Dark Star: Confessions of a Rock Idol (24 page)

“I guess that was his main reason for initially contacting her.” Her tone turned bitter. “But they became friends after that. They were just friends, okay? There’s nothing to hide.”

Boone walked confidently beside the jury box, shook his head, and smiled. “I’ve got to ask. I mean, the whole court, the whole world, wants to know…did Endora Crystal perform hypnotism? And, if so, for whom?”

Twila moved uneasily on the hard wooden seat. The gum-chomping slowed to a soft chew. Frank Dooley, who had been buried in notebooks, suddenly became all ears. His sidekicks, who had been buzzing around him like moths on a floodlight, grew still.

“I don’t think it’s any real secret Endora worked with a lot of wealthy people, a lot of stars,” Twila confessed. “But one thing people didn’t realize is that hypnotism was kind of her forte. With it, she helped people overcome weight control problems, drug addiction, insomnia, phobias…all kinds of serious stuff. She was a humanitarian, for goodness’ sake! That’s what’s such a bum wrap about this whole trial. You’re painting her to be some kind of…witch.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” Boone put up a hand like a stop sign. “You’re telling us what? That she would hypnotize these people, and they would go away with their problems solved?”

Twila shifted uneasily. “If you don’t believe me, ask some of the Fortune 500 companies that called on her. Go ahead, ask them. They used her to hypnotize entire employee groups to reduce fear and anxiety, increase productivity. She’s hypnotized pro athletes, CEOs, movie stars—even the disobedient children of rich parents.”

Spots of murmuring rose up behind me.

“Did she hypnotize Everett Lester?”

Stone-cold silence.

“I don’t know the answer to that.”

“You are under oath.”

“Yeah, and I still don’t know the answer!”

“Were you ever present when she hypnotized anyone?”

Her eyes darted toward the jury and back to Boone.

“Do I need to repeat the question?” Boone asked.

“She hypnotized me once. When she was trying to teach Zaney.” Twila twirled her hair around her index finger. “I was still having nightmares about my parents’ car wreck. Endora hypnotized me and put me in a state of…oh, what did she call it? Selective amnesia. So I could forget about the accident, or at least not dwell on it so much.”

“And did you forget?”

“Yes, I did.” She dropped her head. “The nightmares have never returned.”

“So Endora’s hypnotism worked. You are proof of that?”

“Yes…Endora was good at what she did.”

“Indeed,” Boone said, patting me on the shoulder as he came to take his seat.

It actually felt good to turn myself over to the authorities in Dayton, Ohio, on the aggravated-assault charge for Olivia Gilbert’s injury. I was quickly booked and released on four hundred thousand dollars bond.

From there, I took a limo to nearby Grayson to see Jerry Princeton and my sister, Mary. It was then that I realized why Jerry loved his town, as he and I strolled down Grayson’s clean, wide sidewalks, past the bakery and the bookshop, the post office, and the corner café. Attractive awnings covered most of the storefronts. There were American flags flying, parents pushing baby strollers, and elderly folks relaxing on park benches. A nice, slow pace.

Jerry told me he had thought about leaving after Susan passed away because of all the memories they shared here, but he treasured the college where he worked, which was right in town. Plus, he had made many new friends at his church—a beautiful rustic brownstone building he pointed to with pride across the street.

Earlier, Jerry had turned me on to one of his favorite neighborhood delis, where at his suggestion we enjoyed pita sandwiches stuffed with chicken, onions, feta, and Greek dressing. Delicious. I also found myself relishing the simplicity of browsing several art galleries, one owned by a friend of Jerry’s and the source of several of the paintings that hung in his den.

My phone rang in the back left pocket of my Levi’s as we walked past the town park toward Jerry’s Mercury Sable, parked along Wooster Avenue. When I heard it was Gray, I excused myself, went up the steps to the park, and sat on a long bench near a swing set. Jerry waved and ducked inside a clothes shop, probably to talk to the owner. He seemed to know everyone in town.

Gray was polite, asking where I had been and how I was doing. I didn’t tell him about my newfound sobriety because, frankly, I wasn’t sure it would last. But I did offer that I was visiting my sister’s place in Ohio.

