Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion (25 page)

(Note: Brian Epstein, Neil Aspinall, and three-fourths of the Beatles refused to discuss Shea either on or off the record. Lennon talked. Sort of.)

JOHN LENNON:
The one thing I’ll say about Shea is, you can blame it on my zombie nature.

JESSICA BRANDICE:
It was one of the first rock concerts held at a major outdoor stadium, and the fact that a zombie band was performing had the city government on edge. As there was no precedent, putting together a security plan for Shea Stadium—not to mention New York City as a whole—was complete guesswork. Neither New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., nor his staff had a clue how to deal with … well, the fact of the matter is, they didn’t know
what
they’d have to deal with. It could have turned out to be a completely peaceful crowd. It could have turned out to be hundreds of thousands of screaming Beatlemaniacs and disturbed zombie fanatics ready and eager to trash Queens. It could have turned out to be something in between those two extremes. They had no clue.

My editor didn’t assign me to cover the concert; the only reason I was there was because my boyfriend, Dave Errol, was the
Times
rock writer, and I was his plus one. I certainly wouldn’t have attended of my own accord. I liked the Beatles as much as the next girl, but there’s no way I would’ve gone to Shea, only to be surrounded by screaming teenage girls.

Now, the only time I’d seen the Beatles perform previously was their second appearance on
The Ed Sullivan Show,
the one where they blew up those poor cameramen. They’d looked perfectly poised on the television screen, right up to the moment when the screen went black. But that night at Shea, as they walked to the stage from the third-base dugout, I thought they looked twitchy.

They’d stuck me and Dave in the first-base dugout, which was about ten feet away from stage left. The dais was raised, and the dugout was below ground level, so the only Beatle we were able to see clearly was the Beatle who always stood stage left, John Lennon. I recently read an interview where Paul said that John “went crazy” during the concert, but it seemed to me he was acting a little crazy before they even played a note.

Dave said that the band was
too
energetic, and pointed out that Paul was counting off the songs too quickly, and they were racing through their two-and-a-half-minute tunes in about a minute forty-five. He also noted that it was weird they had an electric keyboard onstage for John, because as far as he knew, Lennon was, at best, an amateur pianist.

They had their amplifiers turned all the way up, and since we were so close to the stage, by the third number, our ears were ringing. So I took a tissue from my purse, ripped off two little pieces, wadded them up, and voila, makeshift earplugs. I did the same for Dave, and it was a damn good thing we did.

Seemingly only a few minutes later, the band went into the last
song of their set, “I’m Down.” Lennon started playing the keyboard with his elbow … actually, he wasn’t
playing
it but, rather,
bashing
it, sliding back and forth, and back and forth, creating a weird, dissonant mess of noise. When the song ended, Lennon hit the keyboard with his forehead, and then the stadium went silent. The screaming stopped. Fifty-five-thousand-plus people shut down, just like that.

And then Lennon grabbed a microphone, jumped on top of the keyboard, and whispered one word: “Poppermost.”

And then the place went up for grabs.

In virtual unison, everybody in the crowd ripped their seats from the concrete and threw them onto the field. A good number of the hard, green wooden chairs hit the Beatles, but they seemed unaffected; for that matter, Harrison even threw a bunch of them back.

And then, the adults in the crowd froze in place, and the teenagers stormed the field. Watching the police detail try to stem the tide of boys and girls was laughable. The cops were standing a good ten feet apart, and the teens—who were all literally foaming at the mouth—plowed over, around, and through New York’s Finest. To their credit, the police did their best, but they had no chance.

After the teens tore up and ate every blade of grass in Shea Stadium, the entire crowd—they were a mob at this point, really—stampeded to the exits; they moved quickly and violently, but almost politely, as if to make certain that none of their allies were injured. Aside from all the teens vomiting up half-digested grass, it looked to me like they were heading off to the train station.

At that point, the Shea Stadium concert went from being a music story to a crime story, so I told Dave to haul ass back to his apartment, because I had to follow this through to the end, and I couldn’t
have him tagging along. He berated me for risking my life for a newspaper that paid me fifteen thou a year, and I told him to fuck off, this was a big deal, and money wasn’t the issue. Then he asked me how the hell I expected either of us to get into Manhattan when the subways were going to be filled with hypnotized Beatlemaniacs who might be out for blood. I told him he had a point, but I had to follow the story. If he thought he could keep up with me, great; if not, I was going to have to go without him.

I’d been a sprinter at Columbia and was a considerably faster runner than Dave was, so I gave him a kiss, then zipped out of the stadium to the subway station. The next time I saw Dave, he was in the postsurgical recovery room at the Queens Medical Center. He was back to work eight weeks later, with a sixteen-inch zigzag scar running from his chest to his pelvis.

The mob took over the subway and that weird aura of politeness went out the window. From across the street, I could see they weren’t just jumping the turnstiles—they were ripping them clean off and climbing over one another as if they were tigers on the hunt: grabbing, clawing, biting, spitting, roaring, not caring what or who they were hurting. There was no way I was getting on that train, so I hopped a cab.

My gut told me they’d ride from Shea to Grand Central Station, and I was right. According to reports, one-third of the crowd exited at Grand Central, while the other two-thirds transferred to other lines. Within an hour, the fifty-five thousand people who John Lennon had hypnotized were strategically dispersed throughout the city. I don’t know if Lennon planned it that way, or if these poor people were acting on instinct.

