by Jack Kerouac
JACK. Y-e-a-h
CODY. Like when I escaped out of the joint, why, he gave me a big berating, you see I only saw him a few times but he said “What in the hell are you stealing cars for? steal something that they can’t trace, steal something like money” and all that kind of stuff, but at any rate, after I’d worked System for a few days they sent me up to Five eighty South Main to go work for a fellow named Harvey Allerdee who was the manager of the lot. Harvey Allerdee became my closest friend…and best advisor, and I went to live with him and his wife, she was a dancer, her name was Vivian, fat woman, with plucked eyebrows, dark hair, ’bout thirty-eight, but any rate Harvey was tall fella, very red face but not like bourbon tan, rather the red face of an outdoors man, he was always—but ah, he was always smiling in a very wry way, he was always doing (grimace), you know, he was always bringing his lips back and smiling very nice, and then you’d say something—what it really amounted to was, ah—how he developed that I think was from always sayin “I don’t know,” or else saying, ah, he’d say, “Well, it’s up to you,” “Well, I dunno,” you see, he’d, ah, bring his face back, really very kindly looking, you know, and he had bald head with fringe of hair but it wasn’t—didn’t look—didn’t—think of him as a bald man, and it seems he had freckles, he was very tall and thin and angular, I mean he was ah, ah, very quiet easy-goin, never moved fast or anything, and very good parking lot man and, ah, showed me all the things that there was to know about…not only parking cars but how to knock down and clip the customers and the company and everybody else, and he had an old ‘thirty Chevy he’d drive to work every day, it was quite a ways, we lived about five miles away out in South L.A., his place out there; so I moved in with him, and, ah, we, ah, I had a real crazy summer, running around with a kid named…Rinick and shootin out lightbulbs, and shooting through the ceilings and going to jail and always getting hungup one way or another, but at any rate, despite that, there was no, ah, it really was a wonderful summer, ah, of course that time I was real crazy, I’d steal cars every night, when I closed the lot at midnight I’d take the best car on the lot and go joyridin, and, ah, yeah oh yeah, I’ve done that countless times everywhere—that’s why I’ve stole at least five hundred automobiles and more than that probably, see? but at any rate, ah, Harvey was—I can’t get over Harvey, quite a guy, I can’t—but at any rate, well I keep saying “at any rate,” I don’t mean to say that, Harvey, ah, had done time in a joint I finally came to find out, and he had a brother-in-law who was a conman with small things like sellin hot rings and, and ah, Swiss-made wrist watches and so on which of course w—had no workings in them and stop after five minutes, and things like that, and he came over and…he did something which amazed me, I can’t exactly recall what it is now but he told me, for example that I was left-handed, he told me other things of that nature, sort of clairvoyant, you know, like a fortune teller type…thing but…also sleight of hand, but, really he was a big conman, and he owned a brand new Pontiac. And—wait a minute I think I hear, I hear…(Jack flutes) (record ends as Evelyn comes home from work making photos in International Settlement nightclubs)
(MACHINE BEGINS NEW CONVERSATION)
JACK…. this is the maddest joint in town…
EVELYN. It sure is
CODY. This Duluoz’s so hungup on tea we been callin that Jimmy Low all night…can’t make out
JACK. I know
EVELYN. He rifled all my things and couldn’t find ’em, huh?
CODY. No, we didn’t
EVELYN. I know, I’m surprised you didn’t
CODY. Yeah, w—
JACK. Maybe Evelyn can call him up
CODY. (laughing)—talked to the landlady two minutes ago, she just said he’s not in—
JACK. It’s too late
CODY. (still laughing) It’s two o’clock, yeah…I mean, he says…“Oh yeah, well I just called on a wild guess” he said—
EVELYN. (sitting on Jack’s chest who is on floor with mike) Can you breathe? (laughing)…sitting on your diaphragm. (to Cody) I got us a new hat fellas…somebody left a tarn on my—
JACK. Oh yeah?
CODY. You got it?
EVELYN.—radiator cap. It’s all wet
JACK. Is that it? is that the hat?
CODY. Did you bring it in?
JACK. Oh, on the radiator cap!
EVELYN. I kept looking at it all the way home wondering “What’s that?”
CODY. Did you bring it in?—yeah? Good. (laughing) You looked at it and didn’t know what it was, it could have been—
EVELYN. Well it was just a lump
CODY.—a bomb, don’t you know someone might be…have…after you?
