Straight Life

by Art Pepper; Laurie Pepper

  She was looking for the employment office, and she stopped Daddy on the street to ask him where it was, and he said he'd take her there. He did, but the next day he got her a job with somebody he knew that run a restaurant because he was very well known in 'Pedro. So, let's see. The first day she met Daddy. The second he got her a job. And then he asked her how old she was. When she told him she was fifteen, she said he got as white as a sheet. The next day they went up to Los Angeles and got married at some Bible college. She gave her name as Mildred Bayard on the marriage license. And then he brought her home to Grandma.

  Daddy thought that if Millie could stay with Grandma while he was sailing-at that time he was sailing between 'Pedro and Seattle on a lumber boat ... But she didn't get along very good. She was a nice, friendly girl, you know; Italians usually are. And the family wasn't very nice to her, the Noble family. They were very clannish, and they didn't seem to take to her too good. She didn't know what to do with her time, and I think she did things she shouldn't have. Anyhow, after a couple of trips, Daddy decided that that wouldn't do. He'd have to come stateside. That's when he went to work in a machine shop. I was living in Watts then, and I kinda lost track of 'em until Junior was born.

  Oh, my! Poor little thing! He had rickets and yellow jaundice when he was born, and he was so skinny that his hands and his feet looked like bird claws. When he was three or four months old! Couldn't get nothing to agree with him. I don't know if she couldn't or if she didn't want to, but junior was a bottle baby. I don't imagine she had any milk anyway. She didn't eat right. Junior couldn't assimilate cow's milk. They had him to half a dozen different doctors, and they all told 'em the same thing: "He can't live." They took him to Children's Hospital in L.A., and the doctors gave them a formula for barley gruel. It had to be cooked all day, and in that she put Karo syrup and so much dextro-maltose, and that agreed with him. But he was still awfully skinny and they couldn't bathe him in water-he was too weak. The doctor told them that if they bathed him in olive oil, that would nourish him, too. He looked like death warmed over.

  Daddy and Millie had lots of fights about junior not being Daddy's. He was sailing when she got pregnant, and junior would have either had to be two weeks early or two to three weeks late. And so this Betty Ward, a friend of Millie's, smartaleck woman that she was, she was there when junior was born, and she said to the doctor, "Is he a full-term baby?" The doctor said, "Yes, he came right on time." So there was that question. But in time, Daddy realized that junior had to be his. There were too many features the same. You know them turned up toes that junior has? And Daddy's arms are shaped, were shaped, here just exactly like Junior's.

  But Millie was unfaithful. Might as well say it. I remember when me and Shorty lived in the big house, and she and Daddy lived in the back. Daddy worked swing shift, and she'd go out, and she asked me to listen for junior in case he woke up. She got home one night just by the skin of her teeth, just soon enough to get her clothes off and jump in bed before Daddy got home. Scared her to death.

  This Betty Ward had several children and they were all mean as could be to junior. They were all older than he, and they would tease him just to hear him holler 'cause he'd make a real big commotion when he was upset about anything. They're the ones that got him afraid of food touching on a plate. Millie and Betty would go tomcattin' somewhere and leave him with these kids. There'd be plenty of food for the kids, but when it come time to eat, they wouldn't let junior have any. And when they'd finally decide to give him something to eat, they'd put it on his plate so that the food would touch each other and then they'd tell him, better not eat it, that it'd poison him. First time I realized that was one time when Millie and Daddy were separated. He came by with Junior just at mealtime, and I set junior a place not knowing how he was. I just fixed his plate like I did for my kids, and he set up such a yowl. He says, "You hate me! You want me to die!" And I couldn't figure out what was the matter with him, and he says, "Well the food is touching! That'll poison me! I'll die!" And he wouldn't eat nothing either.

