A short story by Dan Berthiaume
The cell was sparse, utilitarian; far less dramatic than anything Brad had seen on television or in the movies. A metal shelf bolted to the wall served as a bed, and most of the rest of the room was filled by a small metal toilet and a metal sink with a basin just big enough to fit both of his hands. The cement walls were bare. Nobody had scratched their initials or lines to count how many days they had spent there.
The only aspect of the cell that had any Hollywood familiarity was the door, a metal grate that stretched the entire width of the room and offered a view of a brightly-lit, narrow hallway in dire need of scrubbing and fresh paint. Since the hall was fully illuminated at 2 AM, Brad assumed the lights stayed on all night, which would make sleep a difficult proposition. Not that the metal bed, which offered no mattress or pillow but only a thin woolen blanket, looked all that inviting.
Brad sat on the metal bed and leaned back against the hard cinderblock wall. He started feeling drowsy, dimly recalling from numerous cop shows that only the guilty fell asleep in a jail cell after being arrested. His head had begun slumping forward on his chest when a commotion of shouting voices and scuffing feet jarred him back to consciousness.
“Calm down, asshole!” yelled a stern voice that Brad recognized as that of the desk sergeant, a short, square-headed man with a buzz cut who had mocked his shoulder-length tangle of hair as a “hippie dandruff nest.”
A few other officers shouted similar admonitions, then an eerily familiar voice, far richer and more harmonic in tone, called, “You can’t hold me down, man! You can lock me in your cell but you can’t stop what I’ve already created!”
Now fully awake, Brad watched intently as a familiar figure, a figure he had only seen in person as a tiny speck on a stage or projected to godlike proportions on a football stadium jumbo screen, was dragged past his cell by about six red-faced cops. It was none other than Dean Morrow, lead singer of the Poorboy Shamans, in all his golden-haired, leather-panted, black silk-shirted, bead-necklaced glory, singing the praises of mindless revolution in the face of fascist oppression. He looked a lot shorter than Brad had expected.
“I’m not a fucking slave, man!” Dean declared, punctuating the sentiment with a sharp gasp as the desk sergeant elbowed him hard in the gut.
“Of course you’re not a slave,” agreed the desk sergeant. “Slaves work. You leech off society for a living.” Brad heard the door of the cell next to his automatcally whir open, followed by a loud thump. The door clanged shut.
“I’ll sic my lawyers on you pigs!” Dean wailed. “I know my rights!” Brad had heard Dean sing the jailhouse blues many times on stage, but it had never sounded so plaintively real. “You can’t toss me around like this!”
The vanguard of police marched past Brad’s cell. The desk sergeant paused to sneer at him. “There’s your goddamned hero,” he spat. “Caught ripping up his hotel room with two underage hookers and a gram of coke. Real fucking role model. You’ll be back here soon enough if you keep looking up to this schmuck.”
Brad said nothing and looked at the floor. If the police in this station were willing to get rough with a multimillionaire celebrity who mouthed off, he could only imagine what they would do with a broke, out-of-state hippie who got out of line. Satisfied that Brad had been cowed into submission, the desk sergeant chuckled loudly and continued back to his post.
Still too scared to speak or even move, Brad reflected silently on the events that had led to what was undeniably turning into a very interesting, if also troubling, evening. The whole thing had been Skyler’s fault. Brad had known bringing that dork along for the trip would only cause problems. Having to pull over on the highway to let Skyler puke in the breakdown lane had drawn the attention of the passing state cop, which led to the DWI test that Brad flunked, which led to the search of the vehicle that turned up Brad’s hidden stash of booze and weed, which brought Brad here to this cell.
Until that point, everything had been going fine. Melody, Melody’s sister Charity, Charity’s boyfriend Skyler, and this righteous dude named Dylan they had first met at a show in Wisconsin were driving down Route 95 South in Brad’s beat-up Ford Explorer. They had just seen the 12th show of the Poorboy Shamans’ fall tour, and it was the best one yet. Almost three hours of an electric smorgasboard of blues, R&B, psychedelia, funk, and plain old three-chord rock n roll, accompanied by the incomparable voice and stage presence of Dean Morrow.
Dean had been on fire, growling his way through a blues number and then effortlessly shifting to a pretty falsetto for a love ballad. The hungered, awestruck expressions on the faces of Melody, Charity, and every other girl in the crowd were all the proof needed to say that Dean’s artistic bad boy shtick worked.
