Dark Star: Confessions of a Rock Idol (17 page)

“We’re talkin’ aggravated assault, battery…”

“Everett, I just hung up with Gray.”

“Manslaughter!”

“No suit has been filed,” she shot back. “The district attorney hasn’t charged you. And if any charges are filed, our attorneys will get you off. The worst you’ll have to do is pay damages.”

“How do you know I’m not at Mary’s place?”

“I called her,” she said, followed by a deep drag on a cigarette.

“When?”

“She knows where you are, doesn’t she? Why are you keeping it such a big secret?”

“I need to figure out what to do…”

“I just told you what to do! Don’t be freaked out and don’t go on some heavy guilt trip about this thing. Remember…judgment, condemnation—they’re lies from hell, Everett. Don’t be hard on yourself. Move on. Rest in the security of knowing that your friends are going to get you out of this mess. Soon it will all be just a blip on the screen.”

“What else did Mary say?”

“That the two of you went to visit the girl at the hospital, and that’s the last she saw you. Listen, I don’t care where you are, as long as you do what I tell you! Number one: Go to the Dayton police. Number two: Call Gray and tell him how soon you can be back out to The Groove. Is two more days enough?”

I stared blankly out the window at the falling darkness. It reminded me of the shade of my soul.

“Well…you decide,” she snapped. “But make it quick. We need to finish this record. Tina says sponsors are chomping at the bit to bid on the Freedom tour. That thing could launch as early as a month after the Rowdy tour ends. Listen, get some rest. You’ll feel much better in the morning. And leave your phone on! I want access to you.”

“Are the guys ticked?”

“They’ll get over it. They’re probably glad to have another few days off. None of us could believe you went to visit that girl. Great PR move.”

“It wasn’t PR!”

“I’m just teasing,” she said. “Do you need me to come to you?”

“No…where are you?”

“I’m in a cab on my way to a reading. A high-ranking official with the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan… Hey, by the way, if I decide to stay over, can I crash at your place?”

“Help yourself.”

“You’re a doll. Be happy now, pumpkin! Everything’s going to be fine.”

She hung up, and I held the phone in my lap and stared outside.

It was the kind of yard where children would love to run and play hide-and-go-seek. Had Olivia ever romped in this backyard?

The clock by the bed showed 5:25. Jerry was due home. I couldn’t decide whether to ask him to drive me to the Dayton police, to leave the house on foot and run from all this, or to take every pill in my pocket.

The stench in my cell was overwhelming tonight. What I wouldn’t give for some fresh air. Ever since I was incarcerated on murder charges, and throughout the trial, my life had become abysmally sedentary. I couldn’t stand it. I was used to moving, going, doing. But now, I was either sitting in an uncomfortable, straight-backed wooden chair in courtroom B-3 or lying on this soft, lumpy mattress behind these chipped white bars.

But I would say this—I’d grown in the past few weeks. I was forced to learn about trust and hope, about patience, about being content in the here and now. There was plenty of time to read, which is what I did most of the time when I wasn’t writing these memoirs. I also did several sets of sit-ups and push-ups when I got up in the mornings—just to keep the blood flowing.

Although they wouldn’t let me have my guitar in here (Brian was working on that), I still managed to scribble down quite a few new tunes and lyrics. Perhaps I’ll share those with you later.

The lights were dim in here. It was depressing. Like I said, the smell was always bad. At night, when the lights flickered off at 10 p.m., I could hear men crying, screaming…laughing wickedly. The sounds echoed off these concrete walls like bad dreams.

I had a friend in here named Scotty; didn’t know his last name. He’d served four years of a twelve-year sentence for armed robbery. He had a wife and two young children at home and struggled with depression. Scotty was strung out on drugs when he did the crime and needed the money to pay for his fix.

I understood. And I hoped I could encourage him.

A large shadow crept up my legs and darkened my chest and the pages of these memoirs.

I looked up to see the outline of Zaney’s massive body covering what little overhead light came in from outside my cell. He held a mop in one fist and a bucket in the other. Looking both ways, he set them down and pressed his pudgy nose between the bars.

He stared in at me for what seemed like a minute.

“I am anti-Christ,” he finally whispered. “So was Endora… You know that, don’t you?”

My stomach tanked and I froze to the bunk.

“You were doin’ so well, Lester.” He leaned his head back a few inches. “We were settin’ people free…legions of people! Through the wide gate, down the broad road—”

“To destruction,” I said, surprised by my own words.

He squeezed the bars next to each side of his head with both mitts and sneered at me. “That’s right…
to destruction.
And when you found that out, we started losing you, didn’t we?”

He backed up, looked all around, then smashed his fat face between the bars.

“We couldn’t let that happen, Lester. We couldn’t
lose
you. We had to do something.”

“What are you talking about…Endora Crystal’s death?”

“The ultimate sacrifice.”

“I don’t know what you had to do with Endora, but whatever it was, it’s backfiring.”

“We’re not done yet,” he spewed. “I told you, we
will
finish what we started. Sleep with your eyes open, Lester, and tell your lovely to do the same.”

He picked up the bucket, grabbed the mop, and took several steps. “And don’t bother havin’ Boone call me to the witness stand.” He smirked. “After all, I’m the father of lies.”

He managed a sick laugh and lumbered away, repeating the words, “That’s just my nature… That’s just my nature…”

13

MARY TOOK THE DAY
off from her many real estate calls to pick up my attorney at the Dayton International Airport. Brian had flown in from New York to be with me as I turned myself in to the Dayton police department for questioning in the Olivia Gilbert incident.

