[00:13.128]There was a little alley in San Francisco
[00:14.930]back of the Southern Pacific station at Third and Townsend
[00:18.125]in redbrick of drowsy lazy afternoons with everybody at work in offices
[00:22.288]in the air you feel the impending rush of their commuter frenzy
[00:25.489]as soon they’ll be charging en masse from Market and Sansome buildings
[00:29.915]on foot and in buses and all well-dressed thru workingman Frisco of
[00:33.405]walkup truck drivers and even the poor grime-bemarked Third
[00:38.277]Street of lost bums even Negros so hopeless and long left East
[00:42.451]and meanings of responsibility and try that now all they do is
[00:47.169]stand there spitting in the broken glass sometimes fifty in one
[00:50.890]afternoon against one wall at Third and Howard and here’s all
[00:54.397]these Millbrae and San Carlos neat-necktied producers and
[00:57.753]commuters of America and Steel civilization rushing by with San
[01:01.516]Francisco Chronicles and green Call-Bulletins not even enough
[01:05.841]time to be disdainful, they’ve got to catch 130, 132, 134, 136 all
[01:11.933]the way up to 146 till the time of evening supper in homes of the
[01:16.485]railroad earth when high in the sky the magic stars ride above
[01:19.684]the following hotshot freight trains--it’s all in California, it’s all a
[01:24.714]sea, I swim out of it in afternoons of sun hot meditation in my
[01:29.052]jeans with head on handkerchief on brakeman’s lantern or (if not
[01:31.940]working) on book, I look up at blue sky of perfect lostpurity and
[01:37.038]feel the warp of wood of old America beneath me and I* have
[01:42.987]insane conversations with Negroes in second*-story windows
[01:46.538]above and everything is pouring in, the switching moves of
[01:51.260]boxcars in that little alley which is so much like the alleys of
[01:54.058]Lowell and I hear far off in the sense of coming night that engine
[01:57.367]calling our mountains
[02:01.402]But it was that beautiful cut of clouds I could always see above
[02:05.030]the little S.P. alley, puffs floating by from Oakland
[02:08.759]or the Gate of Marin
[02:13.344]to the north or San Jose south, the clarity of Cal to break your heart
[02:20.179]It was the fantastic drowse and drum hum of lum
[02:24.561]mum afternoon nathin’ to do, ole Frisco with end of land
[02:30.391]sadness--the people--the alley full of trucks and cars of
[02:37.133]businesses nearabouts and nobody knew or far from cared who I
[02:40.893]was all my life three thousand five hundred miles from birth-O
[02:44.070]opened up and at last belonged to me in Great America
[02:47.472]Now it's night in Third Street the keen little neons and
[03:00.463]also yellow bulblights of impossible-to-believe flops with dark
[03:04.908]ruined shadows moving back of tom yellow shades like a
[03:08.340]degenerate China with no money-the cats in Annie's Alley,
[03:13.266]the flop comes on, moans, rolls, the street is loaded with
[03:19.858]darkness. Blue sky above with stars hanging high over old
[03:25.238]hotel roofs and blowers of hotels moaning out dusts of interior,
[03:29.725]the grime inside the word in mouths falling out tooth
[03:33.854]by tooth, the reading rooms tick tock bigclock with creak
[03:38.182]chair and slantboards and old faces looking up over rimless
[03:41.129]spectacles bought in some West Virginia or Florida or Liverpool
[03:45.705]England pawnshop long before I was born and across
[03:49.370]rains they've come to the end of the land sadness end of the
[03:53.051]world gladness all you San Franciscos will have to fall eventually
[03:58.049]and burn again. But I'm walking and one night a bum
[04:02.661]fell into the hole of the construction job where they're tearing
[04:05.566]a sewer by day the husky Pacific & Electric youths in torn
[04:09.582]jeans who work there often I think of going up to some of
[04:12.654]'em like say blond ones with wild hair and tom shirts and
[04:15.497]say "You oughta apply for the railroad it's much easier work
[04:18.253]you don't stand around the street all day and you get much
[04:19.569]more pay" but this bum fell in the hole you saw his foot stick
[04:23.159]out, a British MG also driven by some eccentric once backed
[04:27.964]into the hole and as I came home from a long Saturday afternoon
[04:30.864]local to Hollister out of San Jose miles away across
[04:33.221]verdurous fields of prune and juice joy here's this British MG
[04:37.054]backed and legs up wheels up into a pit
[04:40.194]and bums and cops standing around right outside the coffee shop-it was the
[04:43.827]way they fenced it but he never had the nerve to do it due
[04:46.113]to the fact that he had no money and nowhere to go and O
[04:48.241]his father was dead and O his mother was dead and O his
[04:50.338]sister was dead and O his whereabout was dead was dead but
[04:52.485]and then at that time also I lay in my room on long
[04:56.970]Saturday afternoons listening to Jumpin' George with my
[04:59.201]fifth of tokay no tea and just under the sheets laughed to
[05:02.764]hear the crazy music "Mama, he treats your daughter mean,"
[05:09.555]Mama, Papa, and don't you come in here I'll kill you etc.
[05:12.571]getting high by myself in room glooms and all wondrous
[05:16.244]knowing about the Negro the essential American out there
[05:19.531]always finding his solace his meaning in the fellaheen street
[05:24.666]and not in abstract morality and even when he has a church
[05:28.260]you see the pastor out front bowing to the ladies on the make
[05:31.965]you hear his great vibrant voice on the sunny Sunday afternoon
[05:35.863]sidewalk full of sexual vibratos saying "Why yes
[05:38.332]Mam but de gospel do say that man was born of woman's
[05:41.523]womb-" and no and so by that time I come crawling out
[05:46.276]of my warmsack and hit the street when I see the railroad
[05:49.267]ain't gonna call me till 5 AM Sunday morn probably for a
[05:52.511]local out of Bay Shore in fact always for a local out of Bay
[05:54.917]Shore and I go to the wailbar of all the wildbars in the world
[05:58.425]the one and only Third-and-Howard and there I go in and
[06:01.277]drink with the madmen and if I get drunk I git.
[06:06.301]The girl who come up to me in there the night I was
[06:08.809]there with Al Buckle and said to me "You wanta play with
[06:11.006]me tonight Jim, and?" and I didn't think I had enough money
[06:17.063]and later told this to Charley Low and he laughed and said
[06:19.361]"How do you know she wanted money always take the chance
[06:21.884]that she might be out just for love or just out for love you
[06:24.918]know what I mean man don't be a sucker." She was a goodlooking
[06:27.536]doll and said "How would you like to oolyakoo with
[06:32.484]me mon?" and I stood there like a jerk and in fact bought
[06:37.164]drink got drink drunk that night and in the 299 Club
[06:41.253]I was hit by the proprietor the band breaking up the fight before I
[06:44.972]had a chance to decide to hit him back which I didn't do
[06:46.473]and out on the street I tried to rush back in but they had
[06:51.740]locked the door and were looking at me thru the forbidden
[06:52.826]glass in the door with faces like undersea––I should have
[06:56.181]played with her shurrouruuruuruuruuruurukadooky
[06:59.817]*Note: This "I" is not included in published versions of the work;?
[07:01.276]"second" is printed as "several".