第29章 CHAPTER XIV(2)

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.Istill 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.

Now the politicians were too wise to leave the town filled with drunks from the water-front of Oakland.When train time came,there was a round-up of the saloons.Already I was feeling the impact of the whisky.Nelson and I were hustled out of a saloon,and found ourselves in the very last rank of a disorderly parade.

I struggled along heroically,my correlations breaking down,my legs tottering under me,my head swimming,my heart pounding,my lungs panting for air.

My helplessness was coming on so rapidly that my reeling brain told me I would go down and out and never reach the train if Iremained at the rear of the procession.I left the ranks and ran down a pathway beside the road under broad-spreading trees.

Nelson pursued me,laughing.Certain things stand out,as in memories of nightmare.I remember those trees especially,and my desperate running along under them,and how,every time I fell,roars of laughter went up from the other drunks.They thought Iwas merely antic drunk.They did not dream that John Barleycorn had me by the throat in a death-clutch.But I knew it.And Iremember the fleeting bitterness that was mine as I realised that I was in a struggle with death,and that these others did not know.It was as if I were drowning before a crowd of spectators who thought I was cutting up tricks for their entertainment.

And running there under the trees,I fell and lost consciousness.