 Chapter 7 and 8 of John Barley-Corn, or Alcoholic Memoirs, by Jack London. Chapter 7 I was barely turned fifteen and working long hours in a cannery. Month in and month out the shortest day I ever worked was ten hours. When to ten hours of actual work at a machine is added the noon hour, the walking to work and walking home from work, the getting up in the morning, dressing and eating, the eating at night, undressing and going to bed, there remains no more than the nine hours out of the twenty-four required by a healthy youngster for sleep. Out of those nine hours after I was in bed and air my eyes drowsed shut, I managed to steal a little time for reading. But many a night I did not knock off work until midnight. On occasion I worked eighteen and twenty hours on a stretch. Once I worked at my machine for thirty-six consecutive hours. Then there were weeks on end when I never knocked off work earlier than eleven o'clock, got home and in bed at half-after midnight, and was called at half-past five to dress, eat, walk to work, and be at my machine at seven o'clock whistle-blow. No moments here to be stolen for my beloved books. And what had John Barley Corn to do with such strenuous stoic toil of a lad just turned fifteen? He had everything to do with it. Let me show you. I asked myself if this were the meaning of life, to be a work-beast? I knew of no horse in the city of Oakland that worked the hours I worked. If this were living I was entirely unenamored of it. I remembered my skiff, lying idle and accumulating barnacles at the boat-worth. I remembered the wind that blew every day on the bay, the sunrises and sunsets. I never saw the bite of the salt air in my nostrils, the bite of the salt water on my flesh when I plunged over-side. I remembered all the beauty and the wonder and the sense delights of the world denied me. There was only one way to escape my deadening toil. I must get out and away on the water. I must earn my bread on the water. And the way of the water led inevitably to John Barley Corn. I did not know this, and when I did learn it I was courageous enough not to retreat back to my bestial life at the machine. I wanted to beware the winds of adventure blue, and the winds of adventure blue the oyster pirate sloops up and down San Francisco Bay, from raided oyster beds and fights at night on shoal and flat to markets in the morning against city warbs where peddlers and saloon keepers came down to buy. Every raid on an oyster bed was a felony. The penalty was state imprisonment, the stripes and the lockstep. And what of that? The men in stripes worked a shorter day than I at my machine. And there was vastly more romance in being an oyster pirate or a convict than in being a machine slave. And behind it all, behind all of me with youth a bubble, whispered romance, adventure. So I interviewed my mammy Jenny, my old nurse at whose black breast I had suckled. She was more prosperous than my folks. She was nursing sick people at a good weekly wage. Would she lend her white child the money? Would she? What she had was mine. Then I sought out French Frank, the oyster pirate, who wanted to sell, I had heard, his sloop, the razzle-dazzle. I found him lying at anchor on the Alameda side of the estuary near the Webster Street Bridge, with visitors aboard whom he was entertaining with afternoon wine. He came on deck to talk business. He was willing to sell. But it was Sunday besides he had guests. Tomorrow he would make out the bill of sale, and I could enter into possession. And in the meantime I must come below and meet his friends. There were two sisters, Mamie and Tess, a Mrs. Hadley, who chaperoned them, Whiskey Bob, a youthful oyster pirate of sixteen, and Spider Healy, a black-whiskered war-frat of twenty. Mamie, who was spider's niece, was called the Queen of the Oyster Pirates, and on occasion presided at their revels. French Frank was in love with her, though I did not know it at the time, and she steadfastly refused to marry him. French Frank poured a tumbler of red wine from a big demi-john to drink to our transaction. I remembered the red wine of the Italian rancho, and shuddered inwardly. Whiskey and beer were not quite so repulsive. But the Queen of the Oyster Pirates was looking at me, a part emptied glass in her own hand. I had my pride. If I was only fifteen, at least I could not show myself any less a man than she. Besides, there were her sister, and Mrs. Hadley, and the young oyster pirate, and the whiskered war-frat, all with glasses in their hands. Was I a milk-and-water sop? No, a thousand times no, and a thousand glasses no. I downed the tumbleful like a man. French Frank was elated by the sale, which I had bound with a twenty-dollar gold-piece. He poured more wine. I had learned my strong head and stomach, and I was certain I could drink with them in a temperate way and not poison myself for a week to come. I could stand as much as they, and besides, they had already been drinking for some time. We got to singing. Spider sang the Boston burglar, and Black Lulu. The Queen sang, Then I wished I were a little bird. And her sister Tess sang, Oh, treat my daughter kindly. The fun grew fast and furious. I found myself able to miss drinks without being noticed or called to account. Also, standing in the companion way, head and shoulders out in glass and hand, I could fling the wine overboard. I reasoned something like this. It is a queerness of these people that they like this vile tasting wine. Well, let them. I cannot quarrel with their tastes. My manhood, according to their queer notions, must compel me to appear to like this wine. Very well I shall so appear, but I shall drink no more than is unavoidable. And the Queen began to make love to me, the latest recruit to the oyster pirate fleet, and no mere hand but a master and owner. She went upon deck to take the air and took me with her. She knew, of course, but I never dreamed how French Frank was raging down below. Then Tess joined us, sitting on the cabin, and Spider and Bob, and at the last Mrs. Hadley and French Frank. And we sat there, glasses in hand, and sang, the big demi-John went around, and I was the only strictly sober one. And I enjoyed it, as no one of them was able to enjoy it. Here, in this atmosphere of Bohemianism, I could not but contrast