Ten Days
Prologue and Day 1 • ©2024 Ashley Mark Adkins
PROLOGUE - August 20th, 1966, Memphis, Tennessee
A straw-haired boy is up a tree—crouched on a limb and shivering, despite the summer heat—and about to utter two words that will forever change the course of his life.
If he could only see into the future from that shady vantage point, he might never allow those two words to tumble so carelessly from his lips.
A man, much older than the boy, wearing a crumpled blue suit, paces at the bottom of the tree. Beads of sweat rolling down his leathery, dark-skinned face. Hat in hand. Heart racing with a kind of fear he hasn’t felt since he, too, was up a tree in the Ardennes Forest—trembling index finger on the trigger of his sniper rifle as hundreds of German paratroopers fell from the sky into the silent, undisturbed snow.
One moment, looking up at the boy. Another moment, looking down at the moss-choked roots between his immaculately shined shoes.
Up. Down. Up again. Down again.
Then finally up—craning his neck for a long time—while speaking to the boy.
“Boots, I need you to do something for me,” the man says. “Need you to make me a promise. Promise me you won’t tell nobody what happened last night. What you saw, and all. Not a soul. Because Thelma needs me. She’s real sick, you know. Probably won’t get much better anytime soon, so I need to keep on taking care of her. But I can’t do that from behind no prison bars. Son, will you promise me?”
The boy licks his lips. Chews nervously on his calloused fingertips. And then, without thinking about the consequences—and out of deep love and admiration for the man—the boy gazes down into the desperate eyes at the bottom of the tree and says the two words the man wants to hear most.
“I promise.”
#
DAY 1 - Monday, December 8th, 1980
Today, instead of using my fingertips to softly press the snooze button when my alarm goes off at high noon (PST), I roar out of a deep slumber and bang it violently with my fist—once, twice, three times. As if it’s a wild animal about to rip my face to shreds.
Turns out it’s not a wild animal at all. It’s only Leo Sayer, singing You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.
Honestly? I’d like to rip Leo Sayer’s face to shreds for bringing such an insufferable parasite of a song into the world. But since music is my life, Leo comes with the territory, i.e., an occupational hazard.
(Besides, what do I know? Leo has a Grammy. I don’t. Not yet, anyway.)
I light a cigarette, slip on my sunglasses. After carefully hopscotching across two guitar cases, I finally reach the window and remove the homemade light blocker, which consists of a 1/4” piece of plywood covered with aluminum foil. Southern California sunshine suddenly floods the bedroom. So much so that the tufts of orange shag carpeting between my toes start glowing like Cheetos.
In the galley kitchen, only a few steps away from my bed, the Mr. Coffee is already dripping thanks to modern, time-based automation. After plopping down at the dinette, I pick up a little leather-bound, pocket-sized book from the table and open it. The day planner was a birthday gift from Dottie, my landlady who owns this Laurel Canyon bungalow duplex the two of us share—she on one side, me on the other. Inside the day planner, a small card in the pocket reads:
“To Booth, my sweet tenant, who I cleverly turned into a part-time caretaker. Consider this a tool for joyful living in the here and now. Happy 28th birthday from the old hag next door! Love, Dot.”
As a retired UCLA psych professor, Dottie knows a thing or two about the human mind. Especially my human mind, the one she’s lived so close to for the past eight years—a wandering beast of a brain that can always benefit from more real-world structure on a daily basis.
Today looks manageable:
1:30 p.m. - Teach group guitar - Youth Community Center
3 p.m. - Oil change (ask Vince to check noise under van)
4:30 p.m. - Group meditation, your turn to bring snacks!
6 p.m. - Jingle session/Furniture Barn - Apollo Studio
In between: fix Dottie’s walker…
Not jam packed, but comfortably busy. Just the way I like it.
After slurping some coffee and vacuuming up a three-egg omelet, I slip into the typical uniform of the day: chambray shirt, jeans, trusty old harness boots. While I’m buttoning my shirt and stuffing a handful of tortoise-shell guitar picks into my jeans pocket—just as Guilty by Barbra Streisand and Robin Gibb is mercifully fading on the clock radio—a KIIS-FM jock starts bantering. “This morning I asked my Magic 8 Ball if it was going to be a good day. Know what it said? MY SOURCES SAY NO. Ha! Yeah, right. Whatever. Hey, I bet John Lennon is having a good day since his latest single is still riding high on the charts. Here it is, Just Like Starting Over…”
And like that: my mind shifts into reverse—far, far into the past, away from my scheduled events. Not unusual. It happens when John reappears in my life via sound, sight or memory. Even after all these years. The good news is, thanks to Dot, I’ve learned to cope (and lately in less destructive ways). The bad news is that, with the release of his new album after five years of creative silence, John Winston Lennon might become an unavoidable challenge in the days to come.
After a few deep breaths to shift my mind back to the present—so much so that the eyes connected to my mind are 100% focused on counting the tiny orange and rust-colored strands of carpet sprouting around the soles of my boots—I shut off the radio and give the day planner three desperate squeezes. Then slip it into my back pocket, grab one of the guitar cases and head out into golden light of the here and now.
