TURN ME ON, DEAD MAN
Chapter Fifteen When Amy went to sleep, she laid the postcard on her leg since she didn't feel like standing up when she felt comfortable. When she woke up, Paul was awake and quietly examining the postcard. He smiled warmly at her. "Feel more rested?" he asked her. "Yeah, I feel better." "Good. I slept for a bit and when I woke up, I decided to study this album cover again and mull over what you said. This man...do you know his name?" "Um...I heard once he was called William Campbell," she said. "Never heard of him, but they could have gotten him from anywhere so that doesn't mean anything." "I heard they held a Paul McCartney lookalike contest and he won it." Paul sniggered. "If he and his ugly face won, I'd hate to see the losers," he said while Amy giggled. "So...they hold a contest and this poor sod thinks to himself, I look like Paul, I'll enter it and when he wins, the grand prize is enslavement by a bunch of nutters. I really do feel sorry for him. I'm sure he had to do this impersonating me rubbish with a gun pointed at his head. But, he must also be a Beatles fan if he entered a lookalike contest. Poor sod." "And I'm sure they had a gun to the heads of the other Beatles," Amy said. "Oh, I don't doubt that, love," Paul said. "Especially John. You can tell John what to do for only so long before he starts telling you to piss off and get the fuck out of his face. He doesn't like taking orders that well and it would have to be a gun to the head that would get him to participate in all this. The other lads as well, but John especially. They'd either threaten him or threaten Cynthia and Jules which would be just as bad. If that's true and they did force him to do this, then his inserting all these clues in the songs and albums makes perfect sense. He is a sneaky bastard and he'd want this lot to be found out and pay for what they did to me. Inserting clues in the songs is exactly what he'd do. I'm still trying to suss out why they put these people behind them. I see our old band mate, Stu, and I get him being there but Shirley Temple and Stan Laurel?" "Who's Stu?" Paul glanced at her and smiled wistfully. "Stu Sutcliff. Old friend of John's. When we first put the band together, John asked him to join even though he couldn't play a note to save his life. But he was a friend of John's and that's what counted. He was in Hamburg with us. His playing was so shitty that he stood with his back to the crowd so they couldn't see him missing the chords. He fell in love with a woman there named Astrid who helped us develop our Beatles look and he stayed there with her. He ended up dying of a brain hemorrhage when he got in a fight with a thug and the bastard kicked him in the head with a steel toed boot." "Oh God!" Amy said. "Yeah. He was young too, a waste of a talented life. He was pants at playing guitar but he was first and foremost an artist and at that, he excelled. I could see the four of us including him in the lineup since he was our friend but most of these people I have no idea why they were added. Must have something to do with these people's agenda. Some sort of symbolism like the rest of it. Do they have any other symbolic stuff in other albums after this one?" "Yeah, I think most of the albums after this one have death clues in them," Amy said. "The last album that came out before the Beatles broke up is called Abbey Road and it also has a lot of death clues." "When was that then? The breakup?" "Um...1970." Paul raised his eyebrows. "Only 4 more years? The band is over and done with that quickly? Still...if I got replaced, I'm sure the others wanted out of the band as fast as possible." "Yeah, that's what the Doctor thought." "Makes me wonder how long we would have lasted if none of this rubbish happened. Because I'm sure the others argued with the William Campbell chap and tried to undermine him every step of the way. I mean, don't get me wrong, me and the others get into arguments but we're like brothers and we feel like a family. Families argue but most of the time they get over it and go on. If you're throwing an outsider into this family group, an outsider who is forced upon you and resembles the brother you lost, then I can imagine the anger that stirred up. Like a hornet's nest. Especially John." "Is he really that bad?" Amy said. "Do you know much about John's childhood?" Amy shook her head. "He was basically abandoned by both his parents. Neither of them really wanted much to do with him and they left him to his aunt Mimi who basically became his mum and dad. Mimi adored him and gave him a stable home life but John was still angry at his parent's betrayal and that anger carried over into his adult years. Later his mum was struck by a car and killed and that added to his anger since he never got to reconnect with her. When I was 14, me mum died of breast cancer and losing a parent gave me some common ground with John when we became friends. But I grew up in a very close family and my dad and I was very close and still are and I think John's always been a bit jealous of that. But anyway, as you might guess, this anger led John to become a sort of tough guy because deep down inside he's a very vulnerable person but he's afraid of letting too many people get close to him, see the real him because they might abandon him like his parents did." "Is that why he wrote Help?" Amy said. "Yeah. And that shocked me when he first showed me what he wrote, that finally he was admitting he couldn't be the lone wolf anymore, but I think John is beginning to realize that he can't go through life constantly throwing up walls and blocking everyone out so he doesn't get hurt. Out of everyone he knows, I think me and George