Loddy-Dah Read online

  “You are so true to yourself,” she said, hugging him. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “I’ll send pictures.”

  As promised, David sent Loddy postcards from every hick town along the bus route until Vegas. And then they stopped.

  SCENE 20:

  L’amour et la paix

  Not since The Beatles’ 1964 appearance at the Forum had Montreal witnessed anything near the hysteria outside the Queen Elizabeth Hotel as crowds fanned out across Dorchester Street onto the plaza of Place Ville Marie. Earlier that day, CFOX Radio had announced the coming of John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the city. Well, New York had first crack at the couple. But Lennon’s drug charges got them banned from entering the United States. Across the border, Montreal turned a blind eye and welcomed them. The eyes of the world were again on the city now cocky with confidence. The Montreal Star assigned Dewey to cover the Lennons’ Bed-In for Peace and Loddy tagged along riding on his press pass.

  “There they are, Dewey!” Loddy screeched — she was sixteen again — and bolted toward the dust-covered black limousine as it crawled hearse-like through the mob. Officers pushed everyone back onto the other side of Dorchester, away from the hotel. But Loddy managed to slip under the barrier of arms just as the chauffeur rolled down his tinted window. Pandemonium broke loose, frightening a flock of pigeons in nearby Dominion Square, and sending them flapping towards a ledge on top of the Sun Life Building. Loddy, her Instamatic camera secured around her neck like a Birks necklace, readied herself as the limousine pulled up alongside. This time a passenger, in the back seat on the driver’s side, rolled down the window and Loddy was only inches away from touching joy.

  “It’s John Lennon!” She squealed with the ardour of a toddler who had just discovered Christmas morning.

  She thrust her camera into Lennon’s face. He recoiled at the intrusion but, with his usual cheeky Liverpudlian Scouse, grinned and said hello. Loddy aimed the camera back into the car window. But when she pushed down the button, there was nothing: no flash, no click. Nothing. The limousine sped away.

  “Did you get anything?” Dewey, now by her side, asked.

  “Like I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Someone shrieked: “There it is!”

  The limousine screeched into the hotel parkade. Loddy, Dewey and three other girls in hot pursuit of the vehicle managed to slip inside just as the garage door rolled down.They stood there, adjusting to the dim light and the smell of car exhaust. Their heads turned in various directions like the face of a broken compass. Where to go? The rattle of noise, like a hubcap spinning off its bearings, the squeal of wheels, the sharp slam of doors, sent everyone scurrying towards the sounds around the corner. They saw a man, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Jesus Christ in granny glasses, flee the security staff washroom. A decoy or the real thing? Loddy pretended he was the real thing.

  Cries of “John, John, John” echoed throughout as they chased Jesus Christ and watched him disappear into a nearby elevator. Next, the girls swarmed the grimy parked limousine and touched every nook and cranny, from the windshield to the trunk, as though it were The Ark of the Covenant. They left imprints of their hands and lips, drew hearts, and wrote their names and telephone numbers in the dust. Loddy crashed the washroom and returned, clutching a cone-shaped paper cup.

  “Look what I found, Dewey! John drank from it. Look!”

  “How do you know it’s his?”

  “It was on the sink, and he was the only one who came out.” She pretended she had just touched fame.

  At that moment, the elevator doors slid open and two men in Pinkerton uniforms descended. Even Dewey’s press pass bore little weight. They were on the sidewalk now; Loddy still hanging on to the empty paper cup and Dewey arguing with one of the guards.

  “Hey, I’m here to take photos for The Montreal Star.”

  “If your name is on the list at the front desk then you can go up, sir.”

  As the guard escorted Dewey towards the hotel lobby, Loddy called out: “I’m going to see Ulu at the Y. Meet you there?”

  He raised his hand and indicated: “Okay.”

  xxx

  Loddy let the tide of Lennon fans carry her away from the hotel and towards Dominion Square.

  “Miss, got any change for a bus ticket?”

