***Moody Street Blues –With Jeanbon Kerouac In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He was drawn like a lemming to the sea to the town, drawn to the siren call of the town, the last signposts town, Lowell home ground, from when Jean bon ruled the beat social lion night. Some automatic response deep in his brain, deep in his DNA called him every so often to go to replenish his soul, to go where Jack worked his brain with projects like seven banshees and fretted, fretted over seven hundred boyhood things. He made his way over the dusty streets, Bridge Street, Aikens Street, Merrimack Street, the vast number of streets over in three-decker tenement Pawtucketville (now sharing space with various public building modern U/Mass-Lowell campus facilities) crowded, over-crowded with the new-born screamers of new generations of different ethnic groups leaving only a remnant of the old Irish-Italian- Greek –French-Canadian screamers from Jack time. Drawn too to his river, the Jack river of his youth, the Merrimack. Ha, merry mack, mary mack, mary mack all dressed in black. Is that okay Jack, is it okay to speak that way of the ancient loomed river, the ancient dyed river, the sacred river of Om, of the rushing waters over-flowing.

He sensed the river, the river pull, the river flow, this day rapid white-capped, white- capped waves, the waters overflowing the banks creating tree lakes, oh well, tree ponds and maybe adventures, Jack adventures running toward the Dracut woods, running toward New Jack City, running toward the Frisco night and another land’s end. The historic river touched off by the mile of red, red-brick factory walls now long ago converted to historic sites or living space for the up and coming of the town. Is it still a mile of bricks like it says on the points of interest panels that dot the river edge walk though, it seemed shorter when he walked it this time? Walked it passing the old Boott Diner closed, no more hamburger/onion/eggs/burnt offerings grease smells to salivate over, Jack salivate over, thinking Jack thoughts, thinking about how he had only touched the edges of the beat, beat down, beatified night, too young to do anything but play the black-bereted mock heroic faux poet, but what did he know then. Walked along with some empty tank in his head trying to figure out how anybody could have come out of that rushing river, come out of the French-Canadian working class quarters and made that mad man big splash.

Later he walked past the high school, Jack’s school, Jack’s legend prowess football school and heroic victory over Lawrence up the river, up the not Jack part of the river and so left to herald some 1912 IWW-led textile strike as a point of interest, a last time point of interest. Jack’s skipping classes high school now vastly expanded, also public building modern like some third-rate architect low bid the world and threw every building no matter the function through a cookie cutter to, to, oh yah, save costs, to reflect added programs, added bureaucracies, and the sense that added-ness was important. Past Jack’s cavern school library hiding place, hiding from goofs, hiding from prying girls, hiding away by himself to learn two thousand facts of the known world, to read two thousand books of the known world, to be able to be ready when he day came, when his day came and he would show the world what writing was all about Hemingway/Dos Passo/Fitzgerald be damned. That is the secret Lowell, the Lowell that provided the yeast for his grand experiment when his day did come.

Then onto the great mandala fast by the Lowell Sun sign just ahead on the shortened skyline, the great mandala that some commissioned sculptor thought appropriate (hopefully not a low- bid sculptor, not for big-hearted Jack) that formed the core of Jack square, Jack memory square, Jack honored son square (well after the fact since before he was a mere beatnik, a bum, unkind to his mother, a drunk and a dope fiend to straight-laced Lowell). So he sat, sat among the marble looking this way and that at the etched words on the marbled stacks. Words from Mexico City Blues, words from Visions of Doulouz, words see.

Funny that day he sat among the marble, sat alone for a while, then a crowd, a young boy crowd, Latino, Asian, maybe a black kid and white mixed in, came to “possess” jack space. To do fandangle roller-blade tricks against the creviced landscapes. He thought back to Maggie Cassidy and a time two, maybe three now, generations removed when Jack and friends would cover the downtown area with their antics, with their foolery, with their first young manhood drunks, and with their escape back woods Lowell dreams. Funny too he sensed that day, and he hoped that he was wrong on that score, that those today young boys were totally ignorant of the sacred ground they stood on, that they showed not a whit of interest in the words that outlined their race course. What would Jeanbon say to that.

Then before he left, sobered a little by that hard forgetful fact that time stirs no ashes, except by accident, he turned, as he always did when he was called to this town, called like a lemming to the sea to read that last page, last couple of paragraphs really, from On The Road, his great escape novel, his statement to a less than candid world. That last part where he talked about his max daddy road wizard pal Dean Moriarty (nee Neal Cassady) as the father he never knew. Yah, he thought as he walked away like just like Jack Keroauc, the father we never knew too.