palms. My home! The coke perked me up more, and I spent the night pushing boxes and planning what would go where. My very own house, made to order. Oh, this was going to be great.

The next day, I crossed the paddy field to the road where motorbikes and their Goan drivers waited for passengers. Unlike my male friends, Goans would obey me when I told them to drive slower. In Mapusa, I hired a taxi and, making numerous trips to the marketplace, filled it to overflowing. I needed twenty kerosene lamps to light all the rooms. Pillows, mattresses, bags and bowls—I had trouble matching the drab coloured items sold in Mapusa to the bright colours I envisioned for my interior decor.

'No, not grey,' I said to a merchant. 'I need orange. You don't have orange? No, no. That's a boring brown. I need orange. ORANGE!'

When I could spare time from art work, I went to a beach party. With the noisy generator up the cliff out of sound range, the band's electric guitars blasted from a wooden stage. Beneath them, eighty dancers stomped the sand in bare feet.

Beyond the dancers, hundreds of Freaks stood and mingled. Further back, groups sat around candles planted in the sand. Furthest away were the worm-like shapes signifying sleeping people in bags. Goa's Freak beaches extended north and south on either side of Anjuna, and the people who lived there came to our parties and spent the night. While some hardcore Goa Freaks preferred to five off Anjuna—usually on an isolated beach far away—most of the people from other beaches were transients, new to the scene.

My crowd sat near the band. I found myself a choice spot next to Dayid, Ashley, Barbara, and Max and offered my stash of coke.

'Did you and your aunt have a nice time in Sydney?' asked Barbara.

'Eek, would you believe the police searched our apartment?' I said. And I recounted the events that took place after I left  Barbara  in Australia. I loved the admiration the Goa Freaks showed for my successful brush with the law. 'Close call, huh?' I said at the end. 'Who's that?' I asked, pointing to someone in black and silver dancing around a tree.

'That's Petra,' answered Dayid. 'Haven't you taken cognizance of her in Kathmandu? She's resided there for years. I think this is her first peregrination to Goa, though.'

'You should see her house in Nepal,' said Ashley, holding, aloft a foot-long cigarette holder. 'It’s decorated in black and silver, and she has a pet owl.'

Petra joined us. She wore layers of black skirts in different lengths. From her neck, ears, wrists, and waist hung jingling silver ordainments. She had a deep voice with a German accent and spoke with sharp, dramatic emphasis, a remnant of her days touring Europe with the Living Theatre.

'HelLO, CHILdren of the sun god HuitziloPOCHtli,' she said, spreading her arms like a priestess addressing a temple of followers. 'This beach is MARvelous. I've never been a BEACH person, though. I like the MOUNtains.'

I offered her a snoot of coke and felt thrilled to be part of these spectacular people.

'NEAL!' I shouted, spotting my old friend distributing acid to the crowd. I ran to kiss his cheek. 'Where've you been?'

He giggled and shook his bangs. 'What a story. Open your mouth and have a drop of this first.' He held an acid-packed straw over my tongue and tapped. A drop fell.

'Mm, thanks. So, what happened?'

'I went to California and found out I was a father! I met this woman the year before. We were only together one night. Shortly after, I left the country.'

'Meanwhile she had a baby?'

'Can you believe it?'

'Were you writing each other?'

'No, nothing like that. I never thought I'd see her again in my life.' I laughed. 'So now you've brought her here? The baby too?'

'Both of them.'

'Oh Neal! Has this woman been to India before?'

'She's never been anywhere before.'

I clapped my hands, giggling.

Later I met Eve, the mother of Neal's baby. Wavy long hair covered most of her face, with her half- concealed eyes looking spaced-out. 'Neal's told me about you,' she said in a soft voice—sickly soft, almost a whisper. It sounded controlled, like she had a scream she was trying not to let out.

'What do you think of Anjuna Beach?' I asked. Her one visible eye focused on me again. 'Two weeks ago, I never guessed I'd see Neal again. Now here I am.' She arched her back peculiarly and seemed to shift inward, focusing on a private thought. 'Well, good luck.' I said, thinking Neal had snared himself a bizarre one. Actually, I was almost sad that Neal had a woman and baby with him. He'd been a great friend to hang out with. I wondered if it would be the same with than around.

Soon, daylight crawled over the hill. As the stars faded, dawn energy had everyone up and dancing. Through the eye of my movie camera I watched them face skyward to dance with the sunrise. Here and there, a sleepy head surfaced from a worm shape to behold black night turn whitish blue. I filmed Paul on the stage singing a song he'd written, inspired by such an occasion: 'Welcome in, come on welcome in, come on welcome in the dawn, welcome in the dawn . . .'

This had to be the best place on the planet.

Later that morning, I took a walk with Paul to his house on Joe Banana's hill behind Tish and Junky Robert's. He and Pan had been having problems lately, mostly over his use of smack. Pam was now pregnant and living elsewhere on Anjuna Beach.

'You must come see what I'm doing to the house,' I said as we climbed his front steps. 'I bought fifteen mattresses in different sizes. A tailor in Mapusa is sewing covers for them Poor man had a hard time measuring them while they were stuffed in the back seat of a taxi.'

Paul began to chop coke and I pounced on a pen and paper I spotted.

'Let me show you what I'm doing in the dining room,' I said. Lying on my stomach, I drew. 'See, this is the table having made. I bought nine orange and nine yellow rugs to go under every side cushion.' Paul stretched out next to me and placed the mirror on my drawing. I snorted a line and moved the mirror aside. 'For the two ends, I have bigger carpets in the same colours.'

'Yeah?' Paul peered at my scribbles. His body aligned the length of mine, one hand resting on my back.

'Every cushion will be different.' I resumed drawing. His hand moved across my back and down my legs. 'See, some will be striped this way, and some striped that way.' When his arm could reach no further, it backed up, burrowing under my skirt.

'Two walls will be orange, two yellow . . .'  He reached the top of my legs. I'd stopped wearing underwear months before. 'Ummm . . . the shelves too, one yellow, next one, um, orange  . . .'  His fingers slid between my thighs and stroked the moist area there. He found my clitoris. '. . . napkins too, half orange half yellow . . .' He massaged in circles. '. . . Hmmm . . .'  I opened my legs wider. 'Ummm . . . orange . . .' His circles continued, and my hips moved to their rhythm. '. . . lots of orange, mmm . . .' The tip of a finger slipped inside me. 'Mmm. . . uh, want to hear about the ninety saris I bought?' I asked.

'Tell me.'

'Umm. . .' I rolled on my back keeping my legs apart He placed one of his legs between mine. His finger re- entered me, this time plunging deep. 'MMMmm' I took hold of his hair. 'Um. . . well, ninety saris, five yards of material each for the living room and the bedroom. . .' His finger thrust in and out. 'Umm. . . I had the carpenter drape them. . . from. . . the ceiling to . . . create a . . . tent effect mmmmm.'

Weeks flew by, marked only by the colour of paint I was currently using. I snorted enormous amounts of coke and, in coke furore, worked day and night on my fantasy house. Everything I'd ever dreamed of, I created in my new home. I made trips to Bombay for special things. While there, I also stopped at the safety deposit box at the Mercantile Bank Coke consumption nibbled hungrily at my money.

Neal visited often, and we'd turn each other on to smack and coke. He was a welcome break from the non- stop work on the house. The super-excessive energy of the coke spurred me to greater and greater detail and fanciness. Not a piece of furniture was one colour only. The low cost of Goan labour allowed me to hire an army of painters for pennies an hour. I indulged my every coke-inspired whim.