Necrophenia

  ‘That Winnebago there,’ said Mick. And he pointed in a rather drippy fashion.

  And so we did not help to erect the candy-striped big top. We took ourselves instead to the Winnebago green room to avail ourselves of drugs and groupies, of which, we felt assured, there’d be plenty.

  Our way was barred, however, by a very big man who asked us for our passes.

  ‘Passes?’ I enquired of him. ‘What would passes be?’

  ‘They would be special passes that license you to enter the green room,’ the very big man told us.

  ‘Licence?’ I said. ‘Again the requirement for a licence?’

  ‘No licence pass, no entry,’ said the fellow.

  ‘This man deserves nothing less than death,’ I heard Toby whisper.

  ‘Would you respond to bribery?’ I asked the very big fellow.

  But he, in sadness, shook his head and told us that it was more than his job was worth.

  ‘And what exactly is your job?’ I asked him.

  ‘I am a roadie for the Stones.’

  ‘My dad was a roadie for The Stones,’ I said, with a degree of wistfulness. As I hadn’t seen my dad for a couple of years.

  ‘Is your dad a big-bearded Scotsman?’ asked the very big fellow who guarded the green room door.

  I agreed that he was.

  ‘Then your name would be Tyler. And that fellow with you, dressed as a postman - would be Andy.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But how do you know?’

  ‘Because I am your daddy,’ said my daddy. ‘I thought I recognised you.’

  And indeed it was my daddy. Although I would not have recognised him, he had changed so much. The rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, I supposed. That, or he had shaved off his beard. (That, then, probably.)

  And so we got into the Winnebago green room.

  What a happy coincidence, eh?

  We couldn’t see much in there due to the dope smoke. The Beatles boasted that they’d smoked dope in the toilets of Buckingham Palace, when they went there to collect their CBEs. But they probably said that in an attempt to look cool. In the hope that it would take right-thinking people’s minds off the fact that they had sold out and actually accepted CBEs. Outrageous!

  But The Stones did have style and the green room heaved with dope smoke. And dope-smoking groupies.

  ‘Hello, ladies,’ said Andy, whose eyesight was perhaps the more acute. ‘I’m John Lennon - does anyone fancy a shag?’

  And how well did that used to work!

  We availed ourselves of the dope-smoking groupies.

  And indeed of the dope that they were smoking.

  Well, at least the others seemed to, anyway. I just bumbled about somewhat trying not to step on writhing bodies whilst breathing in an awful lot of dope smoke. And this went on for a considerable time, until Toby chose to introduce something new into the proceedings. A drug that I had not even heard of before. A drug that Toby told me was called a Banbury Bloater.

  ‘Banbury Bloater?’ I enquired as I floundered about somewhat in the smoggy Winnebago, searching for a groupie I could call my own. ‘What is a Banbury Bloater?’

  ‘Who said that?’ called Toby, his mouth somewhat muffled by bosoms.

  ‘It’s Tyler,’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Toby. ‘Exactly who I’d hoped for.’

  ‘What did you say?’ I asked. Putting my hands upon something naked that didn’t belong to me.

  ‘Hands off my bum,’ said Toby. ‘I said, “Lets all do Banbury Bloaters.” You can do one first.’

  ‘Could I have some sex first?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been really hoping to get some sex, but so far—’ And then I said no more, because I became aware of a lot of female sniggering.

  ‘But I suppose that’s how it goes,’ I continued. Loudly. ‘When you’re Ringo Starr.’ And the sniggering stopped. But no one offered me a shag.

  ‘Down here,’ said Toby. And I located him in the fug. But did have to turn my face away. Because he was having sex. With two women simultaneously. How did he do that?

  ‘Stop ogling my bits,’ said Toby, ‘and score a Banbury Bloater.’

  ‘You were going to tell me why it was so called,’ I said. Accepting a large tartan something that strongly resembled a psychedelic gobstopper. ‘And what am I supposed to do with this?’

