I see you Jack leaning back, your feet on the dash trying to keep up with Neal. Neal pauses to study the gas gauge as you read Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. You read slowly, carefully, sampling the words, tongue-testing phrases, lapping up the interminable deviations and digressions. You are fascinated with Proust's inexhaustible memory. The book flaps up and down in your coat pocket as you tramp around the streets- edging its way out during discussions or arguments.
I see you Jack waltzing through Colorado majesty-mountains, seedy Chicago saloons, Iowa hog farms, Mexican brothels, Mississippi mud-holes; and always surrendering to the ragged desert textures, the clamour and clatter of Frisco alleyways, indigo night skies, scarlet dawns- flinging off your inhibitions and running across the land- bathing in the sparkling air of sheer sensation.
The city seemed deserted, but the station was buzzing. Buses were pulling in from Chicago, Buffalo, Toronto and people were milling about tired and bleary eyed, lugging their overstuffed bags. I unshouldered my pack and joined the queue. Although space was scarce, I found a window seat and having made myself comfortable, checked out the passengers. Behind me, a group of rowdy teenagers boasted of outrageous feats at summer parties. A couple who met in the terminal an hour ago were necking and pecking with abandon while a grandmother knitted beside them, her needles clicking in time with their canoodling. I didn't expect much trouble- I might even sleep. Most of the passengers would settle down to quiet murmurs with the occasional cough or yawn.
Once clear of the city I turned to the window and watched the forms barely discernible in the night fog; lone misshapen trees in the mist, cattle dotted across fields and shrouded farmhouses awaiting the dawn. Bridges crossed silvery creeks that meandered into the night. Intersections branched towards towns and hamlets- always the same- a few lights, a water tower, a gas station. I felt the warm tingling senses of departure; the comfort of being surrounded by strangers, the refreshing sensation of movement and a rush of anticipation as the pinkish tinge of dawn spread across the sky.
We disembarked at Customs and I handed my passport to a bespectacled clerk who carefully studied each page. The man looked bored and tired- probably coming off the night shift. I was motioned to an area near the main offices. The clerk disappeared into a side room and I overheard the phrase "no return." He reappeared with an immense uniformed official who swaggered over to what I assumed was a "holding area." The man weighed at least three hundred pounds and his belt was loaded with a pistol, cudgel and other dubious instruments of crowd control. He chewed gum and stared me in the eye. I stared back.
"Where's your ticket?"
I fiddled around in my pack and handed it over.
"This here's a one-way ticket."
"That's right." I muttered.
"When are you returning?"
"I don't know...sometime in the next month or so."
He drew a deep breath. I noticed a throbbing vein on his right temple. He rolled the chewing gum over his teeth.
"How are you coming back to Canada?"
"Either car, plane or bus. I can't say, because I not sure where I'm going. Listen, I'm a permanent resident of Canada, I don't need a return ticket and all my papers are in order."
The man thrust a pudgy finger into my chest and glared at me.
"Oh yeah, we get you student types all the time. You creep across the border with your one way tickets, how do we know you ain't gonna stay here?"
"What makes you think I'd want to stay here?"
He eyed me slowly.
"Sit down Mr Permanent Resident, I'm going to check you out."
I sat and waited.
The corpulent official was arguing with a Senior Officer, occasionally glancing in my direction. He was out for blood.
Gradually his voice became subdued with sporadic grunts of surrender. Finally, he went to a desk, gathered my papers and sauntered over.
"All right buddy, this time we're gonna let you go. Next time, we better see a return ticket."
I grabbed my papers, bit my tongue and stomped off to the bus. A few people gave an understanding smile as I found my seat. It would be just my luck to be detained over some minor technicality.
We wound through the streets of downtown Detroit. The sidewalks were buckled from years of hoarfrost, forcing the faded signs to lean at odd angles. Rust was everywhere, eating into the fire hydrants, traffic lights and street lamps- a wilderness of pollution, violence, and big business. The bus swerved to miss a pot-hole, almost hitting a lopsided sign leaning into the street. "Bus Station Turn Right" it said. An old Ford rumbled along beside us belching and backfiring. We followed it around the corner and entered the gloomy terminal. It was a vast underground cavern, where nothing had changed since the fifties: plain linoleum, concrete and the walls painted an "institutional yellow." According to the timetable it was one hour until the next bus so I collected my pack and went into the building. The waiting room was easy to find. There was a large sign dangling from the ceiling- "NO LOITERING."
I'd spent the summer working for a mechanic. It was a small shop, servicing neighbourhood cars and the odd truck. The money wasn't great, but I've had worse. The problem was my employer- Pierre. He was a mean old Belgian with a hot temper and a tight wallet. A professional worrier, he constantly complained about the price of labour, the cost of parts and my lack of technical knowledge.
I'd been working in Pierre's Motor Shop for six weeks and three days when late one night the telephone rang. It was Bob, sounding tremendously excited.
"Listen Hal, I going on a trip. You have to come."
"What trip?"
"It's a Kerouac pilgrimage- like a homage to Kerouac tour. Get the bus to Cleveland and I'll pick you up. We'll drive to the East coast, collect Felix and then go- anywhere, everywhere. Want to join us?"
"It sounds great Bob, but I couldn't say right now...you want to give me a few days?"
"Come on Hal, it's the chance of a lifetime, what are you going to say ten years from now...yeah, I almost took the ride of my life, but decided the mechanic's shop was more exciting? You've got to come. It's summertime, we'll cruise along the highway, take it easy, let the good times roll. Stop where we like, do what we want, let it all hang out."
Bob's scenario was hard to resist.
"All right," I said, "I'll call you back."
No planned itinerary, just go. Forget about money, time or food. Just up- and go. Wind up my life like a toy soldier and take off in all directions. Swallow up the mountains, valleys and rivers. Swim in the smell of the country-buttered corn cobs, wildflowers, morning mists. Bask in the haze of afternoon sunlight, the hum of the road. No more Pierre, no more oily rags. I called Bob.
"Yes."
I met Bob at Church years ago. Tall, sandy haired with an earnest expression, he was considered an elite in fundamentalist circles; a Bible College student. Bob was studying Ancient Greek to exegete the New Testament in the original language. This skill was important in a faith that relied heavily on a "literal interpretation" of the Bible-only one possible meaning for each sentence. He aimed to be a Preacher and was a stickler for the unspoken rules of our religion. He never attended movies or dances, always wore a tie to Church and tried to witness to the unsaved. He also had questions his teachers couldn't answer. We became good friends with a mutual respect for truth.
Although Bob's teachers' viewed his questions as a lack of faith, he was their star pupil. He was encouraged to visit North America for further training. A seminary education overseas was considered the ultimate demonstration of one's commitment to God. It seemed to me Bob was on the right track: if I showed God I was serious about my Christianity, maybe He would solve my problems. I followed Bob to North America about a year later and enrolled at a Bible College where I began searching for the answers.
We soon discovered Seminary concentrated on what to believe rather than why we believe. The Bible was worshipped rather than God Himself and the concentration on the sacred text compartmentalised our lives into chapters and verses rather than opening us to the endless possibilities of the unknown. There came a horror when we realised the money hungry TV evangelists believed the same doctrines as ourselves. Bob and I eventually graduated as Bible experts with "rebel" reputations. We quit the church, cut our moorings and jettisoned the charts. At first we were afraid of the doubt, but soon learned to welcome it as the first step towards freedom. Later that year I received a copy of Bob's new Bible in the mail. It was On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
In the distance the tall towers of American prosperity rose into the sky. Cleveland is a city on Lake Erie built to transport steel. As we came over a giant skyway stretched across the river, steel mills appeared on the right. They squatted in the valley- blights of ugliness and filth that were the backbone of the town. To my left lay the river where freighters and tug boats slowly chugged along. The river wound through a chaotic mixture of freight terminals, nightclubs, car parks, liquor stores and bridges.
We pulled into Cleveland Bus Station. The brakes hissed in relief and the door opened, bringing in the heat from the asphalt. It blew into my face as I stepped down and I realised it was another hot day.
"Hey, you made it!"
He loomed in front of me and for a moment I didn't recognise him. His hair was closely cropped and he wore a bulky jean jacket with army shorts. He reminded me of some wound-up-and-wired Punk-Livingstone about to conquer the urban jungle.
"Time to munch lunch," he said, grabbing my bag and slapping me on the back.
Harry's Bar and Grill had the best hamburgers I'd tasted in a long time. Freshly ground beef, decent serves of lettuce, cheese and tomato with all the fixin's. Stick-to-your-ribs hamburgers. The fries were crisp, the beer cold.
"Bob, before we leave, why don't we catch a little culture at the Cleveland Art Gallery. They're supposed to have a wonderful Renoir- how 'bout it?"
