To Die For (31 page)

Tom and Dana liked the good life—going to nice Italian restaurants, ordering appetizers and several glasses of wine, and buying things for the house. After their storybook wedding, Tom was mortified at being in debt, but took it in stride as part of a package deal: marriage and the “I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go” philosophy. He put the near-death experience on his honeymoon in the back of his mind and concentrated on enjoying life. With Tom retired from playing bar gigs, she suggested they build an in-home studio. Dana began to act jealous around his friends—even his male friends—as if she resented the fact that he had fun without her. She would make comments about them and felt uncomfortable when they were around. Tom didn't see anything wrong with his gorgeous newlywed wife wanting to be around him and only him. After all, Dana had long ago put her sky-diving days behind her. The couple worked on turning their house into a home, painting one room lavender with white trim, installing oak blinds instead of curtains and turning the garage into a studio. They spent upwards of $26,000 on music equipment—amplifiers, guitars, recording equipment, keyboards, drum sets, microphones, monitors. With the home equipment, Tom laid down tracks to one of Dana's favorite songs, “These Boots Were Made for Walking,” and Dana sang and pranced around in high-heeled boots as Tom recorded the whole song on video.

Dana, always a good cook, took a classes at a local college, and was soon creating Italian dishes better than those some restaurants served. She excelled at veal picatta, spaghetti, and filet mignon with bernaise sauce, Tom's favorite. Not everything turned out. A chicken dish with lemon turned out so lemony, she dubbed it, “Lemon Pledge chicken.” When she got home from work, she would shoo Tom out of the kitchen and sip three or four glasses of wine while she fixed dinner. She'd have more wine with her meal. Gradually, Dana's athletic physique rounded out. Drinking became a pastime and weekends dissolved in a haze of bourbon, 7Up and tequila shooters.

Dana took a job as the night nurse at a 12-bed hospital on Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California from Thursday through Sunday. The hospital provided a small cottage for her to live in during the week and she would scuba dive in the pristine waters off Catalina in the afternoons before work.

Change was rippling through Dana's family, as well. Craig had given up his life as an itinerant musician and become a born-again Christian minister in the mid-1970s. He'd moved to Virginia and was studying to become a pastor. Craig, who had never been as close to Dana as Rick had been, had a major falling-out with her. When their mother died, her meager estate was split equally in thirds, but Dana complained that she should have more because she had spent more time with Beverly when she was ill. Rick bowed out by giving up his third for Dana and Craig to split. Then Dana was angry at Craig for taking a larger share because he had fixed up the house to sell. Dana had become furious that Beverly's car was not given to her. Relations between them had been rocky ever since. Now the problem was with the great aunt with whom Rick was living.

Dana made annual visits to see her great aunt, sometimes with her brothers. She was upset that her aunt had not included Dana in her will, reasoning that Dana's father would leave her a handsome estate, which she did not have to share with her brothers because they were no relation to Russell. Rick, who was living on his aunt's property, tried to convince her to create a living trust under which Dana, Craig and Rick could equally share, but she didn't understand that concept. All Tom knew was that any mention of Craig or her aunt reduced Dana to hysterical tears.

Though he was in his later 30s, Rick was experiencing severe arthritis in his knees, spine and hips. He was attempting to get his master's degree and moved to Alhambra, a suburb in Los Angeles County about 55 miles from Riverside County. To help his little sister and her new husband get a leg up on putting their home together, Rick gave Dana and Tom a number of things to keep for him while he was in school—a complete dining room set, a dresser, chairs, two TV sets, a complete stereo set, and a truckload of music and film equipment, including several of his acoustic guitars, a bass guitar, his cache of record albums, a lawnmower and a set of family silverware monogrammed with “W,” for Ward, Rick's father. He also wanted Dana to hold for safekeeping the family Bible, and slides, 8mm film and pictures of their family and his sky-diving adventures. Dana thanked him for loaning them the “all the goodies” with a cute card, a cartoon of a grossly heavyset couple about which she commented, “Hey bro—I hope Tom and I never look like this! I think the trick is to eat less and fuck more as you get older. What do you think?” She wrote another note thanking him for his love and support and apologizing for being “a big turd” and “wigging out,” and signed the note, “Your sister, fartblossom Gray and Tom-the-black-hippie Gray.”

