Demon Box

“I know,” said the mama in mink, eyes shining with tender solicitude. “It makes me want to hold an umbrella over them, or something.”

We didn’t see John until later, at the famous Apple Christmas Debacle. What happened that night has been run down in a bunch of books, both pro-Yank and anti, so no one else needs to go into that. I only want to give you the setting for Lennon’s entrance, for drama’s sake…

As the day drifted toward the festive eve ahead, we drifted out of our little food-filled office to stroll the Christmasy London streets and drink stout in the pubs—work up an appetite for the feast to come. When we ambled back to 3 Savile Row and past the pack of cheeky fans that cluttered the steps with their little autograph books (they all looked like Lulu) and through lobbies #1 and #2 to the hallowed lobby #3, we found that another coterie of Yanks had established a beachhead right in the middle of the lush crimson carpet. What kind of pull they had used to bore this deep into Apple I couldn’t imagine, because they were even scruffier than we were. There were half a dozen big bearded dudes with ragged grins, a bunch of naked noisy kids, and one woman—a skinny redhead on the sinewy side of thirty sporting a faded blue dress of hillbilly homespun with matching hicky twang.

“We’re the Firedog Family,” she informed us. “We come here to see the Beatles all the way from Fort Smith, Arkansas. I had this dream me and John was running side by side through the electric-blue waters of the Caribbean and he looked at me and says ‘Come Together.’ ‘Ticket to Ride’ was play in’. We was naked. We was on acid. We ran right out of the water right up into the sky. And my given name is Lucy Diamond. Let’s chant again, children.”

The pack of kids stopped fussing and settled themselves obeli diently in a circle and began chanting.

“John and Yo-ko Ring-go too-ooo. John and Yo-ko Ring-go too-ooo…”

The woman snaked across the carpet to the rhythm, all knees and elbows and freckles. “We know they is in the building. One of the kids was running in the hall and seen them carrying a big red sack. This chant will bring us together.”

Her eyes fluttered shut a moment at the divine prospect, then she stopped dancing and gave us a look faded as her blue dress.

“Y’ know, don’t you, that the Beatles is the most blessed people on earth? They are. For instance, how many times have you been coming down with the blues and heard a Beatles tune come on the radio and thought to yourself, ‘God bless the Beatles.’ Huh? That’s exactly what I said when I saw Yellow Submarine after my last abortion. ‘God bless the Beatles.’ And how many folks all over the world have done the same thing more or less, blest the Beatles? So, you see—they’re all saints. Blessed saints. I mean who on this miserable earth, in this day and age, who can you name that has been blest more times than the Beatles?”

We couldn’t think of a soul. We were hungry and tired and not very interested in playing Name the Saints. When the door was finally opened to us and we left lobby #3 the kids were still chanting “John and Yo-ko Ring-go too-ooo” and the woman was swaying and the bearded dudes were nodding to the beat. We walked up the hall to our assigned room without a word, stomachs grumbling, only to find the food had been completely removed. Nothing left but the smell. It seemed like a hint. Grumpily, Old Bert gathered his bedroll from beneath the empty table.

“Blessing them’s all right, but I don’t guess you have to get right up in their faces to do it.”

“Yeah,” Frisco Fran agreed. “Let’s cut.”

Back down in the main sanctum the night’s crowd was gathering—toffs in worsted flannel and sandalwood cologne, birds in bright beads and bouffants by Vidal Sassoon, executive types in tie-dyed Nehru shirts and Day-Glo tennies—and the champagne was flowing. Old Bert decided a little snack might be nice before leaving. His nose told him the grub couldn’t be far away. He sniffed up to a parted door where a natty lad in a plaid weskit was positioned as guard.

“Whatsye, myte?” Bert had picked up a nice cockney accent in the afternoon pubs. “That I grabs me a drumstick for the road?”

“Cawn’t, I don’t think,” the boy answered, nervous and vague. “Supposed to save it for after. The invited, rather. You understand—for later.”

“We are invited, old sport.” Bert produced the card we’d been issued. “And maybe we ain’t staying till later. Furthermore”—he jerked a thick-knuckled thumb over his shoulder, indicating a place in the past—“I ain’t ate since the airport.”