Straight Life - Art Pepper [19]
I used to go over, to go swimming or something with Art, and I'd have to wait while he finished his lessons. Art was excited about his music to the extent that when I came over he'd show me a music lesson or passage that Mr. Parry had left him and he'd say, "How does this sound, John?" He'd play it for me. I didn't know one note from another, but I listened and I could see just how enthusiastic he was. The last time I saw Mr. Parry and Art practicing in the living room there, Mr. Parry said, "Art, you keep this up and your name will be in lights all over this whole country." Of course, Art was a little puffed up about that.
We used to talk. I had my mom, who showed a lot of love and protection for us kids; whereas Art, his mother was not there and he had to depend on Grandma and her strictness and Moses and his very vocal-he was very forceful in the way he spoke, especially when he was a young man. Art used to love to get away; we spent a lot of time together just because of that. And he'd often say, "I wish I could just get away from Grandma, from Moses." He talked very little about Moham. Very little. Because, you see, she was too young then to be very maternal toward him. She went her way and let Art junior go his, and he resented that very much. But he liked my mom real well. Momma was always loving toward him and she petted him, which he didn't have because Grandma Noble wasn't a loving type of person in that respect except to me. She never expressed any affection or love for Art when he was a little boy.
When we got older, we did a lot of drinkin', both of us. We'd go to a drugstore; they didn't demand your identity. We'd buy a pint of Four Roses, take our girls out on a date, and we'd drink it up. Usually, I went back to Grandma's house with Art and slept in the same bedroom there, and we'd get up in the morning and drink up all Grandma's milk outta the icebox because we both had hangovers. We'd guzzle it down. And then we'd go to the beach, Cabrillo Beach. We'd mostly finagle some beer to drink down there. We'd swim, sit out on the rocks.
After the war, and just before the war started, Art took me out on some of his jam sessions that he'd go to on Central Avenue. He'd take me to these clubs, and they were mostly black people that he associated with very closely. They were fine musicians, and they accepted him when he'd come in there because he was that good.
One night Art was playing, and they had this dancer, a mulatto girl-we were drinkin' it up. She came around and danced on these tables, slipped off her garter, threw it up in the air, and I caught it. She said, "You're the one!" I didn't know what to do. I was too young. She got down off the table, stretched the garter out, and put it around my neck. She says, "You have to kiss your way out of that." I was thrilled to pieces, but here were all these people looking on. Especially all these black people. Art was still up there jammin'. I told him about it when he came back to the table, and he says, "Well, you missed your big chance." Oh, lordy! That was before the war. Now, I left in '42 and I didn't see Art again until '46.
2
Patti
1930-1944
I HAD my first sexual experience I can remember when I was four or five. I was still living with my parents in Watts. They had some friends who lived nearby,