by Shawn Inmon
“Forty-nine,” Joe said.
Which, I guess, is the original fifty-five who died, minus JD and Bobby, Merlin and Sapphire, and their kids. It took me two tries, but I got it done.
“Pretty amazing that it blew that big and only killed that many.”
“It happened on a Sunday morning, or it would have gotten a lot more. During the week, there were loggers all over those hills, clear-cutting.”
Neither of them had much—or any—love life to mention, so after a couple of hours, they lapsed into silence.
At 10:00, Joe knew he wasn’t going to be able to last. He had to make a run to the bathroom. He turned to Scott and said, “Problem with coffee is, you don’t really buy it, you just borrow it. I gotta run to the deli and use the can. You want another cup?”
Scott shook his head. “No, same problem with me. I’ll probably have to go after you get back. I’ll keep an eye on Mr. Catcher in the Rye, over there, while you’re gone.”
“Thanks, man, that’s great.”
Joe jogged as quickly as his cold feet and sloshing kidneys would allow him. The deli had a large sign that read “Restrooms for customers only,” so Joe bought a couple of candy bars. He relieved himself, then went to the payphone just outside the deli.
Are 9-1-1 calls free from a payphone? I have no idea.
Joe got a quarter out of his pocket, dropped it into the payphone, and dialed.
“Emergency Services, how can I help you?” A woman’s voice, crisp and authoritative.
“My name is Joe Hart. I am at a payphone just down from the Dakota, 72nd and Central Park West.”
Focus, focus. She probably knows where the Dakota is.
“There’s a guy in a long black coat inside the vestibule of the Dakota. He’s got a gun, and he’s waving it around and talking to himself. He keeps saying he’s going to kill John Lennon. He keeps mumbling, ‘Do it, do it, do it,’ over and over.
“Sir, can you see this man now?”
“No, I’m at a payphone a couple of blocks down from the Dakota.”
“Can you describe this man?”
“He’s overweight, wearing glasses and carrying a red book. He’s also talking to himself. He was inside the vestibule when I left to make this call.”
“I’ll dispatch a unit to the scene. “ The line clicked dead.
Joe stared at the receiver. Is that it? Is that enough? Will they come and talk to him and let him go, or will they search him to see if he’s got a gun? And even if they do, is that enough? What happens then? A few weeks or months in the nuthouse, then they put him back on the street?
Joe ran back to the Dakota out of breath, but found the scene unchanged. He looked up and down the street, hoping to see the flashing lights of a police car.
No way they’d get there this fast. Gotta be patient. Damn, I hope I didn’t blow it. What if they come and scare him away tonight, then he shows up again tomorrow or next week? I’ll have lost the advantage of knowing what was supposed to happen and when.
Scott looked at Joe and said, “I’ve got the same problem you did. I’ll be back in a few.”
Joe’s stomach clenched in knots.
I can’t remember exactly what time it all went down. I was on the west coast, watching the Monday Night Football game on a delay when they ran a crawl across the bottom of the screen. It can’t be too much longer.
Joe glanced down the sidewalk, expecting to see Scott coming back, but the area had become eerily deserted. A chill wind blew in from the park. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the man with the gun was sitting on the cold concrete inside the vestibule. Gas lamps were lit all around the Dakota, and he was directly under one, reading the same book.
Almost silently, a white limousine glided into a spot right in front.
Chapter Thirty
Goddamnit, I waited too long to call the cops.
Before the limo driver could get out and open the door, the back passenger door opened and Yoko Ono stepped out, bundled in a fur coat against the chilly evening. She didn’t look left or right, but kept her eyes straight ahead as she hurried through the vestibule and right past the man with the gun.
Joe glanced at where the doorman typically stood, but there was no one there.
The man reading the book stood straight up, slipping The Catcher and the Rye into his left pocket. His blank expression was gone. Glee seemed to suffuse his face. He slipped his right hand into his coat pocket as Yoko walked by.
