CHAPTER XII
DuringSanc’s absence I worked industriously, bettering his instructions by renting two rooms a day and making the duplicate keys. In most instances the clerks returned my money when I told them I was called away and could not occupy the rooms. My days were well filled with work, renting two rooms, making two keys, trying to get my room money refunded and visiting the safety box twice a day, sometimes following a depositor out and around the streets to see what he did with his money.
My evenings were my own and I spent them on the Barbary Coast or the water front. With an old suit on and a dollar or two in silver I loved to go to the sailors’ boarding houses where seafaring men, brawny, brown, and tattooed, speaking all languages, ate, drank, fought, sang their strange sea songs, and told tales of hardship and adventure on all the seas. Here I learned to beware the crafty shanghaier with his knockout drops, lying in wait for strong young fellows from the country. The cowardly andunscrupulous thieves who later used chloral so indiscriminately and murderously learned its stupefying effects from the busy shanghaier on San Francisco’s water front.
The wine dumps, where wine bums or “winos” hung out, interested me. Long, dark, dirty rooms with rows of rickety tables and a long bar behind which were barrels of the deadly “foot juice” or “red ink,” as the winos called it. Sometimes the dump was equipped with a small lunch counter in the back where the winos could buy for a nickel a big plate of something that looked like stew, and a hunk of stale bread. The stew was served from a big pot that was always boiling. Several times a day the porter, who was also cook and waiter and wino as well, threw a box of mixed vegetables, discarded from the commission houses, unwashed and unpeeled, into the pot. Then followed a box of bones, pieces of tallow, scraps of meat trimmings, odds and ends of meat covered with sawdust from the floor of the market near by.
The patrons of the wine dumps were recruited from every walk of life. Scholars, quoting Greek and Latin poets, lawyers dissecting Blackstone, writers with greasy rolls of manuscript fraternized with broken bums from the road, sailors too old for the sea, and scrapped mechanics from the factories—all under the lash of alcohol. They sat in groups at the tables drinking the wine, alcohol in its cheapest and deadliest form, from every conceivable kind of vessel: tin cans, pewter mugs, beer glasses, steins, and cracked soup bowls—anything unbreakable that the boss could buy from a junkman. They talked volubly. They seldom laughed and never fought—too far gone for laughing or fighting. When they could drink no moreor buy no more, they staggered or crawled to a bare space on the floor in the back of the room where they lay on their backs in a row with their heads to the wall, each with his hat over his hideous, bloated, purple face. The porter-cook-wino watched the sleepers carefully. When he thought they had “slept it off” enough to stand up, he roughly kicked them to their feet and herded them out into the streets to beg, borrow, or steal enough small silver for another bout. Too often they failed to respond to his kicks; he would lift the battered hat, take one look at the purple-blue face, and ring for the morgue wagon.
This pitiful crew, gathered from the four corners of the earth and from every stratum of society, whipped beyond resistance by that mysterious and irresistible craving for alcohol, drank themselves purple in the wine dumps and died on the floors or under the city sidewalks. The wine dumps are gone; can any man regret their passing? And so are the winos gone. In their places have appeared the Jamaica ginger fiend, the canned heat and wood alcohol drinker. It is difficult to study and classify them; their lives are too short.
The most disreputable wine dump in the city was in Clay Street, below Kearny, and I never failed to visit it when in the neighborhood. I had no more than stepped into the place one night when a wino at the door shouted, “Here comes the wagon,” and dashed out wildly. Some of the soberest ran out the back and disappeared. I started to the front door, but the cops were coming in. I was the first one they got, and as the cop threw me into the wagon, in the middle of my explanation, he said: “Oh, tell the judge aboutit, I’m no court. I’m a hundred-dollar-a-month cop, and it serves me right for being one if I get lousy throwing all you wine bums in and out of the wagon.” He seemed discouraged.
