Gram Parsons- southern gent, country rock architect and avatar; wannabe rolling stone and sense derangement enthusiast was excited. He could feel a deep, almost chilling, narcotic excitement that began in his head, ran down through his body, bounced back up and hit every synapse in his brain like a pinball. He was wearing his famous Nudie suit with marijauna leaves stitched all over it, and, as he moved around the pool table, cigarette dangling from his lips, he felt very much alive. He leaned forward, lined up his shot and cannoned the blue stripe into the top left pocket, the white ball spinning back down the table, clicking into the other balls.
“Well alright,” he murmured, brushing his long hair out of his eyes and lining up his next shot. He wasn’t just excited because of the high-grade cocaine that had just entered his system; he was excited because he and his friend Keith Richard were on a quest. A quest that involved breaking across into the metaphysical world which LSD had, for Parsons and most of his contemporaries, revealed.
  It was 1968 and Southern California was the kook capital of America. Sex, drugs, the counterculture and the new philosophical ‘rock’ music had seemingly opened up a new consciousness of inner and outer space. Everybody seemed to be looking for something; some people dropped acid with varying effect: some entered a benign world of heightened consciousness; others unleashed in their brains hitherto unknown storms of paranoia and delusion; still others became totally dysfunctional, grew beards, lived in communes and played Nitty Gritty Dirt Band records backwards all day long. The Beatles had disappeared to India for spiritual enlightenment; Jimi Hendrix, Cream and the Grateful Dead were mowing the kids of America down with psycho operatic white noise symphonies forged from howling Marshall amps. The  Rolling Stones were cooking up a new menu- anarcho-syndicalism with a little satanism grated on top, warmed in the oven of bedroom revolutionary fervour; meanwhile, large portions of the west coast were out to an extended chemical lunch. 
   Keith Richards, spurred on by the babblings of his main squeeze, the beautiful yet dissolute Anita Pallenberg, had decided that the time was right, not for fighting the streets- as the stones’ recent single had urged- but for making contact with the extra-terrestrial life that was, according to many people, visiting earth on a regular basis.
    To this end, Richards and Pallenberg, as well as Parsons and others had already made one trip down to Joshua Tree to get high and search for ufos. Now, Richards and Pallenberg had got the urge again and this time they knew how to make contact.
“Stroke of luck, getting that box of tricks,” he said to Parsons in his refined slur as he tottered back to the pool table, swathed in a multi-coloured poncho, cigarette burning between his be-ringed fingers.
Parsons cannoned another ball home. He was buzzing.
“Whoo..”
“You beatin’ me?” said Richards, his ear cocked, waiting to hear his selections come on the jukebox. They were in a quiet bar at lunchtime. Their plan was to wait for nightfall, go out to the desert, get very high and use a new gadget Richards had brought from LA. This gadget, called the Meiherhoff box, was supposed to detect any extra-terrestrial activity within a close area. Keith Richards, who was never the most gullible of people, had become quite animated by the claims made by the two young ‘scenesters’ who had eagerly swapped the box for some coke and a couple of Fender strats. They claimed they had come by it during time spent running amphetamines up in San Francisco; it was one of four stolen from a secret research base where the remains of many alien spacecraft were stored and studied. Keith had fallen silent over his joint as he examined the detector, a very heavy, rather small black oblong box covered with switches and dials. He was impressed by the weight and complexity of the box, which lent credence to the claims being made for it- junkies would certainly trade such an item, but they could never have built it; so Keith decided it was worth the coke and a couple of guitars.
    And Gram needed no persuading to tag along; he was currently Keith’s main drug buddy and, in an ideal world, he would have liked to ditch his fellow compadres in The Flying Burrito Brothers and join Keith’s band full time; Gram dug the Stones in a big way. 
   Richards, watched by the female bartender, closed his eyes and reclined into a chair as the chiming shuffle of Memphis Tennessee came through the speakers, “Hmmm, I forgot it was so early….”
Sitting next to him, Anita Pallenberg, stunningly beautiful and dissolute lit another cigarette.
“Yes,” she replied in her darkly European accent, “the coke was our alarm clock this morning…”
“You know something lady, you really need to watch the waffle dust,” said Keith in his refined monotone, “just ‘cos Freud and Sherlock Holmes took it….”
“Hey,” said Pallenberg, “you are being a hypocrite Keith, that is the saucepan calling the teapot black, is it not?”
 
