Which brings us to my triumphal return to Kennedy airport armed with four pounds of pot in two socks and a plastic baggie. In addition I was carrying the following:

The old rectangular thermal food carrier.

A small duffle type overnight bag with two changes of underwear, one pair of blue jeans, two pairs of socks, one cotton sundress – all unwashed – an extra pair of sandals, tooth paste and brush, hair brush and comb, deodorant stick, small toiletry bag and three Tampax, unused.

The socks and plastic bag with contraband was stuffed somewhere in there with the dirty laundry.

I left my sleeping bag and the tent with Lovegod to bring back on the ship with his trunks and crates and other paraphernalia.

While I waited in the customs line a light somehow broke through the resistance of my idiot’s brain and I realized I could be in some kind of trouble if the customs man pulled out the socks, or the bag.

Which is precisely what happened.

While my heart started to bump like crazy against my chest cavity. Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom.

As the man in front of me – a large Ugly American Tourist type with three cameras slung around his neck, loud Bermuda shorts and a cigar stuck in his mouth – closed up his bags, the customs guy said, “Next.”

My paltry belongings and I slid into position.

Customs guy: “Anything to declare?”

Me: “Nothing.”

Customs guy: “Been away seven weeks, is it?”

Me: “Yes.”

Customs guy: “And you didn’t buy anything?”

Me: “I bought two rugs in Morocco but they’re being shipped back. They were $150.” My heart was now thumping wildly.

Customs guy: “Where’s your luggage?”

Me: “This is it.” We both looked down at the overnight bag and the food bag, now empty save for an apple. I must admit it looked a bit odd for a seven-week stay.

Customs guy: “Like to travel real light, dontcha?”

Me: “I was camping and traveling by scooter. Not much room.”

Customs guy: “Open the bag, please.”

I unzip the small duffle. My heart is now thumping so hard I think my chest must look like a drum that someone’s striking from inside my rib cage.

Customs guy slides his hand deep into the bag and pulls out a suspicious looking sock, which I know has the unmistakable heady scent of freshly harvested marijuana.

At this instant, Ugly American Tourist Guy takes a deep pull on his foul-smelling cigar and unleashes a giant cloud of smoke directly over the entire area occupied by customs guy, me, my bags and the sock.

Customs guy and I breathe the smoke. It is all we can smell. Customs guy squeezes the sock.

Customs guy: “What’s this?”

My brain races. I remember all the lies I have told in my life and realize this has to be the most exalted shining moment in an otherwise not undistinguished career of prevarication in the service of getting off any number of unpleasant hooks.

“It’s my dirty underwear stuffed in socks,” I say staring straight at his eyes. I never moved a muscle or gave any indication that this was not precisely what I was telling him it was. In that moment, I think I grew up about ten years. It became obvious that Lovegod was not the protector my father had always been, that I was going to have to look out for number one, that sex and love are not the same thing, that men are not always fair or even kind. It just never occurred to me before.

Customs guy shoved the sock back into the bag and pushed it down the metal slide.

“Next,” he said to the person behind me, who was smuggling foie gras from Fauchon in Paris, a watch from Patek Phillipe in Geneva and three leather handbags from Milan. He got caught. I saw him standing at the tax window pealing off hundred dollar bills. On top of the tax, there’s a pretty sizable penalty if customs guy catches you in the act. If he had caught me, I could be just about to leave those clanging prison doors behind to start life on the outside. Hell, I could have written five or ten novels by now. Prison matron-type books with me as the desperate victim and evil foul-smelling women with handmade knives surrounding me in the yard, determined to teach me a lesson about getting along and playing nice with the other inmates.

Instead I ended up on an artist’s commune with Lovegod and an odd assortment of kindred spirits, all of whom used to visit our living space regularly to dip into the open bowls of pot that dotted our living room where we had one large and very colorful Moroccan rug and no chairs or couches. We’d sit on the floor and smoke our joints and eat M&Ms and stare into space. That is, when we weren’t painting or making pottery or taking photographs.

After one year of this I left Lovegod and moved to New York. And met somebody else and discovered that sex was really a pretty good thing. I guess my bolts finally loosened up. Maybe it was all the pot. Or maybe Lovegod just wasn’t my type.