Al Hinkle came along with that pretty little girl he was with—she was a blonde, about nineteen or twenty. But anyway, they were going to straighten me up by giving me a bath. The blonde came into the bathroom supposedly to help me, but it came out that she was gay! She admitted to me that she lived with a couple of other girls. When I told Al, he got very upset, and he was so disappointed, because he couldn’t believe it! She told him herself after that; but she had been with him the whole night, just talking and partying, and she had never mentioned it. I suppose it’s possible she didn’t think Al had any romantic intentions toward her. But in those days, I would have called it kind of “leading him on.” I can still remember Al’s reaction when I told him that I didn’t think it was going to work out between the two of them! It blew his mind.
I wound up losing my job, which wasn’t really any great loss, because it wasn’t too long after that that we left on our big trip west. We were only in New York about a month, but a whole lot of things happened during that time. I met a lot of people who really impressed me, and one of the most memorable was John Clellon Holmes.
Alan Harrington, Jack Kerouac, John Clellon Holmes, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, 1962. (Courtesy of John Clellon Holmes.)
We actually stayed at Holmes’s apartment for a week or so before we moved over to Allen’s. John and his wife, Marion, were just great, because they didn’t know Neal and I at all, and Jack took us over there and said something like, “Here are my friends, and I don’t know what else to do with them—so here they are!” But they were just terrific.
They didn’t have an extra bed, but around the living room they had benches with pillows on them. That’s where Neal and I slept. Really, I loved their apartment. It was like one big long room, and there was a small room off of that where they slept. John had his table with his typewriter in the big room. Marion went off to work every day, and I remember being extremely impressed with John, because regardless of what was happening in the apartment—and believe me, something was always happening when we were there—he would sit down and write for several hours. Jack came every day, of course, and there were just people coming in and out all the time. It always used to impress me tremendously that John could write with all this chaos going on around him. It just used to blow my mind that he could be so dedicated or self-disciplined, or whatever you want to call it, that he would at least try to write something every day, no matter what was going on.
I was really disappointed and hurt later on when Neal told me that Marion had left John shortly before his first book got published. They had both worked so long and hard together—with her having a full-time job and him writing—that it seemed like a shame that they would split up just before his success. They were both so dedicated—she was dedicated to bringing home the bread, and he was dedicated to becoming a published novelist. It wasn’t just talk with John—he really did his thing! I liked John very, very much. I didn’t get to know Marion all that well, because she was gone so much, but they both certainly treated us very nice.
John was very quiet most of the time, and I did notice that Marion was attracted to Jack. It was kind of obvious—even to John it had to be—the way she used to flirt with Jack. Jack, of course, never mentioned it when it was going on. He acted like he didn’t notice. I always had it in my mind that nothing really culminated from it—it just seemed like a mutual-admiration-society type of thing. But there might have been a mad, heated thing going on, and I might not have known about it. I do know that Jack never went out of his way to respond to her flirtations. Years later, I heard she had claimed to have had sex with Jack.
But women have a strange way of talking about things like that. On the one hand, when they’re being reflective, they’ll usually lie their heads off that they never went to bed with a single male except their spouse, or whoever their partner happened to be. On the other hand, someone like Jack, who suddenly became famous, suddenly had fifteen thousand mistresses! After On the Road was published, all these women were more than eager to admit to having had extramarital affairs with Jack, and I used to laugh reading about this one or that one who said they had had a love affair with this or that Beat writer. They would have lied their heads off at any other time if it was someone nobody cared about that they were supposed to be involved with.
I really don’t know what went on between Marion and Jack, but I do know that Marion had a crush on him, because, like I said, she was on top of him all the time. And it got to the point where Neal and Jack even discussed it, and I think Jack might have mentioned it in some of his letters, that he was uncomfortable to be around Marion because of his friendship with her husband. He was embarrassed that she was really being so obvious in her admiration for him.
