Читать книгу Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper - Art Pepper - Страница 14

5	Heroin1946–1950

WHEN I CAME HOME Patti was staying with my dad and my stepmother, Thelma. And when I came to the door my daughter, Patricia, was there; she was walking and talking. She didn’t respond to me: she was afraid of me. I resented her and I was jealous of her feelings for my dad. Naturally, she’d been with them so she didn’t feel about me the way I wanted her to, and that started the whole thing off on the wrong foot.

I was bitter about the army and bitter about them making me have a kid I didn’t want, bitter about being taken away when everything was going so good. I was drinking heavily and started using more pot and more pills, and I scuffled around and did a casual here and there or a couple of nights in some club, but nothing happened and I was getting more and more despondent when finally, by some miracle, Stan Kenton gave me a call.

Stan Kenton was incredible. He reminded me a lot of my dad, Germanic, with the blonde, straight hair. He was taller than my dad; I think Stan was about six, three, slender, clothes hung on him beautifully. He had long fingers, a long, hawklike nose, and a very penetrating gaze. He seemed to look through you. It was hard to look him in the eye, and most people would look away and become uncomfortable in his presence. And, just like my dad, he had a presence. When he spoke people listened. He was a beautiful speaker and he had the capacity to communicate with any audience and to adapt to any group of people. We would play in some little town in Kansas and he’d talk to the people and capture them completely. We’d be in Carnegie Hall and he’d capture that crowd with another approach. We’d be at the Kavakos in Washington, D.C., a jazz club filled with the black pimp type cats and the hustling broads and the dope fiends—and he’d capture them. He would observe, study the people, and win them.

One time we did “City of Glass” at the Civic Opera House in Chicago. It was written by Bob Graettinger, a revolutionary composition, an incredibly hard musical exercise; it was a miracle we got through it. Bob conducted it, a tall, thin guy, about six, four: he looked like a living skeleton conducting, like a dead man with sunken eyes, a musical zombie. He took us through it, and he finished, and he turned around to the people, and he nodded, and the people didn’t do nothin’. The place was packed; we’d played the shit out of this thing and now there wasn’t a sound. They didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what to do. I’m looking at Stan and I’m thinking, “Well, what’s going to happen now? What’s he going to do now?” Stan looked at the audience. I saw his mind, you could see it turning, and all of a sudden he leaped out onto the middle of the stage, gestured at us to rise, swung his body around again to the audience, and bam! They started clapping, and they clapped and clapped and clapped, and then they stood up with an ovation that lasted for maybe five minutes. He did it all himself. Stan did it with this little maneuver.

Once when I was interviewed for down beat they asked me about Stan, and I told the interviewer, “If Stan had entered the field of religion he would have been greater than Billy Graham.” And Stan didn’t like it. But he didn’t understand it. Maybe he thought I was putting him down; maybe he thought I was belittling religion and ranking him for being a phony, but that wasn’t my intention. I was talking about his strength. He was the strongest man I ever met.

I traveled with the band: Shelly Manne was playing drums; Conte Candoli was playing trumpet; Bud Shank was in the sax section; June Christy was singing; Laurindo Almeida was playing guitar; and I was featured with the band. We played a lot of different places, and I was getting a name, a following. At first Patti came along with me, so it was fun, but one day in New York, while we were working at the Paramount Theater, Patti got a telegram from my father saying that Patricia was sick. I don’t remember what she had. I didn’t even pay attention to it, I was so angry. To me it was as if Patricia had gotten sick purposely to rank things for me. So Patti left, and that was it. For all intents and purposes that was the end of our marriage. Patti started feeling it was her duty to stay with Patricia.

It was impossible to take Patricia with us. We tried to take her once to Salt Lake City. We drove instead of traveling on the bus. I bought a car, but all the oil ran out of the car, and we got stranded, and then Patricia got sick. It was impossible. It was too impossible. The mileage we had to cover was too demanding. They both went home, and I sold the car, and that was the last time Patti was on the road with me.

I really became bitter then because I was so lonely and I couldn’t stand not having a woman. There were chicks following the band that were very groovy, that really dug me; they’d send notes and hit on me and wait for me after the job, but I’d rarely have anything to do with them because I felt so guilty when I did.

In 1948 we were playing the Paramount Theater again in New York. Vic Damone was the single attraction. Sometimes we’d play seven shows a day, and there were a bunch of young girls who used to come around to all the performances. One day after a show, four of these girls came backstage and left a note. They wanted to meet me. I went to the stage door and said hello to them. I brought them into the dressing room and talked to them; they were sixteen, seventeen. They said they wanted to form an Art Pepper Fan Club. Would I mind? I thought they were joking at first, but they were serious, so I told them no, I wouldn’t mind, that I’d be flattered. But I couldn’t understand what a fan club would entail.

