LONDON (1969) A garage lorry overturned Thursday July 1 in a one vehicle accident, killing the driver and only occupant John Winston Lennon, a mechanic's helper at Pete's Lorry Shop. Authorities could find no direct cause for the fatal mishap but one officer speculated a rock band's rooftop concert going on at that time may have been a distraction. Mr. Lennon was an employee of the garage who owned the lorry. He is survived by his aunt Mimi Smith in Liverpool.
Cause I'm going to
Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever!
For the first time, Lennon's co-workers got a full peek inside his work locker. Lennon was an "odd bird", secretive yet prone to rumoured streaking. His hurried, private scribblings put his insecure colleagues on edge as they anxiously ripped through his private papers. After reading aloud the above stanza they were more confused than ever.
"Wot kind of rot is that? Not a strawberry patch 'round here for miles."
"More of that Hippie crap! He was always into that Hippie crap!"
"See him talkin' 'bout "nothin' is real"? That boy was a dreamer."
"Right that! And five will get ya ten he was a-dreamin' when he crashed."
"Think ya onto somethin' there, mate. Him and all that fag hair never had no business here."
"His auntie is friends with boss Pete or no way he gets on."
"Well, when ya thinks about it something like this was bound to happen. He hated every minute with a spanner in his hand. If it's not all the way I'm sayin' it's a least halfway suicide if you askin' me."
"No one's askin ya! You talk like that around his auntie and she'll have your head on a platter. A proper queen she is. She protected him with her life."
"Don't go bitin' my head off over him bein' a miserable sot. Wasn't nothin' to do with me. Was something missing in that boy. He took a wrong turn somewheres."
"Look, here's some more notes, like some sorta journal."
Yoko came back to town to put on another show. I haven't stopped thinking about her for three years and it's doing me in being apart. I need her but I have to be somebody first before I can make it with her. But how can I ever be somebody without her?? Whole thing is driving me out of my mind! Is she the One for me or am I just imagining things again?
Mimi says I'm dreaming me life away. I know she's wrong but I can't prove it. Here lately things been going black in me head. I'm thinking there's no point being alive without Yoko. She's says she's never had conversations like she's had with me. She has no idea how deep my wellspring of feelings is for her! But I've no way forward.
Better go now. That prick Brantley is watching me. Think he's going to cry if I keep writing.
"He got one thing right: youse a prick, Brantley!"
"Ha, ha! Go fook yourself. He's the dead one."
"What kind of name is Yoko? Sounds like a witch's name."
"It's Swedish, ya moron!"
"So he had the hots for some hot blonde Swede, eh? Looks like he couldn't close the deal!"
"I'm thinking he was a impotent. You could never talk to him, he'd bite your head right off and he always knew just where to push. No satisfaction, that's what I was thinkin'."
"Take away a man's pecker and nothin' he does means nothin' after that."
"Shit, maybe he did kill himself."
"Fook him for calling me a prick!"
Another discovery was made when an overflow of scrap paper fell onto the floor. But what first appeared as scrap turned out to be something entirely different.
"Blimey, look at all that. What he keeping' all them scraps for?"
"They's torn up lotto tickets. He didn't want anyone knowin' he was buyin' them. I'd see him hide 'em away all the time. Wouldn't even throw 'em in the trash in case somebody saw."
"That's right. He told me once if he ever got rich he'd become a famous artist, that he'd finally have the time."
"He was just a bum. I talked to Pete about him one time and he told me the boy just went from job to job never puttin' down no roots, never learnin' nothin', never bein' responsible. Sittin' around writing that Strawberry Field crap was his idea of being responsible. Wot a loon!"
"At least he tried to do the right thing and learn a proper trade here and become somebodies. Maybe that's why he got hired on so he could impress that Yoko chick."
"Bah! His auntie forced him on, saying she'd cut him off if he didn't make something of himself. Been a loser his whole life. Heard her tell he shoplifted as a kid, always smartin' off to his betters, never any good. Been me I'd have kicked him out of the house long time ago!"
"Parents nowadays have lost all their sense! They don't realize best thing for a boy like that is to cut him off totally or he'll never learn."
"Army would have put him straight, give him direction. We need to go back to forced service for all these unruly kids. Biggest mistake ever getting rid of that."
"That'd take care of that fag hair! Take him a year or five to get all that back!"
"Look, here's the final entry in this journal."
It's all pointless this charade. Write, don't write, what fucking difference does it make? I get high imagining me success and the wonderful words that drive me out of bed across the universe. But it never amounts to a fucking thing. I have this magic feeling but nowhere to go. I'm thinking it's always going to be like this. Who am I? What am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to do?
Part of me still suspects when they read all me stuff after I die I'll be famous like Van Gogh. But I'm also thinking if they can't hear me say them in proper tune it won't matter because they can't hear what I hear. I missed this whole decade of blossoming. I can see now how wrong it was to let Mimi guilt me out of my guitar. "Got to feel sorry for the world." Bullshit!
I can't go on feeling two foot small. I'm so tired I haven't slept a wink. Everyone but Billy is a complete asshole here. Everybody's got something hide (me too). The weight just keeps getting heavier and I see no way out. Can't live with me dreams, can't live without them. If God doesn't understand that then fuck him too. I just need some love. All I need is love but love is impossible to get.
"Hey, there!
I said that to him! I told him nowhere to go with a magic feeling. Course, I'd never said it if I hadn't met him."
[Epilogue: As was custom the daily trash was burned in a large metal barrel out back. Much to Aunt Mimi's later fury, John's papers turned to ashes, dust to dust.]
John Lennon was a brilliant songwriter, but not much of a driver: He didn't get his license until he was 24, and ended his time behind the wheel with a scary mishap that ended with a trip to the hospital for himself, his son Julian, Yoko Ono and her daughter Kyoko.
The incident occurred on July 1, 1969, while Lennon and Ono were vacationing in the Scottish Highlands. Although he'd reportedly spent very little time driving since getting his license in early 1965, Lennon felt confident enough to try and navigate the region's narrow roads in his Austin Maxi hatchback – at least until he lost control of the vehicle and wound up in a ditch.
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