The Last Days of John Lennon Read online

  The structure of the session may have been Bowie’s, but the pacing is all John’s. “God, that session was fast,” Bowie marvels. “That was an evening’s work!”

  He calls his producer in London, saying, “Er, Tony. I don’t know how to tell you this, but John and I wrote a song together and we recorded and mixed it. It’s called ‘Fame.’”

  On July 25, RCA Records issues “Fame,” with Bowie and John credited as coauthors. When on September 20, 1975, the song becomes Bowie’s first number-one hit in America, he insists, “I wouldn’t know how to pick a single if it hit me in the face.”

  “And we made a record out of it, right?” John says. “So he got his first number one so I felt that was like a karmic thing, you know. With me and Elton, I got my first number one so I passed it on to Bowie and he got his.”

  And even better: “I like that track.”

  * * *

  These collaborations are revitalizing for John. So although the ink is barely dry on the severed Beatles relationship, when Paul suggests that John come down to record with him in New Orleans on his new Wings album, John very seriously considers it—talking it over with May, Art Garfunkel, and even the Beatles’ old press officer Derek Taylor.

  Had he gone to New Orleans, an entirely unknown future could have been explored. But instead, he’s enticed into a very different collaboration, one he cannot turn away from.

  Chapter 51

  Shake it up, baby, now…

  —“Twist and Shout”

  John’s newest collaboration is of a more personal nature. Yoko is pregnant.

  Given her advanced maternal age of forty-two and her history of miscarriages, John takes tender care of her fragile health and that of her unborn child. “When I got pregnant I had to concentrate on being pregnant for a whole nine months,” Yoko says. She’s on bed rest most of the time, which prevents her from working, so “John got a wheelchair and he would push me around into the kitchen where there would be lunch,” she recalls. “Isn’t that sweet?”

  “We got back together, decided this was our life, that having a baby was important to us and that anything else was subsidiary to that. We worked hard for that child,” John says. “We went through all hell trying to have a baby, through many miscarriages and other problems. He is what they call a love child in truth. Doctors told us we could never have a child. We almost gave up.”

  John books a country house where Yoko can rest, and he cancels all their plans.

  “Stay alive in ’75. That’s my motto,” he tells an interviewer. “I just feel good now, I’m writing well, so I’m happy.”

  John presents his wife with his Los Angeles diary, chronicling all the highs and lows of his separation from her.

  He pulls out a book of matches. Strikes one. Touches the lit match to the edges of the paper, sparking a flame. He carries the burning diary to the kitchen sink and watches the pages burn, the past turning to ash.

  * * *

  John and Yoko go public with their reunion on March 1, 1975, live and on television. The occasion is the seventeenth Grammy Awards, held at the Uris Theatre, in Manhattan.

  Wearing a black suit and black beret, Elton’s medallion, a pin that spells “Elvis” in sparkling letters, and a gold ring on his left ring finger, John takes the stage with Paul Simon (formerly of the duo Simon and Garfunkel, who split in 1970 while Art Garfunkel was pursuing an acting career) to present the night’s top honor, Record of the Year.

  “Hello, I’m John. I used to play with my partner, Paul,” John says.

  “I’m, uh…I’m Paul. I used to play with my partner, Art,” responds Simon.

  When Olivia Newton John’s “I Honestly Love You” wins, things appear to get a little tense as Garfunkel himself comes onstage to accept the award on her behalf.

  “Are you ever getting back together again?” John asks the famous duo, in an obvious joke, and Simon immediately returns the question, “Are you guys getting back together again?” “No,” John says with a laugh. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

  Paul McCartney, who earlier in the evening won in absentia for “Band on the Run” (Best Pop Performance by a Duo, Group, or Chorus), isn’t around to comment on John’s response.

  But John’s other reunion is newsworthy. The press picks up on the “Thank you, Mother” (John’s term of endearment for Yoko), which he called out as he made his entrance, and snaps photos of the couple, Yoko in a floor-length white gown with ostrich-feather trim.

