Chapter Twenty

London and Some Goodbyes

Cassy was pleased to buy the teeth necklaces and some Javali tusks.

It was winter in England and so I rented a room in an hotel with central heating. Every day I would go around the shops selling my goods. One shop on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue with Piccadilly bought a large quantity but made me return many times for the payment. His windows were looking out onto the most populated area of London and so he did a big promotion on the teeth by filling his entire window with them. The bright window spotlights announced the latest Latin American craze to hit Piccadilly.

That night as I lay in my hotel room with the central heating turned up full, I heard the click and popping sound coming from my by now almost empty stock case. I slowly opened the lid expecting to find a mouse or rat but to my dismay, I found my silver topped Javali teeth, splitting and cracking and the tops flopping off. The heat of the room was drying the uncured teeth too fast and the silver caps were restricting the expansion and distorting.

The next day I went to the shop in Piccadilly. The window was full of bits of broken teeth – the window’s lights had been far too strong. I arranged to replace all the broken teeth that I had sold and learned the lesson to slow dry ivory first like wood.

Ken had rented a luxurious flat in one of the better areas of London and was supplying the top people with his product. I went to visit him but could not stand the coke ambience of speed, pressure and one-upmanship. Coke freaks are usually dangerous people to be around. Ken was arrested a few days later. The police had set him up and he was sent down for three years. Whilst I was in London I also went to see John & John; quite a coincidence that I should choose the night that John was going to smuggle Paddy out of England in the chassis of a hired camper truck. Paddy it seems had become the leader of an international drug-smuggling ring. He had an organisation set up in Pakistan fabricating hash oil which was smuggled into England in unsuspecting tourist cars and with other methods. From England, Paddy would send his runners to Canada, Australia and the USA where he had waiting buyers.

One of his boys got caught and told all, and so Paddy had to get out of England in a hurry. He was planning to return to Pakistan. I was there to say goodbye as they drove off for Dover and the ferry. I have since heard that Paddy died.

The story that I heard was that his heart gave out whilst carrying boulders up a hill. For some reason, he felt that he had to carry stones out of the river to the top of a mountain. Maybe it had something to do with the story that he once told me. He stole a steel cross from a church and fitted it on the front of his camper van and then drove into the country. On the way he picked up a hitchhiker and pretended that he was a priest. He gave the boy a tab of acid and took one himself then he stopped by a river and invited the boy to join him for a swim. They both dived in but the boy smashed his head on a rock and went unconscious. Eventually Paddy pulled him out and gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation but as he was doing so he said that he saw the boy decomposing in his very arms. Paddy said that he could not accept the boy’s death and so he continued trying to revive him for what seemed like hours. As the LSD wore off, he realised what had happened and so he buried the boy under a mound of rocks and went on his way.

Whilst I was in England I also saw John Bradshaw for the last time. I bumped into him in a tobacco shop. He was falling apart. His skin was full of sores, his clothes filthy, the backside of his trousers full of holes and his shoes were like gaping crocodile mouths. It took him a few minutes to recognise me but when he did he told me that he had found his true love – Lady Heroin. He knew that he was dying fast but as he said, he wanted to stay with his love. I was told that John died soon after.

I visited my mum in Blackpool and also Jimmy. I promised them both that I would take them to Brazil. My sister and brother-in-law now had a son called Glen and so I visited them in Liverpool and then I returned to London. Cassy needed help in his growing business and so I took my friend Bob to work for him. Bob promised to keep the best parcels coming my way so I returned to my developing empire.

On my return to Brazil, Neride told me that she was pregnant. I was pleased to see her so happy, and happy to know I would have an heir. Neride and I decided to spend some of our money on a farm. We found the ideal place halfway between Rio and São Paulo, on the coast in a small colonial town by the name of Paraty. The farm, a banana farm, is on the edge of a waterfall in a valley in the mountains which overlook the sea. I named the farm “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

In the area of the waterfall, I created the Strawberry Fields Naturist Club, because I had been and have been and always will work with the Amerindians (Indians in the Amazon). They do not use any clothes or wrappings to hide their body because insects get into the material. But they do paint their bodies with a red purple plant juice called ‘jenapo urukum’. My nudist club had a river with beautiful ice cold water and waterfalls. The people took off their clothes and then painted themselves to protect them from mosquitoes and other insects. It was wonderful to see all those beautifully coloured naked people enjoying their dancing. Under each of the three waterfalls there were little caves with sandy beaches, so I put a good sound system in to play the Beatles music to make love to. ‘Love Love Me Do’ was a constant soundwave. And it was so beautiful to see all those really bright red people.