At one point I noticed my image in the coke mirror.
"Oh, shit, what's that?"
"Don't get hung up looking in the mirror," a voice from somewhere advised me. It seemed like good counsel. I passed the mirror on. For a while I watched the movements of skin cells in my finger tips. The sun came up.
Alas, things began to identify themselves. That was the sky out there. Those were palms trees. This was a day.
Around noon I decided to go home. The band still played for the colourful people dancing outside, now in sunlight. I navigated through the gate and onto the road. Not a thing on it. However, it was a road, and I assigned a piece of my mind the job of keeping alert for something on wheels. I let the rest of me trail behind. When I reached the house, I found the front door open and Tom and Julian sitting inside.
"Hi, there," one of them said.
"I'm-really-stoned-I'm-very-tired-I'm-going-to-sleep-good-night."
I dragged my sleeping bag to another room and melted on it. As I slipped into sleep I heard the chunking sound of someone chopping coconuts. The smell of roasting chapatti blew over me on a sea breeze. Yes, this had to be the best place on the planet. A bird screeched, "Oook . Oook, Oook."
What a life in Anjuna Beach! Warm, salty, sandy, swimming, surfing, dancing, lazy, and stoned. Weeks went by like one long day. No one possessed a clock. The only schedule was that of the moon—sometimes there was no moon, and at night you needed something to light your way to the toilet; and sometimes the parties on the beach were specifically in celebration of the full moon. No day had a name, though once I accidentally discovered it was Sunday by going into Mapusa. With Goa predominantly Christian, the market was closed.
December was the most crowded time of the year, and as it approached, more and more parties took place, until there was one on the beach every night. Not far from my house, the music seeped through the walls.
Tom and Julian left periodically for trips to Delhi and back. In the meantime I fell into the Anjuna routine—days in the sun; the communal sunset; Gregory's restaurant for dinner; visiting; and parties. Endless parties. I became a regular at Dayid and Ashley's, where a crowd always gathered. I didn't know the people they told stories about, nor could I relate to their tales of riding camel caravans through the desert, joining buskazi games in Afghanistan, or touring opal mines in central Australia. (But, hey. I'd lived in a cave in Greece, and I'd passed through Kabul on the bus!) For the most part I sat and listened, terribly impressed. And snorted the coke that came around. The coke at Dayid and Ashley's flowed freely and continually. Before leaving for a party, Dayid would till a silver vial to last him and Ashley and their entourage through the night. How did these people make their money?
The Anjuna Beach hierarchy sorted itself out to me—those with a lot of coke, those with some, and those with none. The people with quantity formed the focal points of social situations, and we others fluttered between them. As soon as someone pulled out a stash, five or six people materialized out of nowhere. "Ho, man. What's happening?"
The ritual was to coke out every night, for the whole night, and not to stay too long with any particular group. The coke made the parties wildly energetic. Two snorts and I'd dance ecstatically for twenty minutes or so, until the effects wore off, at which point it took only a quick gaze around to see who was digging into a stash. I'd pop over, extend my nostril, and be set for another round.
When Julian was in Goa, I'd drag him with me as I hunted the spoon. We'd be dancing in the sand and I'd get the urge: time for more coke. I'd pull him along as I searched the crowd. When I'd find a turn-on in progress, I'd yank him into the circle as I chose a good spot to be next in line for an offering.
One night, after accepting the usual free LSD that circulated the beach parties, I had a revelation. Julian and I were sitting atop a deal palm trunk that had fallen on its side. Though it was night, brightness reflected off the sand. Air molecules floated by.
"OH! What have I been doing?" I exclaimed all of a sudden. "Hustling coke! I've been hustling coke and dragging you around with me. Oh, how ugly. Isn't that ugly?" Julian looked surprised. I continued, "How can you stand me? I run around sticking my nose in people's faces. Isn't that what I've been doing?"
He smiled. "That seems to be the way here."
"It's horrible. I'm sorry. Am I horrible?"
"Don't worry about it, everybody's doing the same thing."
"But I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be a grubber. A hustler. A parasite. I want to be the one giving out the drugs."
When we left the tree stump, we joined German Jerry and German Monica on the rocks overlooking the crowd. On top of another rock danced Norwegian Monica in a long white dress with sparkly gold cords streaming from her hair. There seemed to be a rule that when two people had the same name, a qualifying adjective was given to both. Hence there was German Monica and Norwegian Monica, German Jerry and Jerry Schultz, Greek Robert and Junky Robert, Eight-Finger Eddy and Big Eddy.