* * *
That evening, before reaching the studio just a few minutes before 6 p.m., I was feeling happy the previously scheduled events had come off with much of a hitch (even if I did forget to take snacks to the group meditation meeting).
But now I’m glaring at Mona-in-the-hot-pink-halter-top through the cloud of cigarette smoke enveloping my head, squeezing the handle of my guitar case in a sweaty death grip.
“What do you mean canceled?” I growl.
The Apollo Studio receptionist is slightly comatose as usual. (Mona is much less infuriating during her rare lucid moments, when her Mensa-level IQ is free to shine through the thick fog of her ganja habit.)
“Well, um. Nick just told me to tell you.” She seems fascinated with something in her ear, trying to dislodge with the nail of her pinky finger.
I feel my blood pressure rising. Even more so as Disco Duck by Rick Dees and his Cast of Idiots starts blaring out of a radio on the credenza behind Mona, reminding me once again: American popular music is in a depressing free fall.
“That’s it?” I say, crushing out my cigarette in a lime-green ash tray shaped like an amoeba—right next to Mona’s smoldering joint.
“That’s what? Oh, right! Well, ya know, I think it’s just a matter of him not needing you tonight. Like on this particular track? Hah! Imagine that! Who doesn’t need Booth Abernathy…the Jingle King of LA County?” she says, referencing my knack for creating catchy, on-the-spot guitar riffs for radio jingles. Not a reputation I ever dreamed of beating my chest over. Like, versus a record deal with Capitol and opening for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at Fillmore West.
But it beats living in a pup tent under a Ventura Freeway overpass and eating dumpster leftovers.
Mona winks, then edges forward on the desk, breasts threatening to leap out of her halter top. Eyes laser-locked on my crotch, those pupils expanding and contracting to the beat of Disco Duck.
“Mona,” I say, snapping my fingers, trying to redirect her pupils towards my own. “I begged out of a Bel-Air Country Club jazz trio gig to do this. One that would’ve put a lot more jingle in my pocket.”
Suddenly the front door into the reception area opens and in walks a pencil-thin dude. Late 20s. About my age. His glistening auburn hair looks like a blow-dried mop. But it’s pushed back to show off his diamond earring studs. He’s wearing a shiny green leather jacket and matching pants (making me wonder if he plundered Lionel Ritchie’s closet on the way to the studio.)
He’s lugging a large case. Black. Rectangular. And I suspect I know what’s inside: a synthesizer keyboard that can mimic practically every instrument in the known musical universe. Drums, horns, strings, human voices—and guitars. Passable sounds to untrained ears. Blasphemous fakes to the ears of trained musicians who earn their living making authentic sounds on authentic musical instruments. Though for Nick, or any other producer, the commerce side of this new technology is irresistible: Why pay six different instrumentalists when you can hire one instead?
My heart sinks as I realize this could be the beginning of the end (of me and others like me).
“Oh, you must be Scott!” says Mona, snapping out of her stupor. But he says nothing to either of us. Just smirks silently, his free hand suspended over the door handle attached to the studio door. He lifts his pointy chin in Mona’s direction. His eyes never land on mine.
Miraculously, Mona gets the non-verbal message. “Oh, you can on go back! Nick’s waiting for you.”
I storm out without another glance at either of them, my tongue suddenly remembering the sweet, creamy taste of a Brandy Alexander—one after the other, until the world at large becomes a much sweeter place.
* * *
Back home on the front porch of the duplex, Dottie’s wobbly aluminum walker has—at least for the moment—helped me forget about the possibility of professional obsolescence. She’s temporarily perched in the swing, clutching her wooden cane. Over her frail shoulders, the dying light of the day is seeping through a lattice choked with purple wisteria.
Almost as if she’s wearing a purple halo.
I’m stooped on the concrete, holding a screw driver and pair of pliers. Somewhere inside Dot’s unit, mellow bebop jazz music is playing softly on the radio.
“Just a couple of loose nuts,” I say. “You’re good to go.”
“Booth, if I were fifty years younger…”
“You’d snatch me up like a goose on a June bug and swallow me whole?”
“Ha! How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.” Understandably, at almost 80 years old, Dot’s memory comes and goes. But her vitality—and quite frankly, her horny-ness—came to stay and might not leave until she leaves the earth.
Dot takes a long, hard look at me, then taps me on the shoulder with the tip of her cane. “You seem a bit off kilter, my friend.”
“Nothing really,” I say, standing up, slipping the tools into my back pocket. “Just work stuff.”
“Nothing a hot cup of tea flavored with a pinch of Corcavado in stereo won’t fix. Come in for a bit.”
“Sounds nice, Dot, but I need to study some lead sheets for a session tomorrow. Rain check?”
She blows me a raspberry, then chuckles out loud. “Men!”
