The Town and the City

by Jack Kerouac

  Luckily, Joe and Paul merely lost their jobs. The police were not notified, and the company claimed their back pay for the wear and tear on the truck.

  A few days later Paul Hathaway disappeared from Galloway, wandering off somewhere without a word to Joe, going off to continue being his selfsame raging self in some other surroundings which would always be identical somehow with his dark and anguished atmospheres. Joe wasn’t to see him for several years.

  Joe spent a few days after the incident lounging around home with a kind of white look of sickly penance about him. His father was far from pleased with him, his mother shook her head sadly and said: “Ooh, Joey!” and looked at him with faint sorrow and regret. His brothers and sisters grinned at the strange pale sight of him.

  After the initial anger and shock, the father gradually lapsed into a chuckling reminiscent mood and was heard to say at the shop: “Dammit! but that kid is a genius for getting into jams! I used to be the same way back in Lacoshua, always getting into some holy mess or other, and how the old man used to blow his top!” And he laughed his hoarse savage laugh.

  And presently Joe made up by getting a new job in town. He started out the first morning with a lunch packed hopefully by his mother, he spent the cool morning working absorbedly over an old motor in the downtown garage. In the hot afternoon he sweated underneath some battered old heap of a car. At dusk, sweating and work-wearied, he was washing cars and changing tires and mopping up the lubrication pit and swearing under his breath because it was just his luck to find the worst job he ever had. The man expected him to do all the work around the place for a very small salary, long hours and six days a week. Suddenly Joe wanted to go off again on a wild wonderful trip out West, anywhere, everywhere.

  At supper that night he told his father he was going off again, and the old man objected, at first with bewilderment, and then sorrowfully: “Joey, let’s forget about the mess you got in, like it never happened. This is your home, fella, you stay right here and don’t go getting all kinds of ideas in your head about what we think. We don’t think anything. Now ask your mother if I’m not speaking the truth.”

  “I know that, Pa, but I just feel like I’m hanging around doing nothing. You know it’s terrific country out Pennsylvania, Ohio, out that way!” Joe cried eagerly. “Out West, Pa!—I’d like to tear right out to California and see what kind of work they got there!”

  “I’m going too!” yelled little Mickey suddenly. “I wanta go run a saloon in the West like the Silver Saddle in Tombstone, like the one Buck Jones goes to!”

  “Ah, you’re crazy, it’s only a picture!” said young Charley contemptuously.

  “But what are you going to do, Joey?” the mother spoke up anxiously. “You just can’t go like that, you have no money. Where will you stay?”

  “I’m gonna hit the road, Ma! I don’t need any money!”

  “That’s right!” cried Peter with an excited laugh. “All you do is hit the road, you’re on your own! I’d do it if I wasn’t going to college—I’d go with you tonight, Joe, no kidding!”

  “Who’s asking you?”

  “Ah!” said Peter, turning away.

  “I don’t want to hear any more about it, eat your desserts,” said the mother, and she piled some dishes together in a loud impatient manner.

  “Ah, Ma, he’s old enough to know what he wants to do, the bum!” said big Rose scornfully. “Don’t you worry, he’ll come crawling back soon enough, I’m not so sure about all this hit-the-road stuff.”

  “Ah, you’re full of beans!” cried Joe, slapping his big sister with a napkin. “How do you like that! She thinks she’s the big stuff all right! I know she’s not the little stuff, she’s too big for that!” And with simultaneous raucous whoops of laughter that reverberated throughout the house, Rose and Joe chased each other out of the dining room, Rose unleashed wild hoots of laughter and chased him into the kitchen, around the kitchen, out in the hall, through the front rooms and back down the hall, with the kids yelling and laughing. Finally Rose was sitting in a chair trying to catch her breath while Joe sat on her lap and called her his “best girl.”

  “By God, you ain’t much to look at, but you’re my best girl.”

  “Ah, get away, you bum!” gasped Rose breathlessly. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know! I’m not one of your little dolls!”

