To Have And Have Not

A couple of months later, Harry and a group of men are gathered at Freddy’s place, the local bar. The narration switches to Albert, an old friend of Harry’s who has been trying to overcome low wages and feed his family since the Depression began.

A lawyer arrives looking for Juan, the local taxi driver. Harry verbally spars with him for a few moments until the lawyer asks to speak to Harry alone in the back room of the bar. While they are gone, the group moans about the curfew and how their freedoms are being limited. When Harry and the lawyer return, Harry presents Albert with the opportunity for a far higher wage than he makes digging sewer lines for the Civilian Conservation Corps. He and Albert take a drive to talk, and Harry reveals that the lawyer represents a group of strangers who want to charter his boat for a special trip to Cuba. When Albert reminds Harry that the boat is locked up in the customs port for his illegal liquor activity a few months prior, Harry chastises him for worrying about legalities while Albert’s wife and children are starving. Harry curses Key West’s class inequalities, saying that the rich are trying to turn the city into a “tourist town” (96) by forcing out the poor.