We had just started at the Paramount. I think we played for thirteen weeks, and it was jam-packed. I was living at a hotel on Forty-seventh and Broadway, and these girls kept coming around so I’d take them out. We’d go to the drugstore. I’d buy them sandwiches, and they took pictures of me. They were fairly nice looking, and they must have been from the Bronx because they all had that accent. Finally they told me that they really cared for me, that they had a crush on me, and they would like to, you know—they’d work it out among themselves and come and visit me one at a time. I said okay, but I was thinking, ‘They’re pretty young.” And I didn’t know for sure if that was what they wanted. The next day, the one they had elected president of the club was at the Paramount after the first show. This was in the morning, and we had two, two and a half hours between shows. She said, “Shall we go to your place?”

The president was about seventeen. She looked Jewish, and she had a slender body but nicely shaped. She had pretty eyes. She was the most attractive of the four, with lovely skin, dark coloring. We left for the hotel. The guys in the band were watching, giving me those looks. The president was really enthused. She had a pretty dress on, and her eyes were all lit up. Her whole manner had changed. She’d suddenly become sexy and sure of herself and very womanly.

We got out of the theater and it was chilly so I helped her on with her coat. And that was the part I felt bad about. Because when I’m with a woman and I’m very polite and mannerly it becomes like a love situation. I felt guilty when I put her coat on. And then she clutched my arm and it was as if we were lovers. I was hoping we could have got where we were going without all these formalities, walking on her right on the sidewalk, helping her across the street.

It was too cold to walk to the hotel. Ordinarily, it was a nice walk, and I had hoped it would relax us, although she seemed completely relaxed. I was the one who was nervous. I hailed a cab and opened the door for her, and there was another little pang. We walked into the hotel and I really felt strange. I started feeling that the house detective was watching or the guy at the desk. Walking from the elevator to the room I thought, “What am I letting myself in for? Maybe this is some sort of weird plan to blackmail me or take pictures. Maybe somebody is going to break in and beat me up.” Γ remembered all these stories I’d heard about people being in the big city and getting taken; there were a lot of young people mixed up in terrible crimes. We got to the room. I closed the door. Locked it. My heart was pounding and I was almost to the point of telling her, “Let’s forget it.” But I had gone too far to stop, and I had been away from Patti for a long time, and I was going to be away from her for five months more, and the girl seemed so clean and nice.

I had a bottle in my room, a bottle of vodka. I poured some in a glass and some orange juice. I asked her if she wanted a drink. She said, “Just a little one.” I drank mine down and then took a great big, straight shot of the vodka. She’s just standing there waiting for me. She’s still got her coat on. I took her coat and hung it in the closet. She’s still standing there, looking at me with this adoring look, and at last the feeling that was coming from her, this admiration, started getting to my ego, and I began to relax, but I didn’t know exactly what to do yet. I didn’t want to do anything that would spoil it—make a mistake or seem foolish. I sat down on the bed and started making small talk, “It’s a shame this isn’t a nicer place but being on the road we just have to take a little place like this because all we do is sleep in it.” She just kept gazing at me. I rattled on and on, nonsense, talking and talking. All of a sudden she sat down next to me, put her hand on my arm, and she said, “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

She had her hand on my arm and her head on my shoulder. I put my arm around her and she shuddered. I could feel her whole body vibrating. She had short sleeves on her little dress; it was a jersey dress, and you could feel her body through it. I rubbed her arm with my hand and she shuddered and pushed herself up against me. She put her hand on my leg, and I immediately got an erection. She smelled good. A lot of times I’ve been out with a woman that looked good, but when I got close her hair didn’t smell nice or her breath, and it would turn me off because it would seem like she wasn’t clean. This girl smelled good; her hair had just been washed; and she was so soft.

There was no mistaking at that point what was going to happen. I bent down and turned her chin up so I could kiss her, and she started to squirm and tremble. I probed gently in her mouth with my tongue, and I could tell she was really inexperienced, but little by little she relaxed her mouth till I could feel the tip of her tongue touching mine. We kissed for a long time. I started kissing her eyes and everything, and she just flipped out and lay back on the bed. I put my hand on her leg and started rubbing really easy. She had stockings on, but she had them rolled, which has always turned me on. I pulled her dress up. Her skin was beautiful. I bent down and kissed her leg just above her stocking, and I ran my tongue around her leg. She starting moving and grabbed my hair. I looked at the crotch of her panties. They were soaking wet. She had a great smell. I started kissing the outside of her panties. I don’t know if she’d ever had anybody do that before because she really wigged out: she started murmuring things, “I love you.” I stuck my tongue inside her panties where her lips were, and it was so moist. I rubbed my tongue up all around her, and then I pulled back her panties so I could get at her. I licked her really slowly, and she started quivering, and she grabbed hold of me, and she came immediately; almost as soon as I put my mouth on her she came. Then she said, “Wait a second!” She said, “My mother will see my dress.” She got her dress off and her bra, and she was really beautiful. She had small breasts, but the nipples were hard. And she was very cute. I started to take my clothes off and got everything off but my shorts, and they were just standing out, and she said, “Come here.” She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled me over to her and started caressing me through my shorts, and then she pulled them down real slow until my joint popped out, and she put her head against it and hugged me and put her arms around me and rubbed her face and her hair against me, and she started licking me. I could tell she didn’t know how to suck on me; she just kissed it and licked it. I didn’t want her to give me head because I was afraid I would come immediately, and she was so passionate I wanted to put it in her.

