Monday 15th August
It is now the day of Harvey's Beatles concert. He has settled on taking his youngest brother LJ as well as his Uncle Bobby with him to the District of Columbia Stadium after arguing with his sister Caroline. He is excited about his concert tonight and can't wait to see his favourite band for the first time, although the only thing that's worrying him is that he'll be in a new and unfamiliar place and the noise of both the band and the tens of thousands of other concert goers - particularly young teenage girls who will probably make the most noise. He doesn't like loud noises or large crowds, but he assures himself that he'll be fine with his Uncle Bobby looking after him. He jumps out of bed, gets out pants and socks and grabs his Red Sox jersey from his T-shirt drawer, and trousers from the next drawer down and goes over to his cupboard where his jackets, hoodies and shoes are kept and then hurriedly gets out of his pyjamas. He gets his dark blue New England Patriots hoodie which has PATRIOTS in red lettering with white stitching around each letter in the middle of the hoodie, he puts his underwear and clothes on and then grabs his Converse and shoves them on his feet and lastly, gets his white Red Sox cap which hangs from his bottom left bedpost and his NASA hat resides on the opposite side.
He places his hat onto his messy hair, and pulls the skip down onto the top of his forehead; on the left-hand side of the skip, he got his dad to pin a NASA badge which says: I NEED MY SPACE (true to the point because of his obsession and his autism) he saunters out of his room and shuts the door behind him, he goes to the ground floor and notices his dad's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln with his cousins Michael and Joseph and his brother John. He walks over to them confused about why his cousins are there.
"Hey, Mrs Lincoln,"
"Hi, Harvey, how are you this morning?"
"I'm fine, thanks. Where are my dads?"
"Did they not tell you? They're away seeing Dwight Eisenhower,"
"They're what?! Hey, no fair! They get to go and see Eisenhower and I'm stuck here!" Harvey complains whiningly to Mrs Lincoln
"Oh, don't get yourself all worked up, Harvey, that's not going to do any good, is it?"
"No, I suppose not,"
"If it makes you feel any better, they'll be back in time for seeing you off to your concert tonight with your Uncle Bobby. Anyways, in the meantime your brother and cousins were wondering if you were up for a game of baseball, since you're half dressed for the part," Mrs Lincoln finishes by commenting on the boy's mismatched mashup of football, baseball and basketball due to his hat, hoodie, jersey and shoes.
"Sure, okay, I'll go and get my bat, mitt and ball." He tells Mrs Lincoln. He then turns to the three boys and declares:
"I hope you know that I'll be kicking your asses!"
"Harvey! Just because your parents aren't here doesn't give you the right to misbehave. Apologise to Joseph, Michael and John. Now." Mrs Lincoln scolds
"I'm sorry, you guys," he says solemnly to his older cousins and younger brother
"That's okay, Harv," replies Joseph
"It's fine, Harvey," answers Michael
"Alright, whatever," replies John.
He makes his way back up to his room to get his baseball bat, mitt and ball that his Aunt Eunice and Uncle Robert ("Sarge" Shriver) got him for his birthday. Once retrieving said items, he places the large brown mitt onto his left hand, lifts the bat with the same hand and leans it against his left shoulder and finally picks up the white, red-stitched hard and heavy ball with his dominant right hand and starts bouncing it on the floor - which makes a loud thump so he stops bouncing it, feeling as though the other occupants in the building would find the noise irritating. He makes it halfway down the stairs with the ball still in his right hand, he then shouts out to his 14-year-old cousin:
"Hey, JP! Catch this!" He swings his right arm back and with a swift motion lunges his body slightly forward, swings his arm forward violently, and then releases the ball; hoping that it'll reach his target: Joseph. He watches in horror as the ball misses its target completely and is in the direction of Mrs Lincoln. It seems as though everything around him is happening in slow-motion.
"Mrs Lincoln, look out!" He yells trying to get the older woman's attention. Thankfully, his panicked shout gets eight-year-old Michael's attention, who notices the ball coming directly toward his Uncle Jack's secretary. He jumps into the air and lifts his right arm, positions his right hand into a claw motion to try and catch the oncoming object. He manages to catch the ball with ease as he looks upwards at his younger cousin on the stairs in shock, having just witnessed what was an accident waiting to happen. Harvey lets out a sigh of relief at the lucky escape, both for himself and Mrs Lincoln. He doesn't want to put up with his parents pissed off at him again and he certainly doesn't want to miss out on going to his concert later on tonight with Uncle Bobby either. Eventually the four boys go outside to start a game of baseball, but unfortunately for Harvey, he doesn't know how to properly throw the ball. Hopefully either his cousins or brother can teach him to pitch a ball for the first time; he runs up to where Michael, John and Joseph are standing on the vast White House lawn. He turns to Joseph with a curious look on his face.
