Visions of Cody

by Jack Kerouac

  JACK.—one guy once had leopard skin on, he wants to grovel in a corner in leopard skins, on hands and knees, g-r-r-r-r, he wants Vicki to come over and say “G-r-r-r,” and they go at each other and they bite at each other, and somethin happens, and a hundred dollars!—and she’s saying all this and Bull is saying, “Why—,” and she’s saying “All these guys are Johns!” That moment on, Bull is not a John any more! see…. Then…but do you know, ah, remember when you and Joanna lived at Markan’s in Espan Harlem? (CODY, Yeah) Well after you left there came the, ah, New Year’s Eve of 1946 entering 1947. That night I, in there, had Vicki and Julien Love meet me—after you’d gone back to Denver—then, ah, the three of us went out—hit…parties all over town, which were being thrown by my ex-…millionaire friends from prep school…

  CODY. Ah yes

  JACK…. Jewish millionaire friends, throwing luscious parties in duplex apartments with…socialites, like Gloria Vanderbilt, and all that stuff, then we went around, in our ordinary clothes, with Vicki, Julien and I, so that every party we hit we’d always invariably sit under the piano with the drinks, leaning against the piano legs, talking, see, until finally late at night, Vicki stole a couple hats, and purses, and everything you know, (Cody laughs) (has been for five minutes laughing), and Julien laughed, and we woke up in the morning in that pad, that Markan had, and Vicki is saying—

  CODY. On that little thin bed—

  JACK.—Vicki…has started throwing up off the bed, and she said “Daddy I’m no good; go over there and sleep with Julien, I can’t do you any good,” and Julien is saying, “That’s right man!” (shriek imitation of Julien being shriekfiendish St. Louis), you know, but he’s not really saying that, you know, but, that’s the way it was

  CODY. Yeah I remember that

  JACK. That’s New Year’s Eve of 1947, Vicki and Julien

  CODY. Hmm. That’s funny ’cause, ah, hmm…time element…seems to me I didn’t leave there until the coming spring, of ‘forty-seven, but that’s—ah, I mean, I’m hot, I’m not even thinking of that

  JACK. Oh you were still there, yeah—where were you that night?

  CODY. Well I must have been somewheres else

  JACK. Oh yeah

  CODY. I was working, that’s right, that’s right, New Year’s Eve, I was working, on the parking lot, that’s right…we had moved to Bayonne—

  JACK. New Yorker?

  CODY. Bayonne, New Jersey

  JACK. Oh! I’d forgotten all about you!

  CODY. Yeah, that’s right, yeah. See I hadn’t—no, I haven’t—(arguing)—I hadn’t met you yet, that’s it!

  JACK. Yes you had—man!

  CODY. Wait a minute…I’d met you for a day or two, remember? but I didn’t come out to your house or anything of that nature, till after she went back to Denver, remember?

  JACK. The night I met you—

  CODY. Yeah? I remember that night. But after that where did—just stop and think—after that when did we see each other?

  JACK.—Joanna wanted to sing in a band, so Calabrese and I took her to the…Livingston ah, Hartley Hall, she sang, and you were there with us…

  CODY…. for a night or two…

  JACK. We all ate that night, and it was October, October 1946—

  CODY. Yeah. But after that, man, we didn’t see each other hardly at all, ‘member?

  JACK. No, not for a long time

  CODY. That’s right, that’s right, until after she left—

  JACK.—but I had not remembered that (interrupting Cody) that we didn’t see each other for a long time—

  CODY. Yeah—

  JACK. And now you occupy my thoughts all the time! (Cody laughs) In those days you didn’t, for long spaces…

  CODY. Yeah. Not until we got together, out, ah, my routine, you know, you remember what I used to do, remember? I’d stay at your house…one night a week, or two, I’d stay at Markan’s one night a week or two, and stay at Irwin’s one night a week or two

  JACK. Then Irwin’s—yup

  CODY. You were about to begin when we began this reel, not this one but the other side of it, you were about to tell me about how one night you were sitting up at Bull Hubbard’s and Irwin…came in, and, ah, you remember that? I said to you, I said, ah, “I thought Bull knew Irwin before he knew you,” and you said “No, Irwin…I knew, Bull first” and you started to tell me something, you remember?

