IN THIS BOOK I have tried to give a true,

complete and uncolored account of narcotic

slavery as I myself saw and experienced it.
Only the names of the drug addicts who shared
my habit are fictitious. That single departure
from strict accuracy has been made to spare
the families of those who were my companions
in the awful horror of dope. Other individuals,
such as public officials, appear under their own
names. So do hospitals, penal institutions and
other places.
LEROY STREET

Leroy Street is a pseudonym for the man who

passecj through the dreadful experience recounted
in this book. M r. Street is now a successful and useful
citizen, im portant an d w ell known in his own field.

David Loth, M r. Street's collaborator, is the author

of m any books, notably Lorenzo the M agnificent,
C h ief Justice and The P eople's G e n e ra l,
“ I did what he told me t o . . . ”
"I couldn't take my eyes off him. He talked
bigger than anyone I'd ever known. 'Go ahead,
kid,' he said. 'Take a blow. It'll pep you up.'
I did what he told me to. It didn't seem to do
me any harm. So every other night I'd turn up
at John's for a fix. At first I could skip a night,
but soon I craved the stuff every twenty-four
hours. By the end of the month the daytime
had become unbearable . . . / was hooked."

This is the terrifying story of the junky's w orld—

an underground that runs from the hipster haunts
of Greenw ich V illag e to a "cold turkey" cure in
Lexington, Kentucky.

"An exciting psychological dram a!"

—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"It is sad to think that perhaps those who need

its warning most will not read this book}"
—Chicago Courier
I WAS A
DRUG ADDICT
LEROY STREET
in collaboration with
DAVID LOTH

PYRAMI D BOOKS
444 M adison A venu e, N ew York 2 2 , N . Y .
 I WAS A DRUG A D D IC T

A PYRAMID BOOK
p u b lish e d b y arran gem ent ivith
RANDOM HOUSE, INC.

P Y R A M ID B O O K S E D IT IO N
1954

Copyright, 1953,
by R ahdom House, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

P rin te d in th e U n ited S ta te s of Am erica

 N arcotic P an o ram a 1

I was a drug addict. From the time I was fifteen until

I was twenty-eight, I was a slave to heroin and morphine, ex­
perimenting on the side with cocaine, m arijuana and opium. In
th a t whole period I never had a moment of genuine peace or
happiness. Those nightmarish intervals of elation or exhilaration
which drugs brought me were illusions, I knew even then.
Although mine was a respectable, happy family, I became a liar
and a thief in order to support my habit. I was an inmate of a
reform atory and of several jails. I lost my health, my hopes
and my self-respect. I plumbed the depths of degradation going
through cure after cure but invariably slipping back.
N ot until I acquired a deep incentive to cure myself did I suc­
ceed in breaking the bonds of dope. I am convinced that a man
m ust want very badly to be free of the habit before any cure can
permanent, and also he m ust w ant it for some reason bigger
than.him self, more im portant in his own mind than ju st his own
well-being or survival.
This is the story of my thirteen years in the depths and my
‘ fight back to a place as a self-respecting human being. I have
w ritten it to try to explain the whole thing, not to justify my­
self or anyone else.
Of more tharj 100 addicts in my neighborhood whom I knew,
boys who acquired the habit a little sooner or a little later than
I, all are dead except myself. Some died in prison and were
buried in potter’s field. Some died in insane asylums. Others
died as gutter bums in streets and flophouses and public wash­
rooms. A few even died in their homes with physicians to sign
certificates that death was due to heart disease or pneumonia.
They are all gone, and I am sure that not one found any more
joy or satisfaction in life than I did.
One in a hundred! I am truly and deeply grateful that I was
th a t one. Y et I would give anything to recapture those lost
thirteen years, to have the chance to live them again. I know
th a t all the others, although they never recovered a normal way
of life, would feel the same because none of us found th at a
drug made life really glorious or glamorous when we. were under
its influence. As veteran addicts we knew that the best we could
hope for was th a t narcotics would make life tolerable.
The scars of those thirteen years remain with me, emotional
as well as physical scars. Dope is out of my life and has been
for a long time. Y et whenever I go to a bathing beach, I try
to hide the tiny blue marks of the hypo needle which form a
dotted tattoo on my legs. T hat brand of the drug addict has
made it impossible for me ever to sprawl at ease in the sun after
a swim. Other people have scars and are not self-conscious, but
I can’t get over the feeling that everyone would recognize mine
for what they are.
I t has been years since the last of those shots was worked out
of my system. Y et once a week the drug squad crashes in the
door of my home or pursues me up fearsomely darkened streets
and alleys. I am caught with the drug and the needle hidden on
me, dragged to the station house, flung into a cell. I suffer all
the anguish and the torm ents of the arrested addict—and then
I wake up, sometimes screaming with fear, always drenched in
perspiration.
There will be no escape from these nightmares as long as I live.
The members of the drug squad whom I knew probably are all
retired by this time. The companions of my addiction are in their
graves. Y et they return to haunt me, and as frequent a visitor as
the drug squad is John Devon, the man who introduced me to
dope, the King of the Greenwich Village addicts of my day, a
sinister figure in my torturing dreams but for all th a t somehow
a little pitiful to me now when I am awake.
In the relief which comes with the awakening from those hor­
ribly realistic nightmares, I often try to think back over the
puzzle of why I accepted so readily John Devon’s suggestions. I
was a boy of good family in very modest circumstances, almost
poor. But my parents were thrifty and I was spared any real
privations. I lived with Dad, M other and my two brothers in
Greenwich Village, and we were an affectionate, closely knit
group. I did well in school, although not even the worst students
in my grade ever called me “a greasy grind,” and I was fond of
athletics, particularly baseball. I- was fired by an ambition to
become a big commercial artist—I had a talent for drawing—and
m y teachers encouraged me. In later years I proved in a modest
way that they were right.
Ju st why did a boy from such a home, with such advantages
and such hopes, turn into a drug addict whose sole aim and in­
terest in life was the support of a habit which almost from the
beginning was nothing b u t a source of unhappiness? W hy did
this youngster lose all his interest in sports, in school, in future
work? W hy did he become a social outcast, with no companion­
ship except that of other addicts, with none of the normal boy’s
desire to date girls? Why, why?
Perhaps this book will answer those questions. Since I man­
aged to break my habit, I have read as much as I could about the
reasons which doctors and psychologists and sociologists give for
addiction. Some of them find the root of it in family background,
some in a defect in the addict’s personality, some in a physical
quirk of the body’s chemistry, some in the evils of society and
some in various combinations of these factors.
I don’t pretend to any scientific knowledge along these lines.
B ut I have tried to apply these theories to myself, and they fail to,
satisfy me. In my youth there was nothing of the rejected child
seeking a substitute for a m other’s love or escape from a dom­
ineering or dominating father. I f anything I was rather “over­
protected,” as the experts say. M other and Dad were proud of
me, perhaps spoiled me a little in their desire to help me make the
most of my talents, which with true parental fervor they were
inclined to exaggerate. B ut I can’t see anything in th a t to ex­
plain my easy slide into addiction.
As for a defect in personality or emotional development or the
like, I suppose no one really can tell about himself. All I can say
is th at the same instability m ust have been present in the other
seemingly healthy youths in our neighborhood, boys of very
different temperam ents, who also fell for dope. I am sure th a t
there m ust have been some psychological factor- which made qs
more susceptible than others, but I am told that in the present
stage of scientific knowledge no one can be positive as to just
w hat it was.
The physical factor is ju st as mysterious. I f there is some
fault in body chemistry, it has not been identified to the satis­
faction of authorities in the field. Drug addiction still is the
despair of medical mfen who try to cure it on this basis.
When learned men talk about the evils of society as the cause
of drug addiction, they often mention overcrowded slums, the
failure of cities .to provide adequate recreation and educational
facilities, the effects of racial or religious intolerance, the corrup­
tion or laxity of law enforcement, lack of old-fashioned discipline
in the home and so on. I cannot place the blame in m y own case
on any of them.
I think I do know the basic reason, however. I t is bad com­
panions. I never knew anyone who became an addict all by him­
self, and have heard of only a few, usually doctors, who were said
to have got the habit from taking drugs to keep going. Behind
every new “ dope fiend” is an older one who for one reason or an­
other brings the neophyte into a group of w hat might be called
established addicts.
Perhaps that seems too easy an explanation, too glib. But it is
the story of the beginning of the curse of addiction not only
fo r myself but for all of those others whom I knew well enough
and early enough to have been aware of the circumstances under
which they first took dope. Almost all of them, like me, were
introduced to drugs in their susceptible adolescence. Like me, they
drifted into a group of addicts without knowing what they were
getting into. Quite innocently we wanted to prove ourselves grown
up beyond our years, able to hold our own with older youth,
capable of the same daring as the rest of the crowd.
I t is harder to understand the motives of the adult addicts who
introduced us teen-agers to drugs. I know that sometimes it was
simple greed, the desire to sell narcotics to new users in order to
get the money to buy more for themselves. But this was not the
case with John Devon. On the contrary, he was mighty careful
never to sell to anyone, and yet I never have wanted to believe
th a t it was simply pure evil that prompted him to draw into his
doped circle so many of the boys of our neighborhood. At the
same time, I always have been glad th at making a new addict was
one crime which I never committed.
Of course I and others might have fallen for drugs through
some other addict. I do not \^ant to put all the blame on anyone.
B ut the fact remains that at least a score of Greenwich Village
youths owed their first sniff of heroin to John Devon. He had an
easy fascination for us. We thought him rich, distinguished, ex­
perienced in the ways of the world, a brave and gay adventurer.
We believed implicitly all his stories of “high life” and were tre­
mendously impressed with the way he tossed famous names into
his conversation. We readily became the disciples of one we re­
garded as an admirable teacher.
His motives, as I look back, were more complex. By the tim e I
m et him, drugs had bitten deeply into his character. He was a sick
man, bitterly cynical in his own smooth way, living from the pro­
ceeds of crime and able to inflate his ego only by commanding
admiration. H e was, of course, too low on the scale of humanity to
receive that admiration from anyone except other addicts, mostly
boys without experience of their own to help them see that behind
the veneer of his supposed talents there was nothing genuine. H e
fed us dope so that we would feed his need to have someone
look up to him. Essentially weak and futile, he wanted to appear
to be a big shot and could gratify th at desire only in the society of
kids or dull fellows lacking his social graces.
John Devon was the well-educated son of a well-to-do, highly
respectable family. In his early twenties, he had worked in a
broker’s office on Wall Street, probably in a less spectacular posi­
tion than he led us to believe. H e had enjoyed unusual oppor­
tunities, and he had wasted them. The bad companions who were
responsible for his addiction were his own older brothers. Joe, the
eldest, was an addict of long standing and mysteriously affluent.
The story was that he had been the one who profited most from a
forgery racket of which the next brother, Jim , was the supposed
genius. Shortly before I met the Devons, Jim had been sentenced
to a long term in Sing Sing, apparently taking the rap for his
brothers, although John’s p art had been a minor one. Jim was an
addict, too. Just what companionship was responsible for the
addiction of Joe and Jim I never learned. John never spoke of
that, although he often boasted that Jim was the best “scratcher”
in the business, able to copy a signature that would fool the _
owner of the name himself.
John had no more scruple about introducing a boy to,drugs than
a well-fed cat has about stalking birds. Perhaps he derived some
sort of satisfaction from proving that other lads were no more im­
mune to dope than he had been himself, the more the better. I
wasn’t the first nor the last to be misled by his offhand, casual
manner. He didn’t reach out for us any more than a spider
reaches out for a fly. We just fell into his web.
I suppose that a p art of his fascination for us when we first m et
him was the strangely exciting appeal which decadence sometimes
makes to the healthy. When there is added a lot of superficial
charm of manner, a gift for story-telling and the flattery of a
grown man treating kids as his equals, the fascination is irresisti­
ble. At least I found it so, and I know th at others did too.
He pretended a lordly indifference to anyone who was too tim id
to take dope, and at the tim e I believed that this attitude was
sincere. Probably the pose of arrogant superiority actually was a
shield behind which John hid his desire to be accepted by non­
addicts and his hurt th at he failed to impress them with his
“grandeur.” If he could not earn their respect, he made some of
them conscious of his existence. The families of the boys he se­
duced with his talk and his drugs— seduced into joining his habit,
I mean, for there was nothing homosexual about the man— cursed
him as the evil genius of the neighborhood. Perhaps he saw him­
self a big shot then, even if the measure of his stature among our
parents was hate rather than the admiration he craved.
 Ju st why some of the victim s’ parents did not go to the police
about this slimy fiend, or indeed take more direct action by beat­
ing him up, is impossible for me to say now. The laws governing
the sale and distribution of narcotics were appallingly lenient in
those days. Also, perhaps the fact that he was a black sheep son of
a once rich and influential family had something to do with it.
Perhaps even those bewildered parents were a little awed by the
one-time eminence of the Devons. W hat a world of suffering and
disgrace might have been avoided if this evil panderer had been
put behind bars for his crimes of debauching the young. He was,
of course, even more contemptible than his criminal brothers,
because they took positive action, even though it was thievery.
John merely lived off the proceeds of crime and through a vicious
form of vanity put a score of boys on the wretched path of drug
addiction.
Devon’s influence spread out beyond the addicts. In my own
family, he was the symbol of the tragedy that wrecked thirteen
years of M other’s and D ad’s lives as well as mine, and left its
m ark on my brothers also. Dope deadened my feelings for every­
thing else, and throughout the period of my addiction, heroin was
far more powerful than remorse. But as I look back, of course I
can see that my habit hu rt many more than myself. I t killed the
hope and pride my parents had cherished for me. I t em bittered
m y brothers so th at they hated to m eet strangers in the Village
for fear* they would be mistaken for me. I t caused the elder to
leave home earlier than he might have done otherwise. I t gave
both of them such a horror of drugs that even when a physician
prescribed medicine for them, they would leave it in the bottle.
They, too, hated the name of Devon.
B ut I am not trying to foist responsibility for my addiction
onto John. I am trying to explain, not excuse. I t is a vain dream
of the “might have been” school to reflect on the course my life
would have taken if I had not walked around the comer to the
Devon house, invited by boys of my own age who already had
sampled the poison which was waiting there for me.

2 A Sn iff o f Pow der

I t was a big night for me, a fifteen-year-old kid from Bank
Street, to meet John Devon. H e brought class to our p art of
Greenwich Village. H e had all the glamor of the Bohemians from
10
 the jigsaw puzzle of streets around Washington Square and all
the worldly air of the rich folks on F ifth Avenue. Such a combi­
nation was rare in the section west of Seventh Avenue and above
Sheridan Square where I lived. Oilr neighborhood was one of
simple working people. The nearest thing to glamor and money
was provided by the plug-uglies of the Hudson D uster Gang at
the northern tip of the Village.
A couple of the fellows, including my best friend, Charlie
Lauck, had told me I ’d be welcome a t John’s. I t was a fine evening
toward the end of 1910. The gas street lamps flamed bravely.
Little kids were playing hop-scotch and trying not to hear their
parents calling them to bed. I felt very grown up, a man among
men, for John Devon m ust have been nearer th irty than twenty. I
was proud that he would notice me. Perhaps he had heard I was
the best pitcher our baseball ffeam had had last summer. Perhaps
he knew I already was in high school and was heading for the
commercial a rt world.
Charlie, good old round-faced Charlie with the perpetual grin,
said Devon was a prince who always had a bankroll and often
bought coffee and buns for the gang. They would go well on a
brisk evening, I thought, as I founded the com er into Fourth
Street.
A group of fellows most of whom I knew were sitting on the
steps of the high stoop of the Devon house or leaning against the
stone balustrade. John himself was perched on the iron railing
that guarded the front of Austrain’s tailor shop. His patent
leather shoes gleamed in the gaslight. His checked suit and cream-
colored fedora were the last word in sartorial elegance. His
handsome, regular features made him look exactly like the Adonis
in the collar ads. Like him, John wore a gleaming white collar high
enough to choke an ordinary man. At the curb stood the Shiny
new Mercer car he drove. I t belonged to his older brother, Joe,
b a t John seemed always to be using it.
John had moved only a few weeks before into the house on
Fourth Street with his three sisters, highly correct and painfully'
prim ladies, they seemed to me. Their reserve and their money,
and perhaps the reputations of their brothers, set them apart
from the rest of the neighborhood.
Charlie introduced me, and I slipped in among the others. For
a tim e it was no different from any other gathering of the fellows
on a comer. We usually spent our evenings standing around and
■ talking. Of course John talked bigger than we ever had. H e told
stories of Broadway and night life, and knew the m ost intim ate
details about stars and producers and. managers. At least he talked
about them with an easy familiarity which sounded like knowl­
edge. H e was just as fluent in his stories about the pimps and
prostitutes. The diamond on his finger flashed emphasis of his
tales of big money an cftasy living.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him, so I missed no bit of the gesture
w ith which he took a small pillbox from his pocket. He inter­
rupted his talk to open it, pick up a bit of white powder on the
end of a quill toothpick, lift the quill to his nostrils and sniff the
contents. I t was odd, but I supposed he was taking some kind of
snuff.
I was surprised, though, when he casually passed the box to
Charlie and another boy. Each of them imitated him, sniffing the
powder with obvious relish. Charlie’s good-natured face was un­
naturally solemn as he went through the ritual. I guess I m ust
have looked puzzled, for they all Taughed.
“You want a blow too?” John asked.
I hardly knew what he meant. “Blow” was the drug addict’s
term for a shot of his dope.
“ Go ahead, it’ll pep you up,” John urged. “Give him some of
your joy powder, M onk.”
He turned to the only man of his own age in the group, a dark,
pugnacious Italian of unprepossessing manner. Any boy of fifteen
who had grown up in the Village could have spotted him as a
tough as far as he could see. Monk grinned and handed over his
own little box. Carefully I did as the others had done and inhaled
a few grains of powder.
There was a tingling sensation in my nostrils, followed by a
bitter metallic taste as the drug seeped down into my throat. I
had expected something very stimulating, a feeling of excitement
and joy. Actually the reaction was much more insidious, a smug
complacency that began to steal over me in the most delightful
manner.
I lit a cigaret and sat back. I t was almost 11 o’clock. I was
supposed to be at home, but another half hour could do no harm.
John told us about his brother Joe who owned the Mercer car,
obviously a big man uptown. The half hour sped by and then an­
other. I could listen to John forever. He was telling me about
Monk. Apparently he would as soon stick a knife into you as not.
John mentioned th at he was one of a gang of pickpockets who
worked the crosstown trolleys.
This seemed to me to be a very fine m an’s talk. I felt myself be­
coming more alert as I listened. T hat colorful design on John’s
tie— I hadn’t^noticed that before. My initial blow was seeping
into my brain giving the world in general a superlatively rosy
 appearance. I was stim ulated to do a little talking myself, then a
lot of talking. I was leading the conversation! John and the others
listened to me as I rambled on about Stuyvesant High, about my
drawing, about my triumphs as a pitcher.
All of a sudden it was half-past twelve. Well, this was a good
evening, and I certainly ought to make the most of it. I talked
myself out, and then Charlie was holding forth. He had never
been so loquacious other nights when we gathered on the street
corners. He had never been so interesting either, although I never
• could remember what he said.
Slowly the effects of the drug wore off. John had told me th at it
was called heroin, and I wondered idly whether it had anything'
to do with heroism. Doctors used to prescribe it for severe coughs.
I looked down again at the tailor’s clock. Two A.M. M y elevation
of spirits was no longer sufficient to let me ignore the hour. I told
the group good night and started home.
Bank Street was deserted. I t was, and is, a street largely of two-
story brick houses and small apartm ent dwellings. Starting a t
Greenwich Avenue on the east, it began with modest pretensions
to style in houses with handsome "fireplaces and kitchens and
dining rooms in the half basements. Bank Street grew dingier and
dingier as it ran west to the Hudson River piers. Our home was in
a small, four-story tenement mortised in between two alleyways
about halfway along ,the street. y
I climbed the three flights to our cold-water apartm ent and
slipped inside the door. The stairway had creaked loiltlly as it
always did. I had groped my way easily, thanks to long fam iliarity
— I had been born in this house— through the narrow dark hall
past the dumbwaiter and into the kitchen, which was the entrance
to our flat.
“Lee, is that you?”
My father had heard me come in, and his tone was about as
angry as it ever got, which was not very angry. I had hoped he
would be sound asleep. D ad was a letter carrier who had to be up
and out by daylight. I answered him and waited for the repri­
mand.
“Your m other has been worried about you,” he said in a low
voice. “You know you shouldn’t be out this late.”
I m uttered something about not having been aware of the time.
“I don’t want to hear of this happening again,” he said as
sternly as he could. “Now get to bed.”
I went on into the front room where I shared a large folding
bed with my brother, N ed, who was seventeen. H e did not stir as
I slipped in beside him. I was glad of that, for I did not w ant to
talk to him. Y et always up to now I had wanted N ed’s notice.
H e was the older brother of the boy’s story book. Bigger and
more solidly built than I, he had fought my battles for me ever
since I could remember. In our neighborhood this could mean a
lot of fighting. There were the fist fights with members of our own
gang. There were the battles with kids from another street, and
if one got licked he usually came back with his gang, and an
affray of bits of brick and bottles would end in bloody heads and
broken windows. Ned never let anyone pick on his kid brother,
and he was a very handy lad with his right. D ad’s brother, who .
had died before'I could remember, had been a pretty good light­
weight, and D ad taught both N ed and me to box. I was faster on
my feet and quicker to jab so I could escape for a while on sheer
speed. But a punch on the nose took the steam out of me every
time. N ed was rugged, able and willing to absorb punishm ent and
a solid puncher. He was in his third year at the High School of
Commerce. I always wanted to tell Ned about my experiences,
b u t not this time. A sniff of joy powder would not be something
th a t would raise me in his good opinion.
M y complacency had evaporated entirely by the time I crawled
under the covers. I knew I had behaved foolishly, but at the same
tim e I remained a little bit pleased with the attention of the group
on Fourth Street and especially of the notice of John Devon. I
knew by now, of course, that I had sampled a drug. I had never '
heard very much about narcotics for good or evil, but I knew
enough to have a vague understanding that this joy powder could
be dangerous.
With these conflicts in my mind, I had some trouble getting to
sleep even though it was far past my bedtime. When I did doze
off, I was even more disturbed by dreams. There was nothing very
definite about them. They were not quite nightmares. But there
was a quality of foreboding about them, a dim formlessness which
was distressing in its very vagueness. Strange shapes and figures
melted in and out of focus. They were heralds of ominous hap­
penings which were just around the com er of the dream but never
actually appeared. I slept and was haunted.

H ooked
“Lee, what’s the matter with you?”
The voice was far away, then close, then far away again. I my­
self was rocking back and forth like a rowboat in a rough sea.
“Lee, wake up!”
I opened an eye. M other was bending over me, shaking ire
hard. Her dark eyes looked enormous. She stepped back and
passed her hand over her hair as if to brush it back from her fore­
head. M other was always doing that although she never had a hair
out of place, even in the morning when she had been up getting
our breakfast, waking us and seeing th a t we were all properly
turned out. M other was so small and slender that she looked like
a worried girl, although 1 did not realize that until years later.
“You’ll be late,” she said. “W hatever has come over you?”
I suppressed a groan. I felt miserable, but I didn’t want to
tell her about last night. When I lifted my head from the pillow,
it throbbed painfully. I insisted I was all right, ju st had overslept,
but I did not believe myself. M other, however, was satisfied.
The after effects of my one shot of heroin wore off while I was
a t school. As they faded, I forgot them and remembered only th at
I had been accepted by boys and even a man whom I admired. I
only skipped one night before I was back at the high stoop on
Fourth Street. I was not sure whether John Devon would give me
another blow or not, but I promised myself that if he did I would
take it just this once, or maybe now and then, but would surely
quit after a few experiences. I had no doubt th at I could take the
stuff or let it alone just as I liked.
Charlie felt the same way I did. The Laucks lived only a couple
of blocks away, and Charlie and I had been friends all through
school. His father owned a small hotel, and Charlie had a little
more spending money than the rest of us. After school and on
Saturdays we used to hitch rides on ice wagons, play ball on W est
Street where the trains went along with a horseman carrying a red
flag, or build shacks on em pty lots. On Thanksgiving Charlie and
I , like all the kids, would dress up and beg for pennies. We had
learned that it was a waste of time to approach the rich folks
along Fifth Avenue—almost the only occasions we went th a t far
east— for the poor of our own neighborhood were more open-
handed with their coppers.
L ater Charlie and I had played on the same baseball team and
exercised together on the parallel bars in the gym of Public School
16 on Thirteenth Street. We wanted to be athletes, and occasion­
ally saw something of a good-looking Irish kid from Perry Street
who was learning to box. Gene Tunney was his name. Sundays we
rode up to the lots on 155th Street to play baseball with other
neighborhood teams on ground th at had been the home of the
New York Giants before they moved to the Polo Grounds.
15
 In the fall of 1910 we were getting a little too old for all of
these former activities, except baseball, and perhaps were looking
for substitutes. We found John D evon’s front steps while other
fellows discovered dances, the high-school gym or athletic field,
the movies or perhaps poolrooms and the back doors of saloons.
Charlie had experimented with the joy powder a few days be­
fore I did. To his merry spirit, the stuff was ju st good fun. I went
along with him on that, and two nights after my first blow I was
sitting on the steps at John’s. This time John offered me a sniff
from his own box, and I took it, trying to appear as casual and
worldly as he. "
At die time I accepted quite m atter-of-factly the way in which
this handsome, obviously well-to-do young man of the world chose
to surround himself with a bunch of teen-age kids. The only other
regular companions of his evenings were five or six toughs from
the Hudson D usters, one of the still famous gangs of New York.
Perhaps John got a kick out of airing his obvious superiority in
dress, manner and knowledge of the world before children and
hoodlums. Perhaps he was no longer welcome among his own
earlier associates. Perhaps he just drifted. I ’ll never know. His
presence, his actions, seemed the natural thing at the time to us
kids.
W hatever his reasons, he was generous with the contents of his
little pillbox. He always seemed to have an ample supply; later
on we learned that he got it along with the M ercer car from his
brother Joe, also an addict.
I was careful that second time not to stay out too late, and next
morning it was easier to manage the hangover. It did not seem
th a t the drug was really doing me any harm. I still thought it
would be easy to stop at any time, but every second night or so
I turned up at John’s for my sniff of joy powder.
I was beginning to learn both the jargon and the facts about
the drug traffic. At this time the purchase of narcotics presented
little problem. There was no law against the sale of heroin, for
it was still regarded chiefly as a cough medicine. Anyone with the
price could go into nearly any drug store and buy a packet of
the pure drug. I t was different with cocaine, morphine, opium or
hashish. These were sold illegitimately, but any addict with a
little money and an introduction to the easily available peddlers
could get the stuff.
As yet the cost of the drug had not worried me since I was get­
ting mine as a gift from John Devon. But my vocabulary was en­
riched by learning th a t heroin was called “junk” and its addicts
“ junkies.” Opium was “hop” and its devotees “hopheads.” Co­
la
caine wasl “show” and those who used it “snowbirds” until they
reached an advanced stage when they were called “leapers” be­
cause of their jerky movements, almost like St. Vitus dance. A
“yen” was what an addict got when he was first deprived of his
drug and yearning for a shot. “ Cold turkey” was the sorry state
of further deprivation when an addict, usually in confinement or
under forcible restraint, had to sweat out his yen as best he
could.
Because I was young and healthy, the first few weeks of my
association with the Devon gang did not produce results th a t
could get me into trouble— or at least no trouble that could not
be considered normal for a teen-ager. M y school work suffered,
and I was a less pleasant person to have around the house, b ut
no one at home suspected me. However, I was becoming some­
thing of a stranger to my own family.
Up to now we had been a close-knit little group. This winter
I drifted completely away from Ned. H e was taking an interest
in dances and 'girls, and rented his first dress suit. H e had a
healthy contempt for the loafers on the Devon stoop even before
he learned th at dope was their chief preoccupation.
I no longer watched out for D ad’s homecoming in the late
afternoon. Before I always had been glad to see his slight figure
in the gray mailman’s uniform coming down the block. We could
spot him as far off as we could see him by the occupational
habit of carrying one shoulder lower than the other because of
the weight of the bag he carried all day.
M other, of course, I took for granted. She was much too busy
to be aware of my activities away from home. In fact she hardly
ever had time to leave the house except to do the marketing.
The everlasting cleaning of the flat, the huge washings which
had to be done by hand and then hung up either in the back of
the house or on the flat roof, the cooking and the sewing were
done in such a manner that I supposed she really' enjoyed the
work. H er idea of leisure was to sit down with a basket of mend­
ing, either with one of the family or with Mrs. Krause, who lived
on the first floor. W ith this neighbor she would exchange family
gossip, and they managed to know a great deal about the inno­
cent happenings along Bank Street.
M y kid brother, Bobby, who was five years younger than I, had
never been very close to me. H e was ju st one of the small boys
who played games I had outgrown.
T he sixth member of our household was M other’s brother,
U n d e George. H e had been one of my favorites, for he had a
wealth of stories about the theater which be told well with much
17
expression on his mobile actor’s face. Uncle George had been of
the theater all his life, both on stage and backstage. At one time
he had been manager of the Grand Opera House on Twenty-third
Street, and on alternate weeks Ned and I had been allowed to go
with him to see the performance from the wings. Every year
Uncle George’s hair retreated a little more from his forehead,
but he retained a youthful zest for a story and was carelessly
generous to us kids. He was my .Jink with the glamor of the en­
tertainm ent world until I met John Devon, and then all of a
sudden my new friend’s highly colored tales with their overtones
of sex and sin created an altogether new picture far removed
from Uncle George’s stories of his vaudeville days.
As the weeks passed, I grew less and less attentive to my sur­
roundings whether at home or at school. M other worried— it is
from this time that I first remember her gesture of a hand over
the brows—and my teachers complained. Their words hardly
reached my consciousness. I was preoccupied with looking for­
ward to the next gathering at John’s or nursing the hangover
which I had come to expect after each indulgence. Headaches
and listlessness seemed a small price to pay for the privilege of
listening to Devon, sharing his pillbox and being one of the regu­
lars, accepted as an equal by a Hudson Duster.
At first I could skip a night, but soon, as the habit crept up on
me, I felt the need of a blow after twenty-four hours. In a m atter
of weeks more even this failed to satisfy me. By the end of
March daytime became unbearable. I remember the date be­
cause just before it, on a Saturday, March 25, 1911, Charlie and
I saw a great mushroom of fire and smoke glowing above the
rooftops from the direction of Washington Square. We set out
for it on a dead run, for we were still boyish enough to run a
mile for a fire. By the time we got there the top three floors of
a ten-story building housing the Triangle Shirtwaist factory were
blazing and thirty bodies lay smashed on the pavement. Tiny
black figures waved and writhed at the windows above us. against
a background of red and orange flames. Their screams came to us
thinly above the roar of the fire, the clanging of newly arriving
fire-fighting apparatus, the shouts of firemen and the groans of
spectators. We saw girls leaping for nets spread far below them,
only to miss the nets altogether or go crashing through them. We
could hear the shrieks of those who were being baked to death
with no chance even to jump. One of the greatest fire disasters in
the country’s history, the Triangle blaze took 143 lives, most of
them young women workers in the factory.
I could not watch for long. As I turned away, I saw nothing
 I

b u t expressions of horror and dismay until I noticed a familiar

Village figure. I t was a thin, stooped little man in ragged clothes.
H e had only one eye, and th at one bulged out grotesquely. His
bony face was quite serene as he watched, head tilted back.
“Johnny Look-up,” I murmured, and nudged Charlie.
We both gazed at him with some awe. Johnny Look-up was
an omen of death, it was said in our p art of the Village. When-,
ever he was seen loitering people whispered that someone m ust
be dead. H e seemed always to know where death would strike.
Sometimes he would put in an appearance hours before the be­
reaved family hung crepe on the door. As soon as th a t symbol
of sorrow was in evidence, Johnny would disappear, but he al­
ways came back for the funeral. His shabby figure would be seen
across the street as he lingered, head cocked to one side like
a parrot, squinting with his one eye upwards at the windows
where death had visited.
T hat night in Fourth Street Charlie and I described w hat we
had seen, and all of Us read the newspaper accounts of the fire.
Charlie held forth on the uncanny ability of Johnny Look-up to
know where people were about to die. Another boy of our age
from around the com er on Tw elfth Street, Pop W hitey, added
some Village superstitions about the ominous Johnny. John
Devon laughed.
“You kids!” he exclaimed. “This crank is nothing but an un­
dertaker’s buff. H e chases after a funeral like some fellows chase
afte r a fire. H e sees where the embalmer’s wagon is going, and
he follows it.”
I f John was scornful, we all sneered, so I joined in the jibes
at Johnny Look-up with the rest. But I still was scared when
I saw him around.
A few days after the fire, I decided th a t I couldn’t stand the
long wait every day until the gang could get together a t John’s
after dinner. The drug was making me so weary every morning
that I decided to ask John for an extra blow to take home and
use in the morning. This, I told myself, would be better than
trying to cut out the evening shot which gave me the hangover
in the first place. But of course the -morning blow would only
be for a little while. Then I ’d cut out dope altogether. M aybe as
soon as the baseball season started. Meanwhile it couldn’t do
any harm to pep m yself up during the day. I put it to John th at
school was so monotonous and the hours so long th a t I got fired.
John produced a bit of the powder for me to take along, b ut he
gave a warning with it.
 “Look,” he explained, “I ’ve had to fix up Charlie and Whitey
this way, too.”
To the three of us he added:
“You’d better buy a few extra blows for yourselves. You fel­
lows are getting a yen, and you'll find it's something you can’t
fool around with. All you have to do is go in to W arner’s Drug
Store on Thirty-eighth Street and ask for a dollar’s worth of
heroin tablets. You can squash 'em to a powder by rolling a pencil
over them like this”—he demonstrated, using his pencil like a
rolling pin—“and you’ll get the same kick as you do out of
powder.”
The three of us agreed to meet early the next evening and
bring our money. My share was as much as I spent on a summer
Sunday to go up to 155th Street on the subway and get hot dogs
and lemonade after the game. T hat was about the limit of my
spending money. Charlie had a little more. I don’t know where
W hitey got his share; his father was dead and he and his mother
lived on the earnings of W hitey’s sister. As for me, I borrowed
the money from Uncle George, telling him sort of a lie. I told
myself an even bigger one, for I swore I never would use dope
again after this night.
I repeated this resolution out loud when I met the others later.
Both grinned, and W hitey scoffed:
“You’ll have to take it or you won’t be able to sleep.”
I yawned, a wide exaggerated yawn, meaning to imply th at I
could sleep any time. But we were wise in the language if not
the experience of drug addiction and had heard that yawning
is one of the uncontrollable symptoms of the confirmed addict
newly deprived of his dope.
“See,” said Charlie, “you’re beginning to get a yen already.
Come on, let’s get going.”
Of course I went. I was going to quit tonight, but I would do
it with the dope in my pocket to show how strong-minded I
could be.
W arner’s was in the old Tenderloin district, where dope was
ju st another of the local vices. Charlie went in to make our
purchase while W hitey and I lounged outside eyeing the actors
in their natty suits, the slicked-up poolroom sharks, the Broad­
way playboys, the hustlers and their protectors, all of them ju st
beginning their day. I had never been in this part of the city
before, and thought th at it seemed to live up well to John
Devon’s descriptions of i t
In a few moments Charlie came out, grinning broadly over
his easy success in his first attem pt to buy heroin, and showed us
20
the little vial of tablets under a street light. We ducked down
a side street and dished out the pellets on a stone stoop there.
Charlie and W hitey ground a couple to powder then and there
and sniffed with relish. I said I would hold off. I thought I might
ju st as well quit right then, but I put my share of the tablets in
m y pockets.
By the time we got back to the Village, the others seemed to
feel so much better and happier than I did that I left them on
Thirteenth Street to go into the school gym. But as soon as I
entered, I knew I wanted no exercise.
“Where you been keeping yourself?” inquired Gus, the athletic
director.
“Oh, around,” I replied, and walked away. I drifted into the
next room, where a couple of boys were playing checkers, but I
couldn’t sit still to watch. At the same time I felt weak and
listless. My forehead was damp with perspiration but I felt cold.
I began to yawn. I was acutely uncomfortable and could not tell
ju st why. I t was frustrating as an itch that seems to pervade the
whole body but does not stay still long enough to be scratched.
I t was still early when I got home, but restlessness and fatigue
would not leave me. D ad asked me about school and said some­
thing about a firm on his mail route where I might be able to
get a job after graduation. I hardly , heard him. My hand was
toying with the tablets in my pocket. Suddenly I couldn’t bear
it any longer. I m uttered abruptly th at I was tired and went into
the front room. Ned was out at a dance, so I could be alone. I
thought if I went to bed I might sleep without a drug. But the
harder I tried to sleep the less I could relax. I couldn’t lie still.
Then my leg muscles began to twitch. I just had to have a blow.
I decided that as soon as M other and D ad went to bed I would
go -in the bathroom and crush one of the tablets.
A t last the strip of yellow light under the kitchen door
vanished. I waited half an hour and then slipped into the bath­
room. W ith the gas lighted and the door latched, I crushed one
of my precious tablets on a piece of newspaper by rolling the
handle of the wash brush over it. It caked in a thin layer. I
raked it with my forefinger and saw that it really was a fine
powder. Lifting the paper to my nostrils, I inhaled the dust
deeply. I t had the same smell as John’s but lacked the sting.
The reaction was instantaneous. I relaxed and a t the same
tim e was intensely alive. I gazed with what I thought was new
insight at the white-enameled iron tub, the shelf with a few
medicine bottles, hair tonic and empty fruit ja r holding the
family toothbrushes. These homely objects were about to con-
21
vey a new meaning to my specially alerted brain. But before
th a t could happen I became fascinated by the gas jet. The blue
and yellow flames swayed and rippled in a draft through the
crack at the top of the door, and in just a moment would merge
into a wonderful pattern. Perhaps they did but my attention
was distracted by the sound of voices across the air shaft. T hat
would be the Neilsons. They talked so softly I could not hear any
words, so I thought about their daughters, pretty kids with nice
legs. I couldn’t keep my mind even on the Neilson girls’ legs for
long. There were footsteps on the stairs, a slow tread that paused
on the landing below, came up a flight, paused, went on another
flight. T hat was old man Perkins turning out the hall lights.
Peculiar cuss, he never smiled, at least not at me. I wondered
where he was born, what had happened to his life that he had
become a janitor in a small tenement. Poor fellow, he was licked
but I had all the world ahead of me, and by the tail.
A brisker step sounded on the stairs. T hat would be Ned. I
didn’t want him to see me; I didn’t want to talk to one who
could not understand how I felt. I jumped up, turned out the
light and got to the bedroom just as he entered the kitchen. By
the time he reached the front of the flat I was lying on my side
‘with my eyes closed.
I was still awake when N ed’s regular breathing announced
that he slept. I thought of him patronizingly. A good sort, Ned,
but he would never be the great commercial artist I was to be­
come. I resolved that tomorrow my school work would begin to
get back to its former standard. I would join one of the Cooper
Union art classes. I would take that job with the firm on D ad’s
mail route. I would knock 'em dead with my drawings. I would
be rich and famous and see the world.
I was almost sixteen now, and I was happy as I drifted off to
sleep at last. But also, in the terrifyingly graphic slang of the
drug addict, I was hooked.

4 Su p portin g a H abit
Heroin had won the first round, but when I woke up in
the morning I was not dismayed. I had my little powder to for­
tify myself before going to school, and I took it. This, I assured
myself, was merely a tem porary expedient. Any day now I would
give up dope altogether. M y optimism was strengthened by the
speed with which the morning blow had dissipated my hangover.
Every addict goes through this phase of being sure th a t he is
going to give up drugs. In fact he goes through it frequently, for
until his addiction is well advanced he wants to think that he
can stop any time he makes up his mind to do so. B ut even a t
fifteen, as I look back at it, I do not think I really kidded myself.
M y promises to myself were more in the way of whistling to
keep my courage up. I hoped, but at bottom had no confidence,
th at by telling myself I could quit I would work myself up to the
point of giving up the stuff.
This was the stage in which I might have been cured if I had
been taken away from the other addicts, placed in a completely
new environment where there were no drug users and encouraged
to follow my old ambitions. B ut it would have had to be more .
than a few weeks or months. I t would have had to be a new
life. Such a break never entered my mind.
Instead I went back to school during the day, mooned about
the flat in the late afternoon and headed for Fourth Street every
evening. The Devon stoop was becoming the main hangout for
the drug addicts of Greenwich Village, or at least th a t p art of
the Village in which I lived.
Our host’s own indulgences were fast catching up with him. H e *
carried a cane now, and needed it to help him walk up and down
the steps. H e said it was an attack of rheumatism. His limp did
not detract from the admiration with which we regarded him.
Among the regulars was Eddie, a good-looking kid with curly
blond hair who entertained us with a snappy jig and a popular
song until dope ended his clowning. H e did not need long for
th at, either. Eddie had played on the baseball team with me.
There was D utch Reemer, a chunky fellow with a sallow skin,
who lived with his m other and older brother on Greenwich
Avenue. D utch’s father was dead and his m other supported the
family by housework. His brother hated all of us, and we used
to avoid him carefully because he was a tough fighter when angry,
and the mere sight of one of D utch’s companions would set him
off.
Of course the Hudson D uster members of our coterie provided
some protection from such attacks. Phil Hoey, a colleague of
M onk’s, and Red Heybert, who was unique in th a t he combined
liquor and drug addiction, were among them. Another of the
older fellows was Joe Ambrose, who lived in a furnished room
nearby and had an allowance from his family upstate. I t was
not enough to support his drug habit, so this quiet, well-dressed
v 23
young man had become a bicycle thief. His unobtrusive manner
and good dothes helped him get away with it.
M y own troubles multiplied after I began to take dope both
morning and night. At school, the teachers complained th at I was
always daydreaming. Sometimes I actually fell asleep. To avoid
complaints, I began to play hookey, and wandered around the
streets waiting until it was time to go home. Of course this only
made m atters worse, and the principal wrote several letters to
m y father about me.
I promised over and over again to do better. But my spurts
of alertness and activity hardly lasted more than half an hour
at a time. In these few minutes I would pick up a dictionary and
decide to learn every word in it. When this mood was on me at
school, I would be eager to recite and prove th at I was the
sm artest fellow in the class. Then quite suddenly I would relapse
into a doze in which I had visions of painting like a genius or
showing up Christy Mathewson at the Polo Grounds. I-w ould
even fall asleep at the table.
M other and Dad were greatly upset by my behavior and by
the letters from the principal. N either of them ever lost their
temper, certainly did not show it. They were patient and kind,
even when they began to have their suspicions as to what was
really tlje m atter with me.
I t was impossible for them and Ned not to hear rumors that
I was hanging out with a gang of boys who took dope, and they
tried hard to believe me when I swore that I never used the
stuff. But soon they had to know what all the neighborhood
knew, even people who were almost strangers. I remember years
later meeting Gene Tunney, long after he had been heavyweight
champion, and I think he was surprised to find that I was still
alive.
“W hat happened to the junk?” he asked. “You used to be an
awful junkie.”
Pleading and arguments made no impression upon me at all
for I hardly heard them. I had entered upon the drug addict’s
chief preoccupation, how to get the money to support my habit.
The prices we had to pay would leave a present-day addict
drooling with envy, but money was correspondingly hard to come
by. I hoped I might get some at a cheap rate from John Devon,
but he was steadfast in his refusal to sell. I t was more than a
fear of getting into trouble. In the fraternity of the addicts, the
seller was an object of hatred and contempt, far lower in the
scale of hum anity than the user. A good many of the “pushers”
were addicts to begin with and sold the stuff so they could get
their own, but I remember our grim delight when a non-addict
seller was hooked. John Devon obviously did not wish to impair 1
his social standing among his fellows by selling dope.
About the tim e th a t 1 found I needed a blow both morning
and night, there began a drive to discourage the sale of heroin
in drug stores w ithout a doctor’s prescription. A wave of addic­
tion among the stage people of the day, including several well-
known Broadway figures, had aroused the public and the
authorities. Some stores—W arner’s among them—discontinued
the sale, but there were plenty of others who liked the quick
and easy profit.
While John refused to sell me any of his joy powder, he was
perfectly willing to help me get my own. He gave me a forged
prescription for twenty grains of heroin hydrochloride and .
twenty grains of sacet lactis. This last, commonly known as
sugar of milk, is a harmless adulterant.
I took this prescription to a druggist on the far E ast Side,
on Avenue B, and he filled it after some hesitation induced, I
think, by my youth rather than by any scruples about selling a
dangerous narcotic. H e made the powders up in two small
packets, and when I returned to have the prescription filled
again, he suggested that I buy heroin by the eighth of an ounce,
sixty grains. This was enough to last me for about ten days at
my then rate of consumption and cost $3.25.
A t this time the peddlers of dope had not learned the many
tricks of adulteration which have been employed since. At the
present m arket for illicit drugs an eighth of an ounce of pure
heroin probably would cost $100 to $200. But because I used
pure heroin, with just a little sugar of milk to give it body, I
was becoming accustomed to a larger dose of the poison than
the teen-ager or even the adult addict of today uses. I t took me
a great deal longer than ten days to save up as much as $3.25
and I set m ost of my alert moments to the task of thinking up
sources of loose change rather than doing school work. For a
week or two my allowance and such small sums as I could
squeeze out of Uncle George or by selling m y few belongings to
other kids tided me over. When this money was exhausted, I
almost welcomed the mounting tension at school and at home.
Ned had remarked upon my long stays in the bathroom and
had heard about my sessions on the Devon stoop. D ad finally
issued an order that I was to stay away from the place. H e had
heard John Devon was using drugs and giving them to others.
I protested angrily. I accused N ed of lying. I hotly denied th at
I had taken any dope. I swore th a t I had never seen John take
25
i t either. I played the outraged innocent, and no doubt I over­
did it.
Two weeks later the principal of Stuyvesant High summoned
me to his office and told me that my wretched marks and ir­
regular attendance made me an impossible student. H e suggested
th a t I withdraw from my classes voluntarily. There were tears
in M other’s eyes when I told her this news. D ad sighed deeply
and cleared his throat a couple of times.
“T h at’s terrible, terrible,” he said slowly. “But it’s happened
now. The thing for you to do is go away for a vacation and get
hold of yourself.”
Despite their sorrow, I was delighted. Now I could devote my
whole tim e to getting enough money for joy powder. I tried to
assume a manly, remorseful air which I was far from feeling.
“I don’t want to go away,” I replied. “I want to stay. I can
get a job and help out at home. I t ’s the least I can do.”
“Oh, but what about those boys who have been getting you
.into all this trouble?” cried M other, and her hand went up to
her forehead. “W hat are they doing to you?”
“I ’ll give ’em up if you want me to, M om,” I assured her.
“Honest, I will. I won’t go back there any more. I ’ll get in early
every night, you’ll see.”
Two days later, through a downtown employment agency, I
got a job as office boy in a firm of public accountants. M y duties
were to run the switchboard in the reception room, keep the
tim e book, answer the buzzer on the nearby wall and run er­
rands. To a boy who had been planning to become a great artist
or a great athlete, this was monotonous, but I rejoiced in it for
two reasons. I had a key to the hall washroom where I could take
m y blows in peace and privacy, and the $2 I held out of my pay
enabled me to keep myself supplied with dope. The rest of my
$7.50 a week I dutifully turned over to my M other, and she gave
me back carfare and essential expenses.
I gave up neither heroin nor John Devon. Nearly every night
I managed to sneak out for an hour or two with him. His coterie
of addicts was growing. Only two or three boys of the neighbor­
hood who tried his joy powder failed to come back regularly.
Those few exceptions, as I recall, were all made quite sick by
their first experiment, probably because they inhaled too much.
John was always sympathetically philosophical about such
experiences.
“Well, you haven’t got used to it yet,” he would say, and
offer a second sample.
By this tim e there were a dozen or more regulars on his front
26
stoop. One was H arry Lowns, the best ballplayer and the hand­
somest lad on our team. H e was already almost six' feet tall.
D utch Shore, son of the grocer around the comer, was another,
and so was Skid Pottle, from Thirteenth Street, who became
one of John’s closest friends, so close he was privileged to enter
the Devon flat upstairs. M onk brought his brother, Tim, who had
acquired his habit through selling dope. H e and M pnk had an
uncle who also was an addict, and Tim used to regale us with a
lurid story of how he had poisoned the uncle when he caught the
older man stealing “decks,” the junkie term for the little folded
paper packets which held our heroin. W hether or not the story
was true, the uncle certainly had died suddenly.
I t was a lazy, hazy summer, the year I passed my sixteenth
birthday, and so far had I drifted from my promise to give'up
dope that I celebrated what I thought was my m aturity by ex­
perimenting with cocaine. This is not unusual; nine out of ten
who are arrested for possessing heroin or morphine illegally will
adm it to having used cocaine at one tim e or another. I found
th a t my nostrils felt cold as ice as I inhaled the stuff, which
smelled like gasoline fumes. B ut I had no inclination to relax,
as I usually did after heroin, I wanted to move about. I adjusted
my tie repeatedly, brushed my coat sleeves with my hand,
straightened my lapels and could not resist an impulse to rub
my nose.
These are the typical reactions to cocaine, the hallmark of
the cokie or snowbird. While cocaine is not habit-forming in
the same way as heroin— in fact junkies don’t think of it as a
habit at all—it destroys the mind more quickly than any other
drug. The heroin addict’s yen when deprived of his drug has no
counterpart of torture for the cokie.
I found the coke was no substitute for junk at any time, al­
though it did give an added exhilaration. For a long tim e I
would use it only when in funds, because it added to my desire
for heroin. In this first year of addiction, my worries over money
were relatively mild, for John Devon, pleased that his followers
had established their own sources of heroin supply, always was
glad to rescue us with a blow when we ran short.
N aturally the evidences of my addiction were plain a t home,
although I think that M other and D ad were not quite sure what
I was doing. Lying comes easily to a junkie, and I promised
fervently to do better and assured thdm that I knew nothing of
drugs. They tried very hard to believe me, and managed to re­
tain their faith in my honesty for a surprisingly long time. Some­
times I believed myself. I planned to take a week’s vacation in
the fall, go away somewhere and cut out the habit. Of course
by the time the first frost came, I postponed my reformation.
In the office I was regarded as a peculiar kid, and so I was.
One piom ent I would be fish-eyed from heroin’s relaxing in­
fluence, dreamily filling inkwells as if in slow motion or dozing at
m y desk. A minute later a shot of cocaine would make me lively
as a jack-rabbit. I would polish desks industriously or go hopping
down the hall to appear before the boss like a flash in response to
a signal from the buzzer. A small raise I got during the winter
really should have been awarded to the good-natured rather
m otherly girl stenographer whose desk was next to my little
switchboard and who used to spend a great deal of her time rous-
in g jn e from drug-induced stupors.
The raise simply enabled me to increase my drug supply. In a
locked drawer of my desk I collected the ingredients for my
habit. I t was an apothecary shop in miniature. One vial held
flake cocaine and another the crystals. There were pillboxes
with heroin, and others with mixtures of heroin and cocaine.
Beside them I kept a jar filled with sugar of milk, used to
adulterate the heroin. During one of my noon-hour ramblings
along Nassau Street, I purchased a small black bone box. In my
spare time at the office, I carefully carved a skull-and-crossbones
on the cover. This morbid symbol, seen on every filled prescrip­
tion of a narcotic, is to the drug addict what the flag is to a
patriot, the Cross to a Christian. I derived a macabre pleasure
in carving the design, but I told myself that I was doing it only
for the protection of anyone who might find the box if I should
lose it. While I left my main drug supply in the desk I always
carried this black box with me whenever I left the office because
on long errands I would need a sustaining blow.
In a full year in the office, I had learned a great deal about
drugs and almost nothing about accountancy. The increasingly
heavy doses of varied narcotics—the increase was so gradual
th a t I hardly noticed it—had pulled my weight down from 125
pounds to 108. Sunken cavities appeared at my temples and be­
hind my ears. M y cheekbones stood out in ridges under the
drawn, sallow skin. M other was constantly after me to see a doc­
tor. She said I m ust be sick, but I impatiently refused. I knew
w hat any doctor would find. Almost as worrying to her was my
increasing indifference to my appearance. I t hurt her to see one
of her children untidy, shabby, dirty. But I looked as if I had
slept in my clothes.
When family pleas and tirades became too much for me, I had
an infallible system for ending them. F irst I tried promises, but
28
these were wearing thin. Then I discovered th a t M other or D ad
would subside if I threatened to leave home.
One afternoon when I had been working for the accountant
for a year, the boss gave me some balance sheets to deliver to
the Bernheimer & Schwartz Brewing-Company. I took the T hird
Avenue El uptown, delivered the envelope and was told to w ait;
there might be some papers to take back. I t was nearly five
o’clock when the company’s accountant told me there would be
none. I decided that I. might as well go home because it would
be closing time before I got back to the office.
W hen I awoke the next morning, N ed was gone and the sun
was high in the sky. I was puzzled, for M other never let me
oversleep. I could hear her moving about in the kitchen, and I
called out:
“W hat’s the tim e?”
She did not answer, but her quick, light step came toward my
room. As soon as she entered, I knew something was wrong.
“You forgot to call me,” I said. “I ’ll be late for work.”
Tears came to her eyes as she stood by my bed gazing down
at me. She shook her head.
“You have no work to go to,” she replied. “Y esterday they
found what you had in your desk. Your father had to go down
and plead with them or you would have been arrested.”
She burst into tears, and I lay still in a stupor, hardly able to
understand what had happened. H ad I left my desk unlocked?
H ad it been opened by someone looking for a paper I might
have had? This was unim portant now. Conflicting thoughts
churned through my mind. I had lost my carefully hoarded
supply of drugs. I had disgraced the family. I had almost gone
to jail. I had no job. I would have no money to buy joy powder.
M other’s voice was scarcely audible through the haze of my
own emotions. But I did catch the words “this terrible curse”
every once in a while. I moaned and tears came to my own
eyes. I felt very sorry for myself, and sorry for my family, too.
T hat was enough to bring consoling speech from M other.
“D on’t feel too badly about it,” she said. “I f you stop taking
drugs from now on, everything will come out all right.”
Right then I determined to reform. I did not even go into
the bathroom to wash, but did that a t the kitchen sink, because
I knew M other understood that my lengthy stays in Ih e bath­
room had been for the purpose of taking dope and she would
be suspicious if I stepped inside. I couldn’t eat, but after I was
dressed I swallowed a few mouthfuls of coffee. Then I hurried
from the house, unable to watch M other’s sorrow.
29
 Once outside, I simply wandered aimlessly through the streets.
I lashed myself with bitter reproaches, cursed myself, the day
I first took dope, the lack of guts which prevented me from
quitting. I yawned and sneezed and my eyes watered, but I held
out against taking a blow. I was through if it killed me. Soon
I was tired, but I did not w ant to go home. I found myself in
Abingdon Square Park, and slumped down on a bench. I could
not sit still. M y legs twitched in all directions. I twisted and
squirmed, trying to get comfortable. Pain shot from my hips
to my feet. Passersby looked at me curiously, but I scarcely
noticed them. I clenched my fists, dug my toes into the soles of
m y shoes, rubbed my eyes. But I was off drugs.
I held out for an hour. T hat was as long as I could endure
the physical and mental torture. I almost ran the few blocks to
our flat. M other was out shopping. In the, bathroom, where I
had hidden a small reserve supply of heroin, my good resolutions
dwindled to the point of taking only half my usual shot. Even
th a t worked like magic. The twitchings and sneezing, the yawn­
ing and pains disappeared. I no longer felt so sorry for myself.
I had suffered a tem porary setback, no doubt, but the whole in­
cident shrank in importance.
Nevertheless, I was a little apprehensive when it camp time
for D ad to return. I expected him to berate me seriously this
time. But I had a pleasant surprise. He was quietly and gently
forbearing.
“This stuff is ruining your health,” he said. “ Remember how
you used to get such a kick out of baseball or going fishing with
me? You’re a wreck now, but you can get back your strength.
I t ’s not too late.”
G ratefully I assured him that I had learned my lesson this
time, but even as I spoke I knew I could not cut myself off
from heroin all at once. While I was promising him never to take
it again, I was promising myself to cut down gradually and then
quit. '
“T h at’s fine,” D ad said. “Now don’t you worry about getting
another job right away. Rest up for a while. Get out in the
air. Play some ball again. I t will do you good.”
For a few days I really did cut down on the size of my blows,
and my health did improve. I kept away from the gang around
the comer, but that lasted only as long as my small supply of
heroin. When I exhausted that, I went around to see John
Devon.
H e listened to my story w ith amusement. I told him about
the exposure of my habit, my own determination to taper off.
so
 t
“I t can’t be done,” he announced, smiling. “You can’t break
a heroin habit by yourself. You could try shipping out on a
freighter and letting your junk run out along the way.”
This was discouraging, and I switched to a more urgent
matter.
“Can I run some errands for you afternoons?” I asked. “You
can pay me off with a couple of blows to hold me over.”
This time John laughed aloud. But it was a sympathetic laugh.
He handed me his little box for a quick one right then, and
added:
“Come on up on the roof tomorrow. M y rheumatism is bad
these days, and I ’m trying to get a lot of sun. Seems to help it.”
For the next two weeks I kept John company as he lay in a
hammock stretched between two chimneys and talked. I sat on
a camp stool, and at necessary intervals had a sniff from the
powder he carried. His never-ending stories still enthralled me,
for he talked mostly of drugs and their history.
According to John, heroin was introduced as a joy powder by
an opium smoker who had been arrested. The jail doctor gave
him some heroin to relieve a violent coughing spell, and the
addict found that it also gave him the same lift as his customary
smoke.
John was familiar with hop, too. He boasted of how he and
his brother, Joe, often hit the pipe at a joint on Pell Street
in Chinatown. He described the bunks and the fumishiftgs, and
tossed in the names of big-time actors and actresses who had
frequented the joints to “kick the gong around,” as an opium
binge was called. There had been a drive against this particular
drug, and a shortage had developed. Addicts were driven to
heroin. Many of them, said John, found ther way to a top-floor
flat on Doyer street where a veteran Chinese smoker known
as Hong Kong H arry administered dollar shots with a hypo­
dermic needle. H arry was cautious, apparently. He never let an
addict in, but simply identified him through a peephole. Satis­
fied, he swung open a tiny panel on the door, took a dollar
through it and told the customer to roll up his sleeve. The addict
would th ru st his arm through the panel, and H arry would give
the shot.
Listening to John and getting my regular doses of heroin
as compensation for this pleasure seemed to me then a thoroughly
delightful way to pass the time. But a turn for the worse con­
fined John to his bed, and in a few days I was alone with my
habit I had no job and no allowance. Soon I was drifting into
31
the same expedients which all the young addicts in the neighbor­
hood were adopting.
A visit to an older cousin on Barrow Street was good for the
loan of a dollar. A long hard-luck story to an aunt on Christopher
Street brought another. But in our neighborhood borrowing pos­
sibilities were strictly limited. I soon ran out of relatives
who could be touched.
Nearly every addict I ever knew—all except those like John
Devon with regular private means—took to stealing when bor­
rowing failed. I was no exception. I ransacked the house for
something to pawn. My first find was two pairs of new kid
gloves for which I got a dollar and a half at U nde Ben’s pawn­
shop on Eighth Avenue. On the way home, I stopped in to
see Pop W hitey and chipped in toward a purchase of an eighth
of an ounce from our old connection on Avenue B.
T hat lasted less than a week. A locket my m other kept in a
dresser drawer and an old-fashioned silver watch which belonged
to my father . were converted into a couple of dollars and
another week’s supply of heroin. These things would be missed
before long. Perhaps for a short tim e it could be assumed that
they had been misplaced, but suspicion would soon fall on me;
B ut the drugs seemed to draw a curtain between me and the
future. I could not be bothered with thoughts of what might
happen tomorrow or next week. I lived—and stole— for today.

