Straight Life (22 page)

A few days later a guard came and said that I was wanted at the school. They told me I had a meeting with the choir teacher. I went. She was in one of these rooms with a piano, alone. The guard said, "I locked the door because I didn't want people bothering her." He opened the door, and I pushed the lock when I went in. She said, "Hello. I hope I didn't disturb you from anything you were doing, but we agreed to get together about these arrangements and I want to get something worked out so we can have something for our choir rehearsals and start them as soon as possible and get the ball rolling and have something to work on right away." I said, "Oh, no, no, that's fine. That's fine." She had a real cute southern accent. She looked like one of those Tennessee Williams girls with the lowcut dress and the breasts just straining at the top of it. The guard said, "You just holler if you need anything. No one'll bother you, so if you, need anything, just holler." Looking at her, you know. He closed the door, and I'd locked it, and after he left I looked at her and she looked at me and her eyes got kind of crossed. She's married and has children, a nice, upperclass lady.

This room was on the first floor, but from outside you'd have to pull yourself up to look in; no one just walking by could see. The piano was facing the wall. If we were sitting at the piano our backs would be to the windows. I didn't want that. So I took a table and put it in front of the piano so we could sit at the table, and if any activity was going on under this table nobody would be able to see it from the window or any place else. I had some music paper I'd brought with me, and we sat down. I said, "Okay, now, what did you have in mind?"

I noticed that every time I looked at her she'd get this crosseyed look, and I was starting to shake a little myself. Before I went to the school, when I realized what it was, I excused myself, went into the restroom, and took my shorts off, so all I had on was white, khaki-like pants and a white shirt that hung out (that's what we wore, white). I had undone my buttons, but with the shirt out you couldn't see that. She said, "Well, I brought a list of songs. You can look them over and let me know what you'd like to do first." She was sitting on my left; the piano was behind us. She had a short-sleeved dress on. By looking I could see between the buttons. I could see part of her breasts, and I knew from our last encounter that she knew where I was at. She said, "Will anybody bother us here?" "No, no one'll bother us. They'll probably listen." I said, "Let me see the list." She handed me the paper and our arms touched, and you could almost feel the electricity shooting through. I looked at the songs. I said, "Oh, that's a nice tune!" She bent over, exaggeratedly, so she could see which tune I meant. She's got perfume on, and she's got her head right next to mine. Then she said, "Can anybody see in?" I said, "No." I'm whispering. "Nobody can see in." Then I said, out loud, "Oh yes, that's a nice tune. I like that tune. What key would you like to do it in?" She said, "Well, A flat is a good key." I said, "A flat? That sounds good." And I put my hand underneath the table and touched her knee. I said, "What other tunes do you like?" She said, "This one's nice." I'm slipping my hand up under her dress. She had her stockings rolled about three inches above her knees, and I reached the bare flesh, and it excited me something awful. She started to quiver, and I looked at her, and her eyes. . . She just looked insane, insane with passion.

I said, "Well, let me try this tune." I turned around to the piano and started playing chords just so anybody listening would know that everything was cool. I played and I said, "Well, I think that key sounds good. Sing the first notes." I had her sing a couple notes. She's singing away, and I'm playing the piano, and I'm shaking all over. I said, "Sing some of the melody with the words; I'll write the words down." By this time I had a huge hard-on, so I reached in and grabbed my joint and flipped it out of my pants. I had my shirt over the top of it so she couldn't see. I said, "Tell me the words, and I'll write them down. Move over a little bit." She moved and I took her hand and put it on my leg. I held it there and I said, "Okay, now, tell me the words." She started singing, "Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely niiiiight... " I keep pulling her hand up my leg. She's singing, "The melodyyyyy haunts my uhhhhhhh!" I said, "Cool it! Cool it!" I had taken her hand and put it on my bare thing, and I was all wet from being so passionate. She whispered, "Oh, no, no somebody'll see!" I whispered back, "No, no they won't! No they won't!" I said out loud, "Okay, let's hear the words again." She started again, and I finally got her to hold on to me. She's half singing the words, and her voice is cracking, and she's rubbing me, and I put my right hand up under her dress, and every now and then I reach my left hand over and play a chord so if anybody's listening they'll hear the sound of some kind of music. I finally touch her panties; they're soaking wet, she's so passionate; she's playing with me, and all of a sudden I grab her hand because I'm going to come. I whisper to her, "You wouldn't kiss it, would you?" "Oh, no! I can't do that! What if somebody comes in?" I would have given anything in the world if I could have pulled her pants off and got her to sit in my lap, but there was no way, and I was looking down her dress, trying to grab her breasts. I didn't know what to do, and she's singing, "The stars were briiiight ... " She's quivering and her voice is shaking, and I whispered, "Jerk on me!" And I came in her hand.

