The Benefit of Mr Kite

“To Norwegian Wood!” Exclaimed Sadie as she toasted her winning horse and clinked glasses with her bandmates and their inner circle.

She was celebrating post gig with the rest of her band No Reply at the best suite in the Gramercy Park Hotel on Lexington Avenue. It wasn’t one of the most expensive hotels in Manhattan, but it was one of the coolest, an unusual fusion of of glamour and grit where you could order a replacement guitar string from room service along with your sandwich and maybe a little pick me up if you so desired. It’s rock and roll reputation was born when David Bowie arrived as a resident in February 1973 to promote The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars and his upcoming Aladdin Sane, claiming that he was from Mars and doing his best to look the part with a bold lightning bolt painted across across his pale face and bright candy-coloured hair. RCA Records had booked him into the Gramercy Park Hotel because he lost a lot of money on the last tour when he stayed at the Plaza and the Gramercy was far more reasonably priced.

Bowie and his 100 strong entourage took over a whole floor of the Gramercy for a fortnight as he performed sell out shows at Radio City Music Hall to fans including the likes of Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Truman Capote. Bowie’s residence and legacy of hard partying led to the hotel being nicknamed ‘the Glamercy,’ and since then it had been a magnet to the likes of Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, the Clash, Aerosmith, Madonna and Blondie.

Hot on their tail was ‘No Reply’ for whom 1988 had proved to be a strong year so far, they had already sold a hundred thousand copies of their first album and completed a successful string of sell out gigs, to crown it off they had just won $20,000 betting the takings from their last show on a horse race.

“Congratulations on the win.” Declared a stranger in a soft British accent, loud enough to cut through the music on the stereo and the competing voices of the fifty or so heaving bodies packed into the suite. His serene energy stood out amongst the raucously partying, eclectic milieu in the room that ranged from drag queens to label execs. He looked fashionable for the times, dressed in a baggy grey suit with rolled up sleeves and a black No Reply T-shirt tucked at the waist, he hid his eyes behind aviator sunglasses, his weathered complexion, scraggy beard and greasy long hair offset his fashionable look and his face betrayed a life lived hard. If Sadie had to guess she would have put him about ten years older than her so in his early 30s.

“Thank you.” Sadie replied.

“Sadie, this guy has something that you might be interested in.” Her fixer advised.

“Really?” She asked.

“It’s not what you are thinking, but you should hear him out.”

Sadie stepped outside the room with her guest into hotel corridor which was dimly lit by shaded lamps mounted on sconces at regular intervals, the walls were lined with blood red wallpaper and the carpet peppered with cigarette burns was also a matching blood red. Looking down the corridor was a bit like looking down somebody’s throat. At the end of the hallway, Pinky the vertically challenged bellhop who had worked there since the fifties carried a guest’s bags to their room.

Sadie leaned up against the wall and lit a cigarette, the noise of the party thumped behind her, but the walls were thick enough to mute it so that they could talk properly. She was wearing a black felted wool hat with an upturned shallow brim and a folded ribbon side bow carefully perched on the crown of her head of shortly cropped peroxide blond hair, her makeup was a classic 50s-inspired cat-eye combined with some peachy metallics, a denim jacket hung on her shoulders over a skintight coral coloured sequin top and a black leather Chanel miniskirt, an abundance of bracelets clanked around both of her wrists, on her feet she wore black high-top sneakers.

“So, you are?” Enquired Sadie taking a drag on her cigarette.

“Mr Kite.”Replied the stranger as he shook her hand firmly and formally. He continued in a calm British monotone.

“I love your work and I have had something had in my possession for several years now that could be of interest to you. It’s a black moleskin notebook that once belonged to the great John Lennon, John gave it to me just before his tragic passing, it is full of his song ideas. John said that I could have it should anything ever happen to him to share with another artist of my choosing. I have been waiting for the right artist to come along that deserves the contents of this book, that could do something worthwhile with it. I believe that No Reply are those artists. I see a lot of potential in you, I think that with the right material you could go all the way.”

“Well, it’s nice to hear that you are a fan, thank you, so what do you want for it?”

“I have heard that fate handed you $20,000 today with minimal effort required betting on a horse named after a song that was written by John, it feels quite poetic to me that you could use that exact amount to buy this notebook of John’s lyrics. That would display a reasonable leap of faith, so then if you did hit it big with the material in this book in my eyes you would deserve to.”

“It’s true, we did make 20k on that horse but to ask us to blow all of those winnings now on a notebook that you say was John Lennon’s that you could have just scribbled in yourself... sorry dude but you are tripping.”

