Chapter 33 – OD 2
When the doorbell rang insistently late at night Danny thought that it was unlikely to be good news. There weren’t many people who would call at gone midnight. His heart sank. He knew it was probably Terry once again and he did not relish the prospect one tiny bit.
Danny bounded down the stairs, hoping it was going to be Alan, but sure enough found a distraught June standing at the door with tears streaming down her face.
‘Danny! Danny!’ she implored, grabbing at him in desperation. ‘You’ve gotta come quick. It’s Terry. I think he’s gone an’ done it this time!’
Danny stepped forward and gave her a big hug. She was so big now with the baby due any day that he could hardly get his arms round her. So much for Mr Rose’s policy of no pets, hippies or children, he found himself thinking. The whole house was going to be full of all of them all. If it wasn’t that it was alcoholic gangsters from the Gorbals and drug dealers. The policy had gone out the window.
‘OK,’ he promised, soothingly, hugging her and patting her back. ‘It’ll be OK.’
‘No it won’t,’ June wailed in great sobs. ‘He’s turned blue. I think he’s really gone and done it.’
The sound of that was not at all good. It gave Danny a bigger sense of urgency. Maybe the idiot had gone and done it after all?
‘You know the score,’ Danny said as calmly as he could in the circumstances. He held her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘You ring the ambulance and tell them to come quickly. Make sure you give them the address. I’ll go and see to Terry.’
With that Danny was off. He raced up the stairs. He had the feeling that every second was going to be crucial. This time he found Terry slumped on the sofa in the living room. The needle, this time, was hanging from his arm. A cursory glance told him that things did not bode well Terry was indeed looking decidedly blue.
Danny pulled the needle out and put it in the table next to the blackened spoon. He took Terry’s wrist and felt for the pulse. He was expecting not to find one but could feel a feeble throb. Terry wasn’t quite as gone as he looked. He quickly laid him back on the sofa. There was no apparent breathing. He gave him the kiss of life. He pumped in five lungfuls in quick succession – feeling Terry’s chest rise and fall. He checked the pulse again and it felt a little bit stronger but was by no means racing. He gave him another set of mouth to mouth and held back to see the effect. He thought that he could see some movement of the chest; it seemed that Terry was definitely breathing on his own. His colour was slightly less cyanosed. Things were looking up.
He dragged Terry off the sofa and on to the ground, pushing the coffee table back and tipping everything off on to the floor.
He positioned him in the recovery position and kept checking his pulse and breathing. It was all slow and steady. Only then did Danny allow himself the luxury of feeling panicky. Had he done things right? Should he have moved him on to the floor? He’d given his head a bang in the process – what if he’d made things worse?
It took an age. He thought the ambulance was never coming. He kept checking Terry’s vital signs. Every second dragged. He felt the sweat on his brow and felt hot and jittery. What was taking them so long? Terry looked dreadful. He had a terrible feeling that they would be too late. He did not know what else to do.
Eventually they came in with their stretcher and June waddling behind still looking completely distraught.
Danny quickly extricated himself and headed off back to his flat. He had no wish to witness what came next. He really did not want to go through it all again. He felt completely drained. All he knew was that Terry was alive and in good hands. He’d done his job and he wanted no more of it.
Nobody had even noticed him slip away.
This book took fifty years in the making.
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This is the cover art for the book. It was made up of two paintings I had made of my flat back in 1973.
Here are the paintings:
I based the story in this flat and created a novel that reflected some of the characters who lived in that old house. I had great fun writing it. It is a book that captures the atmosphere of the sixties.
This book took fifty years in the making.
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My new novel – Danny’s Story – is now available in the Amazon stores on Kindle!
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I encountered Howl when I was seventeen years old – back in the heady days of 1967. Back then I was a rebellious youth full of angst and disillusionment. I did not like the society I was part of. I did not want the career directions being laid out before me. I saw it all as shallow, hypocritical and pointless. I wanted something with more meaning but I did not know what it was. I wanted a life that had some depth and purpose. I rejected the whole stupidity of comfort, status and ‘fitting in’ to a society that I considered unfair, unjust and with the wrong priorities. I was on a quest to find something better.
Back then my life was all about Rock Music, friends and girls. I was into freewheelin’ and living in the moment. I wanted excitement and adventure. I wanted to live life to the full.
Poetry had been ruined for me at school. I had been made to learn and recite reams of Tennyson and Wordsworth. It did not relate to me at all. I could not connect.
I rediscovered poetry through the lyrics of the fabulous music I was listening too. Things like the Beatles – ‘Here There and Everywhere’ or the Kinks – ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’ and ‘Well Respected Man’ or Dylan – ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, ‘Ramona’, ‘Pawn in the Game’ and ‘It’s Alright Ma, I’m only Bleeding’. They spoke to me. I was in to lyrics and words. I was on the cusp. Little did I know that I was shortly to be knocked out by the likes of Captain Beefheart, Country Joe and the Fish and Roy Harper. Rock Music provided my poetry and opened my mind to real social issues, mystical thought and philosophy. It gave me insight into the meaning I was seeking and a different way of living a life full of passion, love, tolerance and fairness.
