Dark Days: A Memoir

by D. Randall Blythe

  And I was right.

  On the third day of court, a few more witnesses who had been at the show testified, saying that there had been nothing out of the ordinary about my behavior on the evening of the show, that I acted in the manner standard for the frontman of a heavy metal band. They also said that I had made it clear that I did not wish for fans to come on stage; in fact all of the witnesses who had attended the show that evening said the same exact thing in one way or another—it was obvious from my words and actions throughout that evening that audience members were not welcome on stage. The promoter of the show, Tomas Fiala, also testified that day. After being asked if in our contract with him lamb of god had specific security and barricade requirements, he answered that we did. When asked if those requirements were not met, he answered honestly that they were not. When asked why a barricade with a solid metal face had not been placed properly as our signed contract with him specified (at least five feet from the stage with room for security to stand between it and the stage to prevent concert goers access), he said that we as a band had not complained to him before or after the show about it. Useless.

  After reviewing the video tape and all the available testimonies, my lawyers and I had come to the conclusion that there had, in fact, been a barricade at the show that evening. It was perhaps five or six inches taller in height than the stage, as I caught a glimpse of it sticking up when reviewing the video. But I only saw it for a second, when an audience member turned briefly and removed their arms from the top of it. The fans had leaned on top of it all across its entire length, their arms hanging over and onto the stage. And if it was in the fact the same barricade I had seen in the police photos, then it had no solid face. It was just a long metal rectangle, with a single horizontal bar running across its middle. I never saw it, because it was crammed with audience members hanging over it, shoved flush with the stage.

  It was, in effect, a ladder for the fans.

  Our tour manager had held a security meeting before the show began, as he does at every show. He had explained our requirements. The club employees understood what was said. The promoter understood what was said. We were not the only band on the bill that evening, and I do not know whether or not the barricade had initially been placed properly and the fans had simply pushed it up to the stage while security did nothing about it. My tour manager, who is also our front of house soundman, did not sit behind his console during the opening act, making sure that the barricade stayed in place properly. That is not his job—he did his job. That is the job of the promoter, the club manager, and security, to make sure our contractual requirements are fulfilled. And I never saw the stage before I set foot on it. I did not go and do a barricade inspection, as that is not my job. Once again, that is the job of the promoter, the club manager, and security.

  Several of these people admitted in their testimonies that they had not done their jobs, but couldn’t seem to give any real reason when asked why. No one seemed inclined to be accountable for their actions, or in this case, their lack of actions.

  But one person who testified that day did hold himself accountable for his actions, and in doing so, did me a great service. Milan had cut his hair since our last encounter, and was dressed neatly in a suit jacket and tie as he took the witness stand. He looked to have grown up quite a bit in the three years since I had wrestled him to the stage, but as soon as I saw his face I recognized him. When asked by the judge to explain what had happened between him and me that evening, he spoke calmly, confidently, and without stumbling over his words in the slightest, as other witnesses had. He spoke of how he had been extremely intoxicated that evening. He told how he had taken the stage several times, and of how he had hit the floor hard on different occasions when no one had caught him after he left the stage. He spoke of how his actions had been ill advised, as he had known that he was not welcome on stage. He spoke with regret over his drunken stupidity. He spoke of how I had neither struck nor strangled him on stage. And he told how he considered my actions that evening to be appropriate, given the highly inebriated state he had been in.

  The man that other witnesses had described me as punching, kicking, choking, and physically brutalizing in an extreme manner had suited up and showed up. He told the truth, and took responsibility for his own actions that evening. Aside from myself, he seemed to be the only one truly willing to do so. During a brief recess that day, I ran into him as I stood outside on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. As he walked out of the large wooden front doors of the court building, I caught his eye and simply said, “Thank you.” He gave me a tiny nod accompanied by a small, sad smile, and replied, “You’re welcome. Good luck.” As he walked away down the sidewalk and out of my life without looking back, I thought of all the stupid, reprehensible things I had done while drunk. I could not be mad at the man at all, for that is what he was—a man, not a drunken, irresponsible boy anymore. He had done his best to make right his mistakes that evening years ago. I will always be grateful to him for it.

  After the recess was over, the judge called me to the witness stand again. He informed me that I did not have to answer his questions, and had the right to remain silent. I said I was prepared to answer any questions he may have for me, so the judge went through parts of my testimony again, asking if I was sure it had been Milan that I had pushed away from me, as I had stated during my interrogation and opening statement. I replied: “To the best of my knowledge, it was Milan who was coming up on the stage every time.” This was the truth, for I had no memory of pushing anyone else that evening.

  But now that all is said and done, in all honesty, I do not have a clear memory of pushing anyone from the stage period that evening. I do not know if the very hazy memories I do have are entirely false, conjured as the result of me reading and rereading my charges over and over again in prison. Or if I confused some of the times when Milan jumped from the stage with me pushing him. Or if I perceived the security guard running and pushing him from the stage from behind both of us as an action of my own, as I never saw the guard at all until I watched video of the incident later. Or if I can’t clearly remember pushing anyone simply because I never did, or I did have some sort of real memory of pushing someone and just thought It must have been Milan. I do not know. But after discussing all of these things in advance with my attorneys, I knew I could not say to the judge “I do not know”—it would not have looked good. So I told the truth, and said my only real memories of anyone being onstage that night were of Milan. To this day, those are the only memories I have that I can say are real.