the scene with my scene of the day before, sitting at my machine in the stifling, shut-in air, repeating, endlessly repeating, at top speed, my series of mechanical motions. And here I sat now, glass in hand, in warm, glowing camaraderie, with the oyster pirates, adventurers who refused to be slaves to petty routine, who flouted restrictions and the law, who carried their lives and their liberty in their hands. And it was through John Barleycorn that I came to join this glorious company of free souls, unashamed and unafraid. And the afternoon sea breeze blew its tang into my lungs and curled the waves in mid-channel. Before it came the scow schooners, wing and wing, blowing their horns for the draw bridges to open, red-stacked tugs tow by, rocking the razzle-dazzle in the waves of their wake. A sugar-bark towed from the boneyard to sea. The sun-wash was on the crisping water, and life was big. And Spider sang, Oh, it's Lulu, black Lulu, my darling. Oh, it's where have you been so long? Been laying in jail, awaiting for bail, till my bully comes rolling along. There it was, the smack and slap of the spirit of revolt, of adventure, of romance, of the things forbidden and done defiantly and grandly. And I knew that on the morrow I would not go back to my machine at the cannery. Tomorrow I would be an oyster pirate, as free of freebooter as the century and the waters of San Francisco Bay would permit. Spider had already agreed to sail with me as my crew of one, and also as cook while I did the deck work. We would outfit our grub and water in the morning, hoist the big mainsail, which was a bigger piece of canvas than any I had ever sailed under, and beat our way out the estuary on the first of the sea breeze and the last of the ebb. Then we would slack sheets and on the first of the flood run down the bay to the asparagus islands, where we would anchor miles offshore, and at last my dream would be realized I would sleep upon the water. And next morning I would wake upon the water, and thereafter all my days and nights would be on the water. And the queen asked me to row her shore in my skiff, when at sunset French Frank prepared to take his guests ashore. Nor did I catch the significance of his abrupt change of plan when he turned the task of rowing his skiff over to whiskey-bob, himself remaining on board the sloop. Nor did I understand spider's grinning side remark to me, Gee, there's nothing slow about you. How could it possibly enter my boy's head that a grizzled man of fifty should be jealous of me? CHAPTER VIII We met by appointment early Monday morning to complete the deal in Johnny Heinhold's last chance, a saloon, of course, for the transactions of men. I paid the money over, received the bill of sale, and French Frank treated. This struck me as an evident custom analogical one, the seller who receives the money to wet a piece of it in the establishment where the trade was consummated. But, to my surprise, French Frank treated the house. He and I drank, which seemed just. But why should Johnny Heinhold, who owned the saloon and waited behind the bar, be invited to drink? I figured it immediately that he made a profit on the very drink he drank. I could, in a way, considering that they were friends and shipmates, understand spider and whiskey-bob being asked to drink, but why should the longshoreman, Bill Kelly and Soup Kennedy, be asked? Then there was Pat, the Queen's brother, making a total of eight of us. It was early morning and all ordered whiskey. What could I do here in this company of big men all drinking whiskey? Whiskey, I said, with the careless air of one who had said it a thousand times. And such whiskey, I tossed it down. Arrgh, I can taste it yet. And I was appalled at the price French Frank had paid. Eighty cents! Eighty cents! It was an outrage to my thrifty soul. Eighty cents! The equivalent of eight long hours of my toil at the machine gone down our throats and gone like that in a twinkling, leaving only a bad taste in the mouth. There was no discussion that French Frank was a waster. I was anxious to be gone out into the sunshine, out over the water to my glorious boat. But all hands lingered. Even spider my crew lingered. No hint broke through my obtuseness of why they lingered. I have often thought since of how they must have regarded me, the newcomer being welcomed into their company, standing at bar with them and not standing for a single round of drinks. French Frank, who unknown to me, had swallowed his chagrin since the day before, now that the money for the razzle-dazzle was in his pocket, began to behave curiously toward me. I sensed the change in his attitude, saw the forbidding glitter in his eyes, and wondered, the more I saw of men the queerer they became. Johnny Heinhold leaned across the bar and whispered in my ear, he's got it in for you. Watch out! I nodded comprehension of his statement and acquiescent in it, as a man should nod who knows all about men. But secretly I was perplexed. Heavens, how was I, who had worked hard in red books of adventure, and who was only fifteen years old, who had not dreamed of giving the queen of the oyster pirates a second thought? And who did not know that French Frank was madly and latently in love with her? How was I to guess that I had done him shame? And how was I to guess that the story of how the queen had thrown him down on his own boat, the moment I hove in sight, was already the gleeful gossip of the waterfront? And by the same token how was I to guess that her brother Pat's offishness with me was anything else than temperamental gloominess of spirit? Whiskey Bob got me aside a moment. Keep your eyes open, he muttered. Take my tip, French Frank's ugly. I'm going up river with him to get a schooner for oystering. When he gets down on the beds, watch out. He says he'll run you down. After dark, any time he's around, change your anchorage and douse your riding-like. Savvy! Oh, certainly! I savvied. I nodded my head, and as one man to another thanked him for his tip and drifted back to the group at the bar. No, I did not treat. I never dreamed that I was expected to treat. I left with spider, and my ears burn now as I try to surmise the things they must have said about me. I asked spider, in an offhand way, what was eating French Frank? He's crazy jealous