Straight Life (24 page)

Finally, one day the guards came in and I heard, "Pepper, roll 'em up." I was so happy to hear them say that. I rolled my shit up; I was so glad it was unbelievable. The guys in the tank went to the front. They said, "What do you want him for?" They wanted to make sure the bulls weren't just fucking with me. The guards said, "He's doing time here. He's got to go the cages upstairs." I tried to act like, "Wow, what a drag. I won't be able to fight this thing with you." I said, "Well, man, good luck and everything. Keep up the battle." They took me out of the cell and marched me upstairs, and one bull said, "Did you really mean that? You hate to leave there?" I said, "Are you kidding?"

It was already integrated upstairs. And instead of cell blocks, we had cages like animals are kept in but with no doors. They didn't bring your food to you; you went to a mess hall and they gave you nice food. You're on the roof, on the very top of the jail. You can go outside. They've got a couple Ping-Pong tables and different things, and you can look out over the roof and see the city. It's almost like being free after being locked up in the tank. And you work different jobs.

Just before I got out I happened to be waiting for the elevator-I was a trustee so I had a lot of freedom. The elevator stopped and out walked Jim van Eyck, Blackie Levinson, and another guy, friends of mine from the tank, and they'd been in the hole, the black hole for all this time. They looked like death. The guards had finally broken the segregation. They'd locked the ringleaders in the hole, and then they'd gone in with firehoses and turned them on everybody else.

After that they used little name cards. At the front of each tank there was a board for these cards showing all the cells and one white, one blue, and one orange card for each cell. White was white, blue was black, and orange was Mexican. That's how the officers checked to make sure the cells were integrated. I don't know where all the pressure came from. I'm sure it didn't come from the black or Mexican prisoners. They wanted to be segregated. They just wanted the same rights. I don't know who pushed this thing, the city council, the mayor, or the governor, but it was a political thing.

I didn't have occasion to see this system in operation until several years later when I got busted again for possession. Then I went in and saw the cards. I saw a white card, a blue card, and an orange card and I looked and saw three black guys in the cell. The tank trustees had got ahold of these cards and just wrote a guy's name on whatever color card looked good on the board. That's how they integrated the L.A. County Jail.

They had music in the cages. You'd wake up in the morning to music and then at night you'd hear it. In the tanks there was no radio, no nothing. I went five or six months without hearing a note of music before I went up to the cages. So, if you can imagine, being a musician, or just being any person ... For most people, music is an important part of their lives, and to be deprived of it completely is terrible. So what I'd do to keep myself from going crazy, I would play my cup. We were all issued one. They give you a tin coffee cup with a little handle on it. I would hold it up to my mouth, leave a little opening at the side, and put my hands over it like you do when you play a harmonica or a Jew's harp. And I found that I could hum into the cup and get a sound sort of like a trumpet. I could do a lot with it. And in the jail, with all the cement and steel, that small sound could really be heard, especially from the corner of the cell. So I'd play to myself, and the guys would hear me. I'd look up and see that there were guys standing all around outside my cell, just digging. And I found that they got a lot of pleasure out of it, especially at night. We had one guy named Grundig, who had played drums at one time. He'd take the top from a trash can and beat on it with a spoon, and I'd play my cup, and the guys would clap, and we would have, like, a regular session. You'd have to be in that position to realize how much joy you could receive from something as crude as that.

I was in 11-B-1 then; it was before the tanks were integrated. And it so happened that one day I looked across the tank into 11-A-1, the black hype tank, and saw a guy I thought I recognized. This guy hollered over, "Hey, Art Pepper!" He said, "My name's Stymie." I said, "You look familiar to me, man." He said, "Oh, well, yeah." And that was Stymie from The Little Rascals in the movies, and he looked just like he had when he was a kid. We started talking. He said, "I heard you were over there." He'd been out to court. He told me he'd been in jail for a couple of years fighting his case. I said, "Boy, what a drag, man, no music." He said, "It's terrible. What I do ... I can't stand it. We get together and we sing." I said, "Oh, man, I'd sure love to hear that." He said, "Well, you'll hear it." I think this was on a Tuesday. Nothing happened. I'm waiting and waiting, but I don't want to push him because I know that music is a personal thing and you can't force it, especially under those conditions.

