I pay my fees and race downstairs, intent upon seeing the Stuart Sutcliffe exhibit.  The paintings and artwork, the mementos and letters, Astrid’s photos, all of it makes me sad that such a talent was taken so young.  The bass guitar, behind glass, the instrument he bought upon selling his first painting, the one that gave him entrance into the band.  I linger until the security guard must think I’m up to no good; he watches me so closely, and I finally leave the room. 

As I walk towards the escalator, I see a wall display and have to stop.  Paul’s Shea Stadium jacket, it seems so slight.  Ringo’s Sgt. Pepper jacket as well.  Slight, nearly small.  It doesn’t seem right, as if these figures that are so much larger than life should also be physically huge in size.  George’s guitars, two of them, stare at me.  I stare back and let my eyes drink their fill.  An acoustic guitar, looking like a toy, a screw holding the neck together, it was a present he received on his 10^th birthday, the sign reads.  In the next case, a lovely black electric Rickenbacker 420, bought in Illinois in 1963 when he was visiting his sister, before they “made it”, before they conquered America.  I smile as I look in the case below the guitar, I have those Yellow Submarine buttons at home!  Well, the one of George, anyway!

The escalator I choose takes me up to the second floor, bypassing the lobby.  I immediately turn the corner to take the next escalator and then the next.   If I have time, I’ll return to see those floors later.  But the fourth floor is pulling me upwards, the siren call of his.  ‘Lennon.  His Life and Work.’  The reason I’ve traveled across the country to this place.  Why I’m here today, now, the moving stairs bringing me closer and closer to the top.

As I step off the escalator, I face a bed.  The head and footboards are made of old church pews, and there’s a picture of them sitting on the bed watching television.  To the left of the bed, a wall of holes.  Is that anything like a sea of holes?  I wonder where’s Jeremy, shouldn’t he be here?  Many of the holes are empty, many are full.  A glass half full, or a glass half empty?  The holes are full of things as commonplace as a pair of glasses, or a photo of him drinking a cup of coffee.  His green card.  A photo of her at the lake, smiling, another photo of their young son playing.  A wristwatch, given to him from her, on the occasion of his 40^th birthday.  That brings it home for me.  He wore it for such a short time.

I turn away from the wall of holes and see another display, a column with two viewing holes on the long side and one hole on the short side.  I walk up to it, not realizing that it is what I’ve been dreading.  Too late, the prose, that which she has written, has caught me unawares, and I must continue.  The two holes look into a dark display that holds a paper bag, one which contains all that was left of him to be returned to her that awful night.  A peek through the single hole shows me a pair of bloodstained glasses.  Three holes of sorrow.  My vision blurs and I cannot read any further.

A theatre beckons me, calling me into its dimness so that I can escape from any watching eyes.  Imagine.  Unfortunately, I enter towards the end of the movie, and can only weep anew to hear the mourners all singing.  All we are saying, is give peace a chance.

The lights come up and the viewers leave.  All but me.  I remain in the chill room, trying to regain my composure.  Someone sits next to me, hands me a tissue.  I sniffle a thank you and use its softness to dry my face.

“Why the tears?”

A soft voice, a gentle voice, a kind man.  I shake my head, determined to refrain from crying any more. 

“Because it’s so sad.”

“What?  The film?” asks he.

“All of it.  He shouldn’t have been taken from us so young.”

The man hands me another tissue, because my resolve has broken and more tears are flowing.

“That’s the way of it, you know.  When it’s your time, you’ve got to go.”

“But it wasn’t his time!” I burst out.

“How do you know that?” he asks, his tone reasonable.  I look at him, an older gentleman, I’ve never seen him before, but there’s something somehow familiar about him.  Perhaps a twinkle in his eye?  A hint of mischief?  “Nobody knows a person’s time except for ….. Father Time, I suppose.  We’re all allotted a certain amount and when the grains of sand run out, they run out.  Everyone dies sooner or later.”

He stands up and offers me his hand, then pulls me to my feet.  “Come on, let’s look around a bit, maybe there’s more to all this than you think.”

We walk out of the theatre and pass along a wall that contains drawings and pictures, and then another wall, a wall that leads to the stairs, a wall that contains collages; he made them during a family vacation to Japan, the signs say.  Creativity must have needed an outlet on a rainy vacation.  One collage for George, I find the words on the page amidst the pictures and cutouts and say them aloud as I come across them.

“You.....always.....hurt.....the.....one.....you.....love.”  I look at my companion.  “What do you think he meant by that?”

“I’m not sure,” he replies.  “What do you think it means?”