  ‘Firstly,’ said Toby, who continued with his dual-lovemaking as he spoke, ‘it is called a Banbury Bloater because it was developed in Banbury by a Druid named Pendragon Bloater. Pendragon was employed by the CIA to develop the drug. It was designed for soldiers in Vietnam, for them to take when they were dying.’

  ‘To revive them?’ I asked. Then I had to apologise to a groupie for stepping on her bottom.

  ‘To revive them? No. To send them on their way in a correct fashion. I read all about in it Conspiracy Theories Today magazine. Those soldiers in Vietnam, they are nothing more than sacrificial victims offered up to placate the War Gods. I bet you didn’t know that.’

  ‘I’ll bet you that I did,’ I said. Because I did.

  ‘Yeah, well, it has been in all the Underground Press,’ said Toby. ‘But the drug was designed to be taken at the moment of death to bestow a universal consciousness to those who took it. It’s not so much a psychedelic gobstopper.’ And Toby held this item towards me, between his forefinger and thumb, and I viewed it very closely amidst the swirling smoke. ‘It’s not so much a psychedelic gobstopper as a universe within itself. It isn’t a chemical, it’s a micro-universe. They’re everywhere, apparently, but you have to know where to look and then how to encapsulate them into a form that can be taken orally.’

  I was staring at the psychedelic gobstopper. And I could see that although it appeared at first glance to be a solid glass marble sort of a body, it was in fact something rather more than that. The closer I looked, the further away it seemed. There appeared, indeed, to be an eternity of nothingness within this spherical something. A fathomless, bottomless pit in which microscopic galaxies gently revolved, and all this was very very cosmic indeed.

  ‘How many of these do you have?’ I asked of Toby.

  ‘Just the one, so far.’

  ‘And you are offering it to me?’

  ‘Well, you don’t think I’d be so dumb as to . . .’ Toby paused for a moment, though not in his lovemaking. ‘What I mean to say is that I’m not as cosmic as you, am I? You’d be the first to admit that you are very cosmic.’

  I was aware of a lot of chuckling, but I did not consider that any of it could possibly be directed at me. Because, after all, Toby, with more awareness and wisdom than I would have given him credit for, had, in his way, struck the nail right upon its enlightened head. I was pretty cosmic. And if anyone would be the suitable someone to take such a cosmic drug, then that cosmic someone would be me.

  Cosmically speaking.

  So to cosmically speak.

  ‘Orally?’ I queried. Staring hard at the fair-sized cosmic something. ‘It does look rather big.’

  ‘What it appears to be and what it is are two different things,’ said Toby. ‘Just to the right a bit there, Marianne . . . yes, that’s perfect.’

  ‘What?’ I queried.

  ‘It has no absolute size. It inhabits no absolute time. It inhabits no absolute space.’

  ‘How exactly did you come by it?’ I enquired.

  ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’

  ‘That isn’t much of an answer.’

  The groupies were growing restless. ‘Bung it in your gob,’ called Mama Cass.

  ‘Well,’ I said. And I wobbled a bit as I said it, because I had been breathing an awful lot of dope smoke. ‘I would take it, because I am pretty cosmic, but I’m just wondering whether—’

  But whatever it was I was wondering, and I cannot in truth remember now just what that might have been, my wondering about whatever it was was abruptly curtailed by the opening of the green room door.

  And Mick Jagger entered, tripped upon bodies and fe
ll forward, right on top of me. Knocking me forward and the out-held Banbury Bloater right into my mouth.

  And right, in a Cosmicky kind of a gulp.

  Right deep down my throat.

  33

  It didn’t so much creep up on me as hit me straight in the brain. It felt as if I no longer had any flesh and blood and bone inside of me. These had ceased to be and I was instead literally filled with the Spirit.

  Hugo Rune wrote about something that he referred to as soul-space - a kind of interior equivalent to the exterior space that surrounds the human body. An interior universe, inhabited by spiritual beings, where events occurred that had a separate reality from exterior events, but were nonetheless real for that. Rune believed that the imagination and what the imagination conjured up were real, but that their reality was only a reality within the soul-space. He developed the idea in many directions. Were, perhaps, the revelations of so-called visionaries the real and genuine revelations offered by entities that inhabited the soul-space?

