The Unknown Kerouac

by Jack Kerouac

  The first requisite in this kind of lifetime-writing is to be capable of handling your own personality, in just such a way that it’s not concealed, nor distorted, nor apologized away, nor over-stated to the point of madness and boredom.

  The alcoholic says: “I need a drink to tell if this is good”—the teahead says: “I’m too high to tell if this is good.”

  And now, discourse, I’m ready to write about Mike himself, not just pale imitation Joe Martin—Mike, the haunted house, green apples, Rockingham, quarries, he & Robert etc. oh.

  I’m going to be a Wolfean Proust, a Whitmanesque Dostoevsky, a Melvillean Céline, a Faulknerian Genêt—in fact, a Kerouassadian Ginsbergian Shakespeare.

  Il faut vivre en Anglais, c’est impossible vivre en Français. This is the secret thought of the Canuck in America. C’est important aux Anglais—it’s important to the English . . . so the Canuck does it. But one thing I must always remember in this Canuck dualism crap is that in 1934 in Montreal I was so homesick to come back home to Lowell and resume my big imaginary world in English—(the Turf)—that I was almost sick, and sat at a desk in Uncle Gil’s study and planned a tremendous newspaper for when I got back. The spirit of pleasure in solitary occupations is what I’ve got to recover from boyhood for manhood’s work of art . . . The huge gray-day preoccupation with files, records, systems, small print, hoary histories in dusty ledgers.

  The confession of my entire life will get everybody off my chest.

  Another quarter-inch of thought now and I’ve got it. Shall I just write my units every day and file them in proper place?—for whoever told me that I was a novelist anyway! Was NIETZSCHE a novelist? “It is late afternoon; the grapes are turning brown!” Who cares that the man who said this was not a novelist? —L: 1000 c. S: 700 c. for day total: 2300 c. and I feel hungry tonight. Spent dusk hours with that girl, on lawn, Blanche, says no, or that is, can’t say anything else till dark and has to be gone by then. I talked a blue streak to her, like a mental patient . . . we sat on my afternoon-hallowed spot. Loneliness forever and the earth again.—Shelley Winters is a tragic looking girl.

  THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 1951—B: 700 c. Still wrestling with the dual angels—what’ll I write? What’ll I do? Dreamed of losing money and crying. Yesterday the girl, & talk with my mother over the phone, proves that even though I am a writer and not just an ordinary writer I will die alone, be buried in a naked grave, under an unknown tombstone, forgotten:—Why should I be different than anybody else. From now on I give no quarter to casual girls—and I’m going to go about my own affairs in peace & dignity no matter who’s around (—like the beautiful meditations of a bus trip once broken up because a girl sat near me & smiled). It is my last and only life and I’m going to do exactly what I please with what’s left of it. I’m going to sea and I’m going to write what I feel like when I feel like writing. I’m going to Frisco too. Bankroll: $396.00. Weigh: 167½. That’s what you may say about the past—there was need—otherwise it wouldn’t have been done—and even though everybody has died—they were there, there was need.

  Today’s teenagers are no different than girls of 1937 dancing to Hal Kemp—different clothes, airs—they all end up married & raising kids . . . the most predictable and dependable creatures on the globe.

  Old songs I’d forgotten—“Barney Google,” “There’s a Rainbow on my Shoulder”—

  I see there was near-revolution in America in the 30’s—New Deal relief calmed angry poverty-stricken masses—bloody injustices were perpetrated by police—anti-Semitism was rife—Harry Hopkins was an idealist—the C.I.O. had bloodbath beginnings—Walter Reuther was a young martyred idealist—. The credited producers and writers of the mighty successor to All Quiet on the Western Front called The Road Back, plus the stars, are all forgotten—and something has gone out of life that was in the faces of Babe Ruth, the Duke of York, Jimmy Foxx— You no longer read about the “poor” or the “world’s unfortunates” or the “underprivileged.”—

  L: 750 c. S: 700 c. Sn: 100 c. 2250 c. for day, feel hungry. Now I’m exercising running up stairs. Read all day—old Life magazine 37 times, Jelly Roll Morton, Jesse James. Someone called hospital “to find out how I was”—Joan calling to check on my whereabouts so she can keep the law up to date; the empty souled, unloving, unloved blank. To think that Kerouac got hung up with a blank!—that the model for Peter Martin should have ended up with a dull hearted post, poor gleeful Peter of the night. . . . where is he now?

  FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 7, 1951—B: 700 c. Played ping pong, shot pool. Lost $147 at races! Bankroll is $249.00 and in the hole 51 bucks. Lunch: 1150 c., principally ice cream. Weighed 167½ this morning. S: 650 Sn: 200 (egg nog). Total: 2700, still feel hungry. Exercised a lot. Am reading Lomax’s “Mister Jelly Roll”—great material by an important writer about an American artist who will live . . . Jelly Roll Morton (without whom maybe Mamie’s Blues wouldn’t have survived). In the afternoon, in my fields, I discovered once & for all that I need my wire recorder. . . . I recited 5,000 words about the winter night in Buffalo 1944 . . . either that or first “pure” draft to be written in French . . . In any case I need help—after all, the mechanical difficulties of writing by hand are over 50% of the trouble involved in swinging a thought from brain to paper—

  SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 8, 1951—A God-given day—and I in the morning, beneath birdy lutings, writing this. The mysteries of the world are all over me today. The pang of life is that the moment you realize you want something it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone— This morning the waters of the Hudson are blue and pure as Atlantic waters sparkling in the bay of Halifax in October, fringed by pines—the Palisades, the antique edge of America, are a vast primeval wilderness. The secret voice of America is crying in the wilderness. . . . life is too short, life is too short, bring back my love, bring back my youth. The ungraspable phantom of life will not cease tormenting us. The beauty pure of morning is only a pain of loss— Every man is alone in his pain; every man was made to gawk in graves; with just an hour in the sun meditating upon the tombstones of great men. Oh bring back the original morning!—and stamp it in gold to last forever! Each year I grow more & more horrified of my growing older—thought I’d get used to it, but the moment I’m used to being 29, I’m 30 . . . Life is too short, life is too short, I hear the secret voice of America weeping in the wilderness—I hear among the thrashings of the bush as the morning birds take baths in dew, I hear the secret voice of America dying, dying . . . Even the crazy men have exploded and disappeared. These are the thoughts of my sedate and sepulchral mind this morning.

  I think of vast families discovering death one by one—of sisters who loved brothers, of the brothers who grew old and foolish; of the sister’s cousins that died young—of cousins who murdered—or the sons of Negroes, who blew Gabriel’s horn in the alley—of the nobel heroic fathers with no brains—of the mothers who knew a century in one chair—of lost cries still batting around in the winds of October—of buried infants remembered by the dying—of charred & ruined houses of home—of the phantom of what was haunting the ghost of what is—of the valley in the morning—of the brother who was the sea, the brother who was mad on the road, and the brother who only knew dolors and cried.

  In the afternoon went to ballgame, Yanks vs. Washington, with other patients, in a bus; saw Home Run Baker collapse before he reached first; got drunk on 10 beers; came back and saw paper and was more surprised to see that Bill had finally killed somebody with his gun and made headlines to boot, than that Joan was dead; couldn’t sleep at night. (And in the morning, I didn’t mention, I played 3 hours of hard baseball.) Strange big day. Now I’ll believe in life more than ever—I know Joan didn’t care, nor Bill. And to think that I wrote “Bill, don’t die!” only a few days ago. At the ballgame with me was Slim Jackson (Worthington), yelled, after Mantle’s 460-foot homerun, “He done heard my cry! he done heard my cry!”—(“that mothafucka done heard my cry!”)

  Even though poor Joan is dead
I have to continue this self-satisfied diary. Had 1200 c. of beer, add that to 550 c. breakfast, 900 c. lunch & 650 c. supper, totals 3300 c. for day of sloppy self-indulgence. But bankroll skyrocketed to $510.00!!

  SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 9, 1951—No breakfast. Bankroll still rising—is now firm at $508.00—well, almost rising. Average is 17.30 (gone up), for weekly average earning now at 103.98 (in other words, I’m earning $104 a week & $17.30 daily). I don’t know what’s wrong but today I weighed 171½!! This has got to stop. Last year while living with Sara I thought I was overweight at 167. Then, as now, I had unending opportunities to eat good things all I wanted. For instance this noon, though I applaud it, I had a dinner like at Aunt Cora’s on that seaside farm in Salisbury in the old days—mashed potatoes with lovely Brussels sprouts sauce, two helpings of tender boiled chicken; four vanilla ice cream & fresh strawberry desserts. As long as I stay in this hospital I’ll grow fatter. But I get out in four days, so . . . Your grave’ll just temporarily change plans in the ant’s domain. Lunch: 1800 c. Sn: 100 c. Supper: 250 c. Total for the day: 2150 c. That’s to make up for yesterday. Wt: 168½.

