Book of Sketches

by Jack Kerouac

  regardant reclines

  to continue the day

  in the breeze &

  sweetness, clear

  time opes around

  him, unperturbed he

  flicks his sore ear &

  mulls, rumes, moons,

  mokes, mulges with

  himself the long

  dread afternoon that

  old humans kill with

  beer or cubab —

  the honest innocent

  clean all suffering

  cat, no kicks or

  drugs available his

  supple sad body,

  just lies there

  waiting for the

  end of his 9 years

  or 5 years — waiting

  without comment,

  complaint or companion

  — licking

  his fur in the bleak,

  with no expression —

  listening, pricking,

  watching, waiting,

  cleaning himself for

  the Day of the Lord

  O Smart Not

  Crazy!

  Saturday Afternoon Window

  Bugle bubble blower —

  freckled kid bubbling —

  Sad lill blue yellow

  rubber wallet —

  Bldg. blocks half inch

  thick — “Junior Architects”

  bldgs blocks —

  Star Stamper,

  lill girl stamping *’s

  Lil pickaninny penny

  dolls with safety pin,

  cloth, lil red cherry lips

  in black face — Lil

  plastic bulldozers —

  Tiny Tim bicycles —

  Nickles Dimes Quarters

  Amt. Dep. cash register

  plastic black —

  Nameless old halloween

  fluff papers — baby

  carriages big as yr thumb —

  Lil boy in jeans &

  stripe jersey whistles

  Pop Goes Weasel

  at this window — Plastic

  tiny oldtime locomotive, —

  — Bronx prrt’ers

  saying Japan —

  Plastic bags of

  dull samesize marbles —

  Sad goggles with garter

  holders & canvas —

  Play money $25,000 bills

  — ray guns — rubber

  guns — big

  pearl handle champ

  guns — rubber cigars —

  rings with monkey

  on face — Italian

  tenor singin somewhere —

  Rubber Knives — (black

  handle silver blade)

  Solar Commando Gun

  with Darts —

  Handcuffs of little

  tin & boy

  policemen with

  captain badge &

  whistle — Sad

  plastic flesh pale

  lil doll falling back

  naked in a brown

  paper box with

  a tiny mouth

  harmonica “Robin”

  — Fishing hooks,

  “You land the big

  ones every time with

  Ole’s Genuine

  Fishing hooks fashioned

  by experts of

  Finest tempered

  steel, specially imported”

  — Plastic

  lil Space Ship, &

  imitation lead Space

  men — Jump ropes

  with red wood

  grips —

  Expensive Nin toy

  dish set — cups

  & saucers, spoons,

  with sad lil yellow

  designs braided on —

  Tiny pushdown

  tops priced in

  black 19¢

  & shows lil boy

  kneeling in toy

  colors in lost

  void —

  Volga Inn Music

  Ez tu p a va

  tez - tomata

  - tomata —

  Ami topy oll

  mayay —

  Ena oo ee

  Peñooti ma

  ya govin

  Oora pey

  (Meanwhile night in

  its October form soft

  as Indian silk

  slink in the door

  dark, glitters of

  New York night be

  saddening & showing

  where leaves do

  jiggle & bloss bluff

  on boughs’ come Autumn

  “dominant” doom

  — King Size

  first in Sales!

  First in Quality!

