• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Eglinton was on the boundary of the suburb. I had only three major intersections to get to my neighborhood. I took my mother’s advice and went to school—but not to study math; rather, to spread the word. It was lunchtime and the front of Dufferin Heights Junior High School was populated with a couple hundred or so kids milling about, smoking, necking, running, strutting, and gossiping. Girls with white micro-miniskirts, orange leggings, and pink tops. Guys with bad long hair, green-tinted octagonal sunglasses, baseball gloves, and gum. I did not smoke, did not drink, and had never seen drugs up close let alone tried any. I walked studiously into the crowd, and the kids seemed to notice that I had something grand to share with them because they all parted like the Red Sea and a hush came over them. I really do remember it that way.

I took out my Two Virgins album and began to tell the story with shortness of breath but with the comfort that I spoke the truth and was telling a tale of profound importance to my compatriots. It was still only a rumor that John was in town. The media had not circulated the story yet. That came later. And what I had to tell was incredible to say the least. The Beatles were the biggest thing ever and everyone knew it whether they preferred the Stones or the Bee Gees or whoever. I was at the center of a hundred or so kids, showing my album and regaling them of my encounter with our king. I had their fixed attention and the amazed ones tried to take my album to have a closer look. But I would not let them touch it.

“And I’m going back again at 6:00 to interview him.” With that one of the guys shouted in derision, “Yeah, right. That’s bullshit. You’re bullshit!” He led most of the “testosterites” away, but the girls and the more sensitive fellows stayed with me. “You really saw him?” “He said you could come back?” “What did he look like?” “Was Yoko nice?” “Is he going to live here?” “Are the other Beatles coming?” “Can we come too?” All of those questions and more were hurled at me as if I was the president in a scrum after a summit with world leaders. “He only invited me, and it’s for a special purpose,” I told them. For some reason I didn’t get much flak for that comment, which has always surprised me. Somehow they each understood.

The crowd quieted down as the tall and dark Mr. Davis, the disciplinary vice principal, made his way through the crowd, plucking smokes from mouths and sternly viewing the dynamic. The commotion was reported to the powers that be that something was up and he was going to get to the bottom of it. Kids started to move away and form a circle farther away as he focused on me and made his approach. A couple of teachers came out too because word was spreading fast. Mr. Davis was the kind of vice principal you were sent to if you were a troublemaker. He did not speak much, even in assemblies. He was mysterious and feared. I was not a troublemaker. In fact, quite the opposite. I was a mediocre student, not athletic at all, and probably had never registered on Mr. Davis’ radar. I gulped as he approached.

“What is all this about?” he said in a quiet but firm way. “Sir, John Lennon. You know the Beatle? He is in town. I found him and met him. And he is letting me come back again, later today.” One of my friends motioned his finger across his neck and looked up to the sky. I took out Two Virgins and showed him the autograph. The crowd moved closer. The school bell rang. Lunch was over. “Back to your classes now,” he shouted and almost everyone complied except for a few malingerers. The mean vice principal bent down and closely scrutinized my eyes to check for dilation. I did not vary from my tale but I was clearly “under the influence.” And then he said something incredible, something that probably no other rambling teenager had ever heard from a disciplinary figure at school. “Take the day off,” he said, patting me on the back. “Go home.” This was a smart man. He was dealing