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yes_2dayI forgot to post this chapter to my Journal so I am correcting that now. Sorry it will be out of order.
Chapter 4C
After Stu’s big announcement, you’d have thought that I would have noticed Paul’s disappearance from the club, but I didn’t. I was still suffering from the after effects of the stunning news. I was hurt, angry, and starting to feel the old abandonment worries. Not only had Paul gone squirrelly on me, but now Stu was, too! I felt the familiar emptiness inside of me, like when your stomach goes into free fall on a roller coaster. My breathing became short and strained. I was on the verge of having an anxiety attack, and my solution to this was to drink some more beer. The beer, in turn, made me ‘iffy’ and the tone of my remarks sharpened considerably. I began to start making snide remarks to Stu and Astrid. I don’t remember what they were; I only remember their hurt faces, and George trying to shush me. I would never let George shush me the way I would allow Paul to shush me. So then I turned on George. It was a very unpleasant 45 minutes or so before, mercifully, Astrid dragged Stu away.
After the Exi’s left, it was just George and I sitting at a table in the club. I said, “Well, we’re without a bass player again. We really can’t be a rock ‘n roll band without a bass player.”
George said bluntly, “Don’t look at me. I’m not going to play that instrument.”
“Neither will I,” I said defiantly.
A silence descended and then I added, “Paul should do it. It’s not like he has a steady instrument right now, since his electric guitar broke. He’s all over the place - playing piano, acoustic guitar, the drums, singing without an instrument. He’s a problem.”
George said loyally, “He still carries his side and then some, and he is saving up to buy a new guitar. It isn’t his fault his other one broke.”
“He bought a cheap one, so what did he expect?” I asked in my snide voice.
“It was all he could afford, John. His family doesn’t have any money, like yours does.” George was looking at me with open disapproval.
“Alright, that’s true, but the fact remains he is all over the fucking place, and Stu said we could use his bass, and I think Paul should take on the bass. You and I should tell him that we think that is the best idea.”
George looked skeptical. He said to me, “I’m not sure Paul will appreciate us telling him what he has to do. He doesn’t like to be told what to do.”
“Precisely!” I declared. “That’s why we have to sell it to him. We have to say how we think he is the only one who can do justice to it. We have to put it to him in a positive way.”
George’s face still reflected his skepticism. “Paul is a very good musician. The bass is beneath his skill level. He isn’t going to buy the whole, ‘you’re the only one’ crap, because he will know that the bass doesn’t require a lot of talent or musicality.”
“Are you suggesting that I should take the bass?” My voice was nearly a shout. The truth was, I was the weakest musician as between the three of us, and I knew it, and beyond that I was right-handed and could play Stu’s bass more easily. But being the boring, stand in the back bass player was no part of my self-image.
“I’m saying,” George said patiently, “that we have to find someone else to replace Stu. I don’t think it is fair to put that on Paul. Klaus wants to join the band. Let him play the bass!”
My haunches went up immediately. “Klaus is no musician. And he’s a fuckin’ German! We’re an English band - a Liverpool band! No - I think we approach Paul and try to persuade him to take on the bass. We really don’t need him fluttering all over the stage from instrument to instrument. It’s distracting; a fucking problem.”
George reluctantly agreed to participate in the sell job. But I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t 100% behind the idea himself. I should have paid attention to that, but I have always refused to see obstacles when I wanted a clear view.
>>>>>>
So, the next night I called a band meeting for after the sets, but “forgot” to tell Pete and Stu, so only George and Paul were there. Paul had been very distant from me for weeks, so I was actually nervous talking to him that night. I started out with a great deal of hope in a Barnum & Bailey ringmaster voice.
“George and I were talking, Paul,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, “and it occurred to us that only you can take on the bass, now that Stu is leaving.”
Paul was seated across from me at the table, and was leaning back in the booth. His legs were crossed and his right arm was folded across his lap, cupping his left elbow. In his left hand he held a cigarette, and his left arm was elegantly bent so that the hand could move smoothly in the air from Paul’s mouth, and then away. It was a very elegant look. He was regarding me with what can only be described as a suspicious expression. His left eyebrow was cocked, and his eyes were dead. It was as if he had frozen his face in a bland expression so I could not read his true thoughts. My stomach swirled in anxiety, and still Paul didn’t say a thing.