I took a sheet of music paper and tried to wipe the come off. I asked her, "Do you have any Kleenex?" She reached in her purse and gave me some Kleenex. She whispered, "Do you really like me?" I said, "Oh, you're just too much. You're the most beautifully sexy woman I've ever met." I put myself away and buttoned my pants, and she wanted to kiss me. I didn't want to. I figured I might get lipstick on me. I whispered, "No, we better not." I kissed her on the cheek and said out loud, "I'll start the arrangement in A flat on `Stardust' and have it ready for you in time for the rehearsal." We walked out. I had a couple of sessions with her like that, and I wrote two arrangements for the choir. "Stardust" and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love."

In Fort Worth I never noticed any homosexual activity. I'm sure it went on to some degree but there couldn't have been very much. I think that because there were so many women, everybody had his own little thing going. They all had somebody they'd get cleaned up for, try to do well for. They'd fantasize about a certain woman and write notes back and forth, especially with the student nurses. So it was healthy, but it was extremely hard as far as doing time. In fact I told my psychiatrist, "Sometimes I feel like I'm just going to grab one of these girls and take her in the band room and rip her clothes off and rape her."

The doctor I had was named Graetitzer, Dr. Arthur Graetitzer. Doctors could go into the coast guard as an alternative to the army and practice their specialties there, so that's what this guy did. Dr. Graetitzer had had a big practice in Saint Louis with a wealthy clientele, and he joined the coast guard and was sent to Fort Worth to do his two years. I was one of his first cases. I saw him three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for an hour privately and then Tuesday and Thursday we'd have a five-man group with Dr. Osborn, the head of the hospital.

I realized that as soon as I could convince these doctors I had a chance for rehabilitation they would recommend me for parole, and once I got their recommendation it was automatic: they were in charge. So at the beginning, every word I said, all my actions, were directed at creating a certain level of sickness so I could recover from it. And I kept going on the premise that I was directing things, that I was molding the thoughts of both doctors.

I started reading everything I could get my hands on about mental illness. I got tight with the chick that was running the library. I got access to books that the inmates weren't supposed to read. I got a great book on abnormal psychology filled with case histories, and I adopted certain symptoms so I could recover from them. And I thought I'd really fooled these guys, and maybe I had to a certain extent, but one day I was in my bed reading this book and I looked up and before I could make a move to stash it, Dr. Graetitzer just walked right into my little cubicle. He said, "Yeah, I've been through your area a couple of times and I noticed the things you were reading. I don't think it's ... Why are you reading these things?" I told him, "I was just interested, being as we're dealing in psychiatry. It's just very interesting." He said, "I don't think that at your, in your position, in your condition that it's wise to be reading things like this. I think it would tend to hinder the work we're trying to do. You can read what you like, but I don't think it's to your advantage to do so." I said okay, and then, finally, I got so interested in what was happening I decided I wasn't hurting anyone but myself. So instead of playing this game I figured I'd better use the time to my advantage and learn something that might help me. I started leveling with the doctors, trying to find out if there was anything to psychiatry, if there was any way that you could change anything by knowing about yourself. I got very serious, and everything I did during the day, I would talk about at these sessions. I talked about Ping-Pong.

