Visions of Cody

by Jack Kerouac

  JACK. Yeah

  CODY.—you know. We’ve got to break loose out of that man (meaning recorder)

  JACK. Out of what! Out of this?

  CODY. Yeah. I got to go, out there

  JACK. Working for nothin! (going to machine)

  CODY. Whoa (holding him off), fatal…fatal. But what I’m sayin is, I got to get hungup on my-self goin out there, and you gotta get hungup by your-self here and that’s a kind of a drag, man, you understand. I felt like Lionel when I said that, “That’s a kind of a drag man,” you know how, how Li’s always sayin “Oh that’s a drag man,” you know how he’s always sayin that, y’know, sympathizin with you, you tell him something, he says “Man that must have been a drag!” man, or else he’ll say—and it is a drag for when he’s describin it himself—but—so I got to do that man, I’m sorry, but we gotta get a renewal of the supply of the material which makes it possible for us to be this way

  JACK. We’ll save the rest for Jimmy

  CODY. Yeah!

  THE HANGING (Same Night) ____________________

  (everybody laughing. Cody dancing to classical music.)

  JACK. Imagine a ballet dancer doing that, on a stage, in a ballet, a guy—

  JIMMY. Wouldn’t he be terrific if he was dancing with skin tights? Wouldn’t it be terrific?

  CODY. No (choking on smoke)

  JACK. No, no, dressed just like that!

  JIMMY. Come on man, get with it (laughing heartily: ho ho ho)

  CODY. (blasting) That’s a ballet, see? One of those mechanical modern dances. Now he’s got it…see I couldn’t drag myself away from it. (laughing) Sweet and lovely isn’t it…. Careful, this is the last roach, men. (blasting furiously) (gagging, groaning) This roach, this immortal roach, this tremendous…. Which one is the tokay? All three. This is the one you gave to me, hey? The fullest one, obviously, I’ve not touched it. Now this roach, this immortal roach like a beautiful soul of some dead blossom of a rose will plop into the muscatel, only it’s tokay, flame tokay, and I shall drink it (laughing) in liquid form, a concoction of, ah, doubtful, ah, qualities, ’cause you know, not being a lush type…

  JACK. (up on chair) Rub off the dream here a bit (flakes of blue paint on kitchen bulb)

  CODY. Oooh my goodness yass, (imitating old man) that blue light I’ve seen it every day since I been in this house, used to be all covered with all blue and everyone looked all sick in face you know, but gradually time has, ah, wrought its wreath (goofing words) and I shall rip with my initials, (drunk), some empty fiver, let it underline, my god (all laughing)

  JIMMY. How weird

  CODY. (all laughing) That’s not good tea huh…. Here we go men

  JIMMY. Hey the dog ain’t underneath here is he? Can I crawl under if the dog ain’t underneath there…is there? I’d like to crawl under there

  CODY. (blasting) Dog no, there’s no dog on the premises. Yeah man, it’s perfectly permissible…. You park the chair Jimmy. Right. This is a hangman knot with seven threads. (Jack now standing on chair by cord) Seven threads, I have here, I have illegally concealed a spring in the trap so that instead of breaking his neck, pacaah! and killing him, he shall slowly strangle to death and take him forty-five minutes ’cause the spring will give, see

  JIMMY. Let me help you, alright?

  JACK. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?

  CODY. This is a formal hanging but nonetheless it’ll have that interesting byplay the twi-tiching, you know, the old muscles (gagging in hands) stiff and jerk—oak (chokes). Sit down, have a seat (to Jimmy) AH! (all laughing) My first job as executioner

  JIMMY. Hey can we have a knife so we can cut his ton—testicles while he’s hanging?

  CODY. No, no, n—wait…we’ll desecrate the body after…. After ha ha

  JIMMY. I mean let’s, let’s hang him up and put him over on top a pawnshop, I mean…ah…

  CODY. Yeah. The best part is to catch him unaware. Unaware! You catch him unaware (to be heard)

  JIMMY. This is free

  CODY. Which way will I pull it Jimmy, that’s all, the only thing that worries me

  JIMMY. Ah we gotta have a knife to cut him down in case he slips, y’know, huh? (hard laughter) We’ll make a slit, I mean

  CODY. Ah no…

  JACK. (with rope around his neck) Continued next week

  CODY. We’ll catch this…villain, if we’ll hang him from the nearest yardarm, ah. (crash! tittering laughs! crashes!) Hee hee hee hee hee. The sonumbitch’s got such a strong head he broke the trap! He broke my favorite trap! Down! c-c-c-c!