Brad knew that Melody would jump in the sack with Dean if doing so meant she had to voluntarily film the act and then show the videotape to her grandmother, but he didn’t mind much. One of the best parts of following the Shamans on tour was the crazed sexual appetite that the shows worked up in Melody, the nights of animal passion he could look forward to in cheap motel rooms or on somebody’s friend’s brother’s spare couch. And if Melody closed her eyes and pretended that Brad was Dean, it certainly didn’t diminish his enjoyment of the experience.
And now Dean Morrow was sitting in the cell next to him, mere feet away. He could hear his sharp, heavy breaths that carried the weight of the evening’s wine, women, song and police brutality. Despite his fears of being the only other anger outlet if the cops got pissed off about noise, Brad could not resist the urge to communicate one-on-one with the man whose song lyrics and proudly antisocial attitude had guided his life since ninth grade. He rapped on the wall separating his and Dean’s cells. “Are you, OK, dude?” he asked in a hushed voice. “Did those cops hurt you?”
“Nah, man,” responded Dean. “Pigs are never as tough as they think they are. It took six of the bastards to bring me down. And stop whispering, nobody is listening.” Dean’s regular speaking voice sounded gruff and frayed, betraying years of heavy drinking and smoking, though Brad guessed he was only 28 or 29.
“Sorry about that,” said Brad.
“Don’t apologize,” commanded Dean. “I haven’t apologized for one damned thing since I was 16 and I’ve done more to be sorry for than you. How old are you, kid?”
“Twenty,” said Brad, “in about a month.”
“Cool,” said Dean. “What are you doing with your life?”
Brad paused to consider the question. His father had asked variations of it many times, though usually he turned it into an insult rather than what sounded here like an attempt at friendly conversation. He had tried and failed community college, followed by a half-hearted attempt to join the Peace Corps that was summarily rejected. Ever since, he had held a string of low-wage retail and menial labor jobs supplemented by a small-time pot dealing enterprise. But he decided to give Dean an answer that he would more likely appreciate.
“Since three weeks ago, I’ve been following the Poorboy Shamans,” he proudly announced. “We’re doing the whole fall tour.”
This provoked a deep, raspy fit of laughter. “Oh, no, don’t tell me you’re a Shamanite,” Dean said. “Is my face on every one of your tee shirts?”
The response shocked Brad. He had expected something along the lines of, “Right on, dude,” or, “Way to screw the establishment,” or even an invitation to join the road crew. Outright mockery was a surprising turn.
“No,” Brad stammered. “Well, I do have the shirt with your picture from the ‘Universal Spirit’ tour two years ago. I caught you guys in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Akron that summer. You totally rocked.”
“You’re an Ohio boy,” said Dean. “That explains a lot. And yeah, we did rock that summer. Especially after the shows. I’ve never seen more pussy in my life. I recall a few choice samples from Ohio, if my impaired memory serves me right.”
“The chicks love you in Ohio,” Brad said, desperately searching for a way to appear cool in Dean’s hazy view again. “Christ, my girlfriend and her sister would dig a tunnel through the floor of this place if they knew you were locked up all alone in that cell.”
“Really?” Dean perked up. “You’re traveling around with a pair of sisters? Are they hot?”
“Hell yeah,” said Brad, letting out a low whistle for emphasis. He hated to brag about his hot girlfriend to a guy who had forgotten the names of more beautiful women than he would ever meet, but Brad had to admit that Melody was a fine little piece of ass and her sister was possibly even finer. “Both have long blonde hair, plump melons, and tight little asses. Melody, my girlfriend, is 19 and her sister Charity is 18.”
“Sounds pretty good.” Dean seemed mildly impressed. “Do they double up on you?”
“Unfortunately not,” said Brad, who had entertained that particular fantasy on numerous occasions. “Charity has this dweeb boyfriend named Skyler. He looks just like his name, with a pencil neck and thick glasses and everything. He’s also along for the ride.”
“If he’s such a tool how did he land a fine little biscuit?” inquired Dean.
“That’s a good question,” admitted Brad. “He’s a poet. The kid got into Ohio State on some kind of writing scholarship but he’s taking a year off to find himself. Somehow Charity fell for his sensitive artist bullshit. She works with her sister at the mall doing electrolysis and she shacks up with a guy who reads Shakespeare for fun.”
“Poetry is a pretty solid hook,” mused Dean. “Chicks love artistic dudes. If a guy isn’t a jock, and it sounds like your boy Skyler sure isn’t, being some kind of poet or painter or songwriter is probably the best way to go. It sure worked for me.”
“I guess so,” Brad hesitantly agreed. He had met Melody two years earlier at a party during their senior year of high school. Brad spent the night getting Melody and her friends high with a bag of pot he had originally planned to sell, and he had been dating her ever since. But he certainly wasn’t much of an athlete and definitely did not create anything artistic. Besides getting high and rocking out to the Shamans, Brad wasn’t entirely sure what he and Melody shared in common. A small, tight knot began forming in the pit of his stomach.
