Straight Life (26 page)

If many young musicians hadn't used junk, they would have really been wailing. The junk is just destroying the whole talent. It's just killing it. Nowadays I think of all the young cats that start using junk, and it completely destroys them so you never hear what they might have had to offer. Maybe some might have been the greatest musicians ever, yet no one will ever hear them, nothing will ever happen from them because they'll just destroy themselves.

And it can only lead to eventual suicide-if a person has the nerve - or life in the penitentiary, or getting shot during a holdup or something. It'll eventually come to that.

JT: Do you think there is any way to head off an individual who may be on the way to drug addiction, or must he solve his problem by himself?

(In answer to this particular query, Art Pepper felt that the extreme importance of the question required additional consideration by him so that he might give a clearer, more adequate reply. He submitted the following answer in writing:)

"I think it's up to the individual. It's like telling children not to do something-they'll do it every time until they finally decide that they themselves don't want to do it anymore. An addict is a sick person and should be treated as such. I think the work in the U.S.P.H.S. hospitals at Ft. Worth and Lexington is doing a great deal of good for those who sincerely want to stop and straighten themselves out. My doctor at Ft. Worth gave me some invaluable assistance which is now beginning to take effect.

"The percentage of addicts who have stopped is around 1 or 2 percent, which is far from a happy situation, but I think I have an explanation for this. The small percentage is a good excuse for not stopping-a person may say, 'Well, I guess I shouldn't feel so bad about not stopping because nobody else can either.' It's a warped justification for being weak.

'Actually, it's really not too difficult to stop if you've finally made up your mind to do it-of course, you've got to want to more than anything else in the world. I lost a wife, whom I loved very deeply, a wonderful child, a home, etc., but it still wasn't enough to make me stop.

"It can't be for any one person or anything that you stop-it's got to be for yourself. It's only for yourself that you can quit, believe me-and with God's help I think I'm now well on the road to recovery and a full and reasonably happy and moderate life." down beat, September 19, 1956. Copyright 1956 by down beat. Reprinted by special permission.

DIANE was still working as a waitress in jazz clubs, and I was recording and playing with Jack Montrose at the Angel Room in the Crenshaw area. So I was doing well, but I was goofing, and I was really getting strung out.

The Chicanos dug me. I used to play at the Diggers and at the Coral Room, clubs in East L.A. They liked my music, and they liked me because I was a regular, one of the few musicians that went to jail and did time without informing on anybody. They envied me my talent and the opportunities I had, and they couldn't understand why I would want to put myself in their position. They said if they had what I did they would never, ever do what they were doing, dealing and robbing. They only did these things because they never had a chance to do anything else.

One night a heavyset Chicano came into the Angel Room. He was a real gangster type. He introduced himself; his name was Mario Cuevas; and he was a big dealer. He liked me. He liked the way I played. So I hit on him if he had anything; he said yeah and he laid something on me. A condom. It must have had about a quarter of an ounce of stuff in it, which is a lot. He gave it to me.

The next time Mario came by he said, "Why don't you straighten up? If you like, I'll get you some Dolophine." Which is pills (Methadone) you kick with. I said, "Wow, I'd sure love to." I knew all the time I wasn't going to do it. Mario got me the Dolophines, and I cut down with them, used them when I was sick, but I didn't kick. He came around again and he said, "What happened?" I said, "Oh, man, you know." And he said, "Well, you just want to continue this rat race." He laid some more stuff on me, and I started buying from him. He said, "I'd rather give it to you myself than have you go out in the street, taking a chance of getting rousted or picked up, busted. And at least with me you're getting decent stuff." I went from a quarter a day to half a piece a day, and this was stuff that wasn't cut for the street. This was stuff that was strong. This was stuff that would be taken by a guy who was pushing on the street and cut by that guy two or three times. You can imagine the habit I built up.

Diane didn't know what to do. She'd never been around a junkie before. She'd never taken a pill, smoked pot. She'd worked in jazz clubs, and that life was exciting to her, but she didn't know what it was like when you finally go home with those people. She saw what was happening but she couldn't stop it. I blew the gig at the Angel Room, and little by little I started blowing all the gigs and stopped going out asking for gigs. People would call and I wouldn't go to the phone. I'd make an occasional record date, something like that, but all I wanted to do was stay in the pad, lock the windows and doors, and just fix all day and night.

