11 February 2009

thick. I broke my middle finger and didn’t even realize it till the next day. We were fumingly drunk. Fifty glasses of beer sat on our table at one time. All you had to do was rush around and sip from each one. Canon City ex-cons reeled and gabbled with us. In the foyer outside the saloon old former prospectors sat dreaming over their canes under the tocking old clock. This fury had been known by them in greater days. This was the bar where Lucius Beebe came once a year in his private railroad champagne car that he parked in the railyard in back. It was mad. Everything swirled. There were scattered parties everywhere. There was even a party in a castle to which we all drove, except Neal who ran off elsewhere, and in this castle we sat at a great Knight’s table in the hall and shouted. There was a swimming pool and grottos outside. I had finally found the castle where the great snake of the world was about to rise up. Then in the late night it was just Neal and I and Frank Jeffries and Ed White and Al Hinkle and Jim Holmes in one car and everything ahead of us. We went to Mexican town, we went to Five points, we reeled around. Frank Jeffries was out of his mind with joy. He kept yelling “Sonofabitch! Hot-damn!” in a high squealing voice and slapping his knees. Neal was mad about him. He repeated everything Frank said and whood and wiped the sweat off his face. “Are we going to get our kicks traveling down to Mexico with this cat Frank! Yes!” It was our last night in holy Denver, we made it big and wild. It all ended up in the basement by candlelight with wine and Austice creeping around upstairs in her nightgown with a flashlight. We even had a colored guy with us now, called himself Gomez. He floated around Five Points and didn’t give a damn. When we saw him Bill Tomson called out “Hey is your name Johnny?” Gomez just backed up and passed us once more and said, “Now will you repeat what you said?” “I said are you the guy called Johnny?” Gomez floated back and tried again. “Does this look a little more like him because I’m trying my best to be Johnny but I just can’t find the way.” Well man come on with us!” cried Neal and Gomez jumped in and we were off. We whispered frantically in the basement so as not to wake Austice and Jim upstairs