Chapter XIV

by Jack London

　　Back in Oakland from my wanderings, I returned to the water-frontand renewed my comradeship with Nelson, who was now on shore allthe time and living more madly than before. I, too, spent my timeon shore with him, only occasionally going for cruises of severaldays on the bay to help out on short-handed scow-schooners.

　　The result was that I was no longer reinvigorated by periods ofopen-air abstinence and healthy toil. I drank every day, andwhenever opportunity offered I drank to excess; for I stilllaboured under the misconception that the secret of JohnBarleycorn lay in drinking to bestiality and unconsciousness. Ibecame pretty thoroughly alcohol-soaked during this period. Ipractically lived in saloons; became a bar-room loafer, and worse.

　　And right here was John Barleycorn getting me in a more insidiousthough no less deadly way than when he nearly sent me out with thetide. I had a few months still to run before I was seventeen; Iscorned the thought of a steady job at anything; I felt myself apretty tough individual in a group of pretty tough men; and Idrank because these men drank and because I had to make good withthem. I had never had a real boyhood, and in this, my precociousmanhood, I was very hard and woefully wise. Though I had neverknown girl's love even, I had crawled through such depths that Iwas convinced absolutely that I knew the last word about love andlife. And it wasn't a pretty knowledge. Without beingpessimistic, I was quite satisfied that life was a rather cheapand ordinary affair.

　　You see, John Barleycorn was blunting me. The old stings andprods of the spirit were no longer sharp. Curiosity was leavingme. 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 Iknew; marrying and giving in marriage and all the petty run ofpetty human concerns; and drinks, too. But the other side of theworld was a long way to go for a drink. I had but to step to thecorner and get all I wanted at Joe Vigy's. Johnny Heinhold stillran the Last Chance. And there were saloons on all the cornersand between the corners.

　　The whispers from the back of life were growing dim as my mind andbody soddened. The old unrest was drowsy. I might as well rotand die here in Oakland as anywhere else. And I should have sorotted and died, and not in very long order either, at the paceJohn Barleycorn was leading me, had the matter depended wholly onhim. I was learning what it was to have no appetite. I waslearning what it was to get up shaky in the morning, with astomach that quivered, with fingers touched with palsy, and toknow the drinker's need for a stiff glass of whisky neat in orderto brace up. (Oh! John Barleycorn is a wizard dopester. Brainand body, scorched and jangled and poisoned, return to be tuned upby the very poison that caused the damage.)

　　There is no end to John Barleycorn's tricks. He had tried toinveigle me into killing myself. At this period he was doing hisbest to kill me at a fairly rapid pace. But, not satisfied withthat, he tried another dodge. He very nearly got me, too, andright there I learned a lesson about him--became a wiser, a moreskilful drinker. I learned there were limits to my gorgeousconstitution, and that there were no limits to John Barleycorn. Ilearned that in a short hour or two he could master my stronghead, my broad shoulders and deep chest, put me on my back, andwith a devil's grip on my throat proceed to choke the life out ofme.

　　Nelson and I were sitting in the Overland House. It was early inthe evening, and the only reason we were there was because we werebroke and it was election time. You see, in election time localpoliticians, aspirants for office, have a way of making the roundsof the saloons to get votes. One is sitting at a table, in a drycondition, 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 worthwhile to walk that far to find out, when suddenly the saloon doorsswing wide, and enters a bevy of well-dressed men, themselvesusually wide and exhaling an atmosphere of prosperity andfellowship.

　　They have smiles and greetings for everybody--for you, without theprice of a glass of beer in your pocket, for the timid hobo wholurks in the corner and who certainly hasn't a vote, but who mayestablish a lodging-house registration. And do you know, whenthese politicians swing wide the doors and come in, with theirbroad shoulders, their deep chests, and their generous stomachswhich cannot help making them optimists and masters of life, why,you perk right up. It's going to be a warm evening after all, andyou know you'll get a souse started at the very least.

　　And--who knows?--the gods may be kind, other drinks may come, andthe night culminate in glorious greatness. And the next thing youknow, you are lined up at the bar, pouring drinks down your throatand learning the gentlemen's names and the offices which they hopeto fill.

　　It was during this period, when the politicians went their saloonrounds, that I was getting bitter bits of education and havingillusions punctured--I, who had pored and thrilled over "The Rail-Splitter," and "From Canal Boy to President." Yes, I was learninghow noble politics and politicians are.

　　Well, on this night, broke, thirsty, but with the drinker's faithin the unexpected drink, Nelson and I sat in the Overland Housewaiting for something to turn up, especially politicians. Andthere entered Joe Goose--he of the unquenchable thirst, the wickedeyes, the crooked nose, the flowered vest.

　　"Come on, fellows--free booze--all you want of it. I didn't wantyou to miss it."

　　"Where?" we wanted to know.

　　"Come on. I'll tell you as we go along. We haven't a minute tolose." And as we hurried up town, Joe Goose explained: "It's theHancock Fire Brigade. All you have to do is wear a red shirt anda 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 orNiles. And, to save me, I can't remember whether the Hancock FireBrigade was a republican or a democratic organisation. Butanyway, 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 runlike water. The politicians have bought the stocks of thesaloons. There'll be no charge. All you got to do is walk rightup and call for it. We'll raise hell."

　　At the hall, on Eighth Street near Broadway, we got into thefiremen's shirts and helmets, were equipped with torches, and,growling because we weren't given at least one drink before westarted, were herded aboard the train. Oh, those politicians hadhandled 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 hadbeen engaged, and the drinkers jammed six deep before every drink-drenched and unwiped bar. There was no time to wipe the bar, norwash glasses, nor do anything save fill glasses. The Oaklandwater-front can be real thirsty on occasion.