“What do you think about that?” I asked lamely.
Paul inhaled his cigarette, and then, in his own time, exhaled the smoke. He seemed to watch it dreamily as it floated away. He finally said, “You think I am the only one who can play the bass?” His voice was not overtly angry, but there was a hint of offense being taken in his tone.
“Well, George is clearly the lead guitar,” I said, my confidence dropping as I watched Paul’s blank but accusing face. “And I manage the rhythm guitar - doubtful I could master a new instrument.” I think I displayed a sickly smile after this falsely modest remark.
Paul was silent. He inhaled and exhaled again, and was watching me with outright distrust. I turned to George, willing him to jump in and help me. He wasn’t much help. He said,
“It’s one idea we had. Another idea is we bring in someone new to play the bass. Maybe Klaus?”
Paul’s face reflected pretty clearly what he thought of Klaus joining the band. (At that time, neither George nor I knew he had overheard the ‘trash Paul fest’ when Klaus had said he should join the band and we should get rid of Paul.)
Paul blew out a cloud of smoke and finally said, “You think that is where my talents are best displayed? Standing in the back with the fooking bass?” His voice, though transparently languid, was rigid with indignation.
“I don’t expect you to stand in the back,” I quickly responded. “Of course, you’re up front with George and me.”
“Very generous of you,” Paul responded bitterly.
“You’re taking it wrong,” I objected.
“You’ve just told me that I should play the least difficult instrument in a band - that this is where I can most contribute - and you expect me to be pleased about it?” Paul’s eyes were sparking - I could literally see flames coming out of them now. But his voice was still controlled and even.
I was going to respond, but just then he caught sight of someone approaching him. It was one of the Big Three, another Liverpool band. The man approached our table, and I watched as Paul’s face melted into a warm smile.
“Paul - we thought we’d go on to the Zenith club. You wanna come with?” The band member asked.
Paul nodded ‘yes’, and turned to me and said abruptly, “I’ll let you know,” as he simultaneously put out his cigarette. And then he was gone.
I had seen how Paul’s face had warmed at seeing this other man from another band. Was he thinking of joining that band? My possessiveness and jealousy nearly exploded in that moment. I turned to George who was looking at me with something approaching sympathy. I said, “That arse! He just went off with another bleeding band!”
George waited a moment, and then said, “I told you it would be an insult to him. We shouldn’t have done this.”
<<<<<<<
Paul had become outright secretive. I didn’t know where he was most of the time until it was time to rehearse or perform. And he wouldn’t meet my eyes the way he used to do, even when we were singing together. I could tell he would watch my mouth as we harmonized, but he wouldn’t smile into my eyes, as was our longtime habit. (It was a kind of reassurance thing we did for each other.) I was upset by this, and so my mental illness was awakened, and I began to want to hurt him back. I convinced myself that I was the injured party. I’d only wanted to suggest a solution to the problem of Paul having no instrument to play. I think now, as a much older and wiser man, that part of me also wanted to thump my chest like Tarzan. I needed Paul to back down and let me be the star. Whatever the reason, I was not in tune with Paul or his feelings, so I didn’t change my view about what Paul should sacrifice to be in the band: he needed to take over the bass, and I was going to stick to that demand.
A few nights later, we had a gathering at a local diner as a kind of ‘goodbye’ to Stu. There was a fairly large crowd - about 15 or so. Tony Sheridan was there, along with the Exi’s and their friends, and George and even Paul attended. It was such a large gathering that I was separated from Paul. He was on the same side of the table as me, but at the exact opposite end. This would turn out to be my Armageddon.
So the evening started out fine, with everyone teasing Stu and Astrid. I tried not to sound too bitter about the whole thing, but I did make a number of smart-ass remarks. Stu and Astrid took them in the spirit in which they hoped they were meant, and the evening seemed to be going well. I was drinking a lot, to deal with my anxiety and depression. I drank so much that I forgot that Paul was at the table with the rest of us. This is perhaps excusable because Paul never went out with us in the larger Exi groups. Still...
