An elderly couple from Scarsdale, New York, married forty-seven years, probably didn’t know what hit them when they were killed instantly by David’s roaring Camaro. Worst of all, an excessive amount of alcohol and drugs—including methamphetamines—were found in or around what was left of David’s car. This just served as more proof that the drugs I had once craved as a vice were poison.
The hospital’s intensive care unit was a nerve center of activity. Strategically situated in the middle of the third floor, it was encircled by a carpeted hallway and decorated with low-lit lamps, oversized couches, coffee tables, telephones, and magazines. No TVs.
A quiet setting—for those who grieved.
Approaching 10 p.m., Mary was curled up beneath a blanket with Eddie’s daughter, Madison, on a large red couch in the hallway outside the ICU. Madison, who had turned into a beautiful young woman since I had last seen her, was dozing off as Mary softly stroked her frizzy brown hair.
When I first saw Eddie’s oldest son, Wesley, I literally didn’t recognize him. His once full and toned body was rail thin. His face was ashen, with pink rings beneath his bloodshot blue eyes. His baggy, beltless cargo pants rode well beneath his waist, and his nylon Nike jacket appeared two sizes too big.
Wesley seemed paranoid and angry. I felt his fury directed at me and immediately the guilt rose in my soul over the repeated times I had stood up him and David. After refusing to say hello to me, he gave me the evil eye for a long time before dropping to the floor in the dark at the end of the couch, putting his headphones on, and burying his shaved head between his knees. The fuzzy tone of acid rock pulsated from his direction.
I rested in a chair next to Eddie’s wife, who sat with her legs folded up beneath her slender body. Sheila held a cup of hot tea someone had brought her but she hadn’t tasted. Her shoes were off; her face was pink from rubbing away tears from the past six hours. She wore a soft white v-necked sweater and Calvin Kleins. Though I couldn’t tell for sure, I thought she had undergone quite a bit of plastic surgery since I had last seen her, at least on the lips and nose—and probably more.
“This is going to be it for Eddie, you know,” she said, not quite making eye contact with me. “He was already a mess…before this.”
“What’s been going on before this?” I asked quietly.
“What hasn’t? He’s lost tons of clients in the past year, because of the economy. No fault of his own. But he beats himself up for it. He works too long to overcompensate. The kids barely see him…”
“What about you?”
She shook her head, and her pretty face grimaced. “He used to be such a good husband…father. Our marriage is dead,” she moaned. “We’re barely making ends meet. The kids have been bad. Wesley’s into who knows what. Just one thing after another. Now this.”
As she lost control once again, I bent down to one knee and put my right arm around her in silence.
“I don’t want to lose my baby boy, Everett,” she cried. “My baby is dying in there.”
No words. I had no words, only my presence to offer.
The remainder of the day’s events in courtroom B-3 paled in comparison to the stunning testimony of Twila Yonder—which centered around Zane Bender and Endora Crystal’s apparent proficiency at hypnosis.
As promised, Brian was here tonight at the detention center to quiz me about Endora and hypnotism. Did I ever see her hypnotize anyone? Had she ever hypnotized me? Was there ever talk of hypnotism? And the eight zillion dollar question: Could I have been under some sort of induced trance at the time of Endora’s death?
Naturally, I cooperated wholeheartedly. But Boone seemed frustrated by my inability to come up with a dramatic confession, perhaps that Endora had sat me down in some dark room and swung a crystal before my eyes until I fell into a deep trance. I just didn’t remember any such thing. And time was running out.
It seemed to me that the majority of our current defense had dwindled to a smoke screen. We were trying to buy more time to either produce evidence that would clear my name, or to somehow show that the prosecution had failed to meet its burden to prove me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Unfortunately, neither scenario seemed likely.
I was getting negative, even beginning to doubt my choice of Brian Boone as lead counsel, doubt his legal team—and even doubt myself and my actions November 11, the day Endora was killed in my condo.
I was sorry about the negative trip.
Brian hadn’t given up hope, and he did have a plan. I just didn’t know what it was because we hadn’t had time to talk it through. He’d spent sleepless hours researching telekinesis, and I knew he still had witnesses he wanted to recall, and several new ones Dooley hadn’t questioned. Zane Bender was at the top of the list, and we were awaiting a response from Judge Sprockett right now to see if he would approve a subpoena to bring Zaney from prison to the witness stand.
With an armful of tattered paperwork, weathered notepads, and two carrying cases, Boone just raced out of the tin can visiting booth across from me, down the polished white hallways, by the guards and metal detectors, and back into the real world.
He would be up most of the night, researching the topic that appeared to be one of our last hopes in the first-degree murder trial of The State of Florida v. Everett Timothy Lester: hypnotism.
It appeared that my nephew, David Lester, wasn’t going to make it.
As news of the accident spread through his world, the crowd at the hospital grew, the phone calls increased, and the disbelief that this young man soon might be just a memory slowly became stark reality.
It reminded me all too much of the terribly uncomfortable scene outside Olivia Gilbert’s hospital room in Dayton, Ohio.
How is she tonight?
Oh, please…heal her.
