The Day John Lennon Died

It was a lifetime ago, or so it seems. I recently read this story in Brooklyn, and I offer it to you now, as a remembrance of what happened that fateful night at The Dakota, here in NYC. Real New Yorkers know, and will never forget. This story is included in my newest collection, “A Shoebox Full of Money” — available via www.martykleinman.com.

MARK LIPSHUTZ, DOMINANT HANDBALLSTAR, DIES

By the time he was on his deathbed,Mark Lipshutz was a real pain in the ass.

“I hate Navy guys,” he wheezed thatmild, shirtsleeves, December night.   I remember it like yesterday, the sixty-fourdegree high, freaky for a New York December, the year I turned twenty-nine. 

I came to Mr. L’s room with hisdinner.  It was late, and I was about tofinish my shift.  A small black lighter wasnext to a pack of Jacks, right there on his tray.  I just shook my head. 

“Man, I give up with you,” Isaid. 

He smiled, and then coughed until hewas red in the face.  It sounded loose, phlegmy,like pieces of lung got loose and rattled around his chest.  He squinted his eyes in pain, but you couldn’tget him to stop for no money in the world. The smoking, or the bitching. 

And about the Navy?  He knew damn well I was on the McKinley.  Right after New Year’s? In sixty-nine?  We made way for the Philippines.  Now, the McKinley being a flagship meant wecarried a rear admiral.  But it was slow.  Took us eight days to get to Pearl.  And a lifetime to get to Da Nang, where rightaway we saw, off to starboard, the bloated body of one of our guys, a pilot,just floating there.  I was eighteen.  This shit was real.

But back to Mr. L.  That night, I moved his cigarettes and puthis dinner down on the tray, and right away he gives me the stink eye.

“Get that shit outta here,” hegrumbled.

“Mr. L,” I said, “that’s a perfectlygood veggie burrito. You need to keep your strength up if you want to get backonto the courts come this spring.” 

Word around the hospital? Mr. L hadbeen the greatest handball player in history. Bear in mind, now, that back in high school, up in the Bronx back in theday, me and my friends didn’t play handball. I was all about hoops, and baseball, first base.  I didn’t know nothing about the handballworld.

What I do know, though, is that towin in this life, you got to have an edge. Me? I could run and I could jump. Made our third baseman look good, leaping high for his throws.  And hoops? I played solid D and just smacked those shots away.

Now, with Mr. L?  I am told that back in the day, he was a quicklittle guy, maybe five-six, hundred and forty or so, and I believe it.  Hairy, though.  Even at the end.  Chest, back, legs, everywhere youlooked.  Thick curly hair.  His ears looked like those crazy tufts ofleaves and whatnot you see popping out of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.  

But he was built.  I give him that.  Good muscle tone, even for an older guy.  Had those old school, black high-top Kedshe’d wear to rehab, along with these baggy grey sweatpants and a bluesweatshirt, turned inside-out, sleeves cut off.  

However, the main thing? Hisedge?  He was ambidextrous, see, as goodwith his left hand as his right.  And hewas sneaky with it, too.  He told meonce, while we were drinking Hennessy in plastic water cups, how during a matchhe’d play with his opponent’s head. First, he made it look like a lucky shot with his left hand, let the guyget some easy points, get on a roll. Then he’d drop the hammer.  Killersfrom the left, killers from the right, cutters, spinners, jumpers, whips.

“I let ‘em get a few points,” hesaid.  “Then I just get rid of ‘em.”

That last month was rough.  Mr. L was in a lot of pain.  It spread all over. His doctors tried to do rightby him, keep him comfortable, but it was everywhere.  Finally, they upped the dosage on his painmeds to the point where he was in and out. One time, just before, you know, I came by to check on him.  It was late, I remember that much.  Right away, I saw that he was out.  But as soon as I tiptoed in, his droopy old eyescreaked open.  I never saw him look thatway.  I mean, the dude looked twenty yearsolder.  His whole face just sagged andhis eyes…it was like the light behind his eyes went from a hundred- to fortywatts.

“Gimme that lighter,” he said.

“Why don’t you stop?” I asked.

Nothing.  No response.

And then, he looked at me, with asadness in his face I’d never seen before, but I’ve seen it in a dog, like whenthey’re done, and they kinda know it? And one day they just skulk off into the woods, to die alone, in peace?

At the time, I’d been there atRoosevelt Hospital a couple of years and you hear the doctors talk.  The pulmonary guys, the orthopedists, thecardiologists, you get a sense of things, medical-wise, you know?  And I would hear the psychiatrists too.  And what the shrinks would say is, look atthe patient – not where the patient is pointing. 

