And then I went into a dream
He awoke at dawn, naked on a bench, the sound of a ship’s horn blasting him back to consciousness. It took him a moment to assimilate this. The things around him seemed familiar and yet the words—bench, horn—eluded him for several minutes as he studied his bare feet and marveled at how young they looked. He lay on the… (bench! he remembered the word) and wiggled his toes and, hearing laughter, turned his head to one side and saw a ferryboat cruise by.
The bench faced a river, and the people on the boat just a hundred yards away were pointing toward him and waving. The ship’s… (horn!) blew again. He waved back and sat up, not yet aware enough to be embarrassed by his nakedness. He noticed a jacket and nearly empty beer bottle on the end of the bench. As confused as he was, he knew for certain they weren’t his. He put the jacket on and drank the warm beer, which had a label on it which, owing to his increasing awareness, he knew he’d never seen before. The jacket smelled of sweat and tobacco, but it fit. He sat up.
Wherever he was, it wasn’t unpleasant. The sun was just coming up, but the air was comfortably warm on his skin, and the river had a salty smell that told him he was near the sea. There was another smell: something like coal and tar and smoke, an acrid and industrial perfume, perhaps from factories and what looked like docks to his left and right.
Then he realized he needed to pay less attention to his surroundings and concentrate on how he got here and, more importantly, who he was. This, oddly, didn’t frighten him; on the contrary it calmed him and as he focused on this problem, he knew instinctively that this was how he made his living. He solved problems, and he had recently solved an important problem that put him here (wherever and whenever that was) for a purpose.
As he stood up and stretched, he considered the lack of information. No wallet, nothing in the jacket pocket. His only clue was that he felt younger than he should be. He knew he was in his body, but it fit differently than he remembered.
His awareness was rising like the temperature, which was climbing rapidly into a hot and humid day. Another clue: It was probably summer. He turned his attention to his lack of clothing, which would quickly become a problem, as he could hear early morning city noises in the streets behind his bench—a door slamming, a car engine starting, voices in accented English.
His nakedness was still something to be solved rather than a source of embarrassment, which amused him. He knew he must be a logical person, and as he walked away from the river toward the city, a bit of memory clicked into place. His brain seemed to be like a small post office, with thousands of numbered boxes, each with a locked door, and the door that had just popped open gave him an occupation. Something to do with music.
The first street sign he came to told him he was on Gower Street, which ran between two shipping docks. There wasn’t much activity on the docks, and he guessed it was a Saturday. He began checking the steel drums holding dockside trash, and after perhaps twenty minutes found some grease-stained coveralls, ripped in the back and bearing the name “Sean” on a label over the front pocket. Part of the ‘e” was missing, which made it look more like ‘Scan.” He put on the coveralls and then the jacket, which covered the rip, and walked up Gower Street into the city, looking for food and shoes.
As he caught a glimpse of his face in a shop window, he stopped and stared. The face, which looked to be fifteen, was familiar to him—he remembered it from photographs—but it was decades younger than the face he’d seen in the mirror yesterday. Another door in his post-office brain opened and the memory of his sixty-year-old face popped out.
Then he glanced down at a bundle of newspapers tied with twine in front of the shop, which was not yet open. The Liverpool Echo told him where he was and gave him the date of July 6, 1957. That date meant something important to him, he knew absolutely.
Making a left on Strand Street, he walked north along the river past the ferry terminal just as the boat was leaving for the opposite side. The smell of fried fish drew him to a small shop near the ticket window, and as he watched customers coming out the door with their cod and chips wrapped in newspaper, he became ravenously hungry. He stood outside the door and deeply inhaled the aroma of vinegar, salt and fish for several minutes, as if he could somehow satisfy his hunger by smell alone. It only made it worse. He considered begging for change, but the expressions on the faces of the people—mostly men—on the street showed little sympathy. They were working-class folks, mainly dockworkers, but his greasy clothes and bare feet put him on the lowest rung of the social ladder.
