CHAPTER XXV. A DROP IN THE BUCKET OF BLOOD
In Birmingham I found a job in a rolling mill and established myself
in a good boarding-house. In those days a “good boarding-house” in
iron workers' language meant one where you got good board. One such was
called “The Bucket of Blood.” It got its name because a bloody
fight occurred there almost every day. Any meal might end in a
knock-down-and-drag-out. The ambulance called there almost as often as
the baker's cart. But it was a “good” boarding-house. And I established
myself there.
Good board consists in lots of greasy meat, strong coffee and slabs of
sweet pie with gummy crusts, as thick as the palm of your hand. At the
Bucket of Blood we had this delicious fare and plenty of it. When a man
comes out of the mills he wants quantity as well as quality. We had both
at the Bucket of Blood, and whenever a man got knocked out by a fist and
was carted away in the ambulance, the next man on the waiting list was
voted into our club to fill the vacancy. We had what is called “family
reach” at the table (both in feeding and fighting). Each man cut off a
big quivering hunk of roast pork or greasy beef and passed the platter
to his neighbor. The landlady stood behind the chairs and directed two
colored girls to pour coffee into each cup as it was emptied.
These cups were not china cups with little handles such as you use in
your home. They were big “ironstone” bowls the size of beer schooners,
such as we used to see pictured at “Schmiddy's Place,” with the legend,
“Largest In The City, 5c.” (How some of us would like to see those signs
once more!) To prevent the handles from being broken off, these cups
were made without handles. They were so thick that you could drop them
on the floor and not damage the cups. When one man hit another on the
head with this fragile china, the skull cracked before the teacup did.
The “family reach” which we developed in helping ourselves to food, was
sometimes used in reaching across the table and felling a man with a
blow on the chin. Kipling has described this hale and hearty type of
strong man's home in Fulta Fisher's Boarding-House where sailors rested
from the sea.
“A play of shadows on the wall,
A knife thrust unawares
And Hans came down (as cattle fall),
Across the broken chairs.”
But the boarders did not fight with knives at the Bucket of Blood.
Knifing is not an American game. We fought with fists, coffee cups and
pieces of furniture, after the furniture went to pieces. We were not
fighting to make the world safe for democracy, although we were the most
democratic fellows in the world. We slept two to a bed, four to a room.
Not always the same four, for like soldiers on the firing line, some
comrade was missing after every battle.
These fights started in friendly banter. One fellow would begin teasing
another about his girl. The whole table would take it up, every man
doing his best to insult and enrage the victim. It was all fun until
some fellow's temper broke under the strain. Then a rush, and a few
wild swings that missed. Then the thud of a blow that connected, and the
fight was over. These men had arms with the strength of a horse's leg,
and as soon as their “kick” struck solid flesh, the man hit was knocked
out. He wouldn't be back for supper, but the rest of us would, without
having our appetites disturbed in the least. I didn't like these
methods, but if the boys did I was not going to complain.
My practice of studying at night offended my roommates. The lamplight
got in their eyes. There were three fellows in the room besides myself.
For several nights they advised me to “cut out the higher education,
douse that light and come to bed.” Finally they spoke about it in the
daytime. “Majority rules,” they said, “and there's three of us against
you. We can't sleep while you have that lamp burning. The light keeps
us awake and it also makes the room so hot that the devil couldn't stand
it. If you stay up reading to-night we'll give you the bum's rush.”
I was so interested in my books that I couldn't help lingering with them
after the other fellows went to bed. Everything grew quiet. Suddenly six
hands sized me and flung me out the window. It was a second-story window
and I carried the screen with me. But as it was full of air holes it
didn't make a very competent parachute. I landed with a thud on the roof
of the woodshed, which, being old and soft with southern moss, caved in
and carried me to the ground below--alive. The fellows up above threw my
books out the window, aiming them at my head. They threw me my hat and
coat and my valise, and I departed from the Bucket of Blood, and took up
my abode at “The Greasy Spoon.”