"No problem," he said. "The Art Gallery first and then the Pennsylvania hills."
"Camping?"
"Yeah, but we'll have to find a garage. I think Doris sprung a gas leak."
I looked at him blankly.
"Doris is my car."
"A gas leak? It's not serious?" I said, alarmed at the thought of getting no further than Cleveland.
"No, it runs O.K. But I'm getting ten miles to the gallon and a permanent high from the fumes. Let's go."
Bob asked the bartender for directions to the Gallery, then we walked back to his car. It was an old beat up bomb sitting on its haunches with a weary hangdog-look cars get after years of hard work.
"She's a 1979 Monte Carlo- V6 engine, power steering, airconditioning- got the lot." said Bob.
"Carolyn was driving Doris home from work one day and pulled out on to the main road without seeing an oncoming truck-completely smashed Doris' rear end. Well, luckily Carolyn wasn't badly hurt- it was Doris who never recovered. Insurance company wrote it off and gave me $2500. Out of curiosity I went to the wreckers and it didn't seem bad...the rear quarter panel was pushed on to the tyre, but it was easily fixed. The manager came over, grabbed a mallet and with a couple of well placed belts, loosened the quarter panel from the tyre. Replaced a few wires, couple of bulbs and the tail lights were working. The car looked roadworthy to me, so I offered the guy three hundred bucks. He said "Four hundred" and I said "Done!" I was two grand richer and still had my car!"
There she sat- rusted sides melding into the brown paintwork, seat covers torn and the floor swilling with garbage. The tail lights were cellotaped together while the rear end was concertina'd in a "bustle effect". Probably had a fairly subdued temperament- a middle aged pace with the usual wheezes and coughs. At least it was comfortable. You could put your feet on the dash and stick your head out the window like an old farm dog, sucking in the sights and sounds of summer. I glanced at Bob.
"You really believe we'll get to the East coast?"
"Piece o'cake," said Bob ...just a slight problem with the carburettor, but we'll fix it once we get out there on the road. She'll take us to Kingdom Come and back." He banged his hand on the roof affectionately. "Let's do it!"
We pulled into the traffic and drove towards the bar, turned left and travelled three blocks or so.
"It's over on our left." I pointed to a grand imposing building with a neo-renaissance facade.
"And there's an empty parking meter right outside!" It was too good to be true. We jumped out of the car, bounded the steps and burst into the lobby like a couple of kids let loose in Disneyland.
"There's the main desk, I'll get the tickets," I said.
A matronly old lady was shuffling papers at a counter.
"Two tickets please,"
"You don't need tickets young man." She sniffed in disapproval.
"Oh, its free then?"
She held out a wavering arm and pointed down the lobby.
"You'd better see the gentleman down there."
And old white-haired clerk was coming out of an office.
"Excuse me Sir, we need some tickets to get in."
He raised his head and cackled to himself.
"You don't need tickets for City Hall!"
Bob smiled broadly.
"This is City Hall?"
"Yep, unless they changed it in the last five minutes. City Hall, yessiree."
Bob and I stared at each other. The old gent had a cheshire grin about a mile wide.
"I guess the bartender hasn't seen the Gallery in a while," I muttered.
"Or City Hall," said Bob, and still chuckling, he explained the situation to the old gent who kindly gave us another set of directions.
An hour later we were hopelessly lost in the wilds of suburban Cleveland. Bob kept grumbling, "Maybe it's over this way," and we'd swing into another street full of anonymous easy-living homes. No one was walking the streets. They were reclined beneath the air conditioner or sunning by the pool. Our good humour was losing its edge, sweat was sticking our shirts to the seats, the afternoon was hot and we were bothered.
"So tell me about a painting worth this much trouble," muttered Bob, as we entered another street full of neatly clipped lawns and manicured hedges.
"Hold on Bob, it's a matter of..." I glimpsed something metallic glinting in the trees and swung round.
"Hoy, slow down...look!" A massive bronze sculpture appeared to sit in a clump of trees- a man seated on a rock, an elbow on his knee, fist to chin.
"What do you make of that?" I said to Bob, folding my arms. "Looks like we've got ourselves an Art Gallery."
We stood silent for several minutes.
"It was worth the detour," said Bob. "I like how the roses magnify her dress, accentuating her lips and her ruby earrings. See how the dress heightens her eyes? Old Man of the Sea eyes."
"Let's take a photograph of her," I said.
"What? You can't do that. If everyone took a picture, half the paintings would be ruined from light exposure."
"C'mon Bob, where's the security guard?"
He paused for a moment and smiled to himself. I knew he couldn't resist a dare. He walked to the doorway and briefly looked around.
"He's at the other end of the hall. Quick."
I pulled my camera out of its pouch, stood by Madame Lacaux and there was a flash and whirr of the motor.
"There you go, captured forever."
Bob absently handed me the camera. He continued to stare at the painting.
"You know what?" he said, "She's got IT."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember Sal and Dean in On the Road? Dean keeps talking about some jazz trumpeter who has IT. Sal wants to know what IT really is. Dean says the trumpeter starts blowing his horn and filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his belly bottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. Everyone knows it's not the tune that counts, but IT."
"Yes, that's right," I said, remembering, "only, he never does explain what IT is."
"No, but you don't explain anything, you just know what IT is and you know time and you know that everything is really fine."
Bob pointed to the girl's haunting eyes.
"Somehow this painting has IT. You can feel something bouncing around in your head looking for a place to settle.
"Maybe it's related to the synaptic gap."
"What's that?"
"Well, it's how the brain works...I've been reading a few books on neurology lately, you know- study of nerves- and the synaptic gap is the key to understanding how we think, what makes us tick." Bob looked at me sceptically.
"You've lost me. How the hell does neurology relate to IT?"
"Let's go outside and I'll try to explain what I've been studying the last few months."
We walked into the garden. The sunlight was filtering through tall oak trees while a fountain gushed a pleasant spish of water. "The synaptic gap starts with neurones, you know- nerve cells of the brain.
"Nerve cells, brain- so far I'm with you," said Bob tossing a stone into the fountain.
"All right...think of a road map with the blue and red highways spreading out from each city. Each neuron is like a city...the nucleus is the downtown area and the main highway coming out of the city is like the axon- the primary pathway for messages. The secondary highways spreading out from the neuron are called dendrites. There are at least ten billion of these cells in our brain and each cell has anywhere from one thousand to two hundred thousand points of contact- so we're talking billions of road systems wrapped inside our head.
"Downtown Nucleus sends out a message. Bang! A tiny electrical impulse picks up the interstate and travels along the axon- the main highway. They call the impulse "action potential." Great name huh? Something might happen, maybe it won't. There's wild possibilities lurking inside that impulse: Wars lost, lovers betrayed, conquest of Everest, the lonely suicide, the happy bride- they start with that electric charge from the neuron. It heads down the highway and takes one of the dendrites, secondary highways, until it hits the end. A huge gulf, known as the synaptic gap is beyond the terminal and there's no way around it. The gap is crucial. The neuron tallies the action potential- checks it out. If the message is excitatory in nature, if its got enough power, the neuron releases a specific chemical- the neurotransmitter. Wham! There's an incredible flash as this chemical blazes across the synaptic gap to another neuron. Receptors at the other end wait to receive the message. If they get it right, the message is decoded into an electrical impulse and on its way again.
"Wait a bit, you're telling me this is how we think?"
"That's right. Thinking is a process of jumping millions of synaptic gaps along certain paths."
"Like the light bulb above the head in all those Donald Duck comics?"
"Don't be sarcastic. I'm trying to explain."
Bob grunted a reluctant apology.
"Sometimes the message is inhibitatory in nature and will not go any further. It's missing the required amount of action potential so it fades away. Some of the dendrites themselves are inhibitatory- like a bad highway.
"You're telling me we're full of inhibitions?"
"In a way, yes."
"Not me Hal, I'm trying to get rid of my inhibitions."
"Listen to me dammit. The inhibition is very important. The inhibition factor built into our brains distinguishes us from the animals- we don't operate on instinct alone. Sometimes the neuron will fire spontaneously, sending a wild card across the synaptic gap. It's completely unpredictable, an erratic shot in the arm. Yet that's what makes us tick; a strange blend of the predictable and the unpredictable, the known and the unknown, all firing messages across that synaptic gap at the oddest moments. Maybe the synaptic gap- the space between neurones is IT."
Bob stared at me and frowned.
"For starters Hal, Neal called that situation IT because IT resists definition. IT can't be specified."
"I'm not trying to define IT Bob, I'm suggesting where it might live." Bob wouldn't swallow my idea straight away. He always came up with a protest.