"How do you pitch a ball?"
"You've never pitched a ball before?"
"No clearly not, Captain Obvious(!)"
replies Harvey sarcastically
"No need to get snarky, smart ass," Joseph hits back belittlingly
"Sorry. Can you teach me how to throw a perfect pitch or not?"
"Alright, fine." Joseph turns to Michael and John and asks:
"Do you two want to help out as well?"
"Yeah, okay," replies John
"I guess so," answers Michael.
Joseph then begins to explain how to pitch the baseball:
"So, first of all, you want to hold the ball like this," Joseph grips the ball in his right hand and places his index and middle fingers on the red seam of the ball and with his thumb just placed on the white canvas. Harvey is watching intently, taking in everything that his cousin is telling him to do. He listens carefully as Joseph explains the next step: How to position your body before pitching the ball.
"Second of all, you want to stand sideways with your legs and feet wide apart, and then when you're ready to pitch you want to lift your left leg and bring your right arm back with your elbow bent and once you're ready to throw the ball, you bring your arm forward really quickly, then you release it so that the catcher can get it on the other side of you. Do you understand all that, Harv?" Harvey nods in response to Joseph's lengthy instructions. Harvey then takes the ball from Joseph's hand, determined to throw his first ever pitch; he does exactly what his cousin was telling him a moment ago, fingers on the seam and then position his body as Joseph had demonstrated, he gets ready to throw the ball to Joseph who is acting as the catcher in this practice run. He throws the ball directly at his cousin, keeping his eyes focused on where the ball is going to go, he watches as Joseph raises his left gloved hand to catch the oncoming ball, he catches the ball with the mitt which creates a low thump. He looks over at his little cousin and grins proudly at him and exclaims with enthusiasm:
"That was great, Harvey, well done!"
"Thanks, Joey! Can you teach me how to bat now? And maybe we can get an actual game started and John and Michael can finally join in?"
"Yeah, sure." John passes Joseph Harvey's bat that is lying on the ground, Joseph then explains to his cousin:
"When you want to bat the ball, you must always keep your eye on the ball and when it comes near you, you'll need to swing the bat back to front or unless you want to be hit with the ball. Look, I'll show you." He holds Harvey's bat with a tight grip with both hands on the right side of his body, he swings the bat back and forth with quick precision.
"Do you want to try it?" He asks the intrigued boy in front of him
"Yeah." Harvey takes the bat from Joseph and copies the same grip on the handle of the bat, positions the bat on the right side of his body and then swings the bat back and forth quickly; he turns to Joseph and says:
"I think I'm ready to play some baseball now."
Harvey enjoyed playing baseball for the first time with Joseph, Michael and John. He particularly enjoyed getting to bat the ball to his cousins and brother when they all took turns being the batter and catcher; now he is up in his room listening to Please Please Me on his record player and reading up on Richard Feynman. In just a few short hours, he'll be going to see the band he's been in love with since he saw them on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, so he wasn't even four yet! He wishes time would go faster and he can get ready for his first ever concert and his first boys' night out with Uncle Bobby and LJ. He is also anxiously waiting on his dads to get back from seeing Eisenhower, because the sooner they get home, the sooner he can go to the concert. He wonders what the set list is going to be like, so he shuts off his record player that is playing the song Do You Want to Know a Secret? So that he can concentrate and maybe try and conjure up his set list from selecting various songs from his current record collection, he picks up the extra pieces of paper that he still has from when he wrote his list of birthday presents a couple of weeks ago. He picks up the empty Please Please Me album sleeve from the top of his drawers beside his record player and takes it over to his bed and turns it onto the quilt covers face down, now showing the track list; he goes over to his record shelf and grabs his chronologically ordered record collection and does the same thing he did before to the remaining records. He grabs the same pen he had used previously, puts it into his right hand and then begins to skim and scan the overturned album covers to select songs at random and make his little note of them, like so:
The Beatles Setlist 8/15/66
By: Harvey Oswald-Kennedy
Love Me Do
Eight Days a Week
I Feel Fine
If I Needed Someone
Help!
Ticket to Ride
And I Love Her
Can't Buy Me Love
Taxman
And Your Bird Can Sing
She Said She Said
We Can Work It Out
She Loves You
Twist and Shout
He puts the pen and paper down and leaves them lying on his bed, he picks up With the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale to put them back on his shelf, he leaves space for Please Please Me and places the three records onto the shelf so that they're leaning against the wall facing him. He places the three records in chronological order, oldest to newest, he gathers the remaining three records: Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver and does the same thing he did with the previous lot. He picks up his Richard Feynman book that he was reading, which is lying on his bed next to his Beatles set list; he takes the hardback book over to his bookshelf which is situated next to his wardrobe and places it in between one of his books on Stephen Hawking and one of the solar system books that his Aunt Jean and Uncle Stephen got him as part of his birthday. He then walks over to his record player and takes Please Please Me off of the turntable, takes it over to his bed where the empty album cover lies, slides the record back into its sleeve, and places it into the saved space next to With the Beatles and finally, closes the lid of his record player onto the turntable. He walks towards his room door, opens it, shuts it behind himself and makes his way downstairs, hoping that his dads have arrived back home by now. He makes his way down to the ground floor and sees his dads with their backs to him, he begins to run towards them whilst gleefully shouting with relief:
"Oh, good, you're back! About time!" Jack is the first one to turn around and acknowledge him, he taps Lee's shoulder to get his attention, who also turns around to face their raging six-year-old.