After positioning the walker at the swing and holding her cane, Dottie slowly rises, grabs onto it with one hand and blows me a kiss with the other. I open her screen door and she disappears into Apt. A at 1092 Wonderland Avenue, vanishing into the rainbow glow of a Tiffany lamp burning softly next to her wing back chair.
Before heading into Apt. B, I open my mailbox and retrieve a wad a letters, circulars and music trade magazines. Once inside, I toss the mail onto the ottoman in front of my easy chair, flip on the TV and notice the red light blinking on my answering machine. I press the “messages” button, which triggers the sound of a robotic female voice: “You have—TWO—new messages:
“FIRST message…AT…2:37 p.m.”
“Yeah, um, hey Booth. It’s Danny at Criterium. Just letting you know we won’t be needing you on that Sub Shak sesh tomorrow after all. They sort of changed directions on the vibe. But they did send over some coupons if you want to stop by and pick one up—50% off any foot long. So, yeah. Cool! Talk later…”
“SECOND message…AT…5:22 p.m.”
“Howdy, Mr. Davenport. This here is Bob Lester, aka Rodeo Bob? Of Rodeo Bob’s Wheel Ranch? With five convenient Southern California locations to serve you? Hope you don’t mind, but that feller Adam down at the studio gave me your number. Just wanted to let you know that jingle you wrote and played on a few months back? Probably sold more cars for me since that time I rented a big ol’ dump truck and made chili con carne in the back of it! Think it was Labor Day ’71? Something like that. Anyway, many thanks! And, say, if you EVER need a deep discount on a fine-as-wine certified pre-owned vee-hicle, you know who to call!”
It’s hard to know which message to get more depressed about.
Inside my fridge, a couple of options for dinner: a leftover Sloppy Joe sandwich from last night or I could make another omelet.
It’s hard to know which option to get more depressed about.
(Note for the day planner: make a Ralphs run. You need eggs.)
Since it’s much less labor intensive, I opt for the Sloppy Joe and collapse with that and a bag of chips into my easy chair, in front of Monday Night Football.
Without bothering to change the channel, I kick off my boots, put my feet up on the ottoman, glance at the mail. The first thing that jumps out is the cover of the Rolling Stone. The “unsinkable” Dolly Parton, dressed like Saint Nick. Meanwhile, guitarist Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, wearing his trademark ball cap and bowtie, is goofily smirking on the cover of Creem. Hiding underneath the magazines, two credit card bills and a Sears-Roebuck Christmas circular, which, between my fingers, feels more rigid than it should. When I pick up it, the explanation falls into my lap: a hand-addressed envelope.
A hand I recognize—instantly.
The next thing I notice is that the envelope starts vibrating in front of my eyes. But then I detect the cause: the hands holding it are trembling.
I touch my name and address with my thumb, written in her perfect cursive, in swirly, sea-blue ink. In the upper left corner is the word Le Mélange accompanied by a logo of some sort. It appears to be a tiny rooster with a napkin wrapped around its gullet. Underneath, an address: 172 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, New York 12834.
At the same time, I’m sensing there’s something not right about the football game being played on the other side of the vibrating envelope. More precisely, something not right about the tone of Howard Cosell’s voice, who’s interrupting Frank Gifford’s play-by-play commentary with a message that has nothing to do with football:
“…remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses…an unspeakable tragedy…confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City…John Lennon…on the outside of his apartment building on the west side of New York City…the most famous perhaps of all of the Beatles…shot twice in the back…rushed to Roosevelt Hospital…dead on arrival.”
Almost immediately my telephone rings. Then stops. Then rings again. Then stops. Then again. Pretty soon the silent gaps are closing together and I start hearing one continuous ringing sound, which leads me to believe it’s not my telephone after all.
Suddenly I know what it is: the ringing sound of George Harrison’s 12-string Rickenbacker guitar, shimmering up from some dark abyss between my ears. The song is If I Needed Someone, one of George’s compositions. But it sounds painfully out of tune. The tempo is rushed. Otherwise, I’m wondering where John is on the stage far below the press box (which smells of equal parts Juicy Fruit gum, British Sterling cologne, gun oil and the sweat of human fear). Wondering if somehow George is in the line of fire, since he must be front and center, singing at the mic. But I’m paralyzed. Can’t turn around. Shouldn’t, even if I could. Staring at desperate, unblinking eyes at the butt end of a rifle barrel I’m gripping between all ten of my 13-year-old fingers.
Then an explosion. Almost as if it happens back in my living room instead of back in 1966.
In all the confusion, I’m not really sure.
But when I open my eyes and see Dottie teetering behind her walker in front of my ottoman—clutching a tissue, tears streaming both cheeks—I suddenly realize the source of the explosion: my screen door slamming shut. Her own eyes start traveling up my legs, eventually landing on my right hand (or should I say on the crushed object in my hand that, minutes earlier, resembled an envelope with a Greenwich Village return address).
“My friend,” she says, squeezing my big toe between two of her bony fingers. “I don’t think you should be alone tonight.”
§
Dottie knows everything.