  First in Good Taste,

  — there’s yr iron

  bars of the park

  shine shadowing on

  the cobbles of

  the oldworld tired

  street — There’s

  the halo lamp

  making seen the

  goldhair backnapes

  of Jacky O Hara’s

  bestlastfirst

  doll — Minnie

  Gallagher —

  & that sensation

  in the pricking gut,

  of winter, rivers,

  ships, aye ye

  green city &

  grand land onrolling

  it —

  Hail Hail the

  Gang’s all Here,

  in Polka, bruits

  in the juke —

  oonyateez tey

  ayetez with

  muddy boots’ been

  done

  3rd Ave Bar

  4 PM the men

  are all roaring like

  the EL in clink

  bonk glass brassfoot

  barrail ’where ya

  goin’ excitement —

  October’s in the

  air, is the Indian

  Summer sun of door

  — 2 executive

  salesmen who been

  workin all day

  long come in

  young, welldressed,

  justsuits, puffing

  cigars, glad to

  have the day done

  & the drink comin

  in, side by side

  march in smiling

  but there’s no

  room at the roaring

  (Shit!) crowded

  bar so they stand

  2 deep from it

  waiting & smiling

  & talking —

  Men do love bars &

  good bars shd. be

  loved — It’s full

  of businessmen,

  workmen, Finn

  MacCools of Time

  — beoveralled

  oldgray topers dirty

  & beerswiggin glad

  — nameless truck

  busdrivers with

  flashlites slung

  from hips — old

  beatfaced beerswallowers

  sadly upraising

  purple lips to happy

  drinking ceilings —

  Bartenders are fast,

  courteous, interested in

  their work as well

  as clientele — Dublin

  at 4 30 PM when

  the work is done,

  but this is great

  NY, great 3rd

  Avenue, free lunch,

  smells of Moody

  St exhaust river

  lunch in road

  of frime by-

  smashing

  the door, guitarplaying

  long sideburned heroes

  smell out there

  on wood doorsteps

  of afternoon drowse

  — but it’s N.Y.,

  towers rise beyond,

  voices crash

  mangle to talk

  & chew the

  gossip till Earwicker

  drops his load —

  Ah Jack Fitzgerald

  Mighty

  Murphy
where are

  you? — semi bald

  blue shirt tattered

  shovellers in broken

  end dungarees

  fisting glasses of

  glisterglass foam

  top brownafternoon

  beer — The El

  smashes by as

  man in homburg

  in vest but coatless

  executive changes

  from right to

  left foot on ye

  brass rail —

  Colored man in

  hat, dignified, young,

  paper underarm,

  says goodbye leaning

  over men at bar

  warm & paternal

  — elevator operator

  around the corner —

  & wasnt this

  where they say

  Novak the real

  estater who used

  to stay up late

  a-nights linefaced

  to become right

  & rich

  in his little white

  worm cellule of

  the night typing

  up reports & letting

  wife & kids go mad

  at home at ll

  PM — ambitious,

  worried, in a little

  office of the Island

  right on the street

  undignified but open

  to all business &

  in infancy any

  business can be

  small as

  ambition’s big —

  pushing how many

  daisies now? &

  never made his million,

  never had a drink

  with So Long GeeGee

  & I Love You Too

  in this Late afternoon

  beer room of

  men excited

  shifting stools &

  footbottom rail

  scuffle heel

  soles —

  Never called Old

  Glasses over & offered

  his rim red nose

  a drink — never

  laught & let the

  fly his nose use

  as a landing mark

  — but ulcerated

  in the middle of

  the night to be

  rich & get his

  family the best

  — so the best

  American sod’s

  his blanket now,

  made in upper

  mills of Hudson

  Bay Moonface

  Sassenach &

  carted down by

  housepainters in

  white coveralls

  (silent) to rim

  the roam of his

  once formed

  flesh, & let

  worms ram —

  Rim!

  So have another

  beer, topers —

  Bloody mugglers! Lovers!

  Crazy Old

  Homehouse of

  the Sea

  & Drowse Afternoon

  At 28th St

  & East River

  — the great

  seagoable hull

  of iron is mossed,

  in green at the forever

  water line — The anchor’s

  unrusted, gray, white

  bars, balls — unused

  — Ah the

  wood sides & hall

  windows & Navy

  contests inside —

  the dormitory row

  of it! — the

  madhouse barnacled

  paint fleckchip’t

  gull shadowed

  bulk huge of it!

  the pissing shovel

  scupper — voices

  in the helm, ghosts

  of Billy Budd, old

  EastSide dreams,

  the blue Navy

  flag — the

  side doors & open

  Dawiovts

  Handel French

  joywindows of

  winter it!

  — preliminary

  worrying draft &

  study of it!

  Something sad, Whitmanian

  & Navy-like —

  gulls — that same

  afternoon hotdrowse

  of gulls & slapwater

  dream I noticed

  in 1951 getting sea

  papers & 1942

  too — the Melvillean

  youth dreaming in

  sea pants, at

  his clerical dockside

  work — with night

  to come — the

  Turkish bath madnight

  & cunts

  in parks — The

  house where all

  the sad eyed

  Okie sailorboys

  in T Shirts

  madly sleep

  — The long

  dream eternity and

  afternoon madhouse

  solemnity of it!

