Straight Life - Art Pepper [131]
The money from the burglary went fast. When you're doing nothing but using, money really goes. Diane went. I'll talk about that later. Finally, all I had left was Bijou, the poodle, and I was going out boosting every day to get money for dope.
I usually went with a guy named Rudy who had an old Plymouth. We'd drive out together and steal tools. We'd go to building sites in East L.A. When the workers ate their lunches they'd all sit facing the same way, facing the street or the sun, and they'd leave all their tools hooked up, the drills and sanders. One of us would sneak up over the big piles of dirt where they were digging foundations and unhook the tools, get as many as we could carry, and get out. You'd have to crawl, and it was scary because if these guys ever caught us ... They were rough guys, construction workers, and you were taking their tools that they worked to pay for. As soon as you got out, the other guy would drive up and you'd jump in the car and get away.
I was just moving around, staying at motels and different people's pads, and I didn't like to leave the dog behind so I was taking Bijou with me when I went out boosting. And one time we were driving, me and Rudy and Bijou, near Olympic and Indiana, and we spotted an auto paint place so we stopped. Rudy would go one way, and I'd go another; we'd grab what we could get and meet at the car. We both got out. I left Bijou and walked around the corner to the place where they were painting cars. I looked inside and saw a big hydraulic jack; you pump it and the whole car goes up. I snuck into this place and grabbed the thing, and once I grabbed it and started to move it, it was too late to leave it, and what I didn't realize at first was that it had steel wheels, and when I started pulling it, it made this awful noise going over the sidewalk. It made a terrible noise, and I pushed it down the street just as fast as I could.
I get to the corner. I look for Rudy. He's down the other way. I wave. I want him to come immediately, but it's too late, and I can't leave this thing. I roll it to the car. We'd parked on a residential street right off the main thoroughfare, and I saw some people sitting on a porch a few houses down. They were watching me, but I was getting sick, and anyway it was too late to do anything but what I had to do. I open the door, and I'm trying to get this thing into the back seat of this old Plymouth sedan-it was a real beat car,'kind of a rusty red color-and I'm just killing myself. I've got grease on me, and the handle hits the roof and rips out what upholstery's left. And there's nothing I can do with Bijou. She's jumping up and down. She wants to play.
I don't know how I got it in the car. It must have weighed a couple tons. I get it in, and I look around, and there's Bijou down by this house with the people on the porch. She's running around the lawn, barking. I holler, "Come on, Bijou!" And I go after her, but she thinks I'm playing so she's running like poodles can. Her ears are flying back, and she's got this smile on her face. She's running like the wind, barking and leaping up in the air. Her tongue is hanging out, and her tail is wagging, and she pounces down on her front paws, stops, looks at me; I get almost up to her and then she runs real fast and, oh God, I said, "Come on, Bijou! Hurry! Please! Please!" Some other people come out of their houses to watch. I see Rudy up at the corner. He doesn't have anything, and he's running, and I think, "Uh-oh, something's wrong!" Here he comes, man, and he says, "Let's go! Let's go!" I say, "We gotta get Bijou, man!" So now we're both going after her. Finally I catch her; I get her in the car; and we pull out with all the neighbors looking and her still barking. I thought sure someone would take the license number or something, but what saved us was the fact that this was East L.A. and everybody minds their own business.
I sold Bijou to Ruben. One day I was really sick, waiting for Rudy to come over, and Ruben