EIGHT
IT TURNED out that watching cartoons with the Lennons was even somewhat of an experience. Both John and Sean had some kind of witty comment for everything on the screen. John’s were usually carefully edited, but every now and then something would slip out that he hadn’t meant for Sean to hear. When that would happen, Sean would squeal with delight and giggle his head off. John would (shock, horror) blush and brush it off with an, "Alright, that’s enough."
I too was making comments on the hilarious escapades of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. "Look, look at that anvil!" I exclaimed. "That coyote wouldn’t even know what hit him. Literally."
John cackled. "Did I mention we’re having fried coyote tonight?"
Sean looked horrified. "Eeeeeeew!" he yelled in dismay. "Yuck! No we aren’t!"
John smiled wickedly and nodded. "You’re right. As far as I know," he added to another round of exclamations of disgust.
Uda-san poked her head into the room. "No coyote tonight, Sean-san! I make it tomorrow, okay?"
Sean pulled a face at her. "No, Uda-san, I don’t want it! Don’t make it! Pleeeease?"
John said conspiratorially to Uda-san, "I’ll pick one up off somewhere in the upper eighties tomorrow afternoon."
"The East Village might be better," I said wryly. "Plenty of road kill around there." I was willing to bet that I knew one personally.
He nodded with mock-thoughtfulness. "Hmm, you’re probably right."
By that point Sean looked as if we’d just announced that the sky was falling and he was a target. "Daddy! Stop it!"
We were interrupted by a particularly loud beep-beep from the Road Runner at that moment. One which we weren’t expecting. Everyone jumped a mile. "Damn Road Runner’s trying to eavesdrop," John remarked. "He’d be better off down at the Bowery." Right along with my father and his lovely friends...
Later, we sat down in the kitchen to eat dinner. Even Yoko. This surprised me. I’d have thought she’d just eat later, or bypass dinner completely. But I was rapidly discovering that Uda-san would have put on a show of "righteous indignation" had anything like that occurred.
"You not eating any more rice?" she asked John, seeing the small portion he’d taken.
John looked up from his food, a bit confused but not surprised. "Yeah, after I finish this," he replied nonchalantly.
Sean was playing with his food, as little kids are prone to do. He was making little shapes out of globs of rice. Uda-san noticed this and nearly shrieked, "Sean-san, food not made to be played with!"
Sean dropped his fork into his plate, startled. He looked at her with his large dark eyes, bewildered. "Huh? But I always draw pictures!"
"And I always telling you not to" she fumed.
"Pictures drawn with crayons and pencils, not food! Not my food!" She was nearly of Amazonian proportions now. I silently chewed my food, hoping she wouldn’t think I was being quiet because I didn’t like the meal. It was delicious; steamed rice, an assortment of vegetables, and sushi, which, to my amazement, I actually liked.
Sean looked stricken, but he nodded and said in a small voice, "Okay, Uda-san." He began to shovel the food into his mouth as if his life depended on it. I noticed that neither John nor Yoko had said a word while Uda-san was reprimanding him.
Helen Seaman, whom I’d already begun to like just since she’d walked in the door ten minutes earlier, leaned over and said softly, "Sean, next time, don’t play with your food so much, all right?"
Again, Sean nodded solemnly. "I won’t."
Odd. My parents had never contributed anything to disciplining me either, except for the occasional slap or beating. I didn’t know which would be better; that or nothing whatsoever. I didn’t think John or Yoko really knew how to deal with a child who was doing something they didn’t want him to do. But then, does anyone really know how? Most people just do what comes naturally to them, or they do what their parents did. But, like me, John and Yoko didn’t really ever have parents to copy.
"It’s all right, Uda-san," John spoke up. "He wasn’t throwing it or anything, and he wasn’t bothering anyone."
Uda-san’s face reddened, but she said nothing in response to that, only looked at me. "Do you want more?" I had already finished most of what had been on my plate. So much for not having the munchies anymore.
I nodded eagerly, and John laughed. "You will be eating for ten before you know it, Alida," he affectionately teased me.
