For Writers on the Road class with the very funny Eric May. Amazing teacher.
(1st draft, of course)
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He's been following me since I was 15.
You'd think that schmuck would find something better to do, but I probably won't shake him any time soon. I've gone back a forth and few times on how much I actually like the guy, regardless of how much influence he's been on me. I mean, following me around since I was 15, there's no small amount of influence, but still, it's not like I'm entirely comfortable with this been stalked this many years...who the fuck is Jack Kerouac and why does he follow me everywhere I go?
My best friend is this feller named Sean who I first met my sophomore year in high school. After we established that we both were bone-sucking bored with the Classics and read on the periphery, if not right out over the edge he suggested I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I said sure, and already establishing a pattern, bought the book and left it to sit on the shelf for a few months before even sampling. Like a fine wine that you leave for a time before drinking. When I tried out The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, I first met Jack. At that point, he wasn't in such good shape, nor really any hip disposition. As I recall, the scene wasn't pretty. I didn't really care for Jack when I met him. Alcoholic, bitter, resentful, intolerant.
I learned a lot more about him--how could I not with him following me?--over the ensuing years, and understood all four of those conditions and would forgive him three, but first impression really are indelible. And having made the journey so far with the Pranksters--hmmmmmmmmmmmm--suddenly running into a living myth and finding him so fucking dour--the most apt word really would be "bummer"--that first image never left me.
After the Acid Tests, the bus ride, and Graduation with the Pranksters, I went On the Road the first time (I'd made more than a few hundred miles of travels already in my life by then). That first read I got about halfway along--Jack...ehem...yeah, Sal...Sal was hung up in California and it was getting mopey again so I gave up and came back home. That was the year I went to Atlanta for the summer again and started meeting some gawd-damned freaks. That was the summer I met another influence, one that Jack didn't quite approve of. No matter. Just because a feller dogs your path for years doesn't give him any soapbox to dictate his morals on another.
I guess I could associate this new acquaintance with the Grateful Dead. I met them through the Electric Kool-Aid, too, but our relationship was much different than the one I had with my stalker, Jack Kerouac.
It went from there. Allen Ginsberg showed up in Mobile, Alabama to perform and we ended up talking over red beans and rice afterwards, then slip off from his university hosts to share a smoke and he pointed out the FBI offices in an iconic building in Mobile where I'd end up working in radio a few years down the road...
Ginsberg on several occasions, Wavy Gravy a couple of times. The Pranksters themselves at an Oregon County Fair. And many many miles of standing at the side of the road and waiting for the next ride.
Jack was there with me every mile. Every weird encounter. Every ride and trip along the way.
My first really good story--"Flashcut"--opens with the luring highway Jack rode with Neal driving..."It was all heat and flash," the story opens, "That weekend I stole my sister's boyfriend, we killed my parents, and hit the road."
The story was inspired by the girl who taught me to hitchhike (what, did you think there's nothing to it? just go stand on the side of the road and stick out your thumb? that's novice thinking, there's a range of subtleties to learn about hitchhiking); Jenny was certainly not unencumbered by knowing Jack either. Did I really know anyone who wasn't?
I thought I shook him after that. Stopped traveling by thumb. Settled in a bit. I thought I'd finally shaken off Jack.
In Boulder, Colorado. Running into Allen Ginsberg. And the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poets. Yeah, sure, I had shaken Jack.
By that point, I'd grown to kinda like the guy. He wrote some damn fine haiku, that's for sure, new style, really... American haiku. I'd come to understand why he was bitter and dour and resentful. Always being ripped apart by critics. Falling into your own mythological bullshit. Pushed in when you try to get out. Poor schmuck. I feel for him.
Recently I went hitchhiking in a short story and was picked up by Sal and Dean. Quite a journey we had. Carlo told me all over again that there are "no ideas but in things" (a Walter Carlos Williams quote), and then the three of them dropped me off by in some fictional childhood and before I realized it, the story became my first professional sale.
It's irony poisoning, really. He was there in the earliest true(ly) weird book I ever read. He was there two dozen stories in with my first sale. Full circle motif and all that. Right back where it started. No matter how many times I turn around, there he is, right behind me.
Jack Kerouac has been following me since I was 15. It hasn't been the best relationship, but I think we've found each other to be pretty good friends.
So if you happen to see him around, tell him I said thank you.
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