Last India Overland (59 page)

from Kelly’s diary

Dec. 15

Yesterday a long day of bridges & οχ-cart traffic & M. avoiding my eyes. He’s been acting a bit strange, like he really does have a split personality. Or is he playing games with me? Maybe. This morning it was sunrise over the Ganges. We saw a halfeaten corpse in the water, other corpses on shore going up in smoke, people bathing their bodies, American hippies getting stoned, & some of the saddest, most desperate people on earth. I have the expected reaction. I don’t have it so bad. What am I complaining about? You wimp. I’m just this collection of molecules, here through the grace of an act of lust twenty-five years ago, & I have all my limbs intact, I don’t have to worry about not eating, for the next 3 days at least. The colours this morning. Spectacular. Lots of mauves, after the initial wash of grey, then violet, all of it splashed across strange architecture. My contempt for Pat. has leapt a light year or 2. After throwing not a rupee to the beggars near the monkey temple he bought himself an ivory chess set for something like $50 Am. And he asks me if he’s done something wrong. Then at breakfast we’re treated to a fight to the death between a snake & a mongoose. Pat. took lots of pictures. When it was over & the snake was dead he went over & delicately formed a circle with the snake’s dead body, tail to mouth, the Ouroboros, & took a picture of that. Everything is just a show. Fodder for the lens. Later. Just phoned home to do some begging myself. * Dex was happy to hear from me but he had bad news. Mom died, almost a week ago. C asked why I was crying & I couldn’t tell her & she screamed at me. Had a chat with D. She also thinks M. is going crazy. He’s “changed,” she said. M.’s not the only one going crazy. I am too. Caught up in a wave of the usual regrets. All the should’ves. All the letters I should’ve written. All the talks we should’ve had. All the love I should’ve thrown her way. But it still hasn’t sunk home. I just feel numb. I feel very lonely in this crowd. Apart from it all. We’re on our way to the Nepalese border. 2 more days. 5 mins ago we drove past someone that looked like Rob (it looked like a blood-stained T-shirt) hitch-hiking on the outskirts of Benares. C. says yesterday S. told D. he didn’t really rape her, not in a “mean” way at least.

Mick

Thought I had the wrong channel for a minute, sign said Hotel de Paris, framed by a window. But it was the bus window and the sign was moving so stuck with it. Pete’s voice crackled across the speaker, saying everyone can give their dirty laundry to the houseboys in the hotel and they’ll have it done by morning. Then he advised everyone to get a good night’s sleep, they’d be getting up early in the morning to catch sunrise over the Ganges. So this was Benares, or Varanasi as Patrick called it, don’t know why. Dave says it’s a matter of preference. Dana gave all her clothes to the houseboy when he came, she was dressed in the one dress shirt I packed, blue one with stripes, only wore it once, to that nightclub in Istanbul. Dave gave him some clothes too and when he was gone, Dana took out a little pocket mirror, tapped out some coke, used a credit card to make lines. Where’d you get that at? said Dave. From a tri-shaw driver in New Delhi, said Dana. Dave said, no, I mean the Chargex card. Dana said she always had it. Then you’re not broke, said Dave, acting real surprised. Just acting, he says. You’re rich, he says to Dana, and she says this is for emergencies and slicing up coke, but, and she smiles, if you want me to take out a cash advance on it at the Bank of America tomorrow, sure, fifty bucks for every time you make love to me tonight, and Dave says, after what you call your basic pregnant pause, it’s a deal, and I’m not going into a play-by-play account of what happened after that, sorry, but it’s just too sordid. I didn’t switch channels like I maybe should’ve and around about the time Johnny Carson should’ve been on over on channel eight, Dana was pushing Dave’s shoulders down and he resisted. Dana looks at him. At me. As if to say what gives. Let me just go get a washcloth, says Dave. Dana grabs him by the hair, says, don’t bother, and her face crumbles into a pile of red cinder bricks, she gets up, sniffling, says you have changed and she heads for the bathroom, slams the door shut, locks it.

Hey, says Dave, and the door gets closer, hand on the doorknob, no dice. I could’ve told him that much. Sorry, he says, I just thought. I can hear sniffling behind the door, and then, “Go away, fuck off!”

Trans Am rings. Dave asking me what to do. Priceless. Easy question to answer. Let me take over, I said, I’ll smooth things over, I’ve been in this situation lots of times. Lie. A woman could be in the full flood of Emily, as Nancy Pickles called it, no problem. But not Dave, nope. He ran next door, pounded on it, Patrick answers. Patrick looks down. Dave looks down. He’s wearing a towel, at least, I’m happy to see. It’s an emergency, he says, need to use your can. Patrick says by all means. He’s looking a bit squiffed.

