On the Road Book Notes

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

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Author/Context

Jack Kerouac, originally Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, was born on March 12, 1922 to French Canadian parents in Lowell, Massachusetts. His first language was a French-Canadian dialect and even by the age of eighteen, his English was described as "halting." His older brother died when he was four years old and this affected him his entire life. He went to Columbia University on a football scholarship, but dropped out and joined the Merchant Marines. He was married three times, but lived with his mother most of his life. He died in Florida in 1969 at the young age of 47.

Kerouac is best known as the father of the Beat movement. He met fellow author Allen Ginsberg when he was first in New York. With Ginsberg, his friend Neal Cassady, the person on whom Dean Moriarty is based, and heroin-addict/writer William Burroughs, Kerouac formed the nucleus of a group of writers that defined an era. This group experimented with drugs, eastern mysticism, and sexual deviation. A few of them were involved in Timothy Leary's LSD experiments. Ginsberg's poem, "Howl", and Burrough's novel, Naked Lunch, have become cult classics, canonized in American literature by many critics. This group heavily influenced the drug culture of the sixties and seventies, and literary circles to the current day. The group philosophy, although never officially declared, involved experimentation with drugs and integrating these experiments into writing and intellectualism. Along with this, they embraced the American jazz subculture and helped to make it more mainstream.

Kerouac's first novel, The Town and the City, was published to mediocre reviews in 1950. For the next few years, Kerouac attempted to finish a book about his adventures on the road, but he was never successful. In April 1951, Kerouac wrote for three weeks on a continuous roll of paper and finished the first complete version of On the Road. When the book was finally published in 1957, Kerouac became an instant celebrity.

Many of Kerouac's years before and after On the Road were spent either actually on the road or at home writing. Among his peers, he was famous as a jazz poet, although many modern critics agree with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who contends he was "a better novel writer than a poem maker." After his second novel, Kerouac's literary career was affected by his frustration in trying to cope with his new fame and match his original success. Kerouac wrote many novels, most of which were meant to be part of what he called "The Duluoz Legend," the story of his life spread out through several novels. Other novels not part of this sequence are The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums. He died before he could complete his legend, however, and On the Road endures as his most significant work.

According to Ann Charters, "On the Road can be read as an American classic along with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as a novel that explores the theme of personal freedom and challenges the promise of the 'American dream.'" Kerouac's most successful novel stands as a testament to a period of American history and an intellectual movement that would otherwise be left unexplained. Although not wholly autobiographical, it provides an insight into a time that has past. Omar Swartz suggests that "the idealistic message of Kerouac's fantasy is a counterstatement to the negativism and corruption of the corporate fantasy that America disseminates."

Bibliography

Clark, Tom. Jack Kerouac. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984.

French, Warren. Jack Kerouac. Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1986.

Gifford, Barry and Lee, Lawrence. Jack's Book. New York: St Martin's Press, 1971.

Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Penguin Books, 1956.

Swartz, Omar. The View from On the Road. Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.

Plot Summary

Salvatore Paradise, an aspiring writer, meets the enigmatic Dean Moriarty after the break up of his first marriage. He is immediately fascinated by him and disappointed when Dean is attracted by the charms of his other friends. Even though Dean is in New York, where Sal lives, he doesn't see him much. Sal decides to go on the road that spring. His trip is ill-fated from the start, and he loses a day of travel, requiring him to take the bus rather than hitchhiking. The bus makes it to Chicago and he continues hitching rides, meeting up with another hitchhiker who borrows his shirt and ditches him for another ride. In Denver, after a long journey, he meets up with his friends Carlo and Dean only to find that they are not longer acceptable to his other group of friends. His friends get him a nice apartment and try to set him up with a girl. Dean is sleeping with two women, Camille, his girlfriend, and Marylou, his wife. Sal stays in Denver for a while, but then turns back to the road to join his friend Remi in San Francisco. With Remi, he works as a security guard on a military base, but this only interests him for so long. By the time Remi's girlfriend is ready to kick them both out, he is happy to leave. He takes a bus with money sent from his aunt and meets a beautiful Mexican girl named Terry. Things go well between them and soon he is living with her and her crazy brothers picking cotton for a living. Even though it is subsistence living, he is happy. When the colder weather comes, he finds that he has no more work and even though he doesn't want to, he leaves Terry and crosses the country for home.

The next time Sal sees Dean is between Christmas and New Year's when he shows up at Sal's brother's house in Virginia with a couple of other people. Dean is back with Marylou, even though he divorced her and married Camille. Dean is in a frantic state of mind and he offers to help Sal's brother move some of his stuff to New York. They drive all night with a car-load of furniture and get to New York City. Once there, they unload some of their stuff and turn back around. They drive straight back to Virginia, where they pick up Sal's aunt and turn back around for New York. After the New Year's holiday, they have to go to New Orleans to pick up the wife of one of their companions. Dean drives into the night and they must steal gas because all of their money gets wasted on a speeding ticket. When they arrive in New Orleans, their friend Old Bull Lee isn't home and his wife is too drugged up to help. They go out to the bars.

They stay in New Orleans for a while with Old Bull Lee, but even his lifestyle bores them after some horse races and bar nights. Dean, Marylou and Sal climb back into their car and head for California. They have barely enough money to make it, but after picking up some passengers and borrowing some money, they do. When they arrive in the city of San Francisco, Dean immediately runs back to Camille and leaves Sal and Marylou alone. Marylou gets them a hotel room on credit. Soon after this, however, she leaves with a rich man one night and Sal is alone. Dean comes back only to ask after her. Sal waits for a check from his aunt and then leaves San Francisco.

Sal returns to Denver the next year and works for a while, but is unhappy there without Dean, so he goes to look for him in San Francisco. Dean has crippled his thumb and is working on the railcars. Camille has had his first child. Camille is not happy to see Sal. Dean and Sal spend a night on the town with some other girls who ridicule Dean. When Camille throws him out, Sal and Dean go to find Dean's father in Denver, but are unsuccessful. Dean's antics make him unpopular with the locals and Sal gets himself in trouble when the lady whose house they're staying in reads a letter he writes, describing how easy life is there. After Dean has a wild night of car stealing, they have to leave town. They drive someone's limousine straight to Chicago without any sleep. Once in Chicago, they wreck it in a night on the town. They hitch to New York where Dean meets a new girl he loves.

The next year, Sal decides to go on the road and travels to Denver with plans to go to Mexico. Dean shows up at the last minute wanting to drive him to Mexico City. They drive for a long time and stop in a town where they go to a whorehouse. When they finally get to Mexico City, Sal is too sick to appreciate it and Dean just turns around and leaves him there.

The next time Sal sees Dean, it is brief, as he is leaving for a concert with Remi. After Dean turns the corner, Sal never sees Dean again.

Major Characters

Camille: Dean's mistress and second wife with whom he has two children. Dean is originally cheating on his first wife Marylou with Camille in Denver. They end up married and living together in San Francisco. Camille becomes very emotional and volatile near the end of the relationship. Dean leaves Camille for Inez.

Carlo Marx: Friend of Dean and Salvatore. Carlo is a bum-intellectual who writes poetry and plays jazz. He is often found in basement apartments in either Denver or New York. His sage like advice represents a replacement in the absence of paternity throughout the novel. Carlo matures along the same liens as Salvatore. In the beginning of the book he is fixated with Dean, but by the middle he has grown into a different realm.

Dean Moriarty: Main protagonist and antagonist. Dean's volatile and attractive personality draws Salvatore into a new and wild world. His marriage and divorce with Camille and Mary Lou and his last affair with Inez provide a few of the romantic entanglements in the plot. He begins the tale as an associate of Carlo Marx, just out of prison in the south- west. Apparently, he grew up in Colorado with a hobo/bum for a father for whom he searches on many occasions throughout the book. Dean's fanatic personality races from journey to journey and pulls the other characters along. His various fixations with drugs, women, intellectualism and finally, his father and family life, provide milestones of emotional growth for Salvatore Paradise.

Marylou: First wife of Dean. Marylou is left by Dean for Camille, but when Dean leaves San Francisco he goes back to Denver and retrieves Marylou and brings her to Sal's brother's place in Virginia. For a while, it seems that Dean and Marylou are interested in Sal being Marylou's 'man' once the group reaches San Francisco, but once there, it becomes apparent that Marylou is only really interested in Dean. After a while she becomes a sort of prostitute but ends up marrying a used-car salesman.

Salvatore Paradise: The first person narrator of the story. The events of his three years on the road, except for a few short asides, make up the plot of the novel. He begins the story after his first divorce and ends it in a relationship with a woman known only as Laura. He lives with his unnamed aunt. His fixation with the personality of Dean Moriarty and his group of friends is integral to the evolution of the story. Sal's rocky relationship with and interest in Dean is the primary plot device of the tale. He begins the novel as an unsuccessful aspiring writer who meets Dean, a 'ball of flame' and follows him around the country. By the end of the story, he is tired of Dean's antics and is ready to settle down. Because this novel is semi-autobiographical, it is usually agreed that Salvatore represents the author himself.

Terry: Sal meets Terry on a bus ride and they fall in love. Terry is from a family of Mexican migrant workers and is separated from her husband who beats her. Sal and Terry spend some months together scraping together a subsistence living. They part in October and never see each other again. At different points in the novel, Sal looks back to his time with Terry and misses her.

Minor Characters

Babe Rawlins: The Sister to Ray Rawlings, she goes to the opera with Sal and is in love with Tim Gray.

Chad King: Original friend of Dean Moriarty, who introduced him to Salvatore Paradise. Salvatore read Dean's letters to Chad and became interested in him. Chad quickly becomes disillusioned with his one time friend.

Ed Dunkel: Friend of Dean and Sal who marries Galatea so that she will come with them across country and pay for the trip. Even though he ditches her at a hotel and on repeated other occasions, he ultimately returns to her every time.

Ed Wall: Ed Wall is a fringe member of Sal's group of friends whose family is wealthy. He has a ranch in Colorado. Although he has been an associate of Dean and Sal, he doesn't trust them and thinks that they stole the limousine they are driving to Chicago.

Eddie: The New York hitchhiker who meets up with Sal. Sal pays his bus fare and lends him a wool shirt. When a ride comes that can take only one of them, Eddie abandons Sal. They meet up again in Denver and behave as friends.

Galatea Dunkel: Wife of Ed who is mistreated and keeps Ed through perseverance. Near the end of the book, she becomes a moral voice against the antics of Dean.

Jane Lee: Wife of Old Bull Lee. Like her husband, she is almost permanently high.

Lee Ann: Volatile significant other of Remi Boncoeur. Lee Ann thinks that Remi is wealthy when she first meets him and is disappointed when she discovers the reality.

Lucille: Longshoreman's wife with whom Sal was having an affair before he left on his second long trip.

Mississippi Gene: Hobo who is escorting a young man across country when he meets Sal on the back of the flat bed truck. Sal buys him cigarettes.

Montana Slim: Another hobo who is more selfish than Mississippi Gene and does not share his cigarettes. Sal gets drunk with him in Cheyenne.

Old Bull Lee: The teacher/sage of drugs and life of Sal's group of friends. At different times in the story, Old Bull Lee lives with his wife and kids in either Texas or New Orleans. Old Bull Lee is most interested in drugs and idealizes the period of American culture from 1900 to 1910.

Ponzo: A migrant worker who is interested in Terry.

Ray Johnson: A man who drives Sal and Dean around during their last days in San Francisco.

Ray Rawlins: Part of Sal's circle of friends who rejected Dean and Carlo Marx.

Remi Bencoeur: Sal's prep school friend with whom he stays outside of San Francisco. Remi, who is married to Lee Ann, helps Sal find a job. Remi is ostentatious and saves all his money from the week to squander it on Saturday nights. His relationship with Lee Ann is volatile.

Reta Bettencourt: The waitress that Sal has sex with in Denver. Dean introduces Sal to her.

Rickey: Terry's brother who owns the truck with which they plan to haul manure. Rickey is almost always drunk.

Roland Major: Writer, friend and one-time roommate of Sal, Roland writes Hemingway-esque short stories. He makes a general fool of himself when he runs into Sal at a restaurant in San Francisco where he is currently writing for a newspaper.

Stan Shepherd: The man introduced to Sal by Tim Gray with whom Dean and Sal go to Mexico.

