The door opens and Sean walks into the big white-carpeted sitting room, alone, not knowing exactly what to expect of this, his first interview of his life. He seems curious about it, but also just the slightest bit apprehensive - even though this is his home, and even though he has met this reporter a couple of times before, he's on his own this time. Dane and Rich and Sam and the mama-san and all the other adult members of the household have stayed behind, elsewhere in the sprawling Dakota apartment, and sent him in to take care of his interview all by himself. And after all, he is only seven years old. He walks across the room, says "Hi" and reaches up for a handshake. After an introduction to the photographer, he settles himself in one section of the long white sofa and looks up, expectantly.
He quickly answers all the preliminary questions, about his birthday (October 9) and his school (Ethical Culture) and his favorite subject (playing elimination in gym class), and before long he's off, being himself.
One minute he's perching on the arm of the chair, watching me write down his poignant answers to my questions about his father who was killed two years ago this week. The next minute, he's racing across the room and leaping through the air onto the sofa, to the delight of the photographer ("I'm not allowed to jump on the furniture," he says, perhaps thirty leaps later.)
He's a handsome, special boy, dark-hair and almond-eyed, wide open to the world, amazingly bright. You look for John Lennon or Yoko Ono in his face, but you can't find them there - at least I can't. The two elements, John and Yoko, England and Japan, come together in Sean in a surprising way, the way blue and yellow combine surprisingly to make green.
If you can't easily see John and Yoko in Sean, you can certainly sense them. He has his father's twinkling, playful sense of humor and his mother's quick, abstract intelligence. He creates sensitive drawings and collages - on a photo taken at his seventh birthday party a few weeks ago, he has superimposed a picture of his father, then superimposed two large tears on his father's cheeks - "He's crying because he couldn't be here for the party," he explained.
He tells me he likes to make things in school. How do you make mazes, I ask. "Well," he answers in a serious tone, "you take this object called a pencil - have you heard of that? - and a piece of paper.." He breaks into a big smile, and we share a laugh at his joke. His mazes, drawn with curved lines, are large and intricate. "They look like brains," he says.
He chats about the things that interest him, like any other seven-year-old kid. But just when you're beginning to think he has a normal kid's life, he says something that makes you realize the kind of problems that go with being Sean Ono Lennon.
"Baseball - I love baseball," he says. "I have sticker books on baseball. I have baseball magazines. I have baseball cards. You would think someone my age who loves baseball so much would have been to at least fourteen or fifteen games, right? But do you know how many games I've been to see? Just one, and the Yankees lost, 1 to 14."
Why only one game? Well, he says, it's because of his mother's concern that something could happen. Going to a baseball game is an occasion for major advance plans and bodyguards. "My Mommy says it's dangerous, and I believe her," he says. "I don't really care - I mean, taking a chance on getting killed or going to see a baseball game, which one would you pick? Anyhow, when I went, I got a ball autographed by all the players."
He says he loves to play in Central Park, where he goes once a week with his second grade classmates. "I don't really need guards," he says. "There's just one guard, and I don't really pay a lot of attention to him - most of the time he plays elimination with me and my friend Philip Monash - you can call him Huckleberry. Philip is number one in the world of sports." He watches as Philip's name goes into the notebook. "Boy, Philip's gonna be so glad to see his name in the Daily News!" he says.
I ask him about his father. What do you remember best about him?
"He wore a ponytail," he says.
What did you two do together?
"We used to jump on beds and wrestle - he was the one who always came out on top."
What things remind you of him the most?
"The songs. When the songs are on."
Which songs?
"All of them, I don't have a favorite."
Did your daddy sing his songs to you?
"Not just for me. He would sing them for Mommy and whoever else was there."
Do you remember him very well?
"I used to remember him better than I do now."
Ask him a tough question, and he handles it with grace. Ask him a silly question and you'll get a silly answer. What does he like?
"Watching MTV. Getting tickled."
He also likes noodling on the piano.
"I taught myself 'Chariots of Fire'" he says, providing a two-finger demonstration. What does he want to be when he grows up?
"I don't think about it, and I can't imagine that anybody would be interested in the answer anyway." ("Basically, I'm a wiseass," he confides at one point.)
Asked about a recent ten-day holiday trip to Germany and France, he recalls in great detail the night he got sick with a virus that had struck everybody except Yoko.
"I threw up all over the hotel room," he laughs, complete with graphic pantomimes, "and then Mommy took me out to La Coupole at one o'clock in the morning so I could get some ice cream to make my throat feel better, and all of a sudden I turned white and...! And all these people are standing there looking at us, and Mommy's going, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'"
I ask him if people often recognize him on the street. "Not always," he says, "but when they do, they go like this" - he runs across the room, turns suddenly and pretends to be taking pictures. "Click, click, click."
Being a seven-year-old kid, he finally gets bored with being interviewed. "Can this be the last question?" he says. "I have a date with my best friend Max. He lives downstairs." As he heads for the door, I ask him if he has anything special he'd like to say. He takes a couple of steps, pauses for a minute, and then he turns around.
"Nothing special," he says. "Just that I love my Mom." And then he's gone.