of you, was the answer. Do you think so, I said, and dismissed the matter as not worth thinking about. But I leave it to anyone, the swell of my fifteen years old manhood, at learning that French Frank, the adventurer of fifty, the sailor of all the seas, of all the world, was jealous of me, and jealous over a girl most romantically named the Queen of the Oyster Pirates. I had read of such things in books, and regarded them as personal probabilities of a distant maturity. Oh, I felt a rare young devil, as we hoisted the mainsail that morning, broke out anchor, and filled away close-hauled on the three-mile beat-to-winward out into the bay. Such was my escape from the killing machine toil and my introduction to the Oyster Pirates. True, the introduction had begun with drink, and the life promised to continue with drink. But was I to stay away from it for such a reason? Wherever life ran free and great, there men drank. Romance and adventure seemed always to go down the street, locked arm in arm with John Barley-corn. 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 whiskey. 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 comrade-ship. 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 9 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 enamored 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 weasened 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 Barley Corn 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 daredevil, 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 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 waterfront 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 in 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 of the company of Nelson, who was the most heroic figure among the oyster pirates and bay adventurers. Unfortunately for my stomach and mucus membranes, Nelson had a strange quirk of nature that made him find happiness in treating me to a 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 forego the honor 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. When I looked 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, truly true oyster pirate, was going aboard my own boat after hobnobbing 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 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 whiskey. 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 I 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 play things like other children. My first memories of life were pinched by poverty. The pinch of poverty had been chronic. I was eight years old and 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 homemade 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 long been denied. I early discovered that the only things I could have were those I got for myself. My meager childhood developed meagerness. The first thing 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 beauties women of all nations flags of all nations noted actors champion prize fighters etc. And each series I had three different ways in the card from the cigarette package in the poster then I began to accumulate duplicate sets duplicate albums I traded for other things that boys valued and which they usually bought with money given them by their parents. Naturally they did not have the keen sense of values that I had who was never given money to buy anything. I traded for postage stamps for minerals for curios for birds eggs for marbles I had a more magnificent collection of agates than I have ever seen any boy possess and the nucleus of the collection was a handful worth of at least three dollars which I had kept as security for twenty cents I loaned to a messenger boy who was sent to reform school before he could redeem them I trade anything and everything for anything else and turn it over in a dozen more trades until it was transmuted into something that was worth something I was famous as a trader I was notorious as a miser I could even make a junkman weep when I had dealings with him other boys called me into sell for them their collection of bottles regs, old iron green and gunny sacks and five gallon oil cans I and give me a commission for doing it and this was the thrifty close fisted boy accustomed to slave at a machine for ten cents an hour who sat on the stringer piece and considered the matter of beer at five cents a glass and gone in a moment with nothing to show for it I was now with men I admired I was proud to be with them had all my pinching and saving brought me equivalent of one of the many thrills which had been mine since I came among the oyster pirates then what was worthwhile money or thrills these men had no horror of squandering a nickel or many nickels they were magnificently careless of money calling up eight men to drink whiskey at ten cents a glass as French Frank had shown why Nelson had just spent sixty cents on beer for the two of us which was it to be I was aware that I was making a grave decision I was deciding between money and men between niggardliness and romance either I must throw overboard all my old values of money and look upon it as something to be flung about wastefully or I must throw overboard my comradeship with these men whose peculiar quirks made them like strong drink I retraced my steps up the wharf to the last chance where Nelson still stood outside come on and have a beer I invited again we stood at the bar and drank and talked but this time it was I who paid ten cents a whole hour of my labor at a machine for a drink of something I didn't want and which tasted rotten but it wasn't difficult I had achieved a concept money no longer counted it was comradeship that counted have another I asked and we had another and I paid for it Nelson with the wisdom of the skilled drinker said to the barkeeper make mine a small one Johnny Johnny nodded and gave him a glass that contained only a third as much as the glasses we had been drinking yet the charge was the same five cents by this time I was getting nicely jingled so such extravagance didn't hurt me much besides I was learning there was more in this buying of drinks than mere quantity I got my finger on it there was a stage when the beer didn't count at all but just the spirit of comradeship of drinking together and ha! another thing I too could call for small beers and