Days in the Life

Chapter Thirteen

As the Beatles packed up their instruments, I heard John start muttering something about, “Bloody bollocks... fuckin’ hell...”

“What’s he on about?” Ringo asked Paul.

“Ah, he’s pissed because we’re on our way to Memphis,” Paul replied, lighting his umpteenth cigarette that day.

Oh.... that was right! I’d forgotten all about the situation in Memphis while I’d been ailing! And here it was, already Thursday, and we were on to the next city. Damn right John should be disgusted with the whole thing. I personally thought we’d lucked it out in DC by not getting into big trouble with the Klan or anything; at least there, the entire city hadn’t voted against the Beatles playing a show there like the city council in Memphis had. I mean, DC was still pretty far north, at least from my viewpoint-- Memphis seemed much more “southern,” much more in the Bible Belt, maybe much more dangerous, too.

Everyone remained pretty calm until we were actually in the airplane leaving Boston. Those four lads must’ve chain-smoked the entire flight, from take-off to screeching to a halt on the runway in Memphis; the ashtrays were overstuffed with cigarette butts by the time we gathered up our things and disembarked the plane.

There was a pretty sizable group of fans at the airport waiting to see their idols as they stepped off the plane in the middle of the night. Paul muttered, “I hope no one brought a rifle with them to, eh, ‘greet’ us.”

I nodded, trying to stay calm as I walked straight ahead, keeping my distance as the reporters hounded the group with still more questions about John’s Jesus remarks. They didn’t really have much to say in response; their press officer Tony Barrow brushed off the questions after a minute or so until the Beatles reached their limo waiting in the terminal. Neil, Mal and I rode to the hotel in a separate car about ten minutes later.

Yet another fancy deluxe suite awaited us in downtown Memphis; I was actually surprised that we’d ended up with such posh accommodations because of all the scandal! Everyone was still pretty paranoid about the whole show--the drapes were drawn the moment we stepped into the common room, as were the shades in the bedrooms a few moments later as everyone switched on lamps.

I was pretty tired, not totally over my cold yet, but when Neil announced that he was ordering food from room service, I didn’t complain; I ordered a steak-and-potato dinner like the others did, then retreated to my room to get washed up for the night. I could join them for our late dinner afterwards.

However, nearly an hour passed, and no food arrived at our door. Neil called the kitchen about three times more, but there was no one answering the phone. I guessed that the hotel staff was hell-bent on making us feel as unwelcome as possible during our stay; hmph--some treatment for guests who were probably shelling out almost a thousand dollars a night for a presidential suite! I didn’t think any of us would be planning a return trip to Memphis any time soon--I’d rather be back in Sister Janet’s American Revolution class than there!

Neil ended up searching the nearby streets for a 24-hour fast food joint, and luckily found one, securing a wonderfully nutritious meal of greasy cheeseburgers and french fries for our dinner. Oh boy, I thought as I munched on the food. I’m gonna get some great sleep tonight with this rumbling around in my stomach!

I went to bed after eating; my eyeballs felt like they were going to pop out of my head by that point if I kept my eyes open for one more minute! I think I fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow; the soft sheets and blanket felt soooo comfortable that I just dozed off...

It was about six-thirty the next morning when I awoke to the sound of the telephone ringing right next to my ear on the nightstand. Out of sheer habit, I picked up the receiver and murmured, “Hello?”

No answer. I sat up in bed. “Hello? Is anyone--”

“Yeah, is this the Beatles’ hotel room?” a male voice with a very strong Southern accent practically yelled in my ear.

“Yes, it is; can I--”

“Well, good; you better listen, lady, and listen good. You’d better tell those limey bastards that we don’t like what they had to say about Jesus Christ, and they’d better watch their step or they’ll be gettin’ their brains blown out the back of their heads at the show.”

“Wh-what?” I stammered, shaking. “Wh-who is this?”

“If even one of those assholes says one more thing, they won’t be livin’ to see daylight tomorrow! Got that, missy?”

“But who--”

There was a loud click as the caller slammed the phone down, nearly hurting my ear. I sat there just paralyzed by what had happened for about ten seconds; then, throwing the receiver back onto the phone, I leaped out of bed and made it into the common room in about three giant leaps.

Okay, I thought, trying to remember which one of the bedrooms was Brian’s. I remembered that it was the one closest to the writing desk, so I ran over there and started pounding on it like my life depended on it.

“Mr. Epstein! Mr. Epstein!” I shouted, frantically striking the door with my palm. “Please, open the door! It’s an emergency!”

Brian opened the door a few seconds later, tying his robe over his pajamas. “Good gracious, Laurie; whatever is the matter?”

I felt so out of breath from my frantic actions. “There-there was just a phonecall and I picked up the phone and the guy on it just--he said--he told me that-that they’d better watch out or someone’s going to shoot them during the show!”

Brian sprung into action after hearing my news. He hurried over to the bedroom that Neil and Mal were sharing and woke them up, telling them what had happened. They too jumped out of bed right away. As Brian and Mal started phoning the desk for an outside line, Neil turned to me and said, “Laurie, now, what exactly did this person say to you?”