  Sat in the sun all afternoon, with books, paper, harmonica, realizing I’ve got to decide on my life’s work before I leave this hospital, which is several days. I have visionary tics (as the time approaches)—epileptic ecstasies of the mind, say like the vision of pines in the morning in Marin County California; comes, vanishes in a second, leaves me wondering how I can fit it into my life’s work. In fact today—

  MONDAY SEPTEMBER 10, 1951— . . . today I must decide—and to bring this on, I’m going to write the issue. I want to find a way of writing not just suitable for my “next book” but for all books that I will write from now till my dying days—(or my dying dies)—(I don’t say “old man” days because I don’t want to ever be an old man in the heart, or in the will, the mind, anyway)—a form that’ll fit me for life, just as if I was going to be a hermit and all I need’s one suit: and I really do only need one suit. I’m not swayed by the big-business idea of writing which has come into existence in America since bestseller lists and readability surveys—if I’m to be thus swayed anyway, I’m to admit that I’m writing as a business and not “to just make a living,” certainly not as the lifework of a man who wants to honor life as long as he breathes because “work saves all” and he doesn’t want to occupy himself with anything less absorbing, less complete, personal (the unspeakable visions of the individual), and joyous:—like prayer, like oratory, poetry . . . but why defend the indefensible. As if there was any harm whatever in making money. The harm comes from trying to make money out of something which in its nature has nothing to do with crass materialism. Never mind the money. It doesn’t matter. Make a living as a seaman, as a worker, for now, because money will anyway roll in after 3 books, and supposing it does? The royalty of next month I really don’t need. This is not the point. (I get $300 next month.†)

  I want to find a lifetime form like Balzac, Shakespeare, Dickens, Whitman & others found—because I know I have as much energy, and that I’ll rot if there’s no “channel” for this energy—(a grand female form for male substances). But I can’t think of it. A Comédie Humaine is for objective mind—but today I can’t “write the issue.”

  Breakfast: 600 c. Modern times have produced a civilized mankind which is hopelessly and luxuriantly subjective—that’s why in fact none of us has bothered to read all of the comedy Humaine, which is an objective surface survey of the “chemistries of society.” This is why Proust, Joyce, Wolfe & Faulkner & James are the orators of the day—lonely subjective souls (and Céline). Something introspective, secret, censorable & dark has come into man.

  So my lifework, to keep with the times, & anyway to keep with how I secretly feel, is to be subjective—how everything appears to be to me. Now for a vast subjective form—merely the confession of my days.

  Breakfast: 600 c. Lunch I: 550 c. Lunch II: (ate lunch twice):—650 c. Leaves 600 for supper.

  But not so much “the confession of my days” as to recount the interesting things of my life—and “they,” the things, are legion, to me and to anyone interested. To tell all this—à mon Ange Guardien. But I won’t release the rest of this secret for awhile. Suffice to say, I made an additional beginning in five minutes this morning . . . (as though with me, as with USA Civilization, procurement procedure is more important than material). Assez!

  Supper: 550 c. Whiskey: 100 c. Sn: 100 c. 2550 c. for day—too much. All day the thoughts, the thoughts—the Visions of America, the Pang; the fights at night, the Neal-like boxers, my realization of what I could write and never will (“I’m Robert Nixon, you’ll never hear of me except at Sandy Saddler’s camp”—“I’m Jack Kerouac, you’ll never hear of me because I gave up fiction”). Spent the afternoon in the dream—wrote a draft of French—This journal using its losefulness. Yet maybe nothing gets done without a great, honest, grave, disciplined journal!

  TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11, 1951—Railroad men by the dewy shacks. . . . an American construction job in the early morning in Arctic Greenland . . . Hot Lips Page singing “Basin Street” like Louis . . . Jelly Roll Morton playing piano in a cathouse in 1907 dreaming of a lion breaking down the door. . . . An old 18th Century redbrick armory overlooking the Bronx morning where Washington’s horses once had grazed. . . . Red beans and rice cooked together in a bucket. . . . Rusty old railroad track disappearing round the bend in the pine forest with a couple of shacks just beyond where some of the boys play cards, in Arkansas . . .

  B: 600 c. L. (2): 1000 c. Bankroll: $311.00—severe losses today. Sn: 150 c. Supper: 500 c. Total:—2250 c.

  WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 1951—Getting out today. B: 500 c. Weigh 169½ anyway but feel strong & great. Bankroll upped a little to $357.00—Sat in the morning sun thinking of an American mythology combined with yesterday’s American Scenes and Visions of America—a magazine called Big America (for discipline)—taking people I know, putting them everywhere, doing everything, the narrator a tremendous protean figure who finally appears to be a Great Liar. It’s GOT to come somehow—I need to work—SOON! So this is my last day in the Hospital where I have learned at last to think—and healed—and learned to think on life as a great and beauteous thing, no hassle, in spite of what happens or what anybody says. Here’s the title for my Lifework Mythologies—Adventures in Life.

  (. . . the young laborer’s father who was a crane operator across the dusts of the Pentagon project, who left for Texas, after a big drunk, for bigger prey.)

  Characters of the Mythology (some of them)

  THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 13, 1951—Getting drunk—Holmes, Liz, Rhoda, Jerry Newman, etc. Feel wonderful, yet like crying.

  SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 1951—Everything set at my mother’s new apartment. I’ll have to move my desk in this week—do a few scripts—pick up seaman’s papers—fill out a Guggenheim Form—above all get going on my work. I finally solved the 3-year problem, that wondrous last inch of thought I needed, while riding in a bus in the rain past the freightyards at 33rd St. and 11th Ave., en route to Jinny’s pad, which is, merely, tell everything the way it actually happened PLUS any other way you want for a 100% plus universe. In this way, in complete objectivity, I can write about myself as if I was some other guy and with as much sympathy AND idealized invention as I would writing about other people either real or/and/plus imaginary!!—for example, I can write again about my father, true or “false” events, even give him a brother called Old Bull, sticking to facts only, such as that he died in 1946 . . . The big saga of everybody I know everywhere at different stages of their lives, and this includes Slim Jackson as well as Big Slim the real . . . the crowded events of men in different places real or imaginary—and beginning (only because I have the material ready) with Dean Pomeray (who is 100% real and then more) in that stage of his life when he exploded out of Denver in search of his America & ended up in Frisco (leaving the opportunity open to write about Neal ad infinitum throughout his life and also anybody
else interesting, real or imaginary) . . . all of it belonging to the same universe of events over which I in my mad laborious imaginings preside, for life. Now the way is at last open for me to write all my life, like Balzac, on one master structure which is my vision of life. All this was decided in a flash, around two in the afternoon, before I went over and balled 24 hours away. Came home today—a letter from Neal, just had his third child, a boy, named, after me, and Allen G., John Allen Cassady. With Oct. 25 royalties (?) I may take quick visit to Frisco at last—

  But the solution of my lifework I attribute to the month of pure meditation in the hospital and thank God for it—it was getting late, I was rotting away.

  Began writing at home . . . several hundred words before supper.

  The point of departure must always be the locale, the gang, the fame of our character therein.

  MONDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 1951—I’m not going to count writing-words until they’re relegated officially to the main manuscript, and I’m not certain whether that will be typewritten or written by hand (printed) in a master notebook. Had to go to N.Y. to pick up work at 20th Century Fox and my typewriter in Lucien’s loft. Saw Holmes and had long joyous talk with him—(he’s typing his novel). Then saw Allen G. and a girl called Nory, a subterranean in somber Bohemian rags with curly elfin head of hair and looking like a pretty boy with a girl’s body; we talked till 3 A.M. by candlelight and I was amazed to learn that Adele my old flame is now going with Norman Mailer . . . I thought he lived much more glamorously. They told me how Mailer was attacked by hoodlums in his own house, at a party, and Adele screamed. Talking to Allen (who considers himself hip enough & young enough to belong to these subterranean styles) made me depressed— At 4 A.M. I staggered across the field with my big old typewriter that my father used in Lowell Mass. before I was even born—the typewriter Charley Connors flailed and moaned upon (Jimmy Bannon)—the typewriter with which I not only wrote The Town and the City but my earliest loomings in 1937. If all my life, in spite of anything that happens, is connected by that typewriter to the one unswerving idealistic purpose which was revealed to me in youthful dreams of pure glory, then I don’t care if it weighs a ton as I carry it across the night. Hello everybody, I’m back—Listen everybody! (wearing a flannel shirt hanging out, carrying a briefcase by one finger) I’m Jack Kerouac of New York City, author of The American Comedy!!