Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India

by Cleo Odzer

  Neal handed the lighter to Olivier and put everything else back in the bag. "Let's go now."

  As we hurried out of the chai shop, the Frenchman called after us, "Do something about that chick, man. She's not right."

  We went to my house, which was closest. We had a few hits of smack, and then Neal washed Eve's face and positioned her under the platform, where she fell instantly asleep.

  Neal and I sat side by side, and he talked away the sharp edges of my trip. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. "I grew up in Washington—the state," he told me. "Bet you never knew anyone from there, did you? Went to the University of Washington and received a Master's Degree in English Literature. Then I got married and moved to France. My wife and I taught at the American University in Paris."

  "A professor!"

  He giggled. "Yeah, a professor."

  "Are you still married?"

  He giggled some more. "I guess so. We never divorced." More giggles. "Then last year I married a Thai whore in Bangkok."

  "Oh, no! Two wives!" I laughed.

  "The Thai's tough. Boy, you wouldn't want to fight with her. Carries a long knife."

  "Why'd you marry her?"

  "I don't know. She wanted to. Why not?"

  "Two wives and Eve."

  We fell over laughing and had more lines of coke. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK.

  The rest of the afternoon we lay on our stomachs, side by side, shoulders touching, Neal's smiling face dose to mine. In the evening. Eve woke up and he took her home.

  And so another two days passed without sleep or food. Near where Eve had been lying, I noticed a metal bird was missing. And yes, I had to admit, I was attracted to Neal. Very attracted. Uh-oh.

  Petra's present, pretty Serge, rarely came to see me on his own. Sexy, coke-carrying Serge was very sought after. When we got together it was usually because I spent half a day tracking him down, searching for him on his dealing route by Joe Banana's. If I couldn't find him there, I'd try other places he frequented, all of them full of females awaiting his attention. One was a house behind the paddy where Serge went for a massage from a host of damsels eager to indulge him.

  "Cleo's here," a bare-breasted woman in a sarong informed him. Serge lay naked on a satin covered mattress. From astride his back, a naked woman in a green turban rubbed coconut oil on his skin.

  He raised his head from the cushion and, with an unlit beedie hanging from his mouth, said, "Be right with you. I'm almost done. I love a massage, don't you?"

  When he was ready, he extended his hand. "Come for a ride, Miss Cleo?"

  I climbed behind him on his bike, and we drove off over the sand, weaving through trees and sparsely scattered houses and onto the paved road. I still hated riding motorbikes, but in this case it meant putting my arms around this gorgeous guy. His velvet, Afghani vest was open, so my hands closed over naked midriff. Actually, I didn't mind riding behind him at all.

  "Do you know Bernard and Sima?" he asked, turning his head so I could hear over the rushing air. His scarf flapped in my face. I pushed closer against him. No, I didn't mind this particular bike ride one bit.

  He drove me to Bernard and Sima's house off the Mapusa road. A stone wall ornamented with ball shapes surrounded the property. As we drove in, Serge was waved at by a group of people sitting under a tree. He led me up the front steps, past a Goan lady washing the marble floor on her knees. A European woman in an outfit that covered only one breast swung in a hammock. Seeing Serge, she smiled and followed us into the house.

  "Salut," said Bernard. Serge introduced me to the group, most of whom were French. Sima, Bernard's girlfriend, was Iranian—an Iranian princess, it was said, who scandalized her family's title with her lifestyle. I liked her immediately. She was friendly and warm and clever.

  Since wanting to buy coke was the excuse I used in my search for Serge, he now borrowed Bernard's scale to weigh me a gram, and then, business over, we sat with his friends. It wasn't five minutes after we were sitting dose, leg to leg, that the woman with the bare breast wrapped her arms around Serge's neck and swooped him out of the room. Sima noticed my sad face as I watched the octopus drag, him away and smiled sympathetically. "Want to chase the dragon?" she asked.

  "What’s that?"

  "I'll show you." She picked up a sheet of aluminium foil. "This is how we do it in my country. This is Iranian smack."

