Straight Life (31 page)

Diane was always there at the lessons, and she was always nice. And they had a little, white poodle, nice and friendly. I went there once for a lesson and Art picked up his clarinet because he didn't have his tenor. He said it had gotten stolen, and I felt real bad. Now I realize he'd probably hocked it. He picked up the clarinet and he played this incredible, beautiful bebop lick, and I, oh, wow! So many people love Art's clarinet sound. They hate everybody else, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Giuffre, Buddy DeFranco, and they love Art Pepper on clarinet. He played this lick that really knocked me out. I think this was the second lesson.

I had been told to write an exercise out. He'd said, "It's an exercise so make it difficult, something that will make you work." I wrote this incredible, unmusical, impossible exercise. You know, leaps from the top of the horn to the bottom, silly rhythms. I'd done a little writing in high school and I really went out of my way. He tried it and he couldn't play it. Nobody could have played it. And he said, "Well, you'll never have to play anything this hard." He wrote out some more etudes and another duet, and we worked them out.

One time he came to my house. for a lesson because I lived near his father and he was going to be out that way. And that was really a trip. Art Pepper's comin' over! I'd been working on a little blues tune and I wasn't sure about some of the notation, so he wrote it out, helped me with that, and put a title on it, something to do with me, and that made it really exciting. Then we had some coffee, standing outside and talking, and I remember he was saying he was playing one of Bud Shank's altos because his alto had been stolen, too, or he'd sold it. This was when he was playing an old Martin. All his admirers were playing old Martins.

I don't remember the intervals between the lessons. I think it was every week, and I think I only had four or five lessons. I had met an older guy who was studying with Art also. This guy was in his twenties, a good tenor player, a serious, dedicated musician. He was the one who said, "You know, I think Art is on heroin. There's a lot of funny stuff going on. I'm going to stop studying with him soon because I don't want to get involved with that." And I thought, "Hmmmm." I think I only had one lesson after that. I got real nervous about this dope thing. I drank, but the dope thing was totally-foreign to me and it really bothered me. I think what happened was I just didn't call Art back again because I couldn't decide what to do. And then he got busted. That was the end of it. He didn't recognize me when we first met again playing in the Magruders' rehearsal band. Maybe it's the beard.

Art didn't play like anybody else. He wasn't a technician. He chose the notes. His lines were beautiful. He had a whole different approach to alto. The sound he got, the phrasing. I always got the feeling the notes were, like, bouncing out of the horn, and it was the way he was accenting and phrasing them. I dug his tenor playing, too. It was a very fat, dark, different sound. The album that I really loved was Art Pepper plus Eleven. He played alto, tenor, clarinet. I have that on tape in my car. Still. That's about eighteen years and it's still ... I used to wear that album out. The charts were great; the band was great; and the clarinet solo on "Anthropology! "-the way he built that solo still knocks me out. The first chorus was all down in the low register, kinda laid back; the next chorus was kinda in the middle; the last chorus he played up on the high part of the instrument. It started somewhere and it went somewhere, like, I'm gonna get in the car and go from my house to yours, and I know I'm gonna get there, and Art was playing that solo, and he knew where he was going, and he got there. That's the way all his solos hit me.

I wasn't into changes then. Probably if I'd kept on studying with him, we'd have got there. So, I wasn't hearing the changes in an intellectual way. I was hearing it on a purely musical level: the sound, the notes, the whole thing-the excitement, the beauty, the music!

I don't know if this was true or not. I was at somebody's house, somebody that knew Art and knew what he was doing, and he explained-the few of us that were there were on the ground, dying laughing-about what Art had to go through to get up in the morning. It was, like, a pint of vodka that he'd have at the bed and drink that. Then some scotch. Then he would get up and head for the beer. He would drink more booze in the first hour of his day to get the strength to go out the door and score than most people drink in a month. But I never saw him drunk or strung out. His manner then was the same as it is now.

