Straight Life - Art Pepper [188]
I was a little bit in awe of the guy: he was older than me and he had so much talent. And I used to just sit and trip on it, you know, how come some people are born with so much talent and others none. I also see something in Art, which he's quick to admit to, which is almost a suicidal, a real strong selfdestructive, drive. Like those black-and-whites. We used to get on him about those black-and-whites because he'd get like a zombie, just slobbering. He was sittin' at the domino table one day, on the yard, and just fell forward and gave himself a black eye. The corner of the domino table hit him in the eye. One day he got up to go to the head on the yard and made a big, staggering U-turn and wound up pissin' on this little stage that was set up against the East Block wall, a little raised stage about two feet up in the air and about six by six. There was a stool on it where the yard cop could sit and be elevated about two or three feet above everybody, you know. Art took off from the domino tables goin' in the opposite direction, to the head, and wound up makin' a big, staggerin' U-turn around the yard and standin' there pissin' on this. He thought he was at a urinal when they arrested him.
I used to tell him, "Man, you're just a walkin' bust. Get yourself together." And Johnny Wallach, he's another dude with a heavy suicide ... And John and Art kind of reinforced each other's sickness. Both beautiful dudes, man, but they'd get on those black-and-whites together staggerin' around, and they didn't know who they were for days at a time. John finally fell out in the North Block with convulsions one day. Took him out of the North Block on a gurney. Art wound up, I think, in the hospital too. Either in the hospital or the hole.
I was in Quentin doin' a forgery beef. I'd started at Soledad, and I got popped in Soledad makin' it with a secretary. I was workin' in the procurement office. I was twenty-one at the time, and I hooked up with this little twenty-one-year-old secretary. She hit on her husband for a divorce, told him why. He snitched on us. Got her fired and me transferred. I did about two years on that, got out, got a violation and came back, and got out and got another violation and came back.
Next time I saw Art on the streets-I got out the day Marilyn Monroe committed suicide, August of `62. I was livin' in West Hollywood with my second old lady, Yolanda the Snake, and I ran into Art one day on Santa Monica Boulevard. He was just comin' out of the unemployment office. He was livin' in a little apartment behind a barber shop off La Brea and Sunset with Diane. I was dealin' at the time, and he hit on me to score, so I wound up sellin' him some stuff.
I took him out to this little old hooker's pad in North Hollywood. I had a couple of workin' girls, and one of them, I had just sold her my last quarter when Art called to cop. So I went out, and Yolanda and I picked him and Diane up and took 'em out there. I fixed Art in the bathroom and he immediately OD'd on me. He fell down on the floor. And that's when I started hating Diane. I was cookin' her fix when Art fell out, and I stopped, naturally, and turned around to help him, and she said, "Oh, he's alright. He'll be alright. Go ahead and cook my fix." I said, "You cold-blooded, stinkin' son-of-a-bitch! Your old man is layin' on the floor turnin' blue and all you can think about is gettin' fixed?" Anyway, I turned around and fixed her, and she fell out on me. And I found out, they copped later, that they'd been drinkin' Cosanyl all day. That got me hot, hot, hot because I, you know, I had to work on them for about an hour, hour and a half, somethin' like that, and I threw