Michael Martone - Four for a Quarter - Fictions

December, George is sent back to England, underage. McCartney and Pete attempt arson at the Bambi Kino, are also deported. John takes a train, ferries home. Stuart stays in Hamburg. He has a cold. He meets Astrid, and eight months later he leaves The Beatles. He wants to paint. He wants something else.

McCartney borrowed Stuart's bass until he could earn enough to buy a smaller left-handed Höfner of his own. I can hear Stuart ask McCartney not to change the strings around. And I can see McCartney play it upside down.

Before all this, before the time in Hamburg, Stuart joined John, McCartney, and George. They were The Silver Beetles then. In the Renshaw Hall Bar, Stuart helped John change the name. They liked Buddy Holly. They liked his band, The Crickets, and came up with The Beatals. John later changed the name to The Beatles. It sounded French, he thought, and he got to Beatles through “Le Beat“ and “Beat-less.“

Later, in Germany, Stuart collapsed in an art class in Hamburg. His condition grew worse. April. Stuart died before the ambulance reached the hospital. Three days later Astrid told The Beatles at the Hamburg airport. His brain exploded. His father did not know for three weeks. He was sailing to South America. A priest told him when he docked in Buenos Aires.

There Stuart is on the Lonely Hearts Club album cover. There, among the dead, next to the flat picture of Aubrey Beardsley. “He's the artist around here,“ John said of Stuart.

sudden ice storm storms

brick hearth the hearth cricket sings

in spite of this this

BRIAN EPSTEIN

clinging to the bell he dozes so peacefully this new butterfly

— Buson

Throughout his life Brian was kind. When John married Cynthia, Brian was the best man and afterwards bought their lunch. During Cynthia's pregnancy, Brian arranged for a private room in a hospital and offered them use of his flat. They needed somewhere to live. He was Julian's godfather.

Brian loved men, though no one knew until years after his death. It had been an open secret among his friends. In the army, he had a tailor make an officer's uniform he wore when cruising the bars of London. He was arrested for impersonating an officer at the Army and Navy Club on Piccadilly. He was never charged, agreeing to see an army psychiatrist instead. They discharged him ten months later. The medical grounds were “emotionally and mentally unfit.“

Brian studied acting. He was arrested for “persistent importuning.“ He was blackmailed. Throughout the later court case against the blackmailer, Brian was “Mr. X.“ Anonymity was allowed then. John often made jokes about it to friends and to Brian. No one outside said a word.

The night Dylan turned them on to pot in New York, McCartney remembers Brian staring into a mirror, pointing at himself saying “Jew! Jew! Jew!“ over and over. McCartney thinks of this as hilarious and finds it “very liberating.“

John and Brian went on a four-day holiday together to Barcelona. The Spanish holiday was made into a movie, The Hours and Times . There were other books and interviews.

John wrote “You've Got to Hide Your Love Away.“

Epstein was overlooked when John, McCartney, George, and Ringo received the MBE. George said that the MBE stood for “Mister Brian Epstein.“

Brian's autobiography is A Cellarful of Noise .

McCartney said, “If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian.“

John said that Brian's death was the beginning of the end.

August. Brian dies. A hot summer. An overdose. The Beatles, in India, meet with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Jimi Hendrix cancels his concert at the Saville Theatre the same day. Out of respect, he says.

Brian had for years taken pills to sleep. Sleep caught up to sleep. Mr. X.

In a meeting at the music store, Brian had proposed to the boys the idea of managing them. John, George, and Pete arrived late for the meeting — they had been drinking. McCartney was not with them. They told Brian he was taking a bath. He was taking a bath. John invited a friend to the meeting so the friend could later give his opinion of Brian. John introduced him to Brian saying, “This is me dad.“

spring grass going green

there where the scarab buried

last year's pill of dung

BILLY PRESTON

Even with cicada — Some can sing Some can't

— Issa

Billy's kidney deteriorated in his later years, his hypertension. In 2002, a kidney transplanted. Four years later, he died in June, in the desert, in the West. He died of complications and other complications.

A year before he died, he had entered a rehabilitation in Malibu. Drugs. Respiratory failure there left him comatose. For the year he slept, sleeping into sleep.

In 1962, as part of Little Richard's touring band, Billy met the Beatles when Brian promoted a Liverpool show. They'd hook up again later.

The band always already about to break up was recording “Let It Be.“ George, closest to Billy, had quit the studio, had gone to see Ray Charles in concert in London. There, Billy was playing organ. George brought him back to Abbey Road, a kind of gift, a kind of glue.

He joined the band on the roof, the final public appearance. “Get Back“ was credited this way: “The Beatles with Billy Preston.“ His electric piano is prominent throughout the song. He plays an extended solo.

In the movie, years later, he plays Sgt. Pepper in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band .

As a boy of twelve, he appeared in St. Louis Blues , played W. C. Handy as a young man. He was a regular on Shindig! , a member of the show's house band.