"What?" Questions Lee
"You went to see Eisenhower without me!" Harvey complains in a babyish whine
"Who told you that?"
"Mrs Lincoln told me,"
"Did she?"
"Yeah. Before I went to play baseball with John, Michael and Joseph,"
"The reason why you didn't get to see Eisenhower with your dad and I is because you weren't invited,"
"Awww! But I wanted to see him!" Harvey exclaims whiningly again
"Maybe next time you can see him?"
"Yeah, maybe."
"So, did you enjoy playing baseball for the first time, Harv?" Asks Jack
"Yeah, it was good. I managed to learn how to pitch and bat the ball, which was fun,"
"That's good. I was looking forward to teaching you how to do that, but it seems that they beat me to it,"
"Were you? That would've been cool,"
"Yeah, but now that you know how to play, we can do it together. Who was it that taught you how to play baseball?"
"Joe taught me."
"Oh, did he? I thought that." Harvey walks in between his dads as the three of them make their way up to the second floor in search of Caroline, John, June, Rachel and LJ. They find the remaining five siblings in Harvey's room by the sound of yelling coming from behind the closed door.
"No! Put that down! You know how weird Harvey is when someone messes up his records!" They hear John yelling at one of his siblings, probably one of the troublesome two-year-olds Rachel and LJ. Harvey pushes his room door open, with his dads on either side of him and when the door opens he sees his books scattered all over the floor, the set list that he made earlier tore up, John trying to wrestle the Rubber Soul album out of LJ's grasp, June attempting to help Caroline pick up the scattered books and Rachel smudging the lens of his telescope with grubby fingerprints. He stands in the doorway with his mouth agape in shock at the mess his siblings have made of his room. He glances up at his dads who look equally as shocked at the mess that their rebellious children have made.
"What the hell have you done to my room?!" Harvey screeches angrily to his siblings
"It was their idea!" Exclaims John accusingly, pointing at his younger siblings Rachel and LJ. Harvey glares at the troubling two-year-olds who look as though they're going to start crying
"Now I have to tidy all of this up! And who ripped my set list for my concert?"
"Charlie did." Answers LJ accusing the family's fluffy black and red-haired Welsh Terrier
"Oh, Charlie did, did he(?)" Harvey sarcastically questions.
"Now all of you are going to help your brother tidy up," Jack orders the mischievous quintet. With a few grumbled replies, they all crack on getting Harvey's room back to the way his perfectionist self likes it; Jack helps Harvey sort out his records in a neat and chronological order and his books in a tidy and descending order. Lee helps out the other five by picking up the cascade of books and handing them to Jack and Harvey to sort, showing Rachel how to wipe off the dirty hand and fingerprints from the lens of Harvey's telescope. After a while, Harvey's room is back to its usual neatness and he can stop stressing over it, which he's glad about. His dads, on the other hand, are annoyed at his siblings for a change because it's usually him that's on the receiving end of his dads' disciplining. After his siblings apologise for making a mess of his room, all is forgotten and Harvey starts rattling on about what he's wanting to wear for going out tonight.
"I was thinking of wearing a shirt and tie, suit pants and a pair of smart shoes. Not my sneakers, they wouldn't go,"
"You didn't even like wearing your suit the last time you had it on. You spent almost an hour whining about the inside labels touching you," Caroline chides her seemingly thick brother
"Well, excuse me for having a sensory overload!" Harvey hits back
"Oh, sorry. I didn't realise."
"Are you just leaving your hair as it is or are you going to style it?" Asks John
"Pretty much, yeah, but I'll try and comb it at least," Harvey answers putting his fingers through his hair and pushing the red locks backwards making some tufts of hair stick up.
After an hour or so later, with Harvey dressed up smartly in his plain white shirt, black suit trousers and a small pair of black brogues, he's now trying desperately to tie his tie and failing miserably.
"Ugh! I give up!" He shouts in frustration and yanks the unknotted tie from his shirt collar with his right hand and throws it onto his sandy brown carpet in a temper. He picks up the discarded tie and comes out of his room in search of one of his dads to tie his tie for him, since he's hopeless at it; he goes across the hall to his dads' room hoping they'll be in there, he knocks and then hears his dad saying:
"Come in!" He opens the door and finds his dad in the room by himself. Jack asks:
"What's wrong, Harv?"