It took some time for her to get it all out of me, but, over time, she did. Usually during our tea talks (conversations she assured me would remain confidential due to our therapist-patient relationship, as informal as it was/is).
But, right now, her velvet-soft voice sounds like it’s underwater.
“I heard on the radio” she says, gurgling.
As she parks herself carefully on the edge of my sofa and sits down, I stand up, walk to the front window and part the blinds with my index finger. Cross-armed people, some wearing pajamas and slippers, are milling about in the wash of streetlights.
“Pretty surreal. I guess it was only a matter of time, huh?”
After a few seconds of thought, Dot replies with a curve ball of an idea—not unusual for someone with such a compassionately insightful mind.
“I think you should be there,” she says.
But since I’m watching a dog in our front yard, her comment doesn’t immediately register. It’s Freeway, the shaggy neighborhood stray everyone feeds from time to time. He’s sniffing Dot’s fire-engine-red begonias sprouting along the curb, his back leg raising slowly off the ground.
“Freeway!” I shout, banging on the window glass. “NOOOOOOO!!!” The dog, as usual, is unmoved and continues to sniff and piss his way down the block.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes ma’am, I did.”
“Well, then. John loves—loved—New York City. The city loves him back. Surely there will be some sort of public event or memorial there. I think something like that might offer you some value. Call it long overdue closure. My point is—as ironically tragic as this may sound—the end of John Lennon could be the beginning of Booth Abernathy.”
Hearing those words fall from Dot’s lips causes a cyclone of acid to start churning in my stomach. Like, at any moment, I could vomit up the undigested emotional garbage of a lifetime (hard to know at this point if such a reaction might represent “progress”).
“On the other hand, the stress of such a journey might put you in rather precarious state.”
After considering the ramifications of Dot’s caveat, I take a few deeps breaths to collect myself. Then start walking towards the kitchen.
“I’ll make some tea.”
* * *
The KABC-TV news team is trying to maintain its professional composure as details trickle in, along with footage from the Dakota Apartment Building in New York—a montage of confused, slack-jawed eyewitnesses. “There was blood all over his stomach,” says one young man. “But he was also bleeding from his mouth.”
Lennon’s killer, they say, was “deranged” but not immediately identified.
Murray Kaufman, aka Murray the K, famous New York City DJ and the original “Fifth Beatle,” speaks on camera from his own living room—reflecting on John the compassionate confidant. “He had a tremendous soul. If there was something that was bothering you…in which you found yourself sort of uptight because of a situation…he would always be the first one to really try to alleviate whatever problem you had.”
Meanwhile, Dot and I are sipping and staring into space. Sometimes at each other. Above the TV, eight trance-like eyes are staring back at us from the lime green living room wall. It’s a framed, poster-sized reproduction of the Rubber Soul album. All four Beatles have peaceful, faraway expressions—as if the creative muse is infusing their minds with the next big Beatle thing.
In actuality, they’re probably just pleasantly shit-faced.
We’re also listening to my telephone ring. This time, for real. Three different callers. But since I wouldn’t know what to say to anyone at a moment like this, I let the calls go to voice mail.
Caller #1, Delia Davenport, general manager of WRIV-AM in Memphis, my mother: “Hon, please call me when you get this. I know you must’ve heard the news by now. Love you.”
Caller #2, Eddie Dobbs, long-time DJ at WRIV-AM in Memphis, my music history mentor and the big brother I never had: “Just called to check on you. So fucking tragic. Nixon probably ordered the hit from his hot tub in San Clemente. Evil bastard. Call me?”
Caller #3, Alex Garvey, former friend, former drinking buddy, former regionally famous rock vocalist now selling tie-dyed t-shirts at Venice Beach: “Bootster…man…geezusfucking…did you hear, man? Did you hear this shit? Where the fuck are you, man?” (In the background: the cracking of balls on a billiards table and Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak at an earsplitting volume on the jukebox).
They all know me well. Especially how the Beatles shaped practically every fiber of my musical being and established the entire trajectory of my life (such that it currently is).
But none of them knows what Dot knows.
She turns up her cup, then sits it on the coffee table. Her eyes dart down to the Unopened Letter still clutched in my hand.
“You’re choking it to death.”
As I’m suddenly conscious of this, the same old series of images from the darkest summer day of my life appear in my mind’s eye: 1) A Pronto Pup wrapper tumbling across scalding hot pavement. 2) The sound of a nearby roller coaster diving to the bottom of its invisible parabola. 3) My heart walking away from me—cleverly disguised as a teary-eyed, 17-year-old girl wearing bell-bottom jeans.
“It’s from her.”
Dot arches one of her thinning eyebrows. “Ah, yes. That might explain the strangulation.”
Like I said, Dot knows everything.
I light a Marlboro and draw the slow death deep into my lungs. “Dot, you don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine.”
At the close of the newscast, John’s photo is filling the TV screen. Underneath: 1940-1980.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, then. If you need an ear to bend, you know where to find me.”
* * *
Sometime after midnight, the only light source the shadows can’t swallow is the burning cigarette glow beyond the tip of my nose.
