Straight Life

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Book: Read Straight Life for Free Online
Authors: Art Pepper; Laurie Pepper
Tags: Autobiography
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

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