Last India Overland

by Craig Grant

  I watched movies all night, and when I finally found

  something on three besides shadows and darkness it was Dana’s face. Nicely made up, not too much mascara. She was writing in the daybook. Mick Jagger singing “Shattered.”

  After she was done with her daybook entry, she let Dave read it, and I didn’t like the bit where she said almost everybody saw the falling star over the Taj. That was a little dig at Kelly. I asked Dave how he could love a woman like that, a few minutes later, and he said we all have our foibles and that Dana had suffered some herself from Kelly, though he wouldn’t say exactly what.

  I was hoping Dave would look at Kelly but he wouldn’t. And I just got mad waiting for him to do it. Tried to phone him up but the phone was off the hook. Just like I’ve done to him sometimes.

  He asked me to put that down and I did.

  Dave and Dana didn’t do much besides hold hands and stare out the window at farmers pushing cows and ploughs through fields and so I mosdy channel-hopped and played the Fender that whole afternoon on the way to Kharjaho. After an episode of “The Untouchables” was over, I switched back to channel three. Looking at something that looked like a sex orgy. Well, it was a sex orgy. Four guys and a woman, the woman with her legs spread-eagled and the guys all had woodies and the woodies were all near some orifice. Woodies, literally. Because these were little carved wooden figures though Dave had been looking at these five up close and so it looked on the screen like they could’ve been anywhere from three to six feet tall. But they were maybe only eight inches at most I think.

  “Look.” It’s Dana’s voice on the speaker. “Are they doing it with a horse?”

  The eyes pan over to something different. “Looks like a cow to me,” says Dave.

  “Can’t be a cow,” says Dana. “That would be sacrilegious, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily,” says Dave. “Not if they saw sex as something spiritual and they were just sharing kundalini energy with the animal.” And I felt like calling up Dave and saying, uh, Dave, spiritual is one of those words that I leave to Jimmy Swaggart, and as for kundalini, well, just thought you’d like to know. But I was depressed and besides, I knew the phone

  would be off the hook.

  “Is that a donkey?” says Dana.

  “Can’t tell,” says Dave. “Erosion’s done too much damage. Too much rain. And I guess they don’t have culture improvement grants to keep everything up to snuff. Let’s go see what the next temple’s got.” Dana’s face flashes onto the screen just for a second. It looks all flushed. As if these little statues are having an effect on her. But Dave says she was running a high fever from some infection she got in Istanbul.

  Another temple shows up on the screen, this one from a distance, getting closer. Brown and onion-shaped. Covered with millions of those little figures and every one of them is fucking or sucking or getting eaten, sometimes in positions that I’d never even thought of, not even when I was sixteen and sex was all I ever thought about.

  “Get this,” says Dana. “This temple’s called the Khandaria Mahadev temple and it was built by a guy named Dhanga. In 1050.” She’s looking at some brochure that looks like it’s full of close-up shots of some of the little sculptures.

  This should be hot stuff, I think, because I have a vague idea of where it’s leading to, but all I’m thinking about is Kelly, where’s she’s at, what she’s doing, how she feels about these temples. I pour myself a Scotch and watch, they’re looking at a couple doing it doggie-style and Dana’s saying, “I don’t mind doing it that way,” and Dave says okay, let’s give it a try, and Dana says out here? and I can see Patrick and Charole, no Kelly or Suzie, walking towards one of the other temples. Just beyond them I can see the bus parked. Otherwise the place looks deserted.

  “Think of all the kundalini energy that’s percolating in the Zeitgeist around here,” says Dave, and that’s too much. I try to make the phone call. No answer. He just didn’t care. He’d stopped caring. So I was thinking. I had another Scotch.

  “Where’d you hear about kundalini energy?” says Dana.

  I knew she was going to ask him that.

  “I had an East Indian girl friend back in high school,” says Dave. “Well, she wasn’t a girl, exactly. She was twenty-three.”

  I knew Dave was a bullshit artist but I didn’t know he was a blatant bullshit artist. He was worse than me. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Dave. He says you should always tell people the stories they want to hear. Life’s simpler that way. I’ll remember that, Dave, thanks.

  Dana says, “She sure taught you a few things.”

  “A few,” says Dave.

