26 September 2008

to marry her and bring up her baby daughter and all if she divorced the mechanic; but there wasn’t even enough money to get a divorce and the whole thing was hopeless, besides of which Pauline would never understand me because I like too many things and get all confused and hungup running from one thing to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. The parties were enormous; there were at least a hundred people at Herb Benjamin’s basement apartment in the west nineties. People overflowed into the cellar compartments near the furnace. Something was going on in every corner, on every bed and couch, not an orgy, but just a New Year’s party with frantic screaming and wild radio music. There was even a Chinese girl. Neal ran like Groucho Marx from group to group digging everybody. Periodically we rushed out to the car to pick up more people. Lucien came. Lucien is the hero of my New York gang, as Neal is the chief hero of the Western. They immediately took a dislike for each other. Lucien’s girl suddenly socked Lucien on the jaw with a roundhouse right. He stood reeling. She carried him home. Some of our mad newspaper friends rushed in from the office with bottles. There was a tremendous and wonderful snowstorm going on outside. Al Hinkle made Pauline’s sister and disappeared with her; I forgot to say that Al Hinkle is a very smooth man with the women. He’s six foot four, mild, affable, agreeable, dumb and delightful. He helps women on with their coats. That’s the way to do things. At five o’clock in the morning we were all rushing through a backyard tenement and climbing in through a window of an apartment where a huge party was going on. At dawn we were back at Ed Stringham’s. People were drawing pictures and drinking stale beer. I slept with a girl called Rhoda---poor Rhoda---with all our clothes on, for no reason, just slept on the same couch. Great groups filed in from the old Columbia campus bar. Everything in life, all the faces of life, were piling into the same dank room. At John Holmes’ the party went on. John Holmes is a wonderful sweet fellow who wears glasses and peers out of them with delight. He began to learn “Yes!” to everything just like Neal at this time, and