Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings Read online

  ATOP AN UNDERWOOD

  by Jack Kerouac

  F.P.

  —Sixty Little Old Stories—

  INTRODUCTION

  Hello, this is Jack Kerouac F.P., a new writer.

  F.P. stands for furious poet.

  Here are sixty little old stories for you to study at your leisure. I have made them short in order to augment their dignity as regards to fullness and completeness. Also, you will most likely go a little more slowly in your reading of them, due to the fact that you will feel 59 stories ahead of you the moment you start reading the first, and 58 stories ahead of you the moment you start reading the second, and all that. There is a kind of mute sanctity to a story, and if you have to read enough of them, you will no doubt take it a bit slow and not try to gobble everything up in one night, idiotically, like Clifton Fadiman, who I maintain has never read a book in his life.

  I am making a drive for slower and finer reading.

  Try it. You will find that it pays more, fills you with respect for the world of letters, which is another department of my drive.

  Try it now. Read this slowly and religiously. I am making a drive toward slower and more religious reading. You will find, as you go along, that I am also making a drive toward a whole mess of other things.

  Jack Kerouac F.P.

  Harcourt, Brace & Co. New York (!)

  The Good Jobs

  This story follows the introduction to Kerouac’s Atop an Underwood and springs from a Hartford tradition, door-to-door sales. The city’s nineteenth-century publishers introduced the concept of subscriptions, pitched house to house by traveling salesmen. This is where America’s first Fuller brush man took to the streets too.

  To talk like Albert Halper once did, I’ve held down a lot of good jobs in my day.

  The best job I ever had was in Connecticut. As you will presently know, I do not like to work, or to be nearer the truth, I do not like to surrender the hours and minutes of my life to anyone, let alone a fogy old employer. I rather like the idea of having all my hours to myself: eating a fudge sundae, watching a movie, sleeping on my couch, singing in the bathroom, studying the woods, kidding around with a girl, playing cards lazily, writing, etc. All kinds of stuff that America brands “shiftless,” at one time or another.

  I am a shiftless fellow myself, you know. I am rather proud of that. Perhaps I might even lay a claim, in all seriousness and in due gravity, to being the most shiftless man in the world. This is because I have been bungling things up all my life, happily, and my conscience is clear. I am a thorough bungler.

  Now, this job I held down in Connecticut was ideal. It called for about six hours of work per day, but the way I did it, it called for only an hour a day. I was a salesman, and instead of soliciting these people with white fences around their little homes, I preferred to stuff their mailboxes with leaflets, quietly tip-toeing so that I might not disturb them. It is against my inner principles to go up to a beautiful little home and harbor any solicitation in my heart.

  I absolutely refuse to bother these housewives, and therefore I took great pains not to disturb them, hoping inside that the company would tolerate my incapability to actually sell for a least another two weeks. So I went from door to door, as they say, stuffing mailboxes with leaflets and creeping down the steps. Once I got caught. A housewife espied me sneaking off and captured me.

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I smiled. “I’m just distributing samples and stuff.” I had the interests of the company well at heart, I assure you sincerely, but I also had the interests of these private lives at heart. However, this was one grand exception.

  “Come here,” she said, “and tell me all about it.”

  I spent a whole hour listening to her tell of her son, who was lazy, and her daughter, who was very athletic and played basketball. I liked the part about her son. He sounded like a swell guy, and undoubtedly this house contained much fine humanity that I was missing. But the woman talked about a lot of other things, and I got bored fast. I left, and was so exhausted with the morning’s work, that I retired to the forest.

  That was the nice part about this Connecticut job. After my daily hour’s work, I used to retire to my nook in the forest, and would lie there for hours, studying the woods and watching the sky. It was a stone’s throw from an airport, but whenever an airplane roared across the sky above me, obstructing my view of the clouds, etc. I ignored it and passed it off as a bad job by man. I also studied the fallen leaves, and watched them sail off from the trees one by one. You see, it was October, and the ground was warm, dry, almost choking. It was an emotional experience for me of great consequence. That is so, because I will never forget it. It was a swell job.

  One afternoon, I wasn’t alone studying the forest. There was a girl with me, and she was all mixed up about the stuff I was saying. It was nothing; I was only trying to teach her to see, with her eyes. She watched the airplanes, but I ignored them completely. I am not used to them yet, but I suppose I will have to soon.

