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Forms to be Filled ont.for.Each Interview
FORM
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORFER May Swenson
ADDRESS 29iit Norton Street, N.Y.C.
.DATE February 28, 1939
SUBJECT Folklore of Drug Employees
1. Date and time c" interview February 25 7 to 10 P.M.
2. Place of interview 24 Morton Street
3. Name and address of informant Eli Seigle
125 E. 13th Street
New York City
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touca with informant. None. Contacted informant as part of group in
LIFE cafeteria, Sheridan Square, N.Y.C.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Brought informant to my home.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NAVE OF WORKER. May Swenson
ADDRESS 291 Morton Street, N.Y.C.
DATE FelDruary 28, 1939
SUBJECT Folklore of Drug Employees
ALL NIGHT STORE
FOLKLOPF
NEW YORK
How I got into the drug trade was an accident. Like most of
the things I got into. You know, one thing leading to another,
and so on, ad infinitum, like they say in Latin-- From high school
I MRS interested in Chemistry studying formulaes and mixing things.
Well, so I spent a couple years learning he drug trade. But for a
while the closest I got to being a pharmacist was soda jerker in a
drug store up in Harlem.
Then later I got a job behind the pres-
cription counter in Central Pharmacy out in Queens The section
they call Richmond Hill, between 110th Street and 120th.
Listen, plenty goes on in a drug store. Especially if you
work nights. This was an all night store, the only one in the
distriot. Any prescriptions filled at night you charge double.
Well, ydu can do that, see after all anybody wants attention
in the middle of the night's gotta to be ready to pay for it. It's
the only place you can get it, see. So a customer can kick, but
what's he gonna do?
Listen, plenty goes on in a drug store. In prohibition they
used to peddle booze. I never done it myself. I neven went in
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for that stuff, but I see plenty of it. Well, why not? A shot
of good rye is the best medicine yet for whatever ails you. The
counter man has the blanks, see, and if he's in cahoots with a
doe who wants to pick up a little extra, he'll sell a book of
blanks, signed by the doe, to a legger, who fills in for haw
many cases he wants to take out, and it goes under the prescrip-
tions. On an R.X. youre covered, see, and if any questions asked,
it's the doe takes the rap. An R.X. is the prescription blank
comes from 'Recipe' that's Latin, 'Ray-cee-pay," means 'Take
Of This' so many grams, etc., Latin you know.
Everything sold across the counter that is the prescrip-
tion counter is supposed to have the doe's signature. It's
illegal to counter-prescrbe, but it's done all the time. Any
store keeper is out to sell his goods why not. If there's
no doe connected with the drug store, the counter man does the
prescribing whenever he has the chance. Naturally. Look, 1,11
tell you about a smart guy. This guy found his way around alright.
He was the druggist there in Richmond Hill. He didn't have a
doe on the string to boost his stuff, so one day he decideds to
be a doe himself. So he buys a white mock and a stethoscope,
and he fixes him an ofrice in the back, and he's all set. He'd
diagnose patients, and write out prescriptions, and everything
worked fine. As far as I know he hasn't killed anybody yet.
When in doubt about a case, he always played safe and prescribed
a placebo. That's something that doesn't make any difference
here or there I mean it can't cure you of anything, just
make you feel like you're doing something for whatever ails
you, and even that makes you feel better, see. Placebo, that's
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Latin means 'I Please.' A doe will give it to a patient
usually who thinks there' something wrong with him when there
isn't. Purely psychological, you know. It's either in a bottle
or it's a capsule, and usuaily it's pink. I don't know why,
but usually it'spink a cheerful color, I guess.
Funny things happen. I never saw so many screwy people
as when I worked in that all night store. One night a guy
(lames in and I think he's giving me the wise act. lie say's
he wants some Aphrodisiac. Aphrodisiac, well that's Greek
comes from a dame, Aphrodite must have been hot stuff,
Aphrodite lost her nightie Well this Aphrodisiac is a
dose of pep or scmet_ing, see makes a man of sixty aot
like twenty. So this old guy asks me for this stuff, and
I decide to have a little fun with him. Nothing doing at
that hour, you know, the place is quiet, and this guy comes
in and I figure I'll do a little horsing around with hi*.
So I says, having trouble with the girls? And he gives me
the glassy, and he says, me with the gins, go on, do you
know who I am? I'm a Cantor. Cantor, Cantor, I says
you mean you're Eddie Cantor. So he says no, and it turns
out a cantor is some kind of singer in a Jewish congregation.
Imagine. Then I says, well what's eating you, you gotta a
hot daye? And he says, imagine this He says the stuff is
for his wife. So it turns out since he's a cantor he only
works three, four days a year on Jewish holidays and he
don't make much, and his wife finally gets sore, and she goes
on strike. So the fellow figures to fix her with an aphrodisiac.
Screwy people.
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Another time here comes a guy in got something in his eye.
