Straight Life (47 page)

Diane came to see me and she asked about Christmas, and I made the mistake of telling her about the list. I told her I was going to send it to my dad. It would give him something to do. I didn't tell her I was doing it that way because I trusted him and not her. She said, "Oh, you've got to let me do it! I'm your wife! I love you!" I told her if anything happened and she couldn't send it, it would really hang me up. You have to have been in prison yourself to realize what getting these little extra things means. It's blown all out of proportion by the circumstances.

Diane said, "Please, please, please! I would never hang you up. Of course I'll send the stuff. I'll get everything on the list. The most expensive things that there are!" She took the paper. I signed it over. This was three months before Christmas. She said goodbye. After that visit I never once heard. Never got a letter. Never got a visit. Nothing. Christmas came. I never got a package. I never heard a word, except every now and then somebody would come in and I'd pick up these vibes. People would look at me. Little things would be dropped. Finally some friends came to me and told me that some black guy that had just come in had told them about Diane, Art Pepper's wife, in Frisco. She was strung out on this stuff that was famous there in those days-Percodan and yellow jackets and meth (methadrine) mixed-and she was really a derelict. She was making it with these black guys, and they were laughing at me and talking about me behind my back. That's why I'd wanted her to divorce me in the first place-because I didn't want to go through anything like that. People are really cruel in prison. And I heard nothing from her.

Me and Jerry Maher worked in the paymaster's office together, and we used to get loaded together on weekends, and he had the same situation with his old lady. He'd given her his sheet for Christmas and hadn't heard from her since, but he'd get word that she was balling this guy and that guy, friends of his, and that his kid was left someplace, squalling and dirty. I'm half German and half Italian. He's full German and violent. We would spend hours and hours together: "Here's another Diane story." We would get together and talk about what we were going to do to our wives when we got out. We devised tortures. Our favorite plan was to rent a house with a cellar. I'd get Diane and he'd get his old lady and we'd put them in this cellar and chain them up. Then we'd get a real powerful stereo set and put speakers all over the walls; we'd have sounds of trains and airplanes and war sounds and people screaming; we'd turn the speakers on at all different times of the day and night; and they would never know what time it was. They would never see daylight. We would come in with black hoods over us and beat them with whips. We'd make them give each other head, and then, just before they'd come, we'd beat their cunts with whips. We'd pour ice water on them. We would go on for hours, and there was nothing we didn't envision: water tortures, lighted sticks under their toenails.

I was in San Quentin for three years. Then I was sent to Tehachapi, and that's when I went to the parole board and got a release date. I don't know how she found out about it, but after I got my date, they called my name one day and said, "You have a visitor." It had been two years since I'd seen Diane. When I saw her, my immediate reaction was I wanted to kill her. I wanted to beat her to death. But I wanted to contain myself until I could get at her, so by an unbelievable strengthening of my will and the greatest acting job I've ever done I acted cool.

She looked at me and burst out crying. She said, "Oh, I'm sorry!" She said she had flipped out, and she was sorry, and how can I ever forgive her. She loved me and missed me, but she was so fucked up from the methadrine and the Percodan she was ashamed for me to see her in that state. She couldn't stand to see anybody so she'd hid in the room; she'd nearly gone insane. And somebody had stolen all my stuff out of this room. Everything was gone. And she's sorry, and she loves me. She had finally got back to Los Angeles. She said she was straightening up and she wanted to save money and take care of me. What could she do for me? Would I ever forgive her? I said, "Oh, don't worry about it. I understand. I understand what dope does." Don't worry about the scrapbooks and things I had saved since I was a little kid. That's alright. I was shaking inside. When I touched her it made me cringe. I got ill thinking about all these guys she'd balled. But I was able to play over my feelings, and I told her that if she wanted to visit me it was okay. I told her I had a release date.