I put her on the bed and got over her and gradually put it in, and it felt wonderful. She was tight and moist. I finally got all the way in, which was hard to do at first because she was small, but she was completely turned on. I kissed her breasts, and she kept hollering, “I love you! You’re the most beautiful man in the world! This is the greatest thing that ever happened to me! I’ll never forget this moment as long as I live!” And I thought, “Wow! This is my fan club, and there’s four of them!”

Usually when I’d ball the chicks that hung around the band, the minute it was over I’d have to leave. I’d have get away from the girl because after my need for sex was satisfied I couldn’t stand her. Her smell on my body was like a curse on me, and I’d have to wash myself and scrub because I felt so dirty. But this girl was so sweet that I felt some love and warmth for her, so later I really felt guilty, a million times more guilty. Because I felt like cuddling this girl, because I cared for this girl, I’d really betrayed Patti.

Sex was in my thoughts all the time, and because of my upbringing I felt it was evil. That made it even more attractive to me, and the alcohol and the pills I took made my sex drive even stronger. I was obsessed.

I used to room with different guys in the band, but if I had the money I’d room alone so I could fool around with the maids. The maid didn’t exist for me as a person, so there was nothing Patti could be jealous of. Sometimes they would suck on me or something like that, but what I really wanted wasn’t the consummation. I was away from Patti and, so that I wouldn’t go out and goof, I wanted to have these experiences which would provide me with vivid mental pictures I could conjure up at will whenever I set about relieving myself by playing with myself.

If I was rooming alone I would wait for the maid to come; I’d peek out the door to see if she was there. I’d leave the door locked, but not from the inside, then she’d think I wasn’t in the room. I would lie on the bed and expose myself. I’d fix the covers so the maid could see my joint. I’d pretend I was asleep and put my fingers over my eyes so I could peek out at her, and she’d come in and turn on the light and look and see me, and I used to wig out with their reactions. Some of them would go, “Oooohh!” and practically run out. Some would act nonchalant and just walk out. Others would stand and stare. Some would get nervous and uptight, but they’d be aroused. And then, after they’d leave, I’d throw a robe on and run out and say, “Do you want to get the room now?”

Down south the maids were great. They went along with whatever you wanted because they were afraid for their jobs and they were kind of naive. I’d say, “Well, come on. If you want to get the room, get it now.” Or I’d make up an excuse, saying that I had to do this or that, or somebody was coming—anything to get them in there. Then I’d sit down on a chair and fix it so my robe was open just enough so they could see me, and I would offer them a drink and talk to them. I’d peek at them while they cleaned the bathtub. Usually in New York the chicks were too hep. I didn’t even bother with them. If you came on they’d say, “Yeah, sure, if you want something give me five dollars,” and I’d never do that.

But one morning at the Forrest Hotel a maid knocked on the door, and she said, “It’s late, and I’d like to get the room. It’s the last on the floor. I’ll be able to go home after . . .” She was beautiful. She was some latin type with light olive skin. She was about thirty years old and voluptuous. That word really describes this maid. She had on a black uniform with buttons down the front. It was made out of some light, silky stuff, and I noticed that the button at the bottom was open, and the button at the top was open. I said, “Go ahead.”

She had green eyes. I’ll never forget that, black hair and green eyes. I sat in a chair opposite the bathroom door. The door had a full-length mirror on it, and it was opened in such a way that I could see her in the mirror, but I was half in a daze. I really wasn’t paying much attention because I had a heavy hangover. When I woke up I always had a hangover, and if I could get to a bar, I’d have a Bloody Mary. If not, I’d have a few shots in my room. So I was having a drink when I looked up and looked into this mirror, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was cleaning the toilet bowl. She was standing, bent over but with her knees straight, which caused her dress to come up almost over her rear end, and she had black lace panties on. They usually wear white pants, something durable. She had these sexy panties on, and I could see the beginning of this little mound and some wispy black hairs sticking out the sides of these little panties. She had gorgeous legs. It was a beautiful sight, and I thought, “This is too good to be true!” When she came in, she’d closed the door behind her. Some of them leave the door open a little bit. When they leave it open you’ve got to sneak over and try to push it closed and catch their reaction if there is one. You hope there’s no reaction.

