Straight Life

by Art Pepper; Laurie Pepper

  I was scuffling. I wasn't working too much, but I'd done a lot of recording and I was well known, so the Martin Company had given me a horn for advertising. I woke up one morning, sick, and I took this horn down and asked Susan if I could borrow the car. I took the Cadillac and drove down to Main Street and pawned my alto. I went from there to East L.A. and got a gram of heroin. I was very sick and wanted to fix where I'd got the stuff, but the guy lived with his wife and mother and there was no place we could go, so I had to drive all the way back to the Strip. I had this gram rolled up in cellophane, ten numberfive caps in a row, wrapped in cellophane. I didn't want to hold them in my mouth, but after I got off the freeway and I'd gotten almost to the Strip I decided I'd better put them somewhere, so I put them in my sock, the ten caps, down in my right sock, thinking that that would be cool, which it always had been before.

  I stopped the car out on the street near Susan's. I got out and looked around. Everything looked alright so I walked through the parking lot. I always went through the back because I wasn't registered in the apartment. I had stashed my outfit outside in a hedge by the side of the building. Before I went in I reached down in this bush to get the outfit, and as I reached down I felt something cold on my head, I heard a click, and I heard this voice, "Federal narcotics agent. One move and you're dead." I heard a holler or a whistle and a door opened, and I looked out of the corner of my eye and there was another one, and they both had guns pointed right at my head. The first guy said, "Lean against the building." They frisked me for a weapon, found the outfit, and then they said, "Come on."

  They walked me to the back stairway, walked me in, marched me right to the door of Susan's apartment, and they said, "Knock on the door. Don't say anything or you're dead." There was nothing I could do. I knocked, and the door opened, and there she was. They ran into the apartment. They told Susan and a friend of mine, Joe Martin, who was there, "Don't move!" Susan is an innocent little girl; Joe had never been in trouble or done anything wrong except fix a couple of times with me. They were bewildered. Susan said, "What's happening? What's going on?" And one of the guys said, "Well, we got your boyfriend. One of our snitches told us he was a big dealer." She said, "A big dealer of what?" He said, "Don't play coy with us, sister. We know what's happening." He took the outfit and threw it down on the coffee table. He said, "Where's it at?" I told her, "Susan, don't say anything to these fuckin' guys." I said, "She doesn't have anything to do with what you're talking about. Leave her alone." They said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a likely story." They looked at Joe and said to me, "Tell Tonto here not to get any wild ideas or we'll break his fuckin' jaw!" Joe was Italian but he looked Mexican, I guess. They told us, "Sit down!"

  The feds started searching the apartment. I said, "You can't go through this place! I don't live here!" I turned to Susan: "They can't go through your place! Ask them if they've got a search warrant!" She said, "They can go through my place. I have nothing to hide!" I said, "I don't live here!" One detective turned around and said, "We know what's happening, man. We were told the whole story. You were picked up here for your last job." And so right away I had a pretty good idea who informed on me. I think it was Sammy Curtis, but I was never able to find out for sure.

  I kept talking to them. They kept searching the pad. Susan had been modeling; she had posed for a lot of shots-not nudes but semi. One of the guys said, "Ohhhh, look at this! Is this what you show your tricks?" I said, "What the fuck are you guys talking about?" He said, "Well, isn't she your whore?" I said, "You motherfuckers!" He said, "Watch out, boy, we'll break your head open."

  They went through everything and then they said, "Alright, little girl, close your eyes. You've probably seen everything, and if you want to watch you can, but we're going to strip these two assholes." Joe took his clothes off. He was clean. Then they told him. "Alright, bend over and spread 'em." Joe said, "What?" The guy said, "You know what I mean, asshole. I'll beat your fuckin' brains out if you don't do it! Spread your ass open, punk!"

