Straight Life - Art Pepper [179]
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.