Dear Sean

Eleven

Then we made a movie.

We called it “Hard Day’s Night” because of some stupid thing that Ringo had said, that we all thought was brilliant.

“It’s been a hard day…” Ringo sighed. He turned his blue eyes toward the window, which showed a dark outside peppered with stars. “Night,” he corrected.

“Shit, Ringo, that was brilliant,” Paul said vehemently.

“Really?”

Paul nodded. “Yeah—‘Ringo and his hard day’s night.’ Sounds like some mystery novel.”

Ringo chuckled at Paul. Though he could be an annoying, nit-picky perfectionist, he was at his best innocent and happy, when he actually fucking let himself relax.

Problem was, Paul didn’t often let himself relax.

It was filmed in black-and-white, and the story was a bit stupid, about Uncle Paul, Uncle George, Uncle Ringo and I frolicking around and doing things, but the fans loved it.

“Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt... Zap!” Paul rehearsed, saying the last word sharply while turning around, a finger pointed straight at me.

I feigned being hit by whatever his “zap” was supposed to be.

“Aargh,” I groaned dramatically, falling and clutching my throat. I lay there on the ground, only to open one eye and see Paul standing over me, smirking.

“Seems I need mouth to mouth or I’ll die,” I said innocently.

“John… I need to run through these lines…” Paul said, running a nervous hand through his hair.

“Wouldn’t want to have a dead John on your conscience…” I said, eyes still closed.

Paul kneeled down and I thanked whatever deities might have been around if he really was going to stop being so uptight and start having fun.

“They could walk in any minute,” Paul whispered, referring to the empty movie set.

“Right,” I said, standing up reluctantly.

We filmed the movie between March and April. It was like being on tour, but better. We weren’t constantly in the crowds, but we were away from home, just the four of us. With the crew, our managers, and the director, of course.

“Why do I have to run off at the end? Makes me seem like a bad person,” Ringo said, frowning at the script.

“Don’t worry, Ringo,” I quipped. “We all know that deep down you really are a bad person.”