5 W ake o f an Addict
Johnny Look-up signaled for me the first break in the
ranks of our little fraternity of heroin’s devotees. I saw him
standing outside the Taylor home, his one eye fixed on the win­
dows of a front bedroom. I crossed to avoid his presence, and
asked a kid playing hop-scotch on the sidewalk what was up.
Teddy Taylor was dead.
While Teddy was not one of the addicts I had known best,
I was shocked. H e was about my own age, and I was glad that
John Devon was well enough to “receive” again in the evenings,
for I sought reassurance. T hat evening we all discussed the fate
of poor Teddy. We decided that we did not need to worry. Teddy
had died of pneumonia; the doctor had said so. Surely heroin
could have nothing to do with it.
But a few days later Johnny L ook-up'w as seen again. This
32
tim e word came from Bleecker Street th a t the misshapen figure
had been loitering outside Phil H oey’s house. I was nervous, and
John Devon was obviously shaken, for he- had known Phil
a long time. H e suggested th a t we should all go around next day
to pay our last respects to our friend.
I went with Charlie Lauck and Pop Whitey. We paused for
an extra blow to brace ourselves for the grim visit. I could not
help noticing th a t Charlie’s round pink-and-white face had
changed. I t had not thinned so much as it had sagged, the once
firm cheeks flabby and the rosy complexion yellowed. H e did not
laugh as much as he had. Dope, I decided, was leaving its m ark
on Charlie, but I did not look in a m irror to see what it was doing
to me.
When we reached the dingy flat where the one-time Hudson
D uster had lived, we were feeling fine. Six or eight of the others
from our group were, already sitting on folding chairs arranged
in rows in the small front room. All the furniture had been
removed except these chairs and the casket where the peaceful,
oddly placid and youthful-looking Phil was laid out. Charlie,
W hitey and I slipped into chairs and joined in the anim ated
conversation.
Little was said about the dead. Each of us took a hurried
look at the corpse. Some of us crossed ourselves. Then we turned
to the real point of interest of any addict, where to get the stuff
and how much it cost. D utch Reem er whispered about a new
peddler downtown who was said to be a quarter cheaper for a
deck. D utch always seemed to have the widest knowledge of
sources of supply. W hitey and Charlie got into a discussion of
the respective m erits of sniffing and injection. I myself con­
tributed my suspicion that our druggist on Avenue B was be­
ginning to get restive over our purchases.
A t intervals, a member of the dead m an’s family would look
in at us, solemn and grief-stricken, only to turn away. Phil’s
relatives were far more annoyed to see us sitting there than
they would have been over the Hudson Dusters. A gangster was
a good clean visitor compared to us. If they could have followed
our copversation they would have been more shocked and out­
raged. I think that if they could have thought of a decent
excuse to throw us out, they would have rejoiced over the op­
portunity, but they had rather more respect for the dead and
for the occasion than we did.
Actually we were there quite as much in the hope of finding
a rem nant of Phil’s drug supply as to honor his memory. I for
one could hardly w ait for a good excuse to visit the bathroom .
M ost addicts find that this is an excellent place to conceal a
powder, and it is a most convenient spot to cache an emergency
reserve. M ost of us whispered that sorrow made us feel the
need of an extra jolt, and one by one we hurried to the bath­
room to absorb a blow and look around. I spent some minutes
in an intensive search of every likely place I could think of,
but obviously I was too late. I learned later that one of the
first arrivals had made off with the few decks which Phil had
left.
There was no special reason to linger after that. The small
pretense at expressions of grief was abandoned, and soon we
left the wake to the real mourners. These last did not usher us
out. Their forbearance held to the end, and the addicts filed out,
walking a little more quickly as we passed Johnny Look-up, still
lounging with his alert, intent expression outside the house of
mourning.
I do not know how genuinely callous the others were.
I know that I put on a bravely cynical front, as casual and in­
different as the rest. I had to impress them with my worldly
wisdom, as no doubt they felt that they had to impress me.
But Phil H oey’s death, coming so soon after that of Teddy, was
more of a shock to me than I cared to show. Pneumonia had
been the official diagnosis again, and I wanted desperately to
believe th at heroin and disease could have no connection. But
I was not sure, and I was real scared. I, for one, had needed
th a t extra blow which I had taken in the Hoey bathroom after
I had failed to find Phil’s hidden supply.
I remember this incident all the more clearly because it was
the very next day that my pilferings were discovered. M y fears
of the consequences were far more acute than vague apprehen­
sions of death. W ith a drug addict’s facility for lying, I offered
all manner of possible explanations for the disappearance of the
gloves, the locket, the watch and no doubt other articles which
I have forgotten now. But if a fertile imagination in falsehood
is one characteristic of the addict, carelessness is another. N ot
even my drug-stimulated mind could think of a plausible excuse
for the pawn tickets which Dad found in my vest pocket.
“This is the end,” D ad informed me with unwonted stern­
ness, and with tragic optimism, for actually it was hardly the
beginning. “Y ou’ll go into a hospital or we’ll have to have you
taken to one. This has got to stop.”
Then his natural kindliness asserted itself, as always.
“Oh, Lee,” he begged, “think of what you are doing to yourself.
I t's killing your m other, but if you don’t care about us, pull
 f

yourself together for your own sake. We w ant to be proud of

you again. We w ant to see you strong and well.”
This, I knew, was the showdown. For weeks, for months, for
more than a year I had been promising to quit. Now I would
have to give up drugs whether I liked the idea or not.

T he F irst Cure 6
I t had been a difficult evening, but the morning brought
what I regarded as an even greater crisis. Obviously D ad was
determined on action, and whatever it was, I was not going to
be happy about it. Apparently he had agreed to let M other
handle the situation, and she came in to tell me th a t Father
, K iem an of St. Bernard’s Church was in the front parlor to
see me. I knew then that she m ust have taken her troubles
to Mrs. Krause, who was a very devout churchgoer.
“Father K iem an is a lovely m an,” M other assured m e. “Try
and be nice to him. I ’m sure he will be able to help you.” •
Reluctantly I followed her into the parlor. The tall, broad-
shouldered priest called me “Lee” and smiled in a way th a t lit
up his florid friendly face. He shook hands cordially and tried
to p ut me a t my ease. M other excused herself and returned to
the kitchen, for he apparently had asked her to let him speak
to me alone. He began in kindly fashion mentioning several boys
in the neighborhood who attended St. Bernard’s, asking if I knew
them. Then he got to the point.
“I know that you and some -of the other boys here are ruin­
ing your lives by taking drugs,” he said. “W hat a pity it is ! Jq st
think what sorrow and sadness it is causing your m other and
father.”
I could think of nothing to say to him. I could hardly tell a
priest that spiritual consolation was not what I needed, that
• more than prayer was required to help me overcome the torm ents
of a day without drugs. He seemed to understand that without
my saying anything, for he went on:
“A very good friend of mine, Dr. Crutchley, is a visiting
■ physician at St. Vincent’s Hospital. H e understands all about
the drug h a b it He will help you to break it without any great
suffering. In fact I spoke to him before I came to see you. He
said he would arrange for you to enter the hospital to be cured.”
As I remained silent, pondering, he added:
35
 “It won’t take over a week’s time, and you’ll be all well
again. Think of that! Think of how happy it will make your
mother. You can go over tomorrow morning and Dr. Crutchley
will meet you there. Now if you don’t mind, we'll call your
m other and tell her the good news.”
I alternated between hope and doubt for hours. During the
afternoon I met Charlie Lauck and told him what had happened.
“I ’d like to get off the stuff myself,” he confided. “If they
can break your habit like they say, I ’ll go in the day after you
come out. I ’m disgusted with it. I never have a dime to spend
any more. Everything goes for the junk.”
His round face beamed in one of his old-time smiles, but
then he looked worried.
“ But John says there’s no cure for it,” he said. “Maybe you’ll
have a hell of a bad time while you’re there. And once you’re in,
they probably won’t let you out.”
Charlie’s sudden doubts brought back my own.
“ I know what I ’ll do,” I said. “ I ’ll smuggle a few blows in
with me, but I won’t take ’em unless I have to.”
So in this confusion of mind, alternately urged on to hope
by a desire for health and decent living and dropped into despair
by the whisperings of dope, I prepared myself for the hospital
in the worst possible frame of mind. Ours was a constrained
family group that evening. Ned went out. as did Uncle George.
Bobby was playing in the street but was sent to bed early.
M other and Dad sat with me, obviously at a loss for small talk.
Dad had left when I got up in the morning, and M other fussed
over me, laying out clean linen and making little reassuring
speeches that carefully avoided any mention of what was going
to happen to me. After breakfast I sat by the window and
stared into the sunlit street. A delivery boy entered the house
opposite. A painter in white overalls passed along the sidewalk.
A scrap dealer, stooped over the handles of his cart, plodded west
in the gutter, his jangling bell competing with the raucous cries
of a vegetable peddler down the street. I pitied myself because
I was not as carefree as they seemed to be.
M other called that it would soon be time to go if I was to
be at the hospital by 10:30, as Father Kiernan had asked. She
wanted to know what books I would like to have her bring for
me to read when she visited me. I did not care. I was trying to
decide how to-smuggle my little black box into St. Vincent’s.
I t was hidden under the pipes at the head of the tub for the
present, and I went into the bathroom to get it. M y latest theft
and visit to the pawnshop had left me with a fair supply, enough
 to last for several days. I helped myself to a heaping blow and
sat back to consider my problem. I thought th a t I probably
would be searched at the hospital, but not immediately. I .de­
cided th a t I could carry the little box in m y sock just above the
shoetop without fear of detection. Once inside, I would have
to find a better hiding place quickly.
M other was almost as tom by doubts as I was when it came
time to say good-bye. She was desperately anxious for me to b e
cured, and terrified by the prospect of failure. H er lips trem bled
as she told me she was sure everything would be all right.
I t was only a few blocks to the hospital, but it seemed a long
walk, even with the reinforcement of my extra-size blow. M y
reception hardly lessened my fears. In the entrance hall an
attendant, to whom I said I had an appointm ent with Dr.
Crutchley, led me into a small office where a black-hooded
Sister sat hunched over a desk. He whispered to her, and she
spun around in her chair to look at me sharply. H er penetrating
glance seemed to m y guilty spirit to reveal knowledge that the
doctor’s new patient was a “dope fiend.” B ut she only asked me
the usual questions about name, address, family, age and then
told the orderly to take me across the hall to a little sitting
room where I was to wait for the doctor.
In a few minutes he came, a tall, sallow man of about fifty
whose cold gray eyes were magnified by heavy glasses. H is brow
was corrugated with a perpetual frown, and the tight drawn face
held out no hope of friendliness. H e ignored the hand I held out
to him tentatively, studied me intently as my spirits sank, sat
down beside me and then began to shoot questions swiftly. How
old was I? How long had I been an addict? How much drugs
had I been taking?
“Got in with a bunch of cokies, eh?” he said then, in a tone
which I suppose for him was breezy but which merely sounded
ominous. “Well, we’ll fix you up in about a week’s time. I ’ll
have an orderly take you up to St. Lawrence W ard. I ’ll be up
to look you over sometime this afternoon.”
His confidence quite failed to transfer itself to me. I felt mis-
* understood and ldnely as he turned to go. I felt even more for­
lorn when he wheeled in the doorway, and snapped:
“One other thing: you m ust remember you have taken your
last dose of drugs, so put it out of your mind entirely.”
Then he really was gone, and I was alone with m y dismay.
Taken my last dose? Forget drugs entirely? T hat was no help.
T h at was the sort of preaching I had expected from Father
K iem an, who had been so m uch more understanding. Surely
37
a doctor would know that I simply couldn’t forget a poison
which had saturated my entire system. I had expected him to
explain that he understood my suffering, th at he had medicine
which would prevent me from going through the tortures of
complete deprivation, th at he would help me taper off gradually.
H is attitude seemed to me to be cynically indifferent, even cruel.
A t the outset, therefore, I looked upon him as a tyrant whom it
would be clever, praiseworthy to circumvent. I congratulated m y­
self on my foresight in putting my little black box in my sock.
Another orderly, this one disfigured by a pock-marked face,
took me down a dark corridor into a small elevator and up to
the third floor. H e ushered me down another corridor into a
large bathroom, told me to undress and bathe, and left.
A fter I had taken off my clothes, I stood with the black box
in my hand, thinking. I was jittery, and decided th a t I needed
a blow. I tapped the cover before opening it; three quick taps
and a pause, then two more were my lucky signal to myself.
I lifted the lid and looked at the precious powder while I fished
a penpoint out of my vest pocket. I was using this rather than
a quill toothpick as being less suspicious if found.
I had scarcely finished sniffing up the dose, and the box and
nib were still in my hand when the door was flung open. Pock-
face dashed in—I barely had tim e to close my hand over the
box— and seized my clothes. He flew out again before I could
speak.
“Dr. Crutchley’s a clever fellow,” I mused. “H ad this guy
grab my clothes the minute I was undressed. I ’ll have to watch
out.”
In a few minutes the orderly came back with a towel, pajamas,
bathrobe and my shoes. I was in the tub by then with the box
hidden under the pipes.
“ Call me when you’re finished,” he muttered.
W hen I had donned the pajamas, bathrobe and shoes, I thrust
m y box and nib as deep down in the pajam a pocket as they
would go and called Pockface. H e led me toward a sign which
said “ St. Lawrence W ard” at the end of a long corridor thick
with the smell of hospital. At a desk at one end of the ward
sat a nurse.
“Dr. Crutchley’s patient,” the orderly told her.
She looked up startled. I suppose she expected to find a much
older person, perhaps with wild eyes and foaming lips, instead
of a scared, skinny, undersized kid of sixteen.
“How did a boy your age ever get to taking drugs?” she asked
38
as she filled out an index card with my nam e, age and other
particulars.
“I guess I got in with the wrong people,” I answered humbly.
M y only thought was to arrange a hiding place for my box
before Dr. Crutchley came along to examine me. But this pre­
occupation failed to blot out the impression made upon me by
the ward as I crawled into the bed assigned me. I shivered as
I looked around. Rows of white beds set evenly apart, like
tombstones in a graveyard, rows of white faces in them, rows of
eyes staring out of them at me. Two beds from mine was a
cadaverous head, half lost in the pillow. The poor fellow, flat on
his back, was unable to move. He simply slid his gleaming eyes
sideways to look at me. I glanced away, chilled. A young patient
in a red bathrobe sauntered over to me.
“W hat you here for?” he asked in a friendly fashion, but I
quite naturally evaded the question.
“W here’s the washroom?” I whispered.
H e led me into the hall and pointed. There was a small room
with a narrow window, a large sink, toilet, and three compart­
ments with swinging doors, one marked “typhoid closet.” Quickly
I latched the door and looked around for a hiding place. High
up in between the waterbox and the wall was a narrow crack,
deep enough to hold my heroin. But it was not wide enough
for the box. Perhaps I should divide my supply. I might be
transferred, and it would be well to have some near me. I poured
half the powder mto a piece of paper, wrapping it carefully, and
tucked it out of sight in the crevice. The rest, with the pen-
point slipped into the box, which I would hide under my m at­
tress while no one was looking, went into the pajam a pocket.
I felt better, more secure, when I was in bed again, and the
faces of the other patients no longer seemed sinister, menacing.
I even nodded at the patient two beds away who could move
only his eyes and lips. He told me he had been in St. Vincent’s
for more than a year. I t seemed a lifetime! I was restless after
an hour of it. I was also beginning to think that perhaps I was
lucky, th at my self-pity was needless. Some of these other fel­
lows were craving the health I had thrown away as desperately
as I craved my drug. They were helpless; I had only to make this
cure work.
I might have pursued this line of thinking with some profit
if I had not noticed a black hood. I t was the Sister who ha<T
looked a f me in such a penetrating manner downstairs. She
spoke to the nurse at the desk, then came to my bed with a
solemn expression on her face.
 “A boy your age taking dope!” she exclaimed in a voice that
carried easily across half the ward. “You should be ashamed of
yourself! What will become of you?”
I said nothing, but I was angry, and my silence disturbed her
too. However, she turned away and left me when her efforts to
have me confess my remorse for the benefit of the others in the
ward had failed to loosen my tongue.
“Watch out for her,” said the patient in the next bed. “ She’s
the Head Sister, and she’s over all the nurses.”
By the time D r. Crutchley arrived late in the afternoon, I had
my box well hidden and was sitting up. At the foot of m y bed
he held a whispered conversation with the nurse. Then he turned
to me.
“How do you feel?”
W ithout seeming to listen to my answer, “P retty good,” he
examined my eyes with a small pocket flashlight and applied
his stethoscope to my chest.
“You will get some medicine to take the place of your drug,”
he informed me, and walked away.
The medicine proved to be a greenish liquid with a small
glass of water. I t was a sedative, about as effective in helping a
drug addict as a m ustard plaster for a broken leg. Soon after
that, we had supper, which I was able to eat thanks to the blow
I had taken on my arrival. After the trays had been removed,
the rheumatic patient two beds away plied me with questions
about drugs and addiction. The young fellow in the red bath­
robe offered me a cigaret with the suggestion that I could sneak
a smoke in the washroom if I was careful to keep the window
open.
“If the Sister comes to the door and smells tobacco you’ll get
rats,” he warned.
I thanked him and declined for now. We chatted for a few
minutes about his case— he was convalescing from pneumonia—
and the other patients.
“ Some of them are going out the back door,” he predicted.
“T hat guy two beds from you is one.”
About eight o’clock Dr. Crutchley returned.
“Do you feel any great craving for drugs?” he wanted to
know.
“I ’m a little w'eak, D octor,” I replied, “but I hope your
medicine will brace me up.”
“ I t will, don’t worry,” he assured me. “The night fiurse will
give you some more tonight. I ’m sure you’ll have a good night’s
sleep.”
40
 An hour later, the medicine arrived and the lights were turned
out, but it was hard to sleep in these strange quarters and
without my usual evening blow. Through a row of tall windows
directly opposite my bed, I watched lights twinkling in the
houses across the street. Occasionally the shadowy form of_jn
orderly passed on an errand for the night nurse, who was
silhouetted against the light from the surgical ward. A deeper
shadow appeared at the far end of the corridor and drew nearer.
I t was the Head Sister who had reproved me earlier in the day.
She advanced slowly, swinging a censer which she shook a t the
foot of each bed. She moved on, and then I slept.
When I awoke, morning sun streaming through the stained
glass at the tops of the tall windows threw a pattern of bright
colors on the ceiling. Coughs and muffled groans mingled with
the clatter of pots and pans. An orderly passed behind a white-
screened bed at the far end of the ward. Another screen sur­
rounded the patient two beds from mine. I awoke restless and
apprehensive, hoping for some medicine that would relax me.
When it came, it was the same greenish liquid, and it did little
to relieve me. By the time the nurses began to distribute trays,
I was yawning repeatedly and tossing restlessly. I thought th at
perhaps the medicine took longer to act than heroin but would
soon have an effect. Coffee might help, but after a few sips I
pushed the tray aside. When the nurse collected the trays, I
tried to tell her how I felt, but she couldn’t understand. She
m ust have mentioned her puzzlement to the head Sister, how­
ever, because in a few minutes the nun was standing at the foot
of my bed exhorting me. “Will power” were almost the only
words I caught.
When she had gone I sat up and tried to talk to my nearest
neighbor. H e had to be propped up by*the orderly and could
hardly move his arms or legs. There were cases even worse.
No one was complaining as much as I. I tried to tell myself th at
I had little that was wrong with me, but the yawning and rest­
lessness increased. My yen had caught up writh me. I could no
longer stay in bed, but slipped into my bathrobe and shuffled
over to the window. I thought I might get some relief from
the sunlight and watching movement in the street.
“ Say, you look com fortable!”
I looked up morosely. I t was the prettier of the nurses who
cared for our ward, but a pretty face and a sweet smile were of
no interest to me just then.
“I don’t feel that way,” I answered sullenly. “I couldn't stay
in bed. I need more medicine. I can’t go on the way I feel.”
 “I ’m sorry,” she replied, and looked it almost, “but you’ll
have to wait until ten o’clock when the doctor comes. I can’t
give you any medicine unless he orders it for you. Just pull your­
self together; you’ll be all right.”
I- yawned and squirmed for another hour, hoping th at Dr.
Crutchley would see that he had to give me something better
than the greenish liquid. B ut even held up by that hope, I
think I would have demanded my clothes to go home if I had
not known I had my own drug supply for protection.
The doctor made his appearance shortly after ten. He was
accompanied by two young physicians and the head nurse. They
held a long whispered conversation before approaching my bed,
and as they came up to me D r. Crutchley called:
“How are you feeling without your usual high-powered
charge?”
The young physicians were amused, but I ignored the joke
to plead for relief from my suffering.
“I ’m miserable, Doctor,” I assured him earnestly. “T hat medi­
cine they’ve been giving me isn’t strong enough.”
His eyebrows rose on his wrinkled forehead, and there was no
levity in his voice as he replied:
“I f you expect us to give you any drugs, you’je mistaken. You
are here to be cured, and we are going to cure you whether you
like it or not! You have to use some will power. The medicine
we are giving you is a very strong stim ulant and will carry you
along.”
W ith that he nodded to the nurse and they passed on to a
bed across the ward, the other two doctors following.
I reflected bitterly that the only song anyone in this place
seemed to know was “will power.” The nurse, the Sister and
now the doctor who had promised to cure -me without great
suffering harped on the same note. They couldn’t know how
the lack of a drug tortured me or they would give me something
stronger, I reasoned. Then I could fight it out.
After the doctor had left the ward, I got out of bed and looked
a t the chart hanging at the foot. The medicine entries all read
“bromides.” Only months later did I learn how little effect
bromides could have on a system saturated wifE heroin. All
I knew was th at this particular bromide did nothing for me, and
within an hour I was at the head nurse’s desk in the surgical
ward. I begged her to tell D r. Crutchley I could not stand the
agony, and she promised to telephone him. Nothing happened.
I repeated my trip to her desk. This time she m ust have told
th e H ead Sister, for the nun came up, ordered me back to bed
42
and scolded me for annoying the nurse and the other patients
in the ward. Obviously the doctor had told them to pay no a t­
tention to m y demands.
I had been more trouble than anyone else in the ward, but
I really was fighting my habit. Never since my first defeat by
heroin had I been so long without its consolations when I had a
supply within easy reach. I was feeling steadily worse— so ob­
viously in pain and no doubt so nervous th a t even the patient
in the red bathrobe who had been friendly avoided me now.
I slipped into the washroom and looked in the mirror. M y eyes
were like black marbles, the pupil covering the whole iris. I
twitched, and my m outh grimaced. I looked like an animated
death’s head. No wonder the others stayed away from me.
I shuffled back to m y bed in agony. The anguished aching
and throbbing of broken bones, wrenched muscles and a sur­
geon’s knife were all combined in my twisting body. M y nostrils
seemed to be filled with burning rubber. As I threw myself across
the rumpled bed I yawned so hard I almost dislocated my jaw.
I was “kicking it out” before the no doubt interested audience of
the other patients, but I was past caring what anyone else
thought.
“H e’s got to give me something, he’s got to !” I kept repeating
to myself. “I want to break the habit, but this is hell. I can’t
stand it! ”
A tap on my shoulder, and a nurse was beside me with another
dose of bromide. I took it hopefully. Two minutes, five minutes
passed and no relief. I was getting light-headed, at times not
sure whether I really had my box under the m attress or only
imagined it.
“Suppose I faint,” I asked myself. “W hat will happen then ?”
I doubt whether any of the attendants who had spoken so
glibly of “will p o ^ er” knew how much I was exercising. They
had said Dr. Crutchley would be in the ward in the afternoon,
and I determined to hold out until then in spite of pain and
fear. Then if he wouldn’t help me, I ’d help myself. Already it
had been more than tw enty-four hours since I had taken my
last blow.
“Well,” the already hated voice broke through my tortured
imaginings, and I looked up to see D r. Crutchley at last.
“You feel a little washed out, eh?” he asked as he lifted my
hand to feel my pulse.
“I can’t stand it, D oc!” I half screamed. “You’ve got to help
me.”
43
 “Come, come,” he replied in a tone that was anything but
soothing. “You’re doing fine. You’ve got to help yourself.”
“I can’t, Doc. I can’t! You don’t know how bad I feel. I . .
There was no use saying more. Dr. Crutchley had turned away
and was moving down the ward. He was finished with me. I lay
back, trembling with fury. This was the man who had promised
I would not suffer, and I was going through the tortures of the
damned. I was damned. In his last words he had put it up to
me to help myself. All right, I would.
The doctor was bending over a patient halfway down the ward,
and the nurse was watching him. I slipped my hand under the
mattress. The box was there! I took it out, threw my bathrobe
around my shoulders and headed for the washroom. Closing my­
self in one of the compartments, I lifted the lid of the box with
trembling fingers. Even in my haste, I did not neglect to give my
five little taps of good luck. I dug the pen into the priceless
powder, lifted it, inhaled deeply and leaned back against the
partition.
The stabbing, throbbing pain drained out of me. The twitchings
stopped. The yawns ceased, and my bfeathing no longer brought
the smell of burned rubber. The skin on my face and hands, which
had seemed dead and stretched tight, relaxed and was alive again.
I felt as if I were soaring from hell to heaven.
For fully five minutes I sat in the little cubicle, toying with my
pillbox and counting the blows that remained in it. There were
five of them every time. The paper packet in the crack of the wall
held six more. I was rich!
Finally, I returned to the ward, stretched out on the bed, re­
laxed, at peace. I thought back to my agonies of the morning and
they seemed a year away. I chatted with the patient in the next
bed. When the supper trays came around, I cleaned up my plates
with good appetite.W hen the pretty nurse came around at bed­
time, she beamed at me.
“Why, you’re lots better already!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it won­
derful?” .
They were pleased, pleased for me, but I knew that as far as I
was concerned the “cure” as administered by Dr. Crutchley was
finished. M y only remaining problem was how to get out of St.
Vincent’s before my drug supply ran out. I t was a problem th at
could wait. T hat night I slept soundly.
 Escape 7
N ext morning before breakfast I took another blow in the
washroom, and later on listened to the buzz of talk in the ward.
A good deal of it was concerned with my apparent victory over
drugs.
M other came to visit me during the afternoon, and I assured
her that I was doing all right. She was pathetically pleased, look­
ing happier than I had seen her in months when she left, but m y
own spirits were none too high.
D r. Crutchley did not appear until evening. A fter the usual
whispered conference at the end of the ward, he approached me
with a suspicious look. He examined my eyes carefully, and said
nothing when I told him I felt a little better. I did not try to
deceive h im ; it did not seem worth while to pretend the suffering
I no longer felt and I knew that he was not fooled for a m inute by
my sudden “ improvement.” He may have been a poor hand a t
treatm ent— few physicians of th at day had much more knowledge
even if many had a more sympathetic approach—but "he knew
th at a drug addict’s yen lasted for at least seventy-two hours. I
noticed that he held a second whispered conversation with the
nurse before he left.
T hat night again I slept long and soundly. A heavy sleeping
dose had been prescribed to knock me out so that a search could
be made for the drug which the doctor knew I m ust have con­
cealed about me.
I t was almost noon before I woke up. I had a pounding head­
ache, aggravated by the'shaking which the Sister was adminis­
tering.
“You were doing nicely?” she said. “Yes, very nicely! Filling
yourself up with the drug from this box! And everyone here w ast­
ing valuable time trying to help you!”
I closed my eyes, but I could not shut out the Sister’s voice:
“I ’m going to have Father K iem an over to see you. H e’ll tell
you a thing or tw o!”
She must have telephoned the rectory at once, for within an
hour she ushered in Father K iem an and an orderly put screens
around my bed so we could have privacy. The priest made no
threats, but pleaded with me. I explained to him th at the medicine
they gave me did no good. I confessed th a t I bad taken my own
*5
drug, b ut told him how I could have used it all through the day
of m y agony. I tried to tell him how deeply I had suffered, how
I had begged for help. Father K iem an urged me to make the fight
again. H e said he would ask D r. Crutchley to provide a stronger
medicine that might help. Then he said a prayer with me and
left, promising to pay regular visits to see how I got along.
He was scarcely out of the ward before D r. Crutchley arrived.
H is face was red and angry. Obviously he resented my surrepti­
tious drug supply as a personal defiance to him. H e was furious
over being tricked by a boy, and a drug addict at that.
“You tried to put one over on us, but we fooled you,” he
gloated. “We got your dope and you aren’t going to get any more.
Ju st make up your mind to that! W e’re going to cure you whether
you want it or not.”
“But I can’t get along on your medicine,” I interrupted. “I t ’s
not strong enough.”
“I ’m going to have the nurses give it to you more often, and
it’s got to hold you.”
H e turned abruptly and le f t I looked after his tall figure with
hate. But when M other came that afternoon, all her pleasure of
the day before vanished, I was so filled with remorse th at I de­
cided to have one more try at quitting.
M y resolution held out just, ten hours. The bromides were
worthless, the nurses helpless, my begging and pleading hopeless.
I went to the washroom for another blow from the packet con­
cealed there.
When M other visited me the next day, neither the nurses nor I
offered her much encouragement. They were suspicious; I was in
low spirits.
“I f I ’m not better by the .end of the week,” I said, “I ’d like you
to arrange for me to come home.”
The heroin in the washroom would last just about th at long,
and I thought all I had to do in a pinch was demand my discharge.
In the next few days, I had some revenge on D r. Crutchley. He
could tell that I was taking heroin, but he was unable to tell how
I got it. He stormed at me, accusing me of having it smuggled iq
somehow. He had me searched thoroughly twice a day. H e was
only a little less unhappy when I demanded to be discharged,
saying his treatm ent was inhuman.
“The only way out for you is the window, young man,” he
snarled. “Nobody will miss you much, either.”
Certainly of the attendants in the hospital, th a t was true. I was
more bother than a dozen patients, especially as m y drug soon
ran out although I had used it as sparingly as possible. Ju st before
m y last blow, I begged M other once more to take me home, but
D r. Crutchley persuaded her to leave me. Then the same old hell
repeated itself. Perhaps it was even worse because there was no
hidden supply to fall back on.
I did manage to smuggle out letters to Charlie and Pop W hitey
begging them to rush me a few decks and leave them on top of
the partition in the corridor washroom. I gave them the name of
a patient in the surgical ward whom they could ostensibly visit.
Time and again I went out to the washroom and felt along the
top of the partition. Nothing.
Then I demanded my clothes, and when the nurses refused, I
shouted and threatened and cursed. Dr. Crutchley was delighted.
H e knew the signs; he knew my mysterious drug supply m ust be
exhausted. He was not quite so delighted when next morning they
told him that during the night I had broken into a small medicine
doset with a table knife and had found a bottle with several
opium pills. I had ground up one to inhale and swallowed the
others. I was still unconscious in the morning, and my bed was
searched again.
When I came to, the doctor shouted, “I could have you ar­
rested! You’re a confirmed dope fiend. You don’t w ant to be
cured. You’re hopeless.”
“Then give me my clothes and let me out of here,” I retorted.
“I ’m damned if I will,” he protested. “You’ll stay here, and I ’ll
find ways and means to see th at you don’t get any more dope.”
H e was winning the duel between us, but I thought I was
about to take a trick when a persistent peculiar whistle about
noon from the street outside brought me to the window. Chick
Belton, one of the newest members of the Devon group and even
younger than I by two years, waved up at me from the sidewalk.
I waved back and ran to the hall to find a string that would
reach the street. There was a sewing machine in one of the rooms,
and I ransacked it until I found a spool of heavy thread and a
small b ask et I was lowering this to Chick and it had almost
reached him, when I was jerked back roughly by an orderly. The
only results of Chick’s enterprise were more lectures from the
nurse, the Sister and D r. Crutchley.
The aches and pains were becoming unbearable again. I had to
get out. I had noticed that the patients’ clothes were kept in a
locked hall closet, and that the orderly gave the key to the head
nurse after he opened it. I watched her for hours, twitching and
yawning. Finally she left her desk, and I was over to it at once.
I found the key, and a m om ent later had the bag with my name
tag on it out of the closet I headed for the surgical ward wash­
room, thinking no one would look for me there, but I had barely
slipped into shirt and trousers and was half into m y coat when
the orderly, a Sister and nurse behind him, burst through the door.
They hustled me back to bed, and this time the orderly was repri­
manded with me. H e was supposed to watch me more carefully.
For the rest of th at day, he dogged m y footsteps, no m atter
how restless I became. The regular doses of bromides were like
so much water. All night I rolled and tossed and pleaded with the
orderly to get me some sleeping pills; I would give him anything
for them. H e refused contemptuously. The red blotches on his
face were the badge of his habit as the white pallor of dope was
the badge of mine, but his was the wrong habit. H e had no
sympathy for a dope fiend and said so.
“Sure,” he added, “a good ball of whiskey would do you more
good than all the dope in the world.”
I twisted and squirmed in bed through an eternity, and it was
only the next morning. Cold turkey, as addicts call the forcible
loss of their drug, sent me out of my head with rage and pain.
Twice I tried to sneak down the stairs and was dragged back.
Once I was caught draining the medicine glasses at the bedsides
of critical cases. A couple of drops at the bottom of one glass gave
me a few minutes of relief, too. B ut a few hours later I was put
back to bed because I had been trying to knock myself out by
butting my head against the wall. The report of these events de­
lighted D r. Crutchley th at evening as though he had made a great
medical discovery. He smiled at me derisively and warned:
“Don’t try any violence or we’ll clap you in a straitjacket.”
H e went out, and the night shift of attendants came on. The
new orderly was in high spirits and smelled like a barroom. In a
croaking voice he told me my m other was outside talking to the
doctor and the Head Sister. T hat m eant they were urging her not
to pay any attention to my complaints. A few minutes later,
M other walked in, hardly any more cheerful than the day before
but trying hard to smile for my sake. The Sister came with her.
“H e’s doing nicely, very nicely,” said the Sister, but as soon as
she left I began to plead to be taken home.
“Get me out,” I begged. “Get me out. They can hold me here
because I ’m under age, but if you insist, they’ll have to give in.
Please!”
M y writhing and groaning hurt her terribly, but when she w ent
out and no one came with my clothes, I knew th at D r. Crutchley
had convinced her.
“I guess you won’t get out of here so easy,” whispered my near­
e s t neighbor.
48
 " I ’ll find a way,” I swore.
Tossing and sweating, I found it bard to think. But suddenly I
recalled th a t a fellow in the surgical ward who was to go home in
the morning had been given his clothes th a t night. If I could only
get them! Then there was an interruption. __
“Come on, sit up; I ’ve got some medicine to make you sleep
tonight.”
I t was the night nurse, holding out a glass. Another knockout
dose to keep me quiet and pievent a dash for freedom, I thought,
and decided not to swallow the stuff. I held it in my mouth,
rolled over on my side and allowed the liquid to run into my
handkerchief. I feigned sleep, and ten minutes later heard the
nurse telling the orderly:
“Y ou’ll have it easy tonight. I ’ve given him something strong
enough to make him sleep for hours.”
I t was agony to lie still. Then the lights w ent out, and the
orderly moved to the center of the ward where under a single dim
bulb he could go on reading his paper. Clenching m y fists, biting
my lip and slowly drawing my legs up and letting them down
straight again, I waited for him to go out to the washroom for-a
smoke. I heard the clock in the Jefferson M arket tower strike
twelve before my custodian shuffled over to assure himself I was
asleep and then passed on into the hall.
I waited only a few seconds before I slid out of bed and started
crawling as fast as I could go toward the door. Once inside the
surgical ward, I slithered on my stomach under the beds until I
came to the chair where the clothes were hanging. Bundling them
up hastily, I started back. Once in bed again, I had no trouble
getting the trousers and coat over my pajamas. I had had plenty
of experience of dressing under the covers on cold mornings in our
flat. I was lying back, motionless, when the orderly shuffled baek
, and took up his paper.
Another half hour of tortured waiting. Finally a patient at the
far end of the ward called. I heard the orderly m utter disgustedly
about people who kick up a row, then footsteps and the rattle of
a bedpan from the hall washroom.
In an instant I was out of bed, pulling on my shoes, adjusting
the bedcovers to look as though I were still under them, planting
the surgical patient’s underwear in a ball where my head should
have been. Tiptoeing quickly to the corridor, I glanced out. A
wide band of light shone out from the washroom door. I would
have to cross it and take my chances on the orderly. I made it!
A few more steps took me to the stone stairway, and I ran lightly
down.
 On the second floor I turned down the dark passageway that
led to the private wards in the Twelfth Street wing. Suddenly I
Stopped, startled. Footsteps were approaching from the other end
of the corridor. I flattened myself against the wall next to a
radiator and peered out toward the dim light at the end of the
tunnel-like passage. Two nuns were silhouetted against it. They
were walking toward me. Bending low and pulling up my coat
collar, I faced the wall. I had to clench my teeth and force myself
not to look around as they drew near, passed, went on out of tfce
corridor and up the steps. Then I dashed the other way, down the
stairway to the entrance hall and tugged trium phantly at the big
brass knob of the heavy steel door. M y heart sank. The door was
double-locked. I looked around desperately. There was the re­
ception desk. No use. On the other side was the waiting room
where I had first seen Dr. Crutchley. I t had windows on the
street, one of them shining in the dim glow of the street lamps. I
ran to it. I t opened. I climbed out, jumped to the stoop. I was
free!
Or was I? M y first thought was of Dr. Crutchley’s rage, and it
warmed me. But then where would I go? First to John Devon’s
for a blow. I t was not too late. The clock had struck one as I ran
across Seventh Avenue, only two blocks from Fourth Street.
After I had my nerve back, however, I would be in a bad way.
M other and Dad would be notified. The hospital, goaded by the
doctor, might have me arrested if only for stealing another pa­
tien t’s clothes. I began to see th at perhaps I had jumped out of
one jam into another.
As I slowed to a walk, I was surprised that in the excitement
and exertion of my escape, I had lost some of the worst symptoms
of my yen. M y trium ph over Dr. Crutchley and my dash for free­
dom had left me feeling not exactly in high spirits, but far from
the groveling, twitching mass of aches and pains th at had been
feigning sleep in St. Vincent’s an hour before. Of course, I had
been off drugs for more than sixty hours, too, and this is near
the end of a yen 'normally.
As I rounded the corner into Fourth Street, I saw John’s
familiar, dapper figure in its usual pose of negligently leaning
against the tailor shop railing. Charle’s stocky frame was in the
group around him. I felt like the return of the prodigal.
“Well, look who’s back with us!” exclaimed John, first to spot
me as I cut across the street to join them.
There was a chorus of greetings and questions. John noticed
the pajam a top under my coat, and smiled.
“W hat did you do, bust out?” he asked. “I told you they had
no cure. You must have had some cold turkey all right. How
many days are you off it now?”
I was quite the center of attraction as I told m y story, and it
lost nothing in the telling.
“I knew when you didn’t get out after the first few days th at
they were holding you,” said John. “We got your kites (letters
smuggled out of a prison or other institution) but Chick told us
how they pulled you back in the window. Charlie came near
getting pinched when he tried to sneak in and leave some stuff in
the washroom for you.”
Charlie slapped me on the back and grinned.
“I f they’d been a little quicker, I would have been cooped up
next to you,” he said.
“How many days you been off it? ” John asked again.
“Going on three.”
“Y ou’ve got it beat if you can only stick it out.” H e seemed
excited. “After seventy-two hours the yen starts to go down.”
“Why don’t you stick it out?” Charlie urged.
H e wanted to get off himself, and thought it would be easier if
I blazed the trail, but I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to do it.
“You better make up your mind quick,” John advised. “When
they find you’re gone, they’ll phone Charles Street station house
and the bulls will be looking for you. If you go home they’ll pull
you out'of bed. You’d better find someone away from this neigh­
borhood who’ll put you up.”
Any one of the fellows around me would have stood me a blow
of heroin with pleasure. Y et I sensed that they also hoped I would
n ot ask for it. For once, it seemed to me, the gang would look up
to a fellow who didn’t take a blow.
“I ’m going to try and Stick it out,” I told John, "ju st to show
th a t bastard Crutchley. Can you get me a shirt and hat? I can’t
go anywhere the way I am .”
“Okay. I ’m going upstairs now. If you come along with me and
wait in the hall, I ’ll hand ’em out to you. I can’t bring you in on
account of my sisters.”
As I followed him up the two flights to his rooms, I noticed th at
his rheumatism was -worse. H e pulled himself up along the
bannisters with one hand and used the cane with the other to
steady himself. Two minutes later he handed me a hat, tie and
shirt and whispered “good night.” I dressed in the hallway and
went downstairs. All the fellows had left except Charlie. His
round face was w istful; he looked like a baby about to cry. B ut
there was nothing babyish about the strength of his grip when
he shook my hand. I felt it for half an hour. He gulped a couple
I
of times— I am sure he was just as much concerned about m e for
my sake as for the example I might set him—and m urm ured:
“Good luck, Lee. Let me know if you win o u t”

8 Off the Stuff

Fourth Street was empty and silent except for Charlie’s
retreating footsteps. I watched his chunky figure turn the corner
and then set out uptown. I had a plan.
When an addict needs a friend, he finds that one of the curses
of his habit is that he has cut himself off from virtually every­
one who does not share it. But I thought of one friend of my pre­
addict days to whom I could go for help. H arry Liederman was
about my own age, perhaps a year older, and was not a Villager.
I had met him through my gym and baseball enthusiasms before
Charlie introduced me to John Devon. We had liked each other
a great deal, although we had not seen much of each other. H arry
had gone to work very young at the Pennsylvania Station, and I
knew he lived at the Railroad YMCA. I thought he would be
willing to get me a bed there and help me avoid the cops, too. I
had not seen him for a long time and supposed that he could not
have heard anything about me, so I was prepared to make a clean
breast of my troubles to him.
I t was past two o’clock in the morning when I wakened him
from a sound sleep. But I did not have to tell him my hard-luck
story. He knew it already. He rubbed his tousled curly dark hair
and blinked the sleep out of his eyes while he told me how he
knew. He had supposed, from some rather evasive remarks of
other boys from the Village that I had been sick, and he had
written to ask after my health. M other informed him th at I was
in St. Vincent’s, and he had come to visit me there.
“W hat a time I had,” he exclaimed. “I brought some fruit for
you. When I asked for a pass to see you, I was told to take a seat
in the waiting room.
“P retty soon a doctor came in with two detectives. They ac­
cused me of being a dope fiend and searched me from head to
foot. When I insisted I was only a good friend and had no idea
that you ever used drugs, they laughed. They kept me there for
over an hour. They examined the fruit and even called up my
office to learn if I really worked there. And I never did get to see
you.”
52
 H arry ’s intellectual face, with the high forehead and clear
brown eyes, broke into a smile as he recalled the incident, but I
was ashamed. H e was hearty and m atter-of-fact about saying he
wanted to help me. The first thing, he said, was to get me a bed
for the rest of the night and in the morning we could decide w hat
to do.
On his recommendation, the “Y ” assigned me to a bed, and in
the morning H arry gave me one of his suits. We packed up the
one I had been wearing and mailed it back to the hospital. I was
immensely grateful to H arry, and told him so. M y desire for drugs
was under control; the physical symptoms had virtually dis- 1
appeared. H arry would not hear of my leaving. He had two weeks
vacation coming to him, and proposed to spend it w ith me some­
where in the country while I achieved a full recovery.
“Where can we go?” he asked.
Uncle George had a bungalow at Centerville on Long Island
and I was sure he would let us stay there as no one else was using
it. H arry was enthusiastic. H e undertook to see my uncle, in cage
detectives were at home looking for me, and make all the neces­
sary arrangements.
H e did it that same day, and we set out. M other sent me my
own clothes and packages of food. H arry methodically made out
a cRart for meals that would help me gain weight. F pr two weeks
we ate and hiked through the woods, fished in the lake and lazed
in the sun. H arry was a wonderfully cheerful companion, knowing
both how to talk and how to keep still. When I was with him, the
long months of drug-taking seemed far away and long ago. I could
hardly believe . I was the same boy who had hung around the
Devon stoop, swiped articles to pawn, been fired from school and
job, tasted cold turkey at St. Vincent’s.
Evenings we would walk to the village and join the other teen­
agers at Goodrow’s ice-cream parlor. I discovered th a t a soda
could have all the kick and none of the hangover of a blow of
heroin, that is if the company was stimulating. The talk, th a t
summer as I passed my seventeenth birthday, was of the pennant
race and village dances, of prize catches of fish and newcomers to
Centerville.
I think H arry knew how far along I was on the road to recovery
when he caught me casting sly glances at M yra, the Goodrows’
pretty daughter. The second week we were there a hayride to the
bay was organized, and H arry and I went along. I could hardly
believe my luck when “M ike,” as they called her, shook off two
boy friends to sit next to me.
B y the end of H arry’s vacation I had recovered my lost pounds,
 and was back to 120. More important, I was thinking much
oftener about M yra than about heroin, thinking about pocket
money for a soda rather than the price of a deck. This sudden
interest in a girl was not an unusual result of getting the drug out
of the system. Addicts may talk about sex, but except for the
hashish smokers they usually are weak on performance, although
drugs are supposed to remove the inhibitions of women. But
whether man or woman, those who are addicted to any of the
derivatives of opium have no room in mind or emotions for any­
thing but the habit. The lurid literature which depicts drug-
. induced sexual orgies is written by authors who are not very
familiar with the effects of a narcotic upon the human organism.
When H arry had to go back to the city, he urged me to stay on
for at least a couple of weeks more. Intuitively he knew th at I
ought to build up my resistance to the drug habit. B ut I was sure
I knew better. W ithin a week, I decided that narcotics were out
of my life, th at I ought to go home and find a job.
For once my family was glad to see me. They thought I was
fully recovered, and M other blessed the devoted friend who had
helped me. D ad squeezed my hand hard, and talked about the
fishing on Long Island. I bragged and laughed about my prowess
with the rod. None of us mentioned St. Vincent’s or my departure
from it.
In a few days I got a job as a helper on a departm ent store de­
livery wagon, and settled down to work. I t had been nearly two
years since I had taken my first sniff of heroin, less than a month
since I had taken what I was sure was my last.