  Hearing the word smack, my ears perked up. The powder she held was brown instead of the white I was used to. I kept watch on the doorway through which Serge had disappeared. I wondered if it led to the kitchen, or a bedroom. What was the nymph doing with my Serge? Sima placed a rock of smack on the aluminium foil and, while Bernard held a lighter underneath, she inhaled the smoke with a rolled up rupee note. As the rock melted, the liquid flowed and had to be "chased" with the bill. The burning-smack smell aroused my interest in this new method.

  "Want to try?" Bernard asked me.

  "Sure."

  I kneeled by the foil. It took a moment to get the right-sized rock into the right spot, and I waited anxiously with the rolled bill poised in the air.

  "No!" said Serge, suddenly behind me. "I didn't bring her here to get stoned on smack." At one time Serge had been into smack, but he'd quit years before and was now against it. "I'm trying to get her to stop using, and you teach her a new way to do it!" I noticed the nymph was no longer with him. Mmm, what a pretty face he had—even when it frowned.

  Later, while driving me home, he asked, "Shall I come by tonight?"

  "Yes!" Though I wasn't crazy about sharing him with the rest of the female population of Anjuna Beach (not to mention his wife in Colva), he was definitely worth it.

  Meanwhile, I saw Neal every day. He needed companionship during his growing problems with Eve.

  "She steals from everyone," he told me as we walked the path at the northern end of Anjuna Beach. "Remember the first time I brought her to your house? I found out she'd taken one of your skirts—had put it on under her dress—and a brass figure too. I made her bring them back, but when she returned those she took a Kashmiri box. I don't know what to do. People cringe when they see us at their door. Pretty soon no onewill talk to me. They'll be afraid I may visit." It was late afternoon, and the blazing sun had sunk behind the palms bordering the beach. "She's strange too," he continued, but I couldn't concentrate on Neal's words. I had something on my mind. "I want to thank you for your support in this," he said. "Sometimes I need someone to talk to. I love the baby, probably the only one ever have. I'll be forty soon."

  "Forty! Yipes. I thought you were my age."

  "See why I can't let the baby go? Even if it means staying with Eve."

  "Neal?"

  "Hm?"

  "Neal, I have to tell you something." I looked away and watched a crow loop in the distance. "Neal, I think I've fallen in love with you." We stopped and stood by a wall; a pig could be heard grunting oft the other side. "I'm sorry, I don't want to make things harder for you."

  He giggled and pulled at his beard. "Well you have."

  We sat on a rock by the path, not saying anything. I felt like I'd ruined everything between us, but at the same time I was relieved to have told him. He couldn't have been more surprised by the situation than I was. I'd never told anyone I loved him like that, out of the blue. Actually. I hadn't fallen in love like that before. For me, love never developed over time. It was immediately there at the beginning, then usually wore away with time. Neal wasn't my usual type, either. Good grief, forty years old! I never went with older guys. Serge, I knew, was my same age. And Neal had a beard. I hated that scratchy stuff. Maybe this was a new kind of love. Maybe this was really love and not lust. Uh-oh, what had I gotten myself into?

  "Well, I guess we'll just have to see what happens," he said.

  When we entered his house we found Mushroom Jeffrey, an Englishman, sitting with Eve. "Here he is!" Mushroom Jeffrey exclaimed when he saw us. "Neal, I brought psychedelic mushrooms for you to t
ry. They're supposed to be right-o super. Just received them in the mail." I unfolded a packet of foil to reveal a pile of brown flakes. We each inserted a Finger and scooped some out.

  "Tastes terrible."

  We then snorted coke and waited for the trip to come on. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. Nothing happened.

  "I think those are supermarket mushrooms, Jeffrey'," Neal finally decided. "A & P brand."

  The first time Neal and I made love was one morning after a party. It was hot upstairs in my bedroom, but with the bed in front of the window, we were cooled by the sea-smelling breeze blowing from the ocean. A ray of sunlight lit a corner of the red, satin sheet where we cuddled as Neal recounted the months he spent as a political prisoner in Greece.

  "I was a heavy politico back then," he told me.

  "Yeah?" I said, not really sure what that meant. "Are you still into politics?"

  "Yes," he said with determination; then he added, "Well, no, not lately." He paused. "I'd like to be involved. I just don't get around to it."

  I hugged him, and we set aside affairs of state.