"Now Hal, c'mon, talking about synaptic gaps and action potential- it sure smacks of explanations about something. Oh, I believe what you said is true. I just don't give a damn about dendrites and axons...I've given up the ordered classified ossified way of thinking about life and there's no way I'm going back to it.
"What are you talking about?" I said, my voice rising in exasperation.
Bob jumped out of his chair, emphatically waving his arms.
"I'm talking about seeing the world scientifically, trying order life into neat little segments, pulling the world into tiny understandable pieces like we did in Seminary and tearing the heart out of life. You can't boil consciousness down to nerve impulses. Hal, studying neurology is simply swapping science for religion. You're no further ahead at the end of the day."
"Come off it Bob," I said. "That's how we learn-classifying knowledge, pulling things to pieces, defining our observations of life. At least I'm looking for answers, going somewhere, trying to get a little insight."
Bob abruptly stood, checking at his watch.
"We won't solve the problems of the universe in a Gallery garden. It's time we were moving."
At birth the brain has billions of neurones that begin dying off immediately and continue dying until death. In the first few days sight is blurred and unfocused as random shapes and indistinct colours move around the baby. Then, as similar colours flash and familiar faces lovingly peer into the crib, the baby forms associations and patterns begin to develop. A teddy bear is recognized, Father's voice remembered. The process of forming patterns creates paths in the brain. Once neurones are used they remain functional and continue to connect with other neurones, forming multudinous pathways. Unused neurones die. Speech plays a big part in employing neurones and paths. Learning to speak creates millions of paths and prevents neurones from dying. A child learning two languages at once is creating more paths in its brain and keeping more neurones alive.
Jack Kerouac was a bi-lingual child. His parents spoke joual- a North American dialect derived from French. His first word was "maman" and his early years of speech were in the unusual patois of the eastern states. At the age of five, Jacky Kerouac began school, learning English language skills. He was creating more paths than the average kid-paths for joual and English. By the age of seven his brain would have exceptional development with highly complex and unusually dense pathways. It wasn't just the language, Lowell provided many and varied visual experiences, from the river to the neighbourhood kids. It doesn't mean all bilingual children are exceptionally intelligent. It does mean the child has well developed cerebral processes, particularly in the organisation of language skills. Jack's pathways for language were rich and multitudinous for he was fully bi-lingual at the age of seven. Later in his life when stuck for words, Jack would switch to French and then translate the result back into English.
I can picture him as a child running around the streets of Lowell. It was small town America, but had enough surprises and delights to keep a young boy occupied. As he ran across the streets, through the spacious parks of Lowell and played ball with the neighbourhood kids, his writing brain was constantly growing, configuring itself into modes, systems, attitudes and ideas. Like all children his brain would be the size of an adult's when he was seven years old.
I see him with a box of matches- fingers turning it over, strike! It flares, he drops it in fright and then laughs. Somebody shouts. He runs for cover, jumps the fence and looks around. A false alarm. A snail crawls under a damp leaf. He pokes, prods and crushes it underfoot. His brain is crackling with activity- a pink grey mass with the texture of avocado-full of neurones, dendrites, axons- overflowing with thoughts and ideas. That organ of mush taking the magic sights, sounds and garden smells and converting them into electrochemical reactions that bomb-burst across his cortex- a memory of fire is forged, ideas surface and somehow through billions of nerve cells, chemical reactions and vast electrical interchanges a boy's reality is taking shape.
I looked across to Bob.
"It's difficult to catch all twenty seven flavours of the America from the Interstate," he muttered. "There's an old map on the back seat, want to find a suitable exit?"
"O.K. by me. Byways, not highways, the road less travelled you know."
Bob snorted. "Yeah, I've taken the road less travelled so often I've worn it into the most travelled." The exit for Geneva wound into view and we sailed on to a meandering road ambling through quaint riverside houses and roadside cafes-the sleepy hollows and one- horse-towns that make up the backwaters of unseen America. Children rode their bicycles back from the lake, towels slung over the shoulder and pedalling slowly, worn out in the battle against the waves. Every turn had a new sight, every corner a surprise. We pointed out odd signs or strange houses- anything that caught our fancy. In the distance a lone figure plodded along the gravel shoulder, his thumb stuck out in hope.
"How 'bout we give him a lift?" said Bob.
"What, a hitch hiker? Isn't that dangerous...picking up strangers on lonely country roads...?"
"Hal, life is too short. Anyway, I'm tired of talking to you." He grinned as he pulled over. The man was short, wiry and had grizzled face red with sunburn. His working clothes and old gimme cap were covered in grease and dust. I jumped in the back seat and let him have the front. He climbed in without saying a word.
Bob said "How are you" and the man nodded. The wheels spun gravel as we pulled on to the road.
"Going far?" The man grunted and lit a cigarette without asking. The fumes filled the car. Bob wrinkled his brow and cleared his throat. The hitch hiker was calm and looked content, occasionally glancing out the window as if noting a particular house.
"Where ya headed?" said Bob again. The man made an indeterminate "nngnnn" sound and we clued in. He was either mute or had a serious speech impediment. Bob started on a different angle.
"You going to the next town?"
He nodded.
Bob gave me a wink which said "O.K. we're off and running," and began a patient, wearying dialogue with the stranger. Apparently he lived with his mother in the next town and although he couldn't speak, he had landed a job in Ashtabula, five miles away. Every morning he hitch hiked to work, often walking the five miles home again.
A ramshackle country bar came into view and the man motioned Bob to slow down.
"Your stop?" queried Bob.
The man grinned, then mimicked the quaffing of a great mug of beer.
"Wait a bit Bob," I said, "how do we find the interstate?"
Bob showed the map to our guest who made several motions with his hand. "Straight ahead and turn right a bit further down?"
He gave an enthusiastic nod. We stopped Doris and the man jumped out, waved cheerily and went into the bar.
We turned inland again, away from the lake. The country got a little hillier and if possible, greener. The air was balmy with a hint of moisture. The roads were deserted and the fields and trees seemed flushed with summer glory.
The operation of memory is controlled by the limbic system and is divided into eight distinct areas. Two of these areas are the hippocampus and the amygdala. When the ancients dissected the brain they discovered a small ring of nerve cells that reminded them of a sea-horse and so they called it: "hippocampus,"- latin for sea-horse. The hippocampus stores information in terms of its relationship to other objects or ideas. When we taste popcorn we remember the last movie we saw at the cinema. A visit to Grandmother's house is often a reminder of childhood. The association of familiar furniture, kitchen smells or photographs, brings back a flood of other memories. The sense of taste and smell is directly connected to the hippocampus and so a whiff of perfume may recall a person you briefly met years before. Smell and taste are powerful senses for triggering recollection. However, information travelling from the eye to the hippocampus has many stops. There is no direct connection between the eye and the hippocampus. Consequently, we often stare at a photograph for several minutes before recognising someone we once knew.
The amygdala sits next to the hippocampus. It looks like a simple bulge, but it is extremely important because it affects those memories with an emotional component. The amygdala helps the brain to recall the emotion attached to a particular event. A dress may remind you of a funeral, triggering sadness. Many people smell candle wax and feel happy, remembering their childhood birthday parties. John F. Kennedy's picture often brings on feelings of shock and emotional distress. A well developed amygdala and hippocampus allows a person to accurately recall the image of the past and the emotional states accompanying the image. Jack Kerouac was a master of this process.
He first became preoccupied with the process of memory during the War. Jack believed the only true writing was based on experience- recollections of reality. His memory is a crucial aspect of his literary theory. In Liverpool during the War, he decided his subject would be his own life. His writing would be an exploration of memory. Henceforth he had to remain faithful to that first perception- memory. Go for the pristine moment of experience, unadulterated by the quicksand of subjective doubts and feelings. Vignettes of childhood, teenage awakenings, adult regrets...He was America's Marcel Proust...his entire literary output another "remembrance of things past..." a constant pre-occupation with self and the past.
I can see Jack in his jeans, white t-shirt, lumberjack shirt, sand shoes...strolling along, black tousled hair and deep blue eyes, watching everything, hauling out a notebook and taking down his "sketches" of Postwar America...confident, hungry for ideas, views, anything that jumped or laid in his path...anything smacking of utter abandonment to destiny or fate.
"If the prose is to be any good, the power of recollection must be sharp, colourful, spontaneous and overflowing with a sense of truth to the image." He remembered those times with Neal, the moment turns, the shutter falls, snapshot flash, a camera snatch, bingo- the memory is sketched, traced, filed. He recalled the open highway, the rush of midnight trains, the smell of youth and freedom, the heartache of lost loves, bitter shortcomings, and fights with yawning chasms of depression that spread before him.