  Daddy's nickname for Millie was "Peaches" because her complexion was so perfect. She never had to wear makeup. She was a very pretty girl, but she got heavy as soon as she got married. Millie never cared too much for women, but she loved me. We were closer than most sisters. When we were neighbors, Millie'd bring junior over to me every day. She'd get all her housework done up, her house nice and clean, and then she'd bring junior over to me and go out tomcattin' and come over and get him just before time to go for Daddy. One time junior told me-I guess he'd been having a hard time one way or another-"I sure wish you was my mother." That sure made me proud, I'll tell you.

  Later on Daddy got a job on the tuna fishing boats. One time they were reported lost at sea, and they were gone for forty days. They had got becalmed on the ocean, out there somewhere. Usually they'd be gone for two weeks, come back for a few days, and go out again. And Millie would leave Junior out in the cold, no supervision, nothing to eat. Daddy come home and found that one time. The landlady lived in the front house, and they lived in the back. So, after that, he made arrangements with her that junior was to come to her house after school. But I don't think Daddy made many trips after that.

  Daddy and Millie fought all the time. They'd have regular knockdown-drag-outs nearly every day. And junior would get underneath the sink and sit there and scream bloody murder. It's no wonder he grew up the way he did. He never did have a normal childhood. Only with Grandma, and she wasn't affectionate enough. And he was Italian, and so, you know, he needed more affection than other people.

  Millie and Daddy separated half a dozen times. It was onagain, off-again. She'd leave every whipstitch. Then, when she found the going too rough, why, she'd come back. And Daddy always took her back because, he said, to his way of thinking a child needed its mother. That was a strong point with him, even though he got to the point where he actually disliked her intensely. Still he thought that she would be better for junior than somebody else.

  There was one time when Daddy and Millie separated-I think junior was only about nine or ten months old. Oh, well, she left him before that. She left him when junior was only a few months old. She left the baby with Irma, Dick's wife, and she went home to her aunt (Mrs. Bartold), and the aunt promptly brought her home to Arthur the next day. That's when all this buisness came out that we had never heard of before. The aunt give Daddy a real dressing down. She told him, "When you married Ida," that's what she called her, "When you married Ida you assumed responsibility for her because she was a ward of the court before that. So no matter what she does, she is your responsibility until she's twenty-one years old." Daddy knew he was licked.

  There was another time that they were separated for nine months, and Daddy and Junior lived with Grandpa Joe and Grandma in Watts. Grandma took care of him then, and that's when he made the most progress physically. Because he didn't have this upheaval all the time. He was just a little fellow then. He ate regular and had regular hours, and he was a pretty happy baby. Millie'd come to see him once in a while, but Daddy forbid her to take him anyplace. Then after nine months they got back together again. They finally broke up once and for all when junior was seven. And that's when he went to live with his grandmother permanently.

  At that time Grandma had a chicken ranch over here in Nuevo. Grandpa Joe had died, and she had her brother helping her out there. She had traded her house for the ranch. Then she couldn't make the payments on it, so she traded her interest in the ranch for a house on Eighty-third Street in Watts.

  Sandy was the man that Millie was going with while Daddy was off fishing, while they were still married. And he didn't like junior at all. But she went to live with him after she and Daddy separated for good. She used to tell me all kinds of things: when Daddy'd get paid, he did her like he did me, too, later; he'd give her all the money he brought in. So she was buying up pillows and pillow slips and sheets, towels; she was fixin' it all together. Then, when she got what she wanted,
she told me, she intended to leave Daddy and go with Sandy. And she kept this stuff at my house.

  Well, I knew what her plans was, but I think Betty Ward told Daddy 'cause he knew everything she did. Everything. So, one day, here comes Millie in Sandy's car. She came to get the suitcases with all these towels. And here comes Daddy. Nobody expected him. He looked around until he found the suitcases in my boys' closet, and he took each one of them towels and just ripped it in half, and they had a knockdown-drag-out fight right in my house. Well, that was the last time they were together. When she got back over to Grandma's house, she picked up Grandma's iron and threw it at Daddy and it just missed him. Would have killed him if it didn't. She went to stay with Sandy after that.

