Bobby awoke on the 12th April 1997. He was in his and Shiva’s bed in Swingate Lane. He thought about his life for a minute....
What a strange year he’d had. It all seemed to start in the February of 1996. He and Shiva had had a couple of strange indigo coloured pills. They only seemed to hit the streets for a short time but in that time Bobby, Shiva and some of their mates experienced a run of weird waking dreams. Now and again one of them would have a moment of insight that seemed to originate from one of the many fantastic tales that they remembered from that particular drug experience. They all knew that none of them had physically moved while on this drug but each had brought back a selection of interlocking stories. They would have regarded these stories as purely the product of dreaming if it weren’t for the fact that all their stories seemed to link in one way or another. This led to them taking any flashbacks concerning that time very seriously indeed.
These flashbacks also coincided with bursts of heightened political activity. This activity, where Bobby and his friends were concerned, always involved a strike, a demonstration, protest or riot. Seeing as Bobby and his friends were all anti-authoritarian all these situations involved them struggling against the cops or other right-wing organisations.
When Buffalo next saw Angelica the prostitute after she had given him the indigo pills he could only half explain what affects they’d had on him. He apologised for having distributed all of them when she told him she couldn’t get any more. She had then said that she wouldn’t have given him all of them if she’d have wanted to do one herself. Anyway she seemed more interested in getting her next loan company embezzlement off the ground with him.
The weirdest thing about the pills was that the effects only seemed to last a half-hour or so in real time. There was no come down and very little memory of what happened while they were out of it. The bulk of the memories concerning the experience seemed to occur sporadically over the next year. Even these were, at best, a series of mostly random visions that only made sense when those who took the pills were in direct conflict with the forces of authority. Their appreciation of environmental issues had become more passionate as well. Bobby had begun to note down any memories that seemed pertinent to that trip. He’d started to apply his written analysis to experiences from other trips as well to see if there were links. He was beginning to write a book he intended to call “Relative Rewind”.
Bobby sat up in bed and opened his eyes. He looked out of the window and saw a fifty-foot, fire-breathing dragon. It was one of those asked to guard The Tree Of Life. The beast was obviously too huge to be able to get into the room with him, but he could look in through the glass well enough. Bobby waved to him and the dragon waved back.
The dragon was called Aristotle, a haughty yellow and gold beast with long curving horns above his pointy ears and a high decorative frill down his back tapering off towards his pointed tail. His huge, featherless wings flapped wildly when he was excited. From his chin hung a long, pointed beard, itself coloured a sharp fiery yellow, whilst his snout, eyebrows and ears were a brilliant orange like the sunset. His claws, teeth and horns were milky white like a summer cloud and his eyes were jet black jewels set on bright golden, round lily pads moving on a sea of white marble. His armour was made of plates of elven silver and along each plate were set sapphires, diamonds and coiling tendrils of crystal. Elven silver link-mail covered his hands, the top of his head and his feet. His armour could deflect the strongest steel-tipped arrow. When the weather wasn’t too hot he would also wear a silver helmet with holes for his horns to go through. His claws were sharp enough to cut the lightest of silks with a single stroke and yet powerful enough to punch through the heaviest of shields. His touch could be as gentle as a kitten’s.
He had read ten thousand books, fought ten thousand battles and had boiled up ten thousand pots of tea with his fiery breath. He regarded himself as ten thousand times wiser than he was ten thousand years ago. He could dig like a mole and helped the twelve red-bearded dwarves of Salamander construct their intricate and ornate tunnels and palaces under the mountains of Secretia. He did have one major hang-up. He wasn’t all that good with heights. If he had to fly at all he usually kept his eyes shut and used his sense of smell. Aristotle also had a riotous sense of humour. He would often play childish practical jokes on folk and be the one to laugh loudest if they worked.
“Morning Bobby,” he said.
“Morning Aristotle,” said Bobby.
“That’s good,” said the dragon. “You know my name.”
“Yeah,” said Bobby. “I do, don’t I? How do I know that?”
“You’ve been fusing with your Edenic consciousness. The cherub Sydny Smith and you are both beginning to know what each other knows and see what each other sees.”