I've noticed with Art ... He probably saw Perk and Coop and all the guys who used to make albums with him-they're all doin' studio work now. Suddenly Art's saying, "Wow, man, I've got to play piccolo and flute!" Runnin' around buyin' all these horns. "I'm fifty years old. What am I gonna do?" He says, "Hey, Steve, how do you do this? Who can I call up to play flute duets?" I guess he's come out of that now. But it's easy in this town to be influenced that way. Like, I never set out to become a doubler. I never figured I'd take up flute, piccolo, buy a bass clarinet, get into the bassoon. It just turned out that way. My whole musical scene has been "I want to work on those changes but I'd better practice the flute." I ended up being a doubler, never really getting into jazz playing like I wanted to. And in this town, if you're doing studio work, you're a success. If you're not, you're not a success. Of course, also, that's where the money is. But, when I was twelve years old I didn't take up clarinet because I was thinkin' about how much money I was gonna make. I was thinkin', "Wow, man, I made a note! Wow, man, listen!" But it's true. You can't play jazz and make a living.

The fifties, that was really a stormin' time for recording jazz. And that was great music. Today you have to be really strung out just to sit down and listen to a lot of this stuff. It's like background music. I'll be in the car and turn on the jazz station and they'll be playing some fusion thing, and ten minutes later I'll realize that they're still playing the same thing and I haven't even been hearing it. That stuff Art does, did, does, that's just guys playin' themselves, makin' music. He went through a period where he was playing all that ugly crap. You know, I figure that was just a time when he was trying to explore another direction, see what that was all about. I didn't run into anybody who liked Art during that period. But I'm sure the reason he's playing like he is now is because he allowed himself to go through that period. A lot of guys would say, "Wow, I can't play like that. Nobody's gonna hire me." But that's why there's a book. That's why he's doin' what he's doin'. Because he's always been true to whatever's been going on inside of him.

13

Stealing

1960

I'VE OFTEN THOUGHT that maybe I was in the wrong thing being a musician. The people I met, the musicians I met playing in clubs or at recording sessions, seemed very unreal to me, insincere, two-faced. I never knew where I stood with them, and I never felt at home with them, and the only way I could relax with them was to be loaded. I'm that way to this day. They're gossips, real politicians. They come on, "Oh, hi!" but behind your back they'll rank you and if they get busted they'll rat on you. And I found when I'd come out of jail they were always looking at my eyes and looking at my arms to see if there were any marks while they were smiling at me and saying, "Oh, how good it is to have you back!"

When I'd started using drugs I ran into a different kind of person. In jail I found people who had honor. They were real. They said what they thought. If someone bad-rapped you to a friend of yours he'd say, "Hey, man, don't talk about him like that! The cat's my friend!" The dopefiends were warm to me and open with me, I felt. And so, on the way home, as I say, I made the turn; I went to East L.A. and scored and saw the people and I had some idea that here were people I could communicate with.

I started using, and for a while I was able to do it. I had so much money. Diane had a fur coat. For a while I was able to buy dope and continue living the way I had 11: -:en. And the heroin was actually better for me than the Cosanyl. I felt healthier. But that wasn't what I wanted. I had to get really far out and have everything change, and in order to do that I started using just a ridiculous amount of heroin. And so I put myself in a position where I was no longer able to function, really, where it became obvious to everyone what was happening.

I started coming in a little late, nodding out at the sessions. Little by little people started saying, "Uh-oh, there he goes." Some people tried to talk to me, "Is everything alright?" You know, the few who really cared about me. But I wouldn't accept any help. I didn't want any help. They thought this was something that was happening to me, that I had no control over. But I was doing it. Purposely. Purposely doing it for some end that I'm not really sure what it was except that I knew I wasn't happy in this false paradise I had carved out for myself in Studio City.

I guess in order to really make things difficult, I burglarized a doctors' office-I didn't have to-in close proximity to where we were living, to put pressure on myself. I couldn't find any money but I got a whole bunch of dope, millions of pills. Diane was really getting messed up. She had decided to go wherever I went and however I went, and I felt bad because what I was doing to myself I didn't want to do to her. I thought, "Well, maybe I'll use these pills to get us cleaned up." And then maybe I could figure out some way to keep her from going down the tubes with me.

