Jack B. from San Diego, CA speaking in Palm Springs, CA

The same name I would like you people to realize that we have a gentleman and a speaker who goes to both lengths for his survival. And the first time I should like to, introduce to you Jack B from New York. Good evening, friends. My name is Jack Brennan. I'm an out power.

Hi. I have attended many, many conferences, and I have only seen one conference that the mayor did show up. The only reason he showed up, he was the chairman of the meeting. I think that it would be a fine idea to invite a police chief. I would like to what would you do if they are that drunk, chief?

It's certainly the person that'd be here tonight. This morning, I didn't think I was gonna make it. I have to take a deep breath in New York and hold it till I get here. And this morning, I had a little turmoil. I couldn't get in American Airlines.

I had to get TWA, and I miss that big AA in the coffee cups. You know? When I see that, I feel quite secure. But I would like to tell you people whatever it was that arranged for me to come out here. I appreciate it Because, I'm here with 1 individual sitting out there that has to hear what I have to say.

Now I'm not quite stupid. You know? I don't think that everybody here is gonna stop drinking because I arrived. I don't believe that. But I do believe that all year is a god given and god inspired program, and I do believe that the reason that I'm here tonight is for 1 sick alcoholic, and whatever I say here tonight will help him Would help him as my life was changed by AA too.

So whoever that sick alcohol is missing, please. Because that's one hell of a trip from New York, you know. The rest of you can sit there quietly. See, I'm a very happy fellow. A lot of people don't think so.

A lot of people say to me, are you sleeping? I'm not really sleeping. I just sit there and listen, you see. I can lean more by listening than I can by yapping. And a lot of people say, I remember years ago, my wife was in New Jersey with me, and she always sat at the table, and I'm wondering, you see, I don't see good, and I don't hear good.

And that causes a lot of confusion in people's lives too. They're talking to me and I don't answer. And they wonder what the hell is wrong with me. You see? But, anyway, I was sitting at the table this night, and I'm watching my wife and kinda listening to what she's saying by looking at it.

And one of the women said, is the oldest still quiet? And she said, yeah. He's always quiet. Well, doesn't he ever get excited? She said, no.

And he said, well, do you ever get upset when you have to talk with so many people? She said, well, I tell you something. He's scared blind, but you don't know how many people are here. She said he's too stupid that somebody told him, they're too stupid anyway. He would never get excited.

So that's me. I'm the big shot speaker from New York. I was in the management room one night, and I heard some guy say, we'll get tonight. I have some good shots from New York. I met American immediately and we'll drop it.

I know it dropped dead when it's long. But I know I would like to tell you just to prove to those people that doubt that I'm alive, and I have a good sense of humor too. And I could stand here and I could keep you laughing all night, but that's not why I'm here. People get paid for that on TV. But I will tell you one story, and it concerns a little Irishman in Ireland, of course.

Where else would you find an Irishman? And his wife went up the electrician. She rang the bell and she said, oh my god, father, he's drunk again. And the priest says, oh, no. And she said, yes, it's true.

And she was crying and turning on. And the priest says, well, I don't know what we're gonna do. I really don't. He would just get him sober, and he's drunk again. He said, that's terrible.

You know, he said, how about we try and scare him? He said, you know, Mary, that that little house that we live in at the end of the lane. And here he comes down the lane hitting both sides and singing. She waits for it and gets about 10 foot in front of her and she jumps out and weighs her arm in a good sheet. She says, he I'm a dibberling dibberling.

And he hears back and he says, oh, sure glad and happy that I know that I'm an alcoholic. It's the most important thing that I ever learned in my life and I don't ever want to forget it Because I suffer from a very neophytical disease, chemical in nature, very similar to diabetes. And my disease affects me and it manifests itself in me in 3 various ways. It manifests itself in me physically and that I'm incapable of eating or sleeping or doing anything when I'm drinking. It also affects me mentally in that it causes me to be able to do things that I normally wouldn't want or couldn't do unless I would drink in.

And the third manifestation of my disease is spiritual, and I will define for you not a word spiritual, having nothing whatsoever to do with the original church. A spiritual individual in my book is simply an individual who is wanted and needed and loved in this world. By his actions, he is wanted, needed, and loved. And you can literally see how an alcoholic is not needed, not wanted, and not loved. So he's a very unspiritual individual.