Diane came to visit me every week. She brought food and all that. And every now and then she'd look at me strangely and say, "Are you sure you forgive me?" And I'd say yeah. All I wanted to do was get out and have her under my power. Finally the day came. Diane came to pick me up. She'd rented a place on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. I got her into the pad. She took a shower and put on some sexy negligee. I started kissing her. I got her all excited sexually. I got her all worked up until she's wigging out with passion. I got her just to the point where we're going to ball and then I looked at her and spit in her face: "You slimy, stinking, bastard bitch!" I grabbed her by the throat. I told her, "No, I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to make you suffer like you've never suffered in your life before!" I let her go and backhanded her as hard as I could in the mouth, and I threw her against the wall. I smashed her head against the wall and I told her, "Don't touch me, you slimy, filthy bastard!" She begged me, and she crawled along the floor. She had blood running out of her mouth, and I almost had a feeling of pity for her, but I thought of what she'd done to me and I said, "Don't touch me, you dirty bastard!"

I stayed with her. And whenever she got to the point where she was ready to go kill herself I'd ball her and pretend that everything was alright. Then, when she thought everything was cool, I would turn on her again. I found this beautiful little Hollywood girl up the street and balled her, and I let Diane know about it. I put her through hell, and I felt she deserved every bit of it. But what happened is I got hooked and I couldn't continue it. And then we were both hooked, and that ended my revenge.

Three months after I got out of San Quentin I hung up my Nalline tests. I couldn't make it, so I went into hiding. My parole officer came around. He told Diane, "Tell him to give himself up, and I'll make sure everything'll be alright. I'll get him a dryout, so he won't have to go back to the joint." I agreed to give myself up, and he took me to jail. They gave me six months in Chino. It was better than going back to San Quentin. Chino Institute for Men. They had a narcotics program there. They keep you in barracks instead of cells, and there were three barracks filled with dopefiends. They had women dopefiends, too; I'd see them drive up, the beatest looking bags in the world.

We were all getting counseling. There'd be a social worker or a parole officer, and he'd have a "group." The whole idea was to get people to rat on each other, to try to expose people so they would "learn" and do better. I had never seen anything like it. People informing on each other! We'd meet and "I saw you doing this! I saw you ... " I realized that the only way to make it was to say as little as possible and try to con the people as much as possible to get out. It was a wasted experience. The only thing I can recall of note is that in playing handball I fell over a metal faucet and cut my leg and then from favoring my leg and continuing to play handball I got an inguinal hernia and had to have an operation there. Talk about inhuman. They give you a little something to put you out, but after that, because you're a dopefiend and a prisoner, they won't give you anything to help you through the pain. I got through it and got okay and got out of Chino, and I went back to Diane. My parole officer didn't want me to go back to her. He kept telling me it was a mistake.

A friend of mine, Arnold, was in Chino with me. His old lady would visit him, so she started bringing Diane. Diane moved to an apartment in Glendale, near Arnold's wife. Arnold got out a little before me, and what happened was he was involved in a burglary, and Diane got involved, too. He'd gotten hold of a check protector and a bunch of blank checks.

I got out, and I went to this place Diane had, and I was surprised to see that it was such a nice apartment. I started looking around and I saw all kinds of things. Every drawer was filled. There was every kind of light bulb and every type of writing paper, every kind of soap and perfume, and every kind of cleanser. It was like a warehouse for a grocery store. And everything was brand-new. The cupboards were filled with food and cheese and nine different kinds of crackers and canned goods, canned meats. The place was jammed full of stuff and I said, "What's happening here?" Diane had clothes, clothes still in the packages, sweaters and shirts and socks, and I said, "My God, what's happening?" Diane said, "Well, I've got a little thing going. I didn't want to tell you because I was afraid you'd be drug, but I was, like, scuffling and Arnold asked me to help him, so I said okay." I said, "What is it?" And then she told me about the check protector. She went behind the couch and pulled out this machine that writes checks for a company, protects them, and makes them legal. This and the checks had been stolen in the burglary. Diane had gotten a phony driver's license and a phony birth certificate. She'd write the checks out and Arnold would drive her to the stores. There were some markets that didn't have the call-in system at that time-I think it was the Market Basket chain. They'd search around for a Market Basket; she'd go in and buy thirty, forty dollars' worth of groceries and hand them a payroll check for a hundred and fifty, a hundred and seventy-five. Arnold would wait for her. She'd wheel the stuff out. She got a certain percentage of the cash, and they split the groceries. And so, here I am into this thing with all this shit in the pad.

