by Jack Kerouac
JACK. Within the hour we’ll be up there
JIMMY. Within the hour
JACK. Is that alright?
JIMMY. Oh sure, I could meet you somewhere more convenient, if you want
JACK. No, no, that’s the place
JIMMY. Okay. Well, if you get lost, ah, call Butterhill one eight six four-o
JACK. Butterworld—Butterhill one eight five four-o. Hee hee hee hee
JIMMY. Yeah in case you get lost, then ask for Jimmy Low, right?
JACK. Okay Jimmy
JIMMY. Okay Jack, ah, easy does it heh?
JACK. Yeah
JIMMY. Righto
JACK. Easy does it
JIMMY.—‘tsa deal
JACK. Bye (hangs up) Er ah ear ah, well…well that’s the thing, you’re cuttin the thing
CODY. Goddamn it…this evening…and it’s fat, man, and best of all it’s loaded with a lot of great shit. This isn’t any old stick of tea, man, when you get this down your gullet gonna have to give me a match (hee hee hee hee as J. goofs). Forty-six eighty-three Seventeenth Street, where the god’s hell we ever gonna get out there. We’re gonna have to do that, immediately! Ha! Humph! If this doesn’t get you high man, nothin will. Here take this (as J. seeks a roach). Hmm (exhale)
JACK. But did you dig this? (indicating typewritten sheet)
CODY. Yah, that’s what I’ve been in the process of doing here
JACK. Boy that’s really somethin…. You don’t want to dig it now, do you?
CODY. Do whatever you say (disposable). Get high, get h-i-g-h…. See…I know you got the recorder on, if I…ah, even if I…(laughing) damn him
JACK. Huh?
CODY. No, that’s awright, man, that makes it alright, I just didn’t want to have you under any false impressions, you know, YOU know what I’m saying, you know because like if I acted as if I didn’t know it was on, why then, there’d be an ambiguity of…of, ah, ulterial motives, drooning, you know, ’cause you’d be in the process of getting me around under the machine and I’d be in the process of, ah, saying, like for examply, the reading of the manuscript, see, wal, hmm, wait a minute—I lost it (laughing)
JACK. Oh that
CODY. No—that’s just pencil—Hee hee hee, damn
JACK. See, did you dig this here? I didn’t notice that till I played it back
CODY. (after long silence)…(laughing)…It’s like last night—ah damn thing
JACK. Hmm boy that was good. That was a good one wasn’t it?
CODY. Phew!
JACK. Hmm…“And I remembered June’s story about the horse” question mark? (reading) Yoohee, it’s like a line of poetry. Is that what you said, “bad order high”?
CODY. Yeah, meaning, no good
JACK. I put that in
CODY. Yeah
JACK. But I didn’t know that when I put it in
CODY. Yeah
JACK. Now go on
CODY. Bad order, with his bad order not high but eyes…see, he’s got bad order eyes, he can’t see, that’s what I’m telling you, see
JACK. Oh yeah?
CODY. I say…“he can’t SEE”
JACK. Oh bad order high—
CODY. Bad order—
JACK. Eyes
CODY.—eyes, yeah
JACK. Aaaah
CODY. His eyes are no good, see
JACK. I thought you were saying he was bad order high
CODY. Yeah
JACK. Okay
CODY. Same thing though, it is here
JACK. That son of a bitch. (Cody laughs) Look at that sonofabitch
CODY. Yeah
JACK. Then I remembered this, “demurely downward look”
CODY. I seem to remember that myself
JACK. Although it wasn’t really
CODY. No
JACK. It was my idea
CODY. Yeah
JACK. About the look you had
CODY. Well yeah…it was kinda of a—
JACK. But it apparently wasn’t…what you were really doing…
CODY. That’s what it really amounts to, though
JACK. Why, because lookit…the talk is far way from demure…
CODY. Well, the reason for the demure is…any approach to the words like, as I remember like what I said…here, ah, “I can’t get it down,” for example, you know, “I can’t get it down”—Well, I approached that very terribly, I was talking you know about something you know, that—it’s goin on—You know what I’m trying to say?
