As Far As You…

Excerpt from the novel, "As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back: Good Girls Don't Get Stoned

Good Girls Don't Get Stoned is an excerpt from the newly-published novel, As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. Narrated by Carlie, it is a-girl-and-her-backpack story, though Carlie is not merely traveling. A child sexual abuse survivor, as a teen she steals ten thousand dollars and runs away to Asia. This story picks up with Carlie, seventy years old, having just arrived in Manila.

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Daan means road in Filipino. I didn’t speak Filipino. I learned daan from the guy who checked me in. There was a big damn daan just outside the guesthouse, trucks up and down it. I stayed sequestered in the bottom shelf of one of the eight metal bunks lining the walls of the dorm room, spending the dawn hour chewing sticky Filipino candies, small lumps I bought at the airport. Big lumps occupied most of the other bunks. They smelled male. It was too weird, watching them sleep. I didn't feel threatened. Just unimaginably lonely.

I fell in and out of sleep until three Australians invaded the dorm, a brown-eyed frenzy of tanned boobs called Cathy, Katherine, and Cassie, “just off” the overnight bus from the north. The rice terraces were “good fun” and “the local product” easily obtainable. They knew in a second I’d never smoked hash, so I accepted when one of them—Cathy?—offered a cigarette. They cackled as I gagged my way through the first puff.

“Bet she’s cherry, too,” said Cathy in a way that left me feeling extremely seventeen-and-a-half. The girls called me “mate” and asked me along for a beer. It was maybe 10a.m.

At the bar, the music was too loud and all last year, “Would I Lie to You,” sung without a shred of irony by the only other girls here, Filipinas wearing tight little tops and teensy skirts. My new mates ordered a pint each. I asked for a Diet Coke. They went googley-eyed.

I said, “What?”

Cathy called me a no-hopper; didn’t sound good. After breakfast, without asking, the girls lead me onto a city bus then around a pretty cool old fort. They still hadn’t asked my name. Being around the girls drained my anxiety until night. A bar. Two nights in a bar. Men in the bar. Panic. The first night, the girls made a great show of examining the menu. The American guys at the next table bought our dinner and drinks. Beer tasted the way wet, moldy bread smelled. Happily, after five minutes of increasingly enthusiastic sips on an empty stomach, I was able to let go of not being able to take part in American rants about the crappy way Cory Aquino ran the country. Filipinas bobbed around us like the plastic birds at a carnival, waiting to be snatched up, flipped over, and checked for the prize. The men who were going to buy them and fuck them needed to be smashed like white, wooden chairs into the cement wall. Sip. Sip. Later that night, some subset of the girls poured me into my bunk. In the morning, my head thumped like the trucks banging past our window. I asked about Cathy. Cassie sniggered. “We’ll meet up at breakkie,” and the two of them propelled me out the door.

The streets of the shoestring traveler area, the Ermita, were wide and hot, the buildings lining them two-storied and flat-roofed. The restaurant was pineapple yellow. Cathy strolled in 15 minutes after I bummed my first smoke. How could she eat pancakes, talking about the smooth feeling of his nob against the roof of her mouth? That night, the Brits in the bar had some local product. The girls called it a spleefand eagerly partook. Right in the bar. The Brits did not miss the effect that smoking hash had on all those curves gyrating to “Dancing Queen.”

Good girls don't get stoned.

Don’t get stoned, don’t spend the night. When I cold-shouldered the Brit wanting to buy me another beer, Cathy demanded to know if I really was a virgin.

I drained my pint. “Fuck off.”

The goal was to deliver that with the girls’ nasty nonchalance, but I’d never said it out loud and gave it too much gas. When I tried to bum a cig, Cathy told me to buy my own. I stalked to the cash register. I didn’t even know what kind to buy. Cathy liked American smokes. I asked for two packs of the only brand I recognized, Camels, then returned to our table and slid one across the grainy wood. Cathy grinned. “Cheers, mate.” It was settled. The next morning, I snuck out while they slept.