  Now, Sandy wanted to marry her. Daddy was in the L.A. County Hospital for an operation on his head, some polyps or something. He was always having to have operations. Then, while Daddy was there, Sandy had a stroke and they took him to the hospital, too, same floor. I met Millie at the elevator, you know, and she told me she was hoping that Daddy would die so she'd get junior. But Sandy wouldn't have junior; he wouldn't even consider takin' him. Still, she thought if she married Sandy and Daddy died, she'd get junior. But Sandy died. That was poetic justice for you, I guess. Sandy died right there in the hospital.

  Grandma used to tell me how sorry she felt for junior. Like one day, she told me she found him just sittin'. She thought he was reading a book, but he was just sittin' there, not making a sound, and the tears just rolled down his face. She asked him what was the matter, and he said he wished he had a mother and a father and sisters and brothers like other children had.

  Junior was just little when he got interested in music. Mr. Parry was his first teacher, and I'm sure junior remembers him. He was about nine years old, and they were living in Watts, and Mr. Parry recognized immediately that he was very gifted. In fact, when they moved to 'Pedro, Mr. Parry was so impressed with his talent that he made the trip from L.A. every week to teach him.

  Grandma was proud of junior's talent. Oh my, yes! She'd talk about it, too, to other people. She might not have bragged to him, but to anybody else who would listen she would brag to high heaven about junior's talent. Because she knew in her mind that he was going to be very rich and famous when he got grown. Junior kind of took the place of the children she lost. But she never was lovey-dovey, even with her own kids.

  He could do no wrong, junior couldn't. She'd get out of patience and angry with him sometimes: he liked to aggravate her; he'd bait her-instead of using a spoon, he'd slurp his soup out of the dish. He'd put his head way down. Hahahaha! And Grandma firmly believed that when he grew up he was going to be an outstanding musician, and she used to tell him, "You're going to be in society. You're going to be in a position where you'll need to know manners!" And I remember him making the statement "I'm going to be such a great musician that it won't make no difference if I have manners or not!"

  John and Millie Noble

  (John) I can't say why it took place; I was only six or seven. I just went into their house there on May Avenue in Watts to get Art junior to play. We were always climbing trees. And here were Moses and Moham [Art Senior and Millie, Art's mother] going at it hammer and tongs. They were battin' one another around, calling each other all the names in the book. Art junior was squalling and a-wailing underneath the sink, and I was afraid to try to run for the front door to get out again, so I just went down on the kitchen floor with him. I was as scared as he was. They were bangin' one another around. She hit him with a pot or pan; some doggone thing clattered down on the floor. Moses had a very explosive temper, and Moham was like a wildcat; she'd fight anything and kinda kept us kids a little bit away.

  We called him Moses, Art Senior. Art junior made up that name. Him and I talked about it. He said, "He's as old as Moses and he's as wise as Moses." And from that time on it was Moses.

  He was a self-educated man, very intelligent in quite a few ways because he educated himself in the field of diesel engineering, and he was a machinist, first-class. He had fantastic tools, and he was very meticulous. His greatest love, of course, was the labor movement. He started in Seattle. It was the IWW, the Wobblies, and he progressed in that field for as many years as he could until they finally kicked him out of Washington State, and he became acquainted with Harry Bridges and became an organizer for him to create the ILWU.

  Moses was very one-way about his thinking. He researched what he was interested in and then that's the way it was in his mind. I learned a lot from him, and I'm quite certain that everyone that was around him did. He was a hard person to forget. You either loved him or you hated him. There was no middle road.

  My next vivid thought about Moses was during the '38 strike, when he had a small Plymouth sedan, and they were going to go out and get some scabs. And they did a good job at that time on those people who were trying to break that strike.

  He was about six foot tall, and he was lean, and he had that bad eye, and he had his right thumb cut off, let's see, by an accident in a machine shop after that '38 strike. He was there because they were trying to run him off the waterfront. He had to get off the waterfront there for quite a spell.

