Dark Days

by D. Randall Blythe

  These types of questions went on for a good while. Lucie would ask me something, Martin would want clarification of what she was asking, even Antonio would bust in with a suggestion or two in English as to how I might word something in order to be clearer. (He wasn’t supposed to do that, but I am certain he saw how frightened I was, and was trying to help me the best he could. Thanks, Antonio.) This whole ordeal was beyond draining. I was telling the truth to the best of my knowledge, but I felt like I was walking through a mined baseball field in the dark, while trying to catch fly balls two cranked-up batters were hammering all over the outfield. I also did not like the way Antonio kept interrupting me mid-answer, apologetically translating, “That is not important” or “She says that is not so important.” Uhm . . . YES, IT FUCKING IS. If I was bothering to say it, you can bet your ass it was important—I was speaking very, very simply and choosing my words very, very carefully. I was also being extremely cautious not to speak too much, as it didn’t seem the time to indulge my normally verbose self. As far as I knew, the next ten years of my life depended on how I spoke, how much I spoke, and exactly what I said when I spoke. Lucie didn’t seem to agree with that, as evidenced by the many times she dismissed me with a “that’s not so important” via Antonio. Looking at the translated statement Lucie typed down now, I see where many important aspects of my answers were ignored. She distilled them down to short and rather curtly conclusive sounding statements. I realize today that this was in part probably due to the language barrier, but I definitely got the feeling she was typing down what she wished of my answers, not what I was saying. I can’t say for sure (once again, my memory, like every other human, is far from infallible), but I seem to remember questions she asked that I answered that are not on the record at all. I’m sure it was mostly my frayed nerves, but it seemed as if I was being set up for a verdict of guilty. I felt like I was about to hear the judgment at any moment, even though I wouldn’t enter a trial courtroom for months.

  I asked Lucie if I could see a photo of the young man at some point during the interrogation, and either she replied that the police did not have one (lie) or simply said “no,” I cannot remember which. It was very frustrating for me to describe an altercation with someone I only had the haziest of memories of. It upset me quite a bit that she refused to show me a picture. It was like trying to recreate an elaborate painting I had only seen a brief glimpse of in a dream from years ago. I felt certain that if I could see a picture of this young man, it would probably jog my memory, and I could tell them what I knew. I didn’t want to hide or deny my actions—I just wanted to know the truth of them. Perhaps it was the right thing for her to do as a police officer interrogating a suspect, to not show me possibly deniable aspects of the case. I wanted to know what had happened just as badly, probably worse, as anyone else. I just wanted to see a picture of this young man I had been accused of killing. It didn’t seem like too much to ask.

  After a long while, Antonio told me that Lucie had no further questions, but wanted to know if I wished to add anything to my statement. I replied simply and truthfully: this was all a terrible surprise to me, and neither my band nor myself were previously aware that anything of this nature had happened. I said that it was awful to hear that someone had been injured and died, that we are dependent on people like this person, the people who support our band. He was a fan, and we would have no reason to want any of our fans to come to harm.

  With that, we all stood up and left the office. In the hallway outside as Alex was about to take me away, I told Martin what a horrible job I thought Antonio had done. He just grinned and said, “Yes, he was not the best. But I think this may be to our advantage . . .” then told me someone would come see me tomorrow. Not him, as Martin had a prior engagement to have part of his foot sawed off, but someone would be there. I wished him luck, then Alex took me back to the holding cell from the day before.

  I was slightly surprised to be back in the holding cell, as I had expected to return to the hole to await whatever would happen next, and after cadging a smoke from Alex, I asked him what the next item on our schedule was.

  “We must go to doctor to find name of your medicine,” he said, dragging deeply on his own cigarette. “Now we wait for driver.”

