Looking for Jack Kerouac Page 16

  We’d been invited for dinner at Jimmy’s and, when we got there, the house was full of the good smell of spaghetti sauce. Ginny’s Aunt Mary stopped stirring and stepped forward, a potholder in each hand, her cheeks flushed, to give us each a hug.

  “Jimmy tells me you’re doing a wonderful job at the restaurant,” she told me. “A high compliment from Mr. Perfection himself.”

  “Hey,” Jimmy said, coming into the kitchen. “I heard that.”

  Mary put one hand to her heart. “Oh, dear. I guess you didn’t know we all thought that about you. I’m so sorry.”

  “Ha.” He put his arm around her, gave her a quick kiss. “You know, she had that damn surgery just to get out of working with me for a while,” he says. “Too much pressure. She can’t hack it.”

  Mary swatted him with a potholder and pushed him away. “Sit” she said. “Let Ginny and me get dinner on the table.”

  It was nice feeling like part of a family, Mary and Jimmy talking about their days, asking Ginny and me about our afternoon on Shell Key. I should invite Dad and Bobby to come down to Pass-a-Grille for Thanksgiving, Mary said. Lo would be glad to make a place for them at The Palms.

  “Perfect,” Ginny said. “Paul’s calling his dad tonight. He can ask him then. You are calling him, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well?” she asked.

  Mary looked at me, then at Ginny. “For heaven’s sake, don’t be so darn bossy,” she said.

  “Me? Bossy?” Ginny asked.

  We all laughed.

  Ginny lent me her Bug to drive back to St. Pete; she’d hitch a ride to the Crab Shack with Jimmy in the morning. I could have called him from the pay phone at the Y, but I didn’t know how the call would go and if I got into an argument with dad or just plain broke down, I didn’t want Chuck, or anyone else, to be there. So I kept driving. Past Wolfie’s, past the library and Mirror Lake, past Haslam’s, the Tic Toc. I drove down to the darkened pier, then turned and took Central Avenue back over the bridge to the beach at Treasure Island, where I parked and walked out onto the sand.

  It was deserted. The concession shacks and tacky souvenir shops were closed, the row of lifeguard chairs along the shoreline, empty. I climbed up into one of them and sat, I don’t know how long, just looking out. Both sky and water were black, indivisible, the few bits of light I saw might have been the lights of ships moving toward some destination; they could have been stars.

  Call, I told myself. Get it over with. Go on from there.

  I climbed down, headed toward the phone booth I’d seen near the parking lot. It was late by then, nearly eleven. I remembered how Mom and Dad always stayed up to watch at least part of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, and I stood for a long moment in the dark booth, imagining the two of them on the couch in the living room, the low rise and fall of their voices mingling with the sound of the television I used to hear, drifting off to sleep.

  I put some coins in, took a deep breath, dialed.

  “Paul?” Dad said, before I spoke. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry I haven’t called before.”

  It was quiet for what seemed like an hour.

  “Dad—?”

  “I’m here,” he said, his voice breaking. “It’s just—I’ve been so worried about you, son. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Listen, I’m still in Florida. St. Petersburg. I’ve got a job. I’m staying at the Y.”

  “The boy you worked with at the mill—”

  “Duke. He took off for California a while back. I wanted to stay in one place for a while. I like it here, Dad. It’s so different from home. It’s really beautiful, and the ocean—”

  “Your mom always wanted to go back to Florida,” he said. “I wish—”

  “I know. Me, too. I miss her, too.”

  Then we were both crying—silently, the way we did when she died. Me hunched over in the phone booth, my face hidden to anyone who might be passing by.

  “How’s Bobby,” I asked, when I collected myself.

  “He’s had a tough time. But—” Dad’s voice brightened here. “He’s having a great season. There was a piece about him in the sports section last week. It was real good for him. And I think, playing the way he’s been, he’s getting some of that anger out of his system. He got his license, finally. He’s tooling around in your mom’s car. That’s good, too. ”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He always wanted his license, that’s for sure. It’s cool that he’s doing so well. Tell him I said it’s cool, okay?”