I repeated nearly word-for-word what the caller had said to me, and Neil nodded every once in a while during my tale. Once I’d finished, he shook his head. “Cor... what the bleedin’ hell is next?”

Brian approached us just then. “Laurie, the police are sending someone over here to take down a report; you’re going to have to speak to them, since you were the one that took the phone call.”

“Oh, but... how?” I asked. “I mean, I’m not even supposed to be here--what if they let the story out that--”

“Well... do you think you can pull off the Laurie Aspinall trick again?” Neil asked.

“Is that what you want me to do?” I asked.

“If you can handle it, I think it’s the best thing to do,” Neil replied, crossing his arms. “What do you think?”

“Oh, I believe it’ll be smashing, old chap,” I said after a few seconds of thinking it through. I’d done it before; why couldn’t I do it again? It was pretty darn easy, after all.

I ran into my room and got dressed, throwing on the same things I’d worn yesterday. Not long after, the representative from the Memphis police department had arrived; he was an older guy carrying a clipboard and pen with him. Once I came out of my room, Brian said, “This is Laurie Aspinall, Mr. Coates.”

“Hello,” I said in perfect English accent.

We all sat down on the couch, Brian and Neil on either side of me, and Mr. Coates began his questioning.

“So, your name is Laurie?”

“Yes; I’m Neil’s sister,” I said, a little nervous.

“How’s that last name spelled?”

“A-s-p-i-n-a-l-l,” I said slowly. Neil gave me a little nod when I was done.

“And you’re a British citizen?”

I nodded.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Okay... can you tell me what happened?”

“I-I picked up the phone and said hello. No one said anything at first; then some guy with a really heavy Southern accent asked if this was the Beatles’ hotel room. I said yes, and he said that I’d better tell the, uh, limey bastards that ‘they’ weren’t happy with what the Beatles said about Jesus, and that if they weren’t careful today they’ll get their brains blown out during the concerts. Then he said that if even one of the guys says anything amiss that they won’t live to see tomorrow. Then they hung up.” I shuddered, recalling the chilling feeling I’d had while listening on the phone. It really was scary! Who knew if the caller was just a crackpot or if he was actually serious?

“Thank you, Miss Aspinall; hmm. . .” the detective said, taking down a few more notes before closing his notebook. “Nine times out of ten these sort of things turn out to be pranks, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“But what about the concerts?” Brian asked.

“We can certainly step up the security presence at both of the shows just in case,” Coates said as he and Brian walked towards the door. “I’d be willing to bet a thousand dollars that it’s probably just a troublemaker--nothing serious.”

Just as Brian was letting Detective Coates out, a very sleepy George peeked his head out from his bedroom. “Eh, what’s going on?” he said, yawning.

I buried my face in my hands. “Believe me, George, you don’t even want to know,” I said in my British accent, then quickly switched back to my own voice. “There’s just been an assassination threat phoned in against you guys.”

George went pale. “No fuckin’ way!” he cried, then, turning his head into his room, said, “Hey, Macca, get an earful of this!”

After a few moments, Paul emerged from his bedroom drowsily. “What’s up?... Oh, hello, Laurie,” he said, tying his robe shut around his boxer shorts.

“Some nutcase just phoned in a threat against you guys,” I reported to him.

“You must be daft!” he said, laughing. “Nell, she’s joking, right?”

Neil shook his head. “She’s serious, Paul.”

Paul took a look at all of us--George going pale, me looking weary, Neil looking wound-up, and Brian looking quite shaken-- then realized that we weren’t joking at all. “Good christ... Lennon’ll shit when he hears this one!”

Needless to say, John and Ringo weren’t very happy to hear the news, either.

The room service people were being assholes again, as we discovered later on when we finally worked up an appetite for breakfast; half an hour after we ordered, the simple breakfast of cornflakes and milk we’d requested still hadn’t arrived.

“Now what do we do?” asked Ringo, looking out the window at the crowds of people outside the hotel. “There aren’t any restaurants around here that serve cornflakes and milk to take out, I suppose.”

“Maybe I could run to the store and get some,” I offered. “No one knows who I am; I can do it.”

“Are you sure?” Neil said. “It’s not exactly what I’d call a hospitable environment out there...”

With a wave of my hand, I replied, “Can’t be any worse than some of the neighborhoods in Chicago that I’ve been through... I’ll be fine.”

After a quick search through the phone book, we found a listing for a supermarket that wasn’t too far of a walk, only about six blocks away, according to what the guy that answered the phone there said when Neil gave them a call. He scribbled down the directions for me, but I was able to mentally commit them to memory--four blocks eastward, two blocks north.

“Hey, Laurie, luv, can you pick up some ciggies for us while you’re out?” Ringo asked as I gathered up my purse and rose-colored sunglasses.

“How many packs?” I asked.

“Five; George owes me a pack,” Ringo said, “from the number he’s nicked from me.”