I'm home a couple of days, and here's a knock at the door. It's my parole officer. He comes in and we talk. He's sitting on the couch with his arm along the top, and in back of this couch is the check protector and the book of checks. He's talking, he looks around, and he mentions how nice the place is, and I have to tell him, "Well, my old lady's been working and I'm going to start playing." Finally he leaves.

There's a guy I know of from Pasadena; he has a bad reputa tion-he's got a reputation of being not quite trustworthy. I think he's a rat. One day this guy comes to my door. He says his name. I say, "What are you doing here? What do you want?" He says, "Oh, uh, Arnold wanted me to pick up something for him." I say, "Arnold who?" He says, "Well, Arnold, you know. He wants me to pick up a couple checks." I said, "I don't know what you're talking about, man! There ain't no kind of checks here! There ain't nothing happening here! Get out! I don't want to see you around here again, and whoever this Arnold is, tell him not to send anyone else! We're moving right away, and if anyone comes out, if the police come out, it's all over for you!" He says, "Ohhhh, man!" I say, "Get the fuck out!"

He left, and I figured the police would be coming at any moment. Diane wasn't home. I grabbed the check protector and the checks and ran outside in the night. I didn't want to throw the machine away because I didn't want to get involved with Arnold in that kind of thing, but I wanted it out of the house. I called Arnold. I told him, "Man, I want you to get this shit out of here immediately!" He said, "Man, I can't keep it here!" I said, "I don't care! Get it out of here!" Diane comes home and she brings some stuff; so we fix and then I tell her that the shit's out and that's it. I said, "You've never been in jail. You don't know what it's like. I don't want to go back to San Quentin." I don't know what she said. I fell out.

The next morning there's another knock on the door and here's my parole officer again-here he is and he's got two detectives with him. He says, "I want to talk to you. Is your wife home?" I say, "Wait a minute." And they waited for a minute, which I couldn't believe. I ran into the bedroom: there was an outfit and stuff in there. Another "possession." I woke Diane up. "The heat are here!" I said, "Take this. Get rid of it. Flush it. I'll keep them in the front room." I went out and said, "She's getting up." I closed the door into the hall. I said. "Well, what is it?" They said, "We've been informed that you know something about a burglary. We have to check you out." One of the detectives said, "Have you got anything in the house?" I said, "Anything what?" He said, "Anything anything. Anything at all." I said, "No." He said, "Do you mind if we search the place?"

They started their search and they found all these groceries. They'd look in a drawer and look at each other and raise their eyebrows and nod. My parole officer told my old lady, "We've got a complaint. We have to take him in." They took me outside, put handcuffs on me, and put chains around my stomach to hold the handcuffs. They told me to get into the front seat of the car. They drove me down to the station in Pasadena and put me in a cell. I couldn't find out what was going on, and I waited there for three days until finally they called my name. I walk out, and here's my parole officer. "We want to know if you'll give permission for a polygraph test. You've been accused of certain things. Our informant has given us definite information. If you're innocent you don't have anything to worry about. If you're guilty you won't want to take the test, and we'll just violate you." They had checked me for marks. I had marks. They could violate my parole. My only chance was to take the polygraph test.

I walked into a room, and here's the machine all set up. The guy introduced himself. He said, "You're taking this of your own free will? You haven't been coerced?" I said, "I guess you can call it that. If I don't take it, I'm admitting guilt. It's a nice game you got going." The machine looked like something out of science fiction with lights and dials and bubbles. I'm scared to death because I know exactly what they want to know. Even though I wasn't involved with the check protector and hadn't participated in the robbery, I was aware of what was going on and I was a recipient of its benefits.