　　This method of jamming and struggling in front of the bar was tooslow for us. The drink was ours. The politicians had bought itfor us. We'd paraded and earned it, hadn't we? So we made a flankattack around the end of the bar, shoved the protesting barkeepersaside, and helped ourselves to bottles.

　　Outside, we knocked the necks of the bottles off against theconcrete curbs, and drank. Now Joe Goose and Nelson had learneddiscretion with straight whisky, drunk in quantity. I hadn't. Istill laboured under the misconception that one was to drink allhe could get--especially when it didn't cost anything. We sharedour bottles with others, and drank a good portion ourselves, whileI drank most of all. And I didn't like the stuff. I drank it asI had drunk beer at five, and wine at seven. I mastered my qualmsand downed it like so much medicine. And when we wanted morebottles, we went into other saloons where the free drink wasflowing, and helped ourselves.

　　I haven't the slightest idea of how much I drank--whether it wastwo quarts or five. I do know that I began the orgy with half-pint draughts and with no water afterward to wash the taste awayor to dilute the whisky.

　　Now the politicians were too wise to leave the town filled withdrunks from the water-front of Oakland. When train time came,there was a round-up of the saloons. Already I was feeling theimpact 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, mylegs tottering under me, my head swimming, my heart pounding, mylungs panting for air.

　　My helplessness was coming on so rapidly that my reeling braintold 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 randown a pathway beside the road under broad-spreading trees.Nelson pursued me, laughing. Certain things stand out, as inmemories of nightmare. I remember those trees especially, and mydesperate 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 Barleycornhad me by the throat in a death-clutch. But I knew it. And Iremember the fleeting bitterness that was mine as I realised thatI was in a struggle with death, and that these others did notknow. It was as if I were drowning before a crowd of spectatorswho thought I was cutting up tricks for their entertainment.

　　And running there under the trees, I fell and lost consciousness.What happened afterward, with one glimmering exception, I had tobe told. Nelson, with his enormous strength, picked me up anddragged me on and aboard the train. When he had got me into aseat, I fought and panted so terribly for air that even with hisobtuseness he knew I was in a bad way. And right there, at anymoment, I know now, I might have died. I often think it is thenearest to death I have ever been. I have only Nelson'sdescription of my behaviour to go by.

　　I was scorching up, burning alive internally, in an agony of fireand suffocation, and I wanted air. I madly wanted air. Myefforts to raise a window were vain, for all the windows in thecar were screwed down. Nelson had seen drink-crazed men, andthought I wanted to throw myself out. He tried to restrain me,but I fought on. I seized some man's torch and smashed the glass.

　　Now there were pro-Nelson and anti-Nelson factions on the Oaklandwater-front, and men of both factions, with more drink in themthan was good, filled the car. My smashing of the window was thesignal for the antis. One of them reached for me, and dropped me,and started the fight, of all of which I have no knowledge savewhat was told me afterward, and a sore jaw next day from the blowthat put me out. The man who struck me went down across my body,Nelson followed him, and they say there were few unbroken windowsin the wreckage of the car that followed as the free-for-all fighthad its course.

　　This being knocked cold and motionless was perhaps the best thingthat could have happened to me. My violent struggles had onlyaccelerated my already dangerously accelerated heart, andincreased the need for oxygen in my suffocating lungs.

　　After the fight was over and I came to, I did not come to myself.I was no more myself than a drowning man is who continues tostruggle after he has lost consciousness. I have no memory of myactions, but I cried " Air! Air!" so insistently, that it dawnedon Nelson that I did not contemplate self-destruction. So hecleared the jagged glass from the window-ledge and let me stick myhead and shoulders out. He realised, partially, the seriousnessof my condition. and held me by the waist to prevent me fromcrawling farther out. And for the rest of the run in to Oakland Ikept my head and shoulders out, fighting like a maniac whenever hetried to draw me inside.

　　And here my one glimmering streak of true consciousness came. Mysole recollection, from the time I fell under the trees until Iawoke the following evening, is of my head out of the window,facing the wind caused by the train, cinders striking and burningand blinding me, while I breathed with will. All my will wasconcentrated on breathing--on breathing the air in the hugestlung-full gulps I could, pumping the greatest amount of air intomy lungs in the shortest possible time. It was that or death, andI was a swimmer and diver, and I knew it; and in the mostintolerable agony of prolonged suffocation, during those moments Iwas conscious, I faced the wind and the cinders and breathed forlife.

　　All the rest is a blank. I came to the following evening, in awater-front lodging-house. I was alone. No doctor had beencalled in. And I might well have died there, for Nelson and theothers, deeming me merely "sleeping off my drunk," had let me liethere in a comatose condition for seventeen hours. Many a man, asevery doctor knows, has died of the sudden impact of a quart ormore of whisky. Usually one reads of them so dying, strongdrinkers, on account of a wager. But I didn't know--then. And soI learned; and by no virtue nor prowess, but simply through goodfortune and constitution. Again my constitution had triumphedover John Barleycorn. I had escaped from another death-pit,dragged myself through another morass, and perilously acquired thediscretion that would enable me to drink wisely for many anotheryear to come.

　　Heavens! That was twenty years ago, and I am still very much andwisely alive; and I have seen much, done much, lived much, in thatintervening score of years; and I shudder when I think how close ashave I ran, how near I was to missing that splendid fifth of acentury that has been mine. And, oh, it wasn't John Barleycorn'sfault that he didn't get me that night of the Hancock FireBrigade.