Dark Days

by D. Randall Blythe

  A few years ago I spent nine days in the Arizona desert with my friend Cody Lundin on an aboriginal living skills/survival trip. I was allowed to take no “pre-made” technology except for a bedroll, two wool blankets, a fixed-blade carbon steel knife, a water bottle, and the clothes on my back. After the first six days, everything was taken away except for one blanket and minimal clothing. I spent the majority of that trip, the entire first six days, making everything I would need to survive from natural materials—stone knives, cordage, a bow drill to make fires, a cat tail sleeping mat, hunting weapons and traps, water containers. If I didn’t gather it or kill it, I didn’t eat. I don’t like starving, so I learned to love the taste of pack rat and rattlesnake and cactus fruit. I lived by the fire and became a cave man. It was immensely disconcerting for me at first to not have a watch; then, as I realized that “time” was not important, it became immensely relaxing—I was living by nature’s rhythms, by my internal clock. “Time” disappeared. It was wonderful. When we returned to society, everyone seemed so foolish and abrasive to me, hurrying to do this or that. I missed the wilderness; I missed being free of the constraints of time. Prison was nothing like this—I was in an unnatural place, and heavily constrained by an unmeasurable sense of time that loomed gargantuan over me like an invisible axe blade.

  I really enjoyed seeing that clock tower every day. In a way, the clock tower allowed me to know where I stood in relation to the rest of the world; for although I knew time merely seemed to pass at a different pace in prison, it was very hard to keep that in perspective when I had been staring at the same four walls for twenty-three hours a day, punctuated only by crappy meals and whistling. Getting out for an hour to see the clock was an affirmation of the normal passing of time, and of my place within that passage. In a strange sense, it was an affirmation of my continuing existence.

  The next day after breakfast, Tom Selleck popped by #505 with a present for me: a paper bag containing most of what had been in my wallet and pockets when I was arrested. This was a wonderful surprise, as I had several things that I would be extremely grateful for in the coming days. There were a few hair ties, business card sized pocket street and subway maps of New York City, a plastic Fresnel magnifying glass card, various scraps of paper and business cards, a pack of flints for a Zippo lighter, a small book of spiritual readings I carry with me wherever I go, a small change purse I had bought in Christiania (an amazing anarchist city that lies inside Copenhagen, Denmark) that contained a pair of earplugs and six Willie Adler signature lamb of god guitar picks, and a pen and my small Moleskine notebook. I was ecstatic to have my journal and a pen, and after I had put my loot away I tied back my dreads, sat down, and immediately began writing.

  Reading this journal now is a strange experience for me, because it details not just the mundane day-to-day occurrences of prison life, but my mental and emotional state as well. As I read this small book, I can actually feel the sharp fear that pervaded my days. I can also see my attempt to stay positive and grateful in the face of it, and I can step outside those feelings now in a way I couldn’t in prison, to analyze them and my actions. I am grateful for this, because I can see that when put to the test, I had come a long way as a human being since my drinking days; I was not completely consumed by anger, hubris, fear, or self-loathing, which were my normal modes of operation. I can forget sometimes what my mental state used to be like when I was in active alcoholism, and be very hard on myself if I feel I am not living up to what I perceive to be acceptable standards. These ludicrous personal standards (ethical, spiritual, professional, artistic) are far beyond attainable for any human being. They are merely a manifestation of my unreasonable pride; kicking my own ass for failing to achieve perfection (of all the ridiculous things to expect to attain) is just another ego trip I cannot afford. This self-absorbed and self-pitying self-flagellation gets in the way of me being a productive and useful human being. So it is good for me to look honestly at myself and note my progress from time to time. I’m just a man doing the best that I can—I need to remember that, and without becoming boastful or complacent, give myself a freakin’ break every now and then.

