Short Story: The Golden Lion, The Trip and The Pick-Up Truck

The Golden Lion, The Weight and The Pick-up Truck

It certainly, I think, is not a good idea to drop acid and go to the pub. Someone in our midst had offered the prospect of a football match and back in the miserable front room of the battered house it had rushed to us in a coat of wonder, with us all thinking of the green and the glory of the ultimate game. Everyone embracing and becoming transfixed with our own nostalgic elements, my main one being quite randomly the voices of excited commentators (Aguerooooo), which became amplified by the trip and the blandness of our environment. One of the present company was transfixed by the idea of the smell of the stands on match day and kept mumbling about steak and kidney pies. Of course, we were all to spaced and none of us thought to mention that these smells would not be present at our local dive of a pub.

The cut through the park on the way to The Golden Lion was a mesmerising one. Nature and hallucinogens always collide with the most wonderful results. I also had that quite inoffensive Beach Boys song stuck in my head, which had been knocking around up there for a few days. I heard it now, better and with more clarity than the record itself. The harmonies seemed to be interlacing with the trees, (well Rhonda you look so fine) and as the song cascaded around my head (look so fineeeee), I felt like all of nature seemed to be hearing it too, extending even to the various dogs on their evenings walks who looked my way grinning and trotting to the beat of the drums, whilst the birds flew up to their trees in the rosy sunset landing in their plenty to the rhythm of the guitar fill. For a moment I forgot about the football, I forgot who I was and became simply a receiver of a musical entity, harmonising with everything but the dreary blacks and greys of the pavement invading the park, like a black magic marker on an otherwise perfect canvas.

Bow bow bow bo-ripped from me and shattered by a vocal hammer in the form of my blurry friends, who were ahead quite a way and had noticed me lagging. I yelled an infuriating roar in my mind drowning out once and for all the already fleeting sounds of the Beach Boys, for I was having a rare moment in which everything was one and in which I was naked in the eyes of the world, a child in the midst of mother nature finally ready to receive the secrets and answers to life, I was so close until CLANG. The metallic grey fist of humankind comes crashing in, trying to hurry me into a place of construction and sin, to watch a game which for a century has made less likely any kind of progressive thoughts for many men of the world, me included. The commentators and the glory were most certainly gone now as the thought of the pitch with all its perfectly maintained little strips seared through my brain, burning out my once wondrous feelings about the sport and coming up with utter nonsense, such of which I will not indulge you. I ran towards them with these false and ill-informed thoughts but luckily the wind rushed past my ears blotting out the heat of them and nature began to out again as I returned from a frequency of distortion into a warm hum, breathing deeply and sharply the fresh air, savouring its taste and feeling a most wondrous head rush, bringing back the giddiness.

I sailed into my company’s wavelength and experienced it for a while in a detachable way, they seemed to be honed in upon the houses in the distance and how they looked alive, although this was not communicated. I just looked at their jaw dropped faces and knew somehow. I used their eyes and did see a certain animation within the render for a few moments before I physically jumped, realising that the park gate and the houses beyond it were actually only 20 feet away and we had in fact successfully now cut through the park, in what felt like the fastest longest time. 

What even was time? A jester perhaps, dictating the pendulum randomly, whizzing and swirling drooping and melting, all the while laughing at no one in particular until it turns to face you and the teeth turn a grim yellow and the voice comes out of a slippery tongue oozing ominously. Get on and swing with me… I opened my eyes frightened and expecting him there with his droogy eyes, but instead saw an innocent squirrel at the exit of the park dashing frantically up a tree with an acorn. I laughed to myself. Where it was I can’t say but I’d read that squirrels hide their acorns only to remember where 20 percent of them are. 