And all during this time the phone was ringing every day, and it was Patti saying, "You'd better leave that chick. I'm warning you." And I'm in agony because I want Patti. And I want to get rid of Diane, but now I'm feeling sorry for her and I don't know what to do. Her car's all messed up. I wouldn't allow her to spend money on her car or on anything else. Gradually, everything started falling apart, and every penny I had, I'd give to Mario.

Mario reminded me of a modern-day Zapata. He had a lot of Indian qualities. He was a big guy with a full, round, moon face, straight, coal-black hair, dark eyes, the whites real white, and everything about him denoted strength. The Mexicans I've met that had a lot of Indian in them were very strong people, very proud, very down-home, down to earth, and very honest. And if they like you, they really like you, and if they don't, that's it. There's no phoniness. Mario, whatever he told you, that's what it was. He was an honest, beautiful person and a great friend. He would never, ever have anybody else do his time for him or suffer for something that he got pleasure out of. I later wrote and recorded a song for Mario, a tribute to him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever met in my life.

Mario lived over by Riverside Drive. He'd come every other day, and I'd wait for him. He'd come in. I'd ask him if he wanted some coffee. He'd be dressed in a suit-real sharp-and real healthy because he'd stopped using. See, he used for a long time, but the last jolt he did was in McNeil Island, ten or fifteen years, and he didn't want any more of it. Now he was just dealing to make money. He didn't deal to individuals. He had people he'd make drops for that dealt, that had people dealing for them. He'd never put himself under the gun, you know, with handling stuff or put himself in a position to get caught. So he really took a chance on me, carrying stuff into my house when I could have gotten him busted and would never have had to go to jail again because he was so big. He'd come, and we would talk, and I'd be looking at him, and he knew the whole trip, what was going on in my mind. It was like a game. Sometimes he'd get all the way out the door before I'd say, "Uh?" He'd say, "Oh!" you know, and then he'd walk back in, reach in his shirt pocket, and take out the condom. It was half an ounce. He'd hold it in his hand, and my heart would be pounding because I wanted to leap on it. He'd throw it on the floor and say, "You better get that quick!" I'd jump for it, and he'd start ranking me, "You better get it quick! You better get in the bathroom and get that stuff in you! Boy, oh boy, you're too much!" He'd stand there. I'd just be wigging out because I wanted to run into the bathroom, and he knew that. He'd shake his head, "Go on, go on. Go in the bathroom!" But I'd wait and it would seem like ages before he finally split, and then I'd rush into the bathroom feeling really rank. Three different times he gave me Dolophine, but I never did kick.

At first, when Mario gave me half ounces, they'd last for two or three days. Then I started using more and one day I ran out; I couldn't call and ask him to come because he'd just been there. I couldn't tell him I was already out. I was going to have to go out and hustle, go out in the street and score.

Diane and I had just had a terrible argument because all I did was sit in the house and nod out. Whenever I came to, I'd just cook up again. Sometimes the spike would be lying on the floor or still stuck in my arm, so when I woke up I'd have to clean it out, get it unplugged. I'd start cutting the light fixtures. I'd be cutting the cords and the plugs to get wires to stick into the spike to clean it. I would have ripped up anything in the house to unplug that needle. And there was blood running down my arms and burn marks all over the place from my cigarettes when I'd nod out-on the rugs, the couch, the chair, everything. Diane couldn't stand it, and we'd had this argument when I told her I had to go out and went into the bathroom to get cleaned up. Then I heard a noise. I ran out and saw the car pulling away. Diane had taken all my pants, every penny, my horns, and the car and she'd split, and there I was trapped on this huge hill.

She didn't come home for two days, went to friends' houses, her mother's, her father's, and she called me over and over but she wouldn't come home, and I was really sick. On the second day Mario dropped by and laid some stuff on me. When Diane came back I flipped out and threatened to kill her if she pulled that again.

