From“The Lonesome Hobo” Series- The Lonesome Hobo-In Honor Of Ti Jean Kerouac’s “Lonesome Traveler”

Million word Jack (nee Jeanbon, nee Ti Jean, nee everyman, every man, and every woman with the fire in the belly to write) bellowed out in the good earth night, bellowed out in the night from the womb, bellowed about loneness, loneness in crowds, and sign of the age loneness. Not loneliness, not on the surface, not with Acre kidding corner boys crowding around (mostly French-Canadian boys who set the tone of the town, adieu this and that, but some Irish and Greek boys too, especially man monk poet Sammy, hanging around Leclerc’s Variety Store), Jack-crowding, small-breasted F-C loves (oohing ,aah-ing in the dark- haired angle man thought )swaying to Benny on the be-bop 1930s night and tossing and turning over Ti Jean words and clowning arounds (and secret Irishtown girl love spoken of before and now done), Jack-crowding, Adonis full field, full football field heroics, crowds cheering against bread and roses fed arch –rivals, Jack-crowding, Village cafes, full, chock full of the hip, the want-to-be hip, the faux hip, waiting, waiting on some dark-haired golden boy to rescue them from the little box night, Jacking-crowding, ditto Frisco, ditto New Jack City redux, ditto Jack-crowding.

So not loneliness he but lonesome cosmic wanderer from youth as partner to the crowds, up in small, immensely small twelve-year old bedrooms playing full- fledged leagues of solo jack baseball, sitting solo in fugitive Lowell libraries reading up a storm from Plato to kinsman Voltaire (via Acadian Gaspe dreams), sitting solo in some sigma phi dorm room munching chocolate bars, vanilla puddings, great greasy sugared crullers after hearty beef meals, as companion pouring over tales of greek gods and Homer, sitting solo (hard to do, believe me ) astern ships on big wave oceans ready to devour man, beasts and ship whole, sitting solo in midnight slum New Haven rooms, small hot stove, coffee pot percolating, ditto later in Frisco town, ditto in big sur town, ditto in Tangiers town, ditto down in mere Florida town, ditto solo.

Ditto too solo adventures on west coast work ship piers, solo sweaty dusty south of the border Mexican nights adventures, solo brakeman of the world trackless night adventures, solo sea sick sailor going to fugitive night adventures, solo weird New Jack City 1950s beat scene adventures, solo big rock candy mountain and the void adventures, solo stumble around Europe on a dollar a day adventures, and solo mad cap late night chronicler of the hobo jungle world vanishing adventures. And hence crowded solo lonesome karmic writings and big word blasts, and smiling, smiling, maybe Buddha-like, at the connected-ness of it, of the one-ness of it, of the god-like symmetry of it. And a Ti Jean kindred tip of the hat.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman- Ti Jean Kerouac’s Sea- “The Sea Is My Brother”

Book Review

The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel, Jack Kerouac, De Capo Press, 2011

…Jack, Jack of the two-hearted river, Jack of the rushing Merrimack running to Newburyport old time seas evoking cruel Captain Ahabs desperate fights for booty, and fights to keep it. Jack of the two million words to write, of the need, by the asphalt road, by the boat sea (okay, ship, tramp steamer, freighter), by railroad -tied bedrock, by airplane, I guess, if you had the price of the fare, a close time at times, needed to breakout from the nine to five world, needed to address the loneliness of man’s fate, needed to address the big old, sad old karma snake-bitten world of the spiritual needs that were being squeezed out (hell, swept aside like some old perfect wave storm washing everything out in one swoop in keeping with the theme here, alright), and to people that world with ambiguous, very ambiguous, frustrated, sullen, seekers. People (Jack, oops, Wesley/Bill front and center in the cast), surprise, surprise very much like himself and those who he associated with in the sea-going early 1940s when he joined to the merchant marines to see the world, to do his war effort bit, to be alone (strangely true, alone despite the close quarters and guys breathing down your neck at every turn), to think through his place in the sun.

