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"Hi, my name is Pete..."

"Hi, Pete."

"...and I'm tympanophobic."

Pete Best looked around the room, furiously wringing his hands on the lectern. He did his best to look calm, but it was all he could do to keep from running out of the room. He was at this phobics-anonymous meeting, at the suggestion of his doctor. "Something to get you out and experiencing life again, Petey," the doctor told him. "You either confront it or let it eat you away. Your anger, your fear...it's...it's been too long, and frankly, I can't do much more for you."

At this point, Pete was willing to try anything to get his life back. He'd been in hiding since that horrible day in 1962, and was tired of running away. He's tired of being angry.

"I've been ashamed and afraid for 42 years. And now, I'm here to admit who I am once and for all. I am Pete Best and I am afraid of drums."

There were one or two audible gasps from the group, and one woman, Shirley, cried inconsolably at a table near the back of the room. Pete stared hard at the faux wood paneling on the back wall of the church's basement rec.room, hoping to pull a little bit of courage out of its textured grain. Clearing his throat, Pete continued on with his story.

"I was the drummer for the Beatles," Pete sighed. He hated to say those words out loud. Drummer. Beatles. Drummer. Beatles. Drummer. Beatles. The words went in his head, threatening another panic attack. Drummer. Beatles.

He knitted his fingers together, tightly, so that the knuckles were white. He bit his lip and forced the words out.

"I was a good drummer; I was a right fine drummer. I began playing at a very young age. I took my sticks wherever I went, you know, banging around on this or that, smacking around on poles, tables, whatever. I was a drummer, right? I drummed.

"So naturally, what's a boy to do but join a band? My mum owned The Casbah Club where I'd get a few gigs now and then as a charity, I'm sure."

Pete looked down, embarrassed at having to admit his first gigs were a gift from his mum.

"The Beatles played at the club every now and then, so that's how they heard of me. They were raw, then, you know? Just a bunch of lads trying to scrape it together. So when they got booked at some dive in Hamburg, they begged me to join along. And of course I went. I dumped the bunch of blokes I was with and headed over the sea to play the music I loved.

"They sure begged, though. They heard me playing the night before, right. Banging away, plugging away, doing what I do. They knew me, man, and they knew I had what it took to take the band straight up. So of course I said 'too right, man, I'm coming!' Yeah, if it wasn't for me, they would have been right up the creek, you know what I mean? What would they have done? Nothing, I tell you that's what!"

He paused and bit his lip again to regain his composure. He was gripping the sides of the lectern and tiny drops of sweat were forming at his brow. This anger had been bottled up in him for so long that he was afraid what would happen if he let it take control. 'Not now, not here,' he thought, 'not with everyone staring at me, doughy mouthed and wide eyed.' He stared down at his hands, the useless hands that have done nothing but hide for the past 42 years. Traitors.

Someone coughed in the back of the room. There was a lot of smoke at these meetings; everyone giving up their fears for addictions, instead. Smoke reminded him of the clubs they used to play, the clubs he used to play.

"Sorry about that," he half choked, the words coming out funny, the smoke affecting his throat. "As I was saying, we played in Hamburg, quite a few gigs. I was in love with the sound, the beat, the power that we had over those people. The girls, man, the girls would go crazy! They would scream for us. You can't imagine what that does to a person. Paul, John, they all went nuts for it. Partying and the lot of it. Who knows who they were sleeping with every night, coming to gigs hung over.

"I spent my time with the music. I can't tell you how much I loved it. I spent my time practicing, listening, finding the music, the beat, in everything. The way you crack your fingers, Bill, or the way you're crying, Shirley, the thump of my heart up here, there's a beat in everything.

"But somewhere along the way, those blokes, they lost the point. The girls and the drugs and the fame...."

"Then they met him. Ringo. What kind of name is Ringo anyway? Ringo Ringo named for the stupid rings on his stupid fingers. What kind of drummer plays with rings on his fingers? Ringo, Ringo Ringo!" Pete's hands were no longer gripping the lectern or each other. They were flying madly in the air, waving and punctuating his words with fury.

