Straight Life - Art Pepper [95]
I was in the tank for several months, and then I was sent out to the farm, Wayside Honor Ranch. But after I'd been there for a week they found out I had a federal hold on me and sent me back to the county jail, and when I got back I noticed that everybody was uptight. I asked someone what was happening and he told me they were trying to integrate the tanks and these guys weren't going to allow it. He said, "It's really been a scene; they're putting down ultimatums, the police, and they've taken a couple of guys out and put them in solitary confinement, in the hole."
It's afternoon and everybody's kind of lazy, laying around, and there's three or four guys walking up and down the freeway. I'm lying in my cell when all of a sudden the gates start racking and "Clear the gates!" Bam! They close them. Usually they shake them a while for a warning because if you get caught going in or out the gates will break your leg. This time they closed them all of a sudden, and here are these four guys locked outside on the freeway, and here comes the goon squad. They ran in and grabbed these four. I think they got Tubby Whitman, who was just a monster, one of those guys that looked like he could punch a hole through solid iron, and they got Jew Bill Irving and Jim van Eyck, and they might have got Blackie Levinson. All tough guys, bad-acting cats. They threw them against the bars and started beating them up. It was like a free-for-all. They dragged them out of the cell block and opened the gates again. All of a sudden these guys were gone. I said, "What's happening, man?" I hit on a guy that had been there a while, and he told me, "They're trying to break the power of the white hype tank so they can integrate it." The bulls had to get the tough guys out; they took them and put them in Siberia. They'd been ordered to integrate, and that's what they were going to do, and the guys were saying, "It's a battle to the death!" And I'm thinking, "Oh, God!" They're refusing the food! Doing time is hard enough without all of that. We couldn't get visits, and all we ate was emergency rations. There was no telling what might happen; the guys were getting crazier and crazier every day. I'm thinking, "Oh, man, all I want to do is get out of here." All I wanted was something nice to eat and peace and quiet.
Finally, one day the guards came in and I heard, "Pepper, roll 'em up." I was so happy to hear them say that. I rolled my shit up; I was so glad it was unbelievable. The guys in the tank went to the front. They said, "What do you want him for?" They wanted to make sure the bulls weren't just fucking with me. The guards said, "He's doing time here. He's got to go the cages upstairs." I tried to act like, "Wow, what a drag. I won't be able to fight this thing with you." I said, "Well, man, good luck and everything. Keep up the battle." They took me out of the cell and marched me upstairs, and one bull said, "Did you really mean that? You hate to leave there?" I said, "Are you kidding?"
It was already integrated upstairs. And instead of cell blocks, we had cages like animals are kept in but with no doors. They didn't bring your food to you; you went to a mess hall and they gave you nice food. You're on the roof, on the very top of the jail. You can go outside. They've got a couple Ping-Pong tables and different things, and you can look out over the roof and see the city. It's almost like being free after being locked up in the tank. And you work different jobs.
Just before I got out I happened to be waiting for the elevator-I was a trustee so I had a lot of freedom. The elevator stopped and out walked Jim van Eyck, Blackie Levinson, and another guy, friends of mine from the tank, and they'd been in the hole, the black hole for all this time. They looked like death. The guards had finally broken the segregation. They'd locked the ringleaders in the hole, and then they'd gone in with firehoses and turned them on everybody else.
After that they used little name cards. At the front of