  Finally that day, a medical expert read an in-depth report on the cause of Daniel’s death. He had died of pneumonia as a result of a blow to the brainstem. Hearing the exact details of what had killed the young man almost brought tears to my eyes, as had the pictures of the young man shown to me by the judge earlier that day. “Do you remember seeing this person on the evening of your show in Prague?” he had asked as I looked at several photos of who I then knew to be Daniel. I had looked long and hard at the photos, but I could not place his face at all in my mind. The photos and the medical report choked me up, but for some reason, the tears refused to flow.

  The fourth day of court, a witness testified on my behalf. This young man had been following reports of the trial in the newspapers, and did not like the way some of the witnesses had described my behavior as being aggressive. When I asked him a question, he began to reply in English, for he had understood what I said, but the judge quickly barked at him, sternly instructing him to speak Czech. Another witness who was supposed to appear that day had called in sick, so the judge temporarily adjourned the trial for a month’s time. He then informed me that I did not have to return for the rest of the court dates, as my presence was no longer needed in the courtroom, and I could be tried in absentia. I told the judge in front of the entire courtroom that I would definitely be returning for the rest of the trial. I had promised Daniel’s family that I would be present, and that would not cha
nge. A representative of the family had told my wife and drummer after court one day that the family was not interested in mounting a campaign against me, nor were they out to get me. They just wanted to know what had happened to their family member, and their actions proved this so—no member of his family ever attacked me, in the press, in the courtroom, or in private. The least I could do was honor my word and be there for the entire trial.

  The next day, Jeff, my wife, and family (who had flown over for the trial), and myself all returned to America for a month. I hung out with my wife and friends. I turned forty-two years old. Then I returned to Prague to finish it.

  On the fifth day of my trial, the court heard from two different qualified criminal mental health experts, both of whom had tested me. The first was the female shrink from the jail house; according to her analysis of the test results I was not mentally ill, but I had problems controlling my emotions in stressful situations. Furthermore, I exhibited some of the traits associated with something called dissocial (or antisocial) personality disorder. This disorder may be characterized by: a lack of empathy for others, no sense of remorse for harmful actions committed, a general lack of morality, impulsive and aggressive behavior, and a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others—in short, someone with this disorder doesn’t care to play nice or abide by society’s rules. This woman said that my history of speeding tickets (by the way, I’ve had maybe three or four during my twenty-year-plus driving career, none of them reckless—more than one of my friends have accused me of driving like a little old lady), coupled with my taking-a-leak-in-an-alley incident so long ago, was indicative of the fact that I was not willing to take responsibility for my own actions, and that sometimes I overstepped the boundaries of societal norms.

  I’m sure I’m about to sound pretty callous here, hell, maybe even criminal, but I feel the need to tell the truth, so here it is: I hold absolutely no remorse whatsoever for getting busted taking a leak in an alley, nor do I feel the tiniest shred of guilt over getting caught a few times on the highway going ten or fifteen miles over the speed limit. I didn’t feel bad about it then, and I don’t now. Not at all. It’s just not a big deal to me, and if that makes me some sort of cold-blooded psychopath unfit for normal society, then so be it. For sure, I was none too happy about getting sixty-five community service hours for taking a whiz, and I definitely wasn’t jazzed about getting arrested a few times after I refused to do those community service hours. Without question, I was absolutely bummed out as I stroked the check to pay the fine imposed when I foolishly stopped paying close enough attention to the speed limit a few times in my twenties and thirties. But I’m not going to have a guilt-induced nervous break down over this piddling stuff, in fact I don’t give two flying fucks about it. I mean Jesus H. Christ, I had to pee and I went a little bit over the speed limit—it’s not like I went on an old lady mugging spree, or chopped up my neighbors with an axe. If after hearing me speak merely about peeing and driving a little fast, that shrink had somehow deduced that I lacked empathy for others, didn’t want to be held accountable for my actions, and had an impoverished sense of morality, then I shudder to think what kind of crap she would have come up with if I had told her about some stuff I really have felt remorse over. Or, heaven forbid, I had admitted to that one late night in the early nineties when I had been forced to take a poop behind a dumpster in a Chicago alley after eating bad Mexican food earlier. None of the surrounding businesses were open for me to beg a bathroom, so I had to do what I had to do. Had the shrink known about that particular smelly emergency, she probably would have made a motion to have me declared criminally insane.

