In 1974, a year after the wedding, I was in New York City, preparing to film The Godfather: Part II, when I got a letter from Dorrie describing how Randy’s too-good-to-be-true scenario was beginning to crumble.
Dear Diane,
I’m spending a couple of nights in Silverado Canyon. Immaculate Heart College will be starting soon, so I have to enlist mom’s help in buying a bed, number one, but also getting books and finding a desk and everything else. I’ll have to share an apartment with a roommate. I’m a little freaked out. Speaking of freaked out…Randy seems to be very scared these days. He and Sally almost broke up over his irresponsiveness. Sally said he needs her out of one thing only: loneliness. There’s nothing romantic on his side. His main worry is that he can’t handle working for Dad anymore. He’s afraid he might totally lose it. He’s scared. It’s a bad scene.
Love, Dorrie
Several months later, Robin called to say that Sally had recently had lunch with Mom and told her she intended to leave Randy after Christmas, that he was semi-crazy. She spoke of a so-called waking fantasy he had of killing women. I tried to imagine Mom’s response to such an accusation. A fantasy of killing women? She must have tossed the absurd concept aside, because I never heard it brought up again. Sally wouldn’t actually leave Randy until a few years later.
In his journals, Randy wrote his own response to the split in an unusually long narrative passage.
I began those couple of years in the canyon driving into Orange County every morning to work for my father as a draftsman. I drove back in the evenings to a rented, single-story log cabin I shared with Sally. In late 1975 she and I were still bell-bottomed and long haired. We thought of our place as back-to-earth hip. We felt certain a new way of life had been paved by the revolution of the sixties. In our cabin, the kitchen and bedroom doors held bright strings of hanging beads. The living room, with its large potted plants, leather and wooden furniture, smelled almost as woody as the outdoors. Zen Buddhism and diet were a high priority. We ate brown rice and raw vegetables. Pot and wine were smoked and sipped in the evenings with the belief that wisdom came from the earth. It sure seemed like wisdom as Sally and I would sit outside on our worn out leather couch, and listen to the river.
I’d park the VW in the open garage built beneath our living room, run up the brick steps to the picket fence, and hurry across the wet grass to find Sally standing in the doorway under a yellow light. We’d hug and kiss then step inside, closing the door behind us. God, she looked great in a long green dress that followed her curves down to the ankles of her feet. “Randy, do you want a glass of wine before dinner?” she’d say walking to the kitchen, her backside shifting deliciously. “Yeah. And a fat joint. It’s been a year now, and those dickheads at the office are getting on my nerves.” I’d sit on the couch, exhale loudly, close my eyes and wait for her [to] hand me a cold, tall glass, place the joint in a clean seashell ashtray and set it on the coffee table in the center of our crowded living room. “Can’t you talk to your father?” she said, laying one arm around my shoulders. “Are you kidding? He’s one of them.” After a while she replied, “He seems nice enough to me. I think he can be really funny.” I turned my face to her. “You don’t see him at work.” Sally kissed me on the nose, her olive green eyes, slightly dilated, sparkled like damp glass. “When’s dinner ready? I’m starved.”
We flew (I do not use that word lightly) into the early summer months of 77. Sally had cut her hair. She was sexier than ever. It had something to do with her neck. I had never noticed how glorious a throat could be. She added chicken to our diet. We took to smoking hashish through a terra cotta, toad-shaped pipe. Our fights began to increase. They were always the same. I was always quick to fall silent. She hated that, screamed at the ceiling, and ran to the stereo for distraction. Moments later music would come thumping loud and clear through the cabin. It drove me nuts. It made her cry. An hour later I’d come back to a quiet house and find her cleaning an already clean kitchen. “You don’t fight fair,” she’d say. “I’m sorry,” I’d answer, feeling unhinged about my liabilities. Then she’d walk up to me and sink her tongue in my mouth as if she were mining for gold. After each rift we’d hold hands watching the canyon surrender its color to shadows. Sally always spoke first, her voice liquid and dreamy. “Let’s make love, Randy.” I’d smile as she slipped off her jeans and t-shirt with a single handed agility that never failed to amaze me. Then with the picket fence as our only source of privacy, we’d cling to each other, my clothes coming off slowly, her eyes burning with determination.
My situation at work was unbearable. I found myself downing beer while driving home to ease the disastrous state of my nerves. But I couldn’t quit. The money was too good. One Friday evening I sat at the kitchen table with a shot glass of brandy as Sally talked non-stop about her new job as a florist. The words kept flowing as she placed the stew before me and settled into a chair at the other end of the table. The second our eyes met I knew I hadn’t hidden my disinterest. She frowned and fell silent. The room seemed to darken. For a full ten minutes the sound of chewing and swallowing filled the air. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Oh Christ! Shall I write that down?” she growled. Then, with unexpected calm, she scooted her chair around the table and sat next to me, put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed softly. I wept instantly. It had nothing to do with my miserable job. It was in response to the power and meaning of her gesture. For the past year I had been oblivious to the changes in her behavior. Sally had grown up. I’d remained nothing more than an oversized stupid child. A burden.
We stayed together another nine months. Sally loved her work and soon became manager of the shop. We bought another used VW so she wasn’t bound to my schedule. Her manner of dress turned conservative. I must admit she looked nothing less than stunning. As her world was expanding, mine was diminishing. She made new friends, gave small dinner parties in which the conversation was so absorbed with work oriented details I had to make quick exits. I’d walk down to the river, cross the gravel bridge to the main road leading in and out of the canyon. Hurrying up to where the asphalt ended, I’d climb over the fence with a no trespassing sign hanging on its locked gate. My secret place was a large flat stone jetting out over a small waterfall which, in heavy rains pounded over the rock platform with a tumbling white rage. I’d sit knowing I was going to quit my job the minute Sally stopped feeling sorry for me, and eased herself out the door with a clear conscience. Lying back, relief, not sorrow swept over me. I felt light as a down pillow. The air was always eucalyptus sweet, and the stars in heaven shone brighter than before. If there were any heartaches lurking inside me, they had nothing to do with relationships and everything to do with leaving the canyon life behind.
Randy wrote these entries in his journal almost two years following the split. He never mentioned Johnny. It was as if he didn’t exist. If he’d been able to communicate to us at the time, maybe we would have been able to help. Maybe his next steps would have been different. But, then again…we never bothered to discuss the Sally situation. It was too painful. Perhaps, along with Sally and her son, Johnny, we were all a source of tiresome conflict not worth examining.