Sunday, December 22, 2013
for me to fetch Edie and make up my mind about her once and for all.
Neal claimed he no longer needed Louanne though he still loved her. We both
agreed he would make out in New York and as it turned out he did and
got married again: but more of that after 3,000 miles and many days and
nights. We stashed our gear in a Greyhound bus locker for ten cents;
Neal put on his pinstripe suit with a sports shirt, and we took off for
Bill Tomson’s who was going to be our chauffeur for 2-day Frisco kicks.
Bill Tomson agreed over the phone to do so. He arrived at the corner of
Market and 3rd shortly thereafter and picked us up. Bill was now living
in Frisco, working as a clerk and married to a pretty little blonde
called Helena. Neal confided in me that her nose was too long---this was
his big point of contention about her, for some strange reason---and
her nose wasn’t too long at all. This must have reached back to the days
when he stole Carolyn from Bill in the Denver hotel room. Bill Tomson
is a thin dark handsome kid with a pin-sharp face and combed hair that he
keeps shoving back from the sides of his head. He has an extremely
earnest approach and a big smile. But evidently his wife Helena had
wrangled with him over the chauffeuring idea- -and determined to make a
stand as the man of the house (they lived in a little room) he
nevertheless stuck by his promise to us, but with consequences. His
mental dilemma resolved itself in a bitter silence. He drove Neal and I
all over Frisco at all hours of day and night and never said a word; all
he did was go through red lights and make sharp turns on two wheels and
this was telling us the shifts to which we’d put him. He was midway
between the challenge of his new wife and the challenge of his old
Denver poolhall gang leader. Neal was completely pleased and of course
unperturbed by the driving. We paid absolutely no attention to Bill and
sat in the back and yakked. The next thing was to go to Marin City to
see if we could find Henri Cru. I noticed with some wonder that the old
ship Admiral Freebee no longer stood in the bay; and then of course Henri
was no longer in the second-to-last compartment of the shack in the
canyon. A beautiful colored girl opened the door instead; Neal and I
talked to her a great deal. Bill Tomson waited in the car reading Eugene
Sue’s
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