Last India Overland (5 page)

“I wouldn’t mind it much if those two are on the bus,” I said to Jenkins.

He looked over in their direction. “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t think I’d kick too much either.”

As it turned out they were.

Then Jenkins said, “Just between you and me, Mick, actually I’m not from Alberta.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Where you from?”

“Montana. Wolf Creek. A friend of mine told me if I was smart I’d travel as Canuck through some of these Asian countries, less hassle that way.”

I took a swig. It didn’t matter to me he was from Montana. “Your friend’s probably a smart guy,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it under my hat.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said. Then he said he had to go make room for more beer and he took off to the can.

A few minutes later the black-haired girl sauntered over to the bar for another glass of wine and while she was waiting for it, she glanced over in my direction and asked me if I was going to India. She had nice grey eyes.

I told her I was, how about herself, and she said yeah. “So it looks like we’ll be getting to know each other, huh?” she said. She had an Aussie accent.

“Yeah, looks like it,” I said.

She gave me a little smile and then she walked back over to the redhead.

When Jenkins came out of the can, he didn’t come back and talk to me, which hurt my feelings a tad. Instead he got to talking with this couple who looked like they were married and in their early thirties. Couldn’t have been much older. This trip was only for the 18- to 35-year-olds.

Patrick was talking to the bartender and it didn’t look like anybody else was thinking about coming over and talking to lonesome Mickers, so I finished off my Toby and decided to call it a night, since I’d have to be up by six in the morning to catch the bus and getting up in the morning isn’t one of my long suits.

I lit out and got down to the tube station just in time to watch the gates clang shut. So I’m walking down Charing Cross, looking for a cab, and I come across this movie theatre showing some old horror classics all night long. Movies like
The Thing
and
Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
and
Attack of the Y Chromosome.

And since I had some heavy English change in my pocket to get rid of, I decided to check it out, and when I went inside I was surprised to see that the lights were halfway up. On the screen the Thing was sinking its fangs into someone’s stomach. The place was about a quarter full. Most of the people were derelicts. Some of them were snoring. Others were either coughing or hacking up spit or just shuffling around. It was like something out of
The Twilight Zone.

I should’ve turned around and left, but I didn’t. I sat down and stuck it out through most of
The Thing,
but near the end of the movie some brain-dead wino sat down right next to me, when there were a few hundred other seats he could’ve picked, and he looked at me and picked his nose and said, “Lead them to the right place,” in a voice that sounded like it was coming from a college professor.

I said, “Sure thing, chief,” and I got up and left.

I hate it when my life turns weird.

I caught a cab out to Earl’s Court, and when I got to my room, the frogs next door were going at it hot and heavy, as usual.

I can thank their early morning hump for the fact that I woke up in time to make it to the bus. If it wasn’t for that one high-pitched moan, I’d probably be back in Kits right now, maybe watching the Muppets on the box, instead of lying here flat on my back in the Ko Samui General, watching the skin near my bandage turn from Big Bird yellow to urine yellow.

BELGIUM London—Bruges

Day 1

Departure: 7:00 a.m.

Route: London—Canterbury—Dover (A2, M2). All passports stamped when you leave U.K. and when you enter Belgium. Camp: St. Michael—hot showers till Sept. 30. Bar and cafe, poor rate on the money exchange.

Points: 1. Well, here you go, Day One. Don’t worry, there’s only sixty-seven more days to go. Major thing you have to do on the first day is do a lot of talking. Be friendly and witty, of course. Make them look forward to hearing your well-modulated voice for the next two and a half months. On the ferry is as good a time as any to collect money for the camping section of the trip. Let them know that the camping section ends in eastern Turkey. Check all their medical books to make sure everyone has the correct shots. Be very careful doing this, it’s easy to overlook something. I did once. The jerk was disallowed entry into Pakistan and he sued me over it. If you have time, split the group into groups for cooking, dish washing and bus cleaning duties. Concerning food kitty and camp costs, keep an open and accurate book. People invariably like to see how their money is spent.

