Straight Life - Art Pepper [224]
Before I went there, even in the condition I was in, I had asked Greg Dykes if the place was filled with rats. He said, "No, man, there might be a few, but that's it." I said, "I don't want to ruin my reputation after doing so much time to keep it. I don't want to live with a bunch of rats." Then I got there. I heard these tapes. Here's this chick. After she finishes, other people start copping out on this guy and that guy and this chick and that one. He was using dope. She was giving that one head. I thought, "I should have known better."
After they finished with those tapes they played another, of Chuck Dederich, the founder, Mr. God, with his bullfrog voice. It was a long, long tape, and he just kept repeating himself as if he was talking to some idiot five year old, croaking away about the camera's eye, saying that when you're loaded it's like having a camera that doesn't take all the frames of the movie. He's saying that you just get a part of it. He likened it to seeing Gone with the Wind with a bad projector that doesn't show all the frames. But then, he said, when you've been in Synanon awhile, the projector gets better and better, and after you're there for some length of time your projector, which is you, is perfect, and you see the whole movie, and you know everything that's happening, and you understand life and yourself and your problems and the world and your fellow man. He's running on and on with this garbage. An old wino. Well, I guess he drank whiskey, gin, and stuff, but here's a guy that had a big, old line of bullshit, some phony salesman out of the midwest who happened to land down on the beach and in order to live had to run some kind of a game up under somebody. He was a great bullshitter, so he found a little, beat pad, and he found some winos, and he got some dopefiends to come in, and he gave them some soup, and pretty soon he got some money from somebody. By the time I got there they had this huge, old luxury hotel and other places all over-Frisco, Oakland, San Diego-half a dozen places he'd built up from this scam. I'm listening to this tape and thinking, "How could he ever do it?" How? I couldn't believe it could possibly have been done from what I'd seen so far.
I saw a guy I'd known in jail and asked him what was going on. He told me, "You have to wait and see. Wait until you play some games. I couldn't explain it to you in a million years. The best thing to do is keep an open mind. You've got to stay here. You know you can't leave. Try to be cool and then when you get in a game you can rage and call everybody every name under the sun and get rid of your frustrations. That'll enable you to stand it until the next game. Believe me, it'll really be interesting. It's a hell of an experience, man." I thought, "Well, what the hell." I couldn't go. I could barely walk. The food wasn't bad, and from what I'd seen-the people were dressed alright-nobody seemed to want for anything.
They started taking me out by the swimming pool. The Clump was like one of those Hollywood apartment complexes. There was a little coffee shop where you could get coffee and peanut butter and bread for nothing. I sat out by the pool during the day. I'd see people and chat with them. I was a celebrity. Chicks talked with me and flirted with me. I thought, "This ain't bad." Then, finally, "Well, I think you'll be okay," the doctor said.
I got my clothes, and a guy took me to an apartment in the Clump right near the pool. It was a large, two-bedroom apartment with two baths, and the front room was filled with bunk beds. The guy went to one that was empty. He said, "This is you." It was a top bunk.