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 fell 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 their own art.