Last India Overland (54 page)

“Merely the hash working its sublime magic,” said Patrick.

“Hash?” said Kelly.

“Or,” said Patrick, “ganja, as they call it here.”

“There was hash in those macaroons?” said Kelly.

Charole snapped out of herself, said, yeah, didn’t you hear Patrick ask about them out at that island?

Kelly said no.

Charole said, “Kelly’s always out past Pluto.” To Patrick more than anyone else.

I looked at Kelly. Her chin dropped two or three inches easy. I did think it was kind of strange she was willing to eat those macaroons, given what she’d been talking about, staying away from drugs and all that.

Kelly suddenly stood up.

“I’m tired,” she said. Not looking at anybody. Then she said, “Goodnight,” to nobody in particular, and then she was walking down the hallway to our bedroom.

Charole said, “I better go talk to her,” and she left.

I looked at Patrick. He was back to feeling the edge of his Khyber knife. I looked at Suzie. She looked at me.

She said to me, “I’m really sorry about that limerick I wrote about you, Mick.”

I said, “Don’t worry about it, Suzie. But exactly how did it go?”

I guess I was in the mood for playing games.

She looked at me surprised. “You mean you don’t know how it went?”

I said nope. Just to see if she’d tell me.

She said, “You mean he didn’t tell you?”

Her head nodded towards Patrick, who was throwing a sick grin her way. If Kelly was picking up on anything evil, I thought to myself, it’d have to be Patrick’s vibe.

I said, “Nope.”

Patrick said, “Though I did, I must confess, Ms. Byrnes, offer him the opportunity, on one occasion, of hearing your poetic style and nuance. Mr. McPherson, however, politely said no thanks.”

Suzie looked at me. Said, “Really?”

I said, “Yeah, so what did you write, Suzie? I’m kind of

curious, actually.”

The room was starting to breathe heavier. Rasheed roused himself from the couch and threw another log into the stove

and it spit sparks at me.

Suzie thought to herself for a minute. Then she looked at Patrick. Patrick just grinned at her and adjusted the collar on his new leather shirt.

Suzie mumbled, “I forget.” Then there’s this long silence. Then Dana, sounding really stoned, said, “You look nice in that shirt, Patrick.”

Patrick said thank you.

I decided I’d had enough of this and so I got up, said goodnight. Dana said sleep tight but try not to rock the boat so much tonight, okay? Something smarmy like that. And Patrick said pleasant dreams, Mr. McPherson, this because I think it was two days after Malaria Monday which was always the worst night for nightmares. And Suzie said something real clever like don’t let the bedbugs bite and then I wobbled my way down that hallway with its little streaks of moonlight or starlight or lights from the houseboat right next to us coming through the cracks like laser beams, Darth Vader lasers. The houseboat was where Sultan and most of his kids slept, I think he maybe had five or six, which is why he was facing a financial crunch, as Dave put it, just like I was. And his in-laws, says Dave, still hadn’t come across with the dowry they said they were gonna come across with, this six kids after the fact, so to speak.

I expected to find Charole in the room with Kelly but she wasn’t. Room was dark. Went to the can. Where I could smell soap in the air. Kelly had a shower. Wonder what that meant. With some women it means they want to have sex. I thought about it while I shot my load down into those Lake Dal waters. Came back. Waiting for Kelly to say something. But she didn’t.

So I got into my own bed. A little light on quilts, thanks to the night before, but I didn’t go over and grab any from Kelly’s bed.

And maybe that was what did it. Because I knew she was still awake, I could feel it, I didn’t need Dave to tell me.

I lay there, looking at the stars through the cracks near the stovepipe that led outside. Two stars, three stars. Don’t know how long. Until the hot water bottle at the bottom of my bed turned lukewarm. Then I heard the quilts rustle and Kelly’s footstep on the floor and then her naked body was slipping in beside me.

You didn’t know about the hash? she whispered.

I knew about it, I said. I thought you knew about it.

