Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (11 page)

It is this, “dear” Allen . . . (you see? but you don't have to see any more, we have dead eyes now, we'll be quiet)—

Neal is coming to New York.

Neal is coming to New York.

Neal is coming to New York for New Year's Eve.

Neal is coming to New York for New Year's Eve.

Neal is coming to New York for New Year's Eve in a '49 Hudson.

etc. . . . in a '49 Hudson.

I have almost real reason to perhaps almost believe that he stole the car, but I don't know.

The facts: last Wednesday, Dec. 15, he long-distanced me from San Fran, and I heard his mad Western excited voice over the phone. “Yes, yes, it's Neal, you see . . . I'm calling you, see. I've got a '49 Hudson.”

Etc . . . I said: “And what are you going to do?”

He says “That's what I was going to say now. To save you the hitch-hiking trip out to the Coast, see, I will break in my new car, drive to New York, test it, see, and we will run back to Frisco as soon as possible, see, and then run back to Arizona to work on the railroads. I have jobs for us, see. Do you hear me, man?”

“I hear you, I hear you, see.”

“See. Al Hinkle is with me in the phone booth. Al is coming with me, he wants to go to New York. I will need him, see, to help me jack up the car in case I get a flat or in case I get stuck, see, a real helper and pal, see.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“You remember Al?”

“The cop's son? Sure.”

“Who? What's that Jack?”

“The cop's son. The officer's son.”

“Oh yes, Oh yes . . . I see, I see,—the copson. Oh yes. That's Al, that's right, you're perfectly right, that Al, the copson from Denver, that's right man, see.”

Confusion.

Then—“I need money. I owe $200 but if I can hold off the people I owe it to, see, by telling them or perhaps by giving them $10 or so to hold them off. And then I need money for Carolyn to live on while I'm gone, see . . .”

“I can send you fifty bucks,” I said.

“Fifteen?”

“No fifty dollars.”

“Allright allright fine. See.” And so on. “I can use it for Carolyn, and to hold off these people I'm in debt . . . and my landlord. Also I have another week's work left on the railroad so I'll make it. It's perfect see. Reason why I call is because my typewriter broke down, and it's being traced (sic! I'm only exaggerating here)—and I can't write letters, so I called.”

Anyway, how crazy it was. So I agreed to all our new plans, of course; I had been writing him asking him to go to sea, but this is better we both agreed, more pay, too. $350 a month. And Arizona, see. He says he traded in his Ford and all his savings for the '49 Hudson. That car is the greatest in the country, in case you don't know. We talked about it more than anything else.

But come Saturday, and I'm in New York with Pauline my love, and Neal calls up again and beseeches my mother to warn me not to send the money to him in name but in another name he would mail me, and another address. I had, however, already sent the money to him airmail registered . . . but only $10, I couldn't make my mad happy miscalculation of the phone. My mother's report included a certain remark he seemed to have made without connection, viz., “I ain't there.” (?)

Unless he means 160 Alpine Terrace, or something.
³²

Secondly, when I sent him the $10 I asked him to pick me and my Maw up in North Carolina on his way East, so we could use the money saved to our advantage and to return to Frisco and Arizona. He agreed to this with my mother over the phone, altho he mentioned going to Chicago too, which is pretty far North off the Carolina course. But he apparently will do that . . . both.

I know nothing. If he stole the car, or what's with Carolyn, or his landlord, or something, or debtors (creditors?), and what's with the cops, or that phony address he wanted to send me. All I know is that he is tremendously excited about the car, and that “He's off,” of course.

So I expect to see him in North Carolina around the 29th of December, and we will be back in New York for New Year's Eve, and of course you're going to begin right now arranging a big BIG party in your York Ave. place for New Year's Eve inviting everybody . . . especially [Ed] Stringham and Holmes, etc. We will rotate the party to the Holmeses and your place and Ed's and Lucien's and then Harlem after-hours or anything, in our big car. Invite a select group—Ed Stringham, the Holmeses (I will have Pauline), and of course Lou and Babala [Barbara Hale]; and Herb Benjamin for tea and for kicks. I will try to get Adele [Morales]
³³
for Neal.

However, if you wish, don't arrange anything, inasmuch as
it is no longer necessary
to arrange things anymore; we have changed. Use your judgment. Meet me at Kazin's Wednesday night and we'll talk. On the other hand no, meet me at Tartak's at 4 Monday afternoon (today if you get the letter Mon.)

If . . . well, to hell with it. That's it,

Jack

 

P.S. You may not believe this but as I write, a little child is looking over my shoulder . . . a real little child who is visiting us with his aunt, and who is amazed because I type so fast. Now what that little child is thinking is it, see.

Allen Ginsberg [Paterson, New Jersey] to
Jack Kerouac [n.p., New York, New York?]

ca.
December 1948

 

Dear Mistah Krerouch:

When you scream over the telephone I first begin to recognize your voice. Isn't it you? You never heard me scream over the phone. That is why I sit here in Paterson and rock back and forth on my heels masturbating and crying to god.

[ . . . ]

Years ago when you saw people as godlike—if you truly did—I had no idea that such a thing was possible. I have only to believe you and you dare not lie. Did [Hal] Chase and you actually have
the
vision (not mine) but
the
? If so “I bow to my offended heart / Until it pardon me.” (W. B. Yeats). I will say in my defense that I do confuse the claw with the godly hand. You want me to change; I also want to change. That is why I speak of the gate of wrath—my own coming shame.

