In the only photo I have with me here I am 15, maybe 16 years old. I have on a white cheesecloth shirt with red and blue embroidery, flared light blue jeans, some Kashmiri beads around my neck, a leather wrist band on my left wrist combined with a few cheap Indian bangles, and I have long hair, lots of it, I'm lying on the bed, odalisque style, on the orange candlewick bedspread and the curtains are a riot of color, they'd been bought with the G-Plan Danish furniture in the late 60's, they were great for staring at when you were tripping, as was the Bridget Riley Op Art cover for the Faust Tapes album that I had Blu-Tacked to the wall over my bed. (Tell them about the hair...) Ok, back to the hair, it fell down my back past my shoulders, I used to hook the sides behind my ears, and there were definitely cool and uncool ways to flick your head back so that it fell just right.
It used to drive my Mom crazy, that and the two gold earrings in my left ear, "Oh dear (deep Valium sigh), Douglas, what will the neighbors think?, You look like a drug taking hippy, not a nice boy, you were always such a nice boy", this last word trails off into the deepest sigh the world has ever heard and it's probably still echoing around deep down in the Marianas Trench. She kept a faded school photo of me when I was around 12 years old on display on the kitchen window sill, she could look at it while she was washing the dishes, just to remind her that I really was her son, and that I had really been nice once. That photo went into the rubbish bin more than once, but she always seemed to find it and rescue it, or me.
Anyway, Mom was right on the money there, about my extra curricular activities, her paranoia never failed her, we never talked about the sweet smell of pot coming from my room late at night, or her ambushing me while sitting in the living room with a half empty bottle of whatever, or her new pill prescription being gone in 2 weeks instead of 4. We never mentioned the day I started laughed hysterically at Sunday lunch, my Auntie Flo had come to visit and she was wearing a black and yellow striped sweater, she looked just like a bee. The 500 micrograms of White Lightning was making itself felt, and every time she tried to speak instead of making words she buzzed...(I don't know who was more shocked, me or her)..."Pleasze passz the peaszzzz, pleazzzz pazz ze peazzzz, pzzzzz pzzzzz bzzz.", an absolute laugh riot, but the bad kind, it took me 2 days in bed to stop laughing over it, and I can still see the freeze frame picture of my Mom's face with it's rictus of shock and alarm, and I can still see in fine detail the proboscis that had grown from where my Aunt's nose should have been.
Well, hey I was young, what the fuck did I care what the neighbors thought, I only cared what Lesley thought, and she liked my long hair, and the earrings, she thought it made me look like a Gypsy, even though my Dad's family were real-life Gypsies, Romany's in fact, in Wales, and I got my darker, slightly Slavic looks from them. She was beautiful, I still have a picture or two of her on a trip we took one sodden winter week to St.Ives, in my favorite, she's sitting on a garden wall, she's wearing a 60's pink floral mini dress and she's pouting unhappily at the camera and by extension, at me. I made a lot of inane comments those days, thinking myself an intellectual and a thinker, but she could see through the crap, at 16 she was through with that, and was grounded, I envied her ability to stand up under the weight of gravity. When we were 18 or so, she told me seriously one night that she wanted to have my child, that it didn't matter if I was going to be around or not, but she wanted it...so...I did the most selfish thing I could and ran the fuck away, sometimes now I wish I'd stayed, but back then I really would have been a lousy father.
It used to drive my Mom crazy, that and the two gold earrings in my left ear, "Oh dear (deep Valium sigh), Douglas, what will the neighbors think?, You look like a drug taking hippy, not a nice boy, you were always such a nice boy", this last word trails off into the deepest sigh the world has ever heard and it's probably still echoing around deep down in the Marianas Trench. She kept a faded school photo of me when I was around 12 years old on display on the kitchen window sill, she could look at it while she was washing the dishes, just to remind her that I really was her son, and that I had really been nice once. That photo went into the rubbish bin more than once, but she always seemed to find it and rescue it, or me.
Anyway, Mom was right on the money there, about my extra curricular activities, her paranoia never failed her, we never talked about the sweet smell of pot coming from my room late at night, or her ambushing me while sitting in the living room with a half empty bottle of whatever, or her new pill prescription being gone in 2 weeks instead of 4. We never mentioned the day I started laughed hysterically at Sunday lunch, my Auntie Flo had come to visit and she was wearing a black and yellow striped sweater, she looked just like a bee. The 500 micrograms of White Lightning was making itself felt, and every time she tried to speak instead of making words she buzzed...(I don't know who was more shocked, me or her)..."Pleasze passz the peaszzzz, pleazzzz pazz ze peazzzz, pzzzzz pzzzzz bzzz.", an absolute laugh riot, but the bad kind, it took me 2 days in bed to stop laughing over it, and I can still see the freeze frame picture of my Mom's face with it's rictus of shock and alarm, and I can still see in fine detail the proboscis that had grown from where my Aunt's nose should have been.
