Thursday, December 19, 2013
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 grottoes 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
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