 
### The Crooked Beat

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Drew Gates

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Credits

Lyrics from "Big Women" © 1982 by GBH. Courtesy of Clay Records. All rights reserved.

Lyrics from "Lady Esquire" © 1979 by UK Subs. Courtesy of RCA. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Spiritual Concepts

Chapter 2 - Welcome to Bangkok

Chapter 3 - Mama San and the Smack Heads

Chapter 4 - Addict of Metropolis

Chapter 5 - Slow Burn in the Fast Lane

Chapter 6 - 600 Micrograms

Chapter 7 - Aciiiiiiied!

Chapter 8 - Akoona-matata!

Chapter 9 - Sessymassage?

Chapter 10 - The Rancid Piss Incident

Chapter 11 - I'll fuckin' akoona-matata you in a minute!

Chapter 12 - Junky Slip

Chapter 13 - Fill the Sky with a Tropical Storm

Chapter 14 - 24 Hours to Bangkok

Chapter 15 - Midnight over Bangladesh

Chapter 16 - Brown Sugar

Chapter 17 - Ninety American Dollars

Chapter 18 – Baksheeeeeeesh!

Chapter 19 - Delhi to Bombay

Chapter 20 - The Goa Bus

Chapter 21 - Goa

Chapter 22 - First Party

Chapter 23 - Vagatore Beach

Chapter 24 - Smack 'n'Acid

Chapter 25 - New Years Eve

Chapter 26 - Last Call at Benny's

Chapter 27 - Death is a Star

# Chapter 1 - Spiritual Concepts

The first thing I saw when I came to was a cop sitting in a chair next to my concrete bunk. His arms were crossed on his chest and he was balancing on the back legs of the chair. I propped myself up on my right elbow and had a good look at him. A hairy mole quivered on his cheek as he popped air from his lips in time to music in his head.

"Am I under arrest?" I asked.

The cop stopped his popping, looked sideways at me, thrust out his bottom lip and shook his head. "No arrest, you jus' dring too much."

"How long do I have to stay here?"

"You stay here, then in couple hours, you OK."

It seemed a reasonable enough proposition, although I had no idea where _here_ was, or for that matter, which country I was in. One thing that I did know for sure was that I had arrived in Singapore the previous evening on a one-way ticket. I also recalled a stressful night spent slinking through back streets seeking illicit highs while Singapore's prohibitionist mantra "Da-Da equal's death!" ricocheted through my head. I looked at the cop again. He was back on his lip popping routine, so it must have been a catchy tune. His facial features could just as easily have been Thai or Malay but his starched uniform was unmistakable; I was in Thailand.

Then, like a morning fog exposed to light, the mental fugue cleared. I recalled the bus ride from Singapore to Hat-Yai, a town just over the Thai border; an argument over a bottle of Mekong at the markets next to Hat Yai train station; buying a one-way ticket to Bangkok; the undulating shriek of a thousand cicadas as I stood looking down at the train tracks that slashed the entire length of Thailand all the way to the swaying poppy fields of the Golden Triangle; the police patrolling the station with slow, deliberate steps, submachine guns hanging at their sides; the unnatural thirst that overcame me after my first hit of Mekong, and finally, the imperious urge that knew no equal and which I had in vain tried to resist as the steering column of my mind fractured and spun out of control.

Then I was in the back of a motorized trike called a tuktuk, racing through wide empty streets as a shrine perched on the dash jingled like a hyperactive wind chime. When there was enough distance between us and the police at the train station, I'd leaned over the driver's shoulder and hissed in his ear.

" _I want smack._ "

"What?"

"Heroin."

" _Heroin?_ "

"Yes, I want heroin."

"You say you want to visit Buddhist temple, I bring you temple!" He pointed feebly at his plastic shrine.

"No, I want smack, fuck the temple!"

The driver looked at me in the rear-view mirror. "Nice temple, many statue."

"Smack!"

"Would you..."

"Smack!"

"Maybe we..."

"Smack!"

He pleaded with me "I get you ganja, OK?"

"Jesus Christ, I don't need any ganja."

"Very good ganja..."

" _SMAAAAACK!!!_ "

The driver adjusted a picture of the King next to the shrine on the dash as sweat ran from his nose. "OK, OK, I try for you, maybe I can get." He was nervous as all hell and explained that he'd never bought heroin before but like everyone in Thailand, "he knew a friend." As we drove he complained that he had a wife and kid at home and didn't want to get caught by the police. I didn't care. I was drunk and vicious; I _needed_ heroin.

We drove past the outskirts of the city. The buildings were one-storey high and made of crumbling brick and rusted corrugated iron roofs—a desolate urban waste-land; the perfect place to find narcotics.

I waited in the tuktuk as the driver cagily approached three men sitting at a table in front of a dumpy noodle stall. He chatted to them briefly and kept glancing back at me. When my man came back to ask for a few notes, I couldn't help but notice that his hand was shaking. He disappeared through a door in the rear of the shop with one of the men. The others looked at me from under heavy eyelids as they worked lazily at their teeth with toothpicks. A minute later my driver returned, looking around anxiously as he strode towards the vehicle fumbling for his keys. He jumped in the tuktuk, twisted the key, and tossed me a paper fold as a dark cloud of exhaust blasted from the trike. I opened the fold and had a look as we pulled away from the kerb. It stunk of pure pharmaceutical—straight from the Golden Triangle. This was the kind of gear that Johnny Thunders and Lou Reed wrote songs about.

"OK, now I need a syringe."

The driver shook his head vigorously without taking his eyes off the road.

"Syringe! For injecting!"

"No! Police—I get arrested!"

"Ah shit, there's no police around."

"Yes! You buy needle, they watch, they arrest."

A small bubble of empathy surfaced from my whisky sodden brain and I suddenly felt sorry for the poor bastard, sitting there with his knuckles turning white on the wheel as a drunken maniac made wild, drug-related demands from the backseat.

"All right then, I'll just snort it."

The driver seemed a little happier with this but kept looking around nervously as we drove through the sun-baked, empty streets of Hat-Yai. " _Police, oh, police_. They arrest me, throw in jail." He shook his head ruefully.

"I can't see any goddamn police."

" _Oh...they watch!_ Then arrest—heroin, in jail..."

"Where? Where are they?"

"They wait at train station. I go to jail... you too!" His wide eyes looked back at me in the rear-view mirror.

I felt a pang of paranoia remembering the cops at the train station. "Look, I'll snort it all now so that we can't be arrested, OK?"

"This is better idea."

I stuck a rolled 100 baht note up my nose and lowered my head. I tried my hardest to stay true to my word and stuffed both nostrils to capacity before hiding what was left of the smack in my headband. As we zipped along over hot bitumen, my eyes rolled back into my head.

I'm at the Tuesday afternoon Narcotics Anonymous topic group, all the regulars are here. Vim is slouched on the sofa with drool coming out of his mouth, a side effect of the Interferon injections he is getting for his Hep C. Johnny with his jail muscles, sits sneering at everyone from his chair in the corner. All the newcomers from HOW's rehab are chain smoking White-Ox rollies and managing to look vulnerable and menacing at the same time. I am surprised to see Jaffa sitting across from me, seeing as he hung himself last week. Still, he isn't looking bad for a dead guy. He's wearing a turtleneck sweater to cover up the rope burns and his shaved head makes him look like a big, circumcised cock. Some fuckwit is nodding out next to me; I don't know why anyone would bother to come pinned, as the last place I would want to be high is at an NA meeting. It also fucks with my newfound serenity knowing that he probably has a spare hit on him. The chair is a silly cow from California I think, who never talks about the gear, always her "drug of choice" which usually means weed. I feel like pointing out to her that this is NARCOTICS Anonymous, not HIPPY DRUGS Anonymous.

" _Welcum to the toosday aftanoon St. Jarns group. My name is Marjorie, and ahm an addict," she bleats._

" _Hi Marjorie," everyone answers._

" _We'll start the meeting off with a moment of silence fur the addict who still suffers inside and outside of these rooms."_

Yeah, like the fuckwit nodding out next to me.

" _Tiddays tarpic is spiritual concepts. Marcus, would you lahk to open the meeting?"_

The waste case next to me shifts in his seat and manages to open his eyes. "Ya, fanks, Marjorie (scratches his nose in slow motion) I'm Marcus n I'm an addict, ("Hi Marcus") I sorta fell orf the wagon this morning—got orna summa that filfy gear from up the Golden Triangle, scored it offa this tuktuk driver up the Cross, gives me a gram of uncut Number 4."

Marjorie interrupts. "Ah Marcus, would you mahnd keepin ahn the tarpic?" She knots her brow in concern.

" _Fuck me dead, sorry bout that Marge. Went orf on a bit of a tangent, eh? But y'know I think we're all kiddin' ourselves tryin' ta stay clean and that, it doesn't work, I mean lookit Jaf here." He points across at Jaffa who looks at the floor. "Strings 'isself up tryin' ta stay clean, shoulda just used some of my gear." Marcus looks around the room accusingly, "FUCKIN' OATH, ALL OF YOUSE CUNTS SHOULD JUST USE SOME A THIS GEAR!" he yells before lurching forward to projectile vomit. The HOW's guys react first, pouncing into the vomit and grabbing handfuls of it. It takes me a bit to realise what's going on. Marcus has puked up a stomach full of Number 4. I jump off my seat to join in and we stuff handfuls of the shit into our mouths and up our noses. In the back of my mind I can hear Marjorie: "Okaaaaay guys, if we could jest leave the Number 4 alone for a moment to say the serenity prayer."_

I came to on the floor of the tuktuk where I'd managed to puke all over my face. The driver was trying to drag me out of his vehicle. I tumbled out and collapsed on the ground as he pulled at my arms and legs, trying to think of a better way to move me.

Then the boots appeared. Black steel-caps and pressed trousers. I tried to look up at the faces but caught an eyeful of sunlight. The tuktuk driver was desperately trying to explain; it didn't sound like he was doing a very good job. I really wanted to say something in my defence but couldn't quite articulate my thoughts. Then the driver started squeaking rapidly in Thai; the one word that I picked up was _Mekong_. Then the police were saying it too, holding up my empty bottle for inspection. They all laughed as they lifted me into the back of a police truck.

The cell door was open. I decided it was time to leave and tried to stand but only got halfway before careening headfirst towards the bars. The cop grabbed me before I made contact and lay me back down on the concrete bunk. Then a sphincter tightening thought seized me: _what happened to the smack?_ I rubbed my forehead as if I had a headache, and thankfully I felt a reassuring lump under the headband wrapped tightly around my skull. I chatted awhile with the cop, who seemed quite friendly and asked me all kinds of questions about Australia. I told him what he wanted to hear and left him with the impression that Australia was full of big titted nymphomaniacs that lusted after Asian men. The conversation turned to music and I tried to explain the punk rock thing to him, but there was a cultural divide between us, no reference point in Thai culture to which he could relate. He told me all about the Thai music scene, which sounded incredibly dull. Then I remembered I had my Walkman with me. I pulled it out of my bag, which had been placed under the bed. The tape in the machine was _Leather, Bristles, No Survivors and Sick Boys_ by GBH. He put the earphones on and sat with a concerned look on his face as he listened. He called in another cop who took a turn with the headphones. After he'd had a short listen, they discussed it among themselves.

"This music popular your country?" asked the guy who had been sitting with me.

"I like it."

"Very loud—many screaming."

"I guess."

"Very angry... different to Thai music." He handed me back my Walkman and asked if I wanted some whisky.

"What, in here?" I asked.

"Oh yes, we are _always_ drinking here." He reappeared a minute later with two more cops in tow. They brought in extra chairs and four cups. I lay on the bed propping my head up with my right arm, keeping one eye closed to eliminate feelings of nausea. We leaned forward and clinked our glasses in cheers, the whisky sloshing over the sides of the cups onto the bloodstained cement floor. Whenever my glass became slightly less than full, one of the cops would lean over to fill it up.

We talked and drank and laughed and told dirty jokes for a good hour. At one point I let out a great big whisky fart, which caused them to laugh uproariously and spill their drinks. Then one of them disappeared and came back with another bottle and a tape player. He whacked _Leather, Bristles, No Survivors and Sick Boys_ into the deck and hit "play." They were all heavy drinkers and we drank the whisky neat. About then, I decided that it was probably a very good idea to get rid of the smack in my headband. Even though they were drinking whisky and listening to GBH, they were still cops and heroin was still heroin.

I walked out of a corridor containing four holding cells. The top floor of the station consisted of a large main room filled with desks, old-fashioned typewriters, and phones. A ceiling fan blew papers off the desks as I walked through the abandoned room. The police station reminded me of an old school classroom, all wooden and sunny as if stuck in eternal afternoon. I tried to roll up a note in the toilet but just couldn't get it right; I kept going cross-eyed, so I stuffed the fold up to my nose and snorted the shit straight up. I puked the second the junk hit the back of my throat and completely missed the bowl. I used the toe of my shoe to move bits of banana behind the toilet, trying hard to remember when I'd eaten it. Back in the jail cell, one of the cops was singing along with the music into an imaginary microphone, his whisky spilling everywhere as the others clapped and laughed at his performance. I laughed and joined in.

Here they come, walking down the street

Big and bouncy, look so neat

I like them best between the sheets

Big women give me a... TREAT!

I sang along to the tape, doing my bit for cross-cultural relations and all that. After another bottle of whisky and some of the worst karaoke I have ever heard, I finally remembered the train to Bangkok. I pulled out the ticket stub. "The train!" I shouted jumping up. "I've missed the fuckin' train!"

"What wrong, my fren?" asked the karaoke cop, sweat running down his face.

"Bangkok, four o'clock! I've missed the train!"

The senior cop, Lek, grabbed the ticket and started yelling in Thai, ordering the others into action. They put down their drinks, cleaned up the cell, then ran into the front room and started slamming windows shut. I was having trouble standing again and kept banging into the walls, so Lek ordered me to stay on the bed. When they had cleaned up the station, the four of them came back into the cell and grabbed me by an arm or a leg. They lifted me up with my duffel bag on my stomach and ran down the stairs. Out in the street, they threw me in the back of a police van. The siren and lights started up and we took off. The driver, Bang, was truly amazing. He was as drunk as the rest of us and ran red lights at high speed, dodging and weaving like a pro. We reached the station in record time and my Thai cop pals jumped into action, one on each leg and one on each arm. They ran with me to the ticket counter as if we were on a life or death mission. Propping me up against the wall of the ticket office, they yelled and screamed at the lady behind the counter until she relented and gave them another ticket at no charge. Ironically, it turned out that the train wasn't due for more than an hour, so Lek wandered off and bought another bottle of Mekong.

We spent the time screaming abuse at passers-by and getting indecently drunk. Whenever a western traveller walked past, I would whisper an English swearword in Bang's ear, who would then yell it out at them. When a Thai walked by, Bang would whisper something similar in Thai to me and I would scream it out. When people realised that it was drunken cops doing the yelling they walked faster. After telling them the stock standards, I got a bit inventive.

"Your buttocks are inexcusable!" snarled Lek at a perplexed backpacker with a Canadian flag sewn onto his bag.

The train pulled into the station just before nightfall, and with much backslapping, handshakes, and hits from the bottle, we said goodbye. I found a window seat and waved goodbye to my new friends. The train slowly left the station and started for Bangkok. I watched as the sun set over Hat-Yai, drawing out the shadows and turning the buildings red. Before long I was asleep.

I woke as the train reached the outskirts of Bangkok in the chill of early dawn. The sky was the colour of wine. The air was cold and misty but the still city reeked of over-ripe durian fruit. I watched shacks pass by with the vacuity that comes with a hangover and the lethargy that follows a smack binge.

The train passed over a dirty river with white washing strung up next to it. Kids in a park laughed and played with a foot bag. Fragments of Thai conversation drifted towards me but the wind snatched them away. A lone rooster crowed as we passed more run-down shacks. Then I remembered Hat-Yai and cursed myself for being so careless on my first day in Thailand. It was a miracle I hadn't been arrested. As the train advanced through the outskirts of the city in the semi-dark, I realized that I had learnt a very important lesson: that drinking Mekong neat and in large quantities endeared one to the local constabulary. I took an appreciative sip from the jug at my side and abruptly retched out the window.

Then, as dawn truly broke over Bangkok and the train shunted towards its dirty heart, I thanked my lucky stars and screwed the cap back on the bottle.

## ***

# Chapter 2 - Welcome to Bangkok

The morning was holding out against the sticky heat that fairly smothers Bangkok by noon, yet the air was already heavy and wet, cut through with the smell of rotting fruit. Apart from several Thai women who laughed in a carefree manner as they set up stalls, Koh-Sahn road was empty. Mange-ridden dogs meandered aimlessly around the quiet street, stealing furtive glances at the food stalls as the sun struggled through a thick layer of smog.

The strap of my duffel bag cut into my shoulder as I walked down the street inhaling damp air that hinted at a wild promise. I knew from previous visits that Poor Bastards guesthouse, otherwise known as PB's, was roughly halfway down, so I walked on hoping it would be open. I banged on the big wooden door, upsetting the dew that had settled during the night. When no one answered, I resigned myself to a wait and sat down on the damp kerb. I let a blob of spit fall from my mouth and, as the ancient street absorbed it, made a silent vow to keep off the junk.

The Thai women yelled to each other and laughed at a private joke as they pumped gas fires for stalls that sold corn on the cob and chicken satays.

"Hey man, is this place open?"

An awkward looking guy with an American accent and a huge backpack stood behind me pointing at PB's.

"Not yet, give it an hour or so."

"An hour? _Damn!_ I can't wait that long!" He started to bang on the door relentlessly. I turned and looked back out at the street. The American stood there in his socks and sandals and pounded away.

"Look, I knocked on the fucking thing earlier, there's no one awake yet!"

He didn't pay me any heed and kept banging. Then, to our surprise, the doors swung open and a squat, angry looking Thai woman wrapped in a nightgown peered out at us.

"What you want? Making the noise—I sleeping!" She smoothed her jet-black hair with a hand that looked like a chicken's foot with fake fingernails.

The American enunciated slowly and deliberately as if speaking to a simpleton. "I'm sorry, but I need a place to stay. This is a guesthouse, isn't it?"

"You want room?"

"Yes, do you have any?"

"Only dormitory."

"How much for a night?"

She got in close and whispered something in his ear.

"What's that?" he asked.

She turned her attention to me. "You want room?"

"Yeah," I got up and brushed off the seat of my jeans.

"What was that, drugs? You tryin' to sell me dope?" The American went from puzzled to indignant in a flash.

"You want dormitory room?" she asked me again.

"Yeah, dormitory's fine."

Then she got up close, a sly smile exposing her gold teeth. "You want smack?" Her sour breath stunk of age and rot.

"Yeah, sure."

"OK, come. _You_ have room." She took me by the arm and pulled me into the cool darkness of PB's.

The American stood in the doorway with his palms turned up. "Hey, what's goin' on here, how come he gets the room?"

The landlady pushed him away and slammed the door in his face. I followed her up the stairs and couldn't help but notice the size of her arse—it was enormous and misshapen, like two big sacks of potatoes straining for release. The American resumed his banging. She told me to wait on the balcony as the bed wasn't yet ready.

I walked out onto the balcony and sat down with my back against a large plant pot filled with garbage. A barrage of yelling and loud protestations came from the direction of the dorm and I was sure one of the voices was that of my new acquaintance. I sat and reminisced about previous visits, when I had spent many humidity-soaked nights on the balcony. As the sun dipped behind the skyscrapers of the financial district and shadows reclaimed the alleyways of Bangkok, the denizens of PB's were drawn from their bedrooms to the balcony. A single, naked light bulb suspended from a wire lit the deck. It bided its time, competing with the dirty grey of dusk until that moment of darkness when it would live again. By the time night fell, people of all nationalities filled the balcony selling wares spread out on rags in front of them. Precious stones were most common, while some specialised in fake Rolexes and others in hash from Nepal or sheets of LSD from Amsterdam. As bugs and moths butted into the bulb, I listened to stories from gem sellers who claimed to have met Charles Sobrhaj when he was operating out of the Malaysia Hotel. It was a place where you could arrange to buy or sell a passport, a place where you could vanish or be born again under a different name. I was young and crazy and, for the first time in my life, felt as if I belonged somewhere. Those days and people were long gone now and the balcony had fallen into neglect. The wire that once held the light now hung limp and bulb less, nudged occasionally by the morning breeze. Planks were missing from the floor and the railings had fallen into the rat-infested garbage pit below.

I was remembering a drunken Israeli who had toppled from the balcony when the sound of a slamming door startled me. A female voice barked something vicious in Thai and then things went quiet again. Eventually, the woman re-appeared dressed in a black pyjama type out-fit that bore a startling resemblance to the uniforms of the Khmer Rouge.

"OK, room ready for you," smiled Mama-San through betel nut rotted teeth.

As I walked past her, she pressed a cut-off straw with both ends heat-sealed into my hand. "Here, for you. 100 baht," she smiled.

The dorm had a damp wood ceiling and smelt strongly of mould. Someone had hung faded red shawls over the wooden shutters. There was no electric light, just a few kerosene lamps burning on bedside tables that added to the stagnant smell. I sat down on my bed and dropped my duffel bag on the floor, still holding the straw tightly in my sweaty palm.

"Still warm," said a skinny, tanned guy who had been watching me with sneaky eyes from where he lay on his bed.

"What is?"

"Your bed, still warm from the last guy."

"He just moved out did he?"

"Moved out? The old bitch just fuckin' threw him out five minutes ago!" He sat up on the edge of his bed and took a vicious drag on his cigarette. It was hard not to notice the track marks on the top of his left arm.

"I had no idea."

"Well don't worry about it; he was a fucking asshole anyway."

I shrugged, then bit the end off the straw and looked inside.

"Didja get that off Mama-San?"

"Mama-San? Yeah, is it safe to do it here?"

"As long as you're scoring off her it's safe."

"Hey, have you got a spare rig?"

"Of course."

I pull the needle out and throw my head back, mouth open, eyes half-mast. I am getting higher and higher, veins pumping pure liquid gold, blackness invading my field of vision. I sense a precipice looming in the dark; I am rushing to an overdose. Then I hit a plateau and my body turns to warm jelly as I fall backwards onto the bed. Mama-San definitely sells some good shit.

My neighbour laughs and says, "Welcome to Bangkok."

I gaze serenely from my golden bubble; the dormitory makes perfect sense now. The red shawls diffuse any light that manages to sneak in through the shutters and the dim light of the lamps makes it feel like a mouldy, opiate womb. I inhale the damp air and let it fill my nostrils. It reeks of South East Asia, of tropical fruit and gasoline fumes, of joss sticks and garbage, of electricity and piss. My thoughts swim gently in ambrosia and warm honey as my eyelids flutter in ecstasy.

Three minutes later, I was just another foreign junky in Bangkok, lying on a bed in a dorm that stunk of piss and addiction.

My neighbour was trying hard to find a vein. His head looked as if someone had stretched tanned skin over a skull and popped a couple of boiled eggs into the eye sockets. He clenched a cigarette, with ash a centimetre long, between his teeth as he dug around with grim determination. Then he relaxed and the tension drained from his face. He untied the tourniquet and fell back against the wall, not noticing when the ash fell onto his chest. He lit another smoke from his old one and flicked the butt to the ground.

"My name is Olly. I am from Sweden and I have been here the longest of all," he said as he reached over his shoulder and scratched his back.

"I'm Dean."

"What are you doing in Bangkok, Dean?"

"I'm passing through, on my way to India."

"Passing through? You have come to the wrong guest house, my friend!"

I said nothing and he continued.

"I came here for one week, one fucking week! I had enough money save to travel for a year. I was going to meet my girl in Nepal, go trekking—you know, all that shit. I been in this fucking place seven months now. My girl is fucking with her new boyfriend back in Sweden when I should be fucking her in Nepal. We were going to be married, you know?"

"Seven months in Bangkok?"

"No fucking Bangkok. Seven months here, in this bed, right here!" He gave the bed a half-hearted thump for dramatic effect then glanced around the dorm. It looked as if he was going to spit but changed his mind and swallowed it. Then his countenance turned nasty and he screwed up his face.

"That old bitch, _Mama-San_ ," he hissed, "she is ... how you say in English— _a cunt!_ " His dark eyes flashed hate. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, his face relaxed once more and he fell back onto his bed.

## ***

# Chapter 3 - Mama-San and the Smack Heads

As morning turned secretly to afternoon, the increasing heat causing the weary wooden walls of the dorm to sweat and buckle. The dorm muted the ever present cacophony of Bangkok traffic and only an occasional car horn managed to knife through the fugue. Life itself seemed to be muted. The others who slept in the dorm slowly began to stir, sitting on the ends of their beds smoking cigarettes and talking in low voices.

On the bed next to mine was Jonathan, a student from England with a rounded upper class accent that seemed completely at odds with his present environment. He offered me a cigarette from a crumpled pack of Krong-Thips as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with nicotine stained fingers.

"You know," he said yawning, "I wrote a thesis on the Thai Royal Family and got an A for it, so my parents rewarded me with a trip to Thailand when I finished school. Have you been past the Royal Palace?" He didn't wait for my answer and started rooting around in his bag on the floor. As he pulled out a sheath of Polaroids I couldn't help but notice several empty vials in his bag. He pointed at a few things in the pictures then abruptly lost interest, stood up and walked off in the direction of the toilet. I tossed the pictures onto his bed; they were of no interest to me.

"See that guy?" Olly snorted after him.

"What about him?"

"Rich kid. He's been here almost as long as me—his parents keep sending him money."

"Lucky bloke."

"He thinks he better than all of us because he snorting; didn't even smoke ganja before he came here. Mama-San take care of that! She loves him—an unlimited supply."

I lay on my bed and quietly murdered the day. In the back of my mind was the dim awareness that outside life went on. People falling in love, being born, getting married and dying. Planes landing and taking off, traffic lights turning green, orange and red, oceans ebbing and flowing, sunsets and sunrises, full moons and eclipses; the timeless dance went on and on and on as I lay there out of it, but somehow a part of it, all in a skag-like synchronicity.

During the day, I met some of the others in the dorm. Andre was an emaciated junky from Wisconsin with a shaved head and a suck-lemon face. The track marks on his left arm had turned into horribly infected tropical ulcers that eroded any sense of dignity or pride he had left. Olly told me that he sat out on Koh-Sahn every day holding out a sign that read: "Stuck in Bangkok—need money for fare home. Please help."

The only couple, Jim and Louise from France, shared a bed opposite me. Despite the ravages of addiction, Louise was still haunted by the ghost of elegance. Her green eyes sparked out of her olive face and she always seemed on the verge of tears, mourning her innocence and dreams. Jim's countenance was in complete contrast and his dark face was permanently distorted by a scowl, accentuated by his thick Mediterranean eyebrows. Again, it was Olly who told me that Louise had long ago sold her passport to Mama-San and that Jim was just as dependent on her as she was on smack. There were a few others who stayed in the dorm. These grey skinned wraiths of chronic long-term addiction avoided contact of any kind and existed only in measurements: two-and-a-half straws a day, two vials a week.

After everyone had taken a shot, we sat around Olly's bed talking shit.

"Buy an ounce of pure stuff up at Chang Rai, bring it down south and cut it double. You can support a habit that way indefinitely."

"Old Chinese flu."

"We got onto some etorphine, that's the shit they use in darts to knock out elephants. Three thousand times more powerful than morph—one prick from the dart on your finger and you're blue in seconds."

"Duo-Globe."

"Got arrested at the airport, he's still in the Bangkok Hilton."

"Cotton fever."

"Useta bring the shit over from Laos."

"Cooked up home bake from morph, any idiot could do it."

"20 years."

"Number Four."

"Methadone—it's the Fuhrer of opiates, invented by the Nazis, originally called Adolfine, y'know after Hitler. Now they just call it dolophine."

"Yen pox."

A small bird flew into the dorm and butted the walls frantically in an attempt to escape as its shrill song rang like a heavenly bell. We watched Louise in an entranced silence as she tried to guide the bird out with her pillow. _"Oh no leetle bird, you must be free. Fly out of here, go on!"_ The bird found the doorway and let out one last trill as it flew into the bright nothingness outside. Abruptly the conversation turned to Mama-San.

"She's got millions stashed away somewhere down-stairs, doesn't wanna pay tax on it, see? This Kraut who useta stay here knew where it was. He disappeared."

"Daughter married a junky."

"Apparently she used to be one of the most beautiful women in Bangkok, got raped by a _farang_. She's been taking her revenge ever since."

"A lesbian."

"A whore from Patpong."

"He ran out of money, spent over ten grand on her smack. Soon as he runs out of money, she gives him a vial on the house. Ten minutes later, the cops are at the foot of his bed, knew exactly where the H was."

"Her daughter is some sort of horrible looking freak, keeps her in a cage downstairs somewhere."

"AIDS."

"She's not a lesbian and never had a daughter."

"Father was a junky."

We talked about the only things we had in common, our addiction and our hatred of Mama-San. As the junk high wore down, the conversation cooled and people began to drift back to their beds to smoke Krong-Thips and contemplate the ceiling.

## ***

# Chapter 4 - Addict of Metropolis

During the afternoons when the heat of the day had cooled, I took to wandering the streets of Bangkok. Often, I would join a crowd waiting at a bus stop and get on the first bus that came along without knowing its destination and ride it to the end. In this way, I found bustling markets, menacing bars, middleclass suburbs, and rundown slums. I liked to shoot up in public places, and would constantly have my eye out for strange and interesting places to sort out a hit. The danger of being busted added to the thrill.

The Klongs that criss-crossed the city offered more opportunity for exploration. I would jump on one of the long, slender taxi boats and pour whisky down my throat with gusto as we bobbed and weaved through the narrow, pollution-filled canals.

One afternoon I stumbled upon a video game arcade. It took up the entire top floor of a high-rise building, and thanks to the exchange rate I could play for hours on what worked out to be a mere pittance. The games in the arcade were from the 1980's; the exact games that I had grown up on and mastered. School children crowded around me and watched in wonder as I blasted my way through level after level with uncanny skill. They were less impressed however by my frequent vomiting spells.

On the floor below the video game parlour was a food court with several bars and coffee shops. The Golden Supermarket commanded an excellent view and I would look down on Bangkok as if from the top of a mountain, shaking my head softly while thinking about the poor, unfortunate junkys stuck back at PB's. For I considered myself a dope fiend rather than a junky and despite the ominous signs, still felt I could stop any time.

One morning, I awoke to the buzzing of a fly stuck on one of Mama-San's many sticky traps hanging from the ceiling. I looked over to see Olly digging away in his arm with a hypodermic. All his veins were gone, hiding deep under his skin, away from that insidious, probing needle. Mama-San came in like she did every morning, dressed in her sinister black outfit and started handing out dope like a priest passing communion to the faithful. I lay back on my bed and watched the fly struggling in the trap, trying to get its legs out of the sticky muck, its buzz replaced by a high pitched whine. Three weeks had come and gone and my traveller's cheques were running dangerously low. Over in the corner, Andre pleaded with Mama-San in a low voice.

"Just until this afternoon, Mama-San, you know me? I always pay."

"I need money now."

"Ah, come on, Mama-San, you know me, I give you lots of business. Mama-San? Just one straw, one straw."

The fly's wings were hopelessly stuck and it stopped struggling.

"No money, no smack!"

"Please, Mama-San, please."

"No." A playful smile rippled across her lips as she turned away.

" _YOU FAT ASSED FUCKIN' BITCH! WHAT'S A FUCKIN' STRAW TO YOU?"_ Andre shouted at Mama-San's back before storming from the room, cardboard sign shoved under his left arm.

Mama-San walked over and stood next to me. She opened her hand; it was full of one-gram straws. She was grinning, having a fine time. "How many you wan' today?" she asked in a maternal voice.

"No thanks."

She moved her hand closer. I ignored it and went back to watching the fly. She let out a small, mocking laugh and made her way over to Jonathan who was lying on his bed playing Game Boy as usual. Olly was watching me from his bed with his unblinking, boiled egg eyes. I got up and walked out.

Out in the street I bought a bag of diced pineapple and a bottle of Mekong. I could see Andre sitting forlornly on the corner with his back against a pole holding up his cardboard sign. I walked over.

"It's upside down."

He looked up, annoyed."What?"

"Your sign, it's upside down."

He flipped the piece of cardboard without looking as I sat down next to him. He rejected my offer of pineapple but grabbed at the bottle of Mekong greedily.

"I want to kill that old bitch!" he spat as he wiped his mouth and handed me back the bottle. "I've given her thousands! Fuckin' thousands! And she won't even give me a loan for a few lousy hours!"

"Yeah, I heard that."

"She knows I'll get the money, I always do. It's all a fuckin' game to her! She's addicted to it: it's her drug; treating us like shit, playing her power games. Why do people have to be that way, man?"

"I dunno—they just are. Like you said, it's a drug to them."

"She loves it, the bitch loves it." He fell silent for a moment, his mind ticking over. I knew what he was thinking. "Couldja loan me a half straw?" He pleaded with his eyes. I knew the look, knew how it felt, "I'll pay you back man, you know I'm good for it!"

"I didn't score."

"Ah, come on! I just need a little, just somethin' to take the edge off. I'm good for it. You know I am."

"I'm serious, I didn't score."

"You don't have to fuckin' lie, just say you don't want to give me any—I'll understand, man! Fuck." He looked back out to the street shaking his head.

"I didn't score just to spite the bitch."

"Well, don't do it on my account, it's not helping me none."

"Don't worry; it wasn't for you, more just the principle of the thing. I've gotta quit anyway, I'm almost broke."

Andre was about to take a drink but laughed instead. "Hey! I'll make you a sign."

Andre had chosen a good vantage point and we drank and watched the world pass by. Young backpackers with healthy tans and white smiles walked past, light and easy in their step. They all seemed to have places to go to, things to do and friends to visit. The girls glowed in the bloom of youth as they laughed their way through life. I wanted to capture their essence, distil it and stick it in the mainline, rejuvenate my junk-compromised cells and clean out all the filth and sickness. Maybe then I could enjoy life as they seemed to. I could take elephant safaris up north, visit the Royal Palace, the bridge over the River Kwai, kickboxing at Lumpini Stadium, scuba diving on Koh Phi Phi. Hell, I didn't even know why I was in Bangkok.

Every once in awhile Andre would call out, "Help out a fellow traveller down on his luck?"

Watery snot began to pour from my nose.

"Feeling sick?" asked Andre.

"Yep."

"Me too."

"Doesn't seem like much of an earner."

"It comes in spurts, sometimes I'll sit here for three hours, not one baht. Then, in ten minutes, I'll have two hundred baht. It's like fishing, man, 'cept at least here I get to check out the talent." He let out a wolf whistle as two blonde backpackers strolled past.

Half an hour later, Andre still hadn't made any cash. He turned to me. "You're bad luck man—you gotta go."

I got up and walked off in the direction of the Golden Supermarket, the whisky loosening my step and taking the edge off the turkey. I walked past a cop station with a smashed car in front of it, dried gore still caked on the windscreen. I kept on walking, through a clothes market bulging with pirated garments as sweat beaded on my forehead and ran stinging into my eyes. Pushing open the doors of the Golden Supermarket, I stepped into its cool embrace. I walked up the stairs to the food court, bought a coffee, and secured a window seat. I took a sip and looked out over Bangkok. A few kilometres away, a column of thick black smoke rose from the sprawl. The wind had caused the column to bend to the east; it looked like an entire building had gone up in flames. I was sure there was a riot of sirens and commotion down there but up in the Golden Supermarket all was silent, bar the humming of air conditioners.

A tidal wave of depression came out of nowhere and knocked the legs out from under my self-esteem in one breezy blow. Junk sickness was coming on like a freight train. I swigged down more whisky, tipping the bottle until it was vertical. I swallowed too much and it coursed out of my nose, causing me to dry retch. Without an opiate buffer, my situation was hard to deny: _smack habit, running out of traveller's cheques, no return ticket._ A dope-deprived devil foetus twisted in my stomach and emanated corroding rays of fear. I had fucked up once again. I let out a small, bitter laugh when I remembered my plans to stay in Bangkok for two days. Hell, I didn't even have a travel plan, just a few half-formed notions and the vague idea that I would be in Goa, India for the legendary New Years Eve party.

I'd heard stories about Goa over the years and, as other dreams crumbled and died when exposed to the corrosive light of reality, it alone remained. Goa won by default: it became my goal in life to get there, no matter what. As I sat there, I attempted to conjure up my old enthusiasm—the gung-ho hedonism that had propelled me this far. The words of long forgotten travellers met at long dead parties came back to me.

" _Even in winter its warm enough to sleep on the beach, don't have to waste money on a bungalow."_

" _They make liquid acid for the parties, put it in the punch."_

" _Five tabs of acid in one go."_

" _The parties go on for days; they have them in the jungle, on the beach, wherever they can set up a sound system."_

" _It was like she was in heat. We fucked five times a day, my dick was raw."_

" _A party every night during the high-season."_

" _I was so fucking high I forgot how to speak English for a few days."_

" _Every type of drug you can imagine in whatever quantity you want for next to nothing."_

It seemed a flimsy pretext to fly halfway around the world for, but it beat the hell out of the 40-hour week or whatever in hell it was that a young man like me was supposed to be doing with his life. Sitting there with whisky dribbling from my nose, I saw it for what it was: a shortcut to another dead end. Even if I did make it to Goa, I was still taking my mind with me, the same mind that got me back on the gear. Bangkok was full of people like me with nowhere to go and all bridges burned. The city was a magnet for fuckups.

A sudden fear crept up my spine. _I was never going to leave Bangkok._ I would end up on one of those TV shows about western junkys languishing in foreign jails. I became convinced that people were talking about me, whispering and pointing. I went to take a sip of coffee but my grip slipped and it spilled everywhere. I tried to mop it up with a napkin and knocked the glass sugar holder onto the ground. It smashed loudly. I got up and made for the stairs.

The short climb to the video arcade utterly exhausted me. I felt as if I was going to pass out. I sat down at a Double Dragon game and dropped in a coin. A reassuring electronic melody strained from the depths of the machine. I let the blur of colours massage my eyes but couldn't concentrate on playing, just moved the joystick around absentmindedly.

I thought about heading back to PB's, back to Mama-San and her fistful of straws. There was no struggling with the craving; my willpower had been crushed to oblivion. Doing H again was just giving in to a craving that was way beyond my mental control, like giving in to the gravity of a centrifugal force; its law was solid, set in stone. I stopped playing and watched as my character was punched, kicked, and head butted. He went down and lost one bar of life, got up again and the beating resumed. I had to get out of Bangkok. If I stayed at PB's all my money would soon be gone and then what? I dropped another coin into the game and decided to risk it in India. If I could make it to Delhi, I might have some more money waiting. I had given a friend in Australia my bank card and PIN number and asked him to send my next dole cheque to me _Poste Restante_ at the main GPO in Delhi, just as a failsafe measure. It was highly likely that he'd blown the lot but even if he had I could still head down to Goa cheaply. Better to be broke on a beach in Goa than Bangkok I figured.