  By this time they’re way on the other side of the temple and Dana’s shucking her thin East Indian cotton blouse that I hadn’t seen her in before. You could see her nipples right through it. Medium-sized, light brown and erect. Just the way Dave likes them. Right, Dave? Right, and I’m not going to go on with the rest of this, it’s not important to the story. What is important to the story is the next time they had sex, which was in Benares, because that’s where Dana got real pissed off at Dave. Though he calls it a simple misunderstanding.

  INDIA Kharjaho—Varanasi

  Day 64

  Departure: 8:00 a.m.

  Route: Panna (toll 5 rupees after first bridge)—Nagod—Satna —Rewa—Mirxapur—Churar—Varanasi 411 km.

  Hotel: Hotel de Paris; Manager—Dave Banachek; tel: 62218. Points: 1. Get ready for a long day of narrow highway, lots of bridges and tollbooths and traffic conditions that range from disastrous to bloody awful.

  2. At some point today some puny, zit-faced, knee-jerk passenger who you’ve grown to hate on sight will ask you why Benares is called Varanasi and vice versa. If you have enough restraint left not to deck the sonofabitch, you might want to calmly explain that the city used to be composed of two tehsils (administrative subdivisions) named Bhadohi and Chakia, that, in turn, made up the princely state of Benares. They merged together in 1949. The name Varanasi comes from the Varanasi raj period. The Varanasi district extends on both sides of the Ganges through an area of 1,965 square miles. City is one of the most crowded cities in India, with a population of well over a million, one-third of them Moslem, the rest Hindu and your basic grab bag of people who are getting old and think it would be cool to wash away their sins in muddy, croc-infested waters and die on the ghats (the steps leading down to the river) of the Ganges.

  3. City has a long and colourful history, but by this time on the trip, there’s likely some psychotic among your passengers who’s plotting your assassination the next time you let go with a history lesson, so maybe just let it slide. Main thing to do is catch dawn over the Ganges, and sample those milkshakes at Clark’s Hotel, and maybe let the troupe spend the last of their rupees on silks and brocades down on Mall Road.

  Suzie’s daybook entry

  Dec. 14

  I’m glad my bleeding-heart mom ain’t here to see this. What?

  388

  she’d say. You spent how much hard-earned money just to see some skinny beggars and eat some food that’s too spicy and makes you crook?* I spent half the past week in the bloody loo and I’m all out of t.p. I asked Patrick if he’d sell me some of his but do you think the wanker would? He handed me this instead. The pages are too rough so I guess I’ll have to write in it. I know it’s been my turn for a while but I’ve had a lot on my mind and besides I’ve been too busy sitting on loos. I’m kind of sorry I missed seeing the porno temples. Charole said a couple of the temples even had moving statues. I don’t believe it. Did they run on batteries or what? Hey, I can’t tell that story here, somebody’s mom might read this. The raffle’s coming up and it’s only four more towns and we’re in Kathmandu. I can’t wait. Which is what I’ve been telling Pete every day on the highway, but do you think the nerdball listens? He always takes his own sweet time slowing down even after what happened back in Pakistan. He’s the one we should’ve left behind. We should have a Christmas
party before everybody takes off too, with lots of Lomotil. Even though there ain’t very many of us left. I know I won’t be staying in Nepal long. I’ve had enough of this bloody travelling. I just want to get home for Christmas. I’m not leaving my mom’s house for a month. Maybe for a whole year.