  It was a swell job. It contained just the right amount of forest-studying time for me. . . . . almost all day. As you see, the girl was part of my curriculum. I will even go as far as to say that I am quite a lover of girls, and am vexed plenty of times by the problem which they offer me, and all mankind. But I will overcome that, too.

  Anyway, that was my job, and a good one too. It was the greatest job I ever held down, because I got a lot out of it, which is the utilitarian way of judging things, no? My conscience, is it necessary to repeat, was clear, and is still clear. As a bell. I am the world champ bungler, except when it comes to Pity and Love.

  But we’ll go into that later. Pity and Love have nothing to do with this, the greatest job I ever had, and even perhaps, the greatest job of all time in all the world itself.

  From Radio City to the Crown

  Everybody knows about Radio City, with its beautiful stage shows, its tremendous organ music, its fine moving pictures, the immense sweep of its interior architecture, the deep lushness of its lobbies, the magnificent oil paintings hanging from majestic walls, the tall trim ushers, the luxuriously plushed seats with plenty of arm space, the efficient air cooling system, and above all that odor, the odor and savor of abundance, wealth, opulence—that odor of luxury, “the best that money can buy,” the smells that come radiating from large, ample, and luxuriant things, the faint suggestions of massive squat comfort that things of wealth will create in the mind.

  Well, the Crown is also a theatre, and it is located on Middlesex Street in Lowell, Mass., my old home town. The Crown, in my day, was infested with rats upstairs, but we used to ignore them and concentrate on the movies. It was cheaper to sit upstairs, and we went up there rats or no rats.

  Well, just a few years ago when my gang and myself were just about growing up to be men, we used to go to the Crown every Sunday afternoon to see the double feature. Henry used to put on his green suit and ring, and that’s when he would flash his gold teeth. It was then we called him Kid Faro. The rest of the gang would also attire itself nattily; there was Kid Faro, myself, Fouch, Freddie, and Salvey.

  Before we went in for the afternoon’s performance in the Crown theatre, we used to buy a Mr. Goodbar in the store across the street, or perhaps go to the White Tower just down a block for a nickel box of ice cream. Kid Faro used to buy a bar of candy, the aforementioned Mr. Goodbar, and when I had my ice cream finished in the movie, I would usually ask him for some of his sweetmeat. Kid Faro used to proffer me a chocolate-covered peanut, or at best, a small corner of the bar. Kid Faro knew his onions.

  Well, the show always bored us, naturally. We were all about 17 years old. We would watch the horses ride across the scene, and the cowboys turn in their saddles to shoot. It was always the same thing. But somehow or other, every Sunday afternoon, the five of us would dress up nattily and stroll down to the Crown for a double feature, ten cents. I guess, way down deep, that we all knew that this was the thing. This was it,
and we should not lose it. We all dressed up and moseyed down to the Crown, five American boys walking down the street beneath the telephone-wires, past the package stores and second-hand stores and laundries and variety stores and closed barrooms and drugstores and restaurants. Five American young men, walking down the street on a Sunday afternoon, talking, walking past the houses and things of the city, of the state, of the country; walking along toward the Crown. It sure was the thing.

  Sometimes we would raise hell in there, on the second floor where the rats used to be when we were only so high. We would yell out as loud as we could. Fouch had a specialty of his own. He would yell out this word with his resounding voice: “Aaah-ooh-way-braasshh!!” It was supposed to indicate the flatulence of a huge fat Wall Street financier, but only the five of us knew that. The rest of the people in the Crown just laughed because it sounded whacky anyway. But we laughed even louder. I pulled it a couple of times myself, and let me tell you, it was great, sitting up there on the second floor of the Crown and shouting: “Aah-ooh-way-braasshh!” and hearing girls snicker, fellows laugh, and the cop come running up the steps as best he could. The cop was about 70 years old, so we didn’t have much to fear from his tottering quarter. The thing is, we never abused him. We just went to the Crown and sat down upstairs, sometimes watching the western badmen shoot it out, sometimes raising hell for the Americanism of it all.

  It was the thing that got us ... the thing . . .

