Chapter 13
(Johnny)
In the crack of a gavel bang I found myself being led out of the courtroom, not in cuffs through the back door, escorted by an armed guard, but down the center aisle, past openly sobbing members of the McCall family who were beyond pissed at the judge for granting bail again. I was just stunned that my lawyer had been spot on about the way the judge would lean if I presented myself before the court and followed him in stunned silence.
“W-what just happened?” I asked once we were safely in the SUV.
“You kept your freedom, at least for now,” Mr. Sousa, Oscar he’d told me to call him multiple times before I’d finally manage it, told me as he drove. “I hope we can make that a permanent condition now that you’ve agreed to let me offer a reward for new information.”
“I still don’t like it, but it doesn’t matter what I like anymore. I have more than just myself to think about,” I said.
“I don’t like it any more than you do, Johnny, but what I would like even less is you sitting behind bars for shit you didn’t do,” Oscar said.
“But what the judge said today, to the prosecutor, that means he was on my side, too, right?” I asked.
“It does, but he’s not a trial judge. You won’t be going in front of him next month,” Oscar explained.
“But he believed me.”
“He believes that you are not a flight risk, in part because you appeared before a warrant could be issued to bring you back, but also because we agreed to provide the prosecutor’s office with a detailed tour schedule and assured them that none of our shows were slated to take place outside of the country.”
It was a good thing I’d gotten a look at the tour schedule, or at least what there had been of it, before Draven and I had left Palm Springs. He’d been steadily working on it for months, adding bookings, leaving gaps to give us days off and wiggle room in our travel schedule. He wasn’t planning on us crisscrossing the country, either. That shit pissed everyone off and left tempers frayed by the end of the long stretches. He planned for us to work our way across the country by hitting the states that held our biggest fan bases. I loved that idea, and getting our fan clubs involved. He was issuing VIP tickets to fan club members and in turn, they’d already started getting involved in spreading the word about upcoming shows. It was marketing brilliance at a grassroots level, and I got to go back and be a part of that, at least for a little while.
“Look, Johnny, your story has never changed, and we’ve got accident recreation footage compiled by three independent companies that shows that your description of the events is the most likely scenario that took place that night.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean the prosecutor won’t show up with recreations of his own to show other ways it could have happened, without the vehicle that I keep telling everyone was there.”
“But they have Rebel’s statement, too.”
“Which is tainted by the results of the breathalyzer and his blood alcohol level at the time they drew it, which was still well over the legal limit an hour after the accident took place, you know this. It’s admissible and I intend to use it, but the prosecutor won’t have to work to poke holes in it. The evidence is right in the report.”
“Shouldn’t that tell them something, since it also states in the report that it was his car?”
“It tells them what we all know and what no one is disputing,” Oscar said. “That you were behind the wheel and that you were sober. You blew clean on the breathalyzer and your blood alcohol level was 0.0. If this had been a case of impaired driving, you can bet that no judge in the city would have freed you on this second bond.”
“And yet they’re still trying to pin this shit on me.”
“Two people died,” Oscar said. “Families need someone to blame, and the authorities want to wrap up the case so all the noise dies down. They have a heavy metal musician, a classic muscle car, and a patch of ice that wasn’t big enough to cause that wreck unless the vehicle was traveling at a speed that exceeded the posted limit by a great deal. At the speed you say you were driving, my forensic reenactments will show the events unfolding the way you say they did. But their theory has always been that there wasn’t a second car or the van that you described as being in the left lane. Mrs. McCall claims to have only seen one set of headlights behind them and that they were weaving all over the road.”