  from Kelly’s diary

  Dec. 15

  Yesterday a long day of bridges & οχ-cart traffic & M. avoiding my eyes. He’s been acting a bit strange, like he really does have a split personality. Or is he playing games with me? Maybe. This morning it was sunrise over the Ganges. We saw a halfeaten corpse in the water, other corpses on shore going up in smoke, people bathing their bodies, American hippies getting stoned, & some of the saddest, most desperate people on earth. I have the expected reaction. I don’t have it so bad. What am I complaining about? You wimp. I’m just this collection of molecules, here through the grace of an act of lust twenty-five years ago, & I have all my limbs intact, I don’t have to worry about not eating, for the next 3 days at least. The colours this morning. Spectacular. Lots of mauves, after the initial wash of grey, then violet, all of it splashed across strange architecture. My contempt for Pat. has leapt a light year or 2. After throwing not a rupee to the beggars near the monkey temple he bought himself an ivory chess set for something like $50 Am. And he asks me if he’s done something wrong. Then at breakfast we’re treated to a fight to the death between a snake & a mongoose. Pat. took lots of pictures. When it was over & the snake was dead he went over & delicately formed a circle with the snake’s dead body, tail to mouth, the Ouroboros, & took a picture of that. Everything is just a show. Fodder for the lens. Later. Just phoned home to do some begging myself. * Dex was happy to hear from me but he had bad news. Mom died, almost a week ago. C asked why I was crying & I couldn’t tell her & she screamed at me. Had a chat with D. She also thinks M. is going crazy. He’s “changed,” she said. M.’s not the only one going crazy. I am too. Caught up in a wave of the usual regrets. All the should’ves. All the letters I should’ve written. All the talks we should’ve had. All the love I should’ve thrown her way. But it still hasn’t sunk home. I just feel numb. I feel very lonely in this crowd. Apart from it all. We’re on our way to the Nepalese border. 2 more days. 5 mins ago we drove past someone that looked like Rob (it looked like a blood-stained T-shirt) hitch-hiking on the outskirts of Benares. C. says yesterday S. told D. he didn’t really rape her, not in a “mean” way at least.

  Mick

  Thought I had the wrong channel for a minute, sign said Hotel de Paris, framed by a window. But it was the bus window and the sign was moving so stuck with it. Pete’s voice crackled across the speaker, saying everyone can give their dirty laundry to the houseboys in the hotel and they’ll have it done by morning. Then he advised everyone to get a good night’s sleep, they’d be getting up early in the morning to catch sunrise over the Ganges. So this was Benares, or Varanasi as Patrick called it, don’t know why. Dave says it’s a matter of preference. Dana gave all her clothes to the houseboy when he came, she was dressed in the one dress shirt I packed, blue one with stripes, only wore it once, to that nightclub in Istanbul. Dave gave him some clothes too and when he was gone, Dana took out a little pocket mirror, tapped out some coke, used a credit card to make lines. Where’d you get that at? said Dave. From a tri-shaw driver in New Delhi, said Dana. Dave said, no, I mean the Chargex card. Dana said she always had it. Then you’re not broke, said Dave, acting real surprised. Just acting, he says. You’re rich, he says to Dana, and she says this is for emergencies and slicing up coke, but, and she smiles, if you want me to take out a cash advance on it at the Bank of America tomorrow, sure, fifty bucks for every time you make love to me tonight, and Dave says, after what you call your basic pregnant pause, it’s a deal, and I’m not going into a play-by-play account of what happened after that, sorry, but it’s just too sordid. I didn’t switch channels like I maybe should’ve and around about the time Johnny Carson should’ve been on over on channel eight, Dana was pushing Dave’s shoulders down and he resisted. Dana looks at him. At me. As if to say what gives. Let me just go get a washcloth, says Dave. Dana grabs him by the hair, says, don’t bother, and her face crumbles into a pile of red cinder bricks, she gets up, sniffling, says you have changed and she heads for the bathroom, slams the door shut, locks it.

  Hey, says Dave, and the door gets closer, hand on the doorknob, no dice. I could’ve told him that much. Sorry, he says, I just thought. I can hear sniffling behind the door, and then, “Go away, fuck off!”

  Trans Am rings. Dave asking me what to do. Priceless. Easy question to answer. Let me take over, I said, I’ll smooth things over, I’ve been in this situation lots of times. Lie. A woman could be in the full flood of Emily, as Nancy Pickles called it, no problem. But not Dave, nope. He ran next door, pounded on it, Patrick answers. Patrick looks down. Dave looks down. He’s wearing a towel, at least, I’m happy to see. It’s an emergency, he says, need to use your can. Patrick says by all means. He’s looking a bit squiffed.

  Dave does his Hiroshima number and when he goes back next door, door’s locked, he has to go back, knock on Patrick’s. Patrick’s got an extra bed. Patrick grinning. Trouble in Paradise? he asks. Dave doesn’t answer. You appear, says Patrick, to be somewhat discombobulated. Dave says he doesn’t want to talk about it, and Patrick tries to make conversation after that but Dave’s not up to it, he’s not in the mood. He just sits and mopes and stares out the window for a few minutes and then he bolts for the can.