Dave does his Hiroshima number and when he goes back next door, door’s locked, he has to go back, knock on Patrick’s. Patrick’s got an extra bed. Patrick grinning. Trouble in Paradise? he asks. Dave doesn’t answer. You appear, says Patrick, to be somewhat discombobulated. Dave says he doesn’t want to talk about it, and Patrick tries to make conversation after that but Dave’s not up to it, he’s not in the mood. He just sits and mopes and stares out the window for a few minutes and then he bolts for the can.

Over the speaker I get Patrick’s voice. A chortle in it. What was that wonderful psalm? he’s saying. “I am poured out like water and my bones are all out of joint and my heart is like wax, it’s melted in the midst of my bowels.”

Psalm 22, says Dave, grunting some. Verse fourteen.

Indeed, says Patrick, I’m very impressed. I did not perceive you, I confess, he says, as a theological scholar, Mr. McPherson.

Which is when I might’ve sung, say, the opening bars to “What a Wonderful World.”

Dave maybe knew his Bible and he knew how to play with neurons and synapses in my brain but it didn’t seem he knew too much about women or what to do about those bowels of mine.

He claims this ain’t true. Says he stopped eating. It’s just that it was a vicious and malevolent germ I’d allowed to invade my system. And he’d never really felt discomfort before. Much less pain.

from Kelly’s diary

Dec. 16

Should be crying but I can’t. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe some internal emotional switch has been turned off inside my heart & nothing will turn it back on. I feel like an ogre. Mom’s face is already fading into vague memory.* It’s all just sand. From behind a poinsettia bush, M. looked at me & stuck out his tongue, the gleam in his eye back where it should be. So whatever warp his mind allowed has disappeared. Either that or he’s tired of whatever game it was he was playing. I can’t bring myself to talk to him or feel sorry for him, it’s too late for such sentiment. In 2 days we’ll be in Kathmandu & what could have been will never be, the memory will seep into the sand & some day I’ll wake up in the middle of the night & think of him & wonder what it was all about. I’ve slid into neutral, I’m coasting. Or so I thought. We got to the Nepalese border near 5. C said she needed something to drink & so we retired to the bar. 14-year-old bartender who asked us if we had any tapes to trade. & we were sitting there, debating what to do, post-Kathmandu—she talked China, & I told her I wouldn’t mind going to China with her if the rumours are true & the border is about to be opened up, but my major thing is still the Firewalk. Mom’s death has given me that freedom at least. C’s face fell when I mentioned it. She said point-blank that she really has no interest in going to Sri Lanka to watch me fry. I can understand that. So we’d as much as said we’ll go our separate ways when who should walk through the door but Tim & Mary. Both of them robust, healthy, happy, or so it seems. M said they’ve been through a few trials & it’s brought them closer together. Her & Tim have been here 2 days, waiting for us. Lots of news about giant Buddhas & flat tires & a touch of hepatitis. She asked us if we’d be interested in going to a place called Nagarkot with her & T. There’s an ashram near there called Yasodhara. Sounds like it’d be a good place to clean out my system, pre-Firewalk. Find my centre. I told her I’d think about it.

Mick

Darkness, for a while, and Patrick’s snores and then pounding on the door, Pete’s fist I could tell. Gotta get in gear, going

'/
think Kelly was merely in a state of emotional shock following the news. I didn 't allow myself the freedom to mourn until a full week after the funeral. - D.W.

to the Ganges. Dave said he was too sick. Pete said suit yourself. So I didn’t see dawn on the Ganges. Patrick took lots of pictures though and I saw them in Kathmandu. One was of this beggar on a skateboard affair, had no legs, just a kid, six years old, stretching out hands for baksheesh. Patrick said something about how some of the beggars belonged to a beggars’ union, some of them had their hands or legs chopped off on purpose, to make more money begging. Patrick had pictures of skinny old cows standing cold in the street, some white, some brown, and skinny old bodies in the Ganges draped in white sheets, washing a place here a place there, even a boob in one picture. Only one picture of other bodies— Patrick said he had to sneak it while the guide wasn’t looking— draped in white going up in smoke on the funeral crypts. What looked like a half-eaten body in the water. Patrick said there were lots of crocs downstream. Nicest picture was of this old fisherman in his shikara floating in silhouette against the early morning sun. Nice reds and blacks in it. Patrick also had pictures of everybody sitting at the breakfast table eating corn flakes while they watched a snake and mongoose go at it on the dead front lawn. Picture of the dead snake in a perfect circle all mangled covered with blood on the brown grass. Picture of the mongoose, not looking so healthy himself, being led away. Picture of everyone getting on the bus. Picture of me—Dave—sacked out on the back seat. Picture of Dave sticking his head under the bus’s front tire.

