19 January 2009

pads and told us to get up. There had been a complaint about two hoodlums casing a house from a lawn across the street and talking in loud voices. “You got us all wrong officer, that house is my former wife’s house and we’re waiting for her to come home.” “Who’s this fellow with you?” “That’s my friend. We come in from California on the way to NY and my wife is coming with us.” “I thought you said she was your former wife.” “The marriage was annulled but we may get married again.” Hesitantly the cops went off, but they told us to get the hell out of the neighbourhood. We went to a bar and waited there. The cops had already talked to the bartender and told him the whole story, so as to keep his eye on us. Neal went back to Edie’s house after an hour to check on what was happening and horror of horrors, the cops had knocked on the door and talked to her mother and told her what I was doing. She had no use for me. She had gotten herself a new husband, a middleaged paint manufacturer, and didn’t want any more trouble with the likes of my kind. She disclaimed all responsibility for what I might do in Detroit. Not only that they got her up out of bed. Neal and I decided to go back downtown and lay low. When Edie came back from somewhere in Detroit late that night she was amazed to hear the news. In the morning she herself was at the phone when I called. “You and that crazy friend of yours come on out right away. I’ll be waiting on the corner with the kids.” The kids turned out to be wild young rock-in-the-belly socialite juvenile delinquents, and here she was about 27 years old and still as goofy as ever. The moment I saw her I knew I’d never go back to her: she was fat, her hair was clippt short, she wore overalls and munched on candy with one hand and drank beer with the other. She paid no attention to Neal and I, her old trick, just talked and giggled with the kids. However she fed us well, her mother was out, we raided a roast for fair. Then we went rattling around in the kids’ hotrod for no especial reason. They were crazy kids: sixteen years old and already in trouble with the cops with speeding tickets and whatnot.. “What you come back to Detroit for Kerouac?” “I don’t know, I wanted to see you.” “Well if we’re gonna get married and all that stuff