minimise by two thirds the detestable freightage with which comradeship burdened one I had to go aboard to get some money marked casually as we drank in the hope Nelson would take it as an explanation of why I'd let him treat six consecutive times oh well you didn't have to do that he answered Johnny I'll trust a fellow like you won't ya Johnny sure Johnny agreed with a smile how much you got down against me Nelson queried Johnny pulled out the book he kept behind the bar found Nelson's page and added up the account of several dollars at once I became possessed with a desire to have a page in that book almost it seemed the final badge of manhood after a couple more drinks for which I insisted on paying Nelson decided to go we parted true comradly and I wandered down the wharf to the razzle-dazzle spider was just building the fire for supper word you get it he grinned up at me through the open companion oh I've been with Nelson carelessly trying to hide my pride then an idea came to me here was another one of them now that I had achieved my concept I might as well practice it thoroughly come on I said up to Johnny's and have a drink going up the wharf we met Clam coming down Clam was Nelson's partner and he was a fine, brave, handsome, moustached man of 30 everything in short that his nickname did not connote come on I said and have a drink he came as we turned into the last chance there was Pat the queen's brother coming out sure hurry I greeted him we're having a drink come on along I've just had one he demured what of it we're having one now I retorted and Pat consented to join us and I melted my way into his good graces with a couple of glasses of beer oh I was learning things soon about John Barley corn there was more in him than the bad taste when you swallowed him here at the absurd cost of 10 cents a gloomy grouchy individual who threatened to become an enemy was made into a good friend he became even genial his looks were kindly and our voices mellowed together as we talked waterfront in oyster bed gossip small beer for me Johnny I said when the others had ordered schooners yes and I said it like the accustomed drinker carelessly, casually as a sort of spontaneous thought that had just occurred to me looking back the only one there who guessed I was a Tyro at bar drinking was Johnny Heinhold where'd he get it I overheard Spider confidentially asked Johnny oh he's been sousin' here with Nelson all afternoon was Johnny's answer I never let on that I'd heard but proud I was giving me a recommendation as a man he's been sousin' here with Nelson all afternoon magic words the accolade delivered by a barkeeper with a beer glass I remembered that French Frank had treated Johnny the day I bought the razzle-dazzle the glasses were filled and we were ready to drink have something yourself Johnny I said with an air of having intended to say it all the time but of having been a trifle remiss because of the interesting conversation I had been holding with clam and pat Johnny looked at me with quick sharpness divining I am positive the strides I was making in my education and poured himself whiskey from his private bottle this hit me for a moment on my thrifty side he had taken a ten cent drink when the rest of us were drinking five cent drinks but the hurt was only for a moment I dismissed it as ignoble remembering my concept and did not give myself away you better put me down in the book for this I said when we had finished the drink and I had the satisfaction of seeing a fresh page devoted to my name and a charge penciled for a round of drinks amounting to thirty cents and I glimpsed as through a golden haze a future wherein that page would be much charged and crossed off and charged again I treated a second time around and then to my amazement Johnny redeemed himself in that matter of the ten cent drink he treated us around from behind the bar and I decided that he had arithmetically even things up handsomely let's go around to the St. Louis House Spider suggested when we got outside Pat, who had been shoveling coal all day had gone home and Clam had gone upon the reindeer to cook supper so around Spider and I went to the St. Louis House my first visit a huge bar room where perhaps fifty men mostly longshoremen were congregated and there I met Soup Kennedy for the second time and Bill Kelly and Smith of the Annie drifted in he of the belt buckled revolvers and Nelson showed up and I met others including the Vigie brothers who ran the place and the chiefest of all Joe Goose with the wicked eyes the twisted nose and the flowered vest who played the harmonica like a roistering angel and who went on the most atrocious tears that even the Oakland waterfront could conceive of and admire as I bought drinks others treated as well the thought flickered across my mind that Mammy Jenny wasn't going to re-repaid much on her loan out of that week's earnings of the razzle-dazzle but what of it I thought or rather John Barleycon thought it for me you're a man and you're getting acquainted with men Mammy Jenny 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 Barleycon he inhibits morality wrong conduct that 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 Barleycon's inhibition rises like a wall between one's immediate desires and long-learned morality I dismissed my thought of debt to Mammy Jenny 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 End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 and so I won my manhood spurs my status on the waterfront 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 neighborhood and give to them all my collections I never even cared to learn what these 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 waterfront 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 with a barrel 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 waterfront 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 office Barragas 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 and 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 but the things I did in the water only partly counted what completed everything and one 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 waterfront 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 engage 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 to