Women were attracted to Jack, and no one could understand why he just seemed to be totally unaware of his physical powers in that regard. It was on that second trip, while we were still at Jack’s apartment, I think, that I met his blonde girlfriend Pauline. It was clear that some kind of love affair was already in progress when we got there. She was married to a truck driver, but she was seeing Jack on the side. She and Jack were actually talking about getting married, and he was really involved with this girl, which was rather unusual for Jack. I mean, he was taking the chance of possibly getting shot! Neal was always reminding him that he was gonna get killed when the truck driver found out. Apparently the guy was very violent and beat her a lot—at least that’s what she was telling Jack. But she had Jack’s complete loyalty, and he was taking chances seeing her, which was not normal behavior for him at all. I remember her quite well. I saw the two of them together quite a bit, and she just didn’t seem like Jack’s type at all. She was kind of a giggly blonde, and Jack would normally get involved with quiet, serious girls—and usually not blondes. Neal didn’t like her, because he thought she was just using Jack to get away from her husband.
It’s hard to know how serious Jack was about wanting to marry her. I think Jack, at that particular time anyway, was more involved in wanting to live. He really wanted to just do things—see things, see people, meet people—to become involved in all the life around him. I don’t even think he was that worried about his writing at that time—I mean, I didn’t get the impression that he felt pressured about getting his book done. Of course, he wanted it done, wanted to see it published and to have it succeed. But I didn’t ever get the impression that he felt pressured in any way, or that he was worried whether his novel would be accepted.
Jack and I had a lot of conversations alone, because Neal would get involved with so many people, and of course Allen was always around to distract him. So Jack and I spent a lot of time together, and he talked to me a lot about his life. He was just totally involved with everything that was happening and being with Neal and his other friends. At that period, I think Jack was very, very happy. But in a way it was also like Jack, right then, was waiting for something to happen, like something was gonna happen around the next corner that was gonna change his life. He was going to the New School; his book was being looked at by some major publishers. I think Jack had real good feelings at that time—about everything, really.
It seemed like Jack was always taking us somewhere, or there were so many people coming over to Ginsberg’s place, or we would go on little trips to see other fantastic people. The most unusual person we met on that trip to New York was Alan Ansen. One day someone suggested we all take a trip to Alan Ansen’s house on Long Island. We all went except for Al Hinkle. That was because Al would sometimes disengage himself completely from us. He always had a way of standing back from the crowd and watching—Jack did that too—but Al would actually go off on his own for a couple or three days at a time, and always came back with a woman! Al was one of those people who was very quiet—you never saw him making passes at anyone or getting out of line or anything. But even as kids, when all the guys would be out looking for women, looking for dates, Al would always sort of disappear and reappear with some girl! Always! Always! He
really has, all his life, had a knack for just sort of sneaking up on women. That’s how I always picture him, that his quietness was a way of catching people by surprise. He used to always take off—he loves to walk, always has. He used to leave us, saying, “I’m gonna take a little walk—I’ll see ya,” and he might not come back for a couple days. Then, sooner or later, he’d come lumbering back again, and tell us all his experiences. But he never really got involved with any girls in New York, maybe because he’d just gotten married and his wife was down in New Orleans with Bill Burroughs, waiting for him to come back.
So Al missed this mad trip we made to Alan Ansen’s. Alan Ansen lived with his wealthy aunt. I mean, she was very, very wealthy and very society. You can imagine us all arriving at this very elegant house, and it was kind of like Jack described us arriving at his sister’s house in North Carolina—only this time we were all cleaned up, and we weren’t a motley crew. But to her we were a motley crew. She was very society, and she certainly wasn’t used to entertaining the type of people that we were. But, of course, Neal was never any different—no matter where he was. He walked right in, said, “How do you do!” and “Lovely house you have here, Ma’am!” and just overwhelmed her completely. Meanwhile, I was overwhelmed by the house. It really was a genuine mansion—it was lovely.
