Vignettes: Strawberry Fields

Man with the Guitar

Another day. Another twenty-three dollars in profits. I sit in this same spot from 8:32 am till 1:02 pm singing for those who visit strawberry fields. The typical songs, the expected songs, John Lennon’s songs, pretending I’m John Lennon. I didn’t know John personally but he was always someone I wish I could’ve been. Not the real one just the one airbrushed by society; talented, sincere, beautiful, that John. I’ve been working on my music career ever since I was a kid. When I was twenty I got picked up by phony record company while I was playing by the entrance of the 6 train. After paying the upfront fee I never heard from (310)561-5121 again. Plus I just never had enough money to go to school for it. Yeah I guess I could’ve worked three jobs and applied for loans but I never saw the point. No mater where I went I could still make music. 27 years ago I married Tiffany. Love at first sight, you know, the usual. Two days before super bowl Sunday, shelves with disintegrating packs of overpriced hotdogs and potato chips, the line wrapped around Trader Joes. We all know how much time there is to talk in those lines, usually pointless conversations complaining about the duration of standing in one spot or how you didn’t grab enough buns before standing behind the person with a cart full of all the items you forgot to pick up. This talk with a stranger turned into talks over coffee, over dinner, after sex and eventually at our wedding. When she was pregnant, or so we thought, she would dance in the kitchen licking the pancake batter off her finger-tips, gross I know, but it was one of her favorite things. After complications with not being able to have kids, that brought up complications we didn’t know existed and brought out the worst sides of us, she changed, I changed, our relationship wasn’t much of a relationship anymore. She divorced me a year and three months ago. Her favorite musician was John Lennon. She never told me this directly but I knew because as the steam escaped under the door of the bathroom so did her off key singing. Her favorite song was Let It Be and I used to sing her every time she didn’t want to go to work. Now I presume she listens to it on the subway through plastic ear buds. That’s her loss I guess. After Tiffany I wasn’t able to write music anymore. Maybe it was a loss of inspiration that came with the loss of the love of my life. Either way I can’t come up with anything. My life has turned into singing in the park for strangers that seem to appreciate it more than the empty white walls of my apartment.

The Lady with the Engagement Ring

I never really knew who John Lennon was, till I met Sam. You see, I’m a very uncultured person. I don’t usually see the point in keeping up to date with the norms of society, usually because I have enough going on in my mind. Whenever I listened to music it was chosen for me, by the radio or by someone else. I am not very much of a picky person, especially when it comes to music, so it is much easier for someone to tell me what to listen to than for me to decide. When Sam was in my life everything was so much easier. John Lennon’s Imagine was Sam’s favorite song in the entire world. I remember he used to sing along to it all day and night. I didn’t know why and I didn’t care either. I loved every second. Somehow we managed to find a job as an elementary school teacher and Sam got a job at a law firm a short commute away. We moved to New York about four years ago into an apartment in the Upper East Side. I thought hearing an alarm at 5:02 in the morning was bad but when Sam didn’t have enough time to even come home I didn’t know how to react. We had very busy lives, giving us little time to relax or for each other. Central Park is so close but we never had the time to come. You’d think that since he basically worshiped John that he would have visited this place over and over. But no, he didn’t have time for anything else expect work. I understood that clients were important but when he practically ignored my existence how else was I supposed to react? Sam was the definition of workaholic. Whenever he wasn’t in the office he was at his desk slaving away, blasting John Lennon of course, it calmed his nerves. His doctor warned him every time he entered his office about high blood pressure but Sam couldn’t stop working. It was what he lived for. He suffered from a heart attack a year ago and never got to visit the memorial. I’m here today for him.

The Memorial

I am a circle. Not just any circle, I guess I’m a work of art or something, placed here to honor some guy named John Lennon. I get a lot of attention everyday, I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. I’m never really alone, even at night I get visits from teenagers sticking cigs between their lips. I know they don’t come to the park to notice me but I definitely acknowledge them, smashing their worn shoes to put out the sparks. From the time the sun comes up till the time the sun goes down, I cannot tell you how many people step on me, take pictures of me and even sit on me. This John guy must have been important because people can’t get enough of me. They cover me with flowers and even the trees sprinkle their golden leaves all over me. That’s what I really love about fall, the trees, they distract me from the surplus of people who tend to visit. When winter rolls around, the tourists disappear along with the trees. The genuine lovers of John appear, baring with the negative degrees and the task of trying to find me under inches of snow, surrendering their hands to the cold. When I’m not covered by nature’s gifts or by someone’s ass, you can really see my beauty. I have an intricate design with words in the middle that say “imagine”. I guess that’s the name of one of John’s songs because the middle-aged man sitting on the bench across from me cannot stop singing it. You’d think the guy would have a life or something, but good for him preying on all the foreigners and taking their money. All the tourists do for me is lay all over and flash their cameras on me. They all believe they are pro photographers but all end up with the same picture from the same exact angle. I wish I could move or get up just so that I could look up who this John guy is and why he’s so important to all these people. If he has inspired this many people, who come from all corner of the Earth, he must have been some human being. But I’m stuck here forever. I’ll never get to leave this corner of the park, where tourists come and middle-aged men play music for money. Where people have their first kiss and remember the ones who have left us. In the city of dreams, where dreamers take chances and become people like John Lennon, whoever he was.