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aunt. We
wondered what the kid was talking about. We asked him how far he was going;
he didn t
know. It was a big hoax; once upon a time, in some lost back-alley adventure,
he had
seen the grocery store in Dunn, and it was the first story that popped into
his disordered,
feverish mind. We bought him a hot dog, but Dean said we couldn t take him
along
because we needed room to sleep and room for hitchhikers who could buy a
little gas.
This was sad but true. We left him in Dunn at nightfall.
I drove through South Carolina and beyond Macon, Georgia, as Dean, Marylou,
and Ed
slept. All alone in the night I had my own thoughts and held the car to the
white line in
the holy road. What was I doing? Where was I going? I d soon find out. I got
dog-tired
beyond Macon and woke up Dean to resume. We got out of the car for air and
suddenly
both of us were stoned with joy to realize that in the darkness all around us
was fragrant
green grass and the smell of fresh manure and warm waters.  We re in the
South! We ve
left the winter! Faint daybreak illuminated green shoots by the side of the
road. I took a
deep breath; a locomotive howled across-the darkness, Mobile-bound. So were
we. I took
off my shirt and exulted. Ten miles down the road Dean drove into a
filling-station with
the motor off, noticed that the attendant was fast asleep at the desk, jumped
out, quietly
filled the gas tank, saw to it the bell didn t ring, and rolled off like an
Arab with a fivedollar
tankful of gas for our pilgrimage.
I slept and woke up to the crazy exultant sounds of music and Dean and
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Marylou talking
and the great green land rolling by.  Where are we?
 Just passed the tip of Florida, man Flomaton, it s called. Florida! We were
rolling
down to the coastal plain and Mobile; up ahead were great soaring clouds of
the Gulf of
Mexico. It was only thirty-two hours since we d said good-by to everybody in
the dirty
snows of the North. We stopped at a gas station, and there Dean and Marylou
played
piggyback around the tanks and Dunkel went inside and stole three packs of
cigarettes
without trying. We were fresh out. Rolling into Mobile over the long tidal
highway, we
all took our winter clothes off and enjoyed the Southern temperature. This
was when
Dean started telling his life story and when, beyond Mobile, he came upon an
obstruction
of wrangling cars at a crossroads and instead of slipping around them just
balled right
through the driveway of a gas station and went right on without relaxing his
steady
continental seventy. We left gaping faces behind us. He went right on with
his tale.  I tell
you it s true, I started at nine, with a girl called Milly Mayfair in back of
Rod s garage on
Grant Street same street Carlo lived on in Denver. That s when my father was
still
working at the smithy s a bit. I remember my aunt yelling out the window,
 What are you
doing down there in back of the garage? Oh honey Marylou, if I d only known
you then!
Wow! How sweet you musta been at nine. He tittered maniacally; he stuck his
finger in
her mouth and licked it; he took her hand and rubbed it over himself. She
just sat there,
smiling serenely.
Big long Ed Dunkel sat looking out the window, talking to himself.  Yes sir,
I thought I
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was a ghost that night. He was also wondering what Galatea Dunkel would say
to him in
New Orleans.
Dean went on.  One time I rode a freight from New Mexico clear to LA I was
eleven
years old, lost my father at a siding, we were all in a hobo jungle, I was
with a man called
Big Red, my father was out drunk in a boxcar it started to roll Big Red and I
missed
it I didn t see my father for months. I rode a long freight all the way to
California,
really flying, first-class freight, a desert Zipper. All the way I rode over
the couplings
you can imagine how dangerous, I was only a kid, I didn t know clutching a
loaf of
bread under one arm and the other hooked around the brake bar. This is no
story, this is
true. When I got to LA I was so starved for milk and cream I got a job in a
dairy and the
first thing I did I drank two quarts of heavy cream and puked.
 Poor Dean, said Marylou, and she kissed  him. He stared ahead proudly. He
loved her.
We were suddenly driving along the blue waters of the Gulf, and at the same
time a
momentous mad thing began on the radio; it was the Chicken Jazz n Gumbo
disk-jockey
show from New Orleans, all mad jazz records, colored records, with the disk
jockey
saying,  Don t worry  bout nothing! We saw New Orleans in the night ahead of
us with
joy. Dean rubbed his hands over the wheel.  Now we re going to get our
kicks! At dusk
we were coming into the humming streets of New Orleans.  Oh, smell the
people!
yelled Dean with his face out the window, sniffing.  Ah! God! Life! He swung
around a
trolley.  Yes! He darted the car and looked in every direction for girls.
 Look at her!
The air was so sweet in New Orleans it seemed to come in soft bandannas; and
you could
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smell the river and really smell the people, and mud, and mo lasses, and
every kind of
tropical exhalation with your nose suddenly removed from the dry ices of a
Northern
winter. We bounced in our seats.  And dig her! yelled Dean, pointing at
another woman.
 Oh, I love, love, love women! I think women are wonderful! I love women! He
spat
out the window; he groaned; he clutched his head. Great beads of sweat fell
from his
forehead from pure excitement and exhaustion.
We bounced the car up on the Algiers ferry and found our selves crossing the
Mississippi
River by boat.  Now we must all get out and dig the river and the people and
smell the
world, said Dean, bustling with his sunglasses and cigarettes and leaping
out of the car
like a jack- in-the-box. We followed.
On rails we leaned and looked at the great brown father of waters rolling
down from mid-
America like the torrent of broken souls bearing Montana logs and Dakota muds
and
Iowa vales and things that had drowned in Three Forks, where the secret began
in ice.
Smoky New Orleans receded on one side; old, sleepy Algiers with its warped
woodsides
bumped us on the other. Negroes were working in the hot afternoon, stoking
the ferry
furnaces that burned red and made our tires smell. Dean dug them, hopping up
and down
in the heat. He rushed around the deck and upstairs with his baggy pants
hanging halfway
down his belly. Suddenly I saw him eagering on the flying bridge. I expected
him to take
off on wings. I heard his mad laugh all over the boat  Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!
Marylou
was with him. He covered everything in a jiffy, came back with the full
story, jumped in
the car just as everybody was tooting to go, and we slipped off, passing two
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or three cars
in a narrow space, and found ourselves darting through Algiers.
 Where? Where? Dean was yelling.
We decided first to clean up at a gas station and inquire for Bull s
whereabouts. Little [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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