  I stripped. I got everything off but my shoes and socks. In those days you could take your pants off over your shoes. I thought once this was over maybe they'd stop, but as I started to bend over one guy said, "Hey, get your shoes off!" And my heart sunk. I had loafers on. I took my left shoe and sock and pulled them off in one motion. I did the same with my right. Then I stood up and spread my cheeks and waited. They weren't even looking at me. They were looking at my shoes. One guy grabbed the left one, hit it, pounded it, threw it aside. The other took the right one, pounded it, threw it aside. Finally they got up. "Bend over." They looked. "You're clean, motherfucker." I grabbed my clothes and started to put them on, but as an afterthought one fed went over and took my sock, my left one, and shook it. He stretched it out and threw it down and I thought he was going to give me a pass, but he went on to the other one, shook it, stretched it, and the ten caps fell out in the cellophane.

  The cops were so happy, man. They looked at Susan and they said, "See what we were talking about, little girl?" "Yeah, well, there it is! There it is! Now what have you got to say?" They told me that the guy who'd turned me in had said I was a big dealer. I said, "What kind of a big dealer?" I pulled out the pawn ticket. I said, "I went and pawned my saxophone, man. Here's the ticket. Today's date." I had pawned the alto for twenty-five dollars. I had bought a gram of stuff for twenty dollars. I had bought a couple of packs of cigarettes. I had put some gas in the car. And I'd bought a burrito. What kind of a dealer could I be?

  I said, "I spent the night with this chick. She doesn't even know that I use. This guy is a friend of hers. He doesn't know nothing. I spent the night here, got sick, grabbed the car keys off the table, went out, hocked my horn, and bought the gram. I never even got a chance to fix. Here's the gram." They realized they'd gotten some bum information but they said, "Alright. Great! Great! We'll add car theft to that."

  I had told Susan that if anything ever did happen to say she didn't know about my taking the car, to say I stole the car and file a stolen report on it. That way they couldn't take it away from her. I wouldn't have gotten any more time; the charges would have run concurrently. And it was such a beautiful car, this Cadillac. So after they found the stuff, I immediately said that I had taken the car, but then the chick jumps in. She says, "He didn't steal anything from me! He can have anything he wants! Anything he wants he can have! He can have anything of mine! I love him! I told him he could use the car anytime for anything at anytime! He didn't steal the car, and I gave him the keys. No matter what he wants it for he can have my car!" The cop said, "Ohhhh! So you told him he could take your car? You knew he took your car? You gave him permission to take your car?" She said, "Yes!" So that was it. She had voluntarily given me her car; I had used it for transporting narcotics; and they ended up getting the car.

  They went to Joe and looked at his arms and found four or five marks. They said, "Alright, we're going to book you for marks." The feds didn't have a law for marks, but they were going to take him down and turn him over to the state. They looked at Susan and found two marks. "Oh, you don't know anything about it, huh?" They really got rank. I said, "What's wrong with you guys? You've got me. Give the girl back her car and take me down." So the guy said, "Well, I'll tell you what we'll do. If you cop out that the stuff was yours and sign a statement, we'll cut 'em loose." I said alright.

  We all went downtown to the federal building. I signed the paper. I said that I'd gone down to the Central Market, the produce market, and I saw a Mexican there in a leather jacket, and I thought I'd seen him someplace before. I went up to him and asked him, "Hey, you got any carga?" He said, "How much you want?" I said, "Un gramo," And he said, Hora le!" I bought it from him, but I didn't know his name. It was totally ridiculous, and they didn't go for it, but there was nothing they could do. Then one of the guys says, "Well, we're going to take the car." I said, "What do you mean, man? I signed the paper!" He said, "You didn't give up no names." He said, "If you want to take a ride with us a
nd show us where you got the stuff, then maybe we can talk about the car."

  They told me if I came up with a dealer they'd turn me loose. I guess they figured a musician is weak. It was a musician that set me up; I guess the feds figured, "Well, here's another musician." I must be weak, too. And maybe I would know somebody that was dealing. I had a lot of connections in East L.A. I could have turned over. They said, "Here, we'll give you the gram, the car, cut all of you loose, and all you have to do is take a ride and point out somebody." I have to admit that the thought of being free and being able to shoot the gram was very tempting, but I couldn't do it. When I first started using, this friend, Henry Garcia-we used to cop together-told me, "Do you know what you're doing? If you do this you may get busted and you may have to go to jail. If you're not willing to go, just don't do it." I'd said, "No, I realize and I'll be able to go when the time comes." And I thought, "Well, here's the test." So that was it. I knew I couldn't inform on anyone because I would never have been able to relax. There's one thing you have if you don't inform: you don't feel bad about yourself. No matter how bad things get, you have that. It's something that a lot of people don't understand, but anybody who's been in that position realizes what it is and knows what I'm talking about. So they kept after me, and I told them no.