  Soon the curly haired detective who had driven us from the airport appeared, and after Alex had handcuffed me (once again, not too tightly), it was back through the cop shop and into the basement car park, where we got into the trusty Skoda station wagon (Skoda is the most common brand of car in the Czech Republic) and zipped out onto the streets of Prague. The sun was shining brightly in a beautiful blue sky, and Officer Bart (as I began to think of the driver, since I didn’t know his name—plus he just looked like a Bart to me) was a completely different person from the dour-faced, scowling policeman I had seen just the day before. He was acting rather (dare I even say it?) jolly; joking around with Alex in Czech and laughing about whatever it is Czech cops find funny, probably the atrocities that awaited me in prison. Even the music was different; today Bart was feeling good, and seemed to be in a “bad boy” frame of mind, and his choice of tunes for our ride to the doctor reflected it.

  Instead of the ghastly, caterwauling, Czech electro-pop from yesterday, he was jamming along to what my friend Bubble calls “roofer rock.” Indeed, Bart was rocking out, drumming on the steering wheel with his finger tips, nodding his head happily in time to the edgy-but-not-quite-aggressive-enough-to-be-considered-real-punk-or-metal guitar riffs. From time to time he would really cut loose, air-guitaring at traffic lights or mouthing a few words of the English lyrics in his heavy accent, and although I’m pretty certain Bart didn’t have a clue what any of the songs were about, it didn’t really matter. With roofer rock, it’s not necessarily about the lyrics, it’s about the feeling, the feeling of being right on the edge of doing something wild and crazy and totally free (but never having to commit and actually do it). And though I would bet my last dollar that the Czechs have their own roofer rock bands, the very best, most rockin’, roofer rock comes from the U.S. of fuckin’ A. Luckily for Bart, the radio station DJ seemed to know this, since he was spinning exclusively American tunes, some of which I actually recognized.

  After about twenty or twenty-five hard rockin’ minutes, we parked on a hill beside a nondescript office building. They let me out of the car and we all walked into the office building, Bart and Alex still merrily chatting away in Czech. Inside a small waiting room Bart and I sat on a bench as Alex talked to a grim-looking nurse in her late fifties. Alex produced my bottle of pills from his pocket and handed it to her. The nurse briefly glanced at the bottle’s label and began shaking her head. She said something in Czech to Alex, who seemed slightly put off by her comment as he responded, pointedly gesturing to a computer on the desk of the waiting room office. The woman shook her head again, clucking her tongue as she repeated herself. Alex replied more heatedly, pointing at the computer once again. A sudden fire appeared in the nurse’s eyes, and she barked the same brief sentence again, this time in a tone of finality that indicated she wasn’t going to put up with any of Alex’s nonsense. She reminded me of my Grandmother, a fearless woman who never hesitated to lay down the law as my brothers and I endlessly attempted to drive her to the brink of insanity with our savage, ill-behaved ways.

  Enough was enough. The answer was no.

  Alex literally threw his hands in the air, said something in an apologetic tone to a now very bent-out-of-shape looking Bart, and the three of us walked very rapidly back to the Skoda. In a matter two or three short minutes, the devil-may-care hard rockin’ good vibe that had characterized our journey so far had been shattered. We jumped in the station wagon, and Bart proceeded to go completely, utterly, apeshit.

  Thus began one of the scariest car rides I have ever take in my entire life. Bart was actually screaming in Czech, periodically pounding on the steering wheel with a clenched fist as he burned rubber away from the office, squealing tires and sliding on
a patch of gravel into traffic, completely ignoring the stop sign at the intersection at the bottom of the hill. Oncoming cars hit their brakes and blew their horns. Bart flicked them off as he cranked the crappy stock stereo up to speaker-blowing volume and stomped on the gas pedal. Never before or since have the sounds of roofer rock been more terrifying. Bart ignored stop signs. He ignored traffic lights. He ignored the thousands of other cars traveling all around us on Prague’s crowded streets. He took corners at speeds that threw me around the back seat of the Skoda, until I managed to fasten my seatbelt with my still-handcuffed wrists. He cursed and screamed the whole time as he sped back to the police station. I couldn’t understand a thing he was saying, but I heard one word over and over I had a hunch was the Czech equivalent of “bitch.” I wouldn’t have to worry about any sort of trial at this rate, for Bart was obviously deep in the grip of a psychotic episode that would surely be the death of us if we didn’t get out of that car soon. I began to pray. I really didn’t want to die overseas, trapped in a station wagon with two pissed off cops, listening to roofer rock. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

  Please God, not yet. Not like this. ANYTHING but this.

