Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India

by Cleo Odzer

  "No . . . I mean . . . but . . . isn't that incredible?" He just didn't understand.

  The spectators in this courtroom, too, enjoyed my appearance. I’d come fully armed to convince the judge how upright and reputable I was. Unsmiley presented him with my modelling portfolio and my packet of drawings.

  "What is this?" asked the judge, holding sheets of paper.

  "Um, I believe that's Euproctis sirnilis," I answered, motioning to a mothlike creature. "And that one there is Kosciuscola tristis. The male Kosciuscola tristis."

  "No. I mean, what are these . . ."

  "Insects."

  "I can see that. I mean, why are you showing me these?"

  "Well, you see, my fiancé is an entomologist, and he travels the world to investigate new species of insects. I go with him and help by drawing and cataloguing his discoveries. But see, he usually travels in the East, and lately I've been having trouble coming back to this country. You should have seen what they did to my suitcase at Kennedy Airport! I thought if I had a passport in another name it would make it easier. Sometimes I'm detained for hours . . ."

  Unsmiley told the judge this was my first offence and pointed out that my attempt to acquire the passport was amateurish.

  "On the contrary," the judge argued. "The way she went about it was very professional."

  Unsmiley then explained how I'd come up with the idea from reading The Day of the Jackal. I'd followed exactly what the character in the story had done.

  "The Day of the jackal? By Forsyth?"

  Unsmiley laid before him a copy of the book he'd spent all weekend going through in order to find the right passage, but which, unfortunately he never did.

  "Where in this book?"

  "It's in there somewhere," I offered. "We just haven't found it yet. It's a big book."

  The judge then delivered a tirade—against drugs, against drug running, against people who left their country. He ended by saying something to the effect that, if I didn't want to be in this country, then I wasn't wanted here. His words were so forceful that my body prickled, a prickle that crept to my brain and compressed everything I heard.

  ". . . thenwedontwantyouhere . . . "

  Whatever his final decree was, I didn't grasp it. I didn't even know when it came, and Unsmiley had to steer me out of the courtroom.

  "So what happened?" I asked in the corridor.

  "What do you mean what happened? You were there; you heard what he said."

  "No, I missed the last part. What'd he say?"

  "You have to pay a fine."

  "Probation?"

  "Didn't you hear him? He practically told you to get out of the country because you weren't wanted here."

  "RRRR‘WVRR!" I made an ecstasy noise and jumped on Unsmiley, swinging him until his heel collided with a metal ashtray. After he pried me loose I danced right there in the corridor of the Federal Building. I started with hops, a kick, and a pirouette; then I threw my bag on the floor and attempted a Mexican hat dance around its edges. "La cucaraCHA, la cucara—CHA . . ." I was beginning a cancan when Unsmiley pulled me toward the elevator and pushed me in.

  "I can go back to Goa?"

  "You can go anywhere you like."

  I restrained the hug that was bursting inside me. "YahOOO!" I yelled quietly as we descended to the Lobby.

  Now I just wanted to get out of there. Out of San Francisco. Out of the States. Away from Little Lisa. Away from the mob. As it was I'd spent way too much money in the West.

  When I told John the judge's decision, he moved the base pipe aside to congratulate me with a kiss. Then he told me the news, "Gigi is dead."

  "Gigi? We just saw her in Bombay."

  "Marco's in jail in Europe."

  "Oh, no! What about their daughter?"

  "With Marco's sister."

  "Poor Gigi. She never saw her wedding movie. I'm so sad. How'd it happen?"

  "We don't know the details," said Richard, "but she'd been pretty out of it. All that smack you guys are doing." Though Richard Loved coke, he was as antismack as he and Narayan had been years before in Bali.

  "It's NOT the smack," I said defensively. "It's the coke. You have to be careful with coke. You should've seen me last monsoon. Now I sleep every night and take calcium and vitamin B. That reminds me-I should go buy vitamins, since be heading East soon. I want to leave this week." I turned to John. "You coming to India with me?"

  "I'll meet you in Bangkok. We can pick up that stash."

  "Oh, right! At the Royal Hotel. I'll send them a telegram to reserve the room. What was it, 409? I hope nobody found the dope and called the police."

  The rest of the night we smoked farewell bhongs to Gigi.

  *

  I bought a plane ticket and cabled Thailand to reserve room 409 for my "wedding anniversary." This time I flew China Airlines and had a two-day stopover in Taiwan.

  When I arrived at the Bangkok hotel and requested the room, however, the desk clerk exhibited bewilderment. Ah, yes, Asian desk clerks. Remember them? I should have known.

  "I made a reservation specifically for room 409," I wailed. "My husband and I spent our honeymoon in it last year. Now it's our anniversary and I want to surprise him. He'll be arriving tomorrow."

