YOU CAN’T WIN - JACK BLACK

I got this book because I found myself reading about it, specifically how much Burroughs liked the book, and happened to look up that the library where I was at the time, noticed it was on the shelf, grabbed it and read it over a few nights. It’s a great right-before-bed book. The story is pretty straight forward, it’s a memoir of a guy named Jack Black who lived as a hobo and thief (or “yegg,” in the very-evocative slang of the time) for most of his adult life. The book chronicles his life from sometime in the late 1880s up through 1910 or so. 30 years of train-hopping, burglary, opium-smoking, mugging, drinking, safe cracking and general hobo life. He spends maybe half of this time in jail so there is also lots of interesting stuff about prison life, things like the “straight-jacket punishment” and the effects of solitary and lashes. In a way, this is very similar to the Iceberg Slim books, though it chronicles a different (about 1 generation earlier) era and racial milieu (though there are Black, Native and Chinese Characters) of criminal life. As such, there is a veritable menagerie of amazing underworld names, listed below. And also, like Slim, there seems to be a looseness in how “literal” some of this stuff is. It purports to be totally truthful and features definitely real-life characters like Bat Masterson and Soapy Smith, but it also features things like hobos planning a robbery that they cover for by purposefully getting arrested, breaking out of jail, doing the robbery, hiding the money, returning the the jail and waiting out the sentence to go retrieve the loot. Not sure I believe this literally happened but it’s a good story. There’s so much good color and character about what low-life life was like at the turn of the century, a maze of opium-dens, railyard jungles, jail cells and all the rest. If you’re interested in that stuff it’s a great book, it reads quick, it stays exciting, doesn’t overstay it’s welcomed and (mostly) isn’t too preachy during the obligatory all-that-is-in-my-past-and-I-really-regret-it section.

Smiler

The Sanctimonious Kid (Sanc)

Soldier Johnnie

Salt Chunk Mary

Rebel George

Shorty

Soapy Smith

Bat Masterson

Gold Tooth

Foot-and-a-half George

Hinky Dink

Bathhouse John

Mush-Mouth Johnson

California Jack

Irish Amie

Jim Ham

St. Louis Frank

Hannible

Rochester Red

Cocky McAllister

Swede Pete

Spokane

Dirty Dick

Shorty

Chi Jimmy