Yesterday (McLennon)

Chapter Ten: 1980

I remember the day it fell apart.  I had thought, for certain, that things were getting better.  I’d felt it in every fiber of my body.  John had stopped using LSD so frequently.  Actually, he rarely used it for nearly a year.  But then, at some point, he started using it again, after he got over the bad trips he had gone through in the past, and at that point, I freaked out, and we split.  

I was afraid.  I didn’t want him to get the way he had been before.  Didn’t want him to continue thinking he was shit, that he meant nothing.  But he thought I wanted to control him, just like everyone else did.  Like everyone wanted to control our love, and his music, and now I was no better.  The fights got worse and worse, continued on into the studio until we were practically working solo.  And then came Yoko.

He started bringing Yoko to the studio, and I knew it meant we were over, even though he never officially broke it off.  Maybe that’s what hurt worst of all: never hearing it officially come out of his mouth.  Never officially hearing that it was over.  And when he met Yoko, he got into even worse things, like heroin.  Things I couldn’t help him get through, because we barely even talked to each other during those times.  

It was around that time I started seeing Linda, in spring of 1968.  At first, I was just trying to convince myself I could move on from John, convince myself I could live a regular life, even if the Beatles split.  But then she came to help me mend my relationship with John, came to help me remember everything I had shared with him, even if she really had no clue of the extent it was to.

Back then, I thought I’d lost John to drugs.  That’s why I never got into them like he did.  I couldn’t deal with the way they had changed him, and I didn’t want to change myself.  I thought I could deal with the change, but I guess I couldn’t.  So in the end, I guess it was my fault.  In the end, I guess I lost him.  

When the Beatles finally split, it felt like that was like the official break-up for John and I, despite the fact that I’d been dating Linda, and he’d been dating Yoko seriously for quite some time.  It had just never felt officially over for me, not really.  I thought things would get better, that he’d realize he belonged with me.  But that never happened.  And I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I loved Linda at that time, but there was still a foolish daydream inside of me, one that wasn’t bound by rationality.  

I couldn’t breathe for the longest time.  I couldn’t bring myself to do anything, even the smallest tasks.  And yet, Linda stayed by my side throughout the entire thing, even though she had no clue what was truly going on inside, even though I was hardly responding to anything or anyone at all.  

I used to lie awake at night, shaking, unable to forget the things circling around in my head.  It made me dizzy to think of the lips that were so unfairly torn away from me, lips I never got the chance to tell anyone I was kissing.  It made me dizzy to remember singing with John, writing our songs together, coming up with the next big hit.  Made me dizzy to think about the look he’d give me onstage as I stepped up to sing Yesterday, or the thrill I;d feel whenever he sang In My Life in front of anyone.  One night, I awoke with my head in my pillow, and I hardly had the strength to lift it and move it to the side so I could breathe.  I was just that depressed. 

And then I heard a soft sigh from Linda in her sleep, and I smiled to myself and rolled over, snuggling up against her for warmth.  

Back then, I didn’t think pain could get any worse.  Back then, we were still invincible, young, free.  But now that John is dead, sometimes, when I wake up with my face in the pillow, I lie there, imagining what it would feel like to end my life right then.  I imagine what it would be like to be where John is.  Maybe up in heaven or something, or maybe just in the Earth, dead, gone, forever.  

But then Linda always stirs in her sleep, like she can sense when I’m insecure, awake, shaking, unstable.  She wraps her arm around my upper body, drawing me in close.  And I remember why I’m alive again.