The sky was blue-black, the wide road practically deserted. It was one thing to run away from a father that was messing with you. It was totally different to be on your own, half-way around the world, expected to begin your new life. By the time I walked to the bus station, I was still alone though around more people. The morning was brighter but still misty. Next to a rundown building of two-story cement stretched a parking lot packed with large, colorful buses: blue on top, yellow below; yellow on top, green below. I pulled out my Camels. Smoking was still harsh on my throat, but I was beginning to love the way the cellophane crinkled when you unwrapped a pack, the way you whacked the pack against the heel of your palm to settle the tobacco. The way it gave you something to do when you had no idea what to do. I couldn’t work the match.

A lighter snapped close to my ear. The guy attached to it was thin, with dirty-blond hair. His smile was as hesitant as the morning.

“Me thumb’s burning.”

“Where d’ya buy a ticket?” I was amazed at my voice. One of the girls.

He gestured toward the dilapidated building. I moved off, wishing I wasn’t alone, imagining how the girls would swear when they found me gone. I hauled out my Lonely Planet guidebook, read about Northern Luzon. First stop, city of Baguio. The bus smelled like oil and corn and was about half full, Filipino men in worn-out, short-sleeved button-downs, straw hats, and tense faces. There were a few tired-looking ladies traveling with a passel of kids, live fowl, both.

The lighter guy climbed aboard. Those were some blue eyes. He leaned over with a fresh cig. My shoulders declined for me. From the way he tapped his fist once against the back of my seat, I was left feeling that I should have done that differently.

The bus sputtered to a start. Picking a careful path through increasingly crowded streets, we took almost an hour to clear the congestion that was Manila. The light was soft but crisp and there was a golden, moist feeling in the air. The highway took us past dense, green fields of wide-leafed bushes, smudgy blue hills in the distance. I sucked more smoke and relaxed, finally, into the ragged plastic seat.

Find me now, pal.

Eventually, my pack was empty. The lighter guy leaned over again. This time, I was mellow from the cigarettes. My last smoke was, indeed, my last, and so I shrugged yes to his offer. His name was Bob. He was English. In the two hours spent winding up the rainy road to Baguio, everything reminded Bob of India. “You think this trip is long? On the way to Varanasi, there was no seats left. We hung off the back. Eleven hours. But the trip to Goa … ”

So pleasant, to smoke yet another of his, to put off considering all I would need to accomplish when the highway ended. Only as we approach Baguio did Bob let on that he was twenty-three. I told him I was twenty.

“Oi, you got a name?”

It was time to become who I planned to be. “Carlie Adams.”

He employed that hesitant, compelling smile. “Carlie Adams.” His voice bounced along with the bus. “Nice name.”

That’s why I chose it.

We closed in on Baguio, passing neon pizza parlors and yuppie-looking restaurants. I barely saw them—not because they weren’t what I imagined I would find in a mountain city north of Manila. I wasn’t really seeing the horse-drawn carriages, either. The highway was ending.

Things were blurry, the only reality the damp, black pavement of the parking lot, hard against my feet. Bob slung his pack over his shoulder. His spine slumped into the same question mark I saw on his face.

“Hear of any good guesthouses, Carlie Adams?”

My new name in his mouth was too much pleasure to admit to. Nose to my Lonely Planet, I spearheaded the finding of an alleged cheapie. The street was cobblestone and quiet, but the place had no dorms. The proprietor displayed the only available room.

Modest but spotless, single beds resting along opposite walls of creamy blue.

Bob ticked his head. Guess whether to share was my decision.

The thing about having your own room was, any stranger could come in. At least Bob already seemed kind of something. To find another hotel where maybe they only had one room and maybe it only had one bed; in the meantime, maybe we’d lose this room. Anyway, short of murder, nothing could happen that had not, already.

Someone who sounded a lot like me said, “We should share. It'll be cheaper.”

The rich puddles that were Bob’s eyes darkened at their center.

Quickly, I added, “Let’s grab a beer.”

