Tripping.

‘And how is Alice?’ asks Simon.

‘Fine. Putting on a bit of weight.’

That’s an understatement. She is ballooning at an alarming rate. The trouble is she can’t stay away from the Cadbury’s products. Smith’s Crisps, Mars Bars….she is starting to get enormous. Nothing Arthur says seems to make any difference.

‘Mars Bars?’

‘Mars Bars, Smiths Crisps, Tizer you name it.’

‘I hope she’s not consuming all the stock.’

‘It’s not funny.’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’m not sleeping well. There’s a genuine danger of getting crushed.’


Arthur is making one of his periodic trips to London. Usually he pops into the Tate….then he ends up visiting Simon. They have just taken LSD in Simon’s Ladbroke Grove bed-sitting room. It's a first for Arthur. He isn't not sure what to expect.

‘You feel anything yet?’ Simon asks when they are waiting for the train. 

‘Er…no,’ says Arthur, ‘not really.’ But something is happening. They’d got to Notting Hill Gate Station without incident and bought tickets from a machine that pulsated with chemical light. More so than usual Arthur thought. Colours were getting brighter, the rush of the train when it came, the swoosh of the doors which opened and sucked them in, the tube itself where everything became electric…even the multi-coloured passengers. Sitting across from Arthur is a Chelsea pensioner with the consistency of a Dali watch. There are vibrating walls, melting floors, unidentifiable lizard-headed creatures and all the other psychedelic special effects that are to make ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ virtually watchable so many years later. 

The train is moving through a time tunnel. That’s obvious. ‘Real time has collapsed in on itself,’ says Simon, ‘seriously perhaps, who knows?’

‘It could be a spiritual experience.’ says Arthur. Simon appears to agree. His head is nodding precariously. ‘Perhaps we’ll see God,’ he says. Then for no real reason they both start giggling and don’t stop till they get to Tottenham Court Road. 

‘UFO,’ says a hand painted poster. ‘This must be the place,’ says a disembodied voice where Simon had just been. They ooze down a flight of carpeted stairs into a dark cavernous room full of people dancing, wandering around or just standing staring at a stage. On the stage are some musicians playing a rambling psychedelic symphony and behind them a backdrop of amoeba like shapes projected against the wall. The shapes seem to be emanating from a dark scaffolding construction. 

Arthur stands taking it all in. The music seems to be everywhere. So does the acid. People are getting hard to distinguish from each other…it is all one…patterns are starting to swirl around him. ‘It’s alright,’ someone says and it is. For the moment. He becomes aware of a frizzy-haired head-banded chocolate-brown Sioux maiden dancing in front of him. Dancing? More like swirling, writhing…like a gypsy on a beach. One hand waving free. 

Jiving, stomping, twisting…doesn’t matter what they called the latest gyration Arthur is hopeless at it. Most of his attempts at dancing are like folding a deck-chair in the wind. At this point the best he can manage is a sort of embarrassed shuffle. But during a lull he feels relaxed enough to mutter something about not being much of a dancer and the girl, an American, says ‘Hey don’t worry about it man. We’re all freaks.’ An answer Arthur finds less than re-assuring. There’s madness in the air and only he can see it. His anxiety is blocking the road to total abandon. And he knows it. His values, his parent’s values, are a burden. ‘I’m Marsha,’ says the girl.

Simon joins them and immediately gets into the groove. Simon, always comfortable in any situation. Fluid and graceful, Simon knows how to approach girls and hardly ever gets rebuffed. He gives himself effortlessly over to the beat. The three of them dance together separately for a while. For a few beautiful moments Arthur is dancing. Really dancing. Like magic. Dancing outside himself. Above the ground…free. Then he remembers something.

‘I’m off then.’ Says Arthur.

‘What!?’

‘I’ve got to sort newspapers in the morning remember?’

Suddenly out of nowhere a surge of warmth wells up inside Simon. He is almost in tears as he says, ‘You really are amazing Arthur, you know that?’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh never mind. Be careful how you go.’

Arthur buys a ticket at Goodge Street Station from a Francis Bacon octopus in a cage. Once on the tube, nerve ends still flashing and sizzling, he narrowly avoids fusion with a group of grotesque revelers wearing kilts. Somehow he arrives at Victoria in time for the last train back to the sanity of suburbia. Had he seen God? Hard to say. He’d certainly seen something. As he lets himself quietly into the shop he wonders what cultural undercurrent decrees that everybody should walk through Portobello Market on Saturdays wearing old military uniforms. On the kitchen table, gently throbbing, is a ham sandwich.

Simon and Marsha, meanwhile, have left UFO and taken a cab to the place where Marsha is staying. It turns out to be a Regency house on Cheyne Walk. There’s a spacious bedroom on the second floor. Soft lighting, Indian bed-sheets, Moroccan cushions, joss sticks, standard hippy décor, but there are some classier, expensive-looking touches too, deep sofas, Persian rugs, a Hockney swimming pool or two. Simon asks about the owner. Not here, says Marsha rolling a joint, don’t worry about him. So he doesn’t. The hash is the very best Red Leb. The acid waves keep rolling in. They surrender to whatever it is and immerse themselves in the mysteries of human flesh.