  Of that Grammy appearance with Yoko, John says, “I was glad it was big, and it was quick, so we got maximum effect and it sort of said it without having to go through a big routine—it just sort of went in all the right papers and magazines, and there we were, and that’s it.”

  * * *

  John’s legal entanglements with the US government can at best be termed a stalemate. The three-year limbo rankles all the more given that one of John’s most treacherous adversaries was convicted on January 1, 1975, of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury relating to the Watergate scandal and is currently serving a thirty-month-to-eight-year prison sentence. That man is John Mitchell, who stepped down from the office of attorney general (in order to head Nixon’s reelection campaign) on February 15, 1972—eleven days after receiving and acting upon Senator Strom Thurmond’s recommendations regarding deportation proceedings against John Lennon.

  On June 19, John files suit against Mitchell and officials of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, stating in his affidavit that “I have been the subject of illegal surveillance activities on the part of the government; that as a result, my case” has “been prejudged for reasons unrelated to my immigration status.”

  Five days later, on June 23, immigration officials grant a stay on the humanitarian grounds of Yoko’s pregnancy.

  “It would have been unconscionable to deport him now,” says an INS spokesman. “Yoko Ono has had a difficult pregnancy.”

  * * *

  In the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, a panel of three judges hears John’s case in open court. It’s October 7, 1975, two days before John’s thirty-fifth birthday. The baby is due any day now. Their attorney, Leon Wildes, argues that “there is substantial reason to believe that official governmental action was based principally on a desire to silence political opposition squarely protected by the First Amendment.”

  The judges rule two to one in John’s favor; the twenty-four-page decision is written by Chief Judge Irving Kaufman. Kaufman, a career-long proponent of First Amendment rights, was appointed to the court in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, though he earned his most notorious judicial credential ten years earlier, at the height of the Cold War, when he sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death following their conviction on espionage charges for providing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

  “The courts will not condone selective deportation based on secret political grounds,” Kaufman finds, adding, “Lennon’s four-year battle to remain in our country is testimony to his faith in the American dream.”

  * * *

  John puts out a statement that “It’s a great birthday gift from America for me, Yoko, and the baby,” but his attention is elsewhere when the verdict is issued. After a touch-and-go pregnancy and a difficult delivery, Yoko gives birth to a healthy eight-pound, ten-ounce boy by cesarean section at New York Hospital on October 9. They name him Sean Taro Ono Lennon.

  John and his son not only share a birthday, they also share a name (“Sean” being an Irish variation of “John”; Julian’s rarely used first name is also John).

  “I feel higher than the Empire State Building!” John declares, beaming at his new son.

  While Yoko recovers, John starts sharing the news. He types a postcard and sends it to Rolling Stone, thanking fans for “all…your help in the immigration ‘battle’” and commemorating “the great triple event. (judges decision/baby Sean/on J.L.s’ birthday!!!) What a week!”

  He signs it “Jo
hn and Yoko and Sean (three virgins).”

  December 8, 1980

  Mark arrives at the Dakota and finds a new man working the morning security shift. There’s something off about him—something that makes Mark wonder if the guy is an undercover cop.

  Have I been flagged as a threat? Let’s find out.

  He slips into his disarmingly pleasant and polite persona, leaning into his southern drawl.

  Mark smiles. “You wouldn’t happen to know whether John Lennon might be planning on coming out today, would you?” He pulls out his shiny new record. “I’ve got this album here. I’m hoping to get it autographed while I’m here in New York City.”

  Mark adds that he’s traveled all the way from Hawaii to meet his idol.

  The guard doesn’t give him any information about Lennon, but the man appears relaxed. He’s not an undercover cop. Mark is sure of it.

  Which is a good thing. If a cop or anyone here tries to pull anything, Mark will kill him. He will shoot his way in, do whatever it takes to get to Lennon.