EVELYN. Somebody asked me to drive him downtown, he was attractive, too
CODY. Well why didn’t you, darling, you might have made…five dollars
EVELYN. Yeah
CODY. You know you’re out of gas, you know, and…things like that; gotta get home to the wife and three kids, you know—I’m the wife now, I guess
EVELYN. Yeah…poor wives
CODY. We’ve been having cozy little knitting session…talking about, ah—
EVELYN. Have you?
CODY.—Five eighty South Main
EVELYN. Well go on
CODY.—‘cross from, ah, across from—
JACK. Well go on!
CODY.—that Pacific Electric, is that what they call it? I think it is…one night—
JACK. Yeah, I was right—Red car (decides to just name it resignedly)
CODY. Let’s see, one night, it seems to me, I ran into a girl or something and I was frightened, ah, that I might have gotten some, ah, type of social disease, so I, ah, course I knew there was this Army prophylactic station, there’s only one up in L.A. and did a land-office business—
JACK. Where’s m’wine?
CODY. Ah, across the street there at the, at the Pacific and Electric, so—(as Evelyn looks around for Jack)—I think it’s in the icebox, darling, so…
EVELYN. Is there more? Oh boy…
CODY. Oh yeah, we only had two quarts
EVELYN. Tokay
JACK. Flame tokay (he and Evelyn laughing)
CODY. ’Cause I haven’t drunk any, Jack’s drunk at least a quart by himself, see (Jack laughs)—that’s right! And I’ve drunk, oh, about half of—
EVELYN. Oh you’re so brave in wine
CODY. No that’s right though!
JACK. That’s true!
CODY. Yah, that’s no kidding, I just couldn’t get on it; that’s no kidding, we took the Dex—stook straight Ben-ze-drine, not that I—Italian stuff but the other stuff, so we can talk slow (as Jack concurrently mumbles same information), we figured that you could talk, you know, on—
JACK. And we’re just about high now!
CODY. Just getting, yeah
EVELYN. (laughing) Oh no!
CODY.—three hours—took until ten o’clock didn’t it? (JACK, Yeah) He said, he said, “Well, at the most two hours,” that’d be midnight, midnight didn’t feel a thing; well twelve thirty; so finally quarter to one I feel a little bit of a buzz, and now it’s going away again, you know, I feel—I could sleep, anything, you know…in fact I should be—
JACK.—ten o’clock…this clock…(incoherent)
CODY. Yeah that clock is slow, damn thing’s—
EVELYN. Well I came home early, I just came home early
CODY. Yeah but five minutes slow, though, I’ve been checking all night
EVELYN. (announcing) I quit
CODY. You didn’t quit?
EVELYN. (she and Jack laugh) I did!
CODY. (from far in kitchen) What do you mean, quit what?
EVELYN. Quit
CODY. The job?
EVELYN. Well I’m sure…he won’t…be interested, he didn’t come around…Nicki says I should go around to the Cable Car Club or something like that and make him give me a steady spot—
CODY. Cable Car Village
EVELYN. Nobody can
make any money in the Beige Room anyway—
CODY. Yeah I know, all fag joint—
EVELYN.—I just got a dirty…deal, you know, it wasn’t my fault
CODY. Yeah…I know…. Yeah, that’s right…
EVELYN. So I said “Well.”—Look at my shoes!
CODY. Wet…Jesus Christ…feet—
EVELYN. Believe me I didn’t go out if I could help it
CODY. Yeah, well…could you help it?
EVELYN. Ah, I took two pictures
CODY. Two pictures?
EVELYN. One of ’em over again…hmph
CODY. Had to go to the Sinaloa and darkroom ’em, huh?
EVELYN. Huh-huh…then—
JACK. (sepulchrally) Dark room!
CODY. So when of course—
EVELYN. What happened to you two?
CODY. What? I know, we was gonna show but…he woulda had to stay with the kids, or else I would, and, and…the idea of dressin up and everything, you know, so—
EVELYN. Why I kept lookin at people who looked just like this…see
CODY. Really?
EVELYN. Sure…one thing I know that you couldn’t have gotten in because I forgot to tell you you have to bring your identification there…see, to show at people…that makes it real dangerous, those big signs say “Off Limits for Military Personnel”…
CODY. Oh yes, oh yeah, fags to get ahold of those poor sailors!
JACK. Yeah…(incoherent)…military
CODY. (as Evelyn laughs) So I went across the street, and there was a guy there with a—a clipped English looking you know, with a mustache, clipped, ah, English mustache—
JACK. Where?
CODY.—military man—
JACK. Where?