George made a face to that one. “Gerron...” he said, heading back into his room to get dressed.

“I’ll bring you down to the lobby,” Neil said, taking ten dollars from the wad of cash sitting by the hotel door. “Should ten be enough?”

I nodded as Brian said, “Please, Laurie, be careful out there.”

“I will,” I said as Neil and I left the hotel room. After taking the elevator down to the lobby, we saw that the number of security guards that were posted inside the doorway had doubled since last night, thanks to Detective Coates; so seemed the number of screaming, crying girls outside the front steps of the hotel.

Neil stood inside the doorway so he wouldn’t be recognized by any fan that might just happen to know who he was as I stepped out; he whispered to the two security guards out front keeping the crowds behind the barricades that I should be let back into the hotel once I returned. The guards agreed, and I was on my merry way past the barricades and the fans screaming right in my ear.

I headed down the street, following the directions that the guy at the Sunny Farms Supermarket had given... four blocks east, two blocks north... As I turned the corner so I could head northward, I stopped short, terrified of the scene taking place right in front of my very eyes.

There was practically a mob scene on the sidewalk just two buildings ahead of me in front of the local radio station; news cameras were whirring away, filming the scene of a mass gathering of kids carrying Beatle records and other Beatles paraphernalia right over to a big black and white sign that read “Deposit Beatle Trash Here!” hanging right above three huge garbage cans. A middle-aged guy, probably one of the station’s deejays, was standing on a crate near the doorway, towering over the teenagers and passers-by who stopped to see what all the fuss was about, leering with delight as the kids began destroying all the Beatle-related objects that they were carrying. The younger kids were stomping up and down on the records until they shattered into a million pieces; I saw about a dozen pieces of Beatles ‘65 go flying into the air as one guy smashed his heel right down in the middle of the record. A girl was busily ripping copies of her teenage magazines featuring the Beatles into microscopic shreds as two other girls looked on, holding her stack of magazines yet to be destroyed. “Hey, Betty, there’s still a lot more to go!” one of the girls said to her.

One of the older guys in the crowd had brought a cigarette lighter with and started burning a copy of Revolver, holding the flaming album high above his head as the other kids cheered from the egging-on of the deejay, and all the cameras around the scene moved in for a closer shot. The whole thing made me want to absolutely wretch, aggravated as well by the smell from the burning plastic wafting over everyone’s head. Before I absolutely vomited from the disgust and the heat from the blazing sun overhead, I quickly crossed the street and walked on the opposite side of the street until I found the big yellow and green sign for the supermarket across the street.

As I walked through the aisles that seemed much shorter than the ones in the giant Chicago supermarkets like Dominick’s or Jewel that I was used to, I hoped that I hadn’t been caught on film by the news cameras. God forbid I turned up on the news that night as a bystander at a Beatle burning! Or, even worse, what if those were national news crews? Cheryl, Claire, and Anna would all judge me as guilty and deserving to die immediately upon seeing me even remotely near a scene like that; my parents would probably kill me, too, if they saw me out in the middle of a strange town when things like that were going on!

I brought my two boxes of Kellogg’s cornflakes and two quarts of milk to the lone cashier’s station at the front of the store. After waiting as two other people had their groceries rung up, I asked the cashier lady for five packs of Marlboros. She raised an eyebrow at me before turning around and pulling the five little red and white boxes from the rack behind her and set them next to my groceries. The ladies behind me, probably about forty years old, gave me such a dirty look just then as I looked over my shoulder at the clock on the wall above the door.

“These kids today,” the taller of the two tsked as I turned back to the cashier. “Five packs? Good gracious! I’ll bet her mother doesn’t know what she’s doing!”

“I agree!” the shorter one said. She reached over and tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around. “Young lady, does your mother know what you’re doing?”

I couldn’t believe my ears! I made a face and said, “I don’t need to ask my mother. They’re not for me--they’re for my--friends.” I was in no mood for this condescension crap; I was still pretty ticked-off about the whole record-burning.

As I handed the cashier the ten dollars I’d had in my purse, the ladies behind me moved over as a stockboy with a Beatle haircut moved in to sweep the tile floor near us; the shorter one rolled her eyes at the sight of him. “Well, Lallie, that explains it right there,” she said. “A Yank!”

Oh my god, I thought as I collected the change from the cashier. Now they’re acting like the war was still on!

“Mmm-hmm; typical Yankee, allowed to do or say whatever she wants,” the other responded. “Those young ladies have no upbringing at all!”

“Jesus Christ, lady!” I shouted, my voice carrying across the entire supermarket; I think everyone in the store stopped dead in their tracks. “Drop the Civil War already! There’s a bigger war going on in Southeast Asia right now that maybe you should be worried about!”

The two ladies looked like they were going to shit a gold brick when they heard that come out of my mouth! I almost started laughing at the looks they gave me; they looked like green aliens had just crawled of my ears or something!