How do those childhood memories reside in the brain? How can the past exist within jelly tissues, blood vessels, electro-chemical reactions? I remember giving my life to God when I was seven. The image is clear and clean, the darkness of the room, the picture of a blond, anglo-saxon Jesus on the wall...kneeling by my bedside crying, "Save me God, don't leave me when the Black Angel returns to punish unbelievers."
I clung to that memory for years. My proof to God I was on His side. My memory was my ticket through the Pearly Gates. It's taken many years to let go of that memory, for beliefs forged in childhood are not relinquished easily. And where does the image reside now? How long will it swirl around my brain, jostling with cells, chemicals, and the flotsam and jetsam of my untidy subconscious? Maybe it sits in the synaptic gap- the space between, a metaphysical interstice between heaven and hell. Neither yes or no, neither action or inaction.
Bob was happily humming an old blues tune to himself. The sun was sinking low in the sky. I cleared my throat.
"I'm not sure about those directions Bob. We should be on the freeway by now. I guess I read the map wrong."
He came out of his reverie.
"You're right." He paused. "But if we're going to camp under the stars, we need a secondary road and this one looks pretty good."
I watched the fields roll by, looking for a suitable camping place. A warning sign appeared beside the road; "BRIDGE COLLAPSED FOUR MILES"
"Damn!" I yelled. "Now we'll have to go back to the lake."
Bob kept driving.
"Slow down! We'll end in the river!"
"Optimism is the key," said Bob loftily. "We can't be going through life believing all the signs we read. Gotta be positive, optimistic, we're idealists aren't we?"
Six miles on we entered Union City Pennsylvania. Pop. 956. The main street had a twenty years behind, slow motion haze to it. A car teetered round a corner and chugged into the distance. An old timer sat on a porch, dozing in the rocking chair and even the houses seemed to be nodding off to sleep. Tired old weatherboards mostly, with peeling paint and leaky roofs. A window cracked here or there. Next to a worn out gas station stood a supermarket with a cardboard sign on the sidewalk: "BARBEQUE CHICKEN." Bob swung Doris into the parking lot and we clambered out, stretched, and drew deep draughts of lazy air.
The store was empty. A bored housewife peered at us over the cash register and returned to her magazine. Chickens were at the rear. We reached the meat section and were stopped mid tracks by a young girl behind the counter. She briskly walked towards us, her eyes lighting up with an expectant smile. Her soft smooth face had a touch of teenage chubbiness and her long brown hair was pulled into a bun.
I looked across at Bob who whispered, "Hal, she's the Lost Myth of Sweet Sixteen, can you believe it?"
We approached the counter.
The girl smiled again- a row of perfect white teeth.
"Can I help you sir?" Bob's knees were almost buckling, and he stammered, "Uh, oh, ah, Hal, what do we need?"
"Barbeque chicken Bob."
"Yeah...Barbeque Chicken please." He gave her one of his best grins, but she didn't notice as she bustled over to the oven and deftly scooped a chicken into a tinfoil bag.
"There you are sir," she said, handing the chicken to Bob with the dignity and grace of Queen Elizabeth. Their hands brushed and Bob's eyes glazed over for a second. She waved in parting and her heart warming smile left us sad and voiceless. The sun was almost gone and the cool evening air swept through the car as we cruised out of town, searching for the ideal camping site.
"Now Bob, about that girl?"
"Why Hal, she's got IT. No doubt about that."
"Madame Lacaux, and now "Sweet sixteen"- Why is IT female?
Bob took a deep breath.
"I suppose it's something to do with longing, you hit the moment of IT and equate it in some way with your own desires, not necessarily sexual desire, but there is a definite yearning for something beyond the present..." He shrugged his shoulders.
"So IT is connected with relationships. IT is an unknown connection between two known states...like the relationship between men and women and you think men would tend to see IT as feminine, because a relationship based on desire exists between you and IT?"
Bob looked at me exasperated.
"I'm not saying anything. I'm especially not falling into your trap of nailing IT down. The All American girl from Union City has got IT. Let's leave it right there."
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk were all shaping music the way water shapes itself into waves-relentlessly moving in, always moving forward and with each pulse of time, a unique remoulding, a rhythmic melodic monument continually and effortlessly rising from the void.
Bop surges along, inexorably driven, lifting itself into ever varying valleys and hills- mountains of constant melody with an underlying surge of power and rhythm- dancing along the edge of the senses. Jack perceived a connection with his own struggles to find forms that would emulate his ideas of truth embodied within movement.
And bopping beside Jack was Neal- the great bop conversationalist. Neal's style of speech was bopspeak-similarly fast, furious and full of endless digression. He would talk about a car he once owned, reminding him of a girl who lived in San Francisco on a boat next to a bar where he met his friend Sam, a gangster from Denver. He was forever jumping topics, intuitively following trails of thought without regard for continuity. The result was a constant flow of reflections, notions, action, commotion, always laying down the processes of his mind. To keep up with Neal was a hodge podge roller coaster ride of verbal extravaganza.
Around 1951 Jack reached the conclusion that first thoughts are the true thoughts- from the conscious top to the unconscious bottom. He told everyone "Revision was tyranny." His prose would not be bound by form but form would decide for itself according to the direction his thoughts took. Form was a chain of free association, the narrative being self- determined. From now on he would start the theme, expand, swap, change but stick to the golden rule: always write down the first thought. It is the most important, the freshest and has a sense of urgency, vitality, pristine newness without the constrictions of convention or "appropriate prosody" A spontaneous firing of words, one after the other.
Action potential is the sum of electrical pulses travelling down the neuron cell towards the transmitter. If there is enough action potential, the neuron spontaneously fires and thought is created. Jack's bop prose, his free association and spontaneous writing is modelled on the bio-physical operation of thinking. The cells receive action potential which sparks along the synaptic gaps, weaving new paths and new trails through the brain- creating chain reactions. Like the brakeman switching points, Jack's writing was a constant shifting, exchanging, reforming of phrases, images and ideas-all floating back and forth, shunted into a million variations until a train of spontaneous bop prose suddenly exploded across the page. In a letter to Ed White, Jack once wrote: "I want to swirl my brain from commonplace expression into seas of English...because no other where to go the bioelectric flow-like orgasm from center of mind and jewel point of interest in memory or vision therein outward like coming to the object of love in one wild impulse surge electric language..."
Every writer sits expectant, hoping for action potential- a flow of words, ideas and phrases linking into powerful expression. Every musician waits for action potential- a wave of sudden inspiration that branches into new melodies, intervals of tone, fresh harmonies, all coming together at the right time. Every person with a disability waits for action potential- a healing force washing over their body, bonding nerve and muscle, connecting broken paths and tissues into possibilities and promises.
"Hey, it's almost dark- what about this great tent of yours?" Bob leapt up and began fishing around in the car, finally emerging with a cardboard box wrapped in string.
"Looks a bit small."
"Nonsense!" said Bob. It's a three man tent- It's written on the box."
He unfolded the voluminous sheets of nylon while I tried to decipher the directions. The failing light made it impossible to read. Bob banged pegs into the soft dusty earth which was scattered with large stones. The poles were raised, nylon cord strung out and the tent was erected.
It was ridiculously small. Minuscule in fact.
"C'mon Hal, it was a Christmas present, we have to try it."
We crawled inside with a couple of blankets. My head poked out one end, my feet out the other. I could feel the rocks beneath the tent jabbing into my bones and my neck was burning.
Aching and grumbling, I retired to the car.
"Let's go!"
A deep groan issued forth.
"Wassa time?"
"I dunno, but I'm miserable. Let's get out of here before some gun-toting farmer discovers we're on his property."
Bob crawled out of the tent rubbing his eyes.
"I need a good strong cup of coffee."
We packed the tent, crawled into the car and Doris creaked rumbled and flounced her way over the rough track to the main road. The fog was dense, making the job of driving difficult. Peering into the mist, we tried to reach the threshold of wakefulness but the rhythm of the wipers kept swishing us back to drowsiness.
After a couple of hours the fog lifted and we breakfasted in Jamestown, New York. We found a "Friendly Restaurant"- clean with reasonable food. We washed in the restrooms and then ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu- hotcakes in syrup, bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns, and a bottomless cup of coffee. No wonder they give soldiers a good breakfast. When done, I was sure I could march to Massachusetts.
Bob leaned back on his chair contented and doodled with a pen.
"We have to fix the gas problem. I figure we're getting about five miles to the gallon. The garages open at nine-we'll stop at the first Gas station after nine. Allow an hour to fix the problem and we should get to Massachusetts about 2:30 this afternoon." Bob was unusually business-like.
"What happens in Massachusetts?"
"We pick Felix up somewhere in Wenham."
