The Unknown Kerouac

by Jack Kerouac

  “Well,” said Al, “I’ll just have to take the chance. I’ve looked the place over . . . You know the place, Washington Hall. I can take the elevator to the top floor, then climb up on the roof by the fire escape and wait there until three or four o’clock. Then I climb down into his room. His room is on the top floor, the fifth . . .”

  Dennison shook his head. They had arrived at Sheridan Square . . . They got out and went up on the street. It had stopped raining altogether.

  “Don’t get into the wrong room and start hovering over some perfect stranger.”

  Al said, “Well, I know which is his room.”

  They were standing near a newsstand. Across the street, in a bar, a lot of noise and music was going on . . . It didn’t really matter what night it was, Saturday or Monday, the bars in Manhattan were always the same.

  “Well,” Dennison said, “I wish you luck.” He tucked the newspapers under his arm and looked at Al. Al walked away. Dennison went home down the narrow silent street leading off the Square . . . All the time he knew when to go to bed—it was getting to be awful.

  Al hurried along up Christopher Street. When he got to Washington Hall the street door was locked and the elevator man on duty wouldn’t let him in. Al wandered over to Washington Square and sat on a bench.

  He knew in advance that nothing would stop him . . . but he just wanted to sit there and think about his determination. After awhile, his plan began to formulate itself, without any effort, as though his determination rather than his mind were functioning for him. Finally he got up and went back to Washington Hall . . .

  This time he went down an alley and jumped over a wooden fence. Two cats scattered away . . . In the dark, he was in the cat world, the surreptitious night world denied to normal men and angels . . . The cats growled at each other the other side of the darkness. Al was one of them . . . He knew that his eyes were gleaming. A unique madness was in him, one granted to very few men, he thought. He tiptoed along until he came to the fire escape. He would have emitted a loud cry if the circumstances of his plan had permitted. The cats snarled in the darkness. . . .

  Al jumped up and grabbed the fire escape. The loud creaking noise silenced the cats . . . Al held his breath. Then slowly, amid great creaking and squealing of rusty iron, he started up the fire escape.

  Someone was looking at him from an open window. “What are you doing there?”

  Al recognized this person as the elevator man who had refused to let him in. “Oh, the elevators aren’t running so I thought I’d climb up here instead of bothering anybody. I just want to see a friend of mine . . . How about taking me up in the elevator?”

  These mad remarks were absurd . . . Al was reaching the end of his mortal tether . . .

  “All right,” said the elevator man, “come in here.” He extended a hand to Al and helped him in to the hallway. As soon as Al was on his feet the little Negro produced a length of steel pipe stuck in rubber hose and said, “You wait right here till I get Mr. Gross.” Saying this, he waved the pipe in Al’s face . . .

  “I’ll wait,” said Al, smiling . . .

  He was thinking that if he ran out of the place at this point, he wouldn’t be able to come back. He decided to wait and talk his way out of the situation when Gross got there. There was no doubt about the fact that he would eventually be led to Phillip . . .

  Mr. Gross arrived a few minutes later in a dirty blue and white bathrobe with egg and coffee stains all over the front of it, followed by Pat the elevator man. Al walked forward and said, “You see, Mr. Gross—”

  “We’ll do the talking around here!” shouted Mr. Gross, stopping Al with outstretched hands. His voice was full of authority. “Watch him, Pat!” Pat stood there rocking back and forth on his heels, slapping the steel pipe into the palm of his left hand, with a crafty gleam in his eye . . .

  Al said: “I just wanted to see someone I know in the house.”

  Gross said, “Come along.” They led Al down to the lobby desk. Gross went over and picked up the telephone. He held it in a lordly manner. “Who do you know in the house?” he asked.

  “I know Walter Quincy.”

  “Well, we’ll check on that right now.” Gross stepped over and rang Quincy’s buzzer . . . After a considerable interval, Gross was talking over the phone in unctuous tones. “Mr. Quincy, there’s someone down here who says he knows you. We want you to come down and identify him. Sorry to disturb you but it’s quite important.”

  After awhile, Quincy came down from the third floor wearing a silk bathrobe. Al started to get up.