  The Almighty must have heard my pleas, because pretty soon we were parked back in the basement of the police station and heading back up to the holding cell. The leisurely trip that had taken us nearly half an hour before couldn’t have lasted more than ten hair-raising minutes on the way back. I looked at Alex.

  “Dude. What in the fuck just happened back there? Your driver friend is a maniac. I thought we were going to die!” I said.

  “Doctor cannot read your medicine. She says we must have translator. I will get translator, then we must go back,” he replied with a shrug. Bart had left the cell (probably to go blow off some steam butchering a little old lady or something). I stared back at Alex.

  “We have to go back?” I asked.

  “Yes. I must call for translator now,” he said, and left me there, wondering if I could somehow make out a will before stepping into the car again. After an hour or so, Bart and Alex returned to fetch me for our journey back to the doctor’s office. As I strapped on my seat belt, Alex said something to Bart, who grunted a short reply and drove us out of the parking garage at a slightly less murderous speed. He was still going fast enough to pull a little drift at the round about in front of the station though, and I heard the tires barking beneath us. Alex craned his head around towards the back seat and looked at me.

  “Do not be afraid. Do not worry. My comrade is a very calming driver,” he said with a grin.

  It wasn’t the most relaxing trip, but I was fairly certain we would survive it this time. I was correct, because in short order we were parked back at the office

  I saw a female child standing out front, holding a leather-bound folder of the sorts an attorney might carry important legal documents in. As we got closer, I saw that the child was dressed in sensible black pumps, slacks, and a button up shirt; what could be described as business casual attire. How odd, I thought, what a strange way for a child to dress. Maybe kids grow up fast in Prague.

  As we neared the office, Alex called out a question to the child, who replied affirmatively in an adult voice. We reached the office door and she spoke to me in fluent English.

  “Hello, my name is Johana. I am here to translate your medicine bottle label.”

  HOLY CRAP. My translator was a little person! This was fantastic news.

  I possess a great affinity for little people. I grew up my entire life feeling different than, and often was treated as such. My youth was spent catching hell from rednecks and preppy jock types who wanted to kick my ass because I wasn’t interested in marching to the banal beat of their drum; in fact I couldn’t even if I tried—my feet are always out of step. I’m too nerdy, too weird, too much my own quirky self to even attempt to squeeze into what I consider the strangling straight jacket of most societal norms. The few times I have tried, I have failed miserably, as “normal” people can smell something strange on me. While I doubt there are many people who haven’t felt ostracized by their peers at some time or the other, and while today I am trying to no longer be shallow enough to judge others just because they seem relatively well suited to fit into society compared to me (you should have seen me at age sixteen though—good Lord, what an asshole), I still feel most comfortable around others who are obviously considered different than. I can relate to these folks.

  So give me your tired, your poor, your bizarre of appearance and strange of mind. Bring me your freaks and geeks, your weirdos and nerds. Bring me your drunks and junkies, your tweakers and gas huffers. Bring me your dungeon masters and jugglers, your OCD collectable action figure enthusiasts and unicyclists. Bring me your homeless balladeers and bodily fluids performance artists, your jazz fusion flutists and anarchist mimes.

  Bring me your little people.

  My people. Let’s hang.

