Straight Life - Art Pepper [72]
I started working with a borrowed horn at different little gigs with a trio or a quartet or as a soloist with somebody else's rhythm section. I had run into this girl Penny. She was short and had a gorgeous shape, black hair. She was Jewish. Extremely pretty. She kept calling me and wanting me to score for her. She had a little car and she'd drive out and meet me and give me the money, and I'd go to East L.A., and then we'd go someplace and fix.
I remember the first time. We went back to my mother's house to fix, and my mother was asleep. There was a garage in the back that wasn't being used so I had Penny park her car in there, and then we went into the house, snuck into the bathroom, and locked the door. I fixed about three or four caps and put half a cap or a cap in the spoon and fixed her. I started to go to the sink to clean the outfit, and all of a sudden she looked up at me, put her arms around me, pulled me down to her, and she kissed me. That was her thing, kissing and having that intimacy at the same time the stuff was hitting her. She was so sweet and so nice, I couldn't believe she was actually using heroin. All of a sudden I hear a noise, a voice: "Junior, is that you in there?" I whispered, "Cool it. It's my mother." I said, "Yeah, it's me. I'm just going to the bathroom." "I thought I heard voices." "No, I'm here all alone. I'm just going to the bathroom." "You don't have any of that stuff, do you?" "No, ma, go back to bed. Everything's alright." "I thought I heard a girl's voice." "Don't be silly, ma, go back to bed. There's nobody here but me." I waited, and meanwhile this girl is kissing me, trying to hold on to me. She put my hand on her breast and was rubbing up against me. She was grabbing my joint. I told her, "Cool it! Cool it! We've got to get out of here! Just be quiet!" I opened the door and looked out in the front room. There was no light. Straight ahead was the front door. I told her, "Come on!" We ran out and into the garage, and I pulled the door closed.
Usually heroin kills your sex drive, but for Penny it was like Spanish fly. We got into the back of her car and she was all over me; as I say, she had a beautiful body, and she was so ex cited she got me excited. I got most of her clothes off. In fact, I got all of her clothes off, and there she was naked in the car, and I started making love to her. She was clean; she smelled good; and she begged me to take my pants off, so I did; she started licking me and sucking me and she said, "Please put it in!" I didn't know how old she was. She looked, very young to me. She said, "Don't worry. I'll be alright. I've got a diaphragm." So we had intercourse, and it was really nice, and when we finished she started telling me "I love you." and everything. "I wish we could live together." She was really far-out. I told her, "Well, give me a call, like, whenever you want." She left and I went back to the house.
There were lights on in the front room and the bedroom and the bathroom. At first I thought it might be the police, but I looked in the window and saw that it was just my mother. She was in the bathroom with the door open. She was down on her hands and knees. She had forbidden me to fix in the house, and I hoped I'd cleaned up everything. I walked in and said, "What's wrong?" She says, "I was right! There was a girl!" Penny had left a little scarf and her purse in the