Straight Life - Art Pepper [163]
I'd read books about prison life and seen movies, but I'd never, ever heard of selling somebody for cigarettes. If I hadn't been involved I would have laughed and laughed. It would have been a great story to tell. But I was involved, and it wasn't funny. I went to Bob and ran down the conversation. I said, "What am I going to do?" He said, "Sell him!" I said, "He isn't mine!" He said, "Any death play, any shank play involved, we're in it fifty-fifty, if you want to do it that way, and we'll split the bread." I said, "I can't do that. I cannot do that." He said, "The guy believes that you and Penn are making it. Nothing's going to change his mind. What else you gonna do?" I said, "I don't know what to do?" He said, "Sell him! Sell him! If you don't sell him I will. I'll go to him and tell him I got control over the cat, and he'll listen to me, and then you'll be out the bread." I saw that the guy was serious. This guy was a friend of Penn's, not of mine. He was a friend of Penn's from the streets, this guy.
I went to Penn and told him the story. He said, "Oh, God! Oh, Art! God! What am I going to do? Don't sell me! What am I going to do?" I said, "Are you a sissy?" He said, "No!" I said, "Why does this guy think you're a sissy?" He said, "I don't know!" And then I looked at Penn for the first time in that way. He had full, pretty lips like a woman, blue eyes, blonde hair; he was really beautiful. I looked at his arms and I saw the hairs. He said, "Oh, help me, man, please! Don't sell me!" I said, "How could I sell you? You don't belong to me!" He said, "You're my friend. Help me!" I said, "Well, you better talk to this guy who says he's a friend of yours." And I told him what Bob had said.
We both went to Bob. We told him, "Man, you can't do that." Bob said to Penn, "Lookit, lookit, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll sell you to the guy; we'll get the bread; and then ... we'll kill the guy!" Penn looked at me, and I looked at him, and we both looked at this other cat. I told Penn, "Come here, man. Come here." We left Bob. I took Penn to the lifer. I told him, "Man, this guy's name is Penn. My name is Pepper." I ran down the whole trip. "He's married. We're like, next to each other in our names. We were chained together. We were celled together. We became friends. He likes jazz. I play jazz. We became friends. He's not a fruiter. I don't make it with fruiters." I talked and I talked and I talked so well, and we were so open and honest with the cat that he finally realized what was happening. Then we told him about this other cat, Bob, and he got mad. We found out later that Bob was the guy that had developed this thing. He said to me, "I'm sorry. I was told that that was what was going on. Bob is going to hear about this."
Three days later Bob was transferred to Vacaville. He had asked for a transfer. The guy had drove on him with a shank. From then on the guy became a good friend of Penn's and a good friend of mine. He started coming around, listening to jazz. This was a guy that had never had anything going for him. We started eating with him sometimes. And so, he acquired a couple of friends, like, out of the whole thing.
16
San Quentin:
Learning the Ropes
1961-1964
WHEN I BEGAN to learn the ins and outs, and I started loosening my cap, life became a little more bearable. Finally I got a job. You fill out a card. They ask you to put down your skills and qualifications, so I said I knew how to type. I'd learned in junior high school and thank God because it really came in handy at this time in my life. They saw my IQ, and I had neat handwriting, and that impressed them. They needed someone to work in the paymaster's office.
In San Quentin they had maximum, close, medium A, medium B, and minimum custody. There were people that were locked up all the time, and there were others that were allowed out in the yard but who had