Did your Granny Take a
Trip?
‘You didn’t Gran, did you
really take LSD?’
‘Yep, I did...got to be
honest...’window pane’...that’s what we used to call it in those days.’
‘Window pane’, that’s
quite a neat name for it.'
‘What do they call it
now?’
‘Oh acid, just acid.’
‘So what year would that
be?’
‘When I took it?...oh
about 64, 1964, they were all doing it then, the Beatles and just about
everybody.’
‘Where were you living
then?’
‘Chelsea...just off the
King’s Road.’
‘Tell me about it, Jeez,
my Granny took a trip...that is uber cool.’
‘Oh there was this
hairdresser I used to go to...what was his name....memory...just seems to be
getting worse and worse...’
‘Doesn’t matter about his
name, Gran.’
‘Gabriel, Gabriel, that
was his name. Anyway he was one of those groovy King’s Road types, married some
titled Lady in the end till she kicked him out, so he sold his story to the
tabloid papers of being this suburban lad who married into the aristocracy.’
‘Oh that’s enough of
Gavin, so tell me about how you took it...the LSD.’
‘No, it is important
Gavin died young, very young...a lot my friends did.’
‘60s casualties?’
‘That’s right. Can you
pass me my glasses?’
‘Sure, here. Do you want
the walking stick?
‘No, no, stop fussing
will you?’
‘So go on?’
‘Go on about what?’
‘The acid, the LSD you
took.’
‘Oh right, well Gabriel
hands me a piece of blotting paper one evening.’
‘Is that it? I say.’
‘Yeah, ‘enough ‘window
pane’ there you should have a good ‘trip’.’
‘So you took it?’
‘Well I have to be
honest...not before... well, I was the careful type; I mean I never did Heroin,
that’s why I am still here. Can you stop doing that?’
‘What?'
‘Stop rocking my chair
like that, you are making me sea sick, are you nervous?’
‘Naw...no, I’m not. So go
on, so you didn’t take Heroin.’
‘No, well it was close.’
‘What
do you mean?’
‘Oh
I had friends in the music business and Heroin was around...they took it,
talked about the glow it gave them, mind you I snorted a lot of cocaine, it
would be laid out...the lines of white powder, and there would be a few gasps
when I continued snort line after line... then 'coked up' arriving at some
guy's place and him asking
‘Do you want an injection?’
'Of
what?’
‘A
booster’
‘Yeah...yeah
sure.’
‘Right
give me your arm.’
‘Dangerous
Gran...anything could have happened.’
‘Right, lucky I am here
and lucky you are here, for I was playing Russian Roulette with my life.
Anyway you wanted to know
about the LSD I had read of some alarming stories about people thinking
they could fly and jumping off buildings...always been a bit of a coward about
heights. Anyway, so I put a bowl of sugar by the base of my bed as I was told
it takes you down if you are flying too high.
So I place the
blotting paper in my hand tore a bit off and swallowed it and waited
nothing...then I took a bit more, chewed it...nothing. Then I took quite a
chunk ... and the window in the basement started moving.
There were bars in this basement
window and then a face began to appear holding the bars; not quite a human face
then another and another and then a body and then I realised that these were
not human form but monkeys and I have always had a phobia about
monkeys...'
'So it brought out your
worse fears...?'
'I’ll say...and the
monkeys were trying get through the window to get through to me, and God, I
remember the bars were being bent by them pulling at them and...'
'Steady on Gran, I don't
want you to get upset, have a sip of the cocoa.'
'So then...then I
reached down for the sugar but as I did the bed seemed to be a hundred feet
high as if I was atop some skyscraper, so I thought if I fell off the bed
reaching down for the sugar I would fall to my death.'
'So what did you do, oh
here your blanket has fallen off,'
'Don’t fuss.'
'I am trying to remember,
oh right and then I looked at my watch because I had heard that the ‘trip’ would last for so long, but
the hands of the watch started spinning round and then I shook it and it
got giant sized and turned into Big Ben. Then I desperately tried to think
of my boy friend, he was a dancer in the Corps
de ballet and I would try to
vision him dancing just to get away from the vision of the monkeys trying to
bend the bars of the window, I tried so desperately and then that vision came
of him dancing and the monkeys, seated now, looking on in quiet
appreciation. I will never forget the beauty of that. Then the windows
started to turn into these beautiful stained glass windows like some Chartres
Cathedral...oh the beauty of it...’
‘The Cathedral?’
‘No, my 60s innocence...I
don’t know, the innocence of that waste.'
'Don't upset yourself
Gran, why are you crying?'
'I am weeping for the
lost innocence that was the 60s...I am weeping for my innocence in losing a
decade of my life through drugs...I am weeping for the world as it is now
compared to those innocent misguided days of the 60s.'
'Don’t upset
yourself Gran, here's a tissue, dry your
eyes now...come on now, put your shawl round you. There, there.’
c Peter P. Cheevers

