Happy Jack & the Praying Band: part 2, or, The Potato Peeled

31Aug07

The damp chill fog swept in from the sea like a nightmare invading a dream. It crept through flesh, bore through bones, settling like an icy plague, deep within the marrow of The City. Jack lay bundled, shivering upon his cot, lost and alone. It had been one long month since his Delirium Tremens imposed exile.

That night Happy Jack Harrington waged war, battling armies of inner demons. Miraculously, Happy Jack emerged victorious.

Suddenly, brilliant light fell upon him. Jack twisted about ecstatically, emersed in a true and all-powerful spiritual awakening. In an instant he recognized the grotesque folly that was his life. Heavens opened. An angelic chorus swelled. Revelation shook Jack like a rag doll. It threw him from his bed. There, face down against that clammy floor, You-Know-Who spoke directly to him. The clear no-nonsense basso profundo ordained Happy Jack Harrington with his life mission.

Consequently, Jack did what any self respecting Barbary Coast Ranger would do upon transformative awakening. Happy Jack marked a pack of playing cards and headed down the hill—down into Satan’s playground, back into the gaping maw of pure evil, province of the lost and the wretched—San Francisco’s own Barbary Coast.

Happy Jack Harrington was happy to be heading home.

Jack cashed out that night’s gaming with enough money to buy himself a new dive. But, alas, he couldn’t buy back Big Louise. She’d run off with a wealthy miner. His heart bled for her, but he needed to move on.

Once his newly acquired melodeon was up and running Jack focused next on establishing his born again credentials. Soon, habitues of the Coast remarked on to the many fancy posters fastened to walls throughout their environs. These gave notice of a sermon cum lecture offered free of charge by Mr. Happy Jack, himself. The poster read: “The True Inwardness of the Gospel Temperance Movement, or, the Potato Peeled.”

The day finally arrived. Inside the immense auditorium, brass band blaring, sat six bemused newsmen, and not a single other soul. God must have smiled down upon him though, for Happy Jack was saved from the embarrassment of an indifferent public when a vociferous drunk stumbled into the proceedings, quite by accident. This character boosted Jack’s spirits, and made for an inspirational cheering section.

But it is not those missing or even those precious few in attendance that matter here. It is, rather, the nature and content of Happy Jack Harrington’s sermon which will be acclaimed long after we pass from this world.

Once he’d confessed to a vast litany of sins habitually committed throughout his lifetime, Jack launched into an account of his brief affair with the Praying Band. He explained that consequent to his conversion he’d turned his back upon all that he valued most in life, and how he missed Big Louise, too. Then, in a prophet’s roar Happy Jack Harrington counted off each extraordinary thing he’d forfeited to the ladies’ Lord Temperance. Still, Jack admitted he was solely to blame for his misfortunes. He let it be known he had chosen to follow a false god.

Finally, Happy Jack Harrington vowed to existence itself that he was now an utterly changed man, and a newly and truly saved soul. He now knew, he shouted, what he had never known before—that sobriety was the root of all evil. Happy Jack swore to his God and to all present that never again would he draw a single sober breath-not so long as God gave him the breath of life.

As far as we know, he never did.

Filed under: Barbary Coast, Bay Time Detective, God, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Area History, San Francisco Phax & Phikshun, San Francisco history, delerium tremens, dives, drunks, eccentrics, religious conversion, religious experience, saloons, sobriety, thieves & scoundrels   |  Leave a Comment