I pause to think about it for a moment.  “Well, maybe they’d been fighting?” I venture.  “Maybe it was an olive branch?  Maybe it was an admission of the love he had inside, despite any fighting they’d done.”

“That’s as good an interpretation as any, don’t you think?” he asks.

I nod.  Maybe it is. 

“It’s a bit eerie, though, don’t you think?  This cutout here, pasted near the top of the collage, about the surgeon general saying smoking can be hazardous to your health.  It just seems a bit eerie, what with George’s recent health problems,” I say.

My companion nods thoughtfully but doesn’t reply, and we step to our left, to peruse another collage, this one made for Ringo, for his 35^th birthday.  It makes me smile, in the lower right corner, a picture of Ringo wearing his ‘space suit’ for the music video.  The next collage, made for Elton John, causes me to blush and turn away.  My companion merely smiles and takes my arm as we look at the other items on the wall, some startling in their simplicity, some astounding in their ..... weirdness!  We stroll up the stairs to the fifth floor.

Ahead of us, directly in front of the stairwell, a giant sized photo of him with her, taken as they returned from their honeymoon, it seems as if they’re walking down steps towards us as we walk up the steps towards them.  As if we’ll meet on the fifth floor, face to face.  Will we?  We reach the top of the stairs and they remain on the wall, frozen in that moment.  A moment in time, captured forever.  To the right, a video screen, showing nonstop videos of his songs.  We sit in companionable silence and watch for a little while before moving on.  Guitars, up high where no one can touch them, below are his schoolbooks behind glass, The Daily Howl, his report cards.

“He was a good student,” I say, reading from the first report.

“Keep reading,” my companion remarks.

We continue on down the line, stopping to look at the guitars, and then reading the reports as we move along.

“’Hopeless’,” I read on the last report.  “Well, he started out as a good student!”

“That he did, but the system failed him.  It was a lot different in those days, you know.”

I don’t know, but I’ll take this man’s word for it.  We return to the opposite wall, and look at drawings he made as a school child.  He was vicious!!!  I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of some of those sketches!  We laugh over several and then move on.

A wall of displays, clothing.  His leather jacket, worn in Hamburg.  Behind glass.  The same ‘slightness’ of body that dismayed me downstairs at the other exhibits.  He should have been a giant, not a body that fit inside this jacket, not someone so slight and lean.  Lean, he was, according to the pictures, but not slight.  His brocade shirt, worn while recording All You Need Is Love on the world stage.  Behind glass.  His furry jacket, worn for the cover of Magical Mystery Tour, the walrus.  Behind glass.  Untouchable.  Do not touch the artifacts.

Artifacts.

Kimonos, worn by the two of them, and a photo of them wearing the kimonos.  Not behind glass, waving slightly in the breeze of the air conditioning, beautifully displayed.  Do not touch the artifacts.  No photography allowed.  Do not touch the artifacts.  The security guard watches closely to ensure compliance.

Framed drawings on the walls.  Behind glass.  Sketches he did of the two of them, of different things.  Simplicity in a few pen strokes, yet allowing such depth to be seen.  More clothing, a jacket with a dragon, and a photo of him wearing it.  Hawaiian shirts, I smile.  A framed piece of art consisting of yellow paper and their handprints, that’s all.  Her left, his left, her right, his right.  I hold my hand close to his handprint, not touching, no no no, the security guard will come after me, but I hold my hand oh so close to the glass.  His hand was smaller than mine.  It seems unbelievable.  I turn to my left.

Ah.  Ah.  Oh.  His piano, a small upright Steinway, shiny black, sitting beneath a large wall sized covering of him sitting at his white grand piano. 

Do not touch. 

Do not touch. 

It cries for me to touch it. 

I dream of letting my fingers trail along the piano bench, just barely touching it.  My companion gives me a knowing smile, and I refrain.  I smile back.

We stand side by side and read the story of the lighter.  She had given it to him, he left it behind, she said do you want to go back?  He said no, we’ll come back tomorrow.  Tomorrow the rains started and their vacation was over.  Many years later, she visited there alone, and the owner presented her with the lighter.  Your husband left it here, the owner said.  She lit the lighter and the flame shot up, as if it were a living thing. 

‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’

My companion hands me another tissue with which to catch the tears that flow down my cheeks, then takes my arm and pats my hand as if I were a small child.  He leads me to the stairs, up the spiraling stairwell to the top floor.

Sixth floor, end of the line.  Everyone disembark.  ‘Lennon.  His Life and Work.’  All that, reduced to just three floors of a museum?  Artifacts.  There was so much more.  So much.

This last floor is a round room, all in white.  Frame after frame after frame of lyric sheets, his writing, his songs, his thoughts. 

