Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

The car pulled over and Layne got out, holding a kitten. She was taken aback by his physical appearance. “He looked really bad. It was pretty shocking because I hadn’t seen him in a long time. It was sad,” she said. He had let his hair grow, and it was his natural brownish-blond color. He had gauze on his hands, which was only partially covered by fingerless gloves. He was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a leather jacket.

She told him about the dream and mentioned his running into her aunt and how weird all these coincidences were. Layne told her that he and his mother, who was driving the car, were returning from taking the kitten to the vet.

“Hey, do you go to AA meetings?” Layne asked her.

“No, I don’t. I know a lot of people that do. If you want, I could give you somebody’s number, a cool person’s number if you need to do that,” she offered.

“How about I take your number?”

She gave Layne her phone number. While flattered by the attention, she wasn’t attracted to him, fully aware of his drug problem. She thought that maybe because of all the coincidences, that might have been a sign she was supposed to help him. She had the impression Layne was interested in her for companionship, not sex.

Layne began calling her right away. They lived a few blocks from each other and began talking on the phone and hanging out on a regular basis. She would go to Layne’s apartment to watch movies. Although she would often spend the night and they would sleep in his bed, she said nothing sexual ever happened—she never even kissed him.

“His desire to want to spend time with me without wanting anything but some companionship was nice. Being invited into his rather isolated, private world was intriguing, to say the least. That, coupled with a fantasy that he might get over his addiction, or that I could play a part in him getting over his addiction, was intriguing and even exciting. He was a beautiful person under all of that sickness. But I wasn’t delusional, and I wasn’t about to express these thoughts to him because I guess I had decided rather quickly that ‘to hope’ would be ‘to be disappointed.’ So I remained rather ‘cool’ during our time spent together.”1

There were visible signs of his drug problem at home, although Layne never offered her any. In the middle of watching movies, Layne would excuse himself to go to the bathroom and stay in there. “Eventually, he’d come out. We’d hang out, talk, watch movies, and then he’d go back into the bathroom again.”

Layne mentioned the subject of drugs to her twice. During one of the first times she came over, they were watching TV in his bedroom. Layne was sitting on the floor; Ahern-Crane was on the bed. Layne looked up at her and said, “Hey, I want you to know I’m not going to be like this forever. I want to have a normal life, a good life. I want to get married, I want to have kids.”

Ahern-Crane was surprised. “Okay, that’s good,” was her only response. “Of course I hoped he would have a normal, happy life some day. I want that for anyone. But there was no evidence anywhere that suggested he was serious at that moment.”

“I thought what he said was sweet, I was flattered because I knew he was saying for my benefit … It was his way of saying to me, ‘I like you.’ ‘If you hang out for a while, I might be able to kick this with your support.’ ‘Give me a reason to stop doing drugs.’ That is what his words meant—at least to some degree. But how can you take someone so loaded on drugs very seriously? He may have thought that in that moment, and he may have considered it from time to time—but the fact is, just as quickly, he was back in the bathroom trying to find a vein.”

“I found his statement to be simultaneously sweet, flattering, hopeful, and manipulating at the same time.” The second time also happened at his apartment. He invited her into the bathroom, where his music equipment was set up. She walked in and saw Layne sitting on the windowsill. He didn’t say anything, and the two started making small talk. She noticed several plastic bags on a table. She didn’t know what they were at the time, but years later, with the benefit of hindsight, she realized they were full of heroin.

“I think he invited me back there to see if maybe I wanted to get loaded, but he didn’t offer it,” she recalled. “When he called me into that room and the drugs were in there, I almost feel like that was a test that I passed.”

Sometimes Layne would play her Mad Season songs he was working on. When they went out, sometimes it was to watch a show by Johnny Bacolas’s band Second Coming. When Ahern-Crane slept over, she remembers hearing knocking on the door at random hours. “Hey, who’s here at one o’clock in the morning?” she asked Layne.

“Shhhh … Be quiet, don’t answer it,” he said.

“Layne said it could have been Demri needing a place to crash or wanting to get high. It could have been fans coming over with drugs,” she explained.