John Crace lights another cigarette and rouses himself to cut Kerouac's lost Beat novella to 600 words
"America isn't the same any more." Mr Martin drew on his cigar. "It's a pesthole for every crummy race. Jews! Niggers! Wops! What chance does a real American have?" Peter lit a cigarette, imagining he was in a New York jazz club. Anywhere rather than small town Galloway, Massachusetts.
"What happened to Wesley?" he asked his Aunt Marie.
"Hush now," she said. "Don't talk of your brother in front of your father. He left home with a girl 10 years ago and become an insurance salesman. He's never been seen again."
Peter lit another cigarette. His family were like some indescribable creatures from Mars that he couldn't quite describe. How he yearned to be deep! To be as free as Thoreau! In the distance, a train whistled and an owl lit a cigarette.
A voice called up to his bedroom window as he was rearranging his Benny Goodman records. It was Garabed.
"What are you doing?"
Peter lit a cigarette. "Writing poetry, translating Dostoyevsky, channelling Thomas Wolfe, composing some free-form jazz. The usual kind of thing."
"Well how about we do something really wild. Like go walking into town. Maybe take in a Coca-Cola and talk to some girls along the way?"
It had been a cool, balmy evening. He and Garabed had had profound insights into the possibility of the war in Europe spreading to America, the novels of William Saroyan and had even talked in French for a while. Yet Peter had been left dissatisfied. He lit a cigarette. He was beyond Garabed's bucolic lollings, from which Delos rose and Phoebus sprung. He was on the cusp of adulthood.
Peter continued walking through the night, stopping only to buy more cigarettes and to tell the wide-loined Eleanor he was too busy to talk to her.
"What are you doing, you crazy bastard?" yelled Socko, through the silent night air that hung heavy with the significance of things that might be significant.
"Walking."
By nine the next morning, Peter finally felt beat out. He walked home past some workmen, poured himself a glass of lemonade and lit a cigarette. What was his destiny? Was it to be an Arabian poet?
Dick dropped by just before noon as Aunt Marie prepared a late brunch of eggs-over-easy with cigarettes. "We gotta get out of Galloway," Dick said. "Why don't we join the army? My pa says that the US is sending a lot of troops out to the Philippines. Just think of all those great beaches in the South Pacific."
Peter drew lazily on a cigarette and said nothing, thinking instead of Goethe and Walt Whitman. Life was simple for Dick. His choices were limited to playing chess in the park or joining the army. He couldn't comprehend what it meant to be a college track star and a poet in a world that was about to change for ever. The momentousness of Peter's thoughts crushed him. It was as if he had the whole weight of Shakespeare's complete works along with the piano sonatas of Beethoven on his shoulders.
"There's a war coming," he whispered eventually.
"You can't say that for sure," said Dick.
"I think I can," Peter replied, safe in the knowledge that this was actually being written two years after Pearl Harbor.
Downstairs he could hear his father betting on a horserace. He had no time for such cheerless, suburban ratiocination. He needed to go On the Road. Not just any Road, but The Road.
"So what Road will you go on?" Aunt Marie asked.
"I thought I would start with the Galloway ringroad."
"That's a good idea. You don't want to go too far from home. You know how you miss my pancakes when you're away."
Peter smoked another cigarette and hid his diary under his bed. He shuddered with embarrassment at the thought of anyone reading his juvenile ramblings long after he had died.
"Your tea is ready," cried Aunt Marie.
Digested read, digested: Previously unpublished. For a good reason.
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