  Wearing a T-shirt promoting Todd Rundgren’s 1978 solo album, Hermit of Mink Hollow, he retreats across the street. It’s another unseasonably warm day in Manhattan, where the temperature, according to the weathermen, will reach sixty degrees.

  Such a great day to be alive. He sits on a park bench in view of the Dakota. He starts to play a game he calls “How is John Lennon spending his final hours?”

  Is John at home playing his grand piano?

  Is he eating some indulgent culinary creation prepared for him by a private chef?

  Is he doing interviews for Double Fantasy?

  Or is he having sex with Yoko?

  The questions are nonstop. They keep invading his mind.

  Mark pulls out the copy of The Catcher in the Rye he picked up this morning. With the clerk as his witness, he used a brand-new Bic pen to inscribe the inside cover:

  To Holden Caulfield from Holden Caulfield. This is my statement—The Catcher in the Rye.

  He reads the line again. It makes him smile.

  History and time, he reminds himself. Synchronicity.

  He has no plans to return to the hotel. In a semicircle on the dresser, he laid out a few personal items for the cops he knows will go looking for him there: two photographs of him posing with the Vietnamese refugee children he counseled; a YMCA letter of commendation; his old passport; and the Wizard of Oz photo he purchased at the bookstore—none of it is important, except his final clue.

  He’s left his Bible open to the Gospel of John—Lennon.

  This is who I am, Mark thought as he looked at his room for the final time. This is who I was.

  After a walk through Central Park, Mark returns to the Dakota. He opens his copy of The Catcher in the Rye and is looking down into the pages when the doorman calls to him.

  “Did you see him?” the man asks. “John Lennon just stepped out of a cab and went inside the building.”

  The news doesn’t bother him. The timing, he feels, isn’t right.

  A short time later, a little boy appears in the archway of the Dakota.

  The boy is Sean Lennon. He’s heading out for a morning walk with his nanny.

  Mark approaches the boy and gets down on one knee, feels the gun tucked in his jacket pocket bump against his leg. He slides his hand inside his pocket to make sure the revolver doesn’t fall out.

  “I came all the way across the ocean from Hawaii, and I’m honored to meet you,” Mark says, shaking Sean’s tiny hand.

  Sean’s brow furrows, confused. He runs his sleeve across his nose.

  “You’d better take care of that runny nose,” Mark says. “You wouldn’t want to get sick and miss Christmas.”

  Mark looks up at Sean’s governess.

  “He’s a beautiful boy,” he tells her. “He’s such a beautiful boy.”

  Chapter 52

  A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

  —“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”

  Christmas carols have never sounded as sweet as they do this season, when Sean is a newborn. They should, coming from voices beloved worldwide. The singers are Paul and Linda McCartney, who are making a surprise visit to the Dakota to meet the baby.

  It has taken a long while for the chilliness between the two old friends to thaw. While Paul has made occasional friendly overtures over the years, John has always held his former bandmate at arm’s length. “You’re all pizza and fairy tales,” John sneered at Paul once when he phoned the Bank Street apartment.

  “He’d become sort of Americanized by then, so the best insult I could think of was to say, “Oh, fuck off, Kojak,” and slam the phone down,” Paul recalls. At the same time, though, he mused over the turn of phrase. “‘Pizza and fairy tales’—I almost made that an album title.”

  Now John’s friend Elliot Mintz is among the holiday guests mingling and eating take-out pizza in the Dakota, watching the winter sun descend over the Hudson River and “paying close attention to John and Paul and the way they looked at each other.” Mintz says that “during this Christmas sunset, it was obvious to me that the two of them had run out of things to say.”

  When they’re dancing to the jukebox, there’s no need to talk. On New Year’s Eve, John plays an old 78 recording of “As Time Goes By.” Mintz recalls the indelible image: “John was wearing a long black tuxedo with tails, it was snowing, and up in the sky there were flashing fireworks going off.”