It was Plato who had introduced Aristotle to philosophical argument and there were times when he wished he hadn’t. The cherub Socrates had been the one who introduced Plato to philosophical argument and there were times when he actively hid from the two dragons.
They’d be flying around Eden looking for the little cherub in order to clarify a few points and he, not knowing the answers, would turn into a tree or a rock until that passed by. This greatly amused the other cherubim. Socrates did discuss philosophy with them from time to time but dragons can be pretty insistent.
Like Plato the dragon, Aristotle had theories on how to keep a society stable. He believed in cultural relativism. He opposed Plato’s idea that there should be one set of rules on how to behave. He reckoned that if you try and adopt one set of rules it causes arguments and conflict. He saw life as being in a state of flux. He saw life as a whirlpool of ever changing differing ideals and attitudes. He believed that the most you could hope for was a situation where each group of life forms respects the differences between them and other groups. He also believed that each individual life form should respect the differences between itself and those around it. Plato and Aristotle thus argued and argued on these points, drawing from every example and experience they could. Plato said that their arguments proved that more than one set of rules caused trouble. Aristotle said that arguments proved that a lack of respect for different rules caused trouble.
Aristotle adhered to all the theories pertaining to the possibility that the Cosmic Egg may one day hatch and bring all consciousnesses together, after each individual’s death. He also believed that a search for absolute truth in the mean time was wasted effort. Plato saw the pleasures of the flesh as a distraction from intellectual advancement but Aristotle saw them as the reason for living.
Plato saw the senses interpreting the truth but never showing us all of it but Aristotle saw the subjectivity of the senses as proof that no absolute truth existed as we understand it.
Aristotle had had his share of aggro too. He once fought alongside king Alfred and the dwarves of Endlestrasse. This kingdom of dwarves suffered an assault from the rampaging trolls of Limbridge. Endlestrasse was a Queendom but a massive dispute over a sport called footah had led to a gender split. As soon as all the female dwarves left the trolls realised that Endlestrasse was now fifty times more vulnerable. With Aristotle’s help and the return of the female dwarves the trolls had been easily chased off. The female dwarves had come back when the male dwarves agreed to let the female dwarves play aswell. Aristotle had presided over this agreement after he had suggested it.
The trolls had had an ally at Endlestrasse in the form of the evil dragon known as ‘The Worm of Tory Towers’ (or Malthus as some knew him).
Aristotle was gutted when the worm escaped at the end of the conflict.
Rumour had it that the worm now ruled the Stock Eggs Change alongside the evil spectre in The Desolation of Cain.
Malthus was an extremely cruel dragon. His was a hide of dark blue with flecks of red and white on it. His scales were jagged and sharp and his bat-like wings were slippery like snakeskin. He had a black-forked tongue and sharp yellow claws. His battle armour was a dirty grey with runic obscenities scrawled all over it. Instead of fire he breathed gusts of cold air and particles of ice. He froze creatures to death and spat darts made from sharp stalactites and stalagmites which grew and hung in his throat.
As an ice dragon his cold deeds matched his cold heart. Other ice dragons hated him and were his sworn enemies. The worm had encouraged the growth of such tumours as the Desolation of Cain wherever he could.
Although the dwarves of Endlestrasse had kings and queens it is important to note that these posts did not denote a position of power. They were merely job descriptions like gardener, miner or cobbler. The role of a king or a queen was simply that of spokes-person. In the dwarf realm royalty was the voice for the collective decisions the dwarves made.
Aristotle the dragon faded from view and Bobby woke up.
He was left with precious few minutes to get himself ready for the day ahead.
It was the 12th of April. Shiva and he would soon be off to the March for Social Justice. This involved picking up everyone who needed a lift in his and Shiva’s recently acquired Sherpa van. They had called the van “Rosa” after the German communist revolutionary from the Twenties and Thirties. They had painted a red and black belt of Celtic knot-work around it. Each end of the knot-work grew into a red and black dragon’s head. Each head ran along the length of each wing of the van.
Picking folk up involved a lot of toing and froing and running back and forth between various Saaaarrf Eeeeeast Lundun locations.
