Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India

by Cleo Odzer

  Leaving Monica in charge of the house, I journeyed to Jogjakarta. My sojourn there included a tour of the Borobodour temple and a night with a beautiful Indonesian who had black skin and waist-length, Asian hair. I found him hanging out with Australians, cashing in his good looks with the foreign women. He wore expensive western clothes and drove me to his home on a motorbike. It was late at night when we arrived, and we tiptoed through a hall, passing a horde of people, old and young, sleeping everywhere. I stepped over three snoring, ancient women and squeezed past a table occupied by two toddlers.

  In an inner room he woke his brother curled on a mattress and sent him to find another bed. In the morning, as we prepared to leave, the entire family came to meet me, touch my hair, and examine my clothes. One great-grandmother lifted my skirt to feel the satin with her calloused fingers. Kids with thumbs in their mouths stared.

  I was anxious to return to Kaiya Waiya. I missed my friends and couldn't wait to visit Narayan in the hospital. I fantasized about him lying there helpless and bruised. I planned to sit by his bed, hold his hand, and gloat. I'd bring him the same kind of flower he'd left me in the powdered milk container, and I'd tape it to his cast. Oo, oo, this would be good!

  Gleefully, I flew back to Bali.

  "Cleo! Hunky dory!" greeted Monica. "Welcome back."

  Laura waved from the pool, where she was giving baby Anjuna a donk.

  I tore off my clothes and dove in the water. Coming to the surface, I leaned my arms on the edge of the pool and asked nonchalantly, "Anything happen while I was away?"

  "No," answered a recently arrived Goa Freak. "A few good parties, that's all."

  SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! That meant Narayan was not in the hospital. He hadn't had his legs and arms broken. The bastard was on the loose, as healthy as ever. SHIT!

  "Oh, yes—Jimmy sent someone from Bangkok to help get Elame out of jail," added Monica.

  That afternoon, I rode to the motorbike place to seek Huge Oriental. Not only was I furious that Narayan was still in one piece, I also felt Huge Oriental had cheated me out of my money. I didn't think it wise to confront him too harshly, though. One shouldn't yell at a gangster.

  "No see, many days already," said Huge Oriental as I stepped around a pile of tires and entered the Shop. "You were away?"

  "I went to Java for a visa."

  "It is pleasant there?"

  I nodded, then blurted, "You didn't get someone to take care of Narayan for me." Huge Oriental shook his head. Now what? I couldn't interrogate the bouncer-type on his non-compliance. "Well . . . then . . . just keep the money as rent for my bike. It'll cover the fee for a month, okay?"

  "You want it that way? Okay."

  I drove off miserable that Narayan was unharmed, but at least I no longer felt I'd blown the money. Some gangster!

  On the way back, I stopped in Kuta Beach for a dorian milkshake and bought a Balinese oil painting, which the man packed in a bamboo holder. Then I went to the beach and sat on the sand amid Australian tourists. Look at that—they all wore bathing suits!

  The longer I sat, the angrier I grew over Narayan. I needed revenge. Could NOT let him get away with throwing my dope in the ocean, but I couldn't think of anything. What to do? What? What?

  Anger brewed and brewed. I had to do SOMETHING.

  Idea! I'd go to Narayan and hash him on the head. If I killed him good. What could I use to hit him? I felt the bamboo package. It wasn't very hard, but I'd use it if I couldn't find anything better lying around Narayan's room. I jumped up, marched to the bike, and took off with determination.

  As I neared Narayan's place, I talked myself into looking relaxed and cool. I had to visit him like a friend. If he suspected anything, he'd be on guard. I'd have to be nice to him until he turned his back. And then WHAM!

  I turned off the road onto the sand path leading to his compound. It was difficult to drive on the soft ground, and the bike kept sliding and getting stuck. I parked it fifty yards from the house, giving up on driving closer. Walking from there, I tried to rid myself of burning anger. Calm. Calm. Be calm. I must be calm and cool. Win him over. He mustn't suspect.

  There he was. I saw him sitting on the porch. Smile. I must smile. The smile wouldn't work. I felt it go crooked on my face.

  "Well, well," Narayan said with boast in his voice. "Look who's here. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

  I lost it. I couldn't smile. Couldn't do it. Couldn't. I wanted to strangle him. Something stung my foot, but the pain couldn't pierce the rage. I looked down. It was the goddamn goose. I ignored it.