it than that he was owner and master of the Scow schooner than any mine and some day I might ship as a sailor with him still more he was romance he was a blue-eyed, yellow-haired rob-owned 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 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 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 although a blessed summer afternoon and it was only John Barley corn that made possible that long afternoon with the old sea dog it was Johnny who secretly warned me across the bar that I was getting and advised me to take small beers but as soon as Captain Nelson drank large beers my pride forbade anything else than large beers and not until the skipper and his first small beer did I order one for myself oh when we came to a lingering fawn 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 clam and Johnny Heinhold and others came the chips that old scratch liked me and had nothing but good words for the fine lad I was which was the more remarkable because he was known as a savage cantankerous old ass 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 then I had won his friendship all thanks were due to John Barleycorn I have given the incident merely as an example of the attitudinous lures and draws and services by which John Barleycorn wins his followers End of Chapter 10 Chapters 11 and 12 of John Barleycorn or Alcoholic Memoirs by Jack London This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 11 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 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 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 right Then too there were the times lying at the city wharf or across the estuary on the sand-pit 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 demi-john for red wine and again lying at the wharf disposing of my oysters there were dusky twilight when big policemen and plain clothesmen stole on board and because we lived in the shadow of the police we opened oysters and fed them to them with squirts of pepper sauce and rushed the growler or got stronger stuff in bottles drink as I would I couldn't come to like John Barley corn I valued him extremely well for his associations but not for the taste of him all the time I was striving to be a man amongst men and all the time I nursed secret and shameful desires for candy but I would have died before I'd let anybody guess it I used to indulge in lonely debauches on nights when I knew my crew was going to sleep ashore I would go up to the free library exchange my books buy a quarter's worth of all sorts of candy that chewed and lasted sneak aboard the razzle-dazzle lock myself in the cabin go to bed and lie there long hours of bliss reading and chewing candy and those were the only times I felt that I got my real money's worth dollars and dollars across the bar couldn't buy the satisfaction that 25 cents did in a candy store as my drinking grew heavier I began to note more and more that it was in the drinking bouts the purple passages occurred drunks were always memorable at such times things happened men like Joe Goose dated existence from drunk to drunk the long shoremen all looked forward to their Saturday night drunk we of the oyster boats waited until we had disposed of our cargos before we got really started though a scattering of drinks and a meeting of a chance friend sometimes precipitated an accidental drunk in ways the accidental drunks were the best stranger in more exciting things happened at such times as for instance the Sunday when Nelson and French Frank and Captain Spink stole the stolen salmon boat from Whiskey Bob and Nicky the Greek changes had taken place in the personnel of the oyster boats Nelson had got into a fight with Bill Kelly on the Annie and was carrying a bullet hole through his left hand also having quarreled with clam in broken partnership Nelson had sailed the reindeer his arm in a sling with a crew of two deep water sailors he had sailed so madly as to frighten them ashore such was the tale of his recklessness they spread that no one on the waterfront would go out with Nelson so the reindeer crewless lay across the estuary at the sand spit beside her lay the razzle-dazzle with a burned mainsail and Scotty and me on board Whiskey Bob had fallen out with French Frank and gone on a raid upriver with Nicky the Greek the result of this raid was a brand new Columbia River salmon boat stolen from an Italian fisherman we oyster pirates were all visited by searching Italian and we were convinced from what we knew of their movements that Whiskey Bob and Nicky the Greek were the guilty parties but where was the salmon boat hundreds of Greek and Italian fishermen upriver and down the bay had searched every slough and tool patch for it when the owner despairingly offered a reward our interest increased and the mystery deepened one Sunday morning old Captain Spink paid me a visit the conversation was confidential he had just been fishing in his skiff at the old Alameda Fairy Slip as the tide went down he had noticed a rope tied to a pile under water and leading downward in vain he had tried to heave up what was fast on the other end father along to another pile was a similar rope leading downward and unheavable without doubt it was the missing salmon boat if we restored it to its rightful owner there was $50 in it for us but I had queer ethical notions about honor amongst thieves and declined to have anything to do with the affair but French Frank had quarreled with Whiskey Bob and Nelson was also an enemy poor Whiskey Bob without viciousness good natured generous born weak raised poorly with an irresistible man for alcohol still prosecuting his vocation of Bay Pirate his body was picked up not long afterward beside a dock where it had sunk full of gunshot wounds within an hour after I had rejected Captain Spink's proposal I saw him sail down the estuary on board the reindeer also French Frank went by on his schooner it was not long ere they sailed back up the estuary curiously side by side as they headed in for the sand spit the submerged salmon boat could be seen gunnels awash and held up from sinking by ropes fast to the schooner the tide was half out and they sailed squarely in on the sand grounding in a row with the salmon boat in the middle