"And where the hell is Wenham?"
"...Err somewhere the other side of Boston. Don't worry we'll find it." He waved his hand, dismissing any suggestion we might lose our way.
"We'll pick up Felix about four o'clock and then figure out the next move. He'll know what to do."
Bob had sent Felix a copy of On The Road the previous Christmas. Felix read everything Kerouac wrote and then encouraged Bob to organise the trip. I was anxious to hear Felix's ideas on Kerouac.
The fog was gone and the sun shone brightly as we turned back to the highway, heading east again. We tended to be quiet in the morning and fell into the reverie of the highway, watching Pennsylvania unwind before our eyes. It was a magnificent day and we sensed a communion in the sweep of the hills and the motion of the car.
Bob glanced across at me.
"The seduction of the road eh!" He eased Doris through a lengthy curve.
"It leads you on, this road, always promising a little more...round that bend, cross this bridge, c'mon it says, try me, over the hill and you'll find me."
I eyed him quizzically. He took the cue, leaned back in the seat, his eyes sad but a smile toying his mouth. Sometimes he was hard to read. Doris hummed along contentedly. He paused for a moment, sized up the road signs, then gathered his thoughts into one enormous outburst.
"You've got to groove the road, listen with your fingers, look with your ears. Watch the lines, those long slow curves of desire, drive into the scoops and folds and valleys, tease the shoulder, sway in, shy back, reach out, ride, twist, roll, move with it- she undulates- hard then smooth, soft, steady before the crest, ease into the corner, wheel, turn, feel the pulse, ride the wind, pull back, press down, she's all yours." "Yes!" I shouted.
"They don't call it wanderlust for nothing. There's a deep seated attraction luring you on, luring you in...the road is sensuous...it teases you at every level. You catch a whiff perfume from the hills...a curve disappears... "show me more," you whisper, "you ain't seen nothing yet," it murmurs. It picks you up, rhythmically rocking you back and forth."
"Bob, you're a hopeless bumbling Romantic."
"Hal, forget trying to label me. You're trying to force the idea when you should be enticing it. It's seduction- you can't compel it or you'll destroy what you're trying to find. Just groove along." I nodded and we gradually slipped into our own thoughts, mesmerized by the movement of the highway.
Shortly after nine o'clock we came to a service station, parked and lifted the hood to indicate we needed help. The local mechanic wandered over. I peered down at Doris' engine and saw the gasoline bubbling over the carburettor. My heart sank. No wonder we were going through a tank of gas in less than an hour. Gasoline was gushing everywhere.
"What's happenin' boys"? He drew in a deep breath of Marlboro Country, balanced his cigarette on the radiator and began fiddling with the carburettor. Bob swiftly grabbed the cigarette and ground it beneath his shoe. The mechanic seemed oblivious.
"Why it's a loose pipe that's all. I can fit another one for you in ten minutes."
"You have the right size?" Bob queried.
"No problem- it's a self tapping screw." The mechanic looked bored as if self-tapping screws were an obvious solution.
"You're putting a self-tapping screw in a carburettor?" I said, alarmed.
The mechanic lit another cigarette, inhaling with longsuffering patience.
"It's a genuine GM part...they wouldn't make it unless it was OK. I'll show you if you're not satisfied." He disappeared into the shop. Bob stared down at the smouldering cigarette. I stood there nervously not knowing what to do. It wasn't my car. Who was I to argue with the mechanic?
Bob said, "We can't start looking for a respectable garage now...we'll never make it to Massachusetts."
I shrugged.
"You watch the guy and make sure he doesn't incinerate Doris. I'll get some food from K Mart across the road."
When I returned the job was completed and Bob was paying the mechanic $17.95.
"Relax," said Bob, "on the road for less than twenty bucks."
After several hours driving Bob felt tired and I took the wheel. The interstate blissfully wound through lowlands and valleys, the grass was burnt to a golden yellow and the Alleghenies stretched out on our left- beckoning.
"Bob, you know sometimes a thought grabs you and you walk around with it buzzing in your mind?"
"Yeah, no matter how hard you think, you can't get rid of it...like you can't sleep because you're thinking about sleep."
"Grooving along the top of the road...what did you mean exactly?"
Bob was silent for a moment.
"Well, the way I see it, life is a giant wave. I'm finally beginning to understand why surfing is more than a lifestyle, it's a philosophy. It's the action of the wave, the idea of precariously riding along the edge of an immense power.
"So we should all become surfies?"
"No, it's the idea of surfing that's important." He stuck one hand out the window and played with the wind.
"Hal, stick your hand out, feel the wind, pretend it's water. You decide you can't sit on the edge. You pick yourself up and wade into the depths- push past the breakers to the cross currents and undertow.
From behind you comes a massive swell. It looks good. You say `this one's for me. I'll go for it.' It rises and keeps rising. It's massive- a gigantic mountain of ideas, thoughts, reasonings, plans, logics of your life. There's no turning back, no middle ground, go with it! Paddle, arms whirl- keep up- the adrenalin kicks in, Speed, more speed, Go! Until you're dancing on the edge of a thought mountain-balance, adjust, arms out, Fly! The white tops flash around. It urges you on, pulls you back- you're caught in a rush-torn- back-forward ride to the brink of all extremities...the point of no return...
The car hiccoughed, choked and surged forward.
"Damn it, Doris" cried Bob. A sign loomed up "Duanesburg 2M"
"She's gonna die on us Bob."
"Try for the exit on the hill."
I coaxed her along, shifting gears, pumping the accelerator-willing that faithless heap of junk a few more yards.
She slowed, the smell of gasoline stronger than ever. Another hiccough. The power was draining. We dawdled up the exit, Bob cursing the car every yard and as we reached the crest, Doris coughed and shuddered into stillness. The exit placed us on top of a hill, and below, about a mile away, lay a small town. We pushed Doris until she was rolling and silently coasted down into Duanesburg. Too small to be on our map, it wasn't much more than a general store, two churches and a farm supplies lot. Bob refused to get out. He sat there staring at the dash, shaking his head. I walked into the store and asked the girl if she knew a mechanic in the area. She pointed to a lone figure sipping Coca Cola by the window.
Middle aged, he wore a flannel shirt and jeans- obviously a local.
I strolled over.
"Excuse me, is there a mechanic round here? Our car's broken down."
He looked at me and hesitated. "Er, not really...nope."
"There's nobody at all? Country town like this usually has a mechanic somewhere..."
He looked at me again.
"Well..."
"C'mon Mister, we need a break."
He gave a sigh of defeat. "Well, there's Ralph. I couldn't send you to him" he muttered and shook his head. "Not Ralph."
"He's a mechanic isn't he? Where can I find him?"
The man stared straight ahead, refusing eye contact.
"Cut through the churchyard and go down the road mebbe two hundred yards." He pointed to an old white Presbyterian church with a pathway winding between two pine trees.
"Thanks buddy."
"Don't thank me," he grumbled.
We pushed Doris three hundred yards to a corrugated iron shed surrounded by wrecked cars and spare engines- a scrap metal merchant's dream. Bob went to the workshop but no one was there. The place seemed deserted. He wandered across to the house and eventually found Ralph inside- asleep. Ralph came out chatting amiably. He had a swagger and a look in his eyes I didn't like too much. Bob popped the hood and explained the problem with the carburettor. Ralph nodded a couple of times.
"Most likely a stuck valve."
He swiftly bent down, grabbed a rock from the road, stuck one knee on the wiper fluid bottle and hoisted himself over the engine. He began to pound the top of the carburettor with a neanderthal nonchalance. Bob stared in amazement-speechless. He slowly ran his tongue over his lips and shrugged at me. The wiper fluid bottle was crushed. I raised an eyebrow.
"We're in no position to barter," Bob whispered viciously.
"Start her up!" Ralph hollered.
Doris whirred and cranked but the engine wouldn't catch.
"Better bring her into the shed," said Ralph.
I didn't want to see any more. Bob looked dejected and resigned as he pushed Doris into the ramshackle outbuilding.
I decided it was time for a walk- a chance to relax and let my mind wander. An old track led away from the township and I followed it for twenty minutes, coming to a tiny airstrip. A couple of planes were tied outside a small hangar but the place was otherwise deserted. The afternoon was heating up and you could smell the grass browning, the leaves wilting and the air getting heavy with moisture. I found a hump of grass and sat down.
It's the boundaries of the aeroplane, the extremities of our world that our eye seizes and turns into shapes. If the light bounces off those edges in wavelengths of 400-700 nanometres, we'll pick it up and try to make sense of the pattern- look at its proximity to other images and combine them with our ideas of sight, size and texture- all those ways of unifying and grouping data present from birth.