“Why is Dylan wise beyond his years while the rest of us are losers?” asked Brad. He meant no disrespect toward Dylan, but he needed to know the precise reason the man he had spent the last four years following as a surrogate deity apparently viewed him as a pathetic lump of shit.
“Dylan is a wanderer, a seeker, someone who sacrifices to obtain spiritual knowledge,” Dean patiently explained. “You and your friends are runners, people who have nothing and plunge themselves into the Poorboy Shamans rather than try to create something. You’re a high school dropout, aren’t you?”
Brad, who had graduated at the bottom 10 percent of his class, bristled at this suggestion. “No way, I’ve got my diploma,” he boasted. “And none of that GED bullshit, either.”
“Congratulations,” exclaimed Dean, clapping in mock applause. “Four of the best years of your life locked away in a school that probably felt more like a prison than this place, all so you could head into the world and keep grease out of the fry-o-later.”
Rock star or not, Dean’s attitude was wearing thin on Brad. “So I’m not a multimillionaire like you,” he shouted, forgetting about the goon squad that lurked a short distance down the hall, waiting for a disturbance they could quell. “You’re also about 10 years older than I am. What were you doing at 19?”
“About the same as you’re doing now,” admitted Dean. “Dropping acid, smoking weed, hanging out at Phish and Ratdog shows. The difference is, even back then I didn’t go anywhere without my acoustic six-string or a notebook to write down song ideas when they hit me. Half the tunes you heard tonight I wrote before I turned 22. What will you do in the next three years that might change your life forever?”
Brad desperately tried to think of a response to Dean’s challenge that wouldn’t be a smartass remark or a total lie. He usually didn’t plan three days in advance, never mind three years.
“I’m not trying to bust your balls or make you feel miserable, kid,” Dean said softly. “I’m trying to wake you up. I appreciate the support, but don’t wrap your life around me. I don’t need it.”
Brad slowly digested Dean’s advice. How was he supposed to respond? How would Dylan respond in this situation?
“Your silence tells me you listened at least a little bit, which is good,” said Dean. “You ain’t figuring anything out tonight, kid. When this tour ends, take a little time and really think about where you want your life to be heading.” Dean paused. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know when this tour ends, would you?”
“October 31, special Halloween show at Moscone Center in San Francisco,” Brad snapped automatically.
“Right, right, Moscone,” said Dean. “Good venue. We should do more indoor gigs next fall. It gets cold out there after Labor Day.”
Brad laughed in agreement. His denim jacket that had been unbearably warm three weeks ago was now leaving him thoroughly chilled by the time a typical show reached the encore. Maybe Dean really was as cool as he appeared on stage. Then Dean said something that confirmed it.
“What are you in for, anyway?” he asked. “I’m assuming you didn’t kill anybody.”
“Drunk driving, having a little booze and dope in the car,” Brad said with all the nonchalance he could force.
“Hell, that’s a night off for me,” said Dean. “Your bailout can’t be more than a few hundred bucks, then.”
“Five hundred, actually,” said Brad, feeling faint pride at recanting his misdeeds for a bona fide rock n roll outlaw.
“What if I covered your bail?” offered Dean. “Are your friends coming to pick you up?”
Brad couldn’t believe his good fortune. Dean had gone from arrogant superstar schmuck to righteous rock god in a matter of minutes. “Dylan and Skyler took the car to pick up some cash from a buddy of Dylan’s in Rhode Island,” said Brad. “It will probably be at least another hour before they come back.”
‘And those two lovely ladies are all alone and defenseless at this time of night?” asked Dean, a hint of sarcastic disapproval in his voice. “Tsk, tsk. Guys like me are running loose out there.”
“They have a place to stay,” Brad said hurriedly. He didn’t want a chick magnet like Dean Morrow to think he couldn’t take proper care of his lady. “We’ve all got a room at the Shuteye Station Motel.”
“Right at the border,” said Dean. “I know it well. We didn’t always stay at places with movie channels on the cable. Anyhow, my lawyer should be here with a briefcase full of cash and a chauffered limo inside of five minutes. What if I sprung you from this rathole and gave you a ride back to the no-tell motel in style.”
Brad had been planning to break Skyler’s nose for causing all of this to happen, but now he actually wanted to hug the little twerp. “Are you shitting me?” he asked far more excitedly than he intended to sound.