2.    As for notes, maybe ease into it the first day. Nothing too heavy. But don’t ever neglect the history notes. It gives people the impression that they’re getting a sense of history for their hard-earned bucks. Subtle things have an impact, and it’s a way of maintaining communication with the group, particularly if you’re landed with one of those groups that you never want to have anything to do with again, after the first day.

3.    “Bruges” means bridge, and it’s the capital of West Flanders. Pop. (all pops, are ’55 estimates, which was close enough for me) is 51,000. Maybe point out the city’s well-preserved medieval aspect on the way out of town, through the downtown area, as well as “Grote Markt” and the Belfry with its carillon of forty-seven bells, the Palace of Justice, and the post office, with its neo-Gothic style. Hopefully nobody will ask to see the Dyver canal, out near Gruuthuse Museum, or the Cathedral of St. Donatian, out on the northern outskirts, but if someone does, oblige them; it is, after all, the first day.

For the record, the cathedral was destroyed in 1799.*

from Kelly’s diary

Oct. 11

This morning near 6 I woke up & heard C. moaning. Her wrist hurt. She said they hadn’t set it right, she could feel splinters. So instead of catching the bus, we’re back at Emergency at the end of another long line-up of misery. Later. Finally the wrist is X-rayed. It’s fine. They gave her more painkillers. I felt like screaming at her. If I had a voodoo doll. She did this on purpose because she wants to go home. Or she wants to make F. worry. My desires & the fact that Taurus Tours doesn’t give refunds doesn’t matter. I told her to go home if she wanted to, I’m catching up to the bus. Budget doesn’t allow for train fare, though, & the cards & nickel both suggest I hitch once I’m across the channel. C still hasn’t decided what she’s going to do, & we’re not talking to each other.
Midnight Express
is playing in Trafalgar Square.
Rocky Horror Picture Show
is in Notting Hill Gate. Nickel says
Midnight Express.

Mick

When I saw what time it was I grabbed my suitcase and beetled out of that hostel and down to the tube station, getting there just in time to watch the District Line pull out. I sat down and had a conversation with the girl in the lingerie ad across the tracks. She liked old Marx Brothers’ movies, Johnny Walker Black and raw oysters. When the next District Line blasted out of its tunnel like a jet-propelled dildo, blocking her from sight, I told her I’d probably be back this way in a few months and she could step down out of that poster and we could go for a Scotch somewhere.

There weren’t too many people on the train, that’s how early it was. Just a few businessmen reading their smutty newspapers and a few secretary types doing their make-up. One spaced-out punk fag with green hair and a bottle of wine between his knees. He gave me a stoned smile. Guy was happy. He was heading home.

At Tottenham Court Road, I said good morning to Crystal Gayle in the “Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue?” ad on the wall next to the escalator and then I scooted back and forth between people all the way to the top and when I got outside, the giant
Star Wars
marquee across the street was yelling at me to get my tail in gear and so I loped down Oxford until I got to a walk light and I made like a jack-rabbit to the other side. I didn’t want to get mowed down by any more taxis.

When I turned the corner on Rathbone, this guy who looked like Han Solo, a jock type with sandy hair, was standing outside of Taurus Tours, talking to Jenkins. In front of this blue bus. My watch told me I was thirty-three minutes late.

“Well, here’s one more,” he said to Jenkins. “I don’t think we can wait for any others.”

Seems that the only reason I made it to the bus before it pulled out was because Jenkins had asked Pete to wait a few minutes for a couple friends of his, both female, to show up. But they didn’t make it. Only I made it. As of that morning, anyhow.

I slowed down to a trot, and after I handed Pete my suitcase, I hacked up the tar from the first cigarette I ever smoked, back when I was thirteen.

“You almost missed it, mate,” said the Han Solo type as he stowed my bag in the undercarriage and slammed it shut.

I was too out of breath to say anything.