Diane woke me one morning and said, "You have a record date today." I hadn't been playing. I hadn't been doing anything. I said, "Are you kidding? Who with? And where? And what?" She told me that she and Les Koenig from Contemporary Records had got together. The only way they could do it, they figured, was to set it up and not tell me about it so I'd be forced into it. They knew that no matter how strung out I was I would take care of business if people were depending on me. Even at my worst I was always that way. She told me that Miles Davis was in town, and they had gotten his rhythm section and set it all up with them. They were going to record with me that day: Philly Joe Jones on drums, Paul Chambers on bass, and Red Garland on piano.

I wouldn't speak to Diane at all. I told her, "Get out of my sight." I got my horn out of the closet, got the case and put it on the bed and looked at it, and it looked like some stranger. It looked like something from another life. I took the horn out of the case. When you take the saxophone apart there's the body piece, the neck, and the mouthpiece, and those three pieces are supposed to be wiped and wrapped up separately when they're put in the case. Evidently, the last time I'd played I'd been loaded and I'd left the mouthpiece on the neck. I had to clean the horn because it was all dirty. I had to oil it and make sure it was operating correctly. On the end of the neck is a cork, and the mouthpiece slips over that. I had to put a little cork grease on it. I grabbed the mouthpiece and pulled. It was stuck at first and then all of a sudden it came off in my hand. The mouthpiece had been on the neck for so long that the cork had stuck inside it, and on the end of the neck was just bare metal. It takes a good repair man four or five hours to put a new cork on. It has to set. It has to dry. It has to be sanded down. I didn't have time for that. I was going to have to play on a messed up horn.

And I was going to have to play with Miles Davis's rhythm section. They played every single night, all night. I hadn't touched my horn in six months. And being a musician is like being a professional basketball player. If you've been on the bench for six months you can't all of a sudden just go into the game and play, you know. It's almost impossible. And I realized that that's what I had to do, the impossible. No one else could have done it. At all. Unless it was someone as steeped in the genius role as I was. As I am. Was and am. And will be. And will always be. And have always been. Born, bred, and raised, nothing but a total genius! Ha! Ahahaha!

There was no way to fix the neck so I put the mouthpiece back on it with the cork and fitted it where it was. If I wasn't in tune, or if it started slipping or pulling loose or leaking, I was dead. I wrapped some tape around it. I took the reed off. It was stuck on the mouthpiece, all rotted and green. I got a new reed, found one I liked, and I blew into the horn for a little while. Then Diane came to the doorway. She was afraid to come in the room. She said, "It's time for us to go." I called her a few choice words: "You stinkin' motherfucker, you! I'd like to kill you, you lousy bitch! You'll get yours!" Then I went into the bathroom and fixed a huge amount.

I had no idea what I was going to play. Talk about being unprepared! The first albums I'd made, I'd always had something I'd written, a couple of tunes. We drove to Melrose Place, where the recording studio was, and there was Les at the door. He gave me a sheepish grin and said, "Well, how're you doing?" I said, "Uh." He said, "It'll be alright. Everything'll be alright."

Les Koenig was someone I'd met in the early fifties. He'd been a movie producer at Paramount, a good producer with a lot of credits (He co-produced "Detective Story," "The Heiress," "Roman Holiday"). But right after the war they started a big campaign to rid the movie industry of communists; I think it was the McCarthy thing. I guess after Goebbels and Hitler they saw what a strong force propaganda was, and they were trying to clean up, rightly or wrongly, the people that started it. Probably they were thinking right, but like anything else that starts out like that it becomes a monster after a while and a lot of people suffer. So the people in the industry were asked to sign a paper saying that they didn't believe this or believe that or had never been a communist or had never attended a meeting or would never attend one and all this nonsense. And the people were called before a committee and asked to name communists in the movie industry. Most of them signed the paper and named names. They just said, "Well, fuck it-this is my livelihood." But there were a few that were such real people, such honest people, honest to themselves, that they would not cooperate. And Les Koenig was one of these. He wasn't a communist actually, but he refused to go along with it because he felt that the committee infringed upon his rights. And so. he was ostracized and kicked out of an industry where he'd become a producer.