Their first port of call would be the gaff where Robin Hood and Maid Marion were staying. Robin had recently had her dread-locks cut off to reveal a more symmetrical head of hair. Marion’s dreads were still firmly in place. On the day of the march Marion wore dungarees and Robin had on an orange and green sweatshirt with an Inca style design around the hem. They now had a one-year-old daughter. She was, on the day of the march, in the hands of a baby-sitter. The baby’s name was Robin Banks Robinson. She was cool. Robin Hood was now a post-natal anarchist warrior woman. In some ways this had made her a far more fearsome critic of capitalist stupidity. She now had her own child to protect as well as everybody else’s. Her sharp humour was in constant evidence as her teeth shone. Her eyes had a glint in them that spoke of years of social and political empowerment. She was in her mid-twenties but had the intellectual fibre of a middle-aged philosopher. This, of course, did not detract from her extremely youthful countenance. She gloried in the extreme behaviour of protesters and partygoers. There was an unbridled sexuality in her assertive compassion for the environment. This was the core reason for her ability to tame Maid Marion.
Marion stood a good half a foot taller than Robin but Robin most definitely wore the trousers. Ever since Marion had met her, his had been the life of someone experiencing the most extreme of upward learning curves. She had rescued him from alcoholism and a life of petty ‘crime’ and violence. Their relationship then blossomed into a cultural tour de force. Now Marion led an enlightened life of important ‘crime’ and Direct Action. His angular features were drawn into the same set of wide smiling grimaces that so shone from Robin’s activist sensibilities. They were a new age couple par excellence.
They now had a daughter to train. They had moved to West Wales to do that and to give their baby’s lungs a chance.
Robin Banks Robinson had been the first month old child that Bobby Rewind had ever been given to hold. Bobby’s extreme infant experience occurred a year or so before The March For Social Justice. It happened on a trip to West Wales that Shiva, Bobby, Animal the drummer and the ethereal guitarist and pacifist Vishnu Jones had embarked on. Bobby was heavily stoned when Robin handed him Robin. Bobby looked into Robin Banks Robinson’s eyes as the tiny baby looked into his. Bobby felt that his ego had immediately become transparent and that the baby could see into his mind in a way that cut through all the pretensions and social convenience that most adults use in order to bluff and blunder through life. Bobby felt truly naked. Everyone in the room laughed when they saw the look of awe on Bobby’s face.
Bobby had reacted the same with all three of the babies that mates of theirs had had around the same time. It applied to Edgar Allen Poe and Candy’s new baby Eden and it applied to Billy. Billy was the venerable result of a union between the cooooooool Eliza Jane and the manic Taz, two of the most ardent gig promoters Bobby had ever met.
Back in Swingate Lane Bobby realised Shiva had woken up. As he was getting dressed he started chatting.
“Come on.... we’ve got some “Direct Action” to perform.”
“Yeah I know.” It didn’t do to push Shiva too much in the morning.
Bobby changed the subject....
“You know when I first handled Robin Banks Robinson a year ago in Wales.”
“Yeah.” said Shiva getting up.
“When I first saw her I said then that it appeared that she was able to see something inside me. I still feel that. It was as if I was suddenly unable to lie or exaggerate for fear that she would immediately know. She seemed to have that thousand-yard stare at the same time. It was like she was somehow cosmically attuned as a result of being half here and half somewhere else. It felt like she was only using a small part of her consciousness to analyse the few experiences that she had had on this planet so far. It almost felt as if the rest of her consciousness was still pre-occupied with where she was before she was born. It’s the same look the extremely old have. They appear to be in a similar awe as a result of maybe glimpsing what may happen after death as an abstracted set of images interwoven within the fabric of their immense memories.
The very old and the very young seem to have that “half-way house” look about them. They thus appear less cluttered by social graces and day to day conditioning. This all seems to give rise to all kinds of speculation about the possibility of a pre-life and an after-life.”
Bobby carried on dressing and thought back to that trip to Wales. He and Vishnu Jones had cooked a curry. Bobby had been stirred a pan of lentil dal when Marion had chucked in a load of dog food. Bobby screamed in shock and confusion and at length shouted:
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?”