And here was a guy, man, who came upfrom nothing, I mean nothing, on the Brooklyn streets of Williamsburg duringthe Depression. He turned to handball like I took to hoops, because it was thecheapest sport to play.  All you neededwas a ball.  Mr. L, he took his dad’s oldwinter gloves out of the closet, and turned them inside-out, those were hishandball gloves, early on.  He went toEastern District High, with guys like Red Auerbach, practiced hard, eventuallywon a national championship, went into the service, Marines, survived World WarTwo, barnstormed the country giving handball exhibitions and really made thesport popular during the fifties.  In hisworld, he was a rock star.

And then, life happened.  The bottle, two divorces, some run ins withthe law, a gambling dispute with the wrong kind of guy.  Eventually, he moved to Brighton Beach, wherehe paid the rent hustling handball by the ocean, on the cracked courts of AsserLevy Park.

And now, on that particular night,way back in nineteen eighty, there was that look in his eyes.  Like I said, it was late when I came in withhis dinner tray and he started in on the Navy again.

“C’mon, Mr. L.  The game’s almost over,” I said, fluffing uphis pillows.  Monday Night Football washis thing. 

“The game?”

“Dolphins Patriots?”

He snorted.  “They both stink on ice.  Take the Patriots with the points.”

Down the hall, the nurses had theoldies station on, because I could hear that twangy Beatles song, “All MyLoving.”

“God, I hate the fucken Beatles,” hesaid.  He reached for the clicker, turnedon the game, and upped the volume. Howard Cosell’s nasal drone drowned the song out.  Mr. L was right.  The game was a stinker.  This was way before, you know, the Patriotsgot on their roll.  He turned to me.

“Did I ever tell you I played RussianRoulette?” he asked, eyes on the game. It was late in the fourth quarter.

“Uh, no?”  I raised my eyebrows.  This was a new one.

“Well, I did,” he said.  “Twice. In the service.  I retired,undefeated.”

“Anything else you want to tellme?”  I said, as Russ Francis caught athirty-eight yard pass from Cavanaugh. Touchdown. The Patriots were up,thirteen to six.

The score seemed to pick Mr. L up,because, out of nowhere, he started to tell me another story about his lifeback in the day. 

“I tell you about the time I gotarrested up in Monticello?”

I shook my head, “no.”

“It was the year I drove a Dugan’sBakery truck upstate. Same year that song came out.” He scratched hishead.  “I remember seein’ those mopesplay it on Ed Sullivan.” 

There was a commotion down the hall,just then, a lot of screaming, crying. Doctors were being paged to come to the ER.  There was a gunshot victim.  Strange, I remember, because Monday nightswere usually quiet.

“They found me parked behind Davco,the sporting goods store there on Main Street,” Mr. L said.  “I was asleep, dead drunk, behind the wheelof the truck.”  

The Dolphins tied it up.  But the Patriots charged right back and gotinto field goal range, as time wound down in regulation.

“But I think what pissed them offmost was that I peeled the tops offa all the chocolate cupcakes.”

“What did you do with them?”

He smiled a crooked smile. “I fuckenate them.  Whaddaya think I did withthem?”

The seconds ticked off the game clock.  The Patriots’ John Smith took his practicekicks and trotted onto the field along with the rest of the field goal unit.

“Close the fucken door already,” Mr.L said.  “All that shrieking and cryingout in the hallway is driving me nuts.”

As I closed the door, Cosell’s voicesuddenly got very low.  “Remember, thisis just a football game,” Cosell said.

“Oh what the fuck?” Mr. L shouted atthe television.  “Just call the fuckengame, will ya?”

            ButCosell continued.  “An unspeakabletragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside hisapartment building on the West Side of New York City…the most famous perhaps ofall the Beatles…shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead onarrival…”

            Ilooked at Mr. L, and he looked back at me, like he wanted me to explain.

            “Hardto go back to the game after that newsflash,” Cosell said.

            “Indeedit is,” Frank Gifford said.

            Mr.L, one-time handball champion, a guy who made it out of the Brooklyn streets,survived war, survived life, got uncommonly quiet.

            “Somefucken world we live in,” he said, as a single tear rolled down his cheek.  “Some fucken world.”

            Andjust like that, Mr. L’s eyes closed, never to open again.  Smith’s kick was blocked.  Then the clock ran out and it was overtime atthe Orange Bowl.