Then Sunday came. They talk about God and religion and make fun of it, but when you're in prison and then Sunday comes, you get a certain feeling. Instead of all the anger and brutality that runs through all the other days, on Sunday everyone becomes quiet, and you feel a presence, like, there is a God. On Sunday it becomes evident that something different is happening. Everybody becomes introspective; everybody is in their own little worlds; you can feel everybody delving into things. So it was Sunday, and all of a sudden I heard a voice. I walked out of my cell and looked down the walkway. I heard a voice and it's singing "Gloomy Sunday," of all songs, man. It was a voice like usually only the black men have, almost a feminine voice, high, and very, very pretty, very sensual and warm and very much in tune, with a sweet sound and a nice vibrato, and it's Stymie's voice. I looked at the guys in my tank. They were all quiet. They were all listening-Jew Bill, who used to go around with a guy from Tennessee; they broke in on a black dealer that was keeping a white woman and pistol-whipped him, made him piss on the white chick's head calling her "white tramp," "nigger lover"; they beat the dealer half to death and stole his dope. I saw these two brothers, armed robbers, who took so much coke that one time in a hotel they flipped out and started shooting through the hotel doors. I looked over at the black tank and saw other guys who'd done terrible crimes. And everyone was just sitting or standing or leaning on the bars of the tank, looking out the windows, looking out on the parking lot, out at the freeway going toward Hollywood, out at the free people. I saw them standing against the bars and I thought, "They're going to the penitentiary. They may never get out again. They've left the woman that they love out in the streets. And here they are listening to this song, sung by a black man, listening to this sadness and this beauty." And I thought, "Where's the justice? Why do these things happen? Why do we do these terrible things? What causes us to do these things?" Some black guys started humming along with Stymie, and it was so pretty and so sad that all the ugliness was forgotten and all the hatred, and for that short while we were, like, brothers. And that's why I talk about Sunday and God and the beauty of music. Everything was wiped away, and we were just human beings sharing a common sadness.

(Freddy Rivera) As Art started going to jail, there was a further intensification of the traits that were already there. More dependence. More disregard for reality. A heightened refusal to take any direct action. Or to be more careful. I also know that he liked prison. He liked the brotherhood. I do think that he liked being told what to do, being taken care of, having someone else organize his life. And, lacking self-esteem, he could go into an environment where he could identify, believing unconsciously that he was a black sheep, ostracized from the "respectable" world. Feeling that way all of his life, he could readily identify with all these other outcasts. Furthermore, going into prison, he is a famous musician. Rightfully so. He really is somebody. And I say that he is somebody out of prison; that's a fact. But in prison, you see, he's with people who, often in their own hearts and in the minds of the outside world, are total rubbish. So when he comes into this environment, now we have a demigod. He told me even one of the guards spoke to him admiringly, very surreptitiously, sotto voce. Even the guard, huh? So this was an environment where he could get a great deal of support and admiration, feel more comfortable, and have a constant, ongoing family-whatever they do, rapping cups on the bars, screaming across ... Always a family. It's almost like being in Italy. Hahahaha! And you're not alone. So when he makes the statement that criminals are better ... Of course they're better. They love him. He was really somebody. I'm not dealing with the question directly because there can be, in prison, fine people, great people. If you don't believe me, ask Lenin. We also know that in prison we have people that are hardly to be called human. Just as we have them on the street, out here, too. And in the government, and in Beverly Hills.

I THINK I did nine months altogether in the county jail; I did three months, dead time, waiting for my trial. Finally my release date came, and I walked up the spiral staircase to an iron gate, and these two guys came over to me, two guys in suits, older guys; they had big hats on and they looked just like marshals. One of them said, "I'm Marshal So-and-so. I'm sorry to tell you that your conditional release has been violated and we're taking you back to prison." I said, "Where?" They said, "We're taking you to Terminal Island."