  "Well, it's always nice to see you," Narayan continued. "Can I offer you tea or are you here for some other purpose? I must say I'm surprised."

  My brain clogged.

  "Come inside," he said.

  I followed him into the house.

  He smirked at me. "Are you getting enough dope? Having a hard time scoring maybe?"

  "FUCK YOU. THAT STUFF COST A LOT OF MONEY, YOU KNOW!"

  "Gee. You annoyed I dumped your powder in the ocean? That's where it belongs."

  No longer able to contain myself, I swung the bamboo above my head.

  He easily warded off the blow and caught my wrists.

  "Woo, Look at this—it's Wonder Woman!"

  "LET ME GO!"

  I kicked and bit and broke Loose. Close to tears, I ran out the door, down the steps, and into the trees. Narayan ran after me tauntingly. So did the goose.

  "Is that why you came here? You wanted to fight me?" He laughed. "Isn't that mean. And I thought you wanted to hang out."

  I almost reached the bike when he caught up. He tackled and we fell.

  "STOP. LET ME GO." I screamed and fought. Soon he had me pinned on the ground. "GET OFF ME." I couldn't move. Helpless, I lay under him shrieking, "LET ME GO. LET ME GO."

  A passing Balinese heard and came to investigate. As he neared, Narayan released me.

  I scrambled up.

  Shaking, I inserted the key in the bike. Narayan remained on the sand, watching. His laughter followed me as I sped away, tears of fury streaming down my face.

  *

  A week later, Monica gave me the news. "I'm leading on a trip," she said. "My money's running out and I have to do a run."

  "Where are you going?"

  "Australia."

  "Hash?"

  "Well, good luck. How long will you be gone?"

  "Maybe a month. You'll still be here, won't you?"

  "Yeah, think so. Is this your own trip?" I asked.

  "No. I'm running for Narayan," she said.

  NARAYAN?

  Shocked, I could only watch as she opened her suitcase. Tom; could my best friend do business with my worst enemy? Where was her loyalty? Stabbed in the hack my best friend! My best friend! How could she do that to me?

  I watched her fold a dress and pack it. Betrayed! She was going to Australia with Narayan! MY Narayan!

  The next day she was gone.

  I threw many parties over the following weeks, and at one I met Chic—a tall, thin Colorado boy with blonde hair reaching halfway down his back. He wasn't a Goa person, though; he was of the Kathmandu crowd—close cousins. He'd lived in Nepal for seven years and owned a club there, a popular Freak place. The world had few Freak communities—Goa was one, Kathmandu another. We felt related.

  Chic and I spent sunny days filming movies with the eight-millimetre movie camera I'd bought in Singapore. I filmed the Goa Freaks at Kaiya Waiya. I filmed Chic's beautiful nakedness diving into the Pool. I had Chic film me on a motorbike, driving at the remarkable speed of ten miles an hour.

  Chic turned me on to Balinese magic mushrooms that, unlike acid, only lasted an hour or two. You could munch a handful in the afternoon and the trip didn't kill the whole day. Sold legally in Bali, a hotel down the road listed mushroom meatballs on its menu. At one of my daytime parties, I catered from the hotel. They supplied me with turtle kebabs and a platter of meatballs. I posted a sign on the table:r />
  MEATBALLS = I TRIP

  For an hors d'oeuvre, I offered cheese spread on crackers. In the cheese I planted a pill, a combination speed and downer. In my mind I imagined my guests would pluck the pill, swallow it, and then eat the cracker. Unfortunately, people popped the whole thing in their mouths.

  "BBBBLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" they’d exclaim at the taste.

  What a face they'd make. "No no," I'd hurry to say. "You're supposed to swallow the pill and THEN eat the cracker. Here, have some wine to wash it down."

  One day, returning from Denpasar, I decided to stop at the police station to say hello to the inspector.

  "Hi, remember me?" I said, sticking my head in his office doorway.

  "Hello. Please have a seat. Will you take a glass of water?"

  "No, thanks. I just came to say hello."

  We chitchatted a while, and then he said, "You are leaving Bali soon."

  "No," I answered, not understanding. "I wasn't planning to leave, no."