  “I’ll do that,” he said.

  He asked me about my job, and I told him all about the Crab Shack.

  “It’s good for now,” I said. “You know, until I figure out what I really want to do.”

  “Think you’ll settle there?” Dad asked. “In St. Pete?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve made some good friends. Plus, there’s a college here, and I’m thinking—”

  “Your mom had her heart set on college for you boys,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I was so quick to let you take the job at the mill—”

  “It’s okay, Dad. I didn’t have the heart for it then. I wasn’t ready.”

  Then he said, “Kathy came by again the other day. She asked if I thought she should wait for you to come back, and I told her no, she had her own life to live. We—talked.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “I’m really sorry you had to do that.”

  “Language,” he said, with a smile in his voice. “Listen, son. It was partly my fault, what happened. I should have been paying more attention. We’ll call it even, okay?”

  “I guess. Okay—and I’ll write her a letter. I think I can do that now.”

  “That would be a good thing,” he said.

  We talked about the Series, commiserated about the White Sox ending up just one game out in the pennant race. Second place, again.

  “Next year,” we said, like always.

  I promised I’d call every week from now on, and we said goodbye. I sat awhile on the bench in the phone booth, the receiver still in my hand—the sound of Dad’s voice echoing in my ears, the image of him alone in the living room in my mind’s eye—missing him and Bobby. Missing myself, with them.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I drove aimlessly for a while, then I got it in my head that touching base with Jack would somehow be like touching base with who I was before I took off with Duke to find him—and maybe give me some idea of what to do next.

  I hadn’t seen him since the last Series game we watched together, a few weeks before—and, even if I’d had the nerve to knock on the door and invite myself in for a visit, it was too late for that. My plan was to drive over to his house, sit outside, and just think for a while before going back to the Y. But when I parked and switched the engine off, the night was filled with the most beautiful music I’d ever heard, like a thousand angels singing. It was coming from Jack’s open windows and, before I knew it, I was out of the car, darting across the street, ducking into the unkempt shrubbery in his yard, where I crouched beneath his bedroom window, my heart pounding in my ears.

  When I calmed down, I heard the sound of typewriter keys tapping beneath the voices, the ding of the bell at the end of a line, the return of the carriage. Sometimes the typing was fast, sometimes slow; sometimes in terse combinations that sounded like Morse code, sometimes almost in rhythm with the music. Cigarette smoke drifted from the open window, mingling with the sharp scent of the cypress tree that towered over the little house.

  I thought of that night in Greenwich Village, barely a year ago, turning my back on Kathy and walking into what I saw now was the beginning of my real life. I saw the little bookshop. I saw myself picking up On the Road. I saw the words themselves, which sent me on the journey that had brought me to this hiding place beneath Jack Kerouac’s window listening to him write.

  I saw Duke that summer night at the mill, s
tanding before the Eddies, shouting up at the stars. If he were with me, he’d try to catch a glimpse of Jack through the open window—then run like hell if he saw us.

  I was glad to be alone. I wanted to leave Jack at peace with his words. It was enough just to listen to the music that the voices and his typewriter made together and wonder about the story coming to life beneath his fingers. My eyes grew heavy and, leaning against the house, I dozed off again and again, awakened each time when my head dropped to my chest.

  Then, suddenly, the yowling of a catfight jolted me fully awake. I could see them in the light of the moon: two huge cats going at each other like dervishes. Adrenaline coursed through me; I needed to get the hell out of there. Now. But a neighbor yelled at the cats through an open window and I was afraid he’d come out just when I emerged from beneath the bushes. So I stayed put.

  The neighbor did come out. He threw a bucket of water on the cats and they yowled one more time and disentangled themselves. One took off running to the back of the house, the other—Jack’s ginger cat—darted beneath the cypress tree, into the bushes, where she confronted me with angry meows.