Tim Gray: A member of Sal's circle of friends who does little more than provide apartments (for Roland Major and Sal) or introductions (Stan Shepherd to Sal).

Tom Snark: Another member of Sal's group of friends. Tom just appears at various times for parties and get-togethers.

Victor: Victor is the young man in Mexico who shows Sal, Dean and Stan Shepherd around to marijuana and prostitutes.

Walter: The man with whom Dean and Sal drink in San Francisco. His wife is the wife who is so pleasant and accepting.

Inez: Dean Moriarty’s latest love interest at the end of the novel. She is a new woman who is willing to deal with his antics. Dean rushes back to New York from Mexico to be with her, only to leave her a few months later after she has gotten to be boring. He has a child with her as well. He leaves her to return to Camille.

Aunt: Sal’s aunt is pictured rarely in the story but she is of permeating importance. He lives with her. She supports him in his times of need. Whenever he runs out of money while he is on the road, she is the one who sends him a check from her account or his. She helps him get his books published, and when he finally starts making some money, she gets a new apartment. She is also a moral voice in the novel. She does not respond positively to Dean’s treatment of women and even though she is enchanted by his dynamic behavior, she is willing to criticize him.

Sam Brady: One of the member’s of Dean’s old gang. When it splits, he becomes a more distant and disapproving associate.

Objects/Places

Benzedrine: Originally a psychological prescription drug, this was a popular drug because of its hallucinogenic properties well into the late sixties when it was replaced by Timothy Leary's LSD.

Cold Water Flat: A type of low income housing like a basement apartment.

GI Checks: These were veteran benefits from the GI bill signed after World War 2. They were intended for education. As a result of these benefits, a cultural revolution occurred because more people attended college than ever before.

Mann Act: An early 20th century act aimed at restricting interstate adultery and prostitution. By the second half of the 20th century, it was deemed unconstitutional.

Mississippi: In popular American mythology, the Mississippi river has become a symbol for the 'journey' and life itself. In purely geographical terms, it splits the United States into halves. Sal notes every time he crosses it.

New Orleans: Another sacred city of the Beat generation. This city was popular as the birthplace of blues.

New York City: New York is Salvatore Paradise's once and future home that he is always leaving, yet always returning to.

Okie: Originally a term for migrant workers displaced by the depression and the drought from the south Midwest. Kerouac's use of it is descriptive rather than pejorative.

San Francisco: This city was one of the holy cities of the Beat Generation partially because of its geographic location, but also because of a growing poet and jazz community.

Tea: Slang for marijuana. Marijuana was traditionally popular with jazz musicians but became appropriated by the Beat generation.

Quotes

Quote 1: "I first met Dean Moriarty after my wife and I split up." Part 1, Chapter 1, page 3

Quote 2: "doing terrible things" Part 1, Chapter 1, page 5

Quote 3: "My first impression of Dean was of a young Gene Autry- trim, thin- hipped, blue-eyed, with a real Oklahoma accent- a sideburned hero of the snowy West. In fact he'd just been working on a ranch, Ed Wall's in Colorado, before marrying Marylou and coming East." Part 1, Chapter 1, page 5

Quote 4: "In the bar I told Dean 'Hell man, I know very well you didn't come to me only to want to become a writer, and after all what do I really know about it except you've got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict." Part 1, Chapter 1, page 6

Quote 5: "I began to learn from him as much as he learned from me." Part 1, Chapter 1, page 7

Quote 6: "And this was really the way that my whole road experience began, and the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell." Part 1, Chapter 1, page 9

Quote 7: "If you drop a rose in the Hudson River at its mysterious source in the Adirondacks, think of all the places it journeys by as it goes out to sea forever- think of that wonderful Hudson Valley. I started hitching up the thing. Five scattered rides took me to the desired Bear Mountain Bridge, where Route 6 arched in from New England." Part 1, Chapter 2, page 12

Quote 8: "one of the biggest troubles of hitchhiking is having to talk to innumerable people, make them feel that they didn't make a mistake picking you up." Part 1, Chapter 3, page 16

Quote 9: "I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was- I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds." Part 1, Chapter 3, page 17

Quote 10: "pal of the road" Part 1, Chapter 3, page 23

Quote 11: "the greatest ride of my life" Part 1, Chapter 4, page 24

Quote 12: "liked everything. They never stopped smiling. I tried to talk to them- a kind of dumb attempt on my part to befriend the captains of our ship- and the only responses I got were two sunny smiles and large white cornfed teeth." Part 1, Chapter 4, page 26

Quote 13: "although Gene was white there was something of the wise and tired negro in him." Part 1, Chapter 4, page 28

Quote 14: "war with social overtones" Part 1, Chapter 6, page 38

Quote 15: "I walked five miles up Colfax to my comfortable bed in the apartment. Major had to let me in. I wondered if Dean and Carlo were having their heart-to-heart. I would find out later. The nights in Denver are cool, and I slept like a log." Part 1, Chapter 7, pg. 46

Quote 16: "That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once for all." Part 1, Chapter 8, page 48

Quote 17: "We grabbed them and danced. There was no music, just dancing. The place filled up. People began to bring bottles. We rushed out to hit the bars and rushed back. The night was getting more and more frantic. I wished Dean and Carlo were there- then I realized that they'd be out of place and unhappy. They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining." Part 1, Chapter 9, pages 53-4

Quote 18: "Suddenly we came down from the mountain and overlooked the great sea-plain of Denver; heat rose as from an oven. We began to sing songs. I was itching to get on to San Francisco." Part 1, Chapter 9, page 56

Quote 19: "Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk- real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious." Part 1, Chapter 10, page 58

Quote 20: "the only community in America where whites and Negroes lived together voluntarily; and that was so, and so wild and joyous a place I've never seen since." Part 1, Chapter 11, page 60

Quote 21: "This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do. So what if a bunch of men talk in loud voices and drink the night? But Sledge wanted to prove something." Part 1, Chapter 10, page 68

Quote 22: "In reverent and sweet silence she took all her clothes off and slipped her tiny body into the sheets with me. It was brown as grapes. I saw her poor belly where there was a Caesarian scar; her hips were so narrow she couldn't bear a child without getting gashed open... I made love to her in the sweetness of the weary morning. Then, like two tired angels of some kind, hung-up forlornly in an L.A. shelf, having found the closest and most delicious thing in life together, we fell asleep and slept till late afternoon." Part 1, Chapter 12, page 84

Quote 23: "Everywhere in America I've been in crossroads saloons drinking with whole families. The kids eat popcorn and chips and play in back. This we did. Rickey and I and Ponzo and Terry sat drinking and shouting with the music; little baby Johnny goofed with other children around the jukebox." Part 1, Chapter 13, page 92

Quote 24: "We bent down and began picking cotton. It was beautiful. Across the field were the tents and beyond them the sere brown cornfields that stretched out of sight to the brown arroyo foothills and then the snow-capped Sierras in the blue morning air." Part 1, Chapter 13, page 96

Quote 25: "Emotionlessly she kissed me in the vineyard and walked off down the row. We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel and looked at each other for the last time." Part 1, Chapter 14, page 101

Quote 26: "I was going home in October. everybody goes home in October." Part 1, Chapter 14, page 103

Quote 27: "but now the bug as one me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty and I was off on another spurt around the road." Part 2, Chapter 1, page 115

Quote 28: "What is the meaning of this voyage to New York? What kind of sordid business are you on now? I mean, man, whither goest thou? Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?" Part 2, Chapter 3, page 119

Quote 29: "I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." Part 2, Chapter 4, page 126

Quote 30: "It was drizzling and mysterious at the beginning of our journey. I could see that it was all going to be one big saga of the mist. 'Whooee!' yelled Dean. 'Here we go!' And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; he was back in his element, everybody could see that." Part 2, Chapter 6, page 133

Quote 31: "'Oh I love, love, love women! I think women are wonderful! I love women!' He spat out the window; he groaned; he clutched his head. Great beads of sweat fell from his forehead from pure excitement and exhaustion." Part 2, Chapter 6, page 140

Quote 32: "What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." Part 2, Chapter 8, page 156

Quote 33: "We tried everything. We buzzed the travel bureau, but no one was going west that night. The travel bureau is where you go for share-the-gas rides, legal in the West. Shifty characters wait with battered suitcases. We went to the Greyhound bus station to try to persuade somebody to give us the money instead of taking a bus for the coast. We were too bashful to approach anyone." Part 2, Chapter 8, page 162

Quote 34: "Suddenly we were all excited. Dean wanted to tell me everything he knew about Bakersfield as we reached the city limits. He showed me rooming houses where he stayed, rail-road hotels, poolhalls, diners, sidings where he jumped off the engine for grapes, Chinese restaurants where he ate, park benches where he met girls and certain places where he'd done nothing but sit and wait around." Part 2, Chapter 9, page 168

Quote 35: "You see what a bastard he is?...Dean will leave you out in the cold anytime it's in his interest." Part 2, Chapter 9, page 170

Quote 36: "And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy I had always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move one, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiances shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven." Part 2, Chapter 10, page 173

Quote 37: "What I accomplished by going to Frisco I don't know. Camille wanted me to leave; Dean didn't care one way or the other. I bought a loaf of bread and meats and made myself ten sandwiches to cross the country with again; they were all going to go rotten on me by the time I got to Dakota." Part 2, Chapter 11, pages 177-8

Quote 38: "We were all thinking we'd never see one another again and we didn't care." Part 2, Chapter 11, page 178

Quote 39: "At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, music, not enough night." Part 3, Chapter 1, page 180

Quote 40: "I suddenly realized that all these women were spending months of loneliness and womanliness together, chatting about the madness of men. I heard Dean's maniacal giggle across the house, together with the wails of his baby." Part 3, Chapter 2, page 187

Quote 41: "because he no longer cared about anything" Part 3, Chapter 2, page 188

Quote 42: "'When Tom's money runs out Ed'll be back,' said Galatea looking at her cards. 'Damn fool-he doesn't know anything and never did. All he has to do is know that I love him.'" Part 3, Chapter 3, page 192

Quote 43: "I wasn't scared at all; I knew Dean. The people in the back seat were speechless. In fact they were afraid to complain: God knew what Dean would do, they thought, if they should ever complain." Part 3, Chapter 5, page 210

Quote 44: "These had been neighbors of mine in my Denver solitude of two weeks before. The mother was a wonderful woman in jeans who drove coal trucks in winter mountains to support her kids, four in all, her husband having left her years before when they were traveling around the country in a trailer." Part 3, Chapter 6, page 214

Quote 45: "As the cab honked outside and the kids cried and the dogs barked and Dean danced with Frankie I yelled every conceivable curse I could think over that phone and added all kinds of new ones, and in my drunken frenzy I told everybody over the phone to go to hell and slammed it down and went out to get drunk." Part 3, Chapter 7, page 220

Quote 46: "It was remarkable how Dean could go mad and then suddenly continue with his soul- which I think is wrapped up in a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road- calmly and sanely as though nothing had happened." Part 3, Chapter 9, page 230

Quote 47: "We had come from Denver to Chicago via Ed Wall's ranch, 1180 miles, in exactly 17 hours, not counting the two hours in the ditch and three at the ranch and two with the police in Newton, Iowa, for a mean average of seventy miles per hour across the land, with one driver. Which is a kind of crazy record." Part 3, Chapter 9, page 237

Quote 48: "Not only that, but a few months later Camille gave birth to Dean's second baby, the result of a few nights' rapport early in the year. And another matter of months and Inez had a baby. With one illegitimate child in the West somewhere, Dean then had four little ones and not a cent, and was all troubles and ecstasy and speed as ever. So we didn't go to Italy." Part 3, Chapter 11, page 247

Quote 49: "'Inez loves me; she's told me and promised me I can do anything I want and there'll be a minimum of trouble. You see, man, you get older and troubles pile up. Someday you and me'll be coming down an alley together at sundown and looking in the cans to see.'" Part 4, Chapter 1, page 251

Quote 50: "All I hope, Dean, is someday we'll be able to live on the same street with our families and get to be a couple of oldtimers together." Part 4, Chapter 1, page 254

Quote 51: "Okay, it was agreed, Stan was coming with me. He was a rangy, bashful, shock-haired Denver boy with a big con-man smile and slow, easy-going Gary Cooper movements. 'Hot Damn' he said and stuck his thumbs in his belt and ambled down the street, swaying from side to side but slowly." Part 4, Chapter 2, page 258

