Straight Life (42 page)

With Ralph Kaffel, President of Fantasy Records. "He was everything Art admired in a man ... a gentleman." At Fantasy Studios, at the Straight Life session, September 1979. Photo by Laurie Pepper

Art and producer Ed Michel at the Winter Moon session. Art said this ballads-with-strings album was the best record he ever made. Fantasy Studios, September, 1980. Photo by Laurie Pepper

TOP: Artand Laurie, backstage at Yubin Chokin Hall, Tokyo, July, 1979, during the Landscape tour. Photo by K. Abe, used by permission

MIDDLE: Art and Laurie on the book tour, San Francisco, the jack Tar Hotel, November, 1979. Photo by Phil Bray, used by permission

BOTTOM: Art and Laurie at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley 1981. Photo by Phil Bray, used by permission

"Art, onstage, during those years, was a riot.... He didn't tell jokes, he told stories." At Donte's, circa 1980. Photo by Laurie Pepper

The Art Pepper Quartet wearing their band jackets: Carl Burnett, drums; George Cables, piano; Art; David Williams, bass. The background, including other people in the backstage area of a nightclub, has been airbrushed out, but this was taken in Australia in August, 1981. Photo by Laurie Pepper

With George in Japan, on tour, November, 1981. Photo byK. Abe, used by permission

"I remember a day." Off Seattle, circa 1980. Photo by Laurie Pepper

We got to the lower yard, and I was feeling kind of sick, and Ernie said, "Now, dig these cats here." There were a bunch of courts where the Mexicans were playing handball, and there were two full-sized basketball courts. I saw these guys playing basketball that looked like Mexicans, but they weren't. And then I realized that they were righteous Indians, American Indians. Ernie said, "Dig these guys and get a good look at them, and if you ever find yourself in any close proximity to them get away as soon as you can. Never let them see you staring at them. Never bump into them. Watch yourself because they're dangerous. They hate everyone but themselves."

You stay in D section for a while and then you're moved to another section. I was kept in the South Block and moved up to the fifth tier.

Twice a week they'd have a shower run. They call out, "Showers!" You take your blues off; they rack the gates and run you downstairs to the showers in sections. There's about ten shower heads in these open showers, and there's this huge number of men in line waiting to get in. So as you go into the shower you throw your underwear into a bin and then you try to figure out some way to get under a shower head. There might have been five or six or ten people to a shower head, so you got clean the best way you could and then you got in line by the white room. When your turn finally came they'd give you a towel, and you'd give them your size. They'd give you the closest thing they had to your size. If you wore size thirty-two shorts they might give you a thirty-four or a thirty-six all torn and miserable. Then you'd dry yourself and put this stuff on. Cold cement floors. The windows all broken. The wind whistling through the windows. And the groups of people, the noises they made, the whole vulgar scene ...

Maybe there'd be a sissy, a black sissy. There was this one guy, they called him "Chocolate Bar." He had a joint that was maybe twenty inches long. It looked like a snake. And he would squeeze his legs together so his hair would form, like, a cunt in the front and then in back there'd be this long thing like a tail dangling, his joint. And he would be wiggling and swishing and singing, and all these guys would be saying, "Saaaay, baby! Saaaay, beautiful! Saaaay, honey! Boy, I'd sure like to have some of that! You're sure beautiful, gal!" All this sickening shit, guys looking at you, animals. There are guys that lift weights, that got all kinds of muscles, and they're flashing and posing and trying to prove something I didn't know what or to who. I thought, "What kind of creatures are these? What are they trying to do?" What they were doing, they'd see some guy that was young and tender looking and they were trying to impress him. They were trying to get him hot. Can you imagine a bunch of men trying to make another man hot? And make this little kid want them rather than some big spook or some double-ugly southerner? Then you'd see other guys, just terrified, guys with pimples all over their backs, people with big scars and horrible deformities. And you're there, and there you are, and then some asshole just purposely rubs up against you.

And you had to run and be like an animal just to get a shower. You had to act like the animals in order to make it. They only left the water on a little while so you had to fight, and once you got soap on you, you had to push and to touch a male body ... It's the most sickening thing in the world. But you had to push them out of the way to get into the shower because you had these guys that thought they were real tough and they'd stand right in the middle. You were taking your life in your hands. They had fights all the time. And the guards were standing up on the walkway with rifles trained on the showers.

The dregs of humanity, boy, that's what they are. The only thing I can liken it to is when I was in the army in England and France, the American soldiers. They were ordinary people that you'd see on the streets at home; they had mothers and fathers; and they were just human beings that go to church and are polite-actual humans that can get on a bus and pay the fare, transact business. And I saw them overseas screaming at women pushing baby carriages, "Hey, baby! Hey, you fineassed, high-cunted bitch! Hey, baby! How'd you like to suck on my big cock, you beautiful motherfucker you?" That's how they talked, and that's what they did, and it was the same in San Quentin. I thought, "Am I one of these?" I thought, "Here I am again." Only it was worse because I was locked up. I wanted to kill them all. I thought if I just had a knife or a gun or some poison gas.

I realized I couldn't stand the way I felt during those first few showers. I realized if I stayed like that I wouldn't make it. I'd kill somebody or get killed and never get out. I'd never, ever be able to play again. I'd never be able to get up in the morning and go for a walk. Never see happiness and beauty. I'd never have any loved ones again, any love at all, anything decent. I'd never be able to feel the warmth of a woman's body. I'd never know the companionship of a woman's love, just to be in a house with her and be able to hold her and look at her and to feel that I had the comfort and care of another human being. The pleasure of lying together, watching TV, touching one another, waking up in the middle of the night and feeling her body, her hair, having something of beauty there. I thought, "I'll never make it." I would have to kill someone or they'd have to kill me because I hated them so much. Every person. And I hated, above all, everybody who had a hand in putting me there, all the circumstances, all the ... There was no way to define them. I was helpless and just carried away in hatred. Can you imagine these showers? Twice a week? And that's all you could bathe no matter what happened. You couldn't ever be clean at any other time because it was freezing cold water in your little cell with the filthy toilet and the tiny sink. And to be locked up from four in the evening until the next morning with somebody that you had no rapport with, that you despised. You could never be alone. Not for one second. You couldn't shit alone; you couldn't piss alone; you couldn't jerk off alone. I looked around and saw these guys laughing and others almost in trances who looked like they were just wiped out. Oh, a few of them were loaded but very few. I wondered how they could stand it.

That's when I started talking to Little Ernie and Woody Woodward, a huge guy, solid muscle, with fists like ham hocks, but a warm person who played tenor saxophone and painted pictures and loved me because I was a musician. He had committed so many armed robberies before he went to Quentin that they had him in the newspaper, the all-time winner of armed robberies with violence: he'd done about two hundred of them up and down the coast. I talked to Jerry Maher, a Richard Wid- mark type, slender, with steel-cold, blue eyes; I'd seen him in situations with guys that were ten times bigger than him and meaner, you would think, and he was always at ease, had no fear at all. I talked with these people and others. I knew so many-Frank Ortiz was there and Ruben-and I asked them, "Man, how do you stand it? What do I do? I don't want to die here. How do I survive?" And I think it was Jerry Maher who told me, "You have to loosen your cap." He was kind of joking. He said, "I got a cap wrench, man, if you want it." He meant you've got to get a little crazy and a little dingy when you get too uptight. He told me, "Act like you're crazy. It'll keep these idiots away from you. Make noises. Talk to yourself. Mumble. Sing to yourself and groan. Act weird."