Mr Kite paused to process that and replied. “That is where the leap of faith comes in. I totally understand your position but I have made mine clear too, as you say you don’t know whether this book really contains John’s songs or not, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, maybe it will change your life, maybe it won’t. I’m asking you today for $20,000 dollars for it, and it's fine if you aren’t prepared to take it today but be aware that for every year that goes by that price increases by 13% in annual comound interest. In addition to that, every year that passes I’m also going to sell one page of this book to another musical act, so if you find me again what is left in the book is still yours but those are my terms and those terms are non negotiable. If you try to negotiate a new price or new terms then the deal is off and you can no longer have the book”.

“That’s an interesting proposition Mr Kite but 20k is a lot of money to us, so thank you and no offence but I’m going to pass.”

“Alright, that’s fair enough, maybe you aren’t ready for this notebook today but hopefully one day you will be.”

Sadie didn’t give the black notebook or Mr Kite another thought, the band went on to be a moderate success but eventually when their album sales started to dwindle, she remembered Mr Kite and his notebook and started to wonder what would have been if she had have bought it.

Tragedy struck in the late nineties when Jerry the lead guitarist and main song writer in the band died of an overdose and things started to fall apart, eventually thoughts of the notebook and the songs that it contained haunted Sadie dreams and waking thoughts, she just couldn’t stop thinking about it and what could have been.

The industry changed rapidly with the arrival of the internet in the 2000s and like many artists No reply struggled to keep up with online piracy, disputes over music streaming services and how much they should be paid in royalties, then to top it off in 2020 the global pandemic hit putting the kibosh on gigs and touring, the main revenue stream that Sadie and No Reply had left.

It’s now 2021, Sadie is in her early 50s and effectively washed up but was still musing upon the notebook and what could have been as she sat at the bar of a what passed for a ‘hip’ London hotel these days, which was apparently an industrial style of decor exported from Brooklyn: exposed brick walls, ductwork and architectural beams, steel-paned windows, accentuated reclaimed wood panelling, concrete floors and a mix of upcycled and antique furniture.

Although it was the middle of the afternoon Sadie was drinking a whisky on ice whilst around her young hipsters sipped overpriced coffees and cold pressed juices.

“This coffee is everything!” Exclaimed one young hipster who was dressed like a lumberjack.

“It’s the new everything”. Said another also dressed like a lumberjack.

“Gram that shit!” Said the first lumberjack as his friend proceeded to snap pictures of his frothy latte with his smart phone.

“That would have meant something completely different back at the Gramercy in the 80s.” Said a serene and familiar voice next to Sadie.

“Mr Kite, It’s you!” Gasped Sadie. “I’ve been looking for you for so long now!”

“Hello Sadie.” Replied Kite in his monotone voice. He's now likely in his 60s but looking good for it, the latter half of his life must have been lived less hard than the first thought Sadie. Like back in the 80s, he is wearing a suit that is fashionable for the times, now it is a classic Saville row silhouette but it’s a riot of patterns and colour. His hair is still long but now neatly styled up into a man bun and his and beard is now precisely groomed, he still hides his eyes behind sunglasses which are now chunky and designer, a heavy platinum watch adorns his wrist.

“I didn’t know where to find you.” Sadie continues.

“Well, you found me just fine.”

“I wish I had found you sooner, it’s been tough, the industry changed, they let the vampires in and... well you know the rest.” Kite nods in understanding.

“Did you sell some of the pages like you said that you would?” Sadie asks.

“I did.” Replies Kite softly but unapologetic.

“Are there any left?”

“There’s one page left, one song... do you remember my terms?”

“Yes, you were going to add 13% compound interest per year for every year that passed.”

“That’s right... I believe that it’s been...” He closes his eyes to quickly count. “Thirty three years now.”

“I know, I’ve done the maths, it’s now going to cost one million, one hundred and twenty eight thousand five hundred and four dollars and twenty for cents”

“Well calculated, are you able to pay for the notebook in line with my terms?”

“If I sold everything, my home, all my assets, I could raise that, if you were willing to give me the notebook.”

“And you would part with all of it for the one song left in the notebook?”

“I promised myself that if I ever saw you again I’d buy the notebook from you, yes I know the terms. I’m ready to take the leap of faith now.”

“Ok, I’m glad to hear that, just in time too.”

“Is the last song a good one?”

“It’s a great song Sadie, all of the songs in the notebook were great”.

“Mr Kite, may I ask who bought the other pages from you?”

“I promised confidentiality to the buyers, but if you follow music and I know that you do, then you probably worked out who bought them and that’s why you are willing to give up everything you have for the last page in the book.”