…and hence this long ago lost first novel, portending later asphalt roads taken, whisky drinks ( and reefer smokes) taken, male friendships taken, women love them and leave them taken, divided two hearted-body-mind rivers taken, swooping hell-bent lonelinesses taken, fates taken.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman- Ti Jean’s Big Road Novels Book- The Library Of America Kerouac

 

Book Review

Jack Kerouac: The Road Novels: 1957-1960, Jack Kerouac, Library Of America, 2007

…yah, 2007, fifty years after the mad max scrolled out publication of Ti Jean’s great autobiographical American West adventure, On The Road , complete with golden all-american west cowboy (okay, maybe not cowboy in occupational sense, but in the yearning for wide open spaces, for the self-reliance, for the non-conformity, for the lessons learned in jail, for the wild boy Saturday night let god count up the survivors Sunday morning, and, yes, for the con man, big hat braggadocio, and lonesome constant bewildered chatter to keep his inner demons away) bonded soul mate, for a while anyway, until the next best thing came along as it turned out, we get a bonanza, a plethora, an immense big old volume of his road novels. And so once again we get to read all in one spot the zigzag cross continental comings and goings of Sal and Dean (and a cast of characters this age, this new age, has been unable to match). The struggle to break out of that encroaching red scare cold war night and its conformities, the jail break-out of those who suffered through the 1930s and the war and yearned to have a little space for themselves in this wicked old world. Some of the stuff, in retrospect, may have been merely silly, some of it frankly weird, and some of it only possible as we of the next generation learned only under a heavy drug veil but with at least two, if not more, major all-american literary talents that helped define the times through the be-bop beat movement that silliness, that weirdness, that heavy drug veil was a small price to pay for endless nights of reading and re-reading the book, the poems and the journals.

Add to that the Dharma Bums spiritual quest, fairly unsuccessful for Jack in the end as he vanished to his mother’s porch, vanished from the road anyway where he made his literary dough, but providing a good section on that famous Howl night when the adventurous bad boys of American literature threw down the gauntlet (rather than like Mailer, Jones, and Styron chase that great American novel idea to impress the New York, no, the Manhattan literary crowd) and said take that moloch America. Then a small novella, The Subterraneans, about tough love, tough interracial love, although really about being able to love and write that second million word. No go. Sorry Jack. And finish up with the beatest work, Tristessa, about the fellahin world, Mexican section, and the struggle to face the day under the spell of Mister Jones, this side of Nelson Algren’s Man With A Golden Arm, some “travelogue’ essays (including one of the best tributes to the long gone daddy hoboes from a non-hobo around) and journal entries to thrill the academics. Yes, a book cheap at any price. And get this-fifty years later the works still makes one, or should make one, want to reach for the car keys and go, leaving maybe just an e-mail address behind.

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- When You’re Lost In The Rain In Sonora - Ti Jean Kerouac’s “Tristessa”

 

Book Review

Tristessa, Jack Kerouac,  Avon Press, New York, 1960

…sure she was a whore, a small buxom brown-skinned with dancing eyes mex whore with nice sex hips, sex thighs and sex legs, with the blood of about six civilizations, mex, gringo, atzec, spain, carib, injun who knows what else got mixed in, maybe more, all mixed together, but a whore nevertheless, she never said otherwise, and he, Jack Deval, never believed otherwise, and that was her attraction, that and her ability to drive him up a wall with her little bag of whore tricks passed down from older sisters, and who knows maybe going back to some Eve whore bag. Still he dug her, dug her fire, dug her desire, often expressed, to be the best whore in Mexico (expressed in a desire to graduate to some big Mexico City bordello and show the gringos that flocked to those establishments what a mex whore could do, and not do, if he was generous enough, and to give each man she serviced not what he wanted, but what he needed). She studied sex books and sexy literature, some of it kind of high-brow, and not all only modern either, for a while in order to prep herself for the move up.

Yah, he dug, her, her and even, for a while, her sister habit that was keeping her in Sonora and away from Mexico City mex whore dreams (and around him as long as he dug her). He dug too, that while she was a whore, she had something else, something white, pure white, saving white, in that fellahin dusty Sonora world not saint, not church saint (although she confessed to him that she liked to do her anointed work in church sometimes and then confess to a priest right after thus saving steps, time, and the hypocrisy of staring old peasant women eyes. Sometimes she could hear the priest’s breathe quicken and she would add a couple of extra details, usually how she took it in her mouth or up her bum, to get him going even more to cut down on the penance.), when after making love, or after she met sister (and he bonged the weed or hash pipe) they talked about dreams, about the other world (not heaven or hell but some state where things were cool, cool when all the craziness of the world passed them by)                      

Her name, her whore name? Hope, you know but in mex hope. Her real name, her sanctified name, Happy but in mex happy. Where did they meet? Where the hell do you think they met, in church ? Nah, not him , although the thought turned him on sometimes, he could never get up the nerve to break with his boyhood awe of the incense, the wine (he had been an altar boy),the high holy day choir, the plainsong of the church, the search for meaning in this wicked old world  that he still craved and was trying to get a handle on down in the fellahin Sonora nights. They met in the bar at the Durango Hotel when he blew into town from Juarez , she, off duty just then, sized him up as a long gone daddy from Estados Unidos, maybe had some dough, or some wisdom (at least that is what she said later, although that could have been a con, she was always conning him and everybody that she knew, except her pimp, Felipe, who had given her a few too many welts to con), came over and offered to buy him a drink, he said scotch, she said okay and what else. That night she had on her tight dress that showed all the boys what she had without showing them all she had, the one that was split down one side so that all those hungry boys could see a little silky brown thigh and imagine, well, just imagine whatever guys imagine when they see that much skin, and inflame that much desire.

Before long they were talking the spiritual talk that he mentioned before and she told him, in the same tone she would use if she were a librarian, that she was a whore (she didn’t go into the details of her expected career path that night), but that she was off the clock and kind of man hungry, and he looking kind of fellaheen beat, beatified beat, gringo beat, and not some texas cowboy beat that usually came into the Durango, or hell no, some mex fellaheen beat that was all around her, drew her eye. They finished their drinks and hustled off to her room (her own room, not her whore room a couple of streets over, that would come later), a room in the pobre mex part of town, all crazy and million people, kin, not kin, ninos, hermanos, whatever, and some barnyard animals floating around the lobby of  the building. She said not a word, nor did he, but both as if in a trance blazed through the craziness, their first mex adventure.

As they climbed the stairs to her third floor room she stopped on the second floor, knocked on the door, and an old geezer beat gringo daddy, later he would be introduced as Sunshine Sam, came to the door. Nothing was said but Sam went away and came back a couple of minutes later with small wrapped package and some cigarettes that had the distinct smell of weed. Okay, it was going to be that kind of party.  That night was the first time in his presence where she met sister, although it would not be the last, not by a long shot. And he smoked that righteous mex gold weed.            

What did Jack say she said before, oh yah, she didn’t care about what a man wanted but what he needed. That night, sister high which seemed counter-intuitive to him from what he had seen in ‘Frisco and the Village where those sister adapts tended to go coma-like, she displayed all her arts, or as much as he could handle before crying no mas early the next morning. She just smiled and started playing with herself with a little sex toy she took out of her bureau drawer. After she aroused herself  and let out an immense murmur she too cried no mas and they both fell asleep, both sweaty in the mex night. Next day she resolved and he put up no argument that he would move in, do his writing there  and they would talk, world talk,  have sex, world sex, and let the craziness of dusty mex streets, the world craziness, float past.   

Of course like all thing, all Jack Deval  things, the routine of mex living, mex whore living, the thing could not, would not, last forever, or even six months.Hope was getting deeper in the sister trenches, making less dough since her pimp was taking a bigger cut sensing maybe that her days as a meal ticket were getting shorter and since she had lost her place at the Durango pick-up and was working the desperado streets against some just off the farm peasant whores, and was frankly less sexy, and less interested in sex as they progressed. Jack, for his part, came to recognize that his secular beat saint program was not going to work, not compared to what Sunshine Sam had to offer. One night, one rainy night, mud puddles forming in the dirt-encrusted streets he walked down those three flights of stairs while Happy was out working a texas cowboy trick, walked toward the bus station and headed for El Paso, and world sorrows. He never did hear from other guys who headed to Sonora later what happened to her (although he could guess) but he always remembered those nights when she gave him what he needed, and he would tip his fingers to his hatless head and whisper her name, happy.       

