The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac [91]
“See,” I said, “you wouldn’t have even written that poem if it wasn’t for the wine made you feel good!”
“Ah I would have written it anyway. You’re just drinking too much all the time, I don’t see how you’re even going to gain enlightenment and manage to stay out in the mountains, you’ll always be coming down the hill spending your bean money on wine and finally you’ll end up lying in the street in the rain, dead drunk, and then they’ll take you away and you’ll have to be reborn a teetotalin bartender to atone for your karma.” He was really sad about it, and worried about me, but I just went on drinking.
When we got to Alvah’s cottage and it was time to leave for the Buddhist Center lecture I said “I’ll just sit here and get drunk and wait for you.”
“Okay,” said Japhy, looking at me darkly. “It’s your life.”
He was gone for two hours. I felt sad and drank too much and was dizzy. But I was determined not to pass out and stick it out and prove something to Japhy. Suddenly, at dusk, he came running back into the cottage drunk as a hoot owl yelling “You know what happened Smith? I went to the Buddhist lecture and they were all drinking white raw saki out of teacups and everybody got drunk. All those crazy Japanese saints! You were right! It doesn’t make any difference! We all got drunk and discussed prajna! It was great!” And after that Japhy and I never had an argument again.
28
The night of the big party came. I could practically hear the hubbubs of preparation going on down the hill and felt depressed. “Oh my God, sociability is just a big smile and a big smile is nothing but teeth, I wish I could just stay up here and rest and be kind.” But somebody brought up some wine and that started me off.
That night the wine flowed down the hill like a river. Sean had put together a lot of big logs for an immense bonfire in the yard. It was a clear starry night, warm and pleasant, in May. Everybody came. The party soon became clearly divided into three parts again. I spent most of my time in the living room where we had Cal Tjader records on the hi-fi and a lot of girls were dancing as Bud and I and Sean and sometimes Alvah and his new buddy George played bongo drums on inverted cans.
Out in the yard it was a quieter scene, with the glow of the fire and lots of people sitting on the long logs Sean had placed around the fire, and on the board a spread fit for a king and his hungry retinue. Here, by the fire, far from the freneticism of the bongo-ing living room, Cacoethes held forth discussing poetry with the local wits, in tones about like this: “Marshall Dashiell is too busy cultivating his beard and driving his Mercedes Benz around cocktail parties in Chevy Chase and up Cleopatra’s needle, O. O. Dowler is being carried around Long Island in limousines and spending his summers shrieking on St. Mark’s Place, and Tough Shit Short alas successfully manages to be a Savile Row fop with bowler and waistcoat, and as for Manuel Drubbing he just flips quarters to see who’ll flop in the little reviews, and Omar Tott I got nothing to say. Albert Law Livingston is busy signing autograph copies of his novels and sending Christmas cards to Sarah Vaughan; Ariadne Jones