Straight Life - Art Pepper [98]
They handcuffed me and walked me out of the jail and over to a car. When we got to the car I saw the street and all the people. I said, "Oh, God, man, I've been in this jail here for nine months and now I've got to go to Terminal Island." We got in the car and drove. We went past the docks at Terminal Island. I'd been there a lot with my dad as a kid when he was working on the boats as a winch driver. And while we were driving I thought, "When's it going to end?" I felt as if all of a sudden I would wake up and it would be a dream or somebody would say, "Oh, well, that's okay. This was just a little test we were putting you through, and it's all over now. You can go home." We'd turn around and the marshals would say, "We're just friends of your dad's; we were joking around. Your dad wanted to see if we could scare you a little so you wouldn't use any more drugs." It was like a play, a farce: it couldn't be real. And then we pulled up to the penitentiary.
Terminal Island had been a naval prison at one time. It comes right out of the water on big stones, and it's all green on the sides of it. The gate opens, and they step inside. Another gate opens, and the marshals say, "One." You know, "We got one from the county." They march me in, and they say goodbye, and here I am in Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary to start doing three hundred and fourteen days just because this fucking broad Didi wouldn't cop out.
11
Diane
1955 - 1958
I WALKED into the prison, an old, old prison with a big yard in the middle. I went through the booking routine and they put me in a cell. Outside the cell you could hear the water bouncing against the rocks. I went over to the window and I looked out. I looked out and I saw San Pedro.
I saw Beacon Street, where my dad met my mother. I saw Fort MacArthur, where I'd been inducted into the army. I looked up to Daniel's Field, Navy Field, where as a kid I used to watch the football games. I could see the streets I'd lived on then: Twenty-fourth Street and Alma, Thirtieth and Gaffey. And here I am in prison looking at all this. What happened? How could I be here? For no reason. Up until that time I'd never committed any kind of crime at all. Ever. Nothing. Now here I was with people who were forgers and bank robbers.
I was so despondent and so drug with having to be there, I told them I wouldn't work. They looked at my jacket and saw that I had a high IQ, and they wanted me to work in the school or do something constructive, but I said no. They gave me a job with a little pan and a little broom and I swept the yard. In the morning, after everybody went to work, I would go out and sweep for a couple of hours, and then after supper I'd sweep for maybe an hour, and it was really funny. I wouldn't do anything else. Here I was, probably one of the most handsome people in the place-I could probably have been a movie star or a great engineer at Cal Tech-and here I was with a little broom sweeping up spit and cigarette butts and seagull shit! Hahahaha!
We had a saying: "To loosen your wig." When you got uptight and really nervous, then you'd "unscrew your cap," and that was the only way I could stand doing the time. I'd get silly and nutty and make weird noises. I'd walk like a spastic. Everybody would be lined up to go to work, and I'd walk right by them shaking and kind of slobbering. And that's when I started getting a reputation as a nut, and I saw that even the toughest convicts started looking at me with a kind of fear.
I met a guy, Myaki, and we became pretty friendly. He was a slender Chinaman. He had a bony face; you could see the bones all over his body. And he was a real warm guy, one of those guys who'd do anything for me. He worked in the hospital, and he was a very good criminal. He could open locks and was an expert at breaking into safes, so he used to steal things out of the medical locker. He'd get alcohol and make up different concoctions. He'd get sleepers