Bill continues to play games with Misty’s head. She claims that he is trying to get her into bed, chasing her around the desk at work. Hearing this upsets me so, but I want her to confide in me, painful as it is.
“Bill has been talking to the Feds,” she says with eyes wide open. She is very frightened as to what he might be revealing to them. Our employees are even questioning Misty as to why Bill would be talking to the Feds in his office. Bill has always had somewhat of a big mouth and this was nothing new. Before, I was usually there to make sure he didn’t say things that he shouldn’t. Several porn warehouses around the San Fernando Valley have been raided recently but we weren’t one of the companies. Bill has hired his 16-year old daughter, Denise, to be our front office secretary. If we were to be raided and she were found it would bring us serious trouble. We have a 16 year old working the front office of a porn warehouse and distribution building. The Feds are questioning Bill in his office and yet for some odd reason, we don’t get raided? I can only fear the worst. If Bill were to implicate certain people, this could bring retaliation that could easily put Misty in harm’s way. Sad to say, I don’t think I’m just being paranoid.
Worry seems to occupy the time when I am awake. I worry, watch television, and sleep. When I awake, I repeat the cycle once again. Even while I stare at the television, usually watching some movie in a state of
141 some pharmaceutically-induced stupor, I can’t help myself from thinking only the deepest, darkest thoughts.
A John Holmes relief fund has been started to help pay for some of my medical bills and medications. We have received some donations from business associates and long-time friends.
Blooms, Caballero Control, Annie Sprinkle, Gloria Leonard, just to name a few, I can’t begin to express my gratitude. One of my medications costs over $80 per week and this is with my health insurance. This particular medication helps clear the phlegm from my throat and lungs so that I can breathe. My doctor has also prescribed Halcion pills for my pain. The amount I am paying for my prescriptions is nothing compared to how much I used to spend on illegal drugs. However, with me not working it is a real concern.
We have had to move out of our apartment in Encino. Without any notice the rent was raised to an amount more than the apartment was worth. Impossible! We moved to an apartment in Van Nuys but now our new landlord is giving us grief about our animals and we may have to move again.
Bill has cut off my salary at Penguin and has told Misty that I am out; he claims the company is all his now. We began that company as a partnership and there were a lot of people who gave us terms based on me. They are calling me at home now, wondering why they have not been paid. What is Bill doing with all the income?
The Halcion keeps me out of it most of the time. Sleep; the great escape! I continually up my dosage as I feel I need to. So much pain! My temper seems to flare often while I am awake so I tend to pop a handful before Misty returns home from work. Her son is in school during the day so I don’t have to babysit. Before, I used to love the time he and I would spend together, but now, I just don’t have it in me and I know he doesn’t really understand.
I have told Misty that she should find someone else; it will be easier for her that way when I am gone. Misty continues to be loyal in spite of the hell I am putting her through. I often take my pain and anger out on her. I don’t know why; I didn’t used to be this way. Living with me is definitely no picnic right now. She deserves much better and I truly want her to be happy.
I look at Misty and see so much confusion in her eyes. She is young, after all. I used to help her figure things out. I can’t figure things out now, how could I possibly help her? Bill is stressing her out with his head games. I am trying to persuade her to leave this place when I am gone.
I have told her to get as far away from Bill Amerson as she can. I have warned her that he wouldn’t make this easy for her.
It’s taking all the energy I can spare to record my final thoughts. I hope that one day everyone will come to understand the man I came to be and the long road of my final destination.
Things at Penguin have become increasingly worse. I believe it is time for Misty to sever all ties with Bill. I have told her to quit her job and contacted my attorney to serve Bill papers. He incorporated the company during my absence; in fact, he incorporated me right out of our partnership. I always knew Bill was greedy, I never thought he would be this way to me; after all, I am the God-Father to his children. Knowing that I am dying, the bastard has cancelled my health insurance. He has also been advising people that I don’t really need their donations and not to send money to my relief fund. He is telling people that I have been buying illegal drugs with their donations? Nothing could be farther from the truth than that.
I have no idea how I am going to pay for my medications now. Misty has found another job but she is barely making enough to cover our living expenses. I am questioning myself about filing a lawsuit against Bill; I won’t be around long enough to see it through, which would only mean that Misty would be left handling it. Even though she deserves the money from the company that we both worked so hard to create, it would prolong her time here in California. I am hoping that she takes her son, leaves this place, and never returns.
I have thought of suicide but as tempting as that sounds that would hurt my mother beyond belief. It would also dishonor the life insurance policy that I have left for Misty. More than anything I want her to have some money to create a life for herself and Ian when I am gone. One hundred thousand Dollars should be able to get them far away from here. Taking the cowardly way out now just doesn’t seem to be an option.
On the stretch to my final count-down, Misty is urging me to contact Mother. She believes that I should get in contact with everyone in my family, including my little brother, David. Before Misty quit Penguin I had already sent each member of my family a small token of myself to remember me by. Little things that Misty and I had collected through the years were sent via UPS out of Penguin. I had instructed Misty to black out the names in the UPS book after sending the gifts so that nobody would have my family’s addresses, a lesson I learned after Nash had once possessed my little black book.