Shirley stopped crying and looked up at Pete. The room fell dead silent, all eyes on him, worried. This room was full of people who were afraid of one thing or another, from something as simple as spiders and open spaces to things like food cut into flower shapes and animals with people clothes on. Loud voices made people who were scared, even more scared.

Pete stared hard at the back wall, its simple wood grain forming strange and deciving images in his head. Drum sticks on the wall right behind Gladys. Ringo's big nose on the wall next to Michael. It was mocking him, infuriating him. Ringo. Ringo. The reason for 42 years of fear and anger. Pete began to noticeably tense, his eyes burning holes into the fake brown paneling.

"Rin-go. Rin-go. Riiiiingo." Pete said under his breath.

Tommy, the fat man sitting at the table in front of the podium, cleared his throat. "You alright there, Pete?"

Pete stared back at Tommy, red eyed and red faced. "I am, Tommy. I haven't been better in 42 years TOMMY! Now if you will let me go on with my story."

Tommy, afraid of confrontation, waved at him with his hand, shrinking down into his chair as much as his giant girth would allow.

"Now, as I was saying! So there I was, committed to one thing more than I ever have been in my life, music, the beat. I spent hours drumming, just banging away. I heard nothing but the beat and that man, that THING, Brian Ep-STEIN, calls me and says to me, HE says to ME that they're firing me from the band." Pete was furious. His hands flew up in a frenzy of accents and punctuations. The spit sprayed in tiny little arches when he shouted.

Linda, afraid of body fluids, stood up quickly from her place beside Tommy and moved to the back of the room, embarrassed. Everyone looks around, uncomfortable. Who, in a room full of phobics, is going to stand up and tell Pete to calm down? No one.

"At first, I was shocked. I had lived to create music and there they were firing me? So I says to him, I said What about Paul and the scandal with the woman in Hamburg? Or John trying to see how much he could smoke in one night? Huh? What about George stumbling around drunk for hours? Where was their dedication?

"I am the man who put the beat in Beatles! Don't you forget it! I am the greatest drummer alive! You can't kick me out, because I quit!

"And then I hung up the phone." Pete's somber voice returned. After spitting and spewing like a mad cat, Pete became the serious and sad person who had walked up to that podium. Someone had switched off his light.

"That was June, 1962. Today is September 2004. It's taken me this long. So very, very long. What did I do with my time? I'll tell you. I spent it in my room. I threw away anything with their name on it. My middle name was John. I changed it because I couldn't bear the shame, the memory.

"I put my sticks down and haven't picked them up since that day. As the days went on, I couldn't even stand the word drummer. I avoided talking about it. I stopped listening to the beat and started listening to the quiet buzz of silence.

"I knew I had progressed too far to go back when I was out buying some thing from the market when I walked by a radio playing Wipeout by the Surfaris. Drum..drum...drums were coming out of the speaker and I ran. I dropped what I was carrying and I ran. I couldn't even face the sound of my favorite thing in the whole world."

Shirley started up her boo-hooing and the crowd started coughing and smoking and relaxing again. This was what they could relate to, fear, the fear of fear, fear and phobias and more fear. They took comfort in it.

Pete stared back down at his hands, sitting silent and still, slightly crossed. He stared long and hard into those hands, wondering what to say next. What was there to say? He was mad. He was sad. He was afraid. He wanted to be a drummer again.

Pete continued on his talk, regaling his life with these anonymous shame-faced strangers. He peppered his story with moments of laughter, how getting caught in the middle of a marching band parade walking home from his doctors had put him in the hospital for a month. He never glossed over the sadness, of losing his wife, his family. As Pete spoke about his life holed away, avoiding the rhythm of life and music, his once still hands began to tremble. His fingers slowly tapped out a beat to his words, providing a quiet soundtrack to his poor, sad life.

"I spent my life in a treble-filled world. I've avoided walking a regular route because of the rhythm of my shoes on the pavement. I've avoided music, I've avoided living. But, I guess that's why I'm here, isn't it? To face my fears and get back to what I miss the most - drums. I don't know how to start living again, but I guess I will take those first precious steps. I'm afraid, but I can't let it stop me any more.