Anyway, we continued our voyage and walked onto the adjoining road with smiles on our faces, the kind of ones you can’t hide; like back in school when Laura would tell Joni to tell Kayleigh to tell you that Alice liked you and you would glow red, feeling all warm and great with butterflies swooping around somewhere inside. Anyway, most people walking past looked at us with what seemed like horrified looks, which all the others mistook for smiles. I tried to explain how scary a group of people with Cheshire cat smiles not breaking eye contact would be to the laminar but all that came out of my mouth was gibberish that quickly sunk into a meaningless whisper when I realised the attention of the group was on me. I looked for a diversion, for being the focus of a groups senses for longer than a moment can easily turn me into an anxious wreck, but nothing came. I honestly don’t know how long we walked in a line down the road with all these faces staring at me egging me on to finish what I had started saying and which I couldn’t remember. It was torture, until the smell of burning entered our noses and then like desperate dogs we immediately whipped our heads around scouring our vision in its entirety looking for flames.

One of us shrieked with delight and we followed the finger to see ablaze the most incredible fire I had ever seen. Severe and tremendous the flames whipped and danced over a typical back garden fence, its liveliness exposing the mundanity of the road. I couldn’t look away and we stared for what seemed like hours watching it writhe until it felt sour and the flames took a vicious turn. The smell of lush oak turned to ash in my nose and I saw within them the end of something as I heard an eerie echo of singing in my head (we’re on our way home). At this point I swiftly escaped to the end of the road where I couldn’t see the heat and feel the smoke and waited there for the rest of the group, cold sweating the whole time, my stomach fluid a bathtub full of water, disruptive and slushing violently in all directions.

After some instants had passed with me wallowing they re-joined and fortunately did not ask me where I’d been the whole time they were watching the monster. We continued at a pace unbeknown to any of us at that present time and with deep focused stares at anything and everything until some yards/metres/miles later at the end of the next/third/seventh/fifth road there it was, in all its glory and splendour: the manhole of sin. Which all seemed like a hilarious dream to me looking back on it, as now covered in darkness it shined like a beacon beckoning me. Its lights became a connector to the park earlier and to the thoughts and feelings I had there, a mind state I so desperately wanted to return to. 

The sound of drums and guitars then reverberating towards me became a significant and crucial assurance of the refuge and happiness I would find within and in that instant. I became taken over by the moment completely. I felt it utterly necessary then to run at full force directly towards my saviour and in doing so, knocked over two of our group as I approached at pace from the back.

I darted inside and immediately rejected my decision and the whereabouts in which I found myself. There was no football, only squalor. Grimy and dirty curtains and tables immediately caught my eye, making me feel like a boy watching his first horror film, whilst I felt like the crowd and the band were on top of me, trampling me down into the dark floor and leaving me lost with an array of different old trainers. It was an assault on all of my senses with my nose receiving the smell of sweat and traces of stale cigarette which I promptly observed was the man next to mines fingers, stained horribly and gripping a glass of Guinness with soulless pupils, eyebrows all the while frenzied and mysterious, looking ahead. 

I was horrified and trapped in a capsule of grime and then before I knew it my friends were beside me, talking abstractly about how great the vibe was and bobbing their heads enthusiastically to the vile sounds that this “band” were making. I was drowning in the fullest depths of despair, hopelessly clawing at my wandering mind to try and come up with an out from this hell. I remembered I had tobacco in my jean pocket, and, clutching at what I thought could be my saviour, I started with my clammy hands to try and roll a cigarette.

I couldn’t see the papers. I fumbled wildly with my tips and managed to play with the independently hovering tobacco until I finally saw the sticky end of rizla glistening under the gloomy light and headed outside, the air now cool and welcoming. I looked up as I took my first drag, watching the smoke rise and slowly disappear underneath the stars which shone a different kind of colour in the haze of this trip. I imagined keyholes, infinite eyes behind snooping, vividly watching every move I took, revelling in my successes and sharing the agony of my anxiety and this made me feel better, somewhat. At least not lonely anyway. I kept inhaling the smoke on a wet end of the filter, largely due to my clammy hands and moist lips, but no matter how many tokes it never seemed to go past the halfway point. After I’d eventually had enough of this pointless exercise and I felt ready to be in that room again I cautiously re-entered the pub.

