Straight Life - Art Pepper [202]
We were waiting for this guy to come back. Christine's sitting at the piano, pecking away at the piano. She says, "You were great." Then she says, "Sometimes I get the feeling you don't want to let me get my fix, you know. What's wrong?" I said, "Nothing's wrong. If you wanted to make it, you could make it. I just wanted to go home." I felt that all she wanted was to use me to gain her objectives. She wanted attention and I was the bait.
Finally the guy came back with an old, dirty outfit and two bottles. We fixed the methadrine. On top of the acid it really put us in a state. I felt as if my scalp was coming off. I played the piano, the few little things I knew; Christine sang; we drank and drank and drank; and pretty soon I was so far-out nothing mattered anymore. We stayed until about four in the morning, and finally we got in the car. Christine said, "I'll drive." She starts driving, and then she reaches over and unzips my fly and pulls my joint out, and she's playing with it. She takes my hand and puts it on her. We get to the pad and go inside and lock the door. And we made love, you know. And then we just laid there, glaring at the ceiling, each of us thinking our thoughts. I didn't know what I was doing or what I was trying to prove, and I was too tired to figure it out right now, and I couldn't sleep.
Mr. Dom kept trying to reach me, and by this time he knew about Christine. He called her and told her to tell me to come to the office or call him. Otherwise they'd put out an APB on me, and I'd be violated when I was caught and sent back to prison. I called him on the phone. He said, "Man, I want to help you." I said, "That's hard for me to believe." He said, "I really do." He said, "How much are you using?" I told him and he said, "Alright, clean up for three days and come in and take a urinalysis, and everything will be straight. I swear it."
I thought about it a lot. I was afraid that when I went into the office he'd lock me up right away and send me back to the joint. I hadn't tested for about three months. I decided I'd give it a chance. I couldn't really clean up that quickly, so we went over to some friends of Christine's who weren't using. I asked the guy to urinate in a little bottle, and I took that down with me and put his urine in the bottle they gave me as if it was mine. It came back about two days later, clean, and I was reinstated. I saw that Mr. Dom was really for me, and that made me feel good. I had to start taking the tests regularly again, and I had to clean up, which I did do, and I went back to chippying and sweating it out at the Beverly Hills Health Club.
After I'd been on parole for about two years the state passed a new law saying that when a person had done two of their five years on parole the parole officer could make recommendations about him to the board. At that time I couldn't get work in California, but I had offers of jobs in other places. In Canada. I told Mr. Dom, and he appeared before the board and spoke for me. The board agreed that being on parole didn't do me any good if I couldn't work and released me. That finally ended my parole and the Nalline tests.
At this point I started really thinking about what we were doing and it didn't make sense. I think if I hadn't had Christine during that period I might have straightened myself out.
The acid started these feelings. One time when I was loaded it came to me-the reason why I used heroin and the solution. I really found the answer! And unlike my psychoanalysis, where I found out why but found no cure, this time I had a foolproof solution. It was simple. I talked it over with Christine and explained it to her, and she understood