  “Just sit right there,” said Gross, and turned to Quincy. “Mr. Quincy,” he said, “do you know this man?”

  “Yes,” said Quincy casually. “What’s all the trouble?”

  “We found him climbing up the fire escape, and he claims he was on his way to see you . . .”

  “Certainly,” said Quincy calmly, “I’d been expecting to see Al tonight but I didn’t feel quite well and went to bed early. It’s quite all right, Mr. Gross.”

  “Well,” said Gross, “if you say so, Mr. Quincy.”

  Al grinned. He said to Walter Quincy: “Well I’ll come back tomorrow, Walt. Sorry I got you out of bed.”

  “It’s okay,” said Quincy. “See you tomorrow then. I guess I’ll go back to bed now, I’ve got an exam on Lucretius tomorrow . . .”

  “Well, sleep tight,” said Al. “See you at Vanzetti’s.”

  “Right.”

  Quincy started back up the stairs and Al got up as if to leave.

  “Just a minute!” said Gross, holding out his hands to Al. “You don’t seem to realize that this is a very serious matter . . . If it wasn’t for Mr. Quincy you’d be on your way to the police station right now. In fact, it’s really my duty to call the police.”

  “Well,” said Al softly, “I’m sorry—”

  “Oh you’re sorry! Well, your being sorry doesn’t make a particle of difference. I happen to be responsible for the lives and property of everyone in this building. Do you know that it’s against the law even for people that live in the building to climb on the fire escape?”

  “No,” said Al, cocking his head to one side, “I didn’t know that.”

  “So you didn’t know that, and you pretend to be a man of intelligence!” Al hadn’t had a chance to pretend anything . . .

  “Of course, now that you mention it,” Al went on in placating tones, “it does seem reasonable. I guess I just didn’t think.”

  “It’s about time you did some thinking, isn’t it?” said Gross. “Here you’ve gotten Mr. Quincy out of bed and myself out of bed—”

  “I’m sorry to have disturbed your sleep,” said Al quickly.

  “Well! . . . that’s not the point! This is a criminal offence. Why, if I did the right thing, I’d call the police this very minute . . . Do you realize that?”

  “Yes,” said Al, “I appreciate it.”

  “Well! You appreciate it, do you? The only reason I don’t call them is because of Mr. Quincy, one of my finest guests.” Here Gross shook his head and sort of laughed. “Why, I don’t understand this thing at all. If you were a college boy it would be different, but you’re a man of practically my age . . . Now isn’t that true?”

  “I promise you,” Al said, “that nothing of the sort will ever happen again.”

  “Well I can promise you that if it does, you’ll certainly go to jail!” Gross shook his head again in acute puzzlement. “Now, since Mr. Quincy says you’re allright, I guess we’ll let it go. But you know don’t you, Pat, that I really should call the police?”

  “Yes, Mr. Gross,” said Pat.

  Gross stared at Al in a bit of a prissy huff and said nothing. There seemed to be some kind of a vague dismissal in all this, with the result that Al made a move to leave.

  “Just a minute,” said Gross, holding up one hand. “You don’t seem to realize that Patrick, here, my elevator man, risked his life tonight . . . It seems to me he ought to have
some say in this matter.” Gross turned to the elevator man. “Well Patrick, what do you think we ought to do?”

  “Well,” said Pat shaking his head, “I don’t like to see anybody go to jail . . .”

  “I think you owe Patrick an apology,” said Gross severely.

  Al turned to Pat. “I’m sorry about this thing—”

  “It’s pretty easy to say you’re sorry,” interrupted Gross, “and I’m not going to stand here all night talking to you . . . After all I’ve lost enough sleep as it is, though I guess that doesn’t mean anything to you. Last summer wasn’t it, Patrick, that a thief climbed up the fire escape and stole twenty dollars from someone’s room? I think it was Mr. Cucci’s room, am I right or wrong?”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Gross,” said Pat, “I think it was . . .”

  “We’ll forget about this,” Gross went on, turning to Al, “I’m willing to let it go just this one time.”

  Al said, “You’re being very lenient and I thank you. Sorry for all the trouble I caused you . . .”

  “I think a lot of Mr. Quincy and I’m only doing this for him, you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand,” Al said. He began to edge around the desk shyly.