 

Meanwhile, the Lizard King was moving through the desert. The road stretched in front of him, a mirage seen through billowing joint smoke. The radio played Dylan and it didn’t annoy him. He was content to let the music wash over him. The fat reefer that idled between his fingers had done its job - Jim Morrison was mighty stoned. He was wearing a tight leather number and was still slim enough to look striking in it. His leonine mane was falling down in all directions and large shades hid his eyes.
“Death and my cock are the world, dig?” he murmured.
“That’s a cool line Jim,”
    Next to him, behind the wheel, sat Lenny Kreeler, a drug dealer/record producer who spun a living out of the fringes of the LA music scene. He was essentially a hustler, and to this end he stuck close to Morrison whenever the lizard king gave him the opportunity to do so. Kreeler’s current idea revolved around Jim doing an album of Elvis covers; Jim wasn’t interested in doing Elvis covers but Kreeler amused him- who else among his retinue was old enough and hip enough to have sold drugs to the Merry Pranksters? Who else could sniff out the best drugs in town, or find you a saxophone player at three in the morning to serenade your lovemaking with your latest groupie? Who else would listen to your wildest speculations and dreams and offer to help you to carry them out?
 Now they were powering down the freeway in Kreeler’s beat up Chrysler, in search of spiritual enlightenment.
“When we get there,” Morrison continued in a low voice, “ we’ll check out the vibes, sniff the air; cogitate; empathise with the karmic disruption caused by the persecution of the American Indian. Then we’ll eat.”
“Okay,” said Kreeler, “hey man, pass me the joint.”
 
 

Some way up the street from the bar where Keith, Anita and Gram Parsons were ensconced, in the parking lot of The Mo Harvey Motel- ‘America’s finest economy lodging’- a white van pulled up; both of the men inside the van were working for the FBI: Charlie Schuster, behind the wheel, aggravated and smoking a cigarette, and behind, hunkered down behind surveillance equipment in the rear, a thin agent called Harry Smith. Both in their thirties, they were on the trail of the Meiherhoff Box and had tracked its signals to the town.
   “You know something Harry?” said Charlie dragging on a Pall Mall and looking out at the dusty street, “this is a piss ant town. I’m sitting in a piss ant town looking for some green monster box designed by Mattel”
“Yep. But we’re getting a signal here- the box is in the locality.”
“Really?” Charlie turned in his seat, “strong signal?”
“Yep”
“Good, let’s eat.”
 
 

The afternoon had worn into a fabulous evening of pink and gold. Gram was still more wired- they had broken into a fresh stash of coke and were now up at their favoured viewing spot- an old barber’s chair atop a rocky outcrop where Timothy Leary had sat in the past, tripping and staring at the heavens amid creosote bushes and ocotillo. Keith surveyed the skies with binoculars.
“I can almost feel something in the air tonight. You know?”
Anita crossed her legs and considered doing some peyote, “You think they’re going to come tonight?” she asked.
“That’s for this little baby to decide,” giggled Parsons, extracting the Meiherhoff box from inside a sports bag. He set it down on the ground. Keith and Gram bent down, and breathed heavily like the stoners they were, as Gram switched the gadget on. Lights and dials came alive and a kind of radar read-out began to sweep back and forth on a small screen.
“Okay. It’s workin’,” he said in his southern drawl, “now we just gotta wait.”
Keith stood up and lit a Marlboro, “bit like fishin’ really, innit?”
“I wonder whether we’re going to catch anything,” said Anita.
Keith wrapped a blanket round himself, “Well, put it this way, we’ve put the line in the water.”
 
 