“Oh-ho! She’s one of those anti-war kids as well!” the lady said to her other friend like I wasn’t there at all. “Thank heavens my Betty isn’t like that! She’s down the street doing something against the complete lack of morals that’s taking over society!” She crossed her arms and beamed with pride, like her kid was going to get a Nobel Peace Prize or something.

“I beg your pardon?” I replied, the wheels turning inside my head. Betty... it must be the same one that I saw before! “If your Betty is one of those twelve-year-old rednecks stomping on Beatle records and making a complete and utter fool of herself on national television, then I’d much rather be a Yankee, thank God!”

“She does happen to be over there!” the lady shouted back, her face turning red. “I don’t suppose you would do something like that, you little heathen!”

“Well, if the Beatles are so terrible, I wonder how she got a hold of all that Beatle stuff in the first place! She probably got the money from her parents!” I shouted. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy going off and leaving your twelve-year-old kid alone on the streets like that so you two can gossip like old hens and yell at people for nothing that’s your goddamn business, she’d have a little more sense! Jesus Christ!”

The kid sweeping the floor cracked up at my last comment before I snatched my bag from the counter and stormed out of the store. I was nearly halfway down the block before I heard running footsteps behind me; I turned to see the stockboy running after me, still laughing so hard tears were running down his face.

“Hey, that was great!” he said, still giggling. “Those two women have got to be our crabbiest customers of all-time! They’ve yelled at me more times than I can count for having my hair like this... like it’s any of their damn business. Thanks for putting them in their place!”

I laughed. “No problem at all.”

“You’d just better pray that you don’t run into them anywhere else,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t think that will be a problem,” I said with a wave of my hand. “I’m just passing through town with some, eh, friends of mine for the day.”

I took an alternate route back to the hotel, not wanting to pass by Betty and all her little anti-Beatle friends again. When I arrived back at the hotel, it looked like the mob of fans had tripled in size since I’d left. I had to fight my way through the crowds of shoulder-to-shoulder fans, then slipped underneath one of the barricades so I could get back into the hotel.

Almost immediately I was grabbed by the arm by a security guard. I looked up at the guy’s face, and then at the other guard by the door--they were two totally different guards than had been there earlier!

“Please! I have to get inside! I’m a guest here!” I said, then felt like kicking myself. Oh, now, that didn’t sound like a total ploy to get into the hotel to see the Beatles! Good going, Laurie!

“Not a chance, missy,” the guard said, moving one of the barricades back and blocking the hotel stairs until I grudgingly stepped behind it. “Get back over there with all your friends.”

“Dammit,” I muttered as the girls around me started singing “We Love You Beatles” so loudly in order for the Beatles to hear them that they were off-key. I made my way out of the crowd and back across the street; it wasn’t worth the fight to get back in--the guard wouldn’t listen to me. Shit; I was in a real pinch now!

I ran down the street, coming to a skidding stop about three blocks away at a cafe that had a pay phone inside the doorway. I dumped a dime into the phone and dialed the hotel number that I found in the phone book next to the phone. Once the person at the front desk picked it up, I said, “Yes, could you please connect me to Room 812?” I said in a very posh British accent. “This is Laurie Aspinall.”

“I’m sorry; I’ve been given directions not to connect anyone to that room,” the girl said.

Oh no, oh no! I was going to get through to the Beatles come hell or high water; it was my only way to contact them, other than shimmying up the drainpipe on the side of the building and knocking on the window... and that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to resort to!

“Listen, luvvie! I don’t want to talk to the bloody Beatles, if that’s what you think I called for!” I shouted. “I’m Neil Aspinall’s sister; he’s staying with the Beatles, and I need to talk to him!”

There was a dead silence, then a click, then a dial tone. She’d hung up on me!

“Bitch!” I muttered between clenched teeth, hanging up the phone. What the fuck was I supposed to do now? I would be stuck outside the hotel until someone came looking for me--which might not even happen if everyone in 812 was nervous about snipers!

After staring at the phone book for ten minutes, I was almost ready to head back to the hotel and try to sneak past the guard in the front when I came up with another idea. The Beatles’ entourage were staying in rooms right down the hall from the Presidential suite; what if I called one of them?

I shoved another dime into the phone, my mind racing as I dialed the number to the hotel again. Hmm... Tony Barrow, the Beatles’ press agent, was four doors down from the Beatles at the hotel; I remembered seeing him drag his suitcase into his room last night. That would be... Room 808, then... but I wasn’t too sure...

The same girl answered the phone again at the hotel. This time in my calm, normal voice I said, “Yes, could you please tell me which room Mister Barrow is staying in?”

There was a pause, and I could hear the girl flipping through the guest register. All right! I thought. She fell for it! “Room 808,” she said.

“Oh, good; could you please connect me to him?”

“Right away,” she said. There was a click, then the ringing sound. After about four rings, I heard Tony pick up the phone and say, “Hello?”

“Tony! This is Laurie Donaldson!” I said, relieved to be talking to someone on the inside.

“Oh, Laurie... how are you calling from outside the hotel? The phone was giving me the outside-caller ring--”

“I had to run to the store; it’s a long story,” I said hurriedly.

