Lockdown Day 20: Saturday 11th April, 2020

Weird appeared the next Saturday afternoon when I bumped into her in Listen!, the record store central to the Hippydom of Glasgow.

More accurately, when she bumped into me down in the basement as I sifted that dusty dungeon for any Blue Oyster Cult or Nektar rarities, offcuts, demo discs or bootlegs. Unsuccessfully as usual, as it wasn’t vinyl junkies that Glasgow catered best to. As the entire region declined with the dotage of traditional industries and endless political mismanagement, the land of Hume and Clerk-Maxwell and Watt, Scott and Stevenson and Burns was drowning in a waste mass of massed wasted, the cludgie on the Clyde, an overflowing outhouse on the North Atlantic marches in desperate need of redemption. The world beyond, that undiscovered country once opened by my ancestors, held out faint promise in strange books and records – the musings of Kesey, Kerouac and Burroughs, the supersonic ramblings of the Airplane, Grateful Dead, Santana and Dylan – simultaneously obscure and familiar, outlandish yet everyday, enticing and intimidating. Their world untouchable yet there for the taking, dangling just out of touch.

  I was deep in the racks lost in music and paying little attention when I felt a tender bump on my hip. Politely, I shifted down the aisle a bit, head still buried and curtained by my hair while I delved into the next stack.

  Again there was a bump, harder this time, “You got a problem, pal?” I grunted, Glasgow to the core. Straight at her stunning smile. 

  “Only that you won’t dance with me” she laughed.

  I melted.
And though I swore to stop doing that, I knew I was kidding myself.   

  She was in a rush, in town with her folks buying a present for Uncle Pain-in-the-bahookie. I suggested Sid Barret, she bought the Sidney Devine her mum had sent her for. Family misfortunes and musical folly, I sighed at this musical desolation and hid in shame as she settled up. I was in a daze, in love with a dream, confronted by its reality.

Somehow, I’ve no idea how, we agreed to meet in the Blenheim – the tribal watering hole of Glasgow hippydom. Unwashed, unfed and unwanted but always unfettered in the Blenheim. It was a joint, a den, a dive, but the best night out in Glasgow for the acid warriors of the unleashed dark. A couple of quiet drinks became lost weekends, wild weekends became road trips to festivals, fun times and France, slow days became weeks as we gestated in this warm moist womb of our youth. Everyone was up for it, all the way, all the time. Easy rider access to the highways of the mind as we plotted the new world we would build for tomorrow. Electric dreams for acid warriors. Then school the next day.

  She left me dazed and confused. On the bus home, I wore a red noose line raw about my neck, anxiously threading my leather thong round and round. The more I thought about it the less I understood. She was an angel in being as well as name – beautiful, funny, older, beautiful, streetsmart, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I wasn’t. I was me. It made no sense at all.

  I was meant to be catching some heavy new act – all twin guitars and shaggy locks – at the Burns Howf that night with the boys, but, still in shock, I called to cancel. I scrabbled about the house to find something to wear. Nothing I wanted was clean. I cursed my mother for missing the point about doing your kid’s laundry. My sisters, sensing something in the air, pestered me silly, refused to leave my room, leaping around, emptying my dresser drawers and throwing everything around, harassing me till mum finally harried them into submission. At the same time reminding me where the washing basket was and what it was for. I gave up and rummaged through the clothes heaped on the floor. I spotted my less manky, more patched jeans, gave them a spray of Christmas-stocking Hai Karate and slid them on. From under the bed I hauled a cleaner rugby shirt, pulled it on then dusted down my dessert boots. I checked myself in the infrequent mirror.

  I looked exactly the same.
Torn Wrangler jeans, dark and light blue striped rugby shirt, untamed hair down my back. I knew I had other clothes somewhere and vowed to find them tomorrow. I was vaguely embarrassed, wearing the same gear for a third meeting. Naively, I told myself she wouldn’t notice. As ever, my only decision was over my hair, whether to let it hang free, corral it in a ponytail or go for the Be-in, be there or be square, west coast look with a denim headband. I didn’t have a rubber band to hand so I slipped on a faded blue headband to keep the peace.

  I needed a stiff dram before I left the house, but Dad was settled by the drinks cabinet checking the results on his Littlewoods pools coupon. There was no chance of a wee goldie, he was camped for the night. There was no cider left in the dark pantry, so I hurried out cold turkey.

I told myself I was up for it, but my nerves had nerves with goosebumps on their goosebumps.