  I suppose me writing gave Dorj the urge to do something other than whistle, because he fetched our razor blade from beneath the radiator and began cutting the cardboard box his toothpaste had come in into small squares. I noticed him drawing small designs on the squares, and when he was done, he showed me his creation. Dorj had fashioned the thirty-two pieces necessary for us to play chess, drawing the pawns, rooks, kings, etc., on each of the squares. We set the pieces up on the board carved into one of our stools and played a few games. Dorj destroyed me that day, and he destroyed me every day we played afterward. I’m not a good chess player to begin with, and it became pretty demoralizing getting annihilated on the board by an overweight, lackadaisical, compulsively whistling, habitual drunk driver. But it did give me pause from time to time when I became judgmental of Dorj’s apparently sloth-like intellect; the man did speak four languages to my one, and no moron could play chess as well as he did. As much as Dorj drove me nuts, I was oddly fascinated by him. During my better moments, I thought of him as positively Shakespearean, a modern-day Falstaff sent from Central Asia to test my patience and sometimes provide comic relief during the horrid play I was currently living out. His character was such that he possessed not the tiniest shred of shame or self-consciousness; Dorj was Dorj at all times, and didn’t care if you liked it or not. I had to learn a lesson or two from him as a cellmate, because some aspects of the incarcerated life require you to check any self-consciousness you may have at the heavily guarded prison door.

  For instance, let’s talk about pooping. Everyone poops; we all know this. But if you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty, the very square root of pooping, you need to go to prison for a while. Defecation is usually a very private act for most humans. We lock ourselves up in a bathroom or stall and let ’er rip, striking a match or apologizing for the odor if someone has to use the same toilet after us. Doing a number two is almost always a solo mission; even on camping trips where the only toilet is the great outdoors, we go somewhere away from the campsite and our friends to drop a deuce behind a nice tree. Ask any touring musician what are a few things they miss about home when they are on the road, and almost universally, their own toilet will be among their answers. There’s just nothing like taking a crap in your own john. But if you want to know true pooping freedom, spend some time locked up in a small, unventilated cell, subsisting on a primarily liquid diet. Live with an over-weight man who doesn’t even chew what little chewable food there is in your diet. Live where you are never, ever, more than a maximum of twelve feet away from the only toilet available, a no-frills, completely exposed, barely-bolted-to-the-floor-at-all affair. You will soon lose any trace of reticence you may have about taking a dump in front of someone else.

  After a couple of days in Pankrác with Dorj, my need for poop privacy was utterly and completely extirpated. I take that precious gift with me to this day; I could poop in front of or even with anyone now if I needed to without the slightest bit of awkwardness. I could poop next to the President, the Pope, the Prime Minister of any nation on earth. I could take a noisy, smelly crap right beside Mother Theresa, Margaret Thatcher, or Marilyn Monroe. I have never really been a shy or self-conscious person about much, but I do like to have some personal time when nature calls. Pankrác eradicated any poop prudishness I may have had; in some ways, prison will set you free.

  After we had played a few games of chess, a guard came to my cell and beckoned me out, yelling “Blight! Advocate!” I tucked in my shirt, and took the trip upstairs for my first prison visit with my lawyer. I was frisked once directly outside my cell, then after we walked up a few levels in the prison, I was ushered into a small room and ordered to strip down to my boxers. The guard went through the pockets of my pants and felt my socks to make sure there was nothing in them, then ordered me to take off my boxers and squat
. Why in the world anyone would try to smuggle something out of prison up their butt was beyond me, but I suppose they had to make sure I wasn’t trying to pass my lawyer any contraband, perhaps the secret recipe for the shitty soup they fed us every fucking day. Heaven forbid that ever got out, or gourmands from across the globe would be beating down the prison doors. After the guard was satisfied I didn’t have anything I wasn’t supposed to, I redressed and he took me into a cell that was divided into two sections by bars; an open area with a desk where Tomas Morycek was sitting and a cage with a stool where I sat. The guard locked me in and left the room, locking the door behind him. Tomas took out some cigarettes, gave me one (for some reason this was against the rules—lawyers were allowed to smoke in these meeting cells, but prisoners weren’t—I broke this rule every single time I visited with my attorneys), and began to tell me about the condition of my bail.

  My bail had been paid, and I could possibly be released by noon the next day. Supposedly no restrictions had been put on my movements, so I would be free to leave the country; a 2:30 p.m. flight for me to NYC had already been booked by my manager. This seemed a bit optimistic on his part to me, as everything so far in the Czech legal system seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. I was a bit confused by the fact that my bail had been paid and I was still in prison; this was not the way things worked in America. The judge granted you bail, someone posted it, and as soon as they could find you in the jail, off you went on your merry way. I didn’t really worry too much about it though; the money was in the government’s account. They had to let me go soon, right? The Czech legal system couldn’t really be all that different, right?