Out on the street again, I had to marshal my resources not to run back to PB's as fast as my legs would carry me. I checked out a few of the travel agents along Koh-Sahn and found a place that offered a one-way fare to Calcutta for ninety American dollars. I had no time to shop around and bought it. Because it was cheap, there was a catch: the flight was in ten days. The thought of spending even another day in the dormitory filled me with dread, so I also picked up a train ticket to Surithani in the south. Once there I could head to an island for a week. Visions of sitting on the beach sipping cocktails with girls in polka-dot bikinis flashed through my head as I marched double time back to PB's. The bullshit my mind could conjure up never ceased to amaze me.

## ***

# Chapter 5 - Slow Burn in the Fast Lane

As early evening bled into night, I decided to check out the nightlife in Bangkok and before long ended up at the Patpong night market. Clothing booths and noodle vendors cluttered the sidewalks and people congested the narrow thoroughfares. I bought a chicken satay and licked off the peanut sauce as I walked aimlessly. The smell of diesel fumes and garbage filled the night air. Moth's kamikazied the neon signs of the sex clubs that lit the streets like a gaudy nocturnal playground. Groups of drunken _farang_ stumbled from club to club, bumping into each other, laughing and spilling their drinks. With pornographic intent painted on their fat, well-fed faces, they spewed an endless stream of curses and laughter. Everything in Patpong seemed to ooze sleazy sex, as if it had permeated the very atoms of the place. A sticky humidity soaked my skin and a sickly sweet smell akin to decaying flowers filled my nostrils.

After taking a much-needed piss in an alley, I found my exit blocked by a dwarf. He thrust a sign in front of my face, blocking my view. I went to sidestep him but he moved to block me again, the sign bouncing off my nose. He let out a machine gun burst of sexual practices in a high-pitched voice. There were pictures of people fucking in various positions glued to the sign. Someone had attempted English captions but they didn't make much sense: "How's them apples?" asked one beneath a photograph of two naked girls kissing. "I need now the fucking time," declared another below a close-up picture of a pussy so hairy that at first I couldn't recognize what in hell it was. I pushed the sign away and walked on but the dwarf was insistent.

"Patpong-pingpong! Patpong-pingpong!" he yelped excitedly as he tugged at my arm. I pushed him off and kept walking. He jumped in front of me again and the game continued. In the end I had nothing better to do, so I followed him up a flight of stairs past two bouncers with scarred faces and numb eyes.

The club was cold with air-conditioning, a shock after the sticky humidity of Bangkok. Inside, it was dark with flashing lights and mirrors everywhere. In the middle of the room on a raised platform, several naked women danced slowly: hard-bodied angels with dead eyes. A small group of middle-aged, German speaking men sat around the stage on bar stools. One of them paid a girl to give him head as he sat there smiling like a simpleton. His friends watched and laughed and cheered him on. They seemed to be drunk out of their minds, consuming beer, whisky, and women with a bacchanalian abandon.

The girls on stage went through the motions with a look of utter boredom, the hate that sparkled in their eyes accentuated by half-hidden contempt. I guessed the Germans were too drunk to notice, or more likely they just didn't give a fuck. Then the music suddenly cut out and a voice with a strangely affected American accent came over the PA.

"And now lady an' gentleman, _Patpong ping-pongggg._ "

A depressed looking woman sauntered onto the stage, inserted a few ping-pong balls into her cunt, then leaned backwards on her haunches and shot them at the Krauts, who tossed them to each other and sniffed delightedly. I noticed that several of them had golden wedding bands on their fat, pink fingers.

"And now, time for _pussy razor-blaaaaaade_ ," again the MC trailed off dramatically. Too much American TV, I figured. Another girl came out and put a string of about twenty razor blades up her cunt before squatting to pull them out slowly.

" _Pussy cigareeete!_ " Another girl walked onto the stage, took a cigarette from one of the Germans and smoked it with her cunt. After a few puffs, she handed it back to the Kraut, who finished it with a flourish. Between acts, the sour-faced girls stood around at the side of the stage sucking on Marlboros and drinking orange juice. The uninspired shows went on for some time without much variation. Then there was an announcement for the _Live Lesbian Showwww._ Two girls came out, got on the floor and went through just about every conceivable position like automatons. They licked and fingered each other with a combined expression of disgust and boredom. It depressed the hell out of me, like watching bodies being pulled from an automobile wreck and, just like a car wreck, I felt compelled to watch. Then it was time for the _Live Fucking Showwwwwww!_ The anticipation was killing me. A tired-looking woman and a fucked-up looking man walked onto the stage. They had a short argument and then started fucking in the missionary position with all the zeal and panache of two corpses. I started talking to the barmaid, who had noticed that I kept sending the working girls away when they walked up to me with a big smile to ask, "You buy me dring?" They were all naked except for black miniskirts with numbered plastic discs hanging in front. As they sat on my lap, the black material hitched up, exposing their bushes which they encouraged me to touch by placing my hand on them. As soon as I said, "No cash," the smiles disappeared, the mini dresses went down and they swaggered away on their high heels to the next person.

"What wrong wit you, no want woman," the barmaid asked me.

"I just came to watch the show."

"You don't want fuck-eng?"

"No fucking, just the show."

"They suck you cock right here very cheap—good suck!"

"Yeah, I'm sure they do."

The barmaid looked at me sideways, took a drag on her cigarette. "You faggot?"

"No, I'm not a faggot."

"We ha boy too, you wan fuck-eng wit da boy?"

"No boys. I'm not a faggot—I just want to watch the show."

She looked at me, shrugged and took another drag on her cigarette, sizing me up. "OK, you watch show."

We talked for a while. It turned out she used to work the stage when she was younger and now she owned the bar. Her facial skin was tough, like rouged leather and her thickly painted lips defaulted naturally to a sneer. Every time she sipped at her drink with a straw, the large gold hoops in her ears clinked against the glass. She told me that the orange juice the girls were drinking had captagon in it, a synthetic speed with a tendency to send its users insane. Better for business, she explained - kept them up all night.

I was bored shitless, which surprised me as there were naked women everywhere, but it was the wrong kind of naked. My new "friend" surveyed the inebriated patrons without expression as she tapped her cigarette in an exaggerated fashion into the almost full ashtray. A large, fake, red nail pointed at my ashtray.

"If you not my fren', you pay 100 baht to use ashtray."

"For an ashtray? But I don't smoke!"

Her sneer briefly morphed into a grin. "For ashtray, and for peanuts, and for..." She picked up a small round coaster and started waving it, stuck on the word.

"Coaster?"

"Yes, whole bill, you one beer 500 baht."

"Ah shit, I don't have 500 baht!" I said remembering the bouncers at the entrance.

She smiled again. "It OK, you my friend, no need to worry. You nice boy." She patted my arm.

The guy on stage in the _Live Fucking Showwww!_ Wasn't performing very well. He was only semi-erect and was having difficulty fucking the woman on her hands and knees. You could see his track marks clearly and he was having problems keeping his eyes open, nodding off as he tried to hand-feed his dick into his female co-star. The barmaid was pissed off.

"Ah dis man, he no good—cannot kee stiff!" She stuck her pinkie with its large red nail in the air.

"He's nodding off."

"He no good—I fire bastid! He shoo-ting heroin."

"Maybe if he drank some of that orange juice."

"He fuck-eng junky, no-stiff dick, no fuck-eng good!" She slapped the bar.

The flaccid-cocked junky slunk from the stage and the barmaid yelled something after him. I asked her if it was okay if I lit up a joint. She explained that there could be undercover cops in the bar, as a patron had overdosed recently, and asked me to smoke in the toilet.

I walked into the toilet and opened a small window that looked out onto a row of brothel rooftops. I lit up and blew smoke out the window, ready to flick the joint if anyone came in. A big cat was creeping around down there, a mangled old tom that silently swaggered along. It padded quietly to the edge of the roof and lay down as it studied its nighttime domain, a creature controlled by instinct rather than free will, that double-edged sword. I heard a groan from one of the toilet stalls and ignored it, figuring it was one of the Krauts with a girl. I started to serenade them with a few lines from 'Love is in the Air,' with true feeling when the cubicle door flew open and out staggered "Mr. Live Fucking Show" with his head thrown back and his mouth open. Dug into the crook of his left arm was a syringe. He stumbled and tried to right himself but his legs popped out from under him and he fell into the washbasin. His head took the full impact of the fall and made a fleshy _clunk_ that chilled my spine. The fall pushed the syringe deeper into his arm and the vein must have torn because his elbow quickly turned red. I took one last drag and flicked the joint out the window as his unconscious body went into convulsions.

"You smo dat quick," said the barmaid as I ran up to the bar.

"The guy from the show, he's fucked!"

"Show?"

"Live Fucking, no stiff dick!" I stuck my pinkie finger in the air.

"He better no fucking OD in my club—I kill bastid!"

"He might have beaten you to it."

The barmaid shoved open the toilet door and stood there with her hands on her hips, cigarette clenched between her teeth as she yelled and screamed at the still-twitching Mr. Live Fucking Show. Then, when he didn't respond, she took it personally and laid into him with the heels of her little red pumps. I tried to stop her but she was in a rage, spitting and swearing as she kicked. The bouncers appeared and everyone stopped speaking English. I quickly took off without paying my bar tab.

Outside, a hustler with wide eyes came up beside me.

"Hey man, you wan' to see good club?"

"Just came from one."

"Ah, better than other clubs in Patpong, ve'y clean, ve'y sexy wo-man, they _good fuck_ cheap!"

"No thanks," I kept walking; I had a hit waiting for me back at PB's.

"Live lessian and fuck-eng show, you li' pussy? They got good pussy man, juicy pussy!" He came up and put his arm around my shoulders like he was a regular pal, lowering his voice like a car salesman making his pitch. "They ha' best live fucking show my friend. I wan' for you to see this when you in Bangkok."

"They have a live fucking show?"

"Yes! Ve'y good, you watch fuck-eng for free." He thrust his hips a few times.

"Can the guy keep his dick stiff?"

"Kee dick stiff? What you mean, man? Kee dick stiff?"

I jumped under the bars of the sidewalk barrier and crossed the road.

## ***

# Chapter 6 - 600 Micrograms

Early the next morning I went downstairs to see Mama-San who was busy at her other job, selling fake press passes and universal student cards to travellers. I bought a ten gram vial from her and she smiled warmly at me.

"You good boy, I hope you staying long time!" Mama-San said and then she got up close. "These other boy, no good! Lie all the time—you good boy!" Her lips brushed against my ear and her breath stunk like a dead cat.

Upstairs, I took a shot, packed my bag and had a last look around the dorm. It was like a pond that had been cut off from the river of life and gone stagnant. Everyone was asleep, temporarily freed from their addictions. Before leaving, I walked over and gave Olly a shake.

"Wha?"

"Olly, I'm leaving."

He opened his eyes a slit and looked at me. "You are going?"

"Yep, fuck this place," I stuck out my hand.

He closed his eyes. "Good luck, my friend."

Yeah, good luck, you boiled egg-eyed junky, you're gonna need it.

I ran to the departure platform with my third-class ticket clenched between my teeth and boarded just before the conductor started screeching on his whistle. I tried to sneak my way into second-class but an inspector got wise and sent me back to third. I sat down and started to flip through a Thai newspaper, checking out the pictures and occasionally sticking my face near the bars on the windows and inhaling the spicy night air as we sped along. The only time I actually felt as if I belonged some-where was when I was in-between places, like a runner who had forgotten the race but kept going because there was nothing better to do.

I pulled a bottle of Mekong out of my bag, uncapped it and took a swig. Andre had once told me that Mekong wasn't real whisky, that it was brewed in a day with no curing or distilling, just alcohol with whisky flavouring added, which judging by the taste may have been true, but for 50 baht a bottle I wasn't complaining. I pulled out my Walkman, slapped in _Voice of a Generation_ , and cranked it up. That was all I needed to be happy: smack, whisky, and punk rock turned up real loud—the unholy trilogy.

I became aware of a nasty smell as I sat there. It smelt like a mixture of rotten meat and shit. I checked under the seat to see if there was some sort of mysterious discharge secreted there. As I bent down I realised that the horrible stench was coming from me, from my blackened Adidas shoes and the greasy crotch of my jeans. I tried to think back to the last time I'd taken a shower; it had been in Singapore almost a month earlier. I guessed that all the humidity had taken its toll. One hit would fix all that.

There was one toilet per carriage and the first two I came across were occupied. The last carriage of the train was strewn with rubbish. Men sat by themselves or in pairs. Several of the lights were out and others flickered off and on. The men were silent as I passed, watching me with beady eyes. One of them made a comment as I walked by and another let out a vicious laugh. At least the toilet was free but this didn't really surprise me, as the carriage fairly reeked of piss.

The light fixture in the toilet was completely destroyed and the smell was overwhelming. I had to steady myself as the train was rocking so much. We were still on the outskirts of Bangkok and now and then a small amount of light trickled in as we passed streetlights. I noticed as we passed a light that the toilet hadn't been flushed and a coil of shit sat on the side of the sloped metal surface defying gravity. I felt around for the flusher in the semi-dark but unsurprisingly it didn't work. I pulled out my works and wondered how I was going to mix up under such conditions. I settled on the pub-toilet-with-no-lock standard: flattening my back against the door with one leg outstretched to the opposite wall. I mixed up, flicked the rig, then waited until the train passed a streetlight and plunged on home, all the time fighting off a strange sense of violation at sharing the toilet with my uninvited little brown guest.

I slammed open the door and steadied myself as I got used to the light again. I leaned on the wall and rode out the narco-fuzz rush. I could hear the other passengers sniggering and was about to say something but vomited instead. The Mekong was sour and laced with acids coming up. I followed with a short volley of dry retches and pounded the wall. As I walked up the aisle, one of the men stuck out his foot to trip me. I saw the foot at the last second and stomped down on it. He jumped up and started yelling at me in Thai, then pulled out a flick knife and snapped it open. His friends got up and stood behind him. One of them spat _farang_ contemptuously. Halfway up the next carriage, I interrupted an inspector who was examining an old lady's ticket.

"Excuse me," I said.

He looked at me briefly then turned his attention back to the lady.

I tapped him on the shoulder. "EXCUSE ME."

"What is it?"

"The end carriage—up there," I pointed. "Some very suspicious characters, you should check _their_ tickets."

I could tell he wasn't interested in my vendetta and he slowly turned back to the lady.

"They also tried to sell me heroin."

He turned back to me. "Heroin?"

"Yeah, smack, skag, junk, horse. Call it what you will."

"They try to sell you heroin?" He wrinkled his nose and leaned back as he asked this, obviously a victim of my vomit breath.

"Heroin, yes. They are all fucking heroin addicts, high on dope—be careful!" I felt like a dirty rat as I walked to my seat, thinking, _was that the best I could come up with?_

I sat down and relaxed as the train sped through the mad night. I noticed an old guy sitting a few seats down. He had a bottle of Mekong and sucked at it with two long straws. I forgot I was staring at him as I zoned out and let the rolling, shunting rhythm of the train lull me. He was just a blur and it took some time to realize that he was motioning to me. He invited me to sit next to him by slapping the seat hard and saying something in Thai as his friends looked on unsmilingly. He struck me as hyper-pissed or slightly insane. He kept on muttering stuff and motioning wildly while his friends just stared. They seemed to tolerate his behaviour, which made me guess he had once been something more than he was now and that he lived off the respect of past glories. He was a stocky, well-built old guy and I could tell that he still had fire in his veins. I offered him my bottle and he waved me off in disgust. Producing a bottle of his own, he twisted off the top and fired two straws into it with a great flourish. After taking a hard suck, he offered it to me while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and muttering appreciatively. Evidently, he didn't speak a word of English. I gave the straws a good hard suck and was quite impressed by the amount that could be consumed using this method; it just went straight down. He re-capped the bottle and stuffed it back in his satchel. Then he shooed me away as if I had shit my pants and I went back to my seat. The game continued throughout the night, the motioning over, the drinking, and then the inevitable disgusted shooing away. It continued until I passed out.

When I regained consciousness later, I was laying face down on a seat in another carriage. I always instinctively managed to pass out face down. I'd sewn up the pockets on my sleeveless army shirt and cut a hole from inside, which was secured from within by safety pins. I kept my passport, traveller's checks, and money safe in these pockets. I was up on my elbow wiping drool from my cheek when I noticed a guy sitting across from me.

"You'd better get up from there, my mate'll be coming back soon," he said.

I didn't pay him any attention and kept wiping. Then his friend came back.

"What the fuck?"

I sat up and slid over to the window and looked out. Dawn had broken some time ago but the morning air still had a pleasant chill to it. Palm trees and shanty huts flew past. The smell of a smouldering wood fire flirted with my nostrils and was gone. A strong breeze buffeted the train and brought with it the smell of salt water, so I knew we were on the peninsula. I was aware of the two guys muttering about me. All I wanted to do was press my face against the bars of the window and let the wind drown out the world. I drifted off again. When I awoke, the two guys were sitting opposite me with their arms crossed.

I offered the guy directly opposite me the jug of warm Mekong. "Wanna drink?"

He paused before answering. "Yeah," he said, swiping the bottle to take a hit. "We thought you was a Yank." He passed me the bottle and wiped his mouth.

"Yeah, sorry mate, thought you was a Seppo," said the other guy as he leaned over and shook my hand a little too firmly.

Both were from New Zealand and had a reckless air about them, a mutinous duo. Gary was missing a front tooth from a bar fight and continually smoothed his thinning brown hair over his sweating forehead. Peter seemed happy to let Gary do the talking as he frowned at the world from his window. They had been staying on Koh-Pangan for a few months and were returning from up north. Peter was flying back to New Zealand in a few days and Gary was sticking around for a bit longer. He had met a girl in Chang-Mai and was waiting for her to come down south.

"You going to Koh-Pangan?" asked Gary.

"Yeah, I was there a couple of years ago."

"It's changed you know, those fucking full-moon parties ruined everything. Different type of person goes there now, all the freaks are gone."

"The full-moon parties? But they're only small." I had been to the first one three years previous and there were less than a hundred people present.

"Nah! Thousands now, thousands of cunts! Wait till ya see. They have an airport on Koh-Samui now. All these pommy cunts come over on long weekends for the parties."

Peter tore his face away from the window and leaned over. "You don't want to stay on Haadrin mate: fuckin' expensive, flushing toilets—all that shit."

"We stay at Bo-Bo's near Sunset Beach, it's still like it used to be, 10 baht a night," added Gary.

"Sounds good."

After a few more draughts from the bottle I started feeling better. I put my face near the bars of the window and let the wind rush my face.

After getting off the train, we found a small restaurant and ordered a round of Singha beer. The sound of spluttering two-stroke engines and the cries of seagulls filled the air. Other travellers lined the outside walls of the restaurant, sitting on their backpacks as they flipped through travel books. Gary mentioned to me that he had a vial of liquid acid and we engaged in a hushed conversation. Peter felt left out and drank sullenly from a bottle of Singha. After some insistence on my behalf, Gary pulled a small vial from his pocket and leaned into the table to show me. The vial contained 10 mls of liquid LSD 25. I clapped my hands and let out an appreciative whistle. Peter sneered.

"One tiny, tiny drop is usually between 250 and 600 micrograms give or take, usually around 400 though," Gary explained as he gave the vial a shake.

"That's a good dose."

"Does the fuckin' trick, mate," winked Gary.

He carefully measured a small drop of the acid using a matchstick and smeared it on a piece of Thai newspaper. I tore it off and stuck in my mouth. After doing the same for himself, Gary ordered another round and the three of us sat watching the pedestrian traffic in silence.

We are on the bus for no more than ten minutes when the shit really fuckin' hits me. The seat in front starts breathing and perspiring; things are crawling on it, bleeding from it. Gary's in the seat next to me and I can tell he's feeling it too. I suddenly think that the bus is held together with sticky tape and rubber bands, about to fall apart any second. I put this down to claustrophobia. I'll be right when I get off the bus but it's doing my fuckin' head in. The other passengers look like raw meat, sweaty raw meat. I can hear what sounds like two hyenas fucking in the back of the bus. I need a hit, not a big one, just enough to take the edge off, this feels like I got the full 600 micrograms. This mincemeat face cunt in front of me looks back and gives me a dirty look. What the fuck? I turn to Gary who says, "Gotta get off this bus." "Way too meaty" I agree. He raises his eyebrows in complete accord, as if I read his mind or some shit. Too mad! The bus pulls up to the dock and Gary and I make a bolt for the door, pushing and shoving past a T-bone, a lamb shank, some pork sausages, and a pound of liver, with assorted off-cuts and offal thrown in for good measure. Fuckin' awful. The walls in the toilet are breathing and pulsing as I mix up and slam it in.

The sea going over was rough and the waves so big that when we topped one, a zero gravity sensation hollowed out my guts before the bow smashed back into the sea, sending foam splashing over the decks. People started to puke early, bending double over the railings or running to the toilet as their filth splashed onto the deck. The smell downstairs was overwhelming, so we all sat upstairs in the strangely brilliant sunshine. Enormous, rolling cumulous cloud formations puffed majestically and undulated across the crystal blue sky while the calls of gulls ricocheted and echoed eerily, as if from another dimension. Sitting there with the smell of salt in my nose, I felt like the ancient mariner as timeless cobwebs weaved and vibrated in the silvery dark of my heart. Time stretched like an elastic band as ageless breezes cooled my mind with their whispers. Spotted around the horizon were the small, sharply geometric silhouettes of islands, the only stationary things in this otherwise tumultuous world.

"Not too bad a day for it," said Gary. He sat next to me and poked his tongue in and out of his tooth hole while watching the scenery. Peter lay on his back next to him with his eyes shut, opening and closing his clammy mouth like a dying fish. A girl, who was sitting on the other side of the deck, walked over and sat next to me.

"What's wrong with your friend?" she asked.

"He's sea sick," I said noticing that she had a pork-like sheen to her face.

The girl leaned over to Peter. "Don't close your eyes—it'll make you feel even sicker. Sit up, back straight, and _breathe._ " She used her hands when she spoke and had large vacant eyes that bulged from her face. It looked as if she'd been held upside down and all of her features had gravitated towards her forehead.

"I'm all right, I don't feel sick," said Peter.

"Come on, sit up," she urged as she crawled over to Peter's side. He reluctantly sat up.

"Now _breathe_ deeply, from the diaphragm," said the girl as she took a large breath and digested it to demonstrate. Her breasts strained against her white T-shirt showing off the darkened skin of her nipples. Peter took a half-hearted breath, burped, and let loose a torrent of vomit. Gary and I jumped up, as did the girl, to avoid the stream of puke. Peter crawled over to the rails and continued barfing. Gary and I bent over with laughter as the girl looked on with disgust.

"Oh, Christ!" she said.

" _Breathe_ , Peter, _breathe!_ " I said.

"From the diaphragm!" laughed Gary.

The girl introduced herself to us as Kate from London and we spent the rest of the trip listening to her relate the most boring travelogue I've ever heard. We alighted southwest from Haadrin on a new jetty. I wished I'd made the shot a bit bigger when I looked down and saw the melted soles of my shoes sticking like chewing gum to the wooden jetty. Kate tagged along with us, puffing on bidi cigarettes, which she constantly relit. My arms and legs felt like rubber as I jumped to the sand. Kate skipped over to walk beside me. She was talking to me but I couldn't understand what the fuck she was saying, something about dancing monkeys I think. I kept quiet as we entered a coconut grove, lost in the cool ocean breeze. Kate turned her attention to Peter who clutched at his guts as he stumbled along. I walked up to Gary.

"Have you noticed that she looks like Miss Piggy?" I asked.

"I know! It's doing my head in!"

A strong wind picked up, causing the palm trees to shake and rustle, the subdued sunlight shimmering and streaming through the broad green fronds. The wind increased, bending the palms at their tops and causing them to creak eerily with the strain. There was a loud _thud_ as one of the heavy coconuts fell to the ground.

"Watch out!" cautioned Gary.

We looked up just as another coconut broke free and slammed into the ground a few feet from our small group. We made a mad dash for a path that fringed the grove.

"There's a death toll each year for those fuckin' things, y'know. They smash your brains in!" shouted Gary over his shoulder as he led the way.

"Wait up, Kermie!" I yelled to him. I started to laugh as we dashed through the coconut grove. It seemed so ridiculous, running from killer coconuts with Miss Piggy in tow. We reached the path and slowed our pace.

Gary pointed to a set of bungalows. "Just up here."

Bo-Bo's was set on a slight rise, with the bungalows meandering their way up the right-hand side. All of the vegetation had been stripped bare by a family of pigs that sheltered from the oppressive heat under the shade of the toilet block at the top of the rise. A bamboo fence surrounded the plot and prevented the swine from wandering. Gary opened the latch and we followed him in. The restaurant was on the left as we entered. It was a one-storey bamboo affair propped up on short stilts. Bo-Bo had a wooden house behind the restaurant, built Thai style, with a large balcony surrounding it. When he saw Gary and Peter, he leapt from his hammock with a smile and bounded down the stairs with his thongs slapping against his feet.

"You boys back from Chang-Mai?" he asked after the compulsory round of _sawatdee_.

"Yeah, met this bloke on the train on the way down."

Bo-Bo, who never seemed to stop smiling, nodded at me. "You stay here?"

"Sure, looks good."

He pointed at Kate. "Girlfriend?"

She wrinkled up her little snout. "No, I'm not his girlfriend!"

Bo-Bo turned his attention back to Gary. "Police come when you are gone."

"Oh yeah?"

"They take away English boy like this." He crossed his wrists in front of him, imitating handcuffs.

"Johnny? What for?"

"He try to sell the heroin at party, from bung' low, ev'rywhere. Smoking ganja on hammock. They capture him." Bo-Bo grinned from ear to ear as he related the news. Best to keep on his good side, I figured.

Bo-Bo handed us our keys and we walked up to the bungalows. The whole place had a feeling of desolation, from the sun-baked dirt to the single, scrawny palm tree that sat steaming in the still heat halfway up the rise. As we walked up to our bungalows, one of the pigs lifted its head lazily, checked us out, and then plopped back down again. It reminded me of one of those spaghetti westerns when the gunslingers walk into a ghost town, and I half expected tumbleweed to go rolling past or maybe for a loco _gringo_ to jump out and bust lead at us.

The bungalows were just worn-out wooden shacks perched on short stilts. The dried palm frond thatch, which the roof was made of, was full of large holes through which I could see clouds drifting by. I opened the door and scared an enormous black spider that ran up the wall. I noticed Kate looking at the interior of her bungalow in disbelief. A few hours later she was gone, probably over to Haadrin and a room with a flushing toilet.

## ***

# Chapter 7 - _Aciiiiiiieeeed!_

I _t's the full moon parties that ruined Haadrin. Before they started, it was a freaks paradise, full of eccentrics and misfits. The parties attracted all the idiots, people I'd spent my entire life trying to avoid. That was one of the main reasons I had first come to Koh-Pangan in the first place, to get away from people like them. The women are vapid sluts and the men talk loudly but never say anything worth remembering. Unremarkable dickheads who slavishly follow whatever is in at that moment, they are here to fit in, to be seen. They fuck each other hatefully because they can't think of anything else to do. They're just yuppies in waiting really; this isn't a lifestyle thing for them, just a rebellious phase they're going through before they settle down and get a corporate job and join society like good little boys and girls. The full moon parties are homogenized, processed rebellion served up in little bite-size portions to be easily consumed by wankers with no imagination: anarchy on the instalment plan. It's amazing what can happen in three short years, that's all it took to destroy paradise. Three years for the full moon parties, the DJ's, the para-sailors and the fire twirlers to move in with their jet skis, flushing toilets, imported beer and glow sticks. Resorts are sure to follow._

I spent a good week in an undignified stupor, lurching occasionally from my bungalow to the restaurant where I would fritter away the hours playing backgammon or cards. As the sun reached its zenith, the chipping of ice could be heard in the kitchen as Bo-Bo filled glass after glass with opaque chunks to chill the Mekong. The other denizens of Bo-Bo's would slowly meander over to the restaurant when the awful heat forced them from their bungalows. I took control of the tape player and put the Clash, the Specials, and Prince Buster on high rotation until dusk when everyone would wander over to the bars of Sunset Beach. We played games of backgammon with a slow hand and set up impromptu poker tournaments. An African friend of Gary's tried to teach us a strange game of dice but kept changing and forgetting the rules.

One day, three English boys who stayed at Bo-Bo's and were all named Bob, came running into the restaurant holding up a newspaper.

"The fuckin' bitch! She's gone!"

No one was quite sure what they were talking about.

"MAGGIE THATCHER WAS VOTED OUT!" The largest Bob slammed down the newspaper that told of Margaret Thatcher's political demise. "Drinks are on us, lads!"

Bo-Bo started chipping away furiously.

"And acid, everyone gets a Gorbachev!"

We all took them up on their offer and washed down the Gorbachev's with Mekong. The irony of celebrating Maggie's end with a Gorbachev wasn't lost on me. I turned up the music and couldn't help thinking about all the punk songs that had instantly become redundant. When a splash of rain fell from the sky like a handful of rice thrown by God, Bob declared that it was time to do a "rain dance" and we all rushed out to twist around the scrawny palm tree. The sky opened up and drenched us as we laughed and shouted at the storm clouds, and Bo-Bo watched and smiled while shaking his head good-naturedly at the crazy _farang_. The rain dance came to an abrupt halt when the African guy stripped naked and started jumping around with his purple cock swinging dangerously.

Later in the afternoon, the sun temporarily burst out from behind the clouds and turned the rain that soaked the earth into steam. Peter walked into the restaurant with his bags to say goodbye. He was going back to New Zealand. Bob tried to give Peter a Gorbachev as a going away gift and was surprised when he rejected it outright.

"What's wrong? You don't like acid?"

"Don't touch the stuff, I mean look at you blokes dancing around like fuckin' idiots in the rain."

"Fair enough." Bob turned and winked at us. "How's about a farewell drink then?"

Peter nodded and Bob fixed him a drink. After he had finished, Peter shook only Gary's hand and then turned to go.

"Have a nice trip," Bob called after him.

When he'd disappeared, Bob turned to us. "Whacked a tab under the cunt's ice."

"Nice, it'll do him good," smiled Gary.

## ***

# Chapter 8 - _Akoona-matata!_

I awoke in the early afternoon to the sound of a grunting pig underneath my bungalow. Turning over, I lay on my back and inhaled the stale air of my room. I could smell a wood fire and the ocean from outside. The pig grunted again and I lifted the edge of my mosquito net to look at it through the slats of my floor. The little bastard had dug into the cool dirt to escape the heat. He made me think of Kate and I wondered how she was doing over on Haadrin. The odds were that she was now mating with an alpha male of the psychedelic jock species. I could see it all: power walking on the beach at sunset, discussing their favourite DJ as they sipped daintily at bottles of imported beer, then retiring to a flashpacker bungalow for a night of uninspired humping.

As I lay there, I realized just how filthy my bungalow was. An off-white mosquito net with large holes in it shrouded my thin mattress, which was stained black in places by some anonymous discharge. God only knew what kind of degenerates had laid there in the past and what sort of perverted hi-jinx they'd performed. Fingers of light stabbed through the holes in the palm frond roof and illuminated floating specks of dust that sparked brightly then died. Broken glass from my attempts to kill the large spider that lived in my bungalow littered the floor. The very last thing I wanted to be confronted with when stumbling "home" wasted was the horrible thing climbing the wall. I'd grab anything in reach—usually empty beer and whisky bottles, and start firing. Just the thought of it sharing my room, peering out at me from its moist lair as it pinched its pincers didn't sit well with me. So far I had missed, but no doubt I had put the fear of God into my hairy little friend.

I swung my legs off the bed, let my feet rest on the slats, and looked down at the contented pig. Dim memories of inappropriate behaviour from the night before came back to me in a wave of nausea as I sat there on the edge of my bed on the edge of the world. There was a full moon party on Haadrin Beach and I'd shown up twisted on acid and whisky. Insipid house music blasted the beach and ricocheted off the dark water. I vaguely remembered pushing people around, kicking sand at them and screaming abuse. At around 2:00 AM, a heavy thunderstorm effectively shut the party down. Thousands of people crowded into the numerous beach restaurants. Every sound system in every restaurant and bungalow played the same goddamned music. It was like a nightmare. I walked home in the pitch black. It took me forever as I could not see the ground I was walking on, or even if I was going the right direction. I just stumbled around in the wet black and hoped for the best, the whole time fearing that a coconut would smash in my skull and turn me into a drooling idiot who needed a nurse to wipe his arse.

I let spit fall from my mouth onto the pig's dirty back, causing it to flick its left ear. Every once in a while it made little contented grunting noises. I started to hate the fat little son-of-a-bitch as I sat there. All it needed to be happy was a bucket of shit, but give me the world and I would still want other planets.

After throwing on a pair of jeans and my sleeveless army shirt, I stood in the middle of the floor and aimed another spit ball at the pig. This time the swine didn't react so I positioned myself directly above its head, yanked out my prick, and let loose a torrent of whisky piss. The pig squealed when the thick yellow fluid splashed off its snout, then shook his head and ran off.

My vial from Bangkok was almost gone. I was down to my last good shot. During the week, the heroin supply on Koh-Pangan, diminished by an island-wide raid mounted by the mainland police, dried up completely. No one was holding. Shock waves of paranoia rippled throughout the island. It was common knowledge that there were paid informants everywhere, running bars and bungalows and selling dope. No Thai was to be trusted, and bungalow raids and arrests by undercover police were commonplace. According to the law, the raids were permitted without a warrant at any hour between dawn and dusk. But at night you were safe. Probably the worst turn of events was that, supposedly, the police no longer took bribes.

I scraped out the remnants of the vial into a spoon, squirted in some water and mixed it with the end of the plunger. Then I realised I had no cotton balls left. I was going to go and ask someone for a cigarette filter when I remembered that I still had a Gorbachev in my wallet. I fished it out and dropped it in the spoon. I knew from past experiments that not much acid would be in the solution from just a quick dunk so I gave it time to soak. Then I drew the solution through the blotter paper and gave the barrel a flick. The acid gave the smack a kick and made me jump off the bed and fling open the door. I steadied myself on the balcony to ride out the rush. It was a real knee trembler and I walked down the stairs like a Thunderbird puppet. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the new day as my brain adjusted to the chemical cocktail. The sun burnt down mercilessly on my weary bungalow and baked the tired dirt around it. The family of pigs had retreated to the cool of the shower block and I could hear a chainsaw buzzing lazily in the distance like a fly stuck in a bottle. The hammock on my balcony looked inviting but I had to think fast; I had a few hours at most before the old Chinese flu was upon me. I knew a place from my last visit where I could score some opium, which would hold me for a day—that is if the dealer was still there. Then I could make my way back to Hat-Yai and stay there for a while.

"WHAT YOU DO TO PIG?"

The question came from two bungalows down, from the African guy who had stripped naked when we were all jumping around in the rain. He swung easily in his thin hammock as he looked up at me.

"The pig? I threw a coin at it."

"HA HA HA! THE PIG RUN! STUPID FUCKING PIG!" He went back to his swinging, his feet easily reaching the floor of the balcony. I walked past the bungalow that separated us. The door was locked tight and an empty hammock sagged on the balcony. Johnny still had all his belongings in there. I wondered if his parents back in merry old England knew that their son was languishing in a Thai prison. I saw Bo-Bo sitting in the corner of the restaurant reading a newspaper with his feet up on a chair.

"HEY! YOU WANT?" The African guy held up a joint.

I walked down and accepted it, more out of politeness than anything else. Indeed, such a _laissez-faire_ attitude to conspicuous drug taking was a sure-fire way to end up with Johnny. Even in a country so seemingly permissive, certain protocols had to be adhered to, certain rules had to be followed. The African guy didn't seem to give a shit. As I gave him back the joint, he popped it into his mouth then fired back his hand.

"MY NAME ALEX," he said as we shook. I couldn't help but notice that his hand dwarfed my own.

"Nice to meet you. Dean."

"DEE? THAT WOMAN NAME?"

"No, _Dean._ "

"DIANE?"

I let it go, it wasn't really that important. Alex wore earphones as we chatted and every once in a while he would interrupt our conversation to yell out a phrase in time with the music. He wore nothing but a pair of black Speedos like they made me wear back in high school. On his head he had a bright yellow headband that contrasted starkly with his raven black skin and bunched his short, thin dreadlocks together. The wire from his ear-phones led down to a bumbag that he wore in the front above his Speedos.

Alex exhaled a huge lungful of smoke and shot me a look. "MEBBE LATER WE FUCK SOME WHORE, YES?"

"Dunno 'bout that."

"AAAH! CUMMON! WE GO FUCK WID DA WHORE! WE FUCK HER IN DA ASS! HA HA HA!"

I was going to say something but he cut me off.

" _PURPUL HAAAAAAAZE INNA BRAIN, LATELY THINGS DON'T SEEMA SAME._ " Then Alex threw back his head and laughed, his thick purple lips peeling back to reveal the largest, whitest teeth I'd ever seen. He laughed like a madman, a real fruit-and-nut bar. I let him sing and then walked down towards the beach path.

"HEY!"

I turned around.

"What?"

" _AKOONA MATATA KAKA! AKOONA MATATA!"_ Alex laughed loudly and went back to his music.

The chemist at the end of the path looked as if it had just opened and the elderly owner was busy sweeping sand from the smooth cement in front of his shop. I walked in and had a look around. The old guy gave me a look, the look that people give you when they _know._ So instead of going straight to the bottles of cough syrup, I browsed around as if I was just a regular customer, checking out various brands of toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner. I ended my charade abruptly and began to examine the ingredients labels of the different syrups. When I found one that was generous with its codeine phosphate quotient, I plucked two big bottles from the display and grabbed a bottle of water. The owner made me wait until he finished his sweeping, and he did a thorough job. Then he made his way slowly towards the register and served me without once lifting his eyes to mine or even acknowledging my presence. I felt as if he'd pissed on me through the floor of his bungalow.

## ***

# Chapter 9 - _Sessymassage?_

I knew from past experience that the walk to Tongsala took roughly an hour. A thick layer of steamy, salty heat sat just above the white sand and I cursed myself for not rising earlier to avoid the midday sun.

At about halfway I started to wilt. The beach stretched on endlessly, the rising heat shimmering in the distance as the palm trees shook and laughed. A bottle and a half of the sickly sweet syrup was in my stomach, the rest I'd thrown away, convinced that one more sip and I would have thrown up the lot. These were drastic measures but there was a good chance that the opium dealers were no longer in business, anything could have happened since my last visit. My stomach felt leaden and my mouth was parched but at least the syrup had given the smack a much-needed boost. Every once in a while I stopped to take a sip of water and pour some on my head. The only people I came across were old fishermen sitting cross-legged on the sand repairing holes in their nets. A bit further on I decided to take a break and climbed onto a large rock covered by shade. Sitting down, I started to wonder what I was doing in a place so foreign and far from home with a stomach full of cough syrup and a head full of unnatural cravings. In the distance I could see a couple walking towards me. As they neared, they noticed me and made their way over.

