Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings Read online

  Walter: (Smoking more appreciatively now)Well I’ll be damned if you’re not right, Zagg. There is something about a cigar!

  YF: Well, what the hell do you think I’m telling you. I said so, didn’t I? What do you think I am, a scholar? Or a diplomat? Or a bookkeeper? Brother, I say this and I mean it, and I know I’m right. That’s why I’m not worried about world affairs. That’s why I am worried about the world. But I’m not the first one. As long as we have forests and rivers and grass and cigars and human beings like you and the fellows, it’s okay. There’s no harm done. World affairs go on and on and solve themselves and then un-solve themselves; but the world itself, she’s something to worry about. She’s the only thing that we men have. And we can’t have her if we don’t take time off once in a while to puff on a stogie, let’s say, right in a spot like this.

  Walter: I don’t know what the hell you are talking about, honest

  YF: I don’t myself. I’m trying to say something that’s inside of me, that I’m dead sure about, but it doesn’t come out in order. Maybe someday I’ll be able to do it. That’ll be my Big Day

  Nick: Why did you spend a whole buck on these stogies?

  YF: When I have money, it doesn’t mean a thing to me. The only time that money means anything to me is when I have it. So I take this buck out of my choked wallet and I buy this batch of cigars. (He takes them out of his pocket, holding his pants up) Look at those babies: 15 sweet little stogies, ready to be smoked. Ready to spread good cheer, good will, and good smoke here and there and everywhere. Poop poop. I’m going in. It’s a wicked world, so long babies, goombye, tweet-tweet(He rises to his feet and hurls the cigar into the water. He is very mad, because he has failed to express himself. He dives into the water, and splashes around. We can still hear Sebastian shouting in the woods. The boys sit and smoke calmly. Suddenly, out of the blue sky, Nick speaks up:

  Nick: You know what I feel like doing with this cigar? I feel like lying right back in the grass, like this (does so); looking up at the sky, smoking on it, like this (does so); laying a fart like this (does so at will); and just staying like this till I kick the goddamn bucket.

  Walter: Yeah, but where does it get you?

  Nick: I don’t want to go nowhere

  Walter: Well, brother, I don’t want to rot in this little cheese town all my life. I want to go out and make dough and live right. I want to have power—tremendous power and money and property. With that, I can buy all the cigars in the world

  Nick: Sure, but where are you going to smoke them?

  Walter: Anyplace at all. Any place at all.

  Nick: I like this place better. And I like Joe’s cigars better than all the cigars in the world.

  Walter: Why?

  Nick: Don’t ask me, kid. You know better than that. I don’t know, I don’t care. I just feel it in my bones. It’s a wicked world, but right now it isn’t.

  (YF comes out of the water, dripping wet. He lights another cigar, puts back the 14 remaining stogies in his pocket, and sits down to smoke. He has given up. He no longer speaks. The play’s over. The curtain comes down, this was the only act and the only scene; I’m sure that no one will like this play, but I do. Why? I don’t know. I just feel it in my bones. It’s a wicked world, but what the hell do I care. I can always light up a cigar and smoke it and say: “So what.”)

  As the audience files out of the theatre, Nick will step up to the stage for a few closing words: Nick: Don’t worry. No harm done. It’s okay.

  God

  Columbia freshman Kerouac lived in Livingston Hall, which offered a view of the Butler Library. Some of the Dharma includes a description that evokes the period: “Evenings after supper in my collegeroom in Livingston Dorm at Columbia, the fragrance of my old taped pipe, the drowsy European momentous sad romance of Sibelius or other classical musics on the scratchy QXR station, my desk before me with its warm lights and studies, my thoughts, self-confidences—[. . .]”

  It is I, speaking to you. I am seated here in my room, at two o’clock in the morning. The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it shall probably be long, full, and empty with words. It depends on God. He has endowed me with the power; my performance depends upon the extent of his gift.

  It is like this.

  I am not trying to copy anyone. I am truthful to myself. I shall write as if I had just been born, endowed with words.

  As I began to say, it is like this.

