'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.'

'You said just one!'

'One more. This is the last one, come on.'

'I don't like string beans.'

'No string Deans? Okay, I got rid of the string beans. Now open your mouth.'

He also tried at every opportunity to get me off dope. 'You have to stop taking smack, Miss Cleo. It's not good for you. Look how skinny you are.'

'That's because of the coke, not the smack.'

'Then you must stop that too.'

'What? Look how much you do.'

'Yes, but I can handle it. I eat.'

He never stopped lecturing me about smack, and periodically he wore me down and I'd half-heartedly agree to stop. Once, when I was trying to block the uncomfortable feelings of withdrawal, I took half a dozen Mandrax— the English equivalent of the sleeping pill Quaalude, sold over the counter in any Indian pharmacy—and a few packets of Valium. Serge left on his rounds and, stumbling along incoherently, I was found by the maid, who thought that something was terribly wrong with me. Afraid I was sick and dying, she and her father, Apolon, who owned the chai shop next door, loaded me into a taxi and sent me to the private Catholic hospital in Mapusa. The doctors didn't know what to do with me, so they put me in a bed and, because I was so thin, they gave me glucose intravenous drip.

Within a few hours worried Serge arrived. 'What happened?'

'Nothing. I'm fine.'

'From what Apolon told me, I thought you'd be dead.'

'No, I'm just miserable without the dope.'

'Now, now. You're doing great, Miss Cleo. You don't want any smack. You'll see, in a few clays you’ll be fine.'

'I'm so blah. This is depressing.'

'Actually, this hospital is a brilliant idea. You can stay here until you get straight. Three meals a day—fatten you up. Yes, this place is ideal for you. Keep you away from temptation.'

'I want to go home. I don't like it here. A bunch of people prayed for me.'

'No, really?' He laughed.

'Five of them stood around the bed with prayer books and chanted at me.'

Serge tilted his head back as he laughed aloud. 'Seriously,' he said, 'I think you should stay a few days.'

'How long?'

'Until the smack leaves your system, maybe a week.'

'A WEEK! I'll go crazy here a week.'

'No, you won't. I be with you every day.'

'You won't. You'll be with your business. Or your other women.'

He smiled. 'I promise to be here as much as I can. I'll go now and put things in order and then come back. The business can hold without me a day or two. And you know I don't think of other women when I'm with you, Miss Cleo. Will you stay?'

'Well. . .  I don't know. I'll try, but if I can't stand it, I'm going to leave.'

'It won't be so bad, you'll see.'

Shortly after he left, Neal came. 'What are you doing in the hospital?'

'OOOOOh, I took a bunch of mandies and Apolon thought I was dying.'

He lay next to me. 'Move over a bit. So, why are you still here?'

'Serge thinks I should stay and get off the smack.'

'Good old Serge. Then I guess you don't want this line I'm making you.' CLICK, CLICK, SCRAPE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK.

'No, no. I mustn't. Hey, you know what they gave me a while ago—a glucose drip. It was nifty, had stuff to make me healthy. You could use one; you're as skinny as I am.'

'It does sound good. I always forget to cat. Do you think they'll give me one?'

'Sure, why not? I ring for the nurse.'

'Wait a minute, how long will it take? I was planning to drop acid and he in the sun.'

'Only an hour,' I'll go get her.'

I ran down the hall and brought back a sister-type nurse. She couldn't speak English, and we had to tell her what we wanted by pantomime. She shook her head as if she understood and then left the room. Neal and I lay side by side on the bed and waited.

And waited.

'I don't think she understood,' said Neal after a while.

'Has she been gone that long?'

'Too long just to get a drip.'

'Wait a little longer. She’ll come.'

'It will be too late. I come back tomorrow and do it then.'

'Just a few more minutes.'

'I'm going to take the acid now so it'll come on by the time I get to the beach.'

'Aw, don't go.'

Not three minutes after he took the acid, the nurse arrived with the intravenous apparatus.

'Oh, no! I can't do that now. I don't want to be hooked up to that thing when the acid hits!'

I smothered my head in the pillow laughing. 'I told you she'd be back. Go on, do it. It doesn't take much time.'