About two months after they were married, Tom and Dana had a big New Year's Eve bash for their friends and family. Afterwards, Rick got a perplexing letter from Dana accusing him of trying to manipulate her marriage. Rick wrote a five-page letter back saying that if she didn't appreciate his brotherly advice, then they no longer had to share their personal life with one another. Rick thought Dana was hyper-sensitive and would interpret anything he said or wrote as criticism. “I guarantee, this will be the last time you ever send me a snippy little, ‘shove it up your ass and let me live my own life' letter and get a civil response back. Sometimes I don't know who the hell you think you are. You seem to think you can just dash off a quick line to someone in regards to a major issue in the relationship and the recipient is just supposed to roll over and take your shit lying down. I used to make exceptions for your behavior because you were young, but I'm through with that now. You're old enough to get that you're not the center of the universe like you've been coming across lately.” Rick cut down on correspondence with Dana and continued through school as his health worsened. He developed a thyroid condition and his arthritis was threatening his mobility. Eventually, he was declared legally disabled and received checks from the state every month.

Tom and Dana found creative hobbies to do together. Tom had obtained a mail-order ministry from the Universal Life Church and had performed marriages for friends before he and Dana were married. When Russell and Jeri decided to renew their vows, they asked Tom to perform the ceremony. Dana went wild with the preparations. When the ceremony was held in Russ and Jeri's backyard, it was such a success that they launched a side business, Graymatter Matrimony, performing weddings, complete with a band in which Dana sometimes sang. Tom had taught her to play electric guitar, which she learned rapidly. Dana designed the business cards, featuring an anatomical sketch of a brain with a wedding veil on it. Dana had also learned to do screen-printing and purchased thousands of dollars' worth of equipment. She soon had several business accounts for T-shirts, hats and posters.

Dana and Rick tried to patch up their sibling squabbles and create some kind of family for themselves. Despite their “insane family situation,” Dana wrote, “the object is not to use that as a justification, but figure out how to deal with it and quit putting so much attention on it and go on making our lives as happy as possible …

“You're the only one in our family that I feel I have a chance to have the family relationship with, so now that I feel secure in my personal life, I feel I can safely put some energy into our relationship … maybe now we can be more trusting with the feelings and viewpoints that we have and will share down the line.”

*   *   *

A couple of years into Tom and Dana's marriage, the economy took a downturn, hitting the construction industry in the pocketbook. Tom was reduced to working part-time and picking up jobs where he could. As their income dipped dramatically, Dana tried to pick up the slack by working double shifts, but she continued to spend. Tom came home from work one day and found a new lawnmower in the garage. They already had a lawnmower, but Dana had wanted a new one. She charged the credit cards up to the limit and they had a hard time making the payments. Tom implored Dana to cut back on the cards and she told him that she would, but then she'd just get another credit card and do the same thing. Despite the reduction in their income, Dana still wanted to eat out at her favorite restaurants and keep up her standard of living: a weekly manicure, monthly pedicure, eyebrow, lip and bikini waxes and keeping her hair cut, permed and colored. Tom knew these little luxuries, combined with the other more frivolous expenditures, were important to Dana, but were also driving them deeper in debt.

They fought over money and Tom's inability to get work. Tom knew Dana was fatigued from working extra shifts for both of them, so he backed down. He wasn't fond of arguing anyway, and Dana had a talent for delivering particularly stinging rebukes that her brother Rick called “castrating zingers,” so he tried to avoid fights. Tom had faith in their relationship and he knew that despite the temporary rough times, everything would ultimately work out. He found contentment in being married and having a good relationship, but he noticed that Dana needed to buy things to be happy. He got the impression that she rarely felt good about herself, even when he told her that she looked good. “Yeah, what do
you
want?” she would snap back.