  “My best girl, Rosey. Listen, Rosey, make some of that walnut fudge tonight, make me some fudge before I leave you and go to California—”

  “Yes, yes!” chorused the kids. “Make some fudge, Rosey!”

  And then, out in the yard just before sunset, in the soft Spring dusk all flower-scented, cool, and echoing with the muted far-off sounds of the town, by the tall hedges just sprouting green buds, under the big trees, Joe and Peter stood playing catch with a brand new white ball. Mickey and Charley conducted a game of their own alongside with an old taped ball, and Francis leaned out of a window upstairs watching them below in impassive silence. No one said a word, there was just the meditative gum-chewing windup, the leisurely throw, the plunk of the ball in the glove, the dreamy gazing away. Little Mickey and Charley stood alongside imitating their big brothers to perfection, winding up leisurely, with a blank, impassive, gum-chewing expression, throwing nonchalantly, gazing away in musing reflection, standing there with all the calm and control of big-leaguers warming up before a game, just as their brothers were doing.

  “Whattaya say, Francis,” Joe called up. “How about coming to California with me! See the world!”

  “No, thank you,” said Francis with quiet amusement from his perch.

  “Don’t tell me you want to stay in Galloway all your life!”

  “Not exactly.”

  “You can’t go through life reading books!”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t intend to.”

  “It’s all right having a lot of brains, but where’s the fun?”

  With this Francis pulled his head in, and disappeared inside the house.

  Then, in the darkness, Joe sat on the porch long after the others wandered off in the house or went to bed. He sat in the white moonlight remembering the night in Maryland when he and Paul had started off on their wild trip … just a few nights ago … and all because the night had been so fragrant and vast, so mysterious and exciting, so vastly suggestive of the million things and places awaiting them there in the dark whispering heart, just like the night that spread before him now.

  There were dim lights burning far off on the highway, on the river. There were lights even beyond those, stretching miles off in the night; he wanted to go there, to see what was there. There were lights like that stretching across the country, across all states and cities and places, and things happening everywhere even now. “Even now, even now,” he kept thinking. There were bridges swooping across rivers and Mississippis, cities at night casting halo-glows in the sky seen from far-off, there were giant water tanks waiting by the railroad tracks in Oklahoma, there were saloons with checkercloth and sawdust and fans overhead, there were girls waiting in Colorado and Utah and Iowa towns, there were crap games in the alley and a game in the back of the lunch-cart, there was soft odorous air in New Orleans and Key West and Los Angeles, there was music at night by the sea and people laughing, and cars going by on a highway, and soft neon lights glowing, and an old shack in Nevada seen across the wastes. There were men drawling in Louisiana, Negroes whooping with laughter and flashing knives in backstreet Savannah, construction jobs blazing in the Missouri sun, there were the morning hills of Pennsylvania, a small cemetery on the slope-side, towns in the valleys, the gaunt hill-boys, and Ohio once more. Joe had to go see it all, even now, even now.

  The next day he told his mother he was going to a movie—so she would not feel bad—and he started out for California hitchhiking, just like that.

  [2]

  Early one morning in May, Mickey Martin sat at his little desk by the window of his bedroom with his chin resting in his hand. He gazed outside at th
e misty green fields across the old road, brooding out the springtime dawn. It was the morning of a big day in his life. He was going to the races at Rockingham with his father, and then in the evening to dinner in a big restaurant and a show in the big Boston places. He was all ready to go, he was up and washed and even combed, while his father still slept and snored in the other room.

  It was not quite yet six o’clock in the morning. He had been up since five; he was getting mighty impatient.

  To this boy of New England the May morning was like faint music in the woods again, some unspeakably exciting foregathering of events far in the deep shade of morning pines, all of it stirring there. He could hear it all faintly in the woods from far away, from across the fields and pastures, in the cool misty morning air, and he wanted to go there too.

  The first miraculous May morning had come, very suddenly, very softly, and everything was green in the trees and fields, the sky was blue, the air was golden pure, and everywhere there rang the tiny peepings of a thousand foregathered birds hidden in the branches.