  The mind boggles, and the more you think about such stuff the more inwardly turning become your thoughts, until you begin to believe that what goes on inside is more real than what goes on outside. Or you begin to confuse the two.

  And then you are, by definition, mad.

  I suppose, then, that the first sensation I experienced was absolute terror. I had suddenly been thrust, as it were, into completely alien territory. I had nothing to cling on to.

  Outside me I could see and sense the exterior universe: the Winnebago green room, with its dope-smoke and heaving bodies. I was aware of this and that it existed as a reality. But I had become aware of this so much more. So much more that I couldn’t even have guessed existed. The internal universe. And although it was seemingly contained within the boundaries of my body, it was vast, endless, limitless. And it had been there all along, but I hadn’t known it was there. A multiverse within me and I never even knew.

  And that is a lot to take in.

  And so I freaked. I foamed somewhat at the mouth and I ranted away like a loon. And I must have done quite a bit of leaping up and down also, because very very soon, I was taken hold of by many hands and cast bodily from the Winnnebago. And how uncool was that?

  You are supposed to care for people when they’re freaking, not shout abuse at them and throw them out on their ear. Uncool. Uncool. Uncool.

  I arose from the grass upon which I had landed. And became suddenly completely aware of the grass. And I mean totally so. I understood the grass. Knew its motivations. Sensed its sadness. I knew grass. I was grass.

  For I had entered Phase II.

  All the Phases of Banbury Bloater have now been thoroughly researched, studied and catalogued by many a Harvard scientist. Many a learned fellow has taken the old Christopher Mayhew journey into the other world of the hallucinogenic. Those who studied the Bloater were changed men for ever. And most dispensed at once with science and took to more spiritual occupations. They did, however, write a lot about their experiences.

  And they all made a big deal of Phase II.

  I looked down at that grass and grass looked up at me. And we both, in our way, came to terms with one another. And we were both, in our separate ways, good with one another. I stepped lightly over that grass. And then I beheld the sky.

  And almost passed immediately into Phase IIa, which is defined as an ‘overwhelming and all-encompassing mind-shock trauma, terminating in complete mental shutdown, followed by death’.

  So not one of the better ones, that.

  But I didn’t die and I didn’t go into shock. What I did was soar in the summer sky. I rose within myself and I soared. And I was at one with that sky.

  And then I saw Woman. And that nearly had me over the edge. There was so much to Woman that I had never before been aware of. How could I not have seen Woman for what Woman truly was? How could I have been so totally blind, so wantonly ignorant, so completely lacking in perception?

  Woman smiled at me and golden rivulets of cosmic ether bathed my cheeks. I could see the aura of Woman, her feelings and passions, loves and longings. I knew just what Woman was. And then once more I was filled with terror. Because I knew that if I could understand what Woman was, then I could also understand what Man was. And to do that might not be a pleasant thing. In fact, it might be a hideous thing. A thing too terrible to take in.

  And so I looked down once more at the grass. The comforting grass that I was getting along with just fine. And I took off my shoes and my socks and I cast them away. And then I padded about on grass. Dear grass. My friend, the grass.

  And I lay down upon that grass and rolled about on and in it. And I was a pretty good match, in my green baize jumpsuit. I was rather grass-like to behold.

  And then I encountered Man.

  And Man scared the baby Jesus out of me. He was big and rough and tough, was Man, and spiky at the edges. And a black fug of ‘smelly’ breathed out of Man and oozed from his pores like ichor. I liked not the sight nor the smell of Man. Nor did I like the feel of Man either. As Man hoisted me up to my feet and stared into my eyes.

  And then I did not like the sound of Man either.

  Man roared and raged. There was neither peace nor harmony in his voice.

  ‘You’re bloody stoned,’ roared Man at me. And he roared in the voice of my brother.

  ‘Andy?’ I asked in a tiny whiney voice. ‘Is that you, my brother?’

