CHAPTER THREE—Liquor and Hennery Simms
I NEVER could see liquor drinking as a bad habit,” said the Old Soak, “though I admit fair and free it will lead to bad habits if it ain't watched.
“In these here remarks of mine, I aim to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Jehorsophat, as the good book says.
“One feller I knowed whose liquor drinking led to bad habits was my old friend Hennery Simms.
“Every time Hennery got anyways jingled he used to fall downstairs, and he fell down so often that it got to be a habit and you couldn't call it nothing else. He thought he had to.
“One time late at night I was going over to Brooklyn on the subway, and I seen one of these here escalators with Hennery onto it moving upwards, only Hennery wasn't riding on his feet, he was riding on the spine of his back.
“And when he got to the top of the thing and it skated him out onto the level, what does Hennery do but pitch himself onto it again, head first, and again he was carried up.
“After I seen him do that three or four times I rode up to where Hennery was floundering at and I ast him what was he doing.
“'I'm falling downstairs,' says Hennery.
“'What you doing that fur?' I says.
“'I'm drunk, ain't I?' says Hennery. 'You old fool, you knows I always falls downstairs when I'm drunk.'
“'How many times you goin' to fall down these here stairs?' I ast him.
“'I ain't fell down these here stairs once yet,' says Hennery, 'though I must of tried to a dozen times. I been tryin' to fall down these here stairs ever since dusk set in, but they's something wrong about 'em.
“'If I didn't know I was drunk, I would swear these here stairs was movin'.'
'“They be movin',' I tells him.
“'You go about your business,' he says, 'and don't mock a man that's doing the best he can. In course they ain't movin'.
“'They only looks like they was movin' to me because I'm drunk. You can't fool me.'
“And I left him still tryin' to fall down them stairs, and still bein' carried up again. Which, as I remarked at first, only goes to show that drink will lead to habits if it ain't watched, even when it ain't a habit itself.”
“Do you have any more of your History of the Rum Demon written?” we asked him.
“Uh-huh,” said he, and left us the second installment.
CHAPTER FOUR—The Old Soak's History—The Barroom as an Educative Influence
WELL, as I said in my first installment, some 'of them barrooms was such genteel places they would surprise you if you had got the idea that they was all gems of iniquity and wickedness with the bartenders mostly in clean collars and their hair slicked, not like so many of these soda-water places, where the hair is stringy.
Well, this is for future generations of posterity that will have never saw a saloon, and the whole truth is to be set down, so help me God, and I will say that it took a good deal of sweeping sometimes to keep the floor clean and often the free lunch was approached with one fork for several people, especially the beans. Well, it has been three or four years even before that Eighteenth Commandment passed since free lunch was what it once was. And some barrooms was under par. But I am speaking of the average good class barroom, where you would take your own children or grandchildren, as the case may be.
They was some very kind-hearted places among them where if a man had spent all his money already for his own good they would refuse to let him have anything more to drink until maybe someone set them up for him.
But to get down to brass tacks and describe what they looked like more thoroughly I will say they was always attractive to me with those long expensive mirrors and brass fixtures like a scene of elegance and grandeur out of the Old Testament where it tells of Solomon in all his glory. And if a gent would forget to be genteel after he took too much and his money was all spent and imbue himself with loud talk or rough language and maybe want to hit somebody and there was none of his friends there to take charge of him often I have seen such throwed out on their ear, for the better class places always aimed to be decent and orderly and never to have an indecent reputation for loudness and roughhouseness.
Well, I will say I have not kept up with politics like I used to since the barrooms was vanished. My eyes ain't what they used to be and the newspapers are different from each other so who can tell what to believe, but in the old days you could keep in touch with politics in the barrooms. It made a better citizen out of you for every man ought to vote for what his consciousness tells him is right and to abide in politics by his consciousness.
Well, closing the barroom has shut off my chance to be imbued with political dope and who to bet on in the next election and I am not so good a citizen as before the saloons was closed. I would not know who to bet on in any election but I used to get straight tips and in that way took an interest in politics which a man is scarcely to be called an American citizen unless he does.
Well I see everywhere where all the doctors and science sharks says to keep in touch with outdoor sports if you want to keep young. I used to know all about all those outdoor sports and who the Giants had bought and what they paid for him and who was the best pitcher and what the dope was on tomorrow's entries at Havana, but all that is taken away from me now the saloons is closed and I got no chance to get into touch with outdoor sports and I feel it in my health. Some of these days the Prohibition aliments will wake up and see they have ruined the country but then it will be too late. Taking the sports away from a nation is not going to do it any good when the next war comes along if one does.
Well, I promised I would describe more what they looked like. I will tackle that in the next chapter, so I will bring this installment to a close.