Quote 52: "I looked over the map: a total of over a thousand miles, mostly Texas, to the border of Laredo, and then another 767 miles through all Mexico to the great city near the cracked Isthmus and Oaxacan heights. I couldn't imagine this trip. It was the most fabulous of all. It was no longer east-west, but magic south." Part 4, Chapter 3, page 265

Quote 53: "The hospital was full of poor Mexican women, some of them pregnant, some of them sick or brining their little sick kiddies. It was sad. I thought of poor Terry and wondered what she was doing now." Part 4, Chapter 4, page 272

Quote 54: "Soon it would be mysterious night in old gone Gregoria. The mambo never let up for a moment, it frenzied on like an endless journey in the jungle. I couldn't take my eyes off the little dark girl and the way, like a queen, she walked around and was even reduced by the sullen bartender to menial tasks such as bringing us drinks and sweeping the back." Part 4, Chapter 5, page 289

Quote 55: "The end of our journey impended. Great fields stretched on both sides of us; a noble wind blew across the occasional immense tree groves and over old missions turning salmon pink in the late sun. The clouds were close and huge and rose." Part 4, Chapter 6, page 300

Quote 56: "I didn't know who he was anymore, and he knew this, and sympathized, and pulled the blanket over my shoulders." Part 4, Chapter 6, page 302

Quote 57: "Go moan for man." Part 5, Chapter 1, page 306

Quote 58: "So I went up and there she was, the girl with the pure and innocent dear eyes that I had always searched for and for so long. We agreed to love each other madly. In the winter we planned to migrate to San Francisco, bringing all our beat furniture and broken belongings with us in a jalopy panel truck." Part 5, Chapter 1, page 306

Quote 59: "So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast...I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty, the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty." Part 5, Chapter 1, page 309-10

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation

Beat Generation 1: Throughout this novel, Kerouac defines the 'beat generation' in terms of its activities and value system. So far, his generation relates to bars and jazz clubs as well as drugs like 'benny' or Benzedrine.

Beat Generation 2: Inside this prose, Kerouac further develops integral parts of the beat ideology and pop culture. In the description of Mississippi Gene, he complements him by comparing him to the 'old negro'. In opposition to mainstream U.S. culture, the Beats, especially Kerouac, idolized the black subculture for its lifestyle and music. He refers to the boxer Jack Dempsey as another touchstone for his generation.

Beat Generation 3: The idea of the Beat intellectual, a writer who experiments with drugs and mind-opening experiences, is contained here. In the characters of Carlo Marx and Dean, and their drug conversations, are reflections of the Beat generation's divergence with mainstream culture.

Beat Generation 4: Once again, the beat characters mix mystic intellectualism with drugs. The narrator, however, is not only a non-participant in the Benzedrine, but he is also pessimistic of the goal of finding one's soul.

Beat Generation 5: Remi and Sal are both willing to steal from their employees and light-heartedly use government dogma to justify it. The beat morality is not so corrupt that it justifies stealing as a general rule, but it justifies stealing between unequals.

Beat Generation 6: Sal returns to depression era wages to support his love, and abandons his crazy life on the road. Although many members of the Beat generation were fanatic and energetic, at some point, most of them had to settle down. This is not Sal's time, however.

Beat Generation 7: Sal describes in detail jazz and its combination with a fanatic Dean Moriarty. Jazz was a fundamental part of the Beat subculture. Jazz musicians were heroes and sages to them.

Beat Generation 8: In New Orleans, they continue their immersion in drugs and music. At this point, they are at the very height of the Beat ideal, crossing the country and stopping to meet fascinating people with whom they may do drugs.

Beat Generation 9: this quote reflects some of Kerouac's philosophy and the eastern influenced mysticism of the Beat generation. Buddhism became the gad religion of this group.

Bat Generation 10: Even though there is strife amidst the group of friends focused on Dean, they all go out to the jazz clubs. These clubs are an integral part of their social life. These clubs are the central part of their leisure time.

Beat Generation 11: One of their musician idols counters the running theme of sexual promiscuity. This is the first instance of a disjunctive relationship between Beat philosophy. The promiscuous sex doesn't quite work. Galatea plans to bring Ed to the Jazz clubs to get the craziness out of him. In their philosophy there is a measured acceptance of excessive behavior. Dean, however, is the epitome of this ideal gone bad.

Beat Generation 12: Kerouac once again characterizes his vision of this generation in their mad dash from bar to bar and jazz club to jazz club. This generation is made up of children of the night, eagerly pursuing the next hot spot.

Beat Generation 13: Kerouac's group and pictorial of his generation is inundated with popular culture. His description of Stan Shepherd is part of this. He describes the man in terms of an actor.

Beat Generation 14: The narrator reflects one of the popular ideas about marijuana and intoxication in general: that it allows people to get closer by helping them drop facades and social conventions.

Topic Tracking: Dean Moriarty

Dean 1: Dean Moriarty makes his first dramatic appearance in the book, which centerings on the narrator's involvement with him. He immediately interests people. Salvatore Paradise is at once fixated with him, as is Carlo Marx. His opening behavior is frenetic and charismatic at the same time.

Dean 2: Dean is a sort of social untouchable whose presence Sal's more conventional friends find undesirable. Sal seems to make no attempt to fix this problem but instead tries to walk a thin line between the two groups.

Dean 3: Dean is apparently very attractive to the opposite sex, or at least charismatic enough to carry on more than one relationship at a time. Dean has woman problems throughout the book and many of his problems are created by, or a result of his relations with in women.

Dean 4: Even though he ostensibly went on the road because he was interested in following Dean, he only speaks to Dean for a short amount of time while he is in Denver. Dean's attentions are diverted between his women and Carlo;, there is no time for Sal, even if he were more interested.

Dean 5: While Sal has been away, Dean has kept up his crazy pace of life.

Dean 6: Sal has not seen Dean for a year and his behavior has not changed in the slightest. He is once again abandoning a wife for a mistress. Nevertheless, Sal is admittedly infected by Dean's energy and after traveling from New York to Virginia three times, he still wants to travel on the road.

Dean 7: Dean's behavior becomes increasinglycontinues to become odd as he tries to get Sal to have sex with Marylou.

Dean 8: Dean is less of a central figure while Old Bull Lee is around, but Sal admires him in every thing including athletics.

Dean 9: Dean's crazy behavior continues as they speed across the country. His suggestion that they all strip naked and his willingness, perhaps even eagerness, to run off under the pretense of mugging someone, are examples of his increasing devolution.

Dean 10: Dean abandons his ex-wife and best friend as soon as they enter the city limits. Marylou points this out to Sal, but somehow he accepts it and treats it as an oversight rather than a slight.

Dean 11: Dean tries to play the part of a responsible husband/father by getting a job but he can't quite do it. Even though he is willing to go out on the town with Sal, he seems unconcerned when Sal leaves.

Dean 12: Dean's recent incarnation is frightening. He does not heed the cries of his wife or child. He has been stalking his ex -wife, and his thumb is badly infected from hitting Marylou. Even though Sal recognizes this, he is still willing to pay for him to go cross- country with him. This is the first, and one of the few, moments when Dean realizes that there is something wrong with the way he is behaving. This moment, however, is brief.

Dean 13: Dean has been abandoned by everyone. Galatea frankly chastises him and not even Sal can defend him.

Dean 14: For the second time there is strife between Sal and Dean, when Dean refers to Sal's older age. This time, however, Dean has no one else. His behavior is still foolish and his situation is more desperate when one of his few known relatives comes to see him only to disown him.

Dean 15: Dean really loses his mind in this section. He steals multiple cars even after a police officer has checked into the barr. He even steals a police officer's car. He breaks somebody else's record and collapses drunk when it is all over.

Dean 16: Dean's insane behavior continues. In his mad race for Chicago, he takes neither personal safety nor property into consideration as he admittedly thinks only of girls.

Dean 17: After his car-wrecking stint of madness in Chicago, Dean meets yet another woman he loves and plans to abandon yet another wife.

Dean 18: Dean has become even more odd. Although he has seemingly settled down, he has settled down into a strange almost friendless world. He pays Sal's aunt back the money for a speeding ticket. This which surprises her, but does not indicate a total metamorphosis.

Dean 19: Dean returns to his crazy ways and buys a car to drive cross- country and join Sal in Mexico. No one can compete with his frenzieds energy. He has come under the pretense of getting and official divorce from Camille in Mexico where it is cheaper.

Dean 20: Dean once again abandons Sal in a far away place. This time he leaves Sal in a state of sickness. Sal has lost his faith in Dean just like everyone else.

Dean 21: The final separation between Dean and Sal happens when Sal has met a girl with whom he plans to stay and lifehe has calmed down. Dean has left Inez and a third child and is back with Camille. He left her to cross the country and bring Sal to San Francisco, but when he ges to New York, he goes back on one of his crazy rampages.

Topic Tracking: Fatherhood

Father 1: Chad King's father is the first father mentioned in the story. Carlo Marx and Old Bull Lee are the really only real father figures for Sal and Dean. Dean's father was a hobo who never settled down and Sal's father is mentioned but once in passing during the story.

Father 2: Remi Boncoeur's step- father is another disappointing father figure. He lives a great distance away and comes only to visit and be taken out to dinner. Despite this, Remi feels pressured to impress him.

Father 3: Terry's estranged husband and father of her child is yet another delinquent father who is not only detached from his family, but he abuses his loved ones

Father 4: Carlo Marx acts as a sort of surrogate father for his circle of friends. He questions them and tries to get them to think about what they are doing, but he has no effect.

Father 5: Even though Old Bull Lee is a poor father to his own children, he attempts to act as a father figure to Sal and Ddean asking them what their motivations are and trying to guide them.

Father 6: This is the first and only mention of Sal's father in the novel. While there are multiple mentions of Dean's father, the narrator is silent about his.

Father 7: As Dean gets more desperate and an increasing numberamount of people reject him, he thinks about his father more and talks more about finding him..

Father 8: They talk about finding Dean's father again once they get to Denver. Dean's cousin Sam, who comes to write him off, has no news about his father. An old hobo tells him his father is in New England. Dean wants to find him. He is eager for some sort of connection.

Father 9: Dean's father gets in touch with him from prison. There is a parallel between Dean as a father and his own father. His father wants to see the children that Dean has left across the country. This fact does not prompt Dean to become a better father. Only Sal's aunt criticizes his negligence.

Father 10: Victor, although willing to go out with these strangers, shows off his child with pride, a child whose mother he lives with. All the men admire the child and this father who is so different when compared to Dean.

Father 11: In this last portion, after Dean has continues to be an irresponsible father, Sal compares Dean to his own father and suggests that he has become him.

Topic Tracking: Generosity

Generosity 1: Salvatore Paradise immediately accepts a stranger into his home and gains his friendship. This immediate and unconditionalforgiving acceptance is a character trait that follows Salvatore throughout the book.

Generosity 2: Sal accepts a fellow hitchhiker immediately and not only gives him friendship, but he also pays for his bus ticket and gives him a shirt. The rides that Sal receives themselves are tokens of benevolence, andbut Sal goes out of his way to help others in a similar situation. His attitude contrasts greatly with that of Eddie, the man he helps, who abandons him as soon as he gets the chance.

Generosity 3: Sal splits whiskey with fellow travelers and shares his cigarettes when others, like Montana Slim, refuse to do so. In the end, he buys cigarettes for two less fortunate than him and does not regret losing the money.

Generosity 4: Sal and Remi, even though they are hard up, they split the stolen groceries with a widow who is more needy than they are.

Generosity 5: Terry is more than willing to work to support Sal. This is the measure of her love. In a similar way, Sal toils in the cotton field for a subsistence wage for Terry and her son.

Generosity 6: Sal meets more people who are willing to help him: the girl with whom he makes out who buys him lunches, and the salesman who gives him a ride and food, though meager. His aunt gives shelter to Dean, a man she has met but a few times.

Generosity 7: Sal's family accepts the wayward travelers. The restaurant gives Sal and his companions free food in exchange for washed dishes. Sal's Aunt pays for Dean's speeding ticket and makes them all a big breakfast when they get back to New York.

Generosity 8: Even though Dean has not been staying with him, Sal lends him money to send to Camille.