So now I suffer from a disease of alcoholism that affects me in these 3 areas, manifests itself in me, and all of these 3 areas are affected. It's my disease that's at work. Now I've learned this since I came into AA and it was very important that I know this because I was an individual like so many alcoholics today to walk about the world with 2 feet firmly planted in midair and that's about the name of the game here because you come into AA and you learn what's wrong with you. And it's no longer a question that maybe you shouldn't drink. If you know that you suffer from a disease and it's a very real disease, then you know it's just damn well a question that you just can't drink, period.

And that makes one big difference. Because for years, I heard people talking about world power and the lack of religion and weak willed people. And I have a suggestion for anybody that thinks that this might be, question of willpower. The next time that you have diarrhea, you try willpower. You see, I was born an alcoholic, and right here, I lose half of the audience because they say, well, I wasn't, and I don't make no damn difference because you see some people are born with the disease of alcoholism and some due to the chemical imbalance that we suffer from come into AA or have trouble with alcohol much later.

So it makes little difference. If you are born an alcoholic or you are alcoholic later or your sex or your age or your color has nothing whatsoever to do with it. I have never yet heard a discussion between 2 diabetics, but Jehovah Hu is the biggest diabetic. We're very happy to know that they got a disease, but I've also never seen a diabetic go down the wrong side or the wrong direction on an expressway at 90 miles an hour. But I have seen alcoholics do that, you see.

So our disease, while it's chemical in nature, the same as diabetes, it's more spectacular in that it causes us to do things that are insane, It only causes us to do them when we're drinking. The medical profession knows today that the alcoholic returns to sanity when the alcohol leaves the system. So why I'm standing here tonight is to reassure some individual sitting out here, you are not crazy. You are not crazy. And I can prove it to you.

In New York, with a very fine psychiatrist, He's the head of the Nassau County Division of Mental Health. And some years ago, about 8, I found this called individual suffering from the disease of alcoholism, unemployable, washing dishes for a living. And now 8 years later, he's in AA and he's quite sober and quite happy. And he's the chief psychiatrist for mental health department in Nassau County, Long Island. So if you wanna know anything about whether this is a disease or a metoromus, you call him up and ask him, he'll tell you about it.

Well, I was born like everybody else. There has been quite an argument about that over the years. But, I did have a mother and I did have a father, and I knew both of them quite well. And for a long time, I think about 6 months, they were very happy they had a new son. It was quite a pattern from the beginning.

There was something different with this one, and I was one of 9 children. And I'm the only alcoholic among the children. But you see, my life was different from the very beginning, and the doctors tell us now that there is a child that is predisposed to an alcoholism. In other words, he has a chemical imbalance that will when he reaches alcohol, he would find a relief in it that a normal person would find and he would find a release from ungrounded and unfounded fear. Now I was born with ungrounded and unfounded fear, and they grew up and had good marks in school and they did just exactly as you would expect with a child.

But me, I was different. I was always a round block in a square hole, and I was always afraid. And I was afraid to go to school. I was afraid to play baseball, football. I was afraid to answer a question in school.

If the teacher would ask me a question, I wouldn't answer for fear that I might be wrong and someone would laugh at me. And I had to sleep with a light on when I went to bed. And my brothers and sisters made a great deal of fun about that. And the more fun they put at me the more I retired into myself. And it got to the point where I couldn't do anything.

I couldn't have any part of a family relation with my family. I was different, period. That was it. And I couldn't wait to grow up. And I had an alcoholic for a father.

Only in those days, we didn't call him alcoholic. We called him a baby bummer depending on who was looking at him and who would talk. And if the priest would look at him, he would tell him that he should pray more or the church room. And if the psychiatrist or doctor looked at him, he would say, well, you're quite an interesting case, you see. And, it depended on who was looking at who and who was doing the talking.

Depending on who was looking at who and who was doing the talking and to what label they had for my father. When I always looked at him with a great deal of love and hope. I loved him very dearly, and I hope that one day he would stop drinking as he promised. And you know that day never came because there was no way for my father. It was before Bill Wilson and it was before that the higher power gave this program to Bill Wilson.