9 And on Again
M y body had licked the dope. W ith the wonderful recuperative
powers of seventeen, I was in as good-shape as I ever had been,
and the hours of anguish when it seemed as if my bones were
melting for lack of a sniff of heroin were hardly a memory. If Dr.
Crutchley could have seen me, he probably would have marked
me as an example of successful treatm ent through the simple
method of being tough and keeping the addict away from his
drug for a few days. Perhaps he would have wanted to write me
up in the medical journals.
W hat I did not know, and no one could tell me, was th at in
my mind I was still an addict. I have heard plenty of my fellows
54
' insist th a t it was some physical misfortune th a t put them on dope
— an illness, a persistent backache or headache, insomnia. B ut I
never m et one of whom I thought it was true— at least not the
whole truth. Plenty of people go through worse torture without
resorting to drugs. Perhaps addiction is partly induced by some
mysterious flaw in the body chemistry. W hatever it is, the doctors
who now say th at an emotional imbalance is the main factor in
drug addiction are unable to explain just how it develops.
I t seems so easy for one who has never known the driving force
of the drug-saturated body’s demand for more drugs to say, “Why
not just use will power and stop?” The.trouble is that in an addict
on the stuff there is no such thing as will power. W hether the drug
destroys it or the lack of it is p art of the m ental state which
makes him material for an addict is beside the point. H is is not a.
question of weak will or strong will. H e has no will at all.
When I was taking heroin regularly, I could split my dose and
split it again. Each time I was sure this was the occasion when I
would taper off. Each time I got to an irreducible minimum, and
before I knew it was taking the larger shots again.
I had experienced the complete absence of will for m ost of the
. two years of my addiction. But although now I was off the dope,
basking in family approval, earning my own living, there remained
within me the emotional or m ental instability of the addict. I had
taken only the first steps toward a recovery, the purely physical,
and did not know there was more to it than that.
Living as I did in the heart of the neighborhood where the com­
panions of my addiction also resided, it was inevitable that I
should see them. Furtherm ore, some of them still seemed to me
th e% best fellows I knew. M y adm iration for John D evon’s cynical
chatter was as strong as ever. Charlie remained my best friend, „
and I could not forget the genuine w arm th with which he had
wished me luck. Even some of th e Hudson D usters retained ad­
mirable qualities in my estimation.
I t could not have been more than a»week after I went to work
for the departm ent store that I passed the old hangout and
swerved toward John D evon’s figure as to a magnet. H e was as
cordial as ever. The pale faces of the youths around him gave me
a feeling of superiority. I had done something they found im­
possible. I had quit! Behind their welcome I detected a note of
resentment. Charlie was the only one who really wanted me to
break the habit. The others* did not like the idpa of anyone else
being more successful than they. So they put a considerable
am ount of skepticism into their remarks about my “ cure.”
I w anted to show them th a t it was real. I wanted, a t the same
59
time, to be one with them again, a member in good standing of
their fraternity. These fellows were my real friends, I thought.
I do not remember which one of them suggested a “toast” to
m y recovery. I do remember th a t it seemed to make me impor­
tant, and th a t it would be churlish to refuse one tiny blow for old
tim e’s sake. I dipped cheerfully into a proffered pillbox, and was
slammed right back into my habit. I t was so easy because for
several weeks my restored health resisted the m ost obvious effects
of the drug and it did not appear to be doing me any harm. Of
course, I had again the fits of energy and lassitude. M y family
knew I was on dope long before I had adm itted it to myself.
M y job did not last long. I was fired for taking time off to slip
over to the East Side to replenish my drug supply. D ad’s brief
period of hope for me gave way to his old gentle appeals for re­
form. M other worked around the house with sorrow in her eyes,
and I began to notice a little gray in her hair too.
I felt sorry for them, but in a remote sort of way. M y own
problems seemed much more important. I was more concerned
with trivial details of my addiction than with anything my family
or anyone else might try to do to break my habit. There were as
many such efforts as there were formal “ cures” in my career, and
I defeated them with the same pattern of sabotage each time.
Once the sole remaining non-addict friend of our boyhood de­
voted his vacation to getting Charlie and me to quit taking dope.
This was a lad named George Sauter, who had been the third
member of what had been a boyish version of the Three M us­
keteers, and he remained a loyal.friend.
“You fellows are on your last legs,” he warned us. “Why don’t
you get away from here for a while and lay off?”
“Yeah, w here?” Charlie retorted, but without sarcasm, for ’’he
was always dreaming of breaking his habit.
“ Come on up to the mountains with me,” George proposed.
“I ’m going there for a holiday. Maybe if they know you’re with
me, your folks will let you come.”
They did, of course, for Charlie’s parents were as anxious as
mine to see a son restored to health. My share of the expenses to
a boardinghouse in the Catskills cost my father a considerable
sacrifice. Mr. Lauck could afford it more easily. Charlie and I re­
paid them and George with the same deceit. George thought we
should try to taper off, and we promised him we would take only
two days’ supply of heroin. But when it came to the point, we
could not endure the prospect of a yen. We wrote secretly to Pop
W hitey to send a few decks to an assumed name in care of General
Delivery. They came just after our last blows had been exhausted.
George, who saw us yawning and restless one day and perking up
the next, was delighted because he thought we had beaten our
habit. Actually the sun and fresh air stim ulated our appetites and i

made us look better. George wrote home such glowing accounts of

our progress th a t D ad and M r. Lauck allowed us to stay a week
after George had to go home. I had one mild twinge of conscience
when I remembered how many miles D ad walked to earn th a t
week in the country for me. B ut I quickly put such reflections
aside and wrote gaily to W hitey for an additional supply of
heroin.
Then there was the tim e th a t M other thought she would see
what a stay in Uncle George’s shack on Long Island would do I
for me. Undeterred by my relapse after I had been there with -j
H arry, she took me ta c k a few years later. I recall that Uncle
George, gentle and incurable optimist, gave me a couple of dollars j
to hire a rowboat. j
The first two days passed pleasantly. I had taken enough heroin
to last that long and poor M other, believing I had none, was sure j
the country air and absence of m y companions accounted for my.
contentm ent. But on the third day I ran out and went into the ' ■\
village to see what could be done about it. I had sense enough to
stay away from M artin’s drug store, but I had no real plans. They
were made for me when one of the village boys I knew stopped
for a c h a t H is m other had died a few days before, and I ex­
pressed m y sym pathy but rather absently because I was preoc­
cupied with my own problem. I began to pay attention when he
mentioned that at the end his m other had to take a lot of dope.
H e thought it was morphine. I talked him into looking in the
medicine cabinet to see if there was any left, and waited half
an hour hopefully while h e' searched. But the stuff had been
thrown out, he reported.
“Why don’t you go to Doc Skidmore?” the boy asked, for I had
told him I wanted the pills to relieve a pain in m y side. “H e
treated Mom.”
I t was quite late a t night before I worked myself up to the - '|
point of ringing Dr. Skidmore’s bell. He had been in bed, but
came down in dressing gown and slippers to let me in. H e greeted ,
me so kindly that I told him I was a drug addict badly in need of
a shot. His plump features assumed a sorrowful but not shocked
expression, and he rumpled the fair hair around his bald spot. I
twitched and squirmed in the opening phases of a yen as I told
him I had been taking heroin. By this tim e it had been six years.
“I can hardly believe it,” he said. “ Such a deadly drug!”
I assured him th a t it was true.
57 . -
 “Well,” he hesitated, “I can’t give you that, but I could give
you an injection of morphine.”
I almost wept with gratitude. Perhaps as a test to see if I knew
how, he let me prepare the injection myself, standing by and
looking on. By th at time I was an expert, but it was quite a unique
experience to have a doctor helping me. I paid him Uncle George’s
two dollars, promising more later, and we had a long talk about
the spread of addiction in New York, the sources of supply and
the methods of treatm ent. I gathered that he had a few other
addicts as patients but did not dare to ask. He did let me take a
little vial of morphine tablets with me, and by doing a few odd
jobs and chiseling a little on our grocery bill, I was able to pay
D r. Skidmore for them and procure another supply. M other, of
course, thought I was off the stuff completely, and was happy to
think th a t two weeks in the country could do what jails, hospitals
and her pleas had failed to accomplish. She was speedily dis­
illusioned.
Such incidents were part of the pattern of heartbreak which
all of our families suffered. Meanwhile, in those ddys of my
first relapse, I was developing a full-blown set of eccentricities
such as virtually all addicts acquire. The first one had been my
habit of tapping the cover of my pillbox before I opened it. T hat
led, I suppose, to my next quirk.
One evening after leaving the bathroom where I had taken a
blow I felt impelled to go back and give the doorknob another
turn although I knew I had closed it. Soon I could not leave the
door without turning back to tap the knob. If I challenged the
habit and walked boldly away, I would be uncomfortable until I
gave in and returned for the little ceremony. Then one tap was
not enough. I gave two, then three, then went to the routine of
my pillbox cover with three long and two short taps like a
telegrapher’s code signal. After a while, it was not only the bath­
room door but every door I opened or closed that had to receive
the accolade of my fingers. I t was a habit I could pot break, but
thought I should control before I began drumming out popular
tunes on every doorknob I touched. I decided to set three taps as
a standard, no more and no less. Curiously enough, this pro­
cedure and resolution brought me a certain peace of mind. I had
concluded a treaty with the mental boundaries separating addic­
tion from insanity.
I noticed th at other addicts in our group developed similar
idiosyncrasies. Charlie was not a bit affected by doorknobs. But
he could not bear to step on the cracks in the sidewalk as he
58
 m iked down the street. Strolling with him was a succession of
Ettle jumps and hops on Bis p art as he avoided these lines.
Red H eybert wouldn’t wear a necktie with a design of stripes.
Freddie Carson couldn’t bear to sleep in a room where a clock
ticked. D utch Shore had to whistle whenever he crossed a stre e t..
. D utch Reemer had a complicated pattern of streets he would
follow on the m ost direct errand. H e had worked out a whole net­
work of lucky and unlucky streets, and kept to the former no
m atter how roundabout the route.
Each of us also had his grandiloquent moments. M y own ambi­
tion in this mood was to m aster a dozen languages and become a
living encyclopedia. I dipped enough into the dictionary to ac­
quire familiarity— of spelling at least—with a lot of big words.
A fter a heavy blow, I would sit at the desk in our front room
covering page after page with what seemed a t the tim e literary
masterpieces. Some of these scribbled sheets turned up not long
ago among some old notebooks and diaries my m other had kept.
They were gibberish, w ith the thought, if any, concealed in a
mass of polysyllables thrown in without any reference to their
real meaning. One of them was a draft of a letter to H arry
Liederman. H e m ust have known what had happened to me
t when he got it, and I know he sorrowed for me.
Days and months d rift by unnoticed for the drug addict, but
there are some landmarks for me in the sea of time. One of them
was the end of th at last summer of peace in the world about
which nostalgic writers have composed a great many books. I t
stands out in my memory, however, as the time I went with D ad
on his vacation.
This was the high spot in his year, when he could forget the
mailbag and the plodding along the same old route day after day.
H e could fish to his h eart’s content, and smoke his pipe and
dream. Then he had the wildest dream of all, because he decided
to devote his vacation to curing me.
I t was a logical dream from his point of view. He loved the
little bungalow on Long Island where H arry and I had spent those
few healthy weeks. The fishing was wonderful, and Dad!s good
’ friend, H arry Russell, had a farm nearby. I had come back from
it healthy and drug-free. W hy shouldn’t the miracle work again?
I could have told him why, but I didn’t, and partly because I
wanted it to happen too. But I remembered w hat had gone before
those wonderful two weeks with H arry Liederman, the cold
turkey of St. Vincent’s and my war with D r. Crutchley. I had no
intention of repeating th a t hell if I could help it. Y et I did hope
th a t the fresh air and the joys of country life might help me
“kick it out” with less torture.
The result was that I boarded the early train with D ad with
the same mixture of hope and fear th a t had been mine when I
entered St. Vincent’s. I had taken the same precautions, too.
iJncle George’s gift of a bit of spending money for the country
enabled me to buy a deck and a half of heroin. I t would last only
a couple of days, but it was something.
I t started off well enough, for Dad. I walked to the village for
supplies while he straightened up around the bungalow. I got
cigarets and groceries, hung around Goodrow’s in the hope of
seeing M yra—she wasn’t there— and went back. Mr. Russell came
in after supper, and we sat in the light of the oil lamp talking until
m idnight while he and D ad smoked their pipes and the katydids
entertained us with their endless chorus.
D ad was up at daybreak, as usual, and had a pile of kindling
chopped <and stacked by the tim e I woke. A day of fishing in a
rented boat put him in high spirits, for the catch was good, the
w eather delightful. We stayed out on the lake until the cool
shadows crept out across the water and the mosquitoes began to
sing. Mr. Russell was with us again, and they talked happily with­
out noticing that I was silent and preoccupied. M y drug would
run out next day.
I took my last blow at noon on the way to the village, and by
the time I got home I had the tired feeling which I knew pre­
ceded a yen. I dozed a few minutes while D ad raked leaves and
cut underbrush outside, but woke restless and sweating. The after­
noon was only half over. I told D ad I thought I would walk back
to the village to pick up an afternoon paper, and he nodded
cheerfully.
Always before I had enjoyed the walk through the trees, but
now every branch seemed to be a claw reaching out for me. I was
shuffling like an old man by the time I reached Main Street, and
braced up only when I saw the large sign over a com er store.
Drugs it read. Those five letters spelled everything in the world
I wanted. I looked in at the rows of bottles on shelves reaching up
to the ceiling. But the ones that interested me were out of sight
behind the prescription counter.
I was almost pulled inside by the strength of m y yen, and sat
at the soda fountain watching Mr. M artin, the druggist, wait on a
customer a t the side counter. H e was a pleasant, smiling man but
somehow I did not think he would be sympathetic to any request
for a narcotic. So when he came over to me, I simply ordered a
soda. I sipped without tasting it while he went behind the screen
60
 and began to compound a prescription r I wished he would leave
the store for a few minutes. Then a quick dash behind the counter
and I would have everything I wanted. B ut of course he did not
go. I looked around carefully. The transom over the M ain Street
door was open, swinging inward. I t had only a small fastening,'
which should yield easily to the push of a knife through the crack.
The opening would be wide enough for a skinny fellow like me to
crawl through.
I drained my glass and walked out. I thought of running off to
the city. I was scared by the thought of burglary. Ini two minds,
but becoming weaker and more restless by the minute, I wandered
aimlessly about the town, drifted into the pool hall, tried a few
shots, wearied of them and walked out. Coming up the street was
Dewey Goodrow, M yra’s brother, one of the wild kids of town
who had thought H arry Liederman and I were great fellows be­
cause we came from the city. I was so weak and desperate that I
didn’t care now who knew my secret craving, and standing in the
shade of an awning I confided my troubles to Dewey. I t was an
exciting story to him.
“Isn ’t there any way you can get it? ” he asked. “Wouldn’t Doc
M artin sell you a little?"
“No chance,” I replied, and fidgeted for a moment before I
blurted out: “ I could break into the store tonight m aybe.”
“Why not?” said Dewey.
His m atter-of-fact acceptance of the idea startled me, and now
th at I had spoken the crime did not seem quite so terrible. The
growing severity of my distress was much worse. B ut I did not
tell Dewey what I had decided.
The walk back to the bungalow exhausted me, and I could
hardly eat. But I managed enough to fool Dad, and gave an ex­
cuse about going into town to see some of the young people. The
red September sunset was a glow of fire behind the white spire of
the Presbyterian Church as I reached the village, and I was so
• tired I had to sit down on a low wooden fence on Main Street to
r e s t The Goodrow ice cream parlor was just opposite, and Dewey
came out to sit beside me.
“I ’m going to break into the drug store tonight,” I told him,
and his eyes lighted. Obviously the excitement so scarce in a small
town overshadowed everything else in his mind just as my yen did /
in mine.
We laid our plans then and there. Dewey wanted some of the
articles in the show window, and I wanted the drugs. We would
have to wait until the store closed and the village slept. M ean­
while we could get the necessary tools and a lantern from M r.
Russell’s bam . I t was dark when we got there, and Dewey
watched outside while I helped myself to a lantern, chisel, ham ­
m er and putty knife to slip the catch on the transom. I put them
all in a potato sack, and we walked back to town along the rail­
road track as being the m ost unobtrusive route.
We had to wait an hour in the shadow of the dark railway
station. We went over our plans. When I got inside, Dewey was
to hide in the churchyard across the street. If anyone approached,
he would throw a handful of pebbles against the side window of
the store as a signal to lie low. A low whistle would signify that
all was clear. In case of unforeseen emergency, he would ham mer
on the church steps with a stone. Dewey nervously thumbed the
b u tt of his cigaret across the gravel.
“ Be sure you get plenty of smokes,” he said.
The hour of waiting dragged interminably. A damp, chill mist
from G reat South Bay made me shiver, but I was too weak to
pace up and down, like Dewey, to keep warm. Finally it was time,
not yet eleven but the streets were dark and deserted. We tiptoed
the long block to the drug store with increasing nervousness. I had
decided to try to force the side door with the chisel, while
Dewey stood at the com er so he could watch both streets. I got
the chisel into the crack of the door and it moved but would not
open. We would have to tackle the front door.
Dewey boosted me up to the transom, and I slid the pu tty knife
into the crack. I t caught the catch easily, and the glass swung
back. But nervousness and my yen had so exhausted me that I
had to drop back to the sidewalk to rest a minute before I climbed
through. Then I was inside. A tall stool from the soda fountain
enabled me to reach back for the bag and tools, and I saw Dewey
vanish in the dark toward the churchyard.
I crouched low on the floor to light the lantern, then turned the
beam of light behind the prescription counter. Here were the
bottles with their skull-and-crossbones warnings. Almost at once I
saw one labeled “heroin hydrochloride.” I snatched it, pulled the
cork and tilted a little cascade of the white powder to the back of
m y hand. I Sniffed and relaxed. on the floor watching the lantern
light shine on the bottle while the drug hit. In a flash, I was full
of energy and optimism.
Never before had I had so fine a supply of drugs. Besides the
bottle of powder, I took one of half-grain heroin tablets, two of
morphine and several small vials of hypodermic capsules. Then I
moved to the front of the store for Dewey’s loot. I filled my
pockets with packages of cigarets and threw into the bag several
62
watches, some pearl-handled pocket knives, a pair of binoculars
and a handful of fountain pens.
The night had grown cooler when I unlocked the side door and
stepped out, but the drug had warmed me. I swung the sack over
my shoulder and, dodging from tree shadow to tree shadow,
joined Dewey in the churchyard. H e was happy and keyed up,
and insisted on carrying the sack as we headed for the woods.
Under some trees just off the railroad right of way we sat down
to divide the loot. I wanted only the little bottles; Dewey was
delighted with the rest of the stuff. We each buried our share on
the embankment and marked the spot with some distinctive
stones. I held out a bottle of half-grain heroin tablets. Dewey
slipped away gleefully toward the village and I strolled back to
the bungalow. Now I could enjoy the rest of D ad’s vacation.

F irst O ffender 10
In the city D ad would have been worried about the hour at
which I returned. But he did not think there could be any evil in
the country. H e was sleeping peacefully when I got back, and he
was up and gone when I awoke. I t was nearly nine; a band of
sunlight shone below the windowshade as I lay listening to the
rustle of leaves, the crow of a rooster, the bark of a dog in the
distance. Almost nine o’clock.
Suddenly I tensed. Nine o’clock was the hour a t which Mr.
M artin opened his drug store. A minute la tlr he would be rushing
into the street crying that he had been robbed. He would call the
police. A search for the burglar would begin. Would they find me?
I reached under the pillow and felt the bottle of heroin tablets.
Burglary no longer seemed trivial.
A cheerful whistle heralded D ad’s return. He came in with a
couple of buckets of water from the spring, called a good morning
and said th at H arry Russell was coming over for b rea k fa st H is
joyful mood reassured me, and I got up to dress. We had ju st
seated ourselves at table when I heard an automobile coming fast
up the road through the woods. Cars seldom passed th a t way,
and never at much speed. I rushed to the window in tim e to see
this one braked suddenly to a halt while five men jum ped out.
Two of them carried shotguns. I watched, unable to move, as they
came up and flung open the door w ithout knocking.
“W hat is all this?” D ad demanded, jumping up.
63
 One of the men shoved him aside without answering. Another
grabbed me and shoved me against the wall. Then the leader
spoke:
“M artin’s drug store was robbed last night, and young Good­
row says this kid did it.”
“I t can’t b e !” D ad exclaimed, but when he looked at me, he
knew it was true, although I was sputtering denials.
I could see that he was remembering the day he learned what
had been found in my desk at the accountant’s office, the things I
had swiped at home to pawn, my adventures "at St. Vincent’s. H e
now had a burglar for a son!
M y own thoughts were less of shame than of fear th a t the
deputies, who already had begun to search me, would find my
bottle of heroin. I had transferred it from under my pillow to my
sock. They contented themselves, however, with turning out
m y pockets; then gave me back the contents and told me to get
m y hat. M y chief sensation was one of relief; I still had my drug.
In two minutes I was being hustled out to the car, and as I
glanced back I could see D ad slumped on the edge of the porch,
his head in his hands.
The news was all over Centerville. When we pulled up in front
of the office of the Justice of the Peace on Main Street, a crowd
had gathered, and inside the large room where court was held
most of the leading citizens were already seated. I t looked as if
the town had declared a holiday so everyone could get a good look
at a city dope fiend.
Justice of the Peace John M orlay presided, and questioned me
n ot unkindly. He advised me that it would go easier for me if I
helped recover the ldWT I readily signed a confession, and led
officers to the railroad embankment where we had buried the
proceeds of the robbery. But I did not surrender the little bottle
of heroin tablets.
When we got back to the court, D ad and M r. Russell were
there. Dad tried to conceal his feelings, but he could hardly talk
as he patted my shoulder. I tried to tell him how sorry I was, but
I couldn’t speak now either, and all of a sudden I broke down
and cried. His arm came around me, and his gentle voice was
saying:
“Now, now, don’t you worry.”
The constable pulled me away, but not roughly. H e seemed to
be unhappy about it, too, and said with sincere regret:
“I t ’s unfortunate, but the case is outside our jurisdiction now.
I ’ll have to hold him until tomorrow when D etective Furey will
come over from Riverhead.”
64
 Riverhead is the county seat, headquarters for the jail and the
criminal courts.
I had looked around for Dewey but he wasn’t there. The cpn-
stable told me th at on the way to the lockup, he would have to
stop at the Goodrow home. I begged him not to take me there,
b ut he was indifferent to my pleas. I knew Mrs. Goodrow would
blame her son’s fall from grace on m e; I supposed M yra would
despise me, and I didn’t want to face them. But I had to sit by
while they looked at me scornfully, although they said nothing. I t
was a great relief when, after a long whispered conversation be­
tween Mrs. Goodrow and the constable, we were driven off to the
town jai^ an old shack with a few open cages for prisoners.
Dewey and I were locked in adjoining cages, and left alone.
I felt the need of a blow terribly, but I was afraid to let Dewey
know I still had one of those bottles. H e kept telling me someone
m ust have seen us breaking into the store, but I hardly listened.
“I t doesn’t m atter now,” I replied, and turned away to dis­
courage any more talk.
When it got dark, I managed to grind up a couple of the tablets
in a fold of my handkerchief and took my usual blow. Then I
ground up a couple more for use in the morning. Despite a hard
bunk and sleeping in my clothes, I slept well, and Dewey was
awake before me. I had to wait until he climbed up the cell bars
to look out of the window before I dared take my morning blow.
Toward noon they came for us. Dewey had been adm itted to
bail, which his family had provided, and was taken home. I was
driven by two detectives to the prison in Riverhead. The formali­
ties were brief. An officer at a high desk took my commitment
papers and a prison keeper told me to em pty my pockets. He
allowed me to keep my handkerchief, some change, a pack of
cigarets. Then he led me to the cells, a long row of barred cubicles
facing a steel-barred partition. The keeper slid open the door of
cell 9 and motioned me inside. The door clanged shut, and there
was a dead silence as he walked away. B ut no sooner had the gate
to the corridor slammed behind him than a chorus of questions
was shouted at me.
“W hat are you in for?” “W hat did you do? Pick up a rope
and find a horse at the end of it? ” “Where you from ?”
Finally they subsided, and the voice from the cell next to mine
called:
“Hey, kid, never mind these bums. W hat are you in for?”
“I broke into a drug store over in Centerville with another
fellow.”
“W here’s the other guy?”
 “H e’s out on bail.”
“ Y eah!” with a derisive snort. “Y ou’re the guy th a t’s going to
get the rap. Need any cigarets?”
“N o.”
My cell was about six by eight feet with whitewashed walls.
Alongside one wall was a bunk, with a m attress and a rough
blanket, suspended by chains so that it could be folded back
against the wall. At one end of the cell was a built-in toilet. I sat
on the bunk and lit a cigaret. I could see through the tops of some
high-barred windows beyond the partition a little glimpse of tree-
tops and the tip of a flagpole. The regrets which had overwhelmed
me when Dad patted my shoulder in court returned with full
force. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see M other moving about
the kitchen. M y cigaret suddenly choked me, and I threw it on the
floor.‘I wished I could dissolve my body into a mist and go float­
ing out through the window to the treetops, climb down them and
go home. I got a flicker of amusement from imagining th at I was
doing this, then was plunged back into misery by the wail of a
violin. I m ust have groaned or sobbed because from the next cell,
a voice called: *
“ Go ahead, Shorty. Give the kid a few tunes to cheer him up.”
The violin cut loose in a lively strain. Shorty sure knew how to
play, and in a minute voices from all the cells were joining in the
words of the sentimental old ballads. I felt better at once. Finally,
right in the middle of “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” the cell
lights were switched off, and the violin was silent. I crushed a
couple of tablets, took my blow, tucked the bottle in my shoe and
stretched out on the bunk, using my coat as a pillow. As I drifted
off to sleep, I wondered if the gang at D evon’s had heard about
me.
I t was easy to drift into the prison routine. At least w ith heroin
to help. As long as I had my regular blows, the days drifted by
with just about as much contentm ent as I would have had outside.
Here it was an advantage that the stuff is as efficient at destroying
time as it is at destroying people.
Every morning I was awakened by the sound of Sellers, the
trusty, washing the corridors. A gray-haired fellow in blue over­
alls, he was awaiting grand jury action on a charge of arson.
Meanwhile he occupied the first cell in the tier, where there was
a push button by which he could signal an emergency to the keep­
ers. His appearance would be followed by a few lusty yawns and
groans from awakening prisoners and a hollow cough from the
cell next to mine.
Sellers handed each of us a broom and while we were sweeping
out our cells he went off for water, a towel and a comb for my
morning ablutions. By the tim e we were washed and dressed he
was back with tin pans and cups holding our breakfa'st. This in­
variably was a dish of home-fried potatoes—we still called them
German-fried in those days—a couple of thick slices of heavy,
dry bread and black, bitter coffee, which Sellers poured through
the bars out of a pot with a long spout.
There were only nine of us in the tier, including Sellers. M y
next door neighbor, the one with the cough, was Bob Armstrong,
a whiskered, gray wreck of a man in his sixties accused of arson
and burglary. His story was that he simply had gone into an
em pty house to sleep and it had caught fire. H e insisted he was
being framed because he had spent time in Clinton pgson. H e
could neither read nor write, and I spent some of my time writing
out this explanation so he could send it to the judge.
Shorty was a stocky blond in his late twenties with a drawl
th at pegged him as a Southerner. I never did learn w hat he and
Texas, a lanky, rawboned cowboy with one of the most honest
faces I ever saw, were in for. Charlie, a chunky fellow with a
greasy face and squinting eyes who had knocked about with
circuses and carnivals all his life, looked like a crook. H e had
been arrested many times, his latest being for highway robbery.
The quietest of our company was a thin, redhaired youth no
more than twenty who was charged with kidnapping. H e had
eloped with a m inister’s daughter who was under age. H e spent
m ost of his time writing love letters to her and being kidded
for a lovesick Romeo by -the last of our group, a hairy, shaggy
six-footer with a croaking voice and an irresistible desire to clown.
We called him “the Bear,” and his strength enabled him to get
away with any amount of ribbing, although most of it was kindly
enough.
. Twice, in those first three weeks in jail, I was led to the coun­
selor’s room of the prison for a half-hour visit with M other, who
made the long trip to cheer me. I was grateful to her, but I can­
not say she succeeded. She wept, and then tried to smile, and I
felt like a heel especially as I knew how she would feel if she
realized that I was still on dope. I t made it worse that she en­
couraged rather than scolded me. D ad was working hard to see
if he couldn’t raise bail for me.
“Ju st be brave,” she urged, “and everything will be all right.
I ’m thinking and praying for you every night.”
The second time she came, I went back to my cell prepared to
make the noble gesture of emptying the rest of my tablets into
 th e toilet. B ut they never were in danger. Bedtime found me tak ­
ing my usual blow.
However, I did not have to wait long to test my strength. At ,
the end of three weeks I was down to my last tablet. I broke it
‘in half and inhaled only one portion. I took the rest at bedtime.
Sellers noticed and commented on my restlessness early next
day. When I refused my food in the evening without even com­
plaining of its taste or smell, he asked if I wanted a doctor. I
doubted that a physician would do me any good; Dr. Crutchley
was much in my mind, so I said no, but as the yen got a stronger
'g rip on me I decided that any possibility of help was worth trying.
I yelled to Sellers to get the doctor, and while I waited I chewed
the cork of the little bottle th a t had held my tablets.
W hemthe night keeper finally arrived with the town physician,
he refused to believe I had been taking heroin until I produced
the bottle. Even then he refused to prescribe a narcotic for me.
7 H e said a couple of pills would help me sleep. I begged him for a
shot of something stronger, telling him I knew how little sleeping
pills could do for me.
“You’re only a youngster,” he snorted. “ I ’m not giving you any
drugs.”
He watched me swallow the two pills and departed. H alf an
hour later I was yelling my head off for another doctor. The other
prisoners joined in, the Bear’s loud voice .dominating the turmoil
as he cursed the physician for a “dirty quack croaker.” Sellers
called the night keeper again. He was gruff.
“W hat’s the yelling about?” he demanded. “The doctor gave
you medicine to make you sleep, didn’t he?”
“I t doesn’t work,” I explained. “I ’ve got to see another doctor.
I can’t stand it! ”
“The kid’s sick.” This was the Bear’s voice again. “That
croaker doesn't know his foot from a hole in the ground.”
“ I ’ve never bothered you before,” I added. “I ’m really sick.”
“Well, all right,” the keeper said at last. “I ’ll try to get another
doctor.”
An hour later he brought in another physician, who listened at­
tentively to my story and didn’t seem shocked.
“I know what you’re up against,” he commented. “One of the
toughest habits in the world. Morphine is bad enough. Heroin is
worse. I can’t keep you on your drug, but I ’ll do the best I can to
ease you off it. I ’ll give you some morphine each night for a few
nights. During the day, you’ll have to fight it out.”
I almost threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. I did
babble my thanks for his understanding while he opened his bag,
68
brought out a small bottle and showed me 'the label in the light
from a flashlight. Then he told me to lie down so the two tablets
would have their full effect.
The night passed in sleep, but all through the next day I suf­
fered through my yen. At 9 o’clock in the evening, the doctor
came back and gave me two more morphine tablets. I also was
moved to another cell block where there were no other prisoners.
Sellers told me the Sheriff had learned th a t I was under age,
and the rule was to keep minors away from the older, pre­
sumably more hardened criminals. The others called encourage­
ment to me as I walked past their cells, “Keep your chin up,”
“D on’t let it get you,” “Y ou’ll be O.K.” I was grateful for soli­
tude, for the yen was torm ent during each day, while each evening
the doctor gave me the two ^ablets of morphine. A fter the fourth
day, I felt a little better and ate a little. On the fifth day, the
doctor reduced my dose to one tablet, and two days later I was
in misery again. But he held my dose to one. The tortures of St.
Vincent’s were repeated, but gradually they diminished. A fter
two weeks I was sufficiently interested in life to resume crossing
the days off my calendar, and strained to hear Shorty’s violin,
faintly audible across the cell blocks. Once more I was off the
stuff.
One day a group of men appeared outside my cell with Goebel,
the keeper of my cell block, and asked a lot of questions. After
they left, he told me they were members of the Grand Jury.
“D on’t worry,” he added. “Your m other and father have
worked hard to get you out of this. The druggist doesn’t want
to prosecute.”
T hat evening Goebel returned with even better news; the
Grand Jury had found no true bill against me.
“Y ou’ll probably get a lecture from the judge,” he said, “but
you’ll be discharged and go home tomorrow. Come on.”
He opened my cell, led me upstairs and finally into a courtroom
so brightly lit that, coming from the dim cells, I was dazzled.
County Judge Vunk was on the bench; I dared not look at him.
But his words, spoken with measured sternness, were impressive.
“Young man, you are here on a very serious charge. You com­
m itted a burglary, which calls for a prison sentence.” H e paused
and I swallowed hard; maybe Goebel had been wrong. “I have *
been informed that you committed this crime because you had
been addicted to drugs. This is no excuse for breaking the law?
and is all the more reason why you should be sentenced to prison.’'
Another devastating pause. “However, the Grand Jury has con­
sidered several factors in your case. You helped return the stolen
articles and the owner of the store has no desire to prosecute
further. You have loyal and hardworking parents, and they have
pleaded with me to give you another chance. I am going to give
you th at chance, but if you get into any more trouble, or even
revert to taking drugs, I will see that you are sent away for a
long tim e.”
Goebel touched my arm. T hat was all. I was led back to my cell
with Goebel whispering in my ear that I would sleep there only
one more night as my father would call for me in the m orning.,
Actually I slept very little; with the dope out of my system,
I was eager for freedom. I m eant it when I told D ad in the
morning how much he and M other meant to me, how I intended
to repay them for all they had done. H e didn’t say much, and
we walked to the railroad station. Dad bought a paper, and
when we were on the train I glanced at the headlines. Lieutenant
Charles Becker, Dago Frank, Gyp the Blood, Lefty Louie and
W hitey Lewis had been convicted of the m urder of Herman
Rosenthal.

11 Interm ission and R efreshm ents

An air of anxiety dimmed my welcome to Bank Street.
Ned, who had finished high school in June, had left to work
in Chicago while I was in jail. I knew M other thought he d id '
it to get away from people who might confuse him with his
junkie brother. H er shame and concern for me were increased
by worry over a son far away and alone in a strange city. She
worried, too, over the influence I might have on Bobby. So far as
his being tempted to take drugs, there was no danger. Anything
I did was poison to Bobby. He avoided me when he could, and
when he couldn’t he made no bones about his dislike of me.
For a few days I devoted myself entirely to job-hunting, but
missed out each time when I was asked about my last place of
employment. Boys with good references were plentiful; no one
wanted one who had a job record like mine even when I could
conceal the prison record.
v One day I ran into Charlie Lauck. He looked older than his
•eighteen years, pale and disheveled, but he grinned and joked in
his old manner. He had both heroin and money in his pocket.
“L et’s go to Proctor’s,” he suggested. “I ’ve got the price.”
I didn’t see how I could get into any trouble at a vaudeville
70
matmfee. Besides, I had missed Charlie and I believed th a t he
was sincerely glad that I was off dope. I assented gladly, and
we started walking uptown. Before w e'had gone two blocks, he
was talking about drugs and I was listening with the same
fascination of my evenings at John D evon’s.
“I t ’s getting tougher to find the stuff all the tim e,” said
Charlie. “The Feds have got a new wrinkle to catch smugglers.
T hey’ve get some white rats fed on dope until they get a habit.
When they want to search a ship, they keep the stuff away from
the rats for a day or two and then let ’em run through the ship
on leashes. Those rats will smell dope anywhere on board and lead
’em right to it.”
Even then I thought this was more likely to happen in
Charlie’s stepped-up imagination then on the docks, but I was
as entranced as if it had been true. He was almost better enter­
tainm ent than we found when we had climbed up to the gallery
in Proctor’s and were watching the show.
Stimulated by the conversation, my habit was put right on
the spot when Charlie bent down in his seat in the darkened
theater to take a blow. I t had been weeks since I missed it, but
all of a sudden I wanted just a little sniff.
“Just one, Charlie,” I whispered. “Just one and no more.”
“Forget it, you’re off the stuff now.” Charlie was reluctant.
“One little one isn’t going to hurt me,” I insisted.
He hesitated, and then passed me the pillbox. I bent down and
sniffed. I t was like coming home. When I straightened up, th e"
show improved; I felt fine. Ju st to round out the day I would
drop by for one session at Devon’s for old tim es’ sake. I walked
out of the theater to enter a new and far more intensive period
of addiction than I had yet known.
W ithin a week, I was back to five and six blows a day with
extras when anything happened to upset me. In another week,
heroin was not enough. I was trying to blot out the memory of
m y brief interlude of sanity and health, so I began to step up
m y spirits with cocaine binges at Bob’s joint on E ast F ifth
Street.
This was one of the worst dives in the city. Bob, a wizened
black man in tattered dungarees, was the janitor of a ramshackle
tenement, partly repaid for his services by being allowed to live
in an old basement storage room. The entrance to his quarters
was under a stoop, past^everal garbage cans down a dark, smelly
hallway. His room was furnished with an oil lamp, a broken
table, a to m m attress and several seats made out of broken pack­
ing cases. A window covered by a drab bit of dirty carpet opened
71
 on a small airshaft. The proprietor of this dope parlor did odd
portering jobs for a druggist on Sixth Street and Avenue B.
W hether he bought his drugs or stole them from his employer, I
never knew, but he was almost the only purveyor of the stuff I
ever m et who gave credit to his customers, and his prices were low
even for those days. H e himself was strictly a cokie, and like many
cocaine addicts enjoyed liquor as well, a taste which heroin ad-,
diets seldom share. He liked to sit around with his customers,
sniffing with them and drinking beer and gin. H e fancied the
crystal form of his drug, more potent than the flake, which is
more common. His “coke and crystal” parties sometimes lasted
for several days, with the guests, white and Negro, drinking
and sniffing themselves into delirium.
I went almost every week to Bob’s during the winter, and was
only checked a little bit by collapsing on my way home early
one morning not a block from our flat. Pop W hitey was with
me, and helped me to a doorway. He wanted to call an ambulance,
but I refused. I knew in that neighborhood I would land in St.
Vincent’s, and the memory of my experience there and Dr.
Crutchley was more terrifying than death itself. W hitey managed
to smuggle me into his room, and I slept off the worst of my binge.
T hat night at home I was still so exhausted that I went to bed
early, lit a cigaret and cursed myself. The next moment, it
seemed, I was being dragged along the floor. I was choking and
.someone was slapping me. A deluge of cold water woke me com­
pletely. The room was filled with smoke, and Dad was throwing
a pail of water on my smoldering mattress. Then he turned on
me, and for once fear made him both loud and angry.
“Now do you realize what this damned dope is doing to
you,” he shouted. “You nearly cremated yourself and everyone
in the house too.”
This is not the sort of lesson from which a drug addict can
derive much profit. All it did was to lead me to take a little less
cocaine and a lot more heroin.
Finances were a constant problem. My family had long since
ceased to be a source of supply; even Uncle George was im­
pervious to a touch, although he was careless about tlfe silver
in his pocket and did not miss a little loose change when I
sneaked it while he was asleep. Pilfering became the main source
of income for m ost of the young addicts in the neighborhood,
although a job now and then for a few days brought a little
honest money. Nothing was safe from us. Lengths of hose, tools,
umbrellas—anything th a t might be left out for a few minutes
* 79
unwatched would be snatched and carried off to the nearest scrap
dealer.
A favorite racket was to lurk in the back hallway of one of
the old-fashioned apartm ent buildings until the iceman came.
H e would send the ice up on the dumbwaiter from the basement
and the customer would put the money on the shelf for him to
pick up when he pulled it down. I t was a cinch to snatch the coins
as the dumbwaiter passed the first floor. Then we would run
while the iceman and the housewife exchanged recriminations.
W hether these depredations enraged people more than the
sight of pale, shabby addicts lounging in doorways or sitting on
front steps, it was a fact that this winter of 1913-1914 saw a great
deal of agitation against the menace of drugs. I t was not con­
fined to Greenwich Village by any means. Addiction was spread­
ing through the whole city, and in the 1914 session of the State
Legislature the subject came up for serious consideration. The
result was the Boylan Law, a strict anti-narcotic statute which
outlawed the seller and the buyer of drugs, making illegal pos­
session of narcotics a crime and providing for stringent enforce­
ment. I t was to come into effect in April.
I t was the subject of much talk in the bull sessions at Devon’s.
John was properly cynical about it, but we all suspected th at it
would complicate our lives. However, most of us had gained
considerable experience in dodging cops through the petty thefts
which kept us supplied. Fellows like Monk and Red H eybert had
been at war with the law all their lives, and the prospect of
another reason for it did not dismay them.
We were lulled into a sense of false security because it took
a little time to organize the enforcement of the law. Machinery
had to be set up to register all prescriptions given by physicians
for narcotics and filled by pharmacists. A narcotics squad of
detectives was authorized but did not spring into existence over­
night. So we found little more difficulty than before in obtaining
heroin, and at little increase in price, after the Boylan Law be­
came effective.

