Let tomorrow come

218 Pages·1929·1.263 MB·English

by  A. J. Barr

Perditus Liber Presents
the rare
OCLC: 574446528
book
Let Tomorrow Come

By

Albert J. Barr

Published 1929
LET TOMORROW COME

Copyright, 1929
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC
First Edition

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA
FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAN REES PRESS
CONTENTS
PART I PART II
Jailhouse 3 Bighouse 137
White Man, Black Man 12 Champion 151
The Tunnel 18 Storm 162
Man And Woman 25 The Brains 171
Sing-Song 34 Ole Long An’ Tall 183
Red Mike 38 Time 193
Teddy 45 Escape 204
Evensong 53 Mad 210
And In A Year 57 Alcoholic Prelude 219
Salvation 64 ‘17’ 227
Carpenter Sheppard 69 On Report 234
The Rebel 78 Tense Rope At Daybreak 243
Rats 84 Late March 251
The Bookie 93
Him? He’s The Banker 101 PART III
La Paloma 109 You’re Away from All That Now 257
Battleship 113 Glossary 265
Inebriate 129 A Critique
JAILHOUSE
Ah laid in de jailhouse
Face to de wall:
A sweet dirty woman
Was de cause of it all…
I
JAILHOUSE

H ERE, by God, we are! Made it at last! We care
and we don’t. Most men who arrive here have in
varying degree expected to arrive. All save the snowy
have at least been aware of liability. We care, for that,
whether those who are to meet us will accept us. The
dog and the name. Tell no man he is bad and watch for
goodness to shine out from him. Slam him in jail — he
will battle for release. But winning, he will tell his
affairs twice as black as they were. The lowliest
doormat-thief will name himself a dino of surpassing
ability, but give him half an opportunity.
And the women. Ho, ho, the women! Any two-bit
tart will be a madame inside ten minutes, can you
listen to her that long. She will tell you how none less
than the mayor, and perhaps even the thickest pillar in
the ministry,
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comes to her alone, prefers her among all the sisters.
“Cut out that God damned noise or I’ll shove you in
the hole. They won’t hear you in there.” The jailer is
so telling us who, precisely, runs the dump.
He comes over. “G’wan in there and louse up. And
if you slop up the floor, then clean it up again.
Remember.”
No matter where you may have come from, the flop
house or the club, here you are suspected of harboring
flesh-nipping chattel, and must slay them. If you are a
man. If you are a woman you are accorded the delicacy
of a fumigation.
In we go. We strip in an odor of excrement from
under the great rotary cage, two decks high, and shove
our clothes into a tub. After soaping them we turn live
steam into the tub through a hose. The tub jumps on
the steel floor, making a rumbling clatter. If the heat
did not kill him, the hardiest louse would die of despair
at the noise. A voice from far on the other side of the
rotary: “Must ’a’ been heavyweight
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skippin’ bees you boys brung in here. You’ll burn up
your damn clothes if you don’t stop.”
In the tub the water whoops and bawls, tortured by
the steam. A clinging, stinking vapor seeps through the
place, enwrapping our chilling nakedness. Outside the
blurred windows the light is wilting. The jailer comes
in to us. “All right, you ain’t killin’ mules. Them’s
lice. Wring ’em out and come on over here and I’ll
show you where you cell. You can wrap a blanket on
you and hang that stuff on the steam pipes. Eat your
beans while it’s dryin’. There ain’t no coffee. Too late.
And pipe down when nine o’clock comes, or it’s the
hole.”
We follow, our flesh stuttering with chill. A lamp
burns in the three-story-high ceiling, dimming the
place with shadow rather than lighting it. Few cell
lamps have been turned on. We have come upon the
thinking time of most of the inmates. One does not
think. “Hey, fellers,” he shouts down at us from a high
cell, “where the hell’s your pants? Shame on you.