Book of Sketches - Jack Kerouac [47]
cigars, glad to
have the day done
& the drink comin
in, side by side
march in smiling
but there’s no
room at the roaring
(Shit!) crowded
bar so they stand
2 deep from it
waiting & smiling
& talking —
Men do love bars &
good bars shd. be
loved — It’s full
of businessmen,
workmen, Finn
MacCools of Time
— beoveralled
oldgray topers dirty
& beerswiggin glad
— nameless truck
busdrivers with
flashlites slung
from hips — old
beatfaced beerswallowers
sadly upraising
purple lips to happy
drinking ceilings —
Bartenders are fast,
courteous, interested in
their work as well
as clientele — Dublin
at 4 30 PM when
the work is done,
but this is great
NY, great 3rd
Avenue, free lunch,
smells of Moody
St exhaust river
lunch in road
of frime by-
smashing
the door, guitarplaying
long sideburned heroes
smell out there
on wood doorsteps
of afternoon drowse
— but it’s N.Y.,
towers rise beyond,
voices crash
mangle to talk
& chew the
gossip till Earwicker
drops his load —
Ah Jack Fitzgerald
Mighty
Murphy where are
you? — semi bald
blue shirt tattered
shovellers in broken
end dungarees
fisting glasses of
glisterglass foam
top brownafternoon
beer — The El
smashes by as
man in homburg
in vest but coatless
executive changes
from right to
left foot on ye
brass rail —
Colored man in
hat, dignified, young,
paper underarm,
says goodbye leaning
over men at bar
warm & paternal
— elevator operator
around the corner —
& wasnt this
where they say
Novak the real
estater who used
to stay up late
a-nights linefaced
to become right
& rich
in his little white
worm cellule of
the night typing
up reports & letting
wife & kids go mad
at home at ll
PM — ambitious,
worried, in a little
office of the Island
right on the street
undignified but open
to all business &
in infancy any
business can be
small as
ambition’s big —
pushing how many
daisies now? &
never made his million,
never had a drink
with So Long GeeGee
& I Love You Too
in this Late afternoon
beer room of
men excited
shifting stools &
footbottom rail
scuffle heel
soles —
Never called Old
Glasses over & offered
his rim red nose
a drink — never
laught & let the
fly his nose use
as a landing mark
— but ulcerated
in the middle of
the night to be
rich & get his
family the best
— so the best
American sod’s
his blanket now,
made in upper
mills of Hudson
Bay Moonface
Sassenach &
carted down by
housepainters in
white coveralls
(silent) to rim
the roam of his
once formed
flesh, & let
worms ram —
Rim!
So have another
beer, topers —
Bloody mugglers! Lovers!
Crazy Old
Homehouse of
the Sea
& Drowse Afternoon
At 28th St
& East River
— the great
seagoable hull
of iron is mossed,
in green at the forever
water line — The anchor’s
unrusted, gray, white
bars, balls — unused
— Ah the
wood sides & hall
windows & Navy
contests inside —
the dormitory row
of it! — the
madhouse barnacled
paint fleckchip’t
gull shadowed
bulk huge of it!
the pissing shovel
scupper — voices
in the helm, ghosts
of Billy Budd, old
EastSide dreams,
the blue Navy
flag — the
side doors & open
Dawiovts
Handel French
joywindows of
winter it!
— preliminary
worrying draft &
study of it!
Something sad, Whitmanian
& Navy-like —
gulls — that same
afternoon hotdrowse
of gulls & slapwater
dream I noticed
in 1951 getting sea
papers & 1942
too — the Melvillean
youth dreaming in
sea pants, at
his clerical dockside
work — with night
to come — the
Turkish bath madnight
& cunts
in parks — The
house where all
the sad eyed
Okie sailorboys
in T Shirts
madly sleep
— The long
dream eternity and
afternoon madhouse
solemnity of it!
— the long planks
& Colonial windows
on the actual water
of the living
(When the H bomb
finally hit NY
one afternoon the
first living act I
saw was a man
surreptitiously pissing
while lying on his
side)
Dream Sketch
Some doctor is talking
to us about the guy
who broke his leg
clean in half —
we