T he H yoscine Cure 12
The world exploded into war that summer. I suppose most
Americans were tremendously preoccupied with the advance
of German armies through Belgium and the rise of the
73
Boston Braves from the cellar to a world championship. N either
of these events made much impression upon me. I was too busy
w ith a private war of my own.
In this I was not unique. M ost of the drug addicts like my­
self were facing a new enemy, the drug squad organized under
the Boylan Law. A few, like John Devon, with money and con­
nections did not need to w orry.very much, but those of us who
relied upon furtive peddlers and doubtful drug stores were fac­
ing a new cleanup. We were being arrested for “illegal posses­
sion,” and a jail sentence was much more terrible because we
would be deprived of dope than because we would lose
our liberty. After all, dope already had cost us our liberty any­
way. If we were not caught ourselves, we always ran the dan­
ger th at our sources of supply would be dried up by arrest.
However, it soon became apparent that there always was another
pusher to take the place of one who was convicted.
Between dodging cops while pilfering something that would
bring the price of a deck and looking out for the detectives of
the narcotics squad, I was finding my habit not only harder to
support but less satisfying when it was supported. The logic of
addiction dictated more frequent and larger doses of narcotics
rather than abandonment of the habit. The less I got from a blow
the more often I thought I ought to take one.
I was still taking both cocaine and heroin. The first accelerates
the heart action; the second retards it. By taking them al­
ternately, I may not have been straining my hcArt but the palpi­
tations which I could feel made me think so. Therefore, I was
even more depressed than usual when I ran into Eddie, my old
baseball teammate, on Bank Street one afternoon. His curly
light hair looked more like excelsior, and he was down to skin
and boneS. But he had found a cure, he told me. I was in a frame
of mind to learn more, and asked for details.
As p art of the drive against drug addiction, the city had
instituted a new treatm ent at the M etropolitan Hospital on
Blackwell’s Island. I t was free. Eddie had taken it, had been
home for two days and had not had a blow in all that time.
“I t ’s called the hyoscine cure, and it’s absolutely painless,”
he told me. “They keep you in a coma for seventy-two hours, and
you kick out your habit while you’re unconscious. Then they give
you a week in the hospital to recover.”
“You look like hell,” I commented._rj.‘W hat do you mean
painless?”
“Oh I lost twenty pounds,” he said, “b u t you really kick it
out in your sleep. Only thing is that when you come to, you re-
74
member the craziest nightmares! You ought to try it. You can
sign np for it at the E ast Twenty-sixth Street dock.”
As I watched Eddie walk shakily away, I wondered whether
I should take a chance on his report. A fter all, Dr. Crutchley’s
cure had been built up to me as painless, too. Y et Eddie him­
self was an addict, and he ought to know. Yes, but suppose it
worked for him and not for me? Suppose I went into this three-
day coma and never came out of it? On the other hand, how
much longer could I last .without a cure?
If I had been feeling a little better, I probably would have
p ut off my decision. But life looked so gloomy to me that day "
th at I worked myself up to the point of telling M other I had
heard of this new cure and would take it.
I explained that I had talked to a fellow who had been through
it and came out fine. When D ad came home, I heard her telling
him the good news, and how wonderful it was that I was doing
this of my own free will. The more hopeful M other and D ad
became, the more nervous it made me. Right after supper, I
went out to meet Charlie, and he added to my doubts.
“Yeah, I ’ve heard of that M et cure,” he admitted. “A couple
of junkies have died under it.”
I left Charlie early. W hether he really knew about the junkies
who had died, or had heard rumors or just made it up as he
went along, I could not tell. But he had increased my doubts.
I slept badly, and sat morosely at home next day arguing with
myself until late in the afternoon. At last I realized that the
stalling for time was worse than any other ordeal, except being
deprived of drugs, and set out for the dock.
I t was not a reassuring place from which to embark on a
cure for drug addiction. D reary of itself, it was sandwiched in
between the City Morgue and the drab stone buildings and ter­
races of old Bellevue Hospital. When I walked into the little
office, an old man behind a broken desk looked up at me. I t was
the face of a gargoyle. The nose was twisted, the ears huge and
placed at right angles to the head, the mouth just a deeper
wrinkle i^ a seamed leathery face. H e mumbled at me tooth­
lessly, scrawled my name and address in a frayed ledger and
handed me a printed pass. I understood him to say I could wait
for the boat to take me to the island.
I sat on a long bench, chain-smoking cigarets and watching
the old man’s head bob and shake on his thin neck. I wondered if
this might be part of the nightmares Eddie had mentioned.
Every time the door opened, I hoped it would adm it another
addict; I craved the presence of pne of my own kind with the
 craving for company which is peculiar to misery. B ut the only
arrivals were keepers going over for the night shift in. the
prisons for which Blackwell’s Island was chiefly famous, two slim
young men who looked like doctors and a nurse in a blue cape.
N one of them spoke to me.
Dusk was settling when the boat finally nosed out of the slip
^ and headed for the island. The lamp posts on the long parapet
* at Blackwell’s were lighted, casting what seemed to me a wicked
gleam on the water. Once arrived, I waited ten minutes in a
wooden pavilion while an attendant telephoned to the hospital
for someone to come and get me. The wait did not soothe my
nervousness. N either did the orderly who finally arrived to show
me the way. I followed his tall, skinny figure, looking at the
back of the bony head and stringy neck which reminded me of
the skull on a bottle of heroin.
In a small office lit by a deck lamp, he turner} me over to a
hefty nurse whose brown hair was done up in a queer coiffure
like a nest. She was bored. But at least she did not ask me how
so young a man came to be a drug addict. Name? Address?
Religion?
“I t ’s a rule,” she explained casually, “that before anyone goes
under the hyoscine treatm ent he m ust see a clergyman of his
own denomination.”
I wiped my forehead. T hat sounded bad. Maybe Charlie knew
what he was talking about when he said two addicts had died
from the cure. I was staring at the bare walls and wondering if
I was to be the third when a laugh that might have been a cry
of pain echoed down the corridor.
“W hat was th a t? ” I blurted, almost hysterical.
The answer was a shriek down the hall that sent a trem or right
through the middle of my body. I twisted my cap hard in both
hands to keep from trembling, as two white-clad orderlies ran
past the door toward the sound.
“Oh, th a t’s nothing,” said the nurse without looking up. “Ju st
a few of the hyoscine cases. They’re a little noisy tonight.”
She packed up a pile of index cards and began sorting them. I
was sure she was separating the cases of the dead from the liv­
ing. I was morbidly concluding that the larger pile represented
the dead when a young priest came in and greeted me solemnly.
Sure enough, he was there to administer the last rites of the
Church. I was trembling when he left me. If I could have thought
of an excuse to turn back, I would have seized it, and I was still
trying to think of a good one when I found I had showered,
changed into-pajamas, and was being escorted by an orderly past
white doors from which came the sounds of mufBed groans and
labored breathing into a small ward holding six beds.
Three of the beds were occupied. In each, held down by straps
and restraining sheets, was a figure th a t moaned and struggled.
Muscles bulged, but the figures could not move. The features
contorted themselves into inhuman grimaces of pain, of horror,
of fear, of loathing. As I watched, one of the shuddering objects
grew suddenly still, open eyes staring at the ceiling but without,
sight. I thought he was dead until I saw the sheet stir faintly
with his breathing.
The orderly nudged me. He motioned to a fourth bed, from
which straps dangled. M y leg muscles jerked and the skin of
my face twitched as I crawled into it. The orderly pulled up the
heavy restraining sheets, adjusted the straps.
“Look,” I murm ured rapidly, “will a doctor examine me before
they do anything? Do you have to have a strong heart? W hat’s
going to happen? How many fellows have died under this
treatm ent?” '
“The doctor will be here soon,” was the only reply.
The helplessness of being tied down was as terrifying as th e
sight of the other patients. I could move my arms and legs an
inch or two, but th a t was all. I couldn’t lift a finger to rub m y
nose, and of course it began to itch maddeningly, I was helpless
if the building caught fire or the walls collapsed or a.m aniac got
loose with an ax. I expected any one of these events to happen
at any moment.
Instead, after about half an hour, the doctor and a nurse ar­
rived. The orderly loosened my bonds so that the physician could
use his stethoscope. By now I was too scared to ask questions,
but my pounding heart m ust have been deafening through the
stethoscope. The doctor did not seem to be alarmed. He coiled
up the instrument, watched the orderly strap me up again and
nodded to the nurse, who held a hypodermic needle.
Hyoscine is an alkaloid obtained from the henbane, nightshade
and similar plants. In light doses, it produces a twilight sleep,
but in heavy, repeated doses it produces a deep coma.
This state of deep coma, sustained over a period of seventy-
two hours, comprised the M etropolitan H ospital’s cure for
narcotic addition.
Even in my terror, I thought it queer the orderly held my
shoulder hard as the nurse moved forward with the needle. Did
he think a drug addict had any fears of a hypodermic? Then, as
the nurse pushed the plunger down, my body jerked taut and
77
I let out a terrified yell. A stream of liquid fire was pouring into
my arm.
“I t ’s all over,” the nurse soothed me as she drew the needle
out, and indeed the pain lasted only a minute, and she con­
tinued comfortingly: “In a little while your throat will get very
dry; you may feel you are going to choke. But don’t worry.
T h at’s the normal effect of the hyoscine. You won’t suffocate.
Ju st close your eyes and try to go to sleep.”
I had not long to wait. She had been gone only a minute when
a hot wave rolled over me, followed by others even hotter. My
throat dried out, seemed to shrink. I couldn’t swallow. Each
breath went down into the lungs with difficulty and as if it would
be the last. I choked and struggled against the straps.
M y struggles seemed only to release from under the sheet
a swarm of centipedes. They crawled and twisted, growing
bigger and uglier by the minute. They were on top of the sheet,
but I could feel every hairy leg on my skin, nauseating, poisonous.
The purply black creatures melted right through the covers only
to reappear in another place. I struggled to brush them off, but
I could never touch one.
After an eternity of centipedes, I found myself suddenly
searching in all my old hiding places for a blow of heroin. I
scrabbled frantically behind the pipes in the bathroom, in the
Laucks’ tool shed, under the mattress, in a crack of the wall.
Little packets of the precious powders would be there until I
reached for them, then melt away. I ran and climbed and dug
into plaster with my fingernails. Finally, just as I located a
hypodermic and actually had it in my hands, gigantic members
of the narcotics squad bulging with muscles battered down the
door and pinned me to the floor.
They were succeeded by all the terrors of my childhood. The
witches and ogres and monsters of the fairy tales suddenly be­
came far more menacing than they had been in the story
books. The procession of my torturers went on for years. I was
an old man and would never get rid of them.
“Here, drink this.”
The voice was a normal voice. I couldn’t remember how long
it had been since I had heard one. Slowly I opened my eyes.
An orderly held a glass tube to my lips and I sucked water
greedily into my dry mouth. I was drenched in perspiration and
so weak that even after the orderly removed the straps and re­
straining sheet I did not move. I barely turned my head when
the doctor and nurse came in.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
 “I ’m pretty weak, Doc,” I replied.
“No doubt about it,” he agreed cheerily, “after being raving
mad for three days and nights. But you’ll be all right. I ’ll be
around to see you again tonight.”
It was a couple of hours before I felt strong enotfgh to look
around me. The other five beds in the ward were empty. Two
days later I was strong enough to join the other patients in a
ward across the hall. There were ten. There should have been
eleven. Under hyoscine we all had kicked out our habit, but
one had just kicked out. As strength came back, I was allowed to
go to the hospital’s sitting room, then Walk around the grounds
during the day, then go home. The night before I was to leave,
I sat at a window looking out toward M anhattan. The river
shone in the m oonlight; the city sparkled. I t was great to be alive
and cured.
They discharged me with smiles the next morning. The “ cure”
had taken ten days. M y relapse took ten minutes from the time
I reached Bank Street.
The ten-day cure had not braced me to meet the world. I
stopped to rest on a step a few doors from home in order to
brace myself, and while I sat there Joe Ambrose, the gentle­
manly bicycle thief, passed. He paused to ask after my cure, and
agreed with me when I said I needed only one little blow to help
me up the stairs. We retreated deeper into the doorway; Joe
handed me a bit of folded paper; I sniffed. Then I walked home
up Bank Street.

Crack Down 13
•
Even in the ten days I had been away, the drug traffic had
burrowed itself appreciably deeper underground. I no longer
thought of myself as a member of a select fraternity whose mem­
bers had set themselves, apart by their habit, despised perhaps
by the rest of the community but let alone. Now I was one of
a band set apart by the will of society, too, and harried for our
nonconformity. At least it seemed to me that we were being
persecuted only because we were different, not because we were
dangerous.
I felt like a m artyr, but I felt shame, too. If I happened to
be lounging in Bank Street in the afternoon when D ad came
home, I used to slip around the com er when I saw' his gray-
uniformed figure, with the tell-tale'hitch to the shoulder, for it
was painful to face him in public. He never said anything. But
the look on his drawn countenance as he passed his dope-sodden
son was too much for me. I fled before it as I ran from the
hostile glare of anyone who looked as if he might be a narcotics-
squad detective.
For a long time, I had been able to brush off the drive against
drug addicts as a tem porary phase in the city’s law enforcement.
Then shortly after my hyoscine “cure” I visited the druggist on
Avenue B who had been one of my favorite sources of supply.
H e had been arrested and was out on bail. When I entered his
shop, he shook his head at me.
“Nothing for you,” he said firmly. “I ’ve quit. I don’t want no
p art of this business from now on.”
“B ut you’ve got to give it to me this once!” I protested.
“N o !”
The look of his healthy, satisfied Features enraged me. This
was a man who had taken my money time and again. Now he
was going to let me down! In fact, seeing that I was about to
argue, and perhaps loudly, he came around from behind the
counter and began to shove me toward the door. He was simply
using his superior weight to push me, but I forgot th at he was
bigger and probably stronger. W ith a snarl I got both hands on
his throat and backed him against his own counter.
“You’ve got to give it to me! You’ve got to! I don’t care what
happens.”
Behind me I heard the door open and I dropped my hands.
The look of fear on his face was such as I had seen only when
an addict was being deprived of his drug.
“You call a cop and see w hat happens,” I whispered menac­
ingly. "Y ou’ll be dragged in with me, and I ’ll swear you’ve been
selling dope to me and dozens of others for years. I l l get a
bit, but you’ll get one two.”
I stepped back and looked around. A woman had come in and
was regarding us with curiosity. She couldn’t have seen my
hands around the druggist’s neck or heard my whisper. He went
over to her, wiping his forehead, handed her a bottle, took some
money and walked reluctantly back to me as she left. He swal­
lowed twice before he spoke.
“Leave the money and come back in twenty m inutes,” he
said at last. “D on’t come in here. Y ou’ll find your package be­
hind the radiator in the hallway around the corner. But remem­
ber, it’s the last time. You’re crazy!”
H e p ut feeling into the last words, and he had a right to be
80
scared. One of the reasons for the pressure behind the drive on
addicts was the wave of violence of which they had been guilty
in attem pts to get money for drugs.
At Devon’s that night I told my story with the righteous
indignation worthy of an honest man imposed upon by a crook.
Mine was a sympathetic audience.
“You should have killed the old bastard,” commented D utch
Reemer.
“At that, you were lucky to get away with it,” Charlie put
in. “The old guy’s hot, and they’re watching his place.”
Next day Charlie introduced me to his own new supplier, a,
furtive individual known as Shape who hung out at T hird and
MacDougal. Shape was angry that we came together; he would
deal with addicts only one at a time to avoid attracting at­
tention. But he pointed out a doorway where we could w ait for
him in the future.
John Devon was the headquarters for communiques about the
war on addicts. He knew it first when Drip M urtha was pulled
in. He had the inside story of how Freddie Carson, a downtown
addict, had been frisked by the bulls. H e knew about the times
Junkie Callahan had been picked up, although he would not let
Callahan join our group. Junkie was always trying; he pan­
handled all of us for blows.
“He was crazy ever to start using the stuff,” John used to say.
“H e hasn’t got the brains to support a habit.”
Poor Junkie, who lived in an alley off H oratio Street with his
mother, managed to get enough so that a few years later I saw
Johnny Look-up in the street staring fixedly down the alley
toward the Callahan hovel.
The talk at Devon’s now was all of tricks on both sides in the
battle to avoid arrest, of the underground organization of the
drug traffic, of possible stool pigeons. D utch Reemer was sure
Drip M urtha was arrested so often only as a cover for his stool-
ing; we suspected that the cops would give an inform er a couple
of blows and imm unity for telling on the rest of us.
The drug traffic was rapidly assuming the organization which
it has retained ever since. At the top of the hierarchy were the
importers, men of large capital with buying agents abroad, who
devise the often ingenious plans by which seamen and others
smuggle the stuff into the country. Im porters can well afford to
pay enticing bonuses for every shipment successfully brought in
past the customs authorities, for a pocket-sized package is
w orth a fortune. The im porter’s function is finished when he
sells to a few wholesalers.
 Each wholesaler in turn has a group of distributors, each with
his list of sellers in various parts of the country. The distributor
generally is responsible for getting the dope out of the port cities
and spread' around the country wherever there are addicts. Sellers
may have Well-to-do clients who buy in fairly large quantities
for their own use—men like the Devons—but usually they hire
street vendors or pushers to bring the stuff in decks to the ad­
dicts, like myself, who lived from hand to mouth.
The huge profits at all levels of this trade explain why arrests
and even the seizure of fairly large shipments never stamp it
out. The arrest of an importer and confiscation of a million-
dollar shipment blocks only a few dope pipelines. There may be
a tem porary panic among the addicts who relied upon that par­
ticular source. Soon they will be supplied through other chan­
nels, and the chief effect will be to jack up the price.
To those of us who frequented the Fourth Street hangout,
John Devon had become an even more enviable figure than ever.
He seemed to be immune to suspicion or molestation. His heroin
came to him in installments sufficient to last several months
each. For some reason unknowm to me, the rough gentlemen of
the dope squad would think twice before they pushed him
around. And if they did search him, what would they find?
Nothing but a little loose change in the pocket of his well-cut,
wellrkept checked suit. In that pocket, John kept his lucky piece.
I t was a half-dollar hollowed out sufficiently to hold several
blows. Pressure at a certain point on the face of the coin caused
the lid to slide open. The wonderful little box had been a present
from brother Joe, who laughed when I asked him if he could get
me one.
“You couldn’t afford it, kid,” he replied.
We did the best we could with our own craftiness. Every
junkie developed his pet hiding places and ways of circumvent­
ing a sudden search. We all knew that it was dangerous to carry
the stuff around with us, but when a habit required attention
every few hours, we had to risk it. Some had hidden pockets
sewed into the coat or trousers. Some would tuck a deck into
the trouser cuff, held in place with a couple of stitches. I pre­
ferred to hide mine under the fold of my peak cap where it but­
toned down.
At home youths like myself had to conceal the stuff from
family as well as cops. A hollowed-out bedpost, a crevice behind
the bathroom pipes, a flowerpot with a bottle buried at the roots
of a plant would do. I sometimes slipped a deck between the
pages of a book, but M other had found them several times. Once
I removed the eraser from the end of a pencil, poured some
Jjeroin in a little hollow cut into the Wood and then screwed the
eraser back on firmly. I t was only a few days before Dad, bear­
ing down on the eraser, dislodged it and had a little cascade of
white powder fall out on his paper.
Addicts who lived alone had more scope. The old reliable,
until the cops got onto it, was to hang the dope in a bag outside
a back window under the sill. Joe Ambrose once confided to
m e^hat he kept his home supply in a vial sunk in a m ustard jar.
Carrol and Lottie Huggins, both junkies and friends of John
Devon, kept theirs in a salt cellar. Lottie was one of the most
beautiful women I ever saw, the hollows which heroin had etched
at her temples and cheeks adding to her wistful loveliness. Car­
roll was a poor provider, at least of dope, and it was gossip
among the other addicts that anyone with a spare blow could
get plenty of loving at L ottie’s flat. However, with the check
which drugs put on the sexual drive, the junkies’ reports of suc­
cess probably were .more frequent than the act.
Of course the detectives, aided by stool pigeons, soon became
as adept at searching as we were at hiding. But before we could
hide the dope, we had to get it. John Devon told a story one
evening of two morphine addicts who had worked out what
seemed to be a foolproof scheme. They had prescription blanks
printed, complete with name, address and telephone number, but
the only genuine part of it was the phone number. One of the
addicts would present one of these prescriptions to a druggist,
and suggest that the man telephone the doctor to make sure it
was all right. The druggist usually did. The other addict, w ait­
ing at the number, which was a public pay phone, would give
professional assurances that the prescription was genuine. I
quite envied these fellows their ingenuity until I found th at
John knew about their scheme from reading of their arrest
and conviction.
A dealer, even if he was also a fellow addict, was always fair
game for any chicanery. But it was hard to put anything over
on a man who had control of the most vital necessity of your
life. We hated the pusher but we usually took out our dislike in
talk. Charlie Lauck and I were heroes for a while when we
really did put one over on a dealer. However, we were driven by
despair th at time, both being broke.
We selected as the object of our racket a fellow named M atty
who was a pusher for M onk’s brother Tim. H e had naturally
refused us credit, and just as naturally we were angry. M atty
used to make up his dfecks in little packets of cheap pad paper
83
stuck together with small red seals, the kind sold in m ost sta­
tionery stores. Charlie and I invested our last dime in sim ilar,
paper and seals, then made up two decks exactly like M a tty ’s
except th at the contents were flour.
When M atty came by on his usual route, I sidled up to him
and m uttered: “Two decks.” I dug into my pocket with my
right hand as if to get the money and took the two decks with
my left, which I quickly thrust into my coat pocket.
“We’re short of cash,” I then explained. “ But we’ll pay you
tomorrow.”
“Nothing doing!” M atty snarled. “Gimmie back .them decks.”
“Aw; we’ll pay you,” I protested, reluctantly exposing my left
hand, which now held the fake packets. “You can trust us, can’t
you?”
M atty only snorted and snatched the switched decks out of
my hand. We were highly exhilarated by our success until we
heard th at M atty had sold these same decks later in the day
to a couple of other junkies. They stormed back to him scream­
ing th at they had been gypped. M atty swore they were lying,
and it wasn’t until Tim was called in as arbiter that he remem­
bered that I might have switched decks on him. The word came
that Tim swore he’d knock us off, and he was capable of it. We
hastened to pay M atty a dollar out of the proceeds of a fire
extinguisher we had lifted from an apartm ent house hall, and
Tim agreed to forget it.
The narcotic squad’s successes were sufficiently numerous that
quite a few sessions on John Devon’s stoop were devoted to ways
and means of smuggling a few blows to an arrested addict. One
of the first of our group to land in jail was Eddie, whose hyoscine
cure had lasted only a little longer than mine. The day before
he was to be transferred from the Tombs, Pop W hitey was flush
and decided to give Eddie a good treat. In those days meals could
be ordered from outside for a prisoner in the Tombs, and W hitey
got a fine dish of roast beef and potatoes from a restaurant on
Canal Street. While sprinkling the potatoes with salt, he added
a liberal dose of heroin, and took the whole thing over -to the
Tombs.
By this time poor Eddie was all in from lack of dope, and
couldn’t bear to look food in the face. He thought his aunt had
sent it to him, so he just waved it away. An hour later a keeper
came to his cell demanding to know his aunt’s name. Another
keeper had eaten the meal and was screaming that he had been
poisoned.
The more usual method of relieving a pal behind bars was to
M
send him “ Sachs,” addicts’ vernacular for saturated letters.
These were concocted by boiling a dozen grains or more of heroin
or morphine in water and soaking blank writing paper in the
mixture. A fter the paper had dried, it was ironed smooth and
an innocent letter, usually signed with the name of the prisoner’s
mother, was w ritten on it. Such a letter easily passed the prison
office, and the prisoner could get a jolt th at would last several
hours by tearing off a strip of the letter and chewing it. An
average letter would contain rations for several days.
About this time Tim lost his dope connection, and Chick
Belton offered to steer me to a new source, the Chink, whp
could be found in Galluchi’s saloon on Sullivan Street.
“The Chink’s dollar-and-a-half vials are dynamite,” Chick
assured me admiringly.
We had just crossed Washington Square on the way hoiqe,
when I jumped at the sound of a running step behind us. The
jum p saved me. A detective had tailed us after we made our buy
from the Chink. His fingers just missed me, but Chick was
nailed with the goods.
I t was the last I saw of Chick for several months. I suppose /
he had been carrying the vial from the Chink in his hand. I t
was a common custom, the theory of the junkies being that if
we threw it away when accosted, we could not be pinched for
“possession.” I suppose too that the detective had also followed
the usual practice of picking it up and putting it back in his
pocket so that when he got to the station house, “possession”
could easily be proved.
I had clutched my little '-bottle as I ran, and for* some time
I lingered on the outskirts of the Village before returning home.
At last as I approached the flat, I noticed heads poked out from
the alleyway adjoining our house. I whistled lustily as I walked
by the house and saw the shadows of obvious detectives slip
back into the alley again. I hid my bottle under the cellar steps
of a house in the next block, and after an hour returned to the
flat. I had just mounted the outer steps when three men rushed
me, and pinned me against the vestibule door.
“W e’re police officers,” one of them growled. “Where have
you got the stuff?”
I pretended surprise and bewilderment. The three had been
described to me. They were Judge, H ackett and E rb of the
narcotics squad and our neighborhood was one of their special
provinces. They searched me thoroughly, then reluctantly let
me go.
 “You’re Leroy Street, huh?” one asked. “Well someone wrote
to headquarters that you’re taking dope.”
I was sure the letter-w riter was H arry Lowns’ mother. She
lived on Bank Street too, and was always writing letters to
someone, it seemed to me, complaining about her son and his
associates. She was a nuisance, I thought, and was likely to get
a fellow into a lot of trouble. N aturally I preferred to blame her
rather than either heroin or myself.
Two nights later I was sitting at a rear table of Gelsert’s
corner bakery when the same three dicks entered. They had
learned to spot a junkie on sight, for the relative purity of the
drugs we took, as compared with those of today, marked us
unmistakably. The poison hit us hard and fast. However, the
courts would not send us up just on looks.
This time I had seen them before they spotted me. They had
been peering in through the plate-glass window, and I moved
fast while they were coming in the door. M y cap was on the
chair beside me. I slipped the deck of dope out of the fold, took
a wad of chewing gum out of my mouth and stuck the packet
up under the table. M y hands were in my lap when they ranged
up to my table, one of them snapping:
“ Get up and stand over by the wall—and keep your hands
over your head, you goddamn cokie!”
They turned my pockets inside out, examined the lining of
coat and trousers, fingered the cuffs and inside of the lapels.
They made me take off my shoes and socks while the amazed
baker and his customers watched. While I put my clothes back
on, they searched the floor under and around the table and finally
marched me outside. A stinging slap sent mereeling away from
them, but I grinned as I heard the warning:
“We’ll get the goods on you yet.”
A few nights later, as Charlie, Joe Ambrose and I were walk­
ing across Thirty-first Street after a stroll past the enticing
posters at the old Grand Opera House on Tw enty-third and
the even more enticing ones in front of H arry M iners’ burlesque
theater between Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh, we ran smack
into the outstretched arms of Judge, H ackett and Erb. I
wrenched loose and ran with H ackett after me. A shot barked,
b ut I ran on until he yelled i “Stop, or you’ll get the next one
in the back.” His voice was very close, and I halted, hands
uplifted. A heavy blow under the ear sent me sprawling in the
gutter, and when I got up a fist smashed into my face. The
crowds of shoppers at the pushcarts on Eighth Avenue were star­
ing and jostling as H ackett grabbed me and led me back to
 where Joe and Charlie wgre jammed Up against th e wall,
shoved me alongside of them and asked:
“W hat did you get on the other'cokies?”
“This "fellow was lousy with it,” replied E rb pointing a t Joe
and holding up several decks. “The other one is clean. But give
this bird a frisk; he’s the ra t we’re after.”
H ackett yanked the cap from my head and looked inside it,
carefully feeling the lining. I mopped at the blood on my face
and held my breath. Then he slammed the cap back at m e; he
had left the fold buttoned down and was running his big fingers
into my pockets. The crowd pressed closer, gabbling and star­
ing. H ackett’s curses in my ear testified to his anger at finding no
dope on me. He gave it up at last and turned to Charlie. They
had never had their hand on him before, and decided to let him
go, speeded by a kick. They had not noticed th at hq had been
0 carrying a newspaper and dropped it in the gutter when we were
it seized. His spare decks were concealed in the paper.
“W hat’ll we do with this cokie?” asked H ackett, jerking a
of thum b at me.
;r” “Do to him ?” replied Erb. “Yank him down to the house.
ea- W e’ll find the stuff on him all right if we have to strip him.”
ich
They pushed us through the crowd toward the Thirtieth
,'ing Street station and amused themselves by cuffing me around while
Joe was being booked. Then they turned to me and had me take
off my shoes. A moment later Erb looked up with a satisfied
jt in grunt and held up a deck. I swallowed, unbelieving, and then
1 the got panicky.
:e its
m his “I ’m being fram ed,” I yelled.
pot in At least I tried to yell those three words. E rb ’s fist drove ther
of the back into my throat and my teeth through my lips before
| could finish the sentence. He grabbed me by one arm ; Hackf
took the other, and between them I was dragged downstai
ck with kicked into a cell.
“I knew they wouldn’t let you get away,” came Joe’s v<
ver con- from the cell adjoining.
s!” I stroked gently at my bruised jaw and lip. The detectives’
i a ques: moving away. I listened until their steps had passed out of
Jig card” shot, and then whispered:
which the “They never found that stuff in my cap.”
and hard “W hat!” I t was an exclamation of pure joy. “For the I
im. I was Mike, fix me up. I ’m all washed up.”
“Yes, sir” I gave him a heaping blow, dished out another for
We relaxed on our hard bunks, quite a t ease, with the
87
—jiegard of anything th at might be in store as j£ * » .a s he has
a sniff of powder up his nose. / \
The effects lasted us through the m om jr '* were
taken to Jefferson M arket Court, a r r a i g / <&• 1 held
in Tombs for Special Sessions Court, y 0 we
were pushed into a dark, c r o w d e / oor
slammed; we heard the rows of p / / X ^ X v
snapped, and the vehicle lumbered a/ s? / vo
“H adn’t we better finish th / / g? ,
might find it when they s e a r / <P b »,
“Y ou’re right.” / ^ V > / V / /
W ith my free hand 1 / •$, ^
and handed it to h im ./ <V <S- e, k c
he carefully p o u r e d / <+ / X
free hand and inly7 ? 00 V* V /
prisoners paid / b°V / / / / / ' / K 0<> °x
I inhaled / X . % ^ > . / ^ X v
it gave me
A few g /
m y ci

coum * * && xVVV>

\ j r X . / „ ° X <y y / x/ X «£> < / sA X c, <# ^
As m V V < ^ V V y o^ / V 2 . . / / / / / -
and h u m . *Y A
:ently set a> / / / / ^ / / / / / / X / x <£
la c k e tt or E t. V / ^ b k X .X / / X _ < .X 4 ? . X/ c X

roundmgs, the cells we. & / / b ■»’ % X

od. N ot all the prisoners / # / <<>0 / • / ^ / / / J>
lied up and down we found / / <,
vet brought up for trial, and < ? /b ° / y^ ° ^ <>x . X .
n gangster whom I had met at sc v / / , '> / ? ' / - 9
asked eagerly if we had been able / / / v X / /
-ere disappointed
sappointed when we said no. *•/ v° t,
X X ./ X X•«■ bb o’
c' . /X Xx- <
X
, , . , . . . , . v As xy a? x- ^ v
came around each night with two p ik V / / (/ V //S ^
s did nothing for you®
in our cell, we had leisure to study t h e \
88 ' \ ^ X *
 “So you’re a cokey,” he sneered. “W e’ll work the dope out
of you up here!”
He waited only a few minutes to hand rte his calling card; it
was p art of his routine for every new inmate, and I never
forgot the feel of it as he laid it across my cheek, putting the
weight of his well over 200 pounds behind the blow. He turned
us over to another keeper after this initiation. We were led
through an underground passage, to a nearby wooden building.
One end was an assembly room with rows of wooden benches.
At the other end was a mess hall where boys in greasy aprons
were mopping the floor. In the barber shop an Italian youth
sheared my head with his clippers in three minutes flat.' I
shivered as I looked in the wall m irror ‘and watched m y white
bald pate exposed. In another room we were supplied with
trousers and coat of coarse denim and tom suits of underwear,
the size gauged carelessly by eye. They had to fit. Carrying
these, we were led down to the cellar for the only warm shower
I had on H a rt’s Island. We scrubbed with bars of brown soap
and dried ourselves on towels th at scratched like sandpaper. As
we emerged, a prisoner flung a pile of clodhopper shoes down
the stairs. When I had got into a pair, I felt that my feet
were encased in wooden boxes. We stumbled in them so much
th at the keeper hastened our progress with a few whacks of
his club, a strong flexible weapon like an umbrella stick wound
with tape, as much a part of a guard’s costume here as his shoes,
and almost as much used.
It was almost meal time. We newcomers were held to one
side while prisoners prepared the tables, dragging gallon cans
from one to another. Then the Duke arrived and a bugler blew
mess call; the reform atory aped m ilitary routine. A moment later
we heard the rhythmic tram p of feet, then a command “H a lt!”
The big gate was unlocked and a stream of gray-clad youths
poured through to take places on the long benches. Their eyes
slithered sideways to regard us. They entered in gangs— the
house gang, plumbers, painters, farm gang, gardeners and last
the dock gang, each counted by a keeper. The youngest were
fifteen, perhaps a few fourteen, and the oldest in their early
twenties, divided into four divisions according to age. When they
reached their places, our keeper escorted us to tables and gestured
for those already there to make room.
“Remember where you sit,” he warned.
I looked carefully at the youths on either side of me. One was
a blank-faced fellow whose head stubble showed th a t he had
been here only a short time— the shearing was an initiation and
91
not repeated. On my left was a taller lad with a mop of bushy
black hair. He seemed to crowd me and glanced out of the com er
of his eye in what I thought was a sneering manner. I learned on
later acquaintance that his cold, arrogant attitude could turn
into good nature. He was no drug addict. His offense, the first at
which he had been caught, was stealing packages from the backs
of trucks. H e was nearly always in trouble at the reform atory
and we looked to him as a leader. We knew him as Johnny
D iam ond; the larger world of crime later conferred upon him the
nickname of “Legs.” The curly hair falling over his forehead was
long enough to show that he had been an inmate for some time.
The quick glances and tight smile indicated that “Legs” Diamond
was preparing to break in a newcomer.
For the time being, however, the silence was broken pnly by
the subdued clatter of spoons and an occasional low hum, which
m eant that someone was talking in the ventriloquism of prison,
a speech formed without moving the lips. The food served to us
consisted of two slices of bread for each prisoner, a plate of
dark applesauce and a bowl of black unsweetened coffee. I had
not been off heroin long enough to have any appetite, and I
pushed the stale bread away. Hands grabbed at it from all sides.
A starvation diet was part of the D uke’s theory of penology,
for he used to say loudly:
“Keep the pinheads hungry and they won’t be up to mis­
chief.”
A few minutes later, he delivered himself of a volley of curses,
and I forgot one of the rules. I turned my head. Immediately
he barked:
“You with the bald head! Gome up here.”
I swallowed hard as I left the bench and started up the
aisle. Eyes followed me. The inmates were used to getting a
shellacking, and it was fun to see how a rookie would take his.
I t was mild. A heavy blow of the open hand knocked me to the
floor.
“Get up,” growled the Duke.
I got up. The hand swung again, and this time I only staggered.
“Get down on your knees in that com er.”
I knelt, motionless. For fifteen minutes I managed to hold
the pose, then shifted slightly.
“None of th at,” a keeper shouted, “or I ’ll come down to you.”
He let me up when the gong sounded the signal to march to
the dormitories. I could hardly walk, but got to my assigned bed
w ithout further blows. My dormitory held about eighty cots in
three rows. The only other furniture were a desk and chair for
the keeper on a raised platform at one end of the room. M ost
evenings— and this one was no exception—the “ cadets,” as the
Duke liked to call us when not using more insulting term s, spent
the entire interval between supper and bedtime sitting motion­
less on the cots with arms folded and eyes straight ahead.
Silence, the reform atory rule by day or night, was not to be
broken except at risk of a blow and a dem erit to add to the term
of the whisperer. Turning the head was as bad. So I sat on the
end of my cot staring at the bare, streaked wall and let weari­
ness enfold me.
I was interrupted by the keeper’s call to stand up and sing a
hymn. This was the only break in the evening silence— a new­
comer would be commanded to sing after a few minutes of
study from a printed page. My voice resounded trem ulously;
it was as unnerving as to be singing to an audience of mummies.
I faltered, forgot my lines. The keeper was beside me in a
moment. The blows of his club failed to stimulate my memory.
He got in a few hearty licks and barked:
“Sit down!”
The next victim had the same bad luck. Then for half an hour
there was silence unbroken save by the rustling of a newspaper
which the keeper was reading. At 8 o’clock “T aps” sounded
and the three rows of motionless figures sprang to life. We were
allowed just five minutes to get out of our clothes, fold them
neatly, put them under the bed, spread our blankets and get
into the old-fashioned nightgowns which had been issued to us.
We newcomers again had our progress speeded by the club.
All but a few dim lights were extinguished, but enough illum ina-—
tion remained so that the keeper could watch his charges. My
back was bruised, my jaw sore and my whole drug-drained system
complaining as I cowered under the blankets at last.
I ached all over when I crawled out of bed at daybreak to the
sound of reveille. Breakfast of rice, molasses, bread and coffee
was usually a prelude to drill, but as a new prisoner I was
taken to the band room for a tryout. A trusty who helped the
bandm aster wrote a note and slipped it to m e; he was one of
the few prisoners who had no trouble with the talking rule for
he was a deaf-mute.
“ Do not join the band or you will be here for the full three
years,” he had written, for it seemed that when the H ell Hole
got a youth who could play, he never w as.let go.
I passed the note to the other newcomers, just before the
bandm aster, a florid German, came in hopefully. H e tried us out
93
on his brasses with growing annoyance. We could not sound a
note.
“Blow . . . blow hardt,” he sputtered. “M it der lips, m it der
lips.”
Finally he gave us up in disgust. I drew an assignment unload­
ing bags of potatoes at the docks. M y shoes raised painful
blisters and my arms grew numb and sore, my back felt dis­
located. I stopped out of sheer exhaustion, and the keeper was
on me in a rage. I lay limp under his blows, dazed and wrapped
in pain. M y stomach tightened into a hard knot and I retched
noisily. The keeper’s blows stopped. Gruffly, he told another
prisoner to take me to the hospital, but he did not seem alarmed.
The orderly in the hospital was a Negro prisoner, who grinned
a t me and asked if I were a junkie. M ost of the fellows who had
been on the stuff before they got to the reform atory broke down
as I had, he explained. Dope had softened them up so th at they
couldn’t take it.
“Have a stir cocktail,” he invited.
His concoction proved to be a mixture of alcohol, aspirin and
Stokes cough medicine. I t settled my stomach, at that.
The noon meal almost unsettled it again. The usual two slices
of bread lay beside a bowl of lukewarm, unappetizing liquid
which looked as if it had been sprinkled with raisins.
“Fly soup again!” Diamond grunted, and it was an apt de­
scription, for house flies had drowned in the dishes by the
thousands while the stuff stood getting cold on the tables before
we came in.
We fished out the flies and ate the rest—it was a frequent
necessity—but this day the m urmur of protest in our section
was loud enough that the keeper in charge ordered the whole
row to kneel at the end of the mess hall.
In those first days, the routine grew so familiar th at bad
food, beatings, hard work and perpetual cold seemed to be the
normal way of life. I was surprised when a keeper of whom I
had seen little up to that night smiled in what seemed a friendly
fashion when he marched us to our dormitory and settled him­
self on the platform. Diamond whispered to me that this was
Icebox Hogan. I understood the nickname when he ordered one
of the prisoners to open all the windows. I t was a raw night,
and we had to sit shivering in our thin, ragged denims while he,
wrapped in a sweater and heavy coat, grinned at us.
Icebox Hogan was a smiling man at all times. H e smiled
genially when he ordered a new prisoner up to sing a hymn, he
smiled when the perform er muffed his lines, he smiled when he
where Joe and Charlie wfre jammed up against th e wall. Hackett
shoved me alongside of them and asked:
“W hat did you get on the other cokies?”
“This Tellow was lousy with it,” replied Erb pointing at Joe
and holding up several decks. “The other one is clean. But give
this bird a frisk; he’s the ra t we’re after.”
H ackett yanked the cap from my head and looked inside it,
carefully feeling the lining. I mopped at the blood on my face
and held my breath. Then he slammed the cap back at m e; he
had left the fold buttoned down and was running his big fingers
into my pockets. The crowd pressed closer, gabbling and star­
ing. H ackett’s curses in my ear testified to his anger at finding no
dope on me. H e gave it up at last and turned to Charlie. They
had never had their hand on him before, and decided to let him
go, speeded by a kick. They had not noticed that he had been
carrying a newspaper and dropped it in the gutter when we were
seized. His spare decks were concealed in the paper.
“W hat’ll we do with this cokie?” asked H ackett, jerking a
thumb at me.
“Do to him ?” replied Erb. “Yank him down to the house.
W e’ll find the stuff on him all right if we have to strip him.”
They pushed us through the crowd toward the T hirtieth
Street station and amused themselves by cuffing me around while
Joe was being booked. Then they turned to me and had me take
off my shoes. A moment later Erb looked up with a satisfied
grunt and held up a deck. I swallowed, unbelieving, and then
got panicky.
“I ’m being framed,” I yelled.
At least I tried to yell those three words. E rb ’s fist drove them
back into my throat and my teeth through my lips before I
could finish the sentence. He grabbed me by one arm ; H ackett
took the other, and between them I was dragged downstairs,
kicked into a cell.
“I knew they wouldn’t let you get away,” came Joe’s voice
from the cell adjoining.
I stroked gently at my bruised jaw and lip. The detectives were
moving away. I listened until their steps had passed out of ear­
shot, and then whispered:
“They never found that stuff in my cap.”
“W h at!” I t was an exclamation of pure joy. “For the love of
Mike, fix me up. I ’m all washed up.”
I gave him a heaping blow, dished out another for myself.
We relaxed on our hard bunks, quite a t ease, with th e addict’s
87
disregard of anything that might be in store as long as he has
a sniff of powder h p his nose.
The effects lasted us through the morning when we were
taken to Jefferson M arket Court, arraigned and ordered held
in Tombs for Special Sessions Court. Handcuffed together, we
were pushed into a dark, crowded prison van. The door
slammed; we heard the rows of padlocks on the outside being
snapped, and the vehicle lumbered out into the streets.
“H adn’t we better finish that deck?” Joe whipered. “They
might find it when they search you downtown.”
“You’re right.”
W ith my free hand I reached up for the packet in my cap
and handed it to him. I kept my chained wrist close to his while
he carefully poured a pinch of the powder onto the back of his
free hand and inhaled. Then he did the same for me. The other
prisoners paid absolutely no attention.
I inhaled that bit of powder with regret tempering the relief
it gave me. I knew it would have to be my last for a long time.
A few grains of powder remained on the paper, and moistening
m y coat sleeve with my finger I carefully rubbed them into the
fabric. I had hardly finished when the van stopped with a jolt,
a bell rang and we heard the heavy gates of the City Prison,
official name of the institution long and unfavorably known to
New Yorkers as the Tombs, roll back. The van moved again.
Inside the yard the doors were unlocked, and the prisoners
counted.
As narcotics offenders, Joe and I were separated,from the rest
and hurried over to the Annex, a part of the grim building re­
cently set apart for addicts. There, after a search which made
H ackett or Erb look like amateurs, we were assigned together
to cell No. 11. It held two bunks, one above the other, and we
immediately flung ourselves on them to make the m ost of the
effects of our last blow.
By the time we were ready to pay some attention to our
surroundings, the cells were opened for a half hour’s exercise
period. N ot all the prisoners were released at once, but as we
strolled up and down we found two old friends. One was Eddie
not yet brought up for trial, and the other was Chip Chip,, an
Italian gangster whom I had met at some of Bob’s cocaine binges.
Both asked eagerly if we had been able to smuggle in any dope,
and were disappointed when we said no. They told us th at a
doctor came around each night with two pills per man, and that
the pills did nothing for you. „
Back in our cell, we had leisure to study the names and say-
 ings which previous inmates had inscribed on the walls, brush
away roaches and grow accustomed to the prison stench, a sour
smell th at seemed to me to be compounded of all the sorrow
and tragedy which these stone walls had ever held. The food
< was nauseating, but a vendor of pie, rolls and coffee was adm itted
t to the tiers, and th at first afternoon Joe ahd I felt well enough
to invest in his wares.
Sure enough, a physician came through the addicts’ tier of
cells and left two pills with each man. For all the good they
did Joe and me they might have been made of bread. Our yen
caught up with us in the middle of the night.
With addicts being brought in every day, and running out of
their dope every night, a victim of a yen attracted no attention.
Screams and pleas for help echoed against the stone walls. The ■
only feature of mine that was different from any other through
which I had suffered was th at it lasted about a day longer. The
only relief came when, after a day of torture, I suddenly remem­
bered the few grains of heroin I had rubbed into my sleeve.
Joe and I took turns chewing it until we had tom the cloth to
shreds. I t netted us a few hours of respite.
The worst of it was over, and I was bothered mostly by fits of
sneezing—as many as fifteen sneezes in succession—when a
turnkey told us we would “go to b at” (go to trial) next day. The
sneezes still bothered me when one after another we were brought
across the Bridge of Sighs which separated the Tombs from the
Criminal Courts Building. Justices Kernochan, O’Keefe and
Salmon, impressive and aloof, decided that a term in the New
York Reform atory would best serve to correct .my habit. The
sentence was an indeterminate one of from six months to three
years. The Reform atory was selected because I was only nine­
teen and because I was a first offender—my escapade on Long
Island had not been brought into evidence.
Joe was older and luckier. H e drew a sentence of four months
in the penitentiary.