and Ringo and his Aunt Mimi are the ones who truly know him and are the closest to his heart. I don't think even Cyn and Jules are as close to him as we are, which is a shame because now he has a chance to be the father figure he never had growing up. But I know that he and Cyn argue all the time and their marriage is not all that stable and most of it has to do with all these issues of intimacy John has. I think if I end up dead, John will completely lose it and if he does, I feel sorry for this William Campbell. If the band finds out I died and they're forced to accept this guy into their midst and he does or says the wrong thing, John'll fuck his face up so much that they'll have to do a complete reconstruction just to get him to look like me again." He stared at the photo for a moment. "Love, do you have any idea what their plan is?" Paul said to Amy. "Once this guy is in the band, does "Paul" start acting differently? You said this bloke up here is into black magic and Satanism. Are there any hints of that once this happens?" He noticed the grimace on Amy's face and he perked up. "There is?" Paul said in alarm. "Um...some of the clues to your death are found if people play your songs backwards." "Backmasking? Yeah, I've heard about that. You can hear all sorts of crazy stuff when you do that," Paul said. "Well, there's this...I can't really call it a song. It's more like a bunch of noises and spoken phrases. It's called Revolution 9 and it's on this album that people call The White Album because the title of it is just The Beatles but it has an all white cover with nothing on it. Anyway...um...I don't know if I should say this..." "Might as well, I might die anyway so it won't matter what you tell me." "No, don't say that. We'll get out of here," Amy said, touching his arm. "Well, even if we do, I know about this Sergeant Pepper album so you might as well go ahead and tell me about this Revolution 9 song." "Well, see...what you said about John's relationship with his wife and son. Um...he does end up leaving them for another woman." "Fuck!" Paul said as he put his hand over his eyes. "So he ends up doing the same thing to his family that his father did to him. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I tried to warn him about that and it just goes in one ear and out the other with John...I'm sorry, love, I s'pose I should have seen that coming but I dared to hope he wouldn't' do that. Anyway, sorry, go on with what you were saying. " "Well, this woman's name is Yoko Ono. He met her in an art gallery in Soho and she sorta becomes his whole life. He brings her into the studio while you lot are recording your songs and they sorta become joined at the hip. Anyway, it was his and Yoko's idea to make this Revolution 9 song and the others tried to keep it off the album because it's so weird but John and Yoko won out." Paul snorted at that but said nothing and waited for her to continue. "The other night when we walked home with you, I couldn't sleep because I was worried about you and I went to talk to the Doctor and he was thinking about why the double was brought into the band and he played that Revolution 9 song backwards so I could hear it." "And..." "Well, at the beginning...or I s'pose the end of the song since it's backwards. There's all these Satanic messages about Satan." Paul raised his eyebrow. "Um..." Amy went on. "There's also several times that you hear about your death including a recreation of the car crash with the screeching tires and the flames and you supposedly screaming get me out!" "Get me out?" Paul said. "According to you, I was decapitated. That's a pretty neat trick if my head can holler get me out when it's off me body." Amy giggled and he squeezed her hand. "Anyway, this weird song has Satan references and my death on the back of it?" "Yeah, it was creepy. Um...in the song, someone keeps repeating number 9 over and over and when you play that phrase backwards, it says turn me on, dead man." Paul chuckled. "Number 9...heh, I know why that's there." "Why?" "Because John's obsessed with the number 9. He claims it's his lucky number. He was born on the 9th and he thinks it has something to do with that. He's into numerology and he's convinced that 9 is a magical number for him. Me, I don't see the connection. I don't subscribe to numerology like he does but that wasn't them that put that phrase there. That was all John's idea, that's a dead cert. Don't get the meaning of turn me on, dead man though. Turn me on to what since I s'pose it's referring to me." "Um...I've heard that it's an answer to your Day in the Life song when they say I'd love to turn you on." Paul frowned. "I don't know that song," he said. "Oh, it's on this album," she said, pointing to the postcard. "That may be, but we haven't recorded it yet. Unless we changed the name of something we've been working on. What's it about?" "Well, it also mentions a car crash. About a man who blew his mind out in a car." Paul giggled. "Okay, wait...I crashed my car, lost my head, burned alive and now my mind is blown out of my skull? Blimey, my body is busy before I die especially if I'm screaming get me out during all of it," he said while Amy laughed. "I never realize my body was so multitalented. But, seriously, there's no song we've written that says that a man blew his mind out in a car. Must be one of those daft songs they want us to sing." He smiled when Amy started giggling. "What?" he said. "Um...do you know about this album they call the butcher album?" "Butcher album?" "Yeah, I think it's before Sergeant Pepper. Has the four of you with meat and doll parts draped all over your bodies." "Oh! Yes, I do know that one, love. We did that for shock