  When this season comes in New England, a boy is suddenly aware of the whole world awakening with him to all the new things there are, and will be. The time of wintry storms and staying indoors has passed, one more year is achieved towards manhood, and all the plans hatched at the school desk or in the room are almost ready at last to be performed, in the green and sun-glorious summer.

  Mickey was going to be captain, manager, coach, pitcher, scout, president, owner, and star of that year’s baseball team. And “him and his chums” were going to build a secret mysterious clubhouse somewhere along the dump shacks by the river, with secret doors and hideouts, and passwords too, with each member of the gang (he being X-1, the Chief) equipped with all the necessary tools and garb of dark and disguised espionage. And he would “make” a story of his own just like the Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. And he would take Beauty Junior his new dog and teach it to race faster than any other dog in Galloway, and “him and Mike” were going to get a rowboat and sail up the Merrimac River, way up in the reaches of New Hampshire there, and maybe up there was a real Injun Joe and real river bargemen cussing and working away, and fires on the bank at night.…

  There were so many things to do, he realized now as he sat before the window and watched the springtime morning unfold mistily before his eyes, so many things to do and there wasn’t a minute at all to waste. It was time to go and wake up his father.

  Mickey tiptoed down the hall and peeked into his parents’ bedroom. There he saw his mother fast asleep but his father stirring slowly and turning over; the birds were peeping and quivering in the leafy branches just outside the screen windows.

  Mickey waited until he saw his father yawning and yumming, staring up at the ceiling, scratching his head, whereupon the little boy cupped his hands over his mouth and whispered:

  “Pa!”

  And the old man turned his head around and stared at him.

  “It’s seven o’clock, Pa!”

  And still the old man gazed at him with something like disbelief for a moment, and then it seemed presently to dawn on him what day it was and what they were going to do, and he grunted.

  “What time we leaving, Pa?” pursued Mickey in the same furtive whisper, with his hands still cupped over his mouth and fidgeting and squirming around the doorjamb as though he didn’t want anyone else to see him there.

  “Right now,” grunted the old man, staring calmly and gravely at him. “I’m getting up now and then we’re off,” he said in a hoarse gruff morning voice.

  And with this, big Martin heaved himself up and over into a sitting position on the side of the bed, and as he did this there was a sharp crack of floorboards, janglings of bedsprings, one mighty groan of the bed posts and his own explosive grunt which he emitted inadvertently in his exertions, and his wife who had been sound asleep up to this terrifying moment shot up her head and stared wildly around, crying: “My God!”

  “Sorry to wake you, Marge,” the old man growled sheepishly, “but we’ve got to leave early.”

  “Where? What?” cried Mrs. Martin sleepily. “What time is it? What?” She rubbed her eyes for a moment, and then she noticed Mickey standing behind the corner of the door, and cried: “Well, for goodness’ sakes, look at Mickey! What are you doing up so early!”

  “We’re going to the races!” he cried proudly.

  “Now, at this time of the morning?” she said sleepily. “What are you two up to? I’ll have to get breakfast,” she added as an afterthought and at once started to get up.

  “Now don’t get up, Marge,” protested the old man anxiously. “We’re having a bite of breakfast downtown. Don’t bother, don’t bother, we’ll manage all right.”

  “We’re gonna eat breakfast in the Astoria Cafeteria!” announced Mickey proudly. “I’m gonna have a baked apple with ice cream and some pancakes and syrup and everything.”

  “My goodness’ sakes,” said the mother, and she got up straightaway, pausing now for just a moment to peer outside the screen window, in front of which she stood in her long cotton nightrobe in an attitude of sleepy delight, crying out: “Oh, the pretty little birds! Listen to them there! Oh, my!”

  “Marge, we’ll manage. Don’t bother getting up, will you?” And Martin stuffed his shirt in his trousers and hurried out the door, but she followed them downstairs just the same.

