Straight Life - Art Pepper [198]
I had a job at Shelly's Manne Hole when I got out, but I didn't have a horn. A horn cost five hundred dollars. I got a tenor on credit. Christine signed for me, but I paid for it. I could only afford one horn, and with the rock thing going the way it was I figured with a tenor I'd have a better chance of finding work. I played at Shelly's with a great group, and we did a lot of originals of mine. I'd been playing like John Coltrane more and more over the past few years. He'd impressed me so much. I had never been influenced like that before by anyone. I knew I was playing great, but people kept asking me, "How come you're not playing alto?" They were thinking of the way I played before and couldn't accept what I was doing on tenor. It wasn't what they'd come to hear. That depressed me. Some guys came around to the club and they had some stuff, and before I knew it I was fixing again.
Christine had goofed around with stuff a few times but never got involved with it. She started fixing, too. I was only able to fix for three days, and then I'd have to clean up for four days so I could pass my Nalline test. Cleaning up meant going back to the Beverly Hills Health Club. I'd have marks all over my arms, I'd be kicking, and I'd go into the steam room and sit there while the sweat poured out of me. I'd feel like I was dying I was so weak. I'd look around and here were all these guys, all these Jews. They were wealthy, they had big Lincolns and Cadillacs, and I could hear them talking about companies merging, about producing and directing movies. After I left the steam room I'd sit with towels around me, sweating, the skin hanging on my bones. Where I had marks I'd rub with my hand, and the marks would peel off. I was sitting like this one day when I looked up and somebody said, "Hey, Art! How're you doing? It is Art, isn't it?" It was Pete Rugolo, who had written for Stan Kenton and was now a big man, writing for TV shows and movies. He said, "What are you doing now?" I said, "Oh, practicing and ... " I wanted to get away from him and crawl into a hole.
Christine had a piano so I'd sit at the piano and mess around. She was always at me to practice and to go out and jam. She'd force me out at night and we'd go to different places and ask if we could sit in. I'd play, and she'd sing, and it was great except that we got so loaded. We'd drink and drink and drink. We'd hustle people for drinks and take any kind of pill, smoke pot, or shoot stuff depending on what period it was during the week. When it came time to eat, Christine would go to her mother's house in Torrance and borrow some money and get some food.
Christine introduced me to Red Mountain wine. You could get a gallon for a dollar and fifty-seven cents. We'd put the wine in these little plastic bottles orange juice comes in and take them in the car, and as we drove we'd drink. I don't know what the two of us were running from, but we were continuously on the move and we'd drink two or three gallons of this wine a day. We'd wander around looking for places to jam. We'd play games. I started getting Christine into the things I used to do with Patti. We'd go to a park and I'd walk ahead of her and then turn around and say, "Hello." And we'd find a secluded part of the park and make love. We'd drive down the street at night, she'd pull her pants off, and I'd