On the road by Jack Kerouac

Author:Jack Kerouac [Kerouac, Jack]
Format: epub
Tags: Unread
ISBN: 9780670874781
Publisher: Viking
Published: 1997-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

escape in my life, speaking of escapes, you see, in a general way. In the woods, you

know, and crawling, and swamps— up around that mountain country. Rubber hoses and

the works and accidental so-called death facing me I had to cut out of those woods along

the ridge so as to keep away from trails and paths and roads. Had to get rid of my joint

clothes and sneaked the neatest theft of a shirt and pants from a gas station outside

Flagstaff, arriving LA two days later clad as gas attendant and walked to the first station I

saw and got hired and got myself a room and changed name (Lee Buliay) and spent an

exciting year in LA, including a whole gang of new friends and some really great girls,

that season ending when we were all driving on Hollywood Boulevard one night and I

told my buddy to steer the car while I kissed my girl— I was at the wheel, see—and he

didn’t hear me and we ransmack into a post but only going twenty and I broke my nose.

You’ve seen before my nose—the crooked Grecian curve up here. After that I went to

Denver and met Marylou in a soda fountain that spring. Oh, man, she was only fifteen

and wearing jeans and just waiting for someone to pick her up. Three days three nights of

talk in the Ace Hotel, third floor, southeast corner room, holy memento room and sacred

scene of my days—she was so sweet then, so young, hmm, ahh! But hey, look down

there in the night thar, hup, hup, a buncha old bums by a fire by the rail, damn me.” He

almost slowed down. “You see, I never know whether my father’s there or not.” There

were some figures by the tracks, reeling^ in front of a woodfire. “I never know whether

to ask. He might be anywhere.” We drove on. Somewhere behind us or in front of us in

the huge night his father lay drunk under a bush, and no doubt about it—spittle on his

chin, water on his pants, molasses in his ears, scabs on his nose, maybe blood in his hair

and the moon shining down on him.

I took Dean’s arm. “Ah, man, we’re sure going home now.” New York was going to be

his permanent home for the first time. He jiggled all over; he couldn’t wait.

“And think, Sal, when we get to Pennsy we’ll start hearing that gone Eastern bop on the

disk jockeys. Geeyah, roll, old boat, roll!” The magnificent car made the wind roar; it

made the plains unfold like a roll of paper; it cast hot tar from itself with deference—an

imperial boat. I opened my eyes to a fanning dawn; we were hurling up to it. Dean’s

rocky dogged face as ever bent over the dashlight with a bony purpose of its own.

“What are you thinking, Pops?”

“Ah-ha, ah-ha, same old thing, y’know—gurls gurls gurls.”

I went to sleep and woke up to the dry, hot atmosphere of July Sunday morning in Iowa,

and still Dean was driving and driving and had not slackened his speed; he

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