Straight Life (63 page)

In the end they drew up a list of allowable items. Each girl could have two dresses, three pairs of pants. Each guy was allowed two pairs of shoes. That was Synanon. That was really the way it was.

Everyone in Synanon would get a chance to go on a "trip," and I was thinking that if someone outside advertised, you know, "Take a trip! It only costs ..." There would be no way to set a price on it.

First they would select a "trip conductor" and a group of "trip guides." Then they picked a hundred people or so to go on it. They divided the people up into "trip game groups" and tried to get a cross-section in each one: black, white, Puerto Rican, male, female, square, dopefiend, old, young. Before you went on the actual trip you played a game with your group to get to know everyone, and this game-all the trip games, unlike the other games in Synanon-was directed by the trip guide. In the pre-trip game his function was to really pick you apart and get you angry and mad so you were completely fucked up when you went into the trip. I was so mad I wanted to kill this guy, Frankie Lago, who was my guide. He was an old-time dopefiend, someone I could relate to, and an excellent game player.

The trip would last for seventy-two hours. You went to the club in the late afternoon and took off your clothes. You put on a white cotton robe with pockets in the front. You weren't allowed any adornments, no jewelry. The women couldn't wear makeup. They wanted you just as you were. You could wear sandals or go barefoot; no shoes. You got one four-hour nap in the seventy-two-hour session. You went through game situations, you went for walks, you played charades, always together with your little game group or with the trip group as a whole.

There was a large room upstairs in the club where we all met after we'd put on our robes. The Woodshed was used for dances, rock-and-roll for the kids, but for the trip it was completely transformed with Oriental carpets on the floor and hangings covering the walls and the windows. The guides were dressed just like we were, but they had orange sashes around their necks and medallions. Tom Reeves, our trip conductor, wore a purple sash. Tom talked to us and to the guides. They played some music to get us into the right frame of mind, and then we went to our separate game rooms, where we would spend the greater part of the next three days.

The first game went on and on and on. I think there were ten or twelve people in my group. Some were very closed off. Some were very open. The game was played gently at first, then more and more forcefully. Tom went from one game to another. He and the guide would pick a certain person and work on him, rank him something awful, beat him to death.

On the second day, without any sleep, people got kind of dingy. Things started to happen. The first guy that "broke" was this Puerto Rican from New York. He told how as a kid he and the other kids would find cats and dogs and torture them and throw them off the roofs. He felt so bad about this. He cried. That was the thing that most bugged him in his life, and the idea was to get these things out of people. There was a girl, Valerie, a square who'd moved into Synanon with her husband. When the game got on her she said she was afraid of people and thought that no one cared for her. She said she was unable to give of herself, to give love, because she was afraid of being rejected. I identified so strongly with her and felt such compassion, I couldn't find it in my heart to berate her. Frankie finally asked her, "Of all the people in this room, who is the one you're most afraid of but would want to have love you and be your friend?" She looked around the room. She said, "Art Pepper." And she turned her head away. She couldn't look me in the eye. Frank asked me what I thought of her. I said I thought she was a very sweet girl, and I would love to be her friend. I said, "I don't understand why you're afraid of me." She said, "You're so different from me. Your background ... you've had such a hard life. I just feel that you hate people like me."

Frankie made us stand up in the middle of the room. He said to her, "Go to him. Put your arms around him." She couldn't do it. She cried and cried. I walked over to her and put my arms around her, and all of a sudden she completely broke down. She threw her arms around me and cried hysterically, and everybody in the room got up, and they surrounded us, and they were all crying, and they were all hugging us, and this lasted for ages, and it was such a release. And that's the way it went. One person would break, another person would break.

By the third day there were only a few that hadn't broke yet. I was one. During this time we went for walks together, we gathered in the ballroom and played charades, we performed skits, we went to meals, we went to the Woodshed and watched lightshows and movies. We had a Ouija session, and the Ouija talked to some of the people on the trip. It talked to me: "There's someone who's trying to hide the fact that he's desperately in need of love. He has to give in and accept people into his life. He has to give of himself. That person's name is Art Pepper."

