by Jack Kerouac
A moi-l’histoire d’un de mas folies—I’ve been encamped here for twelve days now. The boys here are all overgrown or warped adolescents—all screaming neurotics. Me, with all my highly advertised guilts and frustrations, moi, I was able to absorb the change to service with an equanimity and dispassionate benevolence unknown to the maritime. The second day here we were shown a botched version of Freud in a movie short, explaining to the demons of the streets that their backaches, leg pains, headaches, fainting spells, and melancholies were all functional—that their troubles were purely psychic. Some naive professional tough guy on my left leaned over and whispered in a sort of scared voice that jeez maybe he ought to see the psychiatrist like they say? I was surprised to find such an overwhelming preponderance of nervous wrecks who cracked under the initial “strain.” There is a great deal of stupidity in the management of this place. The petty officers etc. are all fat buttocked Marine sergeants with loud voices. They talk a lot about order and discipline but the administrative and ordering sections are the most confused, contradictory, undisciplined and disorderly crowd I’ve ever met with and the atmosphere breathes lack of definition and fosters anxiety. The first thing I did was follow a maxim of Burroughs’ and find out the layout; I cased the joint; got all the regulations down pat, and defined myself. So I had no surprise and tension in my Yiddishe Kopfe when all went through with smoothness. I know the techniques of “fluffing off” (escaping duties and punishments and details). The routine here is routine; the telos is periphery, the preoccupation is “detail work,” which surprised me somewhat. I hadn’t thought about what any army trains for. It merely maintains itself here with no exterior purpose. So I wash clothes, and practice neatness at all times, stow my gear properly in a clean locker, make my bunk, giggling to myself unobtrusively. There is also buffing detail. Buffing the floors (pushing buffing rags with the feet) is the standard routine for keeping the trainees busy. Since even cleaning reaches a point of declining output, when no more can be cleaned, we are put to doing it all over. This keeps us busy, teaches us discipline and attendance to duty. Since my presence here is voluntary and experimental, I don’t take it all so hard and don’t find myself itching to knock out anybody’s teeth or go A.W.O.L. The Thomas Wolfish reaction to all this, of romantic disapproved and fiery rejection, doesn’t particularly interest me. I question the consciousness and validity of gestures. Anyway, I’m enjoying myself, since I don’t take it personally, and the change is, ah, refreshing. There is a beach here where I swim and laze in the sun on weekends. I miss music most of all. There are radios here but you know the story.
I’ve begun to use Burroughs’ critiques and begun criticizing them. For one thing, he tends to type all individuals that he doesn’t know personally, and thus perhaps he would have difficulty in evaluating a mob of individuals. And these are all individuals—they are reminiscent of one type or other, some character types (the regressive fairy, the mother loving crybaby, the dead end kid, the sadist, etc.) and others more neatly anthropological. But though each has a reminiscent theme, they are people on their own to whom I am drawn with a certain sympathy. Incidentally, I failed to maintain a mask of the “regular guy” in that I couldn’t prevent myself from airing my ego from time to time. Fortunately, I was also able to talk the language; then, I had welding experience, which I exploited—it made me a mechanic, a normal human being. And so I am afraid that I am perhaps a “brain” (I was caught reading Hart Crane and the mailman delivered your postcard saying it was in French—he saw the last line, which was in French I think.) But it hasn’t tended to prejudice my relations with the good guys, and I am accepted (“Heaven be praised for that”) as one of the guys by all. I find them coming to me for sympathy (which I give) and advice, since I am one of the oldest in my section. Also, they keep telling me about their women. This sex talk is a real pistol. So I tell them about this cunt Joan Adams I used to live with, and how she laid for me in the afternoon. My language is usually restrained; when I want to be “regular” I use a slight southern accent and talk about Denver, and Saint Louis and curse the niggers. So all goes well and I am not victimized, nor do I have any anxiety on that score.
I like a few of the boys (friendly-like, you know, no more). One is a redhead, a spindly virgin named Gaffney who is a little scared by it all. Another calls himself a “man of steel” and sends his mother one of those hideous green and purple silk pillow covers with a sentiment (rhymed) embroidered in it.