Generosity 9: Although Dean and Sal maintain their customary generosity in this section, as they pick up hitchhikers regardless of whether or not they have money, Sal has lost all of his compassion by the end of his latest stay in San Francisco. Dean forgets about Marylou and Sal in lieu of his return to Camille. Even though Camille and Dean are hungry, Sal keeps his sandwiches, which he knows will not be enough to get him across the country anyway.

Generosity 10: This unnamed woman also gives him a bottle of bourbon later on. Sal does not elaborate on her identity, she merely gives freely to him.

Generosity 11: Sal does not think twice about paying for Ddean to go to New York with him or paying for Dean to get to Italy with him usingwith the proceeds from his first book.

Generosity 12: Both Sal and Dean transgress others' generosity in this section. Sal writes a letter to Old Bull Lee bragging about his woman benefactor. Dean breaks athe a record belonging toof the Okie woman with whom they are staying.

Generosity 13: Dean, thousands of miles from home, finds a great amount of empathy for poor native girls and trades his watch for one of their crystals. On the other hand, as soon as he gets his divorce, he abandons Sal and Stan Shepherd as he heads back towards New York.

Part 1, Chapter 1

The narrator, Salvatore Paradise, begins this story soon after the separation with his first wife. The first line, "I first met Dean Moriarty after my wife and I split up." Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 3 introduces the novel's second most important character. Salvatore, recently recovered from physical sickness and the drawn out emotional sickness of his separation, has always wanted to travel west. Dean, who was born on the road, has recently been released from jail. His letters to Chad King, which were passed on to Salvatore, told of his youth. Dean married a girl named Marylou and came to New York City. In the beginning of the novel, Salvatore, along with Chad King, goes to visit Dean and Mary Lou at his cold water flat. Salvatore mentions that sex is the most important thing to Dean and that Marylou was a pretty blond girl who was capable of "doing terrible things." Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 5.

"My first impression of Dean was of a young Gene Autry- trim, thin- hipped, blue-eyed, with a real Oklahoma accent- a sideburned hero of the snowy West. In fact he'd just been working on a ranch, Ed Wall's in Colorado, before marrying Marylou and coming East." Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 5

Sal stays up talking to Dean all night. Dean had confided in Chad King that he wanted to learn to write and Chad referred him to Sal, who was the writer of the group. Sal and Dean begin to spend more time together. Dean gets a job in a parking lot and works like a madman. After a couple of nights he gets in an over-the-top fight with Marylou and she calls the police to kick him out. Dean flees to Sal's apartment, where Sal lives with his aunt. They go to a bar to talk.

"In the bar I told Dean 'Hell man, I know very well you didn't come to me only to want to become a writer, and after all what do I really know about it except you've got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict.'" Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 6

Dean continues to ramble, referring to Nietzsche and other philosophers, admittedly not knowing what he's talking about. He stays at Sal's apartment, and the pair agree to go west together sometime. Sal is working on a novel that he can't quite seem to finish. His aunt is supporting him while he writes. Sal knows that Dean is conning him, but he doesn't really care. In their free time Dean and Sal go out to look for girls. Sal admits, "I began to learn from him as much as he learned from me." Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 7 Dean's behavior is manic and insane and it intrigues Sal. One night, while looking for girls, they run into Carlo Marx and Dean is instantly fixated. Carlo and Dean exchange urban mythologies as Sal leaves, feeling alienated. After this meeting, Sal sees less of Dean.

Topic Tracking: Generosity 1
Topic Tracking: Dean 1
Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 1

Spring comes and Dean decides to make a trip west. Carlo, Dean and Sal take a picture together before Dean leaves. From his frenetic work at the parking lot (racing around, speeding cars into their parking places), Dean has earned enough money to leave with a portable typewriter and a suit. Sal wants to follow Dean west, in an effort to get to know him better.

"And this was really the way that my whole road experience began, and the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell." Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 9

New York has gotten old for Sal; he has become disillusioned with his friends because they are either intellectuals or criminals. Dean is a bit of both.

Part 1, Chapter 2

In July 1947, Sal leaves New York with fifty dollars in veteran benefits. A friend, Remi Boncoeur, has asked him to take a round-the-world cruise with him. Remi, a crazy man Sal knew from prep school who was living in California with a woman named Lee Ann, expected Sal to arrive in ten days. Sal's aunt approved of him leaving and took care of his manuscript. Sal has been looking at U.S. maps for months in anticipation, and decides to take U.S. Rt. 6 all the way for scenic reasons.

"If you drop a rose in the Hudson River at its mysterious source in the Adirondacks, think of all the places it journeys by as it goes out to sea forever- think of that wonderful Hudson Valley. I started hitching up the thing. Five scattered rides took me to the desired Bear Mountain Bridge, where Route 6 arched in from New England." Part 1, Chapter 2, pg. 12

At this point, there is no traffic and it begins to rain; Sal is forty miles north of New York City. He finds shelter under an abandoned filling station. A car drives up and offers him a ride back to New York City, advising him that he is too far north and would have more luck going to Chicago through Pittsburgh. Sal reluctantly agrees and ends up spending a good portion of his money on a bus ticket from New York to Chicago.

Part 1, Chapter 3

The bus trip brings Sal to windy Chicago and he gets a room at the YMCA. He wanders around Chicago and then takes a bus to Joliet, Illinois. By this point, he has spent more than half of his money. He hitches a ride on a dynamite truck. After this ride ends, he hitches a ride with a woman who has him drive to Iowa, even though he doesn't have a license. He crosses the Mississippi at Davenport and gets out of the car. He walks around for awhile as the sun sets. The woman drives away in a different direction. A man gives him a ride back into the city where he takes a bus to a gas station and hitches a ride with a trucker. The driver doesn't talk and Sal is relieved because "one of the biggest troubles of hitchhiking is having to talk to innumerable people, make them feel that they didn't make a mistake picking you." Part 1, Chapter 3, pg. 16. The driver yells a few short anecdotes above the roar of the truck. When it is time for them to part ways, he signals a truck behind him and Sal gets another ride with a different trucker. This driver is crazy. They stop outside Iowa City to sleep and leave again at dawn. Sal gets out at Des Moines, goes to town, and stays in a hotel for the night because the YMCA was filled up.

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was- I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds." Part 1, Chapter 3, pg. 17

Sal gets up the next morning and eats apple pie and ice cream for the first of many times. He yearns to get to Denver where all his friends are waiting. He receives a series of rides up the road and meets another New York hitchhiker named Eddie. Eddie looks bad, but Sal sticks with him anyway just to have a companion. They get a ride only to get stranded in Stuart, Iowa, where they get drunk and take a bus the next day. Sal pays for Eddie's fare. In Omaha, Sal is excited because he sees his first real cowboy. In Missouri, they meet another cowboy who needs a car driven into Montana. Sal rides with the cowboy and Eddie drives the car. Eddie drives really fast, as if he is going to steal the car, but the cowboy keeps up with his pace. The cowboy talks about how he used to hop freight trains once a month. He is leaving Nebraska to settle in Montana. Sal and Eddie end up in Grand Island and resume hitchhiking. One ride from young people and one with an old man brings them to Shelton. Eddie realizes that he was in Shelton before when he was in the Army, and he didn't like it then. They get stranded in the cold rain. Sal gives Eddie a wool shirt. He sends a postcard to his aunt. A man drives up in an expensive car; they think he is the sheriff, but he is actually a carnival owner trying to get them to join his show. Sal replies that he's moving quickly and doesn't have the time. Eddie agrees and the man leaves. Sal refers to Eddie as his "pal of the road"
Topic Tracking: Generosity 2

Part 1, Chapter 4

In Gottenburg, Sal gets what he calls "the greatest ride of my life," Part 1, Chapter 4, pg. 24 a flat bed truck that pulls over and picks up every hitchhiker it is about to pass. There are eight others, passing around a bottle of hard liquor. Two of the crew are North Dakota farmers, but some of the others are hoboes and bums like Montana Slim, who says he can get money by mugging people, and Mississippi Gene who is escorting a young blond man to California. Slim is planning to get off at Cheyenne, where Sal is also planning to change routes and begin the ninety-mile journey south to Denver. The pair driving the truck are farm boys from Minnesota, who perform in such a mechanical fashion, that Sal thinks they have done this before. They stop in North Platte to eat. The farm boys "liked everything. They never stopped smiling. I tried to talk to them- a kind of dumb attempt on my part to befriend the captains of our ship- and the only responses I got were two sunny smiles and large white cornfed teeth." Part 1, Chapter 4, pg. 26

The two hoboes stay on the flatbed. The drivers smoke. With some help from the others, Sal buys a fifth of whiskey to share. Sal thinks that North Platte is sad because it is the beginning of the wastelands. The other farm boy drives when they get back on the road and he speeds mercilessly. As they near Colorado, Mississippi Gene turns to him and says that these plains put his mind in Texas. He is escorting the young blond boy west because he got in some trouble in Mississippi. Sal remarks, "although Gene was white there was something of the wise and tired negro in him." Part 1, Chapter 4, pg. 28. He also reminds him of a dope addict friend back home. When Sal tells him that he is planning to get off the truck at Cheyenne, Mississippi Gene advises him to take the ride all the way to California, because rides like this flatbed are rare. Gene's mention of Texas reminds Sal of someone he knew there named Big Slim Hazard; Mississippi Gene knows him as the guy who looks like Jack Dempsey. Gene makes fun of Sal's shoes and they all drink. The blond boy is silent, but Gene talks to him occasionally. Sal likes the hoboes so much, he continues to give them his cigarettes. Montana Slim, however, doesn't give them any.

Montana Slim has to urinate but the farm boys refuse to stop. He tries to stand near the edge of the truck and urinate, but every time he does, the driver swerves. Montana pisses all over himself. They stop in Ogallala for a 'pisscall'. The Dakota farm boys depart here to find harvest work. Sal goes to buy cigarettes and buys a pack each for Mississippi Gene and his boy. They get going again through Wyoming, but it is freezing cold and they huddle together under a tarp. Mississippi Gene begins to sing. Sal thinks he sings prettily. In Cheyenne they stop outside a radio station. The local cowboys are all dressed up outside the station for some reason or another. The farm hands are eager to leave. Sal warns them about the extreme temperatures of the desert, but Gene tells him its all right, and the truck leaves.

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 2
Topic Tracking: Generosity 3

Part 1, Chapter 5

In Cheyenne, Sal wastes five of his seven dollars left on drinks with Montana Slim. Montana is a sloppy drunk. Sal goes into a Mexican restaurant and writes a love note to a waitress there. She says she'd love to come with him, but she has a boyfriend. Sal retrieves Montana who has written a postcard to his father. In the next bar they pick up a young blond and a fat brunette. The blond girl idealizes New York. Sal tells her that there is nothing there. The girls join the brunette's sailor-cousin and friends, while Sal and Montana go to a bus station. Sal imagines that it could be any bus station in the world. When he wakes up, Montana is gone. He eats and starts going south towards Denver, getting a ride with a guy from Connecticut.

In Longmont, he takes a nap under a tree and then cleans up at the men's room of a gas station. After buying a milkshake, he hitches a ride with a businessman from Denver, with whom he has a long, warm conversation about their respective lives. Sal has finally arrived in Denver, and he wants to find his friends.

Part 1, Chapter 6

Sal doesn't know Dean well enough to call him up, so he calls Chad King. Chad seems bored with his friend's arrival and says that he has work to do. Apparently, the gang of friends has split. Chad no longer associates with Dean and Carlo Marx. To Sal, the friends' breakup is a "war with social overtones" Part 1, Chapter 6, pg. 38 because Dean is a wino's son who spent time in reform school and jail, while Carlo is an underground monster. For Chad, along with Tim Gray and Roland Major, these two are not the same. Sal sleeps in Chad's room. Chad's father has invented a sort of air conditioner that allows Sal to sleep in the dreadful heat, but it works too well. He wakes up because he is so cold. Sal eats dinner with the King family and there is no sign of Dean.

Topic Tracking: Dean 2
Topic Tracking: Father 1

Part 1, Chapter 7

Sal moves into a nice apartment with Roland Major. Roland is also a writer, but he writes short stories.

