'Hoo, boy—what a smell,' said Norwegian Monica.
'Let's get the goddamn food on a plate, for christ sake,' said Bombay Brian, who'd flown down for the occasion. 'Hey, Cleo, what happened to your goddamn orange clothes?'
Finally the animals were removed from the flame and placed on banana leaves. We had to figure our own way to cut meat off the carcasses. I borrowed someone's pocket knife and squeezed into a circle where the people elbowed each other for a slice. One person had hold of a leg. Another, pulling in the opposite direction, struggled with the neck.
'Here, cut you a piece,' said a voice.
Serge. His curls were smoky and covered in ash as he leaned in and grabbed the haunch. I wanted to touch him and couldn't steer my eyes from the flowing red silk on his back. He stood up and handed me a chunk of meat. Juice ran down my arm and dripped from my elbow as I took a bite. He was very dose to me.
'How is it, Miss Cleo?' he said softly.
'Mmmmmmm,' I murmured, thinking more about him than about the food. Someone asked him for the knife, and he bent over to cut another piece. 'I don't know about this lamb,' I told him when he turned back. 'Isn't it too raw?' His scarf brushed my arm.
'Well, everyone complained they couldn't wait to eat another minute.'
Soon his presence was called for elsewhere. I knew his Frenchie lurked somewhere nearby. I didn't want to meet her. I went inside the house and piled a mirror high with coke; then I joined the bhong circle; then I returned home miserable, thinking of Serge.
I made my last bank trip to Bombay. All gone. I left the safety deposit box empty. There went the plan to run my own scam next monsoon. Worse than that, the little money I took back to Goa guaranteed I couldn't buy one more snoot of coke. I wouldn't be able to afford smack much longer, either.
One day, I heard that Junky Robert and Tish had returned. Hallelujah. They owed me money from my investment. Saved! I ran to their house. They were still unpacking—or rather Tish was unpacking. Robert was teetering with his eyes closed and his arm about to drop a pile of clothes.
'Hi. How was your monsoon?' I said, coming in.
???a new window,' exclaimed Robert, suddenly waking up. 'Who did?'
'Hi. Heard about the runner?' asked Tish.
'No, tell me.'
'She was stupid,' said Robert, awake now. 'We shouldn't have hired someone who'd never carried before. What an idiot!'
'What happened?'
'She got scared. Decided she couldn't do it,' explained Tish.
'AFTER she boarded the plane. When she landed, she rushed out of the airport, leaving the suitcases going around the baggage wheel.'
'You're kidding!'
'Tish was there to meet her. I never made it out of Bombay.' One of Robert's eyes started to dose again.
'I watched the cases go around,' said Tish. 'The other passengers collected theirs, and ours kept circling. What could I do? I was outside the Customs area, watching through the glass partition. I couldn't get them.'
'That must have been frustrating.'
'Failure. I would've claimed them myself if I could have.'
'So what happened?'
'The police picked her up at the hotel the next day,' said Robert, struggling to open his eye.
'Why?'
'The dumb twit. The cases had her name on them. Of course the authorities were suspicious when no one claimed the bags. They searched 'em.'
'So she was arrested anyway?'
'She would have been fine if she'd just done what she was supposed to. They never would have opened the bags.'
'Did you get her out of jail?' I asked Tish.
'I visited her. Brought her five hundred dollars and hired a lawyer. So, anyway, we don't have your money.'
Oh no! I wasn't saved after all. 'What about the second woman?'
'She went through no problem,' said Tish. 'Her run covered my expenses, but we didn't make a profit.'
By this time Robert had both eyes closed. . .
'We'll give you back your original investment,' Tish assured me. 'But not now. We have just enough money to last the season. Maybe in a few months. Don't worry, Cleo. We won't forget you.'
Robert's head fell forward, plunging him back into consciousness.
'Where is what?' he asked.
The Three Sisters' restaurant had the reputation of being the only place in Anjuna Beach with chocolate pudding. This tasty delight cost less than a meal at Gregory's restaurant, so I began trekking there for a pudding dinner. I entered the restaurant and sat opposite Canadian Jacques.
'How's the pudding today?' I asked.
'A little runny, I think.'
Suddenly I was struck by the graceful image of Jacques's waist-length hair cascading over his shoulder as he leaned toward his bowl. He wore velvet clothes in deep green. Silver jewellery fell from his neck and wrists. For an after-dinner snort, he used a rhinoceros-shaped silver spoon to 4; into a matching rhinoceros-shaped box. Jacques had style.
We teamed up. I spent my days at his place. No longer indulging in coke, I focused solely on the bhong. So did Jacques. The two of us hardly budged from the glow of the
That year brought a death to the beach. Pharaoh's girlfriend, Shere, died while giving birth. The Indian government insisted that her body be shipped to her country of origin.
Burying a Goa Freak away from her Goa home dismayed the Freak world.
'Has anyone heard more about Shere?' Jacques asked me and the visiting others sitting around his bhong.
'They mustn't send her back!' I said, letting out a lungful of smack smoke. 'I'd hate for that to happen to me. I can't think of a worse fate than a traditional funeral in New York. No, no, no. This was her home. She belongs him. With the Goa Freaks.'
'To be buried in the West. What a horrible thought,' added Jacques. 'That's not when: I belong. I never belonged there. I want no part of it. Not even in death.'
'Yeah, man.'
'Me either.'
'Right on.'
Catholic Goa forbade cremation, but that seemed the only way to prevent Shere from being dispatched to the world she'd rejected.
The next afternoon, Shere's body was laid out and covered from neck to toe in yellow flowers. Incense and sitar music filled the room as Goa Freaks paraded past to say goodbye.
'Hoo, boy—this is so sad.'