I had got calloused about getting locked up and didn’t worry, knowing they couldn’t do much to me. But going over in the wagon my mind turned to the burglary of the week before. I felt uncomfortable and thought of my room and was thankful that it was “clean,” and of the safety box and the keys I had made, and every other crooked transaction in my short life of outlawry. “No danger,” I thought as the wagon rattled over the blocks, “if I cover myself up. My name is William Brown, I am nineteen years old. I was born in Pocatello, Idaho. My parents died when I was fourteen. I have supported myself since, selling papers, washing dishes, and working on farms. I came to this city this morning and am going to get a job. I went into that place out of curiosity.”
I just had this short biography put together when we got to the city prison. It was in the basement of a building that stood where the Hall of Justice now is, and it was the foulest I ever saw, worse than the first one at home. There was a busy spot, that corridor in the city prison! Officers hurrying in and out, lawyers haggling at the desk about releases for prisoners, “fixers,” hawk-eyed and rapacious, lurked about, cheap bail bondsmen coining misery, ignorance, and crime into thick nickels and thin dimes, and on the long bench by the wall sat a thin, wrinkled, poorly dressed woman of fifty, holding a boy’s hand in hers. He sat beside her, silent and stubborn. She was crying.
Ten of us from the wine dump were lined up at the desk. The officer in charge said to the man at the desk. “We’ll vag the chronics and charge the new ones with drunk.” The chronic winos gave their names, etc., and were hurried away down the corridor. Another chap and I were the only “new ones.” We answered all questions without angering anybody and getting knocked down. I protested that I wasn’t drunk. The desk man said: “Oh, that’s all right, you can go out in the morning at five o’clock on the broom.” They searched me, but took nothing except a pocketknife.
We were put in a large cell about twenty feet square, directly across the corridor from the desk where prisoners were received and registered. The front of this cell was of upright iron bars and admitted plenty of light from the corridor. The cell was foul smelling from a fixture in one corner that seemed to connect directly with a sewer. A broken water faucet leaked continually, with a hissing sound. About ten men were there, some sleeping on the damp asphalt floor, some on the benches that lined the wall; some stood expectantly at the front waiting to be released, others squatted on their haunches in the corners, staring vacantly at the floor.
I sat on the bench and wondered about “going out on the broom” in the morning. I could have asked my cellmates. I looked for the other “new one” that came with me from the wine dump; he was asleep on the floor. I decided not to ask, but to wait till morning and find out for myself. Even at that age I had stumbled upon one truth, and that is, The best way to get misinformed is to ask a lot of questions.Nearly all my life has been spent in the company of unfortunate people, and while I never looked upon myself as an unfortunate, I was always accepted as one of them. Whatever knowledge I have of them was gleaned by looking and listening, and it is much more accurate than any I could have got by asking impertinent and close-up questions. Your best friend would give you a surly answer if you were to ask him the time of day an hour after his watch had been stolen. Ask any one-legged stranger how he lost his limb, and you will get something like this: “Well, you see, it was this way—I got run over by a ferryboat.”
Of all the many friends I have made since I gave up my larcenous life, “Shorty” is one of the most respected and highly prized. His friends are legion, and in every state in the Union; not that Shorty has traveled there and made friends of them, but that they have traveled here and made a friend of him.
Shorty’s news stand is on a busy corner in the shadow of a skyscraper owned by ex-Senator Phelan, one of California’s most distinguished men, and there, under his patronage and protection, he stands on his stumps (“cut-down legs” he calls them), early and late, serving thousands with papers and periodicals. He hobnobs with doctors, lawyers, business men, and politicians. He finds lost children and dogs, and returns them to their owners. Shopgirls and strangers ask him which is the best show of the week. Men around town consult him about the chances of a horse in to-morrow’s race. He can borrow more money on his I.O.U. than many business men in his block and pays on the minute. He is no stranger at the banks on theopposite corners. His reputation for truth and veracity is such that if he were to tell me the water had all disappeared from the bay I wouldn’t go down to look.
Traveling in search of adventure when young, he lost his legs under a train, but instead of despairing and sinking under this terrible misfortune, he braced himself and, picking out a bare corner on the street, built up, day by day, year by year, a business that has made him independent and respected. I stopped one day at his stand, and, looking at his massive chest, broad shoulders, and fine head, I saw him in fancy a splendid figure of a man towering ruggedly above his fellows.