  JIMMY.—very mad. Go now—

  CODY. Distill the precious liquor! (laughs) (drinks) I had it cleverly concealed but he, the villain, he was on to me, this Hopalong Cassidy serial is just a little bit too, goddamn, I’ll get even with him next time, I’ve got a knife outside, he ain’t no—he’ll learn when they—when they start knivin ’em out west, hey Jimmy? These Easterners. (laughter) I knew that spring would come down, Evelyn said it was about to. Now be careful where you sit, there boy, you better watch along—Now it’s almost five o’clock so we almost have some music, it’s—he turned it down—(Jimmy laughing, radio starting) The radio announcement, the Chinese Silverman gold ren-fer trouble, trupple, triple, that’s been publicized, analyzed. (whoop) (dropping ashtray) Hey! (laughs) (music starts) (swing) A drunken carrasal!…see you got my roach

  JACK. (laughing) I didn’t know. (imitating W. C. Fields as he drinks roach) Too many maraschino cherries in the Manhattans makes me sick

  CODY. (drinking) Ugh. I never tasted the stuff before myself (piccolo) Take a good slug of it, and no more

  JACK. Yeah? You lush!

  CODY. Man it’ll hit your belly, instead of sipping wine take a gulp and that’s all. (piccolo and blasting) (Glenn Miller “Moonlight Serenade” on) It’s Jimmy and Glenn Miller

  JIMMY. Oh high!

  CODY. What we’ve got to have is another piccolo. Now wait a minute

  JIMMY. I got one here

  CODY. Well you’ve got one, new here’s—we’re gonna have a trio, did I ever tell you that one about the—“There once was a man from Canute, had warts on his cheroot, he poured acid on these, and now when he pees, he fingers his cheroot like a flute?” D’I ever tell you that? You never heard that one! We gotta—also we can hear the trio, and we’ll trade off. (as classical music begins) You’ll play the white piccolo, and you play the black piccolo, I’ll play the sweetpotato, for two minutes, and then you’ll take the sweetpotato, we’ll pass it around in rotation see so we don’t get on any bum kicks because of the poor instrument. Sit down! we’re gonna sit down to the quartet, the Beethov—come on, str—string quartet man…well this is a clarinet trio, you understand

  JIMMY. Who’s gonna pass on this ability here

  CODY. On ability the machine itself will pass on

  JIMMY. Is it stopped?

  CODY. No…we don’t, no we just wanta a three-way here—

  JIMMY. A little cooperation here—(experimental flutings) (as Jack dials)

  CODY. Listen, for real tea-head goof kicks man, we can’t have any—we gotta be like a string quartet, no beat and syncopation whatsoever, see, and we’ll just goof you understand, like a string quartet, you understand, but he’ll play his solo there, you know like he just did, see—Let’s make sure we’re getting everything here. (adjusts mike) (first notes, challenges) Hey man, hey, the guy who has the soft one must be sure and get his thing to hear close enough so it can be heard

  JIMMY. I can’t hear my thing—

  CODY. No yours can be heard, yours is the loudest, you sit like this, and Jack’s about right, he might turn that way a little, but I have to keep going this way until it’s your turn then you have to keep turning that way—Now let’s goof again, let’s goof again (laughing), I didn’t mean to interrupt and all this ’cause you guys—

  JIMMY. (was saying)—I turn this thing on my leg—(now laughs) Hey I got to get a girl to get me incentive—to reach that damn t
hing—

  CODY. That was, ah, that was amazing, I began to think of snake charmers and then I began to think of the, toot toot toot, and so therefore I had to cut you all a great mighty solo…my mighty solo was about to come in there…

  JIMMY. Oh the rape charmers

  CODY. Ready? (announcing) The rape charmers of the Indian plantation system

  (they play)

  clarity of tone…

  JIMMY. Ah!

  CODY…. an attribute

  JIMMY. Yes sahib

  (they play)

  CODY. Slowly, children, slowly. (they play a long while) Now we trade, now we trade

  JIMMY. Hey!

  CODY. We gotta get accustomed to all the instruments

  JIMMY. (protests) Jesus Christ, hey, wh—

  CODY. No, like we…hee hee, come on go on, music! there you are

  (handing)

  JIMMY. What is the ho—here?

  CODY. That’s it see

  JIMMY. Hey what’s this little tiny hole here? That isn’t a piss hole is it?