In my life, I loved you more.

Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream.

Run for your life if you can, little girl; we can work it out.

Instant karma’s gonna get you, we all shine on.

I don’t believe in Beatles.

The silence, profound. 

I realize the silence is in my mind, there is music playing, softly, and I pause to listen.  All the songs, all the lyrics, all the music, playing, over and over again, unending.  Does the music ever end?  Does it play throughout the long night, or is it shut off, like a light going out?

The silence in my mind stretches as the music plays on and on, we’re alone in this circle, my companion and I.

Will the circle be unbroken?  What circle?  The room, a perfect circle, ringed by lyrics in frames, untouchable.  Don’t touch the artifacts.  ‘This room is guarded by remote cameras and motion detectors’.  Don’t touch.

Don’t touch the artifacts.

Artifacts, what a cold word.

The silence in my mind becomes deafening.  I sink down on the circular bench framing the spiral stairwell at the center of the room, another circle in this room of circles. 

“He’s not here,” I whisper into the absolute silence between songs. 

My companion sits next to me.

“Why do you say that?” he asks gently.

“Because if he was here, touching would be allowed.  He wouldn’t have it sterile and remote like this.”

He laughs, a nice laugh, surprising in the stillness, and another song begins.  “Know him, did you?” he teases me.

“Well.....no.  Not personally,” I reply honestly.

“So how do you know what he’d allow or wouldn’t allow?”

“Well, because.....because I know him through his music.”

We sit all alone in this circular room, and I wonder why no one else has climbed the stairs?  It’s as if only we two exist in all the world, there is only my companion and myself.

“You know, the music is what he wrote for himself, and for her, not necessarily for anyone else.”  He says it kindly.

“I know that,” I reply.  “But his music’s universal, speaking truth to everyone.”

“And that gives you the right to know him?”

I frown, I’m not absolutely sure where this is going.  I say as much and he laughs again.

“Well, maybe I just think you have him on a bit of a pedestal and you shouldn’t have him up there.  He was a jerk!”

I stand up, affronted by this older gentleman who’s suddenly no gentleman! 

“How dare you say that?”

He takes my hand, laughing, and tugs me until I sit back down; I’m seething over his cavalier words, but he seems genuinely amused.  Despite my anger, I think again that he has a nice laugh.  A friendly face.  And mischievous eyes.

“I dare say it because it’s true!  Or at least it was true sometimes!  He wasn’t a saint, dear, you’ve got him mixed up with someone else, I think.  He was just a man, he had his good side and his bad side, he was kind and gentle and rough and mean.  Like you and like me, like anyone else in the world.  Except for maybe a few here or there.  But he could be incredibly perceptive and incredibly dense.  He could be nice and sweet to a child, and then give holy hell to a person who dared disturb him to ask for his autograph on the street.  He had a vicious tongue and he didn’t hesitate to use it.  But he could also cry when his son stubbed his toe, out of sympathy for the little boy’s pain.  He was a human being, dear.  No more and no less.  Just a human being, that’s all.”

“And he died too young,” I add.

“Well, the Bhagavad-gita says ‘For the soul, there is never birth nor death.  Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be.  He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval.  He is not slain when the body is slain.’  Maybe that will give you some comfort.”

“Now you sound like George!” I exclaim.

He laughs again and stands up, pulling me to my feet.  “Oh, so now you know George, do you?” he teases me.

I join him in laughter, my smile unforced.  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

He nods as we begin our walk down the spiral stairs.  “A cuppa would suit me fine, dear.”

“Do you work here?” I ask as we descend.

“Oh, I show up when I’m needed.  I’ve been needed a lot during this exhibit.  Hope I’ve helped some.”

I nod, but my vision is again clouded with tears, and I have to let him guide me down the final steps.  “I’d have to say that you’ve probably helped a lot.”

I’m pleased that I’ve made him smile.  As we pass the piano, I carefully trail my fingers across the bench.  My companion winks at me and I smile as we take the escalator to the cafe.

“After coffee, would you like to go see the Stuart Sutcliffe exhibit?” I ask as the stairs take us down, down, down.

He smiles again.  “I’d like that.  Do you mind if I ask a friend of mine to join us?”

Cheryl Mortensen has been a Beatle fanatic since the 1960s, but somehow went on to other things in the late 1960s, only rediscovering her passion for "all things Beatle" in the late 1990s (and on into the new century).  She is a computer programmer and an avid photographer. (Concert photos of bands and performers is her favorite area -- ask her about her Ringo pictures!!)  Cheryl lives with her husband of 18 years (Mike), her German Shepherd (Sorsha), and a bunch of fish in the tank and the pond that they've never bothered to name.