“Does Brian know you’re--”

“Yes, they all know I’m gone,” I said. “The problem is that I can’t get back into the hotel now; the guard that was supposed to let me back in rotated shifts before I came back from the store. I need to talk to Brian or Neil or somebody in the other room; the girl downstairs wouldn’t connect me to their room over the phone.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll go get Neil... hold on a minute.”

“Okay, but hurry; I don’t have anymore change with me,” I said.

About one minute later, I heard Neil’s voice say, “Laurie! Where are you?”

“I’m just down the street from the hotel; the guards out front switched shifts and I can’t get back inside,” I rattled off.

“Christ... well, I can’t come down there right now; I was in the middle of taking a shower when you called. Tony said it was important, so here I am, running down the hall in a dripping bathrobe to take the call.”

“What about Brian and Mal? Couldn’t they--”

“They’re nowhere to be found; they’ve left for the Coliseum to talk to the promoters,” he said. “I’ll have to send one of the lads down there to fetch you... hell...”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, feeling pretty bad. “I don’t mean to cause so much trouble for you.”

“No, it’s all right,” he said. “I’ll send one of the lads down there to get you. Meet him by the entrance to the garden restaurant on the side of the building in exactly ten minutes. And, mind you, keep your eyes wide open; he’ll have to go in disguise.”

“Got it,” I said. “Ten minutes at the restaurant... see you in a while!”

I hung up the phone and dashed down the street, clutching the shopping bag tightly in my right hand. I passed by the crowds at the front door and made my way along the side of the building to where the restaurant was located. The restaurant had an outdoor seating area with tables and chairs on a wooden platform; one had to go up six stairs and through a tall black iron gate if non-hotel guests wanted to get to the restaurant doors on the other side of the outdoor seating area.

Unfortunately, just as I was turning the corner, I caught sight of a security guard ejecting three or four Beatle fans from the platform, sending them back down to join about ten other fans standing on the pavement. As the girls begged and pleaded for him to let them back in, he shook his head, closing the gate and padlocking it securely. “That’s enough of that,” he muttered, walking back into the restaurant.

The girls all clustered together, jumping up and down to see beyond the above-eye-level platform. As I reached up and gave the gate a tug with my left hand, the girl standing nearest me said, “Don’t even try it, honey--they ain’t letting anyone in there! I’ve been trying all day to get in there.”

I climbed the steps anyway, with about five of the girls following me up to the gate; I guess they thought I had some brilliant idea on how to get into the hotel. Oh, great idea, Neil, I thought. Send a Beatle down here with these fans standing right here... oh, now that won’t cause any problems!

A few minutes later, four red-coated waiters came out and started setting up the tables for the brunch crowd that would be arriving soon. I stood staunchly in front of the gate, checking my watch. Twelve minutes had gone by since I’d talked to Neil; so where the hell was the Beatle he was sending down?

The girls behind me gave up on following me since I obviously didn’t have a brilliant plan; they all ended up clustering around the left end of the platform where a very handsome sandy-haired waiter was setting up water glasses on a table nearest the wall of the building. They tried chatting him up and getting him to unlock the gate; I even overheard one of the girls promise him a, um, very intimate favor if he let her inside. I hid a laugh, getting a little impatient standing right there at the gate where anyone inside the doorway could see me! There was no way one of the Beatles could miss me if they looked out the door! They were going to end up with cottage cheese and cornflakes if I didn’t get the quarts of milk out of the hot weather soon!

There was another waiter that was setting up a table to the right of the gate; he scratched at his mustache as he quietly chuckled at what the girls were saying. He noticed me standing there and said, “Looking for someone, miss?”

I barely turned my head, watching the doorway carefully for any sign of a Beatle, or Neil or Brian or Mal or Tony Barrow or anyone. “Uh, yeah; a friend of mine,” I said.

“A friend, eh?” he replied, turning his back to me. “That’s not what I heard about you and a certain Beatle...”

I frowned, turning around to see just who the hell this waiter thought he was Once he turned around, he slightly messed up his dark slicked-back hair, and I instantly knew who it was!

“Paul!” I whispered fiercely, clinging to the bars on the gate. “Oh my god; I had no idea that you were you! I--”

He had pulled that same trick from A Hard Day’s Night with the mustache and goatee, also donning one of the red coats that the waiters wore. He put his finger to his lips and calmly said, “Don’t say another word; I’m going to unlock the gate and let you in.”

I guess the security guard had given him the key after closing the padlock, for he pulled the key out of his pocket and clicked open the padlock, keeping a close eye on the girls on the other side of the platform. They were all still busy begging the cute waiter to let them in, not looking our direction at all.

“Okay...ready?” Paul said, taking hold of the gate, ready to swing it open.

I nodded. He swung the gate open, and the gate made a loud squeaking noise. Uh-oh...

