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MORGAN O’KEEFE used the few dollars he could borrow to buy a Greyhound bus ticket from Los Angeles to San Francisco. He had sent an airmail letter to his New York agent a few days before, telling him where he was going. When he arrived at the Riverton Hotel a Western Union money order for $360, his latest royalty, minus commission, was waiting for him. He checked into the hotel, enjoyed a steak dinner, and dropped into a bar on Sutter Street for a couple of cold beers. There he got into an argument with an ex-Infantry officer and switched to bourbon highballs. Within an hour he was drinking the whisky straight and was well on his way.
Five days later he was broke. He pawned his only possessions, a suitcaseful of clothes and personal effects and a portable typewriter. He had no difficulty locating San Francisco’s Skid Row on Howard Street and patronized the saloons there, drinking cheap sherry and muscatel. On the tenth night of his drunk he was picked up sleeping in a doorway and wound up in the drunk tank with a dozen derelicts. He had no record in San Francisco and it was also obvious to the judge, in court the following morning, that Morgan was neither a vagrant nor a derelict. The judge let him go with the admonition that he stay away from Howard Street. “Your kind doesn’t belong there.” Morgan felt like laughing, but he controlled the impulse.
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The doctor shrugged. He gave Morgan two vitamin shots, then wrote out a prescription for Carl and a diet list for the next few days. “Not that he’ll be able to hold much of it down,” he said, “but some of it will stay with him. Give him a few days and he can tackle solid foods. Meanwhile, occasional vitamin shots will be his greatest help.”
He walked out to the hallway with Irene Wilson, closed the door and stood there for a moment lost in thought. At last he sighed and said, “That’s quite an unusual man in there. The first demand of any alcoholic is a sedative to slow him down and quiet his nerves. But this man prefers doing it the hard way.”
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