Chapter 27, 28 & 29 Summary

Now Jack and Billie have spent the whole night talking about books and Cody, laughing about it being slightly boring. When Billie has gotten up to go to work, she leaves Jack to sleep in and bathe while all his friends call her apartment looking for him. He meets her young friend Perry, the young criminal, and he is the first character yet who does not receive Jack's unconditional acceptance, although Kerouac still recognizes and acknowledges his poetic soul. He also meets a bunch of Billie's other friends when they ring the doorbell, all turning out to be tough Negroes and ex-cons.

He reflects on a dream in which he had walked the streets of a silent city where the beatniks walk the streets and the professionals and authorities watch silently from the windows above. This is the point at which he begins...