Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India

case wasn't finished yet, and the New Delhi police still had my passport, but legal things took time, and the lawyer could take care of details while I was away. I wasn't about to stay in Delhi while a new season began in Goa.

In Bombay I delighted in finding real people, my people—not the unsavoury types Rachid had working for him. In a suite at the Nataraj Hotel I found Junky Robert and Tish and their new baby. Finished with her motherly duty of giving birth, Tish was snorting dope again.

Rich once more, Robert and Tish had established a legitimate business, importing cane furniture into Florida. They passed me lines of coke while describing the condo they'd bought in Miami Beach. Robert lectured on the wonders of Singapore cane chairs, then segued into a harangue on the benefits of family life.

'I'm a father now. I have to think about her,' he said, lifting a gold razor blade from the coke and aiming it at the baby.

Tish and Robert still owed me money from the scam I'd invested in two years before. I didn't have to remind them—they handed me a thousand dollars in cash, plus a generous stash of dope.

The next morning I changed dollars at a black-market exchange in Colaba, bought a flea collar for Bach from a black-market dealer in Crawford Market, and took the boat to Goa. Hallelujah, I was headed home!

Fifth Season in Goa 1979 — 1980

'BACH! BACH!' I WRAPPED my arms around the writhing bundle of fur that bounded into them 'Oh, Bach. Look how big you've grown. Bach, I missed you so.'

Since I'd cabled my arrival date to the maid, the house was fixed and waiting. I closed the front door and sat on the inside steps as furry animal jumped all over me. Oh, Bach, I don't ever want to leave you again. I don't ever want to leave this house again. I love this place. How am I going to pay the rent?

Lino arrived within an hour. Amazing how news can travel fast without a telephone.

'The money's on the way,' I promised him. 'It's been sent from New York. Should be here any day.'

How could I possibly amass the two years rent I owed him? I wouldn't think about it now. As long as I had Bach and the house and the beach, everything was just wonderful. For the moment, at least.

I put on a slinky red and gold Chinese dress and dyed Bach's tail and one of his legs with red food colouring. I made his ears gold. Then, shouldering a red parasol, I headed for Joe Banana's. Cleo was back.

I stopped by Alehandro's, Sasha's, Kurt's tree, and Eight-Finger Eddy's porch. I joined the gang at the south end to watch the sunset, and then a group of us went to Gregory's restaurant for buffalo steak. Bach ate prawns in wine sauce. I was home. I loved Anjuna Beach—every grain of sand, each palm tree, and every water buffalo. It was impossible to love anything more than I loved Anjuna Beach.

The next day I visited Canadian Jacques, Norwegian Monica, and Pharaoh. Pans and Paul, together again, were renting their same house by Joe Banana's. Siena and Bernard lived in a new one behind the paddy fields. Graham had returned next door. The beach parties resumed at the south end.

Home.

But the dope den never regained its vigour. During the previous year's high season it had been a tremendous success. This year it never got off the ground. Oh, I sold a lot. But I also consumed a lot, and somehow the two couldn't keep nice. My enthusiasm for the enterprise evaporated. It required so much work. It was no longer a challenge—just a hassle. I couldn't even show the movies since they, along with the projector, were still being held hostage by the hospital, awaiting payment of Maria's bill.

I lacked stamina. I barely had the strength to go to the south end for a swim. For the first time I used the beach in back of the house. Previously I'd swam there only in a heat emergency. The south end was the place to hang out; the middle beach was for tourists who didn't know better.

Come to think of it, the south end had become less popular over the pass few years. When I'd first arrived Goa Freaks packed its shores every day. As of Tate, though, more and more people stayed away, preferring to remain indoors, around the bhong, smoking dope. There hadn't been a crowd at the south end in a long time. Whatever happened to the volleyball net, I wondered?

So now I swam at the middle beach, with its hidden jagged rocks waiting for a toe to scrape. I took Bach in the water with me. When the colour washed out of his fur, I coloured him again. I'd match him to whatever I wore that day. When I dressed in purple, Bach wagged a purple tail.

One day a catastrophe befell my area—they found a dead French Junky in the well. Nobody knew who he was. He must have stumbled into it during the night and drowned. The well was now polluted, ruined. The Goans living nearby depended entirely on that well. This was a major disaster.

It took the Goans three days to haul out the water and dredge up the bottom mud. Besides the inconvenience, to the superstitious Catholic natives a dead person in your drinking water was considered as bad an omen as you could get. They said it would be years before the well could be used again. In the meantime we'd have to use the one on the other side of Graham's house, by the paddy field—a arduous trek when carrying a bucket of water. Now it wasn't easy to find Goans willing to fill my water tank. One flush of the toilet cost two trips to the well. I'd have to ask my customers to use the outdoor pig-as-waste-disposal toilet.

Rachid's man wouldn't deliver to my door; I had to make the long journey into Mapusa for daily drug supplies. Hassle. I worried about the customers I was losing while I was away.

Then I realized my biggest problem: The Sikh chai shop.

During the monsoon a new chai shop had opened on the other side of Graham's house. I'd noticed their building of brick and palm fronds when I'd first returned. The Sikhs served Chicken Tikka and Chicken Masala, along with dope, coke, hash, and morphine. If customers came while I was out, they didn't wait; they bought from the Sikhs instead. The price was the same and the quality not much different.

By November I was once again suffering a scarcity of capital. I bought smaller quantities from Rachid's man in Mapusa, ran out faster, returned sooner to Mapusa, and lost more customers during my absence. I urgently needed a chunk of money to buy stock, plus a chunk to pay the maid, the electric bill, the gang of people now needed to fill the water tank . . . and the rent.

Uh-oh. What do I do?

I'd have to sell some things. How barbaric. To sell one's possessions—gross. But I could think of no other solution. I'd have to hawk my belongings at the flea market. Like a peasant. There went my reputation.

It had been years since I'd gone to a flea market. When I asked Norwegian Monica what day of the week they were held, I was shocked to hear that the flea markets were no longer on Anjuna Beach.

'What do you mean they're not here any more? The flea market used to be a major event.'

'Not anymore,' Monica answered. 'Hoo, boy—the Anjuna people don't have the same energy.'

What was happening to my beach? We used to be the centre of all goings-on.

The flea markets were now in Calangute every Friday afternoon and were mostly frequented by Goans, not Goa Freaks. Calangute! What a pain. That meant I'd have to hire a motorbike and schlepp my stuff. One of my customers—a straightish newcomer to Goa—said he was going to the next market: and suggested we make the trip together.

'Okay, I guess so,' I answered dejectedly.

I hated the idea. Even in my poorest days of travelling in Europe, I'd never sold anything at a flea market. I hadn't even sold my car when I left Amsterdam for Israel. Instead, I gave the car away and arrived in Tel Aviv on a one-way ticket with twenty-five dollars to my name. To me, selling personal possessions was an admission of financial failure, a real down and-out statement. Was this what I'd come to?

How awful choosing what to part with. I decided I could live without the iron, a leather backgammon board, a few tapes I was sick of listening to . . . Depressing.

Early Friday morning a motorcycle driver came for me. Straightish Newcomer arrived too, the back of his bike piled with things to sell. A flat area in Calangute near a school served as the flea market. Whatever vegetation once grew there had been trampled into the red dirt. Straightish found us a spot by a tree, and we spread cloths to lay our wares on. I'd brought a hammer and nails so I could hang signs advertising my goods and their prices. The tree could serve as a backrest and ad board.

I never got the opportunity to write signs, though. Within minutes of arriving, I discovered what selling at a