Straight Life by Art Pepper; Laurie Pepper Page A

anaesthetic. They shaved me, put Mercurochrome all over me, and then he made an incision in my testicle. The pain was beyond description. He pulled out the cord with some prongs, and he took a needle filled with Novacain, and all the time I'm going through this the doctor's got someone he's showing how he does the operation. I can hear them talking. This person says, "Isn't the pain bad?" And the doctor says, "Well, it's just for a moment, and this is the best way, really, to nullify it. From then on, once you get the needle into the cord ... " And so he stuck it in, and after a while it took effect, but while I was still pulsating from the pain he started interrogating me. I'm delerious, and he's asking little questions. Finally he said, "When's your birthday? How old will you be?" So he discovered that I wasn't eighteen, and he couldn't perform the operation. He sewed me back up without cutting the cord. I didn't know. I waited to have the test that would tell whether I was sterile or not, and at last he told Patti, and she told me.
I waited until I was eighteen and went back to the same doctor to have him perform the same operation. He cut the cord this time, but he didn't cut a piece out of it. He tucked it underneath a membrane, in case I changed my mind, so it could be repaired. The cord found itself back together. And later, when I gave a sample of my sperm to see if I was sterile, I wasn't.
Twice was all the courage I could muster. I couldn't go through that thing again. But you can see how I felt about having a child, and when I realized that Patti was going to get pregnant I was really angry. I was mad at my folks and at her. That was the only time I came in her, that one time, and she went back to Los Angeles, and she was pregnant.
    When I finished basic training they shipped me to Camp Butner, North Carolina, and put me in the combat engineers. And while I was at Camp Butner I heard that Benny Carter's band was going to be in Durham, and they were having their concert on a Saturday night when I'd be free.
I went into Durham and found the auditorium. I bought a ticket. I noticed the ticket said "loge." I said, "What's the loge?" The guy tells me, "That's upstairs." I said, "I used to be with this band: they're old friends of mine and I'd like to be close to the stand, where I can say hello to them." The guy says, "Well, you can't do that. Whites aren't allowed downstairs." When Benny had told me I couldn't go with the band down south I didn't understand it. I had been all around Central Avenue for years as a kid. I couldn't understand what he was talking about, and my eyes were still closed at this time. I was shocked, and I tried to argue with the guy, but he said, "You either take a loge ticket or you don't go in."
I went in and took my seat. I looked downstairs. The whole bottom floor was black. The people upstairs were white. The band started playing, and I started drinking, and finally I just walked downstairs because I had to see them. I snuck through the dancefloor. I walked real fast and as I approached the stand I could feel the people staring at me, and then they started moving and all of a sudden they just closed me in. All of a sudden there was a circle of black people around me and they were saying, "What are you doing down here? What are you doing down here, white boy?" I said, "I used to play with this band. I want to say hello." They said, "You get outta here!" And they all started yelling. One guy screamed, "You killed my grandparents, you son-of-a-bitch, you white bastard! You beat my grandparents to death, you son-of-a-bitch!" I said, "I didn't kill anybody! I didn't do anything!" But they kept raving, so I got mad. I shouted, "I don't want to hear any of your fuckin' shit! I didn't do anything to you!" Someone said, "You better get outta here, boy, if you know what's good for you!" I said, "Fuck you all, man!" They grabbed me and one guy hit me in the back; another punched me, and I was screaming