So my father never had a chance to be sober. And I used to look at him and ask him and beg him and plead with him, please don't drink. And he would say, I won't. And I know now that he meant what he said. But you see, about 2 weeks later, he would forget the agonies of the loud drunk.

And maybe it was the precious that the world would either weigh in it. And he would pick up a drink just like everybody else on the way home from work and he wouldn't get home. And my father would get me drunk and I would be thrown into terror. And I say terror because I loved my father and yet when he drank, I hated him. Because my mother was a very beautiful woman and I loved her very dearly, and all I wanted in this world was to take care of my mother.

I want to grow up and get a nice little house from where I live with her. And I want to buy all the dresses that she never had, and I wanted to watch and watch her go to a supermarket or store and be able to buy any cut of meat that she wanted, you see, because she never had that opportunity. My father's drinking and 9 kids in the family, we were always scratching for what to eat. I never had a new pair of shoes or a pair of skates or a bicycle until I grew up and I stole them for me. But there was no money And it was due to my father's drinking and yet no one would talk about my father's drinking.

We hid him. We buried him. We made out that he was dead. And then when he would come back to life and be sold before a week, everybody would be very happy and the money will start to come in again and we'll be climbing out of the hole a little bit profitably and suddenly they're even again back into the pits. It didn't affect my my brothers and sisters, but it certainly affected me because I'm an alcoholic.

And I see these things and I hated booze. I hated booze with a passion. And when anyone would bring booze, I would curse them, you know, to myself. They would bring alcohol into the house and I knew that my father and alcohol were trouble. And I just couldn't understand why people did it.

So you see for me to stand here and tell you that I'm an alcoholic is actually ridiculous unless unless that you take into consideration that I do have a very immune disease. It's not just a question that I shouldn't drink. It's a question that I can't drink, period. When I was 12 years old, I would put into a bedroom with my brother. I would put into the bedroom before my father and started on a little drunk.

And by this time, at 12, I didn't speak to anyone in the home. I didn't talk to my brother because my older brother was overtold I was overtold to be like him. And I couldn't be like him. He was a good, fine boy, and he was not an alcoholic. And he went to school, and he got fine marks and everybody liked him and he always combed his hair.

He hung his clothes up and even went to church when it wasn't Sunday. And for me to try to be like him, I failed miserably. And so I tried to be like my brother and then I couldn't and I hated him. You see, he had one job for 37 years before he died. My average was about 37 jobs a year.

So we were absolutely completely 2 different people. And yet I was constantly told, be like your brother and be like Tommy McGrath down the street or be like this boy who is the head of the class and I was not able to do that. So all this failing and all this failing and all this falling down as much as I would try, I just stopped trying. And I took an attitude to help with everybody. And when I did big, I'm just taking everything out.

So I sat and I waited and staked everything out. Well, in this bedroom, this particular day, my brother came up from under the bed with a gallon jug of wine, and he said, Jack, let's have a drink. And I said, well, you have a drink. Because, you see, my mother didn't raise any stupid children. And I wanted to see what was gonna happen before I took one.

Well, he took a drink and he said it's nice, it's sweet, and it's good. Try it, and I tried it. And that drink changed my life. Because you see with my chemical body that I have, alcohol, the FaceTime that I got to, the free drink that I ever swallowed, relieved me of the ungrounded and unfounded fear that I had lived with for 12 years. I don't believe until that moment I ever knew a happy day.

I was always concerned about something. When Christmas came, I would disregard Christmas completely. To me, it was just another joke or a time for loving it. Would my father get drunk and fall into the tree or wouldn't he? So I had no happy days until 12 years of age.

And when I took my first drink of wine, I I experienced what all alcoholics experience. In fact, it's what makes us alcoholics. It's not what you drink or how much. It's what that does to you that makes you an alcoholic. So I could sit down right now and finish talking, actually, because my brother, when I asked him to take a second when he did and I did, and I felt even met better than I had before.

And then when I asked him to take a third, he said no. No more. That's enough. And some 40 years later now, he got to Lindbergh, Long Island and you drink with my brother, they'll do exactly the same thing to you. They'll give you the first drink and the second drink, and he'll put the cork in a bottle in a bottle back in the closet.

He's all finished, and you just lit the fire. Well, that's what he did to me 40 years ago. And I begged him to take a third, but he said, no. Go on. And if you drink any more of that, you're gonna get sick.