It was Immanuel Kant who suggested space, time, quantity and numbers are general aspects of awareness that exist prior to any specific perception. Our brains are pre-wired to perceive the world in certain ways. And for Jack, writing was learning how to swap the wires around. Unplug some cables and see what happens if you stick them elsewhere. Today, we refer to altered states of consciousness, but Jack simply talked about visions. Hallucinations, intuitions, visual shifts of reality that began as his brother Gerard was dying. He loved to stand and shiver in a momentary unknowable dream world. Once during Mass, he saw a plaster statue of St. Therese turn her head and stare at him. He saw his mother's black lacquered cross glow in the dark and at such times he would have an intense longing to fling himself into the farthest reaches of eternity. When Jack was with Allen Ginsberg in the late forties, they had the same vision of a building on 34th St. On separate occasions they beheld the structure as a living giant crouching down, ready to attack. They often shared these mystical experiences.
Jack's usual approach, however, was to take benzedrine, go four or five days without sleep and then listen to bop.
His thinking would shift into archaic modes of thought, disturbing the usual understanding of time. Not only did the image of his own body change, but his perception of meaning. The insignificant took on tremendous purpose accompanied by the thrill of insight and revelation. And above all, a sense of the ineffable and transcendent. Once Jack woke to find his bedroom full of wraiths, ghosts and strange spirits.
"Damn thang," said Ralph, "lost a screw. Sure hope it didn't fall in the carburettor. Too late now anyways."
Bob managed a sick grin.
Ralph screwed down the carburettor and climbed off the engine wiping his hands with a rag.
"What's the damages?"
"That'll be thirty dollars."
Bob looked at Ralph long and hard. Ralph swallowed.
"O.K. Twenty bucks oughta do it."
The locals looked on unperturbed.
Bob paid the man, cranked Doris' weary engine over and we headed for the main highway. Our spirits soon rose. Another golden summer evening was tinting the air and although it was hot, I felt our troubles were finally over. Bob looked across at me. He was regaining his enthusiasm.
"Well he's fixed her that's for sure." Doris was cruising down the road without any suggestion of strife- the ride was smooth, and no hiccoughs. We started laughing with relief now we knew everything was all right. The hot wind rushed through the car and in the distance we saw the highway winding towards Albany. "Whoooeee," yelled Bob "Here we go!"
He hunched over the wheel and slammed his foot down. We were back in our element- on the road and free of those dreary towns of timelessness.
"We'll get to Massachusetts sometime tonight," said Bob confidently. Felix isn't expecting us until late anyway."
About an hour later we were drunk on the glories of summer. As we approached Albany we managed to shortchange a toll booth operator, continuing down the interstate free. The air was streaming through Bob's hair as he leaned out the window and shouted for pure joy.
We began approaching the town of Albany. After five o'clock the traffic became heavy and Bob slipped a tape in the stereo. We were singing "You took advantage of me" as we came around a grand sweeping curve towards a skyway stretching over a great gorge. Hundreds of feet below lay the sluggish Hudson River, indolently winding its way through the earth. We looked down river where the sun lay low in the sky. It bathed the landscape in an unworldly glow of majestic surprise and I remembered Bob's phrase about "grooving along the top of the road."
The car coughed...and died.
"No" yelled Bob in desperation, thumping the dashboard with his fist. "Don't you dare, you bitch!"
Doris coughed again as if warning Bob to watch his language.
We were halfway across the bridge. Bob veered on to the emergency lane. Doris gave one final moan and rolled to a stop. We sat silent.
Neither dared to speak.
I thought about our troubles, trying to find a pattern to Doris' behaviour. But it was no place to concentrate.
We partly blocked one lane and the cars slowed to a crawl. It was inevitable the coloured flashing lights on a black and white car would soon appear- The State Trooper.
Bob groaned. "That's all we need."
A rotund man with an arsenal hanging from his belt stepped up to the car.
"Bout time you boys moved along."
"Sorry officer, gas blockage" said Bob.
"I don't care what's wrong with it, get it off this bridge."
He turned, walked to his car and sat there watching us.
"Bob, try pumping the accelerator. It might force enough gas through to keep the engine turning." He nodded.
Doris whined and then caught. Bob revved her until she screamed. Clouds of smoke gathered around the car obscuring the State Trooper. The revs dropped and the car died.
"Try it again and keep the revs high."
Bob repeated the procedure. The car ran if he kept the engine screaming.
"How do we move?"
"Keep the revs high, slip it into "Drive" and immediately out again."
A space appeared in the traffic. Bob roared the engine and clunked it into "Drive."
Whump! It sounded as if the gearbox slammed out on to the road and back in again. Bob slipped back into "neutral." Doris rolled two yards. "She'll never stand it" said Bob in desperation.
"What's our choice?"
"Yeah I know- we're in no position to barter."
The car screamed again. "Whump," went the transmission. Bob slipped it out of gear. We rolled another yard.
"Keep at it Bob...nothing we can do."
We slowly moved into the traffic and off the bridge. Every few seconds Bob would clunk it into "Drive" and out again, the engine continually screaming. It took ten minutes to leave the bridge and felt like five hours. I was sure the gearbox would bounce right off the car.
After phoning six garages, Bob found someone who sold second hand carburettors and said he could install it overnight. He was on the East side, so we went back the way we came, blowing smoke, crunching the gearbox and feeling edgy as we tried to decipher a crude street map of Albany.
By seven o'clock we'd found accommodation and discovered GA's Place, a narrow diner. GA, a portly Greek with an effusive welcome, cooked two great steaks and treated us to a couple of beers- three dollars each. Bob was optimistic again.
"I'll call Felix tonight and tell him we're delayed. We'll get the car first thing and be in Massachusetts by, let me think... maybe two o'clock."
I was off in my own world. Bob realised he was talking to himself.
"Hal. What's on your mind?"
"Nothing much. Trying to connect your thoughts on the wave with the brain."
"Well, don't think about it too much. "
"Why shouldn't I?"
"The way I see it," Bob waved his sandwich in the air, "you're using your brain to study your brain...know what I mean? You're using a brain to unravel itself. We're not infallible- there will always be faults, shortcomings, weaknesses, boundaries to what our mind can perceive."
"What's wrong with that?"
"You go so far and everything stops. You can't grasp with your brain, things beyond your brain."
"OK, so we're left with the unknowable- but Bob, it's the unknowable that keeps this planet going...that's what we strive for- to push the limits as far as possible. The brain is as much a field of discovery as the planet Jupiter."
Bob finished off the sandwich.
"Well, I don't know. We can never step outside our own faculties. We will always have the infinite, the other- we are limited beings- isn't that why we had to grab a hold of an omnipotent God? Signing up with God was a neat shortcut to the problem of our limits, our mortality."
Bob's approach left me tongue tied. His rhetoric was strong and his logic seemed unbeatable. And that damned smooth voice added an extra dollop of persuasion. I didn't know what to say. I reached for my wallet and signalled the bartender.
Bob realised he had cornered me and gave a conciliatory smile.
"Like you say Hal, we think with three pounds of pulsating avocado pudding."
"Yeah, and the crazy thing is, it works!
I sat up, sweat damp across my forehead and my heart thumping in my ears. Getting out of bed, I drank a glass of water, waiting until my heart settled down. Bob was deep in sleep. I sat in the only armchair and watched the winking lights of Albany. Kerouac used to dream about a Shrouded Traveller dressed in a white shirt who followed him through his dreams. He wrote his dreams down and published them. Book of Dreams is full of episodes combining real characters and fictional events...they sound like strange reworkings of his books, hybrid variations or weird combinations of travels and friends.
During the day his brain was taking in new sights, pondering new ideas, seeing the ordinary as extraordinary. New paths were created, new connections made- an idea takes off into an untouched region, snaps with the highways of the mind and bingo!- another combination of neurones firing in a different sequence. Rich new connections were made where previously there was a mass of unused neurones. These neurones are the resources that create new memories.
Then comes the dreaming in the night. Dreaming is the process of reviewing routes and paths, drawing on other unused neurones and equipping them with connections that are weighted towards the most recent experience. The mind retraces the paths made during the day, gathers the connections and enriches each connection to ensure past events will be remembered. That's why dreams are such strange rambling montages of our life. The experiences are the same, but tend to be compressed into bizarre combinations. Jack dreams of a job in a steel mill where red hot steel is melting, suddenly he buys a halfpint of whiskey for a sexy Italian girlfriend, but before that, talks to a group of phoney litterateurs who want him to join their club. He tells them "I never join organisations" while three Negroes who tried to run him down in a car, are out in the rain, still driving. The images occur as the brain goes over connections, reworking the links so recent experiences will be remembered.