  ‘It’s me,’ said Andy. ‘That Toby has laid some very bad acid on you.’

  ‘Not acid,’ I said. And noticed, as I said it, that the words came floating out of my mouth as little colourful bubbles of stuff that burst all over his face.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. Most sincerely.

  ‘He’ll be sorry,’ said Andy. And his words were black like lumps of coal.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s all right, really. This is beyond acid. I am experiencing things that I had no idea even existed.’

  Andy stared at me quizzically. ‘Why are you reciting the alphabet?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I think I have become at one with the universe.’

  ‘Stop doing it now,’ said Andy.

  But—’

  ‘Then end it with that zed.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘One zed is enough.’

  I did noddings at Andy. It was clear, to me at least, that what I thought I was saying was not what I was saying. Which led me to believe that it was not possible to express what I was experiencing to someone who was not experiencing the same thing at the same time.

  And that is another of those Universal Truths!

  And then Andy said, ‘There has been a bit of unpleasantness in the Winnebago. Mick told us all to get out. He wasn’t too taken with Toby shagging his girlfriend. And someone had told him that we were intending to top the bill.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

  ‘So he wants us all to leave. And he’s getting his security roadie boys to chuck us out of the park.’

  I said nothing once again.

  ‘But for some reason he has decided that he wants you to go onstage. He’s got these boxes of butterflies, apparently, and he’s going to read a bit of poetry “for Brian” and then release all these butterflies. And he wants you to bring them on stage.’

  I opened my mouth. But Andy put his hand over it.

  ‘I think Mr Ishmael put a bit of pressure on him,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘He’s here in the park somewhere.’

  And so I got to stand at the side of the stage minding the boxes of butterflies.

  Now, I remember the Edgar Broughton Band and I’m sure some other band that had a black fella with a big afro playing the electric organ. And I do recall, with perfect clarity, the sight of Gilbert and George strolling through the crowd. And I also recall, with perfect clarity, how I became aware that they were perfect Humans, in the manner that they were Perfect Artists, in the manner that they were and, for all I know, still are the
ir own art.

  Which is why I recall seeing them with such perfect clarity.

  And then a big roadie, who didn’t have a beard, but who wasn’t my dad, nudged me rather firmly in the rib-area and told me to, ‘Get ready with those boxes, mate, the star-turn is going on next.’

  And I have to confess that even in my cosmic and all but universally enlightened condition, I was a bit teed-off that The Sumerian Kynges were not going to be the star-turn, or indeed any turn at all. Because this was the Perfect Day that Lou Reed would later sing about and the sun was shining down and Hyde Park was filled with beautiful people. So The Sumerian Kynges really should be playing. Because we were here and this was supposed to be our time.

  So yes. I was a little teed-off.

  ‘And pull the Sellotape off the boxes before you carry them onstage, ’ said the roadie. ‘Mick can’t be having with de-Sellotaping. It wouldn’t be cool.’

  Which had me more than just a little bit more teed-off.

  Not that I wasn’t still cosmic. No, believe me, I was.

  ‘And get your act together, you stoner.’

  And that was an interesting one.

  Because it seemed to me that that final remark triggered something. Or put something into motion. Or brought something into being. A physical/spiritual something. And somehow I projected.

  And although I never touched him with my hands, I pushed that roadie. Very hard. And he flew backwards with a look of perplexity upon his face, the memory of which I still and will always treasure. And he hit the side of The Stones’ limo very hard and collapsed in an untidy heap. And the driver of the limo issued from that limo and looked at me, some distance away, weighed up the possibility that I might have struck the roadie, mentally declared it a no-goer, looked down at the roadie, up at the big dent in the passenger door of the limo and then gave the roadie a very sound and thorough kicking.

  Which caused me to turn my face away. As I was of a delicate disposition. And filled to the very brim with cosmic consciousness.

  But I did smile and chuckle just a bit.

  And I did regard myself and say, ‘Oh yes,’ and then, ‘Oh joy,’ and then, ‘I’m Superman.’