I got on the bus, and I was kind of surprised to see that it was only a quarter full. Less than that, even. Let’s see, Suzie, Rockstar, Patrick, Tim and Mary deLuca, Jenkins, Dana, me, and Pete, the driver. Only eight people. Not your perfect prescription for a good time.

I guess there were a couple reasons why there weren’t many people. Summer was over and everyone was back at work. There was just a bit of anti-Americanism running around Europe. And, as I found out within twenty-four hours, most of the campgrounds in Europe and Asia turn off the hot water after Oct. 1.

Pete told us later that the first India Overland, which left in late August (you don’t want to get to India while it’s still hot, right?) had thirty-three people on board.

Only one face really registered on me when I walked down the aisle. Besides Suzie’s, I guess. And that was the redhead’s.

Jenkins followed me down the aisle and sat across from me. He had kind of a worried look on his face.

Pete picked up a microphone out of a holster and introduced himself as Peter Cohen and welcomed all of us aboard.

“I hope we all have a real good trip,” he said, and then he put the mike back.

“I have my doubts,” said Jenkins in a low voice.

I took out a Marley and lit it up while Pete put the bus in gear and pulled away from the curb. “Why’s that?” I said.

“Just a feeling,” he said.

About the time we got into the south London slums, I had enough breath back to ask Jenkins about these friends of his we’d left behind.

“One of them is my girl friend,” he said, “and the other one is a friend of hers.” Then he shrugged, as though that was all there was to say.

I looked outside. Saw this little kid sticking a needle in his arm. On a porch step, in broad daylight. I got this light-headed feeling, like the bus was about to sprout wings and lift off above traffic. I was picking up on the kid’s heroin high. I also felt real depressed at the same time. Maybe picking that up from Jenkins.

Three or four hours later, we make Dover. Pete unloaded all the suitcases onto a trolley and we followed him on board a ferry.

One guy, I noticed, hadn’t been at the party. He was a tall kid who wore a white T-shirt with names of bands like Carrion-Eaters, Voidoids, Dead Kennedys written all over it in dark red ink. Wore torn blue jeans. Had long brown hair that hung to his shoulders, a beard. I don’t think his hair or clothes had been washed for a while. A punk.

Me and Patrick were up on the top deck, drinking Scotch and Glayva we’d bought at the duty-free on board. We called the little mixture an Overlander. Patrick was taking a picture of the white cliffs of Dover before they sank from sight in the white furrow of water when the punk walked up behind us and asked us what us sooks were drinking. That’s the word he used. He had an Aussie accent. I gave him my cup. “Overlander,” I said. “Try it out.”

He took my cup and wrapped his flabby Mick Jagger-like lips around the straw and sucked up three fingers of booze and then handed it back.

At the time I thought it was sunlight behind him playing tricks. But what I saw above his head was something that looked like a black hole against the blue sky, surrounded by a shimmer of purple.

“Bloody good,” said the punk, wiping his lips with his arm. I told him I thought so too. “But I don’t know,” I said. “There’s something about drinking booze through a straw. It can kick you in the head.”

Patrick said, “Quite true, Mr. McPherson, quite true.” The punk looked at Patrick and a thin sneer curled up on his lower lip like a worm and he took off. Patrick looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“Friendly sort,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, “real friendly.”

But the punk came back a few minutes later with his own bottle of Scotch and Glayva and he was generous enough pouring some of the booze into both our cups.

This thing about straws and booze, though. I remember the intros. The punk telling us his name, just Rob, nothing else, and how he used to be a Carrion-Eater. Kind of, he said.

“I was a roadie, I guess, if you want to know the bloody truth, but I played the drums for Fark when he was too stoned. I was bloody better than he was. Chuck said he was just waiting for the right time to get rid of him. Chuck had this girl friend. He was her brother or dealer or something.” Chuck was Charlie Putrid, head honcho of the band. Sounded like a Sex Pistols rip-off to me.