The guy had a heavy American accent and wore a sleeveless shirt soaked in sweat. "Hey! D'ya mind if we join ya? We need a rest, just came from Tongsala."

"Not at all."

They both sat, the girl smiling at me as she did so. She had a natural beauty and smelt strongly of coconut oil. I tried hard not to stare but her tiny bikini left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

The guy pulled out a bag of weed and some papers. "Wanna smoke?"

"Sure."

As he rolled, he introduced himself and his girlfriend as Joe and Karen from the USA. "Didja go to the full moon party last night?" he asked, lighting up.

"For a bit. The rain cut it short."

"Yeah, so I heard. We're off to Koh-Samui tonight, there's a smaller party there."

I accepted the joint and tried to direct the conversation at Karen, who just smiled politely. I noticed a scar that ran just above her left eyebrow and disappeared into her hairline. Joe saw me staring.

"It's OK, man. She got hit on the head by a coconut last year on Phi-Phi."

"A coconut?"

"Yeah, those things pack a punch, man!" Joe made a fist and banged it into his open hand.

"Jesus, they come down hard," I said, remembering the sound the coconuts made when they hit the sand.

"Yep. Gotta be careful! She's still a bit fucked from it but she's getting a lot better."

When the joint started to burn our fingers Joe screwed it out on the rock and stood up. "Well, nice meeting you, and if you're in Koh-Samui we might see you at the party." He thrust out his hand and we shook.

I watched their backs, or more specifically, Karen's tanned, shapely buttocks as they walked hand in hand up the beach. I watched them until they disappeared.

When I was roughly a kilometre from the Tongsala communications tower, I gave in. I walked up the beach and through the bush until I came across a guesthouse where I jumped on a motorcycle taxi. My driver couldn't have been a day over fourteen and was reckless as hell. The little bastard opened up the dirt bike on the narrow jungle paths and took blind corners at speed as I held onto his scrawny shoulders for dear life. At one point, he rounded a corner and narrowly missed a buffalo cart that was taking blocks of ice to a destination deep in the jungle. He turned around and laughed as small shrubs whipped my feet and I knew that the tiny cuts would result in tropical ulcers. He slowed a bit when we hit the paved roads of Tongsala and opened up again when we turned off onto another jungle track.

I jumped off the bike at the top of the steep incline above Cookie's bungalows and paid the kid while my feet and legs stung and bled. He did a wheelie and took off. When I reached the bottom of the incline, I noticed the old lady who ran the bungalows lying in a hammock with her big old monkey, which was busy savaging a gnarled block of wood with stupid determination. She seemed to be stopped in time, preserved and pickled by the numerous poisons she consumed daily. Her mouth opened in a smile of recognition and I noticed that her betel nut stained teeth had, inconceivably, become even blacker.

"Hello, my fren', I remember you!" she said, swinging out of her hammock and sending the monkey screeching and flailing.

"Sawatdee," I said.

"You no long time coming here?"

"I went home," I couldn't get my eyes off her hair that looked as if it had been smeared with shoe polish and styled after Hitler.

We chatted for a bit, and then she looked at me sideways and widened her eyes. " _Sessymassage_ , you wan'?"

"What?"

She raised her eyebrows and wiggled her ample hips to reaffirm the offer.

" _Seeeeeeesssy_ , I give you." It seemed she had expanded her services since my last visit.

"Sexy massage?"

"Yes—we go my bungalow." She pointed towards her domicile and looked at me expectantly.

As I looked into her bedroom eyes and she tried her damnedest to emulate little Lolita, my mind worked overtime to think of a good excuse.

"No, I have a girlfriend."

Her charade ended abruptly. "Girlfriend? For you no sessymassage! You want ope?"

"Yes, _ope._ "

"OK, you come!"

I followed her as she waddled through the sand and tufts of sawgrass towards the restaurant. Her elderly husband was nodding off in the corner of the restaurant. I sat down at his table and waited as she walked into the kitchen. As I ran my toes through the cool white sand, the old guy grinned toothlessly at me and made strange gestures with his hands and little whistling noises. He pointed after his wife.

" _Sessymassage?_ " he asked.

It seemed that they were both in on the action.

I relaxed into the chair and looked out between two huge rocks that bracketed the secluded little beach at Cookies into the Gulf of Thailand. Palm trees swayed and rustled in the ocean breeze and I could hear the weak and distant tinkle of a wind chime on someone's balcony. I had once spent days sitting in the restaurant, smoking caramel opium and listening to the old woman tell fantastic stories in broken English. Stories of planes dropping bales of opium into the ocean at twilight, and of the changeover when the opium disappeared and was replaced by Number 4 heroin, converting all her friends into hardcore addicts overnight. She was the last of a dying, if not already dead breed: the opium addict.

The old woman re-appeared and stood next to me pointing out to sea. "You take monkey."

I shook my head. "I have to get back to Haadrin soon, girlfriend, you know?" I said, remembering the last time I took the monkey swimming under her insistence. I waded into the water with it sitting on my shoulders, holding tightly to my ears. The damn thing attacked me savagely when it got wet after I went too deep.

"No, you take, you take."

She was showing off her rotten teeth and I could see the lump of opium in her hand as she waved her arms expansively. I knew it was important not to offend her, as she loved her goddamned monkey. Couldn't she see what a stupid vicious beast it was? I smiled and shook my head again good-naturedly. Meanwhile, the monkey was on one of the other tables, grunting savagely as it chewed a bottle cap into a jagged little ball. We watched for a while and laughed.

"Here, you have now." She threw the opium onto the table in front of me.

I handed over the money hoping the prices hadn't changed. They hadn't.

## ***

# Chapter 10 - The Rancid Piss Incident

By the time I got back to Bo-Bo's everyone was either swinging in their hammocks or sitting listlessly around the restaurant. Dope could be smelt but not seen. The three Bobs were sitting in the restaurant working on a bottle of Mekong.

"Ere! Take a seat, have a drink," one of them said as he kicked out a chair.

I sat down and my patron poured Mekong over a large chunk of ice wedged into my glass. We gagged down a toast.

"There's a party in Koh-Samui tonight, we're heading over this afternoon if you want to tag along," the Bob next to me said.

"Yeah, I heard about that but I can't stand the music they play at those things," I said.

"Nah mate, they won't be playing that house shit like the parties here, got a DJ from Goa, plays hardcore shit."

"What's the difference?"

"Huge difference. Come along, you'll see, I'll spot you a Gorby and all."

"Yeah righto, sounds good."

One of the Bobs from across the table leaned towards me. "Are you friends with that African bloke?"

"Dick dancer? I've met him a few times—I don't know if you'd call us friends. He asked me to go out with him and fuck some whores this morning, up the arse too."

"Up the arse? Definitely a wrong'un, that's something to save for the night, or the afternoon at least."

"He was raring to go."

"Wanker's been smoking dope on his balcony again. Comes over 'ere with a joint hangin' out his mouth. Bo-Bo gave him hell, he's gonna ruin it for all of us."

I understood the paranoia. Everyone staying at Bo-Bo's, including Bo-Bo himself, were involved in one sort of illegal activity or another.

"I don't think he really understands the whole 'low-key' thing. Came here straight from Africa apparently. Gary has known him for a few months," I said.

"Gary's not looking too sharpish, been projectile vomiting out his window all morning."

"Has he?" I tried my best to look surprised but didn't think I'd fooled any of them.

"I think you blokes have been burning the candle at both ends, yeah?"

"Something like that." I thought about making up an exotic disease that Gary had mysteriously contracted but didn't bother; a retard could have seen that he was dope sick.

Bo-Bo walked over and joined us for a drink. I stuck around for a cheese omelette then strolled over to Gary's bungalow to see how he was doing. As I climbed the stairs, I had to grab the railing when the entire structure tilted savagely to my right. I looked underneath to see what in hell was wrong. One of the stilts was too short. Several pieces of wood had been crammed into the gap to compensate but it still wasn't enough.

"WHO THE FUCK'S OUT THERE?"

"Gary it's me, Dean. God, this bungalow's fucked!"

Gary flung open his door and stood there in a dirty sarong, squinting as he smoothed his thinning greasy hair over his forehead. "Dean, what's goin' on? Come in, come in," he said meekly, looking at the ground as if apologising for his existence.

I sat down on the edge of his bed and noticed that his mattress, like mine, was a patchwork of dubious stains.

Gary closed the door and sat next to me. His room stank of stale sweat and piss and I noticed several old water jugs that seemed to be full of urine and wondered why he didn't just piss out the window like everyone else. His complexion was grey and his eyes bulged as if some terrible emotion were twisting him from within. He stood up and walked to the other side of the room to get his cigarettes, causing the bungalow to tilt again.

"This is worse than my place," I said again.

"Huh?" Gary lit a cigarette and looked over at me, the desperation leaving his eyes for a brief moment as he inhaled deeply.

"The way the thing moves around, it's worse than my place."

"Oh that. Well, for 10 baht a night I'd sleep in a fuckin' hammock, and besides, no one can sneak up on you in a bungalow like this."

"You've got a point."

"So, have you got any gear? I tried everyone between Haadrin and Sunset, and not a single fuckin' gram." He looked at me with unblinking eyes.

"I've got opium."

"Thank fuck! Dean, I owe you one!" He took an extra hard drag on his smoke and suddenly became animated. He began scurrying around the bungalow, throwing clothes and empty bottles around as he searched for something to smoke the opium in.

"Here, we can use this," I said, plucking a beer can off the floor. I scraped off the paint near the bottom with my knife and punched a hole in it. "There, that should do the trick."

" _WE NEED A NEEDLE! WE NEED A FUCKIN' NEEDLE! HOW CAN WE SMOKE THE OPIUM WITHOUT A FUCKIN' OPIUM NEEDLE?"_ Gary was standing on his bed with his cigarette clenched between his teeth.

"Relax! I've got a needle for chrissake!" I undid one of the safety pins that I used to secure my top pocket and straightened it out. As an afterthought, I knelt over and closed the wooden window over the bed. Something fell from the groove and plopped onto the mattress.

" _SCORPION! FUCKIN SCORPION, YA CUNT!"_ shouted Gary as he pointed at the insect. The little bastard went scurrying across the mattress and burrowed under the mosquito net. I picked up a beer bottle and threw it in the scorpion's general direction. No movement.

"Didja get it?"

"Shit, I dunno."

"Lift up the mosquito net and take a look."

"You take a fuckin' look."

"Don't worry, it's not a black one, it won't kill you."

The scorpion ran out onto the wood siding.

" _THERE IT IS! KILL IT! KILL THE FUCKIN' THING"_

I threw another beer bottle at the scorpion but missed, showering broken glass everywhere. Gary picked up one of the bottles of piss and started clubbing at it. On his third try he nailed it, crushing its abdomen. He flew into an insane frenzy, smashing the scorpion into an unrecognizable paste.

" _GARY! FUCKIN' STOP!"_ I tried to grab his arm but it was too late; the plastic bottle ruptured and orange, gluggy piss splashed onto the sideboard and wall.

I put my hand over my nose. The piss was rancid and smelt like hell. "God, that fuckin' stinks."

"Well, at least I got the fuckin' thing."

"Good on ya. You can sit on that end."

I sat down on the farthest side and twirled an amount of opium into a ball, placed it on the hole in the can, poked a hole through it with the needle, and sparked the lighter. I gave Gary the first hit, and he smoked and smoked and smoked, drawing in each breath like a drowning man would air. We each balled up an amount and swallowed it as we swapped tasks. The lighter soon became hot to the touch but we kept on, our thumbs blistering as we continued. Finally, the plastic around the flint caught fire, and the spring popped out and went flying across the bungalow. Gary pulled out a box of matches. I felt my eyes grow heavy as the room filled with smoke. I watched as if in a dream as it swirled and pulsed like the breath of a sleeping dragon. When the opium was gone we scraped out the thick grey ash, the yen pox, which contained just as much morphine as the raw product, and swallowed it with some whisky.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lying on a stained mattress in the stinky tilted bungalow, dreaming electric dreams while cicadas buzzed hypnotically outside and tendrils of smoke twirled and danced around us.

A few hours later, one of the Bobs interrupted our reverie by banging on the door.

"Hey, anyone alive in there?"

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. "Yep, what's goin' on?"

"We're getting ready to go."

I unlatched the door and Bob stepped in.

"Oh Jesus! It fuckin' stinks in here!" He put his hand to his mouth.

Gary was still out, lying flat on his back with a smoke burned down to the butt stuck between his lips.

"Yeah, I noticed that too."

"Is he alive?"

I gave Gary a shove. He grunted and sat up, spitting the butt onto the floor.

"Bob, what's goin' on?"

"Feeling better are we?" Bob asked.

"Yeah mate, much better."

"There's a party tonight on Samui. We're getting a boat from Haadrin in half an hour, y'up for it?"

"Party, eh? Not really. But I know a place to score on Samui so count me in," said Gary as he bent his arm over his shoulder to give his back a good scratch.

Something by the side of the bed caught Bob's eye and he pointed an accusatory finger. "Fuckin'ell! Is that a bottle of piss?"

"Uh, yeah, had to go y'know?" said Gary, suddenly sheepish.

"Well, why the fuck don't you piss out the window? I mean you've been pukin' out of it all morning!"

I laughed. "He's got a point there, Gary."

We shared a bottle of Mekong as we walked in single file along the path that led from Sunset Beach to Haadrin Beach. Alex tagged along, meandering behind us as if he'd just happened to be walking in the same direction. The regular ferries had stopped running for the day but, through Bo-Bo's connections, the Bobs had learned of a fisherman's boat that departed from the end of Haadrin at the same time every day.

The contact panned out and once on the boat, a few fishermen joined us on the roof. The rough waters tossed the boat like a cork as we crossed between Pangan and Samui. Salt water sprayed up into the air creating fleeting rainbows as the sun exploded behind popcorn clouds. To the east, a mountain of ominous grey clouds with a dark centre gathered.

A van was waiting on the dock when we berthed. The driver addressed our whole group as "Bob," shook our hands, and then jumped into the driver's seat. I turned to Bob as we piled in.

"What's with the limousine treatment?"

"We met the guy who is putting on the party about a week ago. He was complaining about how all the acid goes to the parties in Pangan, nothing but mushies for the ones on Samui. He's just happy that we're gonna be getting this whole party tripping tonight."

There was little room with all of us in the van and Alex, being so tall, had to hang his head and shoulders out of the window.

"I brig you good, cheap bun'glow," said the driver as he looked into the rear-view mirror.

"Nice one, but just make sure you've got some empty water bottles for Gary here," I said.

A large drop of water splashed off the windscreen.

The driver stabbed a finger against the windscreen. "Ah! You see? Tonight the typhoon coming."

The Bob next to me leaned forward apprehensively. "A typhoon, tonight?"

"Tonight it come, but no longer strong typhoon, now tropical storm, heavy rain."

"But what about the party?"

"Storm no matter, party indoor. This good—no police tonight."

## ***

# Chapter 11 - I'll fuckin' akoona-matata you in a minute!

#

Compared to Bo-Bo's, our new accommodations looked like the Hilton Hotel. Gary and I got saddled with Alex and paid in advance for a night. Then Alex and Gary left to hire scooters, and the three Bobs decided to find something closer to the party.

I resolved to have a drink at the beachside restaurant. After wolfing down a cheese omelette, I treated myself to a cocktail served up in a hollowed out pineapple. Storm clouds screamed from horizon to horizon and filled the air with electricity as a cool ocean breeze drifted through the restaurant. Realising that it had been some time since I'd read a newspaper, I walked over to the bar and rifled through the magazine rack, hoping to find an ancient _Bangkok Times._ There were several newspapers but they were all in Thai. The only other reading material was the gore filled _191 Magazine,_ named after the police emergency number. Photos of murder victims, suicides, and car crashes filled the pages with vivid red. _191 Magazine_ reporters got all the good pictures, usually arriving to snap away before police or emergency services hit the scene. I opened to a colour spread of a bus crash. It looked like the bus had rolled down a hill after colliding with a truck. There were pictures taken from several different angles of a disembowelled woman with no legs, a man with his face split in two by a horrific wound, a twisted torso punctured by a rib—a real fucking horror show. On the cover of each _191 Magazine_ was a picture of the girl who appeared in the centrefold. I flipped through to the middle and checked her out. She looked about 18 and was smiling demurely in a polka-dot bikini. Hell, they didn't even dare show her tits—God forbid! The juxtaposition between her shy naivety and the unmitigated slaughter on the surrounding pages struck me as I flipped between the two. I folded up the magazine and put it on the table, sat back in my chair and closed my eyes.

What do I really know about the Thais and their culture? I know for certain that they are the only country in South East Asia that has never been invaded, occupied or colonized, that kickboxing is their national sport and that they look at magazines with dead people in them. Good god, what must they think of me? Sipping daintily at a cocktail in one of their restaurants like a fool! It wouldn't surprise me if the bartender had an AK47 behind the counter, waiting for the right time to rise up against the pasty-skinned foreigners and fill us full of holes. I will have to act quickly, gather all the farang and head into the hills where we will have a better chance. We will attack at night as they sleep; build up our numbers until we have an army then hit the opium fields to the north. I will be a great revolutionary leader. Strong but fair, my people will follow me into battle screaming Feed your head! As our war cry. Afterwards we will take heroic doses of raw opium washed down with Mekong as we laugh loudly at our fearless exploits. Eventually, we will forge a perilous truce with the Thais and enter into trade with them. Business will be monotonous after such excitement but I will apply myself diligently nevertheless and confound our business rivals as we negotiate trades of raw opium for LSD, cocaine, methamphetamine, weed, nitrous oxide, PCP, benzos, hashish, ecstasy, beer, ...

A loud American voice brought me out of my reverie. I opened my eyes to see Joe and Karen seated across from me. "Having a snooze are ya, buddy?" Joe asked as he stabbed out his hand for a shake.

"Yeah, it's been a long day," I said as I stretched my arms toward the ceiling.

Karen sat in the chair and smiled like a moron. It was an abomination what the coconut had done to her. She looked like a smashed super model and I couldn't help thinking that there was something immoral about a mentally handicapped woman wearing such a revealing bikini, especially with a body like hers. While we chatted about some trivial crap, Karen bent down to scratch her leg and one of her tits fell out of her top when she came back up. I tried hard not to look, hoping Joe would stuff it back in. I knew he'd seen it; he was looking straight at the damn thing, but he did nothing. After a few minutes, he pretended that he'd just noticed.

"Oh shit, Karen's titty has fallen out again!" She let out a moronic laugh as he scooped it back into her top.

Joe lit a joint, took a hit and gave me a conspiratorial look. "So Dean, do you know anyone selling acid at the party tonight?" he said as he exhaled.

"Yeah, might do."

"Man that would be cool! We haven't done acid for a while, huh, Karen?" Karen nodded in the affirmative as Joe passed her the joint.

"You mean Karen does acid?"

"Oh yeah. She loves the shit, buddy!"

I shuddered as I got a mental image of Karen bent on acid, tit hanging out, drooling and getting fucked doggy style by Joe who yells, "She loves the shit, buddy!"

Our conversation was interrupted by the spluttering staccato of two-stroke engines. It was Gary and Alex; they were distant enough so that I couldn't make out their words but it was obvious that they were having an argument of some kind. I paid my bill, bid farewell to Joe and Karen, and walked back to the bungalow. Alex and Gary were standing on the balcony.

"No more! End of argument!"

" _OOOOOHHHH GARY!_ GIVE ME IT!"

"What the hell's going on?" I asked.

"He wants more acid and he's already taken three drops at the rental place—big fuckin' drops!"

"I FEEL NOTHING! YOU ARE GIVING ME THE WATER! ONE MORE GARRRRRRRRRY!" Alex was baring his teeth and had a pained expression on his face.

"Water?" Gary laughed slightly as he shook his head, undid the padlock and turned to me. "And he's eaten a fuckin' handful of captagon as well!"

Alex smiled at this, forgetting his little charade for a moment. Then his composure changed when he realized that Gary had dismissed him. He stepped in close and bellowed in Gary's face, "YOU GIVE ME THE FUCKING ACID, GARY! GIVE ME THE FUCKING ACID!" Gary stood his ground and they faced off.

I walked to the railing. "It hasn't kicked in yet, Alex, give it time!"

My comment went unnoticed. Alex stood almost a foot taller than Gary but I could tell that he was wary about making it physical. Gary's missing tooth was like a black eye: it didn't necessarily mean he had won a fight; it meant that he was _willing_ to fight. Then Gary smiled and unzipped his bum bag.

"OK dickhead, I'll give you as much acid as you want!" He calmly pulled out his little vial and daintily plopped it into Alex's outstretched palm. Alex looked at him with uncertainty for a second, then unscrewed the top and poured a quantity onto his palm. He licked it up like a cat, capped the vial and handed it back to Gary. I shook my head, realising that no good could come from such a thing.

Gary and I carefully measured out a few drops for ourselves inside the bungalow then we all set off to see a smack dealer that Gary knew on the other side of the island.

After watching Alex lick the LSD 25 off his palm, I figured my best chance of survival was to stick with Gary. I sat on the back of his scooter and hung on tightly as we raced the island's highways and byways, accelerating to the limit as we overtook traffic. It quickly turned into a race. Alex was a worthy opponent but lacked the handling skills that Gary had gained from growing up on a station in New Zealand. On the straight sections, he would pull up beside us, laughing hysterically with his huge black knees bunched up behind the handlebars. Then we would hit some turns and his smile would turn to a grimace as he fell behind. We overtook trucks and tuktuks with Alex mimicking our every move. I had to pull my face away from the back of Gary's head when we hit certain crosswinds, as his greasy hair would whip into my eyes and cause a stinging blindness. On the next straight, Alex pulled up as close as he could to us and moved his mouth as if speaking.

"WHAT? WHAT?" asked Gary, easing off the throttle.

Alex took the opportunity and shot ahead of us.

"FUCKIN' PRICK!" Gary opened up the scooter and we quickly gained ground on Alex. Gary kept up the pressure, pushing the Vespa to a ton ten. A slow moving truck in our lane came up just as we hit some curves. There was no way past it: the truck took up the entire lane, the corners were blind, and traffic in the opposite lane was continuous. Large drops had started to fall from the pregnant grey sky, splashing off my forehead and making the road slick. Alex moved right in behind the truck, his front wheel only inches away from it. He kept glancing over his shoulder at us.

"WE'RE NOT GOIN' ANYWHERE!" yelled Gary.

Alex yelled something back in Swahili then swerved out into the opposite lane looking for his chance. A tuktuk screamed around the corner with its horn blaring, forcing him to switch back to our lane.

" _DON'T FUCKIN' DO IT!"_ I screamed.

" _HE'S GONNA GET KILLED!_ " Gary slowed down to ease off the pressure, hoping that Alex would follow his lead. It didn't work. Alex kept looking for his chance, swerving out into oncoming traffic like a goddamned maniac. Gary and I both started screaming at him but he was oblivious in his single-minded determination.

Then Alex did it.

He accelerated into the opposite lane around a blind corner and disappeared. Gary and I ceased our yelling and waited patiently behind the truck, which took a turn-off a few kilometres outside the town of Lamai. Gary opened up again but the street was empty and Alex was nowhere in sight. The acid started to kick in by the time we reached Lamai and I was seeing streamers everywhere. It was going to be a heavy trip. We slowed to a crawl in the heavy pedestrian traffic and I looked for Alex's yellow headband among the backpackers, tourists and hustlers. We found him sitting on his parked scooter, giggling like a giddy schoolgirl. He was wearing his earphones and pointing a large black finger at Gary.

"OOOOH, GARY! I BEAT YOU! I FUCKING BEAT YOU, GARY!"

We pulled to a stop just ahead of him. "So, how's that 'water' I gave you going?" asked Gary.

"AH! _AKOONA-MATATA KAKA!_ AKOONA-MATATA!"

We moved off slowly through the pedestrian traffic.

"HEY! WAIT FOR ME!" Alex jumped onto his scooter and kicked it into life.

As we made our way through the streets of Lamai, Alex kept up his laughing, punctuating it with shouts of _"Akoona-matata!"_ or singing along to the Hendrix in his Walkman.

"What the hell is it that he keeps yelling?"

"' _Akoona-matata.'_ It means 'no problems or no worries, everything is going to be all right,' something like that. I taught him most of the English he knows. Before I met him, he just knew words for things—no phrases. I don't know how the fuck he got around."

"Where is he from, South Africa?"

"Swaziland. His parents are leaders of a tribe or a tribal council—some shit like that. He left two years ago and had never even taken drugs before." Gary paused as we overtook a tuktuk full of backpackers. "You see those tiny dreads of his? Alex reckons they grew out of his brain when he started getting high."

I laughed. "They'll be twice as fuckin' long after this."

I noticed that people were pointing behind us and laughing. I turned around. Alex's smile was so broad he could easily have fit a grapefruit in his mouth with room to spare. He laughed loudly about God-knows-what and threw his head back at the angry sky.

" _KISS THE SKY! KISS THE SKY! AKOONA-MATATATA! AKOONA-MATATA!"_ His yell was impossibly guttural, it almost sounded like a gurgle.

"I introduced him to Hendrix a couple of months ago; it's all he listens to now," said Gary, slowing as a truck cut us off.

Alex shook his head from side to side vigorously. At the speed he was travelling, the scooter looked more like a toy. He kept his knees together directly in front of him and reached his spider-like arms around them to control the machine. The Italians who had designed the scooter had obviously never envisioned someone with the dimensions of Alex driving their machine. I was trying hard to maintain, to keep my mind focused, and that was on one drop. I couldn't imagine the horror show that was taking place in Alex's mind. He yelled out some more crap and shook his head so forcefully that he temporarily lost control of his bike.

Once out of Lamai, we drove for a good quarter of an hour. The rain started, light and in gusts that swept across the island. I kept checking on Alex, as his driving had become increasingly erratic and dangerous. And then he was gone.

"He's fuckin' gone, I can't see him!"

"What?" Gary slowed and pulled over.

Alex was nowhere in sight and the thought crossed my mind that he had finally come off. I jumped off the scooter and took a piss. It was fluorescent yellow and felt as if my liquefied organs were squirting out my piss hole.

Gary was slumped over the handlebars talking to him-self. "We're gonna get killed, shot in the head like dogs and dumped in the fucking jungle."

I finished up and walked back. Still no sign of Alex.

"They'll have pictures of us, butchered for all to see, in _191 Magazine_."

"Fuck man, would you relax! You're freaking me out."

"It's pre-ordained; the writing's on the wall. We are dead men, Dean, _DEAD!_ "

I didn't know what to say, so I just stared at him. His face was moving and contorting as if there were large insects moving around under the skin. Then I caught sight of Alex once more, driving in the opposite lane.

"Here he comes!" I jumped on the back and Gary kick-started the scooter. We kept it slow. Alex was laughing hysterically as he approached, his mad eyes rolling around in his skull like those of a cow being led to slaughter. He zipped past without even acknowledging us and I was certain that he didn't know we were there.

"FUCK THIS!" yelled Gary as he turned the throttle.

Soon we were beside Alex, yelling and pointing, but it was useless and the speed we were travelling at made conversation of any kind impossible. Alex, who found our gesticulations hilarious, pointed and laughed. Gary kicked at him several times but missed, then accelerated and sped past.

We came at last to a dirt road that rose sharply into the jungle, a slash of brown in an ocean of green. Gary aimed the scooter at the gash and started up the slope. We reached a plateau, rounded a corner and stopped. I jumped off and Gary laid the bike on its side.

"What's going on?"

"I'm onto the cunt!" shouted Gary as he limbered up. "This won't take a minute."

The first wave of lysergic had blown everything apart. Events seemed so disjointed, distorted and nonsensical that I didn't know how to interpret Gary's words—they could have meant anything. I could hear Alex's scooter coughing and spluttering like an antique as it laboured up the slope. He came round the bend and, on cue, lost control, his shoulder taking the brunt of the fall. If Alex had done the same thing minutes earlier he would've been skinned alive. He mumbled something in Swahili as he stood and dusted himself off. It was only then that he noticed us.

" _GARRRRRY!_ —WHY YOU STOP?"

Gary jabbed a finger at Alex and his face became sharp and menacing. _"Think we're fuckin' stewpit, dontcha cunt,"_ he hissed.

"AKOONA-MATATA, GARY." Alex shot his bent friend a dismissive yet concerned look and continued to dust himself off.

Gary pulled a flick knife from his bum bag, snapped it open and pressed the blade against Alex's throat. "I'LL FUCKIN' AKOONA-MATATA YOU IN A MINUTE!"

I stepped in. "What the fuck are you doing?"

" _JUST FUCK OFF! THIS CUNT IS TRYING TO KILL US! THEY'RE WAITING UP THERE FOR US. HE PLANNED IT ALL, THE BLACK CUNT! PRE-ORDAINED, DEAN, ITS FUCKIN' PRE-ORDAINED!"_

Alex started laughing, a deep, guttural laugh.

" _LAUGHING AT US? YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW? DO YOU THINK I DON'T FUCKIN' KNOW?"_ Gary pressed the knife harder.

I grabbed Gary's arm and stared into his psycho eyes. "Fuckin' look at me Gary! Alex isn't laughing at us! The guy's so fucked he doesn't even know where he is. He's not planning anything!"

" _BULL-FUCKIN-SHIT-CUNT! I CAN SEE IT IN HIS EYES, LOOK IN HIS FUCKIN' EYES! HE'S A FUCKIN' WITCH DOCTOR! A WITCH DOCTAAAAH!!!"_

Alex stopped laughing and gazed around as if to say, knife? What knife?

"Gary, c'mon, it's just the acid. Only you know about this place remember? Me 'n' Alex have never been here before. Just give me the knife."

Gary kept looking at Alex and breathing heavily.

"C'mon, just gimme the knife," I slowly moved my hand and took hold of it. Gary didn't resist.

Once I had the knife, I folded it and threw it into the jungle. Immediately, Alex jumped on Gary and they fell to the ground brawling. I let them go for a while, both getting in a couple of good punches to the face, and then pulled them off each other.

"All right, that's fuckin' it! You two blokes can go on male bonding all day if ya want but I'm going to go get some fuckin' smack!" I started walking up the hill.

A few minutes later, Gary pulled up next to me.

"You all right now?" I asked him.

"Yeah, mate. I was just fuckin' with the guy."

"You looked pretty serious to me."

I jumped onto the back of the scooter and we drove on. The crest of the hill resembled a middle-aged man's balding head—the barren top surrounded by a ring of jungle vegetation. Several dilapidated bungalows sat in a cluster on the periphery. Most of them had fallen apart and it looked as if only two were actually used. Three thickset Thais were taking turns delivering vicious kicks to a battered leather bag hanging from a tree. We parked the scooters and walked over. They stopped what they were doing when they noticed us and started drying off with towels. All three wore headbands of torn material and bristled with muscles and aggression. I imagined they ate nothing but red meat, great bleeding slabs of the stuff, tore off chunks with their teeth and chewed with their mouths open.

"Ex-Bangkok cops," Gary muttered as we approached.

It was obvious from their body language and smirks that they objected to the presence of our black friend. My whole face was wheezing in and out, twisting and contorting. I had to force my rubbery legs not to bend as I walked, as they would see this as a sign of weakness and pounce on me like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. Gary turned and looked at me; was he trying to tell me something? _Maybe it was true. We were being set up, it was pre-ordained!_ They were going to butcher us like dogs. I envisioned the spread, our half-naked bodies bruised and covered with crescent chunk holes, faces twisted in agony, cheeks eaten, mouths frozen in a scream so you could see the severed tongue stump. _191 Magazine._

Then the largest of the three recognized Gary and they shook hands. One of the ex-cops stayed behind and we followed the other two to the farthest bungalow at the top of the steep incline. There wasn't much room inside with all of us in there and I felt the sweat beading up on my forehead as the lysergic twisted my brain from within. The walls were breathing and pulsing like the gills of a wooden monster. I was feeling claustrophobic and starting to freak, so I leaned out the side window. We were perched on top of a small cliff. The jungle and vines strangled down the slant into an impossibly dense green mess thirty feet below. I smelt hot vegetable green expiring from the jungle, heard the screeching song of a million different birds and insects, all out there in that mad, screaming world. It gave me hope seeing that ocean of green out there, stretching on for miles, unseen and unknown with the sun beating down and making it look like a shining dream. I wanted to swan dive out of the window, splash into the green Eden below and be done with the heavy scene inside the bungalow. I took a deep breath and turned around.

Alex was sitting on the bed acting disinterested and listening to his Walkman. One of the Thai's opened a drawer and suddenly the room felt a whole lot smaller. Inside the drawer were a couple of automatic handguns and a large quantity of heroin stacked in ten-gram vials.

"How many you want?" snapped the one nearest the drawer.

Gary turned to me. "Two each?"

"Yeah, I'll take two."

We both looked at Alex. He was in a world of his own, mouthing the lyrics to a Hendrix song.

"Make it five," I said.

The fellow seemed happy with this and started counting out the vials. Then Alex stood up and, before anyone could stop him, reached into the drawer, grabbed a vial and held it up in the air as if examining a gemstone. The Thai nearest Alex shoved him hard in the chest and he fell backwards until his legs hit the bed and ended up back in the sitting position.

"HEY, WHAT YOU DO?" Alex yelled over his Hendrix.

The Thai's face contorted into a mask of pure viciousness, the face of a killer. Gary quickly stepped between them with his hands open in front of him.

"It's OK! He's from Africa, he doesn't understand! Here," Gary pulled out his wallet and started counting out notes. "Just give us the other four and we'll leave, OK?"

I followed Gary's cue and handed my share to him. The dealer's face relaxed a little as Gary stuffed the bills into his hand. One of the Thais still wasn't convinced. "What his problem, hah? What his fuck-eng problem?" He had taken a gun from the drawer and was pointing it at the still oblivious Alex, who was unscrewing the lid on the vial. The last person I wanted to be around while tripping out on acid was a pissed off, smack dealing ex-Bangkok cop waving an automatic. It seemed like the antithesis of the whole _set and setting_ thing, after all.

Once again, Gary stepped between them. "It's OK, I'm sorry for my friend. We leave now OK?"

Alex got the top off his vial and started snorting the shit straight up. Then he sneezed. I snatched the vial from his hand and popped the top back on.

"HEY! WHAT YOU FUCKING DO?" he yelled at me, his eyes full of child-like hurt and confusion at my actions. He had narcotic powder all over his top lip.

I moved in and put my hand behind his head, bent down and got up real close. "Listen to me very carefully, Alex. We're leaving now, no more fucking bullshit. Just get up and follow us out, OK?"

Alex looked at me, then around the room and seemed to gauge the tension; it was pulled taut, ready to snap at any moment. He nodded his head and let out a compliant _akoona-matata._ Gary put his hands together as if he was praying and thanked the men with a _kap-kun-cap_ , then turned and walked out with Alex following obediently. He had to crouch to get through the door.

I was the last to leave. "Sorry about our friend," I said.

The Thais stood staring at me without expression. "You lucky this time," said the one with the gun as he tossed it back in the drawer.

## ***

# Chapter 12 - Junky Slip

As we raced home, the clouds opened up and the rain came down to wash away the bad vibes. Miraculously, Alex made it back in one piece. We parked the bikes and went into the bungalow to dry off. The rain drummed down on the thatched roof and I was impressed to see that it didn't leak. While Gary and I changed our shirts, Alex stood in the corner shifting his weight from foot to foot. He wrapped his arms around himself and had a confused, lost look on his face.

"Where is it? I need something," he said looking at the floor.

"God, would ya look at that!" Gary laughed, snapping at him with his towel.

Alex moved like a wounded animal and made a slight gasping noise. _"No Gary,_ don't do this. Please, just give me?" His voice was weak and his eyes were wide and pleading.

Gary whipped at him again. Alex jumped and tried to protect himself. I let it go on for a while then pulled out a vial and tossed it to him. Once Alex had a few lines up his nose, he was more or less back to his old self. He didn't like the fact that Gary and I took the intravenous route. We were lying on the bed in a narcotic stupor when the taunting began.

" _You are no good junky man, Gary,_ " admonished Alex as he stood with his hands on his hips shaking his head.

"Didn't Dean just give you a vial?"

"But dis needle, Gary. You are piece of shit junky!" He waggled an accusatory black finger in Gary's direction.

I was glad to have been left out of the loop. Over the months the two seemed to have developed a symbiotic relationship in which bickering played a big part, almost like a real married couple. They could go on for hours, arguing over minutiae. I let them quarrel and lay back on the bed listening to the rain. Soon the two of them fell quiet and I drifted off into electric dreams.

" _JUNKY SHIT! POOFTER JUNKY!_ "

My dreams were interrupted by Alex's screams. I sat up to see him crouched like a panther next to Gary on the bed so that he could shout in his ear. Alex found it uproarious, jumping around the little bungalow while slapping his thighs loudly.

Gary sat up. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He looked at Alex as one would a worm.

The arguing started up again. I retreated to the corner of the bed and slid open the wooden shutter. I could see into the bungalow next to us. Someone was asleep in there, surrounded by the shroud of a mosquito net.

The two of them went on and on. I reached for a bottle of Mekong and took a hit. Gary swiped it from me and did the same. They continued arguing, grabbing the bottle from each other and taking retaliatory slugs. I left them to it and went to sit on the balcony.

I thought about going back inside to get my Walkman, the B side of _Combat Rock_ would have been perfect at that moment, although I would have to skip past 'Over-powered by Funk.' God knows why they included it on an otherwise perfect album. But that was what made The Clash great: they were always trying something new. It was as if they captured the essence of Southeast Asia on that album and translated it to music. Listening to it never failed to transport me back to a sidewalk bar in Bangkok or a San Miguel-drenched Hong Kong after-noon.

As I sat watching the rain come down, the door of the bungalow directly opposite us opened, and a young woman stepped out to take down her laundry. She was slightly dark and wore a bikini top and sarong. Her tits hung from her like drops of water sliding from an oily surface. Behind me, the argument reached a fever pitch, all semblance of decency thrown to the wind. I caught the girl's eye for a moment but she looked quickly away and continued to snatch down her clothes. Gary flung open the side shutter and puked loudly. She looked over when she heard the retching noises. I heard water hit the ground on the other side of the bungalow; it came down harder than the rain.

"THAT'S IT, PISS OUT THE WINDOW LIKE AN UN-CIVILIZED FUCKING MONKEY!"

"YOU VOMIT LIKE THE FUCKING JUNKY MAN!"

The girl paused in her activities and glowered over at our bungalow. I gave her a wave, which she chose to ignore before disappearing into her bungalow and slamming the door. After a time, the argument dried up and all that could be heard was the steady drone of the rain, drumming on the thatched roofs of a dozen bungalows.

I wake up wondering how long I was out. It's dark. I stand up and open the door. Inside, there is a small kerosene lamp on the side table casting a weak light. Gary is curled up on the bed holding a bottle of Mekong to his chest like a baby. Alex is busy rifling through Gary's small bag. He is also inexplicably naked.

" _What the fuck are you doing?" I ask._

Alex doesn't pause in his activities and goes on searching. Then he finds what he is looking for, the small vial of LSD 25.