  Jack’s front door banged, and I heard him calling in his low, whiskey voice. “Here, kitty, kitty.” He clicked his tongue on the top of his mouth. “Come on now.”

  The cat meowed back at him.

  Jack muttered something, sighed, and now I could see him heading toward the bushes where I was hiding. He parted the branches, prepared to scoop up the cat, which had by now jumped into my lap and pressed itself against my chest. Instinctively, I put my arms around her.

  “Whoa!” Jack said, his face within inches of mine.

  I scrambled up, nearly knocking him over. The cat leapt out of my arms and disappeared into the night. When we both caught our balance, we were face-to-face again, so close that I could smell the booze and cigarettes on his breath, the rank odor of perspiration and tobacco smoke in his clothes.

  He stepped back. “Paul?” he says. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Look, man, I’m sorry. Really. I’m sorry. I was…driving. I ended up here. And the music—” I waved toward the window. “I could hear you typing, so I just sat down under the tree so I could listen.”

  “You want to be a writer?” he asked, his voice weary. “Is that it?”

  “No,” I said. “No way.”

  He gave me a long look.

  “Seriously. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Ti-Jean?” Mamère stepped out onto the little cement porch, the lapels of her pink housecoat clutched to her throat, and peered out into the yard, where we stood in the moonlight. “Ti-Jean, who is it?”

  “Paul,” he said. “Chuck’s friend, Paul.”

  She spoke to him in French.

  Jack turned to me. “She says, ‘Come in.’ She wants to feed you.”

  “Oh,” I said. “No, it’s too late. She should go back to bed. Really. I’ll go now.”

  I took a step toward the street, but Jack put his arm around my shoulder. “Remember?” he said, not unkindly. “We don’t argue with Mamére. She says she wants to feed you? You come in and be fed.”

  “Okay, then. Thank you,” I said, and followed them inside.

  She disappeared into the kitchen, and there was a clatter of pans and dishes. I sat on the couch, where Chuck and I had sat watching the Series; Jack sat in his chair. The cat reappeared, jumped up, and he cradled her in his arms like a baby, stroking her absentmindedly, looking off into space—maybe still in the world of the story he’d been typing until the catfight began, maybe listening to the music, which he hadn’t turned down and which filled the tiny living room.

  When it stopped, there was a flapping sound as the end of the tape disengaged from the reel, and Jack got up, the cat still in his arms, and hit a button to rewind it. In the silence left when the whirring stopped, I heard the radio playing low: a jazz station—the sad, human wail of a saxophone, and I was back, again, in the world of my childhood.

  Would it ever stop, I wondered—this constant plummeting backward to that lost time, the happiness, the small comforts and promises I used to take for granted? It was too real. Me, drowsy in the backseat of the car, my parents’ voices and the music on the radio the same thing; a late-night glimpse of Dad on the couch, his eyes closed, and Mom curled up, her head on his lap, his fingers combing her hair; Christmas morning, Dad opening the box with the record player she’d saved up to buy him.

  The ding of Mamère’s kitchen timer brought me back to the present, and soon afterward she emerged with two steaming plates of chicken and noodles, which she set on the table in the dining area.

  “You boys eat,” she said, waving us over.

  A flicker of annoyance crossed Jack’s face.

  “You, too, Ti-Jean,” she said.

  Instead, he drank his glass of red wine right down, then poured himself another. Suddenly starving, I wolfed down the meal, thanking Mamère repeatedly and telling her how good it was.

  She cast an accusing glance at Jack. “You eat like Paul, Ti-Jean? You feel better.”

  But he shook his head and pushed his plate away. The two of them watched me finish and wipe up the gravy with a piece of bread until the plate shone.

  Jack poured me a second glass of wine, which I didn’t really like. But I drank it, to be polite. He poured another for Mamère and for himself, as well. Then another, the two of them downing the rest of the bottle, apparently oblivious to the hour. Maybe it was the wine that made Mamère begin to cry.

  Jack put his hand on hers, and spoke to her tenderly, in French.