Sleep provides resources for creativity by establishing the connections, consolidating paths and blending several paths into new combinations, making connections between previously unconnected areas of thought. Like a Compact Disc, dreams skip from track to track, randomly picking up snatches of music, images, ideas- linking old material in new ways. Writing a Book of Dreams makes a lot of sense- Jack knew what he was doing. He was finding new patterns in familiar experiences, making fresh connections between experiences previously unrelated. Jack once said "I wrote my dreams non-stop so that the subconscious could speak for itself in its own form, that is, uninterruptedly flowing and rippling." His dreams reworked connections, prepared paths, linked paths in new ways, so the next day's thinking would move into appropriate areas. Writing down his dreams was integral to his creative process.
But then I looked outside and noticed the light of dawn creeping over the city. Lights were growing thinner, the faint outline of streets and houses beginning to appear. There was a faint drone of early morning trucks. In spite of my reflections on dreaming, I felt vaguely unsatisfied. It wasn't the idea that dreams can be dissected into models for creativity, lessons in writing or even tips on tapping the subconscious. The dove tore me apart like an eagle with a hare- it was too real- my blood was too red- the sense of death overwhelming.
Highway 90 stretched across the mountains of Massachusetts-long sweeping curves, valleys, rivers... we were wheeling along the top of the world. We expected the car to relapse but there were no problems. Sailing along that wide ribbon of concrete, we settled into the rhythm of the mountains- wrapped ourselves in those scattered thoughts and ideas that come as you watch the miles roll by. After lunch we took a bypass and skirted around Boston, heading towards Wenham. Gone was the small town atmosphere of Pennsylvania. This was the East. No summer cottages here- only huge estates with brick fences and iron gates lining the streets. We wound through leafy lanes, got lost, found ourselves again and ended at a nineteenth century estate complete with a coach house and servants' quarters. Felix rented a servant's room from the old lady who owned the place. We parked and rang the bell. Felix wasn't home explained the old dear, but we were welcome to wait in the kitchen.
Half an hour later a figure came up the drive, lazily pedalling a worn out bicycle. Felix was tall and skinny, with a thatch of black curly hair, a merry expression and a "Peter Pan on acid" air about him. He was wearing shorts and a bright tie-dye t-shirt from a Grateful Dead concert.
Like Bob and myself, Felix had a similar background in the Church. He met Bob in Seminary and both shared an awareness of the surrounding hypocrisy. Felix never really dropped out of church. He simply reworked his theology to include the use of narcotics and adopted a laissez faire approach to life-anything goes. He called himself as an avante- garde theologian and was applying for a scholarship at Berkeley.
He gave us a wave and threw the bicycle down.
"Oh, I'd almost given up on you." He started laughing.
"How's the car?"
"No problem" said Bob smiling at me. "I'm sure it's fixed this time."
"I'll grab a few things and we can leave." We walked the narrow stairs to his room. He tossed a few shirts in a bag, grabbed his copy of On the Road, a map to Kerouac's grave and a tennis racket. Bob and I looked at the tennis racket dubiously.
"You never know what may happen," said Felix. "I intend to enjoy myself. It's a tennis racket, it'll fit in somewhere." We climbed aboard Doris again and Felix directed us toward Lowell, Massachusetts. He quit his job for this trip and there was no turning back. Fired up, ready for anything, he kept exclaiming, "Mexico! Yeah! We're goin on the rodeo."
Felix fished out On the Road and read passages as we hit the main interstate. Bob opened a can of Miller and drank as he drove. Felix opened another can. After a while Bob had a second beer followed by a third. I had visions of us lying bloodied on the road.
"Hey Bob, how about watching the alcohol intake?"
He laughed. "I know what I'm doing."
"You've had four and the limit for driving is two."
"C'mon, you don't believe all that crap do you?"
I sat there obstinately.
"Bob sighed. "All right, I'll make this the last."
"Don't worry `bout the booze Bob," said Felix, "I'll get us some weed further down the road."
"None of that for me," I muttered. Felix swung around in his seat.
"Hal, I'm ashamed of you...a Kerouac fan and you're not interested in the emancipation of pot? Remember Kerouac's List of Essentials?- Like Proust, be an old teahead of time. That's the beauty of Kerouac- he was a liberator.
"Yeah I know all those `essentials' - no time for poetry but exactly what is- Am I right?"
"You can bet your last dollar on that one Hal," Bob grinned and Felix began laughing. He saw one of those red witch-hats on the asphalt, leaned out the window and exuberantly swatted it with his hand. Felix pulled his arm in, cursing.
This time Bob and I were laughing.
Bob pointed to the speedometer.
"What did you expect? Your hand hit that hat around fifty miles an hour."
"Oh" grunted Felix. "Never thought about it that way." He nursed his thumb and opened another beer.
Bob was still chortling as we veered off the interstate and aimed for Lowell. I wasn't sure about Felix's comment on drugs and dug out my books on neurology again.
Alcohol however, requires no digestion and can be absorbed unchanged from the stomach- even more rapidly from the small intestine. Although water and food slows the absorption of alcohol, once assimilated in the bloodstream it passes almost immediately through the liver. It then moves to the neuronal membranes affecting inhibitory control. That's what Kerouac liked about booze. It was quick.
Of course alcohol acts directly on neuronal membranes and not at the synapse. It doesn't switch paths, just makes it easier to travel down the old ones. Alcohol acts on the neuron's capability to produce electrical impulses, affecting the way information is processed. The more alcohol in the blood, the wilder the impulse.
The sequence of behaviours affecting Jack's nervous system was similar to all depressant drugs. Complex, abstract and poorly learned behaviours were disrupted at lower alcohol levels, and, as the dose increased, better learned and simpler behaviours were also affected. The great thing about alcohol for the writer is that certain inhibitions may be reduced- the performance improves in some areas. You don't feel so hesitant about writing down personal or painful details. The apparent stimulation results from unrestrained activity of the brain when it is freed from inhibition- alcohol depresses inhibitory control mechanisms. No wonder Jack and alcohol got along together so well.
Alcohol disrupts normal critical activities in the cortex which contributes to the feeling of well-being. It's the reduction in anxieties that everyone likes about alcohol- Jack was no different. If you have no worries, you're a better writer.
I had been carefully researching the effects of drugs on the brain, jotting notes in a small scrapbook. It occurred to me that Jack drunk himself to death in 1969. I tried to keep reading but my mind circled back to crazy Jack Kerouac, bleeding to death and besotted with booze.
"Look for Westlawn, it's the first one on the right."
Sure enough, a large sign hanging over the gate confirmed Felix's directions. Underneath was a smaller sign: "Closes Five o'clock SHARP." A wrinkly old gravedigger stood on his shovel and eyed us as motor and music were simultaneously shut down. There was an ambient silence.
It was not what I expected. I always pictured cemeteries as gloomy forests of stone. We stood in brilliant July sunshine with a light easterly breeze taking the edge off the heat. The air was fresh, clean smelling and if I closed my eyes I could believe I was on a rocky plateau in the mountains.
We automatically looked for a colossal memorial with "Kerouac's Resting Place" blazoned over it. We couldn't even find courteous signs directing us toward the site. A complete absence of directions.
Bob leapt out of the car.
"It's a quarter to five! This is going to be one hell of a quick visit- I'll take the lower third, Felix you check the middle and Hal can check the upper section. Kerouac's the name." Bob took off, the eternal optimist. Nine minutes and forty seconds to find Kerouac's grave. I ran to the corner and systematically jogged down the rows, the surnames whirling through my head like a roll call at the Last Judgement. A few more rows and the endless names took on patterns. I was running backwards through my own private history of Lowell- every person famous for a fifth of a second. Behind every name was someone who built their home here, made its streets and seasons their life. Nothing left but a slab of marble, a few withered flowers, a photograph. After a while I noticed the architecture- Graves of the thirties had an Art-Deco effect. Elaborate scrolls were in fashion last century. I felt as if I knew the town- what percentage was Greek, Canuck, Italian, Jewish and how much money was around. It wasn't a rich town. Most of the graves lacked fancy pedestals or angels guarding altars. Ordinary folks with ordinary lives, mostly.
I finished my section as Bob frantically waved at me across the central lawn. Excited, I ran over.
"You found it?"
"No, I've discovered another section we couldn't see before. Hurry, we're overtime now."
We rushed around another area, but still no Kerouac. Felix jogged towards us weary and frustrated, shaking his head and gesturing at his map.
"Hey."
We all swung round. It was the gravedigger. A huge long-handled pick was over one hunched shoulder, and he waved a bent piece of pipe at us.
"Don't you fellas know it's ten past five? This here place closes at five o' clock sharp. Git movin."
His eyes were blank as though he'd seen more things than he could handle in forty years of grave-digging.
