More Goofin’

Posted on by Opher

It was all straightforward. When he rattled away he was examining his own thoughts, He clutched a battered copy of Bertrand Russell’s ‘History of Western Philosophy’ in his hand and waved it under your nose to emphasise a point. With anybody else it would have been pretentious bullshit but somehow with Jack it was real. The book was thumbed ragged. He quoted from it. He was stimulated by it as if it was a drug. He wrestled with paragraphs and wondered at others. Every page was an epiphany. He was amazed by it.

Surely everyone was as consumed by the wonder of this mad journey? Surely they had to know?

Jack was on a voyage and he wanted to experience every last bit. That book was his bible; he studied it. What was it about?

As for society, well, for Jack that was all about control. From the state and religion – control. He saw history as one long tapestry of how the robber barons, the popes and priests, the kings, queens and sultans all used and abused in their pursuit of power and wealth. He wanted none of it.

The party zoomed along its predictable trajectory, music pounding, jays and wine, people talking intensely in corners, people hooking up, some dancing, smooching, but for me, the whole constellation of activity revolved around the supernova that was Jack. He was wild, wild like no other.

‘You know, man. We’re the luckiest generation in all time!’ Jack was expostulating to a tall, lanky bearded guy who was nodding in agreement and searching for an exit strategy. ‘We’ve got access to everything. We can go where we want. Travel the world. We can read what we want. We can read any book that’s been written, man. We have access to the greatest minds, the greatest fucking thoughts that man has ever thought. It’s all here, man! This is how the big guys control us all, limit us, take away our freedoms!’

I watched with amusement, a tiny smile creasing my lips, as the scene played out.

I’d seen Jack many times at a distance at parties and gigs and heard him talk, intense, man, and laugh and laugh. It was obvious from first sight that he was crazy – strung out on craziness! I dunno why but crazy guys are so much more interesting, dangerous, thought provoking – just so much more alive! They connected you to that universal dynamo that made the whole heavens spin.

Jack did that.

I dug him for it.

Or perhaps it was that I was more than a little crazy myself. I had a bit of that need to burn. I had to know what set things spinning and how to wring the last bit of fun and truth out of it – how to strangle the dawn and cuddle sundown. But it was as if I needed someone to ignite the tinder.

I’d seen Jack from afar but I’d never met him.

Then, there we were, at Bede’s party, our eyes met and he laughed. It was like we connected; some kind of empathetic link. I don’t know. He came over and shook my hand, leaving the lanky guy in his wake. It seemed old fashioned but somehow right.

‘Seen you around, man,’ he grinned, gripping my hand tightly and staring into the depths of my eyes. And there I was finally getting to meet the guy. I enthusiastically gripped his hand right back at him and beamed a grin that was glowing with eager anticipation.

I had finally got to meet him.  Here I was staring into those blue dancing eyes. There were no words that I could say. I had craved this moment. I had been at a loss to know how to initiate it. I had no words to say. Yet this was destiny.

‘Been meaning to say hello. You must come round sometime.’

I nodded sagely, strangely speechless for once. I wasn’t used to this. I too had been touched by that evangelical flame. This was a new experience for me. Jack didn’t seem to care. Something electric had passed between us. There were no words necessary. He scribbled on a piece of paper and thrust it at me. It was kinda weird. It was like I was star-struck or something. My mind froze. My tongue was paralysed. It was as if this meeting was too important to mess up.

            ‘Give me a bell.’

            Then he was off. An’ that was it. We were like magnets for each other; meant to be. Well, you know what I mean, I don’t believe in destiny. From the moment I’d first seen him I’d known he was going to be an important part of my life. It was not destiny so much as our weirdnesses clicked. We hit it off. It was something you couldn’t put in words but our wavelengths were in tune. We were weirdly normal. It was everyone else who was nuts. We were in tune. We understood each other without having to speak.

That was the start. There was a lot more weirdness to come.

The party was bizarre too- one of Bede’s concoctions. An appropriate place to finally get to meet Jack.

We had been driving home in my beat up Ford. We’d been someplace I don’t know, a mediocre gig or something; I was driving him home. That was firstly because I was the less smashed of the two of us and secondly because it was my car. As we came up to this big old pub near his flat when the doors opened and all these crazy dudes started to spill out onto the pavement. It was so weird to be in the middle of nowhere and suddenly come across a herd of freaks. Bede saw someone he knew and shouted for me to pull over. I pulled in and there were a few cats I vaguely knew but no-one startling.

