On the Road_ The Original Scroll - Jack Kerouac [190]
the stone floor, when they seed I was doing that they took the bible away and brought back a leetle pocket size one so big. Couldn’t sit on it so I read the whole bible and testament. Hey hey” he poked me, munching his candy, he was always eating candy because his stomach had been ruined in the pen and couldn’t stand anything else---“you know they’s some real hot things in that ba-ble.” He told me what it was to signify. “Anybody that’s leaving jail soon and starts talking about his release date is signifying to the other fellas that have to stay. We take him by the neck and say ‘Don’t signify with me!’ Bad thing, to signify- -y’hear me?” “I won’t signify, George.” “Anybody signify with me my nose opens up, I get mad enough to kill. You know why I been in jail all my life? Because I lost my temper when I was thirteen years old. I was in a movie with a boy and he made a crack about my mother---you know that dirty word----and I took out my jack-knife and cut up his throat and woulda killed him if they hadn’t drug me off. Judge said, Did you know what you were doing when you attacked your friend. Yessir your honor I did, I wanted to kill the sonofabitch and still do. So I didn’t get no parole and went straight to reform school. I got piles too from sitting in solitary. Don’t ever go to a Federal pen, they’re the worstest. Sheet, I could talk all night it’s been so long since I talked to somebody. You don’t know how GOOD I feel coming out. You just sitting in that bus when I got on---riding through Terre Haute---what was you thinking?” “I was just sitting there riding.” “Me, I was singing. I sat down next to you cause I was afraid to set down next to any gals for fear I go crazy and reach under their dress. I gotta wait a while.” “Another hitch in jail and you’ll be put away for life---you better take it easy from now.” “That’s what I intend to do, only trouble is m’nose opens up and I can’t tell what I’m doing.” He was on his way to live with his brother and sister-in-law; they had a job for him in Colorado. His ticket was bought by the Feds, his destination on the parole. Here was a young kid like Neal had been; his blood boiled too much for him to bear; his nose opened up; but no native strange saintliness to save him from the iron fate. “Be a buddy and watch m’nose don’t open up in Denver will you Jack?- -mebbe I can get to my brother’s safe.” I certainly agreed. When we arrived in Denver I took him by the arm to Larimer street to pawn the penitentiary suit. The old Jew immediately sensed what it was before it was half unwrapped. “I don’t want that damn thing here, I get them every day from the Canon City boys.” All of Larimer street was overrun with ex-cons trying to sell their prison-spun suits. George ended up with the thing under his arm in a paper bag and walked around in brand new levis and sports shirt. We went to Neal’s old Glenarm bar---on the way George threw the suit in an ashcan---and called up Ed White. It was evening now. “Yo?” chuckled Ed White. “Be right over.” In ten minutes he came loping into the bar with Frank Jeffries. They were both returned from France and tremendously disappointed with their Denver lives. They loved George and bought him beers. He began spending all his penitentiary money left and right. Again I was back in the soft dark Denver night with its holy alleys and crazy houses. We started hitting all the bars in town, roadhouses out on West Colfax, Five Points Negro bars, the works. Frank Jeffries had been waiting to meet me for years and now for the first time we were suspended together in front of a venture. “Jack, ever since I came back from France I ain’t had any idea what to do with myself. Is it true you’re going to Mexico? Hotdamn, could I go with you? I can get a hundred bucks and once I get there sign up for the GI Bill in Mexico City College.” Okay, it was agreed, Frank was coming with me. He was a rangy bashful shock-haired Denver boy with a big conman smile and slow easy-going Gary Cooper movements. “Hot-damn!” he said and stuck his thumbs on his belt and ambled down the street,