Straight Life - Art Pepper [213]
I went to the Veterans Hospital in Brentwood, where they would treat me for free. They checked it out and said that's what it was. I was in pain. I'd gotten a bunch of pills from the hospital, and I took them all the time. I drank wine and shot stuff. A guy I knew came around with some Numorphan, pills I'd never tried before. I cooked them up and shot them. It was like shooting heroin and coke, and it took the pain away. Then I got a call from Buddy Rich. They were on their way to New York and wanted me to join the band as soon as I could. At the VA they said I could play even with the hernia. My dad loaned me a corset he wore for his back. I felt strong enough, and I knew that if I didn't get back with the band or do something I was going to get hooked and die. Buddy sent me my ticket. They were opening at the Riverboat. Fortunately, I wasn't strung out yet, so I cleaned up and got on the plane with Christine and joined the band. I'd been playing lead alto before, but now it was too much of a strain. They put me on third alto. I wore the corset; Christine would lace it up. I kept working as hard as I could. I was juicing and taking uppers. We played the Riverboat for quite a while and then started back to L.A. on the road, playing Boston and Philadelphia. We played Chicago. The pain got worse and worse. By the time we got to Texas I couldn't make it anymore, and Don Menza and the guys in the sax section told me to just finger the notes. The last night was New Year's Eve, and the pain was so bad I had to stop playing.
I had a ventral hernia, and my stomach was all puffed out. We got back to L.A., and I ran into this guy again, and he still had Numorphan, so I started shooting it. It killed the pain so I could play. With that and some Percodan tablets I made it through the job we had then.
I went to the VA again and somebody else had a look at me. This doctor said I needed an operation. I told Christine, "I'm so scared I can't stand it. I wish I could die." I wanted us to make a pact-we would kill ourselves. The doctor said he had to make a big incision and then pull the flesh and wrap it around my insides to keep them from pushing out. He said it would be very painful and it might not be successful. I checked into the hospital. I was so messed up from the things I'd been doing it took them a month and a half with food and vitamins to build me up so they could operate.
I had the operation. I got pneumonia again. Finally I went home. I laid in bed and Christine gave me medicine. I couldn't lay on either of my sides or on my stomach. Fortunately we had a little TV at the foot of the bed. The guy came around with the Numorphan, and I bought some heroin, too. I got strung out like a dog. Then one day I noticed the little pain again. I looked at my stomach and saw a swelling. There was a little area right in the middle that was puffing out exactly the way it had the last time. I had the TV by the bed, and I left it on all day and all night.
Christine couldn't stand it anymore. She wanted me to go to her mother's house and stay. Her mother was sick, too. She had had an operation at the same time, and Christine wanted to take care of both of us at her mother's. I was using. I couldn't do it. She had to leave. She said, "You're just going to kill yourself! That's all you want to do! I can't watch it anymore!" She cried and called me every name under the sun. She left. I laid in bed and watched television.
In the icebox was a little lunch meat, a little jar of mayonnaise, and half a loaf of bread. I'd take my medicine. This guy would come with the Numorphan. The guy I was copping stuff from, he'd bring a taste over and lay it on me; I got him to go pawn my horn. Christine came back three days later. She burst out crying when she saw me: "Oh God, Art, you look like you're dead. Look at yourself!"