Well, hey I was young, what the fuck did I care what the neighbors thought, I only cared what Lesley thought, and she liked my long hair, and the earrings, she thought it made me look like a Gypsy, even though my Dad's family were real-life Gypsies, Romany's in fact, in Wales, and I got my darker, slightly Slavic looks from them. She was beautiful, I still have a picture or two of her on a trip we took one sodden winter week to St.Ives, in my favorite, she's sitting on a garden wall, she's wearing a 60's pink floral mini dress and she's pouting unhappily at the camera and by extension, at me. I made a lot of inane comments those days, thinking myself an intellectual and a thinker, but she could see through the crap, at 16 she was through with that, and was grounded, I envied her ability to stand up under the weight of gravity. When we were 18 or so, she told me seriously one night that she wanted to have my child, that it didn't matter if I was going to be around or not, but she wanted it...so...I did the most selfish thing I could and ran the fuck away, sometimes now I wish I'd stayed, but back then I really would have been a lousy father.
At that time she thought that being a Gypsy would be so cool, it was a facet of the free wandering lifestyle we all fancied having once we could break away from the torpid, tentacular clutches of Mom and Dad, and the circle of Hell that was Durham Johnston Secondary school, which was about number 7 on my list of "things to do today", (the first circle of hell to be exact, where we were not judged by Minos, but by Mr.Cuthbert, who was not only the Head Master but also our Religion Teacher), and in true rebellious spirit, we would throw off the chains of what we saw as real suburban red brick wall privet hedge bourgeois middle class Tory hell.
Well it was the early 70's, in England, and the tide had already gone out on the economic boom, there we were, high and dry, the whole hippy/gypsy/Crowley/androgynous thing looked great compared to un-swinging prissy England, in backwater prissy North East England to be exact.
I guess it was a summer day, we'd brought a picnic and were lying on a blanket spread out under a tree, an idyllic moment like a Manet painting. Hmm, memories you say, will you reminisce about that day, did it mark you for life, was there a psychic undertow? Memories often are idyllic aren't they, perfect memories, a greetings card moment...but this is the thing...I can't trust my memories any more, I'm never sure these days if they're real or if I'm grabbing derangedly onto a scene from a movie, or a description in a book, or perhaps it's all just made up for this story and none of this ever happened... but truth be told, she might of been sad that afternoon, she was sad a lot those days, I never really knew why, and I don't remember if I ever cared to ask why....no....I must of done, I did a lot of caring back then I seem to recall.
Ok, so it was a perfect summer day and we'd spread out an Indian print blanket below the perfect tree, we're lying side my side, barely touching, though from time to time I could feel the soft down on her right arm caress me as she reached across me for a cigarette, and we're staring at the perfectly white clouds that are drifting through the picture perfect blue sky, occasionally their symmetry is cut and carved into as they pass over the tallest branches of this perfect tree. Did I tell you how she looked, I don't really remember all that about the trees and the sky, but I do remember her face, her hair was blond, she had perfect long lashed blue eyes, there was some Asian DNA in there some where and they were wider than most English people's eyes, many guys didn't fall for her looks, they wanted something a little more normal and balanced, and they thought she looked a bit weird, but if you liked the eccentric and the off kilter then you would have found her as beautiful as I did that day....and many days (I was an egomaniac fool then and I let her go because I thought I could do better).
She jumped up suddenly and started rummaging through the huge brown leather saddlebag she used to lug around, part handbag, part home from home, They have to be here somewhere!, she was half muttering to the bag and half to herself, Where the hell have they got to?, she added fretfully. What's going on babe, I attempt to be really cool, trying to channel my French Alain Delon in answer to her Germanic Nico, but she's deep into the bottomless depths of that bag and all I hear is monotone cursing. Come on back down - I almost plead, losing my non-existent cool, No, no way I gotta find the cards I just got a flash about you - she projects the words upwards in an arc out of the bottom of the bag, I have to ask, being too stoned to truly guess or remember - What cards?. She almost yells at me - The Tarot cards! Doug, The Tarot! What else?. Now I get it, she's been on the Lebanese hash all afternoon and she's tripping, seeing things in the sky and having time slip away from under her her, she can get like this some times, she'll be really serious and she'll want me to pay full attention to her. All I can think of is getting her to calm down and come lie back down, so I can run my fingers through her hair and space out. Lesley it's ok, don't freak out we'll get the cards from your house later, come back here and have a ciggy - I pat the grass she's flattened already - you know my future already, lots of fucking great gear and pegging out on stage from a heart attack at thirty, right - I'm joking with her to get her riled up a bit so she'll get her mind off the cards, she hates it when I talk that way, even jokingly. All this time she's been diving in the depths and suddenly she appears triumphantly - Got 'em yay gimme a ciggy I have to concentrate now ok so stop talking...she giggles and falls over my leg, landing on top of me, I go to throw my arms around her to keep her down but she's too damn fast, and in a blur of hair and denim jacket she's sitting cross legged on the grass close to me, I wish I could take a picture.