John exited the limo. He looked tired and drawn.
The three of them—Joe Hart, John Lennon, and the man with the gun, perfectly diagrammed the three points of a triangle.
John passed by Joe, who was no longer star struck, but felt as paralyzed by a fear of inevitability as he had been as a child stuck in a nightmare.
The third man stood off to the side, waiting for Lennon to pass so he could shoot him in the back. He wanted celebrity, but he didn’t have the guts to look it in the face as he tried to kill it.
Joe launched himself forward, catching up to Lennon and pushing him forward as he walked by. Lennon stumbled forward and fell onto the concrete with a curse.
Joe veered toward the third man, who was fumbling in his pocket. Just before Joe could close on him, he pulled a .38 revolver out and pointed it. The gun was aimed at Joe, not at John Lennon.
Joe Hart’s world slowed. He saw the barrel of the gun waiver, then point straight at his chest as the man slipped his finger onto the trigger.
Joe made an evasive dive to the right as the gun barked once, twice.
The first bullet went past Joe’s ear. The second slammed into the fleshy part of his bicep, tearing a hole all the way through. His momentum spun Joe into the shooter, his right shoulder hitting him in his solar plexus.
An explosion of stars and pain blinded Joe, and he crumpled, useless, to the ground. As his vision cleared, he could see that he had knocked both the gunman and his weapon to the ground.
Joe tried to roll over, to get up, to move, but the explosion of pain in his left arm made movement impossible.
The gunman crawled on his hands and knees to where the gun had skittered away. His fingers closed on the handle and he rolled over, this time pointing the gun at John Lennon.
Can’t believe I did all this and still blew it.
The man once again slipped his finger onto the trigger and fell into a shooter’s stance. Now the gun was aimed at Lennon, facing away, trying to regain his feet.
Joe closed his eyes.
I will not watch this happen.
Joe braced for the repeated blast of the .38, but none came. Instead of that sharp retort, he heard a dull thud.
He opened his eyes and saw Scott Mckenzie standing over the man who wanted to be famous. Scott held the gun in one hand and what looked like a piece of metal in the other. The man was cradling his right arm against his chest.
Joe leaned back against the stone structure, hoping to pass out, but consciousness stayed doggedly with him. He opened his eyes again and found himself nose to nose with John Lennon.
“Lay still, lay still, bloke. You’re going to be all right.” He turned his head away and raised his voice. “Jose! Jose, are you there? Call the police!”
John took off his jacket—leather, with a black fur collar—and laid it under Joe’s head.
“Thank you.”
“Lad, I owe you me life. I think he was here to kill me.”
The next few minutes were a blur to Joe. The front of the Dakota was soon filled with police cars, and flashing lights.
The first cop on the scene wanted to take everybody but John Lennon into custody, and let God sort ‘em out. John put a stop to that.
He pointed to the soft, pudgy man cradling his broken right arm and said, “There’s your culprit, officer. He wanted to kill me. These two”—he pointed to Joe and Scott—“stopped him. I think they saved my bloody life.”
The officer put the handcuffs on the injured man none-too-gently. The man
whimpered and cried, but no one paid him any mind.
“Nutty as a loon, he is,” John muttered. “Now where’s the damn ambulance? This lad is in pain.”
Less than a minute later, the ambulance arrived and Joe was gently lifted onto a gurney. He looked where he had fallen and saw a large, thick pool of blood.
The first EMT examined his disproportionately large exit wound and quietly said, “Hollow point. Let’s get him there, stat.”
As he was wheeled into the ambulance, Scott called to the EMT’s, “Which hospital?”
The EMTs were too busy to hear him, but John laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “It’ll be St. Luke’s. I expect he’ll be in surgery tonight, but Yoko and I will go see him tomorrow.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The deep darkness of unconsciousness that Joe had wished for, found him in the ambulance. He stayed under during the initial exam and was immediately put completely out by the anesthesiologist who helped prep him for surgery.