Hell H ole 14
“I t ’s one tough joint,” Chip Chip had warned me. “I ’d
take ten years in the Big House rather than a year there any day.
W ait until you m eet the D uke!”
The little gangster knew what he was talking about. He was a
89
graduate of the institution. Indeed, it was so well known th a t a
good many of the denizens of the Tombs, callous to imprison­
m ent as they were, felt sorry for me because I was going to
H a rt’s Island.
N early 4,500 other New York boys had preceded me to the
place before the Correction dropped me and three others at
the little dock. In the office of the red brick adm inistration build­
ing, standing as ordered against the wall, I felt physically weak
from the ordeal of my yen and emotionally exhausted. The pros­
pect of six months without drugs reached out ahead of me as
a hopeless stretch of misery. A civilian clerk was making entries
concerning us, and an inmate assistant passed out cards con­
taining the rules—no talking, no smoking, bed at eight, a com­
plicated system of demerits which would lengthen the term when
an inmate came up for parole.
“And when you are spoken to by the Overseer, be sure to
salute him and say ‘Sir’ and refold your arms,” the assistant
said.
The warning was immediately followed by the appearance of
a mountain of a man in a tight blue uniform with “Overseer”
in gold braid across the front of his cap. The most striking fea­
tures' in his big red face were the huge black moustache which
hid his m outh and a pair of beady black eyes under overhanging
brows.
“The Duke,” someone muttered.
The Duke, a name never mentioned on the island except in
hatred and fear, was M artin J. Moore, the man to whom the
reform atory owed the conditions which earned the place its
name of “Hell Hole.” He turned away from us to put down his
cap, giving us a good view of a shiny round sun of a bald spot in
his black hair. Then he swung around and glared at us. One of the
boys shifted his feet.
“ Stand u p !” the Duke roared.
He moved his big body nimbly and his huge palm struck with
a resounding crack alongside the boy’s head.
“W e’ll put some manhood into you.” He looked us over con­
temptuously. “A bunch of pinheads'and poolroom bum s!”
The next boy forgot to add “ Sir” when he answered a ques­
tion and what we came to know as' the Duke’s “calling card”
was laid on his jaw. He disdained the use of a club, which the
keepers carried. The flat of his enormous hand, heavy and hard
as a side of frozen meat, was weapon enough for him. I was
careful to give a snappy salute and an equally snappy “Yes, sir”
when he came to me, and I earned a low chuckle.
 “So you’re a cokey,” he sneered. “W e’ll work the dope out
of you up here!”
H e waited only a few minutes to hand me his calling card; it
was p art of his routine for every new inmate, and I never
forgot the feel of it as he laid it across my cheek, putting the
weight of his well over 200 pounds behind the blow. H e turned
us over to another keeper after this initiation. We were led
through an underground passage, to a nearby wooden building.'
One end was an assembly room with rows of wooden benches.
At the other end was a mess hall where boys in greasy aprons
were mopping the floor. In the barber shop an Italian youth
sheared my head with his clippers in three minutes flat. I
shivered as I looked in the wall m irror 'and watched my white
bald pate exposed. In another room we were supplied with
trousers and coat of coarse denim and tom suits of underwear,
the size gauged carelessly by eye. They had to fit. Carrying
these, we were led down to the cellar for the only warm shower
I had on H a rt’s Island. We scrubbed with bars of brown soap
and dried ourselves on towels that scratched like sandpaper. As
we emerged, a prisoner flung a pile of clodhopper shoes down
the stairs. When I had got into a pair, I felt that my feet
were encased in wooden boxes. We stumbled in them so much
th at the keeper hastened our progress with a few whacks of
his club, a strong flexible weapon like an umbrella stick wound
with tape, as much a part of a guard’s costume here as his shoes,
and almost as much used.
I t was almost meal time. We newcomers were held to one
side while prisoners prepared the tables, dragging gallon cans
from one to another. Then the Duke arrived and a bugler blew
mess call; the reform atory aped m ilitary routine. A moment later
we heard the rhythmic tram p of feet, then a command “H a lt!”
The big gate was unlocked and a stream of gray-clad youths
poured through to take places on the long benches. Their eyes
slithered sideways to regard us. They entered in gangs— the
house gang, plumbers, painters, farm gang, gardeners and last
the dock gang, each counted by a keeper. The youngest were
fifteen, perhaps a few fourteen, and the oldest in their early
twenties, divided into four divisions according to age. When they
reached their places, our keeper escorted us to tables and gestured
for those already there to make room.
“Remember where you sit,” he warned.
I looked carefully at the youths on either side of me. One was
a blank-faced fellow whose head stubble showed that he had
been here only a short time— the shearing was an initiation and
91
not repeated. On my left was a taller lad with a mop of bushy
black hair. He seemed to crowd me and glanced out of the corner
of his eye in what I thought was a sneering manner. I learned on
later acquaintance that his cold, arrogant attitude could turn
into good nature. He. was no drug addict. His offense, the first at
which he had been caught, was stealing packages from the backs
of trucks. He was nearly always in trouble at the reform atory
and we looked to him as a leader. We knew him as Johnny
D iam ond; the larger world of crime later conferred upon him the
nickname of “Legs.” The curly hair falling over his forehead was
long enough to show th at he had been an inmate for some time.
T he quick glances and tight smile indicated that “Legs” Diamond
was preparing to break in a newcomer.
For the time being, however, the silence was broken only by
the subdued clatter of spoons and an occasional low hum, which
m eant that someone was talking in the ventriloquism of prison,
a speech formed without moving the lips. The food served to us
consisted of two slices of bread for each prisoner, a plate of
dark applesauce and a bowl of black unsweetened coffee. I had
not been off heroin long enough to have any appetite, and I
pushed the stale bread away. Hands grabbed at it from all sides.
A starvation diet was part of the D uke’s theory of penology,
for he used to say loudly:
“Keep the pinheads hungry and they won’t be up to mis­
chief.”
A few minutes later, he delivered himself of a volley of curses,
and I forgot one of the rules. I turned my head. Immediately
he barked:
“You with the bald head! Gome up here.”
I swallowed hard as I left the bench and started up the
aisle. Eyes followed me. The inmates were used to getting a
shellacking, and it was fun to see how a rookie would take his.
I t was mild. A heavy blow of the open hand knocked me to the
floor.
“Get up,” growled the Duke.
I got up. The hand swung again, and this time I only staggered.
“Get down on your knees in th at corner.”
I knelt, motionless. For fifteen minutes I managed to hold
the pose, then shifted slightly.
“None of th a t,” a keeper shouted, “or I ’ll come down to you.”
He let me up when the gong sounded the signal to march to
the dormitories. I could hardly walk, but got to my assigned bed
w ithout further blows. M y dormitory held about eighty cots in
three rows. The only other furniture were a desk and chair for
the keeper on a raised platform at one end of the room. M ost
evenings— and this one was no exception—the “ cadets,” as the
Duke liked to call us when not using more insulting term s, spent
the entire interval between supper and bedtime sitting motion­
less on the cots with arms folded and eyes straight ahead.
Silence, the reform atory rule by day or night, was not to be
broken except at risk of a blow and a dem erit to add to the term
of the whisperer. Turning the head was as bad. So I sat on the
end of my cot staring at the bare, streaked wall and let weari­
ness enfold me.
I was interrupted by the keeper’s call to stand up and sing a
hymn. This was the only break in the evening silence— a new­
comer would be commanded to • sing after a few minutes of
study from a printed page. My voice resounded trem ulously;
it was as unnerving as to be singing to an audience of mummies.
I faltered, forgot my lines. The keeper was beside me in a
moment. The blows of his club failed to stimulate my memory.
He got in a few hearty licks and barked:
“Sit down!”
The next victim had the same bad luck. Then for half an hour
there was silence unbroken save by the rustling of a newspaper
which the keeper was reading. At 8 o’clock “Taps” sounded
and the three rows of motionless figures sprang to life. We were
allowed ju st five minutes to get out of our clothes, fold them
neatly, put them under the bed. spread our blankets and get
into the old-fashioned nightgowns which had been issued to us.
We newcomers again had our progress speeded by the club.
All but a few dim lights were extinguished, but enough illumina­
tion remained so that the keeper could watch his charges. M y
back was bruised, my jaw sore and my whole drug-drained system
complaining as I cowered under the blankets at last.
I ached all over when I crawled out of bed at daybreak to the
sound of reveille. Breakfast of rice, molasses, bread and coffee
was usually a prelude to drill, but as a new prisoner I was
taken to the band room for a tryout. A trusty who helped the
bandm aster wrote a note and slipped it to m e; he was one of
the few prisoners who had no trouble with the talking rule for
he was a deaf-mute.
“Do not join the band or you will be here for the full three
years,” he had written, for it seemed that when the Hell Hole
got a youth who could play, he never w as.let go.
I passed the note to the other newcomers, just before the
bandmaster, a florid German, came in hopefully. H e tried us out
93
on his brasses with growing annoyance. We could not sound a
note.
“Blow . . . blow hardt,” he sputtered. “M it der lips, m it der
lips.”
Finally he gave us up in disgust. I drew an assignment unload­
ing bags of potatoes at the docks. M y shoes raised painful
blisters and my arms grew numb and sore, my back felt dis­
located. I stopped out of sheer exhaustion, and the keeper was
on me in a rage. I lay limp under his blows, dazed and wrapped
in pain. M y stomach tightened into a hard knot and I retched
noisily. The keeper’s blows stopped. Gruffly, he told another
prisoner to take me to the hospital, but he did not seem alarmed.
The orderly in the hospital was a Negro prisoner, who grinned
a t me and asked if I were a junkie. M ost of the fellows who had
been on the stuff before they got to the reform atory broke down
as I had, he explained. Dope had softened them up so th a t they
couldn’t take it.
“Have a stir cocktail,” he invited.
His concoction proved to be a mixture of alcohol, aspirin and
Stokes cough medicine. I t settled my stomach, at that.
The noon meal almost unsettled it again. The usual two slices
of bread lay beside a bowl of lukewarm, unappetizing liquid
which looked as if it had been sprinkled with raisins.
“Fly soup again!” Diamond grunted, and it was an apt de­
scription, for house flies had drowned in the dishes by the
thousands while the stuff stood getting cold on the tables before
we came in.
We fished out the flies and ate the rest— it was a frequent
necessity—but this day the m urm ur of protest in our section
was loud enough that the keeper in charge ordered the whole
row to kneel at the end of the mess hall.
In those first days, the routine grew so familiar that bad
food, beatings, hard work and perpetual cold seemed to be the
normal way of life. I was surprised when a keeper of whom I
had seen little up to that night smiled in what seemed a friendly
fashion when he marched us to our dorm itory and settled him­
self on the platform. Diamond whispered to me that this was
Icebox Hogan. I understood the nickname when he ordered one
of the prisoners to open all the windows. I t was a raw night,
and we had to sit shivering in our thin, ragged denims while he,
wrapped in a sweater and heavy coat, grinned at us.
Icebox Hogan was a smiling man at all times. H e smiled
genially when he ordered a new prisoner up to sing a hymn, he
smiled when the perform er muffed his lines, he smiled when he
94
‘sw ing his club, and he was still smiling when his victim fell.
I got so th at I could tell the degree of Icebox Hogan’s smile
without looking at him ; indeed it was dangerous to look a t
him. But his expression varied with the loudness of the smack of
his club on flesh and the victim ’s groans.
The inmates could not be expected to have much more pity
than their keepers. Brief but bitter fights took place in moments
at work when a pair of feudists were out of sight of a keeper.
Every new prisoner had to prove his ability to take punishment
before his fellows stopped rejoicing at a beating for him. In my
own case, Diamond took to crowding me in the mess hall and
m uttering threats until I crowded right back in spite of the
difference in our sizes. Then he grinned and let me alone. He
already had been in the reform atory for more than a year, and
parole seemed no nearer for him than on the day he arrived.
I t was not easy to dodge through the complicated system of
demerits, which added up to additional time to be served. They
were marked down for such offenses as changing position in
line for mess. We were always so hungry that we would try to
jump forward a place or two so that our seat on the benches
would give us the heel of the loaf as one of our slices of bread.
The heel was cut a bit bigger and the extra crust came nearer t o .
filling the belly. A couple of mouthfuls was worth the chance of
demerits and a blow from the keeper’s club.
The routine penalty- for getting caught with a cigaret was
an extra thirty days. But th a t was not all. The Duke would
ask where you got it. If the reply was unsatisfactory, as it was
almost certain to be, he added another thirty days for lying.
Then at his signal the keepers would take the offender to the
nearest stair landing to administer the ritual beating.
Johnny Diamond was a many-times loser at smoking. Tobacco
breath was enough to earn the penalty, and the Duke had his
own fastidious methods of detecting it. He would not condescend
to sniff any prisoner’s breath. Instead he would bend down and
command us to blow in his ear.
School, for those who were illiterate or had less than a second-
or third-grade education, was compulsory under the tutelage of
a civilian teacher. M ost of the boys, myself included, simply
passed through his hands to have the fact of their ability to read
and write established. Johnny Diamond had managed to re­
main in the school most of the time he had been there, playing
dumb to avoid more unpleasant chores.
For all the bad food, cold and abuse, the hard work and regu­
lar hours actually improved my health as the drug was eliminated
95
 /
from my system. M ost of the young addicts experienced the
same improvement, and there were plenty of them present. Out
of my own Village coterie, we had Johnny Irish, a downtown
boy with a tough reputation; Coder Johansen, a sm art aleck who
was in the process of getting his wisecracks knocked out of h im ;
D rip M urtha, who had preceded me by only a few weeks; Skid
Pottle, who was just a little behind me; and Joe Dunn, one of
the youngest of the Hudson Dusters, whom I saw driving the
dump cart.
I f punishment could cure drug addiction, H a rt’s Island would
have been credited with miracles. Every minute of the day was
arranged to provide a maximum of discomfort. Icebox Hogan’s
trick of opening the windows was his own—I often wondered
what his favorite torture in summer was—but the routine itself
was devised to keep us cold. Drill and work outdoors were con­
ducted at a pace which was exhausting for underfed boys but
not so energetic that it w anned us. The only break, which I en­
joyed for a few weeks, was assignment to the gardener, a square-
shooter and surprisingly gentle for the Hell Hole, who would let
us go into the hothouse at times, and turned his back so we
could talk.
Punishments were devised so that beatings and kneelings on
the floor would not get too monotonous. A wide variety of of­
fenses from sleeping in one’s underwear to masturbation were
rewarded with a bucket of cold water thrown over the offender
in the washroom, where he would spend most of the night trying
to get dry. One boy who was a bed-wetter was made to wear
a cape of m attress material around him during the day. Insolence
drew a trip to solitary. ,
Brutality attracted its own kind. Even the trusties' were often
as bad as the guards. The prisoner who instructed new “cadets”
in the manual of arms—we used wooden guns—was allowed to
carry a wooden sword and delighted in cracking his charges on
the shin when they made a mistake. He copied the National
Guardsman, a Captain Gillen, who rode among us whaling away
with the flat of his sword while the band played what amounted
to our school song: “By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful
sea.”
In a m atter of weeks I began to think of escape. I evolved
the most elaborate and fantastic schemes for stealing a boat. I
soon learned that no one ever had escaped, and th a t attem pts
drew enough demerits to add a year to the tim e before it was
possibe to apply for a parole.
On the rare occasions when I was allowed to write a letter,
 Y
the tem ptation to pour out my agonies was strong. I composed
in my mind the most effective ways of describing the Hell Hole,
and th at was as much satisfaction as I got. All outgoing mail,
of course, was censored. It was impossible to say more than th at
I was well and hoped all at home were the same. The only other
respite from the b rutal regime was the brief period we were al­
lowed in the one church on the island. Catholic boys attended
8 o’clock mass on Sundays and holy days, while Protestant
services were held on Sunday afternoons. A Jewish chaplain at­
tended boys of his faith in one of the classrooms.
So we sweated it out as the days grew shorter and colder.
One night about midnight a loud angry voice wakened me.
Cautiously poking my head out from under the blankets, I saw
the keeper on duty—a tough Irishman whom we called “the
Donkey” with a brogue as thick as his club— dish past the foot
of my bed. He was cursing furiously. As he left the aisle to cut
in between two cots, I thought he was reaching for Legs D ia­
mond, but actually it was the boy in the next bed. Perhaps he
had been sneaking a smoke under his blankets. Perhaps he had
whispered. Perhaps he had tried to get into his underwear to
keep warm. Any of these offenses could earn a beating.
The . f i r s t biows drove him out of his blankets. As he tried to
crawl under the bed to escape, the Donkey slipped in between
the cots to get at him, turned his back on Diamond and lifted his
club for a new blow at his victim, who already was screaming
with pain. Suddenly Diamond reached up, grabbed the club and
as our cheers rose above the Donkey’s howl of anguish and sur­
prise, our champion was belaboring our enemy, who fell under
a vicious blow.
In a moment the Donkey scrambled to his feet, and Johnny
retreated down the aisle waving the club menacingly. H o knew
he would be no match for the bigger, heavier man at close quar­
ters, so he was working his way toward the protection of the
washroom which opened off the side of the dormitory. A hush
fell as he stepped slowly backwards, the Donkey following but
keeping well out of reach of the club. In the silence I heard
the sound of the outer gate being unlocked, and a moment later
half a dozen keepers plunged into the room .
Johnny had reached the washroom. Standing just inside the
door, he could hope for no more than one or two blows at his
adversaries before they overwhelmed him. They hesitated a
moment, too. Then two of them flung nightshirts at his head
while the others charged through the door. I t was all over in
a few seconds, and a muffled groan from the boys, still in their
beds, greeted Diamond as the keepers dragged him out, feet
first, and flung him onto the platform.
Ju st then the door opened agiin and the Duke strode through,
a coat hastily buttoned over his pajam a top. H e was in a fine
frenzy of rage. Defiance by “the pinheads and poolroom bum s”
—his favorite description of us—was bad enough. B ut his own
sleep had been interrupted. This was Use majeste. He glanced
down, at the prostrate Diamond, spoke for a moment to the
Donkey and snapped:
“Out of bed! Face fro n t!”
W hen we were standing in long lines of nightgowned figures,
he gave a signal and the Donkey with the help of two other
keepers beat Johnny into insensibility. As the boy lay on the
floor a heavy foot administered a few final kicks. Four keepers
seized the motionless figure by arms and ankles and lugged him
away to a punishment cell. I ’ve often wondered how many of
the crimes of the vicious killer “Legs” Diamond can be laid at
the door of the Duke and his Hell Hole.
A bruised, bitter Johnny returned a week later from the cooler.
The rest of us, too, were nursing resentment. For the Duke had
devised a Christmas present. On Christmas D ay we had started
our morning by drilling in near zero weather. Our fingers grew
numb around the stocks of our wooden guns as we marched
across the windswept drill grounds. The brass froze to the lips
of the band. But when we stumbled into the mess hall, the Duke
was on hand to wish us a M erry Christmas. W rapped in a fur-
collared ulster, he announced that work gangs would be dis­
missed for the day, and that there would be chicken for dinner.
“But,” he added, “as you pinheads are going to get such a
fine meal, you should have a little exercise to help your
appetites.”
Two trusties came in with big bundles of cotton mittens.
As they started to issue a pair to each man, I thought that the
holiday spirit m ust have affected the Duke after all. Up to now
he never had cared about protecting our hands from the cold.
A few minutes later we were marched down to the beach and
halted until the Duke drove up in a carriage. He smiled as he
told us the nature of our appetizer. We were to pick up stones
from the edge of the water and pile them up on the sand. The
water soaked through the m ittens and froze our hands. But
a keeper’s whistle warned us every time we tried to take them
off to blow on our fingers. Then, shivering from the intense cold,
we were compelled to lug the stones back where they had coma
from.
98
 M y hands ached for hours, and I have never known chicken to
Jfcave so little taste, a holiday so little cheer.
T hat was Christmas, and the year opened for us with little
prospect of relief. But suffering was building up to the breaking
point. The beginning of the end came on a cold January day
when a prisoner named Louis Levine, just out of the hospital
after a bout of heart disease complicated by tuberculosis, was
ordered out to drill. He soon staggered out of line and collapsed
by the roadside. A keeper tried to belt him 'back on his feet, and
when that failed ordered two prisoners to hold him up and drag
him along. The keeper stalked along behind, beating Levine across
the back and shoulders.
Levine had to be taken back to the hospital. An oxygen tank '
was seen being carried in. I t was rumored that the Duke was get­
ting the boy a special discharge so he would not die on the
premises.
The manhandling of Levine was the last straw. The prisoners,
always allied against authority, were bound closer by a common
misery. H ere even a drug addict like myself was accepted on equal
terms. Outside I was an object of contem pt to everyone except
perhaps my parents and my fellow addicts. But in the Reform a­
tory there were no distinctions. Actually about th irty percent of
the inmates were addicts. But the thieves and other criminals were
indifferent, feeling as we did th at we had a right to our special
brand of poison if we wanted it.
Despite all the efforts of the keepers, it was impossible to pre­
vent communication between inmates. All of us soon learned the
ventriloquist’s trick of talking without moving the lips, so th a t
sometimes several voices at once in a single section of the mess
hall would raise a low hum. Then the keepers simply beat the
whole section. D iam ond’s rebellion, the D uke’s Christmas present,
the manhandling of Levine and daily lickings stirred us at last to
plans of revolt. The word got around that it was to break in the
mess hall.
Johnny, back after his beating, was one of the ringleaders. An­
other was a sickly-looking, narrow-chested youth known as M ike
the R at Catcher because he could catch rats without a trap and
liked to make pets of them. Mike was one of the incorrigibles of
tile Hell Hole, or at least he was so regarded by the Duke.
The nearest things to weapons that we could collect were rocks
and chunks of old iron. Even th a t required days of careful pre­
paration. Members of the work gangs could pick them up easily
enough, b ut had to smuggle them in only one or tw o a t a tim e,
and there were few hiding places. But when the big day came,
each of us had a couple in his pocket.
Our plans did not extend to any actual escape. Projects for
stealing a boat were constantly discussed, but were impossible to
carry out. In summer a boy might try to get away by swimming,
but was always caught before he could make it. In winter that
was out of the question.
Our revolt could be nothing more than a gesture of despair. We
did not see how we could be treated any worse than we were, and
we might get a chance to crack the head of a keeper, even of the
Duke himself. W hat happened to us after th at was of no impor­
tance.
When we had collected all the missiles we could hide without
being detected, Mike the R at Catcher, Diamond and the others
gave the signal at evening chow and the 300 prisoners rose to their
feet with a shout which sounded like the roaring of beasts in the
jungle. Every one of us from the older fellows to the kids flung
his soup bowl at the nearest keeper and followed it up with a
barrage of stones and iron. Several of the “screws” went down
under our fire, and the rest backed up against the walls as the
mob of us scrambled over the tables and down the aisles in a
mad rush for the big gate to the adjoining building.
Obviously frightened, the keepers who were still on their feet
let us go by. But the man on duty at the gate had locked it hastily
and retreated up the stairs. Screaming and cursing, the prisoners
flung themselves at the iron bars, kicking and pushing, but the
barrier held.
The prison siren announcing an emergency already was wailing,
and in a moment the riot squad from the penitentiary annex,
which adjoined the reformatory, had arrived at the back door of
the mess hall. They fired a few warning shots, and the keepers,
rallying with this reinforcement, began to belt the prisoners back
to their seats. In a few minutes the Duke came up to direct them,
and the riot was quelled. One after another suspected ringleaders
were dragged up to the front of the room to be clubbed, and soon
there was a pile of their unconscious bodies at the D uke’s side.
-Several prisoners had barricaded themselves in the band room,
which was off the mess hall. Keepers broke down the door and
beat the boys into insensibility. These and the ringleaders were
carried off to isolation cells. The rest of us were marched back to
our dormitories and placed on a bread and water diet.
Keepers, some of them with bandaged heads, remained to
watch us. I thought most of them still looked scared. The kids had
fought back.
too
 We had won a victory, too. News of the outbreak could not
be kept from the public. The New York Journal published the
first "story of the riot and soon other newspapers followed with
accounts of conditions on H a rt’s Island.
But even before this Dr. K atherine Bement Davis, the City’s _
Commissioner of Correction, had visited the Reform atory. At th is '
time in her fifties, she had had a notable career as a reforming
penologist, and had founded and long headed the women’s re­
form atory at Bedford, New York. About a year earlier, M ayor
Mitchel had named her to her present post, the first woman to
head a city department. She was as highly thought of in the under­
world as in academic circles. But whereas these latter called her
Dr. Davis with great respect, her efforts at rehabilitation of crim­
inals had won from the junkies, thieves and prostitutes the affec­
tionate nickname of “Bowery K ate.”
She did not confine her inspection of H a rt’s Island to reports
from the Duke and his head keepers. She talked to the inmates
themselves, saw conditions for herself, and a week later it was an­
nounced th at M artin J. Moore had been suspended as Overseer of
the Reform atory pending a departmental trial. “Bowery K ate”
presided, and after nearly a month of hearings dismissed him. His
successor was Lewis E. Lawes, who for the first time was placed in
charge of a prison.
M ajor Lawes gave us Jiope. The food improved miracu­
lously; in the D uke’s time most of .the money appropriated to
feed us had been embezzled. The brutal keepers were gradually
replaced. At certain times of the day prisoners were allowed to
talk. W anner clothing was supplied. It became possible to learn
something of what was happening in the outside world. While the
Duke was Overseer I never saw a book or a newspaper, but now
we were perm itted to find out that the war in Europe had entered
a new phase. Armies were confronting each other in trenches by
land and in submarine warfare by sea. W hat was more im portant
to junkies, Congress had followed New York S tate’s example and
had passed a stringent anti-narcotics law—^he Harrison Act—
scheduled to go into effiect on M arch IS, 1915. Now I would have
the Feds to contend with if I went back on the stuff.
Less than two months later I was released on parole. This, too,
I owed to the Lawes regime; before it had been nearly impossible
for a boy to win release after six months, the minimum sentence.
I cannot say th at prison life had done much to improve my feel­
ings toward society or toward myself. M y association with Johnny
Diamond and Mike the R at Catcher, Icebox Hogan and the Duke
had done nothing to alter my basic attitude toward my disease of
 addiction. Of course it did not occur to me that it was a disease.
Weak-willed, insane, a bum, these things I had been called, and
even applied them to myself. Of course I didn’t feel sick, either.
In fact the life on H a rt’s Island, wretched as I found it, had
cleaned the dope out of my system and left me stronger than ever
*1 had been before.
I think I knew in my heart, during my ride back .to New York
on the Correction, that neither the brutality of the Duke nor the
reforms of M ajor Lawes had had any effect upon my habit. All I
really cared about was that I was returning to the familiar streets,
the familiar faces. The six months on H art’s Island had been a
bad break. Now I was getting out of it, and the old life w'ould be
mine again.

15 H ashish with Cuban C harlie,

The Flat on Bank Street had never seemed so close to heaven.
M other cried over me and had prepared a specially good dinner,
which was the best I ever had eaten. Dad cleared his throat and
patted my shoulder and told me the latest word from Ned, who
was doing well in Chicago, and w hat^iad happened to fellows of
my own age from the neighborhood. He confined his bulletins to
the non-addicts. Bobby just looked at me and ducked out right
after he had eaten.
I t was wonderful to lounge in a chair, to light a cigaret openly,
to put my hands in my pockets. I had to make an effort to look
even the family in the eye; the habit of side glances was deeply
ingrained. For months I went around with a sense of somebody
watching me, and never turned my head, only peered furtively out
of the com er of my eye. I t took as long to break the habit of the
shoulder-swinging Reform atory swagger which Captain Gillen had
taught us in drill.
T hat first evening at home the three of us sat by the front win­
dow and watched spring come to Bank Street. It was warm, with
a pleasant breeze blowing in from the lower bay. The street lamps
flickered on, windows opposite glowed. Children’s voices, high-
pitched laughter, the singing whine of roller skates on pavement
mingled with the ring of footsteps on concrete, the hum of traffic
from the avenue and D ad’s voice telling me about his last fishing
trip up the Hudson. Suddenly all this' was drowned by the'Strains
of a Salvation Army band with its pounding bass drum, and I lis­
tened with a pleasure th at surprised me.
“How about a little ice cream to celebrate?” D ad proposed.
He went to get it himself. I sensed th at he did not want to send
me because he was anxious to keep me in the house as long as he
could, safe from temptation. I watched him come out of our build­
ing and turn toward Fourth Street. He would pass John Devon’s
house. I wondered if he would see the old gang gathered on the
stoop. I looked the other way, to w ard jh e corner from which now
came the booming voice of a Salvation Army preacher. His words
were indistinct, but I watched the shadowy figures of the crowd
around him until he was finished and the lassies had taken up their
collection. 1 was sorry to see them march away. Then D ad
came back with the ice cream, and I ate with relish, said good
night and luxuriated in the comfort of a bed with sheets. r
It was all of two days before I slipped back to dope. I fled from
health, from a joy of living, from com fort as other people flee
from suffering. A couple of the old gang—I cannot even remem­
ber which ones—were asking about my Reform atory days, and it
seemed the most natural thing in the world to take a blow while
I was talking. When the effects of that first shot wore off, the
only way to stifle my regrets was to take another. I was not as­
suaging unbearable pain or trying to soothe the jitters; I ju st
drifted.
My reward was the notice of Joe, oldest of the Devon brothers.
I had seen him, of course, when he came to call on John and his
sisters. I had watched him drive by with the exceptionally pretty
girl called Billie who shared his uptown apartm ent, his sporty car
and his habit. It was whispered that Joe had profited m ost from
the forgery racket for which the middle brother, Jim , was serving
his term in Sing Sing. All of us, even John Devon, thought Joe
was a great man. At this time he could hardly have been more
than thirty-five, but he had a careworn, middle-aged appearance
which betrayed the many years of his addiction. H e was thinner
than John, bonier of face, a little coarser of feature. His deep-set
gray eyes usually regarded his companions steadily and unlike
John he had very little to say. His hair had a good deal of gray
in it. He and John had a number of mannerisms in common. They
handled their drug with the same gesture, smoked endless cigarets
without ever removing one from the lips to puff. But where John
talked animatedly around the cigaret dangled from one com er of
his mouth, Joe would lean back with eyes half closed.
N aturally I was flattered when Joe offered to take me uptown
and treat m e to a new drug experience. I had been out of the
103 _
 Reform atory only a week. Y et here I was sitting in a M ercer be­
side a man of distinction, feeling myself in the big time. Joe
Devon seemed to prove that dope need not have any real perils
and that it was quite possible for an addict to ride his habit in
ease, even luxury. He represented to me the enviable aristocracy
of addicts who were too sm art to work and too clever to be caught
by the law, just as Johnny Diamond looked up to the successful
racketeers and gangsters of his world.
As Joe drove, I told him about the Reformatory, boasting of
my experiences, describing as dramatically as I could the famous
riot, extolling the gameness of the kids and trying to infer th at
I had been one of the leaders. Joe liked that kind of talk.
He stopped the car before an apartm ent building on M anhattan
Avenue, and told me that this was where his friend Cuban Charlie
lived. Charlie ran a high-class hashish parlor, and it was fre­
quented by what Joe and I considered the best people.
“You ought to try this stuff,” Joe had said, and I was only too
pleased both by his attention and by the prospect of novelty..
Hashish is the Oriental name for a drug that comes from a
plant listed in the dictionary as cannabis indica, Indian hemp.
As marijuana, it has more recently been introduced into this
country from Mexico, and can be grown almost anywhere—
backyards, vacant lots, even cellars. Usually smoked in cigarets
commonly called reefers, the drug is referred to by its addicts now
as “M ary Jane” and it has a far different effect from the opium
derivatives. A pickup and a bracer, it is also a hypnotic and an
aphrodisiac. Its users glory in a false sense of superiority. Some
doctors report th at it releases repressions and removes inhibitions.
, They all agree that its continued use leads to mental disease.
Hashish originally was imported from the Far- E ast to ease
bronchitis and asthma.
In 1915, devotees of the reefer were comparatively few. As we
climbed the steps to Cuban Charlie’s flat, Joe told me th at he
had smoked hashish only a few times, not nearly as often as he
had tried opium.
“Fellows who smoke it regularly are loco,” he said.
Apparently Cuban Charlie was careful. I noticed that Joe gave
the downstairs bell an elaborate series of prods before the door
clicked open and adm itted us to the stairway. Our host’s Spanish
appearance, with oily black hair, black eyes and a brown skin, ex­
plained his nickname. He wore a black-and-gold silk dressing
gown, smiled graciously and bowed us in politely.
The room for smokers was furnished to give an impression of
Oriental luxury, at least as Oriental luxury was interpreted on the
- 104
 X
edge of Harlem. A large Buddha squatted on a massive Jnlaid
table in one comer. On other tables beaded lamps threw circles of
light over a scattered assortm ent of figurines, trays and lacquer
boxes. Table scarves handsomely embroidered were placed over
the polished wood. The rugs were thick and woven in intricate
patterns. The chairs were beautifully carved and cushioned.
“The furnishings in this room cost ten thousand smackers,”
Joe whispered to me.
I was impressed. Cuban Charlie m ust make a lot of dough out
of his hashish parties. I wondered if he and Joe were partners.
They left me for a few minutes, disappearing behind a pair of
heavy red portieres, and I- waited, marveling at the room and
fingering some of the knickknacks.
When they returned, Cuban Charlie was carrying a little brass
tray which held a pile of thin hand-made cigarets. He set it down
on the table beside me, seated himself opposite me and m urmured:
“Please help yourself.”
I lit one and took a couple of puffs. Nothing happened except
that Charlie’s eyes glistened as he watched the curling smoke. He
and Joe lighted their own. I puffed again, and inhaled. W ith each
puff my eyes seemed to draw in peculiarly. Arms and legs grew
lighter, moving of their own volition without effort. Before long
I was floating in space.
Charlie was talking, and occasionally Joe also spoke a few
words. The sound faded into the distance, then rolled back; but I
was not concerned with the conversation; I was above it. Cuban
Charlie laughed explosively. I turned to look at him, and was sur­
prised to notice th at he had receded to a great distance. His tiny
figure was distorted, the black-and-gold dressing gown assuming
odd, changing shapes. I t was fascinating but frightening. I crushed
out my cigaret and shook myself.
The room and the people in it rushed back into perspective.
Charlie and Joe had ceased talking. They smoked and smiled at
their thoughts. They smoked faster than I, and soon were finish­
ing their second cigaret. Charlie motioned for all of us to have
another.
This time I saw flashes of color streaking back and forth acros's
the room. I reached for the ash tray and missed it by a foot. The
round tray had become endowed with life, changing now to the
shape of an oak leaf, then to a hand, then to a round ball that
seemed to swirl and spin. A touch on my sleeve was Charlie guid­
ing my fingers to the tray. I dropped the cigaret into it and leaned
back to enjoy the strange panorama.
This is the ecstasy of the m arijuana addict. Perhaps because I
 \
was used to another drug, it seemed to me more of a delirium than
an accentuation of normal emotions. Even while I rejoiced in the
beauty of my thoughts and the oddity of the world, I was a trifle
uneasy.
The smoke seemed to have annihilated time. I could not have
told whether it was a long or short interval before Cuban Charlie
shook my shoulder gently and told me Joe was getting ready to
leave. I got up, rubbed my arms and legs, shook my head, blinked
•my eyes. My body was numb, clumsy. While I fumbled into my
coat, Charlie brought 6ver a small inlaid box filled with w hat
looked like a greenish tobacco. It was hashish. He handed me a
bit of paper and invited me to take a pinch with him.
Joe Devon seemed much as usual. I did not notice how he
manipulated the car, but he drove me safely to the 110th Street
El and wished me good night. By the time J had climbed the
steps to the train, the hashish had evaporated from my brain.
W hat I needed now, I told myself, was a nice normal sniff of
heroin. I took it in the deserted dingy washroom of the El
station.

16 T he D ru g Fam in e
Hashish held out few charms for me. I t was hard enough to
support a heroin habit without looking around for new experi­
ences. Just as though the Hell Hole on H a rt’s Island had never
existed, I was back in the routine of petty thievery and occasional
odd jobs to get the few dollars a week that I needed for dope.
We had become accustomed to dodging the detectives of the
narcotics squad, and were not especially worried by the new law
called the Harrison Act. It had been in effect for months before
I heard much about it, and then the unpleasant news came to me
from my regular supplier of the moment.
“H aven’t got a single deck,” he told me tersely. “There’s a bad
shortage.”
I wandered off to another pusher. I waited in a doorway on the
street where*he did his business, and noticed th at other doorways
were occupied by other addicts, yawning and sneezing and twitch­
ing. Some of them I knew, some were strangers. They had come
from as far away as Harlem. When the pusher appeared, he
could only tell us that he had nothing, and the crowd scattered
mournfully. I t was the first time I had had money in my pocket
and couldn’t buy a' single deck. I went off to find Charlie L au ck ;
perhaps if we joined forces we would have better luck. ,
The sudden famine was the result of a concerted series of
raids by Federal and local agents which had closed up m ost of the
drug pipelines for the moment. Although the price soared fabu­
lously, almost to the normal prices of today, the dealers’ supplies,
which never are very large, were quickly exhausted. The dope
market collapsed from coast to coast, and several hundred thou­
sand addicts were left to kick it out.
Charlie had been to several hopeful sources of supply, but in
vain, by the time I found him. Just as Harlem addicts were rush- 1
ing to the Lower E ast Side and the Village in search of a blow;
so the downtown junkies were prospecting uptown. I t was getting
hard to find a pusher, for without any dope to sell they were
avoiding their customers. By evening Charlie and I had worn
blisters on our feet and had managed to rout out six sellers. N ot
one had any of his wares.
“W ait,” was their advice:
They were telephoning to Newark, to Philadelphia, to Chicago
offering unheard of prices for a quick shipment. They didn’t tell
us that wholesalers in New Y ork were getting the same frantic
calls from Newark, Philadelphia and Chicago.
“L et’s go to John’s,” Charlie suggested at last. “If anybody has
got some of the stuff, he’ll be the man.”
The crowd already was gathering when we arrived, for the same
idea had occurred to dozens, many of whom owed their intro­
duction to dope to Devon. Shortly after we got to Fourth Street
there must have been fifty addicts lingering hopefully in the block.
John’s closest associates, including Charlie and me, sat proudly if
restlessly on the very stoop of the house or on the iron railing
alongside. Minor lights of our little circle occupied the steps of
the house next door. Mere acquaintances were in knots of three
and four across the street. Virtual strangers, who had heard
through the dope grapevine that Devon was a junkie with connec­
tions, loitered hopefully at the far comer.
We were fidgeting at least as much for uneasiness th a t John
might not appear as we were from the approach of a yen; it was
a large order to cater to such a mob. But at his usual hour, the
door opened, and John hobbled out, checked suit, light fedora,
high collar, cane, limp and all. We crowded afound.
“Listen,” he said, “there’s a panic on. Joe telephoned to warn
me. I don’t know how long I can help you fellows, but here’s
a blow to go on w ith.” «
H e handed Pop W hitey a large pillbox. When W hitey opened
 it, I saw th at it m ust have held at least an eighth of an ounce.
I t turned out that Joe had sent his brother a full two ounces of
heroin only the day before, and John was making a large gesture.
But at the sight of him and the box, junkies all up the block began
drawing closer. Our Good Samaritan was a bit apprehensive.
“Fix up all the fellows here,” he told Whitey, “and then take
the others around the corner or somewhere. I don’t want a dope
fiesta going on outside the house. Make each one of those other
fellows promise to leave the neighborhood before you give him
his blow.”
' After we of the inner circle had had our shots, W hitey drsw
the others off by walking up the block and setting up headquarters
in the lobby of an apartm ent house on Twelfth Street. The ac­
quaintances and strangers left obediently and joyfully, for they
were sure the famine would be ended next day. Blessings, such as
they were, descended on the head of John Devon, a great guy,
a pal, a friend in need.
But next day the dealers were still shaking their heads. W ealthy
addicts were said to be paying as much as $50 a grain. Again
Charlie and I tram ped about the city. At First Avenue and Third
Street I counted over seventy addicts, many of them women,
waiting for a seller who, it was said, had promised to show up
with a supply. We waited with them, but the pusher never arrived.
Discouraged and weary, we returned to our last hope, John.
But this night the great man did not appear. Joe had warned him
th at the famine might last a long tim e; it would be folly to take
chances on running short and on being raided because he wanted
to help a bunch of other junkies. '
I got so little sleep that I was up as early as Dad, but stayed
in my room until he had left for work. Then I hurried over to the
flat on Nineteenth Street which Charlie was sharing with his older
sister. I waited down the street until she had left, then went up.
Charlie was as lifeless, as despondent as myself. He didn’t have
a single idea, a rare thing for him. He had been chewing a cork
from an empty drug bottle and taking swigs from a bottle of
cough medicine which, he said, contained a small percentage of
codeine. I tried it, but felt no better.
We sat staring at each other until the bell rang. Eddie was
coming up the stairs, haggard as both of us. We greeted him
with an indifferent mumble, until he announced:
“I got some hop. If we had a layout, we could smoke it.”
We perked up immediately, and I watched eagerly as Eddie
drew a small lump of gum opium from his pocket; it looked like
a little ball of tar.
108
 “We might be able, to cook it and shoot it,” I suggested.
Charlie, his listlessness gone, ran into the kitchen and p ut a
little water on the stove to boil in a small saucepan. We dropped
in the opium and waited impatiently. After ten minutes hardly
any of the opium had dissolved, but we had been hanging over the
pan, inhaling the steam. After another ten minutes we had a dirty
blackish brew in which little bits of opium still floated. We de­
cided it was time to let our elixir cool and try injecting it.
Charlie had been experimenting some time before with mor­
phine taken by injection, and had an extra large hypodermic. He
said we should use his spike, as our liquid looked too thick to go
through a regular needle. We managed to strain the stuff and
shoot the dark mixture into our thighs. I t burned and raised a
swelling, but-it failed to relieve our yens. We ended up by chew­
ing the undissolved portions of our brew, which sent us into a
stupor.
T hat night the famine ended as suddenly as it had begun. The
pipelines, filled at the big end, were flowing freely once more,
but the old easy days were gone forever. The war on the traffic
never slumped to its former low, and the dealers took advantage*
of it to increase the adulteration of their wares and the price too.
The chief effect of the famine on me was to teach me the
use of the needle. Hypodermics were introduced to our “set” by
Freddie Carson, who worked for a dentist uptown, and had m an­
aged to obtain a supply by forging his employer’s name. At. first
morphine was easier to get than heroin, and the effect of this
drug was most rapidly obtained through injection. Freddie and
Charlie had also tried heroin by this method, and recommended it.
I found that the jolt was greater, although the quantity used was
not decreased.
The new technique added to the expense of the habit and to
the equipment which I carried. I t took some time, too, to acquire
skill in handling the needle and preparing the drug. I could not
afford the regular hypodermic syringe; the needle itself was only
a quarter. However, I soon learned from my pals, who were no
wealthier than I, that a workable syringe could be contrived by
fitting the hofiow needle to the end of an eye dropper screwed
in place with a wad of paper. Some addicts saved time, they said,
by fitting the needle directly to the rubber bulb.
I kept my needle and bulb, together with a wad of absorbent
cotton in one coat pocket. In the other I had a spoon with the
handle bent back so th a t it would stand level. The drug itself I
still carried in my cap.
When I felt the need of a shot, I would repair to the nearest
109
 saloon washroom—YM CA’s and stations also were favorite spots
' 1—to prepare the dose. A bit of heroin would be poured into the
spoon with a few drops of water. I would sterilize the needle by
passing it through the flame of a match and draw out the fine wire
which prevented the tiny hollow tube from getting clogged when
not in use. With another match I would heat the liquid in the
spoon until the fluid began to bubble. Then a little ball of cotton
would be dropped into the spoon to act as a filter when the shot
Was drawn up into the needle. The cotton absorbed, we hoped, any
impurities and any sediment that might clog the needle. I would
let the shot cool in the spoon while I took off my coat and rolled
up my sleeve to the shoulder or my trouser leg well above the
knee. Carefully placing the wire to one side— these fine wires were
hard to come by and vitally necessary to keep the needle clear
while not in use— I would draw my shot up through the cotton
until only a soggy little wad remained in the spoon. Then holding
the needle to the light, I would squeeze the bulb gently to
eliminate air until a tiny drop appeared at the point. A quick
jab under the skin, almost parallel to it, became virtually pain-
.less with practice. The bulb would be squeezed, and the liquid
heroin would be in my body giving me a quicker and solider reac­
tion than sniffing the powder.
Until I became adept with the needle, I injected the stuff into
my thigh because two hands could be used. Less, skill is required
to shoot a dose into a fold of skin held between thumb and fore-
, finger than to slide the needle under the skin with one hand.
As the drug took possession of my body, my first move always
was to restore the wire to the needle. A lost wire m eant a clogged
needle. In such cases the only quick way to free the tube was to
use a horsehair from the coat lapel and hope it would not break
off in the needle, as often happened. Once my equipment had been
cared for, I would pack up, slip into my coat and walk out re­
freshed. The whole process, after a time, could be carried out in
a minute flat.
Once in a while the needle would break off in the flesh. This
t was a tragedy chiefly because of the loss of a valuable instrum ent;
we did not worry about the possibilities of infection. Actually I
never heard of an addict suffering any ill effects although some
had dozens of needles in their bodies.
A clogged needle which a horsehair would not free was far
more serious. The first time this happened to me, I resorted to
what I had heard others call “the safety pin shot.” W ith the.point
of a safety pin, I dug a big enough hole in my arm to accommo-
110
date the end of the eye dropper, and forced the drug into m y body
th at way.
Ju st after the drug famine and while I was experimenting with
the hypo, N ed returned from Chicago. I did not welcome him. I
am sure he regarded me with even greater aversion. Y et we
shared the same room, and could not altogether avoid each other."
Ned did not try to keep out of my way, but his contemptuous
attitude never varied, although out of consideration for M other
and D ad he never tried force to emphasize it. He jeered a t me,
if I was silent, and if I spoke or laughed, he would sneer:
“W hat’s the m atter, you full of hop or something?”
I was relieved when, a year later, Ned got m arried and set up
a home of his own in another section of the city.
A few weeks after the drug famine had subsided, the Devons
moved from Fourth Street to a house on W est Tenth Street off
Sixth Avenue. John’s sisters had witnessed the siege of their home
by the addicts, and insisted on leaving the block. They had made
so much fuss about the parade of their brother’s cronies to their
door th a t he gave his new address to only a few of us. ' \
“I ’ll have to keep the gang away for a while,” he explained.
John Devon never presided over a dope session again. Only a
month or so after he had settled into his new quarters, we heard
that his ailment had taken such a turn for the worse th a t he was
kept in bed. Joe’s car was in front of the door every day, and one
evening it was rumored th at John hadn’t even recognized him. The
next morning, D rip M urtba told me he had seen Johnny Look-up
on W est Tenth Street. Drip was one of those who did not know
the D evon’s new address, but all the addicts in the Village learned
within a few hours th at John was dead.
N ot one of us Was allowed to pass the threshold to pay our re­
spects to our mentor. The Devon sisters would have no repetition
of that scene that had blasphemed Phil H oey’s wake. B ut a few of
"us— Charlie, Eddie, Fred- Carson, Pop W hitey and myself—had
a mourning session of our own.
We didn’t say much. I was too shocked for useless talk. John
had seemed to me almost omnipotent, the m aster of drugs, iny-
previous to heroin’s demands. H e had been only a few years past
thirty and the specious charm of his conversation had never once
b e^i dimmed for me in more than five years. I missed his im­
maculately if somewhat gaudily turned out figure, his cynical
laugh, his stories. But I was even more impressed by a new fear.
If heroin could take off a man of John’s talents and means, what
was it going to do to me? I had to take an extra-heavy shot to
shyt this thought out of my mind.
• ' . m '
 •
The throne of the Devon dope domain did not remain v a c a n t'
for long. John Devon left his apartm ent uptown to live with his
spinster sisters, and only occasionally left to visit Billie. H e held
forth occasionally in almost the old Devon manner, but he did
not have John’s gift for speech. But he was as impressive as John
with the glamor of a man from another world, one addict whom
dope could not deprive of money and luxury. T hat was a thought
to cling to, when the memory of John became oppressive.
I t was needed because the ranks of the addicts who had been
John D evon’s satellites on Fourth Street already were being
thinned by death. Furtherm ore, the p art of dope in their deaths
could not always be ignored. Eddie died of an overdose in a movie
theater washroom, and Skid Pottle, who was with him, just m an­
aged to get away before the cops came. Then Carroll Huggins
took an overdose in his apartm ent, and the bereaved Lottie left
us, mourned more than her husband by those who had bragged
of their intimacy with her. Monk, tough and surly, had died of
injuries received in a penitentiary riot. I remembered that it had
not been more than six years since John had had him give me my
first blow. I remembered a brief feud which started when Pop
W hitey told me M onk got his stuff from a druggist downtown
who would hand over a packet if I told him I was picking it up
for the gangster. I had just received the powders and was walking
out when I saw Monk coming in. I clutched my junk and ran.
' For some days I heard:
“M onk’s looking for you. Better be careful.”
I kept out of his way until I managed to get hold of half an
eighth and sent him p art of it. We hadn’t been exactly close
friends after that, but I could walk around w ithout being scared
of Monk.
I turned from these portents of doom to the silent but reassur­
ing companionship of Joe Devon.

17 K ick in g the G ong A round

As kingpin of the junkies in Greenwich Village, Joe Devon
introduced his devotees to a wider variety of narcotic experience
than John had done. John had received in some state, but had not
led us forth into the city. Joe took some of his intimates on
his excursions uptown.
Joe had started hi? career of drugs as an opium smoker, a habit
112
which in the history of narcotics had preceded the other addic­
tions by many years, perhaps many centuries. In his early youth,
the opium dens were numerous and presumably some of them
were luxurious. Gradually heroin, morphine and cocaine had dis­
puted the sway of hop, and a great many of its devotees no
longer “hit the pipe” regularly. But some, like Joe, returned to it
occasionally.
Ju st after the drug famine, perhaps as a result of it, large
quantities of opium were smuggled into the United States. The
hop-smoking flats reopened and flourished. M ost New Yorkers
thought of them as being a feature of Chinatown on the Lower
E ast Side. They were there, but the rest of the city had plenty,
too.
“Kicking the gong around,” said Joe Devon, using another of
the narcotic world’s term s for opium smoking, “is the gentle­
m an’s habit.”
A fter hearing him mention that it was also the relaxation of
people high in the theater and the arts, I was eager to see for
myself. So when Joe invited me to accompany him to his favorite
hop joint one night, I gladly agreed. In this and in later excursions
of the same sort, the nearest approach to a gentleman I en-
countered was a gorilla from the E ast Side. Perhaps the upper
crust patronized more elegant establishments. s
The hop joint Joe Devon liked best was high up in an old-
fashioned apartrfient building on Broadway near Ninety-sixth
Street. The business quarters consisted of three big bedrooms and
a living room, all shabbily furnished. Double beds took the place
of the bunks portrayed in the more lurid crime stories. The next
most imposing item of furniture was a bundle of sponges sus­
pended from the ceiling in each room to absorb the opium fumes.
Heavy drapes inside theNioors also helped prevent the escape into
the hallway of any telltale odors. These precautions were neces­
sary because the inside of the flat was perm eated with a strong
smell as of burning shrubbery. Anyone outside smelling-tjiat dis­
tinctive odor might well call the cops.
Joe led me to one of the beds, where we stretched out with what
he called “the layout” on a tray between us. There was a large
pipe with a saucer-shaped bowl and a small cylindrical glass lamp
with a bell-shaped chimney. Beside t£em were several small tin
containers holding the dark-brown gummy opium, scissors, a
small knife, some matches, a “yen-hawk,” which looked like a
hatpin with a curved point, and a little receptacle for holding
the scrapings of the burnt opium or “yen-shee.”
Jo e’s fingers moved rapidly and skilfully among this assort­
 ment. A fter he had lit the lamp, which burned olive oil, he deftly
began to roll tiny pills of opium from fragments dug out of the
tins and cut to proper size. As he smoothed them between his
fingers, I took up the pipe. The bamboo stem was carved, the clay
bowl plain. The bowl had a small round hole the size of a pencil
point, and Joe’s pills were no bigger.
After he had arranged a number of the pills on the tray, he
picked up one on the point of the yen-hawk and held it close to
the flame of the lamp. W ith the other hand he held the pipe
above the lamp to warm it. In a moment the bit of opium swelled
into a brown bubble as Joe twirled the yen-hawk between his
fingers, moving it now nearer, now further from the flame. When
it was cooked to his satisfaction, he popped it into the tiny hole
in the pipe bowl, pressed it down firmly and withdrew the yen-
hawk.
With the pipe in his mouth, he held the bowl over the flame
until again the pill began to bubble. Then he drew in a deep
draft, holding his breath as long as he could so that the opium
would be fully absorbed. A few such puffs left only a crust of
dark substance in the bowl. He scraped it off into the yen-shee
' bowl and prepared another pill for me.
M y first puff, taken as I had seen Joe inhale, brought a
fragrant, aromatic taste to my mouth. By the time I had reduced
the pill to its film of residue, Joe had another pill ready for
himself.
Meanwhile, I had experienced a mild exhilaration not unlike
the effects of heroin but accented by a feeling of drowsiness. As
I relaxed and smoked more pills the strange exaltation of opium
crept over me. I t was not the joy which is experienced as the
result of a triumph or pleasure in normal life. The ecstasies which
drugs provide always have an element of madness, of unreality, of
hysteria. The fantasies are weird as those of an irrational mind—
which an opium smoker’s is—and no more enviable.
For a lim e, lying on the lumpy bed in that shabby apartm ent,
I held all the world 1 cared about in my hand. Dreamily I fancied
myself famous and rich, the difference between this one and
normal daydreams being that it all seemed much nearer to realiza­
tion, yet hazy and far awaji. Time had lost its meaning.
When Joe aroused me enough to lead me out into Broadway,
the dreams clung fuzzily for a moment, but the chill night air
dissipated them quickly. In their place came the letdown that
always followed such excessive stimulation. I t was almost day-
. light. The deserted streets were gloomy and depressing. A cup
 of black coffee failed to dispel the mood or improve the taste in
m y mouth. I did that with a shot o i heroin.

The Cement-Arm Cure 18

, Charlie Lauck brought the news to 'th e Village.
' “You just walk right in, see the. doctor, hand him a deuce
and walk out with a bottle of the stuff,” he said. “I t ’s on the up
and up and the cops can’t stop you.”
I jumped up from the step on which I had been sitting. Good
old Charlie in his rumpled suit was a messenger of glad tidings.
I looked a t his flabby, suet-like cheeks and staring eyes with affec­
tion. I t had been getting tougher to scrape together the money to
support my habit. Here was a new prospect that was like the
answer to prayer.
All over the city, from Harlem to the Battery, the news was
spreading as one addict confided in another. Joyfully they were
flocking from all directions to Forty-second Street and Sixth
’ Avenue. Here, on the third floor of the Fleischman Baths Build­
ing, Dr. Lilliendahl had his offices.
“W hat are we waiting for?” I asked Charlie, and we set off
to join the rush.
Dr. Lilliendahl was no vulgar dope peddler. He operated what
he said was a cure for drug addiction, and he didri’t need to
advertise for patients. He simply found a couple of addicts from
the Tenderloin district west of his office and started them off with
a good-sized bottle of his elixir. They spread the word for him,
and within a m atter of days his office was jammed with hopeful
junkies, none of whom went away disappointed.
He explained to each one that his potion, properly used, con­
stituted an excellent “reduction” cure. All that it actually reduced
was the use of your arm, but we knew nothing about that in the
beginning and didn’t care much when we found it out: I t was
cheap, attainable at any hour of the day and unmolested by the
bulls. The office was conveniently reached from any p art of the -
city by subway, elevated or street car. If there was any waiting,
it could be done on the comfortable cushions of the doctor’s re­
ception room rather than on a windy street corner straining the
eyes for a pusher who might have been “dropped” (arrested) the
night before.
When Charlie and I reached the place, half a dozen “patients”
, 115
already were sitting in the tastefully furnished outer office. I
looked approvingly at the cream-colored walls adorned with a
few rather good etchings, the handsome rug, the flowered screen
concealing a porcelain wash basin and m irror where women
junkies could repair their makeup.
My turn came quickly, for Dr. Lilliendahl seemed to be very
quick in his examinations. It would be only two or three minutes
before his wife, who was also the nurse, looked'out of the con­
sultation room to beckon the next patient. She was tall and dark,
in-her early middle age with a well-rounded figure that fitted a
little too snugly into her crisp white uniform. The doctor was a
good deal older, well past sixty, a wizened little man with
a bulging forehead and small, watery eyes which peered at me
through bifocal lenses.
“W hat drug have you been using?"
“Heroin.”
“Do you take it hypodermically?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see the m arks.”
I rolled up my sleeve. I found out from others that the trea t­
m ent was the same whether a drug was taken by injection, sniffing
o r mouth, but the needle marks were a definite endorsement of
addiction.
“This reduction treatm ent uses morphine,” Dr. Lilliendahl ex­
plained. “The medicine contains iron and other ingredients which
will help build up your health. I t is to be taken by mouth every
three hours. When the bottle is finished, come back and we will
renew it in weaker proportions-. Is that clear?”
I said it was. Dr. Lilliendahl nodded, wrote on a file card the
amount of medicine I was to have and handed the card to me.
“W rite your name and address here,” he instructed, and when
I had done so: “If you will wait a few moments in the outer
office, the nurse will prepare your prescription. Two dollars,
please.”
I handed him the two dollars and walked out of the consulta­
tion room. Mrs. Lilliendahl beckoned to the next patient and
then disappeared into another office. In a few minutes she came
out and handed me what looked like a largish cough medicine
boftle Containing a brown fluid.
Charlie, who had received his just ahead of me, was waiting
for me and we headed straight for the washroom down the cor­
ridor. Several other addicts already were there. Some were clean­
ing up their hypos at the washbasins. From the compartments
came the familiar burning smell as others cooked up their shot.
' 1 1 6
 For norie of D r. Lilliendahl’s patients followed his prescription of
a dose by m outh every three hours. We took it by the arm ful as
often as we felt the need for it. Other tenants in the building
hardly ever got a chance to use the washroom. But if they com­
plained, we never heard about it.
Dr. Lilliendahl was an obliging little man. If I came back to
him earlier than he had suggested and explained that I had broken
the bottle, he would supply another without question. Of course
-I had to have the two dollars. A bottle was supposed to last four
days. The next one was weaker, and the next weaker still. I and
the others did not bother much about th a t; we did not cut down
because we simply took more shots to supply our regular dose.
This stuff seemed to be a mixture of morphine, alcohol and" dis­
tilled water with the added ingredient, perhaps the iron, to give
color.
I was soon going to the offices in the Fleischman Baths Build­
ing every couple of days or so. The reception room always was
crowded, and before long the common greeting was:
“How’s your arm ?”
At first it was a joke;,then it began to be asked seriously. A fter
only a few weeks the continued injections raised rows of lumps
along the arm. When the swellings subsided, they left spots as
hard as a rock. The “cement arm ” had begun. When it was no
longer possible to find a clear space in the upper arm, I started
at the elbow and worked down; most of the other addicts did
the same. Another few weeks, and there wasn’t an unpaved por­
tion anywhere on my left arm, and it hung from the shoulder
like a dead weight.
By this tim e I was taking as many as six or eight jab s in suc­
cession in order to get the full effect of what had been provided
by a single shot when I first started on the “cement-arm cure.”
This m eant frequent visits to Dr. Lilliendahl’s offices. I was now
on about my twelfth bottle of his elixir.
His waiting room widened my acquaintance in the dope world.
All sorts and conditions of people were to be seen there— truck
drivers in leather jackets, elevator operators in uniform trousers,
taxi drivers, clerks, actors, lawyers, businessmen. M ost of the
patients were men, and most of them, like me, in their twenties.
But there was a fair sprinkling of women, too.
The m ost unusual for that clientele was a middle-aged, digni­
fied married woman who wore gold-rimmed glasses and was
always smartly groomed. She was assistant buyer in a large de­
partm ent store. She contracted her morphine habit while under­
going medical treatm ent for a broken hip, she told us. She was
117
 better able to support her habit and her respectability than most.
M ore typical was Sally, a frail girl in her late twenties with
heavily roughed lips and tobacco-stained fingers. Waiting beside
I_ me for her turn to see the doctor on several occasions, she men­
tioned parts of her life story. She had run away from home in
j Pennsylvania when she was sixteen, started working as a waitress,
lost th at job and picked up men to pay her rent. She drifted into
a two-dollar house of prostitution on West Twenty-fifth Street,
and was introduced to heroin by the madam of the establishm ent.'
Another acquaintance of the office was May, a girl I had known
earlier. I first met her when we were both buying decks from a
pusher on Sullivan Street. She could hardly have been out of
I her teens, and she never mentioned how she came to start her
[ habit. She did like to talk about one of her admirers who would
* pay anything anyone asked to see her cured.
M ost of the women talked either hopefully or nostalgically,
; more so than the men. Jean, a peroxide blonde in her late thirties,
was a well-known figure to the other addicts in her p art of town
as for some years she had been a streetwalker with a virtually
regular beat on Sixth Avenue. But she once had played bit parts
■’ in a stock melodrama company and loved to talk about her days
as a show girl. She reported being introduced to heroin by a
roommate.
| • The Lilliendahl waiting room was an even greater center for
dope gossip than the Devons’ stoop ever had been. Besides the
usual exchange of information about sellers and the newer in-
| _ terest in a fellow addict’s arm, the names of well-known people,
especially actors and actresses, who were said to be junkies
were bandied about freely. Certainly most of these people must
have had better sources of supply than I if they really were ad­
dicts, for no one ever met them at the usual spots. However, it
was characteristic of those who had succumbed to dope to want
admired or successful people to do so too.
[ “ I t m ust be a little sm art if all these big shots do it,” we told •
ourselves, and avidly repeated every rumor about someone of
importance who was supposed to be no better than we were.
The prevalence of addiction among stage people was more
easily believed by the rest of us because there were quite a few
of Dr. Lilliendahl’s female patients who said they had been in
show business, and had the traces, of beauty to back up the story.
However, most of these women— their ages generally were higher
than those of the men, the m ajority being in their thirties and x
forties—were part-tim e or full-time prostitutes. They turned to
• 118
:?r

i ; .
 the oldest profession to support their habit as the men of m y
dope crowd turned to stealing.
As the “ cement arm s” became more common,- the earlier pa­
tients began to fall away. Some of them thought th a t the iron in
the mixture was responsible, and asked Dr. Lilliendahl to leave
it out of their prescriptions. But he never did.
Charlie’s arm was as bad as mine, and both of us tried shooting
the dope into our thighs. Soon the “ cement” spots inducfH a
decided limp, and Charlie also developed abscesses on his legs
which sent him to the hospital. T hat was enough for me, too. I
decided to give up Dr. Lilliendahl, his pleasant waiting room, his
cheap dope and the convenient washroom down the corridor be­
fore I became a petrified man fit only as a freak in a sideshow.
I returned to the old street corners and doorways, watching for
the pusher with one eye and for the bulls with the other. I had
been on the “cement-arm cure” for three months. The hard spots
lasted even longer, and when eventually they tiid soften they left
tiny specks like blue freckles which never did disappear.
How long Dr. Lilliendahl continued to dispense his elixir I did
not know, for I ceased to care about any source of supply once I
had abandoned it. But he could not have remained very much
longer at his trade becayse the epidemic of “cement arm s” died
away. Probably in the few months he was the great dispenser he
made enough money to retire.
He did not enjoy his ease for long. The dope racket is not easy
to leave, for addict or for those who pander to him, without tak­
ing some of the evil of it along. I was not surprised to read a few
years after I had given up his “ cure” that Dr. .Lilliendahl had
been murdered near his home in Hammonton, New Jersey. H is
wife told a fairly commonplace story of having been held up by
two highwaymen, one of whom had shot the doctor. I t was dif­
ficult to believe that such a little old man could have put up
enough of a fight to scare two bandits. The police first thought
they had the answer when they learned of his background in the
drug traffic. They assumed one of his former patients had m ur­
dered him, although it was not suggested that this was in revenge
for a “cement arm .” However, as the inquiry proceeded, dis­
crepancies developed in Mrs. Lilliendahl’s story. She was charged
with the murder, convicted and sentenced to the State Prison,
, where she died a few years later.
Some of the addicts were not so long-lived. One day I heard
th a t Chip Chip, the gangster who had been in the Tombs when
I was there, had died of an overdose. Then little Chick Belton,
who had been so proud to be one of the gang of junkies older th an
119
himself and who had tried to help me at St. Vincent’s, was taken
to the hospital. They said he had tuberculosis, and his few years
on heroin had done nothing to help him fight the disease. He died
a few days later.
These losses in our group, following the deaths of John Devon,
Eddie, Carroll Huggins and Monk, came at a time when I was in
such a state of depression that heroin hardly helped me back to
paf^and then only briefly. I was so thin I was afraid to weigh my­
self, and I kept having mysterious aches and pains whenever
the junk let me feel anything at all. I couldn’t eat, and h ad fre­
quent spells of nausea. Whether it was the cumulative effect of
the “cement-arm cure” on top of six years of heroin, I did not
know, nor did I care much. Life was a miserable affair when
even dope failed to brighten it. I had to do something. I was
actually willing to seek my family’s help.
“I ’ll try anything,” I told M other and Dad one night.
“I ’ve been reading about just the thing that might help -you,”
M other replied eagerly. “I t ’s a new cure.”
“Another one!” I m uttered, rubbing my arm.
“Oh, but this one is different,” M other explained. “This doctor
is a very big man. He writes about drugs and boys who take them
and they say he knows more than anyone else about it.”
“Okay, Mom,” I said forlornly. “You fix it up.”