  Tonight, I wrote a short story for a fellow on this floor. I toiled with it for an hour and a half. I had to make it exciting, fill it with colorful and authentic descriptions, and pound it out into the conventional whole. That is, the wholeness of what is called the common short story. Beginning, middle, and end. It had to introduce, enlarge, burst, and die down. So I plunged into it and finished it. It would net me one dollar.

  “With that dollar,” I told myself, “I shall eat.”

  I was not proud of the story, called “Black Gold.” The only things about it that were worthy of pride were several descriptions. How bullets “pinged” into iron pipes. How bullets spat into the earth, throwing up little geysers of dirt. I am a very stinted writer. I know I shall have to correct it some day. Cliché is the word. But I had to eat, and I finished the story rapidly. I delivered the story, smoothed out the dollar into my wallet, folded it, thrust it into my back pocket, and went out to eat.

  It was warm outside. The air was stifling and aggravating. I made a grimace and walked on, my shoes scuffling on the pavement. My head was slightly dizzy from the session with the typewriter.

  “I have ten dollars in my desk,” I said to myself in the street, “but to be frank with you, John, I wrote that story for one reason: with the dollar, I shall squander. I shall eat about 50¢ worth of food, then I shall go to a 50¢ movie. My ten dollars will be intact: it will be as if I had never spent any money, and yet I shall have eaten and seen a movie. It is great to squander, and to [be] able to walk in the street and feel free and easy. In this civilization of ours, money is a great thing.”

  Broadway was in a haze. The red lights were dim. There was no acute brightness. The haze of a warm day, at sunset. The air stuffy. From the Hudson, blasts of cooler air.

  I entered the Cafeteria and went to the counter. I saw the food steaming in the aluminum platters.

  A buxom blonde smiled at me over the food. She saw a young writer, unshaven. Open shirt, unpressed coat, unpressed pants. Young, though; and masculine.

  “Meat loaf,” I muttered shyly, forever in the act of trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. “Mashed potatoes. String beans. Thank you.”

  A glass of water, and buns and butter. The silverware. Sit down and eat, Brother. Partake. Be clever, and quote Homer: “They sat down to the good cheer spread before them.”

  I lunge the potato covered fork to my mouth. I lunge a piece of gravy-covered meat to my mouth. It waters for more. I butter the bread, and tear at it voraciously. Anybody watching? To hell with them, I’m hungry. String beans; potatoes; meat; sip some water, Kid, and wash it down. Cold and cool and fresh. The beverage of God. Ah, food!

  I am walking out, contented. I buy a cigar at the counter. There’s something about a cigar, the title of a recent story of mine.

  Like a fool, I argue with myself on the way to the movie. Shall I smoke the cigar before or after the theater? I stop on the corner of the street to work out this momentous problem. If I smoke it now, I shall go into the movie a quarter hour late. And I want to see it right away, and come out early in time to make the sundae bar. The sundae bar closes at 12. All inconsequential to me and my life and you and God. And yet, standing on an American corner, in that moment of my life, I am seriously weighing the question. It is idiotic, yet sincere. I decide for the movie.

  I won’t describe the cinema. As usual, it stunk. One of the pictures had a lot of publicity to it—a young new Hollywood genius who injected his photoplays with hilarious humor—and yet I laughed only once: When
someone fell down into a bed of flowers with an illogical crash. Can’t say as I love Hollywood, you. It panders like an eager little shopkeeper. The situations are built around the time-honored ideas of woman bewitches man with curves and curls. Sure, I’ve been bewitched too, but we don’t have to be animals all the time: every precious second, every conscious moment. But it seems to be the case most everywhere. So what am I to do, laugh at stuff like that? I sit in the theater and sneer. When the audience laughs, I turn my head slightly and say:

  “Like that, boys and girls? You like that, huh?”

  And boy, do they. Although, I have a confession to make for some other men. Those pseudo-masterminds who read the critic reviews and go to see the picture to laugh, because the critics said it was funny. Oh My!!!! And do they laugh!!!

  “What a man that Sturges is!” they laugh. “What a man!”

  Little shopkeeper, most of the time. Concession: He’s better than most of them, which still isn’t saying much. Do they need me up there? Of course not, I don’t know how to pander. I don’t want to know.