JACK. Hey? (suspiciously)
CODY. See? Here’s what I’m saying, for example, I say, now man, “can’t get it down,” you know, and even as I say it it sounds awful, then also it sounds like struggling to get it down, and also sounds like whatever approach a young kid would, ah, approach with definite talk of getting it down, or in other words it might be an idealist who is no longer idealistic, and so he no longer wants to talk about ideals, y’know, and he doesn’t want to, you understand what I’m sayin though don’t you…. And, so—that’s what I say when I say “I can’t get it down,” and then…“two minutes”—but you picked up on that, of all the different things I was sayin, and so you said, “But you don’t have to get it down,” you know, that’s what you said…and so the demure downward look…was simply in the same tone and the same fashion…as my reaction and feeling was when I said the words “but you can’t get it down” you know
JACK. Ah…you were demure when you were saying those words
CODY. No, I said this—
JACK. I don’t know why you were demure if you were demure
CODY. I was demure simply because of the same reaction of those words, ’cause you chose “I can’t get it down,” and I approached it with a hesitancy, you understand what I’m sayin? What I’m saying is—
JACK. I thought you were bein demure because when I said “You don’t have to get it down”…
CODY. Yah?
JACK…. you thought it meant, ah, that I was saying…ah, you don’t have to write, see, I’ll write. You looked away demurely, guy’s saying “I got bigger muscles than you have”
CODY. Yeah yeah, that’s right, yeah. Well it wasn’t—and I didn’t dig it personally, I dug it, as a, like I say…ah, a remembrance of my own past, my own, you understand—it was all an inward thing—not outward, you understand…. So when I looked down demurely it was the same way as…ah—in my own self…I approached a word, just like when you hear a bad word, or see a poor word, or dislike some particular phrase…like some guys are hungup on disliking phrases…you know, like for example I can remember, the Okies, in this country, especially out here in California when they say something, like instead of saying it’s either one or the other, or something like that, they’ll say “Man (cough) I was either gonna shoot that guy, or beat him up, one!” See, they use the word “one,” one or the other they mean, see, I was either gonna do this or that…one way or the other but they always say “Man I’m gonna hit him this or do that, one!”
JACK. So?
CODY. Well I’m sayin, like when you come to dislike that phrase, the same way here, I come to dislike any concern about talking with the facts of “I can’t get it down”—meaning…generally, writing…or, whatever it is the object that—
JACK. You don’t like the phrase?
CODY. Not only the phrase in terms of phrase, but I mean the—in my own self when I approach the word…or I’ve come to dislike the phrase only ’cause it’s associated with the fact that…I’m talking about something I no longer want to approach, or am approaching properly…or, what I’m saying is, you know…you have certain things inside your mind…when you catch yourself talking some other way from…what the way you want to be…caught talking
JACK. Yeah yeah yeah!
CODY. Well that’s what I’m meaning to say that when I say a word like that, or a phrase of that particular nature, so therefore when you picked up on that and said “But you don’t have to get it down,” half consolingly…and also, still
it’s kicks enough in itself…and so on…that’s MY interpretation…at the moment of when you said that, what you meant…and so when I demurely look down there…the concern (cough) was the remembrance of the reaction, ah, the thing that I had, ah, the same feeling that I had in me when I said the words “I can’t get it down” came out in the downward look of half disgustingly…really having to approach a problem, or a concern—or something, that is that you haven’t lately been in the habit of doing, and also that you’re not sure is exactly—in other words you know you’re a long way away from the problem, that’s what I’m trying to say…. You know you’re out there someplace else where you really don’t want to be…you feel half disgusted at having to be out there…at the same time the demureness that comes into your expression is the—you know, it’s too—you just feel very—ah strangled, do you know what I’m sayin, you feel very—
JACK. Are you sure? (joking)
CODY. You know what I mean, you’re a long way out and…the demureness is the, ah—
JACK. (imitating Lionel) How can you be so suah?
