Straight Life - Art Pepper [67]
My mother had gone to my dad, who was living in Long Beach, and she told him I was using. I had asked her not to say anything to him because he hated junkies; he'd always told me don't ever do that. But he found out and came to me and said, "Let's go out and have a drink." He used to come with Thelma, but this time he came alone and he said he wanted to talk to me.
We went and had a drink, and then he looked at me, and he put his hand on my arm. We were in a bar in Van Nuys, a bar I later worked in with a western band. He said, "When did you start on that stuff?" He put his arm around me and got tears in his eyes. And the way he put it to me I knew that he knew. I think at first I tried a feeble "What do you mean?" But he grabbed my arm. I had a short-sleeved shirt on. I had marks all over my arm. He said, "You might as well be dead." He said, "How did it happen?" So we talked and I tried to explain to him. I had tried to minimize the feelings I had, but it was so good to be able to tell somebody about it, to let him know how awful I felt and how really scared I was. He said, "What are we going to do?" I said, "Oh God, I don't know. I want to stop." He said, "Tell me the truth, if you don't want to stop nothing is going to do you any good." We talked and talked. Before he'd even come to me he'd inquired and found a sanitarium in Orange County, and they said they'd take me in. He made sure the police wouldn't hear about it; I wouldn't be reported. He said, "Will you go to this place?" I was afraid because I was afraid to kick, and I was afraid I might goof, and I didn't want to disappoint my dad. I felt miserable when I saw how miserable he felt. He said, "Anything I can do, no matter what it costs, don't worry about it. Don't worry about anything-I'll take care of you." That's when he started crying, and we hugged each other, and we were in this bar, and it was really strange, but I felt wonderful because after all these years I felt that I'd reached my dad and we were close. And so he asked me if I'd go to the sanitarium, and I saw that he wanted me to real bad, and so I said yes, alright, that I would go.
(Sammy Curtis) As to drugs, it's like the thing going on now. It's a peer thing. A lot of guys are doing it, gettin' stoned. It did feel good. People enjoy feeling good. You don't know what it's going to lead to. You don't think of that. I'm a follower of Jesus now, and I look at everything spiritually, so I think that anyone drinking, getting stoned, you name it, is looking for the Lord. They're looking for something greater but they don't know how to go about it, to find it, and unfortunately, in the search they fool around getting stoned, and it feels better. But it's a temporary and destructive thing. I've been there, and getting closer to the Lord feels much better. It's cheaper and it's constructive not destructive.
DOPE MENACE KEEPS GROWING
Dope is menacing the dance band industry. It has become a major threat and unless herculean effort is made by everyone concerned to halt its spread, it may well wreck the business. We are not talking about marijuana, benzedrine, or nembutal, although these are the first steps leading to the evil.
We are referring to real narcotics, heroin principally, and too many well-known musicians and vocalists are "hooked," as they say in the vernacular. This is serious business and it constitutes a triple threat to the future of dance music.
It is demolishing the professional as well as the personal careers of the addicts themselves, many of whom cannot be spared from the ranks of working musicians