19 Self-Com m itter
“I t ’s settled,” M other beamed at me next morning. “I called
D r. Ernest Bishop, and he is willing to see you tomorrow.”
She took no chances on my backsliding. N ext day she was
dressed in the Sunday clothes she wore so seldom, and did not
let me out of her sight until we were safely in the doctor’s office
uptown.
There could hardly have been a bigger contrast to Dr. Lillien-
dahl. Dr. Bishop, a tall dark man in his early forties, had an
impressive manner and a kindly one. Suspicious as I was, I knew
in two minutes that he was sincerely interested in alleviating
human suffering, and that it was this sympathy which was his
strongest motive in Tiis studies of addiction. But his cure was
being given in co-operation with the city authorities at the work­
house on Blackwell’s Island. I t was being taken only by prisoners.
“You will have to commit yourself in order to take it,” he
120
explained. “I f you are serious about this, go and see M agistrate
McAdoo. H e will sign the necessary papers, aftd then I ’ll do my
best for you.”
The doctor gave me only a brief examination; I think he re­
garded my cure as more im portant to M other’s well-being than
mine. I think also that he knew something of the conflict th a t
was in my mind and realized that anything he might say would
be taken as sanctimonious preaching.
I had to work th at conflict out myself. I had spent a good deal
of my time dodging cops. I had had more of prison than I thought
was fair, and the worst of it was going through the hell of a cold
turkey. The Duke himself never could devise torture like that.
Y et now I was supposed to commit myself to both the torture and
the prison. M other, of course, was as happy as I had seen her
since I first began taking dope, but she was quite innocent of
any idea of real prison life or the agony of a yen. I didn’t listen
to her for a moment.
My decision was made for me by my melancholy reflection th at
Dr. Bishop’s cure was my only chance for life. At the same tim e
I calculated gloomily that I had only about a fifty-fifty chance
of surviving another cold turkey. Still it was a better chance than
I "had of surviving continued addiction.
A fter my doubts, I was a little surprised a t myself when I
found that I was actually walking into M agistrate McAdoo’s
chambers of my own free will. He was both kind and understand­
ing. I told him I was a drug addict and wanted to be cured.
While I was signing my committal papers with a sense of putting
the seal on directions for my funeral, he tried to reassure me.
“D r. Bishop’s is the safest and most painless of all treatm ents,”
he said. “I am not going to send anyone with you. If you promise
me you will present these papers at the workhouse yourself, I will
take your word.”
I was tremendously pleased. I t had been years since anyone
had trusted me. His faith somehow seemed to give me confidence
in his description of the treatm ent, too, and I went home com­
forted. I was not so much comforted, though, that I failed to take
one of the heaviest shots in my experience before I set out next
morning. M other went with me, and I was in a fog until we stood
on the stone walk outside the workhouse gates looking up at the
narrow barred windows set in deep recesses. M other began to
cry, and I wished I could go back with her.
“ Good-bye Lee, dear,” she Said tearfully. “Oh, I do hope it
will be all right for you. And I ’ll be praying for you.”
I watched her tu m back toward the dock, then marched up
121
the steps to the large barred gate. To the keepers a self-committer
who had been trusted by M agistrate McAdoo was no different
from a prisoner brought in screaming and blaspheming. One
snatched my papers, grunted and gestured me to go ahead of him.
We passed through a hall which looked like a large gymnasium,
the iron girders of the roof interlaced five stories above us. Bal­
conies with rows of cells ran around the sides. The cell doors were
of crossed flat steel bands leaving openings no more than two
inches square. The place was being hosed down by prisoners,
and outside each cell stood a row of iron buckets—the sanitary
facilities. Most of the cells had six bunks and six buckets. At the
far end of the hall was a small office where another keeper was
writing.
“ Another dope fiend,” my escort introduced me. “And a self­
committer. The stuff m ust be hard to get these days. Get over
there and put your hands over your head till we frisk you.”
. H e patted my pockets and yanked an old brass signet ring
from my finger greedily. The green circle it left on the skin drew
a curse, but when I asked if I could keep it, he snarled:
“Keep it! Where do you think you are, in a hotel?” Then to
one of the prison trusties: “Get this cokie a uniform and take
him down for a dip.”
The routine was becoming familiar. The ragged denim uniform,
the shower, the guards with prodding clubs, the greasy food were
a part of prison life. But the prisoners at the workhouse were
different from those I had seen before. Nine out of ten were b at­
tered, drink-sodden bums from the Bowery gutters or hoboes
from the park benches or crippled beggers. They seemed in­
credibly old and feeble', most of them gagging and hawking as if
they were going to split themselves in half. Most of them spent
the six winter months regularly on Blackwell’s Island, purposely
getting themselves arrested to escape the cold.
I was spared their cells, for I was taken at once to the hospital
tier. In an oval ward with some twenty beds, I looked for other
addicts. The only patients were wrinkled old men with red-
rimmed eyes and bloodless lips. They mumbled toothlessly at
each other. I knew they were no junkies; drug addicts do not
reach such advanced ages, and I felt superior to them. When mess
call sounded those who could walk shuffled eagerly to the long
tables of the hospital dining room. I followed, but without any
desire to e a t; my yen was catching up with me. But before it got
too bad Dr. Bishop arrived late in the afternoon.
“You will have to stay in.this ward for a day or two until a few
more narcotics patients arrive,” he explained. “Meanwhile, we
will give you something to ease your craving.”
When he left an orderly administered a shot of magendie, a
solution made up of sixteen grains of morphine sulphate to an
ounce of water and a few drops of salicylic acid. He told me the
doctor had prescribed another shot at night.
As I lounged around the ward in the prison issue of pajamas
and bathrobe, the depression with which I had entered the work­
house deepened. Several of the miserable old men were dying to
the accompaniment of oaths from the trusties who cursed their
charges for being a nuisance. The screens around tljeir beds only
partially hid glimpses of shriveled heads rolling on the pillows and
gnarled hands grasping the white bedposts. Nearly every day two
or three of them were added to the city’s consignment for po tter’s
field. Once I saw a trusty pry the gold teeth out of a corpse’s
mouth before stuffing the nostrils with cotton.
N ext day several new addict prisoners were checked in, and
with them I was taken to the ward for the cure. Eighteen others
had preceded us, and as soon as we stepped inside, I knew th at I
had been through all this before. H alf a dozen patients raved
and squirmed on their beds; the others lay or sat in various
stages of recovery. Dr: Bishop’s cure was just the old hyoscine
treatm ent of the M etropolitan Hospital.
I was' sure I could not survive two such treatm ents, and I
wondered how long I would last. I looked curiously at the other
patients, and recognized three—Drip M urtha and H arry Lowns,
and an E ast Side addict called “Bunny,” all apparently in the con­
valescent stage. H arry beckoned to me to take the bed next to his.
On the other side was a Thirty-eighth Street hophead with a
fifteen-year' opium habit. I barely answered H arry’s greetings,
but sat glumly listening to the talk.
“Mooney got me,” I heard one say, referring to a narcotics
squad detective.
Suddenly I was ashamed that -I had not been arrested too, th at
I was in this place voluntarily. I hoped no one would ask me.
But a minute later my concern caused me to put a leading ques­
tion to Harry.
“Any self-committers in here?”
“-Two of ’em,” H arry replied, and then stared at me a moment,
shaking his h ead .,“You too?”
I nodded dismally.
The following day I went under the cure, a repetition of my
M etropolitan experience. I had the same choking sensation and
the same dreams—centipedes, terrified searching for drugs, the
123
narcotics squad and all the rest. I was struggling with the d e te o
tives when I came to and heard H arry’s voice:
“ Snap out of it. You’re okay.”
At the other end of the ward several of the convalescents were
singing. They kept coming back to a new tune th at was ju st be­
coming popular. As “By the Sea” always reminded me of H a rt’s
Island, so the horrible weakness and nightmares of hyoscine were
associated for me with

Arrogowan, I want to go back to Arrogowan

Arrogowan, I want to go back to stay.

A week of lounging around the ward brought me enough

strength so that the doctors said I was ready to join one of the
work gangs. I was horrified when I was assigned to the stone shed.
I thought I was too feeble for that, forgetting that the amount
of work most of the broken-down specimens in this prison could
do was negligible. One of the old-timer^ laughed at my fears.
“You’re going to make little ones out of big ones, but don’t
worry about it. Y ou’ll never get muscle-bound here.”
H e was right. We sat on wooden benches with piles of stones
in front of us and chipped at them leisurely with a short mallet
and chisel. There was a brisk anvil chorus for a minute or tw o;
then we settled down to the day’s pace, four or five men chipping
away at the stones while three times that many were idle, gab­
bing to each other and smoking their juicy pipes while the keeper
lazily parked himself on a wooden box by the door.
A fter a few days of this, I was notified th a t I would be trans­
ferred to R iker’s Island, a little bit up the East Ri^§r off 138th
Street, where the addicts finished out their sentence or cure. H ere
for the first time in a prison I found recreational facilities. Sat­
urday and Sunday baseball games among the inmates were per­
mitted, with much cheering and booing. I found th at my
pitching arm was gone. In the evenings from six to eight each
barracks staged its own entertainm ent, and there was some real
professional talent. Some of the addicts especially had been
Broadway performers until dope ended their careers. 'One good-
looking fellow called “Broadway H appy” was a talented cabaret
piano player. There were several hoofers, singers, and jokesters.
A fter the show, we all had a bedtime snack of bread and onions.
The onions helped us sleep soundly enough to ignore the rats
which infested the whole island. R iker’s was about half filled-
in garbage, and the huge rats scampered about the barracks at
124
s
night, under the beds and through the washrooms. I saw as many «
as six of them at once.
My cure was completed by two weeks of outdoor work helping
to lay a gravel path around the island. When I went home— the
whole cure had lasted a m onth—I was sure I had broken my
habit. I was not physically weak, as I had been when I returned
from the M etropolitan Hospital. I had gone through this of m y -
own accord.
My family did not seem to share my optimism altogether, al­
though they remarked upon how well I looked this time. M other „
had turned out the house, shaking the leaves of every book,
poking into every crack and corner to be sure there was not a
single deck hidden anywhere. They had agreed not to let me out
of sight of one of them for a time. Even Ned was affable and
took me to a couple of shows during the first few evenings of my
return. They did not want to be too ostentatious about it, afad
my second day home I spent in Central Park, sitting in the sun,
feeding the squirrels and strolling through the zoo. On the way
home I thought of dropping in to see Father K iem an to show him
I wasn’t, as Dr. Crutchley had called me, a hopeless case. Instead
I ran into Skid Pottle. I told him about my cure. He reciprocated
by giving me the latest dope gossip.
“A guy named Nemo is pushing out half-eighths at Gansevoort
and Washington these days,” Skid went on, “and your old pal
M atty is hustling two-dollar vials on Gay Street.”
I said good-bye quickly and walked home. The brief conversa­
tion had turned my thoughts back to the old channels. I had not
looked up Charlie Lauck or Pop W hitey or Joe Devon. B ut I was
still firm in my resolution to keep off drugs. I nodded to a few
neighbors, and they were cool. They had seen me come home
from long absences looking well, only to watch the return of my '
dope pallor. I was determined to show them that this tim e the im­
provement was permanent. ✓
I woke next morning with something of the old urge to take a
blow to start the day. I t was not the familiar physical letdown .
but a restless energy which could be worked off if I walked down
to Washington and Gansevoort, for instance, to buy a half-eighth
from Nemo. I fought down the impulse, and actually forgot it
when the morning mail brought a response to my letter answering
a help-wanted ad. I failed to' land the job, and ran into D rip
M urtha in Bleecker Street on the way home. Drip had finished
his stint at the workhouse about two weeks earlier than I, and I
asked him where he was going. He pointed across to the large ■
bandstand and restroom in Abingdon Square.
 “I ’m paying a visit to the new five-cent hypo parlor,” he re­
plied. “I t ’s only opened a week ago—has hot and cold running
water, electric light and strictly private.”
I followed him across the square just to see w hat it was like.
W hen one of the doors opened.after he had dropped a nickel
in the slot, I followed him in. The city adm inistration had pro­
vided an ideal refueling station for addicts, a great improvement
over dirty saloon washrooms and the lack of privacy in the
YM CA’s. I lingered while D rip filled his spoon with water and
set his equipment on the tiled window sill. As he struck a m atch
to cook his shot, I yawned suddenly. Drip turned and grinned at
me.
“I thought you left your habit at R iker’s,” he wisecracked.
“ I t ’s okay; I ’ll give you a short one when I ’m through.”
He did, and that short one nearly finished me. Unintentionally
D rip concocted an overdose by leaving the cotton with the residue
af his shot in the spoon when he prepared a smaller one for me.
I t exploded in my drug-cleaned system. M y e&rs seemed to be
bursting. I rushed out into the square and ran up and down as fast
as I could, swinging my arms violently. Drip was scared, but he
steered me over to a bakery on Hudson Street and got me a cup
of black coffee. Gradually I recovered,-and Drip told me he was
sure only my presence of mind in exercising had saved me from
the death which had overtaken several of our crowd as a result
of overdoses.
* At home I said I had eaten something that disagreed with me,
and went to bed. M other’s strkken look told me I might just as
well have confessed my relapse. When I came to breakfast, and
could swallow nothing but a little coffee, she launched into the
familiar appeals. I assured her she was imagining things, but
I knew she didn’t believe me, and I walked out.
Noon found me standing outside the public library on W est
Thirteenth Street, then a likely place to Tneet an addict. One
of the gang might stake me to a shot in this emergency. B ut as
I yawned and leaned against the railing, I was disappointed to
see Junkie Callahan. He was more likely to be asking than giv­
ing, and sure enough he tried to touch me. We stood there dis­
consolately for a half hour while I tried to think where I
might promote a loan of a few doUars. At last I remembered th at
M other had a friend who was head of a departm ent store audit
departm ent. I had not seen her for many years, and had never
attem pted to wheedle money from her.
I hurried to the store as fast as I could, and Junkie trailed
along. I had prepared a story of having been sent to get a pre­
 scription filled, of having'dropped the bottle, of neffding three
dollars to get it refilled and of being afraid of my father’s wrath
if I confessed my carelessness.
“ But surely he won’t blame you for an accident,” she said.
I told the story all over again, a little more loudly, and I
noticed that several others in the office were listening. At last, to
get rid of me, she said she would send the money out. She was as
good as her word, and I came out in trium ph to m eet Junkie. We
had no trouble finding the pusher Nemo, and strolled together to
Abingdon Square to have our shot in municipal luxury.
N ext morning' M other told me two tough-looking fellows were
sitting on the stoop across the street, looking up at our windows
and whistling. I peeked out from behind a curtain and saw a
couple of the old Hudson Dusters. Junkie m ust have told them
I had some stuff, and they had come to shake me down for a bit
of it. M other wept despite my assurances that they could have
nothing to do with me, and was not convinced even when I
promised not to go out to meet them. I had no intention of doing
so, and at last they went away.
L ater M other came running in to the front room to tell me that
our bathroom door was locked on the inside. I knew it m eant
either th at the drug squad was frisking the place or some junkie
was trying to swipe my stuff. As I jumped up, I heard the bath­
room door slam. By the time I reached it," footsteps were rac­
ing down the stairs. I leaned over the balustrade just in tim e to
get a glimpse of Callahan running for the street door.
“T hat dirty ra t,” I m uttered. “A fter me fixing him up
yesterday.”
Yet I knew that if I had been suffering from a yen, I might
have done the same thing. However, Junkie had not had time to
locate my stuff. I was relieved, but thought it might be well to
have a part of my supply hidden outside the home. W ith the
family aware that I was back on dope, they would be searching
for it, too. So I took half the powder to a saloon on Thirteehth
Street and Seventh Avenue. In the washroom there I often had
cooked a shot. The partition wa» so high that I had to stand on
the toilet seat to reach the top, and so dirty that obviously no
one ever cleaned there. Where the partition joined the wall was
a little crack which held my packet safely.
When I got home, another family decision had been made. I
would have to get out of town, and they hoped th a t as .I had
been back on dope only a couple of days the habit might not be
so deeply ingrained th at I could not shake it" off. M other was
going to take me to Uncle George’s shack on Long Island, un-
deterred by D ad’s experience of a few years before, to celebrate
my twenty-fir$t hirthday.
T hat was the occasion when I managed my supply from the
kindly Dr. Skidmore. While I was gone Ned got me a job as a
sheet writer in the delivery departm ent of a big store. M y work
would consist of preparing lists of parcels and addresses for the
delivery wagon drivers. M other was enthusiastic at the prospect
of my job and going home. On the train I couldn't help noticing
how worry had put lines in her face and gray in her hair, but
her dark eyes sparkled as she said gaily:
“You’ll see, Lee, everything is going to be all right!”
I turned away and looked at the flat Long Island countryside.
I had nothing to say, not even promises.

20 T h e H ouse on St. Jo h n ’s P lace

I started work on Monday with just enough of Dr. Skid­
m ore’s tablets left to last me until evening. I was not worried
beyond that for I remembered the little packet I had hidden in
the saloon, and by the time that was exhausted I would get my
first week’s pay. Any future more remote than th a t was almost
beyond my calculation. I considered myself a very farsighted
fellow because I could think a week ahead; most junkies didn’t
care about tomorrow.
After supper I looked up Charlie Lauck. I had missed him,
and he was pitifully glad to see me. He looked like the devil,
pale, his plumpness all sagging, his hair tousled and dead-looking,
his clothes shabby and rumpled. He told me he slept' badly and
had frequent headaches. Also he was broke. H e didn’t dare ask
his father for money; Mr. Lauck was in despair about him as it
was. So Charlie was all excited when I told him about the saloon
cache. ’
The bar was crowded, but no one was in the washroom. I stood 1
on the toilet seat and reached up. Sure enough, the packet was
still there; I blessed the proprietor for not keeping one of the
cleaner places around the Village. But in my eagerness, my hand
trembled and I pushed the packet down between the partition
and the wall.
“Pull the damned thing down,” Charlie suggested. “This is an
emergency.”
128

v
 “Right,” I agreed. “Make some noise, though, so the barkeep
doesn’t hear me.”
While Charlie ran the water and kept flushing the toilet, I
tugged at the partition. I t was a flimsy bit of construction, but
my muscles were not used to work. The thin board creaked and
groaned and gave way just as the outer washroom door opened
to adm it the barkeeper.
“W hat the hell’s going on here?” he demanded. Fortunately
he couldn’t see me, and I crouched down out of sight
while Charlie staggered and gave an imitation of a drunk.
The bartender grabbed him by the collar and gave him the bum’s
rush. A minute later, with the packet in my hand, I sneaked out.
Charlie was waiting across the street, brushing his clothes with
his hand and chuckling over his skill in diverting the bartender’s
attention. We decided to patronize another saloon washroom to
take our shot, and were still laughing as we parted at my door.
Such escapades and the fun of talking about them again took
up my evenings. I managed to stay awake enough to perform the
simple duties of my job satisfactorily. Life was momentarily
- good, while my restored health fought the usual losing battle
with heroin. The first symptoms, pallor and lassitude, gave me
away to my family, although I stoutly blamed them on the bad
air of the subbasement where I worked. M other and D ad knew
better.
I was still feeling pretty well when Charlie came along with
a fantastic report of a new reducing treatm ent. This one, he
said, was being conducted in Brooklyn by a minister and a
physician. They had an office together on St. John’s Place, and
were not only giving a pleasantly .slow tapering-off “ cure” but
were throwing free parties for the addicts besides. This was not to
be missed, although it sounded to me like a dodge by a fake
clergyman and a fake doctor to sell dope without being bothered
by the cops.
The evening of my next payday, I picked up Charlie and we
took the subway to Brooklyn. The address was one of a row of
brownstone houses with high stoops. The clergyman himself
opened the door and adm itted us with cordial gestures. Elderly
and bald, he immediately struck me, in spite of my preconceived
ideas, as a man who out -of genuine humanitarian sym pathy
wished to do something for a downtrodden, misunderstood group
of his fellow creatures. H e told us his name was D r. Richie,.and
th at he sincerely hoped we would be helped. As small and slight
as I was myself, he was even smaller as he bobbed cheerfully
129
 ahead of us to usher us info a large living room already crowded
with addicts.
“M y medical colleague, D r. Gardner, will see you shortly,” he
said, and almost ran from the room as the doorbell rang again.
The doctor had none of Dr. Richie’s compassion. A dark, heavy
m an with a sour expression, he did not try to conceal his con­
tem pt for a junkie. He brusquely passed out an unlabeled bottle
of medicine, which turned out to be a morphine solution, and
told me to take a spoonful every four hours. The medicine cost
two dollars; only the consultation was free. I got the distinct
impression that the two dollars interested Dr. Gardner a great
deal more than the possibility of reclaiming drug addicts.
When we left, Dr. Richie urged us to come back the follow­
ing Saturday for a party. He believed that a little innocent
diversion would help the outcasts he was helping to climb back
to decent society. I was supposed to work on Saturdays, but
Charlie undertook to telephone the store and tell them I was
sick. I did not want to miss a party given by a benefactor whose
“reduction cure” was so pleasant. Dr. G ardner’s medicine held
none of the dread ingredients of Dr. Lilliendahl's “ cement-arm”
potion.
Twenty guests had already assembled when Charlie and I .
reached the house on St. John’s Place Saturday afternoon. All of
them were addicts and several were women. Among them was
May, whom I had last seen in Dr. Lilliendahl’s waiting room. Pop
Whitey was there from our Village crowd, and m ost of the others
were known to me by sight. One stranger stood out because
he was better dressed than most and because, with an addict’s
n suspicion, I was worried about a completely unfamiliar face. As
we sat down at a long table loaded with plates of sandwiches and
cake and pitchers of lemonade, I asked the man on my right who
the stranger might be.
Before he could reply, Dr. Richie asked us all to bow our heads
while he said grace. As he recited the words in his grave, mellow
voice, my neighbor whispered:
“Why, he’s the son of one of America’s richest families.” He
mentioned a name famous in finance. “They’re worth millions but
he’s the black sheep. Got hooked on junk and they threw him
out. Funny how those swell guys with all kinds of dough, clothes
and everything fall for the stuff. Oh, he’s not the only one;
there’s plenty more. You just don’t meet ’em. They get their
dope from the family doctor.”
D r. G ardner’s medicine had put all of us in sufficiently good
spirits to enjoy D r. Richie’s repast, and before we were finished
new arrivals had brought the number of guests up to about thirty.
Our host beamed at us, confident th a t his innocent food and
drink were showing us the way out of our habit. We shifted
places, breaking up into little groups of anim ated talkers.
“Come on upstairs a m inute,” W hitey suggested to Charlie
and me.
He led us to a bathroom, slammed the door and drew out a
little box. I t was filled with flake cocaine. We each took a sniff,
and returned to the party more garrulous and excited than ever.
A moment later I noticed W hitey sitting next to one of the
women guests, slipping her the little box. She bent down as if to
retrieve a fallen napkin, but when she straightened up, I knew
that she too had had a sniff.
The p arty was getting noisy enough so that it was plain others
besides W hitey had come prepared with something to supple­
ment D r. Gardner’s medicine. Dr. Richie, still enthusiastic,
whispered to one of the junkies I had last seen at R iker’s Island
playing the piano. He stepped over to the doctor’s piano now,
and in a moment we were all singing a popular song.
“ ‘The Good Ship Big Bamboo’!” someone shouted, and in a
moment we were roaring out the dope parody to the old ballad,
“The Good Ship Rock and R ye” :

I went sailing down the Old M orphine River

On the good ship Big Bamboo.
I went Sailing so far till my En Yen came on,
And I didn’t know what to do. -

So I spoke to the Captain, and he spoke to the crew,

And they said “T here’s only one thing to do.”
So I had to shoot the Old M orphine River dry
To get back home to you.

The last lines were shouted .so lustily that Dr. Richie had to
ask us not to make quite so much noise. By way of a quiet
interval, M ay sang a solo, “The Ace in the Hole,” another tune
the junkies loved.

There’s folks who think they’re very wise,

Just because they know a thing or two.
You see them night and day,
Strolling up and down Broadway,
Telling of the wonders they can do.
T here’s con men and there’s, boosters,
 There’s cardmen and crap shooters,
And they gather round the Cafe Metropole.
They have flashing ties and collars,
But where they get their dollars—
. They all have th at old ace in the hole.

Chorus:

Some of them write to the old folks at home,

T hat is their ace in the hole.
Others have, broads on the gay Tenderloin,
T hat is their ace in the hole.
They tell you of trips they are going to make,
From Florida to the N orth Pole.
But their name would be mud,
Like a punk playing stud,
I f they lost that old ace in the hole.
T hey’d be standing in the bread-line
W ithout a nickel or dime
If they lost that old ace in the hole.

D r. Richie clapped vigorously with the rest of us. H e nodded

and beat time happily as the lad at the piano darted from one
dope ballad to another. I doubt that the minister even under­
stood the words of some of them. I watched him while we were
singing:

Down at the Coke E Mo Isle,

Down at the Isle of H. M. and Ch,
Down at the cokey’s jubilee.
H is for heroin, M is for morph,
C for cocaine to blow your head off.

The good D octor smiled upon us as if we had been singing a

nursery rhyme. He went on beaming until at last the junkie at
the piano began to play and sing what might be called the anthem
of the narcotics addicts, “All I Do Is Roll Another Pill.” The
player virtually crooned the verse and we all came in strong
on the chorus:

Take the man who always worries,

To the grave he quickly hurries,
I mean the man whom sorrow tries to down.
Take the man who’s always drinking,
132
 Of nothing else he’s thinking; -
Sad memories, he tries to drink ’em down.
But with me it’s all quite different.
When troubles come my way,
I merely take them as a little joke.
For all the liquor in this land
Couldn’t drive my cares away;
The remedy for m e’s to take a smoke.

Chorus:

For all I do is roll another pill.

Before I smoke, I ’m poor and I ’m unhealthy.
One little puff, I ’m well and I am wealthy,
And as the wreaths of hop creep toward the ceiling,
I get the most contented happy feeling.
I never dream of sorrow, or think about tomorrow;
When I ’m blue I simply roll another pill!

We sang so loudly our voices cracked, and I think Dr. Richie

m ust at last have begun to wonder w hat his staid neighbors
would think of such ribald music in a clergyman’s house. But he
was quite gentle as he closed the piano. The party was over,
and our host had enjoyed himself as much as the rest of us,
probably a good deal more since he had not needed the stimula­
tion of dope. H e stood by the door, shaking hands as we filed out
and urging us earnestly to come again.
N either Charlie nor I got a chance to take advantage of his
generosity. A few evenings after the Saturday party we were
uptown and stopped in at the YMCA on Fifty-seventh Street
to cook a shot in a clean washroom for a change. I had taken
mine, and was leaning against the washbasin when Charlie came
out of a com partment muttering that his needle 'w as clogged.
He held it up to the light and with a horsehair pulled from his
coat lapel was trying to clean it, so I told him I would w ait up­
stairs. As I left, I saw one of the barbers from the shop next
to the washroom look in and then go away.
Two minutes later, sitting in the lobby, I saw poor Charlie
escorted by two white-coated barbers being led into the secre­
ta ry ’s office. I waited uncertainly for a minute. There was nothing
I could do to help him, only run the risk of being caught my­
self, and I ducked o u t Lurking down the street, I saw a couple
of uniformed cops go in, and come out again with Charlie. I t
was the first tim e he had been arrested, and a few days later
 %

1he was sentenced to three months a t the Warwick Prison Farm.

T he authorities were hoping that first offenders might be re­
habilitated by a few months of work in the open air.
M y own luck ran out again very quickly. The days were get­
ting short and chilly, and in our flat we all dressed by the kitchen
stove: I was getting into my clothes one gray morning, .with
Uncle George eating breakfast and M other bustling around pre­
paring mine, when there was a knock on the door. Over M other’s
shoulder, I saw the hated faces of Judge and E rb of the narcotics
squad. They pushed by her as I sat paralyzed, my shirt and tie
in my lap, my shoes on the floor beside my chair.
I had no drugs on me, but my hypo was in a cigaret box in
my trousers’ pocket. I remembered putting it there the night
before, and I tried desperately to will it somewhere else. The
two detectives grinned. They knew by my expression th at they
had caught me redhanded.
“P ut your hands over your head and keep them there,” Erb
snapped.
A hopeless gasp came from M other, and Uncle George sat
with his spoon in his hand and his mouth open as E rb pulled the
box and hypo from my pocket. H e squeezed the bulb, and find­
ing it empty, he and Judge turned their attention to the rest of
the room. On the top shelf of the china closet was one of the
Richie-Gardner medicine bottles, with a few drops in the b ot­
tom. Judge seized it triumphantly.
“ But th a t’s only an empty medicine bottle from D r. Richie
who has been treating him,” M other cried.
“Y eah?” E rb answered sceptically. “Well, it hasn’t any label
on it, and that drop of medicine will be enough to send him away.
Ccme on, you, get your things on!”
M other wept aqd pleaded and threw her arms around me.
Uncle George mumbled something about letting the kid go
this once. The detectives did net seem to hear. They were used
to such scenes. In their experience the junkies were hopeless
cases, the scum of society, far worse than criminals.
They hustled me down the steps, walked me past the curious
eyes of neighbors to the Charles Street Station and from there
to Jefferson M arket jail. I t was my second stay in the place,
and worse than the ignominy was the prospect of a yen. Shudder­
ing, I threw myself on the iron cot of a cell and turned my face
to the dank, whitewashed wall.

134
 T h e B ig T im e 21
Bail! The thought of it banished despair for a moment.
In my case not more than $500 would be demanded. A bondsman
would put it up for $50. The formalities would take only a few
minutes. I would be free, and get a shot of heroin in peace.
I could be out by the afternoon if the family got busy. B ut
where was D ad going to get $50? For that m atter, why should
he if he could? From his point of view it would merely postpone
needlessly the inevitable conviction and sentence. H e did not
know the power of a yen, the fear of which made only today’s
confinement im portant in my mind. I ’d better give up the idea
of bail.
Suppose, though, that the laboratory couldn’t analyze the
drop or two of liquid remaining in the Richie-Gardner bottle?
They would have to let me go. This was a sweet thought, although
it would take a day or two before they gave up. I would be in
agony before that. Besides, in my heart I knew they would have
no trouble at all proving the case against me. Wishful thinking
would not postpone my yen for a minute.
I refused food at noon. By the time a trusty pushed a tin
plate under my cell door in the evening, I was twisting and groan­
ing on my cot. I leaped to my feeet. I couldn’t stand it.
“Get a doctor!” I screamed. “Get a doctor!”
My voice echoed in the stone corridor, but the only replies
were curses and shouts: __
“Pipe dow n!” *
“ Shut u p !”
“You’ll get a doctor when the screw comes around.”
“Close your damned tra p !”
I subsided, moaning. A voice from the cell on my left spoke
softly.
“Hey, kid, you up against the stuff?” it asked.
“Yes, I ’m hooked bad. I ’ll never go through the night.”
“Say, Johnnie,” the voice came again after a brief pause, “roll
up a newspaper and push it along the floor. I ’ll give you a
cigaret.’-’ •
Cigaret! I cursed silently. W hat good was a cigaret to me? But
then my brain cleared. Of course he couldn’t say anything else.
H e had something better than that, I was sure.
“I haven’t got a newspaper,” I said.
135
 “I ’ve got one,” called a new voice, this one from the cell on
my right. “I ’ll pass it over to you.”
The cells in the Jefferson M arket “flats” were set back, each
one about fifteen inches, probably to discourage communica­
tions. I didn’t see how a newspaper could be made to reach, but
I listened as I heard my neighbor rustling it. Then there was a
scraping along the floor and one end came into view. He had
rolled double pages together, half of one sticking out of the
other until he had a strip seven or eight feet long. I stuck my
arm through the bars, grabbed it and slid it along to my left.
In a few seconds I heard:
“Pull her in.”
Inside the newspaper were two hand-made cigarets. A joke,
I thought bitterly. But the cigarets seemed harder and crisper
than the ordinary article. I unwrapped one end and a few
particles th at looked like cinders fell out into my hand. I caught
my breath. M aybe this was something! I tasted, and rejoiced.
The particles were yen-shee, the burned residue of an opium
smoke. M y troubles were over for the night. I ate some more of
the cinders. They tasted like coal, but I swallowed them as if
they had been nectar.
“Okay, pal,” I called. “I got your, cigarets. Thanks a million.”
The gritty stuff was already beginning to relax me. Joe Devon
had once said something about yen-shee. I tried hard to re­
member. Oh, yes. In an emergency, the best effects could be
obtained by wrapping yen-shee in a cigaret paper and swallow­
ing it whole like a capsule. I tried it, then luxuriously lit the other
cigaret and leaned back on my cot, blew smoke at the ceiling
but toward the back of the cell so the odor would not get out,
and hummed contentedly:

I never dream of sorrow, or think about tomorrow;

When I ’m blue I simply roll another pill!

By the time the smoke and the song were finished, I realize*!
that I had eaten nothing since the night before. I looked in the
tin plate which still rested on the floor. I t held hash, now stone
cold. There were two pieces of bread. I was hungry and the
food looked appetizing. Dreamily I decided to heat up the
hash. Resting the tin plate on a couple of pipes at the back of
the cell, I lit my newspaper. In a moment the cell was filled with
smoke. Choking and gagging I tried to stam p out the blaze,
but more stnoke and bits of black ash swirled about in a draft.
I heard voices yelling “F ire!’.’ and in a minute an excited keeper
came running. “W hat the hell is going on here?” he blurted.
“Are -you trying to bum yourself up?”
I almost got sent to the cooler, came near suffocating, and
I had ruined the hash. After opening several windows the
keeper finally left, cursing cokies as “the damn worst nuisances.” s
But neither threats nor hunger seriously affected my new-found
calm. A few burned cinders of opium in my stomach had made
me aware of a tw enty-four-hour fast. The same burned cinders
enabled me to sleep soundly despite the fact th at I had not
broken it.
N ext morning when we were let out for exercise, my neighbor
told me he had bribed one of the cops who arrested him to let
him smuggle in a little paper bag of yen-shee. H e was going
out on bail that same day, and as he left he came to my cell door
to shake hands. Then yea-shee passed from his palm to mine as
he whispered:
“ I ’m kissing this joint good-bye, but you’ll need this.”
A fter he had gone, I was transferred to another cell block,
and when the next exercise period came around I mingled with
the other prisoners quite happily, thanks to the yen-shee. One of
them earned a second glance by his general look of misery, and
at th at second glance I recognized him. H e was my old druggist
from Avenue B, whom I had not seen since I had choked a
packet of heroin out of him four years earlier. He was past sixty
now, gray and a little shrunken, obviously broken by his im­
prisonment. He looked at me bitterly when I spoke to him.
“I t ’s fellows like you who’re to blame for my being here,” he
whined. “They wouldn’t let me stop selling the stuff; they
wouldn’t let me quit.”
The day my yen-shee ran out I was taken to the Tombs an­
nex for another cold turkey, and was just recovering from th a t
when I was brought before three Justices in Special Sessions
Court. Their verdict was a four-m onths’ sentence to the work­
house on Blackwell’s Island where ju st a few months earlier
I had taken^part of Dr. Bishop’s famous cure. As I followed a
cop back to my cell I saw M other leaving the courtroom dabbing
a t her eyes with her handkerchief.
This winter the workhouse was so crowded that I was trans­
ferred with a dozen or so other short-term prisoners to the
New York Penitentiary, a grim gray building nearly 100 years
old farther down the island. I t was something new in prisons for
me. I had experienced an institution run by brutality a t H art’s
Island and one operated on reasonably humane methods at
R iker’s, b ut here was one run by the prisoners themselves.
1S7
 This fact was not obvious at first because prison routine was
observed, and the quarters were the worst I had known. My cell
was a cold, damp cubicle six feet by five with a filthy corroded
iron bucket serving as sanitary facilities. The only real hard­
ship inflicted on the prisoners was the necessity of scrubbing out
these buckets every day.
On the other hand the food was good and substantial—we
even had eggs twice a week—with a quite tasty hash or stew as
the usual main dish. Smoking and talking were perm itted at all
times, and after supper a piano would be wheeled into our wing.
W ith a talented prisoner at the keys we could sing or improvise
entertainment. The favorites, far more popular than the gay or
comic songs of the period, were “Memories” and a wistful num­
ber called “T here’s Someone More Lonesome Than You.”
Every day a prison runner went through the tiers taking orders
on the prison commissary for purchases which could be made
from any funds on deposit to the prisoner’s credit. I had two
dollars when I arrived, and at the high prices prevailing it bought
me only a couple of packs of cigarets, a small bag of sugar and
a box of crackers. More affluent inmates could live well. I t was
possible to get dope, too, although I never had enough money
to indulge my habit after I learned about the possibility. A dollar
and a half in commissary tickets could get you, from the ring
of prisoners who ran the racket, a deck of diluted heroin which
would have cost fifty cents on the outside. P art of the dope
distributed by the ring was smuggled in by a civilian employee
of the penitentiary. The rest was dropped on dark rainy nights
from the Queensboro Bridge, which arches over the island, near
a roadway where a trusty*could pick it up early in the morning.
The highly organized ring, headed by prisoners who spent a
good deal of their time in the comfort of the hospital wing,
bribed their way out for an occasional night in the city and
even paid to have their sentences extended so they would not
lose their profitable racket, operated under more discipline than
the officials tried to enforce. Cocaine was barred from their drug
traffic; the effects were too exhilarating and noticeable. Heroin
and morphine were in ample supply. A considerable number of
prisoners managed to make their term go by painlessly by re­
tra in in g in a drug stupor almost all the time. Even during ex­
ercise periods they would be lying on their bunks in their cells,
• a newspaper propped in front of them, a cigaret drooping from
their mouths and eyes almost closed. I was lucky I did not have
enough money to join their ranks.
W ork was easy at the penitentiary. For a month I was as-
138
 ■1
signed to nothing, perhaps because the jailers thought a drug j
addict was too weak to be much use to them. When I finally i
did ask for an assignment to escape boredom, I joined a gang " ;
digging a new cellar for the Catholic Church on the island.
Pushing a wheelbarrow was strenuous at first, but I could set my
own pace. Nobody cared how often I paused to rest or talk to ' / I
one of the other prisoners or smoke a cigaret. The keeper’s only !
concern was that we should not stray off the job. \
Besides the nightly songfest, we had movies once a week in
the chapel, baseball games on Saturday and Sunday and ample
leisure to sit around in groups and watch the cars pass along 1
Queensboro Bridge far above us. M ost of the residents of m y 1
tier were pickpockets and the one with whom I spent m ost tim e
was a tall, portly fellow of imposing presence known as the j
Humble Dutchm an. The first p art of his nickname was derived i
from the profuse apologies he extended to the victims he jostled
and robbed. The, second p art was a recognition of his big, broad,
pink face, fair hair, blue eyes and stately build. He was a man of
extremely gracious manners, which he cultivated as a business
asset ju st as he kept his long surgeon’s fingers supple and in
practice by picking my pocket of cigarets, which he would re- j
tu m with a broad grin. H e and the other aristocrats of the pick- .
pocket fraternity, a pair called Blackie and Cincinnati Red,
n ev er.tired of telling each other about their biggest touches, -A
and their misfortunes in being caught. The former was always
the result of great skill and presence of m ind; the latter in­
variably the result of an accident. ■j
The Humble D utchm an explained to me m ost of the workings
of the gang of racketeers who controlled the prison. The system
had been built up for several years, and depended for success
upon the corruption of a certain num ber of keepers and the ru th ­
lessness of the convict gang in control. They had agents on every
tier, and through them was conducted the m arket in special foods,
drugs and other favors. The ring’s standard rate of exchange was
three dollars’ worth of goods (a t their inflated prices) for four
dollars in commissary tickets.
How long this racket had been going on I never knew. B ut it
continued for years, until early in 1934 the pickings had"become
so lush th a t there actually was a gangsters’ battle staged in the
penitentiary between an Italian ring and an Irish ring, each j