This guy is a doe, but he don't mention it to me. Me, just a
dumb bunny behind the counter and a doe comes to me with a bum
eye. He says he trys to get it out himself, but can't do it,
and it's hurting him like hell. Three times I go over his eye
with a piece of cotton dipped in boric acid, but it doesn't work.
This is serious, I tells him, you oughta see a doctor. Nothing
doing, he says, try it again. So I go over his eye again, but
it doesn't came out. Than I give him a long lecture about how
his eye is in danger unless he get's that speck of cinder out,
and to let me call a doctor. I figure I'll drum up a little
business for our doe, see. The guy stands there and takes it,
listens patiently 4 but he won't let me call a doe. Naturally.
He's one himseif, but I don't know it at the time, Well, finally
arter trying it again, I get his eye clean. Then I prescribe
him some drops to soothe his eye, and I charge him 7b cents for
a 20 cent dose. This is a night case see. And he pays for it
and not a mper out of him, thanks me and then hands me his
card. I look dawn and see 'Dr. so and so' Jeez, did I feel
funny. So he shakes my hand and walks out with a grin on his
mug. He says he t
Listen, once I saved a man's life and once I killed a guy.
No kidding. Work in a drug store and you handle life and death.
Alpha and Omega, like they say in Latin.
One night a guy comes in doubled up with pain. He gives
me to understand it's a simple case of indigestion and wants
me to prescribe something for him. So I goes behind the coun-
ter and I start to make up a dose of salts with magnesia. But
out front I hear the guy begin to moan and groan till he gives
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me the shivers. So I says to myself, this reliah nas got some-
thing wrong with him besides constipation. I want to call the
doc, but he won't hear ot it. I catch on he's not long on dough,
and afraid it'll cost him five bucks. So I says to him, look,
I says, I'll make a deal with you. Let um call the doe, and
a ter he examines you, if he says you need nothing but a physic,
pay the bill myself, and if it's something really serious,
which I don't doubt I says, then you can pay it. But man, I
says, that stomach ache sounds to me like appendicitis. Well,
after an argument, finally eh says O.K. and he's doubled up
with pain, and I calls the doe. The doe comes down, and the
guy was so sick, we had to lift him into the pack to get him
on the couch. So the doe starts feeling his side. And he
says, my god, you got a busted appendix and its perforating.
You're going straight to the hospital. The guy starts squawking,
but this doe don't pay no attention. He put him right in his car
didn't even wait for the ambulance, and he was operated at the
hospital within twenty minutes. They didn't think he'd live.
But the guy pulled through all right and he's a hail man today.
Couple months later he 3a:me in and thanked me for saving his
life.- Forget it, I says, It's all in the day's work. Just
like that, I told him.
But one time I killed a guy. Well, he committed suicide,
see. but I sold him the dope. It's a mistake anybody could
make under the circumstances. Look, in comes a guy in the
middle of the night. A little bit lit up. Asks for paraldehyde.
I make him up the lc. -gal dosage one ounce. Then he gives me an
argument he wants four ounces. Four ounces, I says to myself,
that's enough to drop a guy, and I tell him nothing doing. It's
alright, he says, I'm a physician, and he pulls out a card. Well
there's no law against selling any amount of Paraldehyde to a
licensed physician. But something tells me to be leary of this
guy just the same. I figure to show him up, and so I start ask-
ing him certain questions. How much of this and how much of that
to make up a correct dosage of a certain drug. And he gives me
the answers alright. Well, I figure, maybe this feilah is a doe
what's so funny about it. Anyway, I ask him for his licence,
but it turns out, according to what he said, he's from Boston
and naturally doesn't early his licence with him. Look, I says
to myself, this guy knows all the answers, but he could have looked
am up in a book. I'll give him a test que:ition something you
can't find the answer to in a library. If he gives me the straight
of it on this one, he must be a doe. I asked him for the correct
dosage of digitalis. That's something even most doctors don't
bother to know. 0, a teaspoon2u11, he says. Oh, oh, I says to
myself, a teaspoonful, huh enough to kill a horse. I tell
the guy he's crazy and to be on his way. But he doesn't budge,
and he says, well, look it up in the dispensitory, sonny. I
think I'll have the laugh on him, and I go and look up the dosage
on digitalis. And strike me dead, what do 1 -find 'Digitalis
can be administered in as large a dose as one teaspoonful, in
extreme cases...' Well, that makes _ -:him right and me wrong,
doesn't it? So what can I do? I give him the four ounces of
Paraldehyde. Charge him double, and call it square.
So next day, what do you think. I get a visit from the
corner. The guy was a doe alright, but he bumped himself off
just tne same. ,I gave the comer my story, and ever%- work of
it was true so he had to admit he would have done the same.
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In a way, I killed this buy, but nothing came of it. Naturally.
Can you blame me? I only followed my best judgement. Can a
person do more?