They handcuffed me and walked me out of the jail and over to a car. When we got to the car I saw the street and all the people. I said, "Oh, God, man, I've been in this jail here for nine months and now I've got to go to Terminal Island." We got in the car and drove. We went past the docks at Terminal Island. I'd been there a lot with my dad as a kid when he was working on the boats as a winch driver. And while we were driving I thought, "When's it going to end?" I felt as if all of a sudden I would wake up and it would be a dream or somebody would say, "Oh, well, that's okay. This was just a little test we were putting you through, and it's all over now. You can go home." We'd turn around and the marshals would say, "We're just friends of your dad's; we were joking around. Your dad wanted to see if we could scare you a little so you wouldn't use any more drugs." It was like a play, a farce: it couldn't be real. And then we pulled up to the penitentiary.

Terminal Island had been a naval prison at one time. It comes right out of the water on big stones, and it's all green on the sides of it. The gate opens, and they step inside. Another gate opens, and the marshals say, "One." You know, "We got one from the county." They march me in, and they say goodbye, and here I am in Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary to start doing three hundred and fourteen days just because this fucking broad Didi wouldn't cop out.

11

Diane

1955 - 1958

I WALKED into the prison, an old, old prison with a big yard in the middle. I went through the booking routine and they put me in a cell. Outside the cell you could hear the water bouncing against the rocks. I went over to the window and I looked out. I looked out and I saw San Pedro.

I saw Beacon Street, where my dad met my mother. I saw Fort MacArthur, where I'd been inducted into the army. I looked up to Daniel's Field, Navy Field, where as a kid I used to watch the football games. I could see the streets I'd lived on then: Twenty-fourth Street and Alma, Thirtieth and Gaffey. And here I am in prison looking at all this. What happened? How could I be here? For no reason. Up until that time I'd never committed any kind of crime at all. Ever. Nothing. Now here I was with people who were forgers and bank robbers.

I was so despondent and so drug with having to be there, I told them I wouldn't work. They looked at my jacket and saw that I had a high IQ, and they wanted me to work in the school or do something constructive, but I said no. They gave me a job with a little pan and a little broom and I swept the yard. In the morning, after everybody went to work, I would go out and sweep for a couple of hours, and then after supper I'd sweep for maybe an hour, and it was really funny. I wouldn't do anything else. Here I was, probably one of the most handsome people in the place-I could probably have been a movie star or a great engineer at Cal Tech-and here I was with a little broom sweeping up spit and cigarette butts and seagull shit! Hahahaha!

We had a saying: "To loosen your wig." When you got uptight and really nervous, then you'd "unscrew your cap," and that was the only way I could stand doing the time. I'd get silly and nutty and make weird noises. I'd walk like a spastic. Everybody would be lined up to go to work, and I'd walk right by them shaking and kind of slobbering. And that's when I started getting a reputation as a nut, and I saw that even the toughest convicts started looking at me with a kind of fear.

I met a guy, Myaki, and we became pretty friendly. He was a slender Chinaman. He had a bony face; you could see the bones all over his body. And he was a real warm guy, one of those guys who'd do anything for me. He worked in the hospital, and he was a very good criminal. He could open locks and was an expert at breaking into safes, so he used to steal things out of the medical locker. He'd get alcohol and make up different concoctions. He'd get sleepers and lay them on me for nothing. And he's the one that told me, "You're getting that rep of being a loner and kind of flippy, and that's a good front to have because you gotta have a front in jail so nobody'll mess with you. People'll leave you alone. They won't try to steal your commissary or fuck you in the ass or use you or rob you or kill you. They won't bother you because a nut-there's no telling what a nut might do." So I'd make my noises and stare into space, and when I was eating I'd let the food fall out of my mouth onto my clothes. And I noticed people, like, "Wow! Dig that cat! Boy, that Pepper, man, that musician! Isn't that that musician? Boy, that cat is way out! Dig him, dig him. Dig! Boy, he's really strange. Is he jivin' or is he for real?" And Myaki would run me stories about guys coming to him saying, "Hey, man, you're a friend of that guy, that Pepper, man. What is that? Is he kidding around or ... ?" And Myaki would say, "Ohhhh, I don't know, man, We're friends, but he's kinda ... He's told me some strange things. I get kinda leery. I get kinda scared sometimes. I think he's got a lotta violence in him, man. He's a weird cat, a weird cat."