So the conversation moved towards what the band was going to do without Stu. I was bemoaning the fact that Stu was an important part of the band, and we would have to start over with a new bass player. Astrid said,
“You’ve got George and Paul. They are the mainstays, aren’t they?”
And I remarked, “Paul is - as usual - a problem. He is fluttering all over the place. I think he should take over the bass, but he is insulted by the idea.”
A deep silence accompanied my comment. I didn’t understand. I felt I should explain more.
“Actually, Stu leaving solves the Paul problem. We can give him the bass and be done with his whinging and complaining.”
I felt a kick on my shin. Sitting next to me was George. He leaned into my line of sight and gestured, with his head, to the other end of the table. He then leaned back. I looked in the direction of the other end of the table and saw...Paul. Oh no! I had forgotten he was there! How awkward. Desperately embarrassed, I turned to Paul and said,
“I forgot you were here!”
Paul’s face was a blank canvass. He inhaled and then exhaled on his cigarette, and then stood up smoothly. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and there was no warmth in it. He said, “That’s good, Johnny. It means you won’t notice when I’m gone.”
He turned to Stu and Astrid and said, “I wish you both the best of luck.” He then walked away, out of the diner, and the door closed quietly behind him.
There was a deep embarrassed silence after Paul’s departure. Klaus tried to reintroduce some new conversational direction, but I was stunned into a kind of horrible bubble. George nudged me.
“We should follow him,” George urged. “We need to tell him you were drunk, and you didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
I couldn’t see myself doing that, since I meant every word I said. I thought that ever since we got to Hamburg and his guitar had broken, Paul was connected to the band by the slightest of threads. He was hanging out with people from other bands! He needed to get his head back in the game. Instead, I decided to be pissed at my friends, for not kicking me in the shin sooner to remind me that Paul was there. I even said something to Stu - something like, “You have done whatever you could to come between me and Paul.” The evening ended with everyone feeling uncomfortable and dissatisfied.
George and I walked back to the digs. He asked me, “What are you going to say to Paul?”
My pride had been pricked, so I said something like, “He is a prima donna. He needs to understand that he isn’t the star in this band.”
“That isn’t a very good approach,” George said. “Let me do the talking.” I was content with this suggestion, so we loped up the stairs to the digs, hoping to find Paul there. What we found was an empty bunk, and all of Paul’s things gone. My knees failed me, and I plopped down on to one of the bunks. George began to talk to himself. He was mumbling, “I wonder where he can possibly stay this late at night? Maybe his girlfriend’s place? I wish I knew where it was.” Finally realizing that Paul was completely out of our grasp at that point, he said to me firmly, “In the morning, we need to go down to the harbor and see if Paul is on the ferry over to England.”
I groaned. I felt glued to the spot, and couldn’t make myself think logically. “You go if you want. I think he is being overly dramatic. He’ll get over it and not miss the gig.” Internally, however, my conscience was a sore spot. I tiptoed around it. What made me do these self-destructive things? Because it was extremely self-destructive to hurt and humiliate the strongest member of the band and my closest friend. I had a very difficult night. I couldn’t sleep, and tossed and turned on my little bunk.
The next morning, George and Pete Best went off to the ferry station in hopes of finding Paul. I stayed in the digs, and pulled my blanket over my head and lay there moaning for a few hours. They returned several hours later, unsuccessful. Paul seemed to have disappeared into thin air. We had to face the audience at the Top Ten Club without Paul. I was telling myself that this was the moment when I would prove that Paul was not the star of the band and that I was the one true star. So we took the stage, and I pumped myself up to my optimum energy level and began to sing and exhort the audience to enjoy the show. But after about 15 minutes, the thinness of our repertoire began to show itself. Paul and I were a double act. We were never two solos. We were an interactive double act. And there I was with my half of a double act, and it was falling flat left and right. The audience was becoming restive. I could feel it in my bones. I noticed that the young women were starting to whisper amongst themselves. Five songs in and they began to chant, “Pauli! Pauli! Pauli!” I knew I had to do something, so I leaned in to the microphone and lied,
“Paul is sick, and can’t perform right now. But he’ll be back when he is better.”