  — the long planks

  & Colonial windows

  on the actual water

  of the living

  (When the H bomb

  finally hit NY

  one afternoon the

  first living act I

  saw was a man

  surreptitiously pissing

  while lying on his

  side)

  Dream Sketch

  Some doctor is talking

  to us about the guy

  who broke his leg

  clean in half —

  we’ve just seen

  him hobbling around

  with a curious limp,

  some old guy not

  Neal — “He’ll

  walk alright in a

  few months but

  come 55 & 60 &

  it’ll reappear &

  be pronounced —

  the nerve is

  affected when you

  snap yr leg clean

  in half like that!”

  — I think of

  Neal & the hobble

  he’ll have at 55

  Paradise Alley

  October in the

  wash hung court —

  wash pieces flip & kick

  in the cool breeze,

  on the radio’s the

  excited World Series

  voice & the name

  Ally Reynolds

  (secretly smiling Indian

  padding back to

  dugout) —

  airplane drone above

  in the buzzing world

  afternoon of Lower

  East Side — someone

  whistling — hone buzz

  hum of Vibratos Manhattoes

  in Million

  blowers humming in

  the Void Wait Time

  — kids battering, yelling

  — a little red wagon

  hung from a hook —

  a moan, nameless

  speetz, the rack of

  French blinds being

  pulled — October in the

  Poolhall, the clack of

  a sodapop box no

  balls click till big

  dense swarmnight —

  all this so well &

  good — Somewhere a

  motor straining —

  nylons waving — a

  crazy inside-deep

  high thin Porto Rican

  monkey rapid

  woman chat blattering

  “Yera mera quien

  te tse que seta . . .”

  Too independent to go

  be begging at

  anybody’s ports

  for more than a

  month

  Plucking at

  Her ha! — harpstring

  To whom rapture

  means

  rupture

  Oct 13 1953

  Applied for job at

  Jersey Central — offered

  ground switchman

  job, stand in cold

  winter lining

>   switches & sending

  kicked or humped

  cars rolling down

  various tracks — bleak

  — healthy —

  $100 every half —

  4, 5 days a

  week — Plenty kicks

  with Mardou, plenty

  jazz, wood for

  fireplace & dig the

  big NY this winter —

  Spectral Ole

  Jersey Central is

  like the SP

  at 3rd & Townsend,

  right on water where

  rail meets river —

  sea actually —

  now I have coffee

  in JCRR lunchroom

  & remember 1951

  Xmas the Harding

  at Am Pres Lines

  Pier — etc. —

  A barge graveyard

  outside J Central

  yards — NY Skyline

  of Wall St high &

  serene in pristine

  October afternoon —

  October sits

  golden on the

  iron old wood &

  white gulled

  rivers — The

  Statue of Liberty her

  weatherbeaten green

  beak close looming

  over sunk barges,

  pier, masts, in

  spokeless blue —

  ferns ghost swiftly

  in the channel —

  excursion lowboats —

  This old barge teeters

  at angle, abandoned

  coverless stove, stovepipe

  still in, still a lot

  of dry dust coal,

  table, colorlost

  chair — the barge’s

  bottom is sunken

  mosquito hive &

  tenement of beams

  bird limed &

  boards flowing in

  tarn, the tenement

  of gulls!

  unspeakable hidden

  home, they all

  flap flocked when

  they heard me

  crank up the board

  plank — Big

  iron black bits

  still solid in barge

  deck — The broken

  barge deckhouse is

  like shacks under

  Denver viaduct last

  summer — instead of

  weeds, tarns of

  green bilge slime

  & one old soaked

  mattress of gray

  — chick gug gug

  Keree Keree of

  some crane motor

  nearby, insistent calls

  of tugs — I saw

  shrouds freighters

  standing in the Bay

  — harbor — The

  S of L, her back,

  her torch upheld

  to a smoky uncaring

  strife torn waterfront

  striking Brooklyn —

  Barnacled gulled

  piers standing in

  low water as the

  old piles of

  ancient Princeton

  Blvd Lost Generation

  roadhouses with river

  porch dancefloors &

  oldtime lamps with

  tassels & beer of

  yore — October’s