Despite the fact that this wasn’t exactly your average family scene (like I know anything about average family scenes), I once again felt almost as if I had a family. Sean would be my little brother, John and Yoko would be our parents who were loving if not always there for us, and Helen and Uda-san would be...Helen and Uda-san. "Who says I’m not now?" I grinned.
John giggled. "You were earlier anyway," he said with an almost evil grin. He then sent me a wink, which I returned with a smile. Our strange, insane connection was stronger than ever now. In a matter of only a couple of days (I didn’t count the days I’d been at my apartment as days I’d known John, for obvious reasons), we’d managed to form a bond. A crazy, weird teenager from Connecticut and a crazier, weirder thirty-eight-year old Liverpudlian, spending time together in New York City as if we‘d known each other forever. It almost frightened me. (Almost.) Yoko was looking from John to me and back again as we spoke. She was clearly dumbfounded. As well she should have been. She hadn’t been with us on our "adventures" that day. I wasn’t sure she would have wanted to be. Did she still smoke marijuana or drink? Well, at any rate, the episode involving my father would certainly have made up her mind for her about me. I would have no place to stay tonight had she been there.
"Did you have a good time today?" she asked curiously. For once she didn’t have that "I’m-only-asking-because-it’s-programmed-into-me" attitude. She really did want to know.
John nodded. "Yeah, Mother, it was a regular party," he said, deadpan. Then he grinned and added, "It was fun going to Central Park, wasn’t it, Alida?"
"Yeah," I agreed, only half-lying. It had been fun, up until my father had shown up.
Yoko looked interested. "What’s the Park like lately?"
"Hot, horrible and reeking, but it’s great," I told her. That was the absolute truth. Despite the stench and the heat, not to mention the criminals, Central Park was an experience. I loved it. Well, what I’d seen of it when I wasn’t going at the speed of light through it.
Yoko nodded in agreement. "It is," she said thoughtfully, then lapsed into silence again. John and I kept up the conversation throughout the rest of dinner, Sean putting in his two cents’ worth here and there. We bantered and played off each other as if we were two professional comedians on stage. Our camaraderie never ceased to amaze me.
After dinner, John went into one of his moods again. He answered everything with an absent, "Mmm," and after a certain point nearly stopped talking altogether. Then he disappeared completely. At least he wasn’t snarling or trying to slaughter someone with his words. He merely seemed distracted, or perhaps depressed. I couldn’t tell, but I was learning to take his sudden changes in mood as they came. After all, everyone had to do the same with me.
Yoko drifted off somewhere as well, and Uda-san busied herself with putting up the leftover food. The housekeeper came around to do the dishes, and Sean began to bounce around the apartment, looking as bored and restless as I felt.
"Helen, I wanna watch TV some more," he whined, tugging at Helen’s shirt.
Helen laughed. "He always wants to watch something on TV," she said to me in a low tone. Then, to Sean, "Okay, Sean, what do you want to watch?"
Sean looked puzzled. "I dunno. I wanna click through the channels." He seemed to look to this with great anticipation.
I had to laugh as well. Sean was a character. "Do you have a remote control?" I asked him. When he looked blank, I amended, "A clicker?"
He understood this, and nodded. He grabbed my hand and began dragging me to the television with incredible strength for a three-year-old. Helen followed, still laughing. "He’s like this at this time of night," she explained in her soft German accent. "So anxious."
Sean had already picked up the remote control and had begun fiddling with it. Soon, the channels were flying by at an amazing speed.
"This--"
"We--"
"Ch--"
"You--"
"I--"
"There’s nothing oooon!" he complained as the remote control began to smoke. Well...not really. He was complaining, but the remote was unharmed, at least to my eyes. I found his antics so funny that I began to laugh, almost hysterically so. So did Helen. Sean, of course, had no idea what was so hilarious. "What? Why are you laughing?" he demanded.
Still laughing, I knelt and pried the remote from his tiny hands. "Sean, do you mind if I try it?"
"Okay," he reluctantly agreed.