Then I rediscovered poetry. I had been reading Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’, which transported me into a world that made much more sense to me. I wanted a life that was unleashed. On the cover of Kerouac’s ‘Dharma Bums’ was a photo of the mighty Allen Ginsberg. I found a copy of Ginsberg’s City Lights pocket book – ‘Howl’
The first moment I read those opening lines that Ginsberg had written way back in 1954 I was smitten. It spoke directly to me. I could relate to it. I interpreted it into my own life. I was being destroyed by the madness of my greed-ridden, war-mongering, wealth-obsessed society. I wanted out. I saw myself as that angel-headed hipster searching for that mystical connection to the universe. I was burning for it. I would rather be hungry and naked and real, rather that bloated and living in luxury in meaningless greed.
Suddenly I wasn’t alone anymore. There were other people who thought like me. I had discovered poetry.
These were the words that opened my mind:
‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,’
By Amazon Customer on 1 Jan. 2016
Comment Sending feedback…
If you were there, the 60s that is, and you have forgotten much, and you will have, then this is an interesting memory jogger. Read more
How very dare you captain sweetheart weird only to the tone deaf with t h no hearts. Pink Floyd are not just Roger waters all their best music came from three good music players… Read more
Rock music lovers and anyone who has lived through the sixties and seventies will LOVE this book!
Why not give it a go?
I am presently working flat out on the Nick Harper book – The Wilderness Years – in order to complete it to take down to him in a few days time.
I’m going through it again to create the seventh edit and adding the lyrics and photos.
This was one of the lyrics I have just typed up. It is a haunting love song called stronger. Nick writes the most incredible love songs. He is as adept with his words as he is with his strings.
If you haven’t heard him have a listen to the YouTube clip at the end. Until then – read this beautiful poem:
Stronger
I drew a picture and surprised myself
How beautiful it seemed
But then I’d only really drawn what I’d seen
And my love grows stronger
So I wrote this song for her and I surprised myself
How beautiful it seemed
But then I only really sing what I feel
And my love grows stronger
We are all dipping our toes
Into the water of eternity
And you can feel the ripples that flow
From father to daughter
And mother to son – everyone
I’m going to walk this earth for her
And I’ll remind myself
How beautiful it seems
I’m going to walk this earth for her
And I unwind myself as loose as I can be
Because it’s easy when it is what it seems
And my love grows stronger
We are all dipping our toes
Into the water of eternity
And you can feel the ripples that flow
From father to daughter
And mother to son – everyone
Speed Kills
We are an incredibly violent species. The number of ways we have devised to harness explosive force, gravity and friction to impact on flesh in unpleasant ways is truly amazing.
We are devious and imaginative.
Some are faster than sound. You could not hear them coming, let alone react. You might just glimpse a flash.
Some are slow enough to contemplate as they tumble towards you.
Most you do not even know were on their way.
The deadliest of all is microscopic.
The day will come when we are breathe the latest mutant, sneeze and have time to contemplate our future as a layer in the rocks.
Wouldn’t it be better if we put all that ingenuity into solving problems instead of expending it as fear and hatred?
For all our cruise missiles, H-Bombs and bullets, there is not a single effective anti-viral drug. Have we got our priorities right?
Speed Kills
2,600 feet per second
Can be the speed of death –
As a bullet flies.
Twice the speed, you’d need,
To hear it coming.
733 feet per second
Is slow enough to hear
The missile come,
As it is guided down the street
To land at your feet.
At 32.2 feet per second per second
You can watch a barrel-bomb drop
And slowly spin in slow motion;
Hear it whistle its tune,
Before it delivers its load
And your world explodes.
At 2500 feet per second
A shell has already
Blasted people to fragments
Before its shriek arrives –
No surprise.
At 329 feet per second
An arrow is slow.
Slow enough to watch?
Slow enough to duck?
You’d need a little luck.
At 146 feet per second
A sneeze is the slowest of all –
Apart from the soft lunge of a knife,
Or the long wait of starvation,
But in the end
Will prove the most effective
At removing a species that has proved itself defective.
Opher 29.5.2016
Can you help me make a choice? Above are the previous. Below are the suggestions.
Lyric, Lies and Love
Re-Verse – Per-Verse and Add-Verse
Rituals, Odes and Mystic Anxieties
I keep vacillating between them.
I write to make a difference – hopefully a positive difference.
If perchance you would like to purchase one of my books you can do so from any Amazon site. The links are below:
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My author pages:
Vice and Verse
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Vice and Verse:
