…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
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