CODY.—is the opposite side of, ah—the demureness is the opposite side of, and the reverse feeling from, ah, and anger, demureness is a kindliness cast as a cloak over anger, or, ah, it is a shielding, or a shell for the inward frustration…which the anger is, you see, the anger is the internal anger, and the weariness that comes into the heart, unless you know that Jesus is always on your side. Now remember that (paternally)
JACK. (laughing) I was trying to find Billie Holliday’s record of “Body and Soul” and put it on that jukebox there, plugged in—
CODY. Damn thing, couldn’t find it
JACK. Couldn’t find it
CODY. Well you just played it an hour ago, two hours ago, three hours ago (inhale)
JACK. Yeah, but purpose…of playing it at this moment was to evoke the musical sound—
CODY. Oh yes…
JACK.—of the Texas that we were talking about last night
CODY. Texas, why—
JACK. See, that’s what I was doing over there
CODY. Yeah man, I know you were, you’ve been—see, all the time I’ve been talking, every minute I’ve been speaking here about this subject, why you’ve been picking up and putting down those records and you went through the entire case of fifty…three times! So that means looking on both (laughing with Jack) sides of the record…three times would be a hundred and fifty times two, is three hundred times you moved your arm up and down and cast your glance up and back to manufacture something by finding—what if you have to do that all day, countless-ly twelve hours a day sun-up until sun-down with children that is with objects which have to be taken care of, see, automatic, and so you have to go up and down three hundred times like that you know…every minute ’cause you’re always supposed to be doing something—
JACK. (interrupting) Oh if I really wanted to find it I’d take them all out and stack ’em up
CODY. Yeah?
JACK. No, I’d go one by one but it’s not there
CODY. Yeah
JACK. Where is it?
CODY. What did you do with it, you played it three hours ago, remember? Hee hee. So it’s a mysh-tery…where could it have gone? You wouldn’t have unconsciously put it in an album? But since you’ve nevertheless—
JACK. No I didn’t do that
CODY. None the less I’ll do something like this, watch, I’ll just pull one out and I bet it’s Billie Holliday just to be vain, see? Now I haven’t looked at it you can tell, have I—and certainly I don’t intend to look at it, I’m just trying to put this plug in, see, I’ve been watching with my eyes, so you can see I’m not cheatin and lookin. Awright. See…damn thing…ah I know, it’s too loose. Now I hope I—I hope it’s Billie Holliday (both laughing) Huh? After you made three hundred motions…
JACK. You don’t even know what it is
CODY. No…ready? Wait till the volume gets a little loud. Because the best part about Holliday records—for example you know that “Them There Eyes” (sings it, the riffintro, with little Texas upflip) And then, you know after they do that twice, three times really, why then she starts singing…but you know that opening? Remember the opening? The first eight bars? Ready? Billie Holliday…(MUSIC starts). I don’t know the name of it
JACK. “Good Morning Heartaches”
CODY. “Good Morning Heartaches,” yeah. (laughing) Good morning heartaches!
BILLIE SINGING: Good morning heartaches…
JACK. What do you think of that?
BILLIE SINGING:…you old gloomy sight…
CODY. Man, she just sits there…
BILLIE SINGING:…good morning heartaches…
JACK. Wow
BILLIE SINGING:…thought we said goodbye last night…
JACK. This thing here when Bull is sittin on the porch with his rifle across his knees? Now where is that?
CODY. Yeah, yeah, well it’s back there…
JACK. Wherever it is—‘course I know where it is—at that moment—hmm
CODY. What are you doing? I know where it is—I say here—
JACK. Where is it?
CODY. Right here, “settin with his rifle ‘cross his knees”…
JACK. Yah. Now see these big questions…“yeah, I was there, yeah”—I say “Why did he shoot?” Cody—“He didn’t stick it out the window, we was all sitting on the porch”—the moment you said that I feel the outdoors of Texas
CODY. Yah
JACK. Huck is playing his Billie Holliday, see, right here, naturally the guy’s pointing to that part of the porch, and that Huck plays Billie Holliday outdoors in the middle of Texas is—see, “And Bull’s sittin there on the porch with his rifle ‘cross his knees”…as that is playing in Texas
CODY. Yeah, yeah, now you’re talking
JACK. Sittin there like this, and where “I’m sittin there,” and that’s the way it—see, then “C-R-O-W-S-H!”