I was playing a lot of Ping-Pong. It got to the point where I played a little every day, and if I had the time I'd play four or five or six hours straight. And the same things that had always been wrong with me before, happened there, playing PingPong. I got very good, but I wanted to be the best and then that whole thing of being afraid, of worrying, of lack of confidence hung me up. It was the same thing I'd gone through in school and in music. I found that certain people have a lot of confidence. I don't know if it's something they really have or if it's a front, but it would really come out playing a game like PingPong. If I'd play a black guy and he'd start talking and ranking me, telling me how he was going to beat me, that would really unnerve me. When the blacks would signify, talk all that shit that they talk-"Yeah, baby, you ain't got no chance against me, suckah! I'm the king! That's my road game, jack!"-all that shit, I hated them for it. And I realized that it was a weakness on my part to allow that not only to make me afraid but to make me crumble. I would fall apart. And I would lose to a guy that I actually had more skill than. When I was able to relax and disregard that stuff-if I was loaded-then I could play over it and not let it get to me. And I'd destroy the person; I'd wipe them out; I'd win without question. So I realized a lot of things that were wrong with me in playing that game, and it was very interesting.

I think it was ten months that I was being analyzed. I began to understand my parents. I learned why they couldn't get along. I understood why my mother didn't want a child; it was a hopeless situation. I realized that. And I learned all this, but it didn't change my feelings. I felt that I wasn't wanted and that I wasn't loved, and I sort of liked that feeling. It was an excuse for me not to do anything. An excuse for anything I might do that was wrong. I could say it wasn't my fault: nobody cared about me so they couldn't blame me for being antisocial or being a little strange. If I hadn't been so talented, it would have been easier. I would have been an outright failure and a bum or a real criminal. But it just so happened I was picked by something, maybe I was reincarnated, but I have a genius that was given to me. I have a genius, however it's given, and I knew in myself that I was wrong in the things I was doing, and that made it even worse. That made me feel guilty. I wasn't doing what I knew I should do. But the pattern was set. The mold was cast. It was just easy, it was fun, and I liked it. I liked getting up in the night and sneaking away from Patti, who was clean and pretty, and going to an old, beat bar down on Main Street, putting my money in the juke box, and asking for "Cottage for Sale" by Billy Eckstine or "Ol' Man River" by Frank Sinatra. Sad songs. I'd sit in the bar and drink and fantasize being some way-out gangster, some murderer-lover. Dangerous. And I thought of myself as the most handsome person on the street. I thought I was so handsome that anybody who saw me said, "Wow! Look at that guy!" I believed that any woman that saw me thought, "Oh, Jesus, what I wouldn't give to have him!" That's why it was so far-out for me to be going into bars and, down alleys, following chicks, sitting next to ugly chicks in filthy movie places, playing with their cunts. It was a Jekyll and Hyde thing. It was exciting because I felt as if I was really a prince. I always thought of myself that way and still do. I still do. I stopped voicing that opinion because people think you're kind of crazy, but I really believe it. I believe I'm above anybody I meet. Anybody. Everybody. I think that I'm more intelligent-innate intelligence; I feel that I'm more emotional, more sensitive, the greatest lover, the greatest musician; I feel that if I had been a ball player I'd have been in the Hall of Fame. There's no question in my mind: if I ever became crazy I would probably be Jesus. But, unfortunately, I've never been crazy. I've just been totally sane.

I used to go to these psychiatric sessions high on nutmeg. My eyes were all red. He must have known. He was just very cool. He wanted to go through with it; he didn't care what I was. And, as I say, I learned all these things about myself, and I know that I could have completely turned my life around had I wanted to. But I didn't want to. I enjoyed the excitement. And, as I knew I would, I made parole just as soon as it could be made with the highest recommendations from everybody.

During this time I was in Fort Worth, Patti had some lawyers from Reno send me a paper so they could represent me because she wanted to get a divorce. But she wrote that she was just divorcing me so that when I came out we could start courting, and if we still loved each other we would remarry. I believed this. I had to believe it.