  I told Susan, "File a theft report. Say I stole your car and get it back. They can't hold it and I'm not going to turn over on anybody to save it." The feds walked us across the street to the L.A. County jail, where they house you even if you're a federal prisoner. Just before we went upstairs one fed said, "Well, this is your last chance. You don't have to go up there. Take a ride, make a buy, and that's it. We'll cut you loose and you can go to your pad and get loaded." I was deathly sick. I told them no. I said, "Are you going to keep your promise about cutting Joe and Susan loose?" The fed motioned to this other fed and he told them, "Okay, you're free. Say goodbye." Joe shook my hand. Susan said, "Oh, Arthur, I love you!" She said, "Is there anything I can do?" I said, "No, take care of yourself." She asked the detective, "Can I kiss him goodbye?" She grabbed me and kissed me and held on to me. She was just, like, a little girl, you know, that had cared for me. I had never cared for her but she was so sweet and I felt so sad. I watched them walk off.

  The feds pushed the elevator button and we got in. They pushed the jail floor; I think it was nine. The elevator opens and they walk me to the gate and they say, "One for booking, federal narcotics." One of the feds says, "You got any money for cigarettes?" I said no. He reached into his pocket and gave me a five-dollar bill. I almost fell over. Then the guy put out his hand and said, "Come on, man, this is our job. This is what we have to do. I hate a fuckin' informer and I just want to shake your hand, not being a rat." I shook his hand, and the other guy patted me on the shoulder and he said, "Good luck."

  8

  The Los Angeles

  County Jail

  1953

  WHEN YOU'RE BOOKED into the Los Angeles County Jail they put you in a cage with a wire gate, and you have to wait while they type up a whole bunch of stuff. You lie there and sit there, and then, when enough people are ready, the guards call out the names and you walk to another section, where they take your fingerprints. They do each finger and your whole hand, and they take your picture. Then you wait again, and there's no place to sit. You lie on the cement floor, and people get sick-they're vomiting. I was sick before I got busted; I was sick before I went and hocked my horn; so I was deathly ill by the time I was waiting. And it took thirty-six hours to be booked in.

  The agony of kicking is beyond words. It's nothing like the movies, The Man with the Golden Arm, or things you read: how they scream and bat their heads against the wall, and they'd give up their mother, and they want to cut their throats. That's ridiculous. It's awful but it's quiet. You just lie there and suffer. You have chills and your bones hurt; your veins hurt; and you ache. When water touches you it feels as if it's burning you, and there's a horrible taste in your mouth, and every smell is awful and becomes magnified a thousandfold. You can smell people, people with BO, their feet, and filth and dirt. But you don't scream and all that: "Kill my mother, my father, just get me a fix and I'll do anything you want!" That's outrageous.

  The depression you feel is indescribable, and you don't sleep. Depending on how hooked you are, you might go three weeks or a month without ever sleeping except for momentary spells when you just pass out. You'll be shaking and wiggling your legs to try to stop the pain in the joints, and all of a sudden you'll black out and you'll have a dream that you're somewhere trying to score. You'll get the shit and the outfit, and you'll stick it in your vein, and then the outfit will clog, or the stuff will shoot out the rubber part of the dropper, or somebody'll get in the way-somebody stops you and you never get it into your arm. I used to dream that my grandmother was holding me and I was hitting her in the face, smashing her in the mouth-blood came out of her face-and I could never get the dope in. You'd have terrible dreams: you'd flash to a woman, your old lady; she'd become a dog and she'd have a peepee like a dog instead of a cunt like a woman; and all of a sudden you'd come and immediately you'd wake up, and you'd be sticky and dirty and wet.

  The first time I went to the county jail, I went seventeen days and nights without sleeping at all, I was so sick. I kept vomiting and couldn't eat. Seventeen days and nights, and all they gave you was aspirin. You could get three of them at night when they had sick call come around. And at night they had salts and soda. You could get either one. Salts to make you go to the bathroom or soda to settle your stomach.