It was limbo time. That time when the day was held in suspense. The pub was chucking out and the town was dead. The car caused an instant focus. That might have been because of its luminous colour scheme. I’d hand painted with assorted gloss of tasteful orange, yellow, red, green and blue with a wide pink stripe down the middle. It was kinda fetching. It did kind of make a bold statement. Within seconds we were surrounded with a crowd with freaky cats and babes peering in through the windows to see if they knew us.

Before I knew it Bede had slipped out through the non-existent windscreen. I’d knocked it all out when a stone had shattered it, and did not have the money to replace the thing, besides it kinda suited the ambience of the car, me and the times, even if it was a pain in the arse when it rained and winter was coming. But hey, I’d cross that bridge when the time came. He swung up on to the roof.

‘Hipsters, Bipsters and crazy freaks!’ He roared in his best Lord Buckley impression. ‘Happening time is about to happen!’

The crowd instantly thickened from nowhere so that the car began to rock with the press of bodies all around. Where did they all come from? All these freaks in the middle of nowhere. This was show time. What the hell was going on? Still it had to be better than nothing.

I could see the two dents in the roof where Bede had planted his feet. I could see him, in my mind’s eye, standing up there with his fake brown fur coat and pink dot scarf, black white dot shirt, and bleached blond hair blowing in the warm summer breeze, lapping it up. He could be very theatrical, could Bede. He always took great care of his red velvet flares.

‘Party time!’ he called out. ‘Get your arses into gear we’re gonna rock some ears!’

There was a roar. OK. This was party time. They could handle that. Where was the party?

Goofin’: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798854970976: Books

301 Bedsit Land – out now – Kindle Version

Posted on by Opher

Many moons ago I wrote this novel, called Danny’s Story, about a house on Green Lanes in Manor House in the sixties/early 70s. It was a big old rambly place full of bedsits, teeming with characters.

I knew there was a novel in there screaming to come out. So I wrote one.

The setting was the old house and all I had to do was provide a plot and adapt the characters who lived there. It was so full of colour, events and rich in stories.

I was never happy with what I had written. I did not think it did justice to the place or people so I have rewritten it. I think this is a major improvement. I didn’t like the title either so I changed it. In many ways it is a homage to the people and times. But it is also a novel. I hope you like it. Here is the kiindle version. The paperback and hardback will follow in a few days!! Enjoy!!

301 Bedsit Land eBook : Goodwin, Opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Featured book – Danny’s Story – Pt. 4

Posted on by Opher

Chapter 4 – First night

That first night Danny lay back in the big bed looking round at the strange room. The shadows swirled in the corners of the room but the place had a friendly feel. It felt like the beginning of something.

Suzy had gone by late afternoon, heading off back to her parents’ house in the suburbs and her life there. The excitement and chaos of London was not for her. She’d had a taste and was not sorry to be leaving it behind. As far as she was concerned it was overrated and hadn’t lived up to expectations.

Danny had bought a loaf, milk, some cheese and tea-bags and settled in for some cheese on toast, a nice cup of tea and some peace and quiet in which to gather his thoughts. He was glad to have the place to himself. He was grateful to Suzy but her incessant banter did not provide pauses for him to settle. So much had happened. It needed digesting. It had all been so quick. It took a couple of hours for him to unwind.

Putting his things away had not taken long. He had carefully propped up his twenty selected albums against the wall in the living room; put his sleeping bag away in a cupboard and his clothes in a drawer. Job done. He had moved in.

He sat in the armchair and watched some telly but it was the usual vacuous drivel and he turned it off. He did not have his stereo so playing his music was not possible. The two bars of the fire soon warmed the place up and the dank smell seemed to retreat as the temperature rose. It felt good, but he was already at a loose end so he took himself off to bed early to read.

He lay there in the bed but could not focus on the book. It had been a bewildering day and his mind was racing. The bed, which had felt damp, soon warmed up and he lay back on the pillow with his hands behind his head watching the patterns the light from the streetlamp was making on the ceiling and feeling peaceful and contented. There was a whole new world of people around him but it seemed quiet up here on the fourth floor. He could not hear anyone from any of the flats and even the traffic sounded muffled. Looking out through the window he could see the tops of the three big trees that stood in front of the house. They swayed around in the breeze. It was hard to imagine he was still in the heart of London.