CODY.—and he ran the Army prophylactic station in the P.G., in the Pacific Electric building see? (Evelyn murmurs and laughs)
JACK. Oh! (finding out where)
CODY. So I went in, I said “Say, here’s a dollar,” so I said, ah, “I can take a pro? I think, er—” He said “Oh that’s alright, keep your dollar, go ahead,” and so, I took a pro, and, ah—
EVELYN. How’d you do that?
CODY. Well, I, ah, you see, you go over and you take this, ah, green castile soap you know, and you wash yourself—well most people just wash the penis but you gotta get way down up in the asshole you know, and all around, the balls thoroughly, be sure and get under the balls thoroughly and up into the hair almost to the navel, see? and that’s the trouble with mostguys, they just, you know, they just wash their penis…well then, after you get it washed and, ah, dried off, ah thoroughly, then he comes over with a, ah, plunger business, just like an eyedropper, and he shows you how to hold your penis, hold your penis this way, see? and, and you spread it open, and, he plunges it in, he says “Alright now, hold it!” and you hold it
EVELYN. Like an enema
CODY. So he never has to touch you or anything, and you hold it for five minutes they makeyou!—Army regulations, five minutes, I’ve seen those poor soldiers standin up there drunk about to pass out and everything still holdin that in there, you know? (laughter), and then they let it go, of course, and then (Jack makes moan) you walk out—oh then he smears you with some salve, see, you smear yourself, he never touches your, course, himself, at all—some type of salve, you know, but, and then you put toilet tissue around that, and, walk out, but of course that—(Evelyn comments in background) Yeah! that’s the—that’s, that’s the professional type prophylactic, you know; at any rate we got to talking, I talked to this guy…his name was Destry, and he was—Jesus you drank that whole thing here—
EVELYN. Oh “that whole thing!” Whole thing? you know how much was in there?
CODY. (laughing) That’s what I been telling Jack all night—so at any rate, ah, he’s telling me, ah, oh we got talking about this and that and I told him I was interested in philosophy, and he was interested in philosophy, and he was innerested in Indian philosophy, and ah, so ah, every night then thereafter I’d go over and talk with him all night, there in the pro station, and ah—
EVELYN. I’m cold-turn the heat up
CODY.—he told me about his—all his ideas about community living, about getting…people together you know, work—like, say, if you had a group, say, fifty or a hundred people, why, you don’t have to work about two hours a day or something, and of course there’s…no regulations of any kind, do whatever you want, in fact, for kicks, why you put cameras behind the walls or somethin, but at any rate he was, ah, going through all that, and ah, in fact before he got in the Army he had already started it by, ah—he had a dry cleaning business so he got a couple guys and couple of truckdrivers and they had it cut down to about six hours or four hours a day they’d work, and ah, they was all gettin interested in it—in fact they had bought the lot where they was gonna build the house, and build additions and everybody just…goof off as best they might—But he had a lot of ulterior motives behind it, see? to watch the people and find out this and that and all that, but still his—the main, ah advocation of his which he would talk about all the time, very sensibly, and, and, give you illustration that—illustration all night, was the fact that if you visualize a thing well enough and hard enough why it’ll come to pass, despite odds and everything else—For example, he was in some terrible, ah, pa—po—portion, you know, of the Army, you know, he was in the infantry and something or other, and so he…said to himself “What I’ve got to do is get to the Medical Corps,” and so, he did that, which is fairly simple enough, I guess, which is about the limits most people would go, but then he visualized himself in some soft spot where he’d be stationed there regularly and so on and so forth and so on, and he thought of the prophylactic station, and for three years he stayed in this other hospital thinking about it, it was only one chance in a million that he’d get it and he got it of course; and things like that which he was always talking about, but not, ah, bragging, or anything of that nature, just, just simply believed in it, so much so that he had me walking down the street with my eyes closed so I could not bump into any thing, you know, but just with my eyes closed I could tell what I was doing and so on, well of course it never worked and I only tried it once or twice, but I went to it—but at the same time he was a technocrat, you know this technocracy, you know? so, ah, we would go to these, ah, technocracy meetings and the, and the speaker would show how—like for example, victory gardens were foolish because if you put the man-hours and labor and, and the…bit of grass and all the seeds into…the manufacture of, ah—why you would build, a, you know, you know, understand, assembly line and all that, technocracy, very—but at any rate, then he was…also—course I was interested in women and he told me that he used to be and everything, course he still is and all that but, he ah, he, he got so absorbed in this philosophy that now he just sat and thought all the time, when he was home, and so on, and ah, whenever there was a woman around or anything why he was never, ah—but he was never, wasn’t anything queer about him at all or anything, he was just…really, ah, a kind of a second-rate I guess, now as I think back upon him, intelligence; ah completely concern—second-rate intelligence—concerned about…Indian philosophy, see? so that he was all the time with it but I was with, ah, western type or something—
