Cleo Odzer - Goa Freaks - My Hippie Years in India

As the season progressed and the Goa Freaks' cash dwindled, the smokers and sniffers trickled away, leaving me with two rooms of fixers upstairs. At Joe Banana's one day someone asked me, "What's this I hear—you have a shooting gallery in your house?"

"A shooting gallery!" I'd never heard the expression before and thought it wondrously clever. "Hey, that's cute."

Among the new fixing clientele was a gorgeous blonde German with a marvellous body. He would arrive early in the afternoon and, buying half grams at a time, would fix one shot after another until late at night. We liked each other. However, with all the drugs I ingested, sex was the last thing in the world I wanted. Sex ranked alongside jail and chewy foods—unthinkable! He, meanwhile, was totally preoccupied with his rushes. Our moments together consisted of snatches of my spare time intersecting with his calmer interludes—perhaps as he cleaned his syringe.

"No, no! Not in the ashtray!" I'd exclaim. "Here, see it says SQUIRT HERE." For a moment our eyes communicated feelings our bodies couldn't.

"Oops, I did that again? I'm sorry. So when am I going to teach you to windsurf?"

"Soon."

The gorgeous German had brought to Goa the first wind surfboard anyone had seen. I couldn't imagine when he had time to ride it, though, since he sat in the Saloona. Every day, all day.

Also among the new group of fixers was Marco. For years Gigi and Marco had lived in a yellow-tiled mansion on the road to Calangute. Their successful hash import-export business had made them the centre of the chic and popular Italian group. It ended, though, with Gigi's death. Now here was Marco— or rather the ghost of Marco.

When Gigi maxed-out on coke and dope in Bombay, Marco had been jailed in Europe; he had missed her death and funeral. Now he seemed to be following her footsteps to doom. As Marco fell apart, so did his business, his finances, his circle of friends. He'd lost the house, sold his possessions, and existed somehow, here and there, with his daughter. Formerly elegant and stylish, he now epitomized the slimy junky—dirty, lying, hustling, stealing whatever wasn't tied down, and fixing anything he could lay his hands on.

At first I felt terrible for him. Over and over we watched my movie of their wedding—ravishing Gigi, brown hair gliding over her laughing face as she climbed into Greek Robert's jeep for the ride to Hanuman ice cream shop in Mapusa. We watched as she and Marco listened to the ceremony in the government office. Marco stared at the movie in fascination. Over and over. The jeep ride, the ice cream, the government ceremony.

"Show it again," he'd say.

"Again?"

He'd give me an Italian-type lift of the chin.

Then Marco became a problem. Objects vanished as he passed them—a Balinese mask, an ampoule of distilled water, a used needle. He pestered my customers. He borrowed cigarettes and beedies , hustled hits of this and that, and asked people to buy him soda.

I tried talking to him. "Marco, did you take that syringe?"

"What syringe?"

"Come on, I know you have it." I hated to sound picky, but I was reaching the end of my charitableness. "It's forty rupees if you're going to keep it—and listen, I'd rather you didn't hustle everybody like that. A little hustle is okay, but you asked every single person here for some of their stash. They're getting annoyed. You’ll ruin my business if customers stop coining because of you."

He made apologetic promises, but his eyes still searched the room for objects to steal.

I decided I could no longer let him in the house. The next time he came to the door, I didn't open it. I made him go to a back window instead. "I'm sorry. I can't let you in anymore," I told him. "I don't trust you. If you want to buy something, it has to be through the window."

I thought I'd never see him again, but he still came every day. How horrible. The only window that was the right height and not fully exposed to passers-by was a back one in the kitchen. Beneath it lay the garbage lump where the maid deposited things that couldn't he burned. It faced the Goan toilets and rested over the septic tank. Marco stood there in the trash to buy his drugs from between metal window bars. I felt a brute. I had trouble meeting his eyes as I handed him packets through the bars. He had trouble meeting me.

And then came Maria. Maria turned out to be even worse than Marco. What was happening to the Goa Freaks?

The couple Maria and Stefano, both Italian, had a little girl, four years old. Stefano wasn't a customer of mine, only Maria. Maria had been to the Saloona a few times for smack and coke, but the first time I paid attention to her was when she arrived towing a semi straight backpacker. Here was a real hustler, I thought.

"Ciao, Cleo," she said, as if we were best buddies. "Meet my friend here. What is your name again? He wants to buy coke." When the guy wasn't looking, she made a face and winked at me as co conspirator. "How much money do you have?" she asked him, keeping a grip on his arm while he dog in his pockets.

"Uh, you said I could score a quarter . . ."

She took the money from his hand and helped him count. "You have plenty. You can buy me a gram. I need some for later."

Not long after he bought her the gram, Maria had him out the door with a wave, a tolerant smile, and a see-you-later. Smooth.

I'd seen my share of compulsive coke fixers, but nobody equalled Maria, despite her useless veins. Like many women, she had difficulty getting into one. Men's veins were more prominent and visible. Sometimes Maria tried unsuccessfully for twenty minutes, practically in tears and totally obsessed with plunging the now-disgusting liquid into her arm.

"Maria!" I'd say, spotting the glop in her syringe. "You can't fix that! Yuk! The blood in there coagulated fifteen minutes ago."

Her concentration wouldn't waver. With drops of sweat dangling from her bangs she'd continue prodding.

"It's STUCK!" she'd wail eventually in the most pitiful tone imaginable. "The needle's clogged!"

"Well, of course. Look at that stuff. It's turned to jello."

Not allowing it to go to waste, she'd remove the needle and squirt the disgusting goo into her mouth before starting over.

All of Goa knew about Maria. Having run out of money long ago, she hustled from everyone. She was very pretty, very cute, and very good at what she did. Since I made bhongs and lines for the people around me, she made herself my best friend. She was terrific—emptied ashtrays, fetched sodas, collected money, opened the door for Bach when he barked. Charming and funny, Maria told stories that made people laugh, enchanting the masses with her Italian accent and her big brown eyes. She brought me many customers, people I'd never seen before, picked up from who-knew-which beach. It was amazing the way she finagled strangers into buying her drugs.

As the season progressed, the hippies, backpackers, and tourists began to leave, and the Goa Freaks who still had money began to run low. Soon I noticed that the profits at day's end did not match the amount of packets supposedly sold. Maria was stealing my drugs!

One day I caught her—Maria with her grubby hand in my metal box. "Ah, Cleo, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. . . "

Furiously, I grabbed her by the hair, threw her out the door, and kicked her down the steps. She landed in a shrieking heap at the bottom. I slammed the door.

She stopped coming alter that, but I could tell when she sent someone to buy drugs for her. Whenever I found an unknown, straightish, backpacker-type on my doorstep, I knew Maria wasn't far away. Sometimes I'd see her hiding behind the well, waiting.

As the season progressed I had fewer and fewer customers, and the customers had less and less money. In April I learned the most important lesson of the drug retail business—NEVER GIVE CREDIT!!! Too bad it took me so long to figure that out.