“Because they were, but that wasn’t me doing all the weaving. That’s the car I told them about, the one that whipped around me, cut me off and caused me to lose control in the first place. The only reason we’re not talking about a different wreck is because I turned the wheel when I realized that spinning into the median grass would have sent Rebel’s car into the van that was driving past first. I should have just hit the fuckin’ thing. Rebel and I would probably still be in the hospital, if we’d survived the wreck. It was one of those old school box vans carpenters and repair guys use. My uncle had one. It got hit by a dump truck one morning and the damn thing still started and got him to work. They’re indestructible. That’s why I swerved. I saw that van and knew it would hurt like a son of a bitch if we hit it. The grass was right there on the other side of it. If I’d hit it, we’d have both gone off the road into the median and no one would have gotten hurt but us. The guy in the van would have been fine. He’d have just slid to a stop at the bottom and everyone else would have been safe. The McCalls would be alive, their kids wouldn’t be orphans, and we wouldn’t be about to offer a reward to the guy whose night I chose not to completely fuck up by hitting him. That patch of ice never would have been a factor, either, because I wouldn’t have been anywhere near it.”
“And you will have the chance to tell them that in court next month,” Oscar said. “If there is a trial. Let’s see what offering that reward turns up, but Johnny, I really need you to think about holding a press conference and telling the world what you just told me. Money talks, but so do emotions. It might not have occurred to the guy in the van that him getting to drive away unscathed that night is because you made the choice to cut the wheel in a different direction. Maybe he holds the same level of confidence you do about the sturdiness of the vehicle he was driving and brushes the whole thing off, or maybe he starts thinking about his own mortality and Mr. and Mrs. McCall. Maybe he’s got kids, a family that gets him thinking about what would happen to them if he was gone. Maybe he’s had it happen or knows someone who has. Maybe he’s struggled because of it or watched people he cared about struggle. Maybe he’s seen them work two jobs and drag themselves through the door tired, with aching feet, to still pull together a meal for their kids. Who’s going to want that for their family?”
“Damn, dude, you’re scary sometimes,” I said, turning to look at him. “Did they teach you all that psychological shit in law school?”
“No, my mama taught that to me every day after my old man was killed in a construction site accident,” Oscar said. “I got to watch as one by one his well-meaning friends stopped coming by to check on her and those neighbors who’d been helping with food and other stuff we needed had to turn their attention back to their own families and other neighbors in crisis. I watched her pick up the pieces and carry on, be mother and father and bring in both incomes. But she would never have had to do that if any of the guys on my old man’s crew had come forward to speak about the unsafe work conditions they were forced to endure each day. People need to stop turning a blind eye to things that they know are wrong. ”
“How are you not a prosecutor?” I asked as we hit the highway on our way out of the city.
The man had done more than just show up in court for me. He’d picked me up at the airport and taken me home, so I could shower and get into one of the few suits I owned. He’d been so god damned confident when he picked me up this morning that he’d told me to pack anything I wanted to grab from my apartment to take back on the road with me, so I’d have it when he drove me back to the airport. Never any wavering, never any doubt, he’d said it with a confidence I hadn’t been able to argue with so I’d done as I was told and we’d locked my bag in his trunk before we’d headed to the courthouse.
“Because I didn’t fall for the hype they’re always showing on television about the noble prosecutor working tirelessly to rid his city of crime,” Oscar said. “I grew up on the South End the same as you did, and I know you saw the same things I saw growing up. Good people who got jammed up and never could find a way out of the system afterward. I wanted to be able to help the people in my neighborhood, not hurt them.”
“And cases like mine help you keep doing the pro bono work you’ve been doing in the community.”
“You know about that?” Oscar said, sounding a little surprised.
“It’s one of the reasons I hired you,” I admitted.
“What were the others? ”
“You were from the neighborhood and came highly recommended by people I know and trust,” I said. “And you believed me when we spoke. You didn’t try and tell me what I needed to say to make things better for myself like other people tried to do when they were giving advice. You listened and you never asked me to adjust anything about my statement.”
“Because the truth, good and bad, is supposed to be what justice is all about,” Oscar said. “It does no one any favors to get someone off on a loophole or a technicality when they’re dirty as hell and at risk of hurting someone else in the future. I’ve got a lot of lines I won’t cross and a lot of cases I won’t take, for a variety of different reasons. I also know classic cars, and I’m hoping to get a few folks in jury selection who do, too. That Firebird you were driving would have spun, flipped and rolled into a fiery inferno if you’d swerved at the speed they claim you were going because the instinct would have been to slam on the brakes. You didn’t. You downshifted and kept control of that vehicle right until you hit that black ice. That’s the only way you and Rebel lived.”
