Straight Life - Art Pepper [114]
12
Suicides
1958-1960
I NEEDED MONEY SO I started working at the Tiffany Club with my own group, still shooting half a piece a day. One night Diane's sister, Marie, came to the job with a boyfriend to hear me play. She said, "Where's Diane?" She said, "I'll give her a call." I had just finished the first set; Marie went to the phone; and then I heard her scream my name: "She's killed herself! She's killing herself!" I grabbed the phone. Diane said, "Goooodbyyye, Aaaart." She said it was no use, she couldn't stand it anymore, and she wanted me to know she always loved me. Goodbye. She had taken some sleeping pills. Marie kept her on the phone, kept her talking, and I ran to the bar, where there was a private phone. I called the police and the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital and gave them the address.
The police and the firemen got to the house at the same time. Diane had moved all the furniture up to the doors: they had to break the windows. By this time she was out. They put her in an ambulance, rushed her to the hospital, and pumped her stomach. They didn't know if she was going to live or not. The police had a note for me that she'd written saying goodbye. Now, if Marie hadn't come to the club I wouldn't have gotten home until three o'clock in the morning, and Diane would have been dead.
She came out of it two days later, and when she'd been in the hospital about four days I brought her home. She was like a drunk. I had to do everything for her-take her to the bathroom, pull down her panties-and she loved that, the fact that I was doing these things for her.
I tried to straighten up a bit. I hit on Mario once more for some pills; and I almost stopped, but then I goofed again. And right about this time, during the night, I heard a noise and found the loan company breaking into the gargage. We were behind on the payments, so they took the car, and that fucked everything up. Here were were trapped on this hill (it was practically impossible to walk up) with no car. Then Mario got rousted; one of his dealers got busted and turned over on him; so he was hiding and that ended him. I was going out on the streets trying to score. Finally I did manage to clean up a little. We got an old car from Diane's father; I kept on working; and we moved to Glendale, into a little apartment house.
It was a nice place. There was a pool, and we'd swim. There were a couple of young girls there and they'd flirt with me, and I would probably flirt a little bit with them, and Diane was just, she was getting into that frame of mind. She felt I didn't really dig her. She was acting strange. She accused me of all kinds of things. I was goofing now and then as far as getting loaded, but I was working and I wasn't out of line that much. But she had these things going on in her mind, and I don't know what they were. I don't know if she felt guilty about leaving her kids or what it was.
One night I went to work and as I was coming home after the job for some reason I had a strange feeling; I kept picking up weird vibes out of nothing. I got to the apartment house, went upstairs, and opened the door. The chain was hooked. I said, "Diane, let me in. Open the chain." There was no answer, and the light was on in the front room. I couldn't figure out what was happening, but I knew it was something bad. I kept knocking and calling, but there was no response. Fortunately there was a louvered window close to the door and it was cracked open, so I was able to take the screen off, push it open, reach my hand in, and get the bolt loose.
I hollered her name. There was no sound. I went to the door of the bathroom. She had taken the knob off and locked it from inside. When I saw that I got scared to death. I was afraid to go in, but I had to. I put my shoulder to the door and hit it. Nothing happened. I hit it again, and it gave a little. The third time the door broke in, and I looked to my right, and it was