50 Years Gone The Father We Almost Knew One Jack Kerouac Out Of
Merrimack River Nights-Searching For The Father We Never Knew-Scenes In
Search Of The Blue-Pink Great American West Night- The Lonesomest Hobo Daddy Of Them
All
By Seth Garth, known as
Charles River Blackie for no other reason that he can remember at least than he
slept along those banks, the Cambridge side and some raggedy ass wino who tried
to cut him under the Anderson Bridge one night called him that and it stuck.
Those wino-zapped bums, piss leaky tramps and poet-king hoboes all gone to some
graven spot long ago from drink, drug, or their own hubris which they never
understood gone and the moniker too.
Jack’s Merrimack River, Jack’s ancient stream, damn
steamed river. Rough, white-capped torrents flowing without a break, coming
from some unknown springs, creeks, rivulets, brooks and whatnot, storm-tossed
in winter, rock-stepping rough, pock-marked with broken trees causing gushes
and gaps in the steady stream, boulders pocked too up by the painted sprayed
cliffs near the University, cliff names (Jimmy loves Janie, sigma phi
forever, Mary sucks, nowadays gives good
head complete with telephone number, the Acre rules), etched in paint (Day-Glo
now some odd Dutch Boy formula then)
going back to Jack time, (then, Jack time, just friendly old Lowell
Textile, strictly for the textile trade wonks and wanna-bes, not Jack-worthy),
undertow dragging against foolhardy feet for the unsteady and first
understandings that the world IS a dangerous place but also, without
embarrassment, that the river is the river of life. And no fears, no god fears,
no mother church catholic fears, no consequence from those pagan
sentiments. Bridged, river bridged,
bridged at strategic points bridged, brawny steel and trestle bridged to take
on all traffics rumbling across the torrent below river, granite foundations
stones placed, how placed a mystery, a construction mystery that some bright
Lowell Tech guy (old days now U/Mass, ah, Lowell) could figure out in a minute
just like how he got that rock-bound Jimmie loves Janie rock sprayed, in such a
way as to defend against rising rivers, hurricanes, wars, and other earthly disasters.
Bridged, not metaphor bridged, Jack would no heard of
it, would smirk that devil’s smirk and dismiss you and your damn metaphor out
of hand, would speak of golden colored bridges spanning , and name the colors,
and the shades when they reflected against the day, fierce seas, name the seas,
name the ships on the seas, name the parts of ships, name the horrors and
beauties of the turbulent seas, would speak of traffic, of commerce of
delivering goods, near and far, of bridge sounds, rumbles, honks, gnaws
even, so no to some Hemingway
mind-wrought big two-hearted Idaho
idyllic river but real bridged, Jack London old time bridged, Call Of The Wild nights of the long
knives bridged between poor, working poor, working textile poor Lowell on one
side and the desperately, or repeatedly poor like clan Kerouac, chronically
unemployed, semi-chronically drunk and disorderly, poor, Acre poor.
Blessed Saint Jean bon, Ti Jean, among the
brethren, cross his big god-head heart, un-anointed, hell unadorned Adonis
patron saint of the Acre poor, the Acre poor, scrabbly working poor (and throw in some lumpen criminal
vagabonds, scavengers, con men, lifeless corner boys , and just plain thugs to
boot, they thrive in the easy pickings Acre, and a thousand other Acre-named places too) known to kindred poor Josh Breslin
(mother, nee LeBlanc, the LeBlancs from up Quebec City way, and north Saint
Lawrence north toward the Gaspe ) in the French –Canadian Atlantic Avenue Acre
over in Olde Saco, Maine and well-known as well to Irish stews Peter Paul
Markin down in Acre projects in Adamsville, Massachusetts way. Yes, Saint Jean bon,
patron saint muse of the Acre poor, wherever they are located. The back-biting,
bitching, somewhere over the rainbow poor, the Botts Diner after midnight
heavy-lidded after manly bouts with fugitive whiskey bottles poor, the pick up
the fags (okay, okay here cigarette butts) from the Merrimack Street ground,
and cadging (while the bartender is not looking) half- finished manly whiskies
(or, hell, by midnight whatever was left on napkin-soaked tables and counters),
poor. And one thousand, maybe one million other unspoken, always unspoken, pathologies,
tics, and whatnots, never allowed to air in the sometimes fetid (although near
no oceans or marshes but from mixed and matched industrial chemicals), damn
stinking Lowell industrial summer night. And cold, pale blue cold winter too,
except maybe not fetid. Pick a cold word, okay.