After many unanswered phone calls and too much speculative chatter, I finally tracked down my older brother right under my nose. Eddie was upstairs from ICU, checking on the condition of the only other survivor in his son’s crash—Tom Schlater.
Eddie and I hugged, and he insisted that I duck into Tom’s room for a moment, because the young man claimed to be a DeathStroke fanatic. He looked the part, too. Long, stringy brown hair with a black stocking cap (yes, even in his hospital bed). Beard stubble. Tattoos up and down his arms. One, a skull and crossbones that read, “Sworn to fun, loyal to none.”
A battered-looking Eddie waited outside Tom’s hospital room for a few minutes, speaking in hushed tones with the young man’s lethargic parents, while I spent a few minutes with the boy who reminded me very much of a young Everett Lester.
Tom Schlater looked in good condition, great condition, considering what had happened to the other three people in the vehicle with him. My guess was that he was admitted simply so they could make sure he didn’t go into shock after the accident. But the only shock he experienced was seeing me at his bedside.
“This rocks, man! No one is even gonna believe I met Everett Lester. I’ve been a fan of yours since I was ten.”
He spoke of the upcoming Freedom album and tour. As he did, I recalled being somewhat disturbed by how quickly he seemed to have forgotten the events of the day.
I smiled hesitantly. “How well do you know David?”
His bottom lip went out and he shook his head. “Not very well. I’m older than him. He’s…he’s still in high school, ya know. I’m nineteen. I know his brother Wesley better than I know David.”
“Oh? You run with Wesley?”
“Not really. I see him now and then.”
“Were you friends with the other kids in the car?”
“Nah,” he said. “I barely knew them. Why all the questions?”
“Just wondered.”
“You look like you’re almost better.” He pointed to my healing face. “I swear, if I ever met the guy who did that to you, I’d kill the sucker.”
I stared at him.
“So, do you live around here?” he asked. “I mean, nobody
really knows. I’ve read you’ve got a place in Manhattan, but heck—”
“Tom,” I interrupted. “You know…you’re lucky to be alive.”
“Oh, heck yes I am! It’s just like your song, dude. ‘I got ten lives, ten lives. Just watch me fly. Ain’t never gonna die, never gonna die…cause I got ten lives…’”
As he mimicked the hit song, I grew impatient. “If you didn’t know David or the other kids that well, what were you doing in the car with them?”
“We were hangin’, man. They were giving me a ride.”
“Well, which is it? Were you hanging out, or were they giving you a ride?”
“Ha.” He smirked and looked away. “What difference does it make?”
“None really, I guess. Not now. The police said drugs and alcohol were in the car…and meth.”
“Got me, man. Like I said, I was just along for a ride.”
“Were there drugs in the car, alcohol?”
“Let’s put it this way,” he said, casually. “We weren’t doin’ anything you wouldn’t do.”
“Was David high when he wrecked the car?” I asked point-blank.
“He was up there, laughin’ all the way ’til we hit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Other than the fact that he had “Ten Lives” cranked and was singin’ it at the top of his lungs when we crashed—nothin’.”
My song. He was singing my song when it happened.
“He’d been blabbin’ to his buds about the Other Side. He was a big fan of yours, man. Knew everything about you, Endora… I mean, at the end, it was almost like he knew he was about to go.”
“What did he say about the Other Side?”
“It’s where everyone goes when their number’s up.”
My heart broke, and there was a long, quiet silence.
“What was he on?” I finally asked.
“Ice.” Schlater shrugged. “What else? His brother’s rollin’ in the stuff.”
“Meth? He got meth from Wesley?”
“Bro, I can’t say any more. And I’ll deny what I have said.”
I stood to go.
“Listen, can I get your autograph or something?” he said with seemingly no remorse about the things we had just discussed.
I stared at him for a moment, forced myself to remember that I had traveled a similar road, and looked around to find a pen at the end of his bed. Then I found paper, signed, and handed it to him.
“Thanks, man. You’re awesome for coming.” He looked down at the autograph. “I’ll be watchin’ for you on the Freedom tour.”
I opened the door to leave.
“Hey, what’s this below your name?”
“A Bible verse.” I looked back in at him. “A friend sent it to me…a long time ago.”
I had memorized one of the first scriptures Karen sent me: Matthew 11:28–30.
“Cool. What is it, about Jesus or something?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said, wanting to remember Tom Schlater—his face, his tattoos, his words…his heart. “I think it’s starting to mean something to me. Maybe it’ll mean something to you, someday.”
Prison guard Donald Chambers was excited tonight. He was at the trial again today and thought Brian was really on to something—pursuing Twila Yonder, Zane Bender, and the whole hypnotism lead.
I wish I could tell you I was equally enthused.
Chambers said his wife of thirty-one years, Della, was about to have a coronary because he’d been away from home so much. Lately, he was working the night shift here at the detention center, sleeping a few hours at home in the morning, then coming to my trial for a good portion of the day, before going back to work at the prison. Chambers was so enthralled by the trial that he said Della was beginning to watch it on TV and might even join him in the courtroom one of these days.
Brian left the prison about an hour ago to do his homework, and we were in the last free time of the day before lights out. I was in my friend Scotty’s cell upstairs from mine, playing a game of poker with him and three other inmates. It was boring, but it beat TV.
