Dear Sean

Four

            “The Beatles!” a voice chimed theatrically from the stage.

            Paul shoved me onto the stage and I took a deep breath.

            Paul helped me with the show, and though it was hard work, we got through it. We didn’t know a lot of songs then, so we had to keep repeating the same ones. It wasn’t our best show, of course; but it was only the beginning.

            Sean, the important lesson here is that you keep moving forward. I was scared at first, but I played anyway. Then our first show wasn’t great, but we kept playing, we kept singing, and eventually we got bigger than Elvis. And that’s why today you’re allowed to brag to your friends.

            After that first show, we were so worked up we had to drink gallons and gallons of tea to wind down.

            “Hamburg, welcome to the fucking Beatles!”

            What Paul had said barely made any sense, but it was hilarious anyway and we all burst into a bout of rowdy and obnoxious laughter.

            We all raised our beers, even underage George, and clinked them messily enough to slop beer down most of our hands.

            I gulped down the warm, cheap beer—it tasted terrible but alcohol was alcohol, and I guzzled it greedily like it was the best I’d ever had.

            The entire band was properly sloshed in less than an hour, probably record time.

            Pete Best was dragging George and Stu away, both slumped unconscious, and Paul was laughing his head off at something I’d said, but couldn’t remember now.

            I watched Paul, a silly smile probably on my face by now, but I couldn’t be bothered with caring.

            Someone was saying something angrily in German, and I turned to see the bartender. We were the last ones in the pub, and I gathered that he was telling us to leave.

            “Es tut mir leid,” I said, which I vaguely remembered was how you apologized in German. I pulled Paul up from his chair and stepped outside, Paul trying to keep up with a normal pace but failing and instead resting almost all his body weight on me.

            After having our tea, we got lost a bit on our way back to where we were staying. If you ever get lost, then I have no fatherly advice for you this time—I’ve a terrible sense of direction.

            “Which way’s the Bambi Kino?” I asked, and Paul shook his head slightly.

            “Dunno.”

            I turned into the first street I could, thinking the movie theater was somewhere to our left.

            Paul suddenly stopped walking and it pulled me back to him with a jolt; he’d been holding my arm to steady himself and now he kept me near him with an iron grip.

            “Paul?” I asked uncertainly.

            He leaned forward and all coherent thoughts left my mind. Oh, god. Oh, shit. This was actually happening.

            “Relax… we’ve done this before,” he said soothingly, tracing a finger down my jaw.

            “You—you remember—but—“ I sputtered.

            Paul ignored me and pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth. Not complaining in the least, I reached around the back of his head to press him closer, feeling the downy hair on the nape of his neck.

            Paul chuckled and moved to the left, finally centering on my lips, and cupped my face in his hands. This time it definitely wasn’t the alcohol making me dizzy. I inhaled Paul’s particular scent; an odd mixture of clean soap and leather, while he kissed me, excruciatingly slowly and passionately.

            While we were lost, Paul and I had a nice chat. Then I realized something about us.

            Paul slipped away slowly, unwinding his hands from my hair, leaving me blinking stupidly at him.

            “The Bambi Kino’s to the right, wanker,” Paul said, grinning.

            Then I spoke.

            “I love you,” I blurted out.

            Sean, this is hard to say.

            You know I love you very much. You’re my son and the light of my life. Nothing will ever change that. I love Mummy too, but not as much as I love Uncle Paul.

            “I love you.”

            I suppose that’s where the story begins, the story of Daddy and Uncle Paul. I won’t lie to you, Sean, the story doesn’t end well.

            But it began beautifully, one night in Hamburg.