Alan had this fantastic music room upstairs. The walls were entirely covered with his records—just records, records, records, and tapes! And at that time, tapes were a comparatively new thing. In fact, I think wire recorders were still more in vogue. Those early machines used a thin wire to record on. I think they were supposed to be more expensive, and they were the better ones; but then of course the tapes took over, and the wire recorders disappeared. It was upstairs in the music room that things really got kind of crazy.
There is no one in the world like this man. He is unique. Neal was unlike anyone, but Alan Ansen was totally unique in a way that you could never describe. He was gay, of course. He was a huge man—a big, big man—and he was so… Well, in those days they used the expression nellie. Unfortunately, he was very unattractive, sadly so, and for a big, big man to also carry himself in such an effeminate way would immediately draw people’s attention. He seemed to delight in shocking people. We arrived from New York City by train, and Alan met us at the station. He lived in this beautiful little tiny town, with lots of trees, picturesque streets, and beautiful, beautiful, magnificent homes; and as he walked us back to his aunt’s house, he was swishing and screaming at the top of his lungs all the way—just delighting in shocking the hell out of anybody and everybody who was willing to watch. And in those days, the 1940s, it was shocking—that’s all there is to it.
We had actually gotten to know Alan Ansen in New York City. For a while, he spent quite a bit of time with us in Ginsberg’s apartment. Allen used to get disgusted with him because he would come in—a couple of times he did this—he came in and he had picked up a couple of sailors, and everyone was uncomfortable. When you walked into Allen’s apartment there wasn’t any place to go. You were just kind of stuck there with whoever happened to walk in. Allen Ginsberg got a little disgusted with Alan’s antics. He would get a little far-out sometimes and push things a little too far. It was like he was doing things that were totally unnecessary. We were all well aware of what was happening, and it wasn’t really necessary to show us all what he was up to—to throw everything in our face. But that was kind of his way—he just liked to shock. At least that’s the way it seemed to me. Maybe that wasn’t his intention at all—maybe that was his total personality. I have no idea. But when Al Hinkle went to Greece recently, he stopped to see Alan, and he told me he couldn’t be with Alan too long. Al told me that he was still the same. “He kind of overwhelms you,” Al said, and that’s just how I remember Alan Ansen—that you can’t take him for too long a period.
When we got to his aunt’s house, she was totally unprepared for us, and she didn’t make any bones about it. Alan took her in the other room to tell her that we were staying, and she was saying, “Please get those tramps out of this house immediately!” Alan replied, “Go fuck yourself!” I will say, he was equally as open with her as he was with the people on the street. He wasn’t having any two ways about it—he told her, “They’re staying, and that’s it!” Jack and Allen Ginsberg were reassuring Neal and I, you know, “It’s all right—he runs the place,” and blah blah blah! In other words: “Don’t worry about it.”
So we all went upstairs, and God, we spent hours up there drinking. In fact, I even called San Francisco from his house. I have no idea what his aunt must have thought after that—long-distance phone calls on her phone bill. We all got loaded, and Neal and I got into a horrible fight and had this mad wrestling match in her hall. He knocked me down; but no sooner did I hit the floor than he fell down and started kissing me. It was like something out of the movies. Everyone was loaded; everyone was really drunk, and totally out of line. Alan Ansen put some operatic music on, and he was singing the soprano while I was trying to sing the bass. Anyway, just nonsensical things, but we had a fantastic time. It was quite a night.
Jack and I took a bath together while we were there. I was desperate to take a bath, because there was no place to take a bath at Allen Ginsberg’s apartment. I went into Ansen’s bathroom, and Neal was gonna take a bath with me, but then he got involved with Ansen or something. I wound up in the bathtub by myself, and then a few minutes later Jack came in. Jack decided he was gonna take a bath too, so we took a bath together. Which was it, we just took a bath—nothing else.