" _Ah, dis is mine!" he whispers triumphantly._

I try to snatch it from his hand but he is too damn quick and retreats to the far corner. "Give it here, Alex. It's for your own good!"

" _No! You not take! Dis is mine!" His eyes spark in the dark and he becomes a six-and-a-half foot vision of voodoo hell. I give Gary's leg a quick shake, not taking my eyes off Alex for a second._

" _Gary, get up!"_

" _Fuck off," he mumbles._

" _Get the fuck up! He's got your vial."_

Gary shifts his head to take a look around, sees Alex in the corner, and sits up. "Jesus fuckin' Christ! Naked?"

" _He's got the acid!"_

Gary immediately checks his bum bag and sees that the zip is open. He jumps up. "You fuckin' thief! You steal from me after all the shit I've done for you?"

We both stand between the doorway and Alex. There's no way he's getting past us.

" _OK, Alex, hand it over now and I'll give you some more." Gary takes a step forward with his palm out._

It is clear to both of us that this is a man on the precipice of madness, a man to be treated with extreme caution. Alex looks at us both in turn, his expression crazed, then, in an instant, desperate. In the next split second he feigns a frontal attack, sidesteps and with gazelle-like agility, pounces onto the bed. Before we even have time to think, Alex and the vial of lysergic are out the door, bounding naked through the rain, laughing hysterically. Gary and I stand in the doorway and watch him disappear. It has been a long, strange day and neither of us says a word. We both go back inside and lock the door. I uncap the bottle of Mekong, take a swig, and hand it to Gary.

The next we saw of Alex was a good half an hour later when he jumped through the window. Considering the window was a good six feet off the ground and only slightly wider than his shoulders, this was an incredible feat of dexterity. Alex just soared on through, with all but his legs clearing the ledge. He was wet and naked and started rolling about screaming and laughing like a fucking madman and slapping his thighs loudly. It was more than I could take. I grabbed the bottle and sat out on the balcony in the dark. I couldn't help listening in on the argument, which had taken a strange twist, moving from the pilfered LSD to dick size, Alex bragging and challenging Gary to a comparison. Alex kept screaming, _"HERE IS AFRICA! AFRE-E-E-ECA! SHO' ME, WHITE MAN! SHO' ME!"_

The taunts gradually become more and more vicious then degenerated into flat-out racism, curses screamed in both Swahili and English. Then the entire bungalow shook as they wrestled. Eventually, Alex stood in the doorway puffing his bottom lip out indignantly. He had managed to put on a skimpy little sarong that looked more like a mini-skirt and had a tendency to swing open at the front, exposing his grotesque purple member.

" _FUCK YOU, HOMOSEXUAL POOFTER JUNKY MAN! FUCK YOU!"_ Alex yelled into the bungalow. He jumped down the stairs and onto his scooter. After one or two kicks, the two-stroke spluttered into life and he was off into the rain-soaked night in a cloud of gasoline fumes.

"Oh my God! I'm too old for this shit!" Gary said as he sat down next to me.

"You did a good job teaching him English there."

"Yeah, tell me about it! God, did you see what he went off wearing? He's going to traumatize half of Koh-Samui with that prick."

An hour later, we were still on the balcony, nodding out in the dark and being eaten alive by mosquitoes. The rain had let up and a blanket of humidity descended on the island. The sound of insects and the subdued roar of distant thunder reclaimed the evening. Then, out of the darkness came Alex, his headlight slashing the night in wild, swinging movements as he came flying down the path on his scooter with a whore holding on for dear life. He ignored us as he parked the machine. Now Alex was acting all high and mighty, his head held proudly in the air, but at least he wasn't bragging about the size of his dick. He dismissed us with a wave of his hand as he walked past and said, _"Dese my fren."_ The young lady smiled and nodded at us, then followed him obediently into the room.

Gary and I stayed outside on the balcony as the storm clouds above churned and grumbled. A long drawn out groan from the bungalow interrupted our peace and then the whore started to yelp like a seal pup being beaten to death by a Canadian.

"OK, fuck this," I said, standing up. "It's time to go."

## ***

# Chapter 13 - Fill the Sky with a Tropical Storm

The Reggae Bar was the official pre-party bar and it was filled to capacity by the time we arrived. The Bobs were frantically working the crowd offloading Gorbachev and Zippy the Pinhead blotter acid. Both types were loaded with 250 micrograms of LSD and weren't for the faint of heart. Gary ordered a couple of ice-cold Singhas and we sat down at a small table. As I drank, I wondered if we'd done the right thing, leaving a young prostitute alone with a drug-crazed African bordering on psychosis with a grotesque purple cock. Then I started wondering if we had done the right thing leaving Alex with a streetwise hooker while he was in such a condition. I took a swig of beer and tried hard not to think about anything.

When it was my turn to order a round, I noticed a girl standing next to me at the bar. She looked me up and down with a neutral expression.

"You know Gary?" she asked.

"I know _a_ Gary. Are we talking about the same guy?"

"I met him in Chang Mai about a fortnight ago. I'm supposed to be meeting up with him on Pangan."

"Yeah, he mentioned you. He's over there!" I picked up the beers and turned.

"No, don't worry about it. I don't want to see him."

"Isn't that what you came down for?"

"Yeah, well, that was a mistake wasn't it? I wouldn't have bothered if I'd known he was such a fuckin' racist arsehole." She blew smoke downwards onto the bar.

"Racist? What are you talking about?"

"I'm staying in the bungalow across from you guys. I heard all that shit that was happening this afternoon." Then I recognised her: she was the girl that I saw taking down her laundry.

"Yeah, it got a bit messy, but they were just having an argument—those guys are good friends."

"Fuck that. I'm half Maori. I heard what he called that guy."

"You're taking it out of context."

"Yeah, right."

The girl turned and faced the bar, making it clear that the conversation was over. I walked back with the beers, waited a few moments, and then turned to see if she was still at the bar. She had disappeared into the crowd.

"Hey, when did you say that girl you met up north was coming?" I asked Gary.

"Bethany? She should be any day now. I gave her my address at Bo-Bo's. Why?"

"You mentioned something about her on the train, I was just wondering."

"Yeah, we were seeing each other up north, she's so unreal. She's coming to Pangan next week—I can't wait. You know when you meet a girl and everything is just perfect?"

"Yeah, I think so."

By the time we left the Reggae Bar, a tropical storm hit the island full force. Rain came down in sheets and the palm trees creaked eerily in the darkness. We left with the Bobs and took a few Gorbachevs for fortitude as we pushed against the rain-swept night. The party was in a large, one-storey building. There were seats around the periphery, away from the sunken dance floor. Hanging from the ceiling by thick chains were four enormous speakers. Goa hardcore filled the building with volume and vibration. It filled me with a creeping anxiety—as if something terrible was about to happen, but at least it wasn't house music.

Gary and I sat against a wall in the semi-darkness, watching the action on the dance floor and drinking beer steadily. The Gorbys were coming on in waves and my senses kept getting mixed up. One minute I would be watching the music burst from the speakers in lightning spasms, and the next I could smell it. The music smelled like an electrical fire. Someone had chained a television high above the heads of the people on the dance floor. It was playing black and white WW 2 footage. Most of the footage was from the German side: the Nuremberg rally, the launching of the Bismarck, the 1934 Olympic Games, that sort of thing.

We watched the Bobs working the crowd, approaching people and making their pitch. Every once in a while they'd report their progress back to us. I asked if they had sold any to an American couple.

"Yanks? Nah mate, don't think there are any yanks here even," said Bob as he leaned into my ear.

"The girl was hit on the head by a coconut. She's brain damaged, you shouldn't sell them any."

He looked at me with wide eyes. "Fuck, man! Maybe I shouldn't be selling _you_ anymore. Hit on the head by a coconut?"

I noticed a guy in sandals standing behind Bob with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Bob pointed to a group of young Japanese sitting on the opposite side of the club. "Sold them Japs a whole sheet of Gorbys."

"Yeah, that seems to be the way they do it. Who's the guy in the sandals?"

"That guy? Where is he?" He turned around and the guy was in his face. "Whoa, fuck! Back up, Tiger!"

The guy obediently did as he was told, taking two steps backwards, still grinning like an idiot.

"He's from Oxford or some shit. Had such a posh accent we thought he was a foreigner or something. He's never had acid before, ate a Zippy."

"That's a good start."

"Yeah, but it's a bit annoying having him shadow us."

I offered the bloke a seat. His name was Andrew and sure enough, he sounded like the Duke of Windsor. I handed him my beer and pointed in the direction of the television. He had a look of stunned awe as he glanced from the dance floor to the footage of Stuka dive-bombers and marching Nazis.

Kate came dancing towards us, spinning and jigging. Gary and I both cracked up. She looked like Miss Piggy again.

"OH-MY-GOD!" she yelled at us, "YOU GUYS ARE SO _FUCKED UP!_ " She gave us a broad accusatory sweep with her finger then quickly walked back to the dance floor and started moving around.

"She's been saying that all night, can't handle her fuckin' acid," said Bob as he moved in time to the music.

We all watched her dance for a while and I could swear that the music changed to a Goa version of the Muppets theme song. If the doors on the west side of the building weren't shut tightly with a broomstick, there would've been no evidence that a tropical storm was assaulting Samui. The wind buffeted the doors wildly and I was sure the broomstick was going to snap at any moment.

I walked to the bar and bought another Singha. The music pulsed through me like a toothache, aggressive and unrelenting as I cut through the dance floor on the way back. I realised as I pushed through the crowd that it all came down to the beat. It was, after all, the first thing we heard in the womb, the beat of our mother's heart, even before the embryo had ears to hear it with, thudding through our skulls, reverberating down our spine. The beat was everything. The first time I heard the nihilistic drumming of early eighties punk rock, I knew I'd found my crooked beat: a chaotic, galloping rhythm rushing headlong towards oblivion, hell-bent on self-destruction. Suddenly, techno made sense to me. I could see what everyone was talking about, what all the fuss was about. It wasn't so much about the dancing or the music for that matter; it was more about giving in to the beat and letting go of everything that ever mattered, breaking down all the barriers put up by society, letting go of all that shit and just existing for that second, that beat. I looked around at the others and saw it in their faces; _they understood._

By the time it started to get grey outside, the doors stopped pushing against the broomstick and it seemed that the worst of the storm was over. On the opposite side of the club, the side doors flew open causing a sheet of rain to blow in. People stopped dancing to turn and see what was going on, and there stood Alex—all six and a half feet of him, soaking wet and with wild, crazed eyes. He reached out to both sides of the doorframe to steady himself. I almost expected a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder to herald his dramatic entrance.

I whacked Gary's arm and pointed. "Check it out!"

Gary looked down from the TV. "HOLY SHIT!"

Once the doors closed behind Alex, people tried to get back to what they were doing but Alex was not to be ignored. He walked onto the floor in a jerky, erratic fashion, flicking his arms spasmodically and twitching his head. I was surprised he could still walk after all the acid, heroin, captagon and whisky he had ingested. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. We both started laughing and it was hard not to. After all, Alex was the complete antithesis of all those in attendance, representing their greatest fear: the drug-casualty. Alex waded into the crowd pushing and shoving. I could see his mouth moving but it didn't look like he was saying _akoona-matata_ now.

"God, he looks injured or something," I said.

"At least he still has that sarong on."

Alex seemed confused and agitated. When people became aware of his presence they quickly moved away, the ecstasy and acid in their heads turning savagely against them.

Once Alex made it to the centre of the dance floor, he was given a wide berth. People started leaving the dance floor to sit down, not wanting to be anywhere near the ugly spectacle he had become. He stood there and jerked erratically, looking around in confusion to see if anyone was behind him. His face was swollen and one eye was just a slit. He seemed to be injured on his left side and walked with a limp. I guessed he'd come off his scooter somewhere. His yellow headband and Jimi Hendrix cassettes were gone. We both stopped laughing. Gary stood and walked down towards him. Alex resisted at first and they had a small struggle, but it seemed that all the fight had gone from him. Gary held Alex firmly by the shoulders and guided him back. As Alex walked, he exposed himself and this time, instead of being funny like it was in the bungalow, it was tragic and ugly. As he came closer, I could see the severity of his injuries: his entire left thigh and side had been skinned—his luck on the scooter had not held out. His face was a bloody pulp and one eye was swollen shut. In one short night he had lost everything. Gary carefully lowered him into a seat. I helped out and we were careful not to touch the nasty looking gravel rash. Alex was oblivious in his confusion and his eyes had the unmistakable, shattered, lost look that I'd seen in other drug casualties.

"Looks like he wrote off the scooter, and he's been beaten or ripped off or something," said Gary examining Alex's many injuries.

Andrew watched in disbelief. "What happened? God, what happened?" he said in his posh Oxford accent. I noticed that Andrew was still holding the beer that I had given him. I took it away.

"Alex, have a beer." I tried to put it in his hand but he didn't respond. He opened his mouth as if to say some-thing, then changed his mind. I noticed that his teeth were now varying shades of pink and red.

We were sitting on the wooden deck of a beachside bar when the sunrise peeked over the horizon. The deck was still soaked from the tropical storm and all kinds of wreckage and palm fronds covered the beach. Alex lay flat on his back next to our table, his dick lying flaccidly against his thigh. His wounds looked a lot worse in the morning light and it was finally possible to differentiate the blood against his black skin. His eyes were closed and his mouth was wide open. Drool ran down his left cheek. Every once in a while he would mumble some-thing and shake his head ruefully, letting out a weak and uninspired, _akoona-matata._ As we drank, we made a point of asking Alex how he was every so often, hoping that he would sit up and absolve us of the responsibility of looking after him. But he said nothing. We sat in silent awe as the quicksilver sun exploded over the horizon and our weary eyes leaked hallucinogenic. No one spoke much; we just sat and drank Singha. The morning air had that fresh, crisp smell that precedes a storm, the smell of a new beginning, which by noon, usually lay like so many sun baked palm fronds on the beach. I noticed that Andrew just sat there staring at Alex.

"You see that?" I said.

We both looked at Alex and Andrew nodded his head.

"That's what happens when you take too much acid," I continued.

Andrew looked at me with concern and I raised my eyebrows. He turned his attention back to Alex for a minute or two, then without a word to anyone, stood up and walked up the beach. Everyone watched him as he walked into the sunrise that bathed the Gulf of Thailand.

"What'd you say to that guy?" asked Bob.

"Nothing."

"Don't suppose we'll ever be seeing him again."

We drank a few more beers in silence and I slipped into the toilet to stab the back of my hand with a hypodermic. When I came out, one of the Bobs finished his beer, slammed it down on the table and stood up.

"I think we should make a move now or we're going to end up here all day."

We all quickly followed suit.

"What about him?" asked one of the other Bobs, pointing at Alex.

"Not much any of us can do," I said.

"Yeah, fuck him," spat Gary as he stood up. "The tourist police will pick him up soon enough and put him in the asylum on Surithani where he belongs."

The truth was, none of us could afford to care. When it came down to it, we were all on our own. As we left, I gave Alex one last look. He didn't even notice us leave.

It felt good to be moving again. We were going some-where, anywhere. We walked in single file on the side of the road, sharing a bottle. Then Gary stopped.

"Look, you blokes go ahead, I'm staying behind."

"What, Alex?" I asked.

"Yeah, I can't just leave him like that."

As we stood there, a police 4WD flew past us kicking up a cloud of dust. Gary turned and walked away. We paused for a moment then resumed our journey.

## ***

# Chapter 14 - 24 Hours to Bangkok

The days came and went, each indistinguishable from the last. I spent most of the time nodding out for hours on end at Bo-Bo's restaurant or lying comatose in my hammock, waking at night with hundreds of mosquito bites covering my body. The days were all the same: the brilliant blue sky stretched on endlessly, the sun swung from horizon to horizon, and the tides ebbed and flowed as I rang the hypnotic bell.

I wandered over to Haadrin a few times but felt out of place. The beach there had been overrun by flashpacker vermin. The moment when it really sunk in that it was all over on Haadrin came when I sat on the beach one afternoon. I'd been savouring a cold bottle of Singha and watching the action when I spotted two women dressed in Lycra shorts near the water. They were marching in an odd, brisk manner, not exactly running or walking. At first I thought they were stoned out of their minds and having difficulty walking. Then it dawned on me: they were _power walking_. The only decent thing left to do to Haadrin was to carpet bomb the fucking place, prefer-ably during a full moon party.

The march of progress, thankfully, took a left turn when it reached Bo-Bo's.

One day as I lay spread-eagled on my bed in a stupor, a single word cut through the fugue: _Calcutta._ I sat bolt upright with the sick realization that I might've already missed my flight. I tore my room to pieces looking for the ticket. It wasn't in the logical places like my duffel bag so I upturned the mattress and threw everything on the floor in a mad panic. After a good ten minutes, I stood in the middle of the mess still without the ticket. I kicked the wall and my foot burst through the thin panelling. Deciding that a shot would help me calm down and think clearly, I swung myself up onto the support beam to the top of the bungalow. I kept my smack and works carefully hidden away in the sloping thatch roof. The thatch was laid out in layers creating folds that were perfect for hiding things. Most cops would search the ones nearest the bottom but not bother with those higher up. As I withdrew a syringe from a fold, a corner of paper caught my eye. I gave it a tug and down fluttered the plane ticket like manna from heaven. Jumping down onto the bed, I picked it up and checked the date, which was irrelevant since I didn't know what day it was. I swung open the door and stepped out onto the balcony. Gary lay in his hammock three bungalows down.

"Gary, what day is it?" I called out to him.

He didn't respond so I walked down and shook him vigorously.

"What the fuck?"

"Gary, it's important. What day is it?"

"Shit, I dunno." He went back to nod-land.

I saw Bo-Bo reading a _Bangkok Times_ in the restaurant so I walked over to him.

"Bo-Bo, is this today's newspaper?" I asked pointing at his paper as sweat beaded on my forehead.

Bo-Bo laughed and shook his head. "Yesterday paper."

Judging from the date, my flight from Bangkok was leaving in two days. Just to get to Surithani on the main-land would take the best part of a day, not to mention the twelve-hour train ride from Surithani to Bangkok, but it was still possible. I would have to leave tonight, catch the night ferry from Tongsala, bypass Koh-Samui and head straight to the mainland. A coach or train could take me up the peninsula to Bangkok, whichever came first. From there, I could make Bangkok in twenty-four hours.

That afternoon, I stuffed my belongings into my duffel bag and closed the bungalow door behind me. I thought of saying goodbye to everyone but skipped out instead. After all, friends come and go, lovers come and go and life bleeds on. No point making a fuss about it. As I turned onto the path, I saw Gary standing by the water, looking out at the horizon.

"Dean, you leaving?" He'd seen me.

I walked up. "Yeah, got a flight to India in two days."

Gary looked back out to the ocean and nodded his head. "I don't think she's coming."

"Maybe it's for the better, she might have been crazy."

"Nah, she was something."

"Alex still in the asylum?" I asked.

He narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Yeah, they were sorting something out with his embassy the last time I visited. The party's over for that crazy prick."

A breeze picked up and swirled the sand at our feet. We both stood there for a bit, looking out at the water.

"Well, good luck," I said, holding out my hand.

"You too," he said as we shook.

Then I was on my way again.

At Tongsala, I treated myself to a green curry and a bottle of Singha. It was early evening and there was no one else in the restaurant. The cook was in the back banging pots and pans as a ceiling fan laboured noisily. With a full stomach I could see things clearly laid out before me. As long as I could make it to Delhi I would be all right. My friend probably already sent the money and it would have already arrived at the Delhi General Post Office Doubts bubbled up from my subconscious: _He's an alcoholic dope fiend; your money is long gone! He's never going to see you again, so why in fuck should he send it?_ I took a deep breath and burst my doubts with the sharp stick of optimism. _A registered envelope with my name on it is waiting for me at the Main GPO in New Delhi. My friend hasn't spent the money on liquor and drugs. He has done the right thing; he is a trustworthy friend, a good mate._

An hour later, the night ferry docked and turned the empty port into a hub of activity. Scores of young backpackers filled the bars and restaurants of Tongsala and caused a flurry of activity with the taxi drivers. I boarded and made my way to the bottom deck, located my mattress and lay down. Just before departure, two plainclothes cops came down holding a _farang_ in hand-cuffs. The cops nodded hello to me and motioned their prisoner to sit on the bottom half of the mattress as they took the top half. The guy in handcuffs was sobbing and kept rubbing tears from his eyes while shaking his head. He was about twenty and wore the usual traveller get-up: a full-moon party T-shirt, baggy tie-died pants tied with a cord, and sandals.

The boat groaned and creaked as we left the dock and headed to sea. The Singhas I had drunk were bursting to be set free so I quickly walked past the other passengers lounging on their mattresses in the semi-dark and made my way to the toilet. Predictably, the light was broken. I closed the door and unzipped. There was no way to tell where the bowl was, so I just aimed in its general direction and let fly. I heard my piss drum off the plastic wall so I lowered my aim. As I pissed, the boat rolled and water from somewhere splashed my feet and ankles. When I was finished I held the door open to see where the water had come from. I almost puked when I saw that the bowl was filled to the brim with piss, shit, and mulched-up toilet paper. My shoes and the bottom of my jeans were covered with the stuff. Back on my mattress, I lay there with my shoes hanging off the end and stared at the ceiling.

The guy in the handcuffs had stopped crying and was looking over at me. "Have you got a cigarette?"

"Nah, sorry. Don't smoke. Bad for the health."

"Oh man, I could really use a cigarette."

I sat up. "What did you get done for?"

"Just weed. The door on my bungalow was unlocked and they walked in the morning after the full moon party."

"Why are you going to Surithani?"

"I have to go to court to have a trial date set. For the amount I had, I'll probably get a year."

He was fucked. The cops sat against the wall smiling.

"Is there any way to get out of it?"

"I tried bribing them but they just took everything I had."

I didn't know what to say. What could I say? I lay back on my mattress and went to sleep.

The ferry bumping against the dock jolted me awake. The fellow next to me resumed his sobbing. When the gangplank clanged onto the dock, the two cops got up and held him by his arms. He stopped at the end of my mattress.

"It's not fair! I know you're a fuckin' junky. Why don't they arrest you? Why am I getting done? It was just fuckin' weed! You're a junky—I know you are!"

The cops stopped and stood looking at me.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I asked.

The prisoner turned to the plainclothesmen. "He's a junky—heroin! Search him, he's a fuckin' user!"

There were a few grams of smack in my bag, a dozen syringes, a quarter ounce of pot and a few Gorbachevs, all just inches away from the cop's feet.

I swirled a finger next to my temple. "Too much pot."

The cops smiled and led the prisoner off as I silently hoped he would get repeatedly butt-fucked in jail.

The morning felt harsh and unforgiving as I walked to the bus stop in the dirty dawn light. Several travellers from the ferry joined me at the station but I felt disconnected to them and they might as well have been from another planet. Dirty looks and bad vibes were my bed-fellows as I uncapped a bottle of Mekong and started to pour it down my throat.

## ***

# Chapter 15 - Midnight over Bangladesh

The next morning I awoke with a mouthful of bile. I sat on the edge of my bed and spat it on the floor, noting with some amusement that it reeked of butyric acid. The back of my throat burned as I gazed around and blinked the sleep from my eyes. The guy in the bed next to me looked vaguely familiar so I leaned in to take a better look in the dim light of the dorm. He opened his eyes to find me staring intently at him.

"What the fuck is that stink? It smells like parmesan cheese."

"Jesus Christ, Jake?" I asked.

Jake stared at me for a bit longer until his eyes lit up with recognition. "Dean, very strange to wake up and smell you first thing like this."

"Tell me about it."

Jake sat up, swung his legs off to the side of the bed, and offered me a Krong-Thip. We had known each other on my last trip to Koh-Pangan and we talked a bit about the past and the people we had known.

"Are you still doing runs?" I asked as Jake lit another cigarette.

"Nah, that's the thing about doing runs, you have to know when to get out."

"What are you doing now?"

"A little bit of import/export, all completely legal and I don't have to swallow anything."

Then the conversation turned to our travel plans, and, as fate would have it, we were both booked on the same flight to Calcutta later that afternoon.

"What are the chances of that?" Jake asked as he exhaled and shook his head.

"Pretty slim," I admitted.

A thin mist had settled onto the street during the night. Our voices rang out as we traversed its length to find the only open restaurant. We ordered a couple of Singhas and watched as a dog scavenged in the gutter. We drank until noon when a cloying, permeating heat that reeked of pineapple and piss replaced the early morning chill. After a dish of pad-Thai, Jake wiped his mouth with a serviette and pushed out his chair.

"Well, I should get going. Got some stuff to take care of before the flight. How about I meet you in the departure lounge an hour or so before take off?" he said as he stood up.

"Sounds good."

Jake lit up a Krong-Thip, whipped the spent match into the gutter and stepped out into the street. I ordered another beer.

The plane was leaving at 7:00 PM. I got there at 6:45 PM on account of my tuktuk driver getting into a fistfight with a cab driver. We'd been driving along making good time when the taxi cut us off and caused the tuktuk to bank dangerously on two of its three wheels. My driver started shrieking insults at the cabby in Thai as I joined the tirade in English. We drew up beside him and continued the abuse as the traffic in front of us slowed to a halt. My driver leaned over to yell at the cabby, who sat behind his window in air-conditioned comfort cleaning his teeth with a toothpick. I sat in the back of the tuktuk with a jug of Mekong on my thigh and screamed abuse on the cabbie. We made quite a noise together. Families stacked on top of mopeds glanced over and smiled at the drama. Gasoline fumes and the rattle of two-stroke engines filled the air. Finally, the cabbie couldn't take anymore. He wound down his window and snapped something at my driver and they both went quiet. When the traffic let up again, we fell in behind the cab and exited the main road. It seemed that the drivers had made some sort of arrangement. The cab driver skidded to a halt on a side street and stepped out of his vehicle, slamming the door with a confident flourish as he puffed out his chest and limbered up. Rolling up his sleeves the cabbie exposed a thick gold bracelet and an expensive wristwatch. He spat out the toothpick he'd been chewing on and cracked his knuckles. My driver came to a sudden halt and jumped out, leaving me sitting in the back with the engine still going. The cab driver was a good thirty pounds heavier but my money was still on my driver. They started circling, fronting up in muay-thai style. Mr. Cab got in the first few punches and this made him cocky, sure that the fight was his. His moment of glory was short-lived however as Mr. Tuktuk retaliated viciously with a lightning quick barrage of kick combinations. Mr. Cab countered one or two of the blows but he was just too slow. Considering it was the national sport, just about everyone in Thailand had learnt muay-thai at some time in their life, but Mr. Cab had spent too long in the air-conditioned comfort of his taxi eating fish balls and drinking Coca-Cola, causing his gut to bulge obscenely. He still had a bit of technique but all the speed, strength and stamina had gone from his fight. Things were pretty much set after that and Mr. Tuktuk wore his opponent down with a savage attack. Eventually Mr. Cab turned in defeat and stumbled to his taxi, blood from his nose and mouth staining his tailored white shirt. He got into his taxicab, started up and took off without looking back.

"Victory!" I shouted.

Mr. Tuktuk strutted back with a large grin on his face, triumphantly barked something in Thai, and swiped the bottle from me. He leaned his entire body backwards as he poured the stuff down his throat.

After customs, I had just minutes to spare. There were only a few people left in the departure lounge and Jake wasn't one of them. I sat there for a while, thinking that maybe he was in the toilet. I casually flipped through a fashion magazine, pausing on the pages that featured attractive models. Then I tossed the magazine aside and scanned the lounge. Outside, the sun was setting over Bangkok, drawing out the shadows of the planes that idled and turned silently on the runway. To the east, a 747 came lumbering in with its landing gear down, the weak sun glinting here and there off its silver skin. Jake was still nowhere to be seen, so I stood up and made for the departure gate.

The airplane was less than half-full, allowing me to spread myself over several seats. I had been sitting for a few minutes flipping through in-flight magazines when Jake came bumping down the aisle with a big bag slung over his shoulder. When I sat up and waved, he nodded at me and came over, his bag slamming wildly in every direction.

"I was lucky, they weren't gonna let me on with all this shit," said Jake as he crammed the bag into the over-head compartment.

"Where'd all that stuff come from?" He had left that morning with only a small shoulder bag.

"Supply and demand. I told you, import/export, it's what I do now." Jake was sweating profusely and smelt strongly of Mekong, his complexion similar to that of a liver drained of blood.

"You make money off this?"

"Yeah, this is how I finance my travels. Coupla years from now I might open up a shop, maybe in Bangkok or Hong Kong. I know guys that are millionaires from this shit, and those bastards at customs went through every-thing!"

"Well, what is it that you're importing?"

" _Exporting_. Mainly baby care products, formula, that sorta stuff and some high-end hair care products. There is a big demand for this shit with the upper-castes in India. The Indian crap is nowhere near as good quality. High demand in Bollywood. Had to tell them at customs that it was all gifts! And I've got more of the shit in the luggage compartment."

The plane jerked forward onto the runway. The dying sun exploded through the windows on the west side and turned everything to gold for one wonderful moment. Then the plane stopped, turned, paused for a minute, and accelerated up the runway. Moments later I felt our wheels leave the tarmac and we left Thailand behind.

When we levelled off, the captain's voice came over the intercom to inform us of our height and cruising speed. Then the seatbelt light blinked out and everyone clinked their belts off in unison. I saw the stewardess working her way up the aisle pushing a cart. She was handing out drinks and little bags of peanuts. Jake and I ordered a beer. She gave us each a large bottle with a plastic cup placed over the cap.

"Jesus Christ," I said, looking at the bottle. It was an Indian brand, Kingfisher.

"Wouldya look at that, large bottles. Never seen these on a flight before," said Jake holding up his bottle for examination.

I poured myself a cup full, pushed my seat into recline and took a sip as we passed through a bank of cumulous clouds that streaked the windows with moisture.

"I have a good feeling about this trip," Jake said as he refilled his glass.

"Seems like a bit of a gamble, selling that stuff."

"Nah, I've got the contacts see? I'm not staying in Calcutta for long, no way. Bombay, where they do all that _filmi_ shit, the actors all need high-end hair care stuff. They call it _Bollywood_ y'know, after Hollywood."

"Yeah, I know."

We polished off the Kingfishers quickly and when the stewardess came back with replacements Jake pointed at her hair. "Excuse me for a moment," he asked, suddenly affecting a suave persona. "Does your conditioner have a moisturizer in it?"

"You mean for my hair?" She swished her shoulder length hair and took a quick look at it.

"Yes, your hair," Jake pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes.

"Ah, well, I really don't know, sorry."

She started pushing her cart back down the aisle. Jake stuck his index finger in the air. "Just a minute, Miss, I have something for you." He smiled insipidly for what I thought was an inappropriate length of time before hunching over and trying awkwardly to pull something from the bag crammed under his seat. The stewardess stood there smiling uncomfortably. I poured another beer and spilled half a glass over my tray on account of Jake's bumping all over the place. The person sitting in front of him even looked back to see what in the hell was going on. As I tried to mop up the mess with a highly inefficient serviette, Jake popped back up with a little plastic bottle held triumphantly in his hand.

"Here you go," he said handing it to the stewardess. "You might find you'll have less split ends using this. All the time you spend on airplanes must be _hell_ on your hair."

The stewardess gave him a weak smile, accepted the bottle and left with her cart.

"See how easy it is?" Jake asked me. "That's what it's all about, salesmanship. Doesn't matter how good the product is if you can't sell it."

"But she didn't buy it off you, you gave it to her."

"So fuckin what? She _would've_ bought it!" Jake poured himself another beer and I got up and walked to the toilet.

Locked in the restroom, I took a joint from my pocket, straightened it out and placed it on the stainless steel countertop. Then I took out a strip of blu-tac from the same pocket and laid it next to the joint. After searching most of the little compartments and clouding myself with cheap cologne, I found a plastic bag. Reaching up, I put a ring of blu-tac around the smoke detector and sealed it with the plastic bag. Satisfied with my work, I pulled a wad of paper towels from the dispenser, soaked them in the sink, and massaged and squeezed them into a moist ball. When I was happy with the consistency, I pressed down the metal flap in the bottom of the toilet and moulded the soggy ball onto the edge of the flap, balancing it in such a way so that the flap stayed open and caused a considerable vacuum. Just for good measure, I pulled the plug in the sink, which created its own little air suction. I smoked the joint quickly and when I came to the end, took an extra large lungful and held it in. Outside, I sauntered down the aisle exhaling slowly and filling the plane with the sweet smell of Thai marijuana.

As I passed the food and drink station on the way back to my seat, I pulled back the curtain and had a peek. The stewardesses were busy doing their rounds and had left the station unattended. I slipped in and opened a couple of the compartments, which were filled with microwave meals in silver foil. In the third one, I came across a load of miniatures stacked neatly. I snapped open a barf bag and filled it with a goodly assortment of bottles. As I left, something in the rubbish bin caught my eye. I peered in. It was Jake's little bottle of hair care crap.

"What the fuck took you so long? Take a shit or some-thing? I never shit in airplane toilets—can't stand 'em!" growled Jake as I sat down.

"No, I didn't take a shit."

"You've got some catching up to do. I'm one ahead, so I ordered for you." He slammed a bottle of Kingfisher down in front of me, causing it to foam over.

"Thanks, here have some of these." I gave him the barf bag and poured a beer.

"Hey! Nice one," he said as he took a look inside. So we had shots followed by beer chasers as we flew over the coast of Bangladesh in the darkness.

Sometime during the night, we had a loud argument after I told Jake about the conditioner in the rubbish bin. He said he intended to "sort the bitch out" and stood up. Luckily, he was stuck between the window and me. Whenever he tried to get out, I would shout at him to sit down, which would lead to a face-off from which he would back down. After sitting for a while and thinking about it, he would start up again. I was wary about leaving my seat during the lulls as he had a crazed look in his eye and struck me as being highly unpredictable. Eventually, we wore ourselves out and Jake satisfied himself by referring to the stewardess as "the slut."

A few hours later our wheels bumped down on Indian tarmac and woke me up. Jake was glued to the window as the airplane braked in body jerking spurts. His tray was littered with empty miniatures and I noticed that he had rammed a few empty beer bottles into the magazine holder on the back of the chair in front of me.

"You're awake?" he asked when I pulled out a few bottles so I could move my legs.

"Yeah, what's all this shit?" I pointed at the empties.

"What? Oh that. I kept ordering for you, and when you didn't wake up I drank them."

My mouth was pasty and foul tasting. I took a swig of Jake's beer but it was very flat and warm as if he'd been holding onto it for quite a while. I swished it around my mouth before swallowing, trying not to retch.

Jake turned away from the window and looked at me. "Well, here we are...Calcutta."

Something in his eyes caught me off guard, a strange look of desperation that I hadn't expected to see there. He turned back to the darkened window and I snapped off my seat belt.

At baggage claim, I picked up my duffel bag and Jake loaded a trolley with his bags. I had to wait for him as he was questioned about his bags. He made quite a scene in his drunken state.

"Bollywood, you imbecile! I know people who know people!" he bellowed in a customs official's face.

They threw his bags onto the floor. "Go, please!"

We staggered out into the hot and muggy Calcutta night. Immediately, we were accosted by no less than a dozen cab drivers.

"Please sir, my taxicab is the _most reputable_ in the city," said one, clasping his hands together.

"Kind sirs, you will find my rates _most reasonable,_ " said another bobbing his head from side to side.

" _Do not listen_ to these thieves, gentlemen. They are liars!" said another, knotting his brow and wagging his forefinger in front of him.

The cabbies motioned to their identical black taxicabs and tried to take hold of our luggage. Some grabbed hold of my arm and tried to lead me to their vehicle while others pulled and tugged and grinned and spoke in that peculiar lilting fashion and asked me which country I was from and if I wanted "charas" "a cheap guesthouse" or "money change" or "brown sugar" over and over again like a broken record. They were sweaty and smiley and moustachioed and they argued amongst each other and lied to us and I quickly hated them.

While we had been waiting for our baggage, Jake had taught me two Hindi phrases he claimed were "fuckin' indispensable." These were _telli-jow_ which meant "go away," and _bahinchudh_ which meant "sister fucker," the latter being a grave insult.

" _Telli-jow! Telli-jow! Telli-jow!"_ I screamed. The crowd fell silent for one expectant moment and then started back up again.

"You speak Hindi _very_ well, sir."

"Wherever did you learn that, sir?"

Clearly there was no reasoning or civility to be had with this bunch.

" _Bahinchudh!_ " I yelled, shoving a cabbie that wouldn't let go of my bag. They were silent for a while and then became dark and brooding.

"These words you are saying are _very_ disrespectful sir! You are a _royal bastard,_ " said the one I had shoved.

" _Telli-jow!"_ I yelled, following up with " _Bahinchudh,_ " getting into the swing of things.

They muttered about us for a while then skulked off to harass a lost looking couple that had just come through the Exit doors.

"See? What did I tell you? Fuckin' _indispensable_ ," said Jake sticking a Krong-Thip between his lips. As he took a large drag it struck me that he no longer seemed to be outrageously drunk.

"Yeah, thanks. Let's go and get that taxi," I pointed to a driver who was leaning up against his cab and had not taken part in the fracas.

"You get that one. I've got to go somewhere else."

"You're not going to Sudder Street?"

"Nope. But if you're in Malaysia next year, look me up at this address." He gave me a card for a guesthouse in Singapore.

"Righto. Well, it was good seeing you again," I said as I put the card in my back pocket.

"We'll bump into each other again somewhere."

We shook hands and Jake was off. As I watched him jump in the cab, I realized that he had left behind the trolley, still fully loaded with all his stuff.

"Jake!" I yelled.

He stuck his head out the window.

"Your bags!"

"They're yours," he shouted back as the cab started to move off.

"What am I going to do with them? What about your business?"

"Now you know why I don't shit on planes!"

The cab accelerated into the dark Calcutta night. I had a look at the bags and decided there was nothing I could use in them.

## ***

# Chapter 16 - Brown Sugar

For one terrifying moment, I thought I must have over-done it and been struck blind. Then a few objects started to take form in the darkness. I was lying on a bed in a large room and guessed that the roof was made of corrugated iron, as the rain drumming down on it was deafening. I could hear others breathing and snoring and figured I was in a dormitory but had no recollection of how I'd gotten there. As I sat up, my stomach felt as if it had been hollowed out and cold worms stuffed in the cavity. I massaged my temples and tried to think back: the flight from Bangkok, Calcutta Airport, and then... _nothing._

The Chinese flu was on me and I couldn't stop shaking and shivering. One minute it felt as if I was burning up, the next as if my marrow was snap frozen. A dull, throbbing pain like a toothache pulsed down the length of my spine, sending shooting pains into my stomach and kidneys. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and squeezed hard as I tried to rock away the pain. The thundering of the rain was loud and relentless.

The dorm exited onto a stone hallway lined with large ferns and stone benches. It was lit by a low-watt light bulb that hung from the high ceiling. I sat down on one of the benches, clenching my arms around my guts as I cursed my ill fortune. The large wooden doors at the end of the hall were shut fast with a big padlock. I was angry at being locked in and charged at the doors. They gave a little, but were thick and old and caused me to despair. I stood with my back against the door and started to rock. The creaking wood made quite a noise. Closing my eyes tightly, I tried to will away the agony that permeated my body.

