Straight Life - Art Pepper [185]
Sleepy had heard the whole thing. He said, "Man, I'd give anything in the world if that cat sounded me! Oh, man, he's a clean guy. He's, like, a nice-looking guy." This Sleepy had done more time than me for longer periods, and he'd only fallen into sniffing glue recently, but he'd been pretty sharp as a hustler in the joint. He knew all the people and all the angles. He said, "Man, I would give anything!" I said, "Yeah, but I'm not a homosexual. I don't dig them." He said, "What's the difference? Just close your eyes. All he wants to do is suck on your joint, man. All you gotta do is close your eyes and think of some beautiful girl, man, and just for that little thing, this guy will really take care of you. You won't have to sniff glue. Whatever's around he'll get it for you. He'll get you food, good clothes, cigarettes, coffee, all the best. And nobody'll mess with you because she'll let everybody know that you're her man. They'll have to answer to her, and they're really afraid of her. I'd give my right arm if she'd hit on me. You've got the chance of a lifetime!" I said, "I can't make it, man." And Sleepy said, "Well, be careful then. Don't offend her."
I get downstairs. I'm nervous. I don't know what I'm going to do. I walk down the same stairway I'd walked down my first day in Quentin with Little Ernie when we saw the guy with blood pouring out of his stomach. I'm tripping out about all the things I've been through in San Quentin. I look up, there's a guard on the walkway looking down at me. If I make a wrong move he'll kill me. I'm going to meet a fruiter that digs me, and I don't want to incur the wrath of this fruiter or I may get killed by him. I get down to the lower yard, and here are all the Black Muslims on the football field going through their exercises to get strong so they can kill all the whites. And here's Mandy.
I go over to him. The other guy, the messenger, stands off a little ways like a bodyguard. Mandy says, "Hi, Art." I say, "Hello, Mandy." His eyes are cold as death. He's dressed perfectly. He's got nice shoes, almost impossible to get, and they're shined. He's spotlessly clean. He smiles. He really looks deranged. He says, "Let's walk over here." We sit down on the lawn and he says, "Look at these black motherfuckers." He says, "One of these days, I'd like to form a group and wipe 'em out. Kill 'em all. Aren't they ridiculous! Look at that monkeylooking motherfucker!" He's raging and his eyes are beaming with lust for the violence he's going to perpetrate on the black people. "But," he says, "That can wait till later. That's something for the future I'm working on." Here's these white maniacs hating the blacks, and the blacks practicing and training to kill all the whites, and the Mexicans are standing there silent. I'm thinking, "What's going to happen one of these days when all this stuff comes to a head? What's going to happen to this country?" Mandy says, "Maybe they haven't been walking over here. I don't want to sit anyplace that they've been near, those stinkin', yella-teeth motherfuckers, big, black niggers!" We're sitting on the grass, and I look up, and from the lower yard you can see Mount Tamalpais. It's close, and there are beautiful homes on it. Little wispy clouds are floating