The longer Tom was out of work, and the more the bills piled up, the worse their fights became. Dana resorted to the door-slamming screaming matches she'd engaged in during her adolescence, a part of her that Tom had never seen. She would rage at him, blaming him for the crisis of the moment, then screech out of the house in her Cadillac or go for a long bike ride. Tom accepted that behavior in part because he felt responsible for not bringing in his share of income and felt bad about constantly being the one to put his foot down about the credit cards. Dana had staked her claim to handle their finances at the start of the marriage and Tom had no problem with that until he discovered that she was driving them into debt. He had no idea how to handle her volatile temper. Shrinking back in the face of her anger seemed to fuel her eruptions. Tom was relieved when she stormed out of the house to take a drive or do something physical. It seemed like a better way for her to channel her anger.

As their income dropped, Dana stepped up the pressure on her aunt, nearing 90, to the point of waltzing through her home and staking claims to valuables, even saying, “When you die, I want this cup, this Chinese cup,” on one visit. Craig was incensed at Dana's callousness and ruthless pursuit of money, and didn't hesitate to confront her about her behavior, causing Dana to fly into tantrums. Any phone call from Craig would cause a fight with Dana as well as with Tom, who got so frustrated, he tossed a photograph of Craig in the trash.

Craig had seen the change in Dana from the time she started sky-diving, which was around the time that he became a born-again Christian. After she started running with that crowd, she no longer shared the same values with him, and in his mind, she ceased being his baby sister. He was frustrated that any confrontation about her behavior resulted in a screaming match in which she would claim to be the victim. He came to believe that Dana was out for whatever Dana could get. He disliked having contact with her, but felt obligated to send birthday and Christmas cards. He was also inclined to write or phone when Auntie complained of visits from Dana.

Despite the family turmoil, Dana's biological clock was ticking and she decided it was time to have a baby. In March 1989, she went off birth control pills, and went on the “no party program” for several months to clean the alcohol out of her system. Her goal was to become pregnant by summertime. In a note to Rick, she was upbeat and irreverent about impending motherhood. “Does that scare you? Me as a mother?” She and Tom picked out Melody May if the baby was a girl and Marshall if it was a boy. She signed the note, “Love you, dorkface, my fartblossom.”

By summertime, they were working on the house, making planters out of halved whiskey barrels, and planting lime and lemon trees, herbs and strawberries, as well as a vegetable garden with eggplant, tomatoes and cucumbers. Dana was finding solace in Tom's parents, who were a good example of a long-term married couple. Tom was building remote-controlled planes for Dana and teaching her how to fly them, but “Tom builds 'em, I smash 'em,” she joked in a note to Rick. Dana liked the two-cycle engines and the grease and decided to organize a contest among model plane enthusiasts called “Graymatter Splatter” with prizes and T-shirts. She took two months off work to organize their fall contest, which she said would “slip by like goose shit on a muggy day.”

Dana's relationship with her brothers waxed and waned. She bought a ten-gallon fish tank with an eight-inch rubber eel that she named “Cedric Eel,” a send-up of Rick's formal name, Cedric Erle. When Rick visited, Dana was delighted to see him. She wrote a quick note to Rick about completely disconnecting from Craig and was happy that he was sticking with the grind through grad school. She addressed her note: Dearest Sir Cedric Erle of Alhambrashire,” and signed it, “Love ya and all of that, Lady Fartblossom & Lord Tom.”

That summer, when Rick came out to see Tom and Dana, Dana confided in him that she had lost her virginity to one of their boarders when she was 12 years old, When Rick suggested that she get some counseling, Dana said she was deeply insulted, didn't need a shrink, and would never consult one because she already knew what made her tick. Besides, she told Tom about it and when he responded with “love, understanding and support,” Dana said that that was more than a shrink could do. She wrote Rick a note that included a poem called “Age of Reason,” about moving forward. “Why can't we love each other, is kindness an ancient skill buried by our blindness?”