Jack rough river, working- class Jack rough all brawny
and bustle, flowing to great unseen Atlantic shores (where real fetid smells,
nature smells from churned seas and drowned marshes, periodically stink the
air) and from there to great American homeland England before the fall and real
homeland, France, ageless France bountiful and smart long before the bloody
Anglos were made hip to using spoons for porridge, before Arcadian Plains of
Abraham falls and hard English burnt offering exiles. And damn cursed native tongues (patois they
called it) banned just like with the gaelic Irish, the Breton wild men, and the
keltic brogue Scots, what madness in Empire, that seaward sun never sets empire
thumbing it beefsteak nose at culture brought from courtly France and well-bred
manners. And strangers in a strange land (Longfellow homage poem exiles anyway)
when Canad soils gave out, or no work prospects loomed, or the lore of two
dollars a day (in real money, Anglo-derived money, damn) sent half of Quebec
streaming down to the paper and textile mill towns, river towns, Olde Saco,
Manchester, Nashua, and sainted, sunned, stunned, acid- stained canal- strewn
river flowed Lowell.
Merrimack (Jack play word Mary Mack, Markin play word
Mary Mack all dressed in black), hometown river of youth, callous youth,
question, going into young manhood. Hanging around corner boy Leclerc’s
Variety, mom and pop variety store
cadging quarters from working men streaming out of the second-shift mills,
occasionally stealing odd lots of penny candy (funny habit, always describing
sweet tooth things, immense marbled cakes, chocolate frosted, huge bread
puddings heated and served with whipped creams, shimmering jellos of six different
flavors, also whipped creamed, hearty
apple pies laden with syrupy ice cream melts and on down to mouth-
watering movie time milk duds, for
chrissakes, making word hungry eyes food hungry, cheap sugar food hungry), you
know Baby Ruth, Butterfingers, Snickers (or, snickers), Milky Way, to avoid the
heavy tariff at the Bijou Theater come Saturday afternoon double bill, double
trouble, matinee specials. And Ma, Mere called so in the old-fashioned back
home Montreal way from whence she came trotting for those dame yankee
dollars, having to sneak quarters to Mr.
Leclerc to cover those sweet tooth penny candied larcenies . And you thought
you were so clever, Jack old boy, old dog. But that was the life, the corner boy
life, small stealing, small cadging, jack-rolling some drunken kid for his
quarters (doled out by his Mere for his penny candy Bijou extravaganzas). Boys,
always about boys, and adventures and thinking, and forever writing, some golf
score pencil and Bridge Street Woolworth’s 5 &10 notebook, just in
case.
Later of dream stories, at those same corners or maybe
further the river toward Pawtucketville across from Father Kerouac’s social
club (and drinking bout hang-out) but always eternally corner dream stories now
long gone to malls and fast food courts and no loitering, no trespassing, no
skate-boarding, no breathing human unkind trances. To speak about jail
break-outs, about small town prison escapes, the young always seeing even New
York City as too small for their
outrageous appetites, and good luck, letting Lowell sun eat the dust of
your tracks fill the night air, about big time jobs and celebrity (once the
word was discovered). And then the talk turned serious as the wisp of a beard
showed (more than five o’clock shadows for
Jack, dark, French-etched two times
a day shaved Jack) turned to manly shavings
and childish voice turned to deep bass, serious talk about girls, about what
they were made of, and more importantly what made them tick. A lifetime of
wonders and sorrows to spill the river-laden night. A clue though, a clue worth
a king’s ransom would have been worth all that lucre if they could just figure
out what the hell they wanted. The girls, okay. They, the corner boys, all
sized, shaped, smarts, greek, French, ethnic corner boys (who else would
inhabit the Acre in those days, the bloody Irish lived in Irishtown, just like
they did in Olde Saco up in Maine and Adamsville, down in Irishtown South Lowell way, down Maggie Cassidy way but more
on that later) found out soon enough
after a few bouts of love dust at the old Starlight Ballroom, now famous, town
famous, since Benny Goodman and his band had set its 1939 foot in the front
door and blasted everything to be-bop, beepy-be-bop don’t stop, mad man music
including soon to be front singing Jack-inflamed red dress Paula. Yah, Benny’s
band that was where she got her start (okay, okay start with Jack on moonless
nights singing, singing the then known American songbook, Tin Pan Alley
songbook but that didn’t count. The moonless singing that is. The afternoon red
dress and high heels come hither, yah, that counted, Maggie counted, too but
later.)
