Straight Life - Art Pepper [56]
After I got the outfit and started fixing, that was my thing. I still drank and smoked pot, but I was a lot cooler. Things were going great for me. I was featured with the band and we played all over the country. We'd go from one state to another and the bus driver we had at the time was a beautiful cat who knew what all the liquor laws were-some states were dry-and he'd stop just before we crossed into a dry state and say, "This is the last time you can buy alcohol until such and such a date." We'd all run out of the bus. We'd figure out how much liquor we'd need. If we went to Canada and had to pass through an inspection station we'd take our dope, the guys that were using heroin, our outfits or pills, and give them to the bus driver to stash behind a panel. We'd go through the station and get shook down, and then he'd open the panel and give us our dope back. And wherever we'd pass through we'd buy different pot. In Colorado we'd get Light Green and in New Orleans it was Gunje or Mota. There were a lot of connoisseurs of pot who'd carry little film cans of it and pipes with screens to filter it, and when we had a rest stop we'd jump out of the bus and smoke.
Me and Andy Angelo roomed together for a long time and before that it was me and Sammy, and we each had our outfits. I had a little carrying case, like an electric razor case. I had an extra eyedropper and my needles, four or five of them. I had my little wires to clean the spike out in case it got clogged. I had a little bottle of alcohol and a sterling silver spoon that was just beautiful and a knife to scoop the stuff onto the spoon. I used to carry this case in the inside pocket of my suit, just like you'd carry your cigarettes or your wallet. I even carried a little plastic glass. I would set up my outfit next to the bed in the hotel with my stuff in a condom-we used to carry our heroin in one to keep it from getting wet. I'd wake up in the morning and reach over, get my little knife, put a few knifefuls in the spoon, cook it up and fix. It was beautiful.
It was wonderful being on the road with that band. Everyone liked each other and we all hung out together. When the bus left Hollywood we'd buy bottles of liquor and start drinking; that was just standard procedure: it was a celebration. I always prided myself on being able to stay up longer than anybody else, drink more than anybody else, take more pills, shoot more stuff, or whatever. I remember once when we left L.A. we kept drinking and drinking and smoking pot and having a ball until the bus just ceased to be a bus. We wandered up and down the aisle talking and bullshitting. We kept going and going until, after about twenty hours, everybody started falling out. When it got to thirty-six hours only a few of us were still awake, and finally there was nobody left but me and June Christy. She could really drink. I don't remember how many quarts we put away. We drank continuously, I guess, for a good forty-six hours and we were going to keep it up until we got where we were going, but she fell out, too, so there I was all alone. That was awful and I panicked. I couldn't stand for anything to stop once it had begun; I wanted it to continue forever. I went up and started talking to the bus driver, and I stayed awake the whole time.
We hardly ever flew to a job, but a couple of times we had to when it was too far and we couldn't possibly make it in time. Once we flew to Iowa and rented a bus and the bus broke down when we were out on a little, two-lane highway. The