  JACK. Ah…

  CODY. Now from what—just, in other words you started to say at the beginning of this, I can verify it by the reel, the other side, where you started to say “Well one night we were sittin up at, ah, Bull’s pad, and Irwin came in,” what—and I think you were beginning, you began to tell me about—

  (TAPE GOES BLANK for four minutes)

  (TAPE RESUMES)

  JACK…. went to the, ah, one of the halls on the Columbia campus to look up John Macy

  CODY. Yeah, upstairs over a hundred—

  JACK. He told me he ran upstairs, it was a snowy night, snowing

  CODY. I seem to remember somethin—

  JACK.—and he knocked on the door which he thought was John Macy’s, and ah, Julien opened the door—

  CODY. That’s right, that’s right

  JACK. And Julien was playing…Brahms

  CODY. Yeah, that’s right, that’s right, they—and he went upstairs or something and then an hour later or something—

  JACK.—came back

  CODY. That’s right, I remember that. Yeah

  JACK. “I’m quite amazed that you were playing Brahms!”—see, an hour later he said Julien insisted “Come right in!” He said, er, “Swinburne will be here in a minute,” in a minute Stroheim came in with his big red beard, see, so, a few nights later they went down, Julien and Irwin, to Stroheim’s pad down in the Village, which is down on Sixty Morton Street two…numbers…from…Fifty, Sixty—which is the pad where a big fag now lives that Deni Bleu stays with when he hits New York—

  CODY. No kiddin

  JACK.—but not as a fag, you know, he just doesn’t know that guy is a fag, see, he doesn’t know the…heinousness of that neighborhood

  CODY. I see, I know, yeah, I know most of th—

  JACK. So Irwin went down there, and at that time he was reading Anna Karenina, did he tell you that?

  CODY. No…but I knew about—

  JACK. He went into Stroheim’s pad with Julien; Hubbard was there!…and he heard, he’d never heard such…diabolical st—talk; and also there was a guy called Dick Frankenstein, was there that night, and he was an old buddy of Jay Chapman’s, from St. Louis—

  CODY. I’ll be darned…no kidding

  JACK. He writes for Neurotica now, under an assumed name, and he was trying to start a fight with somebody or other, and Julien bit his ear off, or some goddamn thing—Julien threw him off the balcony, and there just happened to be no balcony, he just threw him two floors down; and they cowered under automobiles, and fought, and some kind—somebody pissed, and, everything happened, you know, see, I don’t know exactly, but Irwin was quite amazed; came back, uptown, and at that time, you see, I had told Elly that I was…on a ship, bound for the South Pacific, it’s what I told my mother and father, it’s what I—

  CODY. You were shipping

  JACK. Well everybody thought I was, including the merchant marine, and the F.B.I. which was looking for—to draft me, and all I did was sit—jumped the ship…in Norfolk, and come back up to New York and get after Julien’s old cunt, there, Cecily; I was fuckin her regu-lar

  CODY. No kidding

  JACK.—but now I’m talking about a year later, I guess…

  CODY. I remember that Cecily, yeah

  JACK. And I wasn’t really fuckin her regular, because I only fucked her once, but, ah—

  CODY. You wrote about this in a novel, about the death you know, about, when you…and Julien was gonna ship out? remember? and all that, and you never did…

  JACK. What novel?

  CODY. Man, that hunnerd
…page novel that you wrote, that you were gonna write about—

  JACK. Yeh, the Julien novel, yeh

  CODY. Yeah, yeah, right? That’s the period…that you was—I mean, that the—before you was gonna ship out, and…didn’t, see

  JACK. All that is extremely interesting but I think that now is more interesting because now you got the whole thing fuckingwell summed up, see, now if Julien was here he wouldn’t know—Julien, I dig him, I always will…in fact, you know, what he has done, and so on, so…

  CODY. Yeah, oh yeah, sure

  JACK. And Jim’s married, he got married New Year’s Eve

  CODY. To that girl? Elizabeth?

  JACK. The night we did the Shakespeare?

  CODY. Oh, yeah

  JACK. He got married

  CODY. What just now? to that Elizabeth

  JACK. No, no—Bessy

  CODY. But that one, that one that I just saw up there, she was feeding drinks up there, at Josephine’s pad? that one he came in with. Just for that one second that one night. Yeah he came in for a few minutes and sat on the couch. Jesus, a new one huh? Where does he meet all these women? (Jack murmurs something) Oh yeah?