I went and stood in the bathroom door, just looking at her. She’s cleaning away. After she finishes the toilet she bends over to get the floor. She’s wearing one of those half-brassieres, and with that button loose, I can see her breasts. I can see everything but the nipple. I can see down her dress to her navel. Needless to say I’ve got an erection. I move a little closer to her and she bends over the bathtub, and her uniform is all the way up over her ass. It was too much for me. I had my drink in my left hand; I put my right hand inside my robe and started playing with myself. If you can picture this . . . I’m standing in the bathroom right behind this beautiful creature who’s bent over so her ass is practically in my face, with those lace panties, with hair sticking out of the panties, and I’m jerking myself off, and I came that way, and as soon as I came I looked down, and she was looking at me through her legs. Her hand was on her cunt, and she was rubbing her cunt.

I went to the closet, got an old shirt and wiped myself off. I went back and sat in my chair. I poured another drink. She kept rubbing her cunt, and I guess she came because she stopped, pulled her dress down, and finished cleaning the bathroom. She came out. She made the bed. Never a word passed between us. Then, as she started to leave, she turned and said, “Is there anything else?” I said, “No, that was great.” She gave me a smile, walked out and closed the door. I checked out the next day.

I felt as long as I didn’t know a chick and nothing was said, then there was no love involved, and I wouldn’t feel as guilty. I used to go to all-night movie houses and sit next to some chick and rub my leg against her leg, and I’ve had chicks jerk me off, and I’ve played with them, and then I’d just get up and walk out. A lot of times the girl would say, “Let’s go to my place” or something like that. I’d say, “Just a minute. I have to go to the bathroom.” And I’d sneak away and go to another theater to try to find another chick to sit next to. Because I didn’t want to ball them.

I spent hours and hours fooling with the maids and fantasizing and playing with myself and going to all-night movies. I was going insane. I had a little drill I carried with me. I’d bore holes in the doors in the hotels and then peep into the next room at night and watch the people make love.

I was playing with Kenton’s band in L.A. on West Broadway at a nightclub. We did an afternoon job and then we had a few hours off before our night job at the same club. Everybody was eating or fucking around, so I went for a walk. I was in my band uniform. I walked down the residential streets near the club and it was just dusk, right before the street lights go on. When I walked I always watched the windows. When lights went on I’d go over to see if anything was happening.

So I was walking and I saw a light go on in a bathroom window. There was a driveway next to the window. I’d hardly ever walk into a driveway, but I noticed there was a house in the back so I’d have an excuse for being there. I walked back by this window. It was open, and I heard water running so I knew it was a bathing scene. I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman, and I tried to peek in, but the window was too high to stand and see. Down at the bottom level, near the ground, there was a kind of vent. It had little slats where I could put my foot so I stood on it and reached up to the sill.

I peered in. It was a woman. She was in a brassiere and panties, and she was evidently going to take a bath. The tub was right under the window; the toilet was to the left; the washbasin was to the right; and there was a little scale. She got off the scale and then she stood looking in the mirror over the washbasin. This chick was very pretty. She had blonde hair and white skin, and when she took off her bra and panties I saw she had blonde hair on her cunt and her nipples were hard. I thought, “What am I doing, man? What if somebody sees me or the slats break and I fall?” But I was all fired up. I held on to the sill and peeked in.

She’s standing in front of the mirror. She takes her breasts and hefts them in her hands, and then she rubs them around in a circular motion, looking at herself in the mirror, and she starts to get a glazed expression, and she rubs and tweaks at her nipples with her fingers. She does this for a little while and then she runs to turn off the bathwater. She stands and looks at herself. She starts rubbing her cunt, rubbing down her legs and rubbing her cunt. She sits on the toilet and spreads her legs and takes the first two fingers of her left hand and rubs up and down on her cunt, and she closes her eyes and she’s got her head back and with her other hand she’s tweaking her nipple, and she starts quivering and shaking and then she holds her hand real hard on her cunt, and I guess she had come, and then she got up and looked at herself again and she kissed those two fingers, which really turned me on. I just couldn’t help myself. I had unzipped my fly and reached in and grabbed my joint and started rubbing across the bottom of my joint, and I came right about the same time she did. And then I really panicked. She got up and got into the tub, and I jumped down to the ground. I was scared to death. I thought, “What if somebody’s seen me? What if somebody looked out a window and called the police?” I got back to the club and sneaked into the bathroom. I had come all over my shorts and the top of my pants. I wiped myself off, and when I buttoned my coat it covered the area. I felt awful and I thought, “What’s happening to me? What would Stan think and the guys in the band?” I thought, “I’ve got to stop this!” Heroin stopped it for me.