We wandered cobblestone street until we came across what Bob decided was the right bar. He nodded to the other travelers, ignored the hookers, ordered a couple pints. As we drank, I watched Bob’s mouth on his cigarette, some Filipino brand, then pushed back, angry at wondering what that mouth felt like. I reached for my glass, for the ragged plastic relief of the bus. Eventually, he ground out his cigarette and tucked the butt into his pack. As we walked back to the guesthouse, the dark, cloudy sky reached through my very nice buzz, trying to lift me away. In our room, he folded into his bed as if unconcerned that over in mine, a once again curious girl was noting the way the weak light turned his dirty-blond hair to gold.

I said, “Have you ever gone with a hooker?”

Bob was back to tentative. “Once. Most blokes do. Just to see what it’s like, yeah?”

“And what did you think it would be like?”

Bob tapped twice against the wall. The darkened dots in his eyes moved to my mouth. I pulled as close to the wall as I could and stayed frozen until he turned his back to me. Slowly, then, I was able to relax—and woke gasping into the pitch black.

A lethargic rustle. “Wha …?”

From the darkness, more movement—oh, God. No.

A recognizable click. In the light from his Bic, Bob monitored the situation. He lit a smoke, passed it. My hands shook as I took it. “Sorry.” I wanted someone to hold me, but safely. He would do.

For three days, we roamed the windy, wet city. All touch appeared accidental— elbows bumping as we perused the central market, knuckles brushing if we reach for the same star fruit, the knuckles on him that rapped tabletops in bars shutting down at nine p.m. sharp. Government curfew, enforced by soldiers in the streets. I was drunk by 9 p.m. If you were not drunk by 9 p.m., you would wake gasping and the cute guy across the room would think you were insane.

On day four, we were on the bus to Bontoc. Bob ripped through his day pack for his smokes. I’d made sure I didn’t wake him, overnight. Maybe he was mad because he hadn’t gotten anywhere with me. Maybe he didn’t want to. The trip to Bontoc was seven sodden hours of narrow roads up steeper and steeper hills, of chickens and Filipino cigarettes. The young man in the seat in front of us introduced himself. “Eduardo.” He ranted about the unsatisfactory way Cory Aquino ran the country. “There is a coming revolution.” We arrived in Bontoc as dark settled, followed the flow of white travelers to the Happiness Hotel. Rooms, thirty pesos per person.

Bob said, “Pricey.”

I drooped into the only place to sit, the hard mattress. It was not worth toting my stuff through the downpour to save a nickel a night. “Can’t we just stay here?”

Bob hovered just inside the door, the way my father always did. This bed was a double.

In popped the fellow who’d led the white wave from the bus. This time, he was peddling something he called Purple. Local product, I bet.

The first head tick in about a day. “Purple don’t grow here.”

“Okay. Is Baguio Gold. More cheap, good for smoke all day.”

After some negotiation, Bob peeled a bill off his wad as if it were a scab. I didn’t want this double bed.

The door closed. Bob was in my face with his most expressive smile to date, demonstrating how to cut the not-Purple, the real local product, Baguio Gold, into a cigarette to make a wacky backy. He grinned with the up-and-down of the phrase. Twice I inhaled deeply, hoping to pass out. Instead, I discovered more quiet bliss than I knew existed. We lay on the bed, contemplating the plink-plunk of the rain as Bob smoked a little more. He stroked my arm. When I didn’t stop him, he started on my back. Our bodies fit together so tenderly. The warmth didn’t run away when he kissed me. Even his tongue was nice—not pokey or spitty, just soft. Nice. Then nicer. I had never been kissed this way. I lost track of everything except his lips and tongue running from my mouth to my throat until his hands forged a path up my shirt.

“Unh,” I said into his mouth. “Not ye . . . I can’t . . .”

“Crikey.”

I wanted to know what he meant. Not the word. What was under the word. Strong sunshine pulled me from sleep. The angle of the light said late morning. Bob was right next

to me on the bed, trying to act like he hadn’t just been watching me. I wondered if he was planning to kiss me any time soon.

“Did I totally pass out?”

Bob slipped the butt into its pack. “Sleeper-creeper.”

I must have look confused because he offered a dawdling smile. “The skunk can do that, if you’re not used to it.”