  ... The Little Cottage by the Sea . . . .

  My folks once lived in a little cottage by the sea, about 150 years ago in Brittany, and just a few months ago in West Haven, Conn. The first day we moved into that little cottage by the sea, it was raining very heavily, greyly. My dad and myself were helping the movers rush the furniture into the house from the truck, which was parked in the mud in front of the cottage, the motor facing a lashing gale from the Sound, facing the great menace of monstrous rolling waves of grey water and spray. My mother stood in the parlor, huddled, watching us bring the things in, and looking out across the mud at the massive grey heave of the sea, listening to the boom and smack of the big waves against the seawall. “My,” I’ll bet she said to herself, “what am I getting myself into?”

  But it was all right. When the movers left to go get the second load of furniture, I put on my bathing trunks and walked across the mud, picking my feet tenderly among the pebbles, heading for the great menace of grey sea, unafraid, thrilled, furious with power, mad with the glory of the elements. I walked into the water and began to swim, rising high up with the crest of the waves, and then sinking way down into their greyblack valleys of water and foam; testing the salty spray, smashing my face and eyes onward into the great sea, swimming out and laughing aloud. I ploughed on, bobbing up and down in the play of the mighty waves, getting dizzy with the rise and fall of it, seeing the horizon in the grey rainy distance and then losing it in the face of a monster wave.

  I put out for a boat which was anchored; a small rowboat, with the words “We’re Here” painted on the bow. Well, I was there all right, and I scrambled aboard with some difficulty, because the little boat was heaving crazily, side to side, stern to stern, rolling motions, thrusts forward and back, then rolling again . . . . but I made it, and sat myself on the bow, facing the sea, facing the tremendous wind and rain which cut my face until I thought it would bleed.

  I turned, and saw my mother back there on the porch of the little cottage by the sea; she was looking at me, waving with anxiety and fear. I gestured that everything was all right, made a motion which said: “Boy, this is fun!” But it was more than that, more than that.

  Suddenly, looking at my mother back there on shore, looking out to sea at her son, looking out to sea where her son was afloat in the savage rage and roar of the tempest, a speck in the ocean’s huge fury, it came to me that this had happened before in the lives of my people. It occurred to me that many a Kerouac mother had stood on the steps of a little thatched cottage in Brittany, over there on the cold Northwest coast of France, standing there and looking out to sea for her son, her son, her son lost in the tempest, her son lost in the storm of the sea. Oh, but it was strong, strong! The thought came to me and I gloried in it . . . . . I sat there and faced the smash of the gale, laughing, and thinking about the ancient Breton fishermen, of whom I was a descendant, who had been out to sea in a storm while their mothers stood on the porches of little cottages and looked out to sea for them, praying and waving their handkerchiefs and grieving, grieving. Man, but I was a Breton that day! Man but I was powerful. Man but my mother looked heroic, ancient, great and mighty, standing there in the rain and looking out to sea at her son.

  Well, I weathered the storm. I sat there in that little bit of a boat and saw the horizon dance crazily, roll drunkenly, heave savagely. I let the rain blast at my face; I bailed out with my hands, rolled with the boat, laughed like a lunatic.

  Then I knew that this moment was a great moment in my life, and therefore I decided to swim back [to] shore and begin remembering it. I slipped off and made for the beach, stroking madly, hugely; actually striding in the ocean’s breast, lavishing in its enormous fullness, pulling at it with wet arms, kicking feet widely, eating up yardage in the water. I got to shore and went in to the little cottage by the sea, dripping wet, walking solidly on the ground like the ancient Bretons used to do.

  The Juke-Box Is Saving America

  I was sitting at the table, eating. The soldier went up to the bar and ordered a beer. He had on his winter issue, belt and buttons and all. He adjusted his little cap carefully, jauntily, and paid for the beer. He was a clean looking soldier, and as far as I can see, he looked like a real soldier.

  Drinking his beer, he noticed the juke-box in the corner. Walking up to it, he inserted a dime and asked the telephone hostess to play “Pack Up Your Troubles in the Old Kit Bag.” She played it, and the soldier returned to the bar for another beer. One of the drunks in the tavern got up from his table and began to dance to the lively, gay tune. The soldier watched him, quietly pleased. When it was through, he went back to the juke-box and asked the hostess for the same number again. The tune returned, and the drunk resumed his dancing.