  Wrong. Very wrong. But I would find that out soon enough.

  Tomas and I also talked about my current portrayal in the Czech press. This topic was quite a bit more worrisome for me, because the news was not good. I was told that according to some news outlets, I was being charged with murder. I had savagely beaten a fan on stage. I had killed a woman. I had kicked a kid in the head to death on stage. All sorts of bizarre things had been attributed to me, all 100 percent false. Tomas told me that my lawyers were contacting these newspapers to inform them that if they did not stop printing this nonsense, then we would sue them. Apparently this is standard procedure in the Czech Republic, and happens all the time. The main offender seemed to be a rag named Blesk. Blesk, as far as I have been able to gather, is a daily tabloid newspaper. It is the Czech equivalent of The National Inquirer in America, or Britain’s Daily Star. It is complete garbage, and almost nobody in the Czech Republic will admit to reading it.

  But it is by far the number one selling newspaper in that country.

  This completely baffles my mind to this day—the Czechs are definitely not a dull lot on the whole. Why in the hell so many of them (91 percent as of 2013, according to one statistic I have read) would bother to look at this crap is completely beyond me. I can’t read Czech, and even I could tell from looking at copies of Blesk in prison that it wasn’t fit to wipe my butt with—glaring, bold headlines. Lots of bright colors. Photos of scantily clad women. Lots of exclamation points. Blesk is just barely a step up from the rags that print stories about Elvis, Bigfoot, and Hitler cruising around in a spaceship together. But it was the number one selling newspaper in the country, it was printing pictures of me with lurid headlines that said I was a murderer, and according to Tomas, this was a big problem that had to be stopped. It would be even better if we could arrange an exclusive interview with Blesk to try to get them on our side a little. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that anyone would care what a trashy daily tabloid had to say about my arrest or case, but apparently Blesk held considerable sway, so we had to address the problem. In America, my reaction to any news printed about me by a freakin’ tabloid would have been two very short words: fuck ’em. Who cares? No one takes that shit seriously where I live. But this was very obviously not America. The court of public opinion can and does affect the court of law at times, and the public opinion was being shaped by the national printed equivalent of the neighborhood fence-leaning scandalmonger. As much as it pained me to admit it, we had to either stop or appease these sons of bitches somehow.

  After we were done talking, Tomas pressed a button to summon a guard to collect me. When the same guard who had brought me there arrived, Tomas asked him if he could give me the two packs of cigarettes he had brought for me. The guard curtly shook his head no, Tomas said something else to him, the guard shook his head no again, then finally after a third question from Tomas, held up two fingers. Tomas told me he was sorry, but the guard had told him he could only give me two single cigarettes. It was better than nothing, so I thanked him, and the guard and I returned to the holding cell where I was made to strip again, drop my boxers, and squat. This time, in addition to going through my clothes, the guard made me untie my dreadlocks and he lifted them individually up to check them for hidden materials. Only after he had done everything shy of sticking a flashlight up my butt was I allowed to put my clothes back on and return to my cell.

  The refusal of all but two cigarettes and the extensive search of my person was what I came to know to be typical behavior of the guards in Pankrác. By typical behavior, I mean completely random, without pattern or any rhyme or reason. Every time I was allowed out of my cell I never knew what was going to happen. I could be made to strip completely buck naked, I could be told to take off only my shirt, I could be told to keep all my clothes on. Some guards made you strip down to skivvies then drop ’em and squat, some made you strip down to skivvies and would look offended if you started to drop them (I always just assumed that this was going to be the case, and just wanted to get it over with, but more than once I’ve had guards avert their eyes once the family jewels started to come out). I understand the randomness of the strip searches—it certainly would keep anyone wanting to smuggle stuff around the prison on their toes, but the cigarettes never made any sense to me. Some guards wouldn’t let you have a single cigarette, some would let you have just a few, then some let me walk out of a meeting with my attorney with five precious packs in my pockets. I have no idea of what the rules actually were pertaining to cigarettes, or if there even were any. Maybe some guards were just cool by nature, and maybe some were just born dicks. It was always just the luck of the draw when it came to how guards would act around you.