While he slept, Joe missed the ruckus the incident caused. A shooting in New York may or may not make the nightly news, but a shooting at the Dakota, along with the attempted murder of John Lennon, led newscasts and was front page news all over the country and across the globe.
Once again, Howard Cosell broke into the Monday Night Football broadcast to make an announcement about John Lennon, but this time it was to say he was unharmed, and that only a heroic young boy from Oregon had been seriously injured.
In a Hollywood movie, when the hero gets shot in the arm, he tosses the gun into the other hand and continues fighting the good fight. In real life, when a human body is shot at close range from a .38 revolver loaded with hollow point bullets, extensive damage is done to muscles, tendons, and blood vessels.
Joe’s initial condition was listed as critical, due to loss of blood. Once he made it to St. Luke’s, and was assigned the same surgical team that had labored over John Lennon in another lifetime, his odds of survival improved immensely.
By the end of the four hour operation, he had lost a lot of tissue, and the surgeons had done miraculous work in reconnecting his damaged tendon. Joe’s left arm would never be quite the same, but there was no doubt he would survive.
Joe didn’t regain anything near full consciousness until the next morning. When he opened his eyes, he tried to speak and found his throat was so dry, he couldn’t.
“Water?” he croaked.
A nurse sitting beside his bed sprang up and said, “Too soon for water. I’ll be right back with some ice chips for your throat.”
Joe turned his head a bit to the left and saw that his whole left arm was encased in plaster from his collarbone to his fingers.
Guess it will be a while before I can play racquetball again. Images of the night before flashed through his mind. But we did it! It’s December 9th, and John Lennon is still alive. I’ve got to find Scott and ask him what happened while I was incapacitated. He must have come up behind the shooter just as he drew a bead on John. I need to thank him.
The nurse returned with a small plastic cup and spooned a stingy few ice chips onto his tongue. Joe closed his eyes and savored the cool relief on his throat. He raised his eyebrows to say, “More?” but she shook her head firmly.
“Doctor will be here to see you in just a few minutes. If he says it’s all right, you can have some more then.”
Joe nodded and dozed off again.
When he woke up again, the sunlight through his window was slanted in a different direction.
Must have been out for hours.
He turned his head to the right and saw an IV drip bag running into his right hand.
Don’t know what they’ve got in there, but I feel fine.
A different nurse than he had seen the first time stood beside the bed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Hart.”
“Just Joe,” Joe croaked out. “Water?”
“Yes, the doctor says you are doing well, and can have a few small sips of water. We need to take it easy, though. Your stomach may not be ready for it.”
Joe nodded and gratefully accepted three small sips before she took the cup away.
“Thank you,” he said, in a voice that was now more human than frog.
A tall man with thinning blond hair walked briskly into the room.
“Hello, Joe. Welcome to St. Luke’s. I’m Dr. Jenkins. I’ve been in charge of your care since the surgery.” He pulled a chart up off the end of the bed and flipped through several pages. “Everything looks fine, considering someone tried to amputate your arm with a .38.” He glanced around the room. “We’ll be moving you soon. This is the surgical recovery room. We have a special suite ready for you.”
“A suite? Doc, I don’t have any insurance. I can’t pay for that.”
Dr. Jenkins grinned. “No worries about that. Your friends John and Yoko have instructed that you are to receive the very best care we have to offer—which is outstanding, by the way—and all bills are to be sent to them.”
Joe tried to speak, but had difficulty. There was a lump in his throat. He settled for a nod, then a wince. He realized he shouldn’t nod.
“You need to lay as still as possible. These first few days after a major surgery are critical, and we don’t want you undoing any of the stitch work the surgeons did inside your arm. In the meantime, you’re going to feel like sleeping a lot, and that’s the best thing for you.”
