Straight Life - Art Pepper [196]
I'm sure she was staying with Ann Christos at those times. She got busted in Long Beach. And then where did she go from there? I know I spent my life bailing her out. It all runs together, it happened so much. But CRC was a marvelous place. It was like a country club. I couldn't believe how well they were living there. They used to have mixed group, so I had to take her eyelashes to her just because they were going to be around guys. I took her makeup. It was cute. It was very good for her, too. When she got out, she was really trying to straighten out.
Diane and I only had each other to tell things to. And even today something will happen-like this. Or I'll see a television show or read something in the paper and think I should tell Diane. I've got no one like that left, and I'll never have anyone like that. She was a marvelously witty, bright, intelligent person, and it just killed me to see her life go that way. But the second time she got out of CRC, she'd really, truly learned a lot and she was going to straighten her hand. That's why we got back in touch with her children. She was going to be a decent, responsible human being. And then she started coughing up blood.
Well, we were sitting on the bed here one day, watching television, talking, and she was coughing, and there were little blood spots in the Kleenex. That's not really extraordinary if you've got a bad cold or something. I said, "Here, let me give you some throat lozenges." Hahahaha! She was with a guy named Tony Kennedy at that time. He was a CRCer, too, a really good guy though, an Oakie guy, very down to earth, who just worshiped her. Tony and Diane were living in Torrance or Gardena, and the blood spots appeared, and they got progressively worse. She went to Harbor General and they X-rayed her, gave her a TB test, and said, "Well, you better come in. We've got to explore the problem." Tony was still with her. They opened her up and found cancer attached to her heart, lungs, and aorta. Knew right then and there that it was hopeless.
There used to be a house next door, and I arranged for Jeff, Diane's son, to have the house. I wanted him to have some family. He was a very disturbed young man, had chippied around with drugs. Diane leaves Tony, plops in with Jeff: "I'm your long lost mother. Now that I'm about to die, you can take care of me." Well, her younger son, Mike, was sixteen when she came back into his life. He was just a normal teenager, skinny little kid. Her coming back so distressed him that he blew up like a ballon. He became the Crisco Kid, and he had never had a weight problem in his life.
Well, she moves in with Jeff, undergoing cobalt, chemotherapy. She was still in pretty good shape, but she was the most demanding bitch. Poor Jeff-my husband, Jack, had given him a job-had to get up at 4 A.M. to go to work. At midnight Diane would decide she wanted some ice cream or something, so, "Jeff, get up and get me some ice cream." She became more demanding, more bitchy.
Jeff had married a girl that we hated, because he knew we hated her. It disgraced him even more. This girl he married was the anatomical wonder of all time. She was a fat junkie! Have you ever seen a fat junkie? When it got to the point where it was difficult for Diane to drive to the hospital to get her morphine, this girl would say, "Okay, I'll drive you, but you gotta split it with me." Diane could get as much as she wanted, so what did it matter?
When Diane was staying with Jeff here, she called Synanon. Even though she loved Art desperately, she did just want to say goodbye. She wanted to go down there