John Lennon’s assassination: a story of phoniness and imposture

As I was reading The Catcher in the Rye for a second time, it suddenly dawned on me that that was the book Mark David Chapman had on him the night he killed John Lennon. Immediately I recalled reading somewhere that after the incident, the arresting police officers were putting him in the patrol car and, at the question of whether some objects lying on the ground were his, he replied: “Yes. The red book is mine too.” 

     I put my red book down, because it all felt as part of a weird dream. “I didn’t hate him, but I thought he was a phony,” was another statement Chapman reportedly made in the aftermath of his heinous misdeed.  I think that, in any case, the one who was a phony was Chapman himself; along with the men who hired him to do the job, who must have been also the ones that put the book in his hands.

     For those of you who don’t know —and you’d be surprised, there are people who don’t— John Lennon was the most famous member in the most famous rock ‘n’ roll band of all times: The Beatles.  Just like the book itself, Lennon and the Beatles became a usual reference in pop culture; not only for their extraordinary music, but also because their story is one about dreams come true through talent, success, fame, and fortune. 

     But, since this piece is not about music; what’s all that have to do with the price of tea in China? In The Catcher in the Rye —whose plot evolves around the main character’s vicissitudes in his transition from childhood-adolescence to adulthood, and his total disappointment at adult society for its perceived falsity— the main character, Holden Caulfield, uses the word phony so freely that it almost has become an obligated reference when it comes to discussing phoniness and fake people. John Lennon was also very outspoken when it came to pointing out hypocrisy and falsehood. The people who patsied Mark David Chapman out for the job possibly had the book in mind, because they had established similarities in the personalities of Holden Caulfield, John Lennon, and Chapman himself. 

     Chapman said that Lennon was a phony probably because there were instances in his life that evidenced his character flaws, since his early days with The Beatles; like the time when they decided to fire Pete Best, the original drummer. Lennon was famous for being a straightforward person, but he wouldn’t be man enough to do it himself, so he got their manager Brian Epstein to do the dirty work. Or perhaps Chapman was alluding to the song “I’m a Loser,” where the musician sings “I am not what I appear to be.” Or maybe he was talking about the time when John left his first wife, Cynthia, for Yoko and he would not even apologize nor he had the character enough to deal with it in a mature and humane way.

     Who knows. There where so many times when Mr. Lennon indeed came across as a flake. But then again, if we get down to it, everybody has their own stories to share about a time or two when they lost their character. Which leads me to think that we live in a world where phony is always at the door, waiting for us to lose face to take over.

     I could try to defend Lennon and swear that he was anything but a phony, but I am not going to do that, because this is not about making apologies for anyone. Another paradox in Lennon’s life was that he was a man committed to love through his art and his social activism; but he would not have much for his first son Julian, even when the ex-Beatle himself complained over and over, throughout his life, about the abandonment he’d been victim of by his parents.

     And it’s true that all those inconsistencies in his character may get someone like John Lennon to be perceived as a phony. But not by somebody who claims to be his fan and barely knows anything about him. A man who, by the same token, also goes out of his way to swear to the cops that apprehended him that he acted alone, when he was not even able to get himself together enough to make sense of what was going on around him at the time of his arrest. Later on, he would declare that a voice was telling him to do it, similar to what happens in the Manchurian Candidate.

     That brings me to the reasoning as to why I think that Chapman is a phony and even an impostor. And the main reason is that I find it very hard for a “deranged fan,” as he’s been called, to accomplish a task of such magnitude. Especially if we take into consideration the accuracy and relative ease with which he did it; everything went so perfect, and with no unnecessary racket, that appeared to be choreographed. This opens the possibility for the involvement of a third, and even a fourth, party. Like the doorman of the Dakota building, at whose entrance Lennon was murdered; or the limousine chauffeur who had just dropped him off in the open. Because, although I am no conspiracy theorist, I think it was too much of a clean shot to actually concede it to a nut like Mark David Chapman. How come a stray bullet didn’t reach Yoko or the doorman, out of the five that Chapman fired? And both of them happened to be standing there too.

     As he was being put put with his hands up against the wall, Chapman exclaimed: “I acted alone! Don’t hurt me!” But when the cops asked him whom had he shot, or if he had shot John Lennon, he wouldn’t have a response for neither one of the questions. And I understand that some people may feel cocky enough to brag about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die; but the thought of doing time in Folsom Prison might make them want to take that statement back. Another thing, though; on his last day of work, Chapman signed out as “John Lennon” —which he immediately crossed out— when, according to some accounts from people who knew him as a youngster, he was no Beatles or John Lennon fan, for that matter.   

     As for The Catcher in the Rye, it also carries its own history of disappointment and supplantation, since the book did not live up to the expectations of many a reader. Some critics swore that Holden Caulfield was modeled after Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It can also be especially off-putting if, right before reading Catcher, you’ve read books like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road or Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun —both with the same youthful candor and an exuberant display of Americana— since, according to some readers, the story is uneventful and even predictable.

     Holden, like Lennon, was no man of action in the pragmatic sense. And they both could take the most minimal human interaction to heart. So, deep down, they felt they were letting themselves down because they couldn’t live up to their humanistic ideals, which caused them to resent life and people with their crude representation of reality. Interesting thing is that it is Holden’s pettiness that actually makes for a plot, because the action happens mostly in his head, as he processes his feelings and emotions over his interactions and mishappenings with others, which can be rather trivial sometimes. 

     The same can be said about its author J.D. Salinger, who owes his prominence as a writer to Holden Caulfield’s attitude and language, along with the author’s legendary reclusiveness. He, like Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, only wrote a novel and a handful of short stories, which was enough to put them in the pantheon of the most influential writers of 20^th century, in their respective languages. Reaching the top so soon caused them to stop writing at an early stage in their careers, because they knew well enough that they wouldn’t be able to outdo nor replicate the feat. So they opted for becoming hermetic and elusive.

     But just like John Lennon’s testimony, The Catcher in the Rye stands on its own as a representative of an era of transition, within and without its storyline, for the vibrant language and attitude that gives the book its literary presence. What about Mark David Chapman? Well, he’s been in prison for the past thirty years and, last I’ve heard, he’s been denied parole for the sixth time. He might get to spend the rest of his life locked up; or he might go free at his next try. Either way, it makes no difference to me. 

     Since this is not a piece about music, true crime, conspiracy theories, or literature; what have I just written about? Maybe I am establishing parallels between The Catcher in the Rye, John Lennon’s death, and Mark David Chapman’s role in history. Or maybe I’m just musing on all the thoughts that reading a book can evoke and provoke in just a matter of minutes; and the interconnectedness of things that lead to the main events in history.