  She dug into her pocket, felt the empty paper cup, and handed it to the hippie. He scrunched it, tossed it to the ground, and grumbled some expletive.

  “Hey, like, John Lennon drank from that,” Loddy cried out. “It’s worth a lot.”

  But his hand was already stretched out, seeking alms from the next passerby with a charitable face. Ordinarily, she would have made a scene, but it was one of those warm May afternoons that didn’t warrant spoilage.

  The Y was now within reach, and she could see a cluster of guys draped over the front steps.

  “Hey, hey, hey fat girl, where’s the fire?” one called out.

  “Leave her alone,” another said.

  “It’s cool, it’s cool, man. Just teasing.”

  She froze, remembering her repellent was at home.

  “Fat girl?” Her chin pointed towards “just teasing” guy’s crotch. “Didn’t realize dorks like you were so puny.”

  She cut through the huddled quartet, marijuana smoke drifting among them. Her tormenter lunged for her leg but missed.

  “Hey, man, cool your jets okay.” His buddy, a black guy, restrained him.

  Inside, Loddy found Ulu manning a desk outside a room the size of a school gym. She hadn’t seen Ulu since her graduation a month before. She was smartly dressed in a summer-white linen pants suit, hair teased into a French Roll, and pearls on her earlobes and around her neck. She had shed her contact lenses and now wore sensible tortoise-coloured eyeglasses that gave her the look of an intellectual, someone to be taken seriously. She was shuffling folders and papers, trying to bring some order and calm to the line-up of transients, waiting to be registered, when she looked up and noticed Loddy.

  “How long have you been standing there? Oh, never mind. I’m just so glad to see you.” She walked around the desk and gave Loddy a hug.

  “Ulu, I hardly recognize you! My God, you look like so so ...”

  “Damn professional, right?”

  “I was going to say, so like that Greek singer, Nana Mouskari, but yeah, professional. I guess I’m just not used to this new Ulu.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “The place seems a bit of a mess though. Like, what’s happening?”

  “Chaos, utter chaos! We never expected so many kids and, my replacement didn’t show up. I’m stuck until the night shift. Can you hang around for a bit maybe and help?”

  “Sure.”

  Loddy was about to relate her encounter with John Lennon when they heard a disturbance outside: A shuffle of feet, a shatter of glass, followed by a panic-stricken flower child with a wild cascade of black hair, appearing before them. Hands, bloody hands, the girl seemed rooted to the floor, her mouth agape like a guppy in a fish bowl.

  “Call emergency!” Ulu cried out, running as fast as her heels allowed.

  Loddy grabbed the phone, but she could already hear the sirens winding down as they neared the building. She headed towards the commotion. Ulu, on her knees, blanketing the stabbed victim with her expensive jacket, blood seeping into the white linen fabric. It was the black boy who had earlier come to Loddy’s rescue, his frightened friends having already deserted him.

  The Officers interviewed Ulu and Loddy. They reviewed their notes from eyewitness accounts: all the boys stoned when one of them entered a delusional state—the black boy making a move on the attacker’s girlfriend, the flower child with the wild hair. The crazy boyfriend reached for a knife from his back pocket and pierced his friend’s heart. As the policemen were leaving, Loddy overhead the French cop saying to his
English partner: “They call it the youth movement. Wish they all keep moving away from my city.”

  Ulu now laid her head on her desk and surrendered to exhaustion. “I need to sleep or drink, whatever comes first.”

  “Like, does this happen often? I mean someone getting knifed? Scary. ”

  “First time, but we get all kinds here,” she said. “Most of the kids are just having a good time hitchhiking around the country. But we get the odd troublemaker. Usually they’re drunk or drugged out.”

  “Ulu, you know you got blood on your blouse.”

  Her head shot down to her chest, and there it was, drops of red as though someone had spattered red ink from a leaky ballpoint pen.

  “I know the jacket is a loss but I had really tried to be careful about the rest of the outfit. Cost me a fortune.” And she pulled the section of the bloodied silk blouse away from her skin.