The pain is increasing and I have decided to check myself into the Veterans Administrative Hospital in Sepulveda. Thank God I had once served my country and that I have this option, otherwise I don’t know how I could endure these times with no insurance.
Misty and Ian have moved to another apartment. They miss me, but I know this is for the best. The hospital has offered me AIDS medications but I don’t want them. I just want whatever morphine they can give me so that I may die in peace.
Mother is with me now; having her around is wonderful. She and Misty are getting along together fine. I have been a little worried as to how Mother would take to Misty before but then again, how could she not love her? I hear them talking when they think that I am asleep. Misty has asked all kinds of questions about my childhood and Mother is only too happy to reminisce. Some of the stories I don’t remember, very little makes sense to me now anyway. Sometimes it would seem as if she is talking about someone else. Mother continues on, telling Misty how I was such a special child. She says that I had the gift of bringing laughter even in the most depressing and dark times. Her voice sounds so soft, warm and loving. Having her around brings much comfort.
“I never regretted bringing John into this world,” Mother confesses, “even though the circumstances in which John was born were difficult. That’s why I could never blame him for the way he lived his life. I can never do that.”
Hearing Mother say those words has brought me a kind of peace that I haven’t felt in many years. How wonderful to know that she has found a way to accept the man that I came to be. Before, she had struggled over this. Even now, I don’t think she really approves and I am sure she had wanted my life to be different, but having her acceptance now is all I need.
How lucky am I? I am finally at peace with myself an
d I am in the company of the two women that I love more than anything or anyone in the world. They have both been a very special part of my life and an important part of my final days, as well. They are two very special ladies, indeed.
Epilogue
by Laurie Holmes
On the evening of Sunday, March 12, 1988, John Holmes died at the age of 43 from complications of AIDS. He had suffered from encephalitis (swelling of the brain). During his final months, John had many seizures which brought on hallucinations, and often he would black-out. He had never completely healed from his hemorrhoid surgery, which was probably more painful than anything we could imagine. During his last days he slipped into a coma. On Friday evening, after I got off work I came to the hospital to visit John as I always did. When I arrived, I saw John’s brother David and their Mother sitting at John’s bedside. I was wearing a brand new dress that I had bought—a black one. John woke up from his coma for a brief moment when he heard my voice.
“I like that dress,” John said, sitting halfway up in bed. “You look beautiful.” He complimented me, as he tried to swallow a big lump in his throat. John was awake for several minutes and he was attentive to our appearance, however, I had to leave to attend to my son, Ian.
“I love you, Daddy,” I said with tears in my eyes, standing in the doorway of the room painted so blue.
“And I love you, Baby!” John suddenly lay down and never woke again. This would be the last time I would ever hear his voice.
The next day I returned to the hospital while Mother watched Ian. I sat by his bedside for most of the morning. I had brought a tape player and played the song Everything I Own, by Bread. I believe that even though he was deep within a coma, he heard everything. I told him that I was going to proceed in dropping the law-suit against Bill and do as he wished. I was going to get as far away from California as I could. I know that pleased John. It was just heart wrenching seeing John this way. At least in a coma, I knew he wasn’t suffering as he had for so many months. I found a sitter for Ian on Sunday and Mother and I were by his side all day. At about eight o’clock that night, we left the hospital in hopes of getting some much-needed sleep. We couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour when the phone rang. John had died around ten o’clock that night. We immediately got dressed and rushed to the hospital. There, John lay dead within the walls of his blue hospital room. His blue eyes were opened wide as if he had looked up to God and said, “I’m ready Lord, take me.” I have never seen a more peaceful look in someone’s eyes before. I will never forget it as long as I live, either. Mother and I each took turns saying our good-byes. All night we waited for the coroner to come. The coroner didn’t show up until early morning at which time John was pronounced dead. The death certificate, therefore, read that John had died on March, 13, 1988.
As they wheeled John down the long corridor in a body bag, Mother and I fell to our knees and cried. There was nothing left of John Curtis Holmes. At maybe 60 pounds, there didn’t appear to be a body in that body bag, let alone our John.
I tried to compose myself as best as I possibly could for Mother’s sake. I took Mother to David’s house and dropped her off as I felt the need to be alone for a while. It wasn’t until I was driving away that I think it really hit me. That deep sinking feeling that my “Daddy” was gone forever and I would never talk to him again. Wow! All this time I had thought I had prepared myself for this moment, only to find such grief and despair. I have never cried so hard in my life. This death stuff was new to me, how could I have possibly known before it happened of the feelings it would bring? After all, I was only twenty-four years old.