In 1950 I was in Chicago at the Croyden Hotel. That was the hotel all the musicians stayed at. I was rooming with Sammy Curtis. He was a tall guy with a roundish face, rosy cheeks, blonde, curly hair, and he had this lopsided grin; he played the little boy bit. He thought it was charming. He was very talented.

I think we played the Civic Opera House that night. I was featured. I got all the praise and applause, and it was great while it was happening, but after everybody left, there I was alone. I wandered around the town. I went to all the bars. I ended up back at the hotel and went into the bar there. I just had to continue getting loaded; it was a compulsion; I had demons chasing me. The only way I ever got loaded enough, so I could be cool, was when I passed out, fell out someplace, which is what I used to do almost every night. They kicked me out of the bar at about four o’clock in the morning, and I didn’t know what to do. There was no place I could get a drink. It was getting daylight, and I couldn’t peep in any windows. There was no one on the streets.

I went back up to the room. Sammy was there and Roy King, a tenor player, and Sheila Harris, who’s a singer, and some piano player. They were all using heroin. Sammy had been using stuff for a long time, and I knew it, but I never would try it because I knew that the minute I did it would be all over for me. I asked them if they had anything other than stuff, and they didn’t. I was so unhappy, and Patti was two thousand miles away, and there was nothing I could do. I had to have something.

Sheila came over to me. She was a good singer who worked with another band. She was about five foot, two, and a little on the chubby side—what they call pleasingly plump. She had nice breasts, large, but nice, and although I’ve never liked chubby women she was one of the few that turned me on. She had long eyelashes and large eyes, bluish-green. Her face was oval and full, and she had full lips, and her eyebrows were full. Most women in those days plucked their eyebrows, but she had let hers grow, and I liked that. She had long fingers and nice nails. And she was a nymphomaniac. When she looked at a man she was thinking of sucking his cock; that was her thought and she turned you on because you could feel that; everyone could. And you were turned on by the stories. She was a legend among musicians. Whether they had ever made it with her or not they’d all tell stories about balling her. She was purely sensual, but only in a sexual way, no other. No warmth, no love, no beauty. When you looked at her you just saw your cock in her mouth.

She came over to me and offered me some stuff, just to horn it, sniff it. She said, “Why don’t you hang up that jive and get in a different groove? Why don’t you come in the bathroom with me? I’ll show you a new way to go.” I was at my wit’s end. The only thing I could have done other than what I did was to jump out of the window of the hotel. I think we were on the fourteenth floor. I started to go into the bathroom with her, and Sammy saw what was happening and flipped out. He caused a big scene. He said, “I won’t be responsible for you starting to use stuff!” But Roy said, “Man, anything would be better than that jive booze scene he’s into now. What could be worse? That’s really a bringdown.” We cooled Sammy out, and me and Sheila walked into the bathroom and locked the door.

When we got in there she started playing with my joint. She said, “Do you want me to say hello to him?” She was marvelous, and she really turned me on, but I said, “Wait a minute. Let’s get into this other thing and then we’ll get back to that.” I was all excited about something new, the heroin. I had made up my mind.

She had a little glass vial filled with white powder, and she poured some out onto the porcelain top of the toilet, chopped it up with a razor blade, and separated it into little piles, little lines. She asked me if I had a dollar bill. She told me to get the newest one I had. I had one, very clean and very stiff. I took it out of my pocket and she said, “Roll it up.” I started to roll it but she said, “No, not that way.” She made a tube with a small opening at the bottom and a larger opening at the top. Then she went over to the heroin and she said, “Now watch what I do and do this.” She put one finger on her left nostril and she stuck the larger end of the dollar bill into her right nostril. She put the tube at the beginning of one pile, made a little noise, and the pile disappeared. She said, “Now you do that.” I closed my nostril. I even remember it was my left nostril. I sniffed it, and a long, thin pile of heroin disappeared. She told me to do the same with the other nostril. I did six little lines and then she said “Okay, wait a few minutes.” While I’m waiting she’s rubbing my joint and playing with me. I felt a tingly, burning sensation up in my sinuses, and I tasted a bitter taste in my throat, and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all that feeling—wanting something but having no idea what it was, thinking it was sex and then when I had a chance to ball a chick not wanting to ball her because I was afraid of some disease and because of the guilt; that wandering and wandering like some derelict; that agony of drinking and drinking and nothing ever being resolved; and .. . no peace at all except when I was playing, and then the minute that I stopped playing there was nothing; that continual, insane search just to pass out somewhere and then to wake up in the morning and think, “Oh, my God,” to wake up and think, “Oh God, here we go again,” to drink a bottle of warm beer so I could vomit, so I could start all over again, so I could start that ridiculous, sickening, horrible, horrible life again—all of a sudden, all of a sudden, the demons and the devils and the wandering and wondering and all the frustrations just vanished and they didn’t exist at all anymore because I’d finally found peace.

