We walked through a second door. As we made our way to the right-hand wing of the building, he asked if I was a student. I told him I was and dared to add that I played the guitar. Lennon made a funny gesture with his mouth and eyebrows that could just as well have meant “how nice” as “not another one”. While I rattled off the titles of some of his latest songs, we came to another door. Lennon was playing with his key ring and seemed to want to chat. No one’s going to believe this, I was thinking, when he said: “Do you fancy a cappuccino?” My legs began to quiver from sheer astonishment as he continued: “Come on up if you like, it’ll only take a moment, I left some papers at home and I have to go back to the studio.” Are you recording a new album? I asked. But Lennon simply smiled and inserted the key in the lock. “Go ahead,” he said, “you’re in luck, I’m in a good mood today: my son just learned to write his name.” Beautiful boy.
Today I see Lennon moving very slowly, unlike then. I see details in that lobby I can’t be sure existed. I do remember Chapman very precisely, standing next to the elevator doors. I don’t know how he got in, and I don’t care what the police said afterwards. It couldn’t have been easy, in any case, and this couldn’t have been his first attempt. But it was on that fateful night, not another, that he succeeded. Chapman had fair hair, and walrus-like features, and he was wearing a raincoat which he slowly unbuttoned as he walked towards Lennon smiling meekly. I could tell he wasn’t fat, but flabby round the waist. He gave the impression of being a complete moron. Mr Lennon, he said, in a very different tone from the one I had used in the entrance to the Dakota. It might sound big-headed of me to claim that was when I grew scared. Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly. The fact is John didn’t seem to notice anything strange and replied, “Yes?” in a half-weary, half-absent-minded voice. You can talk to me. But Chapman, still smiling, with his walrus face, kept on opening his raincoat and those moist eyes of his, which began to look bloodshot. I should have known better. Lennon turned towards me, as if to say “you get rid of him”. That was why he didn’t notice the gun poking out of Chapman’s belt. Oh, you can’t do that. I moved forward and stood between them. Yes, I’m gonna be a star. It is possible at that point that Lennon still didn’t understand what was happening, because my body was blocking his view (already limited in that dimly lit lobby), and it even occurs to me he might have thought the whole thing was a shameful scene between two hysterical fans. I grabbed Chapman’s arm when he had already pulled out the gun. I fell on top of him. Nothing to kill or die for. We grappled on the floor. I tried to pin down his wrists. Chapman possessed the strength of desperate men. Happiness is a warm gun. All of a sudden, there was a resounding blast that roared up the stairwell like a tornado. Mother Superior jump the gun. Face up on the floor, Lennon was bleeding. I don’t wanna be a soldier, mamma, I don’t wanna die. I could see he was convulsing and his chest was becoming quickly drenched. I’m losing you. I got up. Another shot rang out. Then several more in quick succession. One and one and one is three: and there we were, the three of us, a Beatle, Chapman and me in the lobby of the Dakota, at 11.05 at night, each dead in his own way.
It was me who killed John Lennon, but I wasn’t his murderer. While I was struggling with Chapman, trying to deflect his trembling hand from the path of his victim, who now was staring at him in disbelief from behind his glasses, I distinctly felt my own finger slip for an instant into the space in front of the trigger, press down and pull out again with frantic horror, too late. Chapman fired the next shot at Lennon, and all the remaining ones; but they were simply the coups de grâce. My first instinct was to try to protect myself from a possible assault by Chapman. I quickly realized that he had made his dream come true and no longer even saw me, that he would remain motionless contemplating Lennon’s blood-spattered body, with the fascination insane people have when reality finally proves them right. I know for sure that John fell there, and not elsewhere. So that if minutes later they discovered him beside the arched doorway, I assume Chapman must have dragged him there to show off his handiwork to greater effect. As for me, I took the opportunity to flee, or rather, to hide as best I could and wait to leave behind the first resident that opened the barred door.
When shortly afterwards the police arrived and arrested him, Chapman said nothing at all about my being at the Dakota. To begin with his silence surprised me, but then I understood: Chapman had achieved his moment of glory and wasn’t willing to share it with anyone. He had found Mister Lennon, he had asked him to sign his single and had emptied his gun into him at close range. And that was how they led him away, smiling meekly, staring into the distance, raincoat draped over his shoulders. Despite her insistence that she had been there with him, it was at this point that Mrs Ono found out and came down in the elevator.
How is it that the police didn’t also find my fingerprints on the murder weapon? Simple. I already said so at the start: that winter was turning cold. I was wearing gloves.
I have often wondered what was Lennon’s last coherent thought, just before he met his killer: a possible melody, his son’s face, his blessed Japanese woman, an urge to relieve himself, some vague banality. Or did part of him sense the danger and that was why he invited me up. Does the mind go on the alert before the body does when death is close by? I didn’t dare buy the papers until the following afternoon: And though the news was rather sad. The man whom hours earlier I had accompanied through the doors of the Dakota was over all the front pages. I recall what he said in an interview with Playboy a few days before he died: “I hate it when they say it’s better to burn out than to fade away. It’s better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don’t appreciate worship of dead heroes. It’s garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. No, thank you. I’ll take the living.”
I have tormented myself again and again, recreating the scene, correcting my every movement, rectifying fate. I would give anything for a little peace of mind; but I am plagued by mortal music. I am he as you are he. I fear I shall never stop revisiting that freezing 8th December at the Dakota. Indeed, who among us wasn’t there just like starting over, grasping that damned gun again and again, struggling uselessly?
CLOTHES
ARISTIDES USED to come to work naked. We all envied him. We did not envy him for his body, which was no great shakes, but for his conviction: before any of us managed to laugh, he had already cast a reproving glance at our clothes and turned his back on us. And also his pale, hairless buttocks.