  “Yeah, but what price to help someone?”

  “Damn! I can’t afford a new outfit!”

  “Ulu, why don’t you just go home and I’ll take care of things.”

  “Aretha did call and say she’d be here shortly.”

  “I’m not doing anything anyhow. And Dewey should be here soon. So just go. You look like long day’s journey into night. Get some sleep.”

  “Okay, you’re in charge until Aretha gets here. Everything you need to know, including emergency numbers, is in the notes on the registration table.”

  Loddy listened until she could no longer hear the clickety clack of Ulu’s heels. The hostel, bedding down for the night, fell into a quiet pattern of sleep like children at camp, tuckered out after a full day of activities. She flipped through a stack of magazines and hoped the night would be a non-event, at least until either Aretha or Dewey got there. A long-haired dude tried to pass by her desk.

  “Hey, where you going?”

  “I’m already registered.”

  “Hold on. Your name?” Loddy checked her list. “Okay, you can go in.”

  He gave her the two-finger V-sign: “Peace and Love.”

  “Yeah, right.” She picked up the latest issue of TIME magazine with John Lennon’s face on its cover.

  xxx

  Rumour had it that some Quebec separatists had paid John and Yoko a visit to discuss their cause, but John couldn’t convince them not to use violence. One columnist from a French tabloid described the entire scene as almost celestial: John and Yoko surrounded by a golden halo of light radiating from a film of yellow gel, which shaded the large window above their bed, and a simple handwritten message taped to one wall: “L’Amour et La Paix”. Lennon earned political points for using the French phrase for “Love and Peace.”

  At the end of each day, Dewey would file his report to the newspaper, and join up with Ulu and Loddy at Ben’s, sharing stories along with the cheesecake.

  “There were flowers everywhere — white miniature carnations on shelves, tables and the windowsill as though someone was sick or dying and always this huge buffet table with these pitchers of orange juice and bottles of champagne in silver buckets. Let’s say I eat well every day.”

  “Oh, Dewey, like, what kind of food?” Loddy relished a blow-by-blow description of every morsel consumed like some people hungered for gossip.

  “Everything you can imagine and, if it wasn’t there and John and Yoko wanted it, someone would get it. The worst thing though is the noise: phones ringing and reporters talking in all these foreign languages and, in another room, the Hare Krishna doing their thing with tambourines and finger cymbals, TV cameras always in their faces, and this other guy, Murray the K, a disc jockey from New York, broadcasting from somewhere down the hall. John’s entourage has the entire floor, you know, and the other thing, like clockwork, a bunch of girls, friends and daughters of local celebrities or promoters, always screaming like fools outside their door. Sometimes John and Yoko start singing to themselves just to get a break from the constant talking.”

  “I would have gone mad!” Loddy said.

  “They could always tell everyone to leave,” Ulu said, not one to be impressed by fame.

  “John and Yoko can’t say no to anyone.”

  “Like, they’re that nice, Dewey?”

  “Well, you know, love and peace. They practice what they preach.”

  “So can I go with you tomorrow?”’

  “Still waiting for your pass, hon, from the newspaper. Would be easier if I knew Donald Tarlton.”

  xxx

  On the final day of John and Yoko’s Bed-In for Peace, Loddy achieved Nirvana — her name was on the list. Dewey accompanied her to Room 1742 jam-packed with celebrities and nobodies pretending they were somebodies and Hare Krishna devotees — took up every square inch of space. The windows shut to keep out the screams from outside, an inexplicable aura pervaded the room, along with that honey liquid glow the newspapers had reported. The air was stifling, hot and oppressively stuffy, with no air conditioner in sight. Loddy felt queasy with apprehension. Still, there they were, John and Yoko.The flowers had been discarded and replaced by two stand-alone fans set at opposite corners. Newsprint caricatures of the couple, and a childish scrawl of words — Bagism, Peace, Love and Hair — plastered the room like wall paper samples. Microphones were strategically placed and a large poster board with four columns of words scribbled in Magic Marker hung on a dominant partition. John and Yoko, like shy Siamese twins, dark hair blending into one unruly nest of strands, cuddled against each other. John strummed his guitar.