The band were now playing one of their softer, more bearable songs at this point and the room cordially altered in conjunction with it. With every symbol smashed walls would narrow, every line sung the ceiling would soar and every chord that rang out I was pushed back, until they were specks in the distance, in some faraway television set on some un-tuned channel whilst I was left in the dark, lights poised thousands of meters from my head. This lasted an acidic moment, until a friend spotted me and bounced jovially towards me.

“Wow this band though right?”

“Sure, yeah, this band”

“They sound like a feast”

I looked rather quizzically at her at this point, but nonetheless was interested. I was also intrigued as to how different she looked from usual, make-up more pronounced, eyes fuller in every sense, aesthetically both frightening and yet absorbing. Deep eyes, you could swim in the things, they were brown pools that housed a million miles of besotting tides, wondrous and glittering.

“A feast?” I enquired.

“Like a feast, a feast of colour, of all encompassing light, a circus gathering pace.”

Now I am not sure if that is definitely what she did say, but that’s certainly what I felt from her eyes and soft voice, parading around my ears and lingering for a little too long.

“I think they’re terribly average Emma”, I replied with a smile, so she might not take me too seriously, whilst also leaving the option of taking it seriously on the table. She opted for humour, laughed in a fuzzy kind of way, and proceeded to the bar for I imagine an orange juice.

I looked at Emma by the bar and then was drawn to another area. In the corner furthest from the band sat a man, engulfed in darkness it seemed. He sat with what looked like straight whiskey, staring at the glass as if it contained some kind of existential answer. To me he seemed completely separate from the pub, the world even. I looked at the intent eyes, and saw beyond that exterior a sadness, pain. The more I looked at his expression the more intriguing it seemed to me. His hands were calloused and dirty, whilst his hair was un-kept, and his dress was one of little effort. He looked as if he had come straight from a day of toil at the deepest pit of the world.

Regretfully I felt drawn to him, both out of intrusiveness and empathy. I wanted to know what could make a man sit like that, motionless but as if every bone in his body was broken, and I wanted to know if I could help him, or even just take his eyes away from his glass. For now, I blinked and continued to survey the room and the band. I wanted to try and separate the intertwined perceptions of reality and the acid, of course difficult to do, but I trusted the will of my mind. More than anything else I just needed to figure out whether this man was a projection or not. 

The visuals had certainly started to dull slightly, whether from effort or time passing I’m not sure. I figured I had to be more than halfway through at this point as I scanned the crowd and found all my friends. Within earshot I watched Ben talking to Emma, transparent in his intentions. His trip must have turned to lust and desperation as he snapped in her ear and glared at that face which had transfixed me. He writhed awkwardly close to her as he constantly ran his hand through his blonde hair, pushing it back off his sweaty head. She on the other hand was completely oblivious, upon the table of the feast of colour and music, not paying attention to his strained speech and forced smile.

I picked out the rest of the group, a few of which seemed to be doubling up and dropping a tab in their drinks. Just the thought of that made me shiver so I looked again at the band, who just seemed to be a constant central fixture of this pub, I wasn’t sure they’d ever actually stop playing. Images of a band with black bags under eyes fingers bleeding, voices breaking as they played the never-ending set for a faceless crowd clanged around my head.

I turned back to him. I was now certain of my first impressions as he still sat wretched and rigid, carrying a catastrophic weight on his shoulders, rarely blinking. And still it was there. This urge to perhaps help but predominantly to find out his troubles and sail in his cruel sea haunted my every thought. I glided towards him, through the crowd’s blank faces, and pulled up a chair to sit adjacent facing forwards, back to the corner. I imagined he was emotionally volatile and I didn’t want to alarm him at all.

Time passed. I waited patiently, never looking but feeling his motions, which were few and far between. He smelled quite strongly of alcohol, musky aftershave and something else I couldn’t quite place. With his every breath I felt pangs of sorrow, as if he might cry at any moment, although his face which I watched out of the corner of my eye remained fierce. He swallowed the dregs and found the bottom of his glass.