Soon, German Jerry offered me some of the coke that, of course. I'd known he had and that, of course, I accepted.
In January Tom and Julian were scheduled to journey overland back to Amsterdam. When Ramdas, the guy whose house I lived in, returned from Poona, I decided to go with Julian to Delhi to say goodbye to him there.
Arriving in Bombay, Tom again parked the bus by the Taj Mahal Hotel. We were to be in town a few days while they bought spare parts needed for the trip to Europe. As soon as they left to investigate garages, I went to the Taj's lathes' room to wash off the Goan red dirt. Then, after buying a paperback in the bookstore, I adjoined to the fancy coffee shop for a dreamed-of hamburger. Beneath the mirrored Rajasthani tapestry hanging from the walls, a turbaned waiter bowed me into a seat. The ends of the silverware were shaped like elephants.
"May I join you?" came a smooth, accented voice. I glanced above the tasselled menu to see a prim Indian in a business suit. He introduced himself and sat opposite me, pushing aside the starched napkin forming a tower before him.
"You are staying here at the Taj?" Prim Indian asked.
"Oh, no. I can't afford this place. I'm living in a bus."
"A bus! No. Not really?"
Beneath carved ivory elephants and tigers, we sat in the coffee shop all afternoon talking over the gin and tonics he bought me. "But you cannot sleep in a bus," he stated later. "You are a visitor to my country. I want that you have a good impression." Prim Indian insisted I let him get me a room in the hotel.
"Oh, no. I couldn't accept that," I said, probing to see if I could actually get away with it. A room at the Taj. Wow.
"You have nothing to worry. My friend is the manager here. I will not disturb you. I merely want that you have a pleasant memory of your holiday."
How could I refuse a room at the Taj Mahal Hotel? He did say "nothing to worry."
As the costumed bellboy took hold of the dusty sleeping bag packed full of my clothes, I said goodbye to Prim Indian and arranged to meet him for dinner. The elevator was as tasselled and tapestried as the coffee shop.
In the room the thick rug tickled the bottoms of my feet, calloused from barefoot Anjuna walking. An arched balcony overlooked the bay, but the three-foot tassel that hung between a curve in the curtain blocked the view. Wow. I couldn't wait to tell Julian.
Late that afternoon, I stood by the bus dodging the outstretched hands of beggars. I ran to meet Julian as he came down the street. "Guess what? We have a room at the Taj!"
"What? At the TAJ?"
I ignored the Look Tom gave the sky as if searching for my spaceship. "I met a nice Indian man. I'm going to dinner with him, but meet you afterward. About ten? How's that?"
"Who is this man?"
"Oh, a man. I've got to go get ready." I kissed his neck and bit his shoulder. "We have a room at the Taj!" I did a little dance, kissed him again, and hurried off.
At six o'clock I met Prim Indian in the hotel bar, where a sign declared, PERMIT HOLDERS ONLY. Indians needed a special license to drink in the state of Maharastra, a "dry" state. Goa, on the other hand, was a "wet" state—anyone could drink there. We had a few gin and tonics and then joined his friends in the dining room. After dinner and a tour of the lobby shops, I announced I was tired and going to bed.
"At so early an hour?" said Prim Indian.
"I've been on a bus two whole days. Thanks for dinner."
With the hotel key in hand, I headed for the elevator. Before it came, though, I made sure Prim Indian had returned to the bar; then I snuck out the back door of the lobby. Prim Indian will probably call the room soon with an urgent reason for me to let him in for a moment. Too bad. I wouldn't be there.
I met the boys by the bus.
"How was your, you know, dinner?" asked Tom sarcastically.
"Oh, yum. Steak with mushroom gravy. What are we doing?"
"We thought we'd go to Sukalatchi Street to see the girls in cages," Julian told me. "It was Tom's idea."
"What's cages'?"
"Sukalatchi Street is the red light district of Bombay. We heard the prostitutes are kept in cages. There's supposed to be an opium den there too. What do you think?"
"An Opium den! Sure. Let's go. But is opium anything like hash? I'm trying not to smoke that anymore. What's it like?"
"We've never tried it. This will be a new experience for us all."