Jack’s river of sorrow, of Mere hurts and Maggie
Cassidy hurts too. (I told you I would have more on her, of lace curtain
vanities and father train conductor dreams of some little white cottage, a dog,
and three point four kids, nah, not Jack-sized, not Jack-sized at all).
Forgotten now Paula (forgotten even forgotten of red dress seductions which
made him toss and turn many a night, many a night before Maggie devoured
sleep). Forgotten Mere (and her old-fashioned Montreal French-Canadian, and
before that some Gaspe wind-swept farm stories, that he would use later to bulk
out his own stories when his brain ran dry, or maybe sad, big sad Tokay wet), forgotten
although always hovering as a stark and real cut knives presence (and mixed in
as with all mothers , mothers since Eve, generous helpings of immense love
gifts bought with shoe leather- stained hands from working at that damn old
mother-twisting shoe mill) really until the Maggie fever had subsided, subsided
several years, later but that is a story for another time, a time after New York City lights, Village mysteries, sea
adventures and searches for the
blue-pink great American West night, and of Neal Cassady golden-haired
cowboy west romps, and next million word adventures.
What mattered now though was that our boy, our Jack
O’Kerouac, or Jack McKerouac, or Jack, hell, let’s leave it at Jack Keltic got
himself all balled up over an Irish colleen, from over down in Irishtown down
by the Concord River, history river not all brawny and dyed like Jack’s
Merrimack river, well away from the Acre, and Acre small dreams, and well away
from handy corner boys to hold his hand when old Maggie turned up the heat.
Yes, Maggie, blessed virgin Maggie, of the pale blue eyes, of the pale blue
heart, and of the lace curtain appetites. Of white picket fences, and houses,
white too, to go with them, a spotted dog and a few stray whining kids to keep
the cold nights warm. No sale, no Jack of the river sale, not our boy in the
end but it was a close call and maybe if she had turned down those white silken
stockings just once he would have wound up white fence- picketed through his
heart in some cozy bungalow close by Dracut Forest, or hell, in up and coming
Chelmsford (and then no on the road, no dharma, no big sur, no Mexican nights,
tangier nights, just Maggie and pipe, tobacco pipe nights).
Yes, Jack would know manly hurts, huge manly hurts
imposed by hard-hearted women, and men, after that one but not before clowning
himself before her with feats of modern
athletic daring against black ravens , against arch-rival Lawrence gridiron,
Lawrence also of the river and of history, of strikes and struggle of a
different kind, of bread and roses. Of clowning corner boy clowning, deciding
stay or go, stay or go, of drunken dance floor episodes (no, not when Benny
Goodman, Hail Be-bop Benny, held forth and made the Starlight Ballroom quake,
but other times, other Maggie pouting times, or Maggie tired times, or Maggie
“friend” times, the list was endless, and he endlessly patiently impatient as
each phase of the Maggie moon turned into ashes. And into Jack death
pyre).
Interlude: Jack’s low sun going down behind the river
and before that the tree- strewn, living tree strewn river upstream, upstream
where it all began and where Jack began. Pawtucketville, the Acre, South
Lowell, the trolley tracks end, and the endless winter snow walks, the endless
summer river ebb walks, the fret Maggie walks, the no dime for carfare (quaint
word) walk, the walk to save for penny candy walk, the million word walk, the
first school dance walk, the no money for prom car (or car or license, okay)
walk, the night before the big game walk, walked in Dracut Forest to avoid mad
crashing fans who wanted to know glory up close , if only Jack- reflected
glory, yes, walk, walk too, get out of the house when Mere cursed his dark
night.
But really prelude, training, cosmic training,
okay to million mile walks from New
Jersey shores, looking out from broken down, oil-stained, oil smelled eastern
piers and dreaming hookah Tangiers dreams, from Time Square dope blasts with
every faux hipster who could afford a string tie, soft shoes, midnight
sunglasses and a be-bop line of patter, pitter- patter, really, from
rockymountainhills walks sliding down to Denver town in beloved Cassady country
poolrooms and juke joints, from ghost dance walks in saline deserts channeling
ancient Breton hurts and shamanic wanderlust, from dark bracero Mex walks
waiting on broken down senorita love in some stinking Imperial Valley bean
field, from Presidio fast by the golden gate bridge, fast by North Beach walks,
from Big Sur hunger for oneness with the sea walks (never made really quite and
serene Todo el Mundo a few miles south when it could have made a difference,
from life walks, from death walks. Walks, shoe leather- eating walks,
okay.