  And then for the next few minutes the father was in the bathroom coughing thunderously and barging around and swooshing water in the sink, while Mickey sat by the screen door gazing out at the yard and his mother took milk out of the icebox and fussed around the kitchen, and finally the old man emerged from the bathroom all shaved and combed and sleek, with a big cigar trailing smoke behind him and an absorbed morning frown on his face, and he marched into the den, picked up his racing form sheets from the desk, stuck them in his vest pocket along with a handful of cigars, he sharpened a few pencils, stuck his straw hat on the top of his head, and he was ready to go.

  The mother stood in the middle of the kitchen floor staring at both of them with her arms folded helplessly and she kept saying: “My goodness gracious. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have got breakfast for you. You can’t leave on an empty stomach. Drink this milk—and Mickey,” she said, plucking at his coat, “why did you have to wear that awful old coat. Why didn’t you wear your nice new one! Drink your milk. What time will you be coming home?” she demanded anxiously.

  “We’ll be back late tonight. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “We’re gonna eat steak in Boston and see a movie tonight!” Mickey added excitedly, and he rushed on the porch and vaulted over the railing.

  “Well,” said the mother ruefully, “you should have eaten something just the same.”

  And coughing thunderously, grunting, chewing his cigar, Martin backed the car out of the garage and turned down the driveway along the house, where he waited gunning the motor impatiently while the mother plucked at the boy’s clothes on the porch and combed his hair. And when Mickey jumped in the car she was standing in the kitchen doorway with her arms pressed to her shiveringly, calling out every last-minute instruction and suggestion she could bring to mind, looking up at the sky to see if it was going to rain, warning them not to eat too many hotdogs, and so on, and finally they drove out on the road and started off with Mickey waving back delightedly to his mother and shouting: “Bye, Ma! bye, Ma! We’re gonna win a hundred dollars today! You wait and see, Ma!”

  And all around the Martin house in the trees and hedges, and in the branches that canopied over the old road, the birds were singing, they were darting and fluttering in the small green leaves.

  It was morning, and the boy was with his father.

  “Now,” said the old man, “we’ll spend the morning at the shop and see what kind of figures we can get. I think I can spot a couple of good long shots today.”

  “And me,” said Mickey solemnly, “I’m gonna handicap them and write it on the
typewriter.”

  So they talked about these things, and ate breakfast down at the Square in the cafeteria where the sun streamed in upon the clean tiled floor that had just been mopped, and everything was brown and gold—strong coffee brewing in the big urns, the fat half-grapefruits in the chipped ice all golden in the sunlight, the brown mahogany panels, the gleaming food counter, and all the men that were there in the morning eating and talking.

  Mickey ate his breakfast quickly, waiting impatiently while his father talked to some men at the other table, and then they strode off to the shop to get busy. Mickey made a list of the day’s entries, and carefully, judiciously picked them according to his own calculations. The old man spread out the Morning Telegraph before him.

  Old John Johnson came in at ten o’clock, looked at them a moment, removing the pipe from his mouth, and said: “You know, if you two boys can’t figure out how to beat the races, I don’t believe anybody will.”

  “What have you got there in the eighth race, Mickey?”

  “Green Swords!”

  “Green Swords? I never heard of that plug.”

  “He’ll win the eighth race! He’s a chestnut gelding out of Sickle!” blurted Mickey eagerly.

  “He’s a what? You see that, John? This kid even knows the sires and the whole stud line. He don’t care about the figures, he’s got his eye on class! Ha, ha, ha!”—and the old man tousled Mickey’s hair gleefully—“that’s my crazy little kid!”

  Martin fell to chuckling hoarsely and shaking his head, and went back to his figures with fresh absentminded zeal.

  At noon the two gamblers were all set to go. They stuffed their papers and figures in their pockets, bought a scratch sheet on the Square, the old man went in the bank for an extra wad of money, they had a quick lunch in the Chinese restaurant where Martin kidded with his old friend Wong Lee and gave him a tip on the first race, and they drove off in the warm sunny afternoon, down the green wooded Merrimac Valley and then north to New Hampshire to Rockingham Park in the hills.