On that second trip to New York, Jack and I were starting to become involved with each other—not as lovers, but as persons. It began at that New Year’s Eve party that John Holmes wrote about in Go. I was already starting to lose track of Neal—he was always busy doing something. Neal had run off with that girl that Jack liked, and I never found out what happened. Jack and I became dancers that particular night; and ever after that, we would dance together every opportunity we had—as long as we were loaded. You see, Jack didn’t dance, and I wasn’t the world’s greatest; but when we danced together, when we were loaded, I swear to you that we became the most fantastic dancers.
Jack Kerouac “Nijinsky dancing” with unknown woman, Lowell, Massachusetts, 1962. (Photo by William Koumantzelis.)
Jack would throw me up in the air and catch me. I became the most graceful person in the world. Yeah, I was a ballet star, and he was a Nijinsky! We were fantastic together! He loved it, and so did I, because our confidence used to soar when we danced like that. We didn’t care who was watching. Jack, as everyone knows, was no extrovert in that respect; and believe me, neither have I ever been. I never want to be the center of attraction anywhere. In a group, a room full of people, I just want to sit back and listen. But in that respect, Jack and I would become extroverts, and happily, when we danced. We just thought we were so good. In fact, this dancing bit became like a little secret between the two of us. We really knew how great we were, and we didn’t care where we were. When we got loaded, and Jack would ask me to dance, we’d just start doing the Nijinsky moves all over again. We really did it, and it was like the world disappeared. That’s something I’ve never told anybody.
I don’t know if there was a secret desire in both of us that we could really dance as well as we thought we were dancing, and I don’t know to this day if we were as good as we thought we were when we were together—or if it was all in our heads. People always talked about how awkward Jack was; and when it came to real dancing, traditional dancing, Jack could barely get by. I mean, he’d do a one-two, one-two type of thing—if anything. That’s what was so fantastic about his suddenly turning into Nijinsky that night, at the New Year’s Eve party. It was as though the world melted away for us, and we just became the only two people there. The really fantastic twists and turns and bending me back—and swirling me around like we were on the huge floor of a ballroom—it was always like that with us, from the first time we danced to
the very last. Whenever everybody was busy and we were loaded and there was music on, we just sort of melted into a dance. Whether anybody really paid attention to us—or whether they thought, Oh, Jack and Lu Anne are dancing again! and ignored us—I really don’t know. But I do know, in our heads, we thought we were Astaire and Rogers! And as we saw it, we really were.
A lot of what happened after that night is a blur to me. The day after the party, Neal found this couple somewhere, and they had some opium. None of us had ever heard of opium—smoking opium—except maybe in the movies. Of course, everyone smoked marijuana, which was a big thing then, especially among the hipsters in New York. But opium, my God! Anyway, he dragged this couple up to the apartment, and we smoked opium with them—Jack, Allen, Neal, and myself. That was the first and only time I ever smoked opium. I really don’t remember much about what happened to Neal or the others, or what anyone was doing, after we smoked it.
Jack Kerouac and Hal Chase, Columbia University, circa 1944. (Photo by John Kingsland.)
PART FOUR
Tensions built up quickly in the new year, 1949. Carolyn was virtually destitute with her new baby in San Francisco, and since no one else had any money to send her, Jack mailed her $18. Harcourt, Brace continued to delay in making a decision about Jack’s novel, and he wrote in his journal about having to fight off vague thoughts of killing himself. Ginsberg, doubtless frustrated that he now had two major female rivals for Neal’s love, grew pompous and scornful as he warned Neal about “driving his shiny car through the night for nothing.” For his part, Neal grew increasingly uneasy about the close rapport that was developing between Lu Anne and Jack. Hinkle recalled that Neal began deliberately pushing Jack into Lu Anne’s arms, knowing that the more he pushed, the more awkward Jack would feel, and thus the more unlikely it would be that a real romance would occur between them.
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