Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [23]
hammered now lie
uppointed to heaven &
forgot —
A bum fire, sweet smoke
scent — Inside shack:
abandoned child toilet
seat! — Royal Riviera
Pears box — flashlite
battery — hole plugged
with cardboard but
boards spaced an inch —
The thrill of old magazines
time soaked — a
haunted village — wood
of crossbeam this door
is decayed where nails
went in, mould of dusts,
tiny webby darkgray
Colorado shack color,
a big old Rocky Mtn.
tree overhangs — this
was once a thriving
Mexican or cowhand
camp settlement — mebbe
a big Mex family now
gone — Beautiful
lavender flowers 5 foot
hi in rich erotic weeds
— A redbrick shack
with torn “Notice” —
hints of onetime smiling
people now the shithole
beneath the
viaduct of Iron America
in which at last I
am free to roam —
Come on, boys!
(Old Black Flag insect
Spray! — for particular
hobos! — but thrown
from viaduct — )
Deserted House — on
tar road, many of
em — around back —
great weeds — incredible
cellar stairs leading to
black unspeakable hole
not for hobos but escaped
murderers! — Shit on
floors — papers, magazines
— Ah the poor sad
shoes of some thin
foot bum — weary
with time — scuffed,
browned, cracked, but
good soles & heels only
a little edgeworn —
wine bottles — a
pocketbook “Trouble
at Red Moon” —
Old newspaper with
faces of tragic Mexicans
in hospital beds of
the moment — now upstare
this bleak roof
torn — old bum in
topcoat came in —
“Boys be around a
little later” — old
Bull Durham pouches —
planks — trains go
by outside — plaster —
Boys who were coming were
2 Indians — one roundfaced,
dungarees — one thin, tragic,
seamed, Colorado Wild,
with workpants, jacket,
red bandana & strange
rust red suede cowboy
slope hat of the Wides
— coming across UP
tracks with big bags
(of sandwiches probably)
— tied up with old white
bum who had strange high
voice, was Irish, old but
only 45, rednose, tremendously
hopeless, didnt talk to me,
went next room, read
or scanned thru floor
reading — what a movie
of the Gray West I there
missed! — never felt the
thrill of the West
more since childhood days
of gray tumblewagon serials
in the Merrimac Theater
— cold, cold wind —
Wazee, Wynkoop, Blake,
Market — dismallest of
streets with RR track each
side, parked boxcars,
coldwinds blowing down
from all the gray Wyomings,
sheds with stairs, redbrick
bldgs., shacks, deserted —
poor little Neal in this
night! — and the alleys!
oertopped thickly with
telephone double pole
lines, barrels, concrete
paving, dismal, long, cold,
leading to gray Raw
each way — Then
Larimer, corner 19th,
Japs, — cluttered dark
pawnshops with tools,
guitars, lanterns, (some
unusable), rifles, knives,
stoves, bolts, anything
— & a poor Negro
couple quietly talking &
speculating as they walk in
to sell something, their
children will hear of it
one day the down & out past
— beat Negros pile in
car, “see ya later,” garage
Negro walks on, “Cool”
— but says Cool emphatically
& like a revolution —
Two itinerants standing
outside Pool Parlor still
closed 9 30 AM, everybody
cold — Coffee
shop — cafe — next to
Windsor — old bum in
faded Mackinaw eating
big breakfast gravely
with grizzled sorrow —
younger men — coffee 5¢
— sugar & cream put in
for you etc. — Windsor
lobby cold, gloomy —
painting of constellation
of faces around Windsor,
Cody, Edwin Booth,
Lily Langtry, Baby Doe,
Oscar Wilde — Ah
this is all the Jack
London gray — Deep
dark stairways blood
mahogany — bums sit
around — one man at
bar — talk across 50
foot lobby — once a
great splendour is now
mutter hall of hoboes
— clerk at sumptuous
desk paces & whistles —
bums huddle in gray entrance
to smoke & see
out, hands a pockets
— rattle rasp of
a truck out there, I
sense the gray cold
tragedy of N’s boyhood
— & its joy, too,
as he showeth —
Bums sit forever, with
that hurt look, angry —
smoking — waiting — immovable
from their position —
different type looks
out door humbly, waiting
for he knows not