home > in-print > books > the forgotten ones >

Quartets: Samuel West

[ View the photos ] [ Listen to audio (RealAudio file) ]

Samuel West: My real name is Samuel Lee West but everybody calls me Pee Wee. I'm a recovering alcoholic, and I was in my house and I wanted something to drink. So I said I'm gonna run to the store and get me a can of beer. And the store was closed, but I knew it was gonna be about five minutes before the guy come back. So I was propped up side the door, and all the sudden I happen to look across the street and I saw this little old man and this little old lady taking pictures. I thought it was undercover!

That second picture actually changed my life. Wait a minute-hold tight-what year was that? 1985? Yeah, 1985. I don't know how can I describe it, but it's like that feeling when you see a magician pulling something out of his hat. That was me when I saw the picture. I said, "Wow. What am I doing to myself?" I said, "I ain't never seen my picture when I'm not drinking. I got to straighten up." And the day I saw that picture I stopped drinking. And it lasted for six months. Then I started again.

I stole two cases of whiskey and three cases of wine. I took it all upstairs and I locked my door. And the only thing I had was some bologna and a loaf of bread. I stayed up there for about three weeks, just drinking. All of a sudden I began to get sick. I was fainting and coming back up, fainting and coming back up. And so I picked up a wine bottle and threw it out the window. And someone yelled up, "Pee Wee! What the hell is wrong with you?" I said, "Go to the phone booth and call an ambulance. I'm sick." So the ambulance came. When I got to the hospital, I didn't have enough blood for them to operate on me. All my blood had turned into whiskey and wine. So they started giving me blood, giving me blood. And then they started cutting into me. And as fast as blood come into me, I was bleeding it right out. The doctor said he lost me three times. The third time they tried shock treatment, and that didn't work. So they thought I was dead. The guy who was about to take me down to the morgue, he saw me moving. When I woke up, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law were there. And my mother-in-law, she said first thing-she didn't call me Pee-Wee, she called me Sammy-she said, "Sammy, God got something for you to do. He called you back here." And right then a chill went over me. I had some tubes in me, but I got out of the bed, and I got down to the floor, and I said, "Lord, I promise, if you let me walk out of that door, I promise that I'll tell kids what alcohol and drugs did to my life." And ever since then I've been helping kids.

Let me tell you something: I don't have no money, and I don't know nothing about rich. But I'm telling you-who's supposed to have the most money in the world? that guy who makes the computers?-I believe I feel a thousand times better than he do. That's how good I feel. And when people see me walk down the street sometimes, they say "You still walking? Pee Wee still walking? I know there's a God!" They know there's a God when they see me, because I went through it out here!

		Milton Rogovin: The Forgotten Ones at Amazon.com

home  |  on-air |  IN-PRINT |  about |  education |  support |  store

Sound Portraits Productions, 80 Hanson Place, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Telephone (646) 723-7020 | Fax (646) 723-7026

Copyright © 2012 Sound Portraits Productions. All rights reserved.