I’m flat on my back, arms and legs spread eagle on the orange shag—a half-naked Vitruvian Man in boxer shorts listening to Sgt. Pepper’s at quite a high volume (Dottie takes her hearing aid out at night and wouldn’t hear a maritime fog horn an inch from her ear). I’m clutching—still—the Unopened Letter in one hand, but now a new object in the other: a cap from a Christian Brothers brandy bottle, one I sniff in case of emergencies, sort of a harmless stop-gap mechanism which always seems to get me over a “hump”. Meanwhile, the droning buzz of George’s Within You, Without You is streaming from the stereo speakers and into the inner sanctum of my brain.
When you've seen beyond yourself
Then you may find peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come when you see we're all one
And life flows on within you and without you
Hmm. Seeing beyond yourself.
Say George, what does that part even mean?
Like, Door #1: Beyond myself as I currently exist? Or Door #2: Beyond myself altogether? Yikes. That option sounds a bit final.
For now, think I’ll go with Door #1.
Behind which a man might find a fresh start, i.e., make manifest the words that fell so instinctively from Dot’s lips: the end of John Lennon could be the beginning of Booth Abernathy. It’s such a powerfully freeing notion, in fact, I’m tempted to put everything out here behind my back and do exactly as the doctored ordered. But permanently—without wasting another second (and, for the moment, conveniently discounting Dot’s disclaimer about the possible onset of “stress” such an adventure might trigger).
It’s becoming more obvious that I could kill two New York City birds with one stone. Granted, both are already dead, but each in a different way. John, of course, literally. Her, of course, figuratively, i.e., in my heart.
What is it, Carrie? What do you want? After all this time?
Open it. Don’t open it. Open it. Don’t open it. Open it. DO NOT—under any circumstances open the fucking envelope.
Yet.
Vince said today he could find nothing suspicious under the van that would be causing any kind of noise—a van that can hold everything I own with space to spare. I think.
To make sure, I start mentally loading everything (minus the furniture, which belongs to Dot):
Clothes
Toiletries
Camping gear
(1) briefcase stuffed with lyrics, lead sheets, magazines, etc.
A few pictures/photos/posters
(10) book boxes
(1) 48-count cassette box
(1) Fender Deluxe Reverb amplifier
(1) Martin 000 cowboy acoustic guitar (circa “old”)
(1) Banged up, 1961 sonic blue Fender Stratocaster electric guitar (the initials “CGD” painted in psychedelic day-glow paint on the pick guard)
Suddenly, the sound of simultaneous E Major chords played on three grand pianos crashes into my eardrums, interrupting the inventory and jarring me back to the present moment—the end of A Day In The Life. And because I’m a human being, I can’t hear what happens after the pianos fade—a joke John included with the express purpose of annoying dogs, i.e., a 15-kilohertz tone only furry ears can hear.
Outside, right on cue, Freeway starts howling in the front yard.
§
DAY 2 - Tuesday, December 9th, 1980
I didn’t expect sleep to come, and it didn’t. Too many swinging monkeys in the jungle of my mind. Had I bothered to get up off the orange shag and into bed, I might’ve given sleep a fighting chance.
But, still.
John Lennon. Dead on arrival.
And Caroline Grace Davenport—Beta Club, National Honor Society, Swim Team Captain, Valedictorian, Voted Most Likely To Become President of the United States—returns from the dead.
It’s 7:37 a.m. on the Timex.
Much too early to hear voices chattering outside. Which, for a moment, almost makes me wonder if the voices are chattering on the inside (of me).
I get up, squint through the blinds. An old Volvo wagon is idling in the driveway, which gets pinker every time I see it. Once red, but faded over time by the unrelenting California sun. It belongs to Stuart, of Thousand Oaks, Dottie’s younger brother. He’s helping her down the ramp. Soon they’re both buckled in and heading off into the morning mist.
After getting dressed, I go outside, fetch the Los Angeles Times from the sidewalk, light a cigarette and plop down in the swing on my end of the porch. As I’m unfolding the newspaper to read the giant headline I know will be there—and on thousands of other newspapers across the globe—an object in my peripheral vision distracts me.
A note—clamped to my mailbox with a clothespin. A peppermint candy cane is attached to the note with Scotch tape.
“Dear Booth - just a reminder that I’m spending the holidays with Stu and family. I’m inclined to say ‘Merry Christmas!’ but I’m afraid nothing about this particular Christmas will be merry. I’m also inclined to say ‘see you later,’ but a part of me hopes I won’t see you later—not for awhile anyway. You can make it. Just remember to stay mindfully anchored! Take care, Dot.”
Which sounds an awful lot like an official written endorsement.
While I’m re-reading Dot’s note, I hear the sound of a radio, which must mean Dave, our mailman, is nearby. He is. Like—about 50 feet away from the porch, strolling up our driveway with his transistor radio glued to his ear. This time, though—just as Dave hops up the steps—I notice a song isn’t coming out of the radio. It’s a human voice. Dave freezes in his tracks in front of me without saying hello, perspiring under his Uncle Sam issued pith helmet. He lifts his chin in my direction, then stares off into the space above my head.