  JACK. Shh. (Cody laughs) Don’t tell anybody

  CODY. I’ll be damned…and he knows that of course, and he’s married now, if there’s something—huh? I think that’s—

  JACK. No, ah, he—first place he claims she’s a sex fiend nymph; second place, she’s the daughter of the editor of some magazine; third place, see—Third place she’s been to all the schools Jim’s been to, you know, like, she’s been to Black Mountain, and he was, while at Princeton, while at so-and-so, he went around, fucking around with Black Mountain girls—she’s his class, his type, his life; really, the good girl for him, and I like her, she’s very fine, but she’s funnylooking! Man is she—hishh…but amazing. At the same time she has a beautiful body, and a beautiful cunt—and all that, you know—

  CODY. Ah yeh, well that’s great—I know (laughing)

  JACK.—but her face is sort of masculine, very masculine—in fact she looks like you…. (both laughing) She looks just like you!

  CODY. Jesus…terrible

  JACK. You know, ah, but I mean by that—

  CODY. I know what you mean, yeah

  JACK.—she has a real…un…ah…

  CODY. Pronounced!

  JACK.—a real pronounced masculine face

  CODY. Well see, here’s what I’d like to do, is summarize about—I think that’s water I’m afraid, I’m not sure though, but I think it is, I’d like to summarize ah, what’s gonna happen and what has already happened to everybody, like for example we know what’s happened to Finistra, see, and we know what’s happened to June, you understand, what I’m sayin?

  JACK. And June was an accident

  CODY. Yeah, well let’s see what’s happenin…and must happen…see?

  JACK. Finistra heh?

  CODY. Well, we can start with those two, that we know of, anyhow, see—

  JACK. Alright

  CODY.—but just a-sayin, like I don’t know Finistra well, what do you say about Finistra

  JACK. Let’s talk about it

  CODY. That’s right

  JACK. Let’s talk about…what we know about the two of them

  CODY. Yeah, and then after them about everybody else, and what’s gonna happen to everybody else, see?

  JACK. Yeah

  CODY. See what I mean?

  JACK. Alright (CODY: Yeah) Is that the second half of that reel?

  CODY, Yeah, I gotta put a new reel in—

  JACK. We’ll start a new one…

  CODY. Yeah

  JACK. Okay. Listen, no more wine?

  CODY. No, uh-huh. We have to get some more huh?

  JACK. Oh—another ten minutes and I’ll be high

  CODY. Yeah? with-out the wine?

  JACK. On benny

  CODY. Yeah but with-out the wine…you don’t want to get another one

  JACK. No

  CODY. Alright?

  JACK. I do, but I mean, ah—we don’t have any money

  CODY. Well I know, but it’s not that drastic, you know…I mean it doesn’t really matter, as far as that goes I can go down and get another one. May as well have it in the house, huh?

  JACK. O-kay

  CODY. Yeah, I’ll put on my shoes, it’s the end of the reel anyhow, see, give the matcheen, machine a chance to rest

  JACK. Yeah

  CODY. Alright, see? won’t it—(machine stops discussion)

  EVELYN. (speaking from New Year’s Eve tape of “Hamlet”): “…which is the might…”

  (click)

  CODY. (resuming tape, he’s shut it off while Jack pissed again on porch)…whole cabinet so crazy, that I thought it was, ah, the beginning of that, ah, German picture I told you about one time…very frantic—

  JACK. (way back)…man, very cool…

  CODY. See the whole screen vibrated and shook

  JACK. I’m getting to be a drunkard Cody (from porch)

  CODY. Yeah, I can see that—

  JACK. You know that?