I had tried to carry out all of John’s last wishes. John was adamant as to his last wishes. First, he insisted that he be cremated. He wanted his ashes to be buried deep at sea, beyond the polluted waters of the California coast. He insisted that I view his body to ensure that he was all there before putting his body in the oven. He didn’t want his most strategic body part to end up in a jar, sitting on some demented coroner’s shelf or sold as some prize collector’s trophy. I did exactly as John had asked, just as I always had. I lifted the yellow hospital gown and confirmed that all was intact. Then I placed a picture of Jesus on his heart and watched as they put what was left of his body into the oven. I stood there for what must have been a good half-hour, knowing that his body was being cooked to ashes just feet away.
On March 15, 1988, Mother and I, along with David, stepped onto an over-night fishing boat in Oxnard, California. I slept with John’s ashes that night. Nobody else on the boat knew who we were and what we were about to do. John had been insistent about NOT having a funeral. Between the three of us we couldn’t think of anything John would want more than to fish in his memory. In the past, John and I had often taken this very same boat out to and past the Channel Islands.
At about four-thirty the next morning, Mother came and woke me. It was time to lay John to rest. David had drilled holes in the urn and placed tape over the holes the day before. We said our final words to John, peeled the tape away and we threw the urn into the deep blue sea on the other side of San Clemente Island. We stood there alone in silence, breathing in the cool ocean air. We fished that day in his memory as planned.
A couple of weeks after John had passed, I went on NBC News as well as The Larry King Show and spoke out against the industry. I was angry, as the news had previously reported that insiders in the industry had claimed that John was a needle-junkie, that he was gay, and that he had caught AIDS outside the industry. None of this was true. Between 1985 in which John had first tested negative for HIV and 1986, when John tested positive, John had only done a handful of heterosexual films and almost every one of the movies was for Penguin Productions. His party days were all but over; he worked in the day and was with me at night. John couldn’t stand the sight of a needle, he had always hated the needle. We had often tried to track down where John had actually contracted the disease but were unsuccessful. None of the girls that John had worked with were reported as having AIDS. On the news, it was reported by industry insiders that it was actually safer to have sex within the industry than it was on the outside because people in the industry only had sex with each other. I felt as if it were my responsibility to set the world straight and so I did. I’m quite sure that I pissed off a few people within the industry but frankly, I didn’t give a damn.
Bill Amerson held a memorial for John up at Forest Lawns Cemetery, knowing damn well John never wanted that. He invited everyone in the industry to come and pay their last respects, everyone but his widow. Later, I was mocked for not even showing up, not that I would have anyway, that wasn’t what John wanted.
Through the years I have been criticized for not allowing anyone to visit John during his stay at the V.A. Hospital, something else that John had insisted. I merely followed his wishes.
I moved back to Albuquerque a month after John died. I bought a house with the insurance money that John had left and tried to go on about my life, raising my son. I started seeing another man and soon became pregnant with my second child. Years later after the relationship failed, I found myself alone raising two boys. The money was gone; I was working an office job and hardly making enough to support two kids and a household by myself.
I returned to a way I knew how to make money best—taking off my clothes for men. I began stripping at local night clubs. It was just another form of adult entertainment, and I was good at working the crowd for money.
There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about John or the life that we had both once lived. It was always a struggle between having a secret past and living in the present. My old friends from high school, who knew about John Holmes, looked at me differently from the way they used to years before. On one hand I wanted to shout out to the world about what a great guy John Holmes had been to me, and on the other hand once they knew they somehow seemed judgmental, as what they had heard about John Holmes on the news never sat pretty with them. I
found that people seemed to want to believe the worst about John, yet what they had heard about John in various media was highly inaccurate. I was often made fun of when trying to defend John and often I became angry. It was during this time that I too fell to the addiction of drugs.
Before John had died, and while he was in the hospital, I had received a call from a nurse at the hospital. “The cops are coming to interview John,” she told me.
I took off from work and rushed to the hospital, running every red light along the way. I was worried as to what John might say because often in the final days of his illness he didn’t grasp reality.
“The cops are coming to interview you, John,” I said, somewhat hysterical. “Just lay there, act like you don’t know what’s going on,” I told him.
As I was looking down the long hospital hallway, I saw the doors at the end swing open and watched as they made their way towards John’s room.
“They are coming right now,” I screeched. Just like a scene out of an oldtime movie, John took one last puff off his cigarette, put it out in the ashtray and lay there moaning as the door swung open. Detective Tom Lange was there with some other officers in an attempt to get some sort of death bed confession out of John with regards to The Wonderland Murders.
John continued to moan as they asked him question after question and answered nothing. When they couldn’t get anything out of John, they turned to me.
“John never told me anything.” I firmly stated again and again.
Almost ten years after John’s death, the first of a series of movies inspired by different aspects of John’s life was released. In 1997, a film called Boogie Nights, starring Mark Wahlberg as John Holmes, introduced audiences to John and the 1970s porn industry. The movie was “loosely” based on John. Although Boogie Nights was somewhat entertaining to the public, I would have to argue against its similarity to John’s story. Although the movie was inspired by John’s story, it wasn’t factually close to it.
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