Put it back and put it under the bed and forget about it. And I said, no. And I said, if the Lord made anything better than this, he must have keep it up there. And, you know, I drink on that bottle, and I remember maybe 3 or 4 or 5 drinks. And I told you something, I didn't remember any further.

Next morning, my mother was bending over me crying, and I asked him, mom, what's the matter? I woke up very startled. And I had in my feeling that's that feeling in the pit of my stomach that's peculiar to the alcoholic. Remorse. Didn't know what I had done, but I knew something was wrong.

And I tried very rapidly to think of what I had done that could do with a blackout. And my mother said, Jack, for the love of god, don't ever do again what you did last night. And I said, what did I do? She said, you drink almost 3 quarters of a gallon of wine, and then you passed out in a bathtub trying to take a bath. He said, Jacqueline and this family is enough, please.

And I promise so within the bottom of my heart that there'd be no more. And, you know, I was lying because anything that made me feel as good as booze made me feel, I was not about to give up. So I looked at that woman that I loved so dearly and I told her mom there will be no more. Please stop crying and it will never happen again. I don't know what happened.

It's just a mistake. Please stop crying. And she said, alright. I will. And don't ever do that again.

And I said I will. And you know, it didn't make me at all to lie to her because I knew that explanations were no good. I couldn't explain to her that I was gonna drink, but I did. You see, I was an Irish Catholic and a woman Irish Catholic and you're in all the blood you can drink And I got the 5 o'clock mass, the 6 o'clock mass, you know, and I asked for it, and I got there with a quarter after 5. And I had me some of the best things I ever had in Cyprus students.

And, you know, they go first class in them Cyprus these too. And every once in a while, I would run across an alcoholic priest, and he would get there at 4:2:5. You see? And that would shoot my day right there. He would because you see, if I had a drink before I went to school, I could answer questions.

In fact, many times I would call her, nun, sit down, sister. I'll take over the course today. But if I met you on and then procure your preach, you know, at that point, if you order 2:5, that was a bad day for me because I would sit in the back of the room to get my dignity to Dunstlop just like before. So all my life, I was 12 years old and scared. I never knew what day would I be 12 years old and scared until I came to AA.

Because, you know, you can't stay in a state of suspended animation. You can't possibly drink only for hours a day. You have to sleep. And when I slept, I woke up, I was all back to being a 12 year old scared kid again. So my morning drink started very early.

Started very early because I hated that 12 year old scared kid. That kid wasn't capable of anything. And you see in my distortion in my mind, the mental manifestation of my disease, It caused me to do things that normally I wouldn't think of doing. So I went very early age, age 16. My mother threw me out of the house.

And she threw me out of the house because I brought home a gun, and I brought home a bottle of whiskey, and I brought home a load of stolen money. I was convinced that work was for horses and fools. My father worked like a pig and he got as dirty and tired as any man could get and I had no shoes and I said the hell would work. So for years, I took what I wanted. I took what I wanted where I could get it and I hired an awful lot of people and I've stolen an awful lot of money in my time.

I ran with a mom down at the West Side of New York. And I'm not very proud of what I've told you here tonight, but it tells me in AA that I tell you what it was like and what I did and what it's like now. So that's what I must do. I don't ever wanna forget the past. I wanna keep that light in front of my eyes all the time because it makes me so grateful, And I'm able to come to AA as nasty as I was and be accepted.

You see, before I was not satisfied with stealing someone's money, I would probably bash in the force of Richard and Oates with a gun too. Now I don't like anyone to get the impression that I tell you these things because I like it. I don't. It took me many, many years in AA to be able to bury my past, and I say thank God for AA and the new way of life that it is because the things that I think about sometimes now especially when you move it up like it is now too. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and I'm back to being what I used to be years ago in my dreams, nightmares.

And it's these nights that I appreciate AA. I appreciate AA so much because it's allowed me to bury my garbage. It doesn't stink quite so badly now. When anything is useful, it doesn't smell too badly. So I can stand the stink of me now, but I couldn't when I came into AA.

Now I lost my first job on account of drinking, and my first job was wheel man for a mom. And I was a good wheel man, you see. But you know how the alcoholic is. He wakes up in the morning, he's 12 years old and scared, and he don't remember quite what happened the night before. And you go down and you start asking those stupid questions, you know, Like, how did it go last night?

