INT. NIGHT. Chicago Late 1940s. A city police station in a working class Polish Neighbourhood.
They come off the streets for a night or a week and pause before the amplifier with a single light, like a vigil light, burning high overhead. Each pauses, one passing moment, to make his brief confessional:
"Leo Cooney. Fraud'lent perscription. It's a bad bang, Captain"
Life is a bad bang for Cooney: a bum rap and no probation.
"What do you use when you can't get morphine sulphate?"
"Paregoric."
And steps back into the shadows. You won't see Cooney in the light again.
Yes, and he'll drink starch too. His nose didn't get white from blowing it.
The thin-featured Negro beside him is trying to look like an M-G-M Mexican: broad-brimmed hat and sideburns so deep and dark they look like cords fastening the foolish hat under the chin.
"What you in here for, Sugar-Cure?"
"Walked off with a dolla' 'n fo'got to bring a man his change"
"You mean you forgot to bring him his marijuana. Where'd you come from?"
"Chillicothe, Ohio"
"Didn't the Chamber of Commerce know you were coming in?"
"I didn't tell'em. I was in the House of Correction."
"Turn around and face the back wall. Take off that hat."
The pseudo-Mexican removed his hat, faced the wall a moment and turned back to face the darkened rows where a hundred victims of recent crimes watched silently. The Captain explained: "We just wanted to see the back of your head. So when they turn you over, we'll know who you are. Next man".
This is the opening of the first story in Nelson Algren's The Neon Wilderness, a story entitled "the captain has bad dreams".
Nelson Algren wrote about the underclass in his native Chicago in the 40's and 50's with the compassion and clarity of an insider as well as an incredible beauty to his language. He won the US National Book Award in 1950 for "The Man with the Golden Arm", which was made into a film with Frank Sinatra in 1956.
(Butchered some might say - I saw the film first and thought it was ok but then read the book and that blew my mind. Algren wrote a book published in 94 (Noncomformity) which told his side of the filmmaking debacle/story)
Lou Reed said in 2001 that Algren's 1956 novel "A Walk on the Wild Side" was the launching point for his song "Walk on the Wild Side". (Thanks Wikipedia)
His writing isn't always easy to find but if you're looking for something gritty and beautiful, this is the man to read.
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