  “They look like the re-incarnation of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene what with all that long hair and light shining in,” Loddy whispered. It felt as though she had just entered a church vestibule.

  Dewey nodded.

  Still not quite believing it, she braced herself against the wall near the exit. She filed this moment away in case the entire setting should dissolve. Timothy Leary was taking off his shirt while the Hare Krishna warmed up their cymbals and Tommy Smothers, at the foot of the bed, gripped his guitar, prepared for action.

  Someone shouted: “We’re ready to record now.”

  John fingered a couple of chords then encouraged everyone to sing along loud and strong and with passion.

  “Oh my!” Loddy felt herself levitate. “Am I really here?”

  Dewey, beside her, squeezed her shoulders for a reality check. Everyone clapped and banged on whatever was available — telephone books, ashtrays and tables. Some even kicked the sliding door to the next room to get a big bass beat. Dewey passed Loddy a tambourine which was circulating the room. She realized that the words on the poster board were the lyrics and this time she listened to her foot in sand and liberated her voice, let it fly:

  All we are saying is give peace a chance

  ... all we are saying is give peace a chance.

  When it was over, Loddy regained her bearings. The golden glare from the window filled the room with a blinding cataract of honeycombs. She blinked several times and, when her vision cleared, she saw The Blonde, clapping and singing, wedged between John and Yoko in the bed.

  SCENE 21:

  Summer of Possibilities

  Summer 1969

  On July 20, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Although Loddy was a woman, not a man, she too decided to take small steps, letting her hair grow to her waist and wearing long, loose, gauzy dresses in psychedelic colours, solid red and flamingo pink. This infuriated Alma.

  “Why you wear nightgown? You look like you go to bed.

  Loddy sometimes framed herself against the sun, her legs in a wide stance, and let the light filter through the garment, revealing the outline of her chunky body through the flimsy fabric. The fashion suited her though, and made her feel ethereal. She was again cocky and confident. Perhaps it was because Fury loved her unconditionally, ripples and all. Perhaps it was because of the positive recognition she received from the nude paintin
gs at the Gallery Den. Perhaps it was because of the good reviews for Evil Ed ... (and without saying a word ... left an indelible impression on the mind ...). Perhaps it was because of the business card. She hadn’t shown it to anyone, not even Fury.

  After the recording session in Lennon’s room, she had lingered in the hotel bar on the main floor, and had ordered a martini, her current favourite drink, while Dewey completed a call. A burly man, bald as an eagle, a Telly Savalas look-a-like, introduced himself. He asked her name, said he worked for a New York talent agency, and had heard her sing. “I was standing behind you in the room and you have a great voice. Very Joplin.”

  He flipped open his cardholder, pulled out a business card and said: “If you’re ever in New York, come see me.” Then he was gone.

  Loddy wondered if he too was a figment of her imagination. But this ... this card was concrete, solid. If she chose to, she could crush it, tear it into a million pieces, chew it and swallow it even. Of course, she had seen enough movies to not take the man seriously. And yet ... and yet, there it was in bold and embossed letters:

  Robert Marks

  Creative Talent Management

  She didn’t crumple, tear up or chew the card. She kept it in her wallet like a potentially winning lottery ticket to be brought out whenever she needed reassurance, whenever the world made too many demands, whenever there were obligations she couldn’t ignore, whenever she doubted her own abilities. That card represented the possibilities of something more. One day, like Armstrong, she would take a giant leap and float-walk on red carpets among the stars. One day.

  Loddy worked the summer for Ulu at the youth hostel welcoming the promise of an administrative position in the fall — if she wanted it. Aretha, with the gypsy soul, had received an invitation to a music festival and couldn’t pass up the experience. She had met some transients at the hostel, who were en route to Bethel, New York, and a small town called Woodstock. They convinced her to join their party.