“I can buy you another one if you like?” I said warmly with a touch of eagerness, which he perhaps sensed.

He still stared forward, mumbling hoarsely something in the affirmative and I scrambled to the bar to get a whiskey and an orange juice, the mystery of this speechless man raising my eagerness to get back there. Faces blank, music constant but I had new motivation to push it all back, I felt like I was solving my very first mystery, or perhaps like I was the sidekick to the cowboy; like it was down to me to raise this hero up from the slumps to return to his former glory, win back the girl, shoot the Indians, ride off into the sunset. I re-joined the mourning hero, wiping as best I could the signifiers of anticipation from my overdriven imagination off of my face.

I pushed the whiskey across to him, into his realm of misery, and he received it, a twitch of appreciation from his fingers. Another stale silence. I took out my pouch of tobacco.

“Do you smoke?” I asked.

“I might as well.”

“So you would like one then?”

“I suppose I would yeah, although I wouldn’t really know how. I know how to drink though.”

“I can see. That glass seems very heavy tonight for you, but it seems there is no weight you couldn’t lift for this whiskey.”

His posture shifted defensively, and he opted for a grunt again. I was getting somewhere with the cowboy though and was very invested in this new muse. His voice had flared my curiosity. A soft painful hum.

“Why do you take an interest?” he asked.

“This weight is something I’ve never known, perhaps will never know and I’m curious as to the burden you carry,” I replied truthfully.

“Do you watch with a gaze of superiority?”

“No, I am only curious”

“Curiosity killed the cat”

“And kindness brought it back”

He stared quizzically.

“I’m just completing the proverb,” I said. 

Something of a smile sparked from the corner of his mouth as he glanced up at me. Behind his eyes I saw a wildfire dancing and grew slightly worried. Although I still undoubtedly found this man enthralling a nagging logic pervaded my thoughts, for after all what would this man be drinking the bar for if not a true horror. He certainly looked decided now, on what I didn’t know. I finished rolling the second cigarette, with less difficulty this time. The band kept playing.

“You wish to understand and rid me of this face then?” he said, fixing his eyes on me and mining down into the depths of my being. “This face that stands at my doorway smiling. This face that is etched onto the underside of my eyelids, casting my egregiousness in full light.”

The glare did not falter. He was possessed and did not blink. He only bored, dug and transmitted this horrific vision in some small part to me. Purely through intonation, the face and the eyes, I had become inextricably linked to the cause, whether I liked it or not.

“I… I believe I understand the devil my friend,” I stammered.

“And do you understand God?”

“In truth he has not shown himself to me.”

“That’s because he does not exist,” he paused, turning back to the place beyond the glass. “There are only devils of course,” he pondered with a finality, caressing the dregs more gently down his mouth this time, though still with the force of a river that seeks its ocean. 

This nagging feeling of unease prevailed, but it was simply a side effect of my intrigue. This was the feast, the circus gathering pace. Emma’s words had finally clicked and were yet another coincidence, or consequence of our psychedelic connection, and I was desperate to help, to understand and to leave this place with… well with who?

“I don’t think we are acquainted by name Mr…?” I inquired.

“Ah but we are acquainted nonetheless, all else is phony.”

And he rose heavily. The shoulders never seemed to straighten. With his determined look to no one in particular which I had come to attribute as his main feature, like the crucifix to Christ, he sluggishly dragged himself through the enmeshed throng of people towards the exit. No one paid attention and yet no one seemed to touch him, the place parted like the red sea for him and yet did so by complete chance. 

He must have known I’d follow him.

Without even acknowledging the nag or the friends or the band I rose swiftly and followed his trail, though I bumped my way to the door in a horrible entanglement of limbs and without any grace whatsoever. Maybe I heard the soft pattering of the groups voices urging me to stay as I reached the crooked door, but it is unlikely. I hit the cool night air once again and found him illuminated by the crescent moon. 