Jerry Princeton couldn’t have been more kind. He saw to it that I was well fed and rested at his comfortable home. We talked at length during meals and while watching ball games. It turned out that during his days in the service, he was a rock ’n’ roll junkie and even had a bent for DeathStroke music, in his rowdier moments.

That first night, when Jerry returned home from work, he found me sitting in my room, staring out the window with the bottle of pain pills in my hand. He sat on the edge of my messed-up bed, and we talked about life, about family, about growing up, about love—and about his beautiful wife, Susan, who was snatched from him by cancer when she was just thirty-seven.

That’s when Jerry had considered suicide…with his service revolver…right here in the same room, staring out the same window, wondering the same things: Why was life so cruel, so lonely? What was the meaning of life? Why was I here?

I had known Jerry less than a month, and I considered him a warm and honest man. In fact, I had never been exposed to such love and interest from another human being; therefore, I wasn’t certain I could trust it. But Jerry had been on the front lines of war, he’d done drugs, he’d lost a young wife, he’d contemplated suicide. And yet…he was sane. He was standing. His life even seemed to flourish.

Just by being there and being transparent, Jerry enticed me to open up and share things I hadn’t shared with anyone.

“My old man and I argued all the time,” I confessed. “He beat me often.”

“How did those skirmishes make you feel?”

“Terrified…of the next time.”

I cried, flooding his waiting heart with my deep-rooted feelings of inadequacy, hatred, incompetence, bitterness, and fear of man.

Jerry listened. He related. We became friends.

“I have so much rebellion inside. Even though I’m famous, I’m so lonely. There’s no contentment. I feel depressed and guilty all the time. It ticks me off.”

“And you’ve become determined never to be hurt again, haven’t you?”

“In a way, yeah. I live a defensive life, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe that’s why you developed a love for guns.”

During one of our chats, Jerry explained in a casual, heart-to-heart way that God had come into his life when Susan died. He said that Christ could be my lifeline, too. Although I listened intently out of courtesy, I just could not get my head around what he was telling me; I couldn’t bring it into focus. It seemed far off, untouchable—something for other people. However, Jerry’s countenance and compassion toward me didn’t change as a result of my lack of response—and that intrigued me.

He took the morning off from his job at Gladstone College to drive me to meet Mary and Boone at the Dayton police department. On the way, he told me he had seen Mary the night before at Good Samaritan Hospital and that his niece remained in serious condition. There had been no change.

Mary and Jerry had seen each other almost every day at the hospital and had shared dinner and walks several times since the incident with Olivia. Claudia and Raymond Gilbert hadn’t filed charges yet and, to my knowledge, had no idea I was staying at the home of Claudia’s brother.

Unbeknownst to me, Gray Harris flew in, rented a car, and met us at the police department. While Brian, Gray, and I met with a jazzed-up, four-person team of Dayton investigators, Mary and Jerry took off to find a good cup of coffee and enjoy a morning out together.

I won’t bore you with all the details of the interrogation with the police. My initial impression was that they were four rednecks on a witch hunt. Then again, a fourteen-year-old girl lying in a coma had been injured on their watch—and they wanted answers.

The three men and one woman plainclothes team of investigators escorted us into a dark, windowless, smoke-filled room where, just like in the movies, a lone overhead light dangled low over the table between us.

With tape recorders rolling, I told the investigators how I had slept in late the day of the concert at Dayton Arena, my normal routine while on tour. “I was especially tired that day, because we had been recording in California, had flown in for a show in Toledo, then jetted down to Dayton in the wee hours of the morning.

“When I woke up in my hotel room, it was about 2:15 or 2:30 p.m. I ordered room service, watched TV, and ate alone. Then Gray Harris, David Dibbs, several staffers, and I played cards down the hall.

“Limos took us to the arena for a sound check at 4:30. After ninety minutes at the venue, I met up with Charlie LaRoche, a friend and DeathStroke staff member, and we had a driver take us to some clubs in downtown Dayton, the names of which I can’t remember. From there, it was back to Dayton Arena for the concert.”

Naturally, the investigators grilled me about my drug and alcohol consumption that day. Knowing every eye was on me in public, I told them the truth about drinking several beers and mixed drinks that afternoon and evening at the clubs. I did not mention, however, the excessive amounts of cocaine and marijuana Charlie and I had consumed during the hours before the show.

Was I swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels onstage during the concert that night in Dayton? I knew I couldn’t deny it, so I said yes. When the investigators—especially the strong, young black woman named Tammy—pressed me for details about the concert, I told them I only remembered bits and pieces. That was the truth.

“What is the last song you remember performing the night of the concert?” she asked.

“I just can’t remember,” I said, trying to comply. “It may have been ‘Souls on Fire,’ I’m just not sure.”

“You did do that song, fourth in the set,” she confirmed. “Do you remember doing the new song, ‘Freedom’?”

“No…I don’t.”

“No recollection about your interaction with the crowd during that song…your making statements about your beliefs and the crowd chanting back?”

“No.”

“No recollection of talking about breaking free from bondage to God?” Her temperature seemed to rise with each word. “No recollection of having the audience repeat after you, something about a vow to lash out against Christians who forced their religion on you?”

“No.” I laughed innocently. “I mean, I don’t remember that. You’ve got to understand how absolutely fatigued I was from all the travel and pressure—”

“What we understand, Mr. Lester,” lead investigator Bernie Novak raised his voice, “is that you came into our city out of your mind on drugs, spewing your anti-religious mumbo jumbo. The next thing we know, a young girl is in critical condition from a blow to the head, fifteen others are transported to the hospital after almost suffocating to death, and dozens more go home with a newfound fear of crowds. Do you remember slinging the microphone stand into the audience?”

“No.” I looked at Gray, then Boone.