I felt this peace like a kind of warmth. I could feel it start in my stomach. From the whole inside of my body I felt the tranquility. It was so relaxing. It was so gorgeous. Sheila said, “Look at yourself in the mirror! Look in the mirror!” And that’s what I’d always done: I’d stood and looked at myself in the mirror and I’d talk to myself and say how rotten I was—”Why do people hate you? Why are you alone? Why are you so miserable?” I thought, “Oh, no! I don’t want to do that! I don’t want to spoil this feeling that’s coming up in me!” I was afraid that if I looked in the mirror I would see it, my whole past life, and this wonderful feeling would end, but she kept saying, “Look at yourself! Look how beautiful you are! Look at your eyes! Look at your pupils!” I looked in the mirror and I looked like an angel. I looked at my pupils and they were pinpoints; they were tiny, little dots. It was like looking into a whole universe of joy and happiness and contentment.

I thought of my grandmother always talking about God and inner happiness and peace of mind, being content within yourself not needing anybody else, not worrying about whether anybody loves you, if your father doesn’t love you, if your mother took a coathanger and stuck it up her cunt to try to destroy you because she didn’t want you, because you were an unclean, filthy, dirty, rotten, slimy being that no one wanted, that no one ever wanted, that no one has still ever wanted. I looked at myself and I said, “God, no, I am not that. I’m beautiful. I am the whole, complete thing. There’s nothing more, nothing more that I care about. I don’t care about anybody. I don’t care about Patti. I don’t need to worry about anything at all.” I’d found God.

I loved myself, everything about myself. I loved my talent. I had lost the sour taste of the filthy alcohol that made me vomit and the feeling of the bennies and the strips that put chills up and down my spine. I looked at myself in the mirror and I looked at Sheila and I looked at the few remaining lines of heroin and I took the dollar bill and horned the rest of them down. I said, “This is it. This is the only answer for me. If this is what it takes, then this is what I’m going to do, whatever dues I have to pay . . .” And I knew that I would get busted and I knew that I would go to prison and that I wouldn’t be weak; I wouldn’t be an informer like all the phonies, the no-account, the nonreal, the zero people that roam around, the scum that slither out from under rocks, the people that destroyed music, that destroyed this country, that destroyed the world, the rotten, fucking, lousy people that for their own little ends—the black power people, the sickening, stinking motherfuckers that play on the fact that they’re black, and all this fucking shit that happened later on—the rotten, no-account, filthy women that have no feeling for anything; they have no love for anyone; they don’t know what love is; they are shallow hulls of nothingness—the whole group of rotten people that have nothing to offer, that are nothing, never will be anything, were never intended to be anything.

All I can say is, at that moment I saw that I’d found peace of mind. Synthetically produced, but after what I’d been through and all the things I’d done, to trade that misery for total happiness—that was it, you know, that was it. I realized it. I realized that from that moment on I would be, if you want to use the word, a junkie. That’s the word they used. That’s the word they still use. That is what I became at that moment. That’s what I practiced; and that’s what I still am. And that’s what I will die as—a junkie.

(Hersh Hamel) We were playing at a place called Esther’s in Hermosa Beach, and I was with Jack Montrose. Jack and I were friends. They used to have a session at this place almost every night, so we had gone down there to play, and Art came down, and we all enjoyed ourselves together. This must have been in the late forties. Art was serious about playing, liked to laugh; he was drinking, smoking pot. Art immediately hit it off with Jack and I, and we all decided to meet there again, and we did, on succeeding days. Art was very handsome at that time, lean and dark, black hair combed back, and very fastidious. Art was a very interesting player, swinging and very intense, sort of trying to do his own thing under the cloak of the strong sentiment and strong popularity of Charlie Parker. Art was trying to create a style of his own.

Art was married to Patti and they were living somewhere between Washington Boulevard and Adams in a nice, little place. Patti was a sort of naive girl who wasn’t terribly interested in music, jazz. She was very pretty. She was blonde and very pretty. Very much a take-care-of-business type of girl. She did her thing. Around the house. Wasn’t lazy. Sort of serious and not terribly talkative or friendly with any of the musicians. She had her own set of friends, whoever they were. She was always nice to me, said hello, but Freddy Rivera—we got to know Freddy; he would always be around Art, you know, coming over to the house, and I got the impression that Patti didn’t like Freddy, didn’t like Freddy over there. Art wanted Freddy there. Art got a big kick out of Freddy. Found Freddy amusing. So, there was a little tension between Patti and Art about Freddy. As for me, when I came over and picked Art up or whatever it was, she was more friendly with me, but I felt I was still one of the musician friends of Art’s.

Patti and Art seemed to be on different mind levels. They didn’t seem to have the same likes and dislikes. There wasn’t a great rapport between them, although, you know, Art seemed to love Patti. And Patti’s ideas about the way a marriage should be didn’t coincide with Art’s. I don’t think Art really thought about it that much. He was very involved with his music and his emotional ups and downs with his music. They took a great toll out of him, so he wasn’t able, really, to grasp the reality of the marriage situation. That was my feeling.