They played for cigarettes in here. So although I didn’t smoke anymore, I still tried to win as many smokes as I could. You never knew when you might need a favor or two.
Most of the inmates had been keeping up with the trial, especially because it’s here in Miami-Dade County and one of their very own “homeboys”—yours truly—was at center stage.
My two aces just got beat by three jacks that were proudly presented by a guy named Radar (I guess because he strongly resembled the little guy from M*A*S*H). There went seven more Marlboros…
“Looooo-ser! Oh, Looooo-ser!”
The sound of Zaney’s high, cracking voice came somewhere from behind and instantly produced a vacant feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“You’ll never be anything but a loser, Lester,” he said, as I turned to watch him duck into the cell.
I kept my cool, brought my leaning chair to the ground, and didn’t say a word.
“I told you not to call me to the stand.” He moved in to hover behind me.
The card game stopped, but I continued looking straight ahead. “Deal,” I said to Scotty.
“What does a courtroom ‘oath’ mean to me, Lester?” He tugged the hair on the back of my head. “Huh? An oath to who?” He pulled again. “To God?”
I flashed back to my father taunting me in similar fashion, in front of my friends.
“Don’t pull my hair again,” I said through clenched teeth, still looking at the card players frozen around me.
“Ooooh, the rock star defends himself.”
“Deal the cards,” I said again.
“Remember the guy who hung himself a couple weeks ago?” He came around to cast a shadow over me. “That’s gonna be you, Lester.”
My eyes went up his orange jumpsuit and settled on his fat face. “You can’t kill me, Zaney. I’ve got too much to live for, too much preachin’ to do. I told you once, whatever your involvement was with Endora, it’s backfiring. What she planned for evil, Somebody is using for good.”
Instantly, he was on top of me…my chair, over backward. A viselike fist ripped my hair toward the ceiling, then smashed my head against the floor. Then he did it again, as my upper and lower teeth cracked together. I felt like a mannequin. This could be it, right here. Today…to paradise.
But Radar and the M*A*S*H unit were tougher than I thought.
At once, they crashed into Zaney, rolling him off me and smothering him to the ground. It took all four of them to keep him down.
I scrambled to my feet, tasting blood in my mouth, feeling it wet my chin.
No guards in sight.
They had Zaney pinned down. He screamed like a maniac, the words unrecognizable.
“I don’t know why you got it in so bad for me,” I said, bending over, my hands to my knees, catching my breath, “but it needs to stop.”
“You are so dense!” he screamed from beneath the pile of orange-clad inmates. “You are an idiot, Lester. Your brain must really be fried.” His squeaky words and sick, strained laughter taunted me. “I only wish I could spill my guts, but it’s too soon. The time will come, though. You’ll see…”
I had never seen my brother, Eddie, quite like this before. As we walked the sterile halls of the fifth floor, two up from where his son lay fading in and out of existence, I realized how incredibly vulnerable Eddie was…I was…life was.
David’s accident—his fateful condition—wasn’t real yet to Eddie. I don’t think he had cried in all the hours that followed the accident. He just looked empty, dying, as if nothing mattered anymore.
The noticeable bags beneath his sad brown eyes said volumes. His once curly brown hair was straighter, shorter, and mostly gray now, but he still used some kind of gel to make it look wet and hip. As usual, he was dressed in fine clothes—an expensive blue silk shirt, black slacks, and a shiny black leather belt. Walking beside me, he seemed to have gotten smalle
r in stature since we’d last met.
“Sheila says things have been rough,” I said, feeling weird to be the counselor instead of the counselee.
He looked over into my face. “We’re about to divorce.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Worse.”
“Why? What’s the problem? If it’s debt, I can—”
“Sheila would say it’s me; I’d say it’s her,” he said, hands in pockets. “My job stinks. I’m a crummy father. Now I think I may know how Dad felt.”
“You’re not like Dad.”
“Have you seen Wesley?” he shot.
“Briefly.”
“He’s one messed-up young man—and where did that come from?”
“When I saw him downstairs he seemed mad at me, maybe for blowing him off one too many times…”
“He’s mad at the world, Ev. Sheila and I feel like we’ve completely failed as parents. And that’s put an end to our marriage.”
“I’m sure being a parent isn’t easy.”
“Being a parent,” he spit, “is too big for any man—or woman.” His voice began to quiver now. “David’s been an accident waiting to happen for years.”
“Eddie, do you realize how badly Dad abused us—physically and mentally? It wasn’t right! You had no example to go by. Zilch. It’s not your fault!”
We walked slowly in silence. Eddie sniffed back the emotion.
“This life, Ev,” he whispered. “It’s a bear.”
“We’ve been underdogs since we came into this world. The odds have been stacked against us since day one. I know how you feel. It’s tough to get your head on straight when you don’t know what straight is.”
“Ev,” he said, not looking at me. “I may have a gambling problem.”
Obviously, the days when Eddie masked himself with a joyous facade were gone. Maybe that was a good thing.
“What? Gambling? Like…on what?”
Dark Star: Confessions of a Rock Idol Page 18