We tried to clean up. We went through an unbelievable scene in the little house we lived in, for four days, taking hundreds of pills. I remember I fell down over a table at one point and broke a lamp and cut myself. Diane would fall. It was a nightmare of falling on the floor looking for pills. Diane had dropped the bottles and they broke. Diane was trying to get out of the house. Right near us was a wash, by Ventura Boulevard, with a big drain like a storm drain, and she wanted to go to this wash and fling herself over the bridge. It would have killed her, and she would have done it, but she couldn't get out the door. She couldn't find the door. She never found the door. I swear to God, she could not find the door.

On about the fifth day I came to enough to see that the poor dog was just terrified and starving. I knew I had to take care of the dog. I had a pain in my arm. I looked down at my clothes and they were covered with blood. I wondered if I had killed her, Diane, in my delirium, to be rid of her. I panicked and ran into the other room, but there she was, alive, lying on the floor amidst the broken bottles. She had cuts all over her from trying to find pills on the floor. I fed the dog, and I realized I had to have some heroin. I was so sick I couldn't believe it, and I had no money, no nothing. I left the house and got into the car.

The car, I'd let it go-no oil change, and I was using cheap gas. And that day, as I was driving to East L.A., I ran into the back of another car at a stop sign. No one was hurt but it ruined my car; both front tires were cut. When I finally finished with the cop, I left it where it was and started walking.

I was in Lincoln Heights when I had the wreck, at Five Points, a little area where five streets come together. I walked to East L.A. and found Rachel and Boy. I told them I was deathly ill and I had to have a taste, but I didn't have any money. They saw what awful shape I was in so they turned me on. I said, "I've got to get something for Diane." That's one of the few times people have come through when I really needed dope. Boy said, "I'll drive you home." He couldn't believe his eyes when we got into the house. The dog was so frightened she peed all over the floor when we went in, and I felt so guilty for the poor dog. Diane was crawling on the floor. Boy helped me put her in a chair. I fixed her, and it brought her back to life. She looked around and told me that she had been trying for days to find the door to get out to throw herself off the bridge.

I saw that I couldn't stop like that. I didn't want to stop. I had completely messed up my jobs now-missed a couple and ruined everything. I was already just about written off by everyone.

About four months after I made that trip on the freeway and just after this attempt to clean up, I went down to East L.A. to score and I ran into a couple of friends of mine, Frank and Ruben, and they wanted to rob a nightclub in Studio City. Both of them were old-timers, been using a long time, and they were pretty sharp.

Frank and I had been friends for a while. I'd scored from him, and he'd helped me out occasionally. Frank made me think of a Mexican Mickey Cohen. He always wore suits, and he had a nice car, the big Thunderbird, which was a classy car at that time. He had a cold look about him; he was an intense person. He wore glasses and was very intelligent, spoke good English, knew his way around. He was really respected in East L.A. in the drug culture.

Ruben was a real relaxed, down-home type cat. Chubby. I don't think he even owned a suit. He wasn't intelligent as far as schooling went, but he was very smart in the ways of the streets and he was smart in the ways of crime. Ruben was very open and warm and friendly, and we really got tight. He was always laughing and a lot of fun to be around.

Ruben's father did landscaping. He had a gardening truck, so Ruben and I used to get together and go around, just for kicks, in this truck and do a couple of gardening jobs to get money to cop with. And while we were doing that we would be boosting things, stealing. I'd never done anything like that until after I came out of jail, but then, little by little, each time I went to jail and came out it got a little easier accepting that role.

Frank and Ruben saw that I was really strung out again so they asked me if I would be interested in making a little bread. Frank said, "There's a nightclub out in the valley I've been casing. We'd like to burglarize it. You're in if you'd like to do it." I said alright. I was broke by this time. I'd gone through just about everything and was already owing rent. I said, "Where's this place at?" Frank said, "That's one of the problems. It's right next to your house." The club he was referring to was one of these great big places on Ventura Boulevard, next door to where I was living. I realized that if I did this job I'd probably have to move, but I said okay. I wanted to see if I had the nerve to do something like that. When I was in jail I'd heard guys talk, and I wanted to see if I could do a righteous burglary like that, with weapons, so I said alright.