She thought about that. Finally she said it doesn’t matter and then she kissed me, first soft, no tongue, then hard, like she really hadn’t done before, and she began to grind her hip against mine, but I could barely feel it. And I couldn’t feel myself getting hard, started to worry. Which is never a good idea, worrying, because that just makes it worse. Then Kelly was crawling on top of me, I could see her face in the faint light from the cracks and just past her face, right side, I saw this shadow rear up and it had a face a lot like Rockstar’s. I tried to say something but before I could this thing like a sledgehammer came down flat on my face right below my nose felt like it squashed the bottom of my face flat flatter than a pancake and Dave says it was a ghost of a Sikh who’d had his right hand chopped off on the houseboat back in 1916 because he stole some firewood. Eastern justice. And then it came down again, that thing like a sledgehammer and I tried to say something but I couldn’t that hammer came down again and Kelly began to move. I couldn’t feel her but I could hear her. She said, close your eyes.

I really didn’t want to close my eyes but I did it. And that’s when I saw it. This huge funnel open up above my head. Tornado funnel. I heard that Sgt. Pepper chord from somewhere, last piano chord. “Day in the Life.” I kind of laughed. Kelly said what. Just feels good, I wanted to say but couldn’t. I saw that funnel become the sledgehammer and it slammed itself down on my face again and I felt myself spiral up and out and suddenly I was looking down on Kelly moving above me I’m near the ceiling she’s moving and with every move I’m going further and further away outintothehallwhere IseeRasheedhe’sstokingthefire
²⁷
and I cruise past him and out above Lake Dal where I look back and I see the H.B
.Jewelbox
shining on the waters well actually it wasn’t shining, just kind of sitting there on the waters like a lump of shit but I float away from it away from the window but I can still see that fire burning in the window. I start to wonder where I’m going to end up. If I’m dying. I try to hang onto that fire. Get back closer to it near the window see in it another fire and near it I see Kelly naked and this other guy who’s taking pictures with a flash it might be a fireplace and in those flashbulbs bursting I see the pictures what they look like when they’re developed and I’m able to grab them Kelly smiling looking stupid sexy away from the camera some just of her boobs. I grab those and toss them into the fireplace except it’s the wood stove and I suddenly see Rasheed’s face looking scared and then I’m looking at another fire and I see Sultan’s face and it’s one pissed-off-looking face there’s something liquid flying in the air kerosene says Dave and a horrified woman screaming goes up in flames when I see this match strike all because of a dowry says Dave and then I’m back out above the lake and I see this houseboat go up in flames just like that and people rowing away from the boat in a hurry and a long shikara and I think this is maybe Patrick Dana Suzie Charole and Kelly leaving a sinking ship and maybe I’m still back on the
Jewelbox
unable to move speak do anything and I’m going to die unless I get back in my head, and so I claw my way back into the houseboat, some way, don’t know how and I find myself looking up at Kelly’s face and there’s no flames behind her or anything but there seems to be a flame in her eyes candle flame there’s light the colour of butter flickering across her face and she says to me, you’re looking, Mick, and I say to her, I burnt the pictures, Kelly. She says what. I tell her I burnt them, the pictures, but now we’ve gotta go, Sultan’s set fire to his wife next door and I am able to push her off and I can get out of the bed and I can go to that crack in the wall around where the stovepipe goes and I can look at the houseboat next to us, but it’s still there, no flames shooting up from it or anything, and Dave phones me up, says calm down, it’s just a rip in the time fabric, won’t happen for another year or two, and then I hear Kelly’s voice right beside me saying, Mick, drugs really don’t do you any favours.

I look at her.

She looks mad. “It was just a simple request,” she said.

“All you had to do was listen to it.”

She was talking about the business with the eyes.

“I really burnt those pictures, Kelly,” I said. “Shots by the fireplace, close-ups, I burnt them all. Threw them in the fire.”

But all she wants to know is why I opened my eyes.

I say, “Sorry. I was somewhere else.”

She turns around. “And you can sleep somewhere else too,” she says and she throws a quilt onto the other bed, gets into her own.

I take a deep breath or two.

And decide it might be better to hash all this out in the morning.