  Not willing to take responsibility for my own actions? She could stand there with a straight face in that courtroom and actually say that? My own government didn’t deem it worth their time to cooperate in any way whatsoever with the Czech authorities in an investigation into my alleged crime—I could have decided to just stay in America and not have to face five to ten years of my life possibly being flushed down an ancient prison shitter. But I had returned anyway, because (as I had very publicly stated) I felt an ethical obligation to do so. I paid a very expensive bail, twice, and had made good on my word to honor the conditions of that bail and return for trial if called. Furthermore, I had traveled at great expense to come to court, not once, but twice; the second time even after being informed that my presence was no longer required. I had done everything exactly as I had said I would do, and I thought maybe that my actions might speak to her a little louder about my character and personality type than the two or three pages of test results she clutched in her mousey paw. But when questioned about the results, she indignantly maintained that they were accurate, and that the tests she had given me were of the latest modern standard. She looked slightly insulted when my attorney had asked her if the circumstances under which she had tested me could have possibly affected my results, as if it was an affront to her hallowed profession to have the infallibility of her 1920s ink blots questioned.

  Luckily, the second qualified criminal mental health expert (a woman I had been tested by during my trial preparations) testified that even in jail, when aggressive/anti-social behavior might be understandable, I had tested within normal ranges on various stress tests during my initial days of incarceration. While she said that I could exhibit asocial tendencies under stress, she added, “Every one of us could in their lifetime get into a situation in which we act without mercy, but this is not a personality trait of his.” This woman obviously had a better head on her shoulders than the first, and seemed to think I was a pretty normal person. But then again, I don’t think I had told her about my dark and wildly immoral history of peeing in places I shouldn’t . . .

  The witness who had been too ill to appear in court the first time showed up that day. She was a teenage girl, accompanied by her doctor father (the very person, by the way, who had written the note to get her out of court the first time) who ushered her in with a protective hand on her shoulder. She was dressed in the goth style, all baggy black clothes and gigantic black boots with lots of chrome buckles, and had a cheap looking inverted cross necklace hanging around her neck. Daddy’s dark little princess smiled a lot and giggled from time to time as the judge questioned her. During her initial interrogation, she claimed to have seen me push Daniel from the stage before he even had time to stand up, which contrasted with the version of events given by every other witness who testified against me. She didn’t bring any earth shattering new evidence into court that day, so her appearance was not a lengthy one, and the judge soon dismissed her. Then he adjourned court for the day, announcing that a verdict was likely to be handed down the next day.

  That evening I lay in my bed, trying to get to sleep, but slumber eluded me. Restless in body and mind, I finally got up, walked outside onto the balcony of the apartment and lit a cigarette. As I stood there smoking in the cold night air, I could hear a piano being played somewhere nearby. The melody was slow and sweet and a little sad sounding, and it fit my mood perfectly. I leaned on the balcony’s railing, looking up at the starless night sky, smoking and trying to identify the tune, but I couldn’t place it. The pianist would abruptly stop from time to time, then a moment later pick back up from where they had left off. I was looking around, trying to find the source of this beautiful and unfamiliar music, when I saw movement in a window directly across the apartment’s courtyard, one floor below mine in the next building over. A wrinkled pair of male hands moved with confidence across black and white keys, illuminated by a single lamp resting atop a small piano. The hands would stop from time to time, grab a piece of paper propped up on the piano’s small wooden music stand, and with a pencil make small marks on the tightly compressed horizontal printed rows running across the piece of paper. I then knew why I could not identify the mysterious song—it had never been played before. The song was being composed before me.

  What a gift! I thought as I finished my cigarette, then went back into
the apartment. I cracked my bedroom window a bit so that I could still hear the piano, then went back to bed, lulled to sleep by the sound of new music entering the world.

  Such moments as this, those fleeting and ineffable seconds of grace that the universe occasionally provides as we move through this strange thing called life, cannot be bought for any sum.

  I woke up the next morning and the sun was shining brightly in a clear blue sky. As Jeff and I walked to court the next morning, we talked about how surreal our whole experience had been thus far. We had spent a month living in Prague, both working hard in preparation for my trial, and wandering the streets of one of the most beautiful cities on earth. Both aspects of our time in that ancient city seemed equally significant, and this oddly harmonious dichotomy had made for a profound experience, one neither of us would ever forget.

  On the final day of my trial, the judge called to the witness stand the only expert in the highly specialized field of biomechanics in the entire Czech Republic who was legally qualified to testify in a court of law. During our review of the testimonies that described me pushing the deceased from the stage, my attorneys and I had noticed that some of these testimonies, specifically the second testimonies given by Daniel’s three friends in 2012, described things that seemed to us as being physically impossible. During their initial testimonies in 2010, some of these witnesses had described me as turning towards and then pushing Daniel with either one or both hands squarely in the chest, causing him to fall backwards from the four-foot-tall stage, striking the back of his head on the concrete floor below. This made perfect sense, as medical records showed that the injury leading to his death had been an impact to the back of his cranium. But by 2012, some of the stories had changed. Suddenly I had run from fifteen or twenty feet away, sprinting at top speed across the narrow and crowded stage, then striking a completely unprepared Daniel, unaware, from behind as he looked out waving at the audience (and according to some testimonies, I had simultaneously pushed a mysterious second person as well, an unknown boy whose identity has never been ascertained). According to these testimonies, this caused the deceased to be launched from the stage, flying completely over the row of people standing directly in front of the stage, somehow do a 180-degree flip while in midair, then land on the back of his head.