I haven’t written anything but occasional poems. This bothers me somewhat. I got a letter from Joan who will be in N.Y. in September’s first week. John [Kingsland] writes to her, using Celine’s name on the back of the letter to deceive Joan’s parents. Now they think she is so friendly with Celine that maybe they ought to invite her up to Albany. Celine wrote: she is up in Lake Champlain. Lancaster is working as a waiter in a country club.
I don’t feel much like writing now, I’m tired.
Allen
Jack Kerouac [Ozone Park, New York] to
Allen Ginsberg [Sheepshead Bay, New York]
Aug. 17, ’45
1 Ozone Parc
Mon garcon,
Yes, my friend, I long to be the proud possessor of a yiddishe kopfe’s head. There is a head which senses the only true values: Returning from the summer camp last week, I had occasion to sit next to a gentleman of Yiddishe kopfe material. He was about fifty. I was reading The Counterfeiters [by André Gide]—(it was a gesture, I must confess!)—when my companion reached over and took the book out of my hands. Needless to say I was pleased by his informality. “Ah very good book!” he said, prodding me with his finger. “Ah very valuable book!”
“Yes? You like it?”
Nodding, he thereupon opened the book (whilst I relaxed in anticipation of a treatise on the choicer scenes) and removed the jacket. The jacket he examined very carefully, smoothing it lovingly with his sensual fingers. Then he bent the book back until the binding groaned, and examined that for a while. Finally, he turned the book upside down and peered like a watchmaker at the cover, at the gold paint, and then at the very pages themselves! These he felt between his fingers, and sighed. I said, “Do you want to read it? If you like you can, I’ve some other books here in my bag.”
“Oh,” he said, “you sell books.”
“No—but I have some with me.” I reached down and produced Plato’s Republic. He immediately took it from my hand and presto!, with quick unerring judgment, with yiddishe kopfe foresight, with a sad yet somehow shrewd smile—he handed it back to me. He tapped the book as it lay in my hand, and shook his head. “Not so good, not so good.”
So I went on with Plato while he, perhaps improperly, but certainly without conscious reprehensibility, continued to sigh over, and fondle, our good friend Andre Gide.
Bill [Burroughs] in town. “Surrender night” found us reunited. We went out with Jack and Eileen. Bill and I didn’t talk much. There was much drinking and charming madness, though I’m sure it didn’t charm Bill. In the end he and I were alone trying to pick up women. He was wearing a Panama hat and something about his appearance must surely have had something to do with our failure to find women . . . As he stood on Times Square, one had the feeling that he surveyed not a sea of heads but a vast field of poppies “as far as the eye can see.” Or maybe he looked like Lucifer’s emissary, charge d’affaire de l’Enfer himself, and passer-by women caught a flash of red lining inside his coat. This is all nonsense of course. It was a night for servicemen, not for a Marijuana Tycoon, sober, and a hoodlum, drunk. After Bill went home, I went to Eileen’s and laid her while Jack slumbered beside us.
Bill is going to join you at Sheepshead! You may now abandon your strenuous efforts to adjust yourself, for Bill is going to approach you and cry, “SNOOPY! When did you get out? DID YOU BEAT THAT INDECENT EXPOSURE RAP IN CHI??”
I suggested he approach you and say, “SNICKERS! How CHARMING! WHERE have you been, YOU ELUSIVE THING!”—But Bill decided it wouldn�
�t be in the best interests of either one of you.
I’ll see Bill tomorrow and hope to talk things over with him.
