Yoko entices John and Sean onto the rooftop of the Dakota. A small plane flies in from the north. Yoko waves at the pilot. He’s Wayne Mansfield, whom she first hired to skywrite “War is over! If you want it” over the city during their 1969 antiwar campaign.

The skywriter spells out HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN AND SEAN—LOVE YOKO. He skillfully traces the letters until they are repeated in full nine times, for the shared birth date and for John’s lucky number 9.

John tells his son, “We’re almost like twins.”

*  *  *

On a walk down Central Park West, the Lennons bump into Geraldo Rivera.

“There they were, John, Yoko, and their child,” Rivera recalls in 2019. “I couldn’t have been happier to see them and how happy and lighthearted they were. They reminded me of college kids or honeymooners. His love for her cannot be overstated. John was head over heels for Yoko. They were a beautiful family, and we had a great chat.”

After the Upper West Siders share a few laughs in front of the entrance to Geraldo’s apartment building, on 64th Street, they bid one another farewell.

“Here was one of the Beatles and one of the most famous people in the world walking around New York City without security, without bodyguards,” Rivera remembers. “I did not have a good feeling about that.”

*  *  *

John’s still making records with old friends. He and Yoko have produced David Peel and the Super Apple Band’s new single, “John Lennon for President,” to be released by Peel’s Orange label in November.

John’s feeling nostalgic, too, for the music that inspired him. “This one’s for Gene, and Eddie, and Elvis.…and Buddy,” he says of “(Just Like) Starting Over,” the first single off Double Fantasy.

“It’s a fifties song made with an eighties approach,” John says, likening the sensibility to “Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Hungry Heart’—which I think is a great record—is, to me…it’s the same kind of period-sound as ‘Starting Over.’”

John’s target listeners send the single to number 4 on the Billboard charts.

*  *  *

In San Francisco, Jann Wenner is in his office preparing a new cover story about John. The Rolling Stone editor and publisher is on the phone to New York. He’s assigned the shoot to his chief photographer, Annie Leibovitz, and he has a particular look in mind.

“Please get me some pictures without Yoko,” Wenner says.

Leibovitz objects. “You never tell me what to do.”

Wenner won’t back down.

He’s dishing out the tough treatment to the entire staff. Panicked editors are talking to friends at other music magazines. “Two different writers had been sent to cover Lennon,” the gossip goes, “but neither had gotten the hard story [Rolling] Stone wanted.”

The reason is Double Fantasy: “They like the album too much.”

Chapter 59

Chapter 59

Still I look to find a reason to believe.

—“Reason to Believe”