“Shorty,” I asked, “how tall were you before you lost your legs?”
He flashed me a savage look; then remembering we were friends his eyes fell to his stumps and he said with a laugh, “Oh, I was taller by two feet.”
That’s all one gets by asking questions that wake painful memories.
From my position on the bench I could see every prisoner brought to the desk. About ten o’clock there was a stir in the hall and several policemen came in with Chinamen from a gambling-house raid. This was before they had cut off their queues, and instead of handcuffing their prisoners the cops came in driving the silent, stolid Chinese before them like charioteers. Each cop had the tails of three Chinamen’s queues in each hand. Ahead of the procession walked a white man with a heavy bag of gold in his hand which he put on the desk, and waited till the names of the prisoners had been taken. Then they all went back up the corridor out of my sight—the Chinamen back toChinatown to their gambling, and the bag of gold into the bond-and-warrant clerk’s office to insure their appearance in court.
Several times during the night men were brought in, questioned at great length, searched thoroughly, and led away to another part of the prison—felony cases. About midnight two young fellows about my age were brought in by a copper and stood up before the desk.
“Vag these two ‘hypos,’” said the cop to the desk man. He searched them most carefully, finding a small package in the torn lining of one’s coat. The boy begged for it piteously. “I’ll croak, officer, if you take it away from me.” The cop gave him to the waiting trusty. “Throw him in.” He was put in with us. Nothing was found on the other hypo, and he was “thrown in” too.
They immediately began comparing notes and taking stock, walking up and down the center of the cell nervously. They were in rags and unwashed, their shoes were broken and had no laces, and the tops flapped open showing their bare ankles. They seemed utterly unconscious of their sad condition and walked and talked as briskly as two brokers on Montgomery Street discussing the markets.
“He got my plant, Georgie,” said the first one, “but you saved yours, didn’t you, Georgie? Gee, Georgie, but you’re a fox.” His tones were honey.
“Never mind that,” the other replied; “you don’t have to ‘Georgie’ me. You’re in with what ‘gow’ I’ve got. Let’s bang it up before they come in and take it away from us. See if you can hustle some matches.”
The match seeker glanced sharply around him.When his eye fell on me I produced some matches. “Got any smokes?” I handed him a pack of cigarettes. He took two, gave one to his partner, Georgie, and returned the pack. His mind seemed detached from the cell. He took the matches and cigarettes from me without a word, as if he had reached up to a mantel and taken them off it. Georgie fished about the front of his trousers and brought up a tobacco sack that had been hanging suspended from a button. The sack contained his “plant,” an eye dropper with a hypodermic needle soldered to it with sealing wax, and a small paper of morphine in a little tin box.
They went to a back corner of the cell and prepared their shot. About a spoonful of water and some of their meager store of “morph” were put in the tin box and matches were burned under it till it boiled, completely dissolving the morphine. It was then drawn up into the eye dropper, and Georgie injected his portion into his arm. The other boy did the same with his portion. Their outfit was carefully put away in the tobacco bag and suspended again from a button down inside the front of Georgie’s trousers. Nobody paid any attention to them. They took their shot as coolly as if they had been in their room, or under a sidewalk. They seemed a little more interested in their surroundings in a few minutes. The one I gave the cigarettes to came over to me rubbing his hands briskly, smiling.
“Give us a couple more of them smokes, young fellow.”
“I’d like to buy some,” I said, “if I could.”
“Got money?”
“Yes, a couple of dollars.”
“I’ll fix it for you,” he said most condescendingly. He went over to the bars and shouted, “Hey, Finnerty!”
In a minute the head trusty, a thin, weazened, rat-eyed, undersized character, came up.
“Cigarettes, matches? Sure. Anything else?”
I produced a dollar.
“What’s the matter with a can of coffee and some snails?” said the hypo.
“Get whatever you can,” I said, giving him the dollar.