“More news this morning concerning the death of John Lennon. Yoko Ono has announced that while there will be no public funeral for her husband, there will be a 10-minute silent vigil for the slain rocker this coming Sunday, December 14th in Central Park near the Dakota Apartments where the couple lived. The gathering is scheduled for 2 p.m. The city and police department estimate that up to 150,000 mourners might attend.”
“What a tragic fucking waste,” Dave says, handing me what appears to be a wad of junk mail. “They should gather 60,000 Beatle fans in Shea Stadium again and chain that Chapman creep to the pitcher’s mound. See how long he stays in one piece.” Dave shakes his head and wanders away down the steps. A few seconds later, as he reaches the street, I hear a different voice crackle out his radio, singing: Come together…over me.
Suddenly, despite the fact that I didn’t sleep all night, I feel strangely energized. Like I could easily create my own jet fuel mixture out of equal parts anticipation, confusion and inexpressible sadness.
My jet—the 1969 faded-orange VW van I inherited from Delia—is parked at the curb. Ready for takeoff.
After showering and getting dressed, I make a pre-flight to-do list in the day planner and get busy.
Really fucking busy.
* * *
After several hours of cramming my belongings into the van and making a trip to the bank, I’m back in the swing at my end of the porch, sipping a tall, icy glass of Tang. Hair still wet from the shower. Counting out the crisp $100 bills to make sure the teller gave me the whole $3,000.00 when I vacuumed up my savings account.
5:45 p.m., PST.
I close my eyes for a moment. Try to pause, breathe. Clear my mind for a few precious seconds.
When I open my eyes, I see the electric purple halo from the wisteria on the far end of the porch, hovering over Dot’s swing. Of course, she’s not wearing the halo at the moment. But I manage to mentally fill her into the picture with my imagination. Not really knowing what to say to the apparition of her. Thank you? Of course. But that’s not nearly enough. So I grab a pen from my briefcase—the last piece of unloaded cargo on the swing next to me. Gather a few thoughts. Then start scribbling on the back of the note Dot left for me this morning:
“Dearest Dot - per your advice, I’m off. As you’ll discover, I’ve moved out altogether (sort of a modification of your “prescription”). Hoping for that closure you mentioned. Also hoping to make a go of it on the other side of everything I hoped would happen in LA—but never did. Though I suppose, somewhere down the line, it will occur to me that something did happen here, but only because of you. Something important and everlasting. As in: the beginning of the beginning of Booth Abernathy? Thank you for everything. I will stay in touch. Love, B. P.S. My key is under the geranium pot.”
After locking Apt. B at 1092 Wonderland Avenue for the last time, sliding the key under the pot and clothes pining the note to Dot’s mailbox, I head down to the driveway, climb into the cockpit of my boxy little jet and taxi off into the vesper light.
Leaving a trail of tears on the runway behind me.
§
As the smog-stained California sun is setting in my rearview mirror (no doubt for the last time), it’s almost impossible to find a radio station not playing one of John’s songs.
According to the Rand McNally atlas I bought at the Rancho Cucamonga Pump ‘n’ Save, New York City is roughly 2,799 miles away.
Four days until the vigil.
Which, according to my rough mental math, means I have to drive 700 miles a day to get there at the appointed time.
Which is a lot of sugar, caffeine and nicotine.
Naturally, in the old days, when I had to stretch my waking moments for one reason or another (all-night studio sessions, touring, etc.), I would’ve augmented those over-the-counter chemicals with some under-the counter “supplements.” But the little blue pills always required follow-up doses of alcohol to dissolve the invisible screws holding my eyelids open—a slightly unhealthy cycle of dependence for any normal human being who wants to avoid unhealthy states of being, i.e., time in jail, time in a strait jacket, or time six feet under.
Soon, I’m veering to the north on I-15. City lights behind me and the oncoming headlights are becoming less numerous. But different light sources are taking their places, i.e., an explosion of stars, galaxies, nebulas and whatever else is up/out there. Under normal circumstances, I’d pull over without a second thought and dance around in this sort of otherworldly glow—giddy and amazed, like a child with billions of new Christmas-morning toys to behold.
But not now. Not tonight.
Somehow, and suddenly, these twinkling elements make me feel exposed. As if each one is a critical eye—watching me. Peering into my soul. Sizing me up. As if, in conversation with one another, the exchange might go something like: Well, that was quick!/Indeed. Is he really doing this?/Geez! Talk about impulsive./ Agreed! Seems a bit unhinged, THAT one. (etc.).
The Los Angeles Times is on the passenger seat, the rubber band still cinching it into a throwable bundle of newsprint. But the thin edges of the paper are alive in the breeze streaming through the open windows—taunting me to read the article before I’m ready.
I put the cassette box on top of the newspaper to shut it the fuck up.
