Straight Life - Art Pepper [132]
Later on, after I got busted and got out on bail, I went over to Ruben's to see her. I looked out in the yard and couldn't believe my eyes. I said, "Is that you, Bijou?" Always before she'd hold her tail straight up. She'd wag it. She'd prance. I saw this dog slinking around with her tail between her legs. She was fat, and she had grease on her. Her head looked like a lion's head. Ruben had trimmed the hair off her body but he'd left it on her head because he was afraid he might hurt her eyes or her ears. She looked at me and started to wag her tail, and then she said, "Ohhhh, God. I look awful."
I talked to Ruben and I said, "What happened to her?" He said, "Oh, she's fine except for her haircut." I said, "Well, how'd she get so fat? She used to be so groovy." He said, "Oh, she likes tortillas and beans, man. We've been feeding her tortillas and beans." I went through a big scene with them, but they finally agreed to sell her back to me. I took her to a grooming parlor. All the other dogs were there, strutting around, and there were beautiful cats sitting in people's laps. I walked in with this fat dog in a rope collar. She didn't even want to go in the door. I had to carry her, and she hid her head so nobody would see her. The nurse took her on the leash, and the dog looked at me and then slunk out of the room hiding her eyes. And all the animals were looking at her, like, "Who is that? What is she doing here?"
It took a couple hours or a couple days, I don't remember, and I came back. They called my name. The door opens, and here comes Bijou, just prancing out. I had bought her a collar and given it to them, a little diamond collar with blue, beautiful against her champagne color. They'd cleaned her and clipped her. She walked out with her tail up. She strutted out. She looked marvelous. She looked down her nose at all the other dogs and at the people, and then when I petted her she went and peed on the floor as if to say, "There. Take that!"
I kept her until it was time to go back to jail. Then I gave her to Diane's sister, Marie. She had a nice, big home in West L.A.
Boosting is hard. Every day you go through the hassle of stealing some little thing, taking a chance of getting busted, trying to sell it to a fence, going out to score, and by the time you do all that and fix, usually you've shot up all the dope that you got and it's time to go out and steal something else. It was a continuous job. It was a drag.
I'd go to bed at night and maybe I'd have a little bit of dope left. I knew if I had a getup, if I could fix in the morning, I'd be able to get started. But what would happen, I'd go to sleep and dream about dope. Dream about police chasing me. Dream about jail. And I would wake up at three, four o'clock in the morning, soaked with sweat and panicked. These dreams had just taken all the dope out of me, I felt. And so I would invariably shoot my getup, go back to sleep, and then wake up at eight and not have anything and be sick. And then that thing would start of running around trying to figure out how to get money and where to score.
So many things could go wrong. There's been times when I'd be going to one connection, and everything was running along smooth, and then one day I'd make the phone call and some strange voice would answer or his old lady, "Yeah? He's not here anymore." Or, "He doesn't live here." I would have to find another connection. I'd have to go all over. Then I'd run into somebody, and I'd ask the guy does he have anything, and he'd say, "No, man, I just sold my last gram, but I know where I can score for you, man." So you don't want to, but the only thing you can do is go with him. And here you are with some guy in a car in all kinds of weird neighborhoods.