Lenny was doing a drug deal and he dealt nearly exclusively in acid, an occupation which I apparently knew all about. Or course I only knew about this from my experiences after I woke up disorientated and clueless in August 1973. It was in the two days after awakening I discovered I was teamed up with Lenny in his business. I knew something about this partnership, not the whole story, and only little snippets I’d heard. Now I was getting the story in blur vision from the man himself on the day, though four decades too late.
It was a winter’s day, typical in its greyness, with a damp low light that did nothing to relieve the dullness of the daytime. In his usual fashion Lenny had been hanging around at home (God knows where that was, or what it was like). A phone call had awakened the slumbering Lenny who was taking his afternoon nap sleeping off lunch, if that’s what you’d call his daily beer with fish and chips habit. Somebody in the next town wanted some stuff, a grand’s worth of stuff. This was a good call for Lenny. So, a little worse for wear, or in fact a lot worse for wear, he stumbled down the stairs to his motor scooter.
In the early days he wasn’t the most careful drug dealer usually keeping most of the stash somewhere in his house. The location of Lenny’s place remained a mystery to me, but I’m quite sure that a good police squad would have sniffed it out in no time. His usual modus operandi for the movement of acid was to use some part of his motor scooter for concealment, a fuel proof tube inside the fuel tank, or hidden in part of the frame where he’d made access during the many modifications to his beloved machine. On this day the size of the deal and the speed in which he needed to get there, along with his rather drunken state were not the best arbiters of good fortune for our jolly dealer.
Lenny concealed the acid tabs in two places. When I say concealed this was barely the case. He had far too many tabs on him, so when his normal hiding places were all full he had some tabs left over. These he stuck in the lining of his famous crash helmet. He went on to tell me he was starting to get big time paranoid about being watched, but he was drunk and the fear of being caught by a surveillance squad had diminished in inverse proportions to the alcohol consumed.
Another thing against Lenny in this endeavour was his velocity as he ripped along on one hell of a rate, speed being of the essence. It wasn’t so important that he had to rush and attract attention. Rightly or wrongly, Lenny had the throttle pulled right back and at times after leaving town was touching eighty miles an hour which he informed me was flat out even from a 225. Then, he added, once clear of the town he really started to enjoy the ride, though the after effects of the booze were starting to make him sweat. Lenny was suffering a big flop sweat, wet all over.
Halfway into his forty-mile trip to the nearby city Lenny ripped through a small country crossroads, the beginning of the end? This was the moment the unfortunate circumstances of his near future began to unfold. Two bored officers in their police car had seen him travelling at great speed, well above all the local limit. To break the boredom they set off in hot pursuit. Lenny noticed the police about three miles down the road when the siren blasted from fifty feet behind his scooter. The noise grabbed his dulled attention. The only way he could shake them off was to enter the maze of little country lanes. He knew these well from the days when he used to go fishing on a regular basis with his old man. This group of lanes led to all the best fishing rivers and ponds. He knew them like the back of his hand and his fervent hope was the policemen didn’t go fishing with their fathers, if they had fathers.
He went on to say that for a few miles he was thinking if he could get far enough ahead he’d ditch the stuff, or hide in a patch of woodland he knew and let them pass. They were on him and he couldn’t seem to shake them off no matter what he did. Salvation came into view when he spotted a path running alongside the railway track. The path was an access route to some railway work huts, and at a glance it appeared to continue past the huts and off into the countryside. Beyond the work hut the track was a single strip of dirt, impossible for the pursuing police car. All this time the Triumph 2.5 pi squad car was on his tail. The roads were too narrow for the police to pass and stop him. They were waiting for the right moment.
The only thing he could do was make a last-minute dive onto the track. With a lot of wild leaning and a bit of luck our fugitive was on the path and away with the police car overshooting the turn. The officer in charge brought the car to a halt with a screech of tyres. Throwing the car into reverse the driver made the moves to follow him down the badly made road.