  What heaven to have his body in my arms. Oh, yes, I was definitely in love.

  We were in love. We fell into a routine. We were together every day, dawdling the afternoon in my house, going to Gregory's restaurant for dinner, Joe Banana's for mail, maybe Norwegian Monica's for a visit. He'd spend the night at my place.

  And once a day Neal and I would go check on Eve and the baby.

  It was usually late at night when we'd begin the trek across the paddy fields. Over the sun-parched earth we'd go. Neal carried a flashlight and followed the foot-worn path. I climbed the mounds between the fields and tried to keep my balance as I walked in the dark. I'd grown to enjoy the dark and rarely carried a light anymore. Half-way across, we'd stop for a coke break and prepare for the visit. He'd sit on the ground and take out his glass block and razor blade and, with the flashlight between his knees, he'd begin the line-making process. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. I'd perch beside him on a mound, and we'd tell each other our secrets.

  "I wanted to be a writer," he told me. "That's all I ever wanted to do. That's why I left Washington, to write."

  "Did you?"

  "Not really, except for political commentaries in my activist days. But I never started the novel."

  "Couldn't get it together, huh?" I asked.

  He gazed at the sky, shook the bangs off his forehead, and giggled. "I guess not. There was always something. Maybe one day I will stop taking smack. Soon, I'm stopping soon. I'm quitting for good. Maybe next week."

  Neal always claimed to be on the verge of quitting. Nobody paid attention anymore to his declarations of impending abstinence.

  "What would you write about?"

  "I don’t know." CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. "Maybe this."

  "What?"

  "Goa."

  I laughed. "No one would believe it."

  When he passed me the block, I knew we'd soon be moving on to Eve's. I wanted to stall. It was so nice there in the open field, just the two of us, so many stars in the sky, the sound of party music in the distance. I touched his thigh through purple satin pants and pulled his shaggy hair.

  "Shall we go?" he asked.

  "Ohhh, no." I laid my head on his shoulder.

  I didn't want to leave our sacred spot in the paddy field. We always stopped at the same place, though it was hard to tell one dry, cracked field from another. Flat earth stretched to the swaying panes on the horizon. I descended the dark hump of the hill to Baga. I didn't want to leave our flashlight refuge to go to Neal's house. For me, Neal's house was hell.

  Eve had found herself a friend, an American guy into needles. Neal never stuck a needle in his arm—that was for junkies. What differentiated a "junky" from a person who used junk was a question of money and sometimes style. Those with little money had to inject their drugs, since less was required that way. This wasn't true of coke, though, for fixing coke would soon lead to shooting great quantities compulsively, and therefore required either a lot of money or a talent for sophisticated hustling. Eve and her friend fixed smack and coke, both supplied by Neal. Often we'd arrive to find both of them nodded-out on the porch, one asleep on the concrete bench, the other on a mat on the floor, the baby playing by herself nearby.

  Our visits to Neal's house quickly became a dilemma for me. They went on and on and on. Two hours, three hours, six hours, seven hours. On and on. Eve would stare strangely into corners and talk in that soft, quiet voice of hers.

  "Hi, how are you?" she'd whisper as we arrived. Eve had a collection of objects—ceramic heads, blown-glass animals, jade Buddhas—that she paraded for us. She'd caress them and move them around. Everyone knew they were stolen, of course. Everyone could even identify who in each piece had been stolen from. One of my Kashmiri leopards, which had disappeared the month before, sat on display right there on a shelf.

  The hours would drag by in the dirty room. No matter where I'd sit, I'd have to place my limbs around the ants that formed a perpetual trail on the centre table and across each mattress. I wouldn't mind the first hour, or even the second. Neal loved the baby, Mahara. He'd stare at her as if marvelling that he'd created such a thing. He'd play with her hands and feet and make noises against her head. It was cute to watch, even though, as Petra would say, I love children.

  It wasn't so much the visits I loathed; but the way Neal handled them. I would tell me we'd leave as soon as the baby fell asleep, but hours after the baby had closed its eyes, we'd still be there. Despite klepto Eve, Neal was the most-loved character on the beach. He'd helped everybody at one time or another with drugs and money. People dropped in by the dozens. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. Neal was a great storyteller too. He'd been on the scene for so long, he knew old-time stories about all the major Anjuna figures.