About a week before the job, Diane and I left the house. We didn't tell the landlady. We went and stayed with Frank in East L.A. We took everything out of the house, but we moved our stuff just a little at a time so the neighbors wouldn't know we were leaving and notify the landlady. We had to have access to the house to burglarize the nightclub.

They decided to do it on a Saturday night, actually Sunday morning. We drove out there in the Thunderbird. Frank had a black leather jacket on and a pair of black slacks. And he was wearing a hat, a stingy-brim hat. He was a dapper cat. There were two guns, and I wasn't allowed to have one. They were afraid with my inexperience I might get nervous and fire when there was no need to, which was a drag for me. I felt I should have one just in case. I was voted out of having a gun.

We parked in back and entered the house through the back door. We didn't turn on any lights. We used candles. When it got to be about 2:30 Frank went down the street to a pay phone and called the club. Somebody answered. He asked about reservations and came back. At 3:15 he called again, and there was no answer. He waited and called again. No answer. He let it ring and ring. Then he walked by the club and looked at it from all sides. There were no lights, no cars in the lot. He came back to the house and said, "Everything is ready. There's no one there."

The plan was to cut a hole in the wall. The hole would come out in the kitchen area. They would go from there into the club itself, search that, take whatever was stashed, and then go upstairs into the manager's office, where the safe was, with the money. Ruben was one of the best safe men in East L.A. Guys would pull burglaries; they would have the hole already drilled and cut; and then they'd go get Ruben to open the safe.

Frank said to me, "You're going to be the lookout. That means I want you to look out the front windows and the side windows and keep circulating, keep your ears open. If you hear anything take this flashlight and signal us." I saw them getting the tools out and I said, "Why do you have to go through the wall?" They said, "You can't go through the doors because there's alarms on the doors. You have to go through the roof or a hole in the wall."

They went out and started the hole. I could see them from the bedroom window. Their manner was very businesslike. They didn't waste any time. It was almost like surgeons working, you know: "Chisel. Wire cutters." The side of the building was stucco, but every so often as they went through the wall they'd find a big piece of wire mesh (I think there were about three of them, to make the wall strong), and each time they came to the mesh they had to cut-they had to make a hole large enough for a body to get through. It was hard work, and every now and then I'd hear an "owwwww!" when they'd cut themselves or when they'd be straining to bend the wire back.

I'm listening, pointing, and it's very spooky at this time of the morning. Very cold and damp. I'm walking around this abandoned house that's just a mess, with the broken pill bottles on the floor and a few old pieces of furniture. I'd wanted to fix before we did the job, but they had rationed the dope out. We'd fixed at around nine o'clock so we'd be clearheaded. After a certain length of time, about three or four hours after you fix, you become very aware, keenly aware, and as you start to get sick you really become conscious and supersensitive to everything-feelings, sounds.

They kept working, working, it seemed like forever, and then I heard, "I think that's it." "Yeah, I think so." They both came into the house and Frank said, "Alright. We're going in. You've got to really be careful now, man. If anything happens you've gotta run to the hole and holler inside." Both of them put handkerchiefs around their faces, and they took their guns out.

Frank went first and then Ruben, really not knowing if there was someone waiting inside. I kept running from the back of the house to the front, into the yard, listening, watching, and every now and then I'd hear a car or a siren. Finally, they came to the hole and called for me. They had a bundle, bottles of whiskey, and they had a bagful of change, money from the machines-cigarette machines and things like that. We put it in the car. I said, "Is everything alright?" Ruben said, "I don't know, man." Frank said, "There's an office upstairs, just like I thought, where the money is, but the door to the office is locked and it's wired. There's an alarm system into the office and, I don't know, there could be someone hiding in there, sleeping in there." We were standing in the bedroom of the house; they were debating what to do; and I was thinking that we'd gone through all this hassle and we weren't going to get anything. Ruben said, "Well, I think I can take care of the alarm. Run it back into itself. Rewire it." I said to Frank, "Why don't you give me a gun. Let me go into the office." I really wanted to do something that would be exciting and dangerous, and I really needed the money. Frank said, "I'll do it. That's okay." Ruben went in. After a while he came back to the hole and said, "Everything's cool. I got the thing turned around." Frank went in and he said, "Keep your fingers crossed."