fighting for control. The island by that tim e had had its name .
changed to “W elfare” but the system had remained the same. ' j
I t was a t the penitentiary, too, that I first heard the slang .
expression “wolf” applied to the lustful male. B ut it had none of , j
. 1 3 9
the later, relatively innocent, flippant connotations of a man
making a play for a girl or girls. I t was applied to one of the
prisoners in the South Wing, where were isolated a group con­
victed of sex crimes, chiefly sodomy and what were politely called
“ crimes against nature.” ITie other convicts called them “wolves”
because they hunted in packs. Their victim usually was some
hapless youth caught by himself on the top tier during exercise
periods and dragged into a cell.
The prison wolves did not always have to resort to force. The
island housed a couple of dozen homosexuals who were not only
willing to accommodate these perverts, but plied their trade
as prostitutes with the connivance of the keepers and under the
protection of the ruling convict ring. M ost of the queers had
been screened out at the time of commitment and segregated.
They had a separate block of cells and were assigned to work
in the tailor shop or laundry.
The daily “parade of the faggots” was a feature of penitentiary
life which few prisoners missed regardless of how they felt about
the pitiful specimens of humanity who took part in it. W ith a
fair im itation of show girls making an entrance on stage, they
would troop through the corridors past the tiers of cells. Some­
where the prison boasted a beauty shop because their hair was
waved. Rouge, lipstick and mascara were lavishly applied;
several wore silk blouses and almost all were adorned with ear­
rings and necklaces. Artificial busts were supported by improvised
brassieres, and the heels of prison shoes were carefully built up
with added layers of leather.
I t had not been uncommon to see one or two of these fairy
masqueraders, around Greenwich Village, or elsewhere in New
Y ork for th a t m atter, but I had been too much preoccupied with
narcotics to give a queer more than an uninterested look. If the
homosexual also happened to be a junkie, we might talk about
the problems of our habit but I had never even noticed his sexual
aberrations. Now I gaped as two dozen of them paraded past,
penciled eyebrows arched, hips swinging, hands attem pting to
twitch the prison trousers in imitation of a skirt.
The din that greeted their strutting was a bewildering mixture
of whistles, hoots, yells. The paraders obviously took it all as a
tribute of admiration, and replied by waving colored handker­
chiefs and blowing kisses. M ost of the noise came from grinning,
laughing convicts, watched by keepers equally amused, but a few
paces from me a wild-eyed fellow was shouting and waving his
arms in a manner a little too tense for clowning, while a little
trickle of saliva ran down one side of his chin. I nudged the
140
Humble Dutchm an, who was standing beside me with the grave,
air of a bishop.
“Look at that guy drooling,” I marveled. “How can he go for
anything like this?”
“You got to be in stir a long time to know th at f e e l i n g h e
replied.
Several of the homosexuals were notorious male prostitutes
who had themselves arrested deliberately because the peniten­
tiary offered an unrestricted field for their trade. Any convict
with the price could arrange to visit one of them in his cell, unless
h is choice happened to be one of those kept exclusively as the
“m istress” of 9ne of the leaders of the convict ring.
I supposed some of the prisoners who leered and drooled over
the parade would have felt for me some of the contempt I held
for them if they witnessed my restlessness in the presence of the
highly doped inmates of the penitentiary. Seeing their stupefied
contentment, I longed for the money to share their oblivion. B ut I
never had a chance to get started, and the stuff was too ex­
pensive for any addict to be generous with a penniless fellow who
never could reciprocate.
h ly friend Humble was a great help. H e hated junkies in
general, although he had taken a fancy to me and tried to keep
my mind off dope, so th at when my term was up, he said I ’d
be able to stay away from the stuff. His talk of his own criminal
world was interesting, and he encouraged me to sketch. H e re­
ceived a considerable supply of magazines and newspapers which
he shared with me.
His efforts were reinforced by letters from Charlie Lauck. He
wrote me that he had served his term at the prison farm and
m eant to stay off dope. His next letter was dated Bridgeport,
Connecticut. Wisely he had decided to seek an entirely new en­
vironment where he would not run into any of his old associates.
But, good friend that he was, he made an exception of me.
“The day you get out of stir,” he wrote, “you come right up
here. I ’ve got a job in the Remington Arms plant, and you
can get one too. Nobody'w ill ask anything about you. Y ou’ll be
off the stuff like me and we can stick it together.”
I wrote back that I certainly would join him, and I crossed
the dates off Hum ble’s calendar with extra enthusiasm.
I had been following in the D utchm an’s papers the progress
of the war and the widening split with Germany. The day I left
the pen on Blackwell’s Island the headlines were even bigger
than usual. President Wilson had gone before a special session of
Congress to ask for a declaration of war.
22 A lm ost but Not Quite
I read President Wilson’s war message on a train to Bridge­
port and lost myself in dreams. I saw a refurbished Leroy
Street in a khaki uniform charging across No M an’s Land, kill­
ing Germans, saving a comrade, returning to a flag-decked Bank
Street with ribbons and medals on my chest. I saw M other and
D ad beaming with pride, the neighbors applauding, even Ned and
Bobby respectful.
I t was a pleasant dream until I remembered the ineradicable
hypo' marks on my body. I suspected that no examining army
physician would pass a recruit with such a telltale record. Still,
imagining a bright future helped pass the time until I got off the
train and found Charlie under a station lamp looking around
for me.
I stood looking at him for a moment before he spotted me.
H e was the old Charlie, looking like the fifteen-year-old kid who
had never heard of John Devon and probably couldn’t even spell
heroin. His stocky body was round and solid, his full cheeks pink.
There were no bags or circles under his blue eyes, and the curly
brown hair actually sparkled. I t was a second or two before I
realized the sparkle was made by the light hitting raindrops,
but he looked very good to me. After all, we were only twenty-
two; Charlie’s rosy face showed that it was not too late for
health even after seven years of dope.
He turned and saw me, and a wide grin split the pink face. He
ran over, grabbed my suitcase with one hand and my fingers
with the other. I was pleasantly surprised by the strength of his
grip, and by my own ability to match it.
“ Boy, is it good to see you!” he exclaimed. “How’d you make
out in stir? How long you been off the stuff? W here’d you get
those calluses?”
I was asking him the same sort of questions. N either of us
mentioned the last time we had seen each other in the wash­
room of the YMCA. We did exchange a few anecdotes of our
prison experiences, and over a cup of coffee in a nearby restaurant
he told me about his job.
“I ’m what they call an inspector,” he said, grinning proudly.
“I t ’s a cinch to learn. You only use a ruler, a T-square and a
micrometer to be sure parts coming off the lathes are the right
142
size. The plant’s making Russian rifles, and they need all the
men they can get.”
Talking and joking a mile a minute, he picked up my bag and
we walked over to his rooming house. He had arranged for me
to share a double room with him. The landlady, Mrs. P otter,
would be glad to welcome me, he said. She was. A plum p, middle-
aged woman with none of the traditional sourness of the board­
inghouse proprietor, she evidently regarded Charlie as a favorite,
and encouraged his kidding.
“ Such a nice young m an!” she told me a few days later. “N o t
many New Yorkers are like him.”
Charlie took me with him to the plant, showed me where to
make my jpb application and clappedxme on the back delightedly
when I 'told him they hardly asked any questions except the
date I would come to work. On the afternoon they telephoned
me to report, the papers blazoned the headlines th a t Congress
had declared war. The job proved to be as easy as Charlie had
said, much easier than I expected. The routine of checking rifle
parts for accurate cutting and grooving as they came from the
lathe was not especially exciting, but it was war work and
averaged the munificent pay of $22.50 a week, with only one
fourteen-hour shift.
During those April days both of us discovered a new zest for
life, and acquired new habits. Coming home from work, we would
shower and dress carefully as never before. For the first time we
adjusted our neckties meticulously, considered the set of a col­
lar and tilt of a hat. Charlie tried to plaster his curly hair smooth.
I bought a new $14*suit (a free hat went with it) and was
prouder of it than anything I ever owned.
When we had molded ourselves into w hat passed for a fashion-
plate in Bridgeport, we would dine at the Greek’s, joking with the
fat waitress, and then walk over to brightly lighted Main Street.
I ’d never seen Charlie look at a girl before; now his head jerked
around every time we passed a pretty face. I was getting a new
appreciation of such scenery myself, but we were like fifteen-
year-olds in experience and timid about talking to these charmers.
Maybe we were trying to catch up with other fellows who had
sweethearts and went out on dates while we had been hunting
pushers. Maybe we were just lonesome. B ut the new interest
was something that had never bothered us before.
Flush and happy, we decided to spend the last week-end of
the month at home surprising our families with our new-found
health. I t was a joyful reunion at our flat, and Charlie had tears
in his eyes when he told me his old man had choked with pride
143
at seeing his son restored to normal life. We had agreed to take
in a show Saturday night and keep away from our junkie pals.
Charlie said they no longer gathered a t the Devons’ but we didn’t
know they had moved their rendezvous to Fifteenth Street.
We passed the corner on our way uptown, and a group of pale,
shabby, untidy fellows, whose looks never had depressed me be­
fore, greeted us. We stood talking to them for a few m inutes;
I was proudly conscious of my new suit and my healthy ap­
pearance. I didn’t have the least desire for a shot.
“ Come on, Charlie,” I said. “W e’ll have to get moving if we
make the first curtain.”
“W ait a minute for Joe Devon,” someone urged. “H e’ll be back
in a minute and you ought to say ‘hello’ to him .”
T hat seemed only polite, and in a moment Joe turned up. H e
looked older, not quite so immaculate as I remembered him,
startlingly lean and pale with fishy eyes staring out of his bony
face. He was surprised to see us, and when we left, he walked
a little way with us.
“You fellows really have shaken the habit,” he said in wonder­
m ent and what seemed to me a certain wistfulness.
“Yes, we’re off the stuff for good,” I said, and Charlie nodded.
Joe obviously was pleased. I remembered how deeply he had
been shocked by John’s death, and thought he was calculating
his own chances of survival if he kept on taking drugs. He walked
in silence for a moment, then startled me by saying:
“ I think I ’ll go back to Bridgeport with you and see if I can’t
lick it too.”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said quickly. “I t ’s pretty tough up
there. N ot much room.”
“You wouldn’t like it, Joe," Charlie added, and I knew he
didn’t like the idea of Joe Devon in Bridgeport any better than
I did. “A fter all, for a fellow who’s used to Broadway and all,
there isn’t much in it.”
“No,” said Joe, “I think I ’ll do it. I want to get off the stuff,
too. You fellows can help. After all, I ’ve done a lot for you.”
I remembered all the times one of the Devons had given me
a shot of dope when I was out of it, and of Joe’s kindness in
taking me on parties uptown, even if they were dope parties, and
I felt like a heel, but I went on protesting. I t only made him
more determined than ever.
“I ’ll m eet you at Grand Central tomorrow night,” he said, and
turned back.
The evening was spoiled for Charlie and me. I kept thinking
how I would feel if Joe was around helping himself to a shot
144
every once in a while. I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist it
myself. Charlie wasn’t any stronger than I was. Our good times
would be over. I couldn’t picture one of the magnificent Devons
being willing to spend his evenings dining a t the Greek’s and
ogling the girls on Main Street. I didn’t enjoy the show very
much, and I got a good idea of how Charlie felt about it whan
he said :
“I hope to God he doesn’t show up.”
“Oh, he’ll have forgotten all about it by morning,” I assured
him, but without very much conviction.
Sure enough, when we got to the station, there was Joe wait­
ing at the train gate. H e looked lean and distinguished, and I
was a bit remorseful over my regret at seeing him. Charlie
greeted him glumly, but Joe didn’t seem to notice.
“I ’ve got a quarter ounce in my suitcase,” he murm ured a s ‘
we walked down the ramp, and then, seeing my dism ay: “Oh,
ju st to taper off with.”
The train had hardly left the city limits before Joe was off to '
the washroom. Charlie and I sat and stared at each other. Joe
came back cheerful, and began to tell some of the latest stories
we might not have heard. He laughed enough for all three, which
was ju st as well, for Charlie and I didn’t even smile. I was as
restless as a cat with that disturbing feeling th a t had hit me so
often before. I t was neither reasonable nor sensible. Finally I
knew I had just been kidding myself during those happy weeks
in believing the old longing was completely out of my life. As
I looked at Joe, smiling and relaxed, and then a t Charlie’s
nervousness, it didn’t seem worth while to struggle. By the time
the lights of Bridgeport flashed into view, Charlie and I h ad '
fallen back on our habits.
I t was late when we reached our room, which was big enough
to accommodate Joe, and in the morning we introduced him to
Mrs. Potter. She looked at him over the top of her glasses in
not too friendly a fashion. I suppose his lean, wasted look which
I had thought distinguished just looked dissipated to her. Joe
told her we all wanted to be together but he would pay the sam e,
price as if he had a room to himself. I didn’t like it, but I
couldn’t think of a way to protest. Mrs. P otter was none too
pleased either, but she agreed. I think she was worried as much
about this new lodger’s influence upon her favorite Charlie as
she was about the reputation of her house.
We soon found th a t the rich Devons weren’t so rich any more.
Sporty cars and apartm ents w ith beautiful mistresses were out
of Jo e’s life. H e had never talked about the source of his money,.
145 1
and he did not mention the loss of it now, but in a few days he
found a job in the bayonet departm ent#at the plant.-By this time
he was no longer talking about tapering off, and Charlie and I
were back on drugs at the old rate. For Charlie this was a fast
pace; he was one of the heaviest users of the junk I ever met.
Every week we sent off special-delivery letters and money orders
to New York, and got back a special-delivery parcel with a bottle
of heroin. Joe picked up in the plant cafeteria a Boston junkie
who introduced us to a Bridgeport pusher on the waterfront,
but the fellow’s decks were so adulterated that the shots seemed
weak in comparison with the stuff we were getting from New
York.
M y new suit hung neglected in the closet. I didn’t care about
the set of my necktie, or even whether I had a necktie. The bar­
ber and the shoe-shine boy saw me infrequently. Charlie was
as bad.
The change in our lives was as great as the change in our ap­
pearance. Bright lights and people were no longer attractive; we
spent our evenings in the narrow streets along the waterfront
and dropped in at the cheap saloons to cook up our shots in
their foul washrooms. When we wearied of this, we lounged
around our room in a half stupor, smoking cigarets in bed and
burning holes in the blankets. Mrs. P otter protested without
any friendliness in her tone at all, and we took to tying towels
under our chins when we smoked. T hat lasted until our landlady
came up one night with an armful of towels with bad bums.
“If this doesn’t stop,” she said, “I will notify the fire depart­
ment.”
We thought it was a bluff, but we were scared just the same.
If a fire inspector came around, he might be better at detecting
the signs of drug addiction than was Mrs. Potter. We hid our
heroin and hypos in the hall over the coping of the door to our
room.
Mrs. P otter was first distressed and then angry about our
behavior. She saw us lethargic and abstracted unless there was
a ring at the doorbell on the day we expected our special-delivery
package. Then we would run downstairs eagerly. More than once
she waylaid me in the hall to complain.
“I ju st don’t know w hat’s come over you boys,” she would
say. “You’re so changed since that Mr. Devon came. W hat are
you getting in those packages? You used to be so neat and now
your room is always upset.”
I would mumble apologies and get away as fast as I could.
I couldn’t tell her I was as unhappy about it as she was. The
146
three of us were tied together by our habit, but in no real spirit
of comradeship. Charlie and I resented Joe and didn’t know w hat
to do about it. Joe, I am sure, missed the adulation he had in­
herited from John and probably was bored whenever he came
out of the influence of dope enough to know w hat was going on.
The only moments of joy I remember from those m onths was on '
one or two occasions when our package from New York was
delayed and finally arrived. Then we would laugh and cheer as
if we had news of a great victory in Europe.
Disgust rather than patriotism drove Charlie by the middle
of M ay to try to enlist in the Navy. We had been talking about
it but had thought we better wait and see what would happen
with the draft. We also were scared that the doctors would
notify the police th a t a couple of addicts had applied. Charlie
came back downcast from the recruiting office.
“One look at the hypo m arks and they turned me down flat,”
he said. “I guess I was lucky a t th a t; they didn’t call the cops.”_
“You’re a damn fool,”- Joe told him. “They’ll catch up with
you in the draft soon enough, and how do you know they didn’t
tell the cops anyway? You might be bringing them down on all
of us.”
They quarreled noisily until we had a shot all around, and then,
we just sat and brooded. Joe wasn’t worried about the draft,
which was to be men from twenty-one to thirty-one, because
he was over-age. H e almost seemed to gloat over the fact
that we wouldn’t be drafted. On June 5th- we had to register.-
Two months later my number came up, and I was glad.
“If they take me,” I confided to Charlie when we had got
away from Joe, “it’ll be a chance to get off the stuff.”
“Yeah,” Charlie replied gloomily, “and suppose they turn
you over to a cop?”
“Well,” I decided, “I won’t tell ’em anything unless they
find it o u t”
Charlie took time off from work to go with me to the ex­
amination and waited outside. All the other fifteen or tw enty
inductees were healthy-looking fellows, and I thought some of
them shot curious glances at my skinny frame with the blue
hypo marks on the arms and legs. We went to the doctors six
a t a time, and the first physician to look at me waved me to a seat
a t one side. Then he went over and whispered to his colleagues.
After they were finished with the others, he came over to me.
“W hat drug have you been using?” he asked bluntly.
“Heroin," I told him; there was no point in trying to hide
anything.
 “ When did you have your last shot?”
“This morning.”
H e shrugged his shoulders, but as he continued his examina­
tion, I blurted out:
“I want to get off it, Doc, I really do. M aybe this is a good
chance for me to do it.”
He grunted, then shook his head.
“Y ou’d better go back to your job at Remington Arms,” he
said, not unkindly. “You'll be more use working there than in
the service.”
Charlie was relieved that the doctor had not called the police.
" I t ’s no dice,” he said. “W e’re pretty well shot physically,
and maybe they figured a junkie would spread the habit around.”
Joe was not philosophical when we told him of m y turn down.
“M y God,” he exclaimed, “they’ve got our address! You could
get me into a lot of trouble.”
“Well, who got us into trouble?” Charlie demanded angrily,
and they were off again.
Charlie was especially bitter because Joe was taking more
than his share out of our weekly package, but not paying for
it. I t sounded like another of their usual quarrels, but this one
ended with Charlie shouting:
“All right, damn it, I ’m pulling out. I can get a chauffeur’s
job with some people I know in Providence, and I ’ll get going
as soon as our next supply comes in.”
“To hell with you,” Joe shouted back. “ Good riddance.”
Charlie was as good as his word, and after he left, Joe took
out his irritation on me. He was always beefing about something,
and I was sore because he’d driven Charlie away. Then our
supply ran so low that Joe was worried about it. H e insisted I
go down to New York myself and bring back a couple of bottles.
I was used to yielding to the Devons, and I went. I couldn’t
find my regular dealer, but located another through a junkie
I hardly knew. I was careful, after buying two dram bottles, to
m ake him wait while I took a sample sniff in a nearby vestibule.
The powder was strong, and I went back to Bridgeport. But when
we began to use the stuff, we found that only the top was heroin;
from the necks down there was only sugar of milk in the bottle.
Joe was so furious I thought he would burst. H e cursed and
fumed, as much at me for being a fool as a t the dealer for being
a crook. H e walked up and down wringing his hands; then rushed
out to send a telegram to New York asking for a special-delivery
shipm ent right away. We were so washed up in the morning
th at we couldn’t bear to leave the room until our package was
delivered about noon.
When I finally got back to my job, the foreman told me curtly
to go get my pay. Two days off without notice on top of my not
very satisfactory performance when I was on the job was
enough. I had just enough money coming to pay my rent for a
week and buy another dram. By the time the week and the
heroin were exhausted, I was flat and obviously unhealthy, I
couldn’t get taken on even at the war plants. Joe, irritable and
tortured by fears which he hardly knew how to express, turned
from unsympathetic to hostile. H e had a nasty cough and was
troubled by vague pains which worried more than they hurt.
H e was an old man for an addict of his standing, perhaps forty,
and he had lost the Devon ease of manner and lordly generosity.
“D on’t think you can sponge on me,” he snarled. “If you can’t
pay your way, get o u t!”
“But where’ll I go?” I protested.
“W hat the hell do I care?” He threw his cigaret angrily at
an ash tray. “I ’m not going to be saddled with a bum. Take a
couple of shots with you and be thankful I let you have them ."
H e grumbled under his breath while I packed m y bag. H e
didn’t even say' good-bye. When I left him, he was lying back
on the bed, a cigaret dangling from the com er of his m outh and
his deep-set gray eyes fixed unseeingly on the ceiling.

P ark Bench B um 23
I walked aimlessly away from Mrs. P otter’s lodging house.
Only after I had gone several blocks and was aware of
the weight of my suitcase did I realize th at I had turned instinc­
tively toward the w aterfront dives rather than the business or
factory district. I was heading automatically for the flop houses
and the dope peddlers instead of the job opportunities.
I lightened my load by hocking my new suit at the first
pawnshop I came to. There wasn’t much else in the suitcase, a
few shirts, some underwear and socks, half a dozen inexpensive
handkerchiefs and ties, my well-worn toilet articles. The suit
brought enough money to have paid my fare home, but I didn’t
want to go home. The last tim e M other and Dad had seen me,
they had been almost proud of me. I wanted them to feel the
same way the next tim e I walked in on them. B ut all the tim e
I was thinking this, I was walking steadily toward street
com er where the Boston junkie had introduced us to a pusher
of adulterated decks.
I hung around for hours until finally he showed up. I bought
a dollar’s worth of his wares to soften him up for a tip as to
to where a jobless junkie who had been put out of his room might
go. H e pocketed my money, looked up and down the street from
force of habit and advised:
“ Get yourself a flop in one of the scratch houses on W ater
Street, and keep hunting for a job. You’ll find one all right in
this town. And you come along here every day about this time
and I ’ll sell you enough stuff to last a day.”
Up the street a one-legged man waved his crutch, and the
pusher lifted a hand in acknowledgment.
“T h at’s Artie,” he said, “one of my regulars.”
I had seen the cripple begging along M ain Street when Charlie
and I were off the stuff. He was tattered and forlorn, but I en­
vied him. He was getting the price of his dope every day.
The quarters I got in a moth-eaten hotel on W ater Street were
not quite bad enough to earn the place the title of “scratch
house,” but I was not concerned with the softness of my bed
nor the purity of the sheets. I f I didn’t get a break, I ’d have to
find even cheaper lodgings.
The break did not materialize. I became one of the down-and-
outers, stumbling along with the rest of the bums from stew
joint to flophouse. I wasted little money on food, and a shave
was not to be considered in view of the small amount of cash
I had for heroin. I grew seedier and seedier until it was useless
to ask for a job in a factory or store.
I t took me two weeks to hit the gutter. M y suitcase and toilet
articles went for the price of a couple of blows. M y shirts and
underwear were swiped by some other bum in one of the flop
houses. I was dirty, for it had been days since I had a bath or
changed my clothes. M y pockets bulged with torn socks. I
broke my hypo needle, and my woes seemed complete.
The dope peddler, a keen judge of the financial status of his
customers, did not need to be much of a prophet to tell th at I
would soon be penniless and trying to bum a couple of decks
from him. He took my last dollar bill and suggested:
“If things get too tough, you can always panhandle a couple
of bucks a day. But see that you keep out of A rtie’s territory.”
I shuffled off, conscious of the fact th at I had acquired the
slovenly amble of the rest of the bums, sliding my feet rather
than lifting them. I had forty-five cents, and gave up a quarter
for a lousy bed in a nearby flea joint. The beds were se p a ra te d '
by chicken wire— “bird cages,” the bums called the compart­
m ents— and the stench was nauseating. I blotted it out with a
good sniff of heroin and slept.
M y optimistic peddler had exaggerated the ease of pan­
handling. M ost of the men I approached with the old “ can-you-
spare-a-nickel-for-a-cup-of-coffee” routine growled at me and
walked a little faster. Once in a great while one of them m ut­
tered something about fellows with two arms and two legs beg­
ging in the streets. The others only thought it. In wartime, they
seemed to imply in the very jerk of the shoulder with which
they turned from me, there was a job for any whole man who
wanted to take it.
For a couple of weeks I managed to raise enough by walking
all day and half the night to get a bird-cage bed and the price
of a couple of decks. Sometimes I got a little extra for food.
But finally I missed out even on that. I got my two blows
stowed away for night and morning, but managed to have only
twenty cents left over. I t was a nickel shy of the cost of a
bed, so I blew it on a stew in a dingy beanery. Then I trudged
mournfully down to the w aterfront to see i f the docks had a
resting place.
Sitting on the stringpiece, I contemplated the dark, slimy
water, churned up now and then by the wake of a passing tug.
I f was littered with garbage and driftwood. I watched one piece
after another until it drifted out of sight or got water-logged
and sank. I was one with this type of refuse; I too ought to sink
out of sight, and it looked easy. But I knew I wasn’t going to
jum p in, not while I had a couple of blows left anyway. I took
one of them, and went on watching the river. I had hit bottom ;
even the sniff of heroin couldn’t alter that grim fact.
The shuffle of feet behind me was so obviously the step of
another down-and-outer th a t I didn’t bother to turn my head
until he sat down beside me. H e was older than I and more
talkative. Booze had him, and he assumed it had me, too. If I
had told him I was hooked on dope, he probaBly would have
scurried away as fast as he Could. D runks only get arrested when
they lie down in the gutter or create a disturbance. A cokie may
be picked up at any time, and usually his company gets pulled
in along with him. M y companion did not talk about his past
nor ask me about mine. T hat is a serious breach of etiquette in
the circle to which dope had now introduced me. H e preferred
to philosophize.
“Half the guys in the money might just as well have landed
151
 in the same boat with you and me,” he said. “They just got a
lucky break. We got a bum one.”
I t wasn’t much of a philosophy, but it was the favorite of the
stum ble bums and the addicts. I ’d heard it before.
“Oh, well,” my companion said at last. “I ’m sleepy. Come on
and I ’ll show you our terrace room at the seaside hotel.’'
We walked for what seemed to me, with my sore feet, a long
tim e before we reached Bridgeport’s Seaside Park. Here my new
friend showed me how to wrap newspapers, retrieved from trash
baskets and benches, under my vest and coat and spread a
blanket of papers on the ground in a nook somewhere sheltered
from the wind. The autumn night bit into my bones. I woke at
daybreak stiff and sore with cramped muscles and a desperate
.determ ination not to sleep on the ground again. One night of it
had taken the last remnant of my pride; I ’d give up and go
home as soon as I could raise the fare.
By way of morning toilet, my companion and I removed the
newspapers and rubbed our arms and legs to restore the circula­
tion. Then we slunk out of the park in much the manner of
homeless dogs in an alley and started back to town. I glanced
nervously at the first cop we passed, but he disregarded us loftily,
and my philosophical friend left me after scalping a couple of
cigaret butte from the sidewalk and presenting me with one.
M aybe he was good luck to me at that. As I shuffled discon­
solately along, I saw a sign in a cheap restaurant: “Dishwasher
W anted.” In those days this was a job usually held only by bums
in the cheaper beaneries, and I was hired. The pay was $2 a day
and meals. A bed and a deck left me a dollar to spare, and I
hoarded the cash grimly. In a week I had enough to go home.
I managed to get cleaned up a little bit before I reached Bank
Street, but it was a pitifully shabby, thin black sheep who re­
turned to the fold. There were no reproaches, but there was no
rejoicing either. Dad, thinner and grayer and stooped, brought
me up to date on neighborhood and family gossip. M other put
in a few words now and then, but for the most part just looked
a t me. Sometimes she sighed, and then bent lower over her
mending as if she hoped I had not heard. I soon pleaded weari­
ness and went to bed.
The next day I looked up Pop Whitey. I had to find out where
the stuff could be bought these days, and figure out ways and
means of getting the price. W hitey was excited.
“You heard about Joe Devon?” he demanded.
“Why, I guess he’s still in Bridgeport,” I said.
“H e died there!” W hitey exclaimed. “Pneumonia, they said.
152
H is sisters heard he got sick after you walked out on him, and
they’re telling everybody w hat a shame it was th a t a man he’d
been good to wouldn’t stay and help him.” v
“B ut he kicked me out,” I protested.
W hitey shrugged. I was really sorry. I thought all Joe’s tem­
per was probably his illness coming on, and I wondered if X
could have done anything to save him if he had not put me out.
I remembered how much I had admired him, how generous he
once had been to his brother’s coterie of younger addicts, of
how we had all looked up to him.
W hitey told me th a t Charlie Lauck also was back in the
city; his chauffeur’s job had not lasted long. I went around to
see him, and we held a mourning session for Joe. Charlie, too,
had forgotten his last quarrels with the oldest of the Devons
and how we had blamed him for getting us back'on dope.
“M aybe, though, we could quit again if we got out of town,”
he suggested wistfully.

R x One Needle 24
Charlie’s logic was unassailable, I thought. J S we had been
happily off the stuff, healthy and sane in one war plant
away from New York City, we ought to have the same luck
in another. I t did not occur to either of us that each of us before
going to Bridgeport had had the drug thoroughly cleaned out
of his system by a term in prison. This time we were on dope
and would have to break away from it all by ourselves.
I, for one, had no doubt th a t we could do it, th a t the mere
change of air and scene and associates would do the trick. B ut of
course I didn’t want to make the switch all at once. I said, and
Charlie agreed, that we would have to have a week’s supply of
junk to take with us.
Our destination was determined for us when we m et a neigh­
bor, a non-addict N ational Guardsman who was serving at the
proving grounds of a shell works in Parlin, New Jersey. H e told
us the Hercules Powder Plant there was desperate for men.
As soon as we had scraped together the week’s supply and a
few dollars, we set off for Parlin and w hat we thought was re­
habilitation. We landed jobs in the Hercules plant without any
trouble at all, but that was the last tim e either of us mentioned
going off the dope. 1
in
 Parlin was a ramshackle boom town with living quarters no
b etter than a Bridgeport flop house and beaneries as unappetizing
as any I ’d ever seen. W orkers lived in "barracks partitioned into
stalls with chicken-wire ceilings. The whole town reeked of
the stench of its two leading industries, the powder plant and the
shell works, both of which belched choking sharp fumes into the
air twenty-four hours a day. In all the months I was there,
the stink never left my nose and throat. For a couple of junkies
the recreational facilities of Parlin— some evil-looking saloons and
even more evil-looking bawdy houses—were of no interest.
Charlie and I spent our week-ends in New York and our week­
day time off in the drowsy oblivion of heroin. As a change, we
went on cocaine binges in the city. The relatively high war wages
perm itted us to indulge in ever increasing quantities of dope.
We shifted from job to job. After raking guncotton and tend­
ing vats at the powder plant, we transferred to the shell works,
lured by bigger pay. One assignment was pouring boiling hot
T.N .T. into shell cases, another scraping T.N.T. drippings from
the sides of shells. I told myself that increasing jolts of dope
were necessary to enable me to tolerate the smells and occasional
burns incident to the job and the filthy living conditions. I had
given up the idea of going off the stuff except for an occasional
fleeting remorseful moment when a hangover was particularly bad
and before I had alleviated it with a strong shot.
The killing pace we were setting for ourselves reached a peak on
a week-end when we visited the city and heard that one of the
Hudson Dusters had “bounced” a whole package of pure cocaine
from a drug company truck making delivery to a warehouse. The
news spread through the Village so fast that by the time Charlie
and I lined up at the gangster’s flat, every addict for miles around
was swarming to the place. I had never seen so much cocaine at
one time. The thief had it in a big jar and simply poured it out on
pieces of newspaper at two dollars a pile. A pal collected t}ie two
dollars while he poured and speeded us out the door.
Charlie and I sniffed so strenuously that we had to find a re­
lease for our energies. We legged it in high all the way to Co­
lumbus Circle, a couple of miles or more, and then turned back
downtown on Broadway. The cocaine kept our spirits high until
we had passed through Times Square and were hotfooting it
down Seventh Avenue. All of a sudden the tall dark buildings
and almost deserted, shadowy streets became terrifying. At every
corner we looked back, sure we were being followed. We had a
lovely case of typical cocaine jitters.
Our nerves were strung tight, so tight that when we finally
154
 got gack to the Village and were crossing Twelfth Street, Charlie’s
jitters overpowered him completely. H e let out a terrified scream
and started to run madly. I chased him for a few blocks, bu t he
was speeding so fast that I lost him. I paused a minute to get my
breath, then ran on hoping to find him before his screams led a
cop to pick him up. There was no trace of him, and I needed an­
other blow to pep me up again. I selected a saloon with a base­
ment washroom, and there sniffed, sat back and waited for the
effect.
I t came, reviving me but bringing with it one of those crazy
performances typical of the cocaine binge. I began unrolling the
toilet paper and tearing it into small pieces. In a quarter of an
hour the roll was em pty and the floor around me was ankle deep
in a paper blizzard. I was just contemplating the wisdom of mov­
ing to the next booth and continuing the process when I saw a
pair of enormous shoes under the door.
“W hat the hell’s going on there?” a hoarse voice demanded.
“I ’ll be out in a m inute,” I called inanely, and heard the shoes
beating a quick tattoo as their owner ran up the stairs.
I had a vision of myself in the detention ward at Bellevue
Hospital, where New York sends its suspect m ental cases, for
, surely tearing up paper is not far removed from cutting o u t paper
dolls, and maybe a lot sillier. I grabbed my coat and ran. I made
the top of the stairs just as the bartender came around from
behind the bar. His curses followed me as I streaked out the
family entrance. I was really worried. First Charlie’s mad fright;
then my own inanity. I was trembling when I reached the ferry
for New Jersey.
I t was a relief to find C harlie. asleep in his upper bunk a t
the barracks, but he was so exhausted that I couldn’t wake him.
Next morning he had only the vaguest recollection of the night
before, and what he did remember hadn’t happened.
“I tell you, I saw H ackett and Judge coming out of a cellar on
Abingdon Square,” he insisted. “T hat’s why I ran.”
“But you yelled and started running half a dozen blocks before
you got there,” I reminded him.
He shook his head and wrinkled his brows. His vacant blue
eyes gradually assumed a worried expression. Charlie was having
hallucinations, and apparently was not quite sure any more w hat
he saw and what he dreamed.
F or several weeks I could hardly eat anything. I refused to
blame the drug, insisting th a t the smell of T.N .T. was w hat
turned my stomach. One night I was so violently ill th a t Charlie
took me over to the doctor at the first-aid: station in the morning.
155
M y skin was a yellowish brown, exactly the color of T.N .T., and
the plant physician advised me to leave the job immediately and
consult my family doctor when I got home. Charlie decided to
quit too, for he looked and felt as if a little more of T.N.T.
pouring would be the end of him.
If M other and D ad thought that my illness was due more to
drugs than to T.N .T., they never said so. I was so weak I needed
help to get cleaned up. M other washed my face as she had when I
was a very little boy, and laid out clean clothes for me. She sug­
gested I go see the doctors at the New York H ospital’s clinic on
W est Sixteenth Street, and I agreed. I was too sick to care if they
found out I was a drug addict.
M other went with me, and spiritually held my hand in the
waiting room until my turn came to see the doctor. H e was asking
me some preliminary questions when over his shoulder L saw Dr.
Crutchley of St. Vincent’s in the doorway of one of the offices
down the hall. He saw me at the same moment, and for a couple
of seconds we just stared at each other. He hadn’t changed a bit,
and I was no bigger than the scared, skinny kid who had escaped
from his “ cure.” He was the first to recover from astonishment.
“W atch out for your drug cabinet, D octor!” he called to the
man beside me, and dashed toward the outer corridor.
The physician who had been examining me didn’t move. H e was
much too surprised. I, who had been weak as a kitten five minutes
before, jumped up and ran to the window. I t opened on an am ­
bulance driveway. I flung it up, leaped out and ran as fast as
I could to the street and around the com er. I lurked in a doorway
until I saw M other leave, holding a handkerchief to her eyes.
I t had been another miserable humiliation for her, but I was
afraid to join her until I was certain she was not being followed. I
trailed along behind her for a couple of blocks, and then came up
to her.
“Oh, Lee,” she said, her eyes wet. “I am glad you got away. I t
was terrible. T hat awful Dr. Crutchley made such a scene. H e’d
sent in orderlies to hold you until the police came, and he was
furious. H e talked to me as if it was all my fault. And right out in
front of all the other doctors and nurses, too.”
There wasn’t a thing I could say to com fort her. I was probably
at least as angry as Dr. Crutchley. But the only thing I could have
done to help was to quit taking dope. I kept silent, thinking of the
speeches I would like to make to D r. Crutchley and the tortures
I would devise for him if I had the power.
I knew Mother had hoped, in taking me to the clinic, to avoid
the expense of a private physician, but now she simply said we
156
m ust go right on over to the old Irish doctor who had taken care
of us in the past. He gave me a more civil reception, for M other’s
sake, but when we were alone in his examining room he grunted:
“Hummpf, so you’re still alive!”
He told me I had a kind of jSundice induced by the T.N .T.
and would have to get out into the country for at least two weeks
of fresh air and sunshine. I think he wanted to spare M other as
much of the care of a sick addict as he could, and the best method
was to get me out of her way.
She prevailed upon my aunt, who lived on Long Island, to take
me' in for a time, and I went without any protests, for I had
enough money to arrange for Pop W hitey to send me regular
supplies of dope. I was so quiet and so little trouble that I sus­
pect my aunt wondered if maybe I Was not getting to be normal.
I ju st sat around soaking up sunshine, and dope kept me pleas­
antly drowsy all the time.
When I got back to the city, my jaundice cured but my habit
unchanged, the dope fraternity was buzzing with the news of a
new legal way to get the stuff. In the hope of curbing the grow­
ing menace of addiction, the authorities were arranging with cer-
tian local doctors to attem pt reduction treatm ents for any and all
addicts who might apply. The theory was that the addict would be
eased off his habit, and meanwhile the illict traffic, deprived of its
customers, would receive a death blow.
Charlie and I selected a practitioner in one of the small brick
dwellings on Hudson Street between Barrow and the old St.
Luke’s churchyard. This was a sort of medical row a t the time,,
nearly every house displaying one or more shingles. The doctor, a.
businesslike young man with curly blond hair holding himself
very straight-and dignified to make the most of his short stature
and few years, asked briskly how much dope I took a day and
what kind. Since I knew this was a reduction treatm ent, I men­
tioned about double the actual amount, ten grains.
“And I ’ll need an extra prescription for hypodermic needles,”
I added.
H e nodded indifferently, and filled out two prescriptions, one
for heroin and the other reading: “Rx, (1 ) One hypodermic
needle— addict.” Then he filled out another little card, the size of
a visiting card, printed with his name and address, and telling any­
one to whom it might be of concern:
“This is to certify that Mr. Leroy Street o f Bank St. is
being treated by me and is entitled to (one) 1 hypodermic
syringe, hypodermic needles and narcotic medicine.”
It was sijpied by the doctor, and in the corner he also wrote, as
157
he had on the prescription, “Addict.” Like m ost of his other dope
patients, I got a new prescription for needles every time I went to
see him, for one never knew when an extra needle would come, in
handy. The prescription for drugs was supposed to be enough for
three days, when it would be replaced by one calling for a re­
duced amount.
The sense of freedom with which I walked out of his office
was exhilarating. I did not need to fear being tapped on the
shoulder by a detective. I could -walk boldly into any drug store
and get my dope over the counter. Furtherm ore, it would b ^ th e
simon-pure article, unadulterated. The illicit traffic had discovered
adulteration in a big way. When I had begun taking heroin, we
used to have to cut our own with sugar of milk. Now it normally
came so diluted that it was weaker than I had been accustomed to
taking it a few years before. While it was far from the later
adulteration—when buyers got only about one part in ten heroin
—we thought it a serious problem.
I t did not take the addicts long to discover that some of the
doctors were willing to overlook that part of the program which
called for progressively diminishing doses. These practitioners got
virtually all of the business, and for a while it was a thriving one.
The doctor Charlie ahd I had visited was among those who
handed out a prescription for what one asked. He did so well so
rapidly th a t he moved to more elegant quarters uptown and there
quite suddenly he died.
It was a day on which I wanted to renew my prescription.
When I reached his house, I saw it literally besieged by junkies.
They were paying no attention to the crepe hanging on the door,
But kept ringing the bell and gathering in little groups in the street
to clamor for prescriptions.
“I t ’s a fake,” one of them whom I knew by sight told me
angrily. “H e’s taken our money. Now he’s got so much of it he
wants to fold up and quit.”
The doctor’s distraught widow finally called the police, and
the minute they came in sight, the crowd of addicts vanished like
smoke. M ost of us found our way even further uptown to another
physician who was easy with prescriptions. His business became
so big that he hired a bouncer to keep the crowd in order.
At this time it became a little more difficult to get the prescrip­
tion filled than it did to get the prescription in the first place.
M ost drug stores were disinclined to accept without question so
many repeated demands for such large quantities of narcotics.
B ut there were a few, m ostly in midtown, which were glad to
get the trade. Soon I was shopping around from one to another
trying to decide which had the stronger medicine.
As the number of stores which w ould'fill these prescriptions
repeatedly shrank, the crowds in each grew. At last we became
so noticeable that the proprietors would not let us w ait in the
shop for our orders to be filled. We had to come back later, and
attem pts were made to stagger the times.
The carefree era of prescriptions lasted through one Christm as;
and during the holiday week when I went up to my usual phar­
macy for a refill, one of the addicts just coming out whispered:
“D on’t forget to get your Christmas present.”
I didn’t h iv e to hint for it. As he handed me my little box of
heroin, the clerk reached down below the counter and produced
a gaily wrapped little package with a tag: “A M erry Christmas
f r o m -------------’s Pharmacy.” I ducked into a washroom a block
away to cook up a shot, and there opened my present. I t was •
a shining new hypodermic syringe and three needles! The ideal
Christmas present for a dope!
This same clerk had seemed to think himself a little superior
to the junkies he served for some months. Gradually, however,
his manner changed. He acted as though he were one of us. I t was
some time before I discovered that he actually had become one of
us, and through sheer inadvertence.
I t was his job to make up the little boxes of powder for which
our prescriptions called. This particular store had an unusually
large proportion of junkies among its clientele, with relatively few
cocaine or morphine addicts. When it came time for the clerk to
take his two weeks’ vacation, he stayed only two days. H e was so
miserable after he had been gone a day th at he decided to return
to the city. He did not recognize the symptoms of a yen, but he
found that his restlessness and distress vanished when he resumed
his place behind the prescription counter. He had contracted a
heroin habit just by breathing in the fine powder as he poured it "
from jar to box. He was as much a slave to the stuff as the cus­
tomers he served.
This doctor-to-drug-store-to-addict play lasted for nearly a .
year, and the detectives of the narcotics squad m ust have had an
easy time of it. Once in a while one of them frisked me, but with­
out much enthusiasm because he always found my doctor’s permit.
There was no point in raiding our homes; we had to be vigilant
now only in keeping the stuff out of sight of the family.
But as the war ended, and the world became preoccupied with
a peace th at was to last forever, the authorities decided th at their
own armistice with the drug addicts should be called off. The era
1of free and easy prescriptions closed, since the much heralded
reduction program had failed. W ith a better world supposedly
dawning; another crusade against narcotic addiction would be
tried.