EVELYN. Primitive
CODY.—of my own and so that—primitive, yeah that’s, that’s nice—so, ah, ah (sighing) he was a friend of mine for a long time, in fact I’ve forgotten all the ideas that he, ah, put across to me. Well of course the hangover from those ideas was enough so that like when I was in the joint, er, N.M.S.R., er, New Mexico State Reformatory there, the assistant warden, ah, Vagila, why, he was a little interested, so he gave me books like The Law of Mentalism, by Sechnal, which, showed that if you—and soon, things like that, which is all very…. But ah, the wall, the wall that Jack speaks of is not only the wall that, ah, the night that I escaped and made my way about forty miles after a day or two…. And, ah…terrible, close, so that even on the street I’d be sus
picious, you know…ah, to this…parking lot expecting to find Kriloff when I’d get there at midnight but he just closed, and he’s not there, but someone else is there, so that means he wasn’t there, didn’t work that night, and I’m looking over this wall…between the bus depot and the—and the, ah…parking lot on Sixth and Main. Other things about that—well, like I used to arm-rassle with somebody there I’ve forgotten who but we’d get on each side of the wall there, and arm-rassle. Well, other than that the wall has never had much, ah, in my mind, except, ah, I used to bang cars into it you know all day long (laughing wearily), part of my job, but there was no…was a common brick wall…(fades away)…so…
EVELYN. (who laughed) What’s the wall, how did it begin?
CODY. Oh I just happened to mention the wall. He was in L.A. and he happened to see it
JACK. I went over there and I deliberately looked at it
CODY. Oh I see (then laughs)
EVELYN. Same wall? How’d you know where it was?
JACK. ’Cause he told me where it was
CODY.—I was startin to talk—
JACK.—I’d al—I had already seen it, but I didn’t know—
CODY.—yeah, that’s right, it’s where the buses…line up there, see, and the other side is where…the cars—
JACK. Sh—right…in the middle of cars…between them bus…
CODY…. that’s right, that’s right, and the other side are the cars, and the front is a shoeshine stand, and on the other side of the front is, ah, is a…hotdog stand, ah, and in the middle of the lot is a little shack where, where they…run the cars, the guy…who runs the cars…stands there, see; and (JACK, Yeah; EVELYN, Hmm) the lot’s a small lot, very fast lot, fast turnover, but very small easy lot, beautiful lot to work, Jesus, because…it has a eck—entrance and an exit, see, most of ’em you have to send ’em back out the same way they come in, but this one they could go out the alley, see, so it’s a real great lot. Most, of course I made most money there and, had my best times there, and everything, you know, it’s a real fine lot—I bought me a car, ran into a kid named Rinick, and he worked at another lot for System up the road a ways, and sohecameover—but he was very—he was Indian, very, ah, reckless…guy, he didn’t care about anything, but at the same time he was very…quiet, and didn’t…you know, like an Indian, see, and ah, so, I’d get drunk with him a time or two and so we started goin up on Main Street where the Mexican waitresses were, and, but, one day why he was walkin down the street, and a little Indian girl walked by, and he—she—he said “I bet she’s Indian” although he never spoke that he was Indian or nothin but that’s what he said, and ah, so he said “Wait a minute Cody, I’ll be back” and so he walked out on the street to follow this…well, in fact she wasn’t pretty at all, sort of a dumpy little girl type, think about sixteen, and ah, so he came back in about an hour with the girl and he said “Say I don’t have a car or nothin” which he didn’t have but he used to rent cars all the time like—besides stealin them but ah, he said “Let me take that little car that you just bought,” see? But it seems that I had bought the car, which was a ‘twenty-seven Nash with seven tires for fifty dollars, but…I had a barber, special barber who did my hair, and he was also a painter, and he said that he’d paint my car, for a—twenty dollars or something, in the meantime I’d use his car which was a ‘thirty Chevy in better shape than mine and everything, and so I just had it that day, so, Tony said, ah, “Here’s—let me use your car…for awhile,” and I said: “Oh sure,” so he took the car and he didn’t show up for four days, and when he did show up—course I wasn’t worried about it, because I didn’t have to take it back to the barber’s for two weeks or so, see, and so I was, and I—at that time I didn’t worry anyhow, I wasn’t much—not that I was reckless but I didn’t seem to really m—I wondered where Tony was, but—So when he did come back he’d smashed in a fender, but that was nothing, he was all full of this story about his love, see, this great—him and this girl that had been together for four days, see. So they moved in together after that, her name was Milly…huh?