We used to go out playing all the time. Go over to the east side, play at different places. Sometimes, out of seven nights in the week, we’d be playing five nights, and we had a different place for each night. Even if we weren’t working we’d be, like, together, as a group of guys: myself, Jack Montrose, Art, Sammy Curtis, sometimes Chet Baker, sometimes Jack Sheldon, Bill Perkins, Gene Roland, Bob Braucus, Bob Neal. Sometimes Shorty Rogers even came along.

Some nights we’d play at a place called the Samoan in East L.A., right in the Barrio, off Whittier and Atlantic. We knew the owner there; he was very mellow, and he liked us to come in. He knew Freddy. Al Leon had a place for us to play in El Cerrito. And the Mexicans loved Art. I think they thought that Art was part Mexican; he has that Latin look. I don’t think they realized he’s more Italian than anything else. He was just a hero to them. They’d come in and take us outside and get us high.

At that point Art was just drinking and smoking pot, maybe a diet pill from time to time. And he could always drink me under the table. I remember one night we were at the opening of a record store in East L.A. It was about ten at night, the grand opening, and we played, like, a jam session. The owner asked us to. They closed up the store at about one and we played until four in the morning, and Art, while I was standing up playing my big bass fiddle, Art was pouring this gin down my throat and it was running down my neck. Well, I got so drunk! Art drank more than I did, and I got terribly sick. Art didn’t really even show the effect. He was drunk but he wasn’t drunk drunk, like I was. He took me home, and my clothes were all screwed up, and Patti washed my clothes and cleaned me up. I was a mess. It was a lot of fun. It really was. The point was, Art was able to consume a lot of stuff, no matter what it was, and show very little effect from it.

About that period, Art went back on the road with Kenton, and the way I heard it from Art was that he was initiated to heroin while he was on that tour. I remember he came back and he was involved with heroin. It seemed like he got involved pretty fast and pretty deep. When Art wasn’t on the road with Kenton, he would do some things by himself, and I remember he was down at a place on Sixth and Western called the Surf Club. Hampton Hawes was down there with him, and I remember how loaded Art was on the gig, really zonked. I remember going down to see him and being disturbed about him being so stoned while he was working. His playing was fine, but it seemed like Art began to feel like he couldn’t play good enough unless he was on heroin.

Art’s really a gifted and talented player. He’s given his great talent to jazz, his style. And he did retain himself through all the Charlie Parker years, some pretty rough times. I remember there was a club near Hollywood Boulevard where we used to go play sessions after hours. This must have been 1960, something like that. I was standing outside the club and Art was going in and Joe Maini was going in and somehow there were words between Joe and Art. Joe said something: “Hey, faggot!” About the way Art played. He didn’t mean Art’s demeanor as a person. And they got into a fistfight and were rolling around on the concrete hitting each other over the style of Art’s playing. Art was defending his playing by engaging in fisticuffs with Joe.

You know, there are Charlie Parker influences in Art’s playing but Art was able to retain himself; whereas most of the alto players emulated Charlie Parker and therefore they didn’t have as much of themselves to give as Art did. I think that’s a great thing.

(Freddy Rivera) At that time, I was completely lost. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I wasn’t even close to having an idea of what I was doing. In reality I was doing nothing. Getting drunk. Running around the streets. Screaming. At times it was enormous fun, but much of the other time it was frightening, really, not knowing what the hell’s going on. Art was frightened, too. He was frightened of life. At one time, we went into a shopping center and people were going in and out of the doors and he said, “They’re making it. Those people are making it.” One time we were in a car and we were talking and somebody said, “You know, a lawyer makes eighty thousand a year. You, Art, you’re not making anything at all. You should be making as much as a successful lawyer or doctor.” It was the truth, too. Art was making, what, twenty dollars a week? Of course, when he was with the bands he was making more money. But he was capable of making eighty thousand. He rationalized it, “It’s a rotten world. People are cold and conniving. They won’t give a person a chance. There’s no justice.”

I met Art when I was nineteen, around 1946. I was a drummer. I met him through Al Leon, the piano player; he brought him over to my house. We went out to this place in Bell; they had sessions over there. Zoot was there most of the time and Jim Giuffre, Stan Getz. The sessions were usually on Sundays. And we used to hang out, ride around, smoke dope, drink, talk.

Art and I were able to talk to one another. When two people like one another, sometimes they don’t even know why. I guess there was some kind of empathy there as far as emotions, attitudes, feelings, sensitivity. And, of course, another factor was youth. When you’re young, you can be very open. You make friends more easily.