value. We knew it'd freak people out but we have weird senses of humor. We weren't surprised when they put a different photo over that one, gave us all a laugh that the executives freaked out at it. But anyway, what about it?" "Well, was there a pair of false teeth on your body?" "False teeth...oh yeah, a pair of choppers was on me arm, why?" "That's another part of it. They also say that when you had the crash your teeth came out of your head." She giggled when Paul gave her a long, hard stare. "So when I say get me out, I'm saying it through a decapitated toothless head with no mind that's burning. I really am multitalented. Wait, that's an album that's out now. You're saying there's death clues on albums before this Sergeant Pepper one." "Well, Mister Brown said that they always planned for one of you to die in a car crash, yeah?" "Yeah, but the doll parts and meat was our idea, not theirs. No one came up to us and suggested we do that. Perhaps people are reading too much into it?" Paul said. "When did people start finding these clues?" "Not until near the end. 1968 or 69, I think?" Amy said. "And I s'pose they assumed if these clues were on some of the albums there'd be some on all of them and they went back too far or at least they assumed too much about some things like the meat and doll parts." "Did anyone ever suggest you pose a certain way on an album?" Amy asked. "Oh, we've had suggestions, yes. But we have the final say about what goes on the album. Which is why we were able to get away with using the butcher photo as you put it. What about the other album covers that were released before now? Do you know if people thought there were death clues on them? What about Please, Please Me where we're all looking down from the balcony." "I don't think so," Amy said, shaking her head. "I've never heard anyone say they saw any death clues on that one." "With the Beatles? Now that one you can only see our heads and the whole album is black, is that a clue to my decapitation?" "I don't think so." "Really? Because you can only see our heads and the cover's all black. Someone didn't say look it means death and heads!" he said while she giggled. "I don't think so." "Um...Hard Day's Night?" Amy shook her head. "Rubber Soul." "I heard that you were supposed to be in a cemetary and you're looking at your grave which is why you're looking down at something." She giggled when she saw the dubious expression on his face. "We were in a park, not a cemetery. I remember the photo and there's no gravestones behind us so how people came up with that, I'll never know. And if it's my grave, why am I there? What'd the fellas do, dig me up, put a pole up my arse and stick me in the ground so I'd stay?" He poked her side when Amy laughed at that. "Well, I'm standing there with them so apparently I'm dead and looking down at my own grave. Musta sewn my head back on as well...and put my teeth back in and put wax on my body to hide the charred flesh. I look pretty good for a corpse now that I think of it. Anyway, Revolver?" "You're looking off to the side and the others are facing forward." "Huh?" "That drawing of you...you're looking off to the side," Amy said. "And..." "You're different to the others. You're looking off to the side while they're facing front." "And..." Paul said while Amy giggled. "What has that got to do with me being dead?" "Because you're always doing something different. They have you doing different things like when you're holding the woodwind instrument or the hand's over your head and not over the other Beatle's heads or you're facing another way or you have on a different outfit..." "And this means I'm dead?" "It's...like they're trying to make you or your double stand out. They're calling attention to you by making you different. Like there..." Amy said, pointing to the band in the postcard, "the others are kinda standing at an angle but your double is facing the camera dead on. They made you or your double do something different." Paul shook his head. "I don't get why that would mean I died. As for the drawing on the cover of Revolver, that wasn't drawn by any of us, a friend of ours who's an artist drew it and we never made any suggestions to him about what it should look like. So unless he's in league with this lot, he just decided to draw me so I'm in profile. It's just an artistic expression, nothing more. He's the one that designed it so I s'pose you should go ask him, I had nothing to do with it. Um...okay, what about Help then?" "All I've heard is the coat you're wearing zips up while the others have buttons on their coats." "SO?" he said while Amy laughed. "Okay, I suppose it's this theory you have of making me look different so I stand out but...oooh, Amy, people read too much into some things. When I put that coat on, I wasn't thinking, "Hey, this has a zipper on it so It'll make me stand out!" Now, the things that come after this album, yes those might have clues that were planted deliberately but I seriously doubt they thought that far ahead that they were placing clues on the albums from a few years ago." He began to giggle and Amy smiled at him. "I'm glad they didn't kill me, this is extremely amusing, actually. Nice way to pass the time while we sit here. I'm glad that my fans cared so much about me that they were going over all the albums with a magnifying glass figuring out how I died. Then again, perhaps they were just stoned and bored and saw the albums sitting in the corner and had a dekko at them and suddenly they saw all the clues, including clues that aren't even clues in the first place." "Speaking of being stoned, there's another thing the Doctor mentioned about a motive..." "Yeah?" Paul said. "When we were