for days. I wondered if a government official periodically searched the prone masses to remove those who'd achieved their holy aim.
John and I timed it so we arrived in Bombay the same day.
'HEY JOHN, it took you goddamn long enough to get the fuck back!'
Back in Bombay with Little Lisa.
Since John didn't want every Goa Freak knowing the details of his business, we didn't go hotel hopping. We avoided the Bombay social scene. Instead our days were filled with food and comic books. And Lisa. Lots of Little