  "You should have seen Alehandro in Kandahar back then."

  What drove me crazy was that Neal seemed to enjoy my growing anger as two or three hours passed after he told me we were leaving "right now."

  "Neal, let's go."

  "Okay, one minute. When Graham appeared in Kandahar . . ."

  "Neal. . ."

  "I'm ready, we're going."

  Then Neal would take Eve somewhere for a talk—into the other room, to the porch, the garden, anywhere. It seemed he waited until I was fuming with impatience before he remembered some urgent thing he had totell Eve. Time would pass. I'd have to go find them.

  "Neal!"

  "I'm coming."

  It would be another hour till he returned to the living room. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. More stories. Then another hour would pass before he was ready to go again. Then Neal would have a long discussion with Eve over how much dope and coke to leave her.

  After a few weeks I was convinced he used Eve and his visitors as a tool to manipulate my feelings. I tried letting Neal go to the house by himself. But then, despite his promise to be back in an hour, end up trekking across the paddy fields half a day later to get him. The crowd would smile as I stormed in. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. I'd stand in the doorway with my arms crossed.

  "Hi, cutie," Neal would say. "I'm just leaving. Sit down a minute."

  So I'd sit, and more people would arrive, and the stories would go on, and I'd he trapped there for hours again.

  When I did finally get him home, we'd fight—mostly with me shrieking and Neal serenely chopping coke. The madder I became, the calmer he grew. CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. When I was absolutely furious with rage, he'd appear the epitome of peace and satisfaction. A well-fed cat dozing on a cashmere sweater could not have seemed more content.

  "I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! YOU SAY YOU’LL BE BACK IN A FEW HOURS AND A DAY GOES BY. DON’T TELL ME YOU’LL BE RIGHT BACK IF YOU DON’T INTEND TO RETURN FOR A WEEK! THAT’S ALL I DO THESE DAYS IS WATT FOR YOU TO RETURN. I’M SICK OF IT. I WON’T DO IT ANYMORE." Too much coke. Not enough sleep. No food.
"IT’S OVER. GET OUT. GO. GOODBYE."

  "Come here and do this nice big line."

  "I’M SERIOUS, I WANT YOU TO LEAVE. GO BACK. TO EVE AND THE BABY."

  "Look at the line I made for you."

  "WILL YOU LEAVE!"

  He'd get up and bring me the glass block. "Here you go, special delivery."

  I could never refuse a line of coke, and for a while I'd he placated but then my anger returned. "I’M NOT GOING TO SPEND ALL DAY WAITING FOR YOU AGAIN. I’M NOT GO. LEAVE. GOODBYE."

  "Here, cutie, have another line."

  At maximum anger, I would storm to the door and throw it open. "GET OUT!" He never budged. He enjoyed the Show.

  Too much coke. Not enough sleep. No food.

  We would make up eventually, perhaps after spending the night back to back in angry silence (I was the angry one). Or sometimes, when I did manage to lock him out, I'd decide not to see him again and wouldn't answer the door when he came back. Those times apart lasted days and even weeks.

  During our off periods, I'd spend time with Serge. I liked Serge a lot too. Besides being so pretty, he was sweet and caring. He worried about my health.

  "Look at you, you're so skinny!" Serge would say. "I'm taking you someplace special to eat. Let's go to the hotel in Baga. They have more variety than Gregory's restaurant."

  "Oh, yum. Squid!"

  "You want squid? Then that's what you'll have. Anything, Miss Cleo, as long as you eat."

  He was right; I was skinny. Very skinny. Dinner often passed with me too coked-out to eat. Some days I forgot to eat at all. Not when I was with Serge, though. Despite all the coke we did, he always insisted on taking me somewhere for food, and he'd do his best to get me to swallow it.

  "I can't eat anymore. I'm not hungry," I'd say.

  "Just finish your pork chop."

  "I CAN’T!"

  "Sure you can, here, open your mouth."

  "NO."

  "Come on. For me. This one mouthful for me. Won't you do this one thing for me? Come on, open up. Good girl. I knew you could do it. Now one more."