it’s all right to kill him. She said: “No, I haven’t got insurance on him.”
Our speak-easy had a candy-store front. That was the come-on. The fuzz wasn’t botherin’ us. They were just shakin’ down the syndicate. They were tryin’ to get money from them because it was a big operation. They’d take out two truckloads of this moonshine. In five-gallon cans that were always a quart short. Even the one-gallon cans were about four ounces short. They never gave you a full measure. That was the standard practice in them days. They were gyppers.
Did you pay off the syndicate?
No, we bought through their channels. We bought alcohol. This moonshine was obviously for the South Side trade, the colored. The syndicate got a big place cheap to cook, about eight rooms. They used to get knocked off every so often, but not too often. Because the police captain was taken care of. They didn’t believe in payin’ off the men on the beat. They’d give him a drink and that was it. Because it would run into many expenses otherwise. ’Cause if one got something, he’d tell everybody else, and they’d all be in on it. This way, they’d pay the captain off and he wouldn’t come around.
We’d been raided a couple of times, but they never could find the booze. My mother had a clever gimmick. She’d drive a nail in the wall, take a jug of booze and put a hat and coat on top on it. They never found it.
There was another candy-store front used by a woman. A cop started comin’ around and gettin’ friendly. She knew he was workin’ up to a pinch. So she prepared a bottle for him. He talked her into sellin’ it to him. He pinches her, takes her to court. He said: “I bought this half a dog of a booze. Half a pint.” The woman said, “How do you know it’s booze?” The cop takes a swig of it and spits it out. It was urine. Case dismissed.
When we had this place, the downtown Cadillac squad came in there—the open cars with sawed-off shotguns. They didn’t want to drag us in. They wanted money. They wanted $40. My mother wasn’t holding that day. So she had to wait for the customers to come in and borrow it from’em. It took about three hours to pay these guys off.
Later on, in 1933, when Prohibition was lifted, alcohol dropped from $40 a gallon to $5. For a while $8 was the standard price, but $5 was the low point.
I wanted to get out of this. Get a job, more or less. I was goin’ to work one day with seven cents and my lunch in my pocket. Believe it or not, I was waitin’ for a streetcar. A truck was goin’ out of town. Its tail gate was down. I jumped on it and was gone for six months. This was maybe ’31. Still in Hoover’s time. I went as far as the truck went. A freight train comes by.
I had my seven cents, but I ate my lunch. I bought a pack of Bull Durham, but I needed food. I found a jungle, ate somethin’, and learned a few tricks from these ’boes.
Freight trains were amazing in them days. When a train would stop in a small town and the bums got off, the population tripled. So many ridin’ the freight. Women even, and quite a few were tryin’ to disguise themselves.
I ran into a couple of self-styled professors, safe blowers, skilled mechanics and all that. Quite a few boomers were traveling. These people usually had money. When they finished a job, they’d get paid, go on a
bender and get rolled. They didn’t like the farmer types. And there were quite a few farmers buried.
I’m talkin’ about this big dam job out west, this big Hoover Dam. There was a lot of farmers in the concrete. They just shoved ’em in there. They didn’t like ‘em as job competition. Oh, there were some mean people travelin’ around.
Old time hoboes had a circuit, like a preacher or a salesman. The towns knew ‘em. They knew the good jails to spend the winter in. They would associate with each other, clannish. They wouldn’t let outsiders in very much. A young boy, somebody they took a fancy to,
Our speak-easy had a candy-store front. That was the come-on. The fuzz wasn’t botherin’ us. They were just shakin’ down the syndicate. They were tryin’ to get money from them because it was a big operation. They’d take out two truckloads of this moonshine. In five-gallon cans that were always a quart short. Even the one-gallon cans were about four ounces short. They never gave you a full measure. That was the standard practice in them days. They were gyppers.
Did you pay off the syndicate?
No, we bought through their channels. We bought alcohol. This moonshine was obviously for the South Side trade, the colored. The syndicate got a big place cheap to cook, about eight rooms. They used to get knocked off every so often, but not too often. Because the police captain was taken care of. They didn’t believe in payin’ off the men on the beat. They’d give him a drink and that was it. Because it would run into many expenses otherwise. ’Cause if one got something, he’d tell everybody else, and they’d all be in on it. This way, they’d pay the captain off and he wouldn’t come around.
We’d been raided a couple of times, but they never could find the booze. My mother had a clever gimmick. She’d drive a nail in the wall, take a jug of booze and put a hat and coat on top on it. They never found it.
There was another candy-store front used by a woman. A cop started comin’ around and gettin’ friendly. She knew he was workin’ up to a pinch. So she prepared a bottle for him. He talked her into sellin’ it to him. He pinches her, takes her to court. He said: “I bought this half a dog of a booze. Half a pint.” The woman said, “How do you know it’s booze?” The cop takes a swig of it and spits it out. It was urine. Case dismissed.
When we had this place, the downtown Cadillac squad came in there—the open cars with sawed-off shotguns. They didn’t want to drag us in. They wanted money. They wanted $40. My mother wasn’t holding that day. So she had to wait for the customers to come in and borrow it from’em. It took about three hours to pay these guys off.
Later on, in 1933, when Prohibition was lifted, alcohol dropped from $40 a gallon to $5. For a while $8 was the standard price, but $5 was the low point.
I wanted to get out of this. Get a job, more or less. I was goin’ to work one day with seven cents and my lunch in my pocket. Believe it or not, I was waitin’ for a streetcar. A truck was goin’ out of town. Its tail gate was down. I jumped on it and was gone for six months. This was maybe ’31. Still in Hoover’s time. I went as far as the truck went. A freight train comes by.
I had my seven cents, but I ate my lunch. I bought a pack of Bull Durham, but I needed food. I found a jungle, ate somethin’, and learned a few tricks from these ’boes.
Freight trains were amazing in them days. When a train would stop in a small town and the bums got off, the population tripled. So many ridin’ the freight. Women even, and quite a few were tryin’ to disguise themselves.
I ran into a couple of self-styled professors, safe blowers, skilled mechanics and all that. Quite a few boomers were traveling. These people usually had money. When they finished a job, they’d get paid, go on a
bender and get rolled. They didn’t like the farmer types. And there were quite a few farmers buried.
I’m talkin’ about this big dam job out west, this big Hoover Dam. There was a lot of farmers in the concrete. They just shoved ’em in there. They didn’t like ‘em as job competition. Oh, there were some mean people travelin’ around.
Old time hoboes had a circuit, like a preacher or a salesman. The towns knew ‘em. They knew the good jails to spend the winter in. They would associate with each other, clannish. They wouldn’t let outsiders in very much. A young boy, somebody they took a fancy to,
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