I don’t consent to these kind of interviews much. I really don’t see that I did that much wrong, but it’s an important story. He was my idol. I loved him—well, ever since I was a kid. I’m sure happy they still play His songs on the radio.

Mom always said I wasn’t like the other boys. I was sensitive. I didn’t really play well with others, to use an old cliché. One of my first memories was being tackled in nursery school, shoved under a pile of four- and five-year olds. I never had a lot of friends, to be honest.

I guess you kids today would say that I was “emo.” Well, let me tell you I never went around in self-pity. I accepted that I was a know-you—an invisible. I accepted, and I didn’t bitch.

I kinda regret that I never made a lot of friends. I was smart, though. They put me in the gifted classes, but in Texas back when I was a kid there wasn’t too much in the way of that kind of stuff. Even the teachers made fun of me, saying not to eat all the food at lunch—yeah, I was a little fat. I mean, I’m not complaining about that, I try to stand up for myself a bit, but I felt alone.

My mom loved me, though. She said I was so smart, and not to listen to those bad boys in school who called me fat and pushed me around. She said to not give one word answers, to speak up more, and to make friends by talking to people.

My mom said to be nice to others and they would be nice to me. She didn’t pressure me to make friends, though.

…

I sometimes wonder if I’m like the way I am because I never had any friends, or I never had any friends because of the way I am. I would find beautiful things in nature like nests of ants and spider webs, and I’d run up to kids in my class and say to come quick before the beauty fades, suffice it to say they never came.

“Suffice it to say…”

I got beat up by those kids. I remember their names. Their faces, preserved forever as 12-year-olds, forever flash in my retinas. I was the punching bag. I was the dumb kid, the target of all their jokes, the social retard.

I got into middle school, and I wasn’t that dumb kid anymore. I was nobody. I was invisible.

Don’t think that I’m complaining or anything. It’s just the way it was. I guess it’s the way it has to be for some people. It wasn’t all bad, though. I got great grades for a while.

…

I first heard their records in middle school, and liked the band more and more over my teenage years. Their music…I don’t want to say it spoke to me, sounds a bit cliché, but it helped me through a lot. I mean, a LOT.

I didn’t date in high school. I stayed home, with my stereo, and listened to their music…it made me feel alive, like something mattered to me. I was the invisible kid in school, the kid who never talked, the mute. But outside of school, I listened to the greatest band possible. They were my idols.

I started hearing their lead singer in my dreams. Hallucinations. All through my late teens and twenties I was their biggest fan. I traveled the world, going to all their concerts. I got into drugs. They said I had schizophrenia, that I was insane. But I would show them. I loved these guys, and I knew that if they knew me as well as I knew them, they’d want me to be happy.

They’d want me to be happy. They’d want me to not be invisible any more.

…

It was cold. Sometime in December, if my memory serves me, suffice it to say it was below fifty degrees. I was in the City, outside His house. Some other fans were there as well, loitering around the curb, but I knew I was His biggest fan. I was the one who had traveled so far to get here.

I had short brown hair, and I was a little overweight. I was wearing a black jacket and blue jeans, and had a small duffel bag. Inside the bag was Double Fantasy, one of His albums, a Walkman with about ten cassettes of His music, and of course, most of all, the gift I planned to give him. I wanted to repay him for helping me so much.

He lived in a huge apartment building in the City, by the Park. The doorman was waiting in the entrance arch, a long tunnel beneath the building, and I waited outside with the other fans. I talked with the doorman and some other fans, some cute girls. I was proud of myself that I was able to talk to them, I felt a lot more confident. I knew it was His influence, his aura in the building.

Around three or so, I saw His son walk out of the entrance arch, with a matronly looking black lady following him, holding his hand. His son was only five, but he looked just like Him. I envied him a bit, to be honest. You know, just having so much contact with Him. See, if He had been my father, things would have been a hell of a lot different. Wouldn’t have hit me, for starts. He was all about love and peace.

“Hi, is this Sean?” I asked, patting the little boy on the head.

