Dark Days: A Memoir

by D. Randall Blythe

  Now we’re talking, I thought, my Cold War secret intelligence fantasies returning full force. A grim and burly Muscovite skilled in the deadly arts would come in secret to get me out of the country under the cover of night in a low, fast car. There might even be the possibility of gunfire, or at the very least a bribe paid at the border (definitely handed over in a leather attaché case—I made a mental note to ask Jeff to make sure he had one of those). The prospect of adventure never fails to excite me, and a furtive high-speed midnight escape across the Czech border sounded like just the thing to get the old adrenaline flowing again and banish the Pankrác blues. I hoped I would get a forged passport or a disguise to wear, perhaps a fake mustache. At the very least, I needed a fedora.

  During our visit, I was also able to slip Jeff a note for Cindy (a list of supplies I hoped she would be able to bring me the next day) and a letter to my friend Jamey Jasta asking him if he would print and distribute a fanzine I had already begun mentally outlining about my life in prison. Giving Jeff the note and letter was strictly against prison regulations, and I was searched before our meeting, but I simply stuck them amongst the legal papers and notes I had made concerning my case—I was allowed to carry those kind of documents to any meeting with my attorneys. Any correspondence of a personal nature was supposed to be reviewed by the prison censor before leaving Pankrác, but Cindy would be there tomorrow, and I was pretty sure the prison officials wouldn’t be too jazzed about me publishing an underground paper from behind the walls of Pankrác. But I am a writer, a punk rocker, and a dissident involved in the self-published underground literature scene since my early twenties, and I will not let my creative voice be silenced or censored. Plus the Czech Republic had a long tradition of samizdat—Václav Havel himself, possibly the most revered man in modern Czech history, had been imprisoned after writing and distributing his long political essay, The Power of the Powerless, a brilliantly executed expose on repression and the dissent it fostered that severely rankled the fur of those in power within the totalitarian system of Communist Czechoslovakia. If Havel could do it, then I damn sure could and would.

  Jeff also asked me on behalf of my manager Larry if I would be willing to tour shortly after my release—we had an upcoming run of the States already booked. This request initially irritated me greatly, as the very last thing I wanted to think about at that moment was traveling and playing music with my band. Traveling and playing music with my band was what had landed me in prison in the first place, and the last thing I cared about at that moment was hopping up onstage and entertaining people, for fuck’s sake. I wanted to do a lot of things, and running around and screaming like a lunatic for our fans’ amusement was not one of them. But a lot of money had already been spent on pre-production for the tour, lawyers don’t come cheap, and cash was flowing away from my band’s bank accounts quicker than a fish off the hook at low tide. My band is my business, and my business was hurting pretty badly at that moment; so I held my tongue, sighed and thought, Well, what did you expect? The show must go on, then told Jeff to let Larry know I would tour as long as I had a week or two to see my family first. As our meeting drew to a close, I told Jeff to let Cindy and my family know I was doing just fine. I did not want them to worry any more than they already had, and I knew a quick update from someone who had seen me in person would do them some good. Jeff told me Cindy was doing well—tired and slightly overwhelmed, but well. On the way back to my cell, we stopped by the prison laundry where I turned in my street clothes and got back into my prison uniform. One of the metal head trusties who worked in the laundry room slipped me a few loose cigarettes with my clothes, and I signed an autograph on a scrap of paper for him. It was also nice to see the posters of all my friends again.