“I only shit in the toilet, brother, and I wouldn’t let my dog crap in one of these metallic chamberpots. It’s the least I can do for such a loyal fan. Plus I like your style. I rode you good a few minutes ago and you stayed pretty cool.”
“Thanks,” said Brad, beaming ear to ear and hoping Dean couldn’t hear the smile in his voice. But he couldn’t deny his elation at having the lead singer of the Poorboy Shamans compliment his style.
Angry shouts suddenly echoed down the hall from the front of the station. “I want to see my client now!” demanded a nasally voice that sounded used to getting its way.
“So go see him!” retorted the desk sergeant. “I don’t want to look at his ugly monkey ass any more than I have to.”
A tall, thin, agitated man with silver-flecked black hair and a black-and-gray pinstriped suit to match strode past Brad’s cell, a portly officer puffing to keep pace behind him. “Why is my client bruised?” he barked. “Has he been beaten?”
“No sir,” said the officer, slightly gasping between words. “When we arrested him he was doing back flips all over his hotel room while these two whores were snorting up coke and egging him on. All the furniture was busted. He must have bruised himself during all the nonsense.”
“Is this officer telling the truth, Dean?” snapped the lawyer. Brad was shocked that Dean Morrow would allow someone on his payroll, especially an old fart in a dorky suit, to speak to him so abruptly.
“It’s cool, Fred,” said Dean. “Just get me out of this pigsty.”
“Open his cell immediately,” commanded the lawyer. “I have more than $200,000 in bearer bonds, I assume that will cover his bail?”
“With enough left over to retile my swimming pool,” said the officer as he pressed the button to open the door to Dean’s cell.
Dean, who now radiated icy calm despite the growing welt under his left eye, slouched and slowly strolled out of his cell. As he passed Brad’s cell he stopped and flashed him the peace sign.
“Give me a few minutes, kid,” he said. “A magistrate has to come down and straighten everything out for me. Then I’ll take care of you.” Brad nodded in assent, intimidated to silence by both the cop and the lawyer. The only authority he had any faith in was Dean, who looked like a very badass hobbit standing next to his six-foot-three lawyer.
Then Dean was gone and the cell block turned quiet again. Brad lay down on the metal bed, folding up the cheap blanket to use as a pillow. After a few minutes, the sensation of lying on metal became almost bearable.
Brad awoke suddenly. He figured he must have dozed off for a moment or two. The portly cop was back, standing in front of his cell. Dean’s lawyer had obviously sent him to fetch Brad for the limo.
“It’s almost 4 AM,” said the officer. “Will you be staying the night?”
“No, man, it’s cool, Dean’s got my back,” said Brad, trying to figure out why it was taking so long to process his bail payment. Maybe the desk sergeant had messed up the paperwork.
“Your rock star buddy left more than an hour ago,” said the officer, snorting loudly. “He was jabbering at that asshole lawyer about getting things moving so he could go and pick up a couple of pieces of ass waiting for him at some motel.”
“Shuteye Station?” Brad asked weakly.
The officer stroked his stubbly chin. “Yeah, that sounds right. He probably has groupies stashed in every motel from here to Florida. Unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head. “The more a guy is a useless piece of shit, the more the broads want to fuck him.” He ruefully glanced at what appeared to be a wedding band on his left third finger. “Makes me glad I’ve got four boys.” He stared up directly at Brad. “How about you, kid? Got a girlfriend?”
Brad wasn’t honestly sure at that exact moment, but said, “Yes,” without emotion.
The officer clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Of course you do. You’re no slouch in the dirtbag department. You probably have five or six girlfriends. Well, assuming you do spend the night in our humble abode, wakeup call is 6:30 AM sharp and breakfast is whatever five bucks will buy you at the local Golden Arches. Do you want to place an order now?”
“Anything fried will be fine,” Brad muttered.
The officer let out a long whistle. “That’s my kind of breakfast!” he stated. “There may be hope for you yet. With a haircut and better taste in music, you might be salvageable.”
“I’ll work on it,” said Brad.
“You bet,” said the officer, and then he walked away, his footsteps rebounding through the empty hallway.
Brad was numb with a nameless emotion several steps beyond rage. He didn’t know what had become of Dylan or Skyler, but he had a pretty good idea of where Melody and Charity had wound up. He didn’t know if he would even see any of them or his car again, and didn’t know what he would say to Melody if he did speak to her. But he was certain that he would break Skyler’s nose if he got the chance, and also probably crack his jaw for good measure. And as far as Dylan was concerned, he would be smart to haul his ass back to Wisconsin or wherever he came from if he wanted to live long enough to have a legal drink. Dylan knew Dean Morrow personally. He could have said something. He could have given a warning.
