Skid Row [1938]

“What're you doing down here on Skid Row, Willie! Did your old man finally kick you out?”

“No, I'm still living at home. I've got a job down here in a winery. It's just a temporary job, siphoning wine into one-gallon jugs, but I'm getting two bits an hour. You want to help me? For every gallon you siphon, you can take a mouthful for yourself. I do.” 

“Sure.” 

I helped Willie, and both of us got drunk. I was siphoning zinfandel and he was siphoning burgundy. When we started giggling and laughing and began to miss the jugs with the hose, the owner fired Willie and threw us both out. We had been working in the back for more than two hours but the owner refused to give Willie the 50¢ he had coming, complaining that we had drunk twice that much in wine. It wasn't true, not when wine was only fifty cents a gallon, but we had put away a lot of it.

It had rained while we were in the winery, and LA is never ready for rain. The drains are inadequate, and the streets become flooded in minutes. The merchants along the street keep two-by-fours in their shops for these flooding rains, and put them out on the curbs to the street so people can come into their stores without getting their ankles soaked. The stream running along the gutter was a torrent. Willie and I were laughing about his dismissal, and I said that perhaps now he “could be blacklisted from all the LA wineries as well as the grocery stores. He thought this was a funny remark. 

About this time a one-legged man was coming down the sidewalk, making good time in the rain, using only one crutch. As he came abreast of us, Willie, for no reason that I know of, kicked the crutch out from under the guy's arm, and it landed in the gutter. The rushing water picked it up, and it sailed down the gutter like a speedboat. The one-legged guy hopped after it, cursing us and shaking his fist as he hopped along. I know this isn't funny (it's terrible), but we laughed so hard we got weak. Three Mexicans who had witnessed the incident came over to where we were standing. I was holding myself up with one arm around a telephone pole and clutching my sore stomach with my other hand. Two Mexicans grabbed Willie from each side, and the third Mexican hit Willie in the mouth. Willie's mouth began to bleed, and I jumped onto the back of the nearest Mexican, which brought us both down to the sidewalk. While I was on top of this guy, and punching him in the neck, one of the other Mexicans kicked me in the ribs. Willie, in the meantime, had kneed the third guy in the balls, so he was down, too, howling as if his ass had been turpentined .

A white Ford stopped at the curb. A cop in civilian clothes got out, flashing his badge. The activity stopped. The Mexican who wasn't hurt told the cop that we had kicked a one-legged man's crutch out from under him. The cop told the Mexicans to get lost. They left, two of them supporting the guy Willie had kneed in the balls. The detective told us to get into the back seat. We got in back, sobered a little, and Willie wiped his bleeding mouth with a handkerchief. The detective drove over to Figueroa and Ninth Street and parked at the curb. He turned around and said:

“East Fifth is my beat, and I'm down there every day. If I see either one of you on Skid Row again, you’re going to Lincoln Heights on a vag charge. And that means three days in the slammer, 27 days suspended. You ever been in Lincoln Heights before?”

“No, sir,” I said. Willie shook his head.

“I guarantee you won't like it. So as of now, both of you guys are washed up on Skid Row! D’you understand me?”

We nodded and got out of the car. The cop was a big man, and looked as tough as he talked. I was completely sober now. I noticed that the sleeves of my suitjacket were torn loose at the seams under the arms. But my mind was bemused by what the cop had said.

Jesus Christ! I was only nineteen years old and I was washed up on Skid Row!

Hell, from Skid Row, there was no place lower to go. The absurdity of it hit me, and I started to laugh again. I laughed so hard I had to sit on the curb. Willie didn't laugh with me, but he sat beside me. He fingered his teeth to see if they were all there. They were, but his front teeth were a little loose. 

“You lost your hat,” he said.

I felt my head; the fedora was gone. “I can't go back for it, either, because I'm washed up on Skid Row.” 

“That cop didn't scare me,” Willie shrugged. “I've been in Lincoln Heights before. I ate swordfish there for three days, courtesy of Zane Grey, who donates all the swordfish he catches to the county jail. They don't know how to fix it, though. They boil it, and that isn't the best way to cook swordfish. But if you're scared, Charles, I’ll go back and find your hat for you.”

“It wouldn't be there. It's a new hat. Somebody's probably sold it by now. Did you ever eat any dog, Willie?” 

“Not yet.” 

“Dog's got to be better than boiled swordfish. Why did you kick that guy's crutch out from under him?” 

“Why did it rain? Why did it stop?” 

“What's that got to do with it?” 

“Everything,” he said. “Everything.” 

We sat there for a long time, smoking my Chesterfields; not talking, thinking our own thoughts. Then Willie got up, brushed off the seat of his pants, and started walking up Figueroa toward Eighth Street. I watched him go, but he didn't turn around and wave, and I didn't tell him good-bye.