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 the opposite 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.