Jim Morrison’s raging spliff hunger had driven him to a chilli con carne binge in the bar where Keith and Gram had beguiled the afternoon. Whilst Lenny Kreeler found out exactly where Keith and Gram Parsons were, Jim sat at the bar, drinking off beer after beer and chowing down the heavy Mexican meal, whilst Hank Williams played in the background. Two stools down the bar Charley Schuster smoked and read a newspaper, ears and eyes cocked at the strange new arrival. Morrison ate in the rhythmic giraffe-like fashion of the extremely stoned, his shades slipping down his sweaty nose; the female bartender had turned her attention to him.
“You like the chilli?”
“Sure do.”
He carried on chewing.
“Are you..okay?”
“Wooh,” said Morrison slowly, without looking up, “let’s not get into semantics.”
The young girl frowned.
“You shouldn’t eat so much, I mean, you’re eating the super-dooper double chilli deLuxe trucker’s portion. That’s a big meal. You’re a good looking guy and you don’t wanna get fat now do you? Also, chilli gives you wind, real bad wind.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes, very bad wind. It’s the beans I suppose. Mix it up with beer and oh boy…”
“Well, thanks. While we’re on the subject I’d like another Budweiser.”
Kreeler came back in.
“I talked to some old trucker out in the lot, says he saw a freaky looking chick and two queers with long hair going out into the desert.”
“Heh,” said Morrison wiping his mouth, “Well they’re here then. And I got a damn good idea where they’ve gone to.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Leary’s old spot. There’s a kind of chair up there. If they’ve got the box, that’s where they’ll be. I know it.”
Charley Schuster’s head was buzzing. He got up, put on his jacket and walked out of the bar. 
“Want some of my chilli Lenny?” asked Morrison, drinking some beer.
“No thanks Jim, I think I’ll just have some peanuts.”
“Okay,” said the Lizard king, “I’ll just have to finish it myself. Then we’ll go get ourselves a Meierhoff box”
 