  “I know I’m not doing the right thing but I’m going to let you go. I hope you realize what I’m doing for you, because after all this is no laughing matter.”

  Al nodded, edging away all the time.

  “All right Pat,” said Gross, “let him go!” Pat stood aside warily and Al slipped by. He went down the hall, and paused to turn around and say goodnight, as graciously as he dared. Gross stood and stared at Al, and did not deign to answer.

  The little elevator man went to the street door with Al and opened it.

  “I should have told Mr. Gross that I also know Mr. Tourian in this house,” Al told the elevator man in a low confidential voice. “Don’t you think so Pat?”

  Pat maintained his silence, opening the door wider in a righteous flourish and waiting.

  “Well,” said Al, “say hello to Mr. Tourian for me when you see him. Goodnight, Pat . . . Thanks for everything.”

  Pat looked at Al craftily . . . Al was standing outside the door cravenly and Pat was closing it. Suddenly, something occurred to Pat . . . he held the door open a few inches and said, “Mr. Tourian? That Phillip boy? He’s gone, he moved out today . . . he’s gone to join the merchant marine.”

  “Oh is that so?” said Al conversationally . . . he was smiling broadly. But Pat wasn’t to be lured into any more of this. He closed the door in Al’s face, shook the knob a few times to make sure it was securely locked, and waited for Al to go away from there . . . Al waved feebly and slinked off . . .

  He stopped in the nearest doorway to consider what he had heard. It all sounded like a fantastic conspiracy to bluff him . . . It was all silly, of course. No such thing had happened.

  He hurried off towards Washington Square . . . Benches and walks were bright from the washed glitter of the earlier rain. Everything looked dark and clean, with earthy odors. Here was Al, walking around in circles. He went down the street a ways and peered up at the windows of Apartment 32 . . . they were dark, no one was there right now. Where was Phillip? Where was everybody? Where were the kids? . . . He wanted to play, too. But they were always hiding from him, as though they didn’t like him, and besides he didn’t live in this neighborhood . . . Phillip didn’t want him to live around here. So he had to live in the other neighborhood uptown and he didn’t belong down here at all . . .

  Al walked around the Square a couple of times to think. Each time he passed the little side street, he would look up to see if there was any light in the windows of Apartment 32 . . . They were still dark. The kids were off somewhere, playing. In Manhattan, you can never find anybody: the place is so big . . . anybody you might want to find, might be miles and miles away, yet still be in Manhattan—among the ten thousand bars and hundred thousand streets. It’s hopeless: you can’t find them even if you search all night, all day, all night again . . . all your life.

  Dennison was sleeping. No, he mustn’t bother Dennison . . . Al decided, in fact, that there was no point in seeing Dennison. There was no point in seeing anybody or doing anything except Phillip . . . And Phillip couldn’t be found. Phillip was one who found you himself.

  Al went down the subway steps three times, on Sixth Avenue, and three times he came back up on the street to stand around staring at everybody. Each time he went down the steps, he knew he would come up again. There was no point in that either . . . that was clear. Finally Al went down the subway steps a fourth time, and with great effort, pushed himself through the turnstile. He was on the uptown platform and so he couldn’t possibly go anywhere but uptown . . .

  There was nothing downtown anyway . . . Just Brooklyn, the Far Rockaway ends of night. Phillip wasn’t out there, certainly . . . Phillip wasn’t in the subway station either. And he wouldn’t be uptown, certainly. If you rode all the way uptown on this subway train, it took you to the far ends of the Bronx. You could ride on the subway all night long from Rockaway to the Bronx, traversing the earth back and forth for a nickel, until the conductor threw you off for loitering. That’s the way it was, if you couldn’t find the kids, and Phillip, who was with the kids, playing . . .

  If you couldn’t find Phillip, you were going to get thrown off for loitering, right smack off the earth. That’s what it was.

  A wretched little man came up to Al and said, “You need faith just like everyone else . . . Take this home with you and read it, and find your faith in God.” The little man handed Al a pamphlet that had a picture of Jesus on it . . . Al automatically took the pamphlet; and the little man wandered off . . . automatically also. The train was coming, making a lot of noise, making the platform tremble. The “D” train, it was.