I was playing the Fender most of that morning with the TV on channel three, mostly backs of Dave’s eyelids but then the swaying aisle suddenly showed up, Dave skittering up to the front and out to the side of the road and behind a huge poinsettia bush. All the traffic going by, kids laughing and pointing at him. Dave doing his business with his face in a cluster of those dark red leaves. And then he wanders back to the troupe. Looks like Pete’s decided to take a lunch-break. Dana making sandwiches. Everyone staring at him, Patrick offering his condolences and a shot of India rum, Dave saying no thanks, he’s got a better solution. He gets down on the ground puts his head behind the bus’s right front wheel, says to Pete, “Go ahead, put it in gear, back it up.” He peeks over to where Pete is standing by himself eating a sandwich. Pete finishes off his sandwich with two big bites while Patrick clicks away. Lettuce cheese and tomato by the look of it. Lets the crust fall, wipes his hands together. Says anything you say, mate, gets on the bus starts the ignition revs the engine. Dave doesn’t move. Joke seemed to me it was going too far. If he was trying to make light of the situation, fine, but this was going too far, wasn’t a joke any more. I phoned him up. Dave, I said, it doesn’t look like you’re having a good time. Life in the real world ain’t so hot after all, huh? No, he said, not under these conditions. He’s staring at the tread on the wheel, the litde stones caught between the treads. Almost a Persian carpet design, those treads. The treads move, move forward, suddenly lots of blue sky, those poinsettia bushes, everyone standing around staring. Dave ignores them, gets on the bus. Pete grinning at him, sorry mate, put it in the wrong gear. Next loo-stop. More poinsettia bushes. The bus moving off, Dave watching it go. The bus stopping about forty feet away. Pete’s sense of humour. Playing loo-stop games. Dave gets back on the bus. Thanks for sticking around, said Dave. Real polite. Not me, I would’ve ragged him out. Back down the aisle. Both Dana and Kelly staring at him, I can tell, though they’re both kind of blurry at the edge of the screen, Dave had his eyes focussed on the back seat. Two more loo-stops that afternoon for Dave. I was starting to feel sorry for him. Back on the back seat, he closes his eyes, phones me up, asks if I’m ready for re-entry. Any time, I said. Okay, he says, go open up the door. I do. And all there is out there is a lot of outer space, stars twinkling, a full moon glowing fire-engine red, and I get sucked into a vacuum vortex straight toward the stars which all funnel together into a cone shape and the stars become one star and I’m thinking I’m travelling through the gaping eye-socket of that Afghani back in Dara. I just let myself fall. And Dave’s voice comes booming from somewhere. But you have to promise, he says, to let me behind the wheel again, whenever I want to. Or else what, I think or say or shout. Or else I’m going to leave you out here in this limbo forever, and Hell is just around the corner from Purgatory up there on the left. I look and I see a dark molten landscape and walking towards me is a curly-haired Jewish type. He says hi, my name is Fiscus, do you know how to get out of this place? Nope, I said. This place is worse than Macy’s at Christmas, he says. He has a stethoscope around his neck, he’s wearing a Red Sox cap, he’s got what looks like a chest wound. How are the Bo Sox doing? I ask him. They made it to the World Series this year, he says. Really, I say, I thought the Yankees beat them out, what year’s this? ’86, he says. They blew it in the seventh game against the Mets. Sad elfin twinkle. Maybe next year, he says. I float on past him, star getting closer, below crags of rock, volcanoes shooting fire, strange dark shapes like lizards flicking out their tongues. You got it, Dave, I say, and an echo comes bouncing back to me. Promise promise promise?... Scout’s honour, I say. Cross your heart, he says, spit to die. I cross my heart. Spit towards the star. White glob sails, expands, becomes a sailboat I climb aboard. I set the rudder straight. That star starts getting bigger. It blooms into a wonderful red poinsettia. Red as blood. Shaped like the wound in Fiscus’s chest. And it swallows me up.