Marion then pointed out that the doggo chunks were made out of “textured vegetable protein” and proved it by showing Bobby the ingredients on the packet. “T.V.P.” was originally developed as a stuffing for sofas and chairs and was now the ingredient in many vegetarian products.
“The only difference is,” said Marion “doggo chunks are 40 times cheaper than the over-packaged crap that you get in health food shops.”
The meal tasted georgeous!
Back in Swingate Lane Shiva and Bobby finished dressing and had breakfast. They then jumped into the van and made their way from house to house picking up their passengers. They parked up some way from Finsbury Park where the march was gathering. They then walked the rest of the way.
Sidney and Cindy Strange were part of the eight strong anarchist cell that Shiva and Bobby had ferried into town. The other six were Maid Marion, Robin Hood, Donald the Druid and Slithey Tove as well as Bobby and Shiva themselves.
Cindy Strange had a blue tracksuit on with go-fast stripes down the arms. She had a tight fitting black T-shirt and her shoulder-length blonde hair arced around her enquiring and expressive features. She was about five foot six inches tall and her slender body had been dynamically honed by a life-style of pills, trips, gigs, raves and dance. Bobby had first met her when she was fourteen and the best mate of Kazz Khaos’s sister Shereeeel.
Cindy had evolved, by the age of twenty-two, into an impassioned political commentator and free festival organising rave queen. Her thirst for knowledge matched the elegance of her features. She revelled in the beauty of sub-culture and had a finely tuned psychedelic sense of aesthetics. When Bobby, Sid and Cindy were in Hyde Park to celebrate the 50th anniversary of LSD she had chosen to wear a collection of orange, red and yellow swirling patterns which arced and curved as they hugged her body in the form of a T-shirt and mini-skirt. Cindy looked fantastic. To top it all she carried an orange, red and yellow flower that almost seemed like a floral extension of her body. The whole affect was electrifying. A Hippie photographer rushed up to them. He asked if he could take a picture and she agreed. As he took it he enthused about how she had understood the flavour of the acid anniversary. Bobby noticed that the man had a little tear in his eye as he snapped the shot. Cindy, Sidney and Bobby then went to Speaker’s Corner where acid crazed revellers were in hysterics as religious extremists tried to explain their bigoted views.
Sidney Strange, Cindy’s partner for eight years, was twenty-nine. He was wearing a purple sweatshirt and purple jeans at Finsbury Park. He had short-cropped hair and the hard features of an intellectual sceptic who had refined his perception of society on the streets. His laconic sense of humour often erupted into bursts of deranged laughter. This often happened in situations where he and Bobby were displaying the most profound incompetence. It could be a mechanical problem with a transit van. It could be an electrical problem with an amplifier. It could be the misplacing of a thousand flyers for a gig. It could be a failed attempt to outrun a police vehicle in a high street chase. Whatever it was Bobby would know they were in the shit because Sidney would laugh hysterically and exclaim “We’re crap we are”. Ironically it would then invariably take Sidney’s extremely practical mind to get them out of the shituation they were in. Sidney was an expert at finding rational solutions to sudden problems. There was one exception to this rule though.
This exception involved his almost total inability to be pleasant to policemen.
On their way back from a gig some four years earlier Cindy Strange, Sidney Strange, Kazz and Bobby had run into a road that led off Lewisham High Street in Saaaarf Lundun. It turned out to be a cul de sac. Bobby felt very small all of a sudden.
Bobby got out of their transit and turned to face the angry looking cops who had flashed them down.
“Trying to outrun us?” asked cop No.1 sarcastically.
“Sorry constable.” said Bobby as he dismounted from the driver’s seat. He could see that he was talking to an officer. He knew that calling officers constables got on their tits.
Rikki Rochester, the bassist of Psycho’s Mum, often did this to cops when they searched his vehicle on the way home from gigs. Bobby learnt a lot from Rikki, Dave Bullet-Head (the drummer) and Silas Smiler (the guitarist) in “Psycho’s Mum”.