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From “The Lonesome Hobo” Series - “The Bay Street Night”- With The King Of The Beats” Jeanbon (Jack) Kerouac’s “October in the Railroad Earth” In Mind

…walking, always walking , never, at least long time never, just running frantically down some stairs, pulling the keys out of his jeans on the fly, wrestling the front door open and  jumping into the front seat of  some souped-up, some Stewball Stu zen auto mechanic to the world, year old (broken in, see) 1949 Hudson, but always just walking down Larkin Street to the bay, ‘Frisco bay for the interested, to flush out his brain against the japan currents, against the pacific squalls, against the bay fogs, or whatever  was against handy. (Stewball Stu from back in Olde Saco, podunk Maine days, king of the chicken runs and max daddy of the streets ever since he took out some Farmer Brown from Arundel overgrown son’s souped-up Dodge back in 1945. Blew him off the Galway Road in nothing flat and later when he took on all comers when things moved to early morning deserted Seal Rock down at the far end of Olde Saco Beach away from prying cop and irate citizen eyes as well. He had been there that night, and later, riding shotgun, scared shotgun, in the passenger seat so he knew Stu was not blowing smoke about his exploits but that ,those Stu stories, were for another time.)

This night his always walking was to figure out how much longer he was going to have to wait around this damn old ‘Frisco town for some shipping clerk’s job down at the dock at the other end of the Embarcadero to open up so he could make some dough, pay off Carol, Allen, and Bill and blow some transcontinental dough with Stewball Stu on some lesser version of that dream 1949 Hudson and finally blow this now old tired out ‘Frisco town. His ticket was up here after a few mishaps (a couple of small “vag” busts for sleeping over in Golden Gate Park without a permit, some damn tent fee permit , jesus, was that all that they had to do over there. Down on the Embarcadero you could hardly walk late at night without falling over some stumblebum drunk, or guy down on his luck, and no cop ever bothered you. Jesus. More serious, a possession, a weed possession bust, for smoking some righteous mex herb, gold, in public.  Thirty days suspended because he had been young, well-spoken, and not regular district court traffic surly before the judge. Jesus.  So he needed the dock dough to break his string of bad luck and flee this burg, but he needed that clerk’s job, arranged by Bill through his father’s connections with guys down at the wharves who needed a guy who could do the shipping paper work fast and not steal everything not nailed down on the docks , to come through, needed it bad just then. And so the fret walk.                  

As he walked toward the womb bay he could just barely see the fogged-bemused dim spot Alcatraz search lights, eternal search lights against some phantom prison breaks like that search light, or that rock, was what held a man, any man, in thrall to his lesser instincts. His couple of minutes in jail had shaken him up enough to never want to test the outer edge of that theory, or come even close. Spending a few hours, maybe half a day, with stinking winos, pissed over, surly and not just before the judge, begging for a Tokay fix, or Thunderbird if you had it, bumming cigarettes or papers to make their own Bull Durham coffin nails, stinking, earth sweat stinking from some Gilroy onion patch or the fields down south mex braceros picked up for fighting or being mex, who knows, an odd con man or hustler, a street hustler, who worked a wrong john, an unprotected pimp daddy on those occasions when the irate citizens were demanding blood for some foul deed, some tough guy yeggs and assorted armed robbers wised him up to that road. And so the fret walk.     

He laughed as he minute fret pause looked up and saw a couple of kids, really just kids, maybe sixteen, no more, wobbly, walking across Bay Street as he made his own turn onto the street, one with a bottle ready to be handed to the other, and from the look of it Tokay, the winos’ choice, and the “choice” of those too young to buy their own and hence resorting to some wino-snagged bought and that was what they got. He bet that the wino, in exchange for that courtesy, right now was sitting down in some Embarcadero back street, maybe Third, or in some Mission Street flop, room made up of bed, bureau and chair, not much else, no memory pictures on the walls, memory pictures in fact banished, if he was in the chips and not too far behind on his rent, was sipping on his own bottle of nectar Tokay, and that wino too maybe passing it around to his jungle campfire brethren.

He remembered his own virgin voyage down that gofer road. He, and a schoolboy corner boy, Spider, from back up in Olde Saco, had gotten in that corner boy’s souped- up 1939 Plymouth and driven to stardust Boston, down by the Commons, in the early 1940s looking for beat (although he would not have called it that then but that was the only unnamed name for the feeling, that beat down feeling, looking for what they had heard was a new breeze blowing in this wicked old world, hell, mainly looking for beat chicks away from put-off prim and prissy Gallic (French-Canadian forbears from up in Gaspe mostly) Catholic girls that ran amok in that town if the truth was known.

