up. And I met others, including the Vigy brothers, who ran the
place, and, chiefest of all, Joe Goose, with the wicked eyes, the
twisted nose, and the flowered vest, who played the harmonica like
a roystering angel and went on the most atrocious tears that even
the Oakland water-front could conceive of and admire.
As I bought drinks–others treated as well–the thought flickered
across my mind that Mammy Jennie wasn’t going to be repaid much on
her loan out of that week’s earnings of the Razzle Dazzle. “But
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what of it?” I thought, or rather, John Barleycorn thought it for
me. “You’re a man and you’re getting acquainted with men. Mammy
Jennie doesn’t need the money as promptly as all that. She isn’t
starving. You know that. She’s got other money in the bank. Let
her wait, and pay her back gradually.”
And thus it was I learned another trait of John Barleycorn. He
inhibits morality. Wrong conduct that it is impossible for one to
do sober, is done quite easily when one is not sober. In fact, it
is the only thing one can do, for John Barleycorn’s inhibition
rises like a wall between one’s immediate desires and long-learned
morality.
I dismissed my thought of debt to Mammy Jennie and proceeded to
get acquainted at the trifling expense of some trifling money and
a jingle that was growing unpleasant. Who took me on board and
put me to bed that night I do not know, but I imagine it must have
been Spider.
CHAPTER X
And so I won my manhood’s spurs. My status on the water-front and
with the oyster pirates became immediately excellent. I was
looked upon as a good fellow, as well as no coward. And somehow,
from the day I achieved that concept sitting on the stringer-piece
of the Oakland City Wharf, I have never cared much for money. No
one has ever considered me a miser since, while my carelessness of
money is a source of anxiety and worry to some that know me.
So completely did I break with my parsimonious past that I sent
word home to my mother to call in the boys of the neighbourhood
and give to them all my collections. I never even cared to learn
what boys got what collections. I was a man now, and I made a
clean sweep of everything that bound me to my boyhood.
My reputation grew. When the story went around the water-front of
how French Frank had tried to run me down with his schooner, and
of how I had stood on the deck of the Razzle Dazzle, a cocked
double-barrelled shotgun in my hands, steering with my feet and
holding her to her course, and compelled him to put up his wheel
and keep away, the water-front decided that there was something in
me despite my youth. And I continued to show what was in me.
There were the times I brought the Razzle Dazzle in with a bigger
load of oysters than any other two-man craft; there was the time
when we raided far down in Lower Bay, and mine was the only craft
back at daylight to the anchorage off Asparagus Island; there was
the Thursday night we raced for market and I brought the Razzle
Dazzle in without a rudder, first of the fleet, and skimmed the
cream of the Friday morning trade; and there was the time I
brought her in from Upper Bay under a jib, when Scotty burned my
mainsail. (Yes; it was Scotty of the Idler adventure. Irish had
followed Spider on board the Razzle Dazzle, and Scotty, turning
up, had taken Irish’s place.)
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But the things I did on the water only partly counted. What
completed everything, and won for me the title of “Prince of the
Oyster Beds,” was that I was a good fellow ashore with my money,
buying drinks like a man. I little dreamed that the time would
come when the Oakland water-front, which had shocked me at first
would be shocked and annoyed by the devilry of the things I did.
But always the life was tied up with drinking. The saloons are
poor men’s clubs. Saloons are congregating places. We engaged to
meet one another in saloons. We celebrated our good fortune or
wept our grief in saloons. We got acquainted in saloons.
Can I ever forget the afternoon I met “Old Scratch,” Nelson’s
father? It was in the Last Chance. Johnny Heinhold introduced us.
That Old Scratch was Nelson’s father was noteworthy enough. But
there was more in it than that. He was owner and master of the
scow-schooner Annie Mine, and some day I might ship as a sailor
with him. Still more, he was romance. He was a blue-eyed,
yellow-haired, raw-boned Viking, big-bodied and strong-muscled
despite his age. And he had sailed the seas in ships of all
nations in the old savage sailing days.
I had heard many weird tales about him, and worshipped him from a
distance. It took the saloon to bring us together. Even so, our
acquaintance might have been no more than a hand-grip and a word–
he was a laconic old fellow–had it not been for the drinking.
“Have a drink,” I said, with promptitude, after the pause which I
had learned good form in drinking dictates. Of course, while we
drank our beer, which I had paid for, it was incumbent on him to
listen to me and to talk to me. And Johnny, like a true host,
made the tactful remarks that enabled us to find mutual topics of
conversation. And of course, having drunk my beer, Captain Nelson
must now buy beer in turn. This led to more talking, and Johnny
drifted out of the conversation to wait on other customers.
The more beer Captain Nelson and I drank, the better we got
acquainted. In me he found an appreciative listener, who, by
virtue of book-reading, knew much about the sea-life he had lived.
So he drifted back to his wild young days, and spun many a rare
yarn for me, while we downed beer, treat by treat, all through a
blessed summer afternoon. And it was only John Barleycorn that
made possible that long afternoon with the old sea-dog.
It was Johnny Heinhold who secretly warned me across the bar that
I was getting pickled and advised me to take small beers. But as
long as Captain Nelson drank large beers, my pride forbade
anything else than large beers. And not until the skipper ordered
his first small beer did I order one for myself. Oh, when we came
to a lingering fond farewell, I was drunk. But I had the
satisfaction of seeing Old Scratch as drunk as I. My youthful
modesty scarcely let me dare believe that the hardened old
buccaneer was even more drunk.
And afterwards, from Spider, and Pat, and C]am, and Johnny
Heinhold, and others, came the tips that Old Scratch liked me and
had nothing but good words for the fine lad I was. Which was the
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more remarkable, because he was known as a savage, cantankerous
old cuss who never liked anybody. (His very nickname, “Scratch,”
arose from a Berserker trick of his, in fighting, of tearing off
his opponent’s face.) And that I had won his friendship, all
thanks were due to John Barleycorn. I have given the incident
merely as an example of the multitudinous lures and draws and
services by which John Barleycorn wins his followers.
CHAPTER XI
And still there arose in me no desire for alcohol, no chemical
demand. In years and years of heavy drinking, drinking did not
beget the desire. Drinking was the way of the life I led, the way
of the men with whom I lived. While away on my cruises on the
bay, I took no drink along; and while out on the bay the thought
of the desirableness of a drink never crossed my mind. It was not
until I tied the Razzle Dazzle up to the wharf and got ashore in
the congregating places of men, where drink flowed, that the
buying of drinks for other men, and the accepting of drinks from
other men, devolved upon me as a social duty and a manhood rite.
Then, too, there were the times, lying at the city wharf or across
the estuary on the sand-spit, when the Queen, and her sister, and
her brother Pat, and Mrs. Hadley came aboard. It was my boat, I
was host, and I could only dispense hospitality in the terms of
their understanding of it. So I would rush Spider, or Irish, or
Scotty, or whoever was my crew, with the can for beer and the
demijohn for red wine. And again, lying at the wharf disposing of
my oysters, there were dusky twilights when big policemen and
plain-clothes men stole on board. And because we lived in the