  CODY. Never seen a hole that small before

  JIMMY. Is this the piss hole?

  CODY. It’s the piss hole, the mighty seven epistles. (Jimmy blows) All wind…(laughs)…all hollow blowing. The hole’s up here…there you are

  THIRD NIGHT ____________________

  CODY. (singing at table) No more women…

  JACK…. in the crank

  CODY. I been spanked…. What to do about it

  (singing)

  JACK. Chapter one (flutes on piccolo)

  CODY…. Let’s put out the lights and go to sleep (singing)

  JACK. First sentence of the book (reads) I TAKE MY FRIENDS TOO SERIOUSLY

  CODY. Great, great, great

  JACK. Why, why, why is it so great?

  CODY. Man that’s just the kind of a tone of a book that I’m trying to write man, that’s the tone, you got the tone right there

  JACK. (flutes) Awright. Second sentence. (reads) EITHER THAT OR I DON’T LIKE LIFE ANY MORE

  CODY. Man! Now you’re getting profoondified, now that’s exactly—that’s beautiful. G-r-eat shit. Now that’s the greatest stuff you’ve written since you’ve been in this house. (JACK (laughs) Yeah?) That’s the kind, that’s the way, I’m thinkin all the time, that’s the kind of things, that’s what I’M tryin to write, it’s what I’M thinkin about, exactly right

  JACK. Well I think like this all the time but I never write this

  CODY. Man…that’s the way to write

  JACK. (reading) I MEAN MY LIFE OF COURSE

  CODY. That’s right. That’s your third sentence

  JACK. Third sentence (flutes) IT’S TOO GUILTY NOW TO HAVE FUN…(waits, flutes, no reaction) IF I HAVE TO MAKE A MATURE ADJUSTMENT TO A FUNLESS LIFE I THINK I’D RATHER COMMIT SUICIDE

  CODY. Jesus Christ, whoo!

  JACK. But instead of getting hungup there you notice I went on playin the flute

  CODY. Yeah

  JACK. The next sentence is this: and it’s better than what I was goin to say: CHURCH MUSIC, THAT’S BEST, JUST LIKE ARTIE SHAW SAID. We were playing church music on the flute…

  CODY. Ah huh

  JACK…. Artie Shaw, Billie Holliday record, “Gloomy Sunday,” the suicide record of the Thirties…

  CODY. Yeah

  JACK…. you didn’t, did you, know that? about the record?

  CODY. Ah huh

  JACK. Did you connect Artie Shaw with it?

  CODY. NO!

  JACK. Is it interesting to connect Artie Shaw with that record?

  CODY. Yes

  JACK. Why?

  CODY. Well man you don’t expect him to have that inside of him…with all them cunts a man—listen, a man that has as many cunts shouldn’t have anything else on his mind

  JACK. About what, cunt?

  CODY. No, not thinking about cunt, he shouldn’t be granted the right…to have any other kind of a thought except what lies between them little gals’ legs…. So if he’d say a whole kind of stuff like that why, he’d get scrupefied. Very interesting

  JACK. That’s what Artie Shaw said (reads, flutes) I KEEP FEELING THAT EVERYBODY KEEPS PICKING ON ME (Cody laughs) NOT ONLY CODY AND EVELYN BUT YOU TOO

  CODY. Hee Hee, “you too” huh?

  JACK. I’M TRYING TO FIND SOME WAY TO END IT ALL

  CODY. (laughs) That’s good, boy, that’s damn good. (Jack flutes) Very good. Geez if you could write like that…for a thousand pages (flute)

  JACK. Yeah, well it’s not a story. (flutes) It’s a kind of story?

  CODY. (eating at table) Shua…kinda story I wanta write about

  JACK. (reads on) I’M VERY DECENT IN FACT TODAY I PUT ON FRESH CLOTHES TO GO TO WORK IN BECAUSE I HAD TO HAVE A PHYSICAL EXAMINATION FROM THE DOCTOR FIRST AND I THOUGHT OF THE POOR BASTARD HAVING TO TELL MEN TO STRIP TO THE WAIST FIFTY TIMES ALL DAY ALTHOUGH BY NOW HE’S USED TO IT OF COURSE, THE POINT BEING I’M NOT, IN OTHER WORDS THE UPSHOT IS I’M CRAZY AND SHOULD BE IN A COMFORTABLE MADHOUSE AND I DON’T LIKE THE IDEA OF GIVING BLOOD

  CODY. (laughing) That’s great…great shit. Now you’re really talkin. (Jack flutes) All that tea has finally produced somethin

  JACK. It has, hey?