Spotting someone near his own age, he asked if there were a Salvation Army nearby. “You’re American!’ the boy said, his grubby face lighting up. “Yes,” he found himself saying, hearing his own voice for the first time. Another clue.
“What city are you from?” the boy said, “Memphis,” he replied, not really believing it to be true. This brought a look of awe and also started a flood of questions he couldn’t possibly answer. He knew he was running out of time, that something was happening soon, something he had to be there for, something of incredible importance.
He interrupted the questions and told the boy he was about to faint from hunger and asked again about the Salvation Army. “Fraser Street,” the boy said, disappointed. “Take Lord to Victoria. It’s about a mile.” He thanked the boy, and started up Lord Street, which bent around to the left and became Victoria Street. He passed a sign for Mathew Street, which caught his eye, not merely because of the spelling, but because he knew it was important somehow. Another clue. He made a right and walked down the wet cobblestone street, which was slippery with his bare feet, and nearly fell. After nearly a block, he changed his mind and walked back to Victoria Street. “It’s getting late,’ he thought, though it was just 10 AM.
Making his way north, he got lost near the Empire Theater and had to ask directions again. Finally, he saw the red Salvation Army sign at 3 Fraser St and knocked on the front door. And waited.
He expected an older woman in a Salvation Army uniform, but the woman who answered the door was dressed in a plain white blouse and long blue skirt, and was, he guessed, in her late 30’s. She wore her hair in a wartime style he recognized from movies: a tight ring of curls circling her head like a tube-shaped wreath. She wore bright red lipstick and smelled of violets, and her face had the only kind look he’d seen this morning.
She looked at the jacket, the coveralls and the bare feet and a slight smile made small parentheses around the lips which replaced kindness with amusement.
“Ay la! I’m guessin’ you’re lost, you are,’ she said with a thick scouse accent that rose a bit at the end of the sentence, making it nearly a question. “And hungry too. You look skint. Are ye from over the water then?”
He understood most of it. “I am hungry. I don’t know about skint,” he said.
‘An American!” she said, clapping her hands “Come inside, then.” He began to realize his accent would get him places in this city. “Have a cuppa and a sit down.” He went inside to find a small room with a desk, a shabby sofa, a few chairs and a hot plate with a teakettle, which she snatched up and disappeared into the next room, talking all the while.
“I’m trustin’ you’re not dodgy and you’re too young to’ve been Binbagged. Yer not goin’ to knick anything, luv?” she asked, sticking her head back through the doorway.
The only thing he got from the exchange was that she wanted to know if he’d steal anything. “No ma’am,” he said. She laughed. “You talk polite for someone looks like de jigger rabbit, you do.” “
“Thanks,” he said, hoping he’d been complimented. She laughed again. “Bringin’ some butties with the tea, luv. You look like no chuck for a week.” He hoped butties were something to eat and was relieved to see a plate with sandwiches of some sort along with the tea.
“Ye dunno a blind werd I sez, do ya luv?” He blinked, which brought another laugh. She had a nice laugh, one that even if she were making fun of you, you couldn’t get mad. He guessed she laughed a lot.
“I mean that you probably don’t understand a lot of what I’m saying,” she said slowly, trying with some success to approximate BBC English. “Oh,” he said. “Yes. Ma’am.”
He looked at her desk, which had a poster on top of a pile of paper. “Woolton Village Fete, St. Peter’s Church, July 6, “it said in big letters at the top.
That’s when all the little doors in his brain opened with a bang and thoughts flew around his mind like wind inside a letter box. He knew at that instant why he was here. And that he could not waste a single second of his time, starting right then.
“Listen,” he started and then realized he didn’t know her name. “Chloe,” she said, laughing at him yet again. “Chloe, I must get to Woolton Village fast. How far is it?”
“Listen,” she began and raised an eyebrow. “Sean,” he said. “Looks like ‘Scan’ it does,” she said. He sighed.