******
Jack of Lowell hometown, Jack of some Micmac-traded ancient
Canad French-Canadian fur trader beyond time and back to Breton woods and great
fields of serf fellahin peasants plowing, cowing, milking, harvesting,
corvee-ing some milord’s land seen in some far distance, since with river
running. Ownership burned out in the Yankee mill night, the time-owned night,
the day too. Mainly now of narrow (narrow life-making) triple and
double-deckers squalid flats constantly changing renter-ship, constant babies
squabble in six languages, but above all patois, beautiful lilt keltic fringe
hard Atlantic seas and torrents of rain Breton coast patois. And so they
established an outpost here, among the mix of mill-town hands, making mill
things, dreaming non-mill things, and for the men working, working hard and
long and then off to some card-playing (as disguise for heavy drinking, cheap
cigar- smoking and rude talk of women, the ethnics, hah, and the world gone to
hell in a hand basket) Franco-American Club, no women, no children, no kikes,
no micks, no English (absolutely no English for there is a swollen Montcalm
bone to pick over on that one), no oppressors unnamed and unloved allowed. A
man’s life as befits a man whose people came down from places deep in Quebec
woods and along the mighty Gaspe Saint Lawrence.
Those are ancient myths of gentile beggar fellaheen
birth among the Canad and pedigree not to be touted in non-pedigree Americas,
and certainly not in non-pedigree Lowells (except by certain mill owners who
spoke only to god, or to Cabots maybe). And so the mix of fellahin patois, of
roasted fires, of sweet gentle wines to that good night, of sober work, of
somber life explained the fate of that American mix, Lowell style. And explained
too the greek, french, irish, break-out of ungrateful sons (and daughters but
not as well seen). Sons with words to say, with American songs to sing, not
Whitman song, that was another time, another place and another America but
songs against mill stream night, songs against the death of personal dreams, of
wayward sons, well-meaning wayward sons but wayward.
Ah, Lowell setting sun Lowell and its time of great
decline, great decline on Jack’s birth river. The stink of tannic acid, the
blue dye, the red dye, hell, the yellow dye river dying for lack of work, for
worked-out mills, for moved to cheap jack cheaper labor southern ports of call.
And so the Lowell setting sun turned in on itself, turned to be-bop music and
Botts midnight diners with guys, guys who used to work the midnight shift, and
restless, now lingering over mad cups of joe to ward off the worthless sense of
non-self. Fixed in place and the younger ones seeing that said no mas, not me,
and spoke of flights of fancy, and of real flights, flights from Merrimack River
roads to trash-strewn asphalt highways west.
Lowell, water Lowell, canal Lowell, fresh-faced farm
girl Lowell hands weaving the wicked weave of the loam and then to other
pursuits none the worse for wear at least that was the call, the advertised
call that brought them from Acton, Concord, and Littleton farms or maybe before
those places had names, town names, just Farmer Brown’s rosy-cheeked daughter
from over there where that dusty road intersected the corner of Brother Smith’s
land. Later gentle waters, gentle confluence waters from high hill brooks and
bramble, from flow Concord, Lowell sing, not some sing-song Shepard’s sing, not
some cattle- lowing sing, not some elysian fields sing but the sing of great
bobbed machines whistling late into the night, hell what night, whistling into
daybreak and fearful noises for those poor tenement, double and triple
tenement, dwellers who form the perimeter of the mill mile, sweet cloth and
money-making mill mile.
And Jack born, born and raised, to term an old phrase,
a mere stone’s throw away along that same river bend as it curves up the cliffs
near Pawtucketville, the old time Mere and Pere French quarter where Jack would
get his fill of double and triple-deckers. And rosy tales of those ancient
Breton fields and thieving thriving French
fur- traders amid the scream of broken whiskey bottles, a few broken by him,
murderous wives bent on murder for having too many children, too many children
too close together, too many short paychecks and too many long grocer’s bills,
too many drunken husband nights without him or with him all sex hungry and
stinking of anglo whiskies or greek anise, or just murderous to be murderous in
fear of the lost Hollywood dream and no chance to pull a Mildred Pierce or even
a lite Lana Turner twist against some
old drunken greek short order chef seaside road diner hell fate.