Art’s attitude toward music is difficult to describe accurately. He’s a marvelous musician, always has been. Very exact, with the right sound, whatever that means. The sound I like. Marvelous vibrato. But very exact. Does it right. And of course a lot of guys can do it right, but they can’t swing. And there’s depth in his music. Insight. When I think of Art, I think of Lester Young, and I think of Mozart, too. The quality—it appears to be easy, but it’s never easy. If it were easy anyone could do it. I think there’s a strong classical feeling there. I’m using the word to mean a feeling for form and for proportion and whatnot. He’s just naturally a musician. He came out of the womb a musician, and I’m positive he always had a commitment to it. But you wouldn’t find him, like some guys, practicing eight hours a day, constantly trying to get connections, get ahead, get the gig, achieve power, fame. He was afraid of any responsibility. He just wanted to fuck around.

Patti was a friendly person, an emotional, warm person, but she wanted Art to be more active and to seek success more vigorously, go after it, take care of business. And I imagine, as his wife, she wanted security, whether it was expressed immediately in more money or whether it was expressed in his attitude and in his ability to take care of himself, so she could at least feel that she was with a secure person who had a sense of direction, control of his life. Patti was very attractive. Physically, she was an exciting-looking woman, erotic in appearance, although she had something of the, you know, clean-cut, midwestern look about her and considerable charm. I think Art felt a need for her, an emotional need to draw upon her. I would think he had a strong feeling of physical attraction, emotions of abandon with her.

Art was very sensitive and I would say cunning in many ways. A real paradox. He had an inability at times to really take care of things and deal with his life in a forceful, direct way, to change things, but at the same time he showed a cunning in his relationship with people. The cunning was a result of great natural intelligence, but it was really a form of childishness. Instead of taking the form of advancing his career and getting work, which he had every right to have, it was diverted into the manipulation of flunkies: “Take me to the job.” “Bring me home.” “Yeah, come on over. Bring a jug.” And people did this, of course—out of admiration for his talent. And I know what they got out of it. Feeling like nothing themselves, not having any identity, they were able to incorporate themselves into something else that was larger, that was great. So they more or less had themselves swallowed. And Art—I don’t think that anyone could benefit from that. It’s almost a hundred ten percent self-destructive because everything is false and there’s no room left to grow and to do things for oneself, to actively walk into the world: “I am going to drive myself to the gig. I can do it.” But Art was emotionally very young. The child must be take care of. He must be given things. Infantile gratification. For an infant it’s perfectly appropriate; he’s weaned in three years.

One time we were at a place and I bought him a pizza and then I wanted to take a bite. He wouldn’t let me have any! Hahahaha! What would you call that? That was selfishness. And then, of course, he would have a student, a guy named Joe Martin, and the student would drive him everywhere and do things for him. The Master/ We must serve the master/ That type of thing. Art used it to the hilt.

Art had considerable charm. Intelligence, a very natural ability to understand things. He was a very handsome man. A great natural talent. These are attractive qualities. His humor tended to burlesque. It could be vicious. Mimicking people. And often very accurately, very perceptively, with the intelligence working. But mostly, it was burlesque. Sometimes playing hillbilly music he’d shout, “Tarnation!” and “Shit fire and save matches!” Hahahaha!

Art is sensitive even though at times the sensitivity is largely an expression of selfishness. He’s sensitive to such a degree about himself. A person can be like this and be insensitive to other people at times. Not always. Often he could be very warm and very friendly, and you could talk to him. At times his concern for other people would be expressed as sentimentality: “I really love you, man.” Even histrionics. Being stoned and being emotional. But I question whether at any time the concern with the self was ever put aside.

I saw a definite change in Art when he started using heroin. It was rather dramatic. The change, I think, consisted essentially in the intensification and exacerbation of traits that were already there: indulgence in the self, a desire to escape the external world, reality, to sink into the self almost entirely. To be passive. As a musician . . . In the case of Art, the musician is a person who expresses himself and does send something out, but even this could be passive at times. It showed in feelings of intimidation in the presence of another strong musician, a reluctance to blow out if there was somebody around, another strong player, or in one of these very sticky social scenes in jazz, tribal games, “Who’s number one?” Heroin intensified Art’s tendencies to withdraw, not to fight, not to assert. And that was the easiest thing to do at the moment, although it made his life more difficult in the long run.

I was able to use heroin from time to time just for fun. I think we all have a predisposition in our systems for certain types of behavior and certain drugs. With some people, you know, booze is really their messiah, their mission, their destiny; they’re just going to be soakedl I didn’t have the need for heroin. I don’t know why. I got off scot-free. At times I had the need to get stoned, whacked, and I thought of taking heroin for that purpose, but it was never the heroin itself. It was never love. Deep, natural, flowing love.

Art said to me once that all of his life all he’d really ever wanted was to get high. And the first time he stuck that needle in his arm he said, “I finally got high.”