  I woke up the next morning and shaved with cold water from our sink, then did my best to scrub my body and make myself as presentable as possible, even applying a little mint toothpaste to my arm pits for deodorant as Dorj had taught me. I was extremely excited to see my wife, and didn’t want to look anymore disheveled than I had to. Cindy and I are used to being apart for long periods of time—it’s been that way since the very beginning of our relationship—and she knows that the road isn’t exactly conducive to maintaining good hygiene. All the same, whenever I return home from tour, I do my best to wash the road dirt from my body, shave my face, and put on some semi-clean clothes before we are reunited. I try to leave as much of the road on the road as possible, to become a semi-normal human being while I am home. My wife didn’t start dating a rockstar, she started dating a dishwasher who was in a band that made no money. Having a beautiful, intelligent woman who loves me for myself, not my job, is one of my greatest blessings. And although she loves me, stinky or not, I try not to take that for granted, and make an effort to clean up a little for her after I’ve just spent a few months sweating amongst the savages singing for my supper. I didn’t have a shower available that day, or clean clothes, or even deodorant, but I made an effort. Shortly after lunch a guard came for me, and I went upstairs to see my wife.

  I was searched thoroughly, then seated in one of a long row of two-sided open-air cubicles. There was no glass partition or phone to speak into, and I was told that I may kiss my wife one or two times, but that guards would be watching at all times. Any other physical contact was to be kept to a minimum. I sat there for two or three minutes with butterflies in my stomach, then a group of visitors was led into the large waiting room, my wife amongst them. Those that had brought packages for inmates placed their bags and boxes of stuff on a long table and a guard carefully inspected each item, then they were allowed to sit down across from their incarcerated loved one and the ninety minute visit began. I saw my wife walking towards me, and a smile broke out on my face.

  Cindy was dressed conservatively in a modest dark dress, and appeared quite calm, if a little tired, after her long journey. She in no way gave off the appearance of a frightened woman. I was immensely proud of her for this, as I guessed there would probably be paparazzi stalking the prison gates, waiting for her arrival (I was correct). There had been no public announcement made of her trip to the Czech Republic, but the press had informers amongst the prison staff, and I knew her scheduled visit would not go unnoticed—my case was too big for a visit from my wife to slip through the cracks. Since I knew the reporters would be there to hound her, I wanted her to show no fear or weakness in public, and she didn’t. It does not suit my nature to have a panicky, crying wife, a frail woman who would shield her teary face and run away from those kind of needling bastards. I did not marry a weak woman, and she walked tall that day, just as I knew she would. She did not burst into hysterics at the sight of me, she did not weep later when confronted by reporters after our visit, and if she cried at all during my time in prison (for I have never asked her if she did, and it does not matter to me), I know that it was behind closed doors, with family and close friends. I am a fighter, and like both the men and women of Ancient Sparta, a true fighter must have a fighting spouse as well. Half of Cindy’s family is from China. In China, you maintain face. She maintained face, and did both me and her people proud that day.

  To be honest, much of what was said during our visit is but a vague blur in my mind. I was just glad to see those beautiful (and thankfully dry) eyes, to kiss her sweet lips once or twice, to hear her speak as she let me know that both she and my family were holding up well. Until after my trial was over, the only time I almost broke down and cried was when we spoke of my family. In a few short words, she let me know that my family loved me and was standing behind me 100 percent during my current ordeal. While I already knew I really had nothing to worry about in that department, it still did me a lot of good to hear the words said, and my eyes did mist up a tiny bit.

  I believe I tried to keep our conversation light for the most part, telling Cindy a few general and humorous things about my life in Pankrác, mostly funny stories about how Dorj was driving me nuts with his incessant whistling, and making f
un of the sad state of my prison issue clothes—one pants leg was hemmed two or three inches higher than the other. But I do specifically remember one quiet thing I said to her, something I had to get off my chest to the woman I loved so. I needed her to hear this, to know the reality of my situation, to be aware of the source of the growing darkness her husband was carrying around inside his gut like an iron fist slowly squeezing his entrails tighter and tighter. I looked around to make sure a guard wasn’t too close to us, and leaned in close to her face.

  “Honey, I think I killed that boy,” I whispered.

  “What?” she whispered back.