When you write letters to me, try not to be sophomoric and moribund about your criticism of Jean et son weltanschauung. A little more finesse, please, or if possible, a dash of humour. Some of the cracks you make are PM-ish11 if anything; and you know, not at all in keeping with one’s laborious tendings towards perfect Lucienism. He would be satirical, mon ami, but never ponderous and paranoiac. You “question the consciousness and validity of gestures.” Never would you subscribe to “Thomas Wolfish fiery rejection and romantic disapproval.” It pains me, my friend, it pains me. Perhaps you judge me too harshly, especially with reference to my latest goyesha kopfe “fiery rejection” at the summer camp, for you see, I was a busboy, and busboys live on tips, and tips must be substantial in order to provide for the livelihood of goyesha kopfe busboys who read Thomas Wolfe, only, you see mon vieux, in this melancholy instance, the guests at the camp were 100% middleclass yiddishe kopfe, and after all, one has to make a living you know, so, with romantic disapproval, I sallied forth from there, and came away with Byronic dignity—a gesture, I fear, that meets with your unromantic disapproval, but which was, after all, grounded in the strictest urgency of reality, unless it be that I flatter myself, in which case I certainly deserve all the mild censure, the pity, and the sympathy which you have always held in reserve for me at crucial moments.
Happy cauchemars!
Your affectionate monster,
Jean
Allen Ginsberg [Sheepshead Bay, New York] to
Jack Kerouac [n.p., Ozone Park, New York?]
Aug 22, 1945
In Service of My Country.
Cher ape:
I was overjoyed (is this too strong?) to hear that Bill [Burroughs] was in town. What is his address? I’m curious to know what flophouse he’s picked for a front this time. Is it adjoining a Turkish bath? But that he is to join me at Sheepshead is something too good to be true! Tell him to send me or send me yourself details of his swearing in and departure-time, day, etc. (and I’ll see that there’s a welcoming committee at the gates to meet him.)
As for this jack-off sophomorism, screw you Jean. And if these “Laborious efforts at Lucienism” are supposed to be mine, make it up yours. I’m not in the mood myself. Je sais aujourdhu comment orluer la beaute avec l’yiddishe koffe. I meant by the way that the peckerhead romanticism came in where you fungled up the choice of jobs until you are so screwed up that the only practical thing is to be Wolfish. O.K. So it wasn’t your fault that you were pushed into the wrong job. But it could only happen to you. My letter was ponderous but please god not paranoiac.
Allen
P.S. I have liberty this weekend I think and I want to see Bill’s face again and yours if possible. Pro tem, I’ll be at the Admiral Restaurant at 5:30 on Saturday. Now write me a letter or postcard post haste s’il vous plait and give me details as to when you can meet me and Bill, and what his phone and address is. Change the time and place if you wish; I can be in N.Y. by 3:00 o’clock.
I got a pistol of a letter from Trilling. I’ll bring it.
Your clinging vine,
A.
Editors’ Note: In this letter a new Bill appears, Bill Gilmore. Gilmore and other people with the common name Bill will make appearances, but they will always be identified clearly by their family name given in square brackets. If there is no such identification, the reader should assume that the reference is to William Burroughs.
Jack Kerouac [Ozone Park, New York] to
Allen Ginsberg [Sheepshead Bay, New York]
August 23, ’45
Cher jeune singe:
I shall answer all your stupid questions, as there is nothing else to do. Bill [Burroughs]’s now at Sheepshead, has been there since Monday the 20th. Of course he won’t look you up right away—that’s his system, he wants us not to think that he is too eager. He’ll look you up in good time, unless you happen to run into him. Don’t be too surprised!—Now, he was in New York five days before he called me up, or that is dropped me a line, telling me he was around. I immediately went to see him, not being wary of my own eagerness. He was not living in a flophouse this time—he lived in a Park Avenue hotel at $4.50 per day. It did not adjoin a Turkish bath (I’m still answering your questions) but the place itself was a well known Turkish bath, as the saying goes.
I’ve scoured your letter for any further questions, and there are no more. Strange!—I had had the notion that it was full of whys and whats. All well and good . . . there is no Why. The mystery is this: that there should ever have entered our heads the notion of Why! That’s the mystery, among others. Death is a mystery almost as enigmatic as life. But enough of that.
You were right about my “peckerhead romanticism.” Of course. I perfectly agree with you. Now it is all settled. We can begin worrying our little heads about something else now.
