Another Spaniard in the Works Read Free Page B

she told me. “I had to keep asking him to please repeat los numeros —I don’t think he understood my English very well.”
    I took a deep breath, looking them over and hoping for the best. I tried not to think about the time when a girl I had once fallen madly in love with in California had tried to reach me out of the blue: The number that my mother had written down hadn’t even been close: I wondered if it would be so with Mr. Lennon, if indeed it was he who had called.
    *  *  *
    Now, if you’ve guessed that none of the numbers worked out, then you’ve got that right. Every variation I tried resulted in the same disconnected messages, or with someone chafing when, calling from the office, I asked if I might speak with John Lennon. More than a few affable New Yorkers told me, “What are you, nuts?” Though it was frustrating, to say the least, Max and me kept on hoping that perhaps Mr. Lennon, if it was him, might call again.
    *  *  *
    Still, despite that missed opportunity, it was enough to get my imagination going, for not a day went by when I didn’t think about what might have happened. In the midst of filing annual reports, sorting receipts, and typing out letters for my boss in the office, I’d envision a visit to Lennon’s apartment to discuss his plans to help me and Max record a hit tune; our lunches (in a light-filled parlor overlooking Central Park), consisting of cucumber sandwiches, while we sipped English tea. I fantasized about the spectacular thrill of bringing him up to Tiemann Place and into Cannon’s Bar: all the drunks and pretty girls, soaking up the booze, startled and envious, as I walked in with Mr. Lennon to have a couple of beers, just like regular guys. Afterward, I’d bring him up to the apartment to meet my folks. My mother would make herself busy in the kitchen, cooking him a special meal, while my father—who always smelled vaguely of plumber’s gum—in the living room on a reclining chair, a copy of the Daily News or El Diario on his lap, would beam after recognizing that famous face. I would say, “Pop, this is my friendJohn Lennon.” And my father, looking him up and down, his brow creasing with judgment, would extend his hand and, smiling, offer Mr. Lennon a drink.
    Of course, as a primo musician, John Lennon would be curious about all the old Cuban recordings packed thick into a bookcase near our 1960s-vintage RCA console, and he might compliment my mother about her collection of Spanish fans, spread out over the bright red plastic-covered couch on the living-room wall, like a coterie of butterflies, their wings printed with “Greetings from Seville!” “Viva Madrid!” and “Havana 1952.” He would also notice some of the small oil paintings that my father, an amateur artist, had made—not only of his memories of Cuba, but of rooftop scenes of copper sunsets, of West Harlem in all its glory. After our meal, Mr. Lennon would ask to borrow my old Stella guitar and play some tunes—not of his own composition, but the ones made famous by Elvis Presley. Passersby on the street below, from junkies to nervous old ladies, would stop to listen, regarding our windows on the fourth floor with wonderment and admiration.
    Later, I’d take Mr. Lennon into my room, the one I had moved back into after a rough breakup, at the far end of the hall; there I’d show him some of the books I had accumulated over the years: much science fiction about journeys to other worlds, books on drawing technique, and, best of all, those about classical antiquity and archaeology, subjects that had always fascinated me.
    “And that one?” John Lennon would ask.
    “It’s about Heinrich Schliemann.”
    “The fellow who found Troy?”
     “Yes, sir. And I have books about Carter, Layard, and Woolley.”
    “Ah, archaeology,” he’d say. “Now that’s something interestin’.”
    And, having an inkling of Lennon’s bawdier tastes, I’d show him the small collection of pornographic