One day they called my name and said, "You have a visitor." I ran to my cell and got cleaned up as well as I could. I walked into the visiting room and there was Patti and Thelma and my daughter, Patricia. She was ten years old, and she saw the whole thing-me being brought in by guards, a terrible per son who had to be locked away, who must be evil because he couldn't be let out with the other people. And I felt that Patti did that purposely so she would have something to back up her degrading remarks about me. I felt so awful when I saw them that I cried. It was one of the worst moments of my life. I looked at Thelma and thought, "Couldn't you stop them?" And she looked at me and started crying, as if she knew what I was feeling.

The time in Terminal Island was very strange; it was a strange prison; there wasn't too much happening there so it was "hard time." Unlike Fort Worth. And the worst thing was ... Every now and then I'd be in the yard or in my cell and I'd hear the fog horn. In San Pedro, at Point Fermin, there's a fog horn that goes "Booooohhh-ooooooohhh." I used to hear it as a child. I used to lie at night and listen to it. Now I heard the same fog horn in prison, and I relived all my childhood over and over, and it was a terrible, terrible three hundred and fourteen days. And when the time came to get out, I thought, "Oh, man, I don't ever want to go back to prison again." I got out and got a room in Hollywood, a little room on Yucca, right off Hollywood Boulevard.

The first night I was out, you know, I wanted a woman. I went to jazz City, which was on Hollywood Boulevard right off Western. There was a girl there, a waitress, and I knew she had eyes to ball me. I went to the club, and she wasn't there, and I didn't have any money to be hanging around. I talked to a girl I knew who'd worked there for years. She probably would have made love to me just to give me relief, but I didn't care for her sexually. Then while I was sitting I noticed another waitress, one I'd never seen before. She was an Oriental-looking chick. She kept glancing at me as she walked by. And when they went to their stations, to the bar to get their drinks, I noticed that she and the other girl were talking together and I saw them motion toward me. Finally, the girl I knew said, "There's one of the waitresses that would like to meet you." She brought her over and said, "Diane, meet Art-Pepper. This is Diane."

- -- - - - -- - - - -- - I said hello, and she said hello, and a little later she walked over and said, "Would you like a drink?" I said, "I don't have much bread." She said, "I know that." She said, "What would you like?" I asked for a screwdriver and she brought me one, and from then on she kept dropping off drinks for nothing. She asked me, "Would you like to go and have some coffee after? If you can stick around until I get off ... " She took care of her checks, and then as we left I said, "How are we going to go? I don't have any wheels." She said, "I have a car."

We went around on Western to the lot. I said, "Which one?" There were five or six beat cars and one yellow Cadillac convertible, really pretty. She walked me up to that car and said, "This is it. Would you like to drive?" To make me feel like a man, you know, that style. I said, "This is yours? Wow, what do you do on the side?" She said, "I'm married, and I work, and I do whatever I want with my money." She gave me the keys.

This chick was fairly nice looking. As I said before, she looked Oriental but instead of the slender, oval face she had a square, squat, Filipino face, and her body was like her face, squat and kind of dumpy. She had black hair, but it was prematurely grey, and she didn't seem to know how to fix her hair right. She had something wrong with her upper lip. It was a little deformed, which at times was ugly, and at other times, it was a thing of beauty. Probably her best point was her eyes, a little slanted and black. And her skin was nice.