  The other picture was good, until Hitler creeps in. The heroine, as is usual in these days, turns out to be a Jewish refugee from Germany. And when the hero kills a mewing little angora cat, it finished me. I walk out with my coat in my arms, completely pandered out. I love cats and hate propaganda.

  I walked up Broadway and lit my cigar. There’s something about a cigar. I must now come back to the beginning. I want to be candid, and truthful. I light the cigar and stroll along, smoking with relish. The world is good. I have squandered, and am plentiful with food and entertainment—neither of which was any too good—but both of which were there to take, without complaint. A dollar’s worth of New York, of America, of man’s civilization. Give them the money, and they hand you the stuff. Take it, criticize it, taste it, and above all, get your fill of it. You can’t be an artist unless you’re a member of humanity. Hermits make awful poets, I think. You can’t ruminate peacefully by a little stream in the woods unless you’ve just been liberated from the turmoil of civilization. Peace is a relative thing. And it always turns out to be short-lived.

  I walk to Riverside Drive, talking to myself. I am feeling very truthful.

  Nostalgia overpowers me as the broad Jersey coast looms across the river. I stroll along the walk, and stop to lean on the stone wall. I look down at the highway covered with whispering beetles. I see the lights on the water. I listen attentively and religiously to the all-engulfing roar of the earth and time. It’s like a huge, eternal dynamo. Not a throb, but a steady breath of thunder—a gigantic sigh that never ends. The sigh of man, endless and everpresent. My cigar is wet at the stub. Warm, moist bit. The acrid bits of tobacco.

  “Ah, Petit Jean,” I say to myself in Canadian French. “How beautiful. How my memories return in full force.”

  It takes a little while, but soon I am no longer concerned with myself. The scene is too vast. The perspective is too wide. And different things occur which draw my mind wider and wider. God, Gents, is ready to walk in. And here is what happened:

  I reached a huge conclusion. I reach conclusions very often, but this one is big. I have found God. It is the biggest conclusion in every man’s life. And I am not hit like St. Augustine. It just comes to me calmly, with a bit of wide thinking. And here is how it came about.

  First of all, a man came walking by slowly. One of his shoes creaked. His gait was steady. The creak was like clockwork. He came by, eyeing me curiously. I eyed him in my usual suspicious glare. I am very shy, you see. I am biased, like all of you. But not for long.

  He goes on, the creak disappearing with him. Across the river, an incandescent sign says: “It is now . . . . . 11:38.”

  “Time,” I say to myself out loud, puffing from the cigar. I look up at the sky. No stars: haze, darkness. A blanket over Manhattan. Time marches on like the rush of the falls: steady roar of milliseconds, one upon the other.

  The time of man, I think, and the time of God. Time of man in numbers, time of God in the moment before a shooting star shoots, and after it fades. Time is there, no doubt. No philosopher can crap me about that. Advance of events, if that is what you want to call it. Advance of something, at any rate.

  The sign: “Time is now . . . . . 11:40.”

  The creak is returning. The roaring hush goes on. The creak is nearer. I look up and see the flirtatious eyes of a homosexual, walking by with a steady creak of leather. Invariably, I start timing the creak with the cigar in my hand.

  “Beat . . . . . beat . . . . beat . . . . . beat . . . just like clockwork.”

  I look at him with a disgusted glare. His eyes are wild and primitive. Lust.

  The creak fades away again.

  Title of a book, I think: He Shall Return Again.

  I want to be truthful with you, men. In the beginning, always truth. Sometimes, my writing goes away from me and becomes succinct, sharp, too Joyce-like; I don’t know if it is instinct. I am not trying to copy anyone. I am trying to say something. I am stinted. What the hell, Boys, I’m saying it, good or bad. I wish I had the flow of power that Wolfe possessed. But I don’t want to copy anyone. I have too many things to say, lads.

  I sat there, thinking. I just sat there on the bench, with a cigar, smoking peacefully, sniffing the cool river air, thinking. What about? About time, man, and God. My novel, which I plan to write in the coming summer. I think about those things.