Finnerty disappeared, and in a surprisingly short time came back with cigarettes, a gallon fruit tin half full of splendid coffee, and a bag of snails. The two young fellows took charge of the coffee and snails, spread a newspaper on the floor, and very cordially invited me to help myself.
While we were having our lunch the talk was diplomatically turned to dope and the shortage that menaced my two hypo friends and the sufferings they would undergo when there was no more and the “habit” came on, and the necessity for a shot in the morning as a bracer for them when they faced the judge. They grew so despondent over their plight that when we were done eating they decided to “shoot up” the small portion of white stuff they had left. They brightened up after this operation was over, and things looked rosier.
“Just think, Georgie,” said the talkative one, looking at me, “what a four-bit piece would do for us. What a life-saver! We’ll both get a ‘sixer’ in the morning if we go in front of the judge with our teeth rattlin’ so we can’t put up a talk. If I had adecent shot for the morning I could talk him out of it.
“And that rat, Finnerty, the trusty,” the talker spoke to me now, “has got a ton of it out there to sell, but he wouldn’t give us a jolt if we had the horrors.”
“Can you buy it from Finnerty?” I asked him, interested.
“Can you? Why, that guy Finnerty would peddle you a six-shooter and a road map if you had the coin, and then snitch on you to the desk sergeant, the rat,” he finished.
At that time morphine and opium were almost as cheap as tobacco. Fifty cents’ worth would last them a day. I hastily dug up a half dollar and gave it to him. In answer to his call Finnerty appeared, took the half dollar, and from his shirt pocket drew a bundle of neatly folded packets of morphine. In plain sight of the desk sergeant he counted out the required number of parcels and put them into the purchaser’s hand extended through the bars. They were divided at once.
Georgie said to his partner. “I think we’d better cook up a shot just to see if the stuff is all right. That Finnerty would peddle you chloride of lime if he happened to run out of ‘morph.’” This seemed to be a very rational reason for taking another shot, and they did.
Given a sufficient quantity of hop, no fiend is ever at a loss for a sound reason for taking a jolt of it. If he is feeling bad he takes a jolt so he will feel good. If he is feeling good, he takes one to make him feel better, and if he is feeling neither very bad nor verygood he takes a jolt “just to get himself straightened around.”
Along about two in the morning a young chap about twenty was brought in to the desk. While he was being searched the two hypos had their eyes glued on him. “He ain’t got a dime,” said Georgie to his partner when the searching was done. The desk man gave the young fellow his cigarettes and he was locked in with us. He was neat, well dressed, and very wise looking. He sniffed at the hypos, gave me half a glance, adjusted his tie, and polished his shoes by rubbing each foot on the back of the opposite leg. He hung a cigarette on his lower lip and felt about for matches, but found none.
“Hey, you,” snapping his fingers at Georgie, “gimme a match.” Georgie gave him a few. “I’ll be out of here in an hour,” said the newcomer, inhaling his smoke. “I’ll send you in anything you want. I’m a quick connector. I can get a ten-dollar piece before I get out of the block—sucker born every minute, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Georgie replied. “I’m sorry for them poor suckers. They’re all asleep down in the Palace Hotel and you’re up here in the can begging matches. There’s one born every minute, all right, but there’s two wise guys going to jail every minute, an’ beggin’ matches.”
The wise guy said no more, but stood by the door waiting to go out. He was standing there when I left in the morning.
Georgie turned to his companion. “That last shot didn’t hit me right; we’d better cook up another an’ begin to get straightened up for court.”
Having bought the stuff for them, I took the liberty to sit by while they took their shot, which they did without seeming to notice me. Their bony arms were gray, like pieces of petrified wood. The skin was pocked with marks, mottled and scarred from the repeated, hourly stabbing of the needle. Their shirt sleeves were encrusted with dried blood from the many punctures. And yet they appeared oblivious to it all.
“Have a little shot, young fellow?” Georgie asked cordially.
I declined. “What would happen to me if I did?” I asked.
“Why, nothing; you’d lie down on the bench and sleep like a baby till time to go out in the morning, that’s all.”