Ok, let's see if I'm crazy - she almost gloats shuffling the deck, the Crowley Thoth deck I see, this means real business is coming whatever the cards say. Ok, you know what to do, cut the cards, and lay three out in a row...just here - she draws a line between us in the grass humming under her breath. I think - I hope this future's not too permanent. Really, why would I think that?, why so jittery all of a sudden?, do I sense something? She's not got bad news for me has she?, it's too perfect a day for bad news.
I guess it was a summer day, we'd brought a picnic and were lying on a blanket spread out under a tree, an idyllic moment like a Manet painting. Hmm, memories you say, will you reminisce about that day, did it mark you for life, was there a psychic undertow? Memories often are idyllic aren't they, perfect memories, a greetings card moment...but this is the thing...I can't trust my memories any more, I'm never sure these days if they're real or if I'm grabbing derangedly onto a scene from a movie, or a description in a book, or perhaps it's all just made up for this story and none of this ever happened... but truth be told, she might of been sad that afternoon, she was sad a lot those days, I never really knew why, and I don't remember if I ever cared to ask why....no....I must of done, I did a lot of caring back then I seem to recall.
Ok, so it was a perfect summer day and we'd spread out an Indian print blanket below the perfect tree, we're lying side my side, barely touching, though from time to time I could feel the soft down on her right arm caress me as she reached across me for a cigarette, and we're staring at the perfectly white clouds that are drifting through the picture perfect blue sky, occasionally their symmetry is cut and carved into as they pass over the tallest branches of this perfect tree. Did I tell you how she looked, I don't really remember all that about the trees and the sky, but I do remember her face, her hair was blond, she had perfect long lashed blue eyes, there was some Asian DNA in there some where and they were wider than most English people's eyes, many guys didn't fall for her looks, they wanted something a little more normal and balanced, and they thought she looked a bit weird, but if you liked the eccentric and the off kilter then you would have found her as beautiful as I did that day....and many days (I was an egomaniac fool then and I let her go because I thought I could do better).
She jumped up suddenly and started rummaging through the huge brown leather saddlebag she used to lug around, part handbag, part home from home, They have to be here somewhere!, she was half muttering to the bag and half to herself, Where the hell have they got to?, she added fretfully. What's going on babe, I attempt to be really cool, trying to channel my French Alain Delon in answer to her Germanic Nico, but she's deep into the bottomless depths of that bag and all I hear is monotone cursing. Come on back down - I almost plead, losing my non-existent cool, No, no way I gotta find the cards I just got a flash about you - she projects the words upwards in an arc out of the bottom of the bag, I have to ask, being too stoned to truly guess or remember - What cards?. She almost yells at me - The Tarot cards! Doug, The Tarot! What else?. Now I get it, she's been on the Lebanese hash all afternoon and she's tripping, seeing things in the sky and having time slip away from under her her, she can get like this some times, she'll be really serious and she'll want me to pay full attention to her. All I can think of is getting her to calm down and come lie back down, so I can run my fingers through her hair and space out. Lesley it's ok, don't freak out we'll get the cards from your house later, come back here and have a ciggy - I pat the grass she's flattened already - you know my future already, lots of fucking great gear and pegging out on stage from a heart attack at thirty, right - I'm joking with her to get her riled up a bit so she'll get her mind off the cards, she hates it when I talk that way, even jokingly. All this time she's been diving in the depths and suddenly she appears triumphantly - Got 'em yay gimme a ciggy I have to concentrate now ok so stop talking...she giggles and falls over my leg, landing on top of me, I go to throw my arms around her to keep her down but she's too damn fast, and in a blur of hair and denim jacket she's sitting cross legged on the grass close to me, I wish I could take a picture.
Ok, let's see if I'm crazy - she almost gloats shuffling the deck, the Crowley Thoth deck I see, this means real business is coming whatever the cards say. Ok, you know what to do, cut the cards, and lay three out in a row...just here - she draws a line between us in the grass humming under her breath. I think - I hope this future's not too permanent. Really, why would I think that?, why so jittery all of a sudden?, do I sense something? She's not got bad news for me has she?, it's too perfect a day for bad news.
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