That scene at work had been surreal. He’d been toying with leaving and doing something different but had done little about it. For nearly three years he’d been working as an Animal house technician on low pay. They’d given him day release to do a Master’s degree. So he’d stuck it out. A Master’s degree would give him possibilities.

Danny had completed the project for his degree and handed it in. It was thorough and conclusive. In his mind the end was nigh. He would soon be out of here. Already his mind had started to mull over the possibilities.

His supervisor had called him in. The report was fine – it required a bit of tidying up but nothing major. It was just that his findings were at odds with a similar recent piece of published research in the same area.

Danny had shrugged – So what? He’d come up with his conclusions and they’d come up with theirs; what if they did not agree? It did not invalidate his results. This was what research was all about. He could not see what the problem was.

His supervisor had not seen it quite the same way. He wanted him to do a further investigation in order to back up his research. Danny had stood there unable to take this in. A new investigation would take at least another year. It would tie him in to further year of subsistence pay and tedious, mind-numbing peering through a microscope. He could not believe his ears. There was no way that he was going to do that. His degree was only supposed to take two years and he’d already taken two and a half. Three to four years on a lousy Master’s Degree was absurd. It did not bear thinking about. He felt his hackles rise.

They’d argued. His supervisor dug his heels in. Danny became more and more irate.

In the end Danny had had quite enough and, without a second thought, told him to stuff it and stormed out. He’d gone straight round to the front office and handed his notice in. That was the end of his research and the end of his job.

Danny lay there in the dark running through the whole sequence of events. Should he have meekly taken the extension and lived with it for a year? Cheryl thought that he should have done. She’d been furious. With a Master’s Degree he had options. He could have found a career.

But Danny had always promised himself that there was a ‘Fuck it’ point. He’d reached his. The thought of another year of boredom was simply too much to bear. Besides, the man had been intolerable. He didn’t have to take that shit.

He decided that he didn’t regret it one little bit.

He didn’t regret breaking up with Cheryl either. They’d both reached the end of that one. When things are not right they are not going to be right. The argument over him walking out of his job was merely the final straw. Somehow he did not fit into the groove that Cheryl had mapped out for him. He had other ideas.

It had been time to move on.

Goofin’ – Pt. 3

Posted on by Opher

In the days before Lanky and Geof got into smack they were quite a laugh. In the fifth year, a year ahead of me, they made quite a splash. There was a zany little group of them who got quite far out. Snitch and Snatch, Stiff, Lanky, Sten, Geof and Malc. They dropped out in a big way despite being among the brightest in the year. Refusal to compete meant sport was out and veggie power meant school meals were out. In fact, it was quite apparent that they had some ideological opposition to most of the school curriculum, dress code, punishment system and ethos. The prefect system suffered the most and the R.E. teacher, a poor innocent rather liberal Christian, suffered a breakdown trying to rationally deal with the logics of Eastern metaphysics. They were out of control and aloof from the whole system and rapidly became a law unto themselves. The school was not equipped to cope with it. Their hair sprouted and set a new standard. Their uniform disintegrated to a travesty and their refusal to accept the discipline system, especially when administered by the prefects, made a mockery. It was no wonder I gravitated towards them rather than the staid conformity of my own year. I don’t think the school was geared up to it. They did not know how to cope with it. These were heady days of revolution, man. There was student power in the air. They probably did not want to precipitate a rebellion. Instead they tried to accommodate them and failed miserably. Soon they came and went as they liked. In 66 it was openly smoking dope on the school field with the teachers and vast majority of the kids being so naive they had no idea what was going on. In those days it was mainly hash and speed apart from Geof’s penchant for Collis Browns cough medicine. In those days you could buy it over the counter in any amount, no prescription necessary, despite the fact that the main ingredients seemed to be morphine and heroin. Trouble was Geof had no sense of moderation. He’d drink three or four bottles and become incoherent and pass out. Nobody thought too much of it at the time. We were all doing it. That and booze. But it was a bit of a chilling start when he came round from a binge to find himself completely blind. That shook us. It lasted for three days but he recovered and got on with things.

