29 September 2008

everybody and went home to rest. My mother said I was wasting my time hanging around with Neal and his gang. I knew that was bull too. Life is life, and kind id kind. What I wanted was to take one more magnificent trip to the west coast and get back in time for the spring semester in school. And what a trip it turned out to be! I only went along for the ride, and to see what else Neal was going to do, and finally, also, knowing Neal would go back to Carolyn in Frisco, I wanted to have an affair with Louanne, and I did. We got ready to cross the groaning continent again. I drew my G.I. check and gave Neal $18 to mail to his wife; she was waiting for him to come home and she was broke. What was on Louanne’s mind I don’t know. Al Hinkle as ever just followed. There were long funny days spent in Allen’s apartment before we left. He went around in his bathrobe and made semi-ironical speeches as follows: “Now I’m not trying to take your hincty sweets from you but it seems to me the time has come to decide what you are and what you’re going to do.” Allen was working as a cowboy for AP. “I want to know what all this sitting around the house all day is intended to mean. What all this talk is and what you propose to do. Neal, why did you leave Carolyn and pick up Louanne.” No answer---giggles. “Louanne, why are you traveling around the country like this and what are your womanly intentions concerning the shroud?” Same answer. “Al Hinkle, why did you abandon your new wife in Tucson and what are you doing here sitting on your big fat ass. Where’s your home? what’s your job?” Al Hinkle bowed his head in genuine befuddlement. “Jack---how comes it you’ve fallen on such sloppy days and what have you done with Pauline?” He adjusted his bathrobe and sat facing us all. “The days of wrath are yet to come. The balloon won’t sustain you much longer. And not only that but it’s an abstract balloon. You’ll all go flying to the west coast and come staggering back in search of your stone.” In these days Allen had developed a tone of voice which he hoped sounded like what he called The Voice of Rock; the whole idea was to stun people into the realization of the rock. “You pin dragon to your hats,” he warned us, “you’re up in the attic with the bats.” His mad eyes glit-