It might be wise at this point to stop and return those phone calls. Connect with people I know and love. Need gas anyway. Maybe after the mountains behind me fade to black.
The Unopened Letter, which I’ve stuff above the visor, seems to be trying to open itself—even in a bone-dry climate. It doesn’t help that there’s a rip in the upper right-hand corner of the envelope and the flap is coming unglued (damage no doubt inflicted by yours truly). Every now and then, I’ll stick my tongue in the crack of the flap and try to lick it shut again. But it’s a tricky task. Don’t think I’d know how to dress a bloody tongue wound anyway, so I have to be careful.
Mental note: buy a first-aid kit.
* * *
About an hour later, at the Apple Valley exit, I’m standing at a pay phone just outside the entrance of a Ralphs, squeezing a roll of quarters in my hand. Two bags of groceries filled with survival supplies sit at my feet on the sidewalk: Twinkies, dry-roasted peanuts, beef jerky, several jumbo bags of Cheez Balls, ginger ale, a jumbo jar of Tang, peanut butter, Saltine crackers, a carton of Marlboro Longhorn 100s and a small first-aid kit.
Near the entrance of the store, a Salvation Army Santa Claus is attaching his collection kettle to a chain dangling from a tripod.
Whose call to return first.
10:00 p.m., Tennessee time.
Delia will be dozing in a cold cream mask, the latest Billboard magazine about to slip from her fingers onto the floor beside the bed. Besides the fact that she’ll want to know all the details and right now I just can’t bear to go that deep with her (even if I did have details to share). I love my mother, but sometimes her curiosity is exhausting.
Returning Alex’s call would be impossible since he doesn’t have a phone anymore. Besides the fact that Dot thinks I should avoid him like the plague, since he’s a bad influence on me (even under normal circumstances).
Eddie’s a night owl. Talking to him is never exhausting, even when I’m exhausted. In fact, Eddie gives me some kind of weird harmonic energy. We’re human octaves, the two of us.
After inspecting the pay phone receiver for any disgusting biological artifacts the last caller may have left behind, I drop in four quarters, dial Eddie’s number. While I’m waiting for the connection to open, I detect something clean and fruity in my nose. I sniff three times, then realize it’s the sweet scent of orange blossoms wafting in on the valley breeze. (How ironic: Apple Valley smells like oranges?)
“Hello?”
“Eddie?”
“Oh, fuck. Boots. Holy shit.”
“I couldn’t agree more. What’s the latest?”
“Well, probably don’t know much more than you. Bible thumper shot him in the back. Died in a cop car going to the hospital. Candle and flower shops must be raking it in by now.”
“I hear there’s a vigil.”
“Right. Central Park. Sunday, 2 p.m.”
Santa, who hasn’t taken his eyes off of me (and my quarters) since I came out of the store, starts ringing his bell with more gusto. It’s so goddamned loud, in fact, even people all the way to Memphis can hear it.
“What the hell is that? Where are you, Boots?”
“Apple Valley. California. I’m on the way.”
“On the way where?”
“Eddie, promise me. You can’t tell Delia.”
“Can’t tell her what, for fuck’s sake?”
“Things are moving fast. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet.” I say, shuddering, as that sweet breeze turns icy cold and jumps down the collar of my shirt. “I’m headed New York—for the vigil. But, the thing is, I’m not going back to LA.”
Saying it out loud to the person who helped me get to LA in the first place. Hearing my own voice form the words and push them across my quivering tongue and out into the real world.
Makes it real.
No response. Unusual for Eddie. The only thing I can hear is John singing from a pair of gigantic stereo speakers in the background, Doesn’t have a point of view…knows not where he’s going to…
“Ever?”
(Please deposit one dollar, a recorded voice says robotically)
“Look, I’ll explain later. I need to make some time.”
“But you have to promise me something. Like, in return—for keeping my silence.”
“Which is?”
“Call me. Every single fucking night. Let me know how you are. Where you are. What you’ve seen. How you’re feeling. A full fucking daily report.”
“Deal.”
(Please deposit one dollar, a recorded voice says robotically)
§
I’m gripping the gas nozzle handle. Consciously. Cool in my hand. The gas pulsing through the black hose—glug-glug-glug—feeding the van’s 16-gallon tank. Gripping is good.
Staying anchored is good. (Thanks for the reminder, Dot).
Early on, after having spent years studying the adverse dynamics of the creative mind (her field of study at UCLA)—and becoming a renowned expert on the subject—Dot could easily see deep into my cranium after just a few of our tea talks and realize she had a 6-foot, 2-inch lab rat for a tenant. One of her first and most transformative coping recommendations seemed to be stupid simple: when you feel yourself slipping into “counterproductive” mindlessness, i.e., tossed about like a cork on the ocean, anchor yourself to tangible objects in the physical world you can experience with your five senses. This, Dot said, is based on the idea that the creative mind adrift—without focus or intent—can become an aimless, destructive monster.
Which is why, right now—instead of imagining flat tires, brake fluid leaks, Old Testament dust storms, a VW van engulfed in flames at the bottom of a canyon or grisly motel room murders—I’m gripping the shit out of this gas pump handle.