If your readers want specifics on the riots—for instance, the Times Square bonfire, the complete destruction of the Bronx sewer system, or those brutal lynchings in Prospect Park—that’s all in my
book. What’s
not
in my book is my own personal journey, and the only reason I’m able to discuss it with you now is because I’ve gone through a shitload of therapy.

I figured that Midtown was as good a place as any to get a good view of the action and stay out of danger, so I had the cabbie drop me at a hotel—I forget which one—on the corner of 43rd and Park, and I settled myself in the lobby, right by the picture window facing Park. The mob was moving methodically down the sidewalk, heading south, literally stomping over anybody who got in their way. Concertgoers were grabbing non-concertgoers and throwing them across the street, and throwing them
hard.
These people were crashing into the sides of buildings at thirty miles per hour. Eventually there were piles of shattered bodies and puddles of thick blood littering the Park Avenue sidewalks.

Once the mob was gone, I ran west, over to Eighth Avenue, figuring I could flag a cab and beat the crowd down to Greenwich Village. Nope. No way. By then, word had gotten around about the thousands of spaced-out freaks marching throughout the city, mindlessly attacking strangers, and the hacks weren’t stopping to pick up anybody. So I opened my purse, fished out my wallet, a notepad, and a pen, threw the purse in the nearest garbage can, got on my high horse, and ran downtown. I made the two miles in just over fourteen minutes.

The mob was dispersed throughout the downtown area, but they seemed to be congregating in the West Village. I made my way over to this tiny park by Sixth Avenue and Bleecker and climbed up into a small tree. It was the perfect place to be: I had a clear view of the action, and I rightly guessed that the maniacs wouldn’t be looking in trees for people to attack. There were plenty of folks on the street to torment.

The press referred to what I witnessed as the Greenwich Village
Massacre, but to me,
massacre
implies it was a single act that happened quickly, which wasn’t at all the case. The downtown killings were random yet meticulous. I saw more people thrown into buildings. I saw a woman pluck off another woman’s limbs, one right after the other. I saw a person of indeterminate gender rip a young man’s heart from his chest. I saw two teenage girls pick up a Ford Galaxie and throw the fucking thing toward Houston Street; when the car landed, it exploded and started a fire that burned for almost forty-eight hours.

I don’t know if their bloodlust was sated or if the spell wore off or what, but just after midnight, the mob dispersed and, save for the injured, the dying, and the dead, the streets were empty. As the ambulances rolled to the scene, I found a pay phone and made a collect call to the
Times
office. I feel sorry for whoever answered my call, because after I identified myself, I screamed nonsense for a good minute or two before I could even get a proper sentence out. Once I found my voice, I asked him if he could find out where the Beatles were staying. No, I didn’t
ask
him—I
told
him. He put me on hold; then, five minutes later, he said two words: “Plaza Hotel.” There still wasn’t a cab to be found, and I wasn’t comfortable getting onto a subway train just yet, so I walked up to the hotel, which was located on Fifth Avenue and Central Park South. Sixty-some-odd minutes and three miles later, I was standing in front of the Plaza.

There was a gaggle of print and TV reporters, as well as about fifty uniformed police officers, camped out on the street. The cops had cordoned off the entrance, and I’d prefer not to discuss how I made my way inside or how I learned John Lennon’s room number.

The Beatles weren’t in the penthouse, or even particularly high
up; their rooms were on the sixth floor, as if they were any other guests. Lennon was in 606. I knocked on the door, and right away he called out, “Whoooo’s therrrrrre?” He sounded practically giddy.

I said, “I’m a reporter from
The New York Times.
I can put my ID card up by the peephole if you’d like.”

After he confirmed that I was who I said I was, he asked me, “Why should I let you in?”

I said in my sexiest voice, “I want to ask you some questions, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

He laughed, then said, “Love, if I wanted you to be my sex slave, you’d already
be
my sex slave.” Then he opened the door and said, “I’ll answer two questions. How does that sound?”

I said, “Okay. Why? Why did you do it?”

He said, “Couldn’t help it. Zombie nature. Next question.”

I said, “What exactly is ‘zombie nature’?”

Lennon said, “You want to know about zombie nature?” He walked toward me, and the next thing I remember, I was at home, in my bed, showered, wearing my favorite nightie, undead as a doornail.

The final Shea Stadium concert toll: 1,051 dead, 3,198 injured, approximately two million dollars in property damage, and one
New York Times
reporter turned into a zombie.

GEORGE HARRISON:
After the Shea business, the shows became, oh, let’s call them
tense
. Not tense from our end, mind you. We knew there wouldn’t be a repeat “zombie nature” performance from Mr. Lennon because Brian burnt that damn keyboard into ashes, and John promised to keep that bloody Poppermost shite under wraps when we were out in public. No, the tenseness came from the crowds, and I can’t say I blame them. If the coleader of my favorite
band turned fifty thousand people into killing machines with a G-minor chord and a single nonsense word, I’d suppose I’d feel a bit dodgy about going to their concert myself.

Much of the remainder of the tour was a blur for me—it was Mania, Mania, and more Mania—but something nice happened in California. It wasn’t as nice as it could’ve been, but it was nice enough. Okay, it wasn’t nice at all. Let’s just call it memorable.