“Actually I’m an officer.” said the cop trying not to lose his rag. Bobby considered the hierarchical hang-ups of uniformed jobs. The cop approached him and bent his mouth to Bobby’s ear…
“Why didn’t you stop when we flashed you down?”
“I decided to pull into this cul de sac so that we could have this conversation without disrupting the traffic on Lewisham High Street.” Bobby was clutching at straws.
Rikki’s brother was in the police force and had always warned Bobby about what cops refer to as the attitude test. If you pass the attitude test you are generally left alone. If you don’t, you are harassed according to the level of your indignation. Bobby considered himself as a reasonably proficient player in this battle of wits. Sidney, on the other hand, did not give a flying fuck about police sensibilities. Sidney thought it an outrage that any cunt in a uniform had the right to stop someone and go through their pockets like a school bully.
At this moment in the proceedings cops No.2 and 3 were getting Sidney out of the passenger seat and shining their torches onto Cindy and Kazz in the van.
“What the fuck do you want?” said Sid as he dismounted from his seat, “You bastards have pulled this van about seven times in the last couple of months and it’s bang out of order.” This was true.
Bobby had been stopped on almost a weekly basis. A cop had said on one occasion that it was because their van was unpresentable. Bobby replied by saying that maybe he should make it more presentable by tying a giant bow tie to the front or something. He nearly failed the attitude test that time.
Back in the cul de sac Sidney continued…. “Why don’t you pull expensive motors? You’re always hassling those who can least afford to drive around in new shiny fucking fleet cars. You’re not interested in the real villains are you?”
Around the other side of the van Bobby tried to explain Sid’s attitude… “He’s having a hard week constable.”
“I am not a constable.”
Cop No.4 turned up with a breathalyser tube and suggested that Kazz and Cindy get out of the van too.
Cop No.1 ordered that the van be searched and that Bobby and Sidney be thoroughly frisked.
“I think you’ve had a drink pal.” said cop No.1 to Bobby.
It was true. Bobby had had a glass of white wine. It was the fact that he was stoned out of his head on hashish that was responsible for his bloodshot eyes and his manic grin. It had nothing to do with alcohol. Bobby believed that marijuana was a driving aid. He felt less stressed-out when he drove stoned and felt far more diligent when it came to using a text book approach to driving. As far as he was concerned it was the anxiety of uptight rush-hour commuter-drivers that made London roads dangerous.
“You look pissed to me pal.” said cop No.1.
“I’ve had one glass of wine.”
“Yeah yeah yeah.”
Bobby was then told that he had to blow into the tube and the green light meant that he was clear, the amber light meant that he’d had alcohol but was not over the limit and a red light meant that he was nicked. The cop added that all of this was academic seeing as he was obviously pissed anyway. Now the real reason why Bobby had not pulled over immediately when they had flashed him down was because Sid had a quarter of hash on him and Bobby had a strip of ten LSD trips in the side pocket of his musical instrument bag. They usually stashed their gear in hiding places but on this occasion they had been remiss. They had also had a spliff on the go when they were flashed so Bobby had to ignore the cop car for so many seconds in order for Sid to drop it through a hole in the floor of the van.
“Search all their stuff.” shouted cop No.1 as cop No.3 and cop No.2 got in the van and rummaged around. Cindy and Kazz tried to tell them that they had nothing illegal in their bags but the cops ignored them. Kazz and Cindy were fantastic at keeping their cool in shituations like this. The cops couldn’t search them personally because recent pressure groups concerning sexual harassment had led to a legal precedent that stated that a WPC had to be present if a woman was physically searched.
Normally Kazz and Cindy carried the drugs but on this occasion this was not the case. All this seemed ironic to Bobby since WPC’s were rarer than polite high court judges.
Bobby blew into the tube and it went amber.
“Do it again.” insisted cop No.1 as his face registered disbelief. Bobby did. As he blew he could see out of the corner of his eye that cop No.3 was going through his bag of instruments. Bobby shook slightly as he realised how close to the acid the cop was.