  Over the speaker I get Patrick’s voice. A chortle in it. What was that wonderful psalm? he’s saying. “I am poured out like water and my bones are all out of joint and my heart is like wax, it’s melted in the midst of my bowels.”

  Psalm 22, says Dave, grunting some. Verse fourteen.

  Indeed, says Patrick, I’m very impressed. I did not perceive you, I confess, he says, as a theological scholar, Mr. McPherson.

  Which is when I might’ve sung, say, the opening bars to “What a Wonderful World.”

  Dave maybe knew his Bible and he knew how to play with neurons and synapses in my brain but it didn’t seem he knew too much about women or what to do about those bowels of mine.

  He claims this ain’t true. Says he stopped eating. It’s just that it was a vicious and malevolent germ I’d allowed to invade my system. And he’d never really felt discomfort before. Much less pain.

  from Kelly’s diary

  Dec. 16

  Should be crying but I can’t. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe some internal emotional switch has been turned off inside my heart & nothing will turn it back on. I feel like an ogre. Mom’s face is already fading into vague memory.* It’s all just sand. From behind a poinsettia bush, M. looked at me & stuck out his tongue, the gleam in his eye back where it should be. So whatever warp his mind allowed has disappeared. Either that or he’s tired of whatever game it was he was playing. I can’t bring myself to talk to him or feel sorry for him, it’s too late for such sentiment. In 2 days we’ll be in Kathmandu & what could have been will never be, the memory will seep into the sand & some day I’ll wake up in the middle of the night & think of him & wonder what it was all about. I’ve slid into neutral, I’m coasting. Or so I thought. We got to the Nepalese border near 5. C said she needed something to drink & so we retired to the bar. 14-year-old bartender who asked us if we had any tapes to trade. & we were sitting there, debating what to do, post-Kathmandu—she talked China, & I told her I wouldn’t mind going to China with her if the rumours are true & the border is about to be opened up, but my major thing is still the Firewalk. Mom’s death has given me that freedom at least. C’s face fell when I mentioned it. She said point-blank that she really has no interest in going to Sri Lanka to watch me fry. I can understand that. So we’d as much as said we’ll go our separate ways when who should walk through the door but Tim & Mary. Both of them robust, healthy, happy, or so it seems. M said they’ve been through a few trials & it’s brought them closer
together. Her & Tim have been here 2 days, waiting for us. Lots of news about giant Buddhas & flat tires & a touch of hepatitis. She asked us if we’d be interested in going to a place called Nagarkot with her & T. There’s an ashram near there called Yasodhara. Sounds like it’d be a good place to clean out my system, pre-Firewalk. Find my centre. I told her I’d think about it.

  Mick

  Darkness, for a while, and Patrick’s snores and then pounding on the door, Pete’s fist I could tell. Gotta get in gear, going

  '/ think Kelly was merely in a state of emotional shock following the news. I didn 't allow myself the freedom to mourn until a full week after the funeral. - D.W.

  to the Ganges. Dave said he was too sick. Pete said suit yourself. So I didn’t see dawn on the Ganges. Patrick took lots of pictures though and I saw them in Kathmandu. One was of this beggar on a skateboard affair, had no legs, just a kid, six years old, stretching out hands for baksheesh. Patrick said something about how some of the beggars belonged to a beggars’ union, some of them had their hands or legs chopped off on purpose, to make more money begging. Patrick had pictures of skinny old cows standing cold in the street, some white, some brown, and skinny old bodies in the Ganges draped in white sheets, washing a place here a place there, even a boob in one picture. Only one picture of other bodies— Patrick said he had to sneak it while the guide wasn’t looking— draped in white going up in smoke on the funeral crypts. What looked like a half-eaten body in the water. Patrick said there were lots of crocs downstream. Nicest picture was of this old fisherman in his shikara floating in silhouette against the early morning sun. Nice reds and blacks in it. Patrick also had pictures of everybody sitting at the breakfast table eating corn flakes while they watched a snake and mongoose go at it on the dead front lawn. Picture of the dead snake in a perfect circle all mangled covered with blood on the brown grass. Picture of the mongoose, not looking so healthy himself, being led away. Picture of everyone getting on the bus. Picture of me—Dave—sacked out on the back seat. Picture of Dave sticking his head under the bus’s front tire.