And they would look at me and holler and they would say, don't you know you drove the car? And I would say, well, I was kinda busy. You see, my name is in New York, they used to call me Crazy Jack Dimriago. Crazy Jack the drinking. And while I drove a car really well, you know, and I've shot people and I've been shot too.

And I'm doing cars at 90 miles an hour, get away from cops from all kinds of nasty people in the back of me. And I don't read about it, but that's the way that it was. And yet, these same people called me in one day, and they told me, Jack, you drink too much. And we're afraid that we can't use you anymore. And he said, you know, someday, you might take us to a police station instead of taking us home.

You don't remember too good. And, of course, I denied it, but they were right. They were absolutely right. Because I remember when I used to wake up and I used to reach out and smell my gun first to see if it had been fired. And then I would reach in my pocket and see if I had any money.

And then I would reach over the bed and I would take a big drink to bury that kid that I was, 12 years old and scared. Well, I tell you that the alcoholic is 2 people. He's 2 people just exactly like that, one hiding behind the other. And the one that we have to cover up a 12 year old scared kid is the one that we create in Africa. And we become what we think people want us to be.

And we try so hard to be like the other guy and we can do it with booze. As you see, when I came into AA, I was still throwing this over the skin. I was a big man a big man and a and with a kid's mind and a kid's heart. And what happened to me yesterday is very, very nasty and and vague because they fired me from my job and I went out on my own and I got in a lot of trouble. I've been arrested over 125 times.

And it's not nice to stand up before a judge and not know what you've done. Stand there and listen and they accuse you of this and that and you can't go, I didn't even agree because you don't know. I need to these times that I was standing there with no recollection of what had happened or remorse filled my belly. It's at times that I wished that I had never ever picked up a drink, and I would mentally make notes that this has got to be the end of something wrong. I was not going over the life that I was living, and I was gonna change.

The moment I got on this place that I was in, I found that a 12 year old kid is not going anywhere. Nobody needs him. Nobody wants him. Nobody loves him, The white time my time was spent wishing that I had never been born and hoping to God that some might that I would be killed. And this is the way all it was, and then I got married.

I went away to sea shortly after I got married because I couldn't stand the look that my wife gave me when I got up in the morning and took a drink. And she would say, Jack, you know, it's enough that we had last night. We were out and now why are you at it so early in the morning? And I would say, well, I just need more. But you see, I never want to be called an alcoholic.

I never wanted anybody to know that I was so dependent on booze. I never wanted anybody in this world ever to think that I was like my father. My father was a drunken bum. I was just and I had money. It was other people's money, but I didn't care.

I was not a drunken bum like my father. And I fell right down to the bottom, I could go any lower, trying not to be an alcoholic in spite of all the conditions. When I left home and I went to sea before things were getting hot for me in New York and Massachusetts and Connecticut, all over. I was warned that everywhere I went, I had been in trouble and jumped dead in many places and got out and I would have a whole hell of a time trying to make a living still. In a little bit, people used to try to help me.

Now we're gonna help you. And I would just look at the book 1 and I and I would say, yeah. I know. The first thing that I have to do is stop drinking. Right?

And say, that's right. And I said, well, I can't. So you can stop right now and leave. I don't need any help. Because I was only convinced that there was no way in this world to live without drinking.

Because if I didn't drink, I was that 12 year old kid. And who the hell is this 12 year old kid? So there was no way in this world that I knew that I was doing. When I left home and went to see, my wife was quite upset. And I told her, well, it's better this way because I'm too hot here in New York.

She never knew exactly what I did, but I said I can't get a job, and I'll go to sea. And I was doing all I really until one day I found myself swimming, and I don't swim. And I didn't know what had happened. And then he has to die next to me if I could hold on to his life jacket, and I asked him what happened. And he said we were torpedoed.

And I said, what is that? And he explained that to me. And then I asked him, why would anybody do that? He said, hey. Stupid.

There's a war going on. And I asked him, who is fighting him? And he told me that, and I said, geez. The guy could be hurt over here. And, you know, they took us into England.

