Sunday, December 22, 2013
waves. Once again I saw his pitiful huge battered trunk with socks and
dirty underwear sticking out: he bent over it throwing everything he
could find in it. Then he got his suitcase. This suitcase was the
beatest suitcase in the U.S.A. It consisted of paper with designs on it
making it look like leather and suspicious-looking hinges of some kind
pasted on. A great rip ran down the top: Neal lashed on a rope. Then he
grabbed his sea bag and threw things into that. I got my suitcase,
stuffed it, and as Carolyn lay abed in the room saying “Liar! Liar!
Liar!” We leaped out of the house and struggled down the street to the
nearest cable car---a mass of men and suitcases with that enormous
bandaged thumb sticking up in the air. That thumb became the symbol of
Neal’s final development. He no longer cared about anything (as before)
but now he also cared about everything in principle, and that is to say,
it was all the same to him and he belonged to the world and there was
nothing he could do about it. He stopped me in the middle of the street.
“Now man, I know you’re probably real bugged, you just got to town and
we get thrown out the first day and you’re wondering what I’ve done to
deserve this and so on---hee hee hee!---but look at me. Please Jack,
look at me.” I looked at him. He was wearing a T-shirt, torn pants
hanging down his belly, tattered shoes; he had not shaved; his hair was
wild and bushy, his eyes bloodshot, and that tremendous bandaged thumb
stood supported in midair at heart-level (he had to hold it up that way)
and on his face was the goofiest grin I ever saw. He stumbled around in
a circle and looked everywhere. “What do my eyeballs see? Ah---the blue
sky. Long-fellows!” He swayed and blinked. He rubbed his eyes.
“Together with windows---have you ever dug windows? Now let’s talk about
windows. I have seen some really crazy windows that made faces at me
and some of them had shades drawn and so they winked.” Out of his sea bag
he fished out a copy of Eugene Sur’s Paris--- and adjusting the front
of his T-shirt began reading on the street corner with a pedantic air.
“Now really Jack let’s dig everything as we go along…” He forgot about
that in an instant and looked around blankly. I was glad I had come, he
needed me now.
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