  In the county jail for a while they had a kick tank. They'd lock you up in a solid cell all alone. I knew a young Chicano cat who got put in the kick tank, and he started vomiting. He vomited and vomited, and he called for the guards but they ignored him. He kept vomiting and he ruptured a blood vessel in his stomach and bled to death, choked in his own blood. That's the treatment that the dope fiend got.

  I was once in jail with a Chinaman. He had been shooting "black" (opium) for years and years. Chinese didn't get busted for a long time because the Chinese as a whole are much stronger than the whites and the blacks. But then some of the young Chinese got out and started shooting regular heroin, hanging out with the other dope fiends, and they got Americanized. And so, when they got busted they ratted on their elders. This Chinaman was an older guy; he looked like a skeleton; and he was really strung out. He was shaking so much he could hardly walk. They assigned him to a cell but he said, "I can't bear the cell. Just put me on the freeway." The freeway is the walkway that goes by the cells. They put him out there, and for two weeks he did nothing but sit in one position. He didn't eat one bit of food. Every now and then he'd drink a little something, take some broth out of the stew. For two weeks he sat with his feet on the floor and his arms around his knees in a corner on the freeway not saying a word to anybody, sweat pouring off his face. When he got a little better I talked to him and he said that he was trying to put himself into a trance, to leave his body, to get over the misery. I've seen guys put their pants legs into their socks and tie strings around them so no wind could get to their bodies. Then they would walk up and down the freeway for days, walk all night long, and they wouldn't sleep for weeks except for these horrible moments.

  So kicking is the most insidious thing. It's a million times worse than they portray it. It's not an outward, noisy anguish. It's an inner suffering that only you, and, if there's any such thing as God, like, maybe you and He know it.

  The amount of time it took to be booked in was incredible. That first time the place was jammed with people, people that stank and derelicts. I looked around and thought, "What am I doing here? What did I ever do to get put in a place like this?" And I had no conversation during the whole thirty-six hours that I was being booked in.

  As I said, when you're sick the sensation of water touching your skin is like a physical pain. So the first thing they make you do, they force you into a shower, a funky shower; the floor
is filthy, and the soap they use is yellow soap that you wash clothes with, floors with. Then, after you've showered and you're shivering and your pores are wide open, before you get a towel, you walk out and they've got trustees there with the guards. The trustees have big cans with long handles on them, like fly spray cans, and they make you raise your arms and they squirt this bug juice underneath your arms, and it's so strong it goes right into your pores and burns. They make you pick up your balls and they squirt it all around your joint. They make you bend over and spread your cheeks, and they squirt it in your ass, and it runs down and burns like fire. They squirt it on your hair, and it's horrible-smelling stuff. I made the mistake of thinking that trustees would be cool so I said, "Could you go easy?" As soon as I said that they shot more on me. Then they give you a towel to dry yourself. You put on these clothes that they give you that don't fit, and then you go to the linen room and get a mattress, a "donut" they call it. You get an old, funky blanket and a filthy pillow that smells of urine and vomit and come. You get a mattress cover that you use as a sheet and an old, beat towel.

  I was so sick by that time I didn't know what was happening. You go to the hospital and they have you stand there and drop your pants, grab your joint, and squeeze it to see if you've got a venereal disease; if you don't that's it. They take you to whatever cell you're going to. I was white and I was a heroin addict, so I went to the white hype tank. That was 12-B-1. As you walk up to the front of the tank the guys come and look at you and they give you the coldest looks imaginable. And then you go inside. They finally open the gate, and you walk inside.

  If you have money, anything over six dollars, they put it with your property, with your rings or your watch, but you can keep six dollars on you, cash, to buy candy and cigarettes. They give you an envelope: it's like an ID and it shows your charge, your name, and how much cash you kept. If you're a narcotics addict they stamp an N on your envelope so they'll always know you're an addict. Then, if you go for visiting and you get underwear or socks or anything, they'll soak them first in water because people sometimes cook up heroin and pour it in an agreed on spot in the shorts or whatever, and when the guy gets them in he can cut that part out and put it in the spoon. If you're an addict everything is soaking wet when you get it.