  "We have a new Chief of Police. He is unhappy about the situation with your friend Jimmy. It is political."

  When I drove away, I contemplated his words. Had he warned me of impending trouble? Was that his way of telling me things were getting hot? Should I leave Bali?

  Before going home, I visited Max and Barbara—New Yorkers, both Goa Freaks. They also lived at Kaiya Waiya. I found them in the open inner area of their castle-like house playing with their baby under a frangipani tree.

  The three of us had previously discussed a possible business arrangement. They had two sets of hash-filled cases stored in Bombay and were willing to split fifty-fifty with whomever carried them to Australia. Mulling over ways of transporting a double load, I'd remembered Aunt Sathe's desire to do a run. Well, why not use her? It no longer seemed an absurd idea. It no longer seemed improper to involve my aunt in a low risk, high-yield venture. Wealth was pleasurable, and I wanted to share the feeling.

  So I wrote to Aunt Sathe, asking if she was still interested, and she wrote back, yes.

  "Hi, Max. Hi, Barbara. I've just been advised to leave the island. What's happening with those cases?"

  "If you want them, they're yours," said Barbara.

  "I can do an aunt-and-me run. How does that sound? Great, huh? My aunt and I will take the cases together. Aunt Sathe's in her late forties and carries herself like the First Lady. What do you think?"

  "Your aunt will run cases with you? Does she know what's inside?" asked Max.

  "It was her idea! I arrange to meet her in Bombay. Where will we find you in Australia?"

  "Our connection's in Melbourne. We'll meet you there. I sell the dope, and we'll split the profit."

  "Terrific."

  Three days later, I was back in Bombay, with Aunt Sathe scheduled to arrive a week later. In the meantime, I decided to find a house in Goa before they were all rented for the season. I wanted something permanent. I wanted a house of my own that I could fix up and have available at all times. I wanted a permanent home. A permanent Goa Freak, that's what I wanted to be.

  At Dipti's in Bombay I ran into Dayid and Ashley. When I told them I was on the way to Goa, Ashley suggested I stay in their house.

  "By now it's a slovenly quagmire of dost and mildew," Dayid added, "but you're welcome to it."

  I flew down to a very green Goa. The monsoon, now in its last throes, had caused vegetation to flourish like an alien Fungus. Grass hid the paths, and insects keek-keeked and eeped. Inside Dayid and Ashley's house, I found everything packed. Cobwebs stretched wall to wall. Still, it was Dayid and Ashley's fantastic house, and I felt honoured to be there. I dumped my bag in a dusty corner and set forth on my mission.

  Up and down I searched the deserted beach, asking for a house. Aside from the occasional French Junky poking a tousled head from a hut, no foreigners could be seen. From Indian to Indian I went, but they shook their heads or pointed behind the paddy fields. I couldn't find what I was looking for.

  No longer accustomed to walking, I was exhausted by sunset. That night, lying on a mouldy mattress, listening to the rain on the roof, I snorted smack, punctured a spider web with my foot, and indulged in the feeling of being in Goa. This was my home now. I loved this place. I WANT to find a house.

  The next day I followed a lead and sought a local man named Lino, whom I finally found at Nelson's Bar off the Mapusa road. "Yes, I have a house for lease," he informed me. "I can fix for you. Shall we go see it?"

  As we neared the beach, I grew excited. We headed right for the area I wanted—in the centre of Anjuna Beach by the sea. Encouragingly, Lino seemed interested in my desire to rent a house on a long-term basis. "Here," he said finally. "This is it."

  "This?" I despaired at the sight of it. The building was enormous and, rare for Goa, two stories high. But it didn't have a second floor. It didn't have a roof! The ground floor was a mound of dirt and fallen bricks among which a tree had grown. Its branches hung over the crumbling walls. "This is a ruin!"

  "Yes, but I will fix. This is the house from my childhood," said Lino.

  "There's a tree in it."

  "I will pull out."

  "I don't know . . . "

  "If you accept, it will be ready in two months only."

  A few days and many miles of walking later, I took it. We agreed on a ten-year lease. The rent totalled a thousand dollars a year, exorbitant for Goa, where most people paid no more than twenty-five dollars a month. He said he needed two years paid in advance so he could afford the repairs.