It was a fabulous night. Stars were spattered across clear night sky and Keith examined the moon through binoculars.
“Jesus, what a place.”
“I’d like to go there someday,” said Anita.
“I’m gonna go there someday” said Gram who was on some reasonably mild acid. He was watching the Meiherhoff box’s radar screen; the white radar wand passed back and forth across the inky black screen.
“What’s that down there?” said Keith, his binoculars pointing down the hill.
“Headlights,” said Anita.
It was indeed a car, trundling up a dirt track that they hadn’t noticed when they arrived in daylight, it’s headlamp beams cutting through the darkness. Parsons stood up.
“Damn, who the hell’s this?”
“Cool it,” said Keith lighting a Marlboro. The car turned and the car’s headlights crept up the rocky gradient and eventually reached the party gathered around the barber’s chair. 
“On stage again,” murmured Keith, starkly illuminated.
The car came to a standstill forty feet away. As the doors opened the interior lights came on, and the headlights went out, revealing a small dark man behind the steering wheel and a larger man with a toy store Indian chief’s head-dress on.
“…Itchahoolahoola….”
“It’s Jim Morrison,” said Gram Parsons wearily, “ what’s he doing here? Boy, he can be one heavy mutha”.
Morrison climbed out of the car unsteadily- he’d finished his dinner with a quantity of tequila.
“The night!” he shouted, “At last the night!”
Kreeler moved up through the rocks scratching his knees on cholla cacti.
“..Er, Hi!” he called out uncertainly.
“Yeah,” bellowed Morrison behind him, “a good old fashioned American ‘Hi’ to you Keith. Man. You got the box?”
Keith was dragging on his Marlboro, “Morrison, how’d you like to keep your voice down?”
“Certainly, of course- I’m just being friendly.” He reached the crest of the rock.
“A very good evening to you, have you got a Meiherhoff box here?”
“Great, I see the almighty mouth has arrived with his party hat” muttered Anita sarcastically.
Keith lit another cigarette, “You follow us out here?”
“Look  man,” said Lenny Kreeler, who was trying to think of a way of ingratiating himself into Keith’s vaunted circle- so much further up the scale in the rockocracy than Morrison- “everyone’s talking about these goddamn boxes, dig?”
“Yes,” continued Morrison, the chilly night air and weird landscape straightening him somewhat, “we were at a party last night and we heard that you had got hold of one. Does it work?”
“Hey man,” said Parsons, who was beginning to get annoyed, “this is a private party. Shit, it’s not even a party, this is a serious thing, so take that godamned hat off”
Morrison’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he looked across at the other singer.
“Oh I’m sorry country boy, I didn’t know you owned the whole goddamned desert. You don’t like my hat? Why should I take off my Indian hat ? You’re wearing a goddamned cowboy suit”
Kreeler began to make placatory noises, “hey listen, we all want the same fucking thing dig? Right Keith?” he touched the guitarist on the arm, Keith turned to him.
“Take your hand off me, you little turd” he said in an icy voice.
Morrison lit a cigarette, “anyone got any peyote?”
“Peyote? Don’t you bring your own drugs to parties?” said Anita. 
They heard a rustling behind them and a voice said, “Put your hands in the air. FBI.”
A torch snapped on and everyone in the group around the barber’s chair screwed their eyes up.
“You’re all under arrest,” said Charley Schuster.
“What the fuck?” said Kreeler.
“The pigs,” murmured Morrison.
Schuster pointed his gun at Richards, who looked rather composed, cigarette idling between his fingers.
“Where’s the box? Hey! Ain’t you that guy out of the Rolling Stones? Keith someone?”
“heh-heh” said Keith.
“You gonna let us all off?” said Morrison, “He’ll sign your badge.”
“Shut the fuck up” said Schuster edging forwards, “you’re all federal perps.”
Keith squatted down on his haunches, “okay, if that’s the way you wanna play it.”
Morrison staggered forward.
“Hey copper, how about relaxing a little?”
Schuster straightened his gun arm up.
“Don’t you fucking say another word. Harry, let’s cuff these sumbitches.”
“On what charges?” said Keith.
At that moment the Meiherhoff box began to bleep.
“Jesus,” said Parsons moving over to it.
The box was making a stream of noises: beeps, whistles and a low electronic monotone. On the radar screen, the milky wand was picking out an object that was moving very quickly.
“Jesus,” said Parsons, looking round at Keith, “It’s a UFO.”
“Hmmm,” said Keith.
Charlie Schuster moved forward and peered at the box.
“Jeesus, a real ufo! Harry, Harry for Christ’s sake it’s a genuwine ufo!”
Harry Smith moved up to the circle, holding his gun forward with two hands- the industry standard for wielding a gun. Richards glanced at him.
“Hey man, you really need that gun? I don’t like having a gun pointed at me.”
“Hey faggot,” snarled Harry Smith, “I’m callin’ the shots here understand?”
The Meiherhoff box was bleeping louder and a secondary siren-like noise was coming from its speakers. Gram Parsons gasped in lysergic wonder, “it must be close…”
Everyone except Harry Smith looked up at the starry night sky. Smith was bemused.
“Hey! Hey fuckos, this is an arrest. Schuster! Wake up!”
“Cool it man,” murmured Richards, his hand held up to indicate silence. Harry Smith moved across to cuff him. At that moment a flash of bright light emerged from behind a hill in the distance and the Meiherhoff box began to scream. As the party on the rocky outcrop adjusted their eyes they could see it was a definitely a vehicle or craft and it wasn’t built for travelling under the earth’s restrictive physics. Lights rolled and flashed in seemingly arbitrary patterns that gambolled across the surface of the craft, as beautifully spontaneous and unpredictable as cascading water.
  The craft was moving extremely fast, insanely close to the uneven desert floor; it seemed to have high-powered spotlights shining out either side, which moved long beams of curved light; beams of curved light behaving in a way that was contrary to all physical and cosmological laws.
“Jesus wept,” croaked Keith.
“I don’t beeleeve it!” said Anita Pallenberg.
The craft had come to a halt, suspended in mid-air.
“This is it,” slurred Morrison. A curved beam of light snaked around and landed on the party in the blink of an eye. The light was almost blinding. Lenny Kreeler fell to his knees- he wasn’t interested in ufos or the cosmos or any of that shit; he was just plain scared. The Meiherhoff box, which had reached a pitch of intense squawking, had now fallen ominously silent. The whole rocky outcrop on which they stood was bathed in a severe and unearthly white light. Gram Parsons, already tripping, now began to slowly piss himself. Morrison, possessed of an ability to see the fantastic in any situation, now didn’t need his imagination: here was a real, live mind-bending moment: visitors from another planet. He looked around at the others: Kreeler kneeling down like a benighted heathen, Keith, seemingly carved from stone, a dead cigarette between his lips; Anita Pallenberg, wide eyed and frozen in the barber’s chair; Gram Parsons, gibbering, with a wet patch spreading across the crotch of his Nudie suit; the two FBI men, holding their guns, mouths hanging open. 
     Morrison spread his arms apart in a pose of crucifixion. He threw back his head and bellowed:
“oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohoooooootchaboooooolahhooootchaboolah!”
His drone cut through the silence. The craft seemed to digest this noise; there was a subtle change in it’s colouring then it began to creep forwards towards them.
 
