Dark Star: Confessions of a Rock Idol

by Creston Mapes

  Heat rushed to my cheeks as Mary and I swung into the visitor’s lot and saw a collection of local and national TV trucks. For a moment, I felt that maybe I shouldn’t go in. But Mary never flinched. She yanked up the parking brake and was three steps ahead of me as I hung up the phone with Endora.

  Warning sirens sounded in my head as we approached the main hospital lobby. Outside, reporters knelt with cigarettes, stood around with Diet Cokes and bottled water, and sat on benches munching snacks. As the large glass doors parted automatically, it was as if we were heading smack into a wasps’ nest.

  Suddenly, I felt cameras, mikes, notepads, and recorders deflecting off me as I tried to continue along with Mary to the information desk. But I couldn’t stay with her. It seemed as if I were snagged in a slow-motion time warp as she paced forward at a normal clip.

  When I saw that she made it to the desk some thirty feet past me, I stopped where I was and let the bodies and equipment converge around me. Two, three, four camera lights popped on around the lobby.

  “Mr. Lester,” one reporter shouted, “are you here to see Olivia Gilbert?”

  “How do you feel, Everett?” asked another.

  I could feel the sweat spreading on my forehead as I lifted up on my toes to find Mary. She was still at the information counter.

  “Have you talked with Olivia’s parents?” someone yelled from deep in the room.

  The questions scorched me like fire, but I didn’t have the answers.

  Now on her toes, Mary’s arm shot up, a piece of paper in her hand, as if to say, “I got it. Come on!”

  “Excuse me,” I mumbled, then said it louder, “excuse me!” With both arms bent upward in front of me, I moved ever so slowly through the crowd toward the elevators where Mary waited.

  “Have the police contacted you yet, Everett?” asked a short, stocky reporter with a dark beard, moving along next to me. “They tell us she might not make it. Have you heard any more?”

  As I broke through to the elevator, Mary hit the third-floor button, the door closed, and I felt sick to my stomach. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.” I turned to my older sister.

  Her eyes were closed. “Bring peace, Lord,” she breathed, reaching for my hand. “Bring healing.”

  And there was peace, for a few moments anyway.

  “Her name is Olivia Gilbert. She’s fourteen.” Mary squeezed my hand tightly. “She’s in serious condition. Severe trauma to the head.”

  The nausea began fighting its way back up into my throat as the reporter’s words rewound and played again in my head: “They tell us she might not make it…”

  10

  THE THIRD FLOOR APPEARED relatively quiet as we rounded a corner and headed down a long hallway toward the nurses’ station. Next, we took a right down another hall and looked for room 314.

  I could tell by the look on their faces that two of the nurses at the central station recognized me. We kept going, making another right and practically stopping in our tracks.

  People of all ages lined the hall. Adults stood and talked quietly. Young children ran about while teenagers leaned stoically against the light blue walls. Several elderly people occupied the chairs in the visitors’ lounge, which overflowed with guests—most of whom, it appeared, had come to show their love for Olivia Gilbert.

  “I’ll find out if we can get in.” Mary scanned the crowd just outside of room 314.

  One by one, I could see the word spreading that Everett Lester was in the house.

  “Hurry up,” I said, as she approached a handsome, middle-aged man just outside room 314. He wore tan slacks, a black-and-gold golf shirt, and a shiny leather belt.

  After whispering back and forth for a moment, Mary pointed at me with a slight turn of her head, and the man’s eyes followed, resting on me. She said something else to him, and he touched her shoulder gently, nodded, motioned for her to wait, then slipped into the room.

  “Come here,” Mary said, as more and more people started to stir because of my presence.

  “That’s the uncle,” she whispered to me. “He’s going to ask Olivia’s mother if we can go in for a minute.”

  As we stood there awkwardly, a few people acknowledged me. Some sneered. Others whispered back and forth.

  I despised moments like this—under a microscope but not onstage. All eyes on me but no performance; no way to earn their approval. It was stone-cold reality, and it made me overwhelmingly uneasy.