  After the holidays, John studies up on his old bandmate, telling Yoko that he “had read somewhere that Paul McCartney had made $25 million.”

  “OK,” she says, “I’ll try to make the same, but it’s going to take me at least two years.”

  John’s made his own timeline. “I wanted to be with Sean the first five years, which are the years that everyone says are the most important in a child’s life.” He teaches himself to cook so that he can prepare Sean’s meals, including fresh bread, saying, “I took a Polaroid of my first loaf. It was like an album coming out of the oven.” Yoko has about as much experience with business as John does with full-time fatherhood, but she’s determined—and armed with a unique asset. “She’s the world’s most famous unknown artist,” John says. “Everyone knows her name, but no one knows what she actually does.”

  And what she actually does is: Make money.

  They accumulate property—at the Dakota, they amass five apartments: two seventh-floor residences, plus one for guests, another for storage, and a ground-floor studio they use as an office (given its association with Charles Manson, neighbors are startled to see the words helter skelter written in large letters across a wall of the studio; later, it’s painted over to look like a serene blue sky with clouds).

  “John and Yoko were as bad as me when it came to shopping,” Elton John says. He rewrites the lyrics to “Imagine” and sends them a card that says, “Imagine six apartments, it isn’t hard to do, one is full of fur coats, another’s full of shoes.”

  As John explains, “My insecurity is having too many clothes. That’s a physical manifestation of my insecurity—a closet full of clothes I cannot possibly wear.”

  But they’re largely homebodies. Dakota neighbor Roberta Flack, who can often hear the couple rehearsing music, observes, “Most artists like myself tend to keep to themselves.” Film critic Rex Reed, who also lives in the building, says of the couple, “They were home all the time watching TV.”

  John and Yoko have few visitors, but on April 24, 1976, the McCartneys drop in and once again find John and Yoko at home. It’s almost midnight when Paul and John tune in to Saturday Night Live. Raquel Welch is hosting the eighteenth episode of the comedy show’s first season, and John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful is booked to sing his hit theme song “Welcome Back” (from the TV classroom comedy Welcome Back, Kotter).

  Suddenly, producer Lorne Michaels starts speaking—directly to the two ex-Beatles and their former bandmates. Unbeknownst to Michaels, his comedy routine has turned into a reali
ty show, because Paul and John are sitting together in front of a television less than two miles from NBC’s studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

  It’s been in the news that (in addition to numerous other offers) the band turned down $230 million from Sid Bernstein—the promoter who’d organized the Beatles’ 1964 American tour—to perform a series of bicentennial concerts in the summer of 1976.

  “Well, if it’s money you want,” Michaels deadpans, holding up a certified check for $3,000, “all you have to do is sing three Beatles songs. ‘She Loves You,’ yeah, yeah, yeah—that’s $1,000 right there. You know the words. It’ll be easy.”

  Michaels has stationed a staffer to watch for any Beatles entering the lobby.

  The producer’s wish nearly comes true.

  “Wouldn’t it be funny if we went down,” John says to Paul, “just as a gag.”

  “I was visiting John at their apartment, and it came on TV,” McCartney recalls in 2019. “He [John] asked if I knew about this. I didn’t, as I had been in the UK, and for a moment we thought we might run down to the TV studio. But we decided it was too much like work and that it would be more fun to have the night off.”

  They wonder if John Sebastian wishes he had also passed on the gig. It’s an awkward moment in the live performance when the studio audience refuses to sing along to Sebastian’s hit TV theme song.

  John and Paul can agree that the Beatles never faced a lack of audience participation, but when Paul shows up again at the Dakota the next day, carrying his guitar, John finds reason to quarrel.

  “Please call before you come over,” John tells him. “It’s not 1956 and turning up at the door isn’t the same anymore.”

  Paul turns back, hiding his hurt at the fresh wounds John has cut.

  Some relationships, though, John tries to heal.