            Over the years we had all stayed good friends. Lanky used to have these cosy little get-togethers round his house that usually sort of grew into unusually quiet parties. Maybe that was jut the effect of the dope or the Mayer/Harriet Indo-jazz fusions, Ken Nordine, or Paul Horn albums that he always had on. Either that or the mellow effect of the old farmhouse that he lived in with its rustic ivy and great gnarled old oak beams.

            Next time I saw Jack was at one of these.

            We were sitting around on the floor in the front room in front of a big log fire sharing from a home-made bong. The fire was quite unnecessary as it was a nice warm summer’s night but it seemed right. It added that organic atmosphere. The bong was one of Lanky’s plaster of Paris designs. Lanky had gone into Art College and seemed to spend his time designing psychedelic bongs. This particular one was based around a plaster cast from a rubber glove. He had moulded it so that the thumb was what you drew the smoke through and the first two fingers were sticking up. As you lifted it to take a toke you were symbolically sticking two fingers up at the world. It sat atop a glass jar and was all painted in wavy psychedelic colours like a solidified light show from A Pink Floyd or Jefferson Airplane gig. It was quite satisfying to handle and pass round. It had a nice vibe. Felt good in the hand. Looked good. Seemed to signify the right attitude.

            “Reincarnation is where it’s at,” Snatch was explaining. “I mean, man, I was reading in these Vedic scriptures, man. You come here to learn a lesson, a specific lesson – something you failed to understand in a past life – maybe you did something wrong and have to atone for it – an’ you come back, man, to have the chance to put it right.”

            People nodded. It seemed reasonable.

            “It’s like your Karma, man. You build up bad Karma from the deeds you do an’ you have to come back, man, to work it off. You are on a journey to understand life and there’s all these lessons that you have to go through to gain insight and achieve perfect understanding.”

            “Yeah,” Malc agreed, nodding. “Yeah, I was reading about this Atman and Brahman. The God within and the God without. It’s like you’ve got this God-head inside you leading you on towards the experiences you need. And there’s this God outside that’s perfect understanding, like a white light of knowledge.”

            “That’s what the Incredible String Band are on about!” Lanky added.

            “I thought they were Christians, man? Scientologists?” Snatch asked aloud.

            “I think they’re into it all,” I put my bit in. “I mean it’s all one thing anyway, right? Whatever religion. It’s just trying to describe the same stuff. Trying to work out what it’s all about. That’s what the Incredibles are about. They’re mixing it all up.”

            “Yeah,”

            The bong made another round and Jack came in.

            “Hi Jack,” Lanky said in his laid back manner. “Have a hit on this.” He passed the bong on. “You’re just in time, we’re nearly out.”

            Jack took the bong and pulled on it. He swayed about a lot and had obviously been drinking quite heavily. His eyes didn’t seem to focus too well.

            “Anyone got any pills? Speed?” he asked. “I’m feelin’ down. Need a bit of perkin’ up.” He laughed.

            He didn’t exactly sound too down.

            “No, sorry, man,” Lanky said. “Outa pills, outa dope, outa wine. We’re outa pretty much everything, man.”

            Jack finished the last of the dope and studied the ash in the bowl on the multicoloured middle finger. “Jeez,” he muttered. “I’ll see what I can do.”

            He strolled out and we went back to our stoned conversation on the nature of Karma, reincarnation and purpose of life.

            After an hour or so with no sign of Jack I was getting a little restless. Everyone had settled into a drowsy trance staring into the flickering flames and glowing embers of the fire. It was kinda hypnotic.

            “Think I’ll split,” I announced. I slipped on my favourite pale green cotton jacket and got to my feet and set off.

            It was the early hours of the morning and the air was warm and clear. Overhead the stars peppered the sky. I strolled through town and it was completely deserted so that your footsteps bounced back at you off the walls like you were walking along with someone who was keeping in perfect step with you. I was still a little stoned and feeling mellow, humming to myself. It was that catchy little number about acid on that new Roy Harper album – Ghenghis Smith – “Gave my love a daisy, a third in my mind. Turned crazy dearest, to see what we could find.” I couldn’t get the tune out of my head. ‘All you need is’. I was humming it and musing over the words trying to wring all the meaning out of it. There was so much in there. It was definitely about an acid trip. But then it was about relationships and life.

            I got level with the chemists and nearly shit a brick when the door suddenly opened and this figure staggers out.