Lenny shot past the hut and sure enough the road beyond was only a single track. His luck was in the track had posts to stop wide vehicles going beyond the hut. He was away and the police wouldn’t catch him. He didn’t think they’d seen his number plate either. This was the old black and white type, or in his case silver aluminium with very little paint. This item was always kept in a dirty condition, so the plate was difficult to read from only ten feet away. He’d figured they wouldn’t know who he was, and if by a fluke they caught him he wouldn’t be carrying the stuff!
“Man, I was bricking it. I thought they got me. I thought they’d find the acid, so I got out of sight down that track and started looking for hiding places. Found a good spot under some railway signalling equipment to hide it temporary, like. The trouble was…” Lenny continued.
Yes, the trouble was Lenny hadn’t got rid of all the drugs, and in his frantic efforts to lose the police tail he was sweating like a pig and strangest thing was happening. He was starting to enjoy the whole experience. “It was fantastic! Like a brilliant war movie where you know the hero will shoot all the Germans or the Jap’s or whatever.” He explained to me he was so excited by the chase that he decided to see if he could find a police car and spook them by doing the same trick again. By now he was really enjoying the day, he was magnificent! Not Lenny the Helmet, but now Lenny the fucking invincible!
After some effort turning the scooter around on the narrow track he headed back the other way to find the police car. After reversing back to the main road the policemen were in the process of leaving in the direction they’d come from. Lenny shot out of the track over the level crossing and off in the other direction. The two policemen in the car heard it, saw him, and decided to chase him down. This time they would catch the slippery bastard.
Lenny was more than a brilliant scooterist… he was a TT rider, a world-beating star on two wheels, uncatchable. All his fear had gone, and they were nowhere near him because it had taken them far too long to turn round on the narrow road. They were greatly disadvantaged by the big man’s pure speed, agility and fearlessness. He sensed the police car would not catch him, not even get near. He was invincible. Also in his favour was the coming of evening with mist lifting up from the damp fields in strange swirling blobs that drifted across the road making visibility difficult.
He was having no problems seeing today. He had thousand mile eyes, vision of an eagle, and unstoppable pace. The mist was starting to look like objects, elephants, cows, and even small buildings, and Lenny was just drifting through them. He hit them at speed and they would fly apart in clouds of coloured light making a sound like metal tubes falling on a concrete floor. He was enjoying every minute of this. Lenny forgot about the police car in pursuit and aimed at the blobs of transforming mist. This was the ride of a lifetime, he was in the groove, and for some reason it was incredible!
The policemen realised the big oaf with the long greasy hair hanging out from under his helmet was going nowhere special, and he no longer tried to evade them. Their quarry took a left turn, and they knew the small country road was only field access with provision for a few farmhouses. The road looped back onto the country lane they were on, so they didn’t follow Lenny. They continued on past the junction to where he would rejoin the road. The officers were taking a chance he’d turn left and ride straight into their roadblock. One officer would wait by the car, the other hidden in the bushes fifty yards up the road, so when their prey was stopped by
the police car the other could rush up from behind to make the arrest.
Our hero of the day, the wonderful Lenny, was pulling the throttle nearly through the backstop such was his velocity. Now his skill level was beyond the impossible. He was Godlike, especially the way he and his machine cut through these strange spectres, bursting them with coloured light and sounds so high pitched they bounced inside his head. He rounded another curve and in front of him were three or four more clouds of mist. It was getting thicker, more interesting. The first cloud in his way looked like a very low-flying aircraft painted blue, a very light blue. It was travelling backwards. How he knew the direction of travel was backwards he had no idea. He cut through it like a knife through butter.
Other creatures exploded with noise and light as he drove through them. Hippos exploded, giant spiders fell apart, Lenny was in ecstasy at the power he held in the hands gripping the bars. Then there was this strange Chinese creature in the road, black and white. A very large giant panda was sitting in the road. Lenny pulled the throttle as hard as he could desperate for the sensations invading this body would bring, he ploughed through the stupid black and white creature.