The two become good friends. The Rawlinses, their friends, live a few blocks away. Sal asks about Dean, but gets no real answers. In a couple of days, Carlo Marx calls him and gives him his address. At this point, Dean has two women, one wife and one girlfriend. Carlo informs Sal of Dean's schedule: He has sex with Marylou, sex with Camille, and then he does Benzedrine for the rest of the night with Carlo. So far, the women do not know about each other. Dean is getting a divorce with Marylou, but she still wants to have sex with him in the meantime. Later they find Dean naked at Camille's where he tells his girlfriend that he must go out and celebrate Sal's arrival. He promises that he will be back in exactly two hours. Dean tells Sal that he will introduce him to Reta Bettencourt, a waitress with "sexual differences". Sal asks the pair what they are doing in Denver, and Dean promises Sal a job the next day, because he and Carlo are broke. They go to the Bettencourt house, but only Mary, Reta's sister, is home. They call over Ray Rawlins, who fools around with Mary and soon Dean leaves to rejoin Camille. Ray calls a car and they all go to Sal's apartment, but Roland won't let them in because he doesn't want them to wreck the place. They go back into Denver and Sal realizes that he has lost the last of his money.

"I walked five miles up Colfax to my comfortable bed in the apartment. Major had to let me in. I wondered if Dean and Carlo were having their heart-to-heart. I would find out later. The nights in Denver are cool, and I slept like a log." Part 1, Chapter 7, pg. 46

Topic Tracking: Dean 3
Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 3

Part 1, Chapter 8

Everyone was planning a trip to the mountains. Eddie, the hitchhiker, has ended up in Denver and calls up Sal. They go to investigate Dean's promised job together. It is a 14 hour-a-day job. The next morning Eddie shows up, but Sal doesn't. Carlo writes dismal poetry calling Dean a "child of the rainbow". Dean announces that he is going to divorce Marylou and marry Camille. In the middle of one of their Benzedrine moments, Carlo asks Dean if he has gotten to the bottom of his soul.

"'That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once for all.'" Part 1, Chapter 8, pg. 48

Sal thinks that the pair cannot get where they are going and listens to them talking all night as he drifts in and out of sleep. He calls them "amazing maniacs". He goes home the next day.

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 4

Part 1, Chapter 9

For the next five days, Sal does not see Carlo and Dean because he goes for a trip to the mountains. Sal, Ray Rawlins, Tim Gray and Roland Major, all go to the semi-ghost town Central City. They find an abandoned miner's house that they clean out for a party. While they clean the house, Sal accompanies Babe Rawlins to the nearby opera. He gets lost in the story and loves it. They return to the house where Roland is refusing to help everyone else clean. They call in strangers from the street to help clean up with the promise of a good party. When the work is over, Sal, Tim and Ray go into town and steal razors and toiletries from the dressing rooms of opera singers. After some beer, they return to the house where the girls are cooking food for the party. When the party starts, crowds of girls come in from the streets.

"We grabbed them and danced. There was no music, just dancing. The place filled up. People began to bring bottles. We rushed out to hit the bars and rushed back. The night was getting more and more frantic. I wished Dean and Carlo were there- then I realized that they'd be out of place and unhappy. They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining." Part 1, Chapter 9, pg. 53-4

They drink more and neck with girls. Opera performers and teenage boys flood the place. The girls start to leave. Tim,Ray and Sal leave the party for the a bar called The Denver Doll. Ray punches a tourist. The other two take him back to the party, but he eventually returns to the bar and calls the waitress a whore. A group of men chase him out. Everyone falls asleep at the house and in the morning they leave again.

"Suddenly we came down from the mountain and overlooked the great sea-plain of Denver; heat rose as from an oven. We began to sing songs. I was itching to get on to San Francisco." Part 1, Chapter 9, pg. 56

Part 1, Chapter 10

Dean and Carlo had been to Central City while Sal was there. When he decides that he is definitely going to San Francisco, Sal sends home for money. He finally has a date with Reta Bettencourt and they have sex. Sal wants to convince her that sex is better than she thinks, but he doesn't. Sal tries to infect her with his excitement for life, but she doesn't get it. This depresses him.

"Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk- real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious." Part 1, Chapter 10, pg. 58

After he plans to go to San Francisco, Sal stays up all night talking to Roland. They plan to meet in California. Sal leaves and finds Carlo. Sal reads some of his journal and then Carlo reads out loud some of his poetry. Sal spends 25 dollars on a bus ticket to San Francisco and then realizes that he hasn't really talked to Dean for five whole minutes while he was in Denver. He leaves.

Topic Tracking: Dean 4

Part 1, Chapter 11

Sal is two weeks late meeting Remi Boncoeur. He arrives in San Fran and walks around. Mill city, where Remi lives, is "the only community in America where whites and Negroes lived together voluntarily; and that was so, and so wild and joyous a place I've never seen since." Part 1, Chapter 11, page 60

He finds Remi's house with a note that tells him to enter through the window. Sal had been in prep school with Remi, who introduced him to his former wife. Remi gets up from bed with his wife Lee Ann. Remi is happy to see Sal, although he warns him not to fool around with Lee Ann. Sal is supposed to write a story line for Remi to take and sell in Hollywood. He writes it, but it's too sad. Sal gets a job with Remi as a security guard at the Army barracks. He goes to work with Remi's gun and plays cowboy in the dark, alone for the night. He tries to break up a party in the barracks but ends up getting drunk with them and raises the flag up upside down in the morning. The next night he gets interrogated by other security guards and is afraid he will lose his job. Sal admits he is not cut out to be a cop. Some men are making noise again, and Sal thinks that they should give them a third chance. Sledge, one of the other cops, decides to bust the party.

"This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do. So what if a bunch of men talk in loud voices and drink the night? But Sledge wanted to prove something." Part 1, Chapter 11, pg. 68

Nothing really happens from the bust. Sal is unhappy with his job. Some nights, Remi works with him. Remi goes around trying to find unlocked doors. One night he runs into the Barracks supervisor and concocts some story about looking for a mop. They break into the cafeteria and steal food, justifying it as need, quoting President Truman's request that Americans "cut down on the cost of living." This becomes a catch phrase. They eventually get away with a giant box of groceries. Sal mentions leaving San Fran. He has been making fifty-five dollars a week and sending the greater part of it home to his aunt. The next day, they row out to an abandoned freighter off the shore. Lee Ann sunbathes nude. Sal thinks that he wants her and says that he would like to sleep in the ship some night. Remi bets him five dollars that he wouldn't. Dean and Carlo had responded to his letters with a promise to come and visit soon. Remi and Lee Ann go to Hollywood with his script but they have no success. Remi saves a lot of money for the racetrack, and after giving half of the groceries to a widow with children, they get all dressed up and go to the race track. Remi is broke by the seventh race. They hitch home.

Lee Ann thinks that they are hiding money from her and threatens to leave. She goes to get Remi's gun, but Remi tells Sal to hide it. Remi calms her down by saying that his wealthy stepfather is coming to town and he wants to impress him. Remi asks them both to act the parts of the letters he has been writing to him. Everyone calms down.

Saturday night comes and Sal has left his job because he is ready to travel. He gets drunk before they meet Remi's stepfather. Remi has borrowed one hundred dollars and spends fifty at the restaurant. Roland Major happens to be there. Drunk, he sits down with them and says that he is working on a San Francisco paper. Roland is deliberately rude to the stepfather, who is from France. Roland gets kicked out of the restaurant. Sal follows him to a bar. Roland wants to get into a fight with a homosexual man, but doesn't. Sal stays in San Francisco one more day to climb a mountain.

Topic Tracking: Generosity 4
Topic Tracking: Father 2
Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 5

Part 1, Chapter 12

Sal leaves the next morning while Remi and Lee Ann are still sleeping. He gets a ride on Fresno Road with a kid who has recently had a toe amputated. After driving through many towns, he drops Sal off in Fresno where he gets another ride south of Bakersfield. It is cold and he puts on a raincoat. No rides pass by, so he buys a bus ticket. At the station, he sees a cute Mexican girl and feels regret that they're moving in opposite directions.

Surprisingly, the girl happens to get onto the bus to L.A. with Sal. He works up the courage to talk to her. She is leaving her husband who beats her and has left their child with her family. He decides that they will be together, so he hugs her "and she loved it." Her name is Terry and she sleeps in his lap. Somehow, Sal gets worried that she is a hustler who plans to take his money. They go to a hotel room, and get into a fight because now she thinks that he's a pimp. He throws her shoes out the door and tells her to leave. She says that she's sorry.

"In reverent and sweet silence she took all her clothes off and slipped her tiny body into the sheets with me. It was brown as grapes. I saw her poor belly where there was a Caesarian scar; her hips were so narrow she couldn't bear a child without getting gashed open... I made love to her in the sweetness of the weary morning. Then two tired angels of some kind, hung-up forlornly in an L.A. shelf, having found the closest and most delicious thing in life together, we fell asleep and slept till late afternoon." Part 1, Chapter 12, pg. 84

Part 1, Chapter 13

Sal and Terry are together for fifteen days in L.A. They decide to go to New York but linger in L.A. even though Sal doesn't like it there, where the "beatest" people live. They go to Hollywood to try to find work, but they can't. At Terry's friend's house, they get drunk and Sal tries to buy some 'tea' but it turns out to be only tobacco. They can't get any rides so they get a hotel room. After this, they go to Bakersfield to pick grapes, but there isn't any work, so they get drunk and Sal gets stoned. They sleep in a hotel and the next day Terry retrieves her child and brings her brothers around. Her brothers have a scheme to make money by hauling manure for farmers in their truck. Rickey, one of her brothers, gets a bottle of liquor. They drink, and pick up manure.

"Everywhere in America I've been in crossroads saloons drinking with whole families. The kids eat popcorn and chips and play in back. This we did. Rickey and I and Ponzo and Terry sat drinking and shouting with the music; little baby Johnny goofed with other children around the jukebox." Part 1, Chapter 13, pg. 92

They eat dinner and sleep in a motel room. The next day, they rent a tent and her brothers come back too drunk to work. Ponzo sleeps in the tent with them. Sal is worried that Ponzo wants Terry. He gets work picking cotton for two dollars per hundred pounds. He picks from sunrise to sundown for an old Okie family.

"We bent down and began picking cotton. It was beautiful. Across the field were the tents and beyond them the sere brown cornfields that stretched out of sight to the brown arroyo foothills and then the snow-capped Sierras in the blue morning air." Part 1, Chapter 13, pg. 96

They pick cotton all day but earn only about a dollar and a half. Okies kill a Mexican worker and Sal begins to carry a stick because they consider him Mexican too. In October, the work stops and the weather gets cold. Terry goes to see her family and Sal has to hide. She suggests that she'll pick grapes and they can continue to live together. Her family is gone and Sal hangs out in their four-room shack, but he stays in the farmers' barn when the family returns. Terry brings him food from her family's dinner. Sal plans to go back to New York. Terry wants to go too, and fights with her parents. They make love underneath the tarantula in the barn. He leaves the next day.

"Emotionlessly she kissed me in the vineyard and walked off down the row. We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel and looked at each other for the last time." Part 1, Chapter 13, pg. 101

Although they promise to meet in New York, Sal knows it will never happen. Sal's aunt has sent him money in Sabinal, a few towns over, and he goes there to pick it up. He hitches a fast ride and arrives in L.A. in four hours. In L.A., he makes 10 sandwiches for the cross-country trip and steps on the bus with only a dollar left.

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 6
Topic Tracking: Generosity 5
Topic Tracking: Father 3

Part 1, Chapter 14

The bus speeds across the American landscape. Sal says, "I was going home in October. Everybody goes home in October." Part 1, Chapter 14, pg. 103. The bus stops in Oklahoma and Sal meets a girl with whom he necks all the way to Indianapolis. After he runs out of sandwiches, she buys him lunches. She is headed towards upstate New York and they make a date at a hotel in the city. When he leaves the bus, he is weary but he has to hitch 300 miles to the city. He meets an old man he thinks is a ghost, so he follows him on the road. The man talks incessantly and is almost hit by multiple cars. It begins to rain and the pair split.

Sal sleeps in a railroad station. In the morning he is starving and gets a ride from a man who thinks that being near starvation is good for your health. After a while, the man gives him bread and butter and they arrive in New York. Sal is surprised to find himself in New York City even though he has to walk the last few miles home. When he gets home he eats everything in the cupboards. While he has been away, Dean has stayed with Sal's aunt, but now he's living with Camille in New York.