I flipped through the channels a bit more slowly than he had, and actually managed to find something worth watching; All In The Family. The TV Guide had once described the show as having a "dysfunctional family," but compared to mine, the Bunkers were the poster family for Love and Togetherness. We watched the show in relative peace and quiet, aside from Sean’s insistence that we turn off the TV during commercials. We compromised by turning the volume all the way down.
Sean fell asleep around nine-thirty, and Helen had to wake him so he could brush his teeth and put something else on to sleep in. While he was off doing all this, I began to wander aimlessly around the apartment. It was truly beautiful. It definitely had more beauty than my apartment. Beauty is relative, as they say. As I passed the White Room, I heard snatches of what sounded like a phone conversation. John was talking to someone, but I couldn’t make out who at first.
"Yeah...right, right...well, Christ, I wouldn’t think of it... she’s just a kid, you know... yeah, she’s okay...why wouldn’t she be?... no, no, not since then... just relax, man, I’m tense enough as it is... so I’ll see you tomorrow, then... yeah... `bye." Click. I heard a huge sigh and took it as my cue to enter.
John was sitting on a sofa, rubbing his temples distractedly. He looked tired and worried. When he heard me come into the room, he looked up, startled. "What are you doing in here?"
"Just walking around while Helen puts Sean to bed. What did Fred want?" I knew that’s who it had been on the phone. Who else would it be, my father? Paul McCartney? (The latter was more likely to be concerned than the former.)
John looked a bit surprised, but then recovered. "Just wanted to see you’re all right. He was going barmy thinking your dad might have come by again. He also thought I was going to throw ye out for some reason." He laughed at this as if it were the funniest thing ever. It wasn’t. He could decide at any time that he’d had enough of putting himself and his family in danger and tell me to leave. And what was that about me being just a kid, anyway?
"It’s not that funny, John. You’d have every right to tell me to go back home right now. What were you saying about me being `just a kid’?" I demanded, almost desperately. Fear was taking over, and manifesting itself as anger. For the first time in my life I felt fragile. Life hadn’t exactly been secure before now, but now the shred of security I’d had was gone. And I despised feeling that way.
He put up his hands as if to ward off all my questions. "Hold on, hold on. Alida, do you really think I’d just chuck you out with the garbage or something? And about the kid thing...I was just reminding Fred that you’re only fifteen, so I can’t go throwing you out anyway."
I calmed down a bit. I told myself to be rational; John wouldn’t just abruptly tell me to get out. He’d probably give me at least a day’s notice. I didn’t quite believe him about the "kid thing," though. A look of guilt had crossed his face when he’d said that. "No, I don’t think you would. But you never know."
John stood and put a hand on my shoulder, the most demonstrative thing he’d done with me so far. "Look, I know we’ve only known each other a few days, but I know when I like someone. It’s as though we’ve known each other much longer. You can trust me, you know." He was dead serious about this. His autumn-leaf brown eyes gazed almost kindly into mine. He showed no signs f playing or being cute. John was not a man who took trust lightly. Having so few people to trust himself, he knew the value of it. He also knew the value of honesty.
Sighing, I took the biggest risk of my life (well, other than not committing suicide) and decided to trust him. Nodding, I said, "I know. I will. Only if you trust me, though."
John gave me a smile, and this one wasn’t teasing or coy, mocking or playful. It was genuine. "That’ll be a bit harder, luv," he joked. Then he added, "I do, Alida. For some crazy reason, I do. Maybe it’s some kind of karmic thing."
Only John. However, I agreed with him. It had to be fate. Of all the religious things I’d studied, that was one concept I hadn’t rejected. Especially not now. Too much had happened to discount fate. "It probably is. Written in the proverbial stars."
The phone rang again, and John moved to answer it. "Yeah?... oh, yeah, hi..." I quietly slipped out of the White Room and into Sean’s room. The moment was over, but it would keep replaying in my head for a long time to come.
I watched Sean sleeping peacefully. Helen was on a cot beside
him, reading a book. I thought that although the Lennons may have
been a bit dysfunctional in some ways, in others they were very
close. I’d never known anything like it. As I drifted off to
sleep that night, I had to wonder. John knew the value of trust,
but did he know the price?
C.J. © 2002