This seemed to satisfy the Paul fans in the audience, but they still appeared to be bored by the show, and many of them left. In fact, at least a third of the audience left over the next 30 minutes. Another third of the audience seemed bored, but willing to stick it out. It was one of the more difficult performances I’ve ever participated in. It seemed like days, not hours, later when all the night’s sets were finally done, and we were able to retire to our digs. I lay face down in my upper bunk, moaning. My hope to prove that Paul’s participation was second to mine had been dashed definitively. Clearly, the audience wanted us both together, and not me alone.
<<<<<<
The next morning, I accompanied George when he went to the ferry station. Paul was not there, and we returned to the club after a desultory luncheon in a local diner. We were racking our brains trying to figure out where Paul had disappeared to so effectively. It was doubtful he had enough money to pay for his own return to Liverpool, and he wouldn’t be using what money he did have to stay in a hotel. The only thing we could come up with was that he was staying with his girlfriend, the stripper / prostitute. But that seemed awkward, since she used her flat (one supposed) to ply her trade. We decided we’d start cross-questioning the people in the strip club where she worked to see if we could track her down.
At that time of day - early afternoon - the strip club was empty and depressing. The bartender was cleaning glasses and organizing things for the evening ahead, and didn’t want to be bothered with our questions. He shook his head impatiently to indicate ‘no English’ when we tried to ask about the girl, whose name was Heide. No one else but a janitor seemed to be around, so we wandered back on to the street dejectedly. It dawned on us that the only times we would be able to find out about Heide would be times when we were on the stage at our club. Feeling frustrated, we headed back to our club to get the group ready for the evening’s performance. We’d have to scramble to put together the sets to keep them from being as boring and repetitive as they’d been the night before.
Iain was waiting for us when we returned. He went straight to the quick: “Where’s Paul?” He asked aggressively. “Why was he not here last night?”
“He’s sick,” I lied. “He has gone to his girlfriend’s to get better.”
“Well, I’ll ask Rory to loan you another musician because you sound like crap without him.” So one of Rory’s guitarists joined our ranks for that night’s sets, and I explained to the audience that Paul was just “sick” and he couldn’t perform until he got better. After the first set, Peter Eckhorn entered the club, and he was fuming. He wanted to know where Paul was, and he wanted to talk to him. During the previous set, he’d heard rumors from members of other bands that Paul had actually quit the Beatles. He told us we needed to bring Paul to the club – sick or not sick – before the next night’s show or he was cancelling our contract. We only had 10 more days left on our contract, and I had hoped to use the illness ploy as a way to get us through the rest of our gig. It didn’t look as though Eckhorn was going to give us that chance.
We returned to the stage for our second set. As soon as we started playing, things went from bad to worse. The audience started shouting “Pauli! Pauli! Pauli!” Apparently Paul’s fans had heard the gossip about Paul quitting the band as well. It was like that nightmarish gig in Liverpool two years before when Paul had called in “sick.” Peter and Iain both stood at the back of the club with their arms crossed glaring at us through our 90 minutes, which we had to stretch by doing two lengthy instrumentals (where Paul would have been singing), and by my repeating songs a second time. The Exi’s were all cheering for us, trying to drown out the rest of the crowd. Finally, that set finished and we left the stage. Eckhorn eventually left the club, and we eventually finished the night’s sets, and feeling as though enemies had beaten us for hours with clubs, George and I limped back to our digs. I remember lying face down on my bunk wanting to sob and thrash about, but not wanting George or Pete to hear me.
After that horrible second night concluded, the next day happened. Paul did not come back. George and Pete went to the ferry landing to see if he showed up. They hung there for most of the day, and he didn’t show up. My last little hope that it would all work out evaporated. We were all sitting glumly in the club, not bothering to rehearse, when Iain Hines came out to confront us. Stu was sitting a little to the side looking guilty. I was no longer speaking to him. In my twisted mind, I had decided that losing Paul was his fault. Rory’s guitarist was hovering in the background, noting that when Hines came out of his office to confront a band, it was not good.