The other night, the last night I saw Bill, that strange thing happened to me . . . I got very drunk and lost my psychic balance. It doesn’t always happen, remember, but sometimes it does, like that night. [Bill] Gilmore had some fellow come to our table . . . we drank . . . all went to his apartment, where we drank much more. Even Bill was a little silly. We were all silly. I hated the guy. You know of him, he was with that large party at the Cafe Brittany that night we were there with Gilmore and Uncle Edouard, that large noisy American party, shot through with ensigns and society girls. I shall have to tell you about that night I lost my psychic balance. Only one thing did I carry away with me from the welter of silliness . . . a book! I stole a book. Voyage Au Bout De La Nuit by Celine. In a remarkable English translation. And also, I carried away with me much drunkenness. It was the second time I saw Bill, and still we did not talk. For awhile we were alone, in a restaurant, and it occurred to me we had nothing more to talk about. That’s the way it has developed; that’s what it’s come to. We have nothing further to talk about. We’ve exhausted the possibilities of each other. We are tired. Another few years, an accumulation of new possibilities, and we will have something to talk about. As for you, my little friend, there is always something to talk about because you are so unutterably vain and stupid, and that always leaves a splendid electrically charged gap for argument. Merde a toi!—that’s what I say.
In view of all that, I suppose we can meet at the Admiral, providing you are serious about meeting me there. As to eating there, I don’t know. The place has deteriorated, service and food and all. It’s a disgusting biological change, like cancer. Bring along the Trilling letter. I may as well begin to find out now what kind of a fool he really is . . . whether he is a bigger one or lesser one than you or I or anybody else.
It may surprise you to know that I have been writing in prodigious amounts. I am writing three novels at this very minute, and keeping a large diary to boot. And reading! . . . I have been reading like a madman. There’s nothing else to do. It’s one of those things you can do at the moment when all else isn’t any more interesting, I mean, when everything else can’t exactly prove to be much more worthwhile. I intend to do this sort of thing all my life. As for artistry, that is now a personal problem, something that concerns only me, so that probably I won’t bother you about that ever again. All well and good. A line from my diary: “We are all sealed in our own little melancholy atmospheres, like planets, and revolving around the sun, our common but distant desire.” Not so good, perhaps, but if you steal that line of mine, I’ll actually kill you, for a change.
5:30 a l’Admiral, Samedi . . .
Bye bye petit,
Jean
Editors’ Note: Ginsberg became sick and had to spend a few weeks in the base hospital. He missed the brief visit of William Burroughs to the base and the dinner with Kerouac at the restaurant in New York, as mentioned in this letter.
Allen Ginsberg [Sheepshead Bay, New York] to
Jack Kerouac [n.p., Ozone Park, New York?]
Monda
y afternoon
Sept. 4, ’45 [sic: Monday was September 3, 1945]
Dear Jean:
I was well enough to leave my bed today and so I slipped out to my barracks and got my mail which has been waiting. I got your letter, and was so excited by the prospect of seeing Bill [Burroughs] immediately that I ran over to B-1 which is the reception building to look him up. He arrived you said on the 20th. After begging the authorities to tell me how to locate him, I got one petty officer to open the books. I was told he’s disenrolled from Sheepshead on the 22’d, two days after he’d arrived. I am just returned to sick bay much bewildered and disenheartened. What has happened? Where is he now—have you heard from him since? Back on Park Ave. I suppose. I very strongly want to see him, but I am restricted here for the next few weeks. But now I feel anticlimactical, hopelessly confused.
I wait with some impatience to hear your description of La Nuit De Folie. I hope you’ll have regained your psychic balance by the time I hear it; I enjoy hearing your labyrinthine expositions of rescued masculinity—This was unnecessary. But mostly I’d like to hear you describe the degenerate looking limbo character whom I remember quite well. As to the police, [serucisient?], don’t let your guilt or repentance upset you, as I fear from your tone that it already has.
Your letter sounds somewhat tired, of a fatigued spirit, whether speaking of your conversations with Bill, or your ennui (the particular cause of your heavy reading), or your unexplained attacks on my “stupidity and vanity,” which distressed me rather than amused or wounded, whatever you were aiming at. What is the matter? At any rate, don’t shepherd your artistic problems back into the cave; I’d like to hear of them since I suppose they are almost the most important season of your supernal journey, to borrow your metaphor.