During the last game they worked on the people who hadn't broken. Tom came in and ranked me and put me down some more, and everybody in the game group joined in, and finally I just stood up and started screaming, "Fuck the world! Fuck all you people! No one cares! Everyone's phony. Nobody cares about me! I've spent ten years in prison because of a fuckin' rat, supposed to be a friend of mine! My mother never wanted me! My wife left me as soon as I went to jail!" I went on and on. "Because I was white I was never really accepted in jazz! I've suffered all my life, and I've never done anything wrong!" Frankie said, "We know that's a lie. No one is that perfect. No one is that perfect. What have you done?" I tried to think. I started to tell him about the girl I'd raped in England but I said, "She led me on!" Frank just laughed at me. He said, "You don't feel bad about that. What have you done?" I told about slapping my daughter's hand when she wouldn't eat her dinner, and then I remembered that my father had done the same thing to me. That was wrong. I said, "But I never ratted on anybody! I never burned anybody!" He said, "You must have done something. Everybody's done something wrong. Isn't there anything that you'd like to tell us about to ease your conscience, something that's bothering you?" And all of a sudden it hit me about Wally:

I had gotten out of Tehachapi with a five-year tail. Diane was working at a TV station as a receptionist and telephone operator, and we were living in an apartment behind Otto's Barbershop on Sunset toward the Strip. I was on the Nalline program. I lasted for about three months, and then I couldn't make the tests anymore so I went to stay at Ann's house down in Manhattan Beach, to hide, because I was afraid my parole officer was going to pick me up and send me back to the joint with a violation.

One day Diane called me up in Manhattan Beach. A friend of mine had called and wanted to score an ounce. Diane was going to do it for him, and we would get a portion of the stuff for scoring. Ann and I decided to go up to town to make a taste. We drove to Hollywood to my place. Diane wasn't there. On the door was a note from my parole officer saying that if I would call him he'd give me a break. The note was dated that day so I figured he'd gone home. I figured it was probably cool to go into the pad. I opened the door with my key. We waited and waited. Finally we hear a noise, we hide, the door opens, and it's Diane. I hadn't seen her for several days, and she's supposed to be my wife, you know, but there's no thought of hello or a kiss. It's just, "Have you got anything?" "Yeah, let me go first." "Ohhhh, man!"

We went into the bathroom and cooked up the heroin, and I hit her. Ann says, "Why don't you let me go next?" "I'm next." After I'd fixed and fixed Ann, Diane said, "Something awful just happened." And she told us this story.

"I copped from Wally. This friend of yours came by, left the bread, and I called Wally. I went over and laid the bread on him." They went to East L.A. and scored and came back and gave the guy his ounce. He'd given them four hundred fifty dollars and Wally had gotten two ounces for a hundred ninety each. Then they'd taken the other guy's ounce and cut it with milk sugar; so he got about two-thirds of an ounce for four hundred fifty dollars and Diane and Wally split the bread and the dope that was left.

Wally was a heavy set, kind of a Buddha-looking guy, a Mexican guy, a good friend. He had a little beat pad in a court. He and Diane went to this place and into his breakfast nook to divide the stuff and fix. Wally was drunk. That was his failing. He liked the kick of drinking and fixing. He fixed and then, as Diane looked on, the sweat started pouring out of him and his eyes went back in his head. She said, "Wally, Wally, are you cool?" He fell and his head hit the table right in the pile of heroin. She tried to raise his head and brush the heroin off his hair and face so she wouldn't lose any of it. She slapped him. She went and got some water and put it on him. She just goofed around. One time when she had gone out, I'd filled three droppers with milk and shot them into her vein and saved her life. All she did was slap him and holler at him and rub his wrists. Then she panicked. She picked up our portion of the stuff, turned out the lights, and came back to the pad. And she hadn't said a thing to us until we'd all fixed.

I said, "We've gotta do something! Let's go!" Ann said, "You can't go, Art. He lives right in Hollywood in a court. There's people all around." Diane said, "I know he's dead! I'm sure he's dead! That's why I came back. There's no use you going. Why should you go to prison if he's already dead? It wasn't your fault. He's the one that got drunk. I told him not to drink!" I still felt bad because I liked the guy. I said, "Go back. If you can't revive him be sure you wipe your fingerprints off the place."

