I Met the Walrus_ How One Day With John Lennon Changed My Life Forever - Jerry Levitan [29]
“Thanks again, John. I’ll write to you!” I announced as the row of salivating correspondents turned their heads towards me in unison. I flashed a peace sign backwards and John corrected me by doing it the right way, and closed the door. Everyone stared at me.
John and Yoko did not stay to meet with any of them. They left abruptly to catch a plane to Montreal. The following story appeared in Toronto’s Globe and Mail describing what took place shortly after John closed the door and said good-bye to me:
* * *
FANS AMBUSH BEATLE, OUTWARD BOUND
John Lennon sat back in the taxi and gave a sigh of relief late last night, on his way to Malton to catch his flight to Montreal. Moments before he had been engulfed by Toronto teenagers who had pushed past police and descended on him.
He had hoped to make a secret exit from his Toronto hotel. He had left phones ringing, carnations littered over beds and rugs, unopened letters, fans screaming from behind burly policemen along the hotel corridors.
Down some sort of fire escape we had fled, any moment expecting to be deluged by fans. It didn’t happen until we were almost out of the building.
Rushing out of an elevator, they were suddenly on us. Somehow the police regained control, we were shoved into the cab, the garage door opened and we drove out. Fans climbed onto the car but they jumped or fell off as the cab gathered speed. Lennon looked tired. Yoko didn’t seem to care. Lennon, all in white, sighed again and said: “I think Ringo [Starr] was right about not touring.”
Ritchie Yorke/the Globe and Mail
* * *
In fact, given the timing of their return from customs and their quick exit from the King Edward, I realized later that John and Yoko might very well have stood up the entire Canadian and American media to sit down and talk with me.
I walked down that hotel hall and turned the corner towards the elevator. The deejay, whom I have since tried to track down unsuccessfully, walked with me. He still had nothing to say. The cordoned-off crowd of kids had ballooned to five or six times the size it had been just a couple of hours earlier. They were screaming, being held back by tired and bewildered police. “Did you see him?” “What was he like?” “Oh my God!” They were shouting at me and gasping. There was desperation in their eyes. “He is the greatest,” was all I could say. I meant it and got into the elevator.
“When can I have my tape?” I asked the deejay, and he said probably the next day. “We’ll play it on the news tonight and tomorrow.” “Thanks,” I said and I made my way through the mini-riot that was happening in front of the hotel. The crush was enormous. Kids, photographers, crazies, and the curious, waiting to catch a glimpse of the greatest star on earth. My salvation was that I was walking the other way. I was going to see a show thanks to my benefactor. Luckily, the theater was just a few blocks away, and I was eager to sit down, put my mind on hold. Take it all in.
I cannot remember whether I called my parents or not. I probably did, but either way, I was not in the mood to brag or shout about what had just happened. I knew that this was transformative and that it required reflection. It was not really a choice. Nothing in my life before or since had fit so perfectly. Every moment—from the time I heard about the rumor to walking to the O’Keefe Centre—had fallen into place with fatalistic precision. And it was not over yet.
Engelbert Humperdinck was a star then. Hailing from Leicester, England, he was the smoother version of Tom Jones. Not my kind of star or popular with the kids. He was a crooner with outlandishly parted black hair, sprayed wavy curls, and sideburns the shape of Italy. In fact the irony of the gift John gave me, which no doubt did not escape him, was