immediately Hans one of French Frank's sailors was into a skiff and pulling rapidly for the North Slope the big demi-john in the stern sheets told his errand they couldn't wait a moment to celebrate the $50 they had so easily earned it is the way of the devotees of John Barley corn when good fortune comes they drink when they have no fortune they drink to the hope of good fortune if fortune be ill they drink to forget it if they meet a friend they drink if they quarrel with a friend and lose him they drink if their love making be crowned with success they are so happy they needs must drink if they be jilted they drink for the contrary reason and if they haven't anything to do at all why they take a drink secure in the knowledge that when they have taken a sufficient number of drinks the maggots will start crawling in their brains and they will have their hands full with things to do when they are sober they want to drink and when they have drunk they want to drink more of course as fellow comrades Scotty and I were called in for the drinking we helped to make a hole in that $50 not yet received the afternoon from just an ordinary common summer Sunday afternoon became a generous purple afternoon we all talked and sang and ranted and bragged and ever French Frank and Nelson sent more drinks around we lay in full sight of the Oakland waterfront and the noise of our revels attracted friends skiff after skiff crossed the estuary and hauled up on the sand spit while Han's work was cut out for him ever to row back and forth for more supplies of booze then whiskey Bob and Nicky the Greek arrived sober, indignant outraged in that their fellow pirates had raised their plant French Frank aided by John Barley corn or aided hypocritically about virtue and honesty and despite his 50 years brought whiskey Bob out on the sand and proceeded to lick him when Nicky the Greek jumped in with a shorthanded shovel to whiskey Bob's assistant short work was made of him by Hans and of course when the bleeding remnants of Bob and Nicky were sent packing in their skiff the event must needs be celebrated by a further carousel by this time our visitors being numerous we were a large crowd compounded of many nationalities in diverse temperaments all aroused by John Barley corn all restraints cast off old quarrels revived ancient hates flared up fight was in the air whenever a long shoreman remembered something against a scow schooner sailor or vice versa or an oyster pirate remembered or was remembered a fist shot out and another fight was on and every fight was made up in more rounds of drinks were in the combatants aided and abetted by the rest of us embraced each other and pledged in dying friendship and of all times soup Kennedy selected this time to come and retrieve an old shirt of his left aboard the reindeer from the trip he sailed with clam he had espoused clam's side of the quarrel with Nelson also he had been drinking in the St. Louis house it was John Barley corn who led him to the sand pit in quest of his old shirt few words started the fray he locked with Nelson in the cockpit of the reindeer and in the mix-up barely escaped being brained by an iron bar wielded by Irate French Frank Irate because a two-handed man attacked a one-handed man if the reindeer still floats the dent of the iron bar remains in the hardwood rail of her cockpit but Nelson pulled his bandaged hand bullet perforated out of its sling and held by us wept and roared his berserker belief that he could lick soup Kennedy one-handed and we let them loose on the sand once when it looked as if Nelson were getting the worst of it French Frank and John Barley corn sprang unfairly into the fight Scotty protested and reached for French Frank who whirled upon him and fell on top of him in a pummeling clinch after a sprawl of 20 feet across the sand in the course of separating these two half a dozen fights started amongst the rest of us these fights were finished one way or the other or we separated them with drinks while all the time Nelson and soup Kennedy fought on occasionally we returned to them and gave advice such as when they lay exhausted in the sand unable to strike a blow throw sand in his eyes and they threw sand in each other's eyes recuperated and fought on to successive exhaustions and now of all this that is squalid and ridiculous and bestial I think what it meant to me a youth not yet 16 burning with the spirit of adventure fancy filled with tales of buccaneers and sea rovers sacks of cities and conflicts of armed men an imagination maddened by the stuff I had drunk it was life raw and naked wild and free the only life of that sort which my birth in time and space permitted me to attain and more than that it carried a promise it was the beginning from the sand spit the way let out through the golden gate to the vastness of adventure of all the world where battles would be fought not for old shirts and over stolen salmon boats but for high purposes and romantic ends and because I told Scotty what I thought of his letting an old man like french frank get away with him we too brawled and added to the creativity of the sand pit and Scotty threw up his job as crew and departed in the night with a pair of blankets belonging to me during the night while the other oyster pirates lay stupefied in their bunks the schooner and the reindeer floated on the high water and swung about to their anchors the salmon boat still filled with rocks and water rested on the bottom in the morning early I heard wild cries from the reindeer and tumbled out in the chill gray to see a spectacle that made the waterfront laugh for days the beautiful salmon boat lay on the hard sand squashed flat as a pancake while on it were perched french frank schooner and the reindeer unfortunately two of the reindeer's planks had been crushed in by the stout oak stem of the salmon boat the rising tide had flowed through the hole and just awakened Nelson by getting into his bunk with him by hand and we pumped the reindeer out and repaired the damage then Nelson cooked breakfast and while we ate we considered the situation he was broke so was I the fifty dollars reward would never be paid for that pitiful mess of splinters on the sand beneath us he had a wounded hand and no crew I had a burned mainsail and no crew what do you