  Oh yes, there it was—they had my reservation, but sorry, room 409 was occupied.

  "When was it taken?" I asked.

  "Yesterday, I am very sorry."

  "But I sent the telegram last week!"

  The desk clerk shrugged. "We can give you 407 next door, then you can have 409 as soon as it is vacated. Or maybe you can convince the occupants to switch with you."

  "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.

  He came with me to the beach too. When I'd go for a swim, he'd follow to the water's edge and bark when I left him on shore. Up and down the sand he'd run, crying and barking. I'd have to come out and carry him into the surf with Inc.

  Now that I had my own dope, I could spend time with Canadian Jacques without feeling as if I were with him for drugs alone. My private stash was not going to last long, though, especially since I'd given half to Neal. I contemplated making a run to Bangkok to supply myself for the year, but I lacked a connection, a person in Thailand to sell me dope. Thai connections were cherished and guarded, probably the only secret that Goa Freaks kept.

  Goa Freaks favoured scam talk above other topics of conversation, and one day, while I was discussing runs with Jacques, he referred to his contact in Chiang Mai, an employee at a certain hotel. "You can go to him, if you he said. "Mention my name. He knows me well."

  I couldn't believe what Jacques had so casually given me. Speechless, I felt as if he'd handed me a family heirloom. People paid money for that information or grovelled for it. "Oh . . . hey, thanks," I said, memorizing the name and place and making Jacques a bhong. Wow—I had a Thai connection.

  I felt Big Time as I imagined flying to Thailand to buy my own load. If I bought a sizeable quantity, I could party for the whole season without scrounging from friends. I could sell a portion and keep myself solvent.

  I decided to include Neal in the plan in order to ease his financial troubles. Though I hated leaving Bach, I made an overnight trip to Poona to see Neal.

  What a shock! I'd known in Bombay that things had gone awry for Neal, but I hadn't realized the sorry state he'd sunk to. I found him in the pigpen he'd made of his hotel room.

  "This place looks like a suitcase exploded," I said, gazing at the mess. "Don't you let the maid in?"

  "Never let too much lying around," he explained. "I could never collect everything I'd need to hide from her."

  No, he hadn't sold any of the dope I'd given him; in fact, what I'd given him was just about gone.

  I sat on the messy bed and noticed I was the only one sitting . . . With the curtains shut, Neal and Eve shuffled through the dimness like characters from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Ha followed suit. The three of them reminded me of windup toys, moving awkwardly in separate orbits.

  "What are you doing in Poona, anyway?" I asked Neal.

  "Um know. Not much. The usual, whatever that is." He giggled. "Do you go to the ashram?" None of them were wearing malas or orange clothes, I noticed.

  "No. Not really."

  "Then why did you come here?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know. Seemed like a good idea at the tim
e, and now we're just here." Another giggle and he circled the bed. He took hold of a piece of paisley material without seeming to notice it. He cleared a space on the cluttered bureau, looked around, paused, shoved a candle into the space, and strolled to the other side of the room. "It's not bad here," he said. "Kind of peaceful. We don't go out much." He picked up a yellow lungi and dropped the paisley. He back stepped to the bed, wrapping the lungi around his arm before letting that drop too. "Want a toot of coke?" he asked, after discovering his glass block beneath a pile of debris.

  "Uh, sure," I said, wondering how he afforded coke.

  He attempted to chop some. CLACK, CLATTER, CLINK. The razor blade slid from his grasp and fell among a hodgepodge collection of Eve's little objects. Rather than bunt for it, he continued chopping with the jagged end of a broken ball point pen. THUNK, THUNK, THUNK.

  "Uh . . . Neal. Let's put a scam together. I want to go to Thailand and bring back enough dope to last me the year. I'm tired of buying it from other people."

  "Okay," he said, stopping to look at me a moment. He put down the block, then shock his bangs and examined the ceiling fan. "Whatever you want to do." He scratched his head and sauntered off, bumping into Eve, who ambled similarly in the other direction. Now he was in the bathroom, using the piece of pen to rub at a streak in the sink.

  "I think I have enough money for a pound of smack," I continued. "I'll split it with you when I get back."

  I watched Neal grab a syringe and aim it at the ceiling fan like a machine gun. Aha! Syringe. They were fixing coke! No wonder they were so spacey. They had to be doing a lot of it to be that weirded-out. How were they paying for it?

  Neal turned to look at me for another half-second and said, "Thanks, cutie." Then he placed the syringe on a tilting stack of papers and came to sit beside me and resumed chopping. THUNK, THUNK.

  Back in Goa, I prepared for the trip. I'd meet Neal in Bombay in two weeks. I had just enough time to take Bach to a veterinarian for shots and a check-up. In addition to fleas and ear mites, the poor thing had a stomach infestation.