WHEN JOE WOKE UP AGAIN, he felt more clear-headed. He had been moved into a spacious suite that was more hotel room than hospital. There were curtains on the windows, not just blinds, there were couches and chairs scattered about, and a refrigerator sat opposite his bed. There were bouquets of flowers scattered around the room.
Damn. This room is bigger than my place at home. And who are all those flowers from?
Once again, a nurse was standing by, waiting for him to open his eyes.
“Good morning, Mr. Hart.”
Every time I wake up, someone is right here. What am I getting, a round-the-clock nurse?
“Morning?”
“Yes, sir. It’s a snowy Wednesday morning and you are still the talk of the town.”
“I’m what?”
“Every radio and television station in New York, America, and England have requests in to interview you. Don’t you worry, though, they’ll never get past us.”
“But, why?”
“Why? Because you saved the life of John Lennon.”
“I didn’t, not really. My friend Scott did. He’s the one everyone should be talking to.”
“Believe me you, mister, they’d love to talk to him too. But, after he was cleared by the police, he disappeared and hasn’t been heard from since. He’s the invisible man.”
Damn! I wanted to see him again. To thank him, and just because I liked him. He was a cool guy. Maybe I can find his sister in Evansville. He said she was married, so she’ll have a different name, though. Another problem for another day.
The nurse brought Joe some green Jell-O and another small cup of water.
“Let’s see how you respond to this, then maybe we can move you up a notch on the food chain.”
Joe nodded and spooned a small amount into his mouth. He felt clumsy and his aim wasn’t perfect. He dribbled some down his chin. He dropped the spoon onto the tray and was about to wipe his chin when a movement caught his eye. He looked up to see John and Yoko standing at the foot of his bed. Embarrassed, he quickly wiped the Jell-O away.
“Hello, lad,” John said. “They taking good enough care of you here?”
Joe once again felt star struck in his presence. He nodded, said, “Yes, sir.”
“I just heard on the telly that your pop was Rodrigo Hart. Is that so?”
Another small nod. Another “Yes, sir.”
“I had his album, back in ’59. He was a great songwriter.”
My God, what would that have meant to him if he had known? Dad, wherever you are, I know you’re smiling. A Beatle loved your songs.
&n
bsp; John tapped lightly on the end of Joe’s bed and sang, “Won’t you come to me, to the place that I wait, I’ll wait forever for you. Forever, for you.”
It was a song Rodrigo Hart had written for Chandra, called “Forever for You.”
Tears spilled down Joe’s cheeks. “He wrote that for my mom.”
John nodded and pulled Yoko close. “I understand.” He laid a hand on Joe’s knee. “We can’t stay. We weren’t supposed to be let in yet at all, but Mother has a way of getting her own way.” He turned and smiled at Yoko. “Don’t you, Mother?”
Yoko, who hadn’t spoken, simply nodded the truth of it. She came to the side of the bed and laid a hand against Joe’s cheek. “Thank you for my John.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The next few days and weeks passed in a surreal blur. Joe, who had been completely invisible for nearly fifty years, was suddenly and somewhat uncomfortably, the center of attention. Nurses, doctors, and other hospital employees who really had no need to be in his room found an excuse to be there.
Reporters clamored to speak to him, but Joe had no interest in being interviewed.
I can’t think of a single good thing that would come of that.
John took some of the heat off him by giving a number of interviews that recounted the whole story of that night at the Dakota. In each interview, he painted Scott and Joe as the heroes who came to his rescue.
After the first visit, Joe didn’t expect John or Yoko to come again, but he was wrong. They didn’t come every day, but several times before Joe was ready to be discharged, they stopped in and spent time with him.
Once, John stopped in by himself with his guitar and played for almost an hour. He sang old Buddy Holly, Donny Lonegan, Roy Orbison, and even a few of his own songs.
Joe sat on one end of the couch, watching the most famous musician on the planet, playing a concert just for him.
It’s the John Lennon Unplugged concert that MTV never got a chance to air.
