always to go down the street locked arm in arm with John
Barleycorn. To know the two, I must know the third. Or else I
must go back to my free library books and read of the deeds of
other men and do no deeds of my own save slave for ten cents an
hour at a machine in a cannery.
No; I was not to be deterred from this brave life on the water by
the fact that the water-dwellers had queer and expensive desires
for beer and wine and whisky. What if their notions of happiness
included the strange one of seeing me drink? When they persisted
in buying the stuff and thrusting it upon me, why, I would drink
it. It was the price I would pay for their comradeship. And I
didn’t have to get drunk. I had not got drunk the Sunday
afternoon I arranged to buy the Razzle Dazzle, despite the fact
that not one of the rest was sober. Well, I could go on into the
future that way, drinking the stuff when it gave them pleasure
that I should drink it, but carefully avoiding over-drinking.
CHAPTER IX
Gradual as was my development as a heavy drinker among the oyster
pirates, the real heavy drinking came suddenly, and was the
result, not of desire for alcohol, but of an intellectual
conviction.
The more I saw of the life, the more I was enamoured of it. I can
never forget my thrills the first night I took part in a concerted
raid, when we assembled on board the Annie–rough men, big and
unafraid, and weazened wharf-rats, some of them ex-convicts, all
of them enemies of the law and meriting jail, in sea-boots and
sea-gear, talking in gruff low voices, and “Big” George with
revolvers strapped about his waist to show that he meant business.
Oh, I know, looking back, that the whole thing was sordid and
silly. But I was not looking back in those days when I was
rubbing shoulders with John Barleycorn and beginning to accept
him. The life was brave and wild, and I was living the adventure
I had read so much about.
Nelson, “Young Scratch” they called him, to distinguish him from
“Old Scratch,” his father, sailed in the sloop Reindeer, partners
with one “Clam.” Clam was a dare-devil, but Nelson was a reckless
maniac. He was twenty years old, with the body of a Hercules.
When he was shot in Benicia, a couple of years later, the coroner
said he was the greatest-shouldered man he had ever seen laid on a
John Barleycorn
27
slab.
Nelson could not read or write. He had been “dragged” up by his
father on San Francisco Bay, and boats were second nature with
him. His strength was prodigious, and his reputation along the
water-front for violence was anything but savoury. He had
Berserker rages and did mad, terrible things. I made his
acquaintance the first cruise of the Razzle Dazzle, and saw him
sail the Reindeer in a blow and dredge oysters all around the rest
of us as we lay at two anchors, troubled with fear of going
ashore.
He was some man, this Nelson; and when, passing by the Last Chance
saloon, he spoke to me, I felt very proud. But try to imagine my
pride when he promptly asked me in to have a drink. I stood at
the bar and drank a glass of beer with him, and talked manfully of
oysters, and boats, and of the mystery of who had put the load of
buckshot through the Annie’s mainsail.
We talked and lingered at the bar. It seemed to me strange that
we lingered. We had had our beer. But who was I to lead the way
outside when great Nelson chose to lean against the bar? After a
few minutes, to my surprise, he asked me to have another drink,
which I did. And still we talked, and Nelson evinced no intention
of leaving the bar.
Bear with me while I explain the way of my reasoning and of my
innocence. First of all, I was very proud to be in the company of
Nelson, who was the most heroic figure among the oyster pirates
and bay adventurers. Unfortunately for my stomach and mucous
membranes, Nelson had a strange quirk of nature that made him find
happiness in treating me to beer. I had no moral disinclination
for beer, and just because I didn’t like the taste of it and the
weight of it was no reason I should forgo the honour of his
company. It was his whim to drink beer, and to have me drink beer
with him. Very well, I would put up with the passing discomfort.
So we continued to talk at the bar, and to drink beer ordered and
paid for by Nelson. I think, now, when I look back upon it, that
Nelson was curious. He wanted to find out just what kind of a
gink I was. He wanted to see how many times I’d let him treat
without offering to treat in return.
After I had drunk half a dozen glasses, my policy of temperateness
in mind, I decided that I had had enough for that time. So I
mentioned that I was going aboard the Razzle Dazzle, then lying at
the city wharf, a hundred yards away.
I said good-bye to Nelson, and went on down the wharf. But, John
Barleycorn, to the extent of six glasses, went with me. My brain
tingled and was very much alive. I was uplifted by my sense of
manhood. I, a truly-true oyster pirate, was going aboard my own
boat after hob-nobbing in the Last Chance with Nelson, the
greatest oyster pirate of us all. Strong in my brain was the
vision of us leaning against the bar and drinking beer. And
curious it was, I decided, this whim of nature that made men happy
in spending good money for beer for a fellow like me who didn’t
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28
want it.
As I pondered this, I recollected that several times other men, in
couples, had entered the Last Chance, and first one, then the
other, had treated to drinks. I remembered, on the drunk on the
Idler, how Scotty and the harpooner and myself had raked and
scraped dimes and nickels with which to buy the whisky. Then came
my boy code: when on a day a fellow gave another a “cannon-ball”
or a chunk of taffy, on some other day he would expect to receive
back a cannon-ball or a chunk of taffy.
That was why Nelson had lingered at the bar. Having bought a
drink, he had waited for me to buy one. I HAD, LET HIM BUY SIX
DRINKS AND NEVER ONCE OFFERED TO TREAT. And he was the great
Nelson! I could feel myself blushing with shame. I sat down on
the stringer-piece of the wharf and buried my face in my hands.
And the heat of my shame burned up my neck and into my cheeks and
forehead. I have blushed many times in my life, but never have I
experienced so terrible a blush as that one.
And sitting there on the stringer-piece in my shame, I did a great
deal of thinking and transvaluing of values. I had been born
poor. Poor I had lived. I had gone hungry on occasion. I had
never had toys nor playthings like other children. My first
memories of life were pinched by poverty. The pinch of poverty
had been chronic. I was eight years old when I wore my first
little undershirt actually sold in a store across the counter.
And then it had been only one little undershirt. When it was
soiled I had to return to the awful home-made things until it was
washed. I had been so proud of it that I insisted on wearing it
without any outer garment. For the first time I mutinied against
my mother–mutinied myself into hysteria, until she let me wear
the store undershirt so all the world could see.
Only a man who has undergone famine can properly value food; only
sailors and desert-dwellers know the meaning of fresh water. And
only a child, with a child’s imagination, can come to know the
meaning of things it has been long denied. I early discovered
that the only things I could have were those I got for myself. My
meagre childhood developed meagreness. The first things I had
been able to get for myself had been cigarette pictures, cigarette
posters, and cigarette albums. I had not had the spending of the
money I earned, so I traded “extra” newspapers for these
treasures. I traded duplicates with the other boys, and
circulating, as I did, all about town, I had greater opportunities
for trading and acquiring.
It was not long before I had complete every series issued by every
cigarette manufacturer–such as the Great Race Horses, Parisian