Jail-break midnight teenagers looking for quick
quarters for the jukebox to play Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman or some latest be-bop daddy, standing around
in front of the Bijou Theater or the Starlight Ballroom to see if there are any
dreams being manufactured inside, and
looking for a way to make sense
of a world that they didn’t create. That Jack, that Jack teen- age boy, teen-
age corner boy like all the others didn’t create, that played and that ate at
him, ate at him from crawl time to crawling down the gutter time. But if you
are going to bust out you had better have something more than halfback hero’s
good looks, if you are going to go toe to toe with the gods that is (and we
know he was aching, bleeding really, to go toe to toe with them, for a while
anyway). So he started, started early, a million word journey used stubbled
pencils, and squirrelly inks until, until he got the hang of writing non-stop
with a roll of newsprint and a squirrelly old typewriter. Praise Brother Remington
And funny growth too, the sturdy, durable fleet youth,
all black hair and ooh-la-la French good looks, verified, verified first by
wistful small-breasted French-Canadian girls with long thin legs, also from the
old Canad descended and maybe a few rascally fur-traders in the background too.
Later wild red-headed Irish girls trying, a little, to break from heathen
brown-haired sexless, sex-hate Irish boys murmuring novenas, stations of the
cross, and smelling of altar wines and priest pokes would toss and turn
dreaming of oo-la-la Frenchmen read about in some schoolgirl school book, or
heard on unsavory streets from the older girls, the girls who no longer had the
sign of the cross when they passed Saint Joseph’s, or Saint Jean-Baptiste, or
Saint Brigitte’s, or Saint Germaine’s or Immaculate Conception, or Sacred
Heart, Saint, saint, saint, Saint Mary’s, okay, or any of the three billion
(but I exaggerate) other Lowell holy, holy places where a man can turn from
saint Jack to shaman Jack in a wink of an eye.
And that is when she came by, she Maggie she, but call
her all girl-kind, no, womankind, with her pale white skin, her pale blue eyes,
her dark hair and her well-turned ankles, and disturbed his sleep. And he never
got over that, that way that she could keep him on a string while every other
girl was ready to throw herself to the ground for him (in order that he could
have the stamina to beat Lawrence on Thanksgiving Day, in order for him to
write some little ditty for her, in order for him to dance with her at the
school dance, in order, one girl claimed she had to “do it” in order to improve
her voice so she could sing with some faux- Benny Goodman [all the rage then in
the late 1930s be-bop night] quintet, in order, hell, at the end it was just in
order to, what did they call it in Lowell High School Monday morning girls’ lav
before school girl talkfest about what did, or didn’t happen on Friday or
Saturday night, oh yah, to say they had been jacked by him).
Later, later when the reasons changed but the girls
(no, women then) still thought jacked thoughts he feigned lack of interest,
feigned writer’s cramp, feigned zen Buddhist abstinence, feigned, not so
feigned maybe, drunk or drugged impotence. But no man, no real man, or fairy
(term of art forgiven, please) or even lowly Time Square whores, hookers,
drifters and fags (term of art, not
forgiven) knew that he had had his insides torn out by old Maggie, Maggie the
cat with no downy billows ending long before Tennessee Williams ever put pen to
paper. So say a prayer for Jack, Jeanbon Jack, if you are the praying kind and
curse hellish dark-haired Irish colleens.
Spinning wheels, million football goals scored,
million girls jacked, million drinks drunk with clownish corner boys from age
six on, million yards of pure textile loomed enough to satisfy even the
haughtiest Lowell Textile School professor, million words written, million
smokestack fumes emitted into the cold Lowell air night. Finished, town finished,
Maggie finished, corner boy finished, home finished. Break out time, break out
to great northern seas to write like some mad monk plastered on cheap jack
vineyard wines, homemade, pressed fast and sipped fast (and on the sly). Neon
sign break-out, New Jack City beckoned.
Interlude: Four in the morning cold coffee slurps,
percolator (quaint word) on the stove brewing up another break- speed batch to
endure hours more of non-stop, non-connected, non-punctuated writing. Writing
of Trailways bus stop waits, waits for continental visions (if one does not the
mind the company, the inevitable, to be kind, too large company in the next
seat), in search of that great blue-pink American West night (and later the
international blue-pink night) in dirty washrooms filled with seven hundred
manly stinks, and six perfumes to kill the smell, the urinate smell,
street-wise rest room for weary travelers, hobos, bums, and tramps, take your
pick, maybe some hung over soldier trying to decide on AWOL or frantic rush back
to base and evaporated dreams, nightmares really. Of seasick sailors running
overboard at the first wave heave, or first explosion in the dread Murmansk run
North Atlantic icy waters night one sailor, seasick, no, sick of the sea,
writing, writing in disregard of heaves, and lifeboat-worthy explosions.
