Saturday, December 22, 2012

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The “King Of The Beats” Jeanbon (Jack) Kerouac’s “October in the Railroad Earth”


He looked from the ancient smudged back window of his fourth floor single room sad sack, no elevator, long gone brownstone ready for the wrecker’s’ ball, down the street, down Joy Street, down Beacon Hill Boston Joy Street, ironically named , as the late afternoon crowd of government workers clinging to their annual New Year’s holiday early release (at the discretion of their supervisors, although they, the supervisors. were long gone at noontime, if the day’s work was done), post-Christmas shoppers who had wisely waited until after black Christmas day  to bring back those unwanted ties, toys, and bric-a-brac that inevitable arrive at that time each year, and watched wistfully an early returning student or two trying to catch up on some recess-delayed study , as the town prepared  for its first First Night.

Closer at hand he also observed across narrow Joy Street Steve and Billy, two wine-soaked winos, wine-soaked by this hour if he was any judge across from his smudged brownstone window view appearing, as always, to be arguing over something from the sound of their voices that could be heard all the way to his fourth floor digs. That argument would before long wind up on the floor below his where this pair, when not homeless street-bound, when not too far in rent arrears (like he was at the moment), kept a shabby flop, a flop not unlike his, single bed, mattress sagging from too many years of faithful addicted service (addicted, drugs, gambling, liquor, although not seemingly the public new fad, sex, for, as far as he knew and he knew for certain in his own case,  no women crossed the brownstone front door threshold, not that he had seen anyway, nor given the single-minded nature of the listed addictions was that likely, a woman, a woman’s wanting habits, were too distracting to trump such devotions), a left behind rumbled hard hospital pillow, pillow-cased (by him), probably gathered by some previous tenant from one of the about seventeen local hospitals that started just the other side of Cambridge Street, Joy Street downstream river flow into Cambridge Street, sheets, rumbled and he provided as well, a bureau, a cockroach-friendly cheap bureau until he stamped out every one of the veiled bastards, for his small personal wardrobe, a couple of changes of this and that, maybe three, along with the usual stash of undergarments, a small table for bric-a-brac (which he used for occasional writing like now) and toilet articles, no cooking (thankfully, thinking about Steve and Billy moving in on him), no frig, nothing personal on the walls, a common bathroom complete with some Victorian-era tub for the four residents of each floor, and done.

As he heard the rough-hewn voices of  Steve and Billy making their way up the stairs he threw on his best short- sleeved shirt (simple logic-usable all seasons, heat or cold), dark green plaid like from about 1960 and mother –bought for the first day of school, fresh from the Sally (Salvation Army) bin over on Berkeley Street, his mauve sweater (also purchased at Sally’s  but earlier in the winter backing up that short -sleeved shirt decision), his waist-length denim jean jacket, not Sally-bought but bought when he was in the clover after hitting the perfecta at Suffolk a couple of months before and deciding,  deciding against all gambler’s reason, that he should buy it against the coming winter colds, threw his keys in his pants’ pocket and  headed down the stairs, waving and shouting happy new year to Steve and Billy, who embroiled in some argument about who was to buy the night’s Thunderbird, let his remark pass without comment, and out the door to investigate the first night officially-sanctioned activity. And to figure out how, with eight dollars in his pocket and the tracks closed for the season, he was going to come up with a week’s rent to keep the super from his door for a while.                         

…and hence Jeanbon Kerouac

 

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