"Whatever is the matter, sir?" The voice came from in front of me. I stopped rocking and opened my eyes.

A short little man with a purple turban stood smiling in front of me. His beard was pure white with age.

"The doors, they're locked—I have to get out."

"Have you not noticed that it is raining heavily, sir?"

"I need to get out—can you just open the door?"

"You do not want to be walking the streets of Calcutta at this hour, sir. There are _many_ thieves and vagabonds!" He waved a cautionary finger in the air.

"I need out, I don't give a damn about the rain and the thieves."

"Where is it that you plan to go at this late hour sir? Calcutta is not like New York, you will not find any stores open at this time of the morning."

"I'm going for a walk, I have jet lag." I was going to say more but was interrupted by a dry heave.

The old guy slid his left hand into the pocket on his tunic and I heard the music of jingling keys. Thankfully, I didn't have to use my recently acquired Hindi curse words on the fine old gent. He unlocked the padlock and held the door open, grinning through his beard. I walked into the darkness as the door slammed behind me and the padlock snapped shut.

The streets outside were dark and there were no streetlights. I hadn't expected a city the size of Calcutta to be so absolutely dark. Standing in the pouring rain, I tried to let my eyes adjust but it didn't get any better; the inky blackness yielded none of its secrets. In under a minute I was soaked to the bone. Assuming I was in the middle of a road, I started walking along with my arms held out in front of me like a blind person. My teeth started to chatter from the cold and my guts twisted painfully. The words of the old guy ricocheted through my mind " _many thieves and vagabonds_ " but at that point I would have welcomed a sharp knife stuck in my side. I spat and cursed at my foolishness for allowing myself to get so far gone again, then doubled over as the in-flight beer and complimentary snacks surged out of me onto the wet Calcutta street. The spasms came on painfully and frequently, cramping my guts as if stabbed. I spun and hit something solid, turned and walked in another direction until a gutter tripped me and I flew into a wall that nearly knocked me unconscious. Now the black Calcutta night was flecked with shooting stars. With a mind full of resistance, I accepted that I was lost and there would be no cure for my sickness; I would have to wait until dawn to continue the search. Feeling my way along a wall, I came across a stairwell and took shelter from the rain.

Dawn came up dirty grey in Calcutta's alleyways and the last of the downpour splashed into filthy puddles that formed on the empty streets. I sat catatonically in the stairwell as a weak grey light diminished the last of the night's shadows. For most of the night I had sat in an agonized, shivering silence, lest I alert anyone to my presence. People passed me in the pitch darkness as I willed them to continue. It was a miracle I wasn't robbed or beaten.

Footsteps rang dully on the wet cobblestones as a few early risers began the walk to work. I stood wearily and resumed my search. My body was stiff and felt alien. I could hear the roar of traffic not far off and made my way towards the sound. After a short walk through a Dickensian neighbourhood, I came to a broad avenue that was already shrouded with a thin haze of exhaust. I walked with the shuffling gait of a mental patient; every step was torture and my eyesight was ultra sensitive to light. I leaned against a brick wall to gather my senses. Calcutta was a shambling mess. There seemed to be no law, human or otherwise governing its lunacy. The many vehicles that swarmed her crowded streets ranged from cows and rickshaws to overburdened buses that swerved dangerously and braked sharply with people hanging from the sides. Drivers kept one hand on the wheel and one on the horn as the traffic smashed along. Sick as I was, I felt a sense of exhilaration at being a part of this tide of humanity that ebbed and flowed around me, chattering, yelling, laughing and singing. It was raw and vibrant, untamed and uncontrollable, like a mad organic roller-coaster that had come careening and spinning off its tracks. Calcutta felt ancient, like Rome or London and with wild promise it contained all the mystery and chaotic beauty of the world.

My spirits lifted: here was the hustle and bustle of a big city, a centre of commerce and activity. Somewhere I knew there would be a vendor of urban poison. I walked parallel with the main street, and after a quarter of an hour, noticed that a slight fellow in tan slacks and sandals was shadowing me. He was trying to make a connection, raising his eyebrows every time I looked back at him, that old junky refrain. I slowed down and allowed him to catch up. He sidled up next to me and repeated the mantra " _charas, brown, money change"_ in a low voice.

I wasn't sure what he meant but nodded anyway.

"Which would you like, kind sir?"

"Smack. I want smack."

"Smack? Very well, sir, I can get this. And kind sir, in India it is called _brown sugar_."

"And what is 'charas'?"

"Hashish, kind sir. I am selling it by the _tola_ which is approximately 12 grams."

"And 'money change'?"

"Money change I can do for you on the black market; you will be making considerably more than if you use the bank."

"OK, I'll take a tola of hash and some brown sugar."

He nodded his head. "Very well, sir!"

We crossed the main road and ran for our lives from a speeding truck. He led me with purpose into another alleyway where he slowed and offered his hand.

"My name is Ali Baba," he said in that peculiar lilting way as he bobbed his head from side to side.

"Ali Baba?"

"Yes."

I laughed. "You mean like the Forty Thieves?"

"I have heard this many times, sir, from _every_ traveller I am buying for. I do not know who these forty thieves are. I am not a thief!"

We walked until we came to another main road and stood in awkward silence as we waited for an opening. Ali Baba spat a thick stream of red liquid onto the side-walk and then turned to me.

"I am from Bangladesh."

"Oh yeah?"

"Do you know what 'Bangladesh' means, kind sir?"

"What it means?"

"Yes. ' _Bang_ ' is meaning 'Marijuana,' and ' _Ladesh_ ' is meaning 'Land of.' I come from the Land of Marijuana, sir!"

I laughed. Then we took our chances and stepped out into the street.

"Your name, sir?" he yelled above the traffic.

"Dean."

"I will get you what you want no problem, Dean. I am very often buying _brown_ for traveller."

We walked for a good five minutes through alleyways and side streets stained red. Ali Baba spat out another mouthful of the reddish liquid.

"What's that stuff you keep spitting, tobacco?" I asked.

"Oh no, sir. It is not tobacco." He took a small silver packet from his slacks which he handed me. "It is _pa'an_ , marvellous for one's constitution."

I emptied a small amount out of the packet and tossed it into my mouth. It tasted like soap.

"Put it between your lip and teeth and suck on it in this manner, sir," said Ali Baba as he accepted the packet back.

"Jesus Christ, it tastes like shit!" I spat it out.

Ali Baba rolled his eyes.

"Wait here for me, Dean," he said, and then darted into a doorway.

I spat a few more times then leaned up against a wall. The sun made an appearance over the lower buildings and already the streets were drying. I smelled a mixture of incense and spices. Yesterday, I had woken up in Bangkok, now here I was twitching with the Chinese flu and waiting for Ali Baba, the brown sugar addict from the Land of Marijuana in an alleyway in Calcutta. A minute later he reappeared and started off with purpose.

"Come with me, I will bring you to my home."

We eventually came to a building flanked on either side by dirty, low-rise apartments. You could tell from the facade that it had once been a grand old building in the days of British colonialism, perhaps a post office or a government office. The white exterior had long ago been turned almost completely brown by exhaust, and pigeons roosted in the window alcoves, leaving heaped piles of shit under which were large, beard-like stains streaking downwards. Inside, the building had been completely gutted; just the four walls, roof and support beams were left. On the ground floor several old women dressed in rags sat on the dirt selling broken, filthy toys displayed in front of them. When the women saw me, they started to cry and hold out their feeble old hands. They stopped abruptly and became sullen when Ali Baba snapped in Hindi at them.

Ali Baba reached up, grabbed at a pipe and started climbing. The pipes came from the living tenements on either side of the old building and formed a spaghetti-like maze above my head.

"Come, my house is up here."

With that he scrambled up the pipes towards a cement platform that was about three floors up. I followed him, placing my hands and feet where I had seen Ali Baba place his. He disappeared over the ledge and I quickly joined him. There was someone sleeping in the corner, and Ali Baba woke him up by grabbing his shoulder and barking something in his ear.

"I am sorry for the mess," he said, and almost on cue the sleeping man began to fuss about on the smooth concrete ledge with a cane whisker. After he brushed the square thoroughly, he folded up his sleeping things in a tight roll and pushed them into a crevice in the wall. I looked off the ledge as the two argued in Hindi about something. The argument ended abruptly when Ali Baba slapped the other guy across the face. He then invited me to sit with him, and encouraged the man he had just slapped to join us. After a bit of cajoling back and forth in Hindi, the fellow sat down heavily with us. Ali Baba introduced me to Sanjay, who nodded his unsmiling head at me. Ali Baba pulled out a few folded paper packets from his trousers and threw them down in front of him.

"One hundred rupees for one gram, Mr. Dean," he said as he slid one to me.

I handed over a note, opened up the fold and had a look. I had never seen brown sugar before and decided that brown sand would be a better name.

"Have you got a needle?" I asked.

Ali Baba shook his head in disgust. "A needle? We are not junkys, Dean! We are only smoking." He tossed me an empty Wills cigarette packet. I picked it up and wondered what he wanted me to do with it.

"It must be burnt off." I watched as he laid out his tools and got to work. First, he applied a lit match to the corner of the paper and burnt it off, leaving just the thin layer of tin foil. Then he used a small block of wood with velvet tacked to it to iron out the tin foil against the smooth cement. When he was satisfied with his work, he used the underside of his elongated pinkie fingernail to scoop out a measure of brown and drop it on the tinfoil. He placed a small fifty _paise_ coin in his mouth and pressed it to the back of his teeth with his tongue. Then he stuck a small brass tube between his teeth and waved a match underneath the foil, which was held carefully between his fingers. He took the smoke in one large inhalation, kept it in until he looked like he might burst, then exhaled and stuck a fat bidi between his lips which he lit and quickly finished in three incredible draws. Both of them performed the ritual, oblivious to all else.

I get the foil off the cigarette packet on my second attempt; my hands are shaking like crazy. I double it over and fold it into a sturdy "V" shape so it can take a heavier load, got to compensate for not having a rig, then dump a half-gram into the crease. As I strike a match, the flaming head snaps off and flies under Ali Baba's leg. He doesn't even pause in his activity as he brushes it away. I have to laugh. "We are not junkys." Like fuck they aren't. I strike another and it breaks in half. Total shit. I toss the box of useless Indian matches to one side and take a lighter from my pocket. It has "The Pink Pussy" etched on it, a souvenir from my visit to Patpong. I apply the flame and the brown starts to heat up then melt. It turns to a delicious caramel liquid and hisses angrily as a thick stream of chemical smoke bubbles from it. I take it down deep into my lungs and hold it there, letting it sear the lining. I tip the foil to let the brown stuff flow and chase the smoke backwards and forwards. They don't call it "chasing the dragon" for nothing. I finish off the half in no time and dump the rest on the foil. Before long I am on my last smoke. I take it down, seal off my lungs and dash the lighter and tinfoil down in front of me. Sanjay's sitting there looking at me with a furrowed brow, his foil held daintily between thumb and forefinger, the little brass tube sticking out of his mouth. He looks like a hummingbird junky.

" _All of it is gone?" asks Ali Baba. I nod my head, still holding my breath. He pushes a bidi in front of me. "When you exhale, you must smoke this hastily—it is the best method."_

As I exhale, I pick up the bidi and stick it in my mouth. The bidi is shorter and fatter than the ones I have seen and I finish it in three enormous drags. Then my head starts to spin and I fall backwards. The nicotine in the damn thing is more than I had expected. I feel the vomit surge violently from my stomach and make it to the edge of the platform just in time. A torrent of puke sprays onto the pipes and scatters in all directions. The old ladies look up at my retching noises just in time to see me burp up a mouthful of bile. After wiping my mouth, I turn onto my back and let the smack work its magic. Sanjay picks up my discarded foil and gives it a curious look as he turns it over and says something in Hindi to Ali Baba.

" _Sanjay thinks that your method is most wasteful, Dean."_

" _It does the trick," I say, shrugging my shoulders casually before drifting off on a golden cloud of euphoria._

When I came around again, Sanjay and Ali Baba were sprawled flat on their backs. I crawled over to a large hole in the wall where some bricks had been removed. It seemed that the same number of bricks had been used to build the small stove that sat to one side of the platform. Lifting myself up, I propped my head up on my elbow and gazed outside. Calcutta was a low-rise sprawl that spread out as far as the eye could see, punctuated by a few skyscrapers in the distance. Waves of heat rose from the sprawl and distorted the steaming metropolis. There was a continuous low-level roar out there, the unseen activity of millions of humans and their machines, an urban drone, rising and falling in the lazy heat. To the east was a low hill covered in shanty huts with roofs made of what looked like blue plastic and corrugated steel. A black funnel of birds above the hill reminded me of vultures circling a dead body in an old western film. I gazed out the window for a long while before Ali Baba tapped my shoulder.

"Take the chillum, Dean."

The thing was about eight inches long and carved out of black stone with an elephant head relief on it. A hole ran through the length of the chillum and it had a small wet cloth wrapped around the bottom to filter smoke. I had never used one before, so I stuck my lips onto the bottom of the chillum. Ali Baba laughed.

"Here! Let me see," he said as he took my left hand and laid the chillum flat in my palm. He folded my right hand into a scissor formation and placed it beside the chillum, making an airtight compartment. "There, now you are ready, BOM!" He struck two matches as I put it to my mouth.

I took a huge draw on it and exhaled, clouding us with thick smoke. The damn thing was a hash cannon.

"BOM!" I shouted as I handed the chillum back to him with a cough.

After finishing the chillum, Ali Baba pulled a finger of hash from his pocket. "Here is your tola."

I gave him a few notes and started packing another chillum. We both lay on our sides with an arm hanging out the hole, passing the chillum between ourselves.

"Millions and millions of people," said Ali Baba as he took in a panoramic gaze.

"Looks it."

"Maybe ten thousand are rich, the rest..." He let spit fall from his mouth to the alleyway below.

"What's over there?" I pointed to the funnel of birds.

"Slum. Thousands and thousands of people."

"The black hole?"

"Yes. Black hole of Calcutta."

I looked over with renewed interest. The slum covered several small hills. Tens of thousands of people were crammed in there with no money or food or sewage or electricity, baking under the merciless sun.

Someone yelled up from the ground floor. Ali Baba crawled over, hung his head off the edge of the platform, and gave orders. A few minutes later, a young boy came clambering up the pipes balancing a tin tray on one hand. Ali Baba took a small, red clay cup off the tray and handed it to me.

"Here, chai for you. This time I pay, next time you pay," he said as he took a sip.

The sweet, milky tea had the aroma of incense. When Sanjay and Ali Baba were finished, they threw the clay cups off the platform to smash on the ground. I had noticed this pile of broken cups on my arrival. The cups would slowly break down into dust and be absorbed back into the ground; recycling Indian-style.

Every hour or so, the kid would make his rounds, walking through the building yelling, _"Chai! Chai! Chai!"_ The next time he came up to the platform, I asked him to bring me beer. He didn't understand a word I said so Ali Baba translated for me. The kid had difficulty carrying the large bottles of Kingfisher beer up to the platform but I made sure to tip him well. Whenever I finished a bottle, I took Ali Baba's lead and tossed the bottles off the platform. They would smash loudly and get the old ladies screeching up at us. Ali Baba invited me to stay on the platform with them that evening and I took him up on his offer, though Sanjay seemed less enthused about the arrangement. As I curled up on the hard concrete floor and tried to sleep that night, packs of wild dogs scavenged around on the ground floor, growling and fighting in the pitch darkness. It sounded like a pack of monsters eating each other alive, and I had a mortal fear of falling whenever I took a piss off the edge.

On the third morning, I met Sanjay's brother who reminded me of a contented Buddha and was a hell of lot friendlier then Sanjay. He was in the chai cup making business and sat on the street all day spinning off the little cups. I couldn't see how he made a living from it, as a cup, chai included, went for half a rupee, but he made enough to support his habit and it seemed that Sanjay envied him his job. The outlay for a spinning machine was obviously out of his reach.

During the day, Ali Baba and Sanjay worked as a team and would head off to Sudder Street to follow travellers while repeating a familiar mantra: _"charas, brown, money-change?"_ It seemed that the mantra was the only English phrase that Sanjay knew. I'd walk with them to Sudder Street then spend the day sitting around in restaurants and bars drinking Kingfisher and smoking bidis. Quite often I'd meet travellers who were looking for drugs and introduce them to Ali Baba for what worked out to be a pitiful commission but at least it gave me something to do during the day. My favourite bar on the strip was the Blue Mary. It was really just a concrete box that heated to indecent temperatures in the afternoon but it was just about the only bar on Sudder Street that didn't play Bob Marley cassettes all day.

"My name is Charlie but my buddies call me Chuck," the owner said to me by way of introduction.

"Chuck" seemed to have a genuine disdain for his fellow Indians and would talk with such vehemence and hatred against them that the more sensitive customers often left his bar in disgust. Chuck was one of the very few Indian men I met that didn't have a moustache. He wore blue jeans with a white T-shirt and Wayfarer style sunglasses, and a constant look of utter disgust distorted his face. But the beer was cheap and ice-cold, although at least once a day he would comment as he passed me a bottle, _"Kingfisher!_ What a stupid goddamned name for a beer! _Budweiser_ —now there's a beer for you."

Late one afternoon while the concrete walls exhaled the heat of the day and the fan did nothing but stir hot air, Charlie insisted that I read an article from the local newspaper. It was an article about motorists who used their horns too much. A plan had been hatched where traffic cops would hand out ice cream cones to those who weren't honking to encourage good behaviour. The scheme met with limited success: the horn blowers would be quiet around the intersections where the cops were, but resumed beeping when they finished the cone and had both hands free again. When Charlie saw that I'd finished reading the story, he spent the rest of the day snorting, _"Ice cream cones! Bloody idiots!"_

I had no idea what happened to my duffel bag. For all I knew, I'd left it in the taxi coming from the airport. I didn't really need the clothes in it anyway as I wore the same stinking outfit everyday—it was my Walkman and cassettes that I missed. I had over forty mix tapes that I'd collected over the years. Stuff like the Cockney Rejects, the Violators, the Anti- Nowhere League, the Partisans, the 4-Skins; all the music that had propelled me through my teenage years, stuff you just couldn't get in India. I tried not to think about it too much, as I could always make more tapes when I got back to Australia. There was a slim chance that I left my bag at the guesthouse I first stayed at, but I couldn't remember its name or even where it was. The only clues I had to work with were the large wooden doors. One day, as I had nothing better to do, I decided to check the backstreets around Sudder. As I walked its length, I noticed Ali Baba and Sanjay following a hapless couple.

The guy finally turned and snapped at them. "Would you just go away? We don't want anything!"

" _Charas_ , sir? The _finest_ charas, cheap!"

"Which country are you from, kind sir?"

" _Kind miss_ , you are very beautiful. Are you a movie star?"

I snuck up behind Ali Baba and Sanjay and, using their technique, got within a few inches. "CHARAS? BROWN? MONEY CHANGE?" I yelled in their ears. Ali Baba fairly jumped out of his skin and before he could respond I was on my way again.

After searching half-heartedly for almost an hour, I turned up a side street off Sudder and there were the wooden doors. They were held open by two large potted ferns. I walked in. The fine old gent with the white beard was manning the counter.

"You have taken a long walk, _kind sir_. I hope your jet lag is better."

"Yeah, I got a little sidetracked." I placed my hands on the counter and drummed my fingers. "Look, the thing is, I think I left a bag in the dorm. I'll just get it."

"That is not necessary, _kind sir_ ," smiled the proprietor.

The bag was already gone, I should have known. Then the old guy reached behind the counter, pulled out my duffel bag and dropped it on the counter. "This is your bag, sir?"

"Yeah, that's it!"

He stood there smiling; I knew there must be a catch. I reached into my top pocket. "How much do I owe you?"

"Oh no, that is unnecessary, _kind sir!_ " He wagged a lecturing finger in the air. "On your first night you have been paying for one week in advance."

"I did?"

"You do not remember this?"

"Sure, I remember."

When I got back to the platform, Sanjay and Ali Baba were rejoicing. They had sold several tolas of hash to some travellers for almost triple the regular price. There were several wax paper folds of brown in front of them and a large bottle of fenny, a strong Indian liquor. I sat on my duffel bag and accepted a cup of the clear liquid. They hadn't skimped either; it was cashew nut fenny and not the cheaper coconut fenny. For the rest of the day we drank, smoked, and had heated discussions about all kinds of irrelevant crap. When Sanjay spoke, Ali Baba translated for me. He asked me about Australia, and how much people were paid for certain jobs. Then he'd do the math and come up with the rupee equivalent and both of them would gasp in amazement. I told them that it was all relative and that rent was expensive but my words were lost on them. As far as they were concerned we were all rich.

"And what did you do for work in your country?" asked Ali Baba at Sanjay's prompting.

"I was on the dole and worked on the side."

"Working on the _side?_ "

"I had a job but it was under the table, I was on the dole."

"Table? You are a carpenter?"

"No, I was on the dole."

"What is this _dole?_ "

"The government pays you if you don't have a job."

This provoked a furious exchange of Hindi between the two.

"You work for the government?"

"No! The government gives you money if you don't have a job."

"Gives you money? For what work do they give you money?"

"No work. If you don't have any work they give you money."

"Why?"

"I don't know. That's just the way it goes." Again they talked heatedly between themselves.

I took a sip of fenny and realised the futility of trying to explain the complexities of the dole to a pair of Indian heroin addicts living on a platform in a derelict building in Calcutta.

"How much do they pay you?"

I did the math and told the rupee equivalent. Shouts of disbelief went up. Sanjay waved his hand at me and jabbered rapidly and angrily to Ali Baba.

"A skilled labourer in Calcutta would not even earn a fraction of this!" translated Ali Baba.

Sanjay was still rattling off. I looked at him, then to Ali Baba and shrugged my shoulders.

"He thinks that you are lying."

"Why would I make up something like that?"

Ali Baba thought about this for a while then nodded his head. "You are most fortunate in your country."

The next day I awoke to the arguing of Sanjay and Ali Baba. Sanjay then jumped onto a pipe, swung recklessly to the ground, and ran off.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"His brother has gone missing," was all Ali Baba said as he smoothed a piece of tinfoil.

"Missing? What do you mean?"

"He is gone."

"Was he arrested?"

"Perhaps, but it makes no difference. Many people disappear in this city every day, nobody knows what happens."

"But someone must know what happened?"

"Nobody cares about a brown addict in Calcutta. We are lower than the rats."

I paid Ali Baba for a fold, then leaned back against the wall and watched him smoke. My host, I thought, was wrong. They weren't lower than rats; as far as main-stream Indian society was concerned, they were on par. If they got sick, they died in the street like rats. If they lacked the means to get food, they starved like rats. And if they were caught, they were caged like rats. Ali Baba took a last hit and stood up.

"I am going to Sudder Street. I will see you there later?" he asked as he exhaled poisonous fumes and grabbed hold of one of the pipes.

"Yeah, I'll be around."

Then Ali Baba stepped off the platform and vanished. I unbuttoned my shirt, removed the safety pin from the inside of the pocket and took out my thin money fold. There were no traveller's cheques left and I didn't have a return ticket; all that was left were eight, one hundred rupee notes. I had eight hundred rupees and a gram of brown sugar to my name. I took one last look out the window over Calcutta, that dirty brown sprawl, picked up my duffel bag and started down the pipes. I had a naive faith that my friend had already sent the money. It was waiting for me in New Delhi in a registered post envelope. If the money wasn't there, I would hunt the bastard down and kill him when I got back to Australia.

## ***

# Chapter 17 - Ninety American Dollars

Distant birds and shimmering waves of heat flecked the setting sun as the train shunted out of Howrah station. I watched from the window as the horizon silently consumed the swollen red orb. At the first station outside of Calcutta, a bunch of urchins rushed the window when they saw my white skin, thrusting their skinny arms through the bars. _"Baksheesh...baksheesh...baksheesh,"_ they moaned with pleading eyes.

I took out a banana and put it into one of the little hands. As soon as he pulled his arm back, the other kids jumped him, punching him to the ground. He tried in vain to hold onto his prize but it was quickly snatched away. I went up to the window and yelled for them to stop but none of them paid any attention, as they were all trying to get the banana by any means necessary. Eventually, an unimaginably dirty child in nothing but a pair of ripped shorts strutted off, holding his prize above his head victoriously. Every once in a while he would stop and sniff at the banana as if it were a fine cigar and sing its accolades to the others, who would reach for it feebly and without success.

At every station we stopped at, peddlers would board the trains and ply their trade. Most were children. A kid of about fourteen stopped in the aisle next to my seat and started playing a wooden flute. I could see that he had a snake in the basket in front of him but it didn't want to move. He slapped the basket a few times to try and provoke a reaction. Eventually a cobra came out and stood erect with its tongue sticking out at me. The kid thrust out his hand.

"Baksheesh!" the boy demanded.

"Isn't it supposed to fuckin' sway or something?"

"Baksheesh!" he snapped again.

He didn't look like the urchins at previous stops; he had a fat little face and was well clothed, a hustler. The snake just stood there straight as a rod with its tongue darting in and out. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen.

"Five rupees! You give five rupees!" The little grifter stuck his hand under my chin.

"Get the fuck outta here!" I slapped his hand out of the way. "And take your crap snake with you!"

A few cripples dragged themselves down the aisle begging for alms, when the whistle blew and the guards came marching down in their starched uniforms and rattan sticks, ready to thrash the peddlers and beggars who didn't move fast enough. As they walked down my carriage, I noticed that they were enjoying themselves, swaggering self-assuredly and laughing at the beggars scrambling in front of them.

I drifted off to sleep as the train flew through a night full of rain. I was awakened by a sharp, twisting pain in my guts and instinctively ran to the toilet; it didn't pay to second-guess such things in India. The toilet was just a squat hole under which I could see the weak toilet light reflecting off the wet tracks. As I sat there with the world falling out of my ass, I began to vomit, aiming a stream carefully between my thighs. I had to hold onto the walls as the force of the vomit surge made me arch uncontrollably. Just when I thought I could not possibly puke up anything more, my guts would spasm and I would retch up more bitter bile. My asshole didn't get off any easier, and I felt as if it were hanging out like a turkey's neck. I had been lucky, really, to have survived so long without getting a major dose of "Delhi Belly" or any other of the multitude of illnesses that India had to offer. As I squatted, riding out the last spasm of squirts, I pulled out the fold I bought from Ali Baba and snorted half of it.

When I got back to my seat, it had been flipped over and turned into a bunk. I climbed up and crawled into the corner as sickness clouded my thinking. As I tried to sleep, I kept hearing suspicious noises, scrapings, bumps and whispers in the darkness. The thieves in India were unlike anywhere else in the world; they were more like phantoms than human beings. They would crawl for hours to get under your seat, using the same delicate tactics as snipers, taking ages to get in position, moving imperceptibly and silently. Then they would reach up with a straight razor and slowly cut your bag or pocket, drawn to valuables like a mosquito to blood, their senses heightened by extreme poverty. I kept flipping over to find empty blackness, convinced someone was sneaking up behind me. I dumped the rest of the brown onto the bunk, snorted it up my nose and fell into a deep sleep.

The train pulled into New Delhi during a torrential thunderstorm. There was no wind at all and the rain fell straight down. I was weakened with fever and soaked to the skin as I stumbled around outside the station in a stupor. An entourage of beggars shadowed me as I searched for a cab. They tugged at my shirt, rubbed their bellies and held out their hands. After a short taxi ride, I found a guesthouse that smelt of cardamom and paid for a room. I followed a young lad up several flights of stairs and, once inside the room, collapsed in a heap on the bed and quickly fell into a fevered sleep.

The hallway is dark and silent. With a sinister sense of fore-boding I walk to a crumpled object halfway down. I recognise the form, it's Gabe. His face is oxygen-deprived blue and his lips a ghastly purple. "Cummon Gabe, getup fuckya. Ya mum is coming home soon."

Gabe's eyes pop open and he blinks. Then he pushes himself to sitting position and dusts off his leather, even though there is no dirt on it, and re-adjusts a SLF pin. He shakes his head. "Fuckin' 'ell that was a big shot."

" _Ya need fresh air, Gabe. It's too humid in here."_

I notice the heat for the first time, like being next to a fire. We walk along the darkened hallway, casting no shadows. The balcony is cooler and Gabe lights up a fag. The moonlight makes his blue face seem ghostly. He starts talking and his words fade in and out as if snatched by the wind. Then he smiles at me with a twist of his purple lips, takes a last drag and flicks the butt off the balcony. I grab the handrails and watch the glowing end cartwheel in slow motion through the darkness. When I turn, Gabe is no longer on the balcony. I see his tiny, crumpled body all alone again in the hall, waiting for his mother to find him. I want to go down and wake him but I'm paralysed by fear. There is something ominous at work down there, something dark and terrible, something forbidden.

I dreamed the same dream over and over, waking up in a cold sweat and twisted by paralysis and delirium. A doctor once explained to me that I had a sleep disorder that was triggered by heavy drug use, alcoholism, or malnutrition, so you could say I scored a trifecta in that department. It would visit me sporadically, paralysing me upon awakening, my right eye clamped shut and my left eye fluttering uncontrollably. I would try to scream but it would catch in my throat and turn into a gurgle. Then there was the fear, an overwhelming terror of something unseen just beyond my peripheral vision. Coupled with my sickness and junk withdrawal, the sleep apnoea dragged on for hours, keeping me in a twilight world of delusion and sickness. I would find myself sitting on the bed chatting with my dead friend, Gabe. Then his face would turn blue, and with terror seizing my brain, I would realise that I was lying on the bed with my eyelid fluttering like a fucking mental case.

I had two buckets next to my bed, one for piss and shit and the other for puke. Sometime during the next few days I forgot which was which and just used whichever was closest. Days bled into night and back into day but a twilight delirium remained in my mind. The sickness leeched my energy; it took all my strength just to get out of bed and squat over a bucket.

At one stage a pounding on the door awoke me. I tried to ignore whoever it was but they weren't going away. I swung open the door and the kid who had shown me the room was standing there.

"You only pay one night. You pay more money!" he demanded.

"I'm sick, I'll pay later." I went to close the door but he stuck his foot in the way.

"No! My boss say you pay now!" Then the boy's face changed. He must have caught a smell of my buckets and the overall sick stench of the room. I had no energy to argue so I walked back and collapsed on the bed. The boy paused for a while in the doorway as he surveyed the scene. "OK, you make sure you pay later! Yes?" he asked before closing the door and leaving me alone with my delirium.

Within a few days I was able to walk freely around the small room. I slept for a few hours without nightmares that night and awoke with cravings—a sure sign that I was on the mend. After getting dressed, I went in search of the GPO, hoping to hell that my money was there. As I was about to leave, the owner blocked the exit.

"Hello, sir. You are feeling better?" he asked, rubbing his hands together.

"Yeah, maybe a little bit." I tried to get around him but he sidestepped in front of me.

"Ah sir, you only pay for one night and you have stayed here for three evenings now."

"Three evenings?"

"Yes, sir. Will you be paying now?"

I probably had enough but I wanted to check the post office first. If my money wasn't there I would count my losses, skip out, leave my duffel bag behind, and catch a bus to Bombay. I could tell he wasn't going to move, so I made like I was going to upchuck, and when he stepped aside I darted past him.

"Sir, you must pay us your bill!" he yelled at my back as I took off.

It took me the best part of a day to find the New Delhi GPO. I walked in a daze through congested, exhaust-filled streets. The humidity sucked foul smelling sweat from me as I stumbled around weak and exhausted. I bought a map for two rupees that did nothing but confuse me more. The streets just didn't make any sense; it was as if the city had been designed by a lunatic. I lost my foot in a huge cow shit as I stepped off a curb. There was livestock everywhere. Holy cows wandered in and out of traffic at will, causing traffic jams and near crashes. It was madness.

Down one street, I saw a handler leading an elephant dressed in ceremonial colours. I closed in to get a better look. Before long I was walking next to it; I reached out to feel the rough skin of the amazing beast as the musky odour filled my nostrils. I forgot myself and wandered along next to it absentmindedly. When the handler led it into a market area, something seemed to spook the animal. At first it just froze in its tracks and refused to budge. Then it let out a snort followed by a full trumpet that shook the skies. The handler sensed its rebellion and desperately tried to rein him in but it was too late. The beast started with a rambling trot that turned into a thundering gallop as it rampaged through the market, destroying the stalls, swinging his head from side to side, and trumpeting loudly. To my amazement, no one was hurt—it seemed they were used to this, as if man and beast had an ancient understanding. They knew exactly what to do, jumping out of the way or throwing fruit in its path, which would distract it temporarily and allow them to save their wares.

It's almost four AM when I arrive at the GPO, dripping with sweat, starving hungry, and pissed off at the prospect of going through the usual lengthy Indian bureaucracy—which of course is blamed on the "legacy of British colonialism." But within a few minutes I am back on the street with a registered letter in my hand. People swarm past me as I stand there and turn the letter over, feeling its reassuring weight. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, more beautiful than any woman or sunset or palm lined beach—it is no less than a work of fucking art! I carefully open the back and take a sniff like I used to do when I bought a new LP. A cloud of Delhi street dirt flies up and blinds me for a moment but nothing matters anymore, nothing but this letter. I pull out a folded piece of paper which has a small stack of American bills inside. Twenties. I count them. One, two, three, four...the fifth is a ten. Ninety American dollars. It isn't as much as I'd hoped for but I'm too happy to complain. On the piece of paper is a short note:

How's it going, mate? Here's the money that's left after "expenses" and that (sorry – couldn't help it). Trace says she sent you a letter "Poste Restante Calcutta." Didja get it? Not much going on here, PJ says he wants his money? But you know what I reckon you should just tell him to get fucked. Cunts got worse since you left. Have you rooted any gooks over there?

-RUSS

Ps: look out for all the lions and tigers and elephants.

Pss: feel free to send us some hammer/hash/acid

I fold the bills and put them in my top pocket. As I walk off, I make a pact that I will send Russ some acid. Hell, I'll soak an entire letter in the stuff.

I stopped in at the first restaurant I stumbled across that looked fairly clean and ordered plates of curry, rice, pappadums, tandoori chicken, samosas and washed it all down with Kingfisher. Then I ran outside and puked it up all over the sidewalk, walked back in and ordered the same again.

I wandered the streets aimlessly as the sky slowly turned dark. I bought a milk confectionery wrapped in gold leaf from a vendor, and as I walked along eating, happened upon a snake charmer who knew what he was doing. An enormous black cobra appeared from his basket and began to sway in a timeless rhythm to the thin, reedy tune of the pipe. The crowd oohed and aahed at the sinister grace of the snake. As I stood watching, my thoughts gently turned to heroin. I knew there was no point in trying to resist. In the end I would betray myself; the compulsion was an imperious urge, a forceful current. It was not to be denied. Junk reminded me of the legend of the vampire, the vampire who could not enter your home unless invited, but once invited would not leave until you were drained of blood. I walked away and left the snake charmer to his work.

Put me in any city in any country, anywhere in the world and within an hour I will score, guaranteed. Junk is everywhere, in some form or another; it has spread like a cancer. Language and customs are no barrier and finding it is like a sixth sense. Junk transcends language, customs, and race. Junk is the great equaliser.

I quickly found what I was looking for, and picking up some syringes from a chemist on the way, headed back to my room. It was no longer financially viable to chase the dragon. When I got back to the guesthouse, I dashed past the expectant owner and up to my room. Once inside, I locked the door and mixed up. I punctured the vein in my left arm, pumped the poison into my body, and withdrew. _Nothing happened!_ I stood up and paced the room, waiting for that delicious rush to wipe away my worries. _Nothing._ I flew into a rage and stormed onto the street. The dealer I had scored from was still there, smoking a bidi as he leaned against a wall talking to another Indian guy. I walked over and punched him in the face. His bidi hit the dirt and his head hit the wall. The friend took off.

" _Bahinchudh,_ you piece of fuckin' shit!" I threw another punch, putting all my weight into it. He stepped away, his arms up defensively.

"Why do you attack me, sir!"

"You ripped me off you piece of shit!" I stepped in to swing again. I didn't feel like talking, I just wanted to hurt him badly then go and score somewhere else.

" _NO! NO!_ You are mistaken sir! This brown is of the finest quality!" he declared, backing away.

"BULLSHIT! I SHOT UP THE LOT AND GOT NOTHING!"

"Not possible sir! Look," he rolled up his sleeve to show me his tracks. "I use this! It is not shit!"

I grabbed his shirt and pulled my right arm back to hit him. "Gimme my fucking money back right now."

"I no longer have your money, sir!" He looked around, concerned. I was causing a scene.

I punched him again. His arms were down and I got him a beaut right on the nose. A stream of blood flowed from his left nostril.

"Why do you brutalise me, sir?"

"Give me my fucking money right now!"

"Wait! I do not have your money, but you can have this!" He pulled another fold from his pocket and tried to put it in my hand.

"So what? It's shit, I want my fuckin' money!"

He became very serious and put a hand on his chest. "This is of top quality, sir! I am not a thief!"

I looked at him—he seemed sincere. "Give me the shit you use."

"Sir! This is what I am using. It is of the finest quality. _I assure you!"_

People had started to gather, looking to see what in the hell was going on. I snatched the fold. "It had better be," I snarled.

"I do not understand why you are not feeling one gram. You are mixing it with lime?"

I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. "Of course I'm mixing it with lime!"

On the way back to my room, I bought half a dozen small green limes. I repeated the procedure and this time squeezed in some lime juice. To my surprise, I found myself so high I could barely walk.

The next day I squared up at the guesthouse. Now the owner was all smiles. "We knew that you would pay us, kind sir! Next time you are in New Delhi be sure to stay at our fine establishment!"

I threw my duffel bag over my shoulder and stepped into the street. I was on the move again.

## ***

# Chapter 18 _\- Baksheeeeeeesh!_

I picked up a guidebook that someone had left in my room and used it to show a taxi driver where to drop me. According to the book there was a train station right where I was standing. I looked around. A small group of women were washing their clothes in a sunken court-yard filled with green water, next to which was a wide dusty street. No sign of a train station. A bus with people hanging onto the outsides hurtled past, kicking up a choking cloud of dust. I frisbeed the book onto the street and started walking. The sun overhead burned fiercely and there was no shade anywhere. I kept my eyes peeled for tracks or anything that might point to a station. A young Indian man walked past and laughed at me. There was nothing around except dusty streets and sun––it was like a goddamned ghost town and I felt as if I'd fallen into an episode of _The Twilight Zone_. I walked towards a shop on the corner, not sure if it was a restaurant or a vegetable store—it was hard to tell. They had three tables set up inside, so I dropped my duffel bag and sat down. A thin, wiry little fellow with a well groomed moustache came up and stood by my side without saying a word.

"Do you have beer?" I asked, wishing I had learnt the Hindi word for it.

The man smiled. He stood there and rubbed his knees together. " _What,_ are you queer?"