“Well, Sean, it’s too far to walk barefoot and skippin leckies will get ye lock up. Me fella left his bicycle out back and I’d be chuffed to lend it. You look to be a gud skin, luv and you look to need a break. I dunno what you’re doin in the Pool, but ye look on a mission. Let’s get you some shoes and slummie.” He blinked again. “A little spare change, “she said. Slowly.
A short time later, he was cycling madly up Woolton Road toward destiny. It was nearly 4 o’clock. Time was running out.
It was getting miserably hot. He took the jacket off and the rip in the back of the coveralls gave some relief. He pedaled harder and was about halfway to Woolton when the back tire blew. He rolled the bike to the side of the road and kicked it over. “Shitshitshit,” he said over and over, stomping around the bike until his anger faded. No pump no spare. He hid the bicycle behind a bush and took off at a slow trot, the jacket tied around his waist. There were no houses or businesses nearby on this section of the road to ask for help.
The humidity rose and he began to sweat heavily. Two boys passed him on bicycles and he yelled out, asking the time. One boy turned around briefly and yelled back “Six thirty. I think!”
He knew the face. They disappeared around a bend. ‘Shitshitshit,” he cursed with every footfall as he increased his speed. He wasn’t going to make it. Six forty-seven—the time was burned into his brain. Six. Forty. Seven.
As he rounded the bend, he recognized the church at once. He’d been here long ago, 50 years in the future. “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now,” he sang, finally understanding the words. He felt invincible as he trotted up to the side door of the church hall. He took a breath and opened the door.
The room was nearly as he remembered it, except for the stage, which was merely a line running around the back wall of the room when he’d been here. Now it was a real stage, and on the very steps he’d stood in 2007—the steps that had overwhelmed him with emotion that day—there stood a young John Lennon, with the plaid shirt, combed back hair, and long sideburns that he’d stared at a thousand times in The Photograph, the one on the flatbed trailer. He felt dizzy as he stumbled through the hall, stopping just ten feet from the stairs just in time to hear a young Paul McCartney, standing at the foot of the stairs, run through a decent version of “Twenty Flight Rock.”
This was why he was here, I knew. From the second I’d stood on those stairs, I’d vowed to somehow be there at The Moment, and now, somehow, I was.
I realized he’d been holding my breath for the entire song, and let it out in slow, shaking intervals to avoid drawing attention to myself. I watched John’s face for a reaction. Paul stood, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the guitar neck, seeming confident and nervous at the same time, eyebrows arched.
John, who had been watching Paul’s fingers the whole time and who was obviously impressed and a bit envious, said only, “Not bad.”
Then Lennon’s eyes wandered in my direction and a look of rage came over his face. “What are ye doin’ with me FOOCKIN’ jacket!” he yelled and walked over to grab the material near my throat, bunching it up and nearly knocking me in the head. He was inches from me, red-faced and smelling of beer, breathing heavily in my face.
‘I didn’t take it,” I said. ‘I found it. On a bench.” John let go of the jacket. “Bloody hell! An American,” he said, breaking into a smile. I silently thanked whatever gods let me be born in the US.
“John, you were bevvied last night on the docks,” another boy said. ‘Coulda left it, could.” John glared at him, then at me.
“What’s yer name, corksucker?” I hesitated. “Sean,” I said. He looked at my name tag. “Looks like ‘Scan’,” he said, and everyone around him laughed. So I laughed too.
‘We’ll call you ‘Scanley’ “John said. “Pleased to meetcher, Scanley.
“Dr. Lennonstone, I presume, “I said, then shut my eyes. Shitshitshit I thought. Shut up
“That’s good, Scanley,” John said. “And what are you about, arse bandit? You don’t play, do you?
I considered my options. I’d gotten what I’d come for and I could leave happy.