“Guess I’ll have to practice.”

Bob brought out the spleef. Still harsh, but worth it. I heard my voice saying how soft and safe it made everything. Bob rapped his knuckles low against the headboard like he was dealing with a mental case. As if changing the subject, he kissed me, kissed me for a long time before trying anything else, for such a long time that when his hands finally slipped under my shirt, I ached for them. I started to hear several low moans timed exactly to his gentle squeezes. Hey, that was me. Bob crushed me to his chest. I couldn’t take a breath. His tongue made me feel like I had oatmeal stuck all through my mouth. His hands were prodding. Lot of things prodding. It hurt.

“Hurry up.”

He froze mid-thrust, then obliged, sliding silently off me when he was done in a way that said he’d be gone with the first dry dawn. I wanted to slam my own fist into the headboard. That would drive him away for sure, so I curved the front of my naked torso against his bare back. Slowly, his breathing leveled off. I had no idea how I dozed off but must have because I gasped myself from sleep. Blood had been spurting, up to my neck.

“Crikey Moses,” Bob said, rolling away from me.

I slid alongside him. I wanted to enjoy it. Even so, it hurt, him inside me. I bet it wouldn’t if I were still stoned. At least he reached for me again, when the sun came up.

Hopefully, that meant he didn’t think I was a bad lay.

Bob spent the week verifying this. Or not. Moving from Bontoc to the next town, smaller town, Sagada, he head-ticked enough that I wasn’t so worried he would leave, which would result in me, alone, in the mountains of The Philippines. He sure seemed more into getting high, though.

“Where’s the backy?” Bob said one night, rooting through the grey, stinky mound in the ashtray.

“You finished it this afternoon, right before . . .” It did hurt less when I was stoned. “Are you mad at me?”

I sounded like some desperate, clingy girl. I wanted to shriek at Bob, “Are you my boyfriend?” I almost did, the next morning, on the next bus to the next town. We went by miles and miles of rice terraces, an unbelievable shade, Lime Jell-O green, cut into the steep hills like steps for gods. All the white people ooohed and aaahed. I wanted to shriek, “Or are we just screwing?”

It wouldn’t matter if I did, if I strangled him. He didn’t care about me. I almost didn’t care. As long as he didn’t leave.

Next town: Banaue, population 62 or something. We found a two-dollar room, blazed it and fucked. After he came, we hiked into rice country. We were paused for another hit in one of the three-walled huts that dotted the trail when out of the surreal green came a about ten men in raggy, sort-of uniforms. There was no way to know if they were army or revolutionaries, or even real, except that they did carry rifles.

“Get behind me.” Bob was abruptly sober. He gestured in a harmless way as he tossed them his pack of smokes. With only the briefest glance at me, the squad mooched through the foliage.

Someone sat next to me on the plank bench. Bob. He rested his fingertips lightly on my knee. Who taught him to be so kind?

I said, “Fuck.”

He said nothing.

“Did that just fucking happen?” Screw short of murder. When you have a pussy, there is always something worse that could happen. “I’m really seventeen.”

His face was impassive. “I sussed as much.”

“You know, fuck you.”

Bob banged the fatty side of his fist into the wooden wall. I grabbed my day pack and stormed down the very path the soldiers had taken. Let them rape me. Then Bob would be sorry. Tragically, I reached the village unharmed. I got to the restaurant across from our guesthouse before bursting into tears. Bob was an asshole. Single girls along the Lonely Planet Trail were about as rare as hot running water. When curfew sent me back to our hotel, Bob was not in the common area. It was not possible that Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know?” was playing from someone’s room. Bob was not in the toilet; he was not in our room. It was nine-thirty. From the direction we hiked earlier came a sound I had not heard before, gunfire. At six past ten by my travel alarm clock, there were two knuckle taps on our door. I knew instantly: it was Bob and he was okay. When he called, very naturally, “Hallooo,” I waited. I wanted to hear him use my name. He had not said it, not once, since the day we met, when he said it was a nice name. Probably didn’t remember it.

“Carlie, open up.”