I looked around the place. A ceiling fan moved the hot air around lazily and a transistor radio played a static filled _filmi_ score. I saw a fellow sitting in the corner drinking a Kingfisher. I pointed to him then made a motion as if I were drinking from a bottle. The guy ran into the back and re-appeared with a bottle and two glasses. Sitting down, he cracked the beer, poured out two cups and handed one to me. It was ice cold. I picked up the beer and we clinked cheers. I suspected I would be paying for the whole bottle but I was just glad to be out of the sun, and he was a slow drinker. During the second bottle a short, portly guy with a permanent grin that exposed his gold teeth joined us. He spoke a bit of English and whenever he laughed the roll under his neck wobbled. I thought it wise for me to ask how much they were charging for the beer.

"Whatever do you mean?" asked the portly one.

"The beer, how much?"

"I do not understand." He closed his eyes and smiled.

"How-many-rupees-do-you-charge-for-a-beer?"

The portly one translated for his friend then they both started to laugh. "You are mistaken, sir, this is not a bar room: this is our house!"

"Your house?" I looked around. They had a strange set up, that much was for sure.

"My brother is very hospitable, sir." The portly fellow bobbed his head from side to side, swinging the roll of fat underneath his chin.

I lifted my cup to salute them.

"What are you doing in this part of town, sir?" The portly one asked, after some insistence from his brother.

"I was looking for the train station. I need a ticket to Bombay."

"The train station is a short distance from here, but this is not the main train station for New Delhi. We are on the outskirts, sir. I shall show you how to get there when you leave."

After a third bottle, I thanked them for their hospitality and made a move to go. The portly one took me out to the street and pointed me in the right direction.

The station was an old two-storey colonial building that stretched for an entire city block. The floor was marble and the building was refreshingly cool. I walked over to a ticket counter and stood at the back of the line. A security guard with a grand purple turban walked around with a rattan stick held behind his back. Every-thing was fine while he was around: the people stood in an orderly fashion waiting patiently for their turn. Then he turned and started to wander off. Once he had walked a short distance, the orderly line became a free-for-all. All those in front of me rushed to the ticket window yelling and shoving at each other. I didn't know if I should join in or what. Upon hearing the commotion the guard turned, lifted his stick and charged yelling at the crowd. He beat whoever was in front of him, swinging the stick wildly. The line soon became orderly again but the pattern repeated itself several times before I got my turn at the window. There was a small hole in the glass to speak through and I put my face up to it.

"I need a one-way ticket to Bombay, third class."

The clerk shook his head. "I am sorry, sir. This is not possible."

"What's not possible?"

"You cannot purchase a ticket to Bombay from this window."

Just then the line collapsed. A guy behind me thrust a fistful of rupees through the window and yelled some-thing in Hindi. I pulled his arm out and shoved him backwards. _"Telli-Jow!"_ I yelled. The security guard was nowhere to be seen so I employed both elbows, firing them backwards as hard as I could. I thrust my face up to the hole. "Well, where can I get one?"

The clerk sat there cool as a cucumber and took his sweet time answering my question. "The window next to the staircase shall be opening in five minutes. You may purchase a ticket to Bombay from there."

I vacated the pole position, creating a power vacuum for others to surge forward. I walked past the window he had mentioned and sure enough it was closed. There was a toilet at the end of the building so I made my way towards it.

Inside the toilet, people dressed in filthy rags slept on the floor, half-dead and weak from hunger. I pushed my way into a cubicle. Lying on the floor next to the toilet was a young woman with a toddler in her arms. They were asleep and flies crawled undisturbed on their faces, feasting on the corners of their mouths and crawling in and out of their nostrils. The toilet was filled to over-flowing with piss and shit, mere inches from the infant. I couldn't take it and pushed into the next cubicle. The floor inside was slick with faeces. A thick swarm of flies buzzed around the brown mess. I took my time sorting out a hit, careful not to contaminate anything—a tricky job under the circumstances. I didn't feel well as I exited the toilet, as if I'd witnessed a suicide.

As I walked towards the ticket window, two young urchins approached me with hands extended. Their expressions were of exaggerated grief as they chanted the mantra, _"baksheesh...baksheesh...baksheesh,"_ and rubbed their tummies. Before I knew what was going on, they attached themselves to me, one on each leg and standing on my feet. The tiny beggars must have been at most four years old and they clenched their skinny little arms around my thighs. I tried to remove them but it was no use, they were far too tenacious. I would have gladly given them some money but all I had left were large notes and I couldn't part with them. I looked over to the ticket window where a line was quickly gathering under the watchful eye of the security guard. I looked down at the kids on my legs then over to the window. I had to get there but they wouldn't let go. So I started to walk, with their brown faces looking up at me the whole time like little baby birds mouthing, _"baksheesh...baksheesh... baksheesh."_ They were cumbersome but I soon learned to swing out my legs. In this way, I could manage a good stride. I took my place behind a few others and thank-fully my turn came quickly. I pressed my face up against the hole in the glass.

"I need a one-way ticket to Bombay, third-class, _now!"_

The clerk shook his head. My heart sank. " _It is not possible,"_ he whispered.

"What do you mean _not possible?_ This is a fucking train station isn't it? You sell train tickets don't you?"

The kid on my right leg released one of his hands and thrust it up at me. _"Bak-sheeeeesh,"_ he implored. I jumped at the chance to pry his other hand off but he was too quick and we had a small struggle. I looked back up at the clerk, who was trying to see what in hell was going on down there.

"Not possible, sir!" said the clerk, dismissing me with a wave.

"Well, where the fuck can I get a ticket to Bombay?"

The clerk didn't answer at first; I could tell he wasn't happy with my language.

"You may purchase one upstairs," he said in a matter-of-fact way, then turned his attention to the guy behind me and stopped speaking English.

I walked off. The kids on my legs still looked at me with their pleading eyes. Standing at the bottom of the staircase I laughed at how simple it would be—there was no way the kids would be able to hold on to my legs once I started to go up. But they did hold on, and by the time I got to the top floor I was exhausted and their added weight made the steps a difficult climb. Then I changed tactics and pretended that they weren't there. _Children? What children? On my legs? Why, I don't even notice!_ I did notice a few Indians laughing at me, though. What could I do? I had no money to give the little bastards, and short of violence there was no way to get them off. I stood at the back of what I hoped was the right line. There was no way to tell. It was the same situation. A guard made sure everyone stayed in line. When he turned his back for just a second a young guy shoved his way past a few others. The guy he pushed put up a stink. The guard heard and spun on his heel. He whacked the kid with some force and the boy put his hands together in a praying fashion and started bobbing up and down, saying stuff in Hindi. They carried on like this for a while, the guard hitting and the kid pleading. After a bit the guard tired and when he walked past me he noticed my little passengers. He flew into a rage and laid into them; the one on my right leg got the worst of it. When the stick hit his little head, I heard a loud _crack!_ I tried to stop the guard, grabbing at his stick. The kids ran away wailing and he gave chase for a bit then stopped. I looked around expecting a crowd reaction to this flagrant child abuse. No one budged or said a word. It seemed such behaviour was tolerated, common even.

My turn at the window eventually came and I asked for a one-way ticket to Bombay. I handed the clerk some bills and he sat there turning them over in his hand and shaking his head ruefully.

"I cannot accept this money," he said, sliding it back under the window.

"It isn't enough? I have more."

"No sir, this money is _dirty._ "

I looked at it and laughed. He had to be joking. I slid it back under.

"Just give me a ticket, please."

"I cannot accept such filthy money, sir! My boss will crucify me for such a thing!"

I repressed a powerful urge to jump through the glass and bash him to death. Instead, I pulled out the rest of my money and thrust it under the window at him. "This is all the money I have left in the world. Can you find some that isn't too dirty?"

The clerk sighed deeply and looked through my cash as if it were contaminated with AIDS. Finally he settled on a few notes and slid me a ticket. I leaned in close so no one else could hear: _"Bahinchudh, motherfucker!_ "

## ***

# Chapter 19 - Delhi to Bombay

The black train screamed into the station like an artillery shell, screeching to a halt in a cloud of smoke. I shoved my way through the crowd violently and secured my seat before someone else stole it. By the time we pulled out of Delhi station it was dark. I went to the toilet and mixed up a hit, having become a bit of an expert at shooting up in train toilets. On the way back to my seat I stopped next to one of the open doors. Taking hold of the door frame handle, I leaned out into the darkness. I closed my eyes and let the night air rush my face. I smelled wood fire, turned earth, livestock, and a river—all invisible out there in the crazy night. In the doorway ahead of me I could see someone doing the same thing. He turned and waved. After a good half hour, I swung back into the train and saw a young woman watching me from underneath the yellow light.

"That looks like fun," she said in an English accent.

"It's like the wild west. Here, hang on to this thing." I pointed at the rail next to the door frame.

The girl stepped out and the wind blew her long blonde hair like a horse's mane in full gallop. She stayed there laughing for a while then swung back in. "That was great!" Her cheeks were flushed with blood.

As she was in the same carriage as me, I grabbed my bottle of fenny and joined her. She introduced herself as Jesse from London. I offered her my bottle; she took a sip and made an awful face. "God! That's awful. What is it?"

"Hell, this is the good shit—you should try the bootleg crap. It's called fenny—made from coconuts."

"Have you got anything to mix it with?"

"Nah, have another sip, you'll be surprised how soon you get used to it. I think it numbs your taste buds or some shit."

Jesse took another good slug. "So where you headed?" she asked, passing the bottle back.

"Goa, Anjuna Beach. What about you?"

"I was thinking about Hampi but I haven't really made up my mind yet, somewhere nice and quiet though."

"You're travelling by yourself?"

"Yeah, it gets a bit much sometimes, you know, all the unwanted attention and that."

"The blonde hair wouldn't help."

"No! God, I had a guy harassing me in Delhi, a fuckin' businessman. He was offering me all this money to go out with him and shit but I kept saying no, so then he offers me money for a lock of my hair."

We drank and talked, and the conversation flowed effortlessly. It felt good to be talking to an attractive girl again. It had been a while. Then I saw two Indian guys across the aisle staring and smirking. They would have thought my new friend the lowest of whores to drink liquor and talk with an unknown man without a formal introduction by a male relative. Jesse hadn't missed this either.

"Look at those two," she said.

"They think all white women are whores," I said.

"I _know!_ God, I hate that!"

The two men were young and well dressed. One of them smiled at me and nodded in Jesse's direction. He mimicked a kissing action with his lips. I tried to ignore him but he kept hissing to get my attention and when I looked, started the kissing motion again. I asked Jesse if she had any spare coins. She shrugged and pulled out a small handful from her pocket.

" _Baksheesh?_ " I asked the guy across the aisle.

The guy raised his eyebrows and pointed over at Jesse. They were both talking in Hindi about her and laughing.

" _Baksheeeesh, baba?"_ I stood up and held out my empty hand to the closest one. He still had a dumb, leering grin on his face when I whipped the coins at him as hard as I could. Rupee and fifty paise coins bounced off his head and face. He began spluttering and protesting in Hindi.

" _Bahinchudh!_ You piece of shit!" I shouted, then picked up the bottle and splashed him with fenny.

I stood to face them but they backed off and walked up the aisle, still talking angrily in Hindi. I didn't go out of my way to offend other cultures, but putting up with bad manners out of politeness was just being a sucker.

Jesse laughed when they finally left. She took the jug and had another blast. "I think you're right. This stuff numbs the taste buds," she said.

We talked and drank until it was time to pull out the bunks. "Be careful of thieves," I said as I headed back to my seat.

"Don't worry, I sleep with my bag."

As I lay down in my bunk, I thought about how nice it was to meet a girl who wasn't on the pseudo-spiritual trip that so many seemed to gravitate towards in India. They were off with the fucking fairies those ones. The extent of their "spiritual awakening" usually consisted of spouting half formed concepts to whoever would listen and fucking as many babas as possible, further bolstering Indian's skewed perception of western girls.

At around 3:00 AM I was woken by loud shouting. I leapt off my bunk and took a look around. There were several people making a commotion near Jesse's bunk. I pushed through the crowd. She held a young Indian boy by the arm.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I caught him stealing my camera!"

The kid didn't speak English. He was talking fast and looking around nervously. Jesse had the camera in her other hand. She got up close to his face. "Don't ever try to steal from me again! Got it?" She spoke deliberately and slowly but then let go of his arm.

The thief ran but not far. The chest of one of the train guards stopped him dead in his tracks. The guard seized the kid firmly by both arms. The boy couldn't have been older than fourteen and looked completely terrified by this harsh turn of events. The guard spoke to the other passengers in Hindi. They rattled on, pointing at the kid, the girl, the camera, and the bag. Another guard showed up. They repeated the process. The first guard pulled out his rattan stick and belted the young thief across the head viciously. Both Jesse and I rushed in to stop them. They yelled at us and then dragged the kid up the aisle. Jesse followed.

"Look! It's all right! I got my camera back—you don't have to hurt him!" she implored.

They ignored her. Jesse's protests were useless; she was arguing against thousands of years of culture. I put the camera back in her bag and sat down with it. A few minutes later, she rushed back and sat down heavily. Her face was pale, the blood drained from it.

"What happened?" I asked.

" _They threw him off."_

"What?"

"The kid, _they threw him off the train."_

"Oh my God," I looked out the window. Pitch black. The train was barrelling along at top speed. How could they have thrown the boy out? It didn't seem real.

"I feel sick. It was my fault."

"No! You let him go, it wasn't your fault."

"I feel sick...he was just a kid. I should've let him keep the stupid camera!"

"You let him go."

"Oh God! Do you think he's dead? They just threw him off like a bag of rubbish!" Jesse covered her face with her hands.

I grabbed my bag and sat down with Jesse. She quickly finished off the rest of the fenny and became belligerent. "You bloody fuckin' murderers! Children killers!" she screamed down the aisle of the darkened train.

I taught her _bahinchudh_ and she screamed it out at the top of her lungs until she was hoarse. Then Jesse took her camera from her bag and, before I could stop her, threw it out between the bars. As the train sped through the night Jesse told me her life story, speaking in a dull monotone and leaning forward as if at confessional, telling me her dreams and disappointments. Eventually, she wore herself out and fell asleep.

We shunted into Bombay Station just after daybreak. The weak morning light gave the station an unearthly, alien feel and reminded me of the setting for an Agatha Christie novel. Pigeons cooed in the steel rafters and vendors pushed their heavy wooden carts. A group of students passed our carriage laughing at a private joke. Jesse sat and stared out of the window, her eyes red and swollen. I leaned over to her.

"Why don't you come down to Goa with me—try and forget about it?"

She continued to gaze out of the window for a while and then turned to me. "Thanks, but I've already made up my mind. I don't want to spend another fucking day in this country."

"Where will you go?"

"Thailand, maybe Hong Kong—somewhere civilized."

Outside the station, everything seemed so bright and crisp in the clean morning light. Jesse decided to get a taxi straight to the airport. A few beggars circled us with outstretched hands, repeating the timeless mantra: _"bak-sheeeesh."_ Jesse undid her money belt, unzipped it and started peeling off one hundred rupee notes. She placed a note in each of the beggars' hands. They looked at her with wide, watery eyes and thanked her in Hindi with trembling voices.

"We are going to get fucking swarmed!" I said.

Jesse laughed. "Yeah, well I don't need it anymore."

Already I could see the beggars gravitating towards us from all directions, like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

"It's not too late to change your mind and come down to Goa. The high season is starting soon."

Jesse looked at me then glanced around. "I dunno..."

I knew it wouldn't take too much convincing; she was almost there. Her departure was just a knee-jerk reaction to the kid being thrown off the train. But then what? Would we end up having sex? Would I have to make the first move? And then what would I say? Then there was everything else to consider: she seemed like a nice girl but maybe she talked loudly in public, had bad breath in the morning, talked during movies, was a bitch on the rag, listened to crap music or had some sort of venereal disease. Or maybe she wasn't interested in me at all, I could never tell. Women gave out these little cues and signs that I always seemed to miss or misinterpret. They pretty much had to spread their cunts in my face before I got the hint. It was all way too complicated—there were too many boring little rules and social niceties. Besides, I really didn't have room for passengers.

"You're probably right. It was nice meeting you," I said, offering my hand before she could decide.

Jesse looked disappointed for a second then got in close, stepped up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek.

"Have a good time in Goa." She smiled at me and then turned to leave.

I felt like yelling _Come back! Don't go!_ Instead I stood and watched her dissolve into the crowd. But it didn't matter. For me, there was always the needle.

## ***

# Chapter 20 - The Goa Bus

I rented a room in a guesthouse next to the ocean then went out and bought a one-way bus ticket to Panaji, a city in the southern state of Goa. I couldn't get a bus directly to Anjuna Beach but the travel agent told me it was a short taxi ride from Panaji. The agent was next to a chemist so I popped in to buy a package of 1 cc insulin syringes. The proprietor was happy to oblige my request and before I could pay, produced a small bottle from behind the counter.

"Would you like some of this, _kind sir?"_ he asked with a smile.

I took a look at the bottle. Ketamine Hydrochloride, 10 ml. I'd heard the name somewhere before but couldn't quite place it. "What is it?"

"This is _most_ enjoyable, sir! It is _very_ popular among travellers!"

"I dunno."

"Come back when I am closing, kind sir, and I shall gladly inject you in the buttocks."

I paid up and got the hell out of there.

That night, I locked myself in my room with a plate of Tandoori chicken, three bottles of Kingfisher, a tola of hash, and a gram of brown sugar. I put my headphones on, whacked _Another Kind of Blues_ by the UK Subs into my Walkman, then mixed up a big shot and squirted it into my vein. The bass vibrated deep into my marrow as I surfed a narcotic tidal wave in the golden palace of my room.

Sitting in the back row of a picture show with Lady Esquire,

Every time I take a little sniff I get higher and higher

Get off with zof science fiction freak

Get off with zof it's all I need!

The next day I scored another fold of brown for the bus trip, squared up at the guesthouse, and slung my duffel bag over my shoulder. Bombay was hot and dusty and smelled of curry powder. The top floors of higher buildings were bathed in a copper hue as I walked along next to a wall that bordered the Indian Ocean. It was low tide and several children and old people scurried amongst the rocks and mud, chasing and catching small crabs. The "Gateway to India" was a short walk from my room but was an unimpressive arch that looked as if it had been designed and built by people who had better things to do. Crowds of tourists took pictures and milled around. A group of young Indian men stopped me as I squeezed through the crowd. I assumed they wanted me to take a picture of them in front of the Gateway, but soon realized they wanted a picture of me with them. So I stood there as the guy next to me put his arm around my shoulders like we were regular pals. Afterwards, they all shook my hand in turn and the photographer said by way of explanation, "I like blue jean and sneaker. One day I will buy blue jean and sneaker!" I didn't know what to say to this so I smiled politely and bid them _adios_. I jumped into a taxi, rolled down the window and headed into the city.

The bus stop was on the shoulder of a four-lane high-way and the smell of exhaust was overpowering. A blue haze hung low over the street. Every once in a while a quick wind whipped dust into my stinging eyes. An old guy had his sugar cane juicer set up next to the bus stand. I ordered a drink and he chipped ice from a large block covered with a towel into a cup. He placed the cup under a spout and fed sections of sugarcane into the ancient looking contraption. A light green juice trickled into my glass as he turned the handle. I handed over a two-rupee note and my parched throat sang its praises when I took a sip. Passengers began boarding the bus as I worked on my second glass, so I poured the rest down my throat and picked up my duffel bag. I sat down in the back seat and put my bag on the floor in front of me. As the bus shuddered to life and pulled into traffic, I hung my head and arm out the window. A cow stopped us dead in our tracks as it stood and shit. When it had finished, it stood staring at us and chewing its cud as the driver beeped frantically. A small voice called to me from the street. I looked down to see a legless beggar on a small piece of wood with wheels on it. He'd pushed himself out into traffic and was tapping the side of the bus with a stick and asking for baksheesh. I dropped a note just as traffic let up, and a truck that didn't try to brake or swerve on his account almost ran the cripple over as he scooted back to the curb. No doubt the driver would've slammed on the brakes had he been a shitting holy cow.

On the outskirts of the city, the traffic started to let up. We passed a grand old colonial building that had been converted to a police station. It looked as if the only renovation that had been carried out since the British left was the addition of large bars over all the windows. The rest of the building had fallen into disrepair and the white facade was stained by decades of exhaust. A four foot wall surrounded the station. On it were painted large anti-crime and anti-drug slogans. A skeletal hand holding a large syringe caught my eye as we drove past. The caption underneath it read _"If the Sugar Is Brown... Your Dreams Will Drown!"_ This was completely true—if you had any dreams to begin with.

The driver put on a _filmi_ music score and cranked the stereo to full volume. There were two small cone-like speakers: one at the very front of the bus and the other directly above my head. To make matters worse, the music was at such a volume that the distortion was terrible. It was as if the driver was trying to compensate his primitive stereo technology with sheer bloody volume. None of the Indians seemed to mind this racket and carried on normally. It occurred to me that maybe there was some quality to the music I was overlooking, some Eastern nuances that we unenlightened Westerners were ignorant to. If there was, it was lost to me as I clamped my eyes shut and tried to find some redeeming feature in the din.

After an hour or so, we cleared the city and night fell. The bus opened up on the dark streets, speeding south to Goa. There was one yellow light in the middle that left the bus in near darkness. I took out a wax-paper fold and poured some brown into my palm. Then I crouched down, stuck a cut straw up my nostril, and snorted it up. I sat back and relaxed, but five minutes later nothing had happened so I repeated the process, putting it down to tolerance. Again nothing happened. My mind started to reel. It was pitch black outside and we were in the middle of nowhere. I opened the packet in plain view and dabbed it with my tongue praying for the tang of chemical. It tasted sweet. _I had been ripped off!_ I tossed the fold out the window and calculated that I had three hours left at the most before the unyielding discipline of withdrawal set in. The bus ride to Goa took ten hours. I felt like screaming, railing against the injustice of it all. The _filmi_ music became a soundtrack to my nightmare. I pulled a bottle of coconut fenny from my bag, uncapped it and took a swig. I allowed myself to relax a little as I rested the bottle on my thigh. If I worked steadily on the bottle I could finish it by the time the true horrors set in and hopefully pass out for a while. I knew that most of the roadside shacks we would be stopping at would sell beer. That was it: _I could drink my way to freedom!_

By the time I was halfway through the bottle, my fear had dissipated and the _filmi_ music was less abrasive. My most pressing concern so to speak, was the need to piss. I walked up the aisle and past a girl who'd boarded on the outskirts of Bombay. I said _hello_ and she nodded a _guten tag._ The bus driver was laughing away with his assistant who sat next to him on a thin mat. They had set up a shrine to a particularly odious wanker called Sai Baba in the front of the bus. At the centre were pictures of their deity, a bearded old guy with a beatific grin and a halo-like afro. There were several sticks of incense burning next to the altar. I sidled up next to the driver.

"Are you going to be stopping soon?"

He turned to his assistant, said something and turned back to me. "In under five minutes we shall be stopping, sir," he said. They both grinned at me. I went back to my seat.

Fifteen minutes later we still hadn't stopped. I walked up to the front again.

"When are you stopping next?"

"Oh sir, we shall be stopping any moment now!" They both smiled again.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt and walked back to my seat. Half an hour later, I realised that we weren't going to stop anytime soon. The driver and his little pal had mistaken blatant lies for high wit. I took the only option left to me and pissed out the window.

An hour later, the bus shuddered to a halt and people got off. At last the speakers went dead and I sat there for a moment savouring the silence. Outside, there was a shack that sold curry, and thankfully, Kingfisher beer. I noticed that the German girl was seated at one of the tables with a plate of curry. After buying a Kingfisher and a pack of bidis, I walked over.

"Hey, mind if I join you?" I asked.

She said nothing so I sat down.

"Where are you headed?"

"Panaji," she said, mechanically shovelling a spoonful of rice into her mouth.

"You're not heading to any of the beaches?"

"Panaji."

I didn't know what else to say, so I took a sip of beer and promptly retched up a mouthful of evil tasting beer froth, whisky, and stomach acid. I leant over and spat it out.

"Would you like a drink?" I offered her the bottle.

She gave me a look as if I had just confided in her that I was a child molester. "No, I notice that you're drinking all the time on the bus and using the window as toilet?"

"Yeah, well the driver wouldn't stop and I had to go, y'know?"

I made a few more weak attempts at conversation but she was more interested in eating so I went back and sat on the bus. The Kingfisher was a nice change from the fenny but was soon gone. I took out the pack of bidi's—anything to keep my mind off things. I searched my bag for a light but came up empty. I walked up the aisle and stopped next to the German girl, who was sitting there with her sandalled feet planted firmly on the ground and staring straight ahead into the darkness.

"Hey, have you got a light?" I stuck the bidi in my mouth.

She didn't look at me as she reached into her bag and pulled out some matches. I struck one and lit the bidi.

" _Donkey-shun,"_ I said, handing the matches back.

By the time I got back to my seat and sat down the bidi had gone out. I walked back to her. "Would you mind, it went out."

Without a word she gave me the matches again. I made sure to hold it with the lit end down as I walked back to my seat. I smoked it down to the quick and tried to light another with the butt. It didn't work, so I walked down to my German friend once again.

"Look, these damn things just don't stay lit. I need another light."

She frowned at me. "I think you are very drunk?"

"Not yet."

"I think maybe it would be a good idea for you to stop drinking?"

"Spare me the lecture, darling. I only wanted a light."

She sat there pursing her lips tightly before reaching into her bag to fish out the matches, which she threw at me. They hit me in the chest and fell onto the ground.

"Keep them, and please, no more bothering me!"

I picked up the matches and walked slowly back to my seat. After lighting up the bidi, I took a good long look at the female Kraut. She wore a baggy, formless shirt that effectively neutered her, and her hairy legs ended in a pair of hippy sandals. I couldn't work out why all the frauleins I met on my travels were like my friend at the front: humourless bitches with about as much sex appeal as a sack of potatoes. Maybe they kept the Nina Hagen's captive in a smoke-filled nightclub in Berlin, with a pair of sandals on a sign out front slashed diagonally. I lit up another bidi.

"Hey you!" I shouted down the aisle at the Kraut.

Her back tensed up but she didn't turn around. I finished off the fenny and tossed the bottle out of the window and listened to the quickly distant smash.

"Hey, German girl!" I yelled down the bus. She turned and I did my best John Cleese impersonation with two fingers under my nose and a _sieg heil_ salute. She stared at me with a cold rage. If looks could kill.

The bus must have hit a hole in the road or something, because my head slammed onto the floor and woke me up. I was stretched out in the aisle with my head at the back of the bus. The steel floor beneath me was cold and unforgiving. My backbone ached deep in the marrow and withdrawals had seeped like an insidious poison to every pore of my body. An old lady occupied my seat. She sat with her feet on my bag and rested her head on the window. I thought about asking for my seat back, but instead sat in the middle of the back seat. Most of the other passengers were asleep. The driver was still chit-chatting with his assistant. It was pitch black outside, no streetlights. I looked at my watch. Five hours to go—five solid, mountain-like hours. It was at such moments that the unyielding discipline of time truly exerted itself. I lit up a bidi and inhaled, there was nothing to do but sit and take it. I felt like jumping up and down and yelling, pounding my fists on the floor. Then my guts twisted sharply. At first I tried not to acknowledge the feeling, hoping that I could fool my body by pretending it didn't exist. But there was no denying the sensation. A week of narcotic-induced constipation was coming to an end. I thought of going up to ask the driver when we might stop but knew what the answer would be. I was faced with shitting my pants or getting my ass out a window _quick!_ It was a hell of a thing, to be faced with such a decision. The old lady who stole my seat sat oblivious to my plight.

I squeezed up next to her and pointed at the window. "Hey excuse me, I need that window!"

She looked at me briefly and pretended not to hear.

"Lady, I _really_ need that window!"

I felt a twist in my guts and knew that if I didn't take action immediately I would be sitting in shit for five hours. I yanked down my trousers, and knocking the old lady's head aside, thrust my ass out the window. She let out a yelp of protest but there was no stopping me. Almost as soon as I got my ass in the wind the whole thing erupted like an obscene brown volcano. The old lady stormed to an empty seat halfway down the bus making a fuss as she did so. A few people looked back to witness the drama as I painted the road brown. The German girl stared back at me in disgust and I gave her another half-hearted Nazi salute.

## ***

# Chapter 21 - Goa

I was almost catatonic when the bus shuddered to a halt and the driver yelled out, _"Panaji! Panaji!"_ His sidekick climbed onto the roof and started throwing the luggage down. I didn't want to move and felt as if I'd gone into rigor mortis. I hung my head out of the window and looked up at the sky; the clouds looked like dark purple candy floss. I also noticed a long brown smear below the window. A few sparrows cut the pre-dawn stillness with birdsong. As I struggled off the bus I noticed the driver standing at the front cleaning the headlights with a rag.

"Hey!"

He turned to look at me.

" _Bahinchudh!"_ I spat at him.

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

" _Bahinchudh!_ Motherfucker!"

"I do not know whatever it is that you are trying to say, sir."

His assistant on the roof peeked over and they said a few words to each other in Hindi and laughed. Then I remembered another useful phrase that Ali-Baba had taught me.

" _Challo Pakistan!"_

The driver's countenance immediately changed and his eyes sparked rage as he let fly a torrent of Hindi.

"Ha ha! _Challo Pakistan,_ you fuckin' prick!" I'd gotten a reaction out of him, although I couldn't figure out why telling the bastard to go to Pakistan was so much worse than calling him a sister fucker. He threw his rag down angrily as I walked off.

A few tuktuk drivers leaned up against their yellow and black vehicles on the side of the road. I walked up to the nearest one.

"How much to Anjuna?" I asked.

"This will cost you 300 rupees sir."

"I'll pay you what's on the meter."

"This is not possible, sir, as the meter is broken." The driver shook his head as if it were the saddest thing in the world.

"OK," I started to turn to one of the others.

"Would you be liking anything more, sir?"

"What have you got?"

" _Money-change, charas,"_ he whispered.

I urged him on with my body language, waiting for him to finish the incomplete mantra. He didn't.

" _...brown?"_ I finished for him.

His composure changed immediately. _"Oh no, sir!_ I do not sell this! You will be _ruining_ your health with such things! I will get you the finest quality charas, however."

I walked towards the next guy.

" _Sir!_ It is of the finest quality! Forget that other stuff!"

I ignored the only drug dealer in India with morals and jumped in the nearest available tuktuk.

The streets were quiet and empty as we sped along. I had to search my bag for an old Clash shirt to put on under my army shirt as our speed intensified the chill. We drove along thin black streets that twisted through the thick jungle. After about ten minutes, I noticed the meter.

"Hey! The fuckin' meter isn't on!" I pointed over his shoulder.

He flicked it on. "Oh, I forgot, sir!"

Eventually we came to a car park on a coastal bluff. There was no one about. A strong wind came up and brought with it the salty smell of the Indian Ocean. The driver unoriginally tried to charge me an exorbitant fee for the time that the meter wasn't running. I told him to _"Challo Pakistan"_ and we raised a fuss together. Then he jumped back in his vehicle and took off. The sound of his two-stroke engine faded quickly in the chill air.

I fuckin' made it! Anjuna Beach is just a stone's throw from where I'm standing. I just wish I weren't so sick so I could enjoy the moment a bit more. I walk to the edge of the bluff and listen to the waves breaking in the darkness. A sign at the edge of the car park says: DRUG USE PROHIBITED! I stand looking at it for a while and think why even bother with such a sign? Would anyone actually change their mind because of it? I drop my duffel bag, stick my hand in and pull out a black marker. On the bottom of the sign I ink "If the Sugar Is Brown Your Dreams Will Drown!" Then I burp up a little bile that tastes strongly of fenny. I cough and then puke full force. Junk sickness has permeated my body like radiation. Every pore seeps toxic, foul smelling sweat. I have to do something, any-thing, so I dump out my bag and search like a madman through the stuff on the ground. I pull out a clump of syringes and throw them as far as I can off the bluff. Next goes the bent spoon, tourniquet, anything that represents smack. But I am fooling myself. I have done the same thing dozens of times before; usually accompanied by a solemn oath—something I don't bother with this time. It doesn't matter anyway, new syringes can be bought easily, a belt will do for a tourniquet, and scoring smack is as easy as falling off this cliff. Addiction goes against the current of nature, with smack my free will is subverted, free will and willpower simply does not exist for me anymore. Instead of being a gift that separates us from the animals, free will has become my gaoler. Junkys are the ultimate outsider, not only are we outside of society: we are outside of nature. I spit, turn, and wander towards the beach. Heroin gave me wings but took away the sky.

A cool breeze wafted up from the beach as I staggered along with the strap of my duffel bag cutting into my shoulder. I stood at the top of a path that led down to the ocean. An open plan restaurant to my left was dark and silent. The beach looked deserted, the whites of the breakers shining through the grey twilight. A breeze swirled through the grass as I stood there for a while wondering what to do. Then I heard someone calling out from the restaurant. My eyes slowly became adjusted to the dark interior and I made out a guy sitting at the back. He was waving something in the air. I walked towards him through the restaurant. All the tables and chairs were set up in the dark as if waiting for ghosts. As I neared, I realized the stranger was waving a chillum. I sat in the chair opposite him, noticing for the first time how old he was.

"Baba, you smoke chillum?" he asked with a smile.

"Yeah, sure."

"My name _Baba-Dale._ " I shook his good arm, the other hung stiffly by his side.

Baba-Dale employed a modified smoking technique, regulating the chillum entirely with his left hand. He would grip the chillum with his good hand, making a little suction hole and press it up against his lips, though he needed me to light it for him. Baba-Dale took an enormous draw as the flame dipped into the bowl, then attacked the thing with hard, quick sucks. A haze of hash smoke soon enveloped us and sunrise exploded into the restaurant with a shell burst of white gold. Baba-Dale had several tolas of hash on the tabletop and seemed happy just to have someone to smoke with and light his chillum for him. After a time we were joined by his nephew Beart, who had been sleeping on the sand in the kitchen. Beart rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and slapped the sand from his clothes before sitting at our table. He explained that his uncle had been hit by a train, hence the handicap, and then quickly determined my financial status with a series of probing questions. When he learnt of my predicament, he offered to let me keep my bags in his restaurant and told me of a good stretch of beach to sleep on that was free from thieves.

"Would you like a bowl of soup?" he asked me after the interrogation.

"Sure." The hash blunted the turkey's edge slightly and made me aware of my hunger.

Beart walked off and came back with a backgammon set which he placed on the table. Baba-Dale laughed when he saw it and Beart started setting up the pieces. "You beat me—I give you soup," he said.

Beart played fast and competitively. If I paused at all in a decision, or didn't move with speed, he muttered little noises of dissatisfaction and toyed absent-mindedly with his luxurious moustache. He was impossible to beat, throwing the dice with a flourish and moving his pieces around the board assuredly and aggressively. I felt stressed out and sick. Baba-Dale looked on with disinterest, he kept smoking and handing me the chillum, much to Beart's chagrin as it meant a pause in the game play. After half an hour of play I lucked out and nailed the prick. Beart snapped the board shut and headed for the kitchen. He was true to his word and warm soup soon filled my stomach. I pushed the bowl away when I had scooped up every last drop. Beart reappeared from the kitchen and flipped something wrapped in cellophane in front of me.

"Here, you have no money. You go to the party and sell these and I shall give you ten rupees for each one you sell."

I picked the wrap up and had a look. There were 25 hits of acid on a square piece of blotter paper wrapped in cellophane. Each hit had a small black landscape of a beach with palm trees on it.

"California Sunrise—very good!" Beart pointed at one of the designs.

I secured them in my top pocket. "Sure, I'll sell them."

The day had well and truly broken so I smoked one last chillum with Baba-Dale and then got out of there. Once out of the restaurant, I made my way towards the beach. My legs worked automatically and my body and mind were mere passengers. My cravings were like an autopilot over-riding my consciousness. I walked past several bars and restaurants that fringed the beach, most of them with a handful of people sitting down for break-fast. Then at the back of one I saw an Indian guy sitting with a bottle of Kingfisher. It was 7:30 AM and I knew instinctively that he was my man. We exchanged a few words then took a walk. He went back to the bar and I headed into the jungle.

My back was against a tree as I took the needle from my arm. It was a large 3ml job—the only clean one the dealer had. A delicious euphoria washed over me. I let my arm fall limply and a trickle of blood flowed down to my wrist as I floated away on a cloud of pure bliss. My new resolution had lasted all of two hours.

Once I landed back on earth, I headed back to the path, easy and free in my manner. My body felt permeated and warmed by the X-rays of a poisonous sun. I passed a row of cement bungalows that featured stalls shielded by umbrellas. I decided to have a look and maybe buy a chillum, as my old one hadn't survived the Goa bus.

"We have many fine chillums, sir. The best in India!" declared the slightly-built shopkeeper as I turned one of the chillums over in my hand.

I was quite surprised when he started the bartering at a reasonable price. I probably could have knocked him down a bit but didn't bother. After I handed over a few notes he wrapped the chillum in a sheet of newspaper.

"These are the finest chillums, sir. Made in Kashmir," he said as he handed it over.

"I'm sure they are."

"Would you like some charas, sir?"

"I'm okay." I still had the best part of a tola left over from Bombay.

"Do not buy any in Anjuna, the charas here is inferior. It is like cow shit!"

"Let me guess, it's better in Kashmir?"

He beamed with pride. "You are very intelligent!"

"Maybe tomorrow."

"Very well, kind sir, I shall be waiting!"

By the time I got to Anjuna, the beach was covered with travellers soaking up the Indian rays. They were all slim, tanned and, for the most part, beautiful. The girls went topless, their tanned breasts bobbing hypnotically as they trotted towards the water. It was enough to drive me mad. I felt like a sick dog as I walked along in my dirty Levi's with my skinny, tattooed, needle-pocked arms dangling from my sleeveless army shirt. I took off my Adidas, tied the laces together and slung them over my shoulder, hoping that it would give me more of a casual "beach-type" look. Some sections of the beach looked very treacherous; I could see sharp rocks through the waves. I had the urge to swim but wanted to do it far away from the beautiful people. I kept walking.

At the end of the beach was a large outcrop of rock. As I clambered on top of it, I couldn't help notice the strong stench of urine. There were several single Indian men wandering around on top. One had a pair of binoculars and he sat like a monkey on his haunches as he checked out the women. I found an area devoid of people, which also had a good view and I could see anyone coming from far away. I stripped down to my Tom and Jerry boxer shorts and placed a rock on my clothes. The water was refreshingly cold as I took my first step into the Indian Ocean. There were sharp barnacles everywhere, so I took it slow. I got about halfway up my knees and looked for a drop off where I could dive into the water. A wave came in and the water quickly rose past my knees. When it started to go out again, the force on my legs almost knocked me over backwards. I waded out a bit more to what I thought was a drop off. On closer inspection, it turned out to be nothing but a depression. Then the water was suddenly past my thighs. I was too weak to resist the pull this time and, as I turned to get out, fell forwards. Instinctively, I grabbed at the barnacle covered rock face. I felt sharp shell husks slice my hands and feet and started to panic. The tide pulled me out and my little pile of clothes on the rock seemed light-years away. The next surge brought me frustratingly close to my clothes, but then, as I tried to crawl out, the current pulled my legs from under me and scraped me across the barnacles, slicing open my chest. Suddenly I was in deeper water. I reached out as I spun underwater but somersaulted again and touched nothing. I realized with horror that I didn't know which way was up. All I could see was a dizzy cascade of bubbles. Oddly, the foremost thought in my mind was that I didn't want to die in my Tom and Jerry boxer shorts—there was something very _undignified_ about it. I quickly discovered which way was down when my head hit a rock with force and knocked me unconscious.