CODY. Yah that was crazy
JACK. “A dead tree strunk, he thought, see, for kicks, he’d shoot the tree-trunk see?” (reading on to “baby cries”)
CODY. (laughing) See, “it hit the treetrunk awright”…
JACK. See, “Billie Holliday—”
CODY. Oh. Yeah man…. Now here’s somethin you won’t believe. Now here’s somethin—I’m gonna tell you somethin you really won’t believe, now I’m gonna lay something down to you and you’ve got to really think about it in the same sense like we talked about “I can’t get it down” or somethin, see? But not about that subject, but you got to understand the meaning of the words and so on. Just as I can talk there for twenty minutes about the reaction that made me give the demure downward look or the feeling of the “I can’t get it down” you understand, in the same sense of those phrases you must understand that at the moment that I said these words “sitting on the porch” I chose those and thought of those because I had the same reaction of the outdoors of feeling like the outdoors, that was the very word—in fact it was the very reason that I began to speak…because you said—you know often, I don’t even answer…(blurred tape, talking about Jack saying Bull Hubbard shot “out the window”)…and then I said “Yeah, I was there” and I just lifted my mind up and said that—I had to say that for another reason, which I don’t want to tell you, man—what I’m sayin, is the reason I don’t want to tell you is ’cause it was a reason which—what I’M sayin, what it really was, was, with the tape record, you know, well I said “Yeah I was there,” ordinarily (Jack laughs) I wouldn’t have picked up on that and talked about it see, you know, but the fact that we are recording…so it was a kind of a lifting yourself up to say “Yah I was there.” Now then, ah, on about two three seconds later and when you said they were inside the window immediately my mind visualized that window as impossible, you know, it was, window, he couldn’t have shot out a window unless he was trying to sniper, you know, it was like this, the windows were all—you know what I’m sayin, and, so, but…sitting on the porch so, b
ecause we were always sittin on the porch and the porch where we were sitting it’s all an open front porch long and everything, and that, and while I said “sitting on the porch” I thought that would show that it was outdoors…just like you say…and then, ah, but instead, my mind then got hungup on the fact that he couldn’t shoot through the…porch…because it was screened in, so Bull actually was sitting on the front steps is where he was sitting! Because the whole thing was screened except the door, yeah, and he’s sittin down there on the front steps—but it seems to me he was in a chair…
JACK. Where’s this thing play, inside the screen?
CODY. Off in the corner—yeah inside the screen, yeah
JACK. On the porch or in the house?
CODY. Yeah and I’m sittin, on a bench—I’m sitting on a Somerset T-type bench all by myself, and Huck’s—
JACK. Yeah. Where were the washtubs?
CODY. The washtubs were on the other side of the porch—where June is, she’s over there in the washtubs. And Huck’s kneelin down and sittin on a small chair by the phonograph record to keep the music goin all the time
JACK. What’s he sayin?
CODY. Yeah. Nothin. He’s just sittin there (laughing), he was there blastin, that’s all…he’ll pass it to me and I’ll pass it to him, and we’re just sittin there like that, we weren’t talking about nothing ever hardly…but I mean he was, once in a while he’d talk, you know, when we were alone driving together we’d talk, just about like we are now see. But Huck at that time was very worried and hungup kind of guy, you know, he was living under a lot of pressure, he really was, see, you understand, and, but he and I dug each other all the time real fine, everything real smooth. But—
JACK. What would Irwin be doing?
CODY. Oh he left, he was only there three days, I never told you the great story of the bed, about—you must have heard about it though, the bed, the symbolic bed? that Irwin and I were gonna build man? I didn’t tell you about that story? man I got to tell you about that story. You mean you—we’ve only played this once? (at phonograph)
JACK. No, you played it twice
CODY. “You played it twice” (repeating)
JACK. Yeah
CODY. Twice
JACK. Yeah. Well. Play a little—little blue eyes there—dem there eyes