Iain said, “Peter told you he needed to see Paul today, but he isn’t here. I’m hearing he quit the band. Is that true? He is the best one in your band, John, and you’re very weak without him. I may have to cancel your contract.” I was going to tell the truth, but George spoke up.
“He’s really sick, Mr. Hines,” he said with an almost Paul-like innocence. I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. “It’s pneumonia. You know Paul - he would come if he could. He just can’t get out of bed. We’ll bring him as soon as we can.” George met Iain’s eyes without blinking. Iain blinked first. If I had said that, he would not have believed me. But obviously George was a different matter.
“Alright, then. I guess you can’t help that he is sick. But bring him around as soon as he is well.”
<<<<<<<
It was a long time before Paul was willing to discuss this incident with me in any depth. I mean – a long time. I had no clue what he had done after he walked out of the club except in the barest of sketches until after we reconciled our friendship in 1981. And it was only when interviewing him for this part of the book that he admitted to me that he was so deeply hurt by my failure to stand up for him that for years he couldn’t even think about the incident, so he would shut it out of his mind. In the meantime, a great deal of fun was poked at him by critics and my fans for being the stick in the mud, and being hard on poor Stu. No one knew how badly used we were by Stu, except us. We felt we shouldn’t say anything negative about him after he died. But Astrid urged me to write about it in this book. She wrote me a letter about it. The key passage was:
“You did not stand up for Paul that night. And you didn’t stand up for him again when everyone was so critical of how he behaved. And Paul was gallant enough not to say anything bad about Stuart once you were famous. But now you should stand up for him. Now you should do it.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Where Paul went:
“I walked out of there so angry and hurt, that I didn’t even know where I was going. I headed in the direction of the ferry - I planned to sleep rough out in the waiting area and catch the first ferry out in the morning - but about halfway there I realized I hadn’t sufficient money to get all the way home. It was a Monday, and we didn’t get paid until Friday. I found a bench in a park, and tried to come up with a plan. While I was sitting there my eyes slowly focused on a construction site across the road. I had – over the years – cumulatively spent many months working in the construction trades with my relatives. I went over to speak to the super, to see if they needed any day laborers. He took me on as a trial to do some framing. I was to start in the morning. I slept in the park that night. This was in late June, I remember, so the weather was fine.
“Next day, I reported at 6 a.m., after changing and trying to clean up in the public loo in the park, and went to work on the framing. I pointed out at one point that the electrician hadn’t been through yet so we shouldn’t finish framing out the wall, and they asked me why I knew that, and I explained my experience, so they sent me along to the electrician to assist. He and I got along like a house on fire. He didn’t speak a word of English, and my German was pretty basic. But somehow we managed to communicate, and between the two of us we wired half a floor in one day. Because of this, the super asked me where I was staying. I said I was sleeping rough, and he offered to let me sleep in the caravan if I agreed to act as night watchman. They could let go the security guard for the night, and save a little money. I was certainly amenable to this.
“So the second night I slept in the caravan on the sofa. It was lumpy and old, it smelled like horsehair, but it was a sight better than the bench in the park. There was a little WC in the caravan, but no shower or bath. The water in the sink would only reach lukewarm. Again – it was better than the public facilities in the park. I sat up most of the night playing my guitar, and picking out chords. I don’t think I wrote a song. I was distracted that night. I guess the word I would use to describe it is heartbroken. That band had been everything to me since my mother died.
“I worked the next day, too, and at the end of that second day I had earned enough money to get home. The super told me I could stay, but I said my dad was waiting for me back home. I stayed with Heide that night, and then in the morning I packed up and went to the ferry station and bought a ticket. I think it was 11 a.m. and I was waiting for the noon ferry. That is when George and Pete found me. I had fallen asleep on the bench, and someone kicked my foot and I woke up. It was Pete, grinning at me in a funny way.
“George sat down next to me and said, ‘we all want you to come back to the band, Paul. The good thing is that now that Stu is gone, you can come back, and we’d rather have you.’ I said I doubted that you felt that way, and George told me I was being daft.