Bob opened his mouth and closed it again. No one was going to argue with this old dude. We knew we were beaten. We climbed into Doris and drove back over the rickety bridge into Lowell. The cantankerous old man was mumbling to himself as he secured the gates. I sensed he knew our mission and deliberately kept quiet. We'd driven six hundred miles across the Eastern States on some crazy beat-pilgrimage, suffered all kinds of unforeseen trials and when we finally get to Lowell-no Kerouac. Eventually I said, "Let's get bread and cheese at the supermarket and make some sandwiches for the trip to Connecticut."
Bob cleared his throat. "Now let's rethink this. You take care of the food, I'm going to call the local library. Maybe they can give us the low-down on this whole Kerouac grave thing. We can't leave without giving it our best shot."
We found a reasonable shopping centre and Bob leapt out of the car, looking for a phone box- that long wolf-walk, spelling out his determination. Felix and I bought bread, cheese and a fifth of Jack Daniels for supper. We hadn't eaten for hours and we figured it was the cheapest way to get a meal. When we came out of the supermarket, Bob was back, his face flushed with success. "I'll be damned" he said. "The librarian knew everything. They get the same request every week. It's Edson cemetery, the one across the road...Lincoln Avenue between Seventh and Eighth."
We all looked at Felix. He shrugged.
"So the map is wrong. Blame the librarian in Wenham." "Never mind that," said Bob. "If we're going to Kerouac's grave, we'll have to break into the cemetery. Sort of thing Jack would do himself."
Felix laughed. "No time for poetry but exactly what is-let's do it!"
We circled the cemetery. It was after six o'clock and as most people were inside eating supper, the streets were quiet. The cemetery was surrounded by a six foot spiked fence, but we spotted a large post we could use. The concrete post gave us sufficient room to slip through the fence without treading on spikes. Across the road was a local baseball game.
"Park the car next to the ball game," said Felix. "Any cop will think we're somewhere on the outfield."
"Gotcha," whispered Bob.
We crossed the road. Bob went first, jumping on a rock and vaulting through the hole as if it were part of the sidewalk. Felix and I followed his example. I walked towards the centre of the cemetery with my heart pounding. Maybe it was the thought of being arrested for vagrancy, trespassing and a dozen city ordinances. We flitted between trees, skirted around graves and soon found Lincoln Ave.
John Kerouac
1922 - 1969
He honored life
Stella his wife.
The modest headstone had a few relics from previous pilgrimages- a bottle of beer, a battered hubcap with a few coins and a note from Jack's cousin. I had my camera and nervously took a photograph of Bob and Felix to "preserve the moment." Bob felt like doing something ceremonial so we took a sip of Jack Daniels and stood reverently while Felix poured the rest of the bottle over the grave. Then we sat down amongst the tall oaks and silhouetted graves, each locked into his own thoughts.
Another flash.
I look up. The girl is before me.
"Sir, come." She beckons me again. "Come."
Hesitantly, I step out. She slips her hand in mine and we walk across the abyss- a gap stretched across eternity, resonating with an almighty chorus of pulsating life. I look down to discover I am walking on a red rainbow bridging the two sides. My guide walks on another rainbow, smiling at me. The chorus grows louder, roaring like a thousand waterfalls and I am bathed in a brilliant white light. The rainbow glows until I feel a fusing with my feet and a coiling about my senses. Then, I look back. Imperceptibly at first, I begin to fall. I let go of the girl's hand and with a slow acceleration slide downward. I give in to vertigo as I plunge into a slippery shining vortex yawning beneath me.
I see you Jack in your last days, a red raw face, puffy eyes staring out at us as you stand in your t-shirt and pyjama pants with your beer gut spilling out to expose a navel with a silver dollar taped across it to hold in your hernia and boils and constipation and stomach cramps and nausea and all the shit your life has become.
I see you Jack, wandering Lowell streets in a blind stupor, cringing in guilt and fear, randomly exposing yourself because you are a lost little orphan boy, afraid his penis is too small. Shivering in shameful disgrace you trail a band of bisexual teenage boys in the hope of debauchery- waking in a corn field to find yourself bashed and bruised, cursing God and crying for forgiveness- picking yourself up and blaming it on Jews and Communists. Your own unwashed stench surrounds you in self hate. You stink Jack.
I see you Jack, marrying Stella so someone could clean up every time you pissed over the bathroom or threw up on the carpet and the only notable act of your marriage was raping her until covered in blood she was taken to hospital.
I see you Jack, throwing knives at your mother.
I see you Jack with your nephew- building a wooden cross and driving to the black neighbourhood, puffing and panting in your loathsome bigotry, torching the cross and as the flames grow, you scream obscenities and blasphemies as only you can do, while the strong silent fellaheen whom you respect and love, watch a long gone lunatic jump in the car and disappear into a night filled with tortures of contrition.
I see you Jack tenderly feeding duck pate to your cats, tongue kissing dogs in the street, politely telling elegant matrons you want to eat their cunt, staggering through Lowell streets and facing the ghosts of your past, screaming at them in rage until exhausted you return home to stultify in endless hours of television's "Beverley Hill Billies."
I see you Jack, a piteous little mama's boy stumbling up the stairs to tell Memere you are home and, unthinking, opening her door where she stands in taboo nakedness, withered old flanks, sagging pudenda, bulging paunch, pendulous breasts, frantically covering herself in an agony of shame and despair. She sinks to the floor foaming at the mouth. I see you Jack overwhelmed with guilt and remorse, having given a stroke to the only person you truly loved. Ah Jack, these absurd turns of fate that beset your life at the worst possible moments. These sad and lonely times when you wish for your Shrouded Traveller.
I see you Jack, deep in the night whispering and shrieking and coughing and sobbing in vain at the phantoms that surround your bed- calling down curses and hexes and damning your soul and blindly pushing at the madness seeping in at the edges of your mind. Torn between the nihilism of alcohol and a mystic faith that goes back to your brother Gerard, longing for a faith that will cross the gap as you slink into the church and light candles to St Mary, kneeling with your rosary and mumbling through the catechism in one last desperate cry for hope- you who gave the world a new form of confession.
I see you Jack, the shy one, the sad one, your only enduring light your mother's love. You could never be a part of their world- partake in their glorification of Moloch and all that Moloch is. You stand apart from them Jack, your solitude a monument to all the true feelings left in this world, all the painful outpourings of hidden thoughts, anguished soul- searches, all the honest truthful descriptions of the human heart.
I see you Jack in 1957 with death in your eyes and somehow when On the Road was published you began to fade, twelve long wretched years of dying, not just you Jack, but your dreams died and your hope died and your love died and your world died for your death consisted of twelve agonising years of sorrow and shame.
It was growing dark. The baseball game had finished and Doris was looking conspicuous parked next to a cemetery. The twilight was fading and the grounds were still. The light was playing tricks with my eyes, and I could swear there was movement amongst the statues around us. No matter how rational I liked to appear, it's hard to dismiss the feelings brought on by a cemetery at dusk. The birds and squirrels disappeared and the occasional car did nothing to dispel the sense of isolation from life.
Bob stood and shivered. "Anyone fancy spending the night here? I think it's time to leave. Besides, we don't want to push our luck with the old gravedigger."
I looked at Felix. He said "Yeah, the sooner the better. This place is giving me the creeps."
We snuck from headstone to grave to tree like thieves in a B grade movie, making our way towards the break in the fence. As Bob boosted me over the fence I felt a wave of relief. I knew I had overcome something I couldn't put into words. And I knew I would never be back.
I ran across the road to take another photograph of Felix and Bob escaping from the cemetery- something to prove we were there. I snapped the camera twice and then ran out of film. In my haste to rewind the film, I inadvertently pushed a button and the entire back of the camera sprang open. In horror, I snapped the camera shut but knew the film was ruined. Bob came up to me.
"Hal, let's go, we can't hang around..." He saw me closing the camera and stopped mid- sentence.
"You accidently opened your camera, right?" I took a deep breath.
"Right."
Bob started laughing.
"What's so funny?" I said.
He shook his head. "Just the thought of you preserving the moment. Here, hop in the back seat."
We pulled on to the interstate, and I thought about the past few days. I didn't gain answers or solve any mysteries. I didn't fully understand what had happened but I knew I had taken enough detours to change my ideas about the road. I caught a glimpse of the Atlantic ocean on our left and remembered a phrase from the story of Moby Dick: "It is not down in any map; true places never are." I reached for my notebook and started scribbling.
"Hey Hal, what are you doing back there?" said Felix handing me a sandwich and a beer.
"Making notes." I said.
"Oh yeah? What notes?"
"I'm going to write a story about travelling across the States to Kerouac's grave."