you really got a hold on me | john lennon

CHAPTER FORTY THREE

September 25th, 1960

The boys were performing up on the good-sized stage—under the name of The Beatles, something that I was now sure of after confirming with John—but they were situated at a different club this time around. It wasn't a permanent move, but it was only because Bruno also owned this club, The Kaiserkeller, so he asked them to play alternating shifts along with Rory Storm And The Hurricanes since the Liverpool bands were such great hits amongst his various clubs at the Grosse Freiheit. They were given the tiniest raise in wage for performing at this club if you could even call it that. Though all of them had taken another time constricting job, they couldn't find it in them to complain about the pay because some money was better than none. It was such a shitty, greedy move on Bruno's part, not thinking of giving them even the slightest raise in money after all the shows they had to do under his less-than-ideal schedule.

But even with switching between all these different clubs, the band was adjusting quite nicely to this foreign environment ever since their first night and had grown to be more comfortable. The audience had shifted from being prostitutes and their clients to people who actually shared the same type of music interest as the boys—which was a move in the right direction. All of the band were in awe of how much their 'fanbase' of sorts had grown in just over a month, and I was too, to an extent. With their growing audience came more people who were flinging themselves at each of them, and it was a bloody nuisance even if all the boys were amused with the fact.

And even if I hadn't been able to watch many shows of theirs recently, I still could hear some screams of birds from where I worked. Today I got to see it for myself because it was one of those rare days that I didn't pick up an extra shift and wasn't too exhausted to get out of bed—and safe to say, I kind of wished deep down that I was still in bed.

They continued on with their updated set-list which they had changed since first getting here, and John started to sing Ain't She Sweet which was one of his favorites to sing, even when it was just he and I together and he was in the mood to play around.

"Oh, ain't she sweet? Well, see her walking down that street. Yes, I ask you very confidentially, ain't she sweet?" John was visibly trying to scan through the audience for me, but failed and just looked utterly lost. I told him to wear his glasses so he wouldn't turn up looking like an idiot half the time, but he always was too stubborn and declined each time—saying he didn't want to ruin his "rock 'n roll" look with them on.

Their playing still never failed to amaze me no matter how many sessions I had sat through with them playing through these same exact songs, they just held that certain charm that enchanted you every time you heard a chord come out of them. No wonder all these birds were going crazy over them...I was doing it too, even if I'd never let that secret see the light of day because I just knew they would tease me to no end about that fact.

My eyes were quite literally glued on them as their presence lit up the stage they were on, until I felt a light tap on my shoulder. There was a part of me that was still scared of it being one of those creepy blokes like at the restaurant—but I still found the courage in me to turn around. And to my utter delight, it was Astrid. She looked the exact same as she did when I saw her the other day at my job, her clothes still looking like the exact copy of what she was wearing when I first met her.

"Oh, thank goodness it is you. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me from across the bar because there are a ton of people that look the exact same as you from the back. But, how are you? Sorry for ending our talk so abruptly the other day, I was short on time." She sits herself down in the vacant seat next to me, a glass of whatever bevvie she was drinking in her hand.

"And I'm also really grateful that it's you too. Thought it was another one of those creeps trying to hit on me again. But I'm doing good, you? Not much has happened these past few days ever since we last met."