Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [16]
of world — will do.
God will save me
for what I do now,
help my Mom —
he will —
In his idealistic youth on
railroad in Maine Old Bull
says “Why should I have a
radio when I can hear
the music of a crackling fire
& the steam engines in
the yard?” — railroad Thoreau
— he sits alone in his
caboose, in the dark, with
the fire, drinking — Old
Bull Baloon the Man
of America — Guillaume
Bernier of Gaspé —
& says “All that
matters is the healthy
color of that fire” —
but too much bottle,
not enough sottle, brings
him to his last late
years —
TITLE: - THE MORTAL UGLINESS
The Mortal Story
(Haunted Ugly Angles of Mortality)
Did I ever get my
kicks as a kid with
date pie & whipt cream
combining with “Shrine
North South All star
football game Christmas
night in the Orange Bowl”
— dug sports then
as something rich
& at its peak on
holidays when
it went with turkey
dinners & peach shortcake
— Also, remember
the joyous snowy mornings
when you played
Football Game Board
with Pop & Bobby
Rondeau? — the oranges
& walnuts in a bowl,
the heat of the house,
the Xmas tinsel on
the tree, the boys
of the Club throwing
snowballs below
corner Gershom —
Moody? —
On the Road that
if you will, Sex
Generation that
if you will —
Made Sick by The Night
My Father Was a Printer
The trouble with
fashions is you want
to fuck the women
in their fashions
but when the time
comes they always
take them off so
they wont get
wrinkled.
Face it, the really
great fucks in a
young man’s life was
when there was no
time to take yr.
clothes off, you
were too hot & she
was too hot — none
of yr. Bohemian leisure,
this was middleclass
explosions against
snowbanks, against
walls of shithouses
in attics, on sudden
couches in the lobby —
Talk about yr. hot peace
The Sea is My Brother —
a figment of the gray
sea & the gray America,
of my childhood dreams —
Walked from Easonburg
on old walking-road but
3 miles — in gray thrilling —
with bag — saw Negro
pulled by a mule on a
bike! — to junction 64,
immediate ride young hot-
rod speedsters to Spring
Hope, pickt up Wake
Forest boy too — he
got off, went downroad
— Hotrod told, as he
went 90, of man
tried pass truck hit
school child & turned
over — Old thin bum
at S Hope, hitching east,
from Atlanta, “Almost
got stuck in old car 10
miles out” — A blond
husky Hal Chase-truck-
ride to Raleigh, arr. 4:30
P.M. — hates South —
nothin to do, bars close
— New Caledonia, Louis
Transon, Noumea —
he said is Paradise —
— A bleakness I dont
like in air — dull
trees of Raleigh —
I feel forsaken —
Old goodhearted taxi-
driver to corner — Curious
Raleigh Judge-type
to corner —
Girls crossing — man
stops — Relief mgr
of restaurants —
Corn likker test, up
in Old Port — Mickey
Spillane, Faulkner —
Is going to rest finally at a
steady Maryland restaurant
— Then young kid in
old truck, married, who in
1946 hitched to Wash. State
with $500 & came back
with 21¢ — Then
incredible beat old car
with old fat bum, one
mile, incredible heat
from motor, incredibly
dirty shirt — Then
2 bleak eternal bakery
workers driving home dogtired
from work thru red clay
cuts of Time, with wine
faintly in gray western
horizon, beefing about work
— I thought “Why do
you want men to be
better or different than
this” — One talked, other
didnt; one urged, other
brooded; left me off
at truckstop road to
Greensboro N.C. — broke
$5 on coffee — “Dinning Room”
Tics of Eternity
called me buddy — good
hearted Charley Morrisettes
of Time — I must find
langue for them — frazzly
eager one & Charley Mew-
Leo Gorcey used-out legended
ripened-beyond sad fat one
— O Lord
Great big G.J. burper picked
me up in the rain, dark —
after I talked to old bum
(70) in railroad hat who
said country was worse off
than in 1906 (truckdriver
from Liberty Tex. to
Baton Rouge worried Mex,
called it “tarpolian”)
— GJ burper in new
huge Chrysler, was Chief
in Navy gun crews on Liberties,
also