The first thing I did when I came to was vomit up a stomach full of the Indian Ocean. It was warm and salty and caused me to retch until dry. The sea had rejected me; spat me out like a piece of flotsam. The outgoing currents still pulled at my legs so I crawled to my clothes and collapsed. I rolled over onto my back and winced in pain. The slashes on my chest throbbed painfully from the salt. They weren't deep but I was shocked at how badly they hurt. As I lay there, I noticed an Indian guy coming my way. He hopped from rock to rock and before long was squatting next to me.

"You have been injured, sir! You are _bleeding!_ "

"I know... almost fuckin' drowned," I gagged.

He looked at my cuts then dug around in his canvas shoulder bag. "I have just the thing for you, sir. Some _salve_ for your wounds." From the bag, he produced a small tube and squeezed an amount of white paste onto his fingertips. Then he massaged it into the slashes on my chest.

"FUCK! What the hell is that stuff? It stings!" I pulled away from him.

"It is the very best salve money can buy, sir. It will heal you up with no problem." He bobbed his head self-assuredly. When he was finished, he capped the tube and dropped it back in his bag. "There my friend, this salve is _far superior_ to anything you will be getting in your country!" His brown eyes sparkled with self pride as he smoothed his black moustache. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a magazine.

"My England friend has given me this magazine." He displayed the cover proudly.

I had a quick glance: it was a hardcore porn magazine. The pain was driving me to distraction. I closed my eyes and winced, sure that the son-of-a-bitch had smeared me with cheap Indian toothpaste.

" _Sir! Sir!"_ he barked excitedly. "Is this the plastic?" He had the magazine open to a page where a brunette on all fours posed with a dildo sticking out of her cunt. He stabbed a finger at the dildo.

I screamed at him. _"IT'S A DILDO FOR CHRISSAKE! HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN A FUCKIN' DILDO?"_

"Diddo? It plastic? Look at this one, sir!" He flipped open a page and stuck a double penetration close-up in my face.

I knocked the magazine away. _"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? I ALMOST FUCKIN' DROWNED AND YOU'RE SHOWING ME SOME FUCKIN' PORNO MAG?"_

The strange little fellow smiled then folded the porno magazine into his bag. "I am sorry, sir. I will help you. Come."

Painfully, I pulled on my jeans and put on my shirt but left the front unbuttoned. My new companion stood up and I put my arm around his shoulder.

"The rocks are very sharp. I will walk you until the beach and then you must fend for yourself." He was true to his word and led me to the edge of the beach where he bade me farewell. Blood poured down my chest as I stumbled along. There was a large gash on my left foot next to the big toe that made it difficult to walk and my head throbbed from the knock it had received. To make matters worse, I had to walk past all the beautiful people in their little G-strings. I could feel their eyes burning into me but I no longer cared. I had cheated death once again; they could all go to hell. I heard little gasps and hushed mutterings as I walked by. Around the halfway mark, I saw a group of older tourists walking towards me, and like the rest of the beach, they took me for a psycho, hell-bent on self-mutilation. I thought I may as well have some fun with it, so I started groaning and put a demented twist to my walk. It was too much for one old lady. She put her hand to her mouth and exclaimed, _"Oh, mein gott!"_

After walking the length of Anjuna, I came to the main path again. As I passed the stall where I bought my new chillum, I noticed that the fellow who sold it to me was sitting with a friend against the wall of his bungalow. He looked at me with some surprise.

"You have had an accident, sir?" he asked.

"Yeah, looks that way doesn't it?" I kept walking.

"Sir! Would you like to join us?" He held up a bottle of bootleg fenny, no label.

I looked up the path. _Where was I going?_ I turned and walked back to the bungalow.

"Your chest, sir! Is it painful?" he asked as he handed me the bottle.

"It's OK." I took a hit and explained what happened.

"You are lucky to be alive!"

He introduced me to his friend; I immediately forgot his name. They insisted that I stay with them in their bungalow, free of charge. We sat there for the rest of the day as the sun performed its timeless dance towards the horizon. Every time a traveller passed by, the Kashmiri's assaulted them with various pitches: _"Which country are you from, sir?" "Would you like to see some beautiful items?" "Miss, you look lovely today. Please come and see my store."_

Anyone who'd been there for any length of time ignored them completely. If they managed to get someone to look at their wares, they were guaranteed a sale. Their salesmanship was occult-like and they were masters of language and persuasion.

By the time the bottle was finished, reds and oranges splashed the palm tree fronds that lined the beach and gold danced on the water. A group of black guys walked past.

" _Akoona-matata!"_ I yelled out at them.

One of them turned around. "Huh?"

" _Akoona-matata._ Do you speak Swahili?"

"We don't speak Swahili in London, mate!" he retorted in a heavy Cockney accent.

The Kashmiri's laughed. "You are a racist, sir?" asked the one with the bottle.

"Racist? No, I thought they were from Swaziland." I was going to tell them about Alex but didn't bother.

"It is OK, sir, for we are racists as well! We do not like these Indians, _the black bastards!"_

Once the sun had disappeared we all pitched in for another bottle. I started to get paranoid as we drank into the early evening. They were letting me stay at their bungalow for nothing, so there had to be a catch. No one in India did anything without expecting something in return. An hour later the bottle was empty and we went into the bungalow to sleep. There were no beds, just thin straw mats on the cement floor.

"Dean, you may have this one." He pointed to the one in the middle.

_Maybe they were homosexual; they would wait until the lights went out._ Before they hit the light, I memorized the position of a solid brass urn. The moment they turned off the lights, the room instantly went pitch black. The three of us lay there. There was no movement and I couldn't sleep as my chest stung so much. After an hour of lying on my back, I heard someone outside our door. Whoever it was began yelling angrily in Hindi. It was obvious that it was directed to the two on either side of me. They didn't move and I couldn't even hear them breathe. Then the mystery man bashed on the cement latticework that fringed the ceiling for ventilation. I heard pieces of cement hit the wares on the table and a piece struck me on the leg. I sat bolt upright.

" _What the fuck is going on?"_ I whispered.

Neither of my hosts answered.

" _Wake up! There's someone smashing the bungalow!"_

I might as well have been talking into a void. I knew that they were awake and were probably frightened out of their wits. I found the whole situation baffling and slightly terrifying. I heard other voices outside yelling and things smashing.

The next morning we woke early. Outside, the stall that my newfound friends sold their goods on had been destroyed. All the stalls of the neighbouring Kashmiri's had met a similar fate. The large umbrellas that stood over the tables were broken and trampled. There was a half brick in front of our door. I picked it up.

"So you guys are telling me you didn't hear that last night?" I asked as I tossed the brick in the air and caught it.

"Hear what?"

"The fuckin' smashing and yelling! It went on for a good five minutes!"

"Oh no, we did not hear a thing."

"Then what the fuck do you think happened here?" I dropped the half-brick and waved my hand at the total destruction around us.

"This is the work of children, sir. _Young rascals!_ "

I decided right then and there that I didn't want to stay another night with the Kashmiri's. I had seen hills to the west of the beach; I told them where I was going.

"These hills? But there is nothing there."

"I don't care, that's where I'm going." The hills seemed distant, peaceful.

"Very well."

I thanked them for letting me stay the night and took off. As I topped the hill I popped into Beart's restaurant to pick up my bag and, before I knew it, was setting up the pieces on his well-worn backgammon set.

"You are playing too slow!" Beart said as he scooped up the die.

"Fuck...I just woke up."

He laughed. "Last night we teach these bastards a fine lesson!"

"What bastards?"

"Fucking Kashmiris! They are all thieves! I was born here." He stabbed his finger at the table. "They come every year for the high season, steal our business and they are rotten thieving bastards!"

I kept quiet and played my move. Then I got lucky, throwing two doubles in a row. We were playing acey deucey and I made a block in his home base. My luck continued on my next toss with another pair of doubles. It wasn't looking so good for Beart. After a few more throws, he realized that it was hopeless and snapped the board closed prematurely before storming off into the kitchen. I went over to join Baba-Dale for a few chillums while I waited.

After a large bowl of chicken soup, I walked towards the hills, not really sure what I was going to do when I got there but at least it gave me some purpose. I passed empty restaurants and bungalows with their doors shut fast against the morning. Looking back to where I had just come from, the beach was wide and smoky looking: one side fringed with palm trees, bungalows and restaurants, the other by the Indian Ocean and low breakers that filled the air with a watery hum. Anjuna Beach was paradise, or it would be without the human beings. I turned my back and continued over the hill. Once at the bottom, I turned off the road and went cross-country, cutting through a large plain of knee high grass. It was dry and colourless and bent easily in the slight breeze. I stopped and sat down in the tall grass which shielded me from the wind. All I could see was the blue sky above. No one saw what a sick thing I was as I mixed up a hit. A small white cloud floated over as I lay down and the high-pitched sounds of insects mingled with the soft swish of the grass. The world was peaceful here, serene. I fell into a deep sleep and by the time I got up, the blazing sun was almost directly overhead. The hills forgotten, I made a beeline for Vagatore Beach.

Vagatore was smaller than Anjuna Beach but just as beautiful. There was a hill at the far end with the ruins of an old Portuguese fort at the top. I walked up to the nearest set of bungalows but there didn't seem to be anyone around. The bungalows were made of brick and cement and painted bright yellow. There was a sign out front: _Welcome to Yellow House._ At least I knew where I was. I had to go, so I walked over to a toilet on stilts behind the buildings. Closing the door, I dropped my jeans and squatted over the keyhole. Suddenly, there was a heavy grunting and breathing from below. Then, without warning, a pig thrust its snout through the keyhole and snorted hungrily. Its whiskers brushed my balls and sent a shock wave of primal fear up my spine. I jumped up. The damn thing was up on its hind legs, thrusting its head as far as it could into the hole. I looked around for something to beat the hog with and found a big wire brush that looked as if it was used for cleaning cement. The pig would drop every once in a while and fight off any others that tried to get near the hole. There was a whole family of them down there waiting for me to take a shit on their heads. I let out a small dollop of shit, which enticed the pig with its fine aroma. When he forced his snout through the hole to get at the appetiser, I brought the wire brush down on his nose with all my might. The pig let out a high-pitched squeal and ran off. Others immediately took his position but they weren't as tall and their snouts barely reached the hole. One pig would balance on two legs for as long as he could, then fall down onto all fours again and another would try its luck. They were all squealing and fighting and grunting down there—it was madness. I felt strange squatting but it had to be done. I let loose and the pigs went crazy, like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

On exiting the toilet, I saw a short Indian man dressed completely in white inspecting the fence that kept the pigs in. I walked over to him.

"Do you own these bungalows?" I asked.

"Yes, you need room?"

His little round gut stuck straight out, defying gravity. His eyes looked like black buttons and were set close together, making him look dull and vicious. We walked to a door and he snapped open a padlock. The room was a tiny cement box with wooden shutters shut fast. There was a single dirty mattress in the corner that couldn't have been more than an inch thick. He walked over and opened the shutters; the window was criss-crossed with bars. I wanted to know how much this cell would cost.

"How much?" I asked.

"Ten rupees per evening."

I paid for two weeks in advance and his face became animated when he counted the money. Landlords were the same everywhere. I unbuttoned my shirt and lay on the mattress to let my wounds breathe.

I drifted off for a while and awoke with a pounding headache and an aching stomach. After doing up my shirt I set off in search of a cheap restaurant. The main road in Vagatore was a short walk behind the Yellow House. I found a place where they served a huge dish of rice and curry with na'an bread for only 5 rupees. After eating every last grain of rice, I used the bread to clean the plate then sat to watch the pedestrian and animal traffic go by.

I had foolishly expected all my problems to evaporate when I got to Goa but a knot of fear and anxiety still churned in my guts. I wasn't too optimistic about selling acid for Beart either, due to the fact that every attempt I made at dealing in the past had met with total failure, mainly because I never heeded the golden rule: _Don't Get High on Your Own Supply._ My headache turned into a blinder, the type that made my eyes ache and was only remedied by aspirin. I could see a chemist from where I sat, so I headed on over. The proprietor sat behind his counter, the entire shop no more than a wooden box painted white with a red cross on the side. He had a well-fed and happy face, and his black moustache was thicker than most and hid the top part of his mouth.

"I need some headache pills, aspirin or something," I said as I walked in.

He smiled and shook his head, I pointed at mine. "Headache—I need headache pills, aspirin."

"No sir," he smiled.

"You're a chemist and you don't have aspirin?"

"Yes sir, I have aspirin, but this is not what you are needing."

"What does that mean?"

He slapped the counter top. "I have something better for you, sir!"

"Oh yeah?" Now he had my attention.

He pulled out a cardboard box filled with vials. I plucked one of them out. _Morphine Sulphate ampoule for injection._ He pulled out another box and handed it over with a smile. _Diazepam ampoule for injection._ He also had various sheets of pills: diazepam, Dexedrine, morphine, codeine phosphate. Then there were bottles of ketamine hydrochloride and spray bottles of ether. Along with a pack of needles, a bottle of iodine for my cuts, and some aspirin, I bought enough drugs to get the entire Indian cricket team high for a week.

The chemist handed over the bag "This will be getting rid of your headache no problem!"

"Should do the trick."

" _She jus smile an give me the veg-e-mite sand-witch,"_ sang the chemist.

"What?"

"You come from Australia?"

"Yeah."

"This is a _very_ popular song in India: _Land Down Under."_

"Neat," I muttered, strongly suspecting that he didn't follow the golden rule.

" _Where women blow an' men chun-darrrr,"_ he sang as I walked away.

Once back in my bungalow, I bolted the door and got down to business. Unsurprisingly, I overdid the drugs and had trouble standing, so I wolfed down a bunch of Dexedrine and lay on my mattress in a stupor waiting for them to kick in. A knock at the door interrupted my narcotic dreams.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"I'm staying in the room next to you, wanna smoke a chillum?"

I swung open the door. My neighbour was dressed in the height of traveller fashion: sandals, a sari, and an ornamental vest from Northern India.

"Come on in," I motioned into the room.

He stepped in and I couldn't help noticing the size of his forehead, it was huge.

"Oh yeah, this is exactly like my room." He pointed at our common wall then squatted and pulled a chillum and tola from his bum bag. I tried to keep my eyes open but it was as if my eyelids were made of lead. Mark was from London and had been travelling for almost a decade. He also spoke fluent Hindi. He fired up the chillum, took a hit and passed it to me.

"You see that ashram out there?" Mark pointed out the window as he exhaled.

I nodded off. "Huh?"

"The ashram out the window, across the creek bed."

I got up on my knees and had a look. There was a building directly opposite. "That one?" I asked, pointing with the chillum.

"Yep."

"It's an ashram?"

"Not technically, they just call it that. It was set up by Christian missionaries from Sweden about three years ago. They heard about the flip-outs here, thought they'd come and save 'em all in the name of Jesus."

I laughed.

"They were completely unprepared, out of their depth. The place was a total fuckin' nuthouse, people running around naked, shagging everywhere, stealing _everything,_ smashing the place up, starting fires."

I got up on my knees again and peeked out. It looked calm over there.

"Did they close it down?"

"No, it's still open but they don't try to convert anyone anymore. They just let people stay there while they try to arrange a ticket home for them through their parents or embassy."

We sat looking at the ashram. Someone walked into the toilet and the pigs went crazy.

"That's some toilet. I thought I was going to get my balls bitten off!"

Mark exhaled a dense column of smoke and laughed.

"Do they eat the pigs?" I asked.

" _Oh God, no!_ They use the pig shit as fertilizer for their vegetables, apparently it's the best stuff you can get." He tapped out the chillum and started loading another.

"And all the pigs eat is human shit?"

"Yep, and scraps."

"They should cut out the middleman and just shit on their vegetables."

We talked for the rest of the afternoon, filling my small room with aromatic smoke. Mark filled me in on the situation in Anjuna. He told me how every year high-rank police from Bombay would pay serious baksheesh in order to get their leave to coincide with the Goa high season. They then travelled to Goa and pulled rank on the local cops and made more baksheesh from travellers in two weeks than they made in a whole year's wages in Bombay. It sounded like a bad scene to me.

## ***

# Chapter 22 - First Party

The next morning I got up early and washed down some morphine and Dexedrine with fenny. My door faced due east and the morning sun blinded me when I opened it and stumbled off towards the toilet. I had the shits since the Goa bus and even the constipating effect of junk did nothing to stem the tide. The pigs were happy to see me and I didn't disappoint. As I rounded the corner on the way back to my room I was damn near knocked over by a guy making a mad dash for the toilet.

"Sorry mate gotta run!" he yelled back at me.

I went back into my room and applied more iodine to my cuts, which were looking pretty good considering. The guy who nearly knocked me flying sounded as if he was providing the pigs with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert plus a few appetisers thrown in for good measure. He was in there for a good half hour shitting and yelling at the pigs: _"Fuck off you dirty cunts." "Aaaaw, Jesus Christ! This is disgusting." "How hard is it to make a real fucking toilet for fuck's sake?"_ Finally I heard him walk back into his room and bitch to someone in there: "I'm serious; we have to find somewhere else to stay. That's takin' the piss, that is. That huge pig's fuckin' whiskers brushed me balls in there this morning! It's fuckin' well disgusting!"

Several minutes later there was a heavy pounding on our shared wall. "Hey, mate!" yelled the stranger from his side.

"Yeah, what?"

"Come over for a smoke?"

Their door was open so I walked in and shut it behind me. The guy introduced himself and his girlfriend as John and Joe from Middlesbrough, England. Both of them made me feel instantly at ease.

"Check it out, we got this in Kashmir," said John as he picked up an enormous water pipe from the corner.

The thing was inlaid with turquoise stones and false gold and the single stem pipe was covered with a fine burgundy thread.

"It's fuckin' huge," I said.

"We stayed in a houseboat up there. Nothing to do all day but smoke this thing," said Joe as she picked up a container and screwed off the lid. The contents looked like little chunks of furry wood.

"What is that?"

"It's Kashmiri tobacco, burns forever."

John pulled out a tola, started burning the end and crumbling it into the pipe's enormous bowl. There was a soft rap on the door and a minute later Mark was sitting on the floor with us. John fired up the hookah, took an enormous draw and passed the pipe to Joe. Before long it was my turn. I inhaled deeply; the smoke was sweet but harsh. I took another huge toke and then my lungs choked shut. When the nicotine hit my bloodstream I fell back with my head spinning out of control. Nicotine was the one drug my body couldn't tolerate—it knocked me for six every time. I felt the nausea surge in my stomach and it took all my mental resources to stop myself from throwing up all over the room. The others seemed to have been affected similarly so we let the pipe smoulder away. Then Joe sat up and started the process again. Before long the entire room was filled with thick smoke. When my head stopped spinning and I was sure that I could speak without puking, I propped myself against the wall.

"So when's the next party?" I asked.

"Tonight," said Joe, fingering the hookah bowl.

"There is?" Mark sat up.

"Yeah, but I dunno where. This chap told John and me about it yesterday. There are a couple of restaurants in the jungle where everyone is going to wait."

We smoked until our lungs were raw then made plans to meet up later in the evening to go to the party.

I decided that it was time to find a local dealer as I didn't want to walk to Anjuna every time I needed to score. I figured Vagatore was as good a place as any to start looking. The chemist smiled and started up with 'Land Down Under' as I passed his store. I walked to the end of the main road and stopped in at a juice store. One entire side was heaped with tropical fruit and two Indian guys were busy cutting and pulping behind the counter. I ordered a pint of pineapple juice and it felt good going down my parched throat. There were a few bars along the main road and I kept my eyes open for one that looked particularly seedy. It didn't take long to find one that fit the description. There was no floor—just dirt. A personal stereo was playing Bob Marley's 'No Woman, No Cry,' which always got me to thinking: was the song about consoling a girl or was it saying that if you didn't have a girlfriend, your heart couldn't be broken? Whatever it was I didn't give a shit anymore. India had ruined Bob Marley for me, as every single restaurant played the same fucking tape over and over again. I ordered a Kingfisher and sat down. Even at this early hour the place reeked of desperation and addiction and most of the patrons sat alone. Down on their luck travellers seemed most common, closely followed by alcoholic Indian men who were choking down the first drink of the day with a shaky hand. I noticed a traveller in the corner and my junk radar immediately started pinging. There were minute signs that one junky could instantly pick up in another, imperceptible to a normal person: the forward hunch, a slight down turning of the corners of the mouth, heavy eyelids and relaxed eye pouches, the prolonged blink, the constricted pupils and a mild coarseness to the voice. I took my time drinking the beer then walked on over.

"Know where I can get some brown?" I asked.

He nodded, his face fixing in an expression of disgust. " _Ja._ You give me a shot and I will show you a place near here." He stuck his cigarette in his mouth and thrust out his hand. "My name is Herman."

When I finished my beer, we left the bar and walked behind the stores on the main street. We turned off onto a jungle path and walked in single file until we came to several shacks off to one side. Next to the huts were pens filled with chickens.

"We are here, I will show you," said Herman as he walked towards one of the shacks.

A young woman with a baby in her arms answered the door. When she saw Herman she ushered us inside and took a nervous glance around before closing and locking the door behind us. There was no electricity and the floors were dirt. Her smiling husband joined us, shaking both of our hands. I produced a few notes and the woman pulled a paper fold from her apron.

After a short walk through dense jungle, we came to Herman's place. It was an odd building, one-storey high and made of brick and cement. It sat in the jungle by itself—it looked as if it should've been attached to some-thing, as if it was an addition to a building long since demolished. Inside, Herman pulled the cover plate off a light switch and grabbed hold of a piece of thread between his finger and thumb. He carefully pulled the thread up, swearing softly in German. Attached to the end of the thread was a small container.

"I have to be careful, the police have come here before —they jump through the window," said Herman as he popped the lid off the container.

I looked out the window into the jungle. It came right up to the house and there was no way that you could see someone creeping up on you. I closed the shutters fast. We sat on his bed and he handed me a syringe. Before long all my worries and cares had dissolved and soon a shining, golden eagle had replaced the ever-present ball of fear that sat in my stomach.

"Oh ja, it is good stuff, no?" asked Herman, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

"Not bad at all."

"And we help them, the family. We give them money for food. Fucking police want to arrest us when we help them so much." Then Herman started mumbling stuff in German and scratching at his chest.

We both nodded out for a bit. Every so often Herman would quietly say something about how great it was that we helped a poor Indian family. After a time, we fell back onto the bed and passed out.

Suddenly Herman was yelling and shaking me. "Hey! Hey!"

"What the fuck is it?" I looked around, expecting to see the room filled with police.

"Your passport—you still have your passport?"

"Of course! What are you talking about?"

Herman stood up and started pacing the room. "I hate this fucking country! I hate it! I have no passport. I sold it three years ago! I am stuck in this fucking country three fucking years!" His eyes were wild and his arms were flying everywhere.

I lay back on the bed again. "Go to the consulate, get another."

"I cannot go to the consulate! If I go back I will be put in jail! I am stuck in this fucking country!"

"Why? What did you do?"

"I am doing drug runs for years with my girlfriend, we bring smack to Germany, put it in condoms, swallow it."

"You got caught?"

Herman laughed a vicious little laugh. "No! We never get caught—they are too fucking stupid! The last time we do the run, my girlfriend has the condom burst in her stomach. She is dead! We still have many hours to Germany. I cover her with a blanket. She is just sleeping, you see? I leave the plane with her dead. When the police search for me in Germany, I come here." He sat back down on the bed and lit another cigarette. _"Smack, smack, smack, smack!"_

I walked over to open the window. Herman snorted behind me. "I am a lot of fun to be stoned with, yes?"

"Don't worry about it."

There is a reason why junkys hang around together, apart from the obvious one, that is. It's a simple question of _empathy;_ we understand each other like normal people never could. We understand the crazy behaviour, we understand the insane lengths someone would go to get high, we understand the self-destruction. We are united in our fucked-upness.

Herman stood up and walked to the table and poured water from a bottle into a kettle. Then he flicked on his transistor and tuned it to a classical station. "Would you like some chai?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure."

"There's a party tonight, in the jungle. You coming?" I asked, waking up but only slightly.

"Party? No, I don't go anymore to these. Before I was at every party: here, Manali, Koh-pangan. I did the circuit with my girlfriend for years—the good old days, as you say." After finishing the chai I shook Herman's hand and walked back to Vagatore.

The sun had set by the time I got back to the Yellow House and the night had a strange stillness to it. The pungent smell of Kashmiri tobacco and hash was heavy in the air. I knocked on John and Joe's door. There was no answer. The full moon was on the rise and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I knocked again.

"Who is it?" asked Joe at last.

"It's me, Dean."

Joe flung open the door.

"Come in, come in," she said, quickly hustling me into the bungalow, slamming and locking the door.

Inside, John and Mark were sitting by candlelight.

"So ... what's going on?" I asked as I sat down.

"Gotta be quiet. The German guy that lives next to Mark was arrested today. They walked right into his room, the door was open," said John as he passed me the hookah pipe.

Mark crawled over to the shutters, opened one an inch and peeked out. "Yeah, it's because of the party tonight. It becomes a fuckin' feeding frenzy for the police."

I took a big draw on the hookah. My lungs seized up and I tried hard to stifle a spasm of coughing.

"Well it doesn't matter how quiet we are, I could smell this fuckin' thing from Vagatore," I choked, pointing at the hookah pipe.

Joe's eyes widened in paranoia. "Could you really?"

"Well maybe not from Vagatore, but when I got to the Yellow House it was all I could smell."

Mark shut the window and sat down cross-legged. I passed him the pipe. "The police will be at every road going into the party tonight," he warned.

John snatched the pipe from Mark and took a hit. "Yeah, don't bring anything to the party—you can score anything you want there anyway."

An hour later we were sitting around in a stupor and not talking much.

"Well," said Mark standing up, "we should get going."

Before we left, I went to my room, picked up the sheet of California Sunrise and tied it under my headband.

The pre-party restaurant in the jungle behind Vagatore was full to capacity. The tables were all taken so people stood outside and tried to talk above the electronic music that blasted from the sound system. I approached people seated at the picnic tables that were situated around the restaurant and asked if they wanted acid. Almost every table had at least one person who would buy some. Within an hour I had sold almost the whole sheet, which surprised me considering my past attempts at dealing. But then selling acid in Goa was like selling blow jobs in a brothel. I went to the bar, bought a King-fisher, and broke the golden rule. As I stood sucking on the blotter, a wiry guy with a girlish face and dreadlocks approached me. I recognized him from one of the tables.

"You are good at that," he said with a slight German accent.

"Drinking beer?"

"No, the acid. Did you bring it with you overseas?"

"Nuh, this guy in Anjuna gave it to me."

"He pays you to sell it?"

"Just a bit."

"You can help me maybe." He pulled something from his bum bag. "These are Purple Oms, 250 mics per trip. I will give you 20 rupees for each one you sell."

"Sure, I'll do that."

He handed over two sheets, fifty hits.

"My name is Hank." He stuck out his hand and we shook. Then Hank ripped two from another sheet he had in his bum bag and took one himself. "Here, you should take this," he said, offering me the other hit.

Hank was then kind enough to buy me another beer. In the course of our conversation he told me that he had opened up the first head shop in West Germany in the sixties, which meant that he was a lot older than I first thought or he was a liar. We made arrangements to meet up the next day at the Guru Bar on Anjuna to settle the account.

Just before midnight, word went around that the party was near some old ruins northeast of the restaurant. The place quickly emptied as everyone headed for jungle paths that snaked into the darkness. I fell in behind John and Joe. It was one of those strange nights when sound was lighter than air and a hundred muted conversations floated to me from the moonlight-soaked jungle. I could hear the thudding bass of the party as soon as we were away from the sound system of the restaurant. It came through the jungle like the heartbeat of some giant beast. The jungle paths were crowded with people; they were coming from everywhere.

As we turned from the path onto a dirt road, my heart jumped into my throat. A police roadblock had been set up. Half a dozen cops milled about in front of a Land Rover. Their uniforms were sloppy, most of them had the shirts unbuttoned and there were two bottles of fenny making the rounds. A group before us had been stopped, a woman being singled out by the police. Her boyfriend stepped in and made a fuss. They handcuffed him and threw him to the ground. His friends jumped in and there was a lot of shouting and pushing. We walked by unnoticed and I vowed never to take the main road to a party again.

Surrounding the party were the "chai ladies," Goanese women who laid out a large blanket for people to sit on and brewed sweet chai in pots over a fire. Mark told us that competition for the mats was fierce and it wasn't uncommon for fights to break out between the women when someone set up their mat too close or took a regular spot. The party was set on the ruins of an old mansion, parts of which still protruded from the dark jungle. Fluorescent paint had been thrown on the ruins and trees with blacklights to make them glow. Four big stacks of speakers framed the dance area and bodies jerked like amputated limbs beneath the stars and moon.

The Purple Oms sold quickly with little effort on my part—they had a good reputation in Goa. Within a few hours I had sold 40, so I ate another and joined John, Joe and Mark on one of the chai ladies' mats and bought a cup of chai. Joe passed me a smouldering chillum. None of them liked the music. _Music poofters fuck to_ John called it. It was better than the shit they played in Thailand but it didn't come close to punk rock in my book.

I took a good hit off the chillum and passed it to John. A young couple joined us on the mat and ordered some chai. The girl had an Indian bindi stuck to her forehead. Her boyfriend was making a big deal out of the fact that he was on LSD. Everything was, _"Beau-TIF-al maaaaan,"_ and, _"Oh yeah."_ John passed them the chillum and the guy took it as if accepting communion. He put it in his hands then pressed it against his forehead and said, _"Bom Shanka!"_ This meaning, _"Praise God!"_ which is what the sadhus, the Indian holy men or, depending on who you talked to, stoned bums, said before smoking. It grated us the wrong way: for starters he wasn't a sadhu —he was some middleclass twit from England who had probably been in India all of a week. He passed it to his girlfriend and she repeated the process. When it came to me, I pressed it to my forehead in a solemn manner then shouted, _"BOM FUCKIN' SHANKA!"_ John, Joe and Mark repeated the process. Mark with his formal knowledge of Hindi, elaborated on the mock ritual as he struck a sombre pose and we all had a good laugh. The new couple sat there trying to look like good sports.

"Very funny, I guess it makes you happy to make fun of other people's cultures, yeah? That's bad karma man, _baaaa-aaad_ karma," said the guy after we finished.

I looked around incredulously at the others. "Fuck me dead, is he for real? Hey _maaaaaan_ , I think you left your lentil soup on the stove." I gave him a blissed out smile and flashed the peace sign.

"Smoking _cha-rass_ is a spiritual thing in this country, not like _wherever_ you're from, where it's all about just getting out of it."

"Fuck me dead! Could you piss off and annoy someone else?"

"No thanks, we're quite happy here."

I threw my cup of chai in his face. "FUCK OFF, NOW."

The fuckwit sat there wiping his face and looking at his wet shirt. He stood up and said, "I think it is time for us to leave!"

"Yeah, get the fuck outta here!" added Joe.

As the two of them walked away, his girlfriend turned and shrieked at us. "YOU ARE A BUNCH OF BLOODY RUDE BASTARDS! I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY WITH YOUR-SELVES!" She had one of those stiff upper-class British accents that made everything she said sound funny and insincere and caused us to roll around laughing.

I walked back to the party a few times and couldn't help feeling as if there was something missing, or that I was missing something. When it came down to it, the party was just a bunch of drugged up people dancing around to music, which, when I thought about it, didn't make it that much different from punk, except maybe that there were less fights. I went back to the chai ladies' mat and re-joined the others. We sat around drinking chai, smoking chillums and talking until dawn.

I became aware of the shrieks shortly after falling asleep. At first I was sure that it was part of my dream—what else could it be? It went on and on. I lay on my back with my eyes open and realized that it wasn't a dream. It was coming from the ashram. Long blood-curdling screams, the sound of bloody murder. I sat up and looked out of the window. There were several people standing around the well next to the ashram. Outside, I bumped into John, who was coming out of his room rubbing his eyes.

"What the fuck?" he asked.

"The well, I think there's someone in the well."

We walked over the dry creek bed where several of the people who ran the ashram were talking to someone in the well. One of them dangled a rope down. "Come on, take the rope!"

A man stood in the cool darkness at the bottom of the well. The water came up to his chest and he just stood there screaming, oblivious to everything else.

"How the hell did he get down there?" I asked the one with the rope.

"He jumped! He did this before, he screamed for two days, screaming and screaming!" The would-be rescuer jerked the rope so that it hit the guy's head but it made no difference—the freak in the well just ignored it. "He shits in there too. We haven't been able to use the water since last time." He gave up and started hauling up the rope.

John had a look of complete disgust on his face. "Put a fuckin' lid on the well; see how long he screams then!"

We walked back over the dry creek bed to the Yellow House. I closed my door and latched the shutters. It made no difference and it was as if the guy was standing outside my room.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU FUCKING MENTAL CASE!" John screamed from his window before slamming the shutters.

I found some cotton wool, balled it up and shoved it in my ears. I lay down to test out my earplugs. They were completely useless, so I threw them aside, located a sheet of diazepam and took a small handful.

I awoke the next day in the late morning. Even with all the diazepam the guy in the well had interrupted my sleep once or twice. I vaguely remembered looking out on one occasion and watching the people who ran the ashram trying to restrain John, who wanted to kill the guy. The brightness of the sun washed everything and it looked like a white dream out there. I was half asleep but John was spitting mad. _"FUCK HIM! THAT PIECE OF SHIT WOULD BE BETTER OFF DEAD!"_ I had a feeling that I knew John from somewhere but couldn't quite place it. The others were speaking but I couldn't make out any words, just saw their lips moving. Then John again: " _AS SOON AS YOU BLOKES ARE GONE, I'M GONNA COME BACK HERE AND BRICK THAT COCKSUCKER! SEE IF I DON'T!"_

Shortly after noon I gave up trying to get back to sleep, threw on my army shirt and stepped out to take care of business with Hank in Anjuna. As I was walking along Vagatore Beach, an Indian man came up silently beside me. I hardly noticed him until he was walking right by my side. Somehow I knew he wasn't a cop, so I waited for his pitch but he didn't speak. I kept walking. Then he grabbed my ear, gently but firmly.

"What the hell?"

Before I knew what was going on, he tilted my head to the side and I felt something slide deep inside my ear. The sensation made me freeze in my tracks, sure that if I moved my eardrum would be ruptured. He penetrated my ear deeply. It was an odd, unnatural feeling.

" _Aaaaaagh!_ What the fuck are you doing?"

"Would you like your ears cleaned, sir?" His voice was clear and steady, a pro.

"Take that fucking thing out of my ear!"

"They are _very_ dirty, sir, you should clean them more often. You may have health problems in the future."

"Take it out! Take the fuckin' thing out now!"

"It is very cheap, sir, for you I will make a discount..."

"No! _No discount!_ Take it out now!"

Unbelievably, he pushed it in further—I was sure that my eardrum was on the verge of being ruptured.

" _OK!_ OK, how much?"

He continued to manipulate the rod in my ear. "One hundred rupees, sir."

"A hundred? Like fuck, I'll give you ten! Ten rupees!"

"They are _very dirty_ , sir. It will cost you at least fifty rupees."

" _TAKE IT OUT! TAKE THE FUCKIN' THING OUT RIGHT NOW!"_

"Very well sir, I will only charge you twenty rupees."

"Ten! I said ten goddamn it!"

"Fifteen is the lowest I can _possibly_ charge sir!"

" _FUCK!_ OK, fifteen..."

He rotated the rod, scraping out the ear canal. It felt good, like an itch that hadn't been scratched for years. Then he withdrew the tool from my ear. I had a look: it was a long, flat piece of metal and there was a thick black wax built up on the scraping side. He held it up for me to examine.

"You see, sir. Your ears are _very_ dirty!" he exclaimed proudly.

I tried to examine the rod more closely but he quickly whipped it away and wiped it off on a cloth. I was convinced it was sleight of hand, a cheap trick. He must have had a suppository of wax somewhere that he'd smear on the rod. He wore a T-shirt so wherever it was had to be on his hands. I determined that I would catch him out, expose his game.

"Allow me to clean your other ear, _kind sir._ "

I turned around, keeping a close eye on his quick brown hands. He repeated the process and I didn't see a thing. Again the metal rod came out thickly coated with black gunk, it even _smelled_ like earwax. I had to hand it to him; he was good. Then he poked at the stuff with a fingernail. "Sir! You have ear rocks!" he said with a look of concern on his face.

"What the fuck?"

"Look, sir!" He displayed a small ball of something on his fingernail. "It is an ear rock, sir. If you allow this to stay in your ear, they will grow and you shall become _DEAF!"_ He crushed it dramatically between two finger-nails and it turned to powder. "I will remove the rocks from your ears, sir! Ten rupees per rock!"

"That's the most ridiculous shit I have ever heard." I dismissed him with a wave of my hand and pulled out a ten and a five. "Here, fifteen roops." I put the money in his hand and started to walk.

"Oh no, sir! You owe me 30 rupees."

"We settled on 15."

"Fifteen per ear, sir!"

I'd had enough of his crap and pointed a finger at his face. _"CHALLO PAKISTAN, MOTHERFUCKER!"_

At Anjuna, I popped into Beart's to say hello, and before I knew it, I was playing backgammon. It took me almost half an hour before I nailed him; he was in fine form. He rewarded me with a bowl of vegetable soup and a bottle of Kingfisher and I gave him the money from the acid.

"I thought it would take more than one party to sell these."

"It was a big party."

"I have more." He flipped some sheets onto the table.

One sheet was California Sunrise the other I hadn't seen before, it had a smiling sun on it. "This one is California _Sunshine_ , very good acid!" He stabbed a brown finger at the blotter.

"I'll sell it, but I want 20 rupees for each one."

Beart stepped back as if recoiling from a flame. _"Tuh-when-tee roo-pease?"_ His face contorted in shock.

"What's twenty roops? I just made you over two grand for fuck's sake."

"You are no better than those fucking Kashmiri's! How can I possibly give you twenty rupees?"

"Twenty rupees is nothing! There were roadblocks all around that party last night, I'm lucky I'm not in fuckin' jail!"

Beart went quiet and smoothed down his moustache. "I do not care! There are other travellers that I can help. Obviously you do not appreciate my help, Dean." His voice had taken on a nasal whine and he wore an exaggerated look of grief on his round, well-fed face. He moped back into the kitchen, banging pots and pans around and slamming drawers. I finished my soup and beer joined Baba-Dale for a few chillums before heading off to Anjuna.