  CODY. Ah…you weren’t a year ago; although you really were I g—suppose but you were not, ah, well I’ll tell you of course, you gotta remember this Jack, you’re living under an artificial, ah, ah, excitement, or an artificial…environment, you know. See th—I mean the primary purpose, it’s just as though I was living at your house, or I was, or as though, ah, you understand what I’m saying or do you? (no answer, door just opening) You know what I mean to say? (no answer, door just closing) Here’s what I mean…if you were home or something, why you wouldn’t be, ah, exactly like this, you’re under, see, you’re in a—you’re at the, ah,—how do you say the word? culminating, kewlminating, you know, culminating, ah, point, in a lot of your, for the last year what you’ve been thinking about and working on, and doing about, and everything, see, (sniff) so you’re in this town and you’re in this house, see, and so you’re under a, ah, under a ah, ah, like I said earlier, excitement, well what I mean to say here an ar—an artificial position, the main idea what I’m trying to say, is, the idea is kicks not…like, ah, having fun…(REEL ENDS)

  (MACHINE RESUMES)

  CODY. (speaking from last month on unerased tape)…just stays home, and—

  JACK.—and goes to school—

  CODY. Yeah goes to school, and an average sort of guy, he’s—in fact you just think he’s a big average American GI type, see, but here he knows where to get the peyotl and everything, see, he knows, you know what I’m tryin to say? (end of last month’s tape)

  (MACHINE RESUMES)

  CODY. (amid mumbles) Now see it’s working, see? look, see, whoop, there, see—

  JACK. Man, that’s great, alright…. We’ll get high at twelve-thirty. (snickers) We don’t have another roll do we?

  CODY. No, that’s all; well you know we’ve only got part of that one-hour, that’s all you got, yeah, you got an hour. So Finistra…killed himself, he didn’t do it deliberately, but at the same time, he was pushin himself that way wasn’t he, you know he was hungup with the idea, countless…times he has been, you can just imagine the number of times he thought about killing himself can’t you, but at the same time when it came down to the fact of doin it, he never did—

  JACK. He didn’t mean to kill himself

  CODY.—and when he finally did he did, yeah, so that shows the, what’s it called, ah, you know, like the humorous tragedy of it or the coincidence or the, you know, fact that a man was trying to kill himself all of his life—sounded like a radio program, the guy tries to kill himself and tries to and tries to and can’t quite, and doesn’t, and when he finally does, why, it’s accidental, he doesn’t intend to…but he does, because somehow he’s been preparing himself for it, just like this, these stories of people, certain people being accident prone, you know the type of shit and all that, right? You know, some workers are always cuttin off their fingers, or something, and others never have any tro
uble, same type of thing, I s’pose…it really isn’t too important, June’s more interesting, especially since I don’t know Finistra, really, you know, except for what he stood for sort of, yeah…. As far as June that’s another thing, I wonder what, rather than speculatin what did happen to her, but of course you can but, what would have become of her, that’s what I’m thinkin of

  JACK. That’s the point

  CODY. That’s ’cause—

  JACK. (imitating drunken tragedian) Especially…in this dire hour…

  CODY. (coughs) Because from what you were saying when I was reading Irwin’s letter and you said “Here let me read this” and you read a line and you’d say “Well now here’s what really happened” and you described about June and Julien and everything, and I saw a lot of things in there that ah, she was getting more ah, you know, ah, I mean not that she could I guess become more extreme but I mean she was just more…capable of practically anything, huh? wasn’t she. So, ah, and but the way she was letting herself go, you see, with her black teeth, and with her uncombed hair, all those things, huh?…huh? Well, what I’m saying, if those things happen, why, maybe she probably would have died of some, just a…ordinary disease, see, that would catch her, or maybe alcoholism of the liver or something, you know, that kind of death like my sister died of, May, she was twenty-four, see, and, drank and killed herself, in ‘forty ah, ‘forty ah, ‘fory ah, -four, ‘forty…-three actually, in ‘forty-three it started and ‘forty-four—she died in January, I went out there. It was because of her again that I—

  JACK. Out where?

  CODY. L.A. From Denver

  JACK. How?

  CODY. Ah, oh, well I’ll tell you how, I ran into my father accidentally on Larimer Street and he said “Come on boy, let’s go together and batch together again like we used to,” and all that, I said “Well—”

  JACK. Where had you been before that?

  CODY.—‘forty-three I was—I was, ah, well this is the Fall of ‘forty-three, I was, I’d just gotten through a long period of working two different jobs and going to school at the same time, sleep five hours a day, go to school from eight until two-thirty and run a service station me and another fellow at least owned…jointly

  JACK. In what school?