25 F ast, F u rio u s and F atal

Heroin had set a pace faster than the two-dollar prescription
doctors could maintain. With the failure of this experiment, the
State decided to attem pt cures in its own clinics, not in jails or
by hospitalization. As I was rounding out my ninth year of ad­
diction, the first registration office was opened on Spring and
M ercer Streets, and junkies from all over the city mobbed the
doors.
I t had been announced that the clinic would conduct a super­
vised reduction treatm ent. The theory was that when an addict
had been cut down to an insignificant dose he would have no
trouble at all getting along without th at last bit. I t sounds
perfectly reasonable. The only trouble with it is that it doesn’t
work. I suppose virtually every addict at one time or another, and
usually often, has carried out the first steps of a tapering-off
process without difficulty. H e gets down- to a small fraction of
what he had formerly thought essential. But to divide th at last
little bit becomes as hard as splitting the atom.
To any addict the first p art of the clinic idea was welcome,
whether he had any serious intention of tapering off or not. I t
was an opportunity for legal, cheap dope. To me it sounded
too good to be true. Charlie, Pop W hitey and I went down to
look the place over on the first day, but we didn’t join the long
line at the door. We thought it might be a ruse to round up all
the junkies in town at once and send them away.
The reports of other addicts who had registered convinced us
that an attem pt was being made to help cure addicts without con­
cealing any strings. So we put in our applications, were told to
come back with a photograph like a passport picture, and were in­
formed th a t the clinic itself would be open on W orth Street. Each
addict received a registration form^complete with his photograph,
signature, a description and this statem ent:
“Narcotic drugs may be prescribed for, adm inistered and dis­
pensed in accordance with the Public H ealth Law of the State of
180
 I
New Y ork for the person to whom this card is issued, properly
filled out and signed.”
Each of these passports to the reduction treatm ent was num­
bered. There were enough registrants by the tim e I arrived th a t
my number was well over 3,000.
There were so many addicts lined up in front of the dispensing
clinic that the newspapers published photographs and extensive
stories. I t was the first official clinic of its kind in the country,
and the number of men and women taking advantage of it pro­
vided sensational articles.
As I walked toward the clinic from the subway station, I joined
a stream of other addicts, and we passed an equally large num ber
moving away from the clinic, some of them clutching little boxes
in their hands.
In the big hall of the old building there m ust have been several
score addicts standing or sitting on benches against the wall w ait­
ing to be interviewed by four or five doctors who sat at desks
scattered around the place. I was surprised to see so many strange
faces— I had thought I knew by sight most of the junkies in town.
I was equally startled by the number of women. Perhaps a th ird
of the addicts present this day were women from tw enty to fifty,
and some of the younger ones had babies in their arms. I won­
dered why they hadn’t left such little kids at home.
When it came my turn, a doitor asked me how much drug I
used, and when I exaggerated as usual and told him my habit was
heroin, he explained that the tapering off would be done with
morphine. This is sound because a morphine habit is easier to
b reak ; the substitution brings a junkie down one rung of the dope
ladder. After the doctor had signed my dosage chart, I took it to
a long counter at the rear of the hall where several pharmacists
were kept busy compounding the prescriptions.
Few of the addicts waited until they were outside to get the
drug into them. They could be seen in com ers of the various ante­
rooms off the main hall cooking up a quick shot. As I was prepar­
ing mine, I saw a woman hand her infant to another female addict
to hold while she crouched over to sink a needle into her thigh.
Then she took back the baby and immediately began to nurse it.
I saw this scene repeated several times before I learned that the
babies, bom of addict mothers and fed on their milk, speedily
acquired a habit too and would wail endlessly if the m other was
long deprived of her drug. W ithin a m atter of a few minutes after
she got a shot, the baby would get enough of it from the milk to
be soothed.
More amazing to me, and to my fellow patients, was the fact
161
th a t we got our morphine openly under the eyes of several uni­
formed policemen who were there to keep order. Their very pres­
ence made me uneasy, I know, and I suspect it was the same with
many others. I was almost afraid to pick up my box of morphine
while one of the cops was watching.
The clinic physicians were much more strict about observing
the reduction pjan than the private physicians I had visited. Of
course we addicts immediately set about figuring ways to beat the
system. The only one that really worked was to find a “stand-in”
to register as an addict and then turn over his shots when he got
outside. This m eant finding a non-addict friendly enough or reck­
less enough to take the chance.
In its first week or so, while the addicts were getting enough
dope from the clinic to maintain their habits, the drug traffic took
a terrific slump. Peddlers and dealers were being put out of busi­
ness all over town. Soon some of the sellers hired steerers to
mingle with the crowds outside the clinic to whisper hints as to
where “H ” could be obtained at cut-rate prices. One of the first
results of the clinic operation, and a purely tem porary one, was
to bring the costs of a habit down. Also mingling with the crowds
were addicts whose prescriptions had been reduced below the
point they thought they could manage. They would offer cash for
the little box just handed out in the clinic, but they seldom found
any of the addicts willing to sell.
When W hitey, Charlie and I reached this point, we simply
went to a pusher who was doing business not two blocks from
the clinic. He was handing out morphine sulphate at the rate of
five dollars for an eighth of an ounce. The three of us chipped in
for a supply, and I never went back to the clinic. For a time I
worried that there might be some check on addicts who failed to
report, but nothing happened.
The clinic reduction treatm ent was as if it had never been, so
far as I was concerned; in fact it gradually dwindled away to
nothing as it became obvious that addicts were using it only so
long as it supported their habits. I was getting to be one of the
veterans, ten years on dope. I had seen w hat seemed to be several
generations of teen-agers, as pink-cheeked and eager as I had
been at fifteen, becoming pale and drawn and growing up into a
prem ature old age. Fellows of my own age and even shorter on
dope were dropping off one by one.
D utch Reemer reported one day that Freddie Carson had taken
an overdose in the Reemer bathroom while D utch’s m other was
out at work. D utch hadn’t been able to revive him, and was
scared that there would be an investigation intoffiis death. There
162
 was, and D utch went to the penitentiary where he died. At alm ost
the same tim e H arry Lowns, only ten years before one of our
m ost promising Village athletes, died of tuberculosis in a State
sanitarium. Red H eybert’s body was found in a parked car; he
too had taken an overdose.
Each one of these deaths was a shock. I knew dope was respon­
sible for them, and had recurrent bouts of fear that I would be
next: Usually a strong shot would dissipate the fears, and leave
me at least shakily confident th at my number wasn’t next. We
seldom talked about these fears, but one night Charlie and Pop
W hitey were feeling low and scared, and W hitey said he also felt
sick. Even an extra shot did not make him feel better. •
Next morning I called at W hitey’s house to pick him up, and
was surprised to have his sister open the door for me. She was the
sole support of th a t home, and ought to have been a t work.
Instead she was crying. She did not ask me in; she had as little
use for her brother’s companions as m ost families of an addict did
for the associates upon whom they blamed their own loved one’s
misfortunes.
“ George died last night,” she inform ed me abruptly, using
W hitey’s proper name, which I had almost forgotten.
She closed the door, and I hurried over to share the bad news
with Charlie. H e was as shocked as I. We took a shot to brace
ourselves and talked sentimentally about the m any good turns
W hitey had done us. We walked by his house; the crepe was on
the door, and I wanted one last look at the poor fellow, but I
knew I would be extremely unwelcome and probably not adm it­
ted. We walked on.
Charlie seemed to take W hitey’s death harder than I. H e was
hitting cocaine heavily, and was jum py as a steel spring. Once or
twice he seemed on the verge of repeating his terrified flight of
the night of our wild cocaine binge. Then one afternoon I saw him
in Bleecker Street. H e was waving a broken window-shade roller
and chanting:
“I t ’s a drom edary; it’s a dromedary,”
“Come on, Charlie, let’s go home,” I urged, taking him by
the arm.
He shook me off as if he had never seen me before, and went on
chanting as he walked. I followed behind, fearful that he would
wander into the arms of the police, but he turned in a t his own
door with no more harm than a few odd looks from passersby. I
never saw him again. A couple of days later he was taken to the
asylum for the insane on W ard’s Island. H e lived for years, but he
never regained his sanity.
163
 26 The Little Children
I I think I was a little out of my mind for weeks, beyond even
the usual instability of an addict. W hitey dead and Charlie mad!
Fear and sorrow, anxiety and regret weighed so heavily upon me
that I actually cut down on my daily consumption of heroin for
a few days. Forebodings failed to vanish when I returned to my
regular number of full-strength shots.
D rifting in a m ental fog, I went through the dope-sodden days
in a state of numbness when I was fortunate and mental anguish
when I was not. Thanks to M other’s tireless energy at the wash-
tubs and with her sewing, I was sufficiently presentable to get an
occasional job. Sometimes I picked up a few weeks of work at
lettering for advertising layouts or copying photographs. More
usually I would be taken on for clerical work that required no
skill or training. But invariably I would.be fired, either because
of complete inattentiveness on the job or repeated and unex­
plainable absences when I would be off on a narcotics binge.
There was no one to replace W hitey and Charlie. Few of the
surviving members of the old-Devon gang were congenial even
when I was soaked to the eyes in heroin. And they were dropping
off anyway. I t was without any other emotion than fear for what
it might indicate as to my own fate that I heard Drio M urtha
was dead and that D utch Shore, kicked out of his home by par­
ents who despaired of his reformation, was found iiteiess in his
shabby room on the Bowery. Overdose was the verdict in both
cases.
M other and Dad had been closer students of some of the
phases of drug addiction than I. They didn’t like to talk about
their son even to dose friends and family, but I know they read
everything they could get their hands on." I suppose it was about
the year 1921 that they became impressed by the theory th at ad­
diction was a form of nervous disorder. They pointed out to me
th a t it seemed to be fatal, too, and reminded me of the many
deaths in my own circle.
“You should have a thorough examination at Neurological H os­
pital,” D ad decided, and so it was arranged.
M other went with me, but the doctors had her w ait outside
while they questioned me. Several of them took part. The exami-
164
nation was brief and, to me, meaningless. They conversed to ­
gether in low tones, then went out to report to M other.
“They told me you should apply at the W illard Parker Hospi­
tal,” she explained as we left. “A new cure for drug addiction is
going to be given there.”
‘‘Willard P arker!” I exclaimed. “T h a t’s a place for contagious
diseases!”
I had not bargained for another stay in an institution, and the
idea of a hospital usually associated with smallpox, typhoid and
mysterious Oriental ailments frightened me. M other probably
thought it was a good place for an ad d ict; she never gave up the
idea th at I had “caught” my habit from the bad company into
which I had fallen.
“Those nice doctors told me that this is a new cure and abso­
lutely painless,” she assured me. “ I t ’s given by a Dr. B rom ley ,
who is supposed to be wonderful in these cases.”
“Well, I ’ll take it,” I said half-heartedly, “but I don’t suppose
it’ll do any good.”
I didn’t like anything about the hospital for contagious diseases
—neither the antiseptic odor nor the brisk nurses nor the healthy
gentle physician into whose office I was ushered with very little
waiting. I explained my mission gloomily. He' shook his head re­
gretfully.
“I ’m afraid you’re a little prem ature; we haven’t completed
our arrangements yet,” he said, but as I brightened and rose to
go, he added: “ Sit down a minute. I ’ll see what I can do for you
elsewhere.”
I heard him ask the operator for Riverside Hospital on N orth
Brothers Island, and while he waited I tried to remember w hat I
had heard about this place. I t was another of the city properties
where municipal isolation hospitals were located. Then someone
came on the line and a long discussion took place. I gathered th at
N orth Brothers was not ready for the likes of me, and I cheered
up. But my doctor argued like a lawyer for me, and I jerked
nervously in my chair. H e seemed to have set his mind on my
having first chance at the new cure, and he was uncom fortably
persuasive. At last he hung up with a smile.
“I t ’s settled,” he announced trium phantly, and within an hour
I was on a boat pulling away from an E ast River dock.
I reflected gloomily that my life was a succession of trips on
this oily passage which New Yorkers call a river. H art’s, Black­
well’s and R iker’s had all been tried, and had done me no good.
(Actually, I did them an injustice. M y jail and hospital periods
had kept me off dope long enough so th a t I was still alive.) We
passed Blackwell’s with its crowded mass of grim buildings. Then
came Randall’s, one I had never visited, with its House of Refuge
for disciplining dead-end kids who got into trouble. A little
further was W ard’s, which I always envisaged as dominated by
straitjackets and ice packs. Somewhere among the inmates, whom
I pictured as gibbering and foaming at the mouth, was Charlie. I
was still thinking of him sadly when we passed Riker’s with its
prison and its rats.
The journey was hardly a cheering prelude to another “cure.”
I suspected th a t I was doomed to another period of torture which
would end either in death or disappointment. The only difference
seemed to be that instead of being confined with criminals or
paupers, I was going to be surrounded by victims of dread
diseases.
We had left R iker’s behind and were entering Long Island
Sound. N orth Brothers Island was just ahead; I would not have
to look at H art’s, which lay beyond. I picked up my little bundle
— comb, toothbrush, pajamas, a few handkerchiefs—and stood
in the diminishing breeze as the boat pulled into the dock.
At a small adm inistration building, I was asked to wait until a
Dr. Westmoreland came to see me. He didn’t keep me waiting
long, and when he did arrive gave me a more thorough examina­
tion than my previous physicians at various cures. A man I judged
to be in his middle forties, he asked his questions sympathetically
but pointedly so that I found myself telling him all about my
various treatm ents and relapses, the blue hypo spots on my legs
—some due to mixing shots of cocaine and heroin, others left
over from the “cement-arm” cure.
“Well, we’ll see what we can do for you here,” he said at last.
“D on’t you worry about anything. You’ll have to wait a few days
before D r. Bromley is ready to start, but in the meantime we’ll
see th at you get enough morphine to keep you going.”
His m anner was so convincing th at I almost believed him. M y
growing optimism also was fostered by the surprisingly kind, even
friendly, treatm ent from the whole staff. I t was the first time that
I as an addict had met such cheerful consideration from the em­
ployees of municipal institutions.
The orderly who showed me to my quarters walked along beside
me instead of ordering me to follow him—a small thing but sig­
nificant of the general attitude. He talked as if to a casual visitor,
explaining that the big cement structures we passed were each
devoted to a different disease. M y destination was C.B. 2, the
initials standing for “Cement Building.”
The nurse who took me in hand in the office was young and
166
smiling and, I recall vaguely, pretty although feminine beauty was
not a thing I noticed very much in those days. She showed no
disgust for an addict; I felt th a t she thought of me not only as a
patient but a human being. She proved it as she escorted m e
down the corridor.
“D on’t look so w orried!” she said. “You won’t go under trea t­
m ent for at least a week. Now here’s where you will sleep.”
She opened the door to a small but freshly painted room with
a bed, chair and table, and a window looking out on the lawn.
She motioned to the washroom across the hall and added:
“A fter you get washed, you can come downstairs and I ’ll see
th at you get something to eat.”
“Gee, this seems wonderful!” I exclaimed. “I ’ve never got a
break like this before, I m ean.” I stammered a little. “I mean I
never went in for a cure and got a private room and had people
be so nice to me.”
“Oh, you’ll be all right,” she smiled. “Everyone here is going to
help you. Your name is Mr. Street, isn’t it? Mine is Miss Chase.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, arranging m y little bundle’s con­
tents on the table, and reflected that in no other institution had
anybody cared what my name was. M aybe there would be a
chance for me in these surroundings.
When I had washed and returned to the main floor, I saw Miss
Chase disappearing through a pair of double doors. One was-
ajar, and through the crack I caught a glimpse of rows of white
beds. I stopped and could hear her voice very clearly asking ques­
tions. I couldn’t hear any answers, but from w hat she said it was
plain she was carrying on a conversation with someone. In a
moment she came out, and as the door opened I caught a faint
rustle of whispers barely audible and cut off when she closed the
door again.
“I ’m glad you came down,” the nurse said cordially. “ Come
along to the kitchen and m eet Mrs. Tracey, who gets all our
food.”
Mrs. Tracey, an elderly cheerful woman in blue, was bustling
about the tiled kitchen and didn’t seem to mind visitors at all.
She whisked together a tray of m ost inviting food, and Miss
Chase told me I could eat it there or take it up to m y room. I
chose my room, and while I was polishing off the meal, I heard
the same strange faint whisper that had come from the ward
downstairs. Very light footsteps tiptoed along the corridor. Then
one of the weirdest sounds I ever heard outside of a narcotic
dream—a burst of whimpered laughter, very gay b u t sounding as if
it came over water from a great distance, and at the same time
right outside the room. There was a sudden knock on my door
and the rustle of soft scurrying footsteps.
I rushed out into the hall in time to see three tiny children in
gray bathrobes running down the stairs. They were still laughing
in that odd way, and looked back at me with broad grins lighting
up their round little faces. I laughed after them, and suddenly
realized that it was the first healthy laugh I ’d had in years.
When I took my tray down to the kitchen, I found Miss Chase-
and asked her about the kids.
■ “ Come on,” she said, “I ’ll show you. You'll be surprised to see
what a big family we have.”
There m ust have been more than fifty beds in the ward. In
them or playing around them were children hardly more than
babies. The oldest could not have been more than eight, and the
youngest only two. They all wore the gray bathrobes, and thirty
or more of them were scampering around the room, bending over
toys, carrying out mysterious projects involving bits of paper or
books. But the only sound was that faint rustling whisper. It was
like watching children through thick glass. Kids and noise up to
then had been synonyms for me. I ’d never seen as many as this
in one place, but when a tenth that many got together on Bank
Street you could hardly hear the traffic for the yelling and laugh­
ing and crying. As we stood in the doorway, even the whispering
stopped, and the kids turned to look without shyness or fear at
the stranger.
“Diphtheria cases," Miss Chase explained. “Their vocal cords
have been so badly affected that they can barely whisper. As you
see most of them are able to be up and about, but we have a few
tube cases.”
As we walked down the ward, a group of the little figures fell in
behind us, but discreetly preserved an arm ’s-length distance. The
nurse bent over the bed of one tiny girl, perhaps four years old,
whose fingers were white and waxen on the bedspread. A cloud of
dark hair surrounded a flower-like face from which two huge dark
eyes stared at the ceiling. A small tube like a tin whistle protruded
from her throat. As I approached, her gaze shifted to me, and
when I smiled, her pink little lips responded with a slight move­
ment, infinitely touching.
“She’s one of our most serious cases,” Miss Chase murmured
as we turned away. “She breaths through that tube. If it be­
comes obstructed or is dislodged by coughing, she would suffocate
unless she had prom pt attention. T hat’s why there is always some­
one on duty here.”
The kids who had been following us grew bolder. They had
168
decided I was all right, and suddenly they were around me in a
cheerful quiet little mob, hanging to my hands and coattails,
pulling at my trouser legs, talking to me in those faint incom­
prehensible voices. I was as choked up as they were, and even
less capable of speech. The tiny hands were soft on mine, and the
trusting little faces seemed to say that it made no difference th a t
I was a junkie who was just a useless burden to himself and his
family and society; to them I was a friend and because I was
bigger would protect them.
“You’d hardly believe they would be so happy and playful,”
the nurse was saying. “And mischievous. Y ou’d better watch out
for them now that they know you’re around. All right, kiddies, it’s
time for you to get back to bed. The doctor will be around to see
you in a few minutes, and we don’t want him to find us up.”
Surprisingly obedient, they trotted to their beds, and Miss
Chase led me to the door.
“You can take a walk if you like around the grounds,” she
said, “but don’t go too far. The doctor will be around later
in the afternoon with your medicin£.”
I smiled at the tactful word “medicine” and waved to the w ard '
as I went out. As I strolled down a stone path I kept thinking
about those kids. Maybe it was their inability to make a noise
that made them seem like so many angels, but I couldn’t get them
out of my mind. I had forgotten to worry about myself and w hat
would happen to me in the cure and what the prospects of a
soothing shot might be in the meantime.
My walk took me past a wooden pavilion in which several
men were playing pool while others sat in chairs around the wall,
watching and smoking and talking. I watched through the window
and then went in. No one seemed to mind, and I soon fell into
conversation with one of the spectators. All the men were from
the tuberculosis building, he told me, most of them sailors who
had contracted the disease while in the Navy. Then I noticed that
each carried or had near him his tin sputum cup. There was a lot
of laughing and joking over the game. Some of these patients
looked strong and well enough, but others were as thin and pale
as I. But what they lacked in health they made up in courage.
I couldn't remain long. I was beginning to yawn; neither the
tuberculous patients nor the little children in the ward could
drive from my mind any longer the fact th a t m y last shot had
been taken early that morning. I was heading for a yen, and I
didn’t dare miss the doctor who would give me my soothing dose
of morphine.
He turned out to be a young man. I suspected he was just out
169
of medical school, but w hat distressed m e more than his youth
was the fact th a t he asked a lot of routine questions and wrote
the answers down in a little book. I wanted my shot, not talk.
Finally I told him Dr. W estmoreland had promised me regular
doses of morphine until it was time to start my cure. The young
fellow seemed sceptical. He left the room and when he came back
he had a filled hypo. The shot burned a little as it went in, which
was unusual.-
He couldn’t have gotten to the bottom of the stairs before
the reaction hit me, and I knew that instead of morphine I had
a shot of hyoscine. I t was weaker than my previous cures, but my
eyes became affected in the same way, and I felt as if I was
running a high fever. I jumped out of bed, waved my arms and
walked up and down trying to fight off the drug. I was furious,
feeling that I had been double-crossed. I forgot how pleasantly
everyone had treated m e ; I wanted my morphine.
I struggled into my coat and shoes and started dizzily for
the outer air. The night nurse m ust have, heard me stumbling
down the stairs because she was in the hall when I reached it.
“W hat are you doing down here?” she asked. “You m ust go
right back to bed.”
“I ’m going home,” I informed her. “They’ve broken their
promise to me.”
“Why, th a t’s absurd,” she said. “You got your shot, didn’t
you.”
“Yes, but it was hyoscine and they promised me morphine.”
“There m ust be some mistake. You go back to bed, and I ’ll call
the doctor. I ’m sure he’ll see th at you get the proper drug.”
Even as I tried to fight the fuzziness out of my brain, I realized
th a t I would have quite a time getting off the island. I had to trust
her. I staggered upstairs, and sure enough, in a short time she
came in with a couple of pills which m ust have contained
morphine because I fell asleep as soon as I had swallowed them.
When I awoke the sun was shining in my face and someone was
tapping gently on the door. I opened it to a delegation of my
small neighbors downstairs, come to whisper to me that breakfast
was ready. They wanted me to eat with them, and I was
ridiculously pleased by their smiling soft invitation.
When I got downstairs Miss Chase was on duty. She told me
the hyoscine shot was a mistake by the young doctor, th at Dr.
Bromley reached by telephone had said I was to have three shots
of morphine, one grain each, every day until my cure started.
“You can have one now if you like,” she added, and I took it
from her gratefully.
170
 After she had given up the hypo as m atter-of-factly as, if it
had been calomel for one of the children, she showed me to the
dining room where a dozen or more of the convalescent kids had
their meals while the rest were fed in the ward.
“This is Leroy,” the nurse informed them. “H e’s going to
spend a week with us.”
•There was a m uted babble of childish greetings. The kids ate,
looking at me with big eyes over their spoons. The nearest ones
offered me sips of milk from their glasses. The others smiled
every tim e they caught my eye and would then whisper and giggle
with a neighbor. I was beginning to fall in love with the lot of
them. At the same time I pitied them so much it hurt, b u t the
pain was somehow a happy one.
For a whole week I virtually lived in the children’s ward. They
kept me busy. I played ball with the livelier ones, sat beside the
beds of the tube cases drawing pictures for their amusement, tell­
ing stories to open-mouthed, wide-eyed listeners, building card
houses for them to blow down. I was surprised that I remembered
any stories from my own childhood, but they came back. N ot
enough of them, however, so I got a few books from the nurse and
read up on tales to tell. W ith one of the kids cuddled on my lap
and a cluster of them around me, I was filled with happiness.
Miss Chase allowed me to help wash and dress them, and I did
a lot of strenuous picking up after them around the ward. I t was
the oddest sensation to lift one of those soft, fragile little bodies,
feel a pair of frail arms around my neck and know th at the little
tike trusted me completely. At first they all had been alike, but
as I got to know them better their personalities became more in­
dividual, and I made up nicknames for all of them, a procedure
which they found hilarious.
Nearly every day I spent an hour around the pool table with
the tuberculous patients, but I always hurried back to my kids.
A fter supper I would get my last shot of the day, then go into
the ward for a final hour of stories and-games. Then each small
form would be tucked in for the night and I would go upstairs to
lie on my bed with the door open listening to the phonograph
records of nursery tunes which the night nurses played for an­
other hour to help their patients get to sleep.
Peace and contentm ent such as I had never known flooded over
me. I ’d remember some little gesture of affection from one of
the kids, or the way another had looked at me while I com forted
him after he had bumped his head. I couldn’t understand why I
should feel so well, but one night it occurred to me th a t for the
first time in my life I was being of some use to someone else.
When one of my small pals was well enough to go home I re­
joiced as if he had been my ow n; when another was carried to the
operating room for a tracheotomy, I worried like a father. M y
love for them was a balm to my own soul; because I could make
them a little bit happier, I myself was enjoying much greater
happiness than I had experienced in more than ten years.
I became so engrossed in my kids that I hardly ever thought
about my own cure, but at last came the day when the delegation
of youngsters called for the last time to escort me to breakfast.
T hat noon I was transferred to a dreary, empty old barracks
which had been used most recently to house the victims of an
epidemic of infantile paralysis. The place was dusty and gloomy
with faded notices headed “Poliomyelitis” on the walls. I t was
singularly depressing after my bright little room in C.B. 2 and
the companionship of those brave gay children. A nurse showed
me to a ward with eight beds. At first I thought it was empty,
which did not surprise me as I supposed that I was the first
guinea pig for Dr. Bromley’s cure. Then I noticed th a t a bed in
the corner, was occupied.
“We have a special patient,” the nurse explained. “A doctor
who was with the municipal hospital staff. H e’s trying to break
a twenty-year morphine habit and only came from under the
cure a few days ago.”
We passed on to the ward next door. I glanced back at a patch
of dry rumpled reddish hair on a head half buried in the blanket
and saw that legs and feet twitched nervously under the bed
clothes. He was still suffering from the deprivation of his drug. I
wondered whether he was conscious or not.
While the nurse went off to get clean sheets, pajamas and bath­
robe for me, I slipped back to see if I could get from this patient
an idea of what was in store for me. When I spoke to him, he
turned his head painfully, and a pale drawn face with sunken eyes
looked up at me, looked away, looked back with a vague stare.
Shrunken cheeks and shriveled hands made him look like an old
ma*.
“How are you?” I asked. “I ’m another drug patient, also here
to go under the cure.”
He had to make a great effort to speak, and the words which
he was able to force out between dry lips were faint.
“I ’m supposed to be over it now,” he said, “but I ’m so weak!”
“Did you suffer m uch?”
“Not under the cure, but it’s been hell after it.”
I turned to go, but he held out a hand toward me, took mine
and squeezed it gently.
172 i
 “I f I can come through at my age,” he murmured, “I ’m sure;
you’ll make it.”
“I ’ll see you later,” I whispered as I heard the nurse’s returning
footsteps.
I had thought she would be angry that I had talked to the other
patient,-but she just smiled and said:
“ So, you’ve been getting acquainted with D r. Forth. H e’s
real nice, but still a very sick man. H e won’t be up and around
for another day or two.”
When Dr. Bromley arrived I was getting used to m y sur­
roundings and felt a little better. A heavy-set man of about fifty
with flabby jowls bulging over a wing collar and eyes magnified
by spectacles, he looked something like the cartoons of “Big
Business” trying to look scholarly. Dr. Westmoreland was with
him, and also a fair-headed, ruddy young man with a cheerful
smile who was introduced as Dr. Bromley’s associate who would
take care of me in Dr. Bromley’s absence. Both of them made me
feel th at they would be easy to get along with.
A fter a lot of questions, Dr. Bromley took out his stethoscope,
then interrupted his listening at my chest to hold a low conver­
sation with the other two. I immediately assumed that he had
found some serious defect. A fter all my years of dope, it seemed
probable that my heart m ust be affected.
“How am I, D octor?” I asked anxiously.
He turned to me and shrugged his shoulders while a crooked
smile twisted the corner of his mouth. H e spoke to the other
doctors as much as to me.
“Drug addicts are a peculiar lot. They go on taking fatal doses
of poison day after day, yet they start worrying about it only
when they are to undergo a cure. However, I think you’ll come
through all right.”
“How about you?” Dr. Bromley interposed, turning to me.
“If we cure you, are you going out again and go back to your
drugs?1’
“I certainly hope and pray I won’t. I ’ve had more than ten
years'of it and th a t’s enough.”
“All right,” he said briskly. “Y ou’ll get good care here and Dr.
Crawford will be in to see you several times a day. L et’s hope
that this cure will be perm anent.” He paused, then added force­
fully: “Remember, you can’t go on taking cures. Your youth
has helped you to last as long as you have, and this m ay be your
last chance.”
My cure started that night, and the minute the hypo sank
into my arm I knew that it was hyoscine again! I clenched my
173
hands and groaned. D idn’t they have any other cure than this?
I had only time to ask myself this question when the drug hit,
and I was off into the agonizing, weird dreams so vivid th a t it
was difficult to distinguish between them and reality. We were
not strapped down, and the only variation in this cure from those
I had experienced before was that one night I got out of bed
while the nurse was in the center office and walked out. H alf a
dozen orderlies and nurses scoured the grounds until they found
me sleepwalking dangerously close to the stone sea wall. I had no
recollection of this at all. W hat I did remember, or think I
remembered, was Dr. Bromley coming up to my bed, grinning like
a satyr and whispering:
“I knew you couldn’t stick this out, you’d go mad. Here, grab
this hypo.”
In my dream I had just rolled up my sleeve and plunged the
needle into my arm when the night nurse seized my shoulder.
“H ere,” she said, “I have some medicine for you. W hat are you
doing?”
She was real; the hypo had been a dream, and I was awake.
M y hand had folded a bit of the pillow just as I pinched the skin
before giving myself a shot. I had awakened to the usual week
of painful weakness, yawning and sneezing, but after the first
few days Dr. Forth was a great comfort. H e was on his feet by
this time, and came in to talk to me, easing me over the worst
periods of my recovery.
Among other things, he talked about himself. H e had acquired
his habit while interning in a Georgia hospital. He had taken a
dozen “cures,” some of them costing fabulous sums, or so they
seemed to me. He had been in both public and private institu­
tions, and even in the more carefully guarded private sanitariums
he had been able to bribe someone to smuggle him his drug. He
would go in voluntarily for a cure, and immediately start looking
for a source of supply.
. “I t doesn’t make sense,” he would say, shaking his head, b ut
I understood; in the junkie’s logic it makes perfect sense.
In one of the private hospitals, he had met a whole family
undergoing a cure, “but it wasn’t worth a dam n.”
In a few days, I was able to be out of bed, but we both had
trouble sleeping, and would sit up through the night smoking
and talking as we watched shadows passing back and forward
on the \yindows of the tuberculosis building across the lawn.
“I f I ever get feeling right again, I ’ll probably be practicing in
th a t building,” D r. Forth said one night.
We were strong enough to take brief walks— Dr. Forth tired
174
after a turn or two around the building—when one day he came
back from supper in the medical staff dining room with a broad
grin on his thin face. Dr. Bromley had told him he was ready for
work and could expect to be reinstated on the hospital staff a t the
end of the week.
I t was lonely in the em pty ward after he had left. H e did man­
age to get over to see me every day for a few minutes to tell me
about how busy he was. But he could not stay long. At night sit­
ting alone by the window, I ^vould look over to the building where
he worked and wonder if he was on duty. W hat happened, to a
physician addict off the stuff if he had to give a patient a hypo?
Would he be able to resist tem ptation? Would there be any ,
temptation in D r. F orth’s case?
Then I would think about my kids in the diphtheria ward. I t
would be fun to visit them, but I was afraid. I t would be more
than I could bear if I found that Miss Chase might think I was
a bad influence on them. She hadn’t thought so of course while I
was still getting my regular shots before the cure, and there was '
no reason to think that now I got no drugs it would be any dif­
ferent. B ut I didn’t dare take the chance.
I was complaining of loneliness to the day nurse and telling
her how much I missed D r. Forth, when she interrupted:
“D on’t worry, you’ll have plenty of company soon. W e’re
opening all the wards in this building for drug cases, and the
first of them are coming this afternoon.”
There were four in that first group. I saw them walking up
the stone walk behind Dr. W estmoreland, hunched over and
shuffling like condemned men walking the last mile. T hat was
the way I had walked a few weeks ago. In the next couple of
days ten more appeared, and I was allowed, even urged, to
mingle with them—as an example, I suppose, of how well they
would feel in time. One old-timer was in his fifties and claimed
a thirty-year opium habit. The rest were junkies in their early
twenties, some in ragged clothing, without the price of a cigaret,
some well dressed and obviously from comfortable homes where
they had been cared for as tenderly as I. Several were familiar,
one especially I had seen often panhandling in the subways, but
none were my old associates.
I tried to be reassuring and helpful—a new role for me— but
they were gloomily despondent. They complained th at the mor­
phine shots were not strong enough to take care of their heroin
habits, and were unhappy to leam that the treatm ent was
hyoscine. M ost of them had been through that before; the rest
had heard all about it. I pointed -out to them th a t they were
 more humanely treated here on N orth'B rothers Island than ever
before, that they had not had even morphine to tide them over
before their previous cures, th a t the doctors and nurses were
swell.
I spent several hours a day with them, then went out and
sunned myself on the grounds. A week later the first patients
coming out of the cure could join me. In another week there
were twenty-five addicts in the wards, and we were getting in­
terested visitors from the city—the H ealth Commissioner, D r.
Royal S. Copeland, Chief M agistrate McAdoo and a motherly,
smiling woman introduced as Deaconess Young. She had some
baseball equipment sent over to us, and for the first time since
I was fifteen I got a kick out of throwing a ball.
I had gone from 100 to 138 pounds, and was a new man. M y
cheeks were full, my eyes clear and I could move my arms and
legs without making a big production out of it. I actually felt
like a young man. M other’s joy when she was allowed to come to
see me deprived her of speech. She just sat and stared at me
unbelievingly. M other was no more than middle-aged, but my
decade of dope had aged her more than it had me now that the
heroin was out of my system. But she was not thinking of her­
self, as she patted my hand and beamed. At last she recovered
her voice.
“ God has given you back your health,” she whispered to me
as I kissed her cheek good-bye. “I t won’t be long now until you’ll
be coming home. Oh, your dad will be so pleased!”
T hat afternoon Dr. Crawford asked me if I ’d like to see a
movie, and when I said yes he told an orderly to take me over*
to the recreation hall. On the way we passed a stout, middle-aged
woman.
“Typhoid M ary,” said the orderly, pointing to New Y ork’s
m ost famous carrier of the disease. She had worked as a cook
for years, and everywhere she went typhoid broke out. She was
i immune to it herself, but was isolated on the island for the
protection of the community.
As we neared the hall, I saw fifteen or twenty of the children
from the diphtheria ward marching over between Miss Chase
and another nurse. They came running up to me, whispering
greetings and waving their little hands. As they crowded around
me to be picked up and swung around and put down again, Miss
Chase told me that for days after I left some of them had gone
upstairs hopefully every morning to knock on the door of my
old room.
“You did them a lot of good.” she added casually.
176
 I sat down in front with the children, and I didn’t see much
of the movie. I was having too much fun watching their faces,
their smiles and laughter and awe as the story unfolded. For the
next week I was reinstated as a sort of unofficial games m aster
in the children’s ward. I enjoyed it so much I was almost sorry
when D r. Westmoreland told me I could write my m other th at
I would be home the end of the week. This news was followed
almost immediately by a shock. D r. Crawford came to the ward
carrying a neat gray suit over his arm. I t was for m e; he thought
I would feel better going out well dressed rather than in the
shabby costume I had worn when I arrived.
“I t was D r. F orth’s,” he explained. “The poor fellow died last
night.”
I exclaimed in horror. Also I felt I couldn’t take the suit.
Crawford nodded sympathetically.
“Yes,” he said, “he was a fine fellow. H e liked you, you know.
I think he’d be pleased if he knew you were wearing his suit.”
Later I heard two other physicians discussing my friend.
“Yes,” one of them said, “he slipped back on the junk and
couldn’t take it.”
W hether this was true or not I never knew. I t was a more
than likely fate for any addict recently off the stuff. On the
other hand, it was just the sort of rumor that would be started
about an addict even if not true. In either case, it was certainly
the dope th at had shortened his life, but I desperately wanted
to believe that his last days had been free of it. I mourned for
him, and it was with a certain sense of making some sort of
amends on his behalf th a t I walked down to the boat th a t would
take me back to society wearing the suit he had donned to
resume his duties on the hospital staff.

End o f a D ynasty 27
One more homecoming! I t was impossible to exhaust the patience
or destroy the hope of my parents, those graying,-aging optimists
on Bank Street. I had lost count of the times they had seen me
return with every evidence of health only to revert to the old
( ways. Each time they were praying that recovery was mine for
keeps.
Their loyalty had served me well. In my room was a new out­
fit of clothing; I didn’t have to wear D r. F o rth ’s suit, but I
177
determined to do so at times for luck. M other and Dad even
had persuaded N ed to swallow his scepticism as far as I was con­
cerned, and he had found me a job again, listing delivery records
for a large departm ent store. I was to go to work the day after
my return, no interval for meeting my old companions. And the
first evening after work, Ned took me to Coney Island, fed me
hot dogs and listened in quite his former, indulgent, older-brother
manner while I described my job and the boss’s compliments on
my handwriting.
Actually I got interested in those delivery records. There was
a certain satisfaction in know ing. th at my entries in the big
ledgers were legible and accurate. The departm ent head’s words
of praise and promise of a speedy raise were added incentives.
There were other pleasures connected with the work. The sub­
basement where I had my desk was visited frequently by girl
adjusters from the complaint department, come to look up de­
livery records. They would linger for a little kidding or store
gossip after checking the shipping records. Several of them were
pretty as well as young, and for the first time since Charlie
Lauck and I had patrolled Main Street in Bridgeport I had an
eye for a feminine face and ankle. But I was far too shy to leave
my desk to join one of them at the inquiry counter. I looked
and admired, and dropped my eyes quickly if one of the
glamorous visitors happened to glance in my direction.
I t wasn’t long before I had my favorite. She had a beautiful
face and figure with a lot of brown hair, a pert nose, eyes the
color of a summer sky. She not only seemed to me to be the
loveliest of the lot, but had the sweetest expression. I got so th at
I did my work with only part of my mind, the rest being on the
watch for her. When she came, I noticed and soon resented that
all the male eyes in the place followed her. I developed a sturdy
dislike of my foreman because he made a point of being on hand
when she appeared. He laughed and chatted with her until I
was sure he was making a play for the girl, and him a married
man! If he stood between me and her, obstructing my view, I
was sure he did it on purpose. But he did me one favor. He en­
abled me to learn her name, for I heard him call her Elenore.
As I watched her coming and going, I realized that the nearest
I ever had come to my present emotions had been when M yra
Goodrow held m y hand on the Centerville hayride a couple of
lifetimes ago. I had no idea of getting that close to Elenore; I
was content to watch and worship from a distance. I was sure
that any closer acquaintance could last only until she would
hear about my past. M aybe some day I would be able to live
 th a t doftrn and put it far enough behind me to aspire to Elenore’s
friendship. But not for a long time.
During these weeks, the idea of dope was not altogether out
of my mind. In moments of discouragement or weariness or even
pleasure, it would seem that a single shot couldn’t do me any
harm. But with none of the stuff around and no special desire
to see any of the addicts who still survived, I managed to turn
my thoughts to something else.
They never strayed to the old days of the Devons, which was
ju st as well, for while I admired Elenore from a distance and
cursed the foreman, the gates of Sing Sing opened to discharge
a prisoner whose term had expired, James Devon. I heard the
news by sheer chance. I happened, to be walking along University
Place when one of the elevator operators came to the door for
a breath of fresh air. I t was Skid Pottle, who in the old days
had been so close to the Devons that the sisters allowed him to
visit the home. Skid looked like a wreck even in his neat uniform.
“Jim Devon’s out of the Big H ouse!” was his greeting. “H e’ll
be hanging around Louie’s poolroom on Fourteenth Street, was
there only last night and the gang gave him a great welcome.
You ought to come over and meet him .”
' “I ’d like to,” I replied insincerely, for I thought I had no in­
tention of going.
Skid’s pale face with its telltale hollows and staring eyes
made me nervous. I told him I was in a hurry and walked away,
but I found myself speculating on the legendary Jim , of whom
both John and Joe had spoken so admiringly as the brains of
the family. I don’t think I ever had questioned the quality of
those brains even though they had landed their owner a fifteen-
year stretch in Sing Sing. I wondered what the last of the Devons
looked like, and curiosity nagged at me. W hat sort of a man was
I, I asked myself, if I couldn’t just go and .gee Jim, say “hello”
and go on about my business? I t needn’t mean I was going back
on the stuff. One meeting would satisfy me as to the kind of a
. fellow Jim was, so I could go away and forget all about the
name of Devon forever.
Louie’s pool parlor was a favorite hangout for Village hood­
lums, junkies, crapshooters and youthful im itators of all three.
There was even a good deal of pool played at his well-kept green
tables, the only articles of furniture th a t were not shabby and
dirty. T he usual wave of smoke and noise came out to greet me
as I opened the door and slipped inside.
I looked over Louie’s rush-hour crowd to see if I could spot
Jim . No one who looked like a Devon was playing a t any of the
tables. Then, among the spectators seated against the far wall,
one figure stood out. I thought I was seeing John come to life.
There was the same finely shaped head, thin nose, arched brows,
the same look of distinction even if it was etched by dope, the
cigaret drooping from the lower lip in the same lackadaisical
manner. The sports of the early 1920s weren’t wearing the gaily
checked suits that John had affected, but this figure was dressed
in the narrow-shouldered style of the moment.
I was still staring when a hand clapped my shoulder and Skid
P ottle’s voice was in my ear. He was pushing me across the
room, calling to Jim, who looked up with just the same quizzical,
friendly expression which I had liked in his brother. His hand
grasped mine.
“Always glad to meet a friend of Joe and John,” he said in
a deeper voice than either of his brothers had used.
I snapped out of it. Of course this wasn’t John. The features
were a little coarser, not quite so symmetrical, and the manner
was much more forceful. I told him it was swell to m eet him at
last after hearing about him for years. Then he and Skid and
I were the center of a circle of junkies, and it was like old times
on Fourth Street.
I had nightmares that night as vivid as those induced by
hyoscine but more confusing. Both John and Jim Devon were
in them, jabbing me with hypos which were filled with bright-
red blood. I awoke shivering with fear and wet with perspiration.
I got up, moaning, to dress for work. As my aching head cleared,
I remembered the events of the night before.
Jim Devon had not offered me a shot. Of my own accord, I
had followed Skid into Louie’s washroom, watched avidly while
he took his shot and eagerly accepted an invitation to have one
on him to celebrate Jim ’s return. Then I had gone back to the
other addicts and talked my doped head off. W hat a hopeless
fool I was, I reflected bitterly, no better than when I had been
a bum panhandling nickels in Bridgeport. Even as I lashed m y­
self with remorseful memories, I reached for my pocket where
last night I had put the little packet of paper containing a
couple of shots which Skid had given me to carry me through
the next day.
I hardly took my nose out of my ledgers at the store and the
time dragged miserably. Two nights later I was in Louie’s again,
asking about pushers and where they could be found, deploring
the increased price of “H ” and catching up on the dope gossip.
The gang centered around a Devon as usual, and it was only
when I got away from them that I thought about how that
family was linked to my addiction. Of course I had had re­
lapses without any help from them, but it was John who had
started me on my career, Joe who,had ended the wonderful re­
covery I thought I had made with Charlie in Bridgeport, and
now Jim who had been the cause— innocent perhaps— of my fall
from the heights I had attained on N orth Brothers Island.
I never saw Jim Devon again. The next time I went into Louie’s
he wasn’t there, but Skid Pottle came in breathless with the news
th at he had seen crepe on the door of the Devon house and a
neighbor had told him it was for Jim. The last of the Devons
had been unable to stand the pace. The story was that his heart
had given out, but we all knew the real cause that had ended
a dynasty of dope.

T he M iracle 28
I didn’t need to look in the mirror. I could tell how my af>-
pearance was changing just by watching M other’s face. She
didn’t smile and hum as she went about her work. Lines of worry
came back to her face and when she looked at me th at odd little
gesture *bf lifting her hand to her brow became more frequent.
All this meant that I was losing weight and color, getting the
skull-like hollows at my temples and behind the ears, regaining
a fishy stare.
Christmas was approaching when these changes warned such
sadly experienced observers as M other and D ad that I was
back on the stuff, heading for the ultimate degradation and with
not much further to go. I shared their feeling, even after I had
h ad 'a shot. Heroin kept me going, but m ost of the tim e I hated
it and myself. I t wasn’t even any fun to hang around Louie’s
or the other dives with the remnants of the gang I had known
and the new younger addicts who were joining it.
I fell into the habit of taking long walks by myself, and I
found myself poor company. Dr. F orth’s suit hung loosely on me
now, and when I wore it I thought of the fight he had made and
lost, and how he had been so eager to assure me that I was
young enough to win. I kept remembering the kids in the
diphtheria ward, and sometimes th at memory brought me a little
comfort. I had really been of some help to them, so maybe I
was not altogether and hopelessly useless. They had trusted and
loved me, so I couldn’t be completely worthless.
At the time, I thought my bitterness over my relapse was due
to the fact that it came after the longest period of freedom
from tie habit fhat I had known except when I was in prison.
All m y other intervals of happiness had been cut short in a few
weeks at most. This last one had extended over months. The
memory of it was almost as strong as the morphine I now took
regularly. Heroin had become so expensive and so difficult to buy
th at I had fallen back on the slightly less deadly drug. I t was a
good answer to the junkies who had maintained that “m orph”
would not support a heroin habit for long. In fact, I had my
needs down to the point where I could get along on three half­
grain shots a day, but try as I would this was the minimum,
and th a t only in times of shortage.
To the surprise of my family I did cling to my job. It wasn’t
just that I earned money to buy dope. I felt that my one con­
solation aside from what I could inject with a needle was to be
where I could see Elenore. Never before when on the stuff had
I cared about any non-addict; my feeling for her therefore was
both strengthening and disturbing. Actually I looked away be­
cause shame kept my eyes glued to my ledger whenever she
passed. But the knowledge that she was there brought me to
work every day.
M y very self-effacement attracted her attention. In the midst
of the holiday rush with everyone hurrying more than-usual, a
tap on the glass partition behind which I sat made me look up.
It was Elenore. She smiled at me as she went by. A few weeks
earlier such a gesture of friendship would have been a big thing
in my life. Now it only deepened my humiliation.
Christmas was a mockery in our home despite the tree and the
turkey. I t had been that way for a dozen years whenever I was
present, but this time I felt the distress of others as I seldom had
before. M y Christmas present to M other and D ad was a re­
lapse after their hopes had been raised high.
Uncomfortable as I was in the company of my family, I was
almost less happy now when I m et one of the old addict crowd.
We never seemed to have anything to talk about except the
death of another of us. Y et I found I had few other ac­
quaintances. The boys whom I had known and who had not
been touched by dope had grown up and moved away. I dared
not get friendly with anyone at the store lest my secret be dis­
covered. So I was thrown back largely on myself, and I brooded.
New Y ear’s Eve I thought the gay crowds around Times
Square might be more cheering even if I was alone, but as I
walked amid the shouts and laughter, the blaring horns and
swirling confetti, the close-packed people in two’s and four’s,
I was more lonely than ever. This new year might be full of
182

;------ _____ JdL* . . - -v’

hope and good resolutions for these m errym akers; for me it was
ju st the beginning of the thirteenth year of slavery. Disgusted
with myself and the silly noise of revelry, I turned down a side
street and headed home to bed.
The winter wore on, the spring came and I was just a little
thinner, a little more rumpled, a little paler and more abstracted
than before. But I clung to my job with determination. To do it
I had to moderate my drug taking, which was easier since I had
given up heroin for morphine. I did not dare go on one of the
old cocaine binges, nor did I have much desire for them. I t
was hard enough, without stealing, to buy my steady drug. In
fact I was in one of the periods when high prices had forced me
to scale m y habit down to the half-grain doses which I believed
was the absolute minimum for me.
They were ample to destroy health, and as mine deteriorated
I had difficulty sleeping. Lying awake, I would try to figure out
methods which would enable me to split th a t half-grain dose and
get away with it. I simply couldn’t figure out a method th a t
would be sm art enough to fool myself into believing th a t a
quarter of a grain was half a grain. Y et I remembered th a t Miss
Chase had told me th a t toward the end of my stay in the bright
little room over the diphtheria ward I had been getting quarter-
grain shots when I thought I was having full-grain shots, and
had been happy. B ut now I didn’t have fifty whispering angels
around me to help.
The answer presented itself in the m ost unlikely fashion. I
was shooting my regular noon dose in one of the compartments
of the store washroom when I h it a vein. This was one of the
dread experiences of every addict, for it is always a painful,
frightening shock and is sometimes fatal. I had done it before,
but never with the same powerful effect. I was sure I was dying.
M y heart pounded and seemed to be shaking my whole body.
Every nerve and muscle seemed to react as if I had grasped, a live
wire. I staggered out to the washbasins— fortunately the room
was deserted—drawing in deep gasping breaths. I splashed w ater
over my face, and leaned back against the wall, waiting.
.Gradually the trem ors subsided until I was trembling only
from the fear of my closest call I shuffled back to my desk.
Four hours later it was time for my next shot, and I still was
scared, I had lived for a long time with the fear of death, b ut
this wak something special. In the- past I had been afraid th a t
I might kill myself within a year. Now I was alarmed that a
jab in one of those little blue pipelines to my heart might finish
me off in a minute.
 I cooked up my shot and held the hypo in my hand, pointing
the needle first at one spot on my arm, then another, and hesi­
tating to plunge it home. Terrified by the prospect of death if
I did and of a yen if I didn't, I at last hit on a plan which
seemed to me to minimize the risk.
Carefully I slipped the needle under the skin, and pressed the
plunger ever so slightly to release a drop or two of the liquid.
If I had hit a vein, I could withdraw the instrum ent at the first
symptom. None came. Cautiously I released a few more drops,
and waited again. Still not distress. My plan was working!
In fact it was better than I expected. I took so long to pump
the morphine into my system that by the time I had absorbed
half the shot, my nerves were quieted and the usual effect of
a full dose was spreading through my body. I withdrew the
needle with half a shot remaining in the hypo and stared at it
incredulously. I had found a way to reduce the irreducible! I
had split the atom!
T hat evening and the next morning I followed the new prac­
tice, and could maintain the reduction. I got a little bottle, and
shot the residue of each shot into it, glowing with satisfaction
as I watched the level of unused poison growing. At a single
stroke I had cut my minimum in half, and no ill effects resulted.
Psychologists and endocrinologists and other specialists with
long titles may have elaborate explanations of why this “ stop-
and-wait” formula was successful. M y own belief is that nature,
stimulated by new influences in my life, was repudiating poison
in my system, that the drug was developing its own will power
to destroy itself. Love for those kids on the island, love for
Elenore had added a missing element which provided a more
powerful incentive to break the habit than any purely selfish de­
sire to regain health and strength.
Whatever the scientific explanation, I watched my own pro­
gress toward victory with all the breathless eagerness of a base­
ball pitcher working his way inning after inning through a no-hit,
no-run game. Each day that ended without a relapse to larger
doses was a momentous milestone. Each day that I achieved an
additional reduction was a triumph.
I n a few days I was down to three shots—morning, noon and
night. In a couple of weeks I found my health improving, ap­
petite returning, weight increasing, sleep coming easily. Another
week and I was releasing no more than six drops into my system
at a time.
Still I did not dare trust myself to vary a single im portant
part of the routine. Three times a day I cooked up a full shot,
.184
drew it up from the spoon into the hypo and then released only
six drops. I had an idea that my body somehow would know i t 1
if I started off with less than the full amount, and would then
demand more. The devil of drugs within me was slowly being
starved out, but a dozen years of relapses had made me distrust
my ability to get rid of him permanently. The full dose in the
syringe was a fetish, but im portant to me.
At the end of six weeks, I was able to forego my midday shot
altogether. This was an important step toward ultim ate victory
because I could leave my kit at home and not run the risk of
arrest on the job or while going to and from work. M other and
Dad, bewildered but rejoicing, said nothing to the point but
I could tell that they were reviving hope again. They had never
seen me improve in appearance and manner while living at
home. They didn’t know what it meant, and they didn’t dare to
ask, but they looked at me now without fear in their eyes.
Two months after my great discovery, I was taking about three
drops twice a day, no more than one-fortieth of a grain, and
was toying with the daring thought of giving up the needle al­
together and administering the tiny dose by mouth. I t was a
defiance of-my fetish. The devil in me might be weak and starv­
ing, but would a break in the routine rouse him again? I finally
decided to fool him. I cooked the shot in a spoon, drew it into
the hypo and then, instead of injecting it into my arm, squeezed
three drops onto my tongue. The devil remained quiet!
I t took another month before I dared abandon the hypo and
use an ordinary medicine dropper. But I still cooked up the full
shot to obtain the two drops I now used. I continued to save the
residue, and had a large bottle full of unused dope. I kept the
hypo hidden in a bookcase, for fear the devil would start up
again if I threw it away.
At last I came to the point where even I was confident th at
my habit was imaginary. My routine was reduced entirely to
gestures. I poured morphine and water into the spoon, cooked
the mixture, dropped in the tiny ball of cotton, drew the fluid
into the medicine dropper, threw back my head, opened my
m outh—and then just touched the dropper to my tongue. Not a
drop was released; the mere gesture now satisfied what for more
than twelve years had been an overmastering craving!
I t was time to throw away morphine, quit buying the stuff,
fling my spoon and cotton, my medicine dropper and syringe,
the bottle of unused dope into the garbage can. The day I did
th a t I murmured a blessing on the kids at the island. Anything
I had done to help them had been repaid a million times. B ut
that day was even more exciting to me for another event. I
looked up from my desk to see Elenore walking down the cor­
ridor toward the inquiry counter, a paper in her hand,agay
word on her lips as she passed the men who looked up at her
passing. I got up and went around the glass partition behind
which I had sheltered myself from my own fears of approaching
her. I stood there as she came closer, and when she was abreast of
me I managed to speak.
“Hello,” I murmured shyly.
“HI,” she answered, and smiled at me; she really did.

29 Em an cipated
I had bought my last shot of dope. In fact, I was so leery
of anything that even suggested the stuff that for years I couldn’t
bear to take an aspirin. In trying to appraise my chances for
the future in the light of the past, I figured up w hat I had spent
over thirteen years on narcotics— just the actual cash handed
out to drug stores and pushers. I t totalled $25,000, a tidy fortune
in those days, and a t the prices of today’s illicit traffic would
have been a quarter of a million! The sum staggered me.
At twenty-eight I was starting out afresh, and I had only
to think of the kids who had grown up around me, and stayed
away from dope, to realize how far behind I was. M ost of them
were married, held good jobs and were raising families on Long
Island and W estchester, Brooklyn and New Jersey. The boy
from Perry Street, Gene Tunney, was a rising heavyweight con­
tender. M y own brothers were far beyond me. Even Bobby had
gone through high school, grown up, found a job and been m ar­
ried while I was lost in a haze of dope.
M y own companions were mostly in the grave. One day I
jotted down the names of all the addicts I had known in the
pre-war days, and put little crosses next to those who had died.
There were 126 names on the list and 114 crosses. The twelve
survivors included poor Charlie Lauck, hopelessly m ad on W ard’s
Island. I don’t think a single one of the 126 would have been
more than forty-five.
On another piece of paper I appraised my own situation. It
worked out something like this:

Assets
A home from which nothing could oust me.
186
 The love of parents whose loyalty knew no limit,
x A job.
H ealth that was reasonably good, in fact surprising for an
addict of thirteen years’ standing.
Two worn suits of clothes, some shirts and underwear mostly
frayed, a few neckties and handkerchiefs borrowed from
my brothers, well-darned socks and a pair .of rundown
shoes.
The memory that once in my life, in a diphtheria ward, I had
been of some use to someone.
Two smiles from Elenore.
Liabilities
Thirteen years of deliberate waste and degradation.
A prison record.
A body marked by the telltale tattooing of the hypo. .
An abysmal lack of training for useful employment.
The contempt of my neighbors and the distrust of my family.
A horrid fear that something might happen to me or within me
to throw me back on dope.
There was one other asset which I did not list, and did not at
the tim e appreciate. If I could apply to a career the determina­
tion with which I had schemed to get drugs, I might yet win
back the lost ground.
The first step was my personal appearance. I developed a
phobia about not looking like an addict. I had to keep my hair
trimmed, my suit pressed, my shoes shined, my tie and hand­
kerchief arranged just so. I think the first thing th a t made
M other pretty sure I was w hat she called “well” again was my
neatness. This was the outward sign of my self-respect and an
essential stride toward gaining the respect of others.
Then I had to prove that I could be something better than
the least of clerks in the delivery department. M ine was a dead­
end job. I was becoming ambitious. I set as my goal a transfer
to the adjustm ent departm ent upstairs. Of course the pay and
the prospects would be greater than in the sub-basement. But
a more compelling motive was that I would be near Elenore all
day long.
I t took me two m onths; then I heard that one of the male
tracers in that departm ent had resigned. I asked for the job
and got it. M y ambition prom ptly soared still higher— to bigger
jobs rather than the friendship I wanted even more, because
I was still far too tim id to reach for that. The day I w ent to
work near her, Elenore came over to me.
 “I ’m glad to see you up here,” she said. “T h at’s a dreary old
cubbyhole downstairs.”
The simple words provided a greater thrill than I had derived
from hearing of a new cheap pusher of heroin. I wanted to
tell her how much it m eant for me to be in a better job and
near her. I wanted to say that I thought she was beautiful and
kind. I wanted to ask if there was a chance that she would go
out with me some day when I had proved myself worthy of her.
B ut all I did was blush like a fool kid, swallow my Adam’s apple
and mumble:
“Thanks.”
Regular work, regular meals—and regular thoughts, too— soon
gave me confidence. Once I forgot myself, Elenore was easy
to talk to. I m ustered up courage to ask her to go to dinner with
me, and she accepted- I t was the first tim e I ’d ever taken a girl
out, and I started as nervously as if I was going in for a hyoscine
cure. B ut she soon put me a t my ease.
For all my good start and wonderful reducing method, I
doubt th a t I could have completed my recovery without her.
I didn’t forget about dope all at once b y any means. When the
old restlessness came on, I could grit my teeth and bury myself
in work during the day, and Elenore’s understanding enabled
me to talk myself out of it in the evenings. She had me attend
church with her on Sunday. Ju st being with her gave me a
sense of security and happiness. H er smile and devotion imbued
me with new courage and brought back to memory many things
th a t Father K iem an had told me years before.
I t was all of a year before my desire for drugs left me. By th at
tim e I had found th a t I could tell Elenore about my past and
receive sympathy instead of scorn. I told her about the Devons
and Charlie and Pop W hitey. I told her about Dr. Forth and
the kids and the tuberculosis patients on N orth Brothers Island.
I even told her about the p art she herself had played in my suc­
cessful fight to quit.
M other and D ad loved her as much as I did, and couldn’t
have her over to the flat often enough. They knew she was hold­
ing me in line, merely by existing and being with me.
The hard work I had transferred from getting dope into get­
ting ahead began to pay off. M y drawing and lettering enabled
me to get a job in the store advertising departm ent, and I
learned about business. I found that I could use my imagination
and ingenuity there just as .well as in scheming for heroin.
I ’m not one of the commercial world’s big executives, b ut I ’ve
made good. I have a job w ith responsibility and the respect of
188
the people I work with. Elenore and I were m arried when we -
both were sure I was really off the stuff forever, and it took
longer to convince me than her. I don’t think she ever seriously
regretted the chance she took, and it’s been heaven for me. Our
oldest will be graduated from high school next year, and if
there are any prouder parents in the world, I don’t know them.
And their grandmother! She adores N ed’s and Bobby’s kids of
course, but she thinks mine are straight from God, real miracles.
I .must agree with her.
As the years have passed, I found I had another talent be­
sides my ability in my job. I ’m good with young people, perhaps
because I made such a hash of my own youth. I ’ve done some
of the most satisfying work of my life in an organization which
provides recreation facilities for the sort of kid I used to be be­
fore I got on the dope. I t ’s the same joy I got helping to take
care of the children in the diphtheria ward.
All in all, I ’m the luckiest addict I ever knew. In fact, I ’m
the only one I know is still alive. Poor Charlie, transferred tb
the Harlem River Sanitarium, died there in the 1930’s w ithout
ever regaining sanity. I am afraid he never was allowed to read
the letters I wrote to him telling of my recovery' and my, life
afterwards,- for his family had given orders that he was not to
hear from his old associates. The last survivor was Skid Pottle,
who lingered in a tuberculosis hospital until 1948. I visited him
there several times in his final bout with his disease. H e knew
that it was dope th at had really licked him, but he babbled about
the Devons and our old gang; they had been his whole miserable
life.
Through the years the drug pattern has persisted. When I read
of waves of teen-age addiction, of drives on m arijuana, of the
fashionable use of barbiturates by people who think a capsule
will give them relief from overwork or sleeplessness or a dis­
appointment in life, I shiver over the recollection of how a
sniff of joy powder led me down the long trail of horror. The
reefers and the goof balls and the suicide pills are still picking
off our youth.
A few years ago I visited the big United States Public H ealth
Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, where the Federal Government
seeks to rehabilitate drug addicts. I had been invited by the
medical head of the institution, D r. Victor Vogel. I was curious
to see how modem methods of treatm ent differ from the ones I
had experienced.
T he first indication was th a t the public attitude hasn’t changed |
very much. When I told a taxi driver my destination, he tu rn ed '
* t 0 look at m e suspiciously, his m outh curved into a sneer.
“H u h!” he grunted. “T h at’s the big dope farm where they
keep the damn cokies.”
The farm itself, though, was far better suited to the cure of
addicts than any place I had known. There are fourteen hundred
acres of it, and the patients spend a lot of time working out of
doors. They didn’t look much different from the fellows I re­
membered hanging around the Devon stoop or Louie’s pool
parlor. They had the same expressions, the same mannerisms.
M any of them seemed pitifully young.
- The farm itself, though, was far better suited to the cure of
from the others, but the treatm ent is the same for all, a care­
fully supervised reduction method which tapers the addict off
gradually. At the same time, he is built up by healthful food and
exercise. Some of the inmates are criminals under sentence to
Federal prisons. A great m any have committed themselves. I t
\yas certainly far more humane than the early days of my ad­
diction when a junkie was left to fight out his cold turkey on the
stone floor of a cell.
Is it more effective? The answer is yes, but there is a big
qualification. The farm can help an addict recover; it cannot
make him recover. The sincere desire to quit is basic.
Y et even that desire is not enough. Today’s addicts are no
different in this respect from those I remember. We all wanted
to quit, at one time or another. But if my own example can teach
a user of narcotics anything, it is this: The wish to return to
normal health and normal living m ust be for something bigger
than yourself.
“Can thim that helps others help thimselves?” asked Kipling’s
imm ortal Private Mulvaney.
The answer for the drug addict is that if he can’t help others
he can do nothing for himself. Love for a fellow creature is the
key th at unlocks the drug chains, th at changes the individual
so th a t he can find his own way to split th a t formerly irreducible
minimum dose that was the last barrier to salvation. I t is the
love th at brings him a little closer to God, and in s q doing re­
establishes him as a mam
This is the testimony of my own life. I think of it first as a
warning to those who may be saved from the first step of the
innocent sniff of joy powder or puff of marijuana. B ut also it is
proof that through the development of those sentiments of af­
fection and loyalty and service, which we take too much for
granted, there is no such thing as a hopeless case.
190

— • ---------------------- ---------- ------------------- ______ _ . . 4 - S - - .

 EXCITING PYRAMID BEST SELLERS •*.,]$
121. W ITH SIR EN S SC R EA M IN G — T w o teen-agers’ prem arital indiscretions I . <{
119. TH E G R E A T BALSAM O — H e clim b ed to fa m e — w om an b y w om anI >1
118. W OM EN ON T H E W ALL— T h e desires o f w om en w ith o u t m en I -
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112. H ILL M A N by J. Garth— A m ou n ta in m an clashes w ith a city w om an!
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103. LESSON IN LOVE by Emile Zola— L ife in a Paris boardinghouseI
104. B IG M IKE by Charles Givens— H e held th e city in a grip o f viceI 'j
103. BACK STAIRS by L K. Scott— A society w o m a n ’s strange craving! i
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100. CELLINI— A m odern version o f B e n ven u to C ellini’s autobiography.
99. SHO RTY H IG G IN S by J. Karney— FightersI K e p t w om en! C ro o ked deals!
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96. M IM I by R. W. Taylor— T h e im pact o f desire on a H o llyw o o d divorcee! 1
94. SAILO R’S L E A V E by B. M oore— T w o w ild w eeks; tw o reckless people! I
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76. TW O Y E A R S BEFORE TH E M AST by Richard Henry Dana.
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33. R O A D SID E N IG H T by Nistler & Broderick— A guy A girl; an L -A . m o tel! .
31. T O U G H TOW N by Jack Karney—Srx, sin, crim e in an E a st S id e slum !
30. M A D E L E IN E (anonymous)—A girVs ow n story o f a life o f viceI *
27. SIN F U L CITIES OF T H E W ESTERN W ORLD by Hendrik de Lecuw *

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