When I got to the Guru Bar, Hank hadn't arrived yet so I sat down and ordered a Kingfisher. The bar owner brought a bottle and two glasses. Before too long, Hank came in and plopped down in the seat opposite me.

"Too fuckin' hot," he said.

"Have a drink." I poured him a glass.

"This is good." Sweat beaded on his forehead. "How'd you do last night?" Hank asked as he drained his glass.

I undid the safety pin on the inside of my top pocket, pulled out a wad of rupees and handed them to him. He quickly counted the money. "You did well, do you need some more?"

"Yeah, give me a couple sheets. There's another party tonight."

Hank dug into his bum bag, pulled out two sheets and handed them to me under the table. I tore off a hit and washed it down with Kingfisher. We both sat there for a while, watching the pedestrian traffic. There was plenty to look at. The high season was well underway and most people gravitated to Anjuna. I told Hank about the ear cleaner.

"How much did he charge you?"

"I paid him fifteen roops."

"Ah, you can get it done for 2 rupees in Bombay."

"You mean it isn't a con?"

"I'm not sure, but that's how much I paid."

I ordered another beer and poured two more glasses.

"It's incredible how inventive poverty makes people," Hank continued thoughtfully.

"They all have an angle."

"Did you ever get hit by a shoe-shit guy in Bombay?"

" _Shoe-shit_ guy?"

"Yes. I was walking under this tunnel one time, about six months ago. Suddenly, this guy was beside me. _'Sir, may I clean the faeces off your shoe?'_ 'What faeces?' I say. _'The faeces on your shoe, sir!'_ he says. I look down at my feet and sure enough, there's a big shit, stuck to the side of my shoe."

"How did it get on the side?"

"Yes, I know, that's what I thought. I mean I couldn't have stepped in it." Hank paused as I refilled his glass. "Thanks, so anyway, this guy pulls out a little kit. A custom built kit that had but one purpose: to clean shit from shoes. He had everything, a scraper, a brush, a cloth. But it all happened so quick I couldn't think, _and the smell..._ "

"Bad was it?"

"It was that unmistakable smell of human shit and it was a hot day. I just wanted it off my shoe."

"How much did he charge you?"

"Five rupees. He did this whole thing for five lousy rupees."

"And he must have had some help, a kid or something that put the shit on your shoe."

"Not to mention where did he get a solid shit from?"

"You're right. No-one does solid shits here; are you sure it was human?"

"One hundred percent sure!"

We thought about this for a while.

"I've got it—he buys the solid shits off junkys. They're the only people in India who do them."

"They well may have been his then, because I'm sure he was a junky."

We sat and discussed the overheads and profit margin for such a venture—it was infinitely small.

Every day, just after one o'clock, beat up old coaches filled the car park above Anjuna Beach. They'd drive down from Bombay in the night, filled with scores of drunken Indian men. Several groups of them stumbled past the Guru Bar on their way to Anjuna Beach.

"Well, here they come," said Hank.

They all had the compulsory black moustache and wore crumpled, ill-fitting suits. They would head for the beach to see with their very own eyes the promiscuous western women the travel agent in Bombay had told them about. They'd heard the exaggerated stories about parties and drugs; had been lied to about sex orgies and all pretty much thought of white women as easy. Many unscrupulous agents went so far as to guarantee them sex with a western woman. At the first sight of a naked breast on Anjuna beach, they would lose all self-control. _It was all true!_ They surrounded the girls who hadn't left already, took pictures, and tried to touch them. It was a culture clash of the Benny Hill variety.

The beach quickly emptied; the time for sunbathing was over. A few women came into the Guru Bar hastily wrapping their bodies with saris.

" _They're fuckin' disgusting!"_ spat one to her friend as they walked past our table, filling the air with the smell of sun and skin and leaving me drunk on the scent.

Hank and I stayed and drank steadily as the languid afternoon dragged on, taking turns going up to the bar. We didn't talk much, just sat and watched the girls walk past and listened to second-hand conversations from the tables behind us. Just two fast friends in a bar on a beach in India drinking away the afternoon as life unhurriedly went on its way.

## ***

# Chapter 23 - Vagatore Beach

After my fortnight's rent in the Yellow House was used up, I decided to save cash and sleep on Vagatore Beach, as I needed every spare rupee for my burgeoning habit, which had rocketed as a result of my inflated disposable income. The irony of addiction...

A few others crashed on the beach and we would sleep close-by to protect ourselves from thieves. A bamboo restaurant had been constructed on the beach for the high season and I kept my bag there during the day. The owner, Benny, didn't mind one bit as me and the other beach bums rang up a goodly tab with him.

Even under the strangest circumstances life took on routine. I would wake shortly after dawn and make my way into the jungle for a wake-up shot. Then I walked back to Benny's. Sometimes he was still asleep so I sat at a table resting my head on my arm and swishing my feet through the cool sand. Benny always appeared as fresh as a daisy, emerging from the kitchen grinning from ear to ear, his brown face glowing with health. He always wore a white cricket sweater, and if it was a particularly hot day, he would roll up the sleeves.

" _Gooooooooood morning, Vagatore!"_ Benny would shout dramatically. He was also a big fan of American movies.

The first thing Benny did each morning was to put on a large pot of coffee and tune the radio to the BBC World Service. As we waited, we played backgammon and the chillums went around. The reassuring smell of freshly brewed coffee drew others from the beach. Then it was cheese omelettes and buttered toast for breakfast. As we ate, we watched the fishermen push their wooden boats into the ocean. They would return hours later with their catch, which they dried on the beach leaving the sand soaked with fish juice. You could easily tell who'd been sleeping on the beach as they reeked of fish. The stench got everywhere: ears, nose, hair, until I didn't notice it anymore.

The people that slept on the beach were in constant flux. They would come and go at random, without any hellos or goodbyes. Most were like me: no money and a smack habit. I met two who seemed to be there for the long term. Francis was a junky from England who had lived on the skids in India for so long that he spoke only pigeon English and wore the fact that he had sold his passport as a badge of honour, as if it defined him as a bona-fide adventurer rather than a mere backpacker. Johnny was from America and threw himself at life in a reckless and unhinged manner. I was glad that he slept on the beach, as he was a good deterrent against thieves. Quick to violence, he would jump to his feet at the slightest sound and spit obscenities into the dark, his mop of dirty blonde hair flopping over his sparking eyes as froth collected in the corners of his mouth. Thieves would descend on the beach at night, silent as shadows, creeping slowly over the sand. Most were armed with a large rock, and when they started picking through your pockets they would hold the rock over your face ready to slam it down should they wake you. Francis had lost four of his front teeth this way when he was sleeping in a mud hut in Arambol, a beach north of Vagatore.

We would light a large fire before lying down at night and while it burnt the thieves kept their distance. Any-one was welcome to join us as long as they weren't too crazy. As it was the high season, there was a party every night. Each party produced a few flip-outs who seemed to gravitate towards Vagatore Beach and, inevitably, our fire. For the most part they were harmless but there were several who did strange, unpredictable things. Like the night we awoke to find a naked man crouched at our fire mumbling incoherently. I don't know the correlation between flip-outs and nudity but such occurrences were all too common. I tried to talk to him but he would just look at me then turn back to the fire and start babbling again.

"Do you know what fuckin' language he's speaking?" Johnny asked.

"I don't think it's a language."

"There's a naked man talking to our campfire. Nothing unusual here, just another day in Goa," Johnny muttered as he lay back down.

The guy didn't seem dangerous so I put my finger to my mouth and shushed him. He took it down a couple octaves and I went back to sleep.

An hour later I was torn from my sleep by a horrific shriek. The naked guy was screaming at something in the fire that terrified him. Johnny didn't waste any time; he jumped to his feet and booted the man in the arse. The guy leapt up with arms flailing wildly and took off running. It was an odd sight to see, the white buttocks glowing and bobbing in the dark as he ran. He had lost everything: passport, money, even his clothes. Hell, he couldn't even speak his native tongue. Such occurrences unsettled me. Losing my mind was a constant worry, as was seeing the flip-outs twisting on the jungle floor when the sun came up after a party. There were many contributing circumstances, hallucinogenic drugs, sleep deprivation, dehydration, constant sickness, extreme culture shock, and the non-stop parties. But even these circumstances didn't fully explain why so many lost their minds. I was convinced that it was a combination of all of these factors plus the main culprit: anti-malaria pills. The fact-sheet on the back of these even reported that some people could become insane or "delusional" from the medication alone. I was convinced that the only reason I wasn't walking around talking incoherent shit naked was because I'd never taken anti-malaria pills, not even once. Give me a degenerative disease like malaria over insanity any day.

## ***

# Chapter 24 - Smack 'n' Acid

I wrapped 50 hits each of Purple Oms, Gorbachevs, and Zippys in cellophane and covered them tightly with my headband, tying it so that when I ran my hand over it, I could barely tell they were there. In the left pocket of my army shirt was a plastic bag filled with a hundred 10 mg Dexedrine tablets, these being especially popular among the Brits. In my right pocket was a gram of brown sugar, a small green lime, a clean syringe and a bent spoon. I laced my shoelaces tight, buttoned my army shirt and stepped out of Benny's into the darkness. I was ready for anything, except maybe reality.

Since the early afternoon I'd heard rumours that a party was going to be held in the jungle behind Anjuna. When I got to Anjuna, I stayed close to the water, away from the restaurants and bars and police. Even over the sound of the breaking waves I could hear the deep bass pulsing from the jungle. I walked to where the Sunday markets were held and then cut across a field. There were rumours of the party being funded by a famous musician from England and it looked as if it was going to be a large one. All the main thoroughfares into and around the party would have roadblocks manned by drunken Bombay cops, leaving me to contend with the local constabulary and their impostors skulking in the bars, beaches, and jungle around the party. I had met dealers that would hide their drugs at the party location early in the day, digging a hole and hoping no one saw them do it. Others would do what I did except, like fools, they would use a torch. My secret was that I took a handful of Dexedrine before setting out and the speed heightened my senses as I crept stealthily through the jungle. I could hear the birds rustling their wings in the dark, insects crawling on bark, worms burrowing their way deep in the earth. My eyes became like headlights as I stalked through the undergrowth and strangled through the nightshade. I crouched and breathed in the cool air as my unblinking night vision scanned the nocturnal scene. I was the all-night drug prowling wolf who looked so sick in the sun; I was the phantom come to spill blood even on the sweetest honeymoon, the eternal nightstalker from the city of the dead.

The repetitive bass reverberated through the jungle floor, its anxiety-inducing _thump-thump-thump_ guiding me forward. I kept low, ready to flee at the first sign of trouble. _I smelled a cigarette!_ I froze and scanned the area. A twig snapped in front of me. I crouched down and moved sideways like a crab. Then I saw a glow as some-one took a drag on his cigarette. _An idiot!_ I kept crawling sideways, keeping my eyes fixed on the smoking fool. He took another drag and the red glow lit up his brown face. Once I'd covered enough ground, I crept forward again, slinking through the undergrowth, becoming one with a tree then flitting like a ghost to the next. The bass kept getting louder, pounding out across the jungle, filling me with more and more anxiety. I came across a clearing drenched with weak moonlight. I decided to skirt it, as there was no protection, and imagined there was a poorly dressed Goa cop behind each tree. I stuck to the shadows and made my way around the clearing when something caught my eye. It looked like a person, a body, lying out there in the middle. I approached, still hidden by shadows. _A dead body!_ I froze with my heart in my mouth. He lay on his back, arms spread out as if crucified. I stood like a statue there in the dark, my mind reeling with a strange mix of fascination and terror. _Was he murdered?_ A weird sense of calm came over me and I walked confidently into the tiny clearing. Clouds briefly obscured the waning moon and the clearing turned dark, filling me with foreboding as I approached the cadaver. As I knelt down next to the corpse the moon came out again, bathing his face in weak moon-glow. _It was Herman the German, as dead as a doornail!_ How ironic I thought, after everything Herman had been through, an ignominious overdose death in the jungle. Then a sigh, slight and unassuming, came from his waxy lips. If I had not been right beside him I would never had heard it. I grabbed a shoulder and shook him.

"Herman! You're alive!" He didn't respond so I seized him by both shoulders and shook him roughly.

"Huh? What?" were the first words out of his mouth.

"I thought you were dead!"

Herman sat up slowly. "Why the fuss? What are you doing?"

"You looked dead!"

"No I assure you, quite alive. What is the time?"

"Almost midnight."

"Midnight? _Mein gott_ , I have been here from two o' clock!"

"You've been out for almost half a day."

" _Ja!_ I stay here until morning." He waved me off and lay back down again.

I took the bag from my top pocket, fished out a few Dexies and put them in his hand.

"Here, these might help."

He didn't open his eyes as he closed his hand. "Ja, thank you."

Soon I was almost there. I could hear the music close by and people talking but didn't let up my guard. I kept creeping. Only metres from the fringe I froze. Someone was walking directly towards me. I knew in an instant that I would stay put and only if they noticed me would I make a break for it. A young woman pulled down her pants, squatted and started to urinate a mere two metres in front of me. I didn't dare move lest she think me some kind of pervert. Her white buttocks reflected the moon and glowed there in the dark as she splashed onto the jungle dirt. Then she finished, stood up and sauntered off back to the party. I stood up and followed her. I had made it again.

I immediately got to work, starting at the chai ladies' mats. _"Gorbies! Zippys! Purp'l oms! Dexies!"_

As usual the Dexedrine moved fast, followed closely by the Gorbachevs and Purple Oms. I worked the crowd relentlessly, moving from one group to another, talking a mile a minute, untying my headband then retying it, laughing at a joke with some Kiwi punters, smoking a chillum with a Japanese couple, sharing a beer with two German girls. I stuck to the periphery of the dance area, as most people who were dancing were already so high that it was pointless to approach them. Before long all the Dexies were gone along with most of the Gorbys. I also lucked out and sold a group of Japanese half a sheet of Purple Oms.

By 4:00 AM my work was done. I wandered off into the jungle with my pockets bulging reassuringly with rupee notes. I sat down to sort out a hit. The lime stung my vein as usual but none of that mattered anymore—I had gotten through another night. As I walked back to the party, I tore off a couple of Zippys and sucked on them.

I climbed the wall of a Portuguese fort and sat down overlooking the dance floor, which was just a clearing in the dirt framed on three sides by the dark, foreboding jungle. The trees and the fort, lit with blacklights, were splattered with fluorescent paint. Massive speaker stacks dwarfed the chemically deranged people who danced to the throbbing beat. I sat hidden in the darkness; it was the perfect spot to watch the action.

There was a minimum of two hundred people dancing around, in the loosest possible definition of the word. A few of the girls went topless and I tried to think back to the last time I had seen naked tits. It had been a while but the funny thing was that I hardly ever thought about it. A more dominant urge had trumped my sexual urge. Girls no longer had any power over me, just Lady Junk, who had me by the balls.

I saw several Indian men lurking around the periphery watching the tit show. They didn't look drunk or high, and they weren't there for the dancing like other young Indian men who joined in, they just stood with crossed arms and stared at the girls expressionlessly. I wandered back over to the chai ladies' mats and had a look around for John, Joe, and Mark. I found them on the last mat—the furthest from the music.

" _BOM FUCKIN' SHANKAH!"_ yelled John, passing me a chillum.

I ordered some chai to sooth my Dexie-ravaged throat.

"So, how's life on the beach going?" Joe asked.

"Not bad, except for the fish smell, the thieves and all the flip-outs who come down."

"Huh, well, he'll be down there later," she nodded at a young guy who was trying to stand but couldn't make it.

"Started early, huh?"

"His 'friends' got pissed off and left."

The guy was completely perplexed by his inability to stand. Eventually, he lay flat and started mumbling.

I gave everyone a Zippy and ordered another chai. Just as I put it down in front of me, a young girl veered off the path across our mat and knocked it over.

"Dumb fuckin' bitch!" yelled Mark as he picked up his chai to spare it the same fate. The woman didn't even register us as she stumbled off.

"I saw that girl earlier, she is totally fucked out of her head," said Joe, following the drug victim with her eyes. For obvious reasons, girls who flipped out had a much harder time than the men.

After drinking another chai, I got the feeling that I was missing something so I walked over to sit on the wall. The girl who had knocked over my chai was stumbling around in an out-of-control stupor, banging into people and falling to her knees. Then she stumbled over to the periphery and stood there shaking her head. I turned my attention back to the other dancers, the feeling of anxiety in my guts heightened by the relentless beat and the acid. When I looked back to see what the girl was doing, I spotted one of the Indian men who had been standing around roughly fondling her breasts under her shirt. The girl didn't have a clue what was going on and danced in an odd, erratic fashion. It was an ugly sight. A matronly-looking woman with her breasts and chest covered in body paint marched up and slapped the guy full force across the face, her udder-like breasts swinging wildly as she did so. She hit him again and the guy tripped over himself as he ran into the blackness of the jungle. The evil bastards lurked around the edges of every party, waiting for a girl to pull her pants down around her ankles so they could push her over and gang rape her. The volume of the music made it impossible to hear screams from the jungle. It happened at just about every party. Most people were totally ignorant of the danger; it was a dirty secret that no one wanted to discuss or take responsibility for. The dark side of the parties were a sordid affair, the threat of arrest, insanity, and rape being a constant. The thought of these harsh realities filled me with a nervous sickness that sat in my guts like a solid lump of grease.

As the early morning light crept through the trees, the true ugliness of the party was exposed. Several people, both men and women lay unconscious by the edge of the jungle. By now there were three flip-outs on the dance area. Two of them twisted on the ground like spastics and turned the fine dirt to mud with drool and sweat. Dancers gave the flip-outs a wide berth but they were still _there._ The partiers couldn't dance with the same abandon with such an ugly reality at their feet. The drug casualties weren't to be denied, and I could see the mood of the place change. Some people looked on in horror while others made half-hearted attempts to help them. It was an exercise in futility; their minds were gone, maybe forever. The third flip-out was lucky that he had friends. He stood near one of the speakers jerking spasmodically, his face ashen grey and his eyes owl-like. His friends were confused and bewildered. High on acid and ecstasy, they tried to get him to come with them. He stood there shaking and sweating, refusing to budge, shrugging them off violently when they tried to lead him away. Everyone looked dirty in the new light. Even the topless girls who looked so beautiful dancing in the dark now looked haggard and worn; their breasts sickly looking and withered. Suddenly, a guy dressed only in brightly coloured pants strode out of the jungle, walking in a violent, unhinged way. He screamed something at the sky, though I couldn't hear him over the pounding speakers. He waded into the dancers, rubbing girls with his hands as he passed. He kept walking and quickly vanished into the jungle on the other side. After his departure a commotion went up. The women he had touched smelled their clothes and showed their friends. One girl pulled off her shirt then threw up. They had been smeared with human shit. It was sheer fucking madness, sickness and desperation. The party had turned into a bad scene and I felt uneasy, as if under siege. I jumped off the wall and walked into the green jungle amongst the trees and plants and animals. Once I got far enough away from the party, delicate birdsong replaced the heavy thud of the speakers. It was beautiful and refreshing. I found the clearing I'd stumbled across the previous night. Herman was no longer there. I sat down and tried to relax but my nerves were shot and I was a wreck. I finished off the brown and passed out in almost exactly the same spot that Herman occupied the night before.

## ***

# Chapter 25 - New Years Eve

Christmas came and went. If Benny hadn't hung up some old tinsel in the restaurant I wouldn't even have noticed. The days were screaming away and the parties had been going non-stop for almost a fortnight. I was living on pure adrenaline and anxiety. The nights were good: I was making enough money to buy as much brown sugar as I could shoot, snort, and smoke, as much Kingfisher as I could pour down my throat, and as much charas as I could stuff into a chillum. I lost track of time and before I knew it New Years Eve was days away. Originally, it had been rumoured that there would be four parties, one of which would last three days. Then word went around that there were no parties, the police were demanding too much baksheesh. When the night came, there were two parties to choose from. The biggest was in Chapora Fort on the hill above Vagatore Beach, and there was another smaller party hidden away in the jungle behind Anjuna.

Benny turned off his small radio when the party at Chapora Fort drowned out the volume. I was just killing time in the restaurant with Johnny and working on a Kingfisher.

"You just watch: every single party will be shut down before 2:00 AM. The fuckin' cops are just going to go into a frenzy—there is no way they are going to tolerate this," said Johnny as he re-filled his glass.

"No chance, they make too much money from them."

Johnny shrugged and gave me a _suit yourself_ look. He had a problem with the parties as they made him feel uncomfortable and out of place. I once talked him into coming to one and he stood around drinking steadily as I plied my trade. Each time I checked back on him he was increasingly drunk and belligerent. Eventually he started mouthing people off and pushing them around, trying to start a fight, something that he was comfortable with. I spent the rest of the night drinking at the Guru Bar listening to him bitch and complain.

I hit the party at Chapora Fort first. There were at least a thousand kids wigging out where they stood as there was no central dance area. Chillums were being smoked and passed around openly, packs of dogs ran about barking, and over it all was a thumping bass that got me right in the balls. This was the perfect environment for selling a drug like LSD. The stuff flew out of my hands. Small crowds gathered around and shoved handfuls of rupees in my face. My pockets were overflowing with rupees in less than an hour, so I celebrated by tearing off a few more hits, which I washed down with fenny.

I didn't want to miss any of the action, so I ran down the hill and made my way to the party in the jungle. I felt reckless and didn't bother with my usual efforts to get in undetected. Instead, I decided to brazen it out, holding tightly to a bottle of fenny hoping it would have the same effect as Mekong had for me in Thailand. There was always the option of doing a runner if I was caught out, and I was sure none of the fat Bombay cops that manned the roadblocks would be able to keep up with me in the jungle, especially not when I was flying on Dexedrine and acid.

As I had expected, the police had blocked off the dirt road leading into the party. I temporarily regretted my decision not to sneak through the jungle, then bucked up and took a good slug of fenny. As I approached, the cops pulled something from the pocket of one of the guys they were searching. Immediately the police began to negotiate a settlement in baksheesh. There were several other cops sitting on the back of a Land Rover and one jumped up when he saw me approach. He walked over to me with a stony expression and my heart skipped a beat, certain that he was going to search me. I got ready to split. Then the cop clapped me on the shoulder and swiped the bottle of fenny. He yelled back something at his pals sitting on the Land Rover then took a good slug. He let out an appreciative "Ahh!" and smacked his lips. "This is cashew nut fenny?"

"Only the best."

He put his arm around my shoulder and held up the bottle. "This is good stuff. This," he motioned at the guy getting busted, "this, no good!"

We both took a long slug and I made sure to give his friends a drunken cheers. The party in the jungle was completely out of control. It was as if everyone had made an agreement: _no limits, no rules_. It was impossible not to get caught up in the intensity as the crowd swept me away and a wave of lysergic coursed through my brain. The music was laid down in meaty, chunky slabs of bass that drowned out the world and smothered everything. I threw a scream at the sky and inhaled the crackling electricity that spiralled and sparked along my nerve endings. The dance area was small and there was no room for the chai ladies. It was pointless trying to talk, so I had to mouth the word ACID in order to make a sale. Even this became too complicated and confusing, so I just held up a sheet or two for people to look at. I got caught up in the energy and quickly lost count of how many hits I'd eaten. Hank materialised from the crowd, like a ferry emerging through a fog. He was smiling and glowed like a radiant, golden Buddha. He was with a sadhu, whose dreadlocks were covered in ash and piled on his head. They both spoke to me but I couldn't hear a thing and just watched their lips move as heavy smoke dripped from the corners of their mouths. The sadhu had eyebrows that looked like cockroach feelers and they twitched as if he was detecting food with them. I started to laugh, sure that he was doing it on purpose—an acidic version of raising his eyebrows. He opened his mouth again, and I'm sure that he said, _"Let the chips fall where they may."_ Hank said it as well, nodding sagely. My lips had melted together and I couldn't speak, but I wanted to show them that I understood so I made a sweeping, downward gesture with my hand as if scattering chips. They both smiled serenely and looked at one another as if to say _he understands._ Hank reached into his bum bag in slow motion and pulled out a sheet. It looked like a racing form and I saw him in another time, another life, as an old Cockney laying a bet in an off-track place. Then I fancied my dealer as a benevolent gnome muttering about the price of fish. _Too much!_ He ripped off a few hits and stuck them on our tongues and I had to stop mine from snaking down my chin and onto my shirt. The three of us stood in the eye of the cyclone as everything went silent and heat from the earth crept up my legs and turned my heart into gold. Then the countdown started. Everyone chanted in unison. 10! 9! 8! Someone let off a row of firecrackers on the dance area and people jumped everywhere. 7! 6! 5! I put the bottle of fenny to my lips 4! 3! 2! People grabbed each other and made out. 1! The music started again, seemingly louder and more aggressive while the entire crowd went berserk. There were arms and legs everywhere and the crowd looked like a thousand-armed beast thrashing about in its death throes as the electronic requiem screamed into the mad night. I knew there were sinister, black robed wizards in the jungle surrounding the party, performing strange rituals to keep the monster alive. Casting spells and muttering obscene mantras they manipulated orgy engines to sustain the beast, forcing the enslaved participants into even more degenerate and sadistic sex acts, warding off the dawn with animal and human sacrifices. I turned and looked for Hank but he and the sadhu were gone. Something unimaginable was building up in me like a storm ready to break. The embryonic sky pulsed with electricity and alien life forms squirmed behind the sky's membrane, ready to break through and shower the earth with afterbirth.

By the time I got back to the party at Vagatore Fort, I was no longer selling, just giving out hits to people on the condition that they ate them in front of me. I wanted the whole world to be flying out of control—I wanted chaos and violence and fucking and abandon. I felt that the party needed an extra push to make it fall off the edge. _Couldn't everyone else sense this?_ I wanted everyone to lose their minds and tumble down a river of beer screaming and laughing and fighting and fucking and squirming like goddamned maggots.

I stuck the bottle of fenny to my lips, tilted it vertically and watched as the level went down. It was as if I wasn't even drinking—the stuff just poured straight down my throat. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the realization that I was in trouble; that I was out of control. My demeanour became aggressive and unpredictable. I tried to count how many hits I had eaten but my mind wandered off and I forgot what I was doing.

Let the chips fall where they may.

I wanted to stuff blotter down everyone's throats; I wanted to shoot up the fucking world and to hell with the consequences.

"DON'T TAKE THE MALARIA PILLS!" I screamed in people's faces. I heard people saying things about me: "Guy's fucked!" and "Can't handle his acid," as I stumbled around holding tightly to my bottle. My guts felt weightless, as if I was in a plane during an altitude drop, and my spleen turned to slime. I threw my head back and screamed at the top of my lungs. The dancers gave me a wide berth. I took another slug from the bottle and threw it high, over the wall of the fort. Fluorescent sparks came out of the bottle and the clear fluid froze in mid-air, turning it into quicksilver before strobing earth-ward in an unnatural fashion. The rotten slamming beat from the speakers was doing bad things to my brain, twisting it, hurting it, changing it. And then it came to me in a flash: it wasn't the drugs, the culture shock, the lack of sleep, or the malaria pills— _it was the beat; the crooked beat._ That rotten fucking beat was from hell, forged by demons with leg bone drumsticks pounding on drums of stretched baby skin. _The beat drove people insane._ I ran at the speaker stack and tried to get at the Nazi devil cone thumping out from behind its wire mesh cover. It wouldn't come off so I pushed the speakers over. I felt something on the side of my head like a punch but couldn't be sure. I lost myself in the crowd and then the laughter came spewing out of me, an overwhelming hilarity that doubled me over. Then I ran like a madman, smashing through the crowd knocking several people over. I was aware of people yelling at me but didn't stop. I scaled the wall and disappeared into the night.

My memory strobed in and out, periods of consciousness slashed with oblivion. I would become aware and not know how I got where I was. My breathing became shallow and erratic. I had to relax, so I walked into the dark jungle and sat against a tree trying to get my bearings. Eerie, slow burn flares and tiny explosions lit the night. I feared for my sanity.

My only hope, I figured, was to concentrate on my breathing, to calm my mind and steer the trip in another direction. I took in an enormous lungful of air and held it in trying to slow my heart rate. Then I heard what I at first thought was a bird. Others started up but it wasn't the pleasant birdsong of summer, it was a sinister tweak that pierced my mind like a hot needle. Dozens soon joined in. I scanned the trees but there was nothing there but evil, darkened leaves. My skin prickled. The number doubled, tripled, quadrupled until it became a shrieking cacophony. I covered my ears but the noise was in my mind, penetrating the cerebral cortex. Something was terribly wrong deep inside my brain. I crashed blindly through the jungle, falling and skinning my knees, smashing into low hung branches, tripping on rocks.

I am crouched next to a speaker stack, trying to figure out how I got here. I sense hostility and there are people talking about me, pointing at me. I get up and run again. The hill leading to Chapora Fort is dark and cool. I sit on my haunches with my palms turned outwards, white flame burning cold from them. A massacre is taking place in the distance; and people are screaming, pleading, and crying. I put my fingers in my ears and try to shut it out but the butchery continues. Then it is all gone and I am walking along Anjuna Beach by myself. The waves lap the shore and the sun rises then falls back into the black water. Everything becomes peaceful. I breathe deeply and the infernal noise starts up again. It is a ping! Sound that follows my pulse and jars my spine. I am sure that this is what all flip-outs hear before losing it completely.

If I pound on this thin door any harder, I am sure that it will collapse. Sparks shoot out into the night with each blow. The man of the house whips open the door then steps back, a cricket bat in his hand.

" _Why do you knock, sir? It is very late! My family are sleeping. Are you crazy?"_

" _I need brown, I really need it. Look, I'll pay extra," I reach into my pocket and pull out a fistful of rupees that feel like cold spaghetti._

He hesitates and his demeanour changes. His wife pads silently across the dirt floor in bare feet and whispers in his ear. He says something to her and she disappears. I leave with a paper fold.

I sit with my back up against a tree and find that I can see easily in the dark. Opening the packet, I stuff it up to my nose and snort every grain, every speck, then slump back against the tree. One by one the eerie noises start to fall off, like a drunken piano player falling asleep at his stool, the notes striking out as he slowly falls from grace.

## ***

# Chapter 26 - Last Call at Benny's

The air was dry and stale in Benny's, as if the day had given up around noon and was just waiting around for the end. Even the dogs had the good sense to stay away from the beach, watching us from the jungle shade with their tongues hanging out of their mouths. The situation in Anjuna had deteriorated as the high season wound down. The Bombay cops headed home, creating a power vacuum that was readily filled by local cops and other impostors eager to milk the last trickle of baksheesh from party goers. Their tactics had become desperate and unpredictable. Bungalow and restaurant raids were on the increase, as was the chance of running into a cop on the beach, jungle, or wherever else they felt like jumping out at you. I felt as if I was under siege, that it was only a matter of time before I ended up in an Indian jail.

John and Joe went back home to Middlesbrough and Mark resumed his travels. The Yellow House was full of strangers now. Frances just up and disappeared one day and no one even noticed until a few days later.

The chunks of ice in my fenny lasted ten minutes then reverted back to water. No one spoke, and indeed it was an unwritten rule not to talk at all when things were this swelteringly hot. Benny sat behind the counter on a tall stool with a fan aimed at him, the sleeves of his sweater rolled up high. I was playing backgammon with Johnny, choking down bootleg fenny and wiping sweat from my brow. We were waiting for some day-trippers to come by so we could hustle them for a few extra rupees. I'd been doing quite well by myself at a hundred roops per game, using Beart's technique of verbal harassment to stress victims into making fatal mistakes. Then Johnny suggested to me that he could double "our" takings and I, like a fool, allowed him to show me how it was done. The next game, Johnny sat at the table and watched in silence. I nailed my opponent and like a good sport he coughed up a hundred.

"Hey, buddy," Johnny stood up and stabbed his finger at the board, "you settled on two hundred."

"What are you talking about? It was a hundred." The mark let out a nervous laugh.

"You laughing at me, asshole?"

"What? No, I'm not laughing at you. It's just that it was a hundred!"

Johnny put his hands on his hips and looked up at the roof. "Oh, I see, so now you're calling me a fuckin' liar."

The mark was about to say something but then Johnny grabbed him by the collar and yelled in his face, " _YOU OWE ANOTHER HUNDRED ROOPS, MOTHERFUCKER! PAY UP OR I'LL SCATTER YOUR TEETH ALL OVER THIS GODDAMN BEACH!"_ When the mark hurriedly paid up and took off, Johnny proudly passed me a hundred and put a hundred in his own pocket.

"We make a good team, Dean," he said.

"That was smooth, real smooth."

After that, Johnny figured that we were partners and would appear from nowhere whenever I finished a game, hurling abuse and threats like a sergeant major. It didn't even matter if I lost, he would still get the two hundred roops. Eventually, I hardly played; I would just sit there drinking fenny and moving the pieces absent-mindedly. All Johnny talked about was "branching out" and "ball-park figures." People stopped playing me as word spread, which wasn't the best of timing as the parties were in steady decline, and with them my primary source of income. I began dealing brown half-heartedly, slinging to known addicts that slept on the beach. Thankfully, Johnny wanted nothing to do with it, claiming that it was a "dirty business." I fantasised at first about making enough money for a ticket home but gradually the reality sunk in. Before long, I found myself operating at a subsistence level. This also meant long periods of time spent waiting in Benny's for a sale. The thing I hated most about addiction wasn't the cost or desperate living or the degenerates one had to associate with, but the waiting. The hours and days and weeks and months that I spent waiting for a deal, waiting for a score, waiting for the man, was time that could never be reclaimed. If I took half the time I wasted waiting to score, used half the effort I employed to stay high all day and applied it to a legitimate business, I would've been a millionaire several times over. But there was no business like self-destruction, or at least none that interested me.

Hank asked me to head north to Manali with him. The high season there was just about to start. There would be parties every night and I would be selling sheets of acid again in no time. Hank had been doing the Goa circuit for years: Goa in the winter, Manali in the summer—it was pretty much guaranteed employment. I considered it, especially seeing as Hank would take my income with him when he left, but then what? I'd seen the burnt out wraiths that did the circuit year in and year out, old beyond their time. I knew something had to change but had no idea how to make it happen. I was twenty-one and knew nothing about life other than drugs. I ordered another Kingfisher and ran my feet through the sand. Johnny played another lazy move and then we both just stared at the board. Even the birds stopped singing. Life was at its lowest ebb, flowing like molasses as the palm trees exhaled their dying breaths. The fabric of the day stretched endlessly until it snapped and hung limply in the hot, dead air.

## ***

# Chapter 27 - Death is a Star

The rain began to fall just before dawn. The drops were large and warm and fell straight down. Johnny and I ran for Benny's before it became too heavy. We threw our-selves into bamboo chairs and wiped our faces. A few others from different parts of the beach came running in, as did the guy that lived in a hammock in the jungle.

"Hey, Benny! Wake the fuck up!" yelled Johnny.

"Get us some coffee, willya," I added.

Benny answered us with silence. The rain increased and the sky became darker. There was still someone on the beach, bundled up in rags.

I pointed. "Who the fuck is that?"

"Fucked if I know, I thought we were the only ones down there."

"Probably some flip-out."

Benny emerged from the kitchen. "All the homeless persons are here I see."

"We sleep on sand just like you do, Benny," I said.

Benny smiled and walked back into the kitchen. I loaded a chillum and Johnny sparked it up. We blew lungfuls of smoke into the rain and watched the guy on the beach. He still didn't seem to be moving. A peal of thunder shook the bamboo roof of the restaurant and the rain became torrential. Sheets of water blew into the restaurant in wild gusts. A few people on the left side of the restaurant had to move as the rain poured in. I mixed up a shot on the table, reasoning that the cops wouldn't bother coming to Vagatore in the rain. It was a magnificent rush, sitting on a beach in India in a bamboo restaurant during a thunderstorm, as high as humanly possible.

Johnny shook his head disgustedly. "Can't believe you use that shit."

" _Shhhhhh!_ You'll ruin the rush."

The guy on the beach was still in the same position when we started on our second cup of coffee.

"I'll go take a look." Johnny stood up and walked out.

Rain drummed down on the roof and we watched in silence as Johnny approached the guy. He gave him a prod, then knelt down and pulled the blanket from his face. Johnny stayed there for some time; it looked as if they were talking. After a while, Johnny stood and slowly walked back to the restaurant. He sat heavily in his chair, wiped the rain from his face and took a sip of coffee.

"What's the story?"

"He's dead."

We all sat there looking at the dead guy in the rain. A few hours later, a police Land Rover pulled up on the beach. The cops stood around in raincoats smoking and laughing for a bit before they lifted the body into the back of the Land Rover and took off. After they left, the rain let up then started down again harder than ever.

A while later, the rain mellowed to a drizzle. We were all sitting around lost in our thoughts when the BBC World Service came on over the radio filling the air with the chiming of its clock. Then the grave voice of a British presenter boomed out, "This is the BBC world service: _we are at war._ "

Everyone stopped what they were doing and listened in silence. America had invaded a country in the Middle East. There were no other news items for that broadcast.

"Where the fuck is Iraq?" Johnny asked no one in particular.

"Who cares about a bloody war? I want to hear about the cricket!" said Benny, flicking impatiently to another station. I loaded another chillum.

Prologue:

Something wakes me up and for a moment I forget where I am. It could be paradise, the sand is so white and the climate so mild. I turn on my back and look up at the sky. Some of the brighter stars are still visible, cutting through the deep purple twilight. I take a breath of ocean air spiced with warm salt and imagine the desolate leagues it has travelled before reaching my lungs. I turn onto my side and poke at the ashes of the fire with a stick. A few red embers cut through the dark then die. The dawn suddenly makes an appearance like the wink of an enormous fiery eye. I sit up to watch the sunrise and notice there is someone standing in the Indian Ocean. He is swaying and muttering something in a low voice. I prop myself up and listen. The breeze carries his words then twists them away before they reach my ears. He sounds sad, almost as if he is pleading, then he cuts the still morning with a gentle laugh. A sliver of sun silhouettes the man as he walks out until he is up to his thighs. He throws his arms up as the sun fully emerges from its primal darkness. His voice becomes stronger and more confident as rays of gold shoot through the dark. Then he is laughing, deep body shaking laughter that echoes up and down the beach. The laugh of a madman. I lie unseen in the darkness as he reaches into his bum bag and starts pulling out what looks like pieces of paper. He lifts them into the air and releases them, setting them free. They flutter down into the water. Some of them catch a breeze and do a few turns before landing in the drink. I watch as he flips through what looks like a passport; it is larger than most, making me think it is British. He frisbees it into deeper water where it lands with a small plop. Then he freezes like a statue, and birds call out from the jungle. The pieces of paper float around the man. Then he turns, marches out of the water and up the beach. I stand up and walk down to the water. Traveller's checks and greenbacks are washing in with the tide. I wade out and snatch at the greenbacks. Soon, I have a dripping fistful of money. I look up the beach but the stranger is nowhere to be seen, just the white beach stretching into nothing.

## ###

Drew Gates is alive and well and living in Melbourne. For more of his writing, please check his blog – underneaththestairwell.