  CODY. Goddamn right. We’ll have to get some more of that stuff

  JACK. You know what that sounds like though…

  CODY. What?

  JACK. It sounds like…the way that Dostoevsky started the, ah, Underground, Notes From the Underground, Jesus, that’s what, he started it by saying, ah, (flute) “I don’t like you…reader,” somethin like that…“reader, you’re picking on me.” (plays “Them There Eyes” upflip on flute) (and then a long solo) I will write the next sentence now. (flutes faintly, then wavery, then types, wham, wham)

  CODY. Well for crissakes, Jack, can’t you make your piecrust a little harder? (W. C. Fields-ing) (laughs alone as Jack types) Jesus Christ! See I thought of that line before I said the first one…that’s why I said “for crissakes,” I thought of the…catchline, see?—I gave it plenty of weight, weighed it see then after I said it I thought “Gee, I waited too long, he might think I had to think of that last line.” (Jack flutes) I thought of the first line first, I mean the—yes I guess I did after all, but the second line I had before I finished the first three words of the first line, I just…waited too long…

  JACK. That’s it, boy, you come over here and tell me now

  CODY. (laughs) I’ll tell you Jack, here’s how I’ll tell you—I think what you should do is ask questions, like for example—phew! man I had it a minute ago, why didn’t I blurt it out—Shit! The reason I didn’t blurt it out ’cause you said “Now I’m gonna write my next sentence,” so I sat down thinking about you writing your next sentence, and I thought to myself “Now if he can ask himself questions…that, that, ah, he’ll know instinctly, what it is about him that’s that way,” why then you can make a statement about it, like, “I’m very decent,” only on a much better level, like if he—Jesus Christ I’m trying to think of what it was I thought of…I didn’t…damn!…let’s see…(Jack flutes and waits)…(Jack types)…(for sixty seconds)

  JACK. Go on Cody

  CODY. Man, I’m thinkin. I’ve just spent the last minute thinking and I had a complete block

  JACK. Well speaking of that, look at this sentence. (flute) Now. Concerning…THE TAPE RECORDER IS TURNING, THE TYPEWRITER IS WAITING, AND I SIT HERE WITH A FLUTE IN MY MOUTH. And so you’re just sittin there thinking while it’s playing (plays flitty flute)

  CODY. That’s just what I’ve been doin but I couldn’t think of the thought. And I guess the reason I can’t think of it and why I’m blocked is because I didn’t formalize it or I didn’t think about it long enough, soon as the thought hit me, why, I didn’t think it out, because I was gonna blurt it out. Damn, if I’d have just spoken—(Cody running water at sink, flute blowing, watery flute) Your coffee’s gettin cold. I’ll bring it over but I don’t know which one it is (really meant, he says, he
didn’t know whether I wanted cream or sugar or what)

  JACK. See how terrible it is when no one listens

  CODY. Oh man, yeah, I know how terrible it is. Christ yes

  JACK. Why that’s—I’m going mad now, see every time I start something I go crazy. That’s my next sentence. (pantomimes collapse at typewriter, falls on floor) See? What was it? About—

  CODY. “Every time I start something I go crazy”…

  JACK. Ah…. (types) No, no, no, I didn’t say that! What was I say-in? About the coffee?

  CODY. “See how it is when nobody listens?”

  JACK. Yeah, that’s what I was sayin. That’s not what I wanted to write

  CODY. No

  JACK. No…. When you answer you’re goofed. Don’t goof here

  CODY. Ah huh

  JACK. Although that would be good to write wouldn’t it now

  CODY. What

  JACK. What would be good to say, to write that, I suppose, you can write anything in there

  CODY. Yeah

  JACK…. something like that, that’s the trouble with that

  CODY. Yeah that’s the trouble

  JACK. But in fact that’s what’s good about it, you can write anything in there. Huh?

  CODY. That’s right. Has to be damn sharp though. Celine does a lot of that

  JACK. What does he do?

  CODY. Ah you know how he writes…

  JACK. He does a lot of, ah, that, yeah…. It has to be damn sharp

  CODY. Yeah, damn right

  JACK. How can I be eating on Benzedrine? (eating at table)

  CODY. (laughs) That tea’ll overcome anything. (pause)…Why don’t you let me read John’s letter? (playing whiny little boy)