“Listen,” he said, “I hate to rush you back, but Tina’s been working night and day lining up promoters and venues for the Freedom tour. It’s gonna be incredible. She’s got us booked for at least forty cities, probably more like sixty, including a swing through Europe.”

My stomach turned.

“Fairly soon, I’ve got to get you guys back to the bubble to practice the new set.”

The “bubble” was an enormous jet hangar at JFK International Airport in New York that Gray rented for us when it was time to practice for upcoming tours.

“Hmm.” News that once would have made me pump my fist in exultation, now made me literally sick to my stomach.

He staggered through the silence. “So…how is everything? How’s Endora?”

“Haven’t seen her,” I said, my mind rocketing back to the rooftop mirage in Manhattan.

“Oh, really? That’s unusual. What’s the deal? You two haven’t gone your separate ways, have you?”

Suddenly, I felt anxious, almost light-headed. My heart raced, much like it had atop the fifty-seven-story skyscraper the other night. But this time, my feet were firm on Ohio soil, which scared me even more.

“We may be.” I focused on the thick gray trunk of a nearby tree to stabilize myself.

“Listen, I’m glad you turned yourself in to the Dayton PD,” he said, waiting for a response but getting none. “Eventually, you’re gonna have to head back for a hearing on that thing…unless the attorneys can pull a rabbit out of the hat. But don’t worry, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll take care of it.”

“Okay,” I said, pacing amid the playground wood chips, my heart drumrolling. “Is that all?”

“Yes, I guess that’s it.” Gray sounded confused by my abruptness.

I shut the phone.

Look at you, Everett Lester,
came the voice.
You’re
never
going to change. Your sobriety is temporary. You see? Now, it’s back to the tour and records, back to the pot and booze and pills, back to the strange women, and yes, back to Endora—the only one you will ever be able to trust…

The tires that squealed around the corner two blocks away snapped me out of the funk. Then an engine opened up about five times as loud as it should on such a quiet street. I looked up to see Mary’s Subaru swerve sharply before it veered toward me and lurched to a halt in a parking space twenty feet away, her driver’s door bouncing open almost before the vehicle stopped.

“There’s been an accident! There’s been an accident!” She ran toward me. “Oh, Everett…we’ve got to get to New York!”

The bells on the shop door rang, and Jerry raced over from across the street. I ran down the small hill from the park, and we both met Mary at the sidewalk.

“It’s David!” she said, out of breath, turning toward Jerry. “Eddie’s youngest boy!”

“Calm down, Mary, calm down!” Jerry grabbed her at the elbows. “Slow down, sweetheart. It’s okay. It’s okay. Tell us what’s happened.” He was out of breath, too. So was I.

“Jerry!” She clamped onto his face. “It’s my nephew, David. Oh, dear…he may not make it!”

“Ev.” She turned to me. “He’s been in a terrible accident. We’ve got to get up there…for Eddie.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, getting my bearings. “We’ll go to him. Let’s get your car back to Jerry’s. Then…Jerry, can you drive us to the airport?”

He was already in motion.

19

A LIMO WHISKED MARY
and me from the cold runway where we landed at LaGuardia through the Bronx and Yonkers and up to White Plains Hospital Center in White Plains, New York.

What we found there was not good. Not good at all.

Our brother Eddie was nowhere to be found when we arrived at the hospital. However, his red-eyed wife, Sheila; silent nineteen-year-old son, Wesley; and stunned sixteen-year-old daughter, Madison, were camped outside the intensive care unit, along with about a dozen family members and friends.

The torn body of seventeen-year-old David lay in an adjacent room, where he was monitored constantly by a staff of all-business nurses and physicians.

One of Sheila’s brothers, Bill, explained to Mary and me that David had been in a horrific car wreck following school that afternoon. He was driving his black Camaro with three passengers in the suburbs of White Plains, when he lost control of the car and hit an oncoming vehicle head-on.

David’s mangled body was found twenty feet from the scene, actually
behind
the car he had hit. Nearly every bone in his body was broken, a foot had been severed, and he had lost a dangerous amount of blood. Two of David’s passengers, a seventeen-year-old boy and a sixteen-year old girl, were pronounced dead at the scene. The other passenger, a nineteen-year-old male, was in good condition two floors up.

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.