A Donkeyland Sketch
Drunk on Jackson Street
In Seattle (1967)
…
In those far-off days, it seems—now as I look
backwards on them—I was always preparing myself for sacrifice, especial during
my farewell visit and exit out of
Seattle, I was nineteen years old then, I knew I had to be a thicker
kind of fox, after Seattle. The full
story of my time in Seattle—whom I had ventured with Big Bopper’s brother, Jeff S., goes much deeper than the
story you are about to read here presently, which is just a sketch, and the
last day, or half day, in Seattle, —and as you will notice I am by myself for I
had left Jeff and his troublesome wife and two kids and scrabbled out of their
presence as soon as I got my first paycheck, while the getting was good, —for
in other books I have written already of the trials and tribulations I had with
that couple; so here you are getting an abridged account. But once on the train, when I woke up from my
previous drunken stupor in the following twenty-hours, I would be back in
Donkeyland, back up at the two corner bars where the Cayuga Street Gang drank
from the cradle to the grave, from morning to midnight, called Bram’s and The
Mount Airy Bar. And now for the brief account:
I haven’t the slight idea of how much I drank—whether
it was six beers or twelve, or twenty! I do remember chugalugging them down at
the Jackson Street bar, by the train station in Seattle—and I do remember
several folks telling me when I bought my ticket to avoid the bars on Jackson
Street, which was a few blocks away, that there were hooligans, ruffians, and
gangsters, and braggarts that patronized those bars. Around the station there
was a round-up of saloons, and somehow I did end up on Jackson Street. The one
I was in looked quite orderly though—then all of a sudden—beer in
hand, elbows on the wooden bar—my head was swimming, my heart pounding, my
lungs panting, I was given a Mickey! If
you don’t know what a Mickey is, think about LSD, with cramps and visions and
being dizzy, wobbly, out of sorts. And to be frank, my helplessness was coming
on rapidly! My eyes and brain reeling—only a few certain things standout, of
those memories that night! I left the bar with several people around it staring
at me like purring cats—awaiting the mouse to fall dead into the mousetrap.
Then roars of laughter came up from their drinks! I ran out of the bar, down the street to meet
the train. I sat on the first seat I sighted when on the train, the conductor
knew I was in a bad way. I have only his
description of my behavior to go by: I was burning alive, internally, I passed
out, and then I went motionless. I was as weak as a drowning duck. And when my
consciousness came back to life as if out of a comatose, I was very sick, ended
up in the privy. A few minutes later, as I got myself composed, the conductor came
to me, handed me my billfold, said, “It fell out of your pocket, lucky I caught
sight of it,” and he smiled, and let out a deep sigh of relief, I didn’t even
know it was missing, although I had only $130-dollars in it, the other $130,
was in my sock, under my foot, inside my shoe where I often put a lump sum of
money.
In those intervening score of years, when I
think back how close I came to doom or death, missing it by a foot or
inch—having done much, lived much, seen much, it has enabled me to think much,
acquire discretion, and if need be drag myself back through another
morass. At best I can say it was a
trying adventure, the worse, well God gave me a good guardian angel, and there
was no worse, other than a hangover.
No: 4516
(8-9-2014)
Revised/reedited
6-2015
