The Story of Lennie Johns

ONE DAY AT A TIME is a work of fiction, based on a cartoonish version of a real celebrity. Which means, artistic license was used to create the people, places, and things in this story.

Many will say it's about musician and famous member of The Beatles, John Lennon, and that's hard to dispute. I took inspiration from his life and attributes, but that's as far as it went because when he was killed on December 8, 1980 all ability to wonder about his life ended: what it would be like had the event never happened, and what would he be like as well. My character Lennie Johns required a fictional status because he needed room to grow outside of all that; he needed room to develop his own existence, as well the story needed the same ability to expand. As a writer, that would not have been possible if I'd stuck to any ideas about a real person called John Lennon or anyone else you have in mind. The fact is, there's a lot of Ozzy Osbourne in Lennie Johns and for those who are still mourning his passing, perhaps they'll find comfort in the fact that he, like John, can live in the world of Lennie.  

Let me tell you about Lennie. The time is October 1990, he has woken from a coma after a violent attack, and he is originally from Manchester though he now lies in a hospital in Staten Island. It’s a financial thing. Being in a coma costs money. He used to have a lot of it, but you know how things are. How things are . . . his artist wife Kiko emigrated to Europe to hang out with Andy Warhol with rich financiers and she's a big star. It’d be admirable, really, if it wasn’t so shocking. Lennie thought she loved him but clearly he was wrong about a lot of things. At least he has his two nurses, Candy and Madge, to keep him company, although with his salty words and acerbic ways he fears they too could leave in a revolutionary style of dissention. The thing is, he can’t walk and that means he needs them. When Lennie found out he couldn't walk he felt very alone and . . . what did Ratso say in Midnight Cowboy? Scared. 

Lennie is scared. He can’t walk, he can’t pee, he can’t get out of bed; it’s ten years later and the world has changed. There’s a war in the Gulf and no one seems to remember any of the goddamned wonderful shit he said about Peace and it’s frustrating and . . . he’s scared.  

So when one of his toes moves, then the other, then his entire leg . . . Lennie declares himself a miracle (but not bigger than Jesus), and he and Nurse Madge hit the road for the panhandle. Fun and chaos ensue. Along the way he meets up with his ole bandmates Saul, Dingo, and Jorges and together they write a new hit song called, “Yeah, I Love You.”  

“Are The Bootles getting back together?” That’s the age-old question. Nothing about how his legs work or world peace. Nothing about what he wants now or how much he's changed. He's changed? Yes, but not like the world outside his window. Music's done a 180, people are cut-throat, clothes are different, society is different and it's all a bit too much to accept. His own lawyer Ethan said it best, "You can't get a blow without, well, blow."

If he wasn't so scared, he'd be inspired.

Lennie's trying not to look too far ahead. You can’t do that. You always must be an optimist, even if you're opposed to it. You have to remember to keep a clean pair of underwear, never look back, and continue to take life ONE DAY AT A TIME. And that's exactly what Lennie intends to do. I hope you'll enjoy the journey of Lennie Johns and all the people he meets along that way. 

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I was a Girl Scout Dropout

Photo by John Thomas on Unsplash

In my younger days, elementary school to be exact, I belonged to our local Girl Scout group, or to be more exact, the Brownies. The distinction was what you would think: Girl Scouts wore a lovely army green frock and Brownies a brown frock. Meetings were at someone's mom's house in the middle of town, all ugly puke carpet and fake wood paneling on the walls, and each us piled into their bungalow then lined up near the kitchen for an inventory before each meeting. Button, badge, frock? If you had these, you were IN. You were cool. If you didn't, you were a loser. Well, I was loser every week and felt every molecule of being so. Fresh from my parent's divorce and very aware of the financial lack we lived in amid the wake of such an event, I recall never having a button, badge or even a frock. I just went because Mother told me to. It's likely my sister had the goods because she was older and savvier. Plus, she had glossy blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Nevertheless, every Monday after school I hiked down the brick-lined sidewalks of town toward the meeting, dreading every step, then stood in line for the abject deja vu of burning humiliation. I didn't even have the two quarters that each girl slid into the dues box--the sound of silver jangling had the appeal of a chain being readied. I walked by and kept my nose into my chest. The shame. It was real. 

The meetings were fun, and I loved going on the field trips they arranged--in particular one at the local forest where we traipsed down wild trails of gooseberries and stopped to sniff the bitter smell of hot tangerine-colored ditch lilies. The craft projects were nice as well--making seat pads out of ripped up newspapers. I've never replicated that skill in life, but for that one moment it seemed a great idea. A paper seat! Wow! Imagine, you get up after a balmy night at the local baseball game and there's a Dr. Pepper ad imprinted on your Irish white legs in full color ink . . .

But the real kicker was Daddy Daughter Date Night--an event co-sponsored by our school. My choir teacher even had us learn a slew of songs about dads and such. Here I was, learning to sing MY OLD MAN, and inside I'm dreading the idea of my father coming back from the city in his new, hornet-yellow race car, and worse, leading me in some sort of waltz before everyone and their perfect, normal, Ward Cleaver father. Mine had stopped coming around after landing a night in jail for failing to pay child support. The last thing I knew, he'd gotten remarried and had a baby boy. Sometimes I wrote him long letters of longing and regret, only to tear them up afterwards. 

Perhaps that is the reason I 'defected' from the Girl Scouts. 

It was a lovely, late spring day when a warm sun fell through the developing leaves overhead, I had just stopped by to see Mother at the library she ran in town, and with every step my resolve to attend that night's meeting left me like the last train before Midnight. I didn't want to go. All that horrid badge and frock ordeal, being made to feel poor and insolent. Having to learn useless crafts and all the while with a big, fake smile, smile, smile. I couldn't take it anymore! My sneakered feet approached the bungalow with wilting daffodils outside and didn't stop. I just kept going until my own house was before me--the one with the green shutters Mother had painted in some frantic delirium after the divorce. I might have stopped by the local graveyard first for a quick respite, the symbolism not lost. What was I really rejecting? What had I just done? Was it the judgement, the crafts, the insinuations? Laying there on a warm gravestone, I looked up at the sliding, evaporating clouds and wondered if I was a forever defector: a human who couldn't belong and who would always be alone?

The next week my old Brownie sect became 'official' Girl Scouts and started hawking cookies door-to-door. Worse, they'd all gotten shiny, new badges to iron on their 'frocks.' But by that time, I'd decided that quitting was the best thing I'd ever done. It felt right. It felt good. I knew me better than anyone, and the whole idea of selling cookies was ridiculous. My own mother wouldn't buy a box. So, this girl had dodged the proverbial Girl Scout bullet, had defected, had dropped out. And to be honest, I couldn't care less.