  Then, like the march of a dead man, the creak began to return. I listened with delight, beating my hand in steady rhythm. The delight in life’s rich invention. I was amazed. The advance of the lost race of man: the homo. He is bearing down upon me, slowly, with lustful deliberation, flirtatious body, eyes glutting upon me. I looked up; he was an ordinary looking man, except for his eyes: they ate into me, and into my flesh. Greedy eyes, shining in the night. Hopeful eyes. A degenerated sag in his clothing. He went on, massing his points, marshalling his forces for the attack. He Shall Return Again.

  I felt repugnant toward him. But then I knew that it was a sickness, deserving of pity. He cannot help it, I thought. And neither can I.

  “It is now . . . . . 11:47.”

  The creak faded away, in regular squeaks.

  A couple came by. A tall blonde, wearing a turban, striding delicately on long legs, heels clicking; a long serpentine body, rippling here and there. The man with his arm about her waist, his hand massaging the flaccid flesh, the silky skin underneath the cotton dress. To have and to hold, I thought. He must feel her flesh to know that she is with him, tangibly. He must have her, he must know of it, he must possess her. The flesh is so powerful, until one begins to go beyond it. The absolute. Look at that rock wall: granite, probably from Vermont, hewn into rectangular shapes and cemented together above the Hudson, to serve as a wall for mankind. Granite from Vermont hills, carried here in trucks. How wise that rock looks. Never says a word, can’t be wrong. It has something that I haven’t got; and I have something that it lacks. Who is the luckiest? The granite is forever truthful—it is in its nature. I cannot be forever truthful. Yet, on the other hand, the granite is part of this vast scene here on the shores of the Hudson; I, my fine young masters, am not only part of the scene, but am Master of the scene. I see it, smell it, feel it, and own it. The granite does none of those things. It merely is part of the scene. It is not conscious of the scene. I am. I may not be forever truthful, but I have a chance to try. The granite will never have a chance to own this scene.

  The creak of leather shoes is returning through the night.

  A man in limp clothes, felt hat with lowered brim. He is marching toward me, from the left flank. Creak . . . . . creak . . . . creak . . . . (the roar of Time seems to augment) .... creak . . . . creak.

  “Poor demented bastard!” I say to myself.

  The creak is upon me. He goes by, feeding upon me with his eyes. Hopeful eyes again. Hinting eyes, in the night. The laughter of a woman comes from a distance. The roar of a bus, starting.
The creak goes by, and fades once more. March of death.

  “Does he see this scene? Does he own this hazy heaven, that broad river, those New Jersey lights? No! He does not. He definitely does not. It is very pitiful, but he does not. I shall leave this cigar butt on the bench, and when he returns, he can use that.”

  And so I left, leaving the cigar butt on the bench. I left the granite stone, the scene I owned, and the creak of leather shoes. I walked on home.

  And it was on the way home that I finally hit upon it. The consciousness of little children to the earth; the bias of grown men, struggling with the structures of modern civilization; the consequent and natural bias of the little children. Result? The dead men of today. God is the thing. God is consciousness. God is the perspective of the eye and ear and nose and mind. God is man; and man is God. Man lowers his head and lunges into civilization, forgetting the days of his infancy when he sought truth in a snowflake or a stick. Man forgets the wisdom of the child. The basic scheme of man has been neglected. But, my insane darlings, not with me around! God is the thing, theological, pagan, or real.

  If I Were Wealthy

  It would be six years before Kerouac saw the American interior and West Coast, but in 1941 he dreamed about traveling across country and around the world. He imagined an ideal retreat in the Rockies. In late July 1947 the twenty-five-year-old Kerouac went “on the road, ” heading for Colorado. His first stop was Denver, where he joined his friends Hal Chase, Ed White, Neal Cassady, and Allen Ginsberg for a short while before pressing on to California. In On the Road, Kerouac’s stand-in, Sal Paradise, says: “And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, far off, the great snowy tops of the Rocky Mountains. I took a deep breath [....] And here I am in Colorado! I kept thinking gleefully. Damn! damn! damn! I’m making it!”