  *

  I fell in love with the idea of building a home. Having grown up in an elevator apartment, I had a fascination for stairs, and this two-story house fulfilled one of my prima' fantasies. Since most of it was yet to be built, I could design it the way I wanted. I toll Lino to construct the second floor only in the back half of the house, leaving the front rooms with a high ceiling.

  Feeling like I'd sprouted a root, I flew to Bombay to meet Aunt Sathe. I registered her at the Oberoi-Sheraton, the city's second best hotel (after the Taj Mahal).

  "Oy, tatala, why is that woman lying on the dirty sidewalk with her baby?" asked Aunt Sathe, looking out the window. "Haven't they heard of bacteria here? What kind of meshugge mother is that?"

  "Aunt Sathe, those are beggars. They five on the sidewalk."

  "Oyvey!"

  "Sometimes they even mutilate their children so they come beg for more money. See the boy with the limp . . ."

  "Enough already. Don't tell me anymore!"

  That afternoon, I went to collect the suitcases where Max had toll me I'd find them—in storage at the Astoria Hotel. Soon, Aunt Sathe and I were in flight to Sydney, Australia.

  "How do you feel?" I asked her on the plane. "Scared?"

  She made a reassuring face, but I could tell she was nervous. "If only I could have a snooze, tatala, I'd be much better. I have a secret cigarette with me, but I don't think they'd let me smoke it here."

  Oh, SHIT!

  We were carrying eight kilos of hash each, and Aunt Sathe had a joint on her! Just what I needed—to get busted for my aunt's marijuana. "AUNT SATHE!" I wailed.

  So, I'm sorry. I won't go anywhere without a supply. I need it for when I get a migraine. It relaxes me and Jets me sleep."

  "But Aunt Sathe, we have SIXTEEN kilos of hash for you to smoke."

  "Now don't be a nutpick I couldn't smoke hash. It's made by Arabs."

  "What, so it's not kosher?"

  "Well . . . I would feel better not smoking it."

  "Aunt Sathe," I explained, "this hash comes from Afghanistan, and while the people who make it ARE Muslim, they're definitely NOT Arabs."

  "Same thing."

  I looked out of the window a second before asking, "Is your stash well hidden, at least?"

  "Stop worrying already, you nudnik you. It's in my makeup case under my eyelashes. They'll never find it."

  Shit. It they were to search us, that's the first place they'd look.

 
When the flight attendant handed her the dinner menu, Aunt Sathe ordered the kosher plate.

  Arriving in Sydney, everybody had to go through Customs. Aunt Sathe—as she always did when nervous—began to chatter. I thought I'd the as she proceeded to direct her verbal anxiety at our Customs inspector.

  "So, tell me, boychik, are there nightclubs in town? How about a discotheque for my groovy mace? How's the weather? Oy, is that a paper cut you've got there? I have some antibiotic cream here."

  He, apparently, was enchanted.

  I wondered if the pounding in my chest was the beginning of a heart attack.

  ". . . and isn't that interesting," I heard Aunt Sathe say with a preposterous amount of excitement. "We speak the same language yet five an opposite sides of the globe. What a shame though."

  Exiting Customs at last, it was me who was the wreck. My dumb beige dress stuck to me with sweat as I steered my aunt toward our connecting Melbourne flight.

  "What's the matter, tatala? Why the long puss? I thought that went well."

  Barbara joined us a few hours after we checked into a hotel—the Hilton, of course. Aunt Sathe would have been depressed had we stayed anywhere else. Aunt Sathe adored Barbara—especially after she managed to pry her nice Jewish last name out of her. I was horrified. Last names were something Goa Freaks never discussed. They were too connected to the straight world we'd rejected.

  "Where's Max?" I asked, desperate to steer the conversation away from Barbara's family tree.

  "He stayed in Bali with the Baby. Because of his long hair we decided it would be best if I came alone."

  That night a guy Barbara knew from a previous visit took Barbara and me to a local club. Like Melbourne in general, it was ultraconservative, but we had a Brand time scoffing at the natives.

  "Look at those white socks over there. What IS that dance step the man is doing?" We laughed. "I think he's trying to imitate an ostrich." We stared openly at his feet. "A pregnant ostrich."

  "I don't think ostriches get pregnant." We laughed louder and continued to stare.