Straight Life - Art Pepper [87]
In Fort Worth I never noticed any homosexual activity. I'm sure it went on to some degree but there couldn't have been very much. I think that because there were so many women, everybody had his own little thing going. They all had somebody they'd get cleaned up for, try to do well for. They'd fantasize about a certain woman and write notes back and forth, especially with the student nurses. So it was healthy, but it was extremely hard as far as doing time. In fact I told my psychiatrist, "Sometimes I feel like I'm just going to grab one of these girls and take her in the band room and rip her clothes off and rape her."
The doctor I had was named Graetitzer, Dr. Arthur Graetitzer. Doctors could go into the coast guard as an alternative to the army and practice their specialties there, so that's what this guy did. Dr. Graetitzer had had a big practice in Saint Louis with a wealthy clientele, and he joined the coast guard and was sent to Fort Worth to do his two years. I was one of his first cases. I saw him three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for an hour privately and then Tuesday and Thursday we'd have a five-man group with Dr. Osborn, the head of the hospital.
I realized that as soon as I could convince these doctors I had a chance for rehabilitation they would recommend me for parole, and once I got their recommendation it was automatic: they were in charge. So at the beginning, every word I said, all my actions, were directed at creating a certain level of sickness so I could recover from it. And I kept going on the premise that I was directing things, that I was molding the thoughts of both doctors.
I started reading everything I could get my hands on about mental illness. I got tight with the chick that was running the library. I got access to books that the inmates weren't supposed to read. I got a great book on abnormal psychology filled with case histories, and I adopted certain symptoms so I could recover from them. And I thought I'd really fooled these guys, and maybe I had to a certain extent, but one day I was in my bed reading this book and I looked up and before I could make a move to stash it, Dr. Graetitzer just walked right into my little cubicle. He said, "Yeah, I've been through your area a couple of times and I noticed the things you were reading. I don't think it's ... Why are you reading these things?" I told him, "I was just interested, being as we're dealing in psychiatry. It's just very interesting." He said, "I don't think that at your, in your position, in your condition that it's wise to be reading things like this. I think it would tend to hinder the work we're trying to do. You can read what you like, but I don't think it's to your advantage to do so." I said okay, and then, finally, I got so interested in what was happening I decided I wasn't hurting anyone but myself. So instead of playing this game I figured I'd better use the time to my advantage and learn something that might help me. I started leveling with the doctors, trying to find out if there was anything to psychiatry, if there was any way that you could change anything by knowing about yourself. I got very serious, and everything I did during the day, I would talk about at these sessions. I talked about Ping-Pong.
I was playing a lot of Ping-Pong. It got to the point where I played a little every day, and if I had the time I'd play four or five or six hours straight. And the same things that had always