Of course like in Frisco town  in those days every hustler, con man (and a few women), and everybody who had sense enough to cash in on the rube explosion was on the Common on any given Friday or Saturday teen break-out night ready to do business, to do wrong gee business. That night he and Spider had been walking through the Common working their way to Charles Street when a young guy, maybe twenty-five, came up to them and asked them if they wanted him to get them some booze to while away the evening (this was the part of the ‘40s before dope, weed, mary jane was the elixir of choice). Sure thing, brother, thanks.  A bottle of Southern Comfort, large. This guy, explaining the city rules of the road, said how about a bottle for him. They said whatever was right and anted up the dough. About ten minutes later the guy came back with a brown bag with a bottle sticking out of the top. Thanks brother, as he left. They went over by the Public Gardens under the pond bridge to get a quick swig. Surprise, surprise that bottle was filled with plain old ordinary water. Yah, rubes. Then he remembered his own oath when it came his time to play teen gofer. He would always remember that night and while most times he would do the chore gratis, except when he was down on his luck and needed to pull that scam, he always gave what was asked for. He wished he could say that about some other things but such is life.         

He looked back one last time as those boys veered off into their good night as he thought, thought too for just a minute about Sammy, Sid, Andre, and the Spider from back in his own old Southern Comfort days in sitting in front river , sitting in  front ocean Olde Saco a few years back, and of some wino pete who got their Friday night booze from LaCroix’s Package Store in order to make them “rum brave,” girl-flirting rum brave, for the dance over at the Starlight Ballroom where, god, Benny, Benny Goodman was playing and of that Benny-blessed night, he had finally twisted old Sheila around his finger, if you know what he meant. Sheila (Capet) who broke the death of sex put-off prim and prissy Gallic Catholic girls that ran amok mode (keep this between us okay) and went, one Friday night, down to Seal Rock, the local lovers’ lane, in the back of Spider’s Plymouth with him and made him smile. And it was that same Sheila who, later,  gave him the skinny about what was said on those school day Monday mornings before school girls’ “lav” talks of who did what with whom, and who didn’t.  And the dids outnumbered the didn’ts.  An earful. Women.                    

As he walked some more down Bay  toward the chocolate smell of Beach he began taking that ancient thought out of his head as he passed the Red Fez for the ninety-ninth time (about ninety of them straight into the front door and low-shelf scotches and scored teas and, on occasion, bindles for the soul) since he hit ‘Frisco a couple of months back with some jack, a sweet girl, Lulu, all blonde, Iowa corn-fed and willing, and some idea that he would write the great American novel, a great American novel, or an American novel (depending on his mood), if he could just get his head in the right place, be in the  right place, and have his freaking ‘Frisco golden-gate rust colored muse , his now completely fog-bound muse, working his corner.

Nada, nothing, no go, got it. And then like something from out of some mid-1940s film noir movie where an unnamed band, unnamed until you read the credits to find out why you spent the rest of the film with that sound in your brain, fired up the night in the middle of the movie out of nowhere, he heard a sound, a high white note, blown pure by some unseen sex tenor sax(not a Johnny Hodges, Duke’s’ boy Johnny , all fluffy around the edges pure, all satin and silk with a bow on it pure, mulatto pure, maybe black and tan pure , to keep the lid on for the paying customers, the paying white customers, the uptown mayfair swells out for weekly kicks, a little spindle tea to take the edge off, the  cabaret café society crowd, a backing Billie swaying lilt crowd, who would freak out, who would call every variety of hell down on the player’s head, at what was played mex opium dream or tea high back to proud earth mother Africa times after hours) now coming steamed, sweaty jungle-steamed,  out toward the bay from deep within the Red Fez (blown, he knew from other nights, from other highs, blown deep in the bowels of the club up against the back bar by angel Cody Reed, black, black as a starless night, black who devoured negro and had not regrets, blasting safe, fashionable negro safe, blasting flash, wide-brimmed white fedora, open shirt, white lapel suit, midnight sunglasses, negro pimp walking daddy and pink Cadillac with one hip-hop note, blasting back to primordial black Africa mother homeland, blasting apart first, middle and last passages in a foreign land, blasting, cool as a cucumber, plantation miseries, plantation lashes, blasting too jim crow, get back in your place, brother , old ‘Frisco Mister James Crow.  