 I took the cigarette from behind my ear and with a clipper and a nod of encouragement from me he lit it clumsily and coughed. Almost immediately though it suited him, Clint Eastwood was complete under the moon. As I unfocused from what I perceived were the supernatural elements of his aura and the moon and stars, undoubtedly due to the still lingering trip, I regarded the quite frankly ridiculous background. A co-op lay in his shadow along with a Fabia, Skoda and a dull black litter bin. Oh cruel world! Why would you bathe the man of the hour in this light? England cannot provide the full fantasm that could be projected onto a character such as this. 

The stars became obscured by clouds and the street lamp cocked its iridescence to a straight synthetic yellow glow. I focused on the light at the end of our cigarettes instead, that carnal glow that has shed its seductive light on us all at one point or another; the gateway to our hunter gatherer ancestors. Right now this man beside me could slip right beside their campfire; to suggest I’d be an alien to the same scene is an understatement.

“Perhaps I shall take this up,” he said, breaking the silence and looking with interest at the cigarette as he flicked it perfectly for his clunky boots sole to smother it.

“Considering by your estimations we are all either in living hell or hell-bound I see no harm,” I exhaled, looking up to the sky and praying for the keyholes to return and give me some guidance. 

He sniggered and took some battered keys from his pocket. 

“Do you drive?”

“I do, but I feel that perhaps this is not the time,” I nervously replied. 

“Fair enough, you’ll make a good companion then, I believe you can keep me sane.” He paused. “If not, so be it.”

The finality of this last line was so dramatic I had to pinch myself discreetly. This night was turning to lunacy. But how could I leave? How could I walk away at this point and go back into the pub, listening to the bands encore and watching Ben writhing in a sweat of desire over Emma and drinking countless more orange juices and trying to find the courage to include myself in the haze of my wayfaring strangers as they dribbled inconsequential nonsense. 

Upon the sound of the automatic unlock of the pick-up truck (of course, it had to be a pick-up truck) I had made up my mind. My dear reader, this episode simply had to be concluded. I followed him and took my place in the passenger, or rather, companion seat. Seeing how much he had drunk I found it completely baffling as to how he cruised away in first and second as if he was on a police patrol. Lights on, mirror checks, controlling the wheel silkily. The smoothness of the drive was unprecedented. 

I felt the brain whirring through the hasty and stolen glances at the rear view mirror. The sadness and anger were mixing like two uncomplimentary spirits. Fortunately, the drive remained calm. I looked but did not notice anything outside of the vehicle. It was all soft focus, our microcosm reigned supreme and I studied all that happened within it, seeing it as an equation which bore some terrible answer. The small twitches, deep breathing, hand movements - even the very fibres of the seats - were there to be read. When he began to speak, it rang with soft sorrow.

“You have heard the tale of Narcissus?” He asked.

“Remind me,” I said, my voice trembling slightly in answer to what I guessed was the terrain.

“Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. In his rejection of the love that was so freely available to him as a gift from the gods, they in turn decided to punish him. Blessed with good looks but emotionally immature, Narcissus unknowingly stumbled upon the river and saw his reflection. And thus, the gods saw to it that he would live a life of obsession over his own image, eventually leading to his demise when he came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the world that could ever match it.

A similar theme seems to have made its inflection upon the very cadence and intonation of my soul. Although, it is not my own image. It is the image of an enemy. His very being has cast me into its shadow and I see no adequacy in his wake. I don’t even know if I can remember what he really looks like, the projection I’m sure has thwarted all the blemishes that might stain his physical reality. I burn wood and there he is in the flames, eyes shimmering with the power of the flame itself. I brush my teeth and the teeth shine as white as the basin. I sleep and he becomes the orchestrator of my most brilliant dreams and the hero that saves my loved ones in my nightmares. I believe the world houses only evil for how can something so stunning be the thing that ends me?