  She shook her head, dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.

  I knew I should have left them alone, but I didn’t know how to go. Mamère continued to cry, Jack continued to try to comfort her. I wondered if she was crying about her daughter, Nin, whose obituary in the newspaper was what had set Duke and me on the road. Her high-school picture was on the table, next to Jack’s—a pretty, dark-haired girl, her face lit up with a smile. And another one, taken around the same time: Jack leaning against a porch rail, his arms folded, half of his face in shadow; Nin sitting on the rail, her hands clasped in her lap, her legs crossed at the ankles. They were so close that Jack’s shoulder overlapped hers, but the effect wasn’t one of closeness: the way one of his legs is bent back, resting on the bottom of the rail, made it seem as if he was in motion, walking away from her.

  I felt a little light-headed from the wine, that unpleasant swirling sensation, and I wasn’t sure what would happen if I tried to get up, what I might do or say. So I was glad that Jack and Mamère seemed to have forgotten that I was there, and I just sat quietly. They might have been husband and wife, I thought. Her head on his shoulder, his hand on hers, rubbing her swollen knuckles with his thumb. In time, he helped her up and into her bedroom.

  “She’s suffered so many losses,” he said, when he came back. “No mother should ever lose a child to death. My sister, just weeks ago. My brother, when he was just nine.”

  “Gerard,” I said. “Chuck lent me your book about him. It was really sad.”

  Jack lit a cigarette, takes a long drag. “He was an extraordinary child. The nuns sat with him, taking down the visions that came to him when he was dying. You don’t get over such losses.”

  “My mom died,” I said. “Last spring.”

  I hadn’t meant to say it, and now that I had I expected the usual awkward condolence. Instead, Jack looked at me and said, “And you will never get over it. It’s not meant for us to get over that kind of sadness.”

  His words—kind, but so matter-of-fact—ricocheted like pinballs in my head.

  You’ll be okay, people had said when Mom died. Time heals all wounds. You’re strong. You’ll get over this. Sadness doesn’t last forever.

  They hadn’t been lying. They believed this and wanted me to believe it, too. They believed it would be a comfort to me. But I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it now. I’d never get over my mom
’s death, not really. I’d known it from the moment Dad came into the hospital waiting room and told Bobby and me that she had a brain tumor. It was a relief to let the knowledge out of the heavy locked box inside me, let it flood through me. I felt like I used to feel, bursting to the surface in the swimming pool when I’d been testing myself to see how long I could stay underwater.

  And, suddenly, I saw that this was what Kerouac knew. This was what I had come searching for, though I couldn’t have known it when Duke and I set out that night in September.

  It was also the wildness in On the Road.

  Not rebellion, not good times. Not even beatitude, like some people thought—or not only that. The wildness was Jack losing his brother when he was a little boy and never getting over it. It’s the noise of the world escalating in his increasingly frantic attempts to drown out the inner voice saying, You will never stop grieving for what you’ve lost.

  Now he put his rough hand on mine, leaned toward me, speaking of the comfort only Our Lord could bring in the face of such sadness. His words were slurred and urgent; his voice broke.

  “Your mother, she’s with Him now, in heaven,” he said. “Beyond pain and suffering, alive again in divine ecstasy. She waits for you, all the blessed souls in heaven wait and watch over us, angels, who know now that life on earth is no more than illusion, that the sorrows of death mean nothing, nothing in the face of eternal life in heaven with our Savior.”

  His eyes filled with tears, his hands shook as he took the bottle from its place between the cushions of his chair, uncapped it, and drank from it. He closed his eyes, murmuring what might have been a prayer, his voice growing fainter and fainter until, with a sigh, his body loosened and he slept—beneath the crucifix, the cat purring on his chest.

  I re-capped the bottle that had fallen from his hand and tucked it back into place, took the ever-present cigarette from between his fingers and stubbed it out, then left quietly to begin the next leg of my journey, which Jack couldn’t help me with. The part in which I’d have to learn how to live with what I knew.