say you and me Nelson queried I'll go you was my answer and thus I became partners with young scratch Nelson the wildest maddest of them all we borrowed the money for an outfit of grub and he heinhold filled our water barrels and sailed away that day for the oyster beds end of chapter chapter 12 nor have I ever regretted those months of mad devilry I put in with Nelson he could sail even if he did frighten every man that sailed with him fear to miss destruction by an inch or an instant was his joy to do what everybody else did not dare attempt to do was his pride never to reef down was his mania and in all the time I spent with him blow high or low the reindeer was never reefed nor was she ever dry or open and sailed her open and sailed her open continually and we abandoned the Oakland waterfront and went wider afield for our adventures and all this glorious passage in my life was made possible for me by John Barley corn and this is my complaint against John Barley corn here I was thirsting for the wild life of adventure and the only way for me to win to it was through John Barley corn's meditation it was the way of the men who lived the life did I wish to live the life I must live it the way they did it was by virtue of drinking that I gained that partnership and comradeship with Nelson had I drunk only the beer he paid for or had I declined to drink at all I should never have been selected by him as a partner he wanted a partner who would meet with him on the social side as well as the work side of life I abandoned myself to the life and developed the misconception that the secret of John Barley corn lay in going on mad drunks rising through the successive stages that only an iron constitution could endure to final stupefaction and swinish unconsciousness I do not like the taste so I drank for the sole purpose of getting drunk of getting hopelessly drunk and I who had saved and scraped traded like a shylock and made junkmen weep I who had stood aghast when French Frank at a single stroke spent 80 cents for whiskey for eight men I turned myself loose with a more lavish disregard for money than any of them I remember going ashore one night with Nelson in my pocket were $180 it was my intention first to buy some clothes after that some drinks I needed the clothes all I possessed were on me and they were as follows a pair of sea boots I providentially leaked the water out as fast as it ran in a pair of 50 cent overalls a 40 cent cotton shirt and a saw wester I had no hat so I had to wear the saw wester and it will be noted that I have listed neither under clothes nor socks I didn't own any to reach the stores where clothes could be bought we had to pass a dozen saloons so I bought me the drinks first I never got to the clothing stores in the morning broke poisoned but contented I came back on board and we set sail I possessed only the clothes I had gone ashore in and not a cent remained of the $180 it might well be deemed impossible by those who have never tried it that in 12 hours a lad can spend all of $180 for drinks I know otherwise and I had no regrets I was proud I had shown them I could spend with the rest of them amongst strong men I had proved myself strong I had clinched again as I had often clinched my right to the title of prince also my attitude may be considered in part as a reaction from my childhood's meagerness and my childhood's excessive toil possibly my inchoate thought was better to remain amongst those fighters a prince than to toil 12 hours a day at a machine for ten cents an hour there are no purple passages in machine toil but if the spending of $180 in 12 hours isn't a purple passage then I'd like to know what is oh I skip much of the details of my trafficking John Barley Corn during this period and shall only mention events that will throw light on John Barley Corn's ways there were three things that enabled me to pursue this heavy drinking first a magnificent constitution far better than the average second the healthy open air life on the water and third the fact that I drank irregularly while out on the water we never carried any drink along the world was opening up to me already I knew several hundred miles of the waterways of it and of the towns and cities and fishing hamlets on the shores came the whisper to range farther I had not found it yet there was more behind but even this much of the world was too wide for Nelson he wearied for his beloved Oakland waterfront and when he elected to return to it we separated in all friendliness I now made the old town of Benicia on the car Quinez Straits my headquarters in a cluster of fishermen's arcs moored in the tools on the waterfront dwelt a congenial crowd of drinkers and vagabonds and I joined them I had longer spells ashore between fooling with salmon fishing and making raids up and down bay and rivers as a deputy fish patrolman I learned more and learned more about drinking I held my own with anyone drink for drink and often drank more than my share to show the strength of my manhood when, on a morning my unconscious carcass was disentangled from the nets on the drying frames whether I had stupidly blindly crawled the night before and when the waterfront talked it over with many a giggle and laugh and another drink I was proud indeed it was an exploit and when I never drew a sober breath on one stretch for three solid weeks I was certain I had reached the top surely in that direction one could go no farther it was time for me to move on for always drunk or sober at the back of my consciousness something whispered that this carousing and bay adventuring was not all of life this whisper was my good fortune I happened to be so made that I could hear it calling always calling out and away over the world it was not caniness on my part it was curiosity desire to know an unrest and a seeking for things wonderful that I seemed somehow to have glimpsed or guessed what was this life for I demanded all no there was something more away and beyond and in relation to my much later development as a drinker this whisper this promise of the things at the back of life must be noted for it was destined to play a dire part in my more recent wrestling with John Barley corn but what gave immediacy to my decision to move on was a trick John Barley corn played me a monstrous