They went to Wally's. He hadn't moved. Ann, who's pretty hep, checked his pulse, took a mirror, and held it up to his mouth. He was dead. Diane grabbed up the remaining heroin and went through his pockets. She got all his money and found out he hadn't paid as much as he'd said. He'd got the stuff for a hundred fifty dollars an ounce. She said, "That bastard! He overcharged me!" Ann is wiping the doorknobs. She looks around and sees Diane-evidently Wally had been boosting and he had a lot of clothes in the pad-Diane was going through the stuff, grabbing this and that. Not only does she have his money and his dope, she's going to take the clothes, anything that'll fit. Ann says, "Are you kidding? Let's get outta here!" They come back. Diane says, "Well, look what we got!" And she threw down the money and the rest of the dope. She was all happy, and she had new clothes. We went into the bathroom and fixed again.

A couple of weeks later I'm in the county jail waiting to go to Chino for a six-month dryout, and I get a visit from my parole officer. We talk. He says, "By the way, I thought you might be interested in this." He knew that Wally and I were friends. He hands me a clipping about this guy who was discovered in a little court in Hollywood all bloated and turned blue. They found him by the smell.

I said, "But what could I have done? What could I have done? He was already dead!" But, "Oh, God," I said, "What really bothers me is the fact that I left him there in the house to rot, that I drove by the place and knew he was there, but I was afraid to call the police." And I felt Wally knew. I said, "But he's dead. If he was alive I could seek him out and ask him to forgive me!" Frankie said, "Look around the room. Is there anybody here who reminds you of Wally?" I looked at Frankie. I said, "God! You do!" He said, "Alright. Are you really serious? If you're not being real, it won't do any good."

Frankie lay down on the floor in the middle of the room. He crossed his hands on his chest. He said, "I'm Wally and I'm dead." You could hear a pin drop. I got down on my knees and stayed there looking at him, and he was Wally and he was dead. He said, "Art, I thought you were my friend. I thought we were tight. All the good times we had. All the favors we did for one another. I know you couldn't have saved my life, but why, why did you leave me sitting there, rotting away? Why didn't you call someone and have them take me and embalm me and put me in the ground? You know I wouldn't have left you like that." I said, "Oh God, Wally, I'm so sorry! I was afraid. I was afraid that they'd catch me and put me in jail. I was afraid they'd recognize my voice if I called on the telephone or that they'd trace the call. I was just afraid, and I felt so guilty about taking your dope and spending your money. I had nightmares about it. Wally, please forgive me!" And I started crying. I threw my arms around Frankie and hugged him. I said, "Wally, please forgive me! Please forgive me!" And Wally said, "I forgive you, Art. I understand. I can rest now, and I want you to be at peace, too." Everybody cried and gathered around us, and I felt such a warmth for Frankie and for everybody in the room. I went to them and kissed them and held them. I kissed this Puerto Rican who I'd hated because he'd tortured animals. It had been haunting him all his life. I forgave everybody. I felt that I'd been cleansed. I felt that I was floating on air.

At the end of the trip, we gathered in the Woodshed again. The ballroom downstairs was packed with people waiting for us. Somebody went down and gave word to the house that the trip was breaking. I had seen it happen. I had played for it with the band, but this was different. We came down in our robes, all of us kind of funky, all the faces swollen from crying and from not sleeping, and we looked really angelic, really beautiful, so pure and real. Everybody was touched by love, even the guides, and we walked down into the house, and the band started playing, and everyone rushed onto the floor and grabbed us and held us, and everybody was crying, and there was such a closeness. And it wasn't a sexual thing. It was just a real honest thing of love.

In Synanon your mind was completely free of the fears people outside use up their energy worrying about. You didn't have to think about food or rent or doctor bills. You didn't have to worry about what you were going to do when you got old, if you got ugly, if you lost a leg. The first tribe leader I had, Bob Holmes, had kidney trouble. He'd had an operation and the only way he could live was through a dialysis machine. Those machines are hard for people to get the use of, but because he was in Synanon and because of the money and power and influence Synanon has, Bob had access to a dialysis machine each week, as he needed it. If he'd been on the streets, living in some beat shack in Cleveland or Watts, he would have died. So all you had to do was accept these changes and periodic humiliations and you had nothing to worry about.