"BA-NA-NA," cried the one.
"PA-PA-YA," yelled the other.
Well, okay. Here goes. I closed my eyes and took a breath.
"WATCHES! EUROPEAN WATCHES! COME CHECK THEM OUT!" I felt like a Class A retard. Must have looked like one too, hiding there in the sugarcane.
"GENUINE MITSUHISHI CASSETTE PLAYER!" Yippee, was this really me?
"BA-NA-NA!"
"AUTHENTIC TEXAS COWBOY BOOTS!" Had I really said that? Now I knew I was an asshole.
"BA-NA-NA!"
"BOOTS!"
One or two people stopped, gave me knowing looks, and browsed through my wares.
"You have maybe a Panasonic record player?" one asked.
"Sorry, no."
"You can get?"
Did I look like an international electronics distributor, standing there in a fish market with eight watches on my arms? Or did he think I would steal one for him?
"Sorry."
After being bargained down to nothing, I sold one watch and then went to the woman from Paradise Pharmacy for help. "Try that store across the square," she whispered. "Ask for the manager."
Obviously a fence, the manager had no doubt about how I'd acquired the collection of jewellery and assorted plunder. I felt exactly like the breaking-and-entering lowlife he imagined me to be. Of course he paid only the minimum. He evaluated the gold chains according to the weight of the gold; the same for the beautiful locket. I could have gotten more if I'd continued hawking them in the market, but I lacked the patience and the confidence. How embarrassing! I wanted to bury my face in a cowboy boot.
I kept the passports as long as I could, but eventually those too were sold, this time to Rachid.
"I will take all the passports you can get, darling. Two hundred dollars for an American or a Swiss passport, one hundred for other nationalities." Apparently passports were more valuable than gold.
One day Marco came to my back window with news and a request. Maria lay in the hospital in a coma. Could I contribute to the find they were collecting to pay her hospital bill?
"Of course," I answered. For weeks Maria had been a best friend to me. It didn’t matter if the friendship was partly a hustle; the relationship had existed. She was a fellow Goa Freak. She belonged to my Goa community. We had to help each other. "What's wrong with her?" I asked.
"She collapsed unconscious last night."
"What about dope? She shouldn't withdraw on top of whatever else is wrong with her. Does the hospital know about her drug habits?" Marco shook his head. "Maybe we should put dope in her I.V. bottle. Just enough for her not to be sick. I tried it once; I think it'll work."
"I'm meeting Stefano this evening at the hospital. Want to come?" he asked.
"Okay.”
Stefan (Maria's boyfriend), Marco, and I met later in Mapusa and discussed how to get dope into Maria's unconscious body. I gave Stefano half a gram to hold her a few days. I only saw Maria as a faraway bundle in a bed.
The three of us set up a schedule of shifts to sit with her. I had the morning, since it was the only time I could get away without losing a lot of customers. It would mean sacrificing much of my sleep time, though.
I arranged for a motorcycle driver to pick me up every morning at nine-thirty. Eeek, now I was more tired than ever. I needed even more coke.
Within day Maria was alert and mobile but scared and totally miserable. I continued my shift to keep her company and prevent her from leaving before she recovered. I stayed at her side until Stefano or Marco replaced me as sentry. She cried.
"Ah, Cleo. Thank you for coming. You're still my friend, no? You don't hate me like the others, do you? You know, I'm so sorry. I never meant anything bad. Please be my friend again."
There seemed to be two Marias there. One warm, sensitive, and terrified, crying over not wanting her daughter to see her in the hospital. The other was crafty. Her eyes gleamed as she scanned me to determine where I'd hidden my coke. The transition as she changed from Maria to Coke Amuck Maria was dramatic and unmistakable. Her face underwent a metamorphosis—the tension of the muscles, the shape of the eyes, the curl of the lila. Her body would stiffen like a predatory animal. I never mistook which one I was dealing with. I couldn't communicate with Coke Amuck Maria. She didn't listen. Her answers came brief and vague as she concentrated on discovering the whereabouts of my stash. I kept the coke taped to my body, beneath my clothes. Coke Amuck Maria was so skilful at gaining access to it, though, that if I left the hospital with it intact, I felt a sense of accomplishment.
The way coke nuts got their paws on coke was almost magical.
But I also saw a real Maria there, a desperate and sad Maria who needed not to be hated. I brought her flasks of coconut milkshake and Five Star candy bars, and we played games. She was bored and miserable. One day I brought my projector and movies to cheer her up.
"Ah, Gigi," she exclaimed as we watched Gigi and Marco's wedding. "She was my good friend." The scared look came into her eyes again.
One morning I arrived to find Maria gone. She had signed herself out. No, she hadn't paid the hospital bill. And no, the hospital would not give me back my projector and films until the bill was paid. Sorry.
The end of the season came and passed. My business trickled to nothing as the last stragglers fashioned scams and left Goa. Every day another house was boarded up against the monsoon. I had to get out of there. Meanwhile, not only had I not paid Lino the year's rent, I'd once again accumulated a large bill with the maid, Apolon's chai shop, Joe Banana, and Gregory's restaurant.
Then the business died completely. No more coke. No more smack. No money. Uh-oh.
I scrounged the beach begging bhongs from whom ever had something. Alehandro was still usable as a last resort, but' even that source dried up as Alehandro made plans to move to Bombay. Every week another credit-giving chai shop shut as its owner prepared for summer toil in the rice field. When Apolon's chai shop closed, my trouble deepened, for that had been my last source of food.
I had to do something, but what? Realistically I knew I was incapable of handling another run. Aware of the mistakes I'd made the previous monsoon, I knew I was even less shipshape than then. My brain was scrambled by coke and exhaustion. I couldn't trust myself to carry through another scam. Besides, no one was begging to hire me. Bony, and with the diamond back in my nose, I didn't look like the candidate most likely to cross an Immigration desk unmolested.
Poor Bach—I barely managed to keep him fed with peanut butter. Then, in desperation, I hooked up with Birmingham Phillip. He had dope, a bhong, and food for Bach. Egads, a Birmingham Boy! Had it really come to this? Fortunately he was too smacked-out to think about sex or romance. I packed my house and moved to his place by Nelson's Bar. Nelson Bar, the Birmingham Boy hangout. Bad scene here. Real bad. Horrible. Oh, help.
One day I spoke imploringly to a tree in front of Phillip's house. I caressed its hark. "Please," I beseeched it, "get me out of here. I can't feed Bach anymore." I looked for a spot that wasn't overrun by crawling things and laid my cheek against it. "Please help me, tree. Maybe Bombay would be better. At least there'd be people there. Help me get to Bombay. Or anywhere. Help me, tree. GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
The next day I went to my house to pick up clothes. While inside I heard a motorcycle roar to a stop. Strange. There hadn't been a motorcycling visitor in at least two months.