  “I said, I think I killed that boy. I’m not 100 percent sure, but from what I’m hearing it seems like it to me. I never set out to hurt anyone, and it wasn’t my fault—there were people all over the stage at that show, no security that I could see, it was a total nightmare gig, and I don’t remember even seeing this kid at all. But from what the police and papers report the witnesses are saying, I do believe it was my hands that killed him,” I said.

  “Oh honey, you don’t know that!” she immediately replied, “We don’t have any idea if what those people are saying is true or not. And from the video I’ve seen, there seems to be all sorts of different ways that kid could have gotten hurt.”

  Cindy was referring to low quality cellphone camera footage the police had obtained of part of our concert. During this video, the young blond man that everyone assumed was the dead person in question left the stage several different times, including a particularly nasty bouncer-enforced tumble. I had only heard of the video, but parts of it had begun circulating the Internet, the footage shown in slow motion on many sites. After watching this video, some armchair detectives were claiming that a segment of it showed me brutally shoving the man off the stage, resulting in a mortal injury. I would watch this video countless times later, carefully analyzing the contact I had with the young man. Only a complete idiot who, for their entire life, had somehow existed outside the physical realm with no knowledge whatsoever of the capabilities of the human body nor possessed the innate basic grasp of the laws of inertia and gravity that allows us as humans to move through our existence without constantly traumatizing our bodies would have come to that conclusion. A person would have to be colossally, incomprehensibly stupid to think that I could have flung the man from the stage with such force that he flew through the air the way he did in the footage. My left arm is quite clearly behind my body as the man begins to come forward from behind me, my hand looks to be on the scuff of his neck, then follows along with the man as he leaves the stage. I remain singing into the microphone in my other hand the entire time. Anyone who watched this and thought I was able to reach around behind me and toss one-handed another adult human being from the stage like a rag doll, must have been raised entirely by a video game console and thus been under the delusion that I was some sort of superhumanly strong multi-tasker. They would also have to be partially blind to not see the beefy security guard who came rushing out of nowhere and shoved the man from behind with great force with both hands from the stage. But I had not seen this footage yet, and only had a vague idea of what it contained. The only information I had came from hazy memories and reports by the papers and police saying that I was a savage, aggressive man who had purposefully injured another. Again and again they said that I was a killer. I knew I hadn’t purposely tried to harm anyone, but I was beginning to feel that there had to be some kernel of truth in the disheartening information I had available to me at the time. My psyche was slowly being worn down by prison and bad press. I was grateful to my wife for bringing up an obvious point—everything against me at this point was hearsay, not documented fact. The fist in my gut didn’t disappear, but it relaxed a tiny bit.

  Cindy also let me know that the English-speaking press that bothered to report my situation seemed to be doing so fairly, and that more and more people from our music community had been speaking up on my behalf, showing support, and wanting an answer to the question of why I remained incarcerated after my bail had been paid. Two such people were Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne—I had toured with Ozzy a few times, and although we were not close, I was loosely acquainted with both the legendary singer and his equally legendary no-nonsense manager wife. It touched me deeply that these two people, both figureheads of the business I was in, were speaking on my behalf. Ozzy Osbourne was in Black freakin’ Sabbath, for Pete’s sake. I wouldn’t have a job without him—he and his band created heavy metal. I was even further humbled later when I found out that Ozzy and Sharon had done more than merely speak up in the press for me. During my incarceration, my publicist and dear friend Maria Ferrero had begun reaching out to people in the industry I knew in order to obtain letters of character reference—these things can make a big difference during a trial. After I was released from Pankrác prison, Maria forwarded me a copy of a signed letter the Osbournes had written to Judge Petr Fassati (the official who was in charge of my bail), speaking positively of my character. Not only that, to my complete shock, they ended the letter by pledging to put on an OZZfest concert in Prague, the proceeds of which would be donated to a charity of Judge Fassati’s choosing, if my bail would be honored and I were to be released from prison. While the Osbournes are very successful people, and I’m sure their bank accounts reflect that success (Ozzy is revered by all who listen to heavy metal, and Sharon is one of the shrewdest businesswomen on the planet), the cost and organizational effort involved with putting on an OZZfest concert is immense—I know, for I have toured with the traveling heavy metal summer camp in both 2004 and 2007. Those tours did wonderful things for my band’s career (as well as giving me many life-long friends), and even though I got “called to the principal’s office” a few times for various drunken lunatic offenses (you know you’re screwing up when you get blessed out for acting too wild on a heavy metal tour—sorry, Sharon), these two kind souls were making a concrete effort to help me in the best way they knew how. To this day, I am awestruck by their selfless gesture on my behalf, acting solely out of concern for one of their extended musical family. Furthermore, their kindness is yet another example of people judging a heavy metal book by its cover—Ozzy himself is definitely no stranger to controversy (or court cases, for that matter) and has been reviled throughout his career by fundamentalist religious groups as a negative influence on the youth, hell-bent on spreading Satanism and death. But I know “The Prince of Darkness” to be a kind and gentle man, and I remain indebted to him and his wife for all they have done for me and my band.