“Yep!” I said. “Well then shirtlifter, have at it. I’ll mug you this,” he said and handed me his guitar
John Lennon’s guitar. More photographs ran through my head as I cradled the thing like the holy relic it was. It was a cheap acoustic with rusty strings, but I was trembling as I tried to tune it, praying I would not break one of the ancient strings in the process.
I tried to think of something amazing, but ended up playing a favorite Elvis tune, “Don’t Be Cruel.” Everyone’s eyebrows went up, so I ran through a few more 50’s tunes, and before I knew what happened I was halfway through “Blackbird” before I caught myself and stopped. Shitshitshit, I thought. Shut.The. Hell. Up.
Everyone was staring at me. “What the fuck was that, Scanley” John said. Paul was staring at me too. “Nothing,” I said.
“Well, it was, woolyback. Who wrote it, then?” John stared, waiting.
‘I don’t know,” I lied. ‘It’s not half bad,” John said. “Different.”
“I like it, “Paul chimed in, and stopped talking when John met his eyes. “Ivan and I have to go,” he said, and moved toward the door.
John stared at me. ‘Let’s get a beer, Scanley,” he said. :” And give me my FUCKIN jacket back.”
I had some decisions to make.
We took a bus back to Liverpool, which used up too much of my money, especially after John apparently paid his own fare out of the confusing pile of coins he snatched out of my hand. He’d hidden more beer in his jacket pocket (he’d refused to let me wear it, despite the huge hole in my coveralls, which now stretched nearly to my backside), and glared at anyone who dared show him disapproval as he drank and belched in the back of the bus.
He was pissed that I didn’t have any cigarettes and asked everyone on the bus for one until an older woman dug a pack out of her purse to shut him up. “Thanks, luv,” he leered, taking the whole pack. He sat down and began pumping me about American music. All his sarcasm vanished as we talked about soul music, rhythm and blues, mostly black music. It was ironic that what I was able to tell him came from reading about his influences later. I pretended to know more than he did.
After another beer, the question I had been dreading finally arrived. “So, Scanley. How’d you like to be in me band?” I knew if I thought about it too long, John would be angry. This would be my first and last chance.
I shut my eyes and cycled through twelve years in thirty seconds. I saw myself in Hamburg with Klaus and Astrid; in Abbey Road Studio across a microphone from John Lennon; in New York City, 1964; everything until the rooftop concert, and why would it have to end there? I could deal with the egos, keep it together. We could last twenty years, thirty years.
And I knew the songs! I had in fact played and sung those tunes thousands of times, more than they ever did. And finally, I could save this man’s life. I could make sure he was somewhere else in December of 1980. Just that alone was enough to ease my conscience, wasn’t it?
I alone knew what lay ahead for this inebriated teenager. Or I knew what lay ahead if I said no. What would change if I said yes? Maybe I could play bass instead of Stu, I told myself. That would put them on a faster track, wouldn’t it? As the questions began to shut my brain down, I stalled for time. “That sounds great,” I said. “Let’s get some more beer and talk about it.” He was just drunk enough to agree.
We got off the bus in town and walked a bit, John looking for a place to drink, still carrying his guitar. I realized I didn’t have enough money and odds were slim for John cadging a beer in his present state, which alternated between giddy and surly. He’d already mocked several men twice his size, and I realized that by taking the bus, I’d already altered history. Perhaps he was going to get in a fight and be killed tonight instead of in 23 years. I knew I had to somehow back out of this and let things take their course if I hadn’t royally screwed it up already. As much as the thought of being a Beatle excited me, I couldn’t, I knew, insert myself into this band in any role. But if I couldn’t make history, I could watch it being made. I suggested we go to John’s house.
So, we walked. Menlove Avenue was quite a ways from where the bus had dropped us off (and was actually close to Woolton), so it was well after dark when we arrived at Mendips.
I had been here too and was amazed at how it looked the same in 1957. We went to the back door and slipped in quietly. “John, where did you run off to?” a voice from another part of the house rang out. “Took the bus, Mimi!” he said, suddenly sounding remarkably sober. “Goin’ upstairs!”