Bobby noticed that he had started sweating and it was making the breathalyser tube tacky. Possession of LSD was a heavy bust. Bobby knew he’d be banged to rights. The LSD was in the side pocket, wrapped in cling-film, in a photographic film container. He’d been told by Rasputeen that you shouldn’t keep drugs unwrapped in film containers because of chemical residue. It was, however, in a place that a nosy cop wouldn’t be able to resist looking in. The breathalyser showed an amber light again. Cop No.1 was furious. He turned to cop No.3 “HAVE YOU SEARCHED THAT BAG YET?” he shouted.
Cop No.3 put the bag down just as he was about to check the side pocket “YES. DONE THE BAG AND IT’S CLEAN.”
Bobby could not believe his luck. Cop No.3 had obviously got the pox with cop No.1 because of his boss cop’s demonstrative attitude and BINGO Bobby was off the hook. Cop No.1 started searching Bobby in an overly physical manner. Bobby remembered he had a sixteenth of hash in the small inner pocket of his jeans.
“SHIT.” thought Bobby as the cop got nearer it. A couple of seconds later cop No.1 had patted down past the pocket and hadn’t noticed the hash. Suddenly there was a shout from the other side of the van…
“BOLLOCKS.” It was Sidney. They’d found his quarter and he was not mister happy. Bobby walked around the van with cop No.1.
“You ain’t gonna do him for that are you?” Bobby asked cops No.2 and 4. Cop No.4 turned to face Bobby and said....
“Well puff is puff is puff is puff.”
“Oh come on,” said Sidney “It’s all I’ve got and it’s fucking personal. We don’t deal or anything.”
Sidney was; of course, a dealer and a mighty fine one at that.
“I reckon we ought to take him down the nick and pull him apart.” said cop No.1. He wanted payback for the amber light on the breathalyser. Strangely cop No.4 was another officer and appeared to be the superior cop out of the four of them. He was not as psychotic as cop No.1 and seemed to have been both amused and vaguely impressed by Sidney’s righteous indignation.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” said cop No.4.
“And what the fuck is that?” said Sidney.
“I will throw the puff down that drain over there and you can thank me that I have somehow dented your irresponsible and disgusting little habit. Alright?”
“Well no it is not alright.” exclaimed Sidney. He continued…. “For one it is not a “habit” as you would put it. Two is that it is not disgusting thank you very fucking much and three is that the only irresponsible thing around here are you bastards.”
“Excellent.” said cop No.4 “I’ll throw it down the drain anyway.” As the cops moved towards the drain cop No.1 grabbed Sidney and hissed “We’re gonna make you watch you little shit.”
As they walked Sidney along the road Bobby was a little worried that they might be building up to a beating. He gave Cindy and Kazz a look as if to say that he knew what might happen here and he was on a hair trigger. They gave Bobby a look as if to say that they knew and were on a hair trigger too.
Sidney tried one last thing “If you give me the puff I’ll chuck it down the drain.”
“Give over.” said cop No.4.
“I will. Come on it’s mine. At least let me be the one who disposes of it.”
“You’ll bloody eat it.”
“Oh come on. If I eat it you’ll have me down the nick. Of course I’m not gonna’ bloody eat it.”
“Too late.” exclaimed cop No.1 as the quarter went down the drain and made an irritating plopping noise.
They gave Bobby a producer which meant he had fourteen days to take his M.O.T., his insurance papers and his driving licence down to his local nick. The cops then got back into their patrol car and drove off. Kazz, Cindy, Sidney and Bobby were a bit shocked by the fact that they didn’t charge Sidney. They put it down to the fact that one in three vehicles that they pull over have probably got hash or grass in them and for quantities under a certain amount a lot of cops were probably beginning to think it wasn’t worth the effort of filling in all the paper-work required to charge someone. In many instances cops were beginning to keep the puff. This had actually happened to Bobby a couple of weeks earlier. Maybe they were beginning to smoke to alleviate the stress of their jobs.
Back in the van Bobby turned to Sidney.
“Were you really going to chuck £30 of hashish down the drain in front of those bastards?”
“Was I fuck. I was going to eat it.”
All four of them laughed as Bobby swerved back into Lewisham High Street.