We took a taxi to the tiny, crowded street. It was so filled with people, pushcarts, ox carts, cows, and bicycles that the taxi couldn't drive into it, and we had to get out and walk. Oh, horrors! Creepy people pressed against me. Beggars followed us, motioning to their mouths and clutching our sleeves. It was loud and noisy, and everyone seemed to be yelling something at me.
"I can't stand this," I complained. "Where are we going?"
While Julian stopped for directions, Tom pulled me along, grinning at my unease. A woman beggar grabbed the back of my skirt and walked with us. A filthy child massaged my wrist with a sticky hand and recited, "No mamma, no pappa, one rupee."
"This is horrible. How do we get out of here?" I said. Something had its fingers in my hair, and now a little girl wrapped herself around my thigh, making it difficult to walk.
"Over this way."
Finally—leaving four people on the doorstep calling us—we entered a dim hallway and mounted steps that slanted at a forty-five-degree angle. I could hardly see, but at least it was quiet. Too quiet, actually—bordering on spooky.
An awful stink greeted us on the second floor as we turned a corner onto a balcony. A door stood open, revealing an old Lady on a stool. "Opium? Smoke, you know, opium?" tried Tom.
"Eh? Chando?" She pointed us farther down the balcony.
We weren't sure we were in the right building. We kept going and came to another open door, this one covered by a dirty cloth. We looked in on old men lying on the floor. They waved at us and motioned we were to leave our shoes by the door.
"I think this is it."
We were ushered to a corner. A stained towel was laid for each of us with a wooden block positioned for our heads. Three brass cups brimming with brown liquid were placed nearby.
"I guess we're supposed to, you know, he down."
Tom smoked first. The opium baba (spiritual leader) stretched out next to him and fiddled with the wick of a kerosene lamp, after which followed a complicated procedure. The baba dipped a rod into the opium and held the tip over the flame. It bubbled. He rolled it over the bowl of the pipe, dipped again, and cooked it some more.
I went after Tom. I was worrier opium would confuse me the way hash did. Putting the end of the two-foot-long pipe in my mouth, I inhaled as the baba held the bowl over the flame. My lungs filled to bursting with smoke. The second lungful made me cough. The baba laughed. I laughed. My body relaxed into the grimy floor. As I liquefied, the hard floor turned mushy and yielding. The wooden block beneath my head became a goose-down pillow. I'd never felt so comfortable. When I finished a cup it was Julian's turn. I couldn't wait to smoke another. We each had one more cup and then left.
It was hard to keep my eyes open. I leaned heavily against Julian as we exited onto the street. It didn't seem so bad out there anymore. Nobody reality bothered me. The beggars, hustlers, and shifty characters holding my sleeve didn't annoy me one bit. No problem. I smiled at a raggedy urchin under my feet. Forgetting about the girls in cages, we bungled into a taxi, and, after dropping Tom at the bus, Julian came to the hotel with me.
The doorman and the bell captain looked aghast as Julian, the dirty hippie, strode into the elevator. We giggled hysterically as we stumbled down the corridor to the room, brushing against someone's doorknob and knocking off the DO NOT DISTURB sign.
"Let's take a bath," Julian suggested when I showed him the marble bathroom.
The giant tub easily accommodated both of us, and we placed two monstrous pillows on opposite ends of the tub. In an instant, we fell asleep in the hot water. By the time we woke, the water was cold and the pillows soaked. We laughed ourselves out of the bathroom, one pulling up the other as we took turns falling on the floor, and barely making it to the bed. I started to feel sick.
"Uh-oh, I think I'm nauseous," I moaned.
"So am I."
Pretty soon I felt sicker than I had in all my life. The rest of the night consisted of our taking turns vomiting. The marble floor was no longer appreciated when, head in the toilet, we had to kneel on it. I wanted to the.
I felt the same the next day. Tom phoned. He was sick too, but because so much had to be done, he persuaded Julian to crawl out of bed and meet him. I stayed in bed. That night I was still sick. We ordered room service but couldn't look at the food when it came. When Prim Indian called, I told him, honestly, that I was deathly ill. We were to leave the next day. "I'll call you when I come back to Bombay," I promised with no intention of doing so.
The next morning, I felt no better and, in desperation, went to the hotel pharmacy. "Please," I begged the grey-haired pharmacist, "I visited one of your opium dens the other day, and I think I'm going to the."
His stern face almost smiled as he handed me a packet of pills. Within an hour, I felt fine.