 
 
 

A strange kind of wind had got up and Morrison looked positively biblical in the intense white light that shone from the spaceship; the wind pushed his leonine plumage back off his head and he looked a camp DeMilleian Moses, arms spread out christ-like, glassy eyes staring upward into the heavenly light. This was it. This was the other side. He was here.
“Ohhh shit…” murmured Gram Parsons, struck nearly dumb with psychedelic intoxicants and unaware that he’d just urinated himself. The two FBI men had ransacked their brains for service guidelines on how to deal with alien spaceships and found themselves thinking ‘heck, I ain’t CIA. This is CIA stuff..”
They were also scared, very scared. Harry Smith, shaking, turned to Charlie Schuster,
“We’re….gonna have to keep our mouths shut about this…”
Schuster turned, still in the service gun holding stance; mouth hanging open,
“What? Keep our mouths shut?” he hissed, “This is gonna get us out of sitting in surveillance wagons buddy, Jesus Harry, we’re gonna apprehend an invader of the United States of America, not to mention four famous perps. Tomorrow we’ll be the most famous people in America!”
Harry felt faeces straining at his anus. He didn’t want to apprehend a spaceship or anything like that. He wanted to be back at the Mo Harvey, drinking a beer.
            Anita Pallenberg, seated in the old barber’s chair, was shocked by the magnificent craft in front of her, surrounded by lush and electric fields of colour, hundreds of times stronger and more intense than the vivid pigments that jumped forth from the airbrushes of san Fran poster artists. She was a veteran and head-strong tripper, so she felt more vindicated than anything- she had always believed in flying saucers.
  Keith Richards, looking as icy eyed and blue of lip as Ebenezer Scrooge in front of the ghost of Marley, took the spent Marlboro from between his lips and fished another from inside the folds of his poncho. He was scared, but he thought of other Englishmen in analogous situations- Livingstone in darkest Africa; Gordon in Khartoum; he realised that two very English traits were needed here- a stiff upper lip, and a high degree of diplomacy. He spun the wheel of his lighter and a small amount of the unearthly coloured light gathered round his hands as he cupped the cigarette.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he murmured looking at the verdant ether with pupils dilated. He quickly put on his sunglasses.
“Keith!” said Lenny Kreeler, who was now hunkered down on the ground, as if waiting for an explosion, “Keith! Get away from that stuff, it might be radioactive!”
“Too late now,” said Richards, drawing a lungful of tobacco smoke.
Morrison turned slightly.
“Will you shut the fuck up! I mean Jeeeezuz…look, let me handle this, I’ve done some reading about this and I kinda know, dig?”
The craft was now some twenty-five feet away. It was hard to establish the actual contours of the spaceship, as its surface seemed  an amorphous, ever changing thing.
“I’m gonna try and walk towards it,” said Morrison.
He made a step forward; everyone heard it in the absolute silence. The craft, in reaction, underwent a change- the field of colour surrounding it began to dissipate to nothing and a dim hatchway opened underneath.
“They want me,” said Morrison, in an Orson Welles voice, “I’m the chosen one…”
He began to stumble towards the hatch, feeling as though a new force had entered his mind, kind of like doing a new drug for the first time. Kreeler was thunderstruck, he was after all watching his perceived meal ticket walking off into a spaceship.
“Jim! Jim!” he shouted in a fierce whisper, “are you fucking nuts!?”
But Kreeler was beginning to feel the new force in his mind as well; he stiffened and turned to Gram Parsons, “hey fucko, did you spike me with some acid?”
The country singer never even turned. A new force had entered his mind; something that overrode the synapse twanging effects of the other drugs he’d been doing. He began to follow Morrison, arms hanging down his side, somnambulistically, through the creosote bushes towards the light. He passed Richards, who grabbed at his arm to no avail. Soon, Richards was following too.
Then Kreeler, who was trying get the Meiherhoff box back into the sports bag it arrived in, the better to make off with it, suddenly stopped and began to walk towards the spaceship too. Charlie Schuster turned to Harry Smith,
“Do you feel funny?”
“I feel like I did when I maced myself by mistake at that trade fair last month.”
“’Cos something ain’t right.”
They both began to walk towards the craft.
 