I could almost feel the gear shifter beneath my fingers, the smooth purple raptor’s head that Rebel had specially made to replace the stock one. The way my fingers had wrapped around it, gripping as I worked the clutch and got us moving away from the van, fishtailing. That split second of relief when the back end nearly evened out had been shattered when a rear tire hit ice and the whole thing spun. My old man had always said to steer into the spin and keep your foot off the brake, so that’s what I did. With a white-knuckle grip on the shifter and the wheel and the memory of strobe lights flashing before my eyes until we’d thudded to a stop against the McCalls’ vehicle. In the resulting stillness, after I’d somehow managed to straighten my fingers enough to let go of the shifter so I could turn the engine off, the only other sound I’d heard besides my heartbeat in my ears was the harshness of Rebel’s breathing, followed by his laughter when he’d realized that we were okay.
Holy shit, holy shit, bro, the metal gods were watching over us tonight.
I just wished they’d been watching over the McCalls.
I don’t remember the exact moment when Rebel and I became aware that it was not just a guardrail but another vehicle we were resting against, but later, we’d both recall Mrs. McCall screaming for her husband, and us fumbling with our door handles to get out and help, too stupid to think about calling 911 first. Was a good thing their SUV had done it for them after it had detected that they’d been in an accident, ‘cause all Rebel and I had been able to do was hold hands, put pressure on bleeding wounds and repeatedly ask the agent when the hell the EMTs were gonna get there.
I shook myself out of the memory and realized that we were almost to Fall River and damn, did I have a lot of good memories of playing shows there. I’d have to remind Draven to add a stop to the tour. It would be nice to spend a night entertaining my original fans. Provided I was still out.
Shit.
Today’s victory could easily turn into defeat when the case reached trial.
“Do you really think giving a press conference and telling my story could help things?”
“I’ve only been telling you that for months.”
“Then I’ll have my band’s new manager set something up.”
“Might be a good idea to contact that reporter who keeps reaching out to you, too,” Oscar said. “Local folks are gonna be more likely to trust their local reporter than news they get from clear across the country. You know how it goes.”
“Yeah. But the way they’ve been burying me in the papers, who’s to say they won’t misquote me or some shit? I’ve got no reason to trust them let alone want to talk to them.”
“The only reason they’ve been able to bury you is because you’ve steadfastly refused to sit down and give anyone your side of the story,” Oscar pointed out. “I told you from the beginning that was a bad idea.”
“And I told you from the beginning that I just wanted all of this to be over.”
“If I had a magic gavel, I’d wave it and dismiss this case in an instant, but the law doesn’t work like that.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Dust in the Wind” relaced conversation, but he kept the radio low when I would have cranked it up and sang along.
“Hey, I never told you about downshifting,” I blurted over the song’s chorus. “I didn’t even remember downshifting until a few minutes ago.”
“Like I said, I know cars and I know how they handle. Had a friend who taught me to drive stick shift on the same make and model car as you were driving that night. I know how they handle and I know what the steering column of one of those will do at the speed the cops want to say you were traveling. You’d have needed two hands to hold it steady meaning you’d have needed two hands to swerve. The odds of you cranking it without over cranking and flipping into a tree is damn near nil.”
“And that’s why you believed me.”
“That and having drag raced that stretch of road in my misspent youth. You insisted that you couldn’t go off the road to the left because there was a van in the way. Only guys who know that road know that it’s safest to go off left if you get in trouble out there. That gave me no doubt that you’d have taken that Firebird into the grass if there hadn’t been something there to prevent it, so let’s find that van, yeah, and then you and I are gonna sit down for a wicked seafood feast at the wharf to celebrate.”
“Hell yeah, my treat!” I declared, chuckling when Oscar shot me a look as if to say, no shit.
If he did manage to get the van driver to come forward and tell the truth of what happened that night, I’d happily feed his whole extended family, right down to second cousins twice removed. I just wanted my life back and the freedom to be with the man I loved.