Each time I tell the story below I am typically met with more with skepticism than with acceptance that what I write about actually took place. During the weekend before John Lennon's assassination on December 8, 1980 I was visiting an old college roommate in New York City, having taken the train from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard where I was assigned to a U.S. destroyer in overhaul. I had been commissioned from Officer Candidate School the previous July. This story is one episode from a book about my time in the United States Navy during the Reagan era. I intend to self-publish the book sometime in the next six to eight months.
I smiled at my old friend. "So what’s up with you?"
Kyle replied, "I've been waiting to tell you this story. It’s straight off the streets of New York. Happened last week. I think you’ll love it." One of the best things about Kyle was his being a superb observer of people, and as such, a great storyteller. I always admired him for that.
"Well? Let’s hear it."
"So I’m down in the Village Tuesday afternoon, just hanging out, standing on a street corner, waiting to cross the street. I look up and see this dark-haired, totally beautiful girl decked out in leather. She’s about twenty-eight or thirty, and she looks really wild in her black leather pants, black leather shirt, and a black vest. She’s wearing a black leather jacket and black spiked high heels, the whole package. This girl had long, black hair, her eye shadow was pitch black, and so was her lipstick," Kyle told me excitedly. "I don’t know, she was like a ‘Dragon Lady,’ or something. Never seen anything like it. But somehow incredibly sexy. My eyes just about fell out of my head. I was so in love."
"And so?" I raised my eyebrows.
"Well, out of nowhere, this dude in a coat and tie walks up and stands between me and the Dragon Lady. He looks her up and down once, twice, then he says, ‘Hey lady, where’s your whip?’ I mean, it was priceless. I turned to one side so she couldn’t see me busting a gut."
"Oh, my god." I laughed out loud.
"Hold on, I’m not done, yet." Kyle continued. "So she gives him a nasty look and says, ‘Up yours, Romeo.’ Then she knees him right in the balls. Hard. He falls to his knees, grabbing his crotch, groaning. The pedestrian light flashes WALK, and she nonchalantly takes off across the street, swinging her cute butt, leaving him sprawled on the sidewalk like nothing happened. Now that’s the New York City I know." We both laughed out loud. It was great seeing Kyle again.
The two women across from us stood up and left without so much as a glance in our direction. I didn’t care. I was glad to be catching up with Kyle and his life. He asked me what I had in mind for Sunday, before going home to Philly.
I thought for a moment and replied, "Listen, there’s something I’ve wanted to do every time I come to town, but I never ask you about it. You might think it’s weird. Let’s go up to the Dakota House."
Located on West 72nd Street and Central Park, the Dakota was over a hundred years old. It was a landmark in the city, an imposing brick edifice, complete with Victorian trim and ornate black balconies hanging off its exterior. The Dakota occupied an entire city block. A number of celebrities called the Dakota home, including John and Yoko Lennon. From the day we first met freshmen year, Kyle knew I was a John Lennon fan. I used to spin Lennon tunes on my radio show in college and Beatles records in our dorm room. That weekend in New York I felt strongly about heading up to Central Park West to hang out at the Dakota. We might run into John and Yoko Ono walking around there, something I could brag about to my grandchildren.
The next day we walked down East 51st Street to the Lexington Avenue subway station to catch the "F" train heading uptown. Down below on the tracks, in typical subway fashion the overhead lights in the rail car kept blinking on and off as we sped north towards the 72nd Street subway station. Riding the Manhattan subway system always made me nervous and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the constant shaking and metallic screeching. Every time those cars slammed into one another as we careened through those dark tunnels I thought a massive wreck was happening. I never relaxed in the New York City Subway, even years ago when I rode it as a kid.
"What’s with this John Lennon fetish, anyway?" Kyle asked as we sat in our plastic seats, reading the filthy graffiti scrawled all over the car’s interior. It was like we were riding in a kaleidoscope surrounded by all sorts of strange colors and weird designs.
"Give me a break. I’m like millions of other people. It probably goes back to seeing them on Ed Sullivan, right after Kennedy got killed. Dad used to pop popcorn for us on Sunday nights. I remember that Sunday we’re there on the living room floor in front of the TV, staring at these longhairs from Liverpool, barely hearing any words from their songs because the girls in the audience were screaming their lungs out. I’m eight years old, in a trance, thinking, ‘Who are these guys?’ Nothing was the same after that Ed Sullivan Show. Nothing. It went far beyond rock and roll, you know." Kyle sat silent for a moment.
"You always were sappy about the old times. I didn’t see them on Ed Sullivan, but I wish I did," Kyle finally answered. "They had America eating out of their hands after that."
"Yeah," I continued. "After Ed Sullivan, Mom and Dad took us to the Lonsdale Drive-In in Lincoln to see, A Hard Days Night, and then, Help. A few years later Yellow Submarine came out. The Beatles make me think about Jen and the good times we had before she died. We were the first family I knew in Limerock to have Rubber Soul, Sergeant Peppers, and the White Album in our record collection. My friends came over and we played those albums over and over, like we did freshmen year. My folks got into Lennon and McCartney way before any of my friends’ parents did. I need to tell Lennon personally how much he means to me."