 

It was a new world; a world where earth’s rather tedious physics had been overruled or else had, for the builders of this craft, never existed in the first place. The party from the rocks, with Morrison assuming the mantle of major-domo, found themselves in what perhaps would have been described in the craft’s blueprint-if the builders had used anything as grindingly terrestrial as paper plans- as a saloon, or stateroom, although there any resemblance to a dreary old analogue ship ended. It was, like the exterior of the craft, a diaphanous and rather gloomy suite. There were soothing banks of lights which seemed to melt, coagulate and reform at a quick pace. The light was diffuse; the effect was like being in an enormous and ultra expensive elevator.  The party hung in space for a while whilst Morrison ‘swam’ around in mid-air.
“I’m sedated, clearly. You must be too,” he informed the party, “it’s a valium effect.”
A floor seemed to form beneath them and they began to spread out a little.
“You see, they’re giving us a floor so we can orient ourselves.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about it?” said Harry Smith suspiciously. He was feeling nauseous. Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg were holding on to each other, lighting cigarettes. Gram Parsons had found a lump of soft matter that seemed to be extraterrestrial intelligence’s idea of a bean-bag. He reclined into it.
“Man, we must be on some heavy downers ‘cos I don’t want to be in here at all.”
“We were fucking hypnotised by the sons of bitches, that’s why,” snarled Kreeler, who was trying to twist a small piece of metal off a ‘wall’, “grab yourself a souvenir. I’m going to the Inquirer with this!”
“Hypnotised!” yelled Charlie Schuster, “This is kidnapping! Kidnapping federal agents!”
Morrison laughed, “Well, that’s the electric chair for the lot of ‘em. Whoever they are. Get your badge ready”
Schuster ‘walked’ across to Morrison, aware that he was way calmer than he should have been in the present situation.
“Hey,” he said evenly, “you’re in a lot of trouble. In here you’re in a lot of trouble, and also when we get out of here you’re in a lot of trouble. You’re in a lot of trouble period.”
Morrison beamed, “How do you know we’re getting out of here?”
Schuster drew his gun out of his pocket.
“This is what is going to get us out of here buddy.”
Richards blew a line of smoke, which immediately mutated into a kind of glitter,
“Hey policeman,” he said in his murderous drawl, “like, is that a wise idea? The gun?”
Schuster turned,
“Hey limey, you’re under arrest. I’ve arrested you. Understand? So shut up.”
Anita Pallenberg flicked her cigarette stub at him.
“Excuse me,” roared Schuster, that is an assault…”
Suddenly, everyone was thrown into a kind of swoon; they were moving.

          Harry Smith was sick thirty seconds later and the vomit had an independent life of its own moving around the high tech elastic vestibule in a viscous lump, threatening to land in anyone’s lap. Everyone, held, by some obscure law of physics, against a surface, watched as a kind of window fashioned itself, seemingly from some kind of super malleable, yet amazingly resistant saliva, and soon, they had a view.
 