A guy on the other corner, dark, brown, brown skin, brown hair, brown eyes, brown soul too, angel mex fellaheen (wearing a kind of out of fashion zoot suit looking a little frayed on the edges, maybe from L.A., maybe a little too much loco weed down south, maybe too some hard-ass bracero up-bringing, father and mother working sweated lettuce, or you name the produce , fields, and then back to some brown shack, and sixteen kids, jesus), maybe a flip, a Filipino, benny high, tea high more likely (but high, high from an expert eye high) was be-bopping words, night, fright, fight, bite, throwing out one after another trying, trying like hell, to match his palabras (some en espanol, some in English a tough task)  with that Cody Reed high white note that he was chasing, finally catching some of it, some vicious moloch fight to blast words and notes, some shake the bracero dust off of himself in the fellahin world that he was in his dreams fighting to break out of , making words slowly to match that floating note and passed . In the end he was not successful, reached for something, something for his head, in his pocket, threw it in his mouth and moved along Bay Street.

Nice try brother but it will probably take some gringo fellaheen warrior, some mill-town boy all river torrent bound, all fretting about his place in the sun, fretting about damn some damn woman-child or woman hell (his own F-C or Irish version of that Olde Saco madness, those prissy girls run amok are universal), fretting about his corner boy muses, some improbable combination of hulk hero all muddied from schoolboy playing fields but also library-bound reading Homer, Plato, Jack London, Thomas Wolfe, and the boys, listening to be-bop, endlessly humming some refrain in the river night, be-bop, be-bop, be-bop before be-bop bopped, endlessly searching for the jail breakout night on forsaken frozen wind-swept ships, in midnight veering route 6, 66, 666 cars driven by golden boy cowboy punk desperados, and driving million word exploits. Or it will probably be some street bandito from New Jack City, some prophet gangster risen all in white, all in holy garb,  from among the pimps, the whores working those mean streets for nickels and dimes, the seventy-seven varieties of hustlers, the winos stealing dough and wine from each other or from young rubes, con men (and women, okay) hustling constantly hustling and looking out of forlorn drugstore windows from forlorn red vinyl stools, guys in need of fixes, yeggs, second- story men, drifters, grifters, midnight sifters, all the angels of the dark night. Yah, a street bandito risen in the night, beat beatified. Or some fag kid (sorry queer, with queer shoulderings against the storm , fag slang from corner boy Olde Saco hazy nights) from Hoboken, maybe Paterson, some death mill-town anyway, too small for his one million ideas and his two million curiosities in an age that banished curiosity, a slightly off-kilter kid who sang kaddish, or maybe better plainsong, yah, plainsong against the death-brought night, against all the not straight eyes forward, against  all the banishments, yah, some fag kid with time on his hands, to capture the words to the high white note. Meanwhile that note then floated down though the jazz-infiltrated streets pass wino jungles and wharf rough trade taverns to the bay and mixed and matched with the foam-flecked waves, the search light of the eternal rock, and his dreams. He had an idea…          

 

From “The Lonesome Hobo” Series-For Ti Jean Kerouac- The Lonesomest Hobo Daddy Of Them All

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 , complete with telephone number, the Acre rules), etched in paint (Day-Glo now some odd formula then) going back to Jack time, (then, Jack time, just friendly old Lowell Textile, strictly for the textile trade wonks and wanna-be, 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 earthen 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 Jeanbon, 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 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 Jeanbon, 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 is 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 celtic 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), home town 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, writing 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 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, not 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, 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 fellaheen 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 fellaheen 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 Brown’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 42^nd Street hurts, of Howard Johnson’s frankfurts 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.

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

…walking, always walking , never, at least long time never, just running frantically down some stairs, pulling the keys out of his jeans on the fly, wrestling the front door open and  jumping into the front seat of  some souped-up, some Stewball Stu (from back in Olde Saco, podunk Maine days, king of the chicken runs and max daddy of the streets ever since he took out some Farmer Brown from Arundel overgrown son’s souped-up Dodge back in 1945) zen auto mechanic to the world, year old (broken in, see) 1949 Hudson, but always just walking down Larkin Street to the bay, ‘Frisco bay for the interested, to flush out his brain against the japan currents, against the pacific squalls, against the bay fogs, or whatever  was against handy. This night his always walking was to figure out how much longer he was going to have to wait around for some shipping clerk’s job down at the dock at the other end of the Embarcadero to open up so he could make some dough, pay off Carol, Allen, and Bill and blow some dough with Stewball Stu on some lesser version of that dream Hudson and blow this old tired out ‘Frisco town.   