Topic Tracking: Dean 5
Topic Tracking: Generosity 6

Part 2, Chapter 1

It is a year before Sal sees Dean again because Dean has gone to San Francisco with Camille. Sal goes to school a little and finishes his book. During the Christmas holidays, Dean shows up at Sal's brother's place in Testament, Virginia, in a car he bought with Ed Dunkel and Marylou.

Sal's brother is moving to New York and Dean offers to help them move some furniture up to the city. In return, they offer him food and a place to rest. Dean had been working on the railroad for 400 dollars a month in California and has had a daughter with Camille. He bought the car on a payment plan and he left for New York under the pretense of fetching Sal. Ed Dunkel married a girl named Galatea, because that was the only way she would go cross country with him, and she was the only one they knew who had the gas money they needed. They picked up passengers who helped pay expenses, but they blew all their money quickly because Galatea insisted they stay in hotels. Soon into the journey, they left Galatea at a hotel. Near Denver, Dean got a crazy need to see Marylou, so they picked her up. When they arrive in Virginia, they haven't eaten for 30 hours, so they eat voraciously.

Afterwards, they go for a ride and talk about the past. They decide that they must find Carlo Marx in New York. Sal remarks that he has been spending a quiet Christmas away from the city, "but now the bug as one me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty and I was off on another spurt around the road." Part 2, Chapter 1, page 115

Topic Tracking: Dean 6
Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 7

Part 2, Chapter 2

They pack the furniture in the car and promise to be back in 30 hours. The heater is not working, and as they drive, Dean is the only one talking. Sal thinks to himself that he wants to get married. They stop at a restaurant and get the food for free when they agree to wash the dishes. They arrive in New York.

Part 2, Chapter 3

They stay at Sal's apartment. There is call from Old Bull Lee in New Orleans, where Ed's wife Galatea has shown up. Camille had also called looking for Dean. Carlo comes over, recently returned from Denver. They all listen to a music box, and Carlo addresses them all:

"'What is the meaning of this voyage to New York? What kind of sordid business are you on now? I mean, man, whither goest thou? Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?'" Part 2, Chapter 3, pg. 119

They don't really answer him and prepare to leave again. They promise to return in 30 hours for New Year's Eve. Ed and Marylou stay in Sal's apartment. They make it back to Virginia in 10 hours, listening to Dean talk about the existence of God all night. They turn around as soon as they pick up more furniture and Sal's aunt. All the way back, she listens to Dean's craziness. They get stopped for speeding and Sal's aunt pays the ticket.

They arrive in New York and Sal's aunt prepares a large breakfast for all of the weary travelers.

Topic Tracking: Generosity 7

Part 2, Chapter 4

Everyone, except for Sal, moves into to Carlo's apartment. Ed talks about previous New Year's Eves and thinks about his wife. They go out in search of a party and find one. Dean dances with Marylou, who starts to flirt with Sal once more guests arrive. Lucille, a longshoreman's wife with whom Sal was having an affair, flirts with Dean.

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." Part 2, Chapter 4, pg. 126

The party gets larger as they pick up more people. Ed hooks up with Lucille's sister. They go to Long Island with a man named Rollo Greb, who has a lot of books and whose energy Dean idealizes. After awhile they go to Birdland to see a jazz pianist. They go back to more parties, get high, and Sal gets depressed. He goes home.

Part 2, Chapter 5

Sal's aunt thinks that Sal is wasting his time by travelling. Sal admits that he knows that it is wrong but he plans to go west anyway. He travels partially to watch Dean, and partially because he thinks he is going to get a chance with Marylou once they get to San Francisco and Dean returns to Camille. He lends money to Dean, who has spent all his time in Carlo's apartment. Carlo has developed the "voice of the rock" and he questions everyone's lives. He intends to scare people into changing their habits. Dean takes Sal aside and tells him that he wants him to have sex with Marylou. They go to a bar and then back to the apartment looking for her. Sal has his doubts and Dean wants to watch them. Sal says he can't do it but that he will make love to her in San Fran. Dean and Marylou go to sleep. Carlo comes back at dawn. Marylou comes out in the morning bruised up and Dean is full of scratches from their wild sex. They go back to Sal's house. Old Bull Lee calls and asks what he should do with Galatea. Sal tells his aunt that he'll be back in two weeks. They leave.

Topic Tracking: Dean 7
Topic Tracking: Generosity 8
Topic Tracking: Father 4

Part 2, Chapter 6

"It was drizzling and mysterious at the beginning of our journey. I could see that it was all going to be one big saga of the mist. 'Whooee!' yelled Dean. 'Here we go!' And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; he was back in his element, everybody could see that." Part 2, Chapter 6, page 133

They drive fast in the direction of New Orleans. The radio blares and the car is beginning to show its wear. Dean decides that he and Marylou should stay together in California. Sal is a little upset. They sail through D.C. at the time of Truman's second presidential inauguration. Ed drives too fast and a cop stops them. They all have to go to the station. The cops try to use part of the Mann Act on the one women and three men situation, but Marylou is carrying her marriage license. Dean is fined 25 dollars. Now they only have 15 dollars to get to California. Ed offers to go to jail instead. Dean promises to come back and shoot the cop who stopped them. They need to pick up hitchhikers for money. They pick up a hitchhiker who says they he gets money by stopping at the houses of other Jews and demanding charity. They stop in Testament because he says that he can get money, but he disappears instead. Dean rattles on about God again. Sal drives through North Carolina, and they stop at a service station where Ed steals cigarettes and they drive off without paying for their gas. Ed drives and Dean talks about his train riding days when he lost his father for eleven months. They arrive in New Orleans and Dean gawks at the women.

"'Oh I love, love, love women! I think women are wonderful! I love women!' He spat out the window; he groaned; he clutched his head. Great beads of sweat fell from his forehead from pure excitement and exhaustion." Part 2, Chapter 6, pg. 140

They cross the Mississippi by boat and look over the river. Dean continues to act crazy. They go to Old Bull Lee's. No one is home but Jane Lee, who thinks that the city is on fire because she is tripping on Benzedrine. Galatea shows up, tear-stained, and asks Ed what is going on. Old Bull Lee comes home to this confusion. Old Bull Lee has very little money and what he does have he spends mostly on drugs. His kids eat very little and he eats even less. Sal thinks Old Bull Lee is some sort of a teacher who has learned much about life through the world. Apparently, he is suffering from multiple personalities. He asks everyone what they are doing and suggests they all smoke some pot before dinner. Old Bull Lee tells many stories, shows off his gun collection, and basically ignores his wife. Dean and Sal decide to have a big night in New Orleans. Old Bull Lee tells them that the bars are boring but he cannot dissuade them. Old Bull Lee tells Sal that Dean has gotten worse and asks Sal to stay in New Orleans for his own good. They leave to take the ferry into the city.

They go to the bars in the French quarter. Marylou does all the drugs she can. When they get home, Jane is reading the want ads, Ed is sleeping with Galatea, and Sal takes a walk as Old Bull Lee reads Kafka. After his walk, Sal goes back into the house and falls asleep.

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 8
Topic Tracking: Father 5

Part 2, Chapter 7

Sal wakes up to find Old Bull Lee and Dean pulling nails from driftwood with plans to build a shelf. Old Bull Lee talks crazily about the dispensability of American consumer goods. He is always energetic in the morning, but because of his drug use, he spends most of his day in the chair on the porch. He tells stories to the pair: his aunt lost her diamond ring with her pinky finger; a man he knew would go on road trips from Texas to Maine; he built his kitchen table from driftwood and it is six inches thick. He goes to the bathroom to get his morning drug fix, and falls asleep on the porch with his son in his lap. Later on, Old Bull Lee and Sal go to check out bookies. Old Bull Lee loses money on slot machines. The name of a horse, Big Pop, reminds Sal that he misses his father.

They leave without any winnings. Old Bull Lee keeps saying that he thinks the living are always in contact with the dead. They get home and Jane sweeps the floor as Old Bull Lee does more drugs. They go outside and play basketball. Dean amazes Sal with his athletic ability and Old Bull Lee shows off some jujitsu. Dean says that the Lee's little girl will be beautiful when she grows up. They go into New Orleans and ride around on some trains as Dean tells his old train riding stories. Ed and Galatea decide to get a room in the city to find work. Dean, Marylou and Sal are waiting for Sal's GI check to come through so that they can get back on the road.

Topic Tracking: Dean 8
Topic Tracking: Father 6

Part 2, Chapter 8

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." Part 2, Chapter 8, pg. 156

They drive back across the Mississippi River, listening to the radio. They stop to buy food and gas and have barely enough money to make it to California. As they drive through swamps, they think they see an apparition. That night everyone is frightened. Through Texas, they return to the radio, and Dean talks about his days in Houston when everyone was either drunk or stoned. The Houston streets are empty at four in the morning except for someone singing on a motorcycle. Sal drives and almost hits a car that is driving in the wrong lane. They get stuck in mud and it takes 30 minutes to get out of it. Dean and Sal get soaked and Sal falls asleep as Dean begins driving.

As they drive on, there is a terrible blizzard. Sal drives again with Dean sleeping, and Marylou renews her vow to have sex with him in California. They stop again, steal food, and then Dean drives all the way across Texas. Driving into the sun, he suggests they all take their clothes off. Marylou puts cold cream on their bodies. Truckers stare as they pass. They get out at Pecos Canyon Country and Dean refuses to put clothing on. They park the car later and Dean and Marylou have sex while Sal falls asleep. They arrive in El Paso with no money.

"We tried everything. We buzzed the travel bureau, but no one was going west that night. The travel bureau is where you go for share-the-gas rides, legal in the West. Shifty characters wait with battered suitcases. We went to the Greyhound bus station to try to persuade somebody to give us the money instead of taking a bus for the coast. We were too bashful to approach anyone." Part 2, Chapter 8, pg. 162

Dean runs into some reform school kid and they go out to try to rob someone. Marylou comes on to Sal in the car, but he tells her they should wait until San Francisco. Marylou is sad about everything because Dean is so crazy. Dean comes back without money and they leave with the hope of picking up a hitchhiker. They pick up a hitchhiker who has no money, but promises some in California where his aunt lives. Sal decides that he can borrow money from someone in Tucson. In Benson, Arizona he pawns his watch for gas money. A policeman asks to see his license, and pulls out a gun when Dean reaches down to button his fly. They iron out the misunderstanding and the policeman lets them go. They find Sal's friend who gives them dinner and the money they need. The friend, also a writer, says that he wants to go back to New York. They drive on.

Topic Tracking: Dean 9

Part 2, Chapter 9

They pick up an Okie whose guitar and clothing were stolen by his last ride. Dean coasts down hills to conserve gas. They descend into California.

"Suddenly we were all excited. Dean wanted to tell me everything he knew about Bakersfield as we reached the city limits. He showed me rooming houses where he stayed, rail-road hotels, poolhalls, diners, sidings where he jumped off the engine for grapes, Chinese restaurants where he ate, park benches where he met girls and certain places where he'd done nothing but sit and wait around." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 168

Sal starts to think about Terry and his experience in Bakersfield. The Okie goes in search for his brother and brings back money. They arrive in San Francisco with just enough gas. They get out and Dean is eager to see Camille. Marylou says, "You see what a bastard he is?...Dean will leave you out in the cold anytime it's in his interest." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 170. Dean leaves them without money and disappears.

Topic Tracking: Dean 10

Part 2, Chapter 10

Marylou secures a hotel room on credit. They don't see Dean for a week and Sal says that he has lost his faith in him. Marylou has lost interest in Sal because Dean isn't around to be made jealous. She meets a rich man with a Cadillac at a night club, and leaves with him. Sal walks the streets of the city delirious and thinks that a woman in a restaurant is his mother. He reflects on his life.

"And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy I had always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move one, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiances shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven." Part 2, Chapter 10, pg. 173

He waxes philosophical and religious and then returns to the hotel room. Marylou does not return.

