A COUPLE of days later, when Sallie and Ellen were no longer watching over me like mother birds, I escaped the apartment, in search of something to do. I had been going stir crazy in the impersonal place, and as my left arm had been injured, I couldn’t write. We didn’t own a computer, and when I tried to use my right arm, it looked more like chicken scratch than my usual awful handwriting did.
I paced the halls of the Dakota, wandering restlessly. It was now mid-August, and the weather outside was swelteringly hot. The air had a foul smell to it, as often happens in New York summers. (Often? Ha! Try always.) As I walked along, the door to Apartment 72 opened. A man with a wide-brimmed ten gallon Texan hat, western style clothes with fringe, and tall cowboy boots stepped out. He moved very agitatedly, his eyes constantly searching. Quietly, he closed the door. When he turned to see me, he jumped a mile. "Yaaaaagghhh!" we both screeched. When I regained my composure I realized it was John. I sighed with relief.
"Dear God, you scared the shit out of me!" I hissed.
John was panting, looking wild with fear. "So did you!" he replied.
"Christ. Haven’t seen you in awhile. What you been up to?"
"Family stuff," I half-lied. Well, it had been family business. My father had beaten my mother and me and we were injured. If that ain’t good old fashioned family stuff I don’t know what is. "And what about you?"
"Same as usual; waiting for the sycophants to leave," he joked. We laughed over that. I knew about sycophants, as many of our workers tended to brown nose.
"Well, our sycophants should switch with yours," I suggested. "Fred seems like a sane sycophant at least."
John rolled his eyes. "Yeah? He wouldn’t let me out of the bloody flat. I just had to get out though."
I knew how that felt, especially after two days of languishing. Back in Connecticut, I hardly ever got out. I wasn’t an especially wild girl. I hadn’t done much that was overtly rebellious. I was pretty content to stay in my garden and write in peace and quiet. Anything so long as my parents weren’t around. But there was always an underlying sense of . . . urgency, I suppose it was. And that drove me up the wall. I could tell John felt the same way. "I understand that. I . . .well, you see this bandage on my arm, I fell down some stairs here, and Sallie and Ellen, two of our workers, haven’t let me go out. And I’m going insane."
John raised an eyebrow. "Looks like a bad sprain, girl. Never heard of anyone getting that injured on the stairs." Damn, why did I use that excuse? He knows the building better than I do.
"If you’d seen me fall, you’d know," I said laughingly, trying to get his attention off my arm. No reason for him to know about my home life.
He gave me a suspicious look, but even so nodded, accepting it for the moment. He didn’t stop studying me, though. His autumn leaf eyes searched my face intently. And I became increasingly nervous. "Well, where are you off to today?" I asked, abruptly changing the subject. "The Bowery?"
John chuckled. "I’ve thought of it. I don’t know where I’m going, to tell you the truth. Where are you going?"
"I don’t know either. Want to get there together?"
He looked at the clock on the hallway wall. It was only one in the afternoon. "Yeah, why not? Your parents won’t care?"
My father hadn’t been home since the day he’d beaten us. He was probably at the Bowery at that very moment. I didn’t want to find out where he was, really. If I never saw him again I’d be happy. My mother was too absorbed in her drinking, as usual, to notice. "Nah. They give me a lot of freedom. Cavorting with thirty-eight-year-old men is my hobby."
He glared at me for a moment, and then shook his head. "Why should I bother getting pissed off?" he said to no one in particular. "All right, Miss Smart-Ass of the World," he teased, "let’s boldly go where no man has gone before."
Brilliant. Using lines from television shows now. And television shows where the main characters lived on a spaceship at that. It was my turn to roll my eyes. "Sure, William." We set off.
As John and I roamed the streets of the Upper West Side, I wondered how it was possible that John, who was paranoid about getting recognized and shunned any kind of public life, seemed completely comfortable walking in Manhattan. This John seemed open and friendly, not isolated and uptight like the one I knew . . . or, rather, had come to know in only a day. We stopped every five minutes while he said hello to complete strangers, something I never would have done even in Connecticut.
Around three, I began to get hungry. "Hey, is there any place we can get food?" I asked the older man.
He stroked his beard, a gesture I would come to interpret as a prelude to his thinking mode. "Central Park."
I raised my eyebrows. Food in Central Park? Since when had they opened a restaurant? "Uh, John, I haven’t been in New York long, but I don’t think --"
John shook his head vigorously before I could finish my comment. (He was catching on quickly.) "No, no, you don’t understand." Seeing my skeptical expression, he sighed and grabbed my good arm. "Just come with me. You’ll see what I mean."
We walked five blocks back to the park. If you’ve ever been in New York City in the summer . . . I’m truly sorry. It’s swelteringly hot and humid, made worse by the pollution and the tinge of rotting garbage tainting the air. On the other hand, it’s fascinating. Everybody seems to come alive in the summer (not that they aren’t out in droves in the winter), performing or paradin or whatever they feel like doing at the moment. In 1979 it was no different.
