'Who's staying there?'
'Two Canadian lathes,' he told me after checking the register.
I grumbled and cursed and made faces at the bellboy on the way to the room I didn't want. I'd been worried that the police might be alerted, and meanwhile, no one had even paid attention to the reservation request. Or had they? Were the dope and bhong still under the bathtub? I had to be cautious in case they’d been discovered and the police lay in ambush for whomever tried to claim them.
As soon as my bags were in room 407, I fashioned my face into a sincere look and knocked at 409.
'Hi. I really hate to bother you, but. . . ' The woman at the door was not pleased Apparently her friend was ill, and there lay the friend in bed under the covers, watching me with wilted eyes. '. . . I sent them a telegram reserving the room but someone made a mistake.'
'My friend is sick,' said the occupant of 409. 'I don’t want her out of bed.'
'It’s SO important to us. We came back to Thailand for our anniversary. Please, I know it’s inconvenient, but the other room is just next door, and III help you move, move everything myself. Oh, please, please.'
She couldn't say no. The sick one dragged herself out of bed and collapsed into the bed next door. Her friend and I carried the luggage, the toothbrushes, the drying underwear, from one room to the other. It took less than five minutes.
'A zillion thanks. I can't tell you how much this means to us.'
Alone in 409, I dashed to the bathroom removed the door under the tub, and plunged my arm into darkness.
I felt a plastic bag! It was still there!
I dog it out with such anticipation that even the mouse droppings were a welcome sight.
The powder had absorbed moisture and smelled slightly musty. Sniff. Mmmmm. But still good. Sniff, sniff. Mmmm.
After an hour of good pipefulls, the bhong lost its mouldy taste.
A thought bit me: I should have delayed claiming the treasure for at least a day.
That would have been wiser. I'd known I was at risk for a Narcotics raid but had disregarded it. I'd take It a dumb chance. 'Two years before I'd have waited it out. Two years before I'd have been smarter.
Oh, dear. First I'd ignored the warning that the F.B.I. was looking for me; now I'd partaken of dope left in a hotel room when waiting a day would have been the safe thing to do. My caution and good sense had definitely left me. But my luck still held, and nobody came banging at the door. The next morning I checked out Fortunately I didn't recognize the deck clerk and didn't have to explain the change of plans. I checked into the hotel where I was to meet John.
Days passed with no John. The more days passed the more irritated I became, remembering Little Lisa and the twenty-four-hour mob scene John encouraged I waited two weeks past his doe date, then decided to move on. It had been so long since I'd been with John alone that I knew I wouldn't miss him I flew to India by myself.
Arriving in Bombay at the start of a season excited me as much as ever. It was still early in the year, and the monsoon was dribbling to its end. Again I felt like a successful warrior returning from battle as I entered Dipti's. Maybe I'd had rough times over the summer, but I'd survived and made it home with both money and dope. Now I really had stories to tell.
Dipti's booths were fully occupied. Everyone waved and welcomed me. Cleo. How was your monsoon?'
'Great! You should have seen what they did to my suitcase at Kennedy Airport!'
I only wanted to stay in Bombay long enough to buy things for the house. I needed new saris to hang finm the ceiling and new carpets. I also wanted a dog.
I knew Crawford Market had an animal section, so I taxied there, stopping at an Opium den on the way. At the market I was deluged by market men. I picked one so I wouldn't have to keep fighting them off.
After I told him what I wanted, the market man led me past women in saris who dangled things in my face. I followed him around baskets of jackfruits and custard apples and five snakes. I docked to avoid a water bucket suspended from a pole. He directed me through mountains of fish paste and beyond the black-market Coca-Cola stall—the Indian government had recently kicked Coca-Cola out of the country and now an eight-ounce bottle cost two dollars on the black market and was highly valued among the Freaks. We arrived at the animal section. The market man pointed.
Form a dilapidated cardboard box, buried in straw twice his height, tiny halt of fuzz yapped at me with such force that he somersaulted backwards. I loved him on sight.
A pedigree Pomeranian, three weeks old and five inches long, the little creature become a part of my life. He was beautiful, white and fluffy. He reminded me of smack. There was only one name for him—Bach, after the beautiful boy in Amsterdam who was the first person I met who did smack.
At the Ritz Hotel the desk clerk grimaced at Bach and made me promise to keep him in the bathroom and off the carpet. Oh, little Bach. I hated going out and leaving him. I cut short my visits to Dipti's. On one visit I ran into Neal.
'NEAL!' We kissed and hugged and held hands as we told our monsoon stories.
Neal was doing badly. He hadn't been able to do business during that monsoon, either—the second in a row. He had no money, no dope (one always managed to get habit-keeping dope; 'no dope' meant not enough to enjoy), and no place to stay. He asked if I could shelter Eve, him, and Ha until they left for Goa.
Of course. Again I was happy to help him. I even told him I'd give him half the supply of dope I'd brought from Thailand, so he could make money selling it and we could put together a scam.
At the hotel I laid one of the mattresses from my twin beds on the floor, and the four of us slept wall to wall. I chose the floor mattress to be near Bach. Though I'd had him only two days, he laid his furry self by me. Ha, of course, went crazy for him.
'Bakt!' she giggled. 'Keo's dog!'
Neal, Eve, and Ha eventually went not to Goa, but to Poona, where Bhagwan's ashram was. I left for Goa, taking a cabin on the boat. My load of purchases filled the entire space. The wonderful puppy slept by my face, despite the bugs I could see crawling on his skin. In the morning, as we docked in Panjim, I attempted to remove the shit he'd deposited on the pillow but gave up and hid the pillow under the sheets.
Fourth Season in Goa
1978 — 1979
NORMALLY CRACKED, DRIED, and Med by the sun, the paddy field was sprouting four-foot-high rice plants. Green grew everywhere: on the paths, the space between my house and Graham's. Even the garbage dump bloomed with growing things.
Bach loved it. The first time we crossed the paddy field on the way to Gregory's restaurant, I lost him in the grass. He'd jumped off the road somewhere along the way.
'Bach?' I called when I turned and saw emptiness. 'Bach! Where'd you go? Aloha, Bach. Where are you?'
The tiny thing had disappeared amid the stalks. It took me forever to track him and he left muddy footprints on my neck.
I took Bach with me everywhere, though not everyone liked having him as a visitor. Since the Goa Freaks socialized around mattresses on the floor, the floor also served as a table top, which gave Bach access to people’s sacred possessions. Open containers of coke and smack and silver trays of tobacco occupied a hallowed space in the centre of the floor. To Bach it was a space to sniff through and explore. His chin would be flecked with tobacco and his nose powdered with white before I'd have time to scoop him up.
I could always tell when Bach had sniffed coke. He'd be so cute. He'd become hyper and run from one end of the room to the next, picking up one thing, seeing another, dropping the first, and picking up something else. Since everything was bigger than him, he'd trip over whatever he attempted to carry.