I dashed inside the gate just as three of the girls looked over and saw me going in. “Hey!” they all screamed; they and the rest of their army sprinted for the stairs and scaled them in about two leaps just as Paul was padlocking the gate shut again. He turned his back to them before they could get a really good look at his face.

“Oh, come on!” one of them cried, nearly to tears. She shook the gate with all her might as Paul walked away with me. “Why did you let her in and not us? What the hell?”

Paul kept his back to them and said, “She’s a guest here at the hotel.”

“Like hell she is,” the girl said. “Come on; she’s carrying a bag of groceries, for god’s sake! Who in their right mind goes shopping when they could eat at the hotel...”

Once we were inside the restaurant, we hurried into the kitchen. Paul took the jacket off and handed it back to a jacketless waiter standing near the doorway. “Thank you very much, mate,” he said, pulling off the fake mustache and goatee. “Enjoy the show tonight.”

“Thanks a lot, Paul,” the waiter said, grinning. He was only about eighteen years old, not too old to be a Beatle fan, of course. He waved the ticket to the show that Paul had given him before borrowing the jacket to come outside and get me.

We went through another doorway at the opposite end of the kitchen, then walked down a low-ceilinged service corridor to one of the service elevators that the waiters used to bring room service meals upstairs. One arrived for us almost immediately, and we stepped into it quickly, still fearing that perhaps we were being chased by fans.

The doors closed, swallowing us up, and the elevator began moving slowly upwards, much slower than the passenger elevators we’d been in last night. I looked over at Paul, who was trying to get his hair back to normal.

“What in the world did you put in your hair?” I asked.

“About a full bottle of that hairspray you have in your room,” he said, pulling at his bangs. They stood straight up on his head, rock-stiff from the spray. “It’s not like I have a bottle of Brylcreem lying around to use, you know...”

I laughed, reaching over and pulling the sides of his hair downwards. They didn’t move much; now they stuck straight out sideways. I started giggling.

“You look like you were just electrocuted and your hair is standing on end,” I laughed, pressing down on his hair again to flatten it.

“Oh, come off it; you’re lucky I came out there to get you,” he said, shaking his head back and forth.

He stopped fooling with his hair and grabbed both of my wrists, bringing them gently behind my back. “Aren’t you going to thank your knight in shining armor?” he said, looking down at me as I stood inches away from him.

“Sir Paul McCartney? Hmph; yeah, right,” I scoffed, sticking out my tongue at him. “Like that would ever happen...”

He didn’t wait for me to say okay; he leaned down and kissed me with a kiss that turned my knees into Jello. He let my wrists go so I could wrap my arms around his waist and hold him close as he kissed me deeply. I’d forgotten about everything when he started kissing me, the fans, the crabby ladies at the store, Detective Coates, that idiot on the phone... it was just me and Paul, all alone in dead silence.

His hands ran up my back, then ran through my hair, probably totally messing it up, but I didn’t care; his kisses were too precious to stop. After a moment, his hands went from my hair to my shoulders, then to the top button on the collar of my blouse. I didn’t mind him unbuttoning the top button on the high collared blouse, but when he quickly moved down and undid the second one that was just below my chest, I gasped, breaking the kiss with him as his hand slid inside my shirt.

“Wh-what are you...Paul, we can’t do this here!” I protested weakly, my mind miles from coming back as he ran his hand across the front of my bra. Oh dear god, don’t let him do this to me here... not in an elevator where the doors are going to open any second!

The doors did slide open just then, and I gasped, trying my best to hide behind him. He started laughing. “There isn’t a soul in the hallway, luv,” he said, reaching over and pushing the door-close button on the panel, and the doors slid closed again. The elevator didn’t go anywhere; there was no one else pushing a button for it on any other floor.

Before I could even say another word, he reached down and buttoned the front of my blouse up. “Sorry, luv; the elevator was moving faster than I thought it would,” he said.

I closed my eyes as he reached over and pushed the button to open the doors up again. He didn’t say anything else as we walked back to the Presidential suite hand-in-hand.

He opened the unlocked door and said, “Breakfast is here!” in a singsong voice as we entered the common room. The other three Beatles and Neil were sitting around the television waiting for us.

“Well, at long last,” Ringo said, turning around to see us. “Milk and cornflakes... there’s just one problem, though.”

“What?” I asked, setting down the groceries on the coffee table in front of him.

“How are we supposed to eat if we haven’t any dishes or spoons?”

“Oh my god! I didn’t even think of that!” I said, burying my face in my hands. He was right! We didn’t go carrying around china and silverware with us, after all, and room service sure as hell wouldn’t send up empty bowls and spoons for us, much less actual food. “All that trouble for nothing! Oh my god!”

All of us ended up sitting around the coffee table, pulling handfuls of cornflakes out of the box and passing the milk cartons around, just drinking straight out of them--what a great way for them to catch any of my leftover cold germs, eh? Naturally that small meal didn’t last us very long; Neil was sent out to fetch hamburgers for us around three o’clock, an hour before we were due to head to the stadium for the concert.