“Don’t stay up all night listening to the radio, John,” we heard her say as we both ran up the stairs to John’s room.
Again, I was stunned to see it looking exactly as I remembered: the small bed, the radio speaker on the wall, the guitar now leaning in the corner. We sat on the bed, and I thought quickly.
‘I’ll join, but only if you let Paul in,” I said. “I thought about Paul, but you’re a better player,” he said. I realized at that moment how much I had fucked this thing up.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “No Paul, no Scanley.” He turned red and, remembering Mimi, whispered, angry, inches from my face, “D’ye know what you’re tossin’? I’m gonna be as big as Elvis,” he said. I laughed, which made him even madder, but he didn’t yell at me or hit me.
“John,” I said. You are going to kick Elvis Presley’s ass all over the place.” He laughed, loudly. “John?” the voice came from downstairs. “The radio just said something funny, Mimi!” he yelled. Then he turned to me and said, “Let’s talk, mate.” And so, sitting cross-legged on his bed, facing each other, we did so until early morning.
It was around 5 AM when we went quietly down the stairs to the kitchen for a quick breakfast. I hadn’t eaten since my meal at the Salvation Army the morning before, and I was weak with hunger. Two sandwiches and a cup of tea later, I was first out the back door with John and his guitar behind me, when we heard a voice behind us.
“John Lennon, where in the world have ye been and where d’ya think you’re off to now?” Mimi stood in the kitchen wearing a faded blue housecoat and plaid slippers, one hand in the pocket of the housecoat and the other holding a cigarette, fingers touching her cheek as a stream of smoke drifted toward the ceiling. I could hear the clock ticking in the living room.
John turned back into the kitchen, and Mimi’s eyes took me in completely, starting with my face, moving down to my feet and back up to stare into me. Jesus, I thought, she’s reading my mind.
“Whose-izz?” she asked John, still staring at me. The clock ticked.
John turned into a hunchback with a comically high voice and simpered over to Mimi, taking the hand out of her pocket. “ ‘E follered me home ‘e did,” John said. “Can I keep ‘im, please mum? He don’t eat much, he don’t.” She snatched her hand away, and John stood up.
Her eyes still bored into me. “What’s your name, son?” she said, her voice flat. This woman’s shit radar had, I knew, been honed to a sharpness by John Lennon, and I had no hope of conning her. I told myself to be very careful.
“Sean, Ma’am,” I said, then added in hopes of turning on the magic accent, “I’m sorry to intrude, really.”
I got no “You’re American!” from Mimi. “You’re a long way from home, Sean,” she said softly. You have no idea, lady, I thought. “Where are your parents, Sean?”
This was a complicated question. “They’re both dead,” I said. Which was true two days ago. Here in 1957, they were very much alive, and as I stared at the floor contemplating the amazing fact that they were thousands of miles away and that I would give all this up to see them again, I felt my eyes tear up.
I looked up to see her still looking at me, her head tilted to one side. “Where are you staying?” she said. I couldn’t think of a lie, and she watched me struggle a bit. “Ah. Then you’ll stay here, but only til you find a place. You can stay on a cot in John’s room. His clothes obviously fit you.”
John turned and gave me a wink, then turned and gave Mimi a quick kiss on the cheek. She rolled her eyes. “G’wan Johnny. Take that guitar and your friend out of here.”
As we walked out the door I told myself that Mimi was the key to my future—the future that was 1957—and that I’d need to completely ingratiate myself if I were going to stay. My new friend, unfortunately, had no intention of ingratiating himself with anyone, not even his dear Mimi. We walked toward Forthlin Road and the next piece of this expanding puzzle.
We started walking down Allerton Road, which branched off to the left near a park. There were a few people on bicycles, on their way to early church services judging by their dress. John pulled yet another beer bottle from the bottomless jacket and offered it to me. I shook my head, and he expertly bit the cap off and took a large swig, then lit a cigarette.
