JOHN LENNON DROPOUT
(December 8, 1980)

by BRADLEY MASON HAMLIN


Black shades across the eyes usually kept me at least slightly distanced from my fellow school-dwellers, but walking late toward my English class, thinking about giving school one more chance, I felt a strange depression coming on, and noticed I wasn't the only one hiding behind dark glasses.

Maybe everybody's high, I thought.

Cold wind blew across the quad and my tired old brown backpack felt way too heavy. Hands wedged down inside my blue-jean jacket pockets, moving along, feeling that gloominess coming on stronger and not sure why.

Maybe I didn't need a reason for wretchedness.

Late, but no one seemed to be heading for class. I stopped, leaned against a small palm planted in the middle of the school and looked up at the sky, thankful for the soft sun shining on top of the cold December wind so I could keep those shades across my eyes.

I leaned against that tree and tried to borrow some energy. Okay, I thought, everything’s fine. You had to wait for the next scene, despite angry red clouds killing the oxygen and increasing the gravity. I could feel a life pulsating within the trunk, seemed sad, too, as if sorry, sorry for the whole mess.

Yikes, I thought, someday I’m really going to have to see a head hunter. Shrinker, I mean. I wanted Bob Newhart to heal me.

One of my teachers walked toward me, so I pretended to look inside my pack, but the guy didn’t see me or care. He walked right on by, head hung low, shaking his jaw back and forth as if giving a negative answer to a question no one had asked. What the hell was his problem? Wasn’t he supposed to yell at me? Wasn’t I an obvious delinquent—late for class?

He kept walking.

I blew some old molecules out of my body and moved toward class again. Everywhere I looked the kids wore black. What the hell? Black is not the usual attire for a high school that’s walking distance from the beach. I stopped again and sat on a bench.

I waited.

Maybe I’d just let English slip on by. The class should be called American anyway or what’s the point? Maybe I’d make it to History and learn some new lies. I looked across the quad at two girls sitting underneath a tree, their heads leaning against each other as if holding each other up.

Fuck, I thought. Did the goddamn President of the United States get shot or something?

No. No way. Nobody cared about the President anymore.

A foxy brunette dressed in a black blouse plus black mini-skirt walked by, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, tears leaping from her face. She didn’t seem to notice the cold wind caressing her legs. I got up and followed her, her sorrow increasing as she moved. I wanted to stop her, put my arms around her, and tell her the lies that included, “going to be” and “all right.” But that would be bullshit. I didn’t know. Maybe they all woke up and suddenly felt the truth about life. That happens. You wake up, and realize, we’re all doomed and nothing you can do—besides maybe loving the people you already hate.

Ha.

Ha.

I looked up and was shocked to see a huge high school student walking toward me, he of the triple-x Hawaiian shirts and Buddy Holly glasses. His face looked sober, a contrast to his usual jolly smile. When he reached me we clasped hands, bro-style, shaking, then hugging each other with our free hands. “What the hell?” I said. “What are you doing here? Don’t tell me your dad moved you west, too?”

“Nah,” he said, “just wanted to see you. Did you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

The blubbering of two girls bumping into each other interrupted us. “Oh god!” The energy of their collective grief made us turn our heads. “Oh god! God! God!”

Did God die? I thought.

One sobbed through a tissue. “You know how much I really, really like Ringo, you know, but I loved John Lennon!”

Loved?

Past tense …

Instead of going to class and listening to all the things I would forget, I dropped out with Johnny for the day and went to a little café by the beach called Kilroy’s. Neither of us knew, at the time, we would never drop back in to Highland High or Surf City. Luckily, we had the café to ourselves, besides the waitresses. We ordered an early lunch of refried frijoles, brown rice, and flour tortillas, but neither of us ate. The waitress, just a few years older than us, looked like she had just attended the funeral of a family member, and that certainly rang true enough.

She said, “Jukebox is free today, boys.” Then she walked over to the box, punched some buttons, and played that new song. You know, the one about starting over.




Mystery Island Bottled Message No. 7
"John Lennon Dropout" by Bradley Mason Hamlin. Published 2005 by Mystery Island Publications.
© 2005-2007 by Mystery Island. From the forthcoming novel: Nobody Surfs Forever
by Bradley Mason Hamlin. All rights reserved.



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