  The visit from Cindy came to an end all too swiftly—I honestly can’t remember how our conversation ended, or even kissing her goodbye. Perhaps my psyche has blocked this from my memory, for it would have been an undeniably painful thing to watch my wife walk away, knowing that the grim, helpless feeling of leaving her husband behind bars that only a prisoner’s wife knows had to have been hanging over her. I never wanted her to have to see me like that, a caged man in ill-fitting rags. The man she married on the sandy shore of a North Carolina sea island was fiercely independent and ill-suited to confinement of any sort. It must have hurt her greatly to see me deprived of my freedom, a thing she knew I valued so highly. If I know myself at all, and I do, my worrying soul would have been in overdrive at causing her concern. The next day, an inmate would give me a copy of Blesk with my wife’s picture in it—the paparazzi had indeed cornered her as she left the prison grounds. Cindy did not run, hide or weep at the appearance of these people—she spoke briefly of her sadness at the death of the young man, and of her belief in my innocence, then went on her way, head held high. While I was happy to have a photo of my wife, and would look at it from time to time, I did not display it openly in our cell, or look at it too often. Even today, my heart grows heavy if I look at, for it is a picture of a beautiful woman in pain—I can see it in the eyes I love so much and know so well.

  Once I was back in my cell, I sat down on my bed to look through my package of loot.
Cindy had brought me several things I had requested via Martin, and some stuff she had just known I would want—she is my wife, after all. There were two pairs of high quality flip-flops—a pair for me and a pair for Dorj, as I wouldn’t have felt right about rocking new kicks while he was stuck with Pankrác bo-bos. There were two cartons of Marlboro Reds, straight out of Richmond, VA, as well as several individually packaged portions of Starbuck’s Italian roast instant coffee to go with the cigs—my mornings were about to get a lot more civilized. There were several bags of my favorite varieties of fruit-flavored candy—I go through phases of eating a lot of candy (terrible for the teeth, but in that moment I did not care one bit). There was a huge volume of Sudoko puzzles I had requested in an attempt to keep Dorj occupied. There were letters from my family, pens and paper with which to write my own letters, and there were books. War and Peace. The Hobbit. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.

  Books. The mere presence in our cell of those most holy of civilization’s achievements instantaneously gave me a surge of relief and hope. I had requested the Tolkien for escape, the Tolstoy for sheer girth, and the Hemingway for both pleasure and study. Amongst the letters from my family, my father had also included some books, one being Letters and Papers from Prison, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I read the back cover of the book with a skeptical eye—first it was Jeff with the nightmarish Kafka, now my own father had turned against me—what were these two men doing, collaborating on how best to make me even more depressed about my current location? But just like Jeff Cohen, my father is a very, very smart man, much smarter than I, and he had picked a volume that would provide me great comfort, not mere escapism, in the weeks to come.