Lenny hit the panda right in its stomach. It was made of metal, hard steel, it was a Triumph 2.5pi. This didn’t burst apart in a bright flash of light. No, Lenny’s legs burst apart with a horrible crunching sound, and it was the last thing he remembered until he found himself lying in the road. He was transfixed looking up at a blue flashing light on the roof of an ambulance. By this time he was on morphine, feeling good, and passed out again.
“I was high as a kite, man, the acid inside my helmet, I’d forgotten the acid inside my helmet, and all that sweating, it had soaked into my head. Man, I could’ve died from the acid alone, but, man, wow!” Lenny mumbled.
In his traction he couldn’t move much, both legs stretched out in metal cages with pins through them holding bones together. He had drips, tubes and wires running in and out of him almost everywhere, but he still managed to lean over suggesting a little bit of business. Lenny was whispering to me and I knew all about it. I was his right-hand man doing a bit of running for him and doing a lot of dealing for myself. Lenny had a private contact in another city who‘d send over a runner, it all worked smoothly. With John Smith’s stuff we’d make a bigger margin.
Lenny carried on telling me how he was now dealing with Smiggy and they were doing all right. We were all doing all right, making deals, and polluting the stupid of other towns. Making lots of money and not caring a toss for the dope heads. At this Lenny looked at all the tubes and laughed.
“Looks like I’m one of the stupid now! Mate, can you take over for me for a while? Someone’s got to keep the thing running. Anything happens to you, I’d do the same for you, man.” So that’s how deep I was in all this, and I suppose this was why I was given the opportunity to look into this part of my past. I find this bubble darkly funny even though it illustrates my lack of care for others and only my care for making money. Sod them, they’re only acidheads was my attitude!
“Tell me the end bit again, Lenny,” I said.
Lenny started to say…
Then I was on fire, the acid causing a burning sensation that consumed my entire body. Everywhere was burning, even my eyeballs. I could feel them crinkling up like big black raisins in my eye sockets. I could barely speak as the skin around my neck tightened crushing my windpipe. This was excruciating. I could even feel my genitals burning away. I managed to scream out in a blinding agony, “Stop this! For God’s sake, stop this!’”
A gentle breeze, then a wind, then a gale, then the storm followed by the hurricane, or was it a tornado? The immense force would have blown me off the world if it had not been for someone holding me. My eyes were starting to clear from the burning acid, and I could see I was being held in place by the Irish wolfhound. His teeth gripped my leather belt, a very large stout belt around my waist. This belt was more like a weightlifter’s belt, constructed with leather strong enough to stop me blowing away.
The wolfhound seemed to be anchored into the ground as if he was growing from it. So rock solid was the dog’s stance it was miraculous.
With my clearing vision I could see the little pixie holding a tiny golden straw which was connected to the enormous rucksack by a tube no thicker than a piece of string. From the end of this tiny golden tube came this immense storm blowing away the agony of the big grey bubble. The violent wind removing the deep burning pain and the immense rucksack was getting smaller and smaller. By the time I felt no pain it was no bigger than any normal bag on a pixie’s back. But what is a normal bag on a pixie’s back?
I closed my eyes in relief, but could feel tugging at the large mysterious belt around my waist. When I opened my eyes I’d been transported into the open once again. I was sitting outside the pub with a drink in one hand and Jennifer pulling me playfully towards her to give me a kiss. Our lips touched with soft passion that turned into a long lingering kiss. This took away any final traces of pain, that only moments before had been so intense I wanted to die to be free of it.
Jennifer’s kiss held intense desire, I wanted to be alive, and stay here with her.
“We’ll cycle for the rest of the day if you like, and explore many things,” she said. And we did.
Chapter 23 – Inner daze, the pinball’s rude awakening in 1973.