I noticed old stones standing in the park. John said they were ancient, like Stonehenge era he thought, so we went over and leaned against one of the larger ones in the shade. It was a gorgeous Sunday, not yet very hot, and I finally took him up on the beer. We sat down.
“These are antwacky rocks, just like this whole fuckin’ city,” he said. “Can’t wait to get out. Watchin these twits rot here from babies to the bone orchard…this place is old and dead.” I thought about all the songs he’d write about this place after he left. I had caught myself humming “Penny Lane” yesterday and made a mental note to police myself. To me, this city was a holy place, especially now. I kept my mouth shut.
He took out his guitar and started strumming it, using the banjo chords Julia had taught him. I resisted the urge to tune it or show him anything. I listened intently for any budding tunes but didn’t hear anything familiar except for a few bars of “Maggie May.”
“Who’s your hero?” he suddenly asked, catching me off guard. “Who do you wish you could play like?” I drew a blank. The answer was several years away. “Elvis,” I lied.
“Elvis is OK, but Elvis doesn’t play for shit. The player is Scotty Moore,” he said. “Elvis is an ace singer and dead cool, but he doesn’t write songs. I’ve got bags of songs in me head. I wanna be Elvis with chops out me arse. Can’t do it on me tod, though. Speakin of which let’s see young master McCartney. Looked a bit done up to me, Paul did. Played ace Cochran though.” He stood up and smashed the beer bottle against one of the ancient stones, drawing a pinched look from nearby picnickers. Looking their way, he unzipped and pissed against the stone. It was going to be a long morning, I thought.
John hummed constantly, especially when he walked, and again I listened for any hints of melodies, but most of it was 50’s rock ‘n’ roll. I heard Elvis, Larry Williams, Little Richard, and Cochran’s 20 Flight Rock, which he’d apparently memorized most of from Paul the day before. I got a hint of the competition that would be driving them hard very soon.
“I bet arf a sheet that young Master McCartney’s at paddy’s wigwam,” John said. As usual, I pretended to understand when my scouse vocabulary lagged. “Me too, I said.”
We arrived at Paul’s house around 9 o’clock, and stood out front, each with completely different thoughts. My knees were shaking. If John were nervous, he didn’t show it, though I was beginning to catch the signs, one of which was increased surliness. We knocked on the front door. John smoothed his hair.
Jim McCartney opened the door and stood there, pipe in hand, looking puzzled. “Yes?” he said, eyebrows lifting.
“Ullo dur!” John said. “We are Mr. Lennon and Mr…” he stopped, realizing that he didn’t know my last name. “Stemway!” I nearly screamed. They both stared at me as though I’d dropped from a flying saucer. “Hargett!” I tried. “Sean Stemway Hargett.”
“Ah, American,” Mr. McCartney said, as though it explained everything. “Well, Mr. Lennon and Mr….Hargett, what can I help you with?”
“We’re here to see Paul.” Mr. McCartney looked a bit dubious about this. “Paul,” he called into the room, “there are two” a millisecond pause here “gentlemen to see you.”
Young Master McCartney appeared at the door. He was dressed in clean slacks and a sports shirt and was wearing white shoes. Paul looked genuinely excited at seeing John, less so about my being there.
“These are friends, Da. Can we go out back?” Paul said. “Mind the chairs, then,” Paul’s dad said, and disappeared into the living room. “I’ll get my guitar and meet you behind the house,” Paul said. The door closed. John and I looked at each other. “I’ll bet he takes a bath twice a day, him,” John said.
We walked around to the small backyard, which had a tiny garden and several striped cloth chairs, items the National Trust would duplicate decades later. We sat on the grass and waited for Paul while John tried to tune his guitar with limited success. He handed it to me. ‘Tune it, mate,” he said.