I shall feel shame for all that you accuse me of truly. My heart leaps up for wrathful joy when you say that you are sick of me—my ego. I wish you were and were not afraid to show it. This gives you complete freedom henceforth.

Don't you know why I wanted you to beat me up in the subway? O Jack . . . Shame!

For Bill and his white leer you must be gentle, as he is not yet ready . . . I am not either, perhaps, that is why you contradict your hatred. I hate you for the same things in you where my suspicious mind fancies they exist.

I am nowhere near going mad. I must sooner or later; at that time there may be a temporary rupture between us. You realize that it works both ways?

When we were talking before [John Clellon] Holmes, didn't it sound to him as if we didn't know each other at all? Didn't we sound naive? Were we? Yes and no.

I and Bill made you geekish in the name of something else. True. Also, you couldn't have been made so if you were not already a fallen angel. Blake accuses us (me particularly) of the “wish to lead others when we should be led.”

The tightrope you speak of is what I live on. Anyone can give me a push either way. You and Bill help steady me, Lucien once and a while gives me a push off, so does the rest of the world. People like Van Doren and Weitzner
³⁴
and W. Shakespeare tell me to realize I'm really on one and get over to the other side . . . or something. They don't insist on pushing me though. They just make it so obvious to me where I am. Chase also. He must be wise.

“IF my book doesn't sell, what can I do” that paragraph about the tightrope was true . . . you were speaking and seeing the truth. Even if you sold your book would that change anything now? The abyss is more real than present flesh or future fancy. What should you do?

“To find the western path . . .” or, apropos, not really so clear, though a poem: mine. I wrote 3 poems over the weekend.

Can you believe me when I say my heart has been broken? My very heart, center of my existence. (What's to come is still unsure.)

No, I don't hate Neal; perhaps I really love him—basically we are all angels. I would rather be hated, than hate. I am afraid to hate. Maybe my shame is that I really hate him—you—Chase—Carr etc.

I once had a talk with Joe May
³⁵
about the Broken Heart. Told me I was too young—when I was 18-19 all you want to do is fuck. Then go fuck. You're free. Stop worrying I tell you.

I didn't mean to send you a picture as a lesson—though I hoped that all signs from god should be exchanged for their instructive value. I didn't send it out of contempt.

I don't really hate you. Love takes many forms. I mean, I, too believe in shelter from the cold, painless dentistry.

Believe me, if you compromise yourself on my account you are making a mistake. I realize how difficult it is for you to act sincerely to me because that involves so many conflicting rages. At the same time perhaps I was more surprised than you when I realized (in our conversation at Barbara [Hale]'s) that you were imitating me. For I have always felt that the other way around. I thought I was being “gleeful” like you. So you see it is a comedy of errors as usual. Pardon the silly tone of the above, but you must see, and I must see, that we are both being hypocritical. By an old mathematical law that makes us the same at bottom. We should amend our ways. Would you like to have it out with me violently? I should welcome that in the next few weeks. This is something you (at Harlem) spoke to me of, and I evaded; another time perhaps I spoke to you. Why don't we take time out next time we meet and be honest, if possible, without compromising. I used to fear your glare of disgust. I still do, but then it was a fear of the unknown, the inconceivable. Now it is conceivable and welcome. However I won't take it lying down. I may scream and shout.

I am a cosmic queer, that's true; if you only knew what an isolated existence that exiles me to in comparison with your moderately healthy outlook in the universe.

Don't you see we both suffer? Yes, of course you do. That really is the basis of our “friendship.” The secret knowledge of reciprocal depths—of hatred perhaps, but suffering and loneliness. That is why we are so tenderly hypocritical. That's what I liked about Neal. He knew. That's why also breaches of the unknown are good, are a good.

Come what may we will get our just deserts, from each other and the world. Nothing can be lost, nothing can be saved. So we must or I must not fear the unknown.

Let us be brothers from now on. You be my big brother. I am your little brother just out of college.

The abyss
: you wonder, what if all your novel came to naught.

My poetry has in my deepest and surest knowledge come to naught—has come. I have been aware of that for ½ year. I cannot turn to it now for consolation except the merest vain and transitory security which disappears in an hour, and I also have begun to accept that. My rock, if I have one, is elsewhere now. It is just as well.

Have you read W. B. Yeats' poesy? I will give you the book for a temporary present this Xmas. I have studied him and he knows all the problems. You might enjoy reading him. Say no if it bores you. He has a voice like an echo chamber.

And others, others are there. Mr. Jethro Robinson, whom you will remember as a friend of Lucien and R. Weitzner in Colorado Springs now, has been writing a novel. He recently published a small pamphlet self printed—sonnets and other poems—he sells them himself at a dollar each. They are so wise they make me shudder jealously. Some of them are as good as Shakespeare—the secret of the open sea he knows. I sent for his pamphlet. I enclose the letter I sent him. See the undertone of despair and irony that old man Allen has in the version II I sent. I wrote it out on the paper you see, and copied it on a clean sheet to send him. Funny.

My next poem is entitled (curtsey)

 

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