talking about why they might be doing this. He said that you gave an interview where they asked you about drug use and you said you didn't take any drugs except for pot and Quaaludes." "Yes. I didn't start using marijuana until Bob Dylan let us try it. I found it relaxed me and that was useful since recording long hours and touring is very stressful. Same with the Quaaludes. I'm not a pill popper but sometimes after long hours, I'm wound up and I need something to relax me so I can actually sleep. But that's all I'll touch. I won't do cocaine or heroin or hash. Being a musician I know people and have heard stories about people who have used that stuff and fucked themselves up. I value myself far too much and I've come too damn far to ruin my life by becoming a junkie. Even though it's stressful at times, I'd rather be one of the most successful people there ever was than be back in the crap holes in Hamburg where we had to play seven and eight hours straight for drunken Germans who would get into fights in front of us over nothing. I'm not about to go back to that or end up a junkie on some street corner somewhere. So yes, I made a choice to stay away from harder drugs. I really shouldn't be mucking about with the pot and the Quaaludes but sadly everyone has their vices and those and fags are mine. Why are you mentioning that interview? Oh God...my double is a junkie?" "More than that. He gave an interview where he admitted to taking LSD and saw nothing wrong with it." Paul's mouth nearly hit the floor. "What?" he said, his eyes open in shock. "That shit's even worse than cocaine and heroin! I would take those before I took LSD! Have you ever seen someone high on acid?" Amy shook her head. "I've been to parties where I've seen people take it and you can't talk to them after that because they become totally useless. They wander around and say incoherent things and they hallucinate. And a lot of times they think someone or something is trying to kill them so a lot of them run around screaming that someone's after them and they're trying to kill them. I've heard horror stories from friends about people who jump out windows and injure or kill themselves because they were trying to get away from imaginary killers. I've heard about people slashing their wrists or bodies because they see things crawling on their skin. I definitely wouldn't take that stuff even if you paid me to do it. And now that...bastard is running my good name through the mud by telling everyone I'm on acid. Damn him!" "The Doctor thought that might have something to do with these people's master plan." "Taking acid?" Paul said with a frown. He stared up at the ceiling while he thought. "When you're on acid," he finally said, "you lose control of yourself for hours on end. You have trouble telling reality from fantasy and sometimes if the acid is too strong you can end up frying your mind on it. I s'pose that can be used by someone to control a person or destroy their mind. But if he goes and tells the press about it..." "What?" Amy said when he saw his eyes widen. "I had a thought about why he may have held an interview about that," Paul said, looking at her. "Being a Beatle, I've seen some weird behavior from our fans. We would play a concert and the screams were so loud we couldn't even hear each other. Half the time I thought it was a miracle the four of us were able to keep in sync since I couldn't even hear George and he's usually right beside me on stage. The press called it Beatlemania and mania sums it up perfectly. There's been times when I've sang barely two notes of a song and women are already fainting dead away at my feet. I've seen people literally pull the bloody grass up that we've just walked on simply because we've walked on it. I think some people would do nearly anything to get a ticket to our concerts including kill their own family members. It's always boggled my mind because I don't think we're any different than the hundreds of other bands out there but there's something about us that just causes this mania. I told you about John saying we were bigger than Jesus and maybe he has a point but John sometimes has a problem with tact and since he's said that they've had Beatle bonfires in the US, particularly the places where Christianity is a big deal. We had death threats because people think we're a bunch of heathen blasphemers and I didn't even say it. John said it and they took his quote completely out of context but it's guilt by association so I'm a target as well. My point is, there are people out there who almost worship the ground we walk on and hang on our every word and if someone who looks like me goes out there and says hey, I take LSD and I think it's fine. Love, can you imagine the reaction?" "A lot of people will start trying it because your double said so." "Exactly. I'm beginning to see why the band's so valuable to these people. We're basically a propaganda tool. Now I don't know what LSD has to do with their agenda but I'm asking about that as well because that can't be just some random statement. There's a bigger, sinister purpose behind it and I wanna know what that is, especially since all of this is being done in my name." They looked over when they heard the door opening. They expected Mister Brown or Jones to be there but instead the door was opened by a short Asian man wearing black trousers, white t-shirt and a black leather jacket. He had long hair that was pulled back in a ponytail and a Fu Manchu mustache. "Both of you come with me, the master will see you now," he said to them. Paul and Amy stood up. Paul took Amy's hand and gave it a squeeze as they walked towards the man.
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