Kyle snorted, "He gets that kind of fan mail every day. He’ll probably tell you to fuck off. I like Bob Dylan better than Lennon, anyway."
"That’s possible, he just might. Lennon gives Dylan credit for being his inspiration in the beginning, along with Elvis and Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, too. I’ll take Lennon's music over anybody. McCartney's the pretty boy. Never liked him as much."
"I’m okay with Lennon, but Dad’s into Louis Armstrong," Kyle said. "We’re used to seeing celebrities around town. I’m definitely not cranked up about seeing Lennon."
Kyle’s dad was a high-powered Manhattan attorney. They lived in a large condo on the upper-East Side overlooking the East River. We slowed to a stop. Our subway ride was over.
"What’s your favorite Beatles song?" Kyle asked as we rapidly climbed the stairs, out of the subway station into the bright sun of mid-afternoon Manhattan. It took a moment for our eyes to get readjusted to the daylight. A brisk wind was blowing down the canyons of downtown Manhattan, tossing discarded hot dog wrappers and dirty newspapers into a crazy whirlwind dance all around us. Kyle and I dodged two taxis as we jaywalked across the street at an angle, avoiding the frozen slush and filthy snow kicked up by the vehicles before hopping back onto the sidewalk.
"Easy one. I always loved In My Life, off Rubber Soul. Lennon wrote it when he was twenty-four. Can you believe that? Remember when I got nasty complaints from my audience ‘cause I played it too much on my show? It’s a classic, like A Day in A Life. Lennon was a better artist than McCartney, even though they were good together. After they split, McCartney comes out with Band on the Run. I always hated that shit. No comparison to the Beatles’ material." We walked across Central Park South towards where the Dakota House stood in the deepening shadows of the winter afternoon. No one was in sight.
The Dakota loomed as a solid brick fortress before us, with a black wrought-iron fence around its perimeter. Kyle asked, "Did you know this is where Rosemary’s Baby was filmed? I think it’s got, like, a creepy elegance to it."
"I wouldn’t mind living here," I said, "even if it looks a bit scary."
"Well, I don’t see Lennon or Yo-yo around," said Kyle, blowing on his hands. He had left his gloves at home.
"Kyle, go easy on Yoko. Even though I never got why Lennon went for Yoko I don’t blame him for telling everyone to ‘get bent’ for blaming her for breaking up the group. It’s his life and his wife, so that’s that. Lennon just outgrew the Beatles before McCartney did. All Yoko did was accelerate what was gonna happen anyway. Man, it’s cold, buddy, worse than Philly."
"What should we do?" My friend asked, stamping his feet and tugging his wool cap down further over his head.
"Let’s hang here for a bit and then head back. My train leaves at 1730 PM. I’m a dead duck if I’m not on board ship at 0630 sharp tomorrow morning."
We lasted forty minutes more out in the windy chill of that December afternoon. As the afternoon quickly fell into twilight and then darkness, we headed back downtown to Grand Central Station where I bid good-bye to Kyle. It had been a great trip.
Late Monday afternoon, forty-eight hours after leaving New York, I departed the ship and headed back to my apartment in New Jersey, arriving thirty minutes later. It was December 8, 1980. I turned on the television to watch Monday Night Football as I prepared my dinner of hot dogs and beans. Football broadcaster Howard Cosell broke up the broadcast, suddenly announcing, "We have unconfirmed news that John Lennon was shot in New York tonight. We’re trying to gather more details about this report."
News flashes on every channel began interrupting regular television programming. I began flipping around the TV seeking more information. I finally saw a familiar scene, the exterior of the Dakota House on Central Park West. A reporter stared into the camera, soberly reporting, "Over the past hour former Beatle and world peace activist John Lennon was shot and killed by an assassin here in New York. The shooter is currently in police custody, having surrendered at the scene. Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono was by his side when he died."
My knees began to shake and my mind went numb. I shut the television off and called Kyle. Then I began crying into the phone. We only spoke for a few minutes. Kyle said he understood how badly I felt, that he was really sorry, and that he had to hang up.
I turned off all the lights in the apartment and slipped my Rubber Soul cassette tape into my boom box tape player. Cracking a cold beer, I sat in the living room deep in thought, frozen in place, rewinding the tape and playing it a second, then a third time. I thought about the Beatles and how much they were once a part of my life. I was stunned. It didn’t make sense. This man of great creativity and peace, a rock figure and yet just a man who had been with me from childhood to young adulthood, whose talents I always admired, was gone. The next day I read about the impromptu gatherings of fans outside the Dakota House and in Central Park, many of them carrying flowers and candles, chanting, "All we are saying, is give peace a chance."
Many years earlier, accompanied by a symphony orchestra and on a single take over live BBC radio, the Beatles had sung one of their signature songs, All You Need is Love, to an estimated audience of one billion listeners. Apparently, not everyone out there had gotten the message.
I felt much older, and so much more alone.