"I can't tie this stupid thing!" Harvey replies agitated as he hands his dad his black tie, Jack takes it from him and says:
"I can tie it, it's fine. No need to get yourself all worked up about it, Harv,"
"Okay." Jack then lifts Harvey's shirt collar, places the tie around his neck, positions the two ends together, crosses the long end over the shorter one, tucks the longer piece under to make the beginnings of the knot, pulls the same piece over, tucks the long end under to make the knot and finally, pushes the knotted tie up towards the top button of the shirt at the collar to tighten and straighten the tie, then puts the collar down around the tie. Harvey looks down at the tie and takes a second or two to admire his dad's handiwork and thinks to himself that it's not that hard to tie your tie, you just need to have a bit of patience and practice and you'll get there eventually. He looks up at his dad and says:
"I can manage this part myself," as he begins to tuck his shirt into his trousers, "it's just these shoelaces I can't tie," he continues whilst lifting his right foot off of the ground and then puts it back down again
"That's another thing you'll have to learn how to do yourself, Harv. You can't have your daddy and I doing everything for you, you'll need to learn these things for when you're older,"
"Oh, okay." Jack then ties Harvey's laces and the boy watches everything as it happens, when the laces are tied; Harvey says to his dad:
"Oh! So, that's how it's done?"
"Yeah. It's easy once you get the hang of it, it just takes a bit of practice,"
"Oh, okay. I just need to fix my hair,"
"And you can manage that yourself, can't you?"
"Yeah." Harvey heads into the joint bathroom in search of a brush or comb to tame his messy hair, so that it looks presentable. The first thing he notices is a pill bottle that seems to have been left out, he lifts it and studies it curiously. He calls out to his dad:
"Dad, what are these?!"
"What is what?"
"These," Harvey replies as Jack enters the room and his eyes go wide in shock once he sees what Harvey is holding
"Those are mine, put them back,"
"What is 'hydro-something-sone'?"
"Never mind, just put them back,"
"Who is Addison? And why does she have a disease?"
"No one. Just put them back where you found them,"
"Okay." He places the pills back down onto the sink where he got them from. Harvey watches in the mirror as his dad brandishes a comb seemingly out of thin air and hands it to him to use. He starts combing his hair forwards and then his dad suggests:
"It'll work better if your hair is wet, Harv,"
"Oh, okay." He replies as he turns the hot tap on and runs his hands under the warm water, then runs his wet hands through his hair; the water making his hair go darker in colour. He takes a hold of the comb again and starts to comb his hair to the left-hand side until all of the hair at the front is sitting neatly on the left-hand side of his head. When he finishes fixing his hair, Harvey turns to face his dad and questions:
"How do I look?"
"You look great, buddy!"
"Thanks. Where is daddy?"
"He's with the others," Jack answers referring to Caroline, John, June, Rachel and LJ
"Oh, okay." He follows his dad out of the bathroom and bedroom and makes their way out to the hallway, then his dad says to him:
"I think they must be in the East Room,"
"Why in there again?" Comes the confused questioning
"Because that's where Uncle Bobby is, so he can take you to your concert," explains Jack
"Oh, is he? Okay." Harvey follows alongside his dad as they make the short trip to the East Room. Upon entering, Harvey notices his Uncle Bobby straight away and then acknowledges that his daddy and his siblings are in the room also, he runs up to his uncle and excitedly asks:
"When are we going?!"
"It doesn't start for another hour, so not right now, Harv,"
"Aww! But I'm so looking forward to it!"
"I know you are, but you'll just have to wait a little longer,"
"Okay, then." Harvey heads over to where his daddy and siblings are and asks them all:
"So, how do you guys think I look?"
"You look great, pal, really smart," compliments Lee
"Yeah, you look nice, Harv," agrees Caroline
"You look nice, but I'm still jealous that you get to go out and I don't," replies John half complimenting his brother and half griping at him
"Harvey pretty!" The three toddlers unanimously agree
"Thanks, daddy. Thanks, you guys."
"Harvey, come and see what I've got!" He hears his dad shouting at him, he makes his way over to where he heard his dad calling him and finds him holding a camera; he wonders why he's got that with him, so he asks:
"Why have you got a camera with you?"
"So, I can take yours and LJ's pictures as a memento of your first ever concert, so we can look back at them in the years to come,"
"Oh, well that makes sense, I suppose." Jack then takes a snapshot of Harvey, and once he gets the annoying colourful floaters away from his field of vision, eagerly asks his dad:
"So, can I see it?"
"We'll need to wait until it gets developed, bud,"
"Oh, yeah. I'm sure it'll turn out nice,"
"I hope so, Harv."