The Unknown Kerouac

by Jack Kerouac

  Now they were getting really drunk in the Gallagher kitchen and my father held the floor. “Charlie if you think we’re crazy you aint heard nothin yet. I’ve just got to tell you about Rosaire.” “Hoo hoo hoo” howled old Mike almost falling off the floor. “Dont ever tell him that story he’ll never go to church again!” all choking on his cigar with happiness. “Rosaire was a priest Charlie, and you know up in French Canada—” “Up in Canada,” my mother interrupted, “when you’re the oldest boy in the family the family doesnt feel that it will go to heaven unless the oldest boy goes into the priesthood.” “Yeah, but this guy Rosaire was not cut out to be a priest, O he was a wild one with the women and with the bottle too, O my God, but he went in the priesthood so . . . he’s a nephew of Mike’s here . . . so he comes down to Lowell one Xmas and we have a big party for him and he’s supposed to say 11 o’clock mass next morning so we’re all having a big time, there he is with his collar around his neck, backwards, you know, but getting PIFFED? My God how that guy could put it away. He was a good boy, dont get me wrong, he just admitted it to all of us ‘I didnt wanta be a priest, I had to follow my father’s wishes, so here I am’ and Mike here before the night was half out had to lock up his daughters Lorette and Jeanette because Rosaire kept sitting them on his lap and even when they were locked up he tried to get in anyhow. O he was a devil that one! So come midnight he takes his last drink so he can go to communion, and boy he fills up a waterglass like this fulla gin and puts it down and bang he’s out, so we put him to bed and in the morning Mike picks him up and dumps him in the shower and pours hot coffee down his throat . . .” “This is a priest?” cried Alice in shiny eyed amazement. . . . “That’s right, so here he is just about a little unsteady on his feet and a big headache but they drive him to the 11 o’clock mass, so you know us, the dirty dozen, the old gang back there in Centreville we used to have, Ti Jean will tell you, remember kid those wild parties we used to have and that time Vendette playing a ghost behind the piano with that white flour all over his face and puts his face in an empty frame, with a candle underneath, and Blanche Taft’s playing the funeral march on the piano, o we had the times . . .” “I used to make pot after pot of coffee!” yells my mother. “Big drip pots with 15 cops in each one.” “15 cops is right, tried to come to our door and break up our parties, I used to know some of the boys . . . talk about your wild generations and Twenties and all that junk—so you know, we were a crazy gang, we all got together and went to the 11 o’clock mass to pull Rosaire’s leg, we all sat in the front row and there he comes out, wobbly, and tries to kneel and almost falls over and the altar boy knew what was going on and caught on to his dress there, and helped him get up, then poor Rosaire turns around to bless the people and first thing he sees is us waving at him surreptitiously from under our straw hats.” “What’s surreptitiously mean there Leo? Dont pull those big words on me!” yelled Mike pop eyed. “It means,” and my father wiggled his hand snakily “it means a snake in the grass . . . So we’re all waving at him, and I’m making cross eyes at him, you know, o he was furious, he didnt know whether to laugh or cry or run away or have another drink or what, and the ladies there they were doing all kindsa things, poor dog he never got over it but by God I did see him smile just a little bit when he turned around . . . That night, God is on my bible, here he comes again and we all get piffed again. O boy! In those days we were young and we had good times and werent afraid of hangovers like today, by gosh we’ve had our good times. Aint that right Mike?” putting his arm around Old Mike. “Like those times we go on those big fishing trips in Fall River, hey Mike?” “Yup,” sighed Mike, and the party became sad and quiet, the angel of silence flew over the house, it was Xmas eve now, all the souls sighed in the little sad kitchen, the kiddies were sleeping upstairs under rosy eaves, all was well, and my sister Nin sighed and put forward her favorite gambit: “Ah, what is life?” “If anybody could answer that, Ti Nin,” replied Cousin