I stared at the guitar. Too much had changed already, I thought. John wasn’t even supposed to be here today. Which songs had I killed with my interference? Just one would be a tragedy, and as I was struggling with the simple decision of whether or not to tune the instrument, Paul came out the back door and sat on the grass. John grabbed his guitar back, and I began to see a strategy.
John, for all his bravado, was insecure about his playing in Paul’s presence, though–oddly–not in mine, even though I was at present the best guitarist. I needed to juice up John’s competitive nature and pit him against Paul, and at the same time take myself out of the picture.
There was an awkward start as each boy noodled around on his guitar, afraid to break the ice. I suggested that Paul show John the chords to the Eddie Cochrane tune, and they both jumped in with enthusiasm that died quickly when John’s banjo chord method slowed them down. Paul tried (very diplomatically, I saw) to show him the correct chords, but John became quickly frustrated and then angry, both at himself and at Paul for merely being better than he was.
They resumed their aimless noodling for a bit, and then John once again handed me the guitar. “Play some Elvis, Scanley” he said. “Bathroom first,” I said. “Beer’s running through me.” I went in the back door and left them to their aimless playing.
Jim McCartney pointed silently to the bathroom when I asked and relaxed a bit when I put a “sir” at the end of my thank you. He nodded and went back to his pipe and newspaper.
I closed the bathroom door and sat down on the toilet lid as I tried to think this through. Any musical advice I gave these two would change their direction, maybe only slightly, but I was interfering with genius and muddying up the best songwriting team in history.
I stood up and opened the bathroom door, then put my left index finger in the jamb. I held my breath, closed my eyes and shut the door hard, breaking the finger immediately.
Yelling took no effort at all; it hurt like hell, but only for an instant. My finger didn’t look all that bad, and the numbness took most of the pain away. I suspected that would change shortly.
Paul’s dad appeared, looking very calm. I remembered that Paul’s mom had been a nurse, and I bet no one panicked in little emergencies like this. Mr. McCartney carefully examined my finger, and as John and Paul came bounding through the back door asked Paul to fetch a doctor who lived a few blocks over.
I was relieved; a hospital would ask for an ID and I didn’t have any, let alone a passport. I hadn’t considered the complications that would cause. No trip to Hamburg for me, I thought.
Paul ran out the front door, and we three sat in the living room. John looked more angry than sympathetic. “How the FUCK did you do that, ye wanker!” John said. “Bevvied off a half pint, were you? Yer mitt’s done for.”
Paul’s dad gave John a stern look. “John,” he said “if you want to be a guest in my house, you’ll not use language like that. And I hope you don’t have beer in that pocket.”
I saw John’s face redden and braced myself. Amazingly, he apologized–something I imagine he rarely did. I took that as a sign he’d realized in an instant how valuable Paul was and, by default, how important Mr. McCartney’s opinion of him was.
The doctor arrived shortly and pronounced the finger as having a clean fracture. He straightened it and splinted it, leaving me with a huge wad of tape. John asked him how long it would be before I could play guitar. The doctor and Paul’s dad exchanged amused looks. “I don’t want him touching that thing,” he said, pointing at John’s acoustic, “for several months.” The doctor left me some pills for pain, and Mr. McCartney showed him to the door. I thought I saw some money change hands.
John was disgusted and walked out the back door. Paul’s dad nodded toward the door and Paul followed John out into the yard. I saw them sit on the grass and watched as Paul resumed his chord lesson. Mr. McCartney invited me into the parlor.
We sat and he fiddled a long time with his pipe, taking his time to pack and light it–a trick that made me sweat and gave him time to consider what he was going to say. “So, Sean,” puffed on the pipe, “what was your last name again?” he said. ” Hargett? “I offered.
“Mmmm….” Puff. “So, Sean Hargett, what are you doing here?” he said. I thought he meant why was I hanging with John.
“John’s not a bad guy, sir,” I began.
“Oh, Lennon. ” He waved his pipe in a circular motion. “I spotted him a mile off. No worse than most of those chaps in the Pool. Paul’s told me enough about him to know most of that’s for show. I meant what are you doing here in Liverpool, Sean Hargett?”
