The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac [28]
6
Now came the time for our big mountain climb. Japhy came over in late afternoon on his bike to get me. We took out Alvah’s knapsack and put it in his bike basket. I took out socks and sweaters. But I had no climbing shoes and the only things that could serve were Japhy’s tennis sneakers, old but firm. My own shoes were too floppy and torn. “That might be better, Ray, with sneakers your feet are light and you can jump from boulder to boulder with no trouble. Of course we’ll swap shoes at certain times and make it.”
“What about food? What are you bringing?”
“Well before I tell you about food, R-a-a-y” (sometimes he called me by my first name and always when he did so, it was a long-drawn-out sad “R-a-a-a-y” as though he was worried about my welfare), “I’ve got your sleeping bag, it’s not a duck down like my own, and naturally a lot heavier, but with clothes on and a good big fire you’ll be comfortable up there.”
“Clothes on yeah, but why a big fire, it’s only October.”
“Yeah but it’s below freezing up there, R-a-a-y, in October,” he said sadly.
“At night?”
“Yeah at night and in the daytime it’s real warm and pleasant. You know old John Muir used to go up to those mountains where we’re going with nothing but his old Army coat and a paper bag full of dried bread and he slept in his coat and just soaked the old bread in water when he wanted to eat, and he roamed around like that for months before tramping back to the city.”
“My goodness he musta been tough!”
“Now as for food, I went down to Market Street to the Crystal Palace market and bought my favorite dry cereal, bulgur, which is a kind of a Bulgarian cracked rough wheat and I’m going to stick pieces of bacon in it, little square chunks, that’ll make a fine supper for all three of us, Morley and us. And I’m bringing tea, you always want a good cup of hot tea under those cold stars. And I’m bringing real chocolate pudding, not that instant phony stuff but good chocolate pudding that I’ll bring to a boil and stir over the fire and then let it cool ice cold in the snow.”
“Oh boy!”
“So insteada rice this time, which I usually bring, I thought I’d make a nice delicacy for you, R-a-a-y, and in the bulgur too I’m going to throw in all kinds of dried diced vegetables I bought at the Ski Shop. We’ll have our supper and breakfast outa this, and for energy food this big bag of peanuts and raisins and another bag with dried apricot and dried prunes oughta fix us for the rest.” And he showed me the very tiny bag in which all this important food for three grown men for twenty-four hours or more climbing at high altitudes was stored. “The main thing in going to mountains is to keep the weight as far down as possible, those packs get heavy.”
“But my God there’s not enough food in that little bag!”
“Yes there is, the water swells it up.”
“Do we bring wine?”
“No it isn’t any good up there and once you’re at high altitude and tired you don’t crave alcohol.” I didn’t believe this but said nothing. We put my own things on the bike and walked across the campus to his place pushing the bike along the edge of the sidewalk. It was a cool clear Arabian Night dusk with the tower clock of University of Cal a clean black shadow against a backdrop of cypress and eucalyptus and all kinds of trees, bells ringing somewhere, and the air crisp. “It’s going to be cold up there,” said Japhy, but he was feeling fine that night and laughed when I asked him about next Thursday with Princess. “You know we played yabyum twice more since that last night, she comes over to my shack any day or night any minute and man she won’t take no for an answer. So I satisfy the Bodhisattva.” And Japhy wanted to talk about everything, his boyhood in Oregon. “You know my mother and father and sister were living a real primitive life on that logcabin