open-air abstinence and healthy toil. I drank every day, and
whenever opportunity offered I drank to excess; for I still
laboured under the misconception that the secret of John
Barleycorn lay in drinking to bestiality and unconsciousness. I
became pretty thoroughly alcohol-soaked during this period. I
practically lived in saloons; became a bar-room loafer, and worse.
And right here was John Barleycorn getting me in a more insidious
though no less deadly way than when he nearly sent me out with the
tide. I had a few months still to run before I was seventeen; I
scorned the thought of a steady job at anything; I felt myself a
pretty tough individual in a group of pretty tough men; and I
drank because these men drank and because I had to make good with
them. I had never had a real boyhood, and in this, my precocious
manhood, I was very hard and woefully wise. Though I had never
known girl’s love even, I had crawled through such depths that I
was convinced absolutely that I knew the last word about love and
life. And it wasn’t a pretty knowledge. Without being
pessimistic, I was quite satisfied that life was a rather cheap
and ordinary affair.
You see, John Barleycorn was blunting me. The old stings and
prods of the spirit were no longer sharp. Curiosity was leaving
me. What did it matter what lay on the other side of the world?
Men and women, without doubt, very much like the men and women I
knew; marrying and giving in marriage and all the petty run of
petty human concerns; and drinks, too. But the other side of the
world was a long way to go for a drink. I had but to step to the
corner and get all I wanted at Joe Vigy’s. Johnny Heinhold still
ran the Last Chance. And there were saloons on all the corners
and between the corners.
The whispers from the back of life were growing dim as my mind and
body soddened. The old unrest was drowsy. I might as well rot
and die here in Oakland as anywhere else. And I should have so
rotted and died, and not in very long order either, at the pace
John Barleycorn was leading me, had the matter depended wholly on
him. I was learning what it was to have no appetite. I was
learning what it was to get up shaky in the morning, with a
stomach that quivered, with fingers touched with palsy, and to
know the drinker’s need for a stiff glass of whisky neat in order
to brace up. (Oh! John Barleycorn is a wizard dopester. Brain
John Barleycorn
46
and body, scorched and jangled and poisoned, return to be tuned up
by the very poison that caused the damage.)
There is no end to John Barleycorn’s tricks. He had tried to
inveigle me into killing myself. At this period he was doing his
best to kill me at a fairly rapid pace. But, not satisfied with
that, he tried another dodge. He very nearly got me, too, and
right there I learned a lesson about him–became a wiser, a more
skilful drinker. I learned there were limits to my gorgeous
constitution, and that there were no limits to John Barleycorn. I
learned that in a short hour or two he could master my strong
head, my broad shoulders and deep chest, put me on my back, and
with a devil’s grip on my throat proceed to choke the life out of
me.
Nelson and I were sitting in the Overland House. It was early in
the evening, and the only reason we were there was because we were
broke and it was election time. You see, in election time local
politicians, aspirants for office, have a way of making the rounds
of the saloons to get votes. One is sitting at a table, in a dry
condition, wondering who is going to turn up and buy him a drink,
or if his credit is good at some other saloon and if it’s worth
while to walk that far to find out, when suddenly the saloon doors
swing wide, and enters a bevy of well-dressed men, themselves
usually wide and exhaling an atmosphere of prosperity and
fellowship.
They have smiles and greetings for everybody–for you, without the
price of a glass of beer in your pocket, for the timid hobo who
lurks in the corner and who certainly hasn’t a vote, but who may
establish a lodging-house registration. And do you know, when
these politicians swing wide the doors and come in, with their
broad shoulders, their deep chests, and their generous stomachs
which cannot help making them optimists and masters of life, why,
you perk right up. It’s going to be a warm evening after all, and
you know you’ll get a souse started at the very least.
And–who knows?–the gods may be kind, other drinks may come, and
the night culminate in glorious greatness. And the next thing you
know, you are lined up at the bar, pouring drinks down your throat
and learning the gentlemen’s names and the offices which they hope
to fill.
It was during this period, when the politicians went their saloon
rounds, that I was getting bitter bits of education and having
illusions punctured–I, who had pored and thrilled over “The Rail-
Splitter,” and “From Canal Boy to President.” Yes, I was learning
how noble politics and politicians are.
Well, on this night, broke, thirsty, but with the drinker’s faith
in the unexpected drink, Nelson and I sat in the Overland House
waiting for something to turn up, especially politicians. And
there entered Joe Goose–he of the unquenchable thirst, the wicked
eyes, the crooked nose, the flowered vest.
“Come on, fellows–free booze–all you want of it. I didn’t want
you to miss it.”
John Barleycorn
47
“Where?” we wanted to know.
“Come on. I’ll tell you as we go along. We haven’t a minute to
lose.” And as we hurried up town, Joe Goose explained: “It’s the
Hancock Fire Brigade. All you have to do is wear a red shirt and
a helmet, and carry a torch.
They’re going down on a special train to Haywards to parade.”
(I think the place was Haywards. It may have been San Leandro or
Niles. And, to save me, I can’t remember whether the Hancock Fire
Brigade was a republican or a democratic organisation. But
anyway, the politicians who ran it were short of torch-bearers,
and anybody who would parade could get drunk if he wanted to.)
“The town’ll be wide open,” Joe Goose went on. “Booze? It’ll run
like water. The politicians have bought the stocks of the
saloons. There’ll be no charge. All you got to do is walk right
up and call for it. We’ll raise hell.”
At the hall, on Eighth Street near Broadway, we got into the
firemen’s shirts and helmets, were equipped with torches, and,
growling because we weren’t given at least one drink before we
started, were herded aboard the train. Oh, those politicians had
handled our kind before. At Haywards there were no drinks either.
Parade first, and earn your booze, was the order of the night.
We paraded. Then the saloons were opened. Extra barkeepers had
been engaged, and the drinkers jammed six deep before every drink-
drenched and unwiped bar. There was no time to wipe the bar, nor
wash glasses, nor do anything save fill glasses. The Oakland
water-front can be real thirsty on occasion.
This method of jamming and struggling in front of the bar was too
slow for us. The drink was ours. The politicians had bought it
for us. We’d paraded and earned it, hadn’t we? So we made a flank
attack around the end of the bar, shoved the protesting barkeepers
aside, and helped ourselves to bottles.
Outside, we knocked the necks of the bottles off against the
concrete curbs, and drank. Now Joe Goose and Nelson had learned
discretion with straight whisky, drunk in quantity. I hadn’t. I
still laboured under the misconception that one was to drink all
he could get–especially when it didn’t cost anything. We shared
our bottles with others, and drank a good portion ourselves, while
I drank most of all. And I didn’t like the stuff. I drank it as
I had drunk beer at five, and wine at seven. I mastered my qualms
and downed it like so much medicine. And when we wanted more
bottles, we went into other saloons where the free drink was
flowing, and helped ourselves.
I haven’t the slightest idea of how much I drank–whether it was
two quarts or five. I do know that I began the orgy with half-
pint draughts and with no water afterward to wash the taste away
or to dilute the whisky.
John Barleycorn
48
Now the politicians were too wise to leave the town filled with
drunks from the water-front of Oakland. When train time came,