  The door to room 314 eased open, and the trim, balding brother peeked out and waved us over with a slight smile.

  “Thank you for coming.” He shook my hand while gently pulling me into the room. “I’m Jerry Princeton.”

  With the commotion of the hallway closed off behind us, the room was quiet and smelled like most hospital rooms. The blinds were closed, but the brightness behind them allowed just enough light to silhouette a TV cabinet and a chair in the corner.

  As we stepped farther into the room, my eyes slowly adjusting to the light, my gaze fell to a blond woman sitting on the edge of her chair right next to the hospital bed.

  “That’s my sister, Claudia—Olivia’s mother,” Jerry said. “Bear with her. She’s still a bit overcome.”

  “Of course,” Mary said.

  Claudia was about fifty years old, pale, and country-looking. She did not look at us but simply clasped the hand of the girl in the bed and rocked herself back and forth slightly. A dark-haired nurse moved quickly and quietly around the other side of the bed, checking graphs and monitors.

  Asleep in the bed, Olivia had a face like an angel, with long, dark eyelashes and a cute ski-slope nose. Her entire head was wrapped in white tape and gauze, with extra bandages bulging on the right side of her head, near the top. Some of those bandages were discolored. Small, clear tubes ran into her nostrils. IVs ran from her wrists to silver stands on each side of the bed, both holding pouches of clear liquid.

  This was too much reality.

  “Mrs. Gilbert,” I said softly. “I’m Everett Lester, and this is my sister, Mary…I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this.”

  Still rocking back and forth on the edge of her seat, the woman didn’t acknowledge us. She just stared at her daughter.

  “I want you to know…I will pay for everything, everything Olivia needs.”

  Mary patted my shoulder. Had she done so to encourage me to keep my mouth shut? I reflected on my words and determined what an idiot I was to offer money at a time like this, as if it could fix things.

  Walking behind his sister, Jerry put his hand on her shoulder. “Thank you. That is comforting to know.”

  “Is she improving?” Mary asked, staring at Olivia.

  “She’s stable,” Jerry said. “That’s what the doctors are telling us. And that’s good. They’re watching for swelling of the brain, which would not be a good sign. But so far, there’s been none. The doctors are keeping a very close eye on her.”

  “Has she woken up since last night?” Mary asked.

  “No. They think she’s in…kind of a coma.”

  Claudia began to weep softly, and Mary and I reached for each other.

  “What more do the doctors say?” I asked.

  Then several quick knocks sounded at the door, and in came a physician who looked young enough to be in college. He had dark, wavy hair and shiny gold glasses.

  Moving quickly into the room he excused himself and grabbed the clipboard at the foot of Olivia’s bed. He wore a white lab coat, a dangling stethoscope, Levi’s, and white tennis shoes. His name was Dr. Danny Treadwell, according to the green name tag that hung haphazardly on his coat.

  “Are these the most recent?” he questioned the nurse.

  “Yes, Dr. Treadwell. I’m about to do them again.”

  Without a response, he unclipped a pen-sized flashlight from his shirt pocket and carefully pulled Olivia’s right eyelid up with his thumb, shining the light in and out of her eye. Then he did the other. Next he put the stethoscope in his ear
s and checked her breathing. “Mrs. Gilbert, will you pull her bedsheets down, please?”

  As she did, the doctor gently squeezed Olivia’s right arm, bending it back and forth, then the left. He did the same with her legs once they had been tenderly uncovered.

  “Nurse, I want the results from the latest Glasgow, asap.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And vitals.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  He straightened the pages on the clipboard and put it back in its place at the end of the bed. With a quick look and an “excuse me,” he headed for the door.

  I hurried to catch him just before he left. “Doctor.” I tapped his shoulder. “I’m Everett…”

  “I know who you are, sir.” He turned toward me.

  “Can you tell me what’s going on…with Olivia?”

  Mary joined me from behind, but the doctor hesitated, looking at Jerry, as if to ask permission to tell us more. Jerry nodded.

