Straight Life - Art Pepper [199]
There was a place in Venice where we'd go sometimes. The piano player there had a little sign: "The World's Worst Piano Player." And he was. He was terrible. Christine had a brother who played banjo and guitar; he'd come along with us; we'd sit in and be completely blind. Christine would sing. One night we ran into some people there who lived in Venice and invited us over to their place. The girl was one of these artsy- craftsy chicks that makes things. She made earrings for people she liked-earrings that suited the person. She took a needle and jammed it through each of my ears. She made a special set of earrings for me and put them in. We went home, and the next morning I woke up with my ears hurting and found I had these earrings on. Christine said, "I don't think you should wear two of them." She took out the one in the left ear. After that, every time we went out and ran into artsy people they'd make me another earring, and I wound up with five or six of them. Christine had a little diamond, and I used to wear that one all the time. I grew a beard. I had my beard and my earring, and I let my hair grow. Christine had boots and a little tambourine. We started wandering around the Sunset Strip, going into different places, playing rock.
In my conversations with him, my parole officer always told me, "If anything ever happens, trust me. I want to help you stay out. If you goof, don't be afraid to tell me. If you start using, don't hide." I ran into a friend of mine from the joint who had a lot of stuff, and it was good stuff. He was living in Hollywood near us, so we'd do him little favors, drive him around. He didn't have a car and he'd lay some stuff on us. Naturally I got strung out, and I wasn't able make the Nalline tests anymore. I had to hang it up. We moved to Manhattan Beach, and I was hiding out from the parole department again.
My friend Ann Christos had a place right by the beach. Below her was a vacant apartment, and we moved in. One night while we were living out there, we went to a party at the house of a friend who lived in Venice; they were having a little session; the place was full of weird people-they really seemed loaded to me. The guy asked us if we wanted a drink. He brought in a couple of little tumblers: they had ice in them and the drink was clear with a light purplish color to it. I said, "What's this?" He said, "Vodka with a little something special." We drank our drinks and stood around and then all of a sudden I had feelings that were so strange that I went to the guy and asked, "What was that?" I was really getting loaded. And he said, "That was acid."
I felt good, extremely good. I had no worries. I felt I could do anything. He had a long, L-shaped front room, and the phonograph was on loud, playing rock, the Mothers of Invention. I walked out into the middle of the room and started dancing. Always before I'd been too self-conscious to dance, but the acid killed that. I was shaking and wiggling, and I really felt elated. I felt I could do anything with my body. I felt I could fly if I wanted to. I walked back to the couch where Christine was sitting and I said, "My God, I've spent twenty years taking everything in the world to try to feel like this. This is it!" I went back on the floor and started dancing again, and the guy whose pad it was came over. I said, "Boy, I hope I'm cool. I feel like I might just float through the ceiling." He said, "Horn some of this." He handed me an inhaler. I took a couple of big snorts and I'm holding on to it and he grabs it out of my hand; all of a sudden my whole body starts vibrating and I feel a ringing, roaring in my head. I feel as if I'm going to explode, I grab hold of the wall, and I keep going up and up. I said to myself, "God, if I ever come down from this . . . " I started praying, "Please let me come down." Finally I came out of it. The guy opened the inhaler. He'd busted a popper of amyl nitrate in it.
I don't know how we got out or got back home. The guy gave