It will end me too, I have no doubt. I am sentenced to bathe in a sea of anguish and envy watching this handsome devil. It leads me to conclude that the only way to inflict imperfection upon his image is to unleash my own personal demon that has been unearthed in recent weeks.”

He halted here. This train of thought was delivered as smoothly as the drive. It sounded rehearsed, as if it had been bubbling away inside. Houses blurred past our vehicle, the circus was gathering pace and normality had become even more surreal than the acid trip itself. Suddenly we stopped and this man became frozen in time, staring out of the window at nothing in particular.

I surveyed the scene. To my left a grandiose house dominated everything, its white ancient walls shivering in the darkness. It stood alone, with a winding footpath through a manicured lawn leading directly to an oak door. My companion breathed more heavily, gripping the wheel and blinking slowly, until his eyes remained closed.

Without a word, he cracked the door open so vehemently that I jumped. He then proceeded to march his way around the bonnet and up the path, treading all over the lawn with venomous vigour. He wracked the door with the force of five men and a fist that was no longer humane. As a light blinked from the other side of the oak I watched in a state of perplexion, unmoving and defeated. I struggled to maintain my gaze, but isn’t this what I’d been after? Did I not now understand this mans seemingly incomprehensible and unreadable trouble? The line from Gladiator rose immediately from my mind as I forced myself to focus on the scene unfurling - are you not entertained?

The truck cooed like a chick to its mother and he coaxed it as easily as before into first, second and third as we headed somewhere else on the horizon. 

It was like I wasn’t even there.

I trembled in horror but with a sense of awe in how he remained so normal. More than this his calmness seemed apparent. The content that crossed every inch of his being opened with the early sunrise that only summer can afford and I glanced outward at the two magpies that sat atop a tree, blissfully unaware of what had just preceded. 

I fidgeted in my seat and the cowboy whipped his head toward me in complete surprise, a wry smile following soon after. 

           “I’m sorry, I had completely forgotten you were there.” He said with a lackadaisical tone. “You don’t mind if I drop you here?” He motioned to our left where, quite miraculously I might add, the gates of the park I had crossed earlier stood.

I nodded intensely with a diverted gaze as the car slowed to a halt and I cracked the door hastily. With as much courage as I was able to muster I stole one more glance at his face as the door closed, which is what has now ingrained itself deep into my minds eye as I lie down on the grass looking ahead of me at the rich blue sky. It is a face which is ever more unreadable and all the more formidable. The calmness and twisted smile and relaxed contortion are a concrete facade which completely obstruct everything which was open for conjecture and understanding before the ride.

I thought about his tale of Narcissus. Now of course the image would be palatable for him to wonder upon as he went about his day. The teeth that were dislodged with the force of his punch, the hair that was ripped from the scalp under the doorway light as the claws of his demons shredded indiscriminately. The eyes blackened by his consistent ferociousness as he battered the poor man from the doorway to the lawn, drinking in with maximum blood thirst the complete destruction of his image. Knowing that the Hyde within himself had done this would surely give no credence to that perfection which had made his everyday life impossible.

I now know the weight Eastwood carried and it was not existential after all. It was 170 pounds with a brilliant smile, silk pyjamas and from what I glimpsed in his first reaction upon opening the door, a kind demeanour.

Though I know everything I wanted to know, he remains more of a cold hard stone than before. I fear that I am now chained as he was, but instead by this new image. Looking to the sky and the grass and the dogs and the trees I see no beauty, only a man whose carnal violence gave projection to that very face I had witnessed some minutes ago. I looked at the early morning dog walkers and saw that same face. I thought back to the faces of the night before. I thought back to the faces of my parents, my friends, my teachers, my girlfriends, my doctors, The Beach Boys and saw only the same shallow projection. Was there even a soul enclosed amongst all that bubbling hatred, that bleach and tyranny? Was there love? 

I close my eyes and am again assaulted by the image. 

          There can only be devils. 

          And that is why, my dear reader, it certainly, I think, is not a good idea to drop acid and go to the pub.