They took us up there for a while. They took us into England. And they asked me that I want to get another ship or that I wanna get flown home. I didn't like to be hurt. I was scared skinny, but I was more scared of going home.

So I said I'll take another ship. And they said, oh, you're a good boy. So I developed the name hero, don't you say? And I wasn't a hero. I was drunk 24 hours a day.

That's the only way I ever went anywhere, drunk. I couldn't get on the ship otherwise, but I did drunk. So I used to come home and see my wife on one night and one day and I would disappear the next morning to Bayonne, New Jersey and out on a tanker again all because I didn't want her to see me getting up in the morning. That's how important it was for me not to be an alcoholic, and I fought it. I fought it all the way right to the bottom.

Well, the bottom for me was one day coming home on a hospital ship after being in a coma for 16 days. I had gotten beaten half the deck of Marseilles in France. I went into a prisoner of war, Stockade. I was going to end the war all by myself. And what they did to me was a disgrace.

When I woke up, there was a doctor there. He said, don't get excited, kid. He said, you're almost in New York, and you are going home. I like to kill him. I said, I'm not going home.

And he said, you have to go home because you are sick and you've been, like, really manly. He said, I had a practice go. My jaw derived together. All my ribs are caved in. I had a broken arm, stitches in every part of my body.

And I said give me back my papers. I can't go home. Well, I went home after about 2 months in Oyster Bay, Long Island where they put crazy semen. Well, I came home to a woman that didn't know me. She didn't know the animal that I had developed into.

She was sitting there with her son, my son and hers. We were only a little baby at the time. And I said to her, Where's the booze? And she said, what booze? She said, Jack, I live here by myself.

I have only myself and a living room here and I don't drink. And why do you want booze? I said, well, don't ask any stupid questions. Just go down and get some. So she went down and got some.

And she come back off and thought that was bad. And about 3 hours later, she made another trip. And now she knew. And when she knew, I didn't care anymore because I told her just one thing. Take that stupid kid.

Get out in the street with him alone to the bedroom. He makes too much noise. He bothers me. My nerves can't stand it. And I sat in the corner and I dreamt 24 hours a day and I dreamed my dreams.

And I was in never, neverland. And my wife took a look at me and she said, Jack, you're my husband and I need a husband. You're the father of my boy and I need a father for my boy. I'm gonna straighten you out. You're sick.

And I said, you're out of your mind and stay out of my business. Just leave me be. Because now you see once the secret is out, you don't care anymore who moles or what? I was now drinking desperately in order to stay alive, keep my sanity. While she helped me, she went out one day and she shut me off in every bar and every delicate vessel for about 10 miles.

I walked into my favorite bar about 4 in the afternoon when I usually got up and I asked for a drink and he almost had a stroke. He said, Jack, please, go around and walk out of here. You're not getting anything to drink here today. And I said, why? And he said, your wife was here this morning, and she told me that if I give you any drink today, she's gonna burn my bar down.

So I said, well, you're afraid of all your stupid. I went to my second favorite bar at the same time. Make a long story short, I got home about 7 o'clock that evening without a drink, and I was sick. And I said to her, I'm about to kill you. And she said, before you kill me, listen to me.

If you want a drink, I'll buy it for you. But do me a favor. Come to New York with me. And I thought I don't know when I said, is that the only way I'm gonna get a drink? He said, that's the only way.

I'll buy you a drink if you get on the subway and come to New York. You know what it is to ride the subway in New York? No. You could die without drinking. I'll tell you.

It's a hollowing, a normal patient. It's an alcoholic to go under the river and sit in the funnel for 15 minutes out of this world. But I was so blessed that I agreed. So she brought me a drink, and I said, quick. Down the subway.

Let's go. And by the time I got to the other end, it had gone off. And I come out of the subway so bad, she brought me another one. And she said, now we are going into that church. And I looked at the church, and I said, oh, no.

I'm an Irish Catholic, and that's a Protestant church. I don't know what the Protestant churches. And she said, you dirty bum. You haven't been near any church for 20 years, and now you're complaining all of a sudden about it. I went into the church, and it was in AA meeting.

And there was some jackass up here like I'm up here tonight, you see. And I sat in the back, and I asked her what it was, and she said, this is AA. They're gonna help you. I said, yeah. You know, like everybody else wants to help me.