I flew to the door and pulled him roughly into my arms. After we disentangled, we stood awkwardly with each other.

“Where were you?”

“The restaurant next door. I missed curfew and had to wait until the soldiers cleared out.”

His blue-eyed bravado was easy to decipher. He drew me in for a long, slow kiss. Even the smell of his sweat told me he needed me, too. After, he lit up a cigarette, exhaled thoughtfully as he passed it. “I shouldn't smoke so much.”

I ran a free finger along his jaw line. “You want me to finish this?”

“No. Skunk.” He closed his eyes, hands locked behind his head. “I’d given it up, right before I met you.”

The boyfriend-ness of it pulled me closer to him. I whispered, “My name … it’s

Jen. I changed it. I ran away. My father, he—oh, Jesus.”

Bob snored lightly.

We woke to more rain. In our room, a similarly grey uncertainty. Bob was not acting like he heard, last night. He smoked, stared out the window at the flank of damp gray, said, “Bloody mizzle.”

He fell asleep, last night.

Bob tucked the last of his cigarette into his pack. God, I hated it when he did that.

“Why do you always do that? Save your butts like that.”

His answer was clinical. “I'm trying not to smoke so much.”

“You said hash.”

“Why do you care?”

“I really don't know, Bob.”

Now he would leave. I said. “Let’s go back to Manila.”

He tapped his pack against the table. As an old man, Bob would be even thinner and more leathery, with careful, selfish movements. When he finally said, “I don't mind,” I could easily have shaken him. At least my father told me he loved me, after. On the bus, Manila was visible on the horizon when Bob laid it on me.

“I’m skint.”

I was not completely sure that meant broke. Bob sorted through his day pack for his “Whichever’s cheapest” shitty-tasting smokes. He said, “I . . . er . . . forgot to change money before we got to Banaue.”

It was Saturday. Banks closed early and wouldn't open until Monday.

I shouldn’t have to give him money. Bob lit his last cigarette.

“You have more traveler's checks, don't you?”

He exhaled out the window. The hot journey was completed as if we sat on either side of a rat trap.

Manila. Flat-roofed buildings and busy boulevards. Bob looked seven stops past furious. I pulled out my Lonely Planet. “We will be staying at the Palace Pension on Jorge C. Bocobo Street.”

“You don’t know where Jorge fucking coconut Street is.”

Two muscled Aussies lumbered up. Apparently, they knew Bob, although I could tell they didn’t remember his name. He was quick with theirs: Nigel and Rudy. Rudy stared at me with a stupid look on his fat features while Nigel, his shorn head bobbing on his stalwart neck, invited us to meet them later, “You remember the place, ey, mate?”

I waved down a cab. The coconut pension turned out to be blessedly cool, a red tile roof with substantial white walls and bricks under our feet that clanked like pottery against a table when we walked over them. Bob whistled.

“My treat,” was all I said as we entered our thick-walled room. Bob considered me, making me wonder what else I’d done wrong until he asked for money. I said, “I figured I’d pay for stuff until you got some wired in.”

Bob’s head tick came with the slow smile I hadn’t seen since our first days together. “Those Aussies, Carlie, they’ll want cash.”

“You said we weren't gonna smoke—”

“How much did I buy for you in Sagada? In blinking Banaue?”

“If you'd been more careful with your own money—”

Bob grabbed my shoulders and shook. He was small, but wiry, strong. He threw me onto the bed, nearly cracking my head against the clean white wall. Standing over me, his face went neutral.

“Give me the dosh.”

I reached into my fanny pack, fumbled for some bills. He snatched them and took off. I tried to stop trembling. Bob used force the way he used the name Carlie—twice when he learned it, once when he wanted me to open the door, and now, when he wanted money. Wanted, wanted, wanted; the only reason he tolerated me.

Because I let him. Blackness. Far away, near the edge of it, was a speck of white light. I went to that dot and understood that the thing to do was move. I sat up straight.

“No.”

I said it out loud. Grabbed my stuff. My ticket went to Bali. Next flight, three a.m. I was on it.

By Alle C. Hall

From: United States

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