  Al stared at the pamphlet and threw it away. The subway doors were opening and he would have to decide for good whether or not to get inside and be taken uptown. Well, he stepped in, and the subway doors closed behind him. Once they’re closed, you can’t get out, because the train starts, and it’s impossible to open those doors anyway. They’re operated on a single control. The man who closes the doors won’t open them again for love or money. Everybody in New York knows that by now.

  So the train started uptown.

  The little man had seen Al throw the pamphlet away . . . The little man was annoyed . . . he concealed his pique, however. He just couldn’t understand people who didn’t need faith . . . everyone needed faith, by God. That much was certain. How else does one stay alive, if not with faith? Hey? Is there anything else that keeps one going? The little man was certain there wasn’t anything else, he was absolutely certain by all that’s holy.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WITH RAMSAY ALLEN’S DISCOVERY of Phillip’s intention to ship out, there now began a final kind of relationship between them which could only lead to a ferocious settlement.

  You had that exact feeling when you saw them walking down the street together—(for Al had decided to make a tremendous effort to seem reconciled to Phillip’s proposed departure, and was accompanying both boys to and fro from the union hall as they went about the business of getting their ship). Phillip, who had always walked like a man possessed, with his heels scuffling and clicking, head erect and eyes brooding downwards, was now transformed into daemonic man himself, a mad young swashbuckling seafarer, as it were, and he walked as though he were now on his way to hell and the ends of the earth. There walked Phillip, with the perennial cigarette in his mouth, eyes cast down in painful concentration . . . and over him, practically, hovering and bounding along with head cocked to one side, lunged Ramsay Allen solicitously.

  It was something to behold. They were both ragged and mad-seeming, and behind them scuffled the lazy Ryko.

  In the three days that followed, that time which was not spent in the union hall waiting in line, signing papers, arguing with officials and conspiring against the bureaucratic system, was spen
t in one long dissipation that assumed proportions of grandeur as it heroically progressed.

  The days were spent in the union hall in an irritating series of conspiracies to circumvent red tape. All the new guile that was in their modern power was employed.

  The nights were spent in Greenwich Village, in the Bowery, on Times Square, on waterfront streets, in one blazing zig-zagging trail that left in its wake perhaps one hundred new acquaintances and one hundred forgotten conversations.

  It was a welter, and it is very difficult to ascertain where it began and where it ended, this three-day orgy of unconstrained living.

  It may have really begun on Tuesday morning, when Phillip and Ryko barged into Walter Quincy’s room in Washington Hall. Rather hysterically these two wandered restlessly around Walter’s room opening books and slamming them shut, demanding whiskey, and announcing that they were on their way to France. Walter stared glumly at them: he had an exam on Lucretius that morning: he was too sleepy and preoccupied to be impressed. He did, however, in his own good time inform Phillip of Al’s abortive attempt the night before to get up to his room; all of which didn’t faze Phillip. “I could have wired my condolences from France if he had been arrested,” is what Phillip said. “Now how about that whiskey?”

  Down on the gray morning street, Walter watched them swagger away towards Seventh Avenue with his bottle. They scuffled their feet and spat and talked in loud voices. “Plonger au fond du gouffre,” Phillip was saying, “ciel ou enfer, qu’importe? Around here it’s like being a fish in a pond. It’s drying up and you’ve got to mutate into an amphibian or perish, but someone like Al keeps hanging on to you and telling you to stay in the pond, everything’s going to be allright . . .”

  “That’s the way it is,” Ryko averred, spitting on the sidewalk. “You got to get on your drunken boat, your bateau ivre, and sail off into the Goddamned unknown.” They shot through a slow-moving, sleepy, coughing and grouchy crowd of office workers and rushed on. That was the last Walter Quincy saw of them for quite some time. Perhaps he was watching the first steps of the insane three-day trail they were about to blaze. It began innocently enough, or perhaps not so innocently, going west from Washington Square, from where Walter Quincy stood, going west in the gray morning street towards Seventh Avenue, and before it was to come to an end, and if one should trace their meanderings on a map of Manhattan, it would cover miles, innumerable bars and restaurants, streets streets streets, and indescribable distances with regard to penetration of human areas . . .