It was a view that made even Keith Richards feel a little ‘peaky’. Here was space, not as seen in the movies, but seen as only a few astronauts had seen it- through the naked eye. Vast and black with an unending background of stars; below them, or above them- hard to tell- was Earth. Rippling blue and white and vast. Suddenly they were moving so fast the view just became a kind of smudge. Morrison swam by in front of Keith Richards, his mane of hair floating out in all directions.
“This is some kinda fucking trip huh?”
“Are you enjoying it?” murmured Richards.
“I wanna talk to them!” shouted the lizard king. He looked around at the ‘walls’ ‘Hey, hey if you’re watching us, I wanna talk to you?”
Charley Schuster, who’s thinning, folded-over hair had lifted off his head in an amusing fashion, grabbed hold of Morrison’s ankle.
“Hey, hey shut the fuck up.”
Morrison doubled over kicked away Schuster’s hand,
“You’re out of your jurisdiction fucko, looked out the window? I think you’ll find we’ve crossed the state line.”
Suddenly music began to play. Everyone cocked their heads.
“Jesus,” murmured Parsons, glassy eyed and crinkle lipped with intoxication, “alien music! Well allright!”
The sound was strange, a kind of chiming, occasionally dissonant savagery.
“That’s not alien music,” said Lenny Kreeler, “that’s Jimi Hendrix! They must have picked some music up from somewhere, to play to us.”
Morrison had become consumed with his idea of communicating with the aliens.
“I’ve got to make contact. I don’t want this to be just some kind of goddamned ride!”
The craft seemed to be slowing down again; and a magnificent sight appeared in the window- Mars. At that moment, the Hendrix song finished and, as the full rubescent disc of the planet rose against the blackness behind, the opening, ominous bass and drum intro of Cream’s ‘Sunshine of your Love’ began to play. 
“Cooooooooooooooooooool!” drooled Parsons. The craft moved closer to the red planet and they were able to pick out the vast dead valleys and ancient, deceased lake beds that covered its surface. The party gathered round the viewing window, dumbstruck. All except Keith Richards, who was trying to establish the source of the music- “I wanna know what speakers these guys are packing, the sound’s fucking fantastic!”
   Suddenly, part of a wall swung back and there stood a US pilot, lit in a silver overhead light. Harry Smith turned round and began to choke.
“Holy shit! Holy shit!”
Everyone looked round. A floor formed and the pilot walked in on it.
“Hi,” he spoke in an unassuming American accent, “hey buddy,” he said to Harry Smith, “don’t be scared.”
He looked round at them all. His appearance was eerie- preserved, pickled.
“When did they get you?” said Morrison.
“Over the Bermuda, 1954.”
“Jesus.”
“It’s okay. I could have gone back. But…I didn’t want to, plus, as you can see, out here, deterioration is a lot slower.”
“Boring though isn’t it?” said Richards.
“With all that out there?” said the pilot, gesturing to the window.
“Okay, “ said Morrison, “what’s happening? This is like, like way heavy man!”
“Well, they like taking people for rides, and doing examinations.”
“Why?”
“They’re keeping an eye on earth. It’s heading towards destruction and breakdown and they like to pick inhabitants from time to time and have a look at them. It’s okay, they’re benign.”
“Where they come from?”
“Oh from a planet round a star that you can’t see from earth. A long way away.”
Charlie Schuster gripped his gun,
“Just what fucking right have they got to kidnap people?”
“No right at all, don’t worry though, you won’t remember it. You’re a rat. A laboratory rat. Only we don’t harm rats as you do on earth.”
Schuster nudged Harry Smith, “this guy’s obviously gone over to the other side. It’s like goddamn Natalie Wood in the Searchers! It’s the fucking Comanche.”
They had moved again. Outside the window, Jupiter hung in the vast nigrescence; monumental and gaudy, it’s obscene red eye leering out into nothingness.
“Well,” said Morrison, suddenly finding himself able to stand on the bit of floor that had formed itself for the pilot, “I wanna stay too. If it’s not too much of a cliché, ‘take me to your leader’.”
 

The pilot led the whole party down a series of tunnels/walkways. They moved in a kind of zero gravity doggy paddle. Morrison was becoming more animated and excited. He was about to undergo the primal moment of his life- communication with what were, perhaps, the gods that the ancient tribes that so interested him, worshipped. He kept touching the pilot’s shoulder and asking him questions.
“Where will we go once they take this lot back? I wanna see it all. Everything!”
“Hey,” said the pilot drily, “it’s not a conducted tour of Atlantic City. This is the universe. It’s on the big side, y’know?”
And then they were in a white space. The pilot disappeared. 
“I don’t like this, “ said Richards, offering his Marlboros around, “it’s a white out.”
“I’m gonna shoot this gun soon if we don’t get outta here quick.”
“I’d like some coke keith,” said Anita Pallenberg.
“Coke?” said Gram Parsons, “ wooh, wouldn’t that be a little….intense?”
Harry Smith vomited a second time. and then it happened: an alien walked in.
Nothing that freakish; in fact, to Morrison it seemed as though the alien could just as easily be a character from star trek. Milk white skin, huge head, very human, though much larger eyes and a body that didn’t seem much different. Sunlight, thought Morrison, has the same effect on all of us, except that these guys must have grown up with less of it. The effect of this apparition on the group was major. There was a hushed awe and gasps. Richards blew smoke down his nose and felt his anal tract twitch. The alien spoke:
“Welcome.”
The voice was breathy, and delivered at an odd octave, as if a cat had suddenly gained the power of speech.  Morrison raised his left palm.
“Welcome,”
The alien stopped.
“You’ve had a shock; take a deep breath. Who wishes to remain here?”
Morrison, for all his enthusiasm for intergalactic voyaging, now felt unusually fearful. It was a straight up question- where were the preliminaries?
Morrison spoke:
“I- er is that it? Is that all you’re going to say?”
“There is no point saying anything to those of you who are going to return to earth as you will not remember anything.”
“You’re going to return us to Earth?” said Harry Smith hopefully.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When we return.”
Charley Schuster drew his gun and pointed it at the alien.
“You’ll take us right back now goddamnit!”
The alien looked blank, and Schuster’s finger tightened slightly on the trigger.
“You’ll take us back now. I represent the United States government and this is a gross infringement of our liberty.”
“You were signalling to us.”
“The Meiherhoff box,” said Morrison.
“I wasn’t signalling, I was apprehending these perps, now turn this fucking ship around. Or I’ll be forced to fire.”
A hole appeared in the milky floor underneath Schuster, and he was sucked down into it.
“Nobody’s staying then?” said the alien.
Morrison wanted time to make up his mind- the alien tranquilliser had mixed badly with the booze- he was suddenly scared and down.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he said pleadingly.
“The alien, who was moving towards the ‘wall’ turned.
“Say anything? You mean, ‘Information’.”
“Well, I mean,” spluttered Morrison, “it’s not every day that one is kidnapped by aliens, I wondered if you had anything….sage-like to say?”
“Let me see,” said the alien, “you mean about your planet?”
“Yes,”
“It is poisoned; its inhabitants are poisoned. Give up all toxic food and drink. Rise above your petty motivations, respect one another.”
“Hey,” said Richards, “did one of your guys hang out on earth about two thousand years ago? Smaller head, beard?”
The alien blinked, for the first time since he entered the room.
“Anyone wish to remain with us?”
Morrison knew that it was now or never. The other side. Finally. He opened his mouth. Then closed it. The alien passed through into the wall and he turned to the others; then a blinding white light rushed them and everything went purple then black.
 
