Straight Life - Art Pepper [96]
I didn't have occasion to see this system in operation until several years later when I got busted again for possession. Then I went in and saw the cards. I saw a white card, a blue card, and an orange card and I looked and saw three black guys in the cell. The tank trustees had got ahold of these cards and just wrote a guy's name on whatever color card looked good on the board. That's how they integrated the L.A. County Jail.
They had music in the cages. You'd wake up in the morning to music and then at night you'd hear it. In the tanks there was no radio, no nothing. I went five or six months without hearing a note of music before I went up to the cages. So, if you can imagine, being a musician, or just being any person ... For most people, music is an important part of their lives, and to be deprived of it completely is terrible. So what I'd do to keep myself from going crazy, I would play my cup. We were all issued one. They give you a tin coffee cup with a little handle on it. I would hold it up to my mouth, leave a little opening at the side, and put my hands over it like you do when you play a harmonica or a Jew's harp. And I found that I could hum into the cup and get a sound sort of like a trumpet. I could do a lot with it. And in the jail, with all the cement and steel, that small sound could really be heard, especially from the corner of the cell. So I'd play to myself, and the guys would hear me. I'd look up and see that there were guys standing all around outside my cell, just digging. And I found that they got a lot of pleasure out of it, especially at night. We had one guy named Grundig, who had played drums at one time. He'd take the top from a trash can and beat on it with a spoon, and I'd play my cup, and the guys would clap, and we would have, like, a regular session. You'd have to be in that position to realize how much joy you could receive from something as crude as that.
I was in 11-B-1 then; it was before the tanks were integrated. And it so happened that one day I looked across the tank into 11-A-1, the black hype tank, and saw a guy I thought I recognized. This guy hollered over, "Hey, Art Pepper!" He said, "My name's Stymie." I said, "You look familiar to me, man." He said, "Oh, well, yeah." And that was Stymie from The Little Rascals in the movies, and he looked just like he had when he was a kid. We started talking. He said, "I heard you were over there." He'd been out to court. He told me he'd been in jail for a couple of years fighting his case. I said, "Boy, what a drag, man, no music." He said, "It's terrible. What I do ... I can't stand it. We get together and we sing." I said, "Oh, man, I'd sure love to hear that." He said, "Well, you'll hear it." I think this was on a Tuesday. Nothing happened. I'm waiting and waiting, but I don't want to push him because I know that music is a personal thing and you can't force it, especially under those conditions.
Then Sunday came. They talk about God and religion and make fun of it, but when you're in prison and then Sunday comes, you get a certain feeling. Instead of all the anger and brutality that runs through all the other days, on Sunday everyone becomes quiet, and you feel a presence, like, there is a God. On Sunday it becomes evident that something different is happening. Everybody becomes introspective; everybody is in their own little worlds; you can feel everybody delving into things. So it was Sunday, and all of a sudden I heard a voice. I walked out of my cell and looked down the walkway. I heard a voice