Bea, trailing off, her attractive blonde head looking down, as Shabby puffed manfully and said nothing. I looked at Young Mike and he was rolling his eyes like Groucho Marx as tho to say “Groucho doesnt care about such things, hyoo hyoo.” When the party was over Mike and I had to hold on to old Mike’s arms now, to help him across the snow, which was falling less and less now, even some stars were appearing over Boof Paquetee’s house. “Guess the snow’ll stop.” My father drove old Mike and the boy home and my mother cleaned up the kitchen, everybody went home, and it was time to go to bed. But first I went into the parlor and sat under my shrine of Gerard and went on reading my book Roll River getting deeper into the tragic story now where somebody drowns ice skating in the winter then I looked up at Gerard’s picture and wondered indeed what life was all about and felt like imitating Nin and say “Ah, what is life?” “Va t couchez la Ti Jean, yest tard.” So I washed my teeth and went upstairs to my room, turned on the light, took out my diary and painstakingly scribbled the day’s entry: “School.” Then because it was a diary I figured I had to have something “official” in it, that is, something that had really nothing to do with my actual life, so wrote in “Saw about coming Santa Anita Handicap in American in which Discover is picked. Nice sports coming along.” Then I contemplated the rest of the day’s events and put them down in my usual laconic childly fashion. “Made some races. Rained then it snew.” I thought “snew” was a clever past tense for “snowed.” Concluding: Put up tree. Boy O Boy. Read. Bowled 121. Ha ha. Hit hay at 11:45. Oh hum. S’all.” S’all, and I rolled into bed as the midnight window rattled in December’s grasp, my mother turned out the light, and Kewpie jumped up on the bed as a thousand times before, I raised the covers, he turned exactly three times purring and then plumped himself against my chest and I lowered the cover, put my arm lightly over him and we slept together like that the long sweet night. . . . Trees knocked in the old Lowell wind. Someday I’d know despair, probably not much worse than the despair I knew even now and everybody knew even now, but I was sleeping under my father’s roof and under the further roof of my real Father and my dreams were pure. And Kewpie’s dreams were pure. Soon I could hear my father’s thundering snores from his own dark room. So all Lowell slept waiting for Saturday Christmas Eve the big day preceding the biggest day.

  Saturday morning was all blue and gold with that early sun creaming the 3 inches of snow or so that had fallen. Black were the boughs and twigs of the trees in all that pure whiteness. Rosy early 7 A.M. sun was coming up over the hill of Lupine in Centreville across the river where I’d been born, it was so beautiful I pushed open the double window and crept out on the roof and made tracks down to the edge and looked down on the yard and jumped (about 8 feet) and opened the cellar door and went in the cellar to see the darkness and to get the strange feeling of coming out of there back to the world of snow and crystal icicles hanging from lonesome familiar eaves. It was just like the childhood dream I’d had on West Street, never will forget it, of icy crystals and joy and sleds going by and people laughing and singing in the street and somehow I’m the handsome Hansel & Gretel prince opening wide his French gable windows to the glory world to sing out hullaballoos of Christmas song. That was a childhood dream, now I was older, more tragic, but I remembered it, sensed it as I stared at the pristine morning. I marveled at the wiseness of my cat to be out there too licking his paws in the snow and looking around and the blue and orange sky. The sun was warm, it was clear that the snow would melt by late afternoon, unless colder winds came. It was Saturday, I was in my overalls, and I had all day to play and do anything I wanted. I went in the house and my mother said “Ti Jean? Comment s as cfa? T e pas encore de boute?” “Jai sorti par le chaussie en hau.” “Mechant . . . tut va t cossez les pates.” “Est pa peur, she comment sautez.” “Jai faite tdu bon grio pour tond edejeunez. Veu tu test toast la pi commencez?” “Oui.” “O boy ja I mal a tete aprea toute ca hier a soir, O boy moi je bu plus.” . . .