Once we entered the illusion that is Central Park, we wandered around for a bit until John squinted into the sun and said excitedly, "They’ve got them again!" He tugged my arm and headed off for a group of people standing around a grill. They were barbecuing. God, how long had it been since I’d had that experience? The smell was enough to make me want to lunge forward and grab whatever I could. But I restrained myself. "Are these people here every day?" I asked my companion. John smirked. "Yeah. All night too. Bet you never thought people would be kind enough to do that, eh, Miss Alida?"
I gazed at the people standing around, cheerfully handing out barbecue
sandwiches amongst other things. They reminded me of the stories I’d heard
about the peace-loving, generous hippies from the sixties. Indeed, I’d
never seen anyone giving out free food in a public park unless it was a
special occasion, such as a fund raiser for the Old Biddies Foundation
or something
equally charitable. "No," I admitted, forgetting myself. "It’s all
free?"
One of the people, a tall young (well, youngish) man with shoulder-length hair and a scraggly beard, looked up and smiled kindly at me. "Yeah, take what you want," he told me, his voice deep and rich. I felt safe just being in his presence.
I never hesitate, and this time was no exception. I grabbed a plate of barbecue and a cup of Coke (or what I thought was Coke; I was too thirsty to look at the contents) and a plate of brownies. John did the same, his eyes twinkling the entire time. At the time I put it down to being outside, breathing in the (polluted) air, and having free food. As soon as I took a swig of the *Coke,* I realized what it was and it nearly came flying out of my mouth. Instead, I swallowed the fiery liquid and, gasping, said, "God, it’s whiskey!"
John cackled. "Of course! What’d you expect it to be, milk?"
"Who do you think I am, Shirley Temple?" I responded. Then I took another
tentative sip. It still burnt my throat, but not quite as badly. I kept
drinking until the paper cup was empty, then went back and had another
cup. By then I was a little dizzy, not having drunk much whiskey in my
life. Oh, nothing was spinning around or anything, I just felt a little
woozy. John
drank the whiskey as if it were water. Then again, John was considerably
older than I was at the time. Still, my dad was an alcoholic . . .
"Did you like it?" John asked me as I gobbled down some barbecue.
I nodded, my mouth too full to speak. "Mmmph."
"Ah, I knew you’d take a fancy to it," he smirked. "Yes, Miss Alida, I think you’re gonna be a drunkard before ya know it!" John crowed in his horrible fake Texas accent.
"Oh, don’t use that damn accent!" I moaned. "If you’re gonna use it, do it right." Normally I would not have told him so bluntly, but I didn’t exactly have full control of myself.
"All right. Why don’t we eat those brownies and then you tell me how to do it." John rubbed his hands together, which should have been my first indication that there was something amiss. But of course, being naive (and drunk) little Alida, I didn’t pick up on anything right away.
We started inhaling the brownies, but after I’d had a few , I noticed something was odd. I felt very relaxed and almost giggly, and I’m not exactly Ms. Giggles. Suddenly, I remembered my mother’s *homemade* brownies and began to laugh. "Ohhhhh, now I get it," I slurred. "Brownies."
John giggled along with me. "Yeah, I was hoping you’d figure it out soon. Funny, I don’t know why I didn’t tell ya!"
Something clicked then. "You wanted to get me high, you cunt!" I howled, nearly falling over. Even in my inebriated, stoned state, I managed to figure out his little game. "You wanted to see if I would give away anything or act differently!" Then I fell backwards, giggling like mad. Oh, he would pay for this. I’d find a way to repay him . . . if I could only find out how to stand up without falling . . .
John was howling away as well. "You shouldn’t have trusted me! You know I’m big bad John Lennon!" he said mockingly. Smooth, John. A crowd of people looked up upon those words. Noticing them, I said loudly, "Oh, Harold, you and your delusions! John Lennon is dead, isn’t he?"
John glared at me for a moment, but then he too saw the staring spectators. "Dead! He’s as alive as ever! Don’t give me none o’ that bullshit!" he shouted, once again with that dreaded Texas drawl.
The people looked away, almost embarrassed. We should have been embarrassed, but we were too stoned and drunk (not to mention desperate to save our necks again) to care. As I look back now on this event, I realize what bloody fools we made of ourselves. Sometimes making a fool out of oneself is crucial in order to survive. Especially when you’re a victim of your own fame.
I faced John, my black eyes staring into his brown ones. The look on his face took me by surprise. He looked sad and pensive, not taking his gaze off me. I felt the currents of our connection running through me again. The thought that we’d known each other before would not leave. I let him stare until I got uncomfortable.
"John . . . is something wrong?"
Zap. The connection was broken. He resumed his usual guarded expression. "Nothing. I was just thinking how bloody silly it is to be someone you’re not in public." At the time, I thought he was referring to our brush with crazed fans. Later I realized that he meant that people are forced to put on an act for the public, to be a person they aren’t, sometimes even a parody of themselves.
"It is ridiculous that we have to play the fools to get away from them," I agreed. "Speaking of being foolish, I’ll help you with that horrible accent now." My gaze drifted around the park (one eye looking in one direction, the other looking in a completely different one).
And my blood ran cold.
C.J. © 2001