“Yes! And what would happen to the balance of my silver while I am sleeping like a baby?”
Georgie’s partner cut in like a flash: “This is what would happen. Me and Georgie would stick right here by you and see that nobody frisked you for it.”
I laughed so loud that the desk officer thinking some one had gone hysterical, stood up sleepily and peered over his desk into the cell. The other bums stirred uneasily in their sleep. Mine was the only laugh there that night. I could laugh then; I didn’t know anything about hop.
My companions didn’t seem hurt or offended because of my intimation that they had designs on my last four-bit piece. They fell to discussing their case and preparing a talk for the judge in the morning. Georgie was for pleading guilty, and his chum wanted to “talk the judge out of it.” They couldn’t agree,and looked at me. I ventured to ask what they had done.
“We’ve got two tough raps,” said Georgie. “In the first place a hypo ain’t supposed to be found within a block of police headquarters, an’ we’re grabbed right alongside of the building. In the second place, a hypo ain’t allowed to leave Chinatown. Of course the cops know we sneak out. That ain’t so bad. Our racket is peddling kindling wood to the Chinks an’ we’ve got to go out of Chinatown to get it. Last night we ducks out and down Jackson Street to the commission houses and gather up a couple of fine bindles of wood. They are pretty heavy and we’re on short rations of gow and don’t feel any too strong, so we decide to dash up Washington Street, the shortest route into Chinatown. We’re bang up against the city prison when a big, flat-footed, harness bull steps out an’ yaffles us—an’ here we are.”
Their case looked so tough that I could think of no solution. “I wouldn’t plead guilty to anything if I were you,” I advised him.
“Me, neither,” said his partner. “If I get six months they’ll have to hang them on me. I ain’t going to reach out an’ grab them.”
They fell into a fresh argument and their words became so personal and threatening that I feared they would do each other some great violence. I took a chance in the rôle of peacemaker and suggested that they take another shot and talk it over peaceably and quietly. They quit their wrangling instantly and in a minute they were on their knees in the corner of the cell with their heads together, amicably preparing another shot. Somewhere down the corridor I hearda clatter, and a singsong voice droned, “Get ready for the broom. Get ready for the broom.”
I was going out. I went over to my friends in the corner with the fifty-cent piece I had left. “Here,” I said, “take this.” One of them, still on his knees waiting for his shot, held out his hand; his fingers closed on the half dollar. He neither looked up nor spoke to me—his eyes were on the little tin can where the morphine was dissolving in the boiling water.
The door was opened and my name called.
I stood by the door till a trusty prisoner opened it and let me out. My partner from the wine dump was also taken out and we joined four or five others in the corridor. A trusty came with an armful of brooms and gave each of us one. A husky young fellow, half awake, reached for one of the newest brooms. “No, you don’t,” said the trusty, “the last time you were here I gave you a good new broom and you beat it up to Chinktown and peddled it for a dime. An old broom for you.”
We were detailed in pairs to sweep the sidewalks clean all around the block the prison stood on. My space was from the prison door down to Montgomery Street. An old man had the sidewalk across the street from me. Two or three assistant trusties nosed around like bird dogs to see that we swept clean and didn’t run away with the brooms. When my task was done I helped the old man finish his, and he carried my broom back to the prison. The trusty dismissed me with a wave of his arm and I went up Montgomery Street in search of a restaurant where I could get some coffee with a dime I had saved from the rapacious and cunning hypos in the prison. I decided tokeep away from the wine dumps in future, and out of the hands of the police vag detail that rounded up the riffraff when they got too numerous and pesty.
In a few days Sanc was back, quite satisfied with his trip to Salt Chunk Mary’s. The money was split and put in our box in separate parcels. We had more than $1,000 each now, but he had no notion of taking a rest or vacation. He wanted to know right away what I had done in his absence. I reported everything, including my night in jail. He asked me what I told the police at the station. I told him. “Not bad,” he said, “but be careful.”
I gave him the hotel room keys I had made, and he complimented me on my work and put them away for future use.