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 9

Part 2, Chapter 11

Dean finds him and asks about Marylou. Sal tells him that she is gone. He spends a few days in Camille's house. Dean gets a job selling pressure cookers but stops after a few days. He talks about another job but doesn't commit to anything. Dean is beginning to tire of his family/job routine. On another night they go out and go crazy again; they go to a night club and listen to some jazz. Sal describes the jazz reverie of the pianist, Slim Galliard. Sal meets a man named Lampshade and they go in and out of musical saloons meeting people. Dean and Sal do this for a week as Sal awaits his GI check. When he gets it, he is ready to go:

"What I accomplished by going to Frisco I don't know. Camille wanted me to leave; Dean didn't care one way or the other. I bought a loaf of bread and meats and made myself ten sandwiches to cross the country with again; they were all going to go rotten on me by the time I got to Dakota." Part 2, Chapter 11, pages 177-8.

Marylou and Dean take Sal to the bus station. They ask for some of his sandwiches, but he doesn't give them any. Sal thinks, "We were all thinking we'd never see one another again and we didn't care." Part 2, Chapter 11, pg. 178. He leaves.

Topic Tracking: Generosity 9
Topic Tracking: Dean 11

Part 3, Chapter 1

Sal returns to Denver in the spring of '49 with money from his GI checks. He plans to settle down there but is disappointed when he finds that no one from the old gang is present. He works at a fruit wholesaler and wanders the streets looking for people.

"At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, music, not enough night." Part 3, Chapter 1, pg. 180

Unhappy with his own identity, he wishes he could find Dean. He goes to a baseball game and everyone reminds him of Dean or Marylou. He speaks of himself as dead. He goes to see a rich girl who gives him a hundred dollars to go to San Francisco. Getting a ride with the travel bureau for eleven dollars, he arrives at Dean's house at two in the morning and finds Dean, naked.

Topic Tracking: Generosity 10

Part 3, Chapter 2

Dean tells Sal that things are not good: He wants to go on the road; Camille is unhappy; they are unhappy together; the car was repossessed; an accidental second baby is on its way. Sal thinks to himself that Dean has driven Camille mad. Dean had been spending time spying on Marylou, who had a different sailor come by every night.

Previously, he had refused to believe that she had become a whore. He smoked some bad marijuana and got very sick. Dean had gone somewhat crazy, believing that he loved Marylou not Camille. He found Ed Dunkel and got a gun from him. Then he went to Marylou and wanted her to kill him in some sort of death-pact scenario. Marylou wouldn't do it. She ended up marrying a used car salesman. Dean broke his wrist terribly by punching her, but it didn't hurt her at all. His wrist was poorly set and became infected. Now he needs daily injections of penicillin, to which he is allergic.

Dean is addicted to the penicillin antidote and says he feels great. He talks to Sal about his kid and about growing older. In the morning, Camille throws them both out because they had someone over to drink while they were taking care of the child. She goes into the room and sobs. Dean ignores her. Sal feels bad and wants to go to a bar. He sees a picture of Galatea and has a revelation:

"I suddenly realized that all these women were spending months of loneliness and womanliness together, chatting about the madness of men. I heard Dean's maniacal giggle across the house, together with the wails of his baby." Part 3, Chapter 2, pg. 187

Dean packs his stuff while Camille sobs. They leave and Sal alludes to Dean's infected hand as a final evolution, or devolution "because he no longer cared about anything" Part 3, Chapter 2, pg. 188. Dean looks like hell as he totters and rambles in tattered clothing. Nevertheless, Sal is glad that Dean needs him. They cannot figure out what to do next and Dean suggests that they walk to New York. They talk about going to Italy, because Sal is expecting money from publishers. Dean gets embarrassed with himself. Sal is confused. They look at each other, then notice a Greek family taking a group photo. They watch the happy family together and decide to leave San Francisco.

Topic Tracking: Dean 12
Topic Tracking: Generosity 11

Part 3, Chapter 3

They go to a bar before they leave, and Dean quietly speaks of his father. The pair decide to do everything that they had not done before. Dean puts on a suit and they find Ray Johnson who promises to drive them around even though his wife is unhappy with the situation. They try to find Remi Boncoeur in Mill City, but he is gone. They sleep at Galatea's; Ed Dunkel has left for Denver. She thinks that he will come back. Ed is on his way to Portland, Maine with Tom Snark.

"'When Tom's money runs out Ed'll be back,' said Galatea looking at her cards. 'Damn fool--he doesn't know anything and never did. All he has to do is know that I love him.'" Part 3, Chapter 3, pg. 192

Sal decides that Galatea is all right. A girl named Marie comes over. Camille calls Galatea to tell her that Dean left, and Galatea says that Marylou was wise to leave him. Everyone in the room is mad at Dean. Galatea criticizes Dean and is not afraid of him. Sal thinks of defending him, but doesn't. Sal gets sadder and Dean gets silent. Sal says they are going to Italy and the girls look with disapproval. Sal then says they should go out to hear some jazz, and Galatea says that she wishes Dean were dead. No one in the room disagrees. Sal defends him, saying they all stay around because they are eager to know what Dean is going to do next. Galatea tells him that he doesn't really know Dean.

Topic Tracking: Father 7

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 10
Topic Tracking: Dean 13

Part 3, Chapter 4

The girls leave with them into the night. Dean slowly begins to get wild again. They go to a jazz club and Dean falls into reverie. Jazz fills the room and Sal's mind. Dean sweats as Sal describes the musicians. Sal and Dean talk to a couple of musicians, and Dean asks them if there is a sister or friend he could 'ball' (have sex with).

They return to the action of the club and the girls are angry. They all get into the Cadillac of one of the musician's friends, and go to another club. They find Lampshade and Carlo Marx playing jazz. Sal stands outside as Dean calls Roy Johnson for another ride. They meet a man named Walter, and they go to his house for a beer, and end up waking his older wife, whom Sal thinks is the sweetest woman in the world. Dean idolizes her because she doesn't complain and is pleasant. They realize that they need to sleep but can't go back to Galatea's. They sleep in a friend's hotel room and go out the next morning to the travel bureau for a ride. When they go to Galatea's to pick up their bags, she says when Ed comes home, she plans to take him to the jazz club every night to get the craziness out of him. Sal showers and shaves and the two excitedly rush out to begin their journey.

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 11

Part 3, Chapter 5

The travel bureau car they ride in is owned by a homosexual man going to Kansas. Dean alleges that the car itself is effeminate. They sit in the back of the car and talk about jazz, and Sal talks more than ever before. The two get excited and talk like crazy. They sweat with excitement. The people in the front seat are confused as Dean and Sal are "rocking the car" with their excitement. This is the first time that the pair has gone east together. They stop in Sacramento where the driver gets a room and tries to get Dean and Sal to come over for drinks because he likes them. Dean tries to get money from him but can't. When they leave the next day, Dean drives and speeds through Nevada frightening everyone except for Sal.

"I wasn't scared at all; I knew Dean. The people in the back seat were speechless. In fact they were afraid to complain: God knew what Dean would do, they thought, if they should ever complain." Part 3, Chapter 5, pg. 210

They drive quickly through the night, then Dean stops abruptly to sleep. The driver and other passengers criticize Dean, but Sal defends him. Dean wakes in Salt Lake City and the pair leave the car in Denver. Dean is home.

Part 3, Chapter 6

They decide to stay in Denver and look for Dean's dad. During dinner, Dean refers to Sal's older age and Sal snaps at him. Dean leaves the restaurant; Sal is mad for a moment but he feels bad soon after. Dean comes back in after five minutes and says that he was crying. They argue, but then Sal apologizes. They eat and leave to stay with an Okie family.

"These had been neighbors of mine in my Denver solitude of two weeks before. The mother was a wonderful woman in jeans who drove coal trucks in winter mountains to support her kids, four in all, her husband having left her years before when they were traveling around the country in a trailer." Part 3, Chapter 6, pg. 214

He describes the family in detail. Dean is delighted with the family, especially the mother. They drink some beer and stay there for awhile. Dean tries to help her buy a car but it doesn't work out. He gets frustrated and laments about his father. That night they plan to meet Dean's cousin, Sam Brady. Dean tells Sal that an old hobo told him his father was working in a bean shack in New England. He talks about Sam, the only man in his family who cares about him. Sam arrives and does not drink anymore because he is now religious. Sam talks to Dean only because he wants him to sign papers; he wants nothing to do with Dean or his father anymore. Sam buys them ice cream and Dean asks him about his family's past. They get dropped off at a carnival and they follow around some women and a Mexican midget. Dean doesn't talk to the women and they return to the Okie house where the daughter is afraid of Dean.

Topic Tracking: Father 8
Topic Tracking: Dean 14

Part 3, Chapter 7

The next day, they go looking for a travel bureau ride, but there isn't one. Afterwards, they get a big quart of bourbon from the woman who paid for Sal to go to San Francisco. Dean is interested in a farm girl across the field and gets himself in trouble following her. Her mother comes out with a shotgun and a gang of boys. Sal calms them down and the pair go inside. Dean gets angry at a record and breaks it over his knee. Janet, the Okie woman, breaks a Dizzy Gillespie record over Dean's head.
Sal had given a letter to the money-and-bourbon woman's cousin to be sent to Old Bull Lee. In the letter he told Old Bull how easy things were for him because he was living off this woman. The cousin showed the letter to his aunt and she asks Sal and Dean to leave town.

"As the cab honked outside and the kids cried and the dogs barked and Dean danced with Frankie I yelled every conceivable curse I could think over that phone and added all kinds of new ones, and in my drunken frenzy I told everybody over the phone to go to hell and slammed it down and went out to get drunk." Part 3, Chapter 7, pg. 220

They go to a bar. Dean goes out and steals a car. Later, he comes back with a different one. Cops enter the bar to inquire but they find nothing. Dean runs out and steals another one. He tries to get Sal and some guy at the bar to come with him. They won't go. Janet and Sal take a cab away from the spectacle, and Dean follows in a stolen convertible. He turns around for no apparent reason, but comes back later with yet another car and collapses drunk. Sal wakes him up to ditch the car and has trouble sleeping himself.

Topic Tracking: Dean 15
Topic Tracking: Generosity 12

Part 3, Chapter 8

In the morning, they inspect the car and discover that it belongs to a policeman. They have to leave town quickly. At the travel bureau, they get an offer to drive a limousine to Chicago. They get excited. Dean immediately takes the car to get gas and comes back after having taken a waitress for a ride in it and having sex with her. They pick up some Jesuit College passengers. Outside Denver, Dean breaks the speedometer because he is driving too fast. He continues to drive like a maniac after taking his shirt off and talking about divorcing Camille to marry the recent waitress. They drive faster even though it is raining, and end up in a ditch. The passengers are frightened. A farmer pulls them out with his tractor for five dollars. The fender is crushed. Sal notices how beautiful the farmer's daughter is.

They arrive at Ed Wall's ranch, which is huge because his father had been very rich. Ed says that Dean is crazy. His wife serves a large meal to Sal, Dean, and the two Jesuit boys, while Dean tries to convince Ed that Sal owns the Cadillac limousine. Ed thinks that they have stolen it. He has lost faith in Dean. They leave after an hour.

Part 3, Chapter 9

Back on the highway, Dean drives the car at 110 mph through Nebraska and delights in its power. Talking about driving to Panama, he drives extra-fast because he wants to pick up girls in Chicago.

"It was remarkable how Dean could go mad and then suddenly continue with his soul- which I think is wrapped up in a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road- calmly and sanely as though nothing had happened." Part 3, Chapter 9, pg. 230


They remember other times each of them had been over the same portion of road in their crazy pasts. In 1944, Dean had owned a Buick in L.A., where he was hiding from the Arizona police. He wrecked the car in the spring, returned to Denver, and met Marylou. Dean mentions his father again and says that he plans to stay in New York when he gets there. Sal goes to sleep and wakes up in Iowa, where Dean tries to race a man driving in a Buick with an older woman. The man stops at a gas station, and Sal warns Dean not to drive so fast in the day-time. Dean keeps passing cars and Sal climbs into the back seat because he can't take it anymore. In Des Moines, Dean hits another car going slowly and bends the bumper. After he pretends to be nice to them, the man calls the police and says that they have stolen the car. They have to go to the station to iron everything out. They start driving again, crossing the Mississippi River at Davenport. While crossing the bridge, Dean makes a spectacle, nearly killing them by passing cars in the narrow space before trucks come in the oncoming lane. Sal returns to the back seat. Before long, they arrive in Chicago.