  (Millie) What about that rumor about Pancho Villa?

  (John) That wasn't a rumor. That was a fact. Moses and a friend of his took a boat out from San Pedro, and they were supposed to be going out fishing. Well, this friend-Moses never mentioned his name to me-headed due south when they got out of the harbor, and it wasn't until they were at sea that Moses learned that they were going to Mexico with a load of firearms for Pancho Villa's revolution.

  There was another occasion in '29 or '30 where Moses had to leave the country because of his union activities, and he went to the Philippine Islands and ran a bar in Manila. When he came back, which was after the big depression had already set in and settled across the country, he came back with quite a little bit of money, and he was back commercial fishing again. He made several trips down to South America. I recall he brought back tuna fish, and being as the whole family was there-Grandma and Irma and Dick Pepper and us kids-well, he salted up some tuna in a big barrel and he put too much salt in it and it burnt the tuna up to where we couldn't eat it. But he tried. He wanted to do it on his own. And he was always out to help anyone. That was one of his big things. Even if he didn't like you, he'd try to help you. Later in life ... That probably explains how he was with Moham. My wife could never understand it. We'd go over to their house and here was his wife and his ex-wife sitting knitting on the same couch. The whole family stayed together all these years. That was very important to Moses.

  (Millie) Remember that time Moses wanted to buy some property? He was going to have him and Mommy [Thelma] live on the middle of that property. On one corner was going to be Junior and Patti; another corner, Bud [John's brother] and his wife, Aud; us in this corner. He was going to be ...

  (John) He was going to be the patriarch. He wanted to keep us together so we could always be in contact with one another, but there's one thing Moses didn't visualize, I don't believe, and that was such a fast-moving civilization coming up, going faster than he could think.

  Grandma Noble was a very, very-hahahaha!-stubborn and hardheaded woman, but you had to love her. Art lived with her, you see, and was under her domination more or less. Grandma had set ideas, same as Moses did, and when she told Art Junior, "I don't want you smoking! I don't want you doing this!" well, she expected to be obeyed, and Art, of course, didn't obey very easily. She was the same way with me, but I loved her very much because she did so much in trying to help me, although I didn't agree with the way she went about it. She tried to make me be industrious, clean living. She was a very good woman. Her ideas about young people probably coincided with mine in this modern day and age.

  Grandma and Moses fought hammer and tongs verbally, being both as stubborn and hardheaded as they were. They couldn't come to a meeting of the minds. Grandma didn't like the way Moses was living with some of
the women he went around with. Moses was her son and she thought she had some control over him. Moses wouldn't conform at all. He paid her bills, made sure everything was there, furniture, food, but he didn't want her telling him what to do, the same way he wanted to tell other people what to do. It was a conflict constantly, always a friction.

  Moses always admired my mom when she was a young woman. He was in love with her for many years before they finally got married. My dad treated my mom very shabbily. And Moses didn't believe that a man should treat a woman shabbily. He could knock her down and kick her-that's fine-but he had to feed her and give her the necessities of life. With Shorty, he'd go down and work, longshoring, and leave Momma with no money. He'd spend it all in the bars. He wasn't like Moses. He wouldn't take care of the family first and then go drink it up. He'd spend all the money down there and come home broke. We didn't have food in the house.

  Dad left in 1939, '40, and Mom and Moses got together. He was always quite attracted to her, and he, in her eyes, was a good provider even though he drank and horsed around. He'd been divorced from Moham, oh years and years. In 1942, when I entered the navy, Mom told me he was staying at some hotel in San Francisco, so I went to see him before I shipped out. I woke him up in his hotel room; his gang was workin' up there. We spent one evening and all night together, and he told me, just before I left, he says, "Well, John, I'm gonna go back and marry your mom." And I says, "Well, that's okay with me, Moses. I hope you have a lot of fun."