“I thought about this for a little while, and then told George and Pete how I honestly felt. I told them that I was not going back to the band. Nothing would ever be the same for me. I knew I could never trust you, because you never had my back. I always had yours, but you never had mine.
“George told me that you treated everyone like that and it wasn’t personal.
“How to explain? How do I put into words that it was personal for me, and would always be? The band and everything to do with it was as personal to me as it gets. It was like the blood pumping in my veins. No point in trying to explain it.
“George looked nervously at Pete, and told me that Iain was going to fire the band if I didn’t come back. Since you only had a week left on the contract, and since if the band were fired the club wouldn’t have it back, he wanted me to at least come and finish out the contract for his and Pete’s sake.
“This argument appealed to my heart. I didn’t like to leave the mates in the lurch. After a little more cajoling by Pete and George, I agreed to go back to the club and finish out the gig, with me making it clear that when we got back to Liverpool, I would be leaving the band. And then we all walked back to the Top Ten.”
Back at the Top Ten I was swinging back and forth between nervous breakdowns and crushing depressions in about 15 minute increments. I had holed myself up in the now empty room, and was balled up in a fetal position on the bunk bed, when George Harrison barged into the room with his stuff, and started putting it away in the room and making himself comfortable on Paul’s old bunk.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a grumpy tone of voice.
“I’m kipping with you in here now, mate,” he said cheerfully.
“Oh, and why is that?”
“Because Paul prefers to bunk with Pete in the other room,” George said matter-of-factly, and then watched my face for the information to sink in.
“Paul is here?” My heart flew into my mouth.
“Pete and I finally found him at the ferry. He had to work to get money to buy a ticket; that’s why he hasn’t left yet. We talked him into coming back until the gig ends next week.”
I sat up on the edge of the bed, and said, “We’ve got to bring him to see Iain.”
George said, “He’s already gone up to his office. He’s there now.”
I was incredibly relieved, and felt a strum of joy run through my body. But I could see George had something else to say that perhaps I wasn’t going to like too much.
“He says he is still leaving the band when we get back home. He just felt bad about letting us down, so he’s helping us out.”
This wasn’t the best of news, but I still felt as though I could talk him into staying with the band. The way I saw it, now that Stu was leaving, there was no reason for Paul to go.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The last week of our contract at the Top Ten was the last week of June 1961, ending on July 2nd. Paul had promised his dad he would start revising for A levels in September if the band was not making a living wage by then. I had very little time to repair my relationship with Paul if I was to salvage the band. The three nights I had played the club without him had shown me without doubt that the band would never make it without him.
Paul’s return on the fourth day gladdened Iain’s heart, and all was forgiven. The crowds came back, and the performances were hot. On stage, I could almost forget that Paul and I were barely communicating off stage. Off stage, he was cordial and businesslike in his dealings with me. There was never a moment, though, when he would drop his guard and let me see his feelings. He disappeared as soon as the show was over, hung out with some German friends, as well as with George and Pete Best and members of other bands. He never softened to me that whole week, and he treated Stu Sutcliffe as cordially as he did me. This was disheartening.
The gig finally ended, and we packed up our belongings and the van to go home. Stu was there to say goodbye. Paul gave him a very polite handshake and then got in the van. Stu and I hugged fiercely when it was time for me to get in the car. We wished each other well. I was holding back tears as we drove away.
<<<<<<<
I was running out of time to talk to Paul about his standing in the band. I decided to corner him while we were on the ferry. He was hanging out on deck, leaning over a railing. I stood beside him. We didn’t speak for a few minutes, and then Paul asked,
“What do you want, John?” He didn’t even turn to look at me when he asked.
I spoke to the side of his face. “You really don’t need to leave the band, Paul. We’ve got something special, here, and we shouldn’t let anything stop us.” Paul sighed heavily, but didn’t speak. I continued: “Stu isn’t here, and what he did was wrong, but we can start over now.”
Paul finally turned to look at me, and I could see his eyes were black with simmering anger. “You think I’m mad at Stu, but I’m not. I never expected any personal loyalty from Stu. It’s you who keeps letting me down.”
