Straight Life - Art Pepper [241]
At first I didn't want to expose myself. I was afraid it would be impossible to live in a place where I'd let people know my feelings. But it got to the point where people were so rank to me in the games I couldn't contain myself anymore. They called me an old man and said it was a wonder I could even make it up the stairs. I got madder and madder. They said I was a has-been player playing old-time jazz. They got me so fuckin' upset! I started raving like a maniac. I started telling people what I thought of them, and the hate just poured out. Even I was surprised at the hatred I had.
But I wasn't an effective game player. All I was, was full of hate and anger, and after a while I noticed that people would say something to get me started and then just sit back and laugh. You weren't supposed to commit physical violence or threaten physical violence even in the game. Several times I threatened to kill somebody or throw them out the window, and they would just laugh until some old-timer who was the weight in the game would tell me to shut up or he'd have to call downstairs and have me locked up. When you put the game on someone else you run an indictment, but it has to make some sense so the game will follow you and back you in your indictment. The people were all against me and wouldn't follow me in my indictments, so I wasn't really getting anything out of the game and it was driving me crazy. I wasn't playing music at that time; I didn't have my horn to talk for me. But I did have my voice, and I knew I could express myself in these games if I could get the people on my side.
One time I remember I was sitting in a game with this guy, Bill Coates, a friend of mine, a black cat who'd grown a big natural. The black people had finally gotten away from conking their hair. They'd gotten on the black is beautiful trip, and now they were growing huge naturals that made them look like headhunters from the upper Amazon. Well, this cat grew one of these things. He was a groovy cat. We'd put each other on, but we really dug each other. So somebody was talking to someone in the game and all of a sudden I interrupted and said, real polite, "Oh, uh, pardon me, just a minute, excuse me. Before we go on I have to say something." Everybody looked at me and they said, "Aw, no!" They thought I was going to come up with my usual thing, but I finally got them to quiet down and then I said, "Pardon me, boy." And I looked at Bill Coates. He said, "Are you talking to me?" I said, "That's right, boy." He said, "Alright, honkie, whataya want?" And I said, "Lookit. Alright. I know you people are trying to get your thing together and that black is beautiful; that's great, you know, if you want to do that, and 'let the white people do the dirty jobs,' and 'we want free money from the government,' and 'we don't want to be sent to jail because we're black and prejudiced against,' but, well, I'll forget all that. There's just one thing now. There's women in this room, right?" And he said, "Yeah. . ." And I said, "Well, would you please ... before we go on ... would you please remove your hat?" Everybody just cracked up.
From that moment on I played a great game. And I remembered when I was with Kenton's band on the bus, I used to be the life of the party because I was so funny. I realized if I could put this humor into my game playing I'd get the people on my side and they'd follow me in my indictments. I could still get rid of my anger, but the comedy would make me popular. So I'd run long indictments on people, make them as funny as I could, and have the whole game behind me, laughing like crazy. Little by little I began to be looked upon as a great game player. It got to the point where when I'd go into the "Stew" .. .
The Stew was the only game that allowed spectators. There was a room set aside for it with twenty chairs for the participants and bleachers so people could watch. It ran twentyfour hours a day, every day, and everyone was scheduled for