Fear and Loathing in Toy Town (part 1)
“One toke over the line, sweet Jesus. One toke over the line”
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a little lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going around a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
“Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind” I said. “It’s your turn to drive”. I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough”.
Hunter S Thompson (from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”)
It was just after 2pm when I arrived in Ironbridge as I recall, and still an hour or so away from when the sun would firmly and finally break the shackles of the overhead clouds and beam radiantly down upon her earthly disciples. My first port of call, as always, was the town’s one and only “Old Fashioned Sweet Shop” and after putting the world to rights with long time friend, confidant and the shop’s proud owner Jeremy, I departed with some Yorkshire Mixture and a scattered assortment of Wine Gums. The High Street was busy and Ironbridge fairly brimming with a liquorice allsorts of humanity with nearly every public bench occupied by families and tourists and even bikers making a midweek pilgrimage to sit beside the “Grand Old Lady” awaiting the arrival of the sun. Dogs were taking their human companions for brisk strolls. Children were eagerly devouring ice cream. The riverside walk, and a walk I’ve undertaken many hundreds of times whether during the sunshine of the day or under the light of a full moon at night, was as perfect as it’s always been.
Fred and Mary were pleased to see me, if such an emotion can be applied to a pair of swans I’ve self-named and believe them to be in the middle of a torrid love affair. I see cygnets in their future but I’m an old romantic who loves nothing more than sitting on the side of a river with half a loaf of bread and a head full of sunshine dreams. A dachshund by the name of “Sausage” playfully bounced in and out of the water with regular retreats in no small part down to the loud hissing of Fred and Mary! “Pepper”, a joyful and ebullient black and white border collie had no such qualms or care for the hissing from a couple of territorial swans, leaping into the river in search of his precious tennis ball and when one was safely retrieved, he’d scatter the ducks as well as drawing the ire from Fred and Mary once more as he chased another.
I had an appointment with the Good Doctor (and some old fashioned sweets) and by the time I’d made myself comfortable on the grass of a nearby public park (and the exact same spot where I’d sat with my beautiful son less than 24 hours previously), the sun had well and truly broken through the fluffy white clouds above and she had her hat on once again.
“So I was not entirely at ease drifting around the casinos on this Saturday night with a car full of marijuana and a head full of acid. We had several narrow escapes: at one point I tried to drive the Great Red Shark into the laundry room of the Landmark Hotel — but the door was too narrow, and the people inside seemed dangerously excited”
Hunter S Thompson (from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”)
“The Hitchhiker and bad craziness in Toy Town” (part 2)
It was early afternoon as we made our descent into Ironbridge. “Creep” by Radiohead had replaced the majesty of the Stone Roses earlier and idle thoughts were easy to come by on this glorious summer’s afternoon. Of course it was easy to fall in love with someone so beautiful, someone who seemingly lived within her own aura, her own bubble, her own place of happiness. The world she lived in was a magnificent place to be. Facing the window and playing casually with her long auburn curls she sure knew all the words to Creep I reasoned and I could watch this ethereal human being blow smoke rings until the end of time. But falling in love?
That was too crazy even for this old fool.
Idle thoughts sure were easy to come by on this glorious summer’s afternoon. Another was the stone cold fact that over an hour into our time together I still didn’t know this beautiful lady’s name. Time and again I tried to rouse my vocal chords from their inertia and even when successfully squeaking a partial question or what I believed to be an amusing outburst from my largely paralysed throat she didn’t so much talk over me but excitedly past me, through me and even beyond me. I desperately wanted to exclaim that she’d chosen yet another favourite Radiohead song on the car stereo or that she knew the words as pitch perfectly as I did, but these words were soon lost in a fug of further idle thoughts as she blew smoke rings through the open crack of the passenger window before with one last drag of her joint, blowing a plume of rich smoke out of the car and into the fantastical world we were about to join. It was at this point when I finally had the courage to confirm that we’d arrived but she beat me to the verbal punch once more as she excitedly exclaimed she could see the river and “We have to feed the ducks!” and all I could do was smile, nod and retreat into my idle thoughts once more. “It’s like a picture book world!” she continued before turning up the music a notch or two higher. The sun was screaming from a cloudless sky and I was very definitely falling in love.
Perched in the shade beneath a raft of overhanging trees, our feet dangling over the edge of the river, she lit another joint as I unwrapped the bread. I was going to caution her against such public defiance of an archaic law about smoking such a substance in a public place but she’d clearly read my mind or could see the angst building on my face. “It’s OK, relax!” she laughed. “They know me here. I’ve been coming here all my life”. In my heart I sensed this to be a lie but what the hell? Lies and stories, even half-truths, are best told under a blazing sun beside the river and even better when watching a brace of ducks chasing around for scraps of bread. She squealed in delight as one flock after the other came crashing into land on the river and before we knew it there were forty, maybe fifty hungry ducks eager for our attention. “This place is beautiful” she exclaimed excitedly, clapping wildly and kicking her heels on the riverside wall. Ducks scattered hither and thither in retreat before quickly reassembling before us. She offered me the joint before quickly snatching it back with a smile and the biggest smile I think I’ve ever seen. “You’d only say no!” she laughed, “or…” she continued “You’ll say you’ll save it for later, for when the sun goes down”. She tossed her auburn hair as she turned away from me, laughing.
“I know you so well”.
“And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave…
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back”
Hunter S Thompson (from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”)
The afternoon of Monday 12th August 2024 was, and will no doubt remain, the high water mark for this year’s summer here in the UK. Mercury in thermometers all over the country snaked past 30 degrees Celsius and I paid no heed whatsoever to the doom mongers in the media who warned of such sunshine excess by spreading out on the grass of a public park, lapping up the sunshine like a crazed and demented lizard. Two hours, maybe even more, were spent twisting and turning under a blazing sun as I lovingly devoured my old fashioned sweets and laughed along with the Good Doctor, my literary hero and perhaps, arguably, the greatest writer of our generation. Certainly the only writer to have created his own style of writing, in real time too, from the madness of the Hell’s Angels through the Satanic Hell of politics and, to a lesser degree, professional sports, before knowing the end was near and preferring to go out on his own terms before leaving his ashes to be fired on a rocket into the stratosphere in the capable hands of his friend and fellow Kentucky “Colonel”, Johnny Depp.
The rest of the afternoon was a familiar ritual of years past as well as more recent times: snaking my way along the edge of the river, hoping to catch a glimpse of Fred and Mary frolicking in the river or a cavalcade of ducks forever swapping one side of the river for the other. It was approaching 7pm by the time I returned to the iron bridge itself and although the sun was just beginning its descent in the distance the evening air was still incredibly warm with tourists and locals alike all grabbing a final few rays of the sun outside the ever popular Tontine Hotel in the centre of town.
“Now Stephen, just a small portion of chips as usual.
Just a small portion of chips.
Just a small portion of chips.
Just a small…Oh yes, hello! Can I have a large portion of chips please, salt and vinegar aplenty, kebab meat and lashings of that special hot chilli sauce. Thanks”
Thanks for reading. For more well meaning if rambling bunkum and balderdash, here’s one I prepared in early March of this year:
"At the end of a Storm" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.