“Yes, he is,” the matron said, a little bit of a Jamaican in her accent. “Say hi, Sean!”

The boy smiled. I smiled. She smiled. It was a big happy circle-jerk, I guess.

“He looks just like his father,” I said as the housekeeper walked away with the boy. Such nice people, I thought.

I wasn’t waiting ten minutes after when the crowning moment happened. Yeah, you heard me. I could barely believe it myself. He came out. Yes, He did. A limousine pulled up on the curb, and I saw Him and His wife walking out of the entrance arch. He was just how I imagined him.

I don’t want to sound obsessed, but He was beautiful. He had wavy black hair and a little tiny pair of glasses on His hooked nose. My heart stopped. I froze, and I reached my hand into my bag to give Him His gift. The gift I had spent so much on to give to Him.

But I didn’t. Instead, I grabbed His album, and decided to wait to give Him the gift. It was still so worth it just to talk to him. I was on top of the world. Other fans crowded around, but I knew he would know that I was the best.

“Sir,” I said, excited as hell to finally be saying words to Him. He turned to look at me, and His clear eyes shot deep into my soul. This was my soul mate. This was my friend, the one I had searched forever for.

“Sir, will you sign this, please?” I asked, holding out the album. He smiled at me in a world-weary, poetic sort of way, and flipped out a pen and signed. Someone took a picture, and he handed me back the signed album. His bitch of a wife was looking a bit hurried, and she pulled Him into the limo, and it sped out of sight.

“Isn’t that great?” a girl said to me, clutching a signed photo of Him. “He talked to me!”

Bullshit. He talked to me, not you, I thought. You don’t even love him like I do, you fucking poser. I put on my Walkman and loaded a cassette in, effectively isolating me from these idiots congregated on the street. Suffice it to say I wasn’t bothered any more.

I guess I waited a few hours. It grew dark. The doorman, whose nametag said José, kept looking at me funny. Maybe he knew that I was going to give Him a gift. Maybe the doorman wanted to take it from me.

…

I’ve always been more comfortable by myself. There, encapsuled in my own head, I was at peace. I didn’t go to sleep though. I stayed awake for hours until He got back.

And the limo came rolling up to the curb, and stopped in front of his building. I huddled in the shadows, slowly putting my hand into the duffel bag. His wife got out first, walking up toward the arch and passing into the darkness. He followed after.

It’s such a strange feeling to meet someone as well-known as this. To know him, but He doesn’t know you. But He would know me. I’d give Him the greatest gift of all—yes, it was time. I clutched the gift as he entered the passage.

His leather jacket, His back dark in the tunnel’s arch. I pulled His gift out of my duffel bag, my heart throbbing in excitement. This was it. I was finally going to thank Him for everything. I knelt down, like a holy ritual, and called out to Him:

“Hey, Mister Lennon!”

He turned slightly, ear pricked up.

I squeezed the trigger five times. It was beautiful.

The bullets ricocheted around the archway, flashing and sparking on the yellowish blocks of stone. He fell awkwardly to the side, His shoulder slamming hard against the wall, and collapsing onto His face, His glasses breaking beneath Him. I could barely conceal my grin, and my whisper of “Yes.” He groaned and crawled on the ground past the arch, muttering something, His knee shattering His glasses once more.

I looked around; there was an elevator man staring wordlessly at me a few meters down, and on the curb a cab driver was looking at me in disbelief. I leaned down and placed the gun on the cobblestones, and leaned back against the wall of the arch. I got my duffel bag out, and pulled out my worn copy of Catcher In The Rye. I was at the part where Holden was talking about the ducks in Central Park.

Someone screamed “Tell me it’s not true!” Must be His wife. I couldn’t see Him past the line of sight of the arch, and went back to my book. There was a bit of scuffling in the distance, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye a man—Josb the doorman—standing like a shadow in the arch. I guess he saw the gun. Suffice it to say he was a bit perturbed. I always hate tension.

“Do you know what you just did?” he asked me, and I looked up at him, putting down the book for a moment.

“I just shot John Lennon.”