They be hard times!

Hello:

What would be the meaning of this subjunctive:
"They be hard times!"
in the end para?

Could it be "let them hard times come?"

----
Even if he is fried to the hat some fine preservative instinct always warns
Marlowe when it is time to act. If there is any doubt in his mind as to how
the drinks are going to be paid he will be sure to put on a stunt. The usual
one is to pretend that he is going blind. Carl knows all his tricks by now,
and so when Marlowe suddenly claps his hands to his temples and begins to act
it out Carl gives him a boot in the ass and says: "Come out of it, you sap!
You don't have to do that with me!"

Whether it is a cunning piece of revenge or not, I don't know, but at
any rate Marlowe is paying Carl back in good coin. Leaning over us
confidentially he relates in a hoarse, croaking voice a piece of
gossip which he picked up in the course of his peregrinations from
bar to bar. Carl looks up in amazement. He's pale under the
gills. Marlowe repeats the story with variations. Each time Carl wilts
a little more. "But that's impossible!" he finally blurts out. "No, it
ain't!" croaks Marlowe. "You're gonna lose your job ... I got it
straight." Carl looks at me in despair. "Is he shitting me, that
***?" he murmurs in my ear. And then aloud -- "What am I going to
do now? I'll never find another job. It took me a year to land this one."

This, apparently, is all that Marlowe has been waiting to hear. At
last he has found someone worse off than himself. "They be hard
times!" he croaks, and his bony skull glows with a cold, electric
fire.

Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, p. 52
----

Thanks.
Marius Hancu
.

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