  I was astonished, inwardly. I ate my steak with great delight. The juke-box, I said to my steak, is saving America.

  For the third time, the soldier played the tune. This time, the drunk began to march around the tavern, swinging his arms in a military manner, left-flanking around chairs and about-facing at the walls; left-obliquing at the booths, and column-lefting at the waitress who hurried around him. The soldier adjusted his cap carefully, stood up straight, and watched, quietly pleased.

  I began to think about the words of that song. They implied, I concluded, the best war philosophy of them all: Which is, go ahead to the war and forget it; it’s nothing, and have fun. But the main point is that the soldier paid out his money for music, which is a good sign for America.

  ... Hartford After Work . . . .

  I just got back to my room from work, ostensibly speaking, and I must tell you about the song, the symphony, the clash of light and hurtle of dance that is Hartford after work. Bob drives me home in his car and plays some torrid jive on his radio; and the hotter the music gets, the wilder Bob gets, until after a while he is tearing along at the rate of sixty miles per hour, dodging people, swinging around corners with a rhythmic flourish of his arms, hurtling over little lumps on the street floors with a beautiful and hot knee action, whisking and whipping along to the hot music, beating his hands on the wheel with the rhythm, tearing around the city in his car with the music blaring, tooting rhythmically at all the nice looking chicks that walk on the sidewalks with slender stockinged legs, and finally coming to a screeching stop in front of my cheap rooming house, yelling out rhythmically: “Seeya later!” And then he is off in a blur of jazz and speed, going home from work, to a supper, a nap, and then some girls in the evening; he is tearing around to beat hell, the music is hot, and Bob is all rhythm,
all wound up American-wise, redhot Bob in his redhot orgy of speed and jazz and sex. Zoooom! Whacko! Step on the gas, toot the horn, whip through that intersection, you don’t give a damn Hartford, you’ve money, women, drinks, you’ve got everything, you’ve a supper, a nap, a date; Zoooom! Whisssk! Dart around that pedestrian and turn up the radio; let’s swerve in this old street while the jazz, the jive, the swing gets hotter, hotter, hotter, swifter, hotter, hotter!!! Through the streets we fly with rhythm, little old Hartford of the Aircraft, little old Hartford of lights and dance and blur of jazz and wings of song and Swooop! Swooop! Swooop on, swoooop on. Faster . . . . . faster! Blare, Jazz, blare! Whoooops! Look at those legs . . . Hey! Honneeeeeee! Yow! Looka them legs, willya? Jazz, blur, sex, speed! Zoooom! Man alive, Bob gets redhot, redhot! He’s all rhythm, all grace, all sex, all speed! He’s all wound-up American-wise, as redhot as the sun that sinks beyond West Hartford, sadly silent. Bob is on the loose, he’s all there, he’s on his way, he’s roaring around, he’s all rhythm, I tell you, all rhythm . . .

  Well, that’s the way it is. That’s the way it is when you live in Hartford, work in Hartford, and at night you come home from work with a guy like Bob. It’s all Hartford, all rhythm; strictly Hartford, strictly rhythm. It is what is Hartford, all this talk. It is nothing else.

  Then you go to your room and find it steeped in darkness; when you raise the shade, you find the dark red gloom of brickwalls at dusk. You open the window and let the November air come in, carrying with it the odors of alley, of tenement, of garbage pail, of backyard fence and skinny tree. Then you turn on the light and find that your wallpaper is a dull stained brown; that your bed is lumpy, the blanket as old as Job, and as poor; you find your typewriter, and suddenly, beneath its majestic keys, beneath the rows of wordmakers, book-makers, letter-makers, beneath these owlish little keys of passion you discover to your sudden horror a brown cockroach, and it discovers you, it runs out from beneath the ancient sanctity of your keys, it speeds along the surface of your working desk with a horrible swiftness, as of death, it blurs its many legs and floats to the edge of your desk, it starts down the side of the desk, flying swiftly with small blurring horror, its brown back hard and shell-wise in the light. When you kill it, you do it with loathing, revulsion, with a desire to vomit. But you know that war is war, and that the enemy must be taken.