I get into the bed, my own bed. Feel the water bottle at my feet, cold. Close my eyes. My brain does wheelies until someone knocks on my eyelids I open them. Not Rasheed. Patrick. Saying change of plans, Pete dropped by, he said he saw Rockstar in town, bus leaves in five. I look over at Kelly’s bed. She’s gone. So like a zombie I crack myself out of my egg get dressed grab my stuff. And I want to go next door tell Sultan’s wife to pack up and leave. But I don’t. I’m late. I’m the last guy to walk the plank down to the shikara and it’s this thing that I have about heights. And the plank did have more of that early morning frost on it, made it slippery. Yeah, you got it. Slipped and lost my balance. Splash. Right into the cold shitty waters of beautiful Lake Dal.

Dana thought it was hilarious. Her face laughing when my head broke the surface, through the water. Kelly’s hand reaching towards me but I missed it by inches.

It was Patrick and Sultan who hauled me out.

That was a chilly ride, across that early morning water to the bus.

It wasn’t until I was on the bus that the Lake Dal chill made my tooth hurt and I reached for the chilli capsicum in my shirt pocket.

That Afghani Bic rifle was still there. But the capsicum was gone.

Dec. 7

Don’t know what to say about last night. Ate something I shouldn’t have, I guess. The sound of the water bird whistling woke me up with its echo. Knew I couldn’t go back to sleep so I went out to the living room. Rasheed was lighting the fire in the stove. I asked him if he’d mind posing for a picture & he was happy to, for a pair of nylons. I was half-finished with it when Pete came knocking with his news we were leaving

2 days early. He claimed he saw R. walking around the lake looking for the bus, which was hidden somewhere, I suppose. I guess it was the truth. We saw R. as we left town, shortly after M. took an awkward plunge, looking like the Scarecrow looking for Oz. Have to borrow a picture from Pat. of R. At the right time, he’s not talking to me right now. Playing the jealous suitor. I’m not in a sympathetic mood. According to S. Pete’s not completely sober when he gets behind the wheel, she can smell it on him. Good for her, I can hear it. We’re not getting nearly as many history lessons as we used to. We’re on the outskirts of Jammu. The sky is orange & full of ritual.

Mick

Dave says I didn’t mention I was wearing a sweater that the guy in the shikara had sold me. One of them fisherman’s knit jobs, lots of white wool which likes to soak up water. Anyway Dave says this is an important detail, which is a bad sign. I’m starting to lose it, he says. My green and yellow life force has been seeping away, and there ain’t much left of it. My aura, he says, is grey around the fringes and it’s creeping in. So I’m caught between a rock and a hard place, he says. Between the anvil and the hammer, as the frogs put it. The devil and the deep blue Sea of Ko Samui. I got to speed things up. But I can’t forget important details. Okay, Dave, you tell me. What’s the most important details of that day we drove back to Jammu? Okay, one. We drove past Rockstar on the side of the road about a mile or two south of Srinagar. He was standing there waiting for us, with his thumb out. Rockstar wasn’t stupid. He knew from the itinerary we were heading back to Jammu, or at least we had to, if we were going to Kathmandu. Second important detail: I made the mistake of asking Pete, when we were stopped at our lunchbreak in Batote, same place where we left Rockstar, if he was afraid of Rockstar. I think Pete took it as a personal slight. Still he answered my question. He said, “I’m afraid of all psychos, mate. Which means I’m afraid of you.”

I said, “No, no, Pete, you got it wrong. I’m a psychic, not a psycho.”

He popped the top off another Heineken, his third of the morning, Dave was counting. He gave me a sour look, said, “Oh, is that it?” then took a long hard swallow, almost drained the can dry.

Dave says Pete had been drinking on the drive up to Kashmir too. He had beer in his thermos. And I thought that was tea.

Dave says it’s too bad the central character of this thing is me and not Pete. Pete had quite the trip himself. Well, fuck you, Dave. But then again, says Dave, everyone did, and they’re free to tell their own story if they want to.

When we got to Jammu, Pete threw us all into the same room and disappeared downtown. Dave says there was a nice little bar in Jammu called The Scarlet Slipper. Me, I went downtown too. My tooth felt like it was full of battery acid and little tiny razors, all of it moving around at blender speed. I went looking for some chilli capsicum. But by the time we got to Jammu all the stores were closed, and the darkness that fell on me that night at the foot of the Himalayas, on my way back to the Jammu Motel in my still-soggy moccasins, was a chilly darkness. It chilled me to my still-wet bones.