out. For two days I'd been making desperate—and obviously not subtle—quests for more. I'd been able to find only methadone, and that was exactly what I had in the apartment—a full bottle of methadone. The police began to search.

Less than an hour before the police had come, I'd swallowed a speed pill that now took effect and caused me to buzz around joyously. While I was concerned they'd find the bottle of methadone—not to mention Aunt Sathe's kosher stash—it was nonetheless difficult for me to stop smiling. My mouth couldn't restrain its happy grin. Soon the policemen were charmed, and they joked with me as they peered into drawers and cupboards. They thought Aunt Sathe charming too as she chattered about the difficulties of the currency exchange system.

And all I had with me was some of your Australian dollars, and of course they wouldn't take my American dollars, and then,  oy, when I pulled out Indian rupees.

The policewoman, however, was not impressed. She threw me dirty looks. When she examined my passport and saw my birth date, she became ferocious. It turned out we were born the same day of the same month of the same year. We were both twenty-six, only she looked over thirty and I barely looked eighteen. She hated me.

'Where is it?' she asked me coldly. 'We know it's here. Where is it?' She seized my handbag and hunted through it. She unfolded a letter I was in the middle of writing.

OH, NO!

THE LETTER! Memory of what I'd written shot through my brain. OH, SHIT! I'd recounted the details of the Melbourne scan, and how much money we'd made. If she read that, Aunt Sathe and I would be dead.

I lunged at the policewoman and grabbed the letter from her hand. I wanted to jam all four pages in my mouth and swallow them. She held on tight, though, and her eyes flashed poison as we struggled. Of course she pried it back.

Gratification spread over her face as she read it.

'Look at this,' she said to her companions when she'd finished. She oozed with triumph and smiled menacingly in my direction.

Meanwhile, something had stunned me—the image of wrestling with a Inspector of the police. Only criminals fought with police, and I'd never pictured myself a criminal. I viewed my enterprises as capitalist, not felonious. Drugs were illegal in the western world, true, but they hadn't always been, and they weren't illegal everywhere in the world. I considered the prohibition against drugs a temporary situation and considered myself an innocent creature in a time trap. A criminal—no! Not me! I'd always been comrades with the police. Struggling with the woman placed me on the other side of the law for the first time, and I didn't like the way it felt. Her side was so much stronger.

They continued searching. My pensive state coursed away on the tide of the speed pill and I floated through the next hour, peppy and exuberant. A policeman took Aunt Sathe to the safe in the office and found our cash—the exact amount of Australian dollars I'd mentioned, braggingly, in the letter.

They left the money in the safe, though. And I kept smiling.

The police woman looked into everything, opened everything, and pulled everything inside out. She did the bedroom last. I held my breath when she took hold of my overnight bag—that was where I'd put the methadone. Still smiling, I watched her Lift everything out, piece by piece. Johnson's Baby Shampoo. Birth control pills. She laid them on the bedside table. Her hand closed on the unlabeled bottle of methadone. She placed it on the table next to the shampoo. It stared at me from across the room. But she didn't notice it.

Hadn't they come specifically for heroin or methadone? Didn't they know what methadone looked like? The yellow liquid seemed the brightest thing in the room. To me, it glowed like a slice of sun, and everything seemed to point in its direction. But she didn't see it.

They found nothing illegal.

Three hours after the police arrived, they left, taking my letter with them but leaving the money. Glaring at me murderously, the woman was the last one out the door.

Ecstatic from the Speed and heady with the satisfaction of eluding the police, I felt like Master of the Universe. I knew they'd be back as soon as they drew up the necessary papers to get at the Australian cash we had no way of legitimating. I immediately moved us to a different hotel, and by the next afternoon Aunt Sathe and I were out of Australia.

Successful in the face of adversity! I had no doubt foresight and good sense would protect me forever.

Ever since she'd seen The King and I, Aunt Sathe had dreamed of visiting Siam. I wanted to give her a treat she'd always remember, and since I'd heard that Siam (now called Thailand) was the heroin capital of the world, we flew to Bangkok.

The month long co-existence had strained our relationship. Aunt Sathe had been unnerved by the Sydney affair, and, though we looked forward to touring Bangkok together, we agreed it would be best to five separately. I had the secondary motive of needing to find a connection. I took Aunt Sathe to the Sheraton, then went to a place I'd heard about, the Malaysia Hotel.

The Freaks were international and mobile, so Freak enclaves existed around the world. These havens provided access to the local scene. Among fellow Freaks, friendship was instantaneous and resources were readily shared. The Malaysia Hotel was a major Freak place in Bangkok. It turned out to be everything I'd heard and more. The hotel overflowed with Freaks and hippie travellers. Entering the Lobby, I had the feeling everyone knew each other. In a corner hung a bulletin board with notices, messages (some obviously coded), and warnings to beware of particular undercover narcotics agents. The warnings described the agents, noted which countries they worked, and provided the names they were currently using. I felt connected to a brethren and part of something.

Two guys stepped in the elevator as I went up to my room. 'Just arriving in Thailand?' asked one.

'Yeah, hey, this is a great hotel.'

'Damn right. Find anything you want at the Malaysia.'

'Know where I can get smack?' I asked.

'Drop your bags in your room and come to ours. Two-oh-two.'

Within minutes, I had a bhong in my mouth, as I sat with them and three others. 'Oh, boy. You've no idea how much I missed this sniff,' I said, savouring a lungful of heroin. 'I've been eating Opium and drinking methadone for weeks. Ahh. Now, this is the real thing.'

Daytime was spent with Aunt Sathe. We visited the Reclining Buddha and the Emerald Buddha. We explored the floating market, the weekend market, and the snake garden.

'Aunt Sathe, a man's ogling you.'

'Where?' she asked, speaking like a ventriloquist, with her lips hardly moving. 'Not that shmuck with the Hawaiian shirt?'

'No. Over there by the Buddha bell.'

'Oy vey, look at that pot belly. That fat  tush. You can find me better than that,  tatala.'

Aunt Sathe loved Bangkok. I loved Bangkok. I adored the Malaysia Hotel.

At night my new friends and I would go to the movies. The Thai dope was potent, though, and I slept through most of them. We all did. When the movie ended we'd go back to the hotel, smoke more smack, and try to decipher the plot from the Bits we'd managed to catch.

'I remember him entering the factory, and then I nodded out,' someone would say.

'I saw the factory scene,' another would offer, 'They started fighting, and a dude bashed Bruce Lee over the head with a barrel and then . . . I don't know. I guess I fell asleep again.'

'That part I remember. I woke up as the barrel . . .'

One morning, my Malaysia Hotel friends and I took a boat ride down a canal. We slept through that too.

After three weeks Aunt Sathe returned to Wilkes-Barre. 'Bye, Aunt Sathe,' I said, hugging her tightly before she left. 'I'm so glad you visited your Siam.'

'It’s been heaven, tatala. I'll be waiting to hear about the next scheme.'

'Scam.'

'Scam. Oy, never get that right. Don't forget, if you see my doctor friend, tell him