Of Village flophouse lofts filled with chattering (to
vanish fear) expatriate exiles, native born from Iowa, Minnesota, Denver,
maybe, in ones and twos, trying to hold out against the impending red scare cold
war night, the death night to destroy the promise of golden age utopias. Of
Scollay Square whores ready to take your pain away, no questions asked, filled
with stories, small dream from small town stories about easy lost virginity and
local scandal, with jack-roller ready pimp/boyfriends just in case things got
rough, or some easy dough was to be had.
Of some mad notion that writing two million words
would take that pain away as easily as that whore promise, and finding some
jack-roller instead when the brain ran dry, the pen ink ran dry, the newsprint
roll ran out and there were no Mere or Gerald memory blasts to fall back on. Of
some ache, some unfound ache to find that Adonis double (Janus, maybe, blond
they say, maybe) zen master, gear master, chariot master that everybody in that
Village loft, that San Francisco North Beach bungalow, that Malibu henhouse,
that Tijuana whorehouse, that Tangiers opium den, hell, even that Trailways
stink bathroom was waiting on.
********
New York City, Time Square of course, Columbia of
course(before the heist of all property when it was merely an Ivy outpost in a
brazen, bare knuckles city), the Village
of course (those who need to know what village just move on), of movies and
movie theaters, and, uh, art films for the discreet, of men in raincoats
stinking of urine or Thunderbird wines, of drifters, grifters, grafters,
midnight sifters, hustling, always hustling like some rats on speed, of mad men
and monks, and semi-monks disguised as poets, of street poet gangsters all
shiny words and a gun at your head to say yes you liked the last verse, of Gregory Corso, of muggers
and minstrels, of six dollar whores for a quickie, of twelve dollar whores who
will take you around the world, of neon signs, night and day, of neon cars and
car beams night and day, of trash spread
every which way, of the flotsam and jetsam of human existence cloistered
against 42nd Street hurts, of Howard Johnson’s franks eaten by the
half dozen to curve hungers, not food hungers but hungers that dare not speak
their name, of Joe and Nemo’s two o’clock fatty griddle hamburgers, of fags and
fairies, and, shade distant dreams, of quasi-Trotskyite girl lovers taking a
rest from their bourgeois travels who loved truth, truth and dark-haired
revolutionary French guys from textile mill lowells, all proletarian Lowell and
can write too, write one million words on order, and of stalinite-worthy
betrayals with some new found friend’s wife, or husband, of Siberia exile of
the mind, and of second million word writes all while riding the clattering
subway to and fro, and not to speak of Soho or the Village. And of junkies, of
every description, morphine, speed, cocaine, and of hustlers pushing their soft
wares, call your poison, step right up, of William Burroughs, of deadly terror
at the prospects for the next fix, of human mules face down in some dusty
Sonora town failing to make that connection to get them well, and of off-hand
forgotten murders. Jesus, suffering
humanity.
And of men met in New York, really Times Square
jungles (post- Maggie girls, women, frills, frails, dames, bitches, etc., etc.,
of no serious consequence except as pillows, weeps, dreams, and such). Of word
magicians, maybe not two million but enough, of great earth-devouring fags (no
offense here), chain-smoking New Jersey sodomites, reading Walt Whitman by day
and wine drunk and man horny at night (or maybe day too) but mainly reading and
infernal writing always writing like that was all that life could be except enough
experiences to write about. Of Allen om Ginsberg. Of breaking out of silly
Eliot great modern bean- counting words in need of glossaries of comprehension,
of jazz-inspired be-bop high white words to take the whole red scare, cold war
stalinite night away, and to calm the nuclear blast headed our way, butt up (no
sexual reference intended and no spite) and chronicle each and every experience
with that broken down typewriter, and that roll of low-grade paper ripped out
of the be-bop 1950s night. And of Adonis all-american golden boy, Neal, meets
all-american dark-haired boy in some Denver saloon, or pool hall yelling,
“shoot pools ,” make some dough and off in some 1946 Studebaker in straight
forty-eight hour gears-grinding search of the great blue-pink American West
night, or maybe just Maggie, that eluded fugitive fragrance that he could never
name of Maggie, who knows. Yes, the father that we knew, the father that we did
not know. Jack, Jack of the Merrimack.