  “Mr. Lester, ma’am,” said Dr. Treadwell, barely looking me in the eyes. “Olivia sustained a severe blow to the head last night. She suffered from respiratory irregularity in the ambulance on the way back here, but fortunately we got the airway secured quickly. The wound required a good number of stitches, and we’ve affixed a drainage tube to the area of impact.”

  Taking a deep breath and exhaling, he seemed nervous and in a hurry. “There appear to be no skull or depression fractures. That’s good. The problem is, she hasn’t regained consciousness; that’s not good. Her breathing is steady, and her motor activity seems okay. But we’re doing tests to reveal any intracranial bleeding or swelling of the brain.”

  “What would that mean, if those things happened?” Mary whispered.

  “It could be devastating,” he said quietly. “She could end up in a prolonged coma. Or she could come out of it yet suffer from paralysis, seizures, personality changes, emotional disturbances…”

  “So, there could be long-term issues,” Mary said.

  “Yes, our worst fear is major cognitive deficits.”

  “What do you mean?” I whispered.

  “Loss of ability to think or reason intelligently. This is all speculation.”

  He turned toward the door. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to run. Good day, Mr. Lester, ma’am.”

  The rain came down in pelting waves as the sheriff’s deputies bent me into their brown-and-orange squad car and drove toward the Justice and Administration Building.

  The spray of water felt refreshing on my face and arms after having been cooped up in my cell all weekend. The dark brown vinyl seat was cold and hard. I felt alive, relishing the short drive and soaking in the glistening scenery.

  Even in the downpour, dozens of reporters and camera crews waited outside the courthouse, their equipment covered by heavy plastic, their reporters standing beneath multicolored umbrellas featuring station logos.

  I had heard Miami-Dade County prosecutors had subpoenaed former DeathStroke tour coordinator Tina Drew, and sure enough, she took the stand today wearing tight gray slacks, clunky black heels, and a lightweight black v-neck sweater.

  Tina was smart and energetic. Gray had originally introduced her to the band back in the late eighties when we were about to launch Deceiver, our third album, and its coinciding tour. At the time, Tina was single and had an MBA from Clemson University. Although she didn’t consider herself a DeathStroke fan, the notion of organizing our domestic and international tours thrilled her.

  We instantly fell in love with the petite brunette from Roanoke, Virginia. Not only was she wholly committed to our success, she was organized, efficient, and confident, unafraid of ruffling our feathers. Indeed, that turned out to be the one thing that really made Tina and DeathStroke gel—the fact that she was not in awe of us. Her job was to make sure our tour went like clockwork, and she did whatever was necessary to make that happen, year in and year out.

  Tina also saw what went on behind the scenes, which is precisely why Frank Dooley had her on the stand so long today. With Tina’s reluctant help, Dooley painted the most sordid portrait to date of Everett Lester—the flamboyant drug addict who had ladies lined up and waiting for him in every city.

  “Miss Drew,” Frank Dooley said, sipping a tall glass of water and showing five inches of white cuff. “What about guns or other weapons? Did you ever see Mr. Lester with a weapon?”

  “I did, on occasion.”

  “What kind of weapon?”

  “A gun,” Tina said. “A handgun.”

  “Any others?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you see Mr. Lester with a handgun?”

  “At times he would have one in his dressing room at a venue we were playing, or in a shoulder bag as we went back and forth from hotels to concert venues.”

  “Why did he carry a gun, Miss Drew?”

  “I believe, for protection. Mr. Lester’s life was threatened on many occasions.”

  “I see.” Dooley looked directly at me. “In all your years working with DeathStroke, did you ever see anyone actually threaten to harm Mr. Lester?”

  “Certainly,” Tina said. “We often met up with protestors at our hotels, at arenas, at restaurants. Many people hated what DeathStroke stood for and threatened bodily harm to Mr. Lester and the other band members.”