  The next day came and went without much of any sort of incident (including me being released from the prison). It was dissappointing, but what could I do? Except for our daily walk, Dorj and I never left the cell. We practiced counting to one hundred a few times; that shortly lost its appeal, so in an attempt to keep him occupied and perhaps put a halt to his whistling for a bit, I gave him the Czech version of some of my court papers, which he promptly began turning into a swan. In retrospect, this was a tragic mistake, because a) Dorj could fold and whistle at the same time, and b) he took this as a sign that any paper I had was a swan just waiting to be made. Felix had given me a few sheets of paper to write letters with at walk that day, and Dorj reached over when I wasn’t looking and snatched up half of the paper to finish the swan he started with my court papers. I scolded him for this when I noticed the paper was gone, but he just laughed and kept folding and whistling. The whistling was getting to me pretty badly by then, but at least we had a few hand rolled cigarettes and two or three matches. We didn’t even have rolling papers, but Dorj had scrounged around the cell and found a few scraps of an ancient Russian newspaper a previous tenant had stuffed into the crumbling mortar around our window sill, I suppose for insulation during the brutal Czech winter months. Dorj had taken our butts and a few others he had found on the ground during walk and rolled us up a few cigarettes, which we smoked very sparingly. We tried to reserve smoking the roll ups as a sort of ghetto incense for when one of us had to take a poop. We also had four pre-rolled cigarettes (“cadillacs” as I have heard them called in American jails) that I got from creepy Uncle Fester the trusty. He ca
me by with a piece of paper, asking for my autograph, and I told him I would do it for a cigarette. He gave me one, then I showed him one of my lamb of god guitar picks, which he got really excited about and reached out for. I pulled it back, and told him I wanted more cigarettes. We haggled back and forth for a bit, then he went away and came back with a magic marker, a complete prison outfit, and three more smokes for me. I signed the clothes, gave him the pick, and gleefully sat down to smoke. The brief bargaining session had invigorated me; it wasn’t so much the actual cigarettes that were awesome, it was the fact that I had gotten something for nothing. I felt like a sleazy stockbroker must when he gets over on a particularly gullible and rich client. The machine of commerce rolled on.

  The following day after breakfast, I sat down and began to make a journal entry. A few seconds after I had written the date at the top of the page, it suddenly sunk in what day it was—July Fourth. Holy crap, it was Independence Day and I was in a foreign prison. I am no crazed flag-waving blindly patriotic nationalist, for I believe what Thomas Jefferson famously wrote is entirely true: “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?” Sadly, I have not seen much of that spirit of resistance over the last few decades, a time of government sponsored and sanctioned bloodshed that seems to have gone unquestioned (or at least unchallenged) by the vast majority of the American public. I am a pragmatic man, and as such I acknowledge the need for a strong-armed military in today’s world of global violence, as well as governmental agencies that are ever alert to the possibility of terrorist attacks and watchful of the movements of the twisted networks who commit these atrocities. But I find it extremely distasteful when unconstitutional legislation like the Patriot Act is rushed through our senate without even so much as a loud fart of dissent heard (the act passed by a vote of 98 to 1). If you give someone or something with an inherent propensity for abusing power an inch (such as large governmental agencies, as history proves again and again), then they will, without fail, carve themselves a bloody mile. Injustice always prevails when the people blindly accept the dictates of those in power, whether those rulers were elected or seized their positions by the sword. I do not trust the men in power, I do not trust our government, I never have, and I never will. But I love my country, would gladly die safeguarding it if necessary, and consider myself a true patriot. I have been around the world many times, and for all its faults, there is no other country like America. I would not choose to call anywhere else home. For me, my country is its people, not its government, and sitting in that cell on July 4th made me feel a rush of longing to be amongst my people. I wanted to be with my wife and friends, grilling hotdogs and hamburgers, drinking a cold NA beer and watching the kids run around in my buddy Erik’s backyard, then going over to Byrd Park in Richmond to sit on a blanket and watch the fireworks. On that particularly American day, as the distance from all that I knew and loved began to drape an extra-heavy blanket of melancholy over me, I decided to combat it by comforting myself with a song I don’t normally sing or play. I began to whistle my national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” O’er the laaaand of the freeeeeeeee, I sang in my head as I whistled that sturdy old tune aloud, and the hooooome ooooof the braaaaaaaaaave . . .