Stop drinking. I said, just watch what happens. Well, the only thing I know that that meeting that night was this fellow up here, and you know what he said? Don't take the food to drink and you won't get drunk. And I said, no kidding.

Yeah? And I asked my wife, did he take that up there by himself? I mean, he must be a genius this night. And I called him a dirty name in the back of the room, and I told him that if I got close enough, it would not be killing him. She got me out of there just before the cops arrived.

And I got on the sidewalk and I said, if you ever do that to me again, I'll bury you and him too. Don't ever do that to me again. Those people are all crazy. They steal a few spinach, and they get concerned about it. They said the wife froze them out, and they get concerned.

They wanna tell him, sick. I'm sick. Come back. Not me. I don't need them.

I don't need anybody in it. Well, only me. Just give me back my gun and it's when they lose, and I'll be alright. Well, you know, my wife was disgusted with me. And she said, Jack, I don't care if I never see you again.

You're hopeless and helpless. And she said, you are just something else. And she left me and I don't know what happened, how long it was, but when I got back home, it was some days later and it was 2 cops in my apartment. Well, do you know how cops and me got along? If my hair was on fire and I was laying in the gutter and there was a cop standing next to me, I wouldn't ask him to spit on me to put the fire up.

If there's any here tonight, peace. Peace. Peace. To all of the past, I love you all. I love some better, but I love you too.

And these guys were sitting there because I I didn't understand why, and I asked them why are you here. And he said, well, we got some news for you, kid. You almost killed your wife last night, and we've been sitting here waiting for you to come home, and we won't take you. And at the last time, they're gonna do that. And I said, I wasn't even home.

And he says, oh, yes. You are. And my wife showed me your neck is all black and blue, and I couldn't, for the life of me, remember what I had done. And she said, Jack, are you fighting Jamey's or Japs or somebody again in the equation? They won't kill me one day.

They'll kill a baby too. And I said, no. That's not me. So I told the cops anyway to leave, and they wouldn't. So, you know, I threw them.

And they found on that in Brooklyn. You know? And they they didn't like that at all. And they went out and they got reinforcements, and then they threw me, you see. And then for about a year, they were playing King of the Hill with my apartment.

And I leaned around the streets of Brooklyn not knowing that I was going to come in. And it was a waste period of my life because I was in Shady Town. My wife didn't want any part of me. Nobody wanted any part of me. And the only thing I could do was to get a hold of a cow and egg him on until he would make a pass at me or meet him, and we would go at it.

I wanna tell you. They would take me to back in an alley of 3 or 4 when I would in in the back of the station house, and they would let me over good. And I thought I had lost the sight of moonlight from death in one ear. My equilibrium was not too good. My jaws have been kicked apart many, many times.

In fact, I talk kind of funny sometimes because my jaws have been put back together pretty shit. My teeth up in the roof of my mouth and broken off and stuffed in a straitjacket and put into Kings County Hospital Bellevue. I tell you, if you never walk up in a straitjacket in a hospital with your mouth all busted up and your head all stitched up and your lips caved in and God only knows how many stitches in your body don't. It's not nice. Because the moment that you open your eyes, you know, you are back to being a 12 year old scared kid again.

And you say, my god. What am I doing here? Then you know it's bad enough to do it one time. But would you believe that I did it 12 times? Twelve times.

I don't recommend it. And I don't stand here and try and impress you how tough I am. I'm not. I'm not tougher than anybody else in this world. As you said, I'm crazy.

When I pick up a drink, I'm insane. And I do things that normally I wouldn't think of doing or be incapable of doing. It's my disease at work, don't you see, when I drink? I would lower that mouthful and I would pray and try and keep so quiet so they would take the jacket off me and at the respectable time they would and at the respectable time they were unable to send me home. And I would go home and I'd be so ashamed and for the remorse that I would wait to look at Bach and I would sneak home.

And I would walk into a home and my wife would look at me and she'd say, well, Jack, what are you gonna do now? And I said, well, I don't know. And I didn't know. And I was so scared and I was so pitiful. And I would sit in the corner and I would tell her I won't make any noise.

Just let me sit here. I have nothing to drink. I can't drink no more. And, you know, I would sit in the corner and I'm 12 years old, and who the hell needed me? How long could you sit in the corner?