  In short order Johana had taken the bottle, read its label, talked to the nurse for all of sixty seconds, who then signed some sort of paper of approval for Alex. I thanked Johana (whom I would see a lot more of over the next year), Bart threw the nurse a dirty look, and we were off. As we drove back to the station (thankfully at a reasonable, less than terminal, velocity), Alex looked at me incredulously and said, “That woman. She was very small, wasn’t she?” as if he had never seen a little person before and Johana had been some creature from Czech folklore who had appeared like magic. I just sighed and nodded. Yes, Alex, she was.

  As we neared the round about in front of the station, I told Bart to drift again via sound effects and making steering wheel gestures, and he happily complied. This got a big laugh out of him and Alex; Bart really was an excellent driver (or else he would be dead by now) who should probably quit being a cop to drive stunt cars for a movie production company. He dropped us off in the car park and Alex took me back into the station, this time to the hole. Soon the guard brought me dinner, another tasteless sandwich, and after eating it, I lay there in the gloom thinking about the day’s events. There wasn’t anything else to do.

  At some point in the evening, cell number thirteen’s door opened up and a scruffy young man in his twenties was let in, holding the same small bag of toiletries I had been issued the day before. He walked to the bed opposite mine and immediately lay down, staring at the ceiling. I sat up and looked at him.

  “What’s up, dude?” I asked, hoping he spoke English. He turned his head and gave me a baleful look, then rolled over silently to face the wall, his back to me. Ooooooh Kay. Not the chatty type, I guess.

  I lay there, trying to fall asleep, but my mind kept racing back to the interrogation room, recalling and examining my statement from earlier that day. I kept asking myself over and over if I was forgetting something, a misplaced piece of the puzzle that was my current dilemma. I couldn’t conjure any new memories that would give me any sort of clarification for this problem. I gave up.

  Okay, God, I really need you to do me a solid, like right now, dude, I prayed in the dark, I need you to let me know somehow what happened.

  I need you to tell me if I killed that boy.

  No reply.

  chapter eight

  In the darkness of the hole, I awoke from a fitful sleep to a guard calling me through the open hatch in my cell door. He handed me a tray with some bread, cheese, and fruit on it. There was also a plastic cup of what I assumed was supposed to loosely represent coffee, a tepid light brown liquid that may or may not have contained any caffeine. I sat with my breakfast in silence, quietly sipping my tasteless brew, eyeing my charming roommate (who wouldn’t so much as look at me). Shortly after breakfast the guard reappeared and opened the cell door, calling out to my cellmate. Mr. Personality got up from his bed and walked out without a backwards glance, never to be seen again. Lacking anything else to do, I lay down and went back to sleep.

  I woke up sometime later in my ill-lit cubicle of perpetual suckiness and gloom, to the g
uard opening the door again and calling out “advocate.” I was led down the hall into a plain room with a folding table. Inside the room sat Tomas, Martin’s bearded young associate. I was very happy to see him, hoping that he would have more news of my case and maybe even a cigarette or two I could bum. While Tomas did have cigarettes, much to my nicotine-fiending bloodstream’s dismay, no smoking was allowed in this room. We sat and talked about my case for quite some time, and as I had no writing materials to make notes, all I remember was the priority of making sure the judge granted me bail at tomorrow morning’s scheduled hearing. Tomas seemed fairly confident that the judge would set some sort of bail, which raised my spirits a bit. I didn’t know if I would have to remain in the Czech Republic if I made bail, and I didn’t really care. After forty-eight exhausting hours in the Prague hoosegow, I would have been happy to get out on work-release as a human dartboard in Old Town Square until my trial, if that’s what it took. It wasn’t that the police or guards had mistreated me; it wasn’t even the shit food and “coffee”; it was the endless gloom and the nothingness of the hole that was getting to me. I had no way to stimulate my mind, no books, no writing material, not even a window to look out and briefly feel the sun on my face (hell, I would have even taken a TV at that point). No nothing except a head full of confusion, worry, and fear. It was driving me nuts.