 

“I was born in a crossfire hurricane!”
The first thing Lenny Kreeler heard was the tinny car radio, playing Jumpin’ Jack Flash. He opened his eyes. His head was on the steering wheel of the Chrysler. It was light. Blinding daylight. The doors of the car were open. He looked next to him and Morrison was slumped in the passenger seat, head on one side, lower lip thrust out. Kreeler was bewildered. He nudged Morrison.
“Hey,”
Morrison stirred.
“….uh….death..man…..my cock, dig?…”
“Hey Morrison, wake up.”
Morrison suddenly snapped awake and sat bolt upright, licking dry lips.
“Oh my God what happened?”
“I don’t know man.”
Ahead of them was a rocky gradient on top of which was an old barber’s chair. Someone was asleep in it. They climbed out the car into the scorching sunlight.
“I remember getting out of the car last night, and that’s about it.”
“Peyote and tequila,” said Morrison, “ a powerful mix, dig?” Then he farted, long and loud; “super dooper trucker’s chilli con carne and budweiser. Also a powerful mix.”

Up in the barber’s chair they found Anita Pallenberg; sullen and monosyllabic.
“Where’s Keith?” she asked coldly.
“Don’t know,” said Morrison, “did we do Peyote with you last night?”
He saw his Indian hat on the ground and picked it up. 
“We were up here last night. That’s right! The Meiherhoff box!”
Kreeler had vague memories of trying to steal it the previous evening. However now it was different- the control panel all melted. 
“Well,” said Morrison, examining it, “it’s pretty fucked, I don’t know what happened.”
Keith and Gram Parsons appeared from the other end of the valley where they’d woken sprawled on the ground; they looked rough and chastened. Keith couldn’t remember jack shit. Parsons, in his rather tatty, urine smelling Nudie suit, said nothing. He was blitzed. He was thinking, maybe he should stop hanging around with Keith for a bit.
“Right,” said Richards in his hoarse whisper, giving Morrison a murderous glance, “let’s get out of here. Anyone got a cigarette?”
“Something happened here, last night,” said Morrison.
“Yeah,” said Parsons quietly, “ we got out of our fucking minds man.”
“Well,” said the lizard king, “ I would like to have said it was a pleasure, but I can’t recall…”
“Yeah,” said Richards, adjusting his poncho and lighting a cigarette, “take it easy,”
Morrison stuck his toy store Indian chief’s hat on and trudged down to the car with Kreeler.
Richards watched him, “ what a wanker…” he said.
 
 

Harry Smith woke up halfway down a nearby hill. He made his way back to the barbers chair, but found nothing except the melted box. He was unsure about everything this morning. Had he got drunk? No hangover but he was covered with little flakes of vomit. And where was Schuster? And where were those goddamned perps from last night? And why was this box all melted? He climbed into the van and waited for Schuster. He waited all day- just sitting behind the wheel watching the sky and the play of light on the rocks, feeling totally blitzed. Then, around seven, when he was so hungry and thirsty he couldn’t stand it anymore, he drove off towards Joshua Tree, thinking of chilli con carne and beer.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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