As he walked toward womb bay he could just barely see the fogged-bemused dim spot Alcatraz search lights, eternal search lights against some phantom prison breaks like that search light, or that rock, was what held a man, any man, in thrall to his lesser instincts. He laughed as he saw a couple of kids, really just kids, maybe sixteen, no more, wobbly, walking across Bay Street, one with a bottle ready to be handed to the other, and from the look of it Tokay, the winos’ choice, and the “choice” of those too young to buy their own and hence some wino-snagged bought and that was what they got. As they veered off into their good night he thought, thought for just a minute about Sammy, Sid, Andre, and the Spider from back in his own old Tokay days in front river , front ocean Olde Saco a few years back, and some wino pete who go their Friday night booze from LaCroix’s Package Store in order to make them “rum brave,” girl-flirting rum brave, for the dance over at the Starlight Ballroom where, god, Benny, Benny Goodman was playing and he, that Benny-blessed night, had finally twisted old Sheila around his finger, if you knew what he meant.                

As he walked some more down Larkin toward the chocolate smell of Beach he began taking that ancient thought out of his head as he passed the Red Fez for the ninety-ninth time (about ninety of them straight into the front door and low-shelf scotches and scored teas and, on occasion, bindles for the soul) since he hit ‘Frisco a couple of months back with some jack, a sweet girl, Lulu, all blonde, Iowa corn-fed and willing, and some idea that he would write the great American novel, a great American novel, or an American novel (depending on his mood), if he could just get his head in the right place, be in the  right place, and have his freaking ‘Frisco golden-gate rust colored muse , his now completely fog-bound muse, working his corner. Nada, nothing, no go, got it. And then like something from out of some mid-1940s film noir movie where an unnamed band, unnamed until you read the credits to find out why you spent the rest of the film with that sound in your brain, fired up the night in the middle of the movie out of nowhere, he heard a sound, a high white note, blown pure by some unseen sex  sax(not a Johnny Hodges, Duke’s’ boy Johnny , all fluffy around the edges pure, all satin and silk with a bow on it pure, mulatto pure, maybe black and tan pure , to keep the lid on for the paying customers, the paying white customers, the uptown mayfair swells out for weekly kicks, a little spindle tea to take the edge off, the  cabaret café society crowd, a backing Billie swaying lilt crowd, who would freak out, who would call every variety of hell down on the player’s head, at what was played mex opium dream tea high back to proud earth mother Africa times after hours) now coming steamed, sweaty jungle-steamed,  out toward the bay from deep within the Red Fez (blown, he knew from other nights, from other highs, blown deep in the bowels of the club up against the back bar by angel Cody Reed, black, black as a starless night, black who devoured negro and had not regrets, blasting safe, fashionable negro safe, blasting flash (wide-brimmed white fedora, open shirt, white lapel suit, midnight sunglasses) negro pimp walking daddy and pink Cadillac with one hip-hop note, blasting back to primordial black Africa mother homeland, blasting apart first, middle and last passages in a foreign land, blasting, cool as a cucumber, plantation miseries, plantation lashes, blasting too jim crow, get back in your place, brother , old ‘Frisco Mister James Crow.   

A guy on the other corner, dark, brown, brown skin, brown hair, brown eyes, brown soul too, angel mex fellaheen (wearing a kind of out of fashion zoot suit looking a little frayed on the edges, maybe from L.A., maybe a little too much loco weed down south, maybe too some hard-ass bracero up-bringing, father and mother working sweated lettuce, or you name it, fields, and then back to some brown shack, and sixteen kids, jesus), maybe a flip, benny high, tea high more likely (but high, high from an expert eye high) was be-bopping words, night, fright, fight, bite, throwing out one after another trying, trying like hell, to match his palabras (some en espanol, some in English a tough task)  with that high white note that he was chasing, finally catching some of it, some vicious moloch fight to blast words and notes, some shake the bracero dust off of himself in the fellaheen world that he was in his dreams fighting to break out of , making words slowly to match that floating note and passed . In the end he was not successful, reached for something in his pocket, threw it in his mouth and moved along Bay Street. Nice try brother but it will probably take some gringo fellaheen warrior, some street bandito from New Jack City, some fag kid from Hoboken or somewhere, yah, some fag kid with time on his hands to capture the words to the high white note. Meanwhile that note then floated down though the jazz-infiltrated streets pass wino jungles and wharf rough trade taverns to the bay and mixed and matched with the foam-flecked waves, the search light of the eternal rock, and his dreams. He had an idea…         

… and hence Jeanbon Kerouac

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