As we prepared for our trip to the concert, the Beatles got awfully quiet; none of them said a word to anyone except for when they were asked a direct question. I sat on the couch with my purse and sunglasses, ready to leave with them once I’d packed up my suitcases and left them by the door; we were leaving straight for the airport after the evening concert, never to set foot in Memphis again!

Ringo approached me after he found his sunglasses he’d left sitting on the coffee table. “Laurie, you know, you don’t have to go with us, if you don’t want to,” he said. “You can stay here if you want.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, you know... it might get dangerous,” he said quietly. “I, for one, don’t want to see you get hurt or anything, and I know the others don’t want that to happen, either.”

I shook my head. “Really, Ringo, I’ve got to go with you guys,” I said. “I’ll go nuts if I’m sitting here all by myself, not knowing what’s happening with you guys at the show. I’m going with.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding before walking away from me.

Sure; I was scared of what might happen to the Beatles. I was even afraid of myself getting hurt if there was some kind of crisis... but if all that phone call was this morning was the kind of hot air that those two crabby women at the grocery store had vented, then I had nothing to fear at all. And, I mean, how in the world could someone sneak anything bigger than a handgun into the concert? A little handgun wasn’t going to reach the Beatles, considering that the band would be playing yards and yards and yards away from the very closest seats to the stage; anyone crazy enough to shoot the Beatles would have to have some seriously high-powered weapon at their disposal.

That afternoon we ended up riding to the show in an armored car; the driver parked the car practically right on top of the service entrance we went through to get to the dressing rooms inside the coliseum on the fairgrounds just outside of town. After the lads had changed into their stage costumes, they still had about fifteen nerve-wracking minutes to wait before they were called to the stage. John started pacing around the room, even walking outside the safe confines of the dressing room and walking around the hall for a while. Ringo, Brian and Neil chatted pleasantly but nervously near the doorway, jumping out of their skins every time we heard quick-moving footsteps in the hallway. George was sitting by himself in a corner of the room, chain-smoking a storm up. Paul sat on a chair near the mirror that had been set up for us, staring at the tile pattern on the floor for ten straight minutes; he didn’t look like he felt very good at all.

“Paul?” I asked, setting the bottle of Dr. Pepper I was nursing on top of George’s guitar case next to me. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head, getting a nauseated look on his face. “Nuh-uh,” he murmured, putting a hand across his mouth and closing his eyes, breathing heavily through his nose.

Uh-oh; I’d seen Claire get the same look on her face during long car trips, so I knew when someone was about to be sick! “Paul!” I shouted, running over to him; I got the attention of everyone else in the room as well, and they all turned their attention to him.

“George, could you get him some water?” I said, fumbling around in my purse for one of the Alka-Seltzer tablets that I carried around with me in case I ever got sick to my stomach while on a trip. Once I found the tablet, I reached over and undid the top button on Paul’s high collar, letting him breathe a little easier.

George poured a cup of water from the cooler near the doorway and brought it back to me. I dropped the tablets into the cup and watched it fizz. Paul was slowly starting to get his normal color back, and he took his hand away from his mouth slowly before drinking the medicine in the cup.

“Are you going to be all right, Paul?” Brian asked, alarmed at the idea that Paul could very well be sick and not make it to the show.

Paul nodded, sitting back in his chair after finishing the fizzy drink. “Yeah... I just need a minute,” he said, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. “I can’t believe I have to go through this again later tonight, too...”

“Everything will be fine,” I said, kneeling next to him as he rested. “Really, Paul; these sort of threats don’t have any merit to them most of the time. You’ll be fine--”

Just then one of the ushers knocked on the door. “Send the Beatles down to the field; they’re going on in three minutes,” he said to Neil.

Paul stood up shakily, then took a deep breath and reached for his guitar. “Ah, fuck it... it’s now or never, isn’t it?” he said to the others. “Let’s get this shit over with!”

He marched down the hall at a brisk pace, the others practically running after him to keep up. Brian and Mal followed after them, and Neil and I hung back for a moment, waiting until we had a good distance between ourselves and the others.

Thank god, thank god, thank god--the show went off without a single problem that afternoon! The extra security presence definitely had an effect on the crowds; only a very few girls managed to even get out of the stands and make a dash for the stage area. The Beatles raced through their set, finishing up with “Long Tall Sally” after about twenty-three minutes of performing and racing back to the corridor after they took their final bows.

Once we were back inside the dressing room, John practically laughed, “Oh, fuck, I’m glad that’s over with!”

I grinned as the others sat down, looking completely drained. “See? I told you nothing would happen! If those nutcases wanted to really get you guys, they would’ve done it now, not waiting until the show tonight!”

The general attitude in the group became more positive at that point. Since we didn’t want to bother going back to the hotel and possibly getting mobbed by fans and ending up late for the next show, we stayed put inside the Coliseum for the rest of the day. We must have played about three Speed tournaments to kill the time before the eight-thirty show started; Paul, John, and I won one each.