  By and by here comes poor old Mike to come play with me, I saw him
from the parlor window coming up Sarah Avenue in his little knickers with the long cloth stockings tied at the legs with elastic, and his little jacket of black leather and his mittens. Always a lonely sort of little boy in the huge family he belonged to, the second from the youngest, with two brothers and five sisters . . . five grownup sisters the whole slue of them sitting around their mother in the sewing room, pulling him by the ear when he misbehaved, sending him constantly to the store, a huge guffawing family, they called “Alexander Cash Market” “Alexander Cash mon Cul” and roared with laughter. Summer nights I’d sleep there in their big house and hear laughter and noise everywhere, as sometimes the sisters would stay up late telling stories and shrieking. Then at dawn Mike and I would sneak out to go on one of our long hikes. Sometimes we had to bring Snorro along (his kid brother) (real name Robert) because he was the baby of the family. One time we dragged Snorro and the dog Beauty clear to Pelham on a 5 mile hike that took all day to and from. Mike was the kind of lonely man who would grow up to be a truckdriver, jut-jawed, serious, sad, I see him driving big rigs across the night with no complaint, laughing at jokes in truck diners, sleeping in cheap hotels. Now as a child he was all intent on being a cowpoke and didnt feel right till we had gone up beyond Gershom and hit the edges of the sandbank where the long Dracut Tigers fields began with little knolls, rocks, trees, dense little forests, snowy meadows and beyond all that the beginning of pine forests that led to New Hampshire. Mike slapped his thigh and said “Giddap” and off we went galloping across the field. Suddenly he ran up a knoll and scanned the horizons with his hand over his eye, slapping his thigh saying “Whoa there, take it easy Red.” He had a red bay horse, I had a white one. I pulled up behind him and said “Whoa there. What’s up pard?” “I think I see dust out there in the desert, I think the posse’s found our tracks.” “Well let’s go then.” Off we galloped, faster, urging our horses full on, till we reached the pine forest and both jumped off and hid behind rocks to peek further. All we could see were the distant redbrick smokestacks of Lowell, and curling smoke in the gray iron air of New England December. “See that smoke yonder. I think the Indians got wind of the posse. Mebbe we wont have any trouble at all. In any case, Buck, let’s amble on down the valley to our camp.” So we went galloping down the dirt road into the hollow, where was a pond surrounded by little New England homes, and skirted that, whooping, and dove into the Pine Brook woods where nobody would ever see us. A crow cawed in the crazy gray air, leading us further in to the woods. Mike jumped up on a big rock under a pine tree and sat down to rest. “Well pard,” sez he, “it looks like we done hornswallered that posse.” “I’ll rustle up some grub, Buck,” I said and began making fiddling moves with sticks. “Wait,” said Mike, “no time to eat just now. I think I hear a horse comin.” We ducked down and Mike said “Here he comes, Buck Jones. I guess he’s got a message for us. Nope, I reckon not, he’s ridin right on by. Say did you get your quarter to go see the Marx Brothers this afternoon?” “I’ll get it.” “We have to bring Robert goldurng it but he has his own quarter too. Well I reckon I’ll pitch right into these beans and wrap my stomach around some sourdough and coffee whiles I’m at it. Hyah hyah hyah!” he suddenly laughed. “I’d like to see the expression on that posse’s face by now. Hoo hoo!” He slapped his thigh and laughed and bent over. He really played. Suddenly he was running like mad in the other direction and I galloped after him thinking the posse was coming but when I caught up to him he was as pale as a sheet. “What’s the matter?” “Dint you see it?” “See what?” “That snake . . . I just saw a black snake about six feet long under that rock.” “Well I didn’t see it.” “But I’m not playin, it’s true. I aint going back to that rock.” We hurried down to the brook edge and sat down on rocks. The banks were almost overflowing with winter thaw waters. It was a quiet brook with just farmland across the way and woods this side. It was our summer swimminghole, even the Oblate brothers of the parochial school came swimming here with the kids, casting off their raven garments and jumping in the water with big white bodies, whooping. We also called it Bare Ass Brook but now so many girls were coming to swim there the practice was dying out. In the winter it was a lovely spot to just sit and eat beans and discuss Buck Jones. The pines, the rushing gurgling water, the patches of snow, the reflection of the gray clouds in the silver gray water, the crows cawing back yonder . . . “Yessir,” said Mike, “aint nothin I like bettern the wide open spaces out in these parts. I reckon I’ll get on old Red now and head back to Dodge City and see if Lil’s in the gamblin hall. I gotta go to confession this afternoon too. You want to go with me Jackie?” “Nah . . .” I had gotten into the habit of not going to church any more because I didnt believe any more than the man in the moon was real. But Mike said it was so and that he was carrying a bundle of twigs. Mike and I had received our first confirmation together and swapped names and knelt side by side with new rosaries in the candle-flickering little basement—like Church of Ste Jeanne D’Arc. “How come you dont go to church no more?” “Aw I reckon I will soon . . .” I was too busy with my room games. I adjusted my baseball hat to a jaunty angle and tried to look handsome. We got on our horses and headed up the brook towards Beaver Brook and on down through the farming fields to where the brook emptied into the Merrimac River near the Rosemont dump. Now we could see all Lowell across the basin of the river in its Saturday morning brightness. The sun was coming out making what was left of the snow melt. It was going to be a sunny afternoon with a red sunset by the time we’d come out of the Marx Brothers movie.