“Your son’s very talented,” I said. ” I’m aware of that. Don’t care for the new music he likes. Used to play a bit meself,” he said. “I know,” I said.
“Now how did you know that, Sean Hargett?” he said, pointing the pipe at me. Shit. Stop talking, I told myself. Then I thought, what the hell.
“Mr. McCartney,” I said, “your son’s going to go farther in music than you can imagine. And John’s going to be there with him. You’ll be so proud of him. You just have to give them both some room to grow. I know that, sir. I’m absolutely sure of it.”
“Mmmmm,” he said, drawing on his pipe. “I hope you’ll hang about for a bit anyway. Can you do that, Sean Hargen?”
“Hargett,” I said. “And yes sir, I will.”
“Mmmmm…” said Paul’s dad.
We watched them through the window-two boys looking like mirror images, nose to nose, tuning out the world as they concentrated on “20 Flight Rock.” I could hear John after each bad chord, stopping and muttering “wrongg” with that Liverpool “g” and then starting again. And again.
There followed the most glorious days of my life. Mimi made a huge fuss over my finger, and like Paul’s dad, figured me to be a good influence and allowed me to stay “as long as ye need to.”
Nearly every afternoon, we’d be in Paul’s backyard where I’d watch the two of them blaze through nearly every rock and roll cover they found. They focused totally on each other, ignoring me completely as they each improved their playing, pushing one another constantly.
They assigned me the task of writing down the cover tunes they learned. John got me a small notebook and wrote “Scanley the Scribe” in blue ink on the cover. The list grew into a hundred songs or so, and it was about that time that the first few collaborations appeared.
It started tentatively, much like their first day of playing guitar together, but then took off at an incredible pace. They could write a song in an hour, changing chords and modifying melodies in a second or two, often whistling the tune to each other as they wrote. They were great whistlers.
My notebook was soon appropriated for their songs, and it was soon nearly full with John’s and Paul’s scribbling (I had refused to write down their tunes).
Then there were the small gigs around Liverpool, which began to attract more and more fans. Life was good: afternoons at Paul’s house, evenings in the pubs, where my capacity for holding my beer grew to amaze even John. Then, nights at John’s house, where we’d listen to the Goons on the radio after supper and talk into the night about music. Then came the New Year, filled with promise.
He awoke at 11 PM. Tomorrow was July 15th, and another important thing would happen, something he knew would forever cement Paul and John together. He found John’s jacket and put it on. He ran his hands down the neck of the guitar standing in the corner.
He took one last look at John and walked downstairs to the kitchen. Grabbing a beer, he slipped out the back door and walked toward the docks.
It was a fine summer night. The stars were out, no clouds, and he could feel the cool cobblestones under his bare feet like old friends. He walked down streets with names he’d gotten to know so well, and he wasn’t worried in the least about getting lost.
Finally, there was his bench. The river was quiet, the water slapping against the wall in front. Taking the beer from the jacket pocket, he began to undress and laid the jacket on the end of the bench. He threw the rest of his clothes in the river, and, biting the cap off, began to drink his beer.
It felt good, naked in the night, warm beer in his hand. He raised his glass to the river and said “To de pool! Ta, luv.”
And set the half-drunk bottle down and went to sleep.
The next few days were spent frantically searching his CD collection for missing songs. His Beatle bass was still hanging in his music room, and nothing seemed to have changed. His anxiety dropped to near zero.
Then he started looking through all his Beatle books, speed-reading for any mention of himself. He wasn’t worried about pictures; he’d avoided every camera, he was sure.
It was day four when he spotted it. It was a picture he’d never seen before–a shot of the back yard at Forthlin Road, with John and Paul bent over their guitars, obviously writing a song.
And there it was, on the table. A spiral notebook, facing up, with the words “Scanley the Scribe” in John’s handwriting.
Finis.