“Me?” I was quite surprised by this. “Because I got drunk and forgot you were sitting at the end of the fucking table?”
“Because you felt fine trashing me behind my back to people who hate me.”
“No one hates you, Paul! You’re being overly dramatic again.” I accused. “And I didn’t ‘trash’ you! I merely said that without a steady instrument you were all over the place on the stage, and it is distracting!”
“You said I was ‘a problem’ and my best and highest use was to play the fucking bass. But that’s not all you said. I overheard everything you all said about me that night.”
“What night?” I asked. I was confused, because the ‘let’s trash Paul’ night had conveniently faded from my memory.
“The night I came back to find you all in our digs talking trash about me. You and that German art crowd, and Tony Sheridan.”
“I don’t remember that,” I lied, having suddenly remembered snapshots from the event.
“You don’t remember saying I had terrible taste in music, and only the silly young girls appreciated what I had to offer? That you had to curb my excesses and keep me under control? You don’t remember imitating me singing Little Richard songs, and making fun of my ballads? You don’t remember sitting around questioning my masculinity? You don’t remember agreeing that I was an egomaniac, a phony, a skinflint, and a backstabber?” Paul’s eyes were firing with passion now as he glared at me.
I was reduced to a guilty silence. I truly had no defense. “I was drunk that night, and barely remember what I said,” I confessed.
Paul shook his head in negation. “Well, see, sometimes I get drunk, but somehow I manage not to trash you and attack your character behind your back to people who hate you. Somehow I’ve managed never to do that.” His voice was shaking with deep emotion, but the tone was low and soft. I had to strain to hear it, what with the wind and seagulls shrieking around us.
“No one hates you!” I cried again.
Paul shook his head as if to say, ‘I can’t talk to you.’ He turned away and stared off towards the horizon.
“Look,” I tried, “we kind of lost contact with each other about a month ago, after your guitar broke.” I was trying in vain to meet Paul’s eyes, but he was protecting them from me. “I could feel you slipping away after that - you were hanging around with other bands! I get crazy when I think I am losing someone. Anyway, this was all Stu’s fault. He could have either dedicated himself to the band, or quit. But he did neither, and here we are.”
Paul finally turned to meet my eyes, but what I saw there was not good. His expression seemed to say, ‘really? You’re blaming Stu?’ He said again, “I’m not mad at Stu. He was only in the band because you insisted he be in the band. His heart was never in it, but he did it to make you happy. You’re the one who wanted Stu, and you wanted him in the band more than you wanted me in the band.”
“Not true!” I cried. “I wanted you both, but if I had to choose who was best in the band, I would choose you!”
There was a dead silence. And then Paul said, “But you didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t choose me. You were prepared to let me walk away that night - the night Stu announced he was leaving. And, truthfully, I would have walked away.”
We were both quiet now. I could actually see tears in Paul’s eyes. It dawned on me finally that Paul wasn’t being overly dramatic; it wasn’t a question of an injured ego. He was very deeply hurt. And I was the one who had hurt him.
I said, “I’m sorry I’m such a fuck up. Can’t we put this behind us, and work to put the band back together? I really do think we have something special - that we can go to the top.”
Paul sighed again, but it was clear he had pushed his deeply hurt feelings down again. When he spoke he was the logical, tactical person I knew him often to be. “It isn’t that easy for me, John,” he said. “I don’t want to be in a band that makes decisions on the whims of one member, and where my opinions and contributions are openly ridiculed to outsiders. Aside from being hurtful, it isn’t professional.”
I argued with him for another 30 minutes, but could not sway him from his decision to leave the band. This will sound melodramatic, but part of me wanted to jump overboard. I felt like I didn’t want to be alive to feel such pain.
After the ferry docked, the van delivered us to our individual homes, as I sat numb and wordless in the back seat. Pete was dropped first and then George. As they were dropped off, Paul wished them luck and there were hugs. Soon we were in front of 20 Forthlin Road. Paul turned to look at me, not quite sure what to do or say. I stayed glued to my seat, and there was an awkward silence. “Bye, John,” Paul finally said softly, and he closed the door. He was gone.