She said, "Where would you like to go?" I said I didn't care, so she took me to an all-night restaurant where the show people went, and we ended up just talking and talking. Finally I said, "Don't you have to go?" She said, "Yeah, I guess so." She drove me to my hotel and I said, "Why don't we stop someplace or park someplace?" No women were allowed at my hotel. She said, "Well, why don't we wait?" I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "I'd rather wait until ... we have a nicer setting." I said, "Well, you're married, so we can't go there." She dropped me off and she said, "I'll see you tomorrow." I said, "You know, all I need, all I wanted to do-I just have eyes, you know. I've been locked up a long time and I just want, I just want some female companionship. I don't want you ... It's a drag that you're married because, you know, I don't feel right about things like that." She told me that she didn't dig her husband and didn't ball him. He had begged her to stay with him; that was the only reason she was still there. She let me off and I went to my room. And then I walked out on Hollywood Boulevard. I walked along trying to pick up a chick, trying to thir,' of some chick I knew from before. I went to an all-night moo. Nothing happened. I just wanted to get laid.

I was supposed to have called Diane at the club the next night, but I decided I didn't want to get involved with her. I forget what I did that night, the same thing I guess. I wandered around looking for a chick, but I couldn't find anybody I knew so I went back to my hotel. It was late. I started up the stairs to my room, and there she was.

It was Diane. She was sitting on the stairs waiting for me. There she was and she said, "I thought you were going to call me." I said, "I don't want to get involved, you know. You're married." She said, "I told you how that is. I've really thought about you. I've seen you before, and I like you. Last night I didn't want you to think I was just some chick you could ball right away. I've thought about you every second since then. I couldn't sleep thinking about you. I want to make love to you. I don't care what else happens. I just want to make love to you. Let's go, please. Please." And so, you know, I hadn't balled in all that time. I said okay, she handed me the keys, and we drove down Sunset to a beat motel. We bought a jug on the way and had a couple of drinks, and then we made love. She was nice. She made love well and I enjoyed it because it was a release for me, but she didn't move me that much and I didn't want to get involved in anything. I just wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to have chicks I could ball when I wanted to ball. And I could tell she was really hung up on me. She drove me back to my room and I said, "Great." You know. I really tried to be nice. And I felt guilty because I didn't care for her and had made love to her. And she was married and had two kids, I found out.

From then on she was continually waiting for me. She called me. She left notes. She wanted to give me money. She wanted me to use her Cadillac. She wanted to drive me places. And it was just no good. You see, I've never wanted to take advantage of anybody: I didn't want to have them under false pretenses, have them believing something that wasn't true. I've always thought of myself as an honest person, and I really didn't care for Diane.

I thought about Patti all the time. Patti would call me. She even came to visit me once. She came at about 8:30, when I was still in bed. I heard a knock on the door and, "It's me, Patti." I didn't have a robe so I threw my pants on. I didn't have any shirt on, no shoes. I opened the door and there she is. She walks in and she's wearing one of those flaring skirts with the pattern all bright. She's wearing a blouse that's cut down off the shoulders, and you can see the vee of her breasts. She had on pretty pink sandals, and her hair was fixed beautifully, and she smelled wonderful. Here's the woman I would have given anything to have had, I thought. She divorced me to marry someone else. We talked; it was awful; then she left. But she kept calling me, and she was hanging up everything for me as far as anybody else. I couldn't imagine how, under any circumstances, she could have married someone else. Why weren't we married? I loved her so much. I wanted her so much.

Right at this time I made an album. I think it was The Return of Art Pepper. I was recording a lot and playing beautifully. Diane kept coming around and coming around, and she finally talked me into going to her house one day. I met her husband. He told me that nothing was happening with them, that it was all over. He loved her, but she didn't care for him. They had a beautiful house in Burbank with a great big swimming pool.

One day Diane came to my hotel and said, "I'm getting a room. Would you please let me get a room with you?" I was scuffling. I'd started to use. I got weak. I said okay. The thought of having a car ... I just got weak. I'd told her all along that nothing was happening, that I was still in love with Patti, that it would take me a long time to get over it. She said, "I just want to be with you. I love you and I want to take care of you. I don't care how you feel about me. I'm happy being with you."

We moved to a house. I think it was on Fargo, on an incredibly steep hill. And it was nice at times, but the minute I moved in with Diane, Patti found out about it. Among musicians everything is known. She called: "I don't know why you want to live with that woman! She had two kids and a husband and left them. She's a tramp!"

PEPPER BACK; DATES PILE UP