  “Did the others carry weapons?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “While he was in your presence, did Mr. Lester ever have his gun available during any of these instances? When he was threatened?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he use it?”

  “He would, ah, usually get it out and show it to people, to scare them off.”

  “Miss Drew,” Dooley said. “Did you ever see Everett Lester fire a gun?”

  “One time…we were in Oklahoma City,” she said, having obviously expected this. “A group of us had gone out to a section of the city. I think it was called Bricktown. Anyway, it was a pretty night, and we were walking from one club to another when these four guys approached us. It appeared they were intoxicated. They started bad-mouthing the band and harassing me. I do believe they intended to harm us. The next thing I knew, Everett was firing shots into the air. It scared them off.”

  “Who was there besides you and Mr. Lester?”

  “David Dibbs and Endora Crystal.”

  “Did Mr. Lester ever fire shots at the individuals?”

  “No, just into the air.”

  “I see.” Dooley paced the floor, allowing Tina’s testimony to soak in. “Did you often socialize with Mr. Lester?”

  “On occasion.”

  “Were you friends with Endora Crystal?”

  “Yes. She traveled with us—with DeathStroke—quite a bit. She was just like one of us, part of the family, so to speak.”

  “So,” Dooley said, arms crossed, walking in front of me, “did you often see Mr. Lester together with Endora Crystal?”

  “Sure. Like I said, she was around a lot.”

  “Did you ever see Mr. Lester and Madam Endora argue?”

  Tina waited a moment. “Endora and Everett were like a mother and son—they were that close. So in that kind of relationship, yes, naturally I saw them argue from time to time.”

  “Miss Drew,” Dooley said with his back to her. “There is no need to preface the answers you submit. Just answer the questions and let the jury come to their own conclusions. Do you understand?”

  “Okay. I just wanted to make sure the jury knew how close they were.”

  “Oh, we’ve heard how close they were.”

  Laughter broke out in spots throughout courtroom B-3. Boone didn’t bother to interject. The damage had been done.

  “Tell the court, if you will, Miss Drew, can you recall a time when there was ever a weapon present while Endora and Everett were together?”

  She let out a slight sigh and swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  “Tell us about that instance, would you please?”

  “We were on tour at a sto
p in Fort Myers, Florida. We had done an afternoon sound check and were back at the hotel resting before the night’s performance,” she said methodically. “It was forty-five minutes past the time we should have left for the arena, and no one could find Everett. His limo waited behind while the other band members went on to the venue. I was making phone calls in my room, trying to track him down. That’s when I noticed Everett and Endora out on the beach, near the surf. They were arguing. I could tell by their hand and arm motions…he had a gun in his hand.”

  Dooley approached Tina. Resting both arms on the wooden rail in front of her, he leaned toward her. “What happened then?”

  “I knew we had to get to the arena.” Tina looked at me. “So I…I grabbed my things and headed down to the beach. I knew they couldn’t hear me yelling at them from the balcony, and Everett wasn’t answering his phone; neither was Endora.”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “When I got down to the entrance of the beach, I waved to get their attention. Then…”

  “Did you? Get their attention?”

  “No.”

  “So you approached them?”

  “No. I just kept waving.”

  “Why did you stop and wave? Why didn’t you simply walk down to them?”

  Tina glanced away from me. She bit her lip, looked up for a moment, then back at Dooley. “He had a gun.”

  “Mr. Lester had a gun. Were you scared of him, Miss Drew?”

  Brian Boone stood up fast. “Leading the witness!”

  “Overruled,” Judge Sprockett said. “Please answer, Miss Drew. Were you frightened of Mr. Lester?”

  “I guess so, but I did eventually walk closer.”

  “And what happened? Was Mr. Lester pointing the gun at Endora?”

  “He was waving it,” she said, obviously shaken now. “That’s the best way I can describe it.”

  “And did you then approach Mr. Lester? ” Dooley asked.

  “I got closer, within fifty or sixty feet or so, but they still didn’t see me. That’s when Endora suddenly stopped arguing and sat down.”