Soon the Beatles started getting changed into their stage outfits--the black suits and white shirts they’d worn to the Chicago concert. John fussed with his hair in the mirror, and Paul snuck up behind him. “Hey, you want to use some of Laurie’s hairspray?” he said deviously as John shook his head back and forth a little bit. “It does wonders... you’d never have thought your hair could turn into twigs on your head...”

John turned around and gave him a look. “No thanks, mate; if you want to be a sissy and use that crap, go ahead.”

Right around showtime that night, Brian came back into the dressing room after another discussion with the promoters; he didn’t look very happy. “I don’t suppose any of you would want to look out the window at the KKK burning a huge pile of your records in the parking lot,” he sighed tiredly, his forehead creased with stress lines.

“What?” John and Paul said at the same time, leaping from their chairs. Paul opened the frosted-glass window about halfway and peered outside into the near-dark night. “Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered, wide-eyed. “Fuck-kin hell...”

All of us crowded around the window and stared at the flames flowing upwards from a huge pile of smashed-up Beatle items about two blocks’ distance from our window, and a bunch of KKK members in full uniform, hats and all, marching around the flames and shouting something that was inaudible from the distance we were at. I’d never seen anything as absolutely terrifying as that; that darn record-smashing I’d seen earlier that day didn’t even compare to the feeling of sheer terror that made my heart beat faster and faster upon watching those orange flames rise high into the night sky.

“Close the damn window; I don’t want to see anymore,” John said, walking away. Paul closed the window and locked it tight. We all looked pretty shaken again.

Neil, Brian and I had to practically give all four of the Beatles a swift kick in the ass to get them out of the dressing room to do their show that night. They walked out onto the field to a near sell-out crowd once again, trying to keep their cool as they stepped onto the stage and started “Rock and Roll Music.”

I was so nervous just standing there watching them that I bit up all my nails that I’d worked so hard on making look pretty earlier in the week. Brian couldn’t take the stress of standing there and waiting for fate to happen; he told Neil he’d be back in a while and headed back to the dressing room to sit down and relax. So it was just Neil and me standing there in the doorway, watching the Beatles zip through their set for the second nerve-wracking time that day.

By the time they started the intro to “I Feel Fine,” I started feeling a little better. I smiled; I thought, Three whole songs had gone by, and nothing had happ--

BOOM!!!

I opened my eyes to hear a shriek go through the crowd and all four of the Beatles jump, startled by the explosion that had just happened near the stage! I shrieked, “Oh my god! What was that?” and grabbed Neil’s arm. “One of them’ve been shot! I know it!”

I held my breath as the Beatles stopped playing their song and turned to look at each other; after about ten seconds of sheer terror, I realized that all four of them were okay--no missing limbs or brains or anything. They even started “I Feel Fine” all over again, much to the delight of the audience.

“Oh my god,” I said, catching my breath. I felt a little strange... “They’re okay... it must have been a fire-firecrack-firecracker or some-someth-thing...”

“Laurie!” Neil said, reaching out and catching me as I started slumping down to the floor. I didn’t even realize what was happening to me until Neil sat me up against the wall and said, “Breathe, luv, breathe! It’s all right; they’re all okay!”

“Wh-what happened?” I said, shaking off the blackness that had overcome my eyes for a moment. “I’m on the floor?”

“You were this close to passing out; I caught you before you hit the floor,” Neil said, kneeling next to me. “Take a deep breath, Laurie; you’ll be all right.”

I looked up at the fluorescent light burning brightly above my head. “Oh... thank you, Neil...”

He left me sitting there for a moment, running down the hall and getting me a bottle of Coke from a vending machine nearby. “Here you go,” he said, handing me the bottle. I drank about half the bottle; I did feel pretty thirsty. I was probably getting dehydrated from not eating well over the past week.

At last the show ended, and the Beatles ran for the safety of the corridor, and then the dressing room. John broke into laughter as he took his guitar off his shoulder. “It’s over... no more shows here... thank god...”

I hugged Paul even before he got his guitar off his shoulder upon arriving in the dressing room. “I’m glad you’re safe,” I whispered as the others whooped it up, laughing and clapping their hands happily, delighted that those shows were over.

“So am I,” he said. “Luv, what happened to you? Neil said you nearly passed out!”

I nodded. “I-I got scared when that firework went off; I thought one of you got shot like that jerk said you would!”

“No; we’re all okay, luv,” he said, embracing me again after he put his bass away in the case. “Were you really that worried, Laurie?”

I nodded, getting teary-eyed. “Yeah; I was scared,” I said, tears slipping down my face. “I-I didn’t want anything to happen to the guy I love.”

Paul smiled warmly, surprised for a moment. “I love you, too, Laurie,” he said, looking down at me with all the love in the world in his eyes.

I wished that moment could last forever, that first time we’d said “I love you” to each other, but it was cut short by our making a dash for the bus outside. A limousine had just been sent out of the park as a decoy, and many of the fans were making a run after the slow-moving car while we sprinted for the bus that would take us right to the airport for the flight to Cincinnati--far, far away from Memphis!

Continue to Chapter Fourteen...