            “Jesus, Jack! – You scared the fuck out of me!”

            He stood there swaying slightly with a trickle of blood running down the side of his face.

            “What have you been doing?” I looked down at his hands to see that he was grasping two great huge jars to his chest. One of them was full to the brim with pennies and the other was full of purple hearts. It was the biggest fucking bottle of pills I had ever seen in my life. There must have been thousands of them in there.

            “Had a bit of an accident, man,” he chuckled. “Thought I’d get us a something to help the night along.”

            He raised up the jar with the coins in to show me a big gash on his hand that was busily dripping blood.

            “Climbed up on the roof to see if I could break in through the skylight into the offy to get a few bottles of wine or maybe something a bit stronger. Couldn’t fuckin’ move it. So I jumped on it!”

            He chuckled again. “Went straight through, man!”

            I was a bit disturbed by the amount of blood that was dripping down his jeans and forming a little pool on the pavement outside.

            “Was pitch black in there, man. Like the black hole of Calcutta. Could’ve hit anything. Fell like a brick. Fortunately I landed right on the counter and rolled off. There was glass everywhere! Went off like a fucking explosion. Straight through. I mean, wow! I was only trying to crack it!”

            I noticed he had packets of condoms stuffed in every pocket. He’d blown some of them up and had them limply dangling.

            “Thing was man, it wasn’t even the fucking offy! It was the chemist.” He roared. “Can you believe that? I jumped straight into a fucking chemist, man. Well I mean, I couldn’t waste that, could I man? I had to check it out. You would not believe it, man. I had to check out the dangerous drugs cupboard. It would’ve been criminal not to!”

            He seemed almost hysterical and still more than a little pissed. I wondered how many of the uppers he’d already consumed.

            “The place was full of stuff. Like an Aladdin’s cave in there. I got my lighter out an’ checked it all out. You would not believe it. I didn’t even have to break into the drugs cabinet. They were all on the shelves, man. Quaaludes, Mandies, Amphetamine, Methedrine, Barbs. You name it, man and it was there. I didn’t need to break in. I’m not into that smack shit. I’ve seen too much of that. Fucks you up real bad. So I picked the biggest jar I could find and had a rummage round the shop. Amazing, man. No alarm. Nothing. I found this jar of pennies.” He lifted up the jar of pennies again. ‘Fucking heavy, man.’

            I was getting a little conscious that we standing having this conversation in the streetlight outside a chemist with a wide open door. Anyone, like a jam-jar of fuzz, cruising by would see a couple of hairy freaks, dripping blood, standing there with two huge jars outside an open chemist’s in the middle of the night. I mean, we were hardly inconspicuous or unsuspicious looking. The plods pulled you in for nowt at the best of times.

            “Come on, man,” I said, coaxing him into motion. I pulled the door shut and set off down the high street.

            “What about the others, man?” He asked. “We’re going in the wrong direction. We could really get the place rockin’ with these!”

            “No, man. I think they’ve crashed. They’re all right. Let’s take a walk down the sea-front.”

            It was a beautiful night. We lay on our backs on the sand looking up at the billions of stars. I bathed the cut on his hand with sea-water and tied it up with a handkerchief. It looked a bit ragged and nasty but at least it didn’t seem to be bleeding too badly any more. Jack threw back a handful of pills and passed me the jar. I was a little more conservative. I could feel them straight away. My mind cleared from the dope and I was wide awake – buzzin’. My mind flitting here and there. The Milky Way was a broad band of smoke. The whole sky was alight. There was no inch of space. It was just different degrees of brightness. We watched for shooting stars.

            “Look at that man. Look at those jewels.”

            “And all those fuckers asleep, man,’ Jack chuckled. ‘Never seeing it. What a waste. What a terrible waste.”

            “Can you imagine ever getting a job and settling down?”

            He chuckled. “No, man. Not me. It’d kill me. It’d eat my soul away. I gotta be free.”

            “Neither me,” I murmured. “Has to be something more to living than that, man. I mean, look at this mystery, man. Just look at that! Infinity, man.”

            “That fucking sky goes on forever,’ Jack agreed, staring up into that fiery dynamo. ‘An’ we’re here with one short life trying to make sense of it. So short a time an’ so much to think an’ do, man. Who the fuck’s got time for work and shit like that. I mean, look at that sky!”