So there I was, only a few short hours into my awakening after two years of what? I was on my knees with my face buried in my girlfriend’s mother’s best Italian underwear with a very diaphanous possibility of any plausible explanation. No excuse could explain why I was softly resting my head on her mother’s freshly laundered seductive lace. I was locked in a slow motion time vortex. Each second was an awful long wait for the explosion. I was using every infinite second to work on an excuse. “My cheque book, I dropped it the other day and your mother told me she’d put it somewhere safe.” I tried that one.
Vicky was standing aggressively with one foot thrust forward and her hands placed on her hips. Her unflinching gaze was taunting me to say something even more ridiculous. The second silence was longer than the first. Vicky was waiting, I think, with a secret delight for me to grab a large spade to dig my own grave. She stared at me with unblinking eyes, and tapped her foot with a doom laden continuous beat like the drums of an oncoming superior army.
“Are you trying to sniff it out?” she suggested. I was about to reply when she continued, “Have you got a thing about my mother? You’re always having a laugh with her. If she wasn’t my mother and so bloody old I’d think you were shagging her,” was her dagger-sharp comment. I don’t think she knew how sharp the blade was.
I rose to my feet with the sort of hands out expression Frenchmen give you after they’ve run into the back of your car. The expression said “Who me?” My own body was trying to betray me. Yesterday morning’s passionate sex lesson pushed its way into my head. I couldn’t force it back. A blush bloomed across my face and this started an enormous one sided argument. Vicky didn’t think I was having an affair with Samantha, but was jealous that I enjoyed her mother’s company so much, worse still she was so terribly old and boring.
I’d had no real conversation with Vicky, none that I could remember anyway. I wasn’t saying anything. Vicky was doing all the talking, or should I say shouting, building her rage until it became a rant solely about how weird I’d become since last week.
This was a bit of useful news. I was about to ask, when she lambasted me over Saturday night, not yesterday but the week before. It was evident we’d planned something special that I didn’t attend. I’d postponed, going off to the nearby city for a night out with, as she described it, “that Nazi twin of yours”.
“What do you mean Nazi twin?” I asked.
“You told me! Have you forgotten everything? It’s something Harry the Pocket told you about Nazis in the SS,” Vicky replied.
“Remind me?” I continued.
“You are really weird
since last weekend. The Nazi thing is something to do with your teeth,” Vicky said, with growing irritation.
“Go on Vic’s. Tell me,” I begged, pressing the point.
“You only call me Vic’s when you’re after something, and I’m telling you fuck all. You’re nuts!”
“Oh, I see.”
“You’ve gone really weird!” she said, and immediately pushed the subject to where I didn’t want it to go…“What are you doing? What are you really up to? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” so she continued.
She shouted at me for possibly ten minutes, perhaps even longer, or the tirade was much shorter, terrible in its fury. I was concentrating on every word, trying to glean any information from her. Possible clues as to why I’m suffering amnesia, or what happened in the past to give me the amnesia. The John Smith thing was of interest. Had he poisoned me last weekend with some type of drug?
I’ve got to admit most things she was saying passed over my head. I was concentrating so hard on keywords that a lot of the stuff about us I ignored. The apparent lack of concern fuelled the fire of anger keeping her in an almost endless rant which finished with the words, “I really don’t know why I bother with you? I loved you, you were great fun. Now you are a sad pillock. Mothers underwear drawer? You sad…bastard!”
Vicky finished with those words, I think. The truth is I can’t remember, I was concentrating on the jigsaw puzzle of ideas she’d spat at me during her rampant judgements of my character. She was probably right about everything.
Vicky threw me out of the house, but she didn’t take the keys off me. I wouldn’t have let her. She was cold and icy as she drove me back to my flat in her rather battered 1966 Mini. At least she’d stopped screaming at me. I was wondering if I could placate her, but looking across at her rigid in the driver’s seat gave me no desire to try and coerce affection from her.
Acid Bubbles Page 19