incredible trick that showed abysses of intoxication hitherto undreamed at one o'clock in the morning after a prodigious drunk I was tottering a sloop at the end of the wharf intending to go to sleep the tide sweep through carquenous straits as in a mill race and the full ab was on when I stumbled overboard there was nobody on the wharf nobody on the sloop I was born away by the current I was not cold I thought the misadventure delightful I was a good swimmer and in my inflamed condition the contact of the water with my skin soothed me like cool linen and then John Barley corn played me his maniacal trick some wandering fancy out with the tide suddenly obsessed me I had never been morbid thoughts of suicide had never entered my head and now that they entered I thought it fine a splendid culminating a perfect rounding off of my short but exciting career I who had never known girls love nor women's love nor the love of children who had never played in the wide joy fields of art nor climbed the star-cool heights of philosophy nor seen with my eyes more than a pinpoint surface of the gorgeous world I decided that this was all that I had seen all lived all been all that was worthwhile and that now was the time to cease this was the trick of John Barley corn laying me by the heels of my imagination and in a drug dream dragging me to death oh he was convincing I had really experienced all of life and it didn't amount to much the swinish drunkenness in which I had lived for months this was accompanied by the sense of degradation and the old feeling of conviction of sin was the last and the best and I could see myself what it was worth there were all the broken down old bums and loafers I had bought drinks for that was what remained of life did I want to become like them? a thousand times no and I wept tears of sweet sadness over my glorious youth going out with the tide and who has not seen the weeping drunk the melancholic drunk they are to be found in all the bar rooms if they can find no other listener telling their sorrows to the bar keeper who is paid to listen the water was delicious it was a man's way to die John Barleycorn changed the tune he played in my drink maddened brain away with tears and regret it was a hero's death and by the hero's own hand and will so I struck up my death chant and was singing it lustily when the gurgle and splash of the current riffles in my ears reminded me of my more immediate situation below the town of Benicia where the Solano wharf projects the straits widen out into what Bayfair is called the bite of Turner's shipyard I was in the shore tide that swept under the Solano wharf and up into the bite I knew of old the power of the suck which developed when the tide swung around the end of dead man's island and drove straight for the wharf I didn't want to go through those piles it wouldn't be nice and I might lose an hour in the bite on my way out with the tide I undressed in the water and struck out with a strong single overhand stroke crossing the current at right angles nor did I cease until by the wharf lights I knew I was safe to sweep by the end then I turned over and rested the stroke had been a telling one and I was a little time in recovering my breath I was elated for I had succeeded in avoiding the suck I started to raise my death chant again a purely extemporized farago of a drug-crazed youth don't sing yet whispered John Barleycorn the Solano runs all night there are railroad men on the wharf they will hear you and come out in a boat and rescue you and you don't want to be rescued I certainly didn't what? be robbed of my hero's death never and I lay on my back in the starlight watching the familiar warflights go by red and green and white and bidding sad sentimental farewell to them each and all when I was well clear in mid-channel I sang again sometimes I swam a few strokes but in the main I contented myself with floating and dreaming long drunken dreams before daylight the chill of the water and the passage of the hours had sobered me sufficiently to make me wonder what portion of the straits I was in and also to wonder if the turn of the tide wouldn't catch me and take me back air I had drifted out into San Pablo Bay next I discovered that I was very weary and very cold and quite sober and that I didn't in the least want to be drowned I could make out on the Contra Costa shore and the Mayer Island lighthouse I started to swim for the Solano shore but was too weak and chilled and made so little headway and at the cost of such painful effort that I gave it up and consented myself with floating now and then giving a stroke to keep my balance with tide rips which were increasing the commotion on the surface of the water and new fear I was sober now and I didn't want to die I discovered scores of reasons for living and the more reasons I discovered the more liable it seemed that I was going to drown Daylight after I had been four hours in the water found me in a parlous condition in the tide rips off Mayer Island where the swift ebbs from Vallejo streets and Carquinas streets were fighting with each other and where at that particular moment they were fighting the flood tide and they were jumping up against them from San Pablo Bay a stiff breeze had sprung up and the crisp little waves were persistently lapping into my mouth and I was beginning to swallow salt water with my swimmer's knowledge I knew the end was near and then the boat came a Greek fisherman running in for Vallejo and again I had been saved from John Barleycorn by my constitution and physical vigor and in passing let me note that this maniacal trick John Barleycorn played me is nothing uncommon an absolute statistic of the percentage of suicides due to John Barleycorn would be appalling in my case healthy, normal young full of the joy of life the suggestion to kill myself was unusual but it must be taken into account that it came on the heels of a long carouse when my nerves and brain were fearfully poisoned and that the dramatic romantic side of my imagination drink maddened to lunacy was delighted with the suggestion and yet the older more morbid drinkers more jaded with life and more disillusioned who kill themselves do so usually after a long debauch when their nerves and brains are thoroughly poison-soaked End of Chapter 12