* * *
Fifty miles into the Mojave Desert. Hoping to make Needles by midnight.
One detail for Eddie (since he’s demanding a “full fucking report” of my journey): I saw a hitchhiker traipsing up the on-ramp, back at Apple Valley. Thumb sticking out. Two bare legs growing out of the bottom of a big, blue backpack, feet planted in what appeared to be jungle boots down below.
Who, for some reason, is still traipsing around in my mind.
I click on the dome light, trying my best to focus on how the grooves of the button feel under the skin of my thumb. Steering with the left hand and reaching with the right, I open the cassette box and pull out Waltz for Debby by the Bill Evans Trio. I slide the cassette into the player under the dash.
As the music starts, I can feel my skin start contracting, as usual. Face flushed. Warmer. Mind glued to the magically lilting piano notes trickling out of the speakers. Following the melodic progression like my eyes might follow the second hand of a clock. Thoughts begin vanishing. Then it begins: my body starts vibrating like a human tuning fork, but the pitch of the vibration changing with the music. I call it the hum.
In the past, until I learned to regulate it, the reaction was more intense.
My first music-related seizure (or “spell” as Delia called them) happened when I saw the Beatles perform for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show. February 9th, 1964. The second one was a little over two years later, a couple of months before the Beatles performed across the street from my house at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. Both spells put me in the hospital for observation. Nobody knew the cause, but Dr. Tanaka, my pediatrician, suspected some sort of auditory sensitivity or abnormality. Coupled with his observation that I was “a hypersensitive young man.” He was Japanese. Played the cello. Hubert, my old man, thought it was all just a bunch of bullshit. “Excitable, that’s all,” was his expert diagnosis.
What a miracle of nature: Only twelve notes in the Western musical scale, but countless ways to combine them with the goal of stirring up human hearts, souls, and minds.
Turned out music—even with its ethereal, fleeting nature—became the most powerful and reliable anchor I had to the real world. And when I discovered I could make my own music while simultaneously connected to a physical object, i.e., the body and neck of a guitar, I’d found the happiest place on earth. No thoughts, no suffering, no sense of self.
Eventually, though, I discovered my sense of hearing had a dark side.
In fact, if Side A was the constant hum of nirvana, then Side B was hell on earth: it happened every time chaotic, discordant sounds flooded my ear canals, especially at sudden or high volumes. It’s why, when I was a kid, I always hated fishing trips with my old man. There was something about the outboard motor’s timbre combined with the rattling of the rivets in the aluminum boat that drove me crazy. One time the sound was so painful I puked over the edge of gunwale, leaving a chum trail of undigested Vienna sausages in the wake of the boat. My father never even asked me what was wrong. Just shook his head, cast his big crank bait against a stump near the bank and said, “Sissy!”
But tonight, thankfully, Waltz for Debby made me hum, as did Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds, Joni Mitchell’s Hejira, and Stevie Wonder’s For Once In My Life.
At the moment, after cutting the engine, something else is humming just outside my driver’s side window: the orange and turquoise neon of a Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge sign.
* * *
After hauling my duffel bag, cooler and guitars into Room #19, I splash some cold water in my face and then fall into the bed. Which, if I drop a quarter into the slot of a metal box by the lamp stand, will—according to the printed sticker on the box— “quickly carry me away into the land of Tingling Relaxation and Ease.”
I light a Marlboro instead, then open a ginger ale. Unfold the newspaper and finally start reading the article.
BEATLE JOHN LENNON SLAIN
Shot Down Outside New York Apartment
Man Termed “Screwball” Held in Death of Singer
NEW YORK—Former Beatle John Lennon, 40, who led a revolution in popular music that captured the imagination of an entire generation, was shot to death Monday night outside his exclusive Manhattan apartment house.
He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, less than a mile from the Dakota, the famous apartment building where he lived with his wife, Yoko Ono. Doctors pronounced him dead at the hospital.
Police announced early today that Mark David Chapman, 25, of Hawaii had been charged with murder. Chief of Detectives James Sullivan said Chapman had arrived in New York about a week ago and had been seen near the apartment building at least three times in recent days.
Sullivan said Chapman had gotten Lennon’s autograph when the Lennons left the Dakota about 5 p.m. and had waited outside until they returned six hours later…
Meanwhile: gas prices are rising, some are trying surgery as a breast cancer preventative and, according to an Iran official, the U.S. is closer to hostage terms.
Say, John, what about us? What are your terms? What do I need to do, at long last, to be free of you? Am I headed in the right direction? (And then all of sudden I feel like such a heel for comparing myself to the real, courageous and long-suffering hostages—even if nobody but John heard me do it. But, luckily, John can’t hear anymore.)
After draining the ginger ale and crushing out the cigarette, I turn out the light and drop a quarter in the box. I’m so zonked after not sleeping last night, I’m looking forward to the kind of “tingling relaxation and ease” only the Magic Fingers can provide.
§