"We had come from Denver to Chicago via Ed Wall's ranch, 1180 miles, in exactly 17 hours, not counting the two hours in the ditch and three at the ranch and two with the police in Newton, Iowa, for a mean average of seventy miles per hour across the land, with one driver. Which is a kind of crazy record." Part 3, Chapter 9, pg. 237

Topic Tracking: Dean 16

Part 3, Chapter 10

They park the car and wash up at the YMCA, where the two Jesuit boys get a room. They go out and follow some musicians after following a woman around. There are white and black musicians in a saloon who play well and Sal recounts the history of music from Armstrong to ragtime to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. A young kid with a trombone comes in and tries to play--Sal and Dean leave for another bar. They follow the musicians and try to pick up girls during the breaks. Dean wrecks the car by backing into hydrants. They find the jazz pianist George Shearing again. At nine in the morning everyone goes home. Dean and Sal relinquish the limousine to its owner's mechanic. For some reason, the owner never complains.

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 12

Part 3, Chapter 11

They take a bus to Detroit and Dean sleeps all the way while Sal tries to have a conversation with a country girl. Dean and Sal stay in an all-night movie house for the night and encounter lost people of all kinds. Attendants sweep up in the morning. Sal thinks if he were swept up with the trash, Dean would never find him. They find a ride to New York for four dollars a piece and Dean is in another frenzied state.
As they cross into Toledo, Sal realizes that he has been crisscrossing the nation like a traveling salesman. Dean drives through Pennsylvania and into New York. They stay at Sal's aunt's new apartment on Long Island for a while. Five days later, they go to a party and Dean meets a girl named Inez with whom he falls in love immediately. He pledges to divorce Camille.

"Not only that, but a few months later Camille gave birth to Dean's second baby, the result of a few nights' rapport early in the year. And another matter of months and Inez had a baby. With one illegitimate child in the West somewhere, Dean then had four little ones and not a cent, and was all troubles and ecstasy and speed as ever. So we didn't go to Italy." Part 3, Chapter 11, pg. 247.

Instead of Italy, Sal stays in New York for a while.

Topic Tracking: Dean 17

Part 4, Chapter 1

Sal comes into money from selling his book and wants to leave again because it is springtime. For the first time, he leaves Dean alone. Dean is working as a parking lot attendant again, losing his mind smoking too much pot and looking at naked women on dirty playing cards. He is still with Inez and talks about his future with her, but has to spend a good part of his pay to Camille to support their children. Dean and Sal still go out together.

"'Inez loves me; she's told me and promised me I can do anything I want and there'll be a minimum of trouble. You see, man, you get older and troubles pile up. Someday you and me'll be coming down an alley together at sundown and looking in the cans to see.'" Part 4, Chapter 1, pg. 251

Dean talks about being a bum forever, because the pace of life is less dictated and he wants to deal with life as it comes to him. He got a letter from his father in Seattle who wants to see some of his grandchildren. Dean mentions he has a sister he wants to find, but then gets quiet. Later, they go back to Sal's aunt's place and watch baseball on TV. They play baseball and basketball outside with kids. Back inside, Dean pays Sal's aunt back for the speeding ticket from so many months before. She is surprised and tells him to stay married and not have children all over. Sal hopes that Dean will still be in New York when he returns. "All I hope, Dean, is someday we'll be able to live on the same street with our families and get to be a couple of oldtimers together." Part 4, Chapter 1, pg. 254. Dean takes out pictures of Camille and the baby and talks about Ed Dunkel being back together with Galatea. They say goodbye.

Topic Tracking: Dean 18
Topic Tracking: Father 9

Part 4, Chapter 2

Sal takes the Washington bus and sings a song about never finding home. The landscape blurs by and he meets a man named Henry Glass who is just coming from a federal prison. Henry eats only candy because his stomach is messed up, and he talks about the bible. He was in prison because he cut someone's throat with a jackknife when he was thirteen. On the way to Colorado, Sal takes Henry to his brother's in Testament, Virginia. In Colorado, Henry tires to pawn his suit and calls up Tim Gray with whom he spends all his money. Tim has just come from France with a man named Stan Shepherd who is excited to meet Sal. Sal is planning to go to Mexico and Stan wants to go with him.

"Okay, it was agreed, Stan was coming with me, He was a rangy, bashful, shock-haired Denver boy with a big con-man smile and slow, easy-going Gary Cooper movements. 'Hot Damn' he said and stuck his thumbs in his belt and ambled down the street, swaying from side to side but slowly." Part 4, Chapter 2, pg. 258

They spend a week in bars listening to jazz and fooling around with waitresses. They try to convince Tim to come with them, but he won't. Sal finds out that Dean is coming to meet him in Denver and he knows that Dean has lost his mind again. Stan worries that Dean won't let him tag along to Mexico.

Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 13

Part 4, Chapter 3

Sal stays in Babe Rawlins' house. Sal describes Babe's music and her aunt, Charity. Babe is in love with Tim Gray; they are all sitting around drinking when Dean arrives. He is wearing a tweed suit and goes to Ed Dunkel's house to retrieve his watch so that he can pawn it. He changes into a t-shirt and plans to leave for Mexico the next day. Dean says that Ed is happy with Galatea and is planning to go to college the following year. No one else can talk, as Dean takes out the stack of dirty playing cards to do a trick. Everything gets quiet and Dean exits to get more energy. He makes a fool of himself but no one cares. Dean returns to the hotel where he lived with his father, and drinks, dances, and tries to play the piano. They mail a postcard to Carlo Marx and go to a party at a castle. The party goes late into the night. At nine in the morning, they eat breakfast and pile into Dean's beat up '37 Ford.

"I looked over the map: a total of over a thousand miles, mostly Texas, to the border of Laredo, and then another 767 miles through all Mexico to the great city near the cracked Isthmus and Oaxacan heights. I couldn't imagine this trip. It was the most fabulous of all. It was no longer east-west, but magic south." Part 4, Chapter 3, pg. 265

Dean is overly excited about the trip. Stan's grandfather tries to get him to stay, but he refuses to listen. Stan's mother tells Dean to take care of Stan. They stop by Babe's and say goodbye. Tim Gray watches them disappear. They leave Denver, moving south.

Topic Tracking: Dean 19

Part 4, Chapter 4

As they drive, a bug stings Stan and his arm starts to swell badly. They are a little shaken but they continue to drive, hoping the swelling will stop, but it only gets worse. They tell him they'll stop at the first hospital they find.

They keep driving and tell each other stories of their youth and their experiences. They arrive in New Mexico near Texas, where Sal had been before, and continue to drive through the night. Dean and Sal tell book plots to Stan. Dean doesn't care at all about Texas, so Sal drives while he sleeps in the back. Stan talks a lot about England and France. A wave of heat descends as they enter San Antonio, a city that Sal says must look like Mexico. They drink and get high and decide to stop at a hospital for Stan:

"The hospital was full of poor Mexican women, some of them pregnant, some of them sick or brining their little sick kiddies. It was sad. I thought of poor Terry and wondered what she was doing now." Part 4, Chapter 4, pg. 272

Stan gets a shot of penicillin. Meanwhile, Dean is amazed with San Antonio. He loves the city, the women, and everything else. Dean is eager to get to Mexico, and they are only 150 miles from the border. Sal sleeps for awhile and wakes at the end of Texas--Laredo. The town is sinister. They roll into Mexico and it is exactly as they imagined it. They change their money to pesos.

Part 4, Chapter 5

They arrive in a town and get out of the car. They buy beer for 10 cents a bottle and cigarettes for 6 cents a pack. Dean gets more excited as they drive further into Mexico. Stan remains calm as Sal and Dean get wilder. They talk about the past and future of the country and the 767 miles to Mexico City. In a town called Sabinas Hidalgo, they stop to meet the locals. Girls ask where they are going. Dean is amazed by everyone they meet. They get gas and food on the road toward Monterrey. Monterrey is filled with factories and they don't stop for long because they are so eager for Mexico City. The weather gets really hot as they pass through poor areas and swamps. Dean wants to stop and fool around with some of the girls. Sal drives and is surprised by everything; Mexico is so different. He talks about the Native Americans as the fathers of mankind. Sal has promised to get Dean a girl, and they stop near Gregoria. He asks a peddler named Victor to find them girls. They follow Victor, also in search of marijuana. At Victor's house, they get marijuana and he rolls a large joint for all of them to smoke.

They bounce back to town in search of the girls. As Victor speaks Spanish, Dean pretends to understand while the drugs affect him more and more. At Victor's house, Victor shows off his six-month old child to an impressed Dean. They all wish to have a child like his. They leave the baby and go to the whorehouse where they pay off cops and find girls everywhere with the music blaring. They dance wildly with the girls, the wildest by far being half Native American and half Venezuelan. Sal wants a colored girl but feels bad because her mother is in the room. The half Native American follows them around and clings to Sal. Victor stays at the bar, loyal to his wife. They buy him drinks.

"Soon it would be mysterious night in old gone Gregoria. The mambo never let up for a moment, it frenzied on like an endless journey in the jungle. I couldn't take my eyes off the little dark girl and the way, like a queen, she walked around and was even reduced by the sullen bartender to menial tasks such as bringing us drinks and sweeping the back." Part 4, Chapter 5, pg. 289

Sal decides he is in love with this girl. When they leave, the tab is 36 dollars. Stan must be removed because he wants to stay so badly. The girls wave goodbye and Victor takes them to a bath house on the edge of town. Victor asks them to comeback sometime and they say that they might as they leave.

Topic Tracking: Father 10
Topic Tracking: Beat Generation 14

Part 4, Chapter 6

As they leave, night falls and the headlights of the car are broken. They keep driving and the headlights come back on. Stan is still high and they all take their shirts off as they roll into the heat of a jungle town named Limon.

They try to sleep on a dirt road, but it is too hot and there are bugs everywhere. A policeman comes by and asks if they are sleeping and then moves on. Sal stays awake all night, witnessing the sunrise and hearing the clatter of horse hooves. They leave town and fill up at a gas station down the road. Bugs continue to cling to them. They drive through the night over mountains and past many Native Americans. On the ledge of a mountain, they see a little girl. Dean wishes he had something to give her. Older women try to sell them crystals and a child grabs Dean's arm. He shows her his watch and trades it for a piece of crystal. They leave and reach the last plateau.

"The end of our journey impended. Great fields stretched on both sides of us; a noble wind blew across the occasional immense tree groves and over old missions turning salmon pink in the late sun. The clouds were close and huge and rose." Part 4, Chapter 6, pg. 300

They enter the city at dusk and there is a terrible noise because there are no mufflers on the cars. The city is chaotic with people selling all sorts of goods, open sewers, and run-down alleys. Sal gets a fever and dysentery. He goes a little crazy while Dean gets his divorce papers from Camille finalized. Dean longs to return to Inez in New York. "I didn't know who he was anymore, and he knew this, and sympathized, and pulled the blanket over my shoulders." Part 4, Chapter 6, pg. 302 says Sal as Dean leaves for New York. When he gets better he realizes that he is frustrated with Dean but tries to forgive him. Stan and Sal stay in Mexico for a while.

Topic Tracking: Generosity 13
Topic Tracking: Dean 20

Part 5, Chapter 1

On the way back to New York, Dean stopped in Gregoria again. His car died in Louisiana. He hitched back to New York and married Inez. Not long after, he left her and returned to Camille. In the fall, Sal returns to New York. As he walked and hitched back into the United States, he met a man who told him to "Go moan for man." Part 5, Chapter 1, pg. 306 Not knowing what to make of this, he kept walking. Back in the city, Sal meets a girl.

"So I went up and there she was, the girl with the pure and innocent dear eyes that I had always searched for and for so long. We agreed to love each other madly. In the winter we planned to migrate to San Francisco, bringing all our beat furniture and broken belongings with us in a jalopy panel truck." Part 5, Chapter 1, pg. 306

Dean writes Sal an 18,000 word letter saying that he was coming to drive them west personally. He arrives early, in the middle of the night and tells stories of L.A. and Camille. Dean wants to bring Inez to L.A. Camille sends him a letter. The last time Sal sees Dean is with a fat and unhappy Remi Boncoeur who wants them to go to a concert. He says goodbye to Dean who is walking off around